Recipes
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Roasted Split Chicken with Mustard Crust
Last week, I was looking for a recipe that we had seen Jacque Pepin make on PBS (I don’t remember what it was), and I came across this recipe. I have the cookbook, More Fast Food My Way, and this recipe is from that cookbook. It looked good to me, I like chicken, I like mustard, I like garlic. Jacques sometimes recommends ‘spatchcocking’ your chicken, and cutting into the joints in the thighs as well, do speed up the cooking. I don’t really like cutting the backbone out of a chicken, too gross, but happily there is a local store that still has a butcher, and they will do it…
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Pandemic Potpourri
These are the beautiful hand made masks, sent to us by some good friends, for when we go to the grocery store and so on. I cannot sew, and have no idea how to follow a pattern, and don’t have (and have never used) a sewing machine. And I’m the one Ted and Maya come to when they need a button sewn on or something, so of course this task was a lot more than I could handle. Aren’t they lovely? I like how the patterns are all different so we can tell which belongs to who, and that they are hand made by friends. How are you all doing?…
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Avocado and Grapefruit Salad
Is it late winter, or early spring? Grapefruits are a winter fruit, so we’ll go with late winter. Yesterday I decided that I wanted this salad for dinner, along with some chicken Milanese. The recipe is Ina Garten, but I have made a few modifications. I always forget how good this is, which is REALLY good, and perfect with crispy fried chicken breasts, with arugula on top, lightly dressed in the same vinaigrette, with shaved Parmesan on top. I liked dinner so much, I think I may make it again next week. In case you’re interested, here is my version of the salad recipe. Ina’s is here. I’ve made a…
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Perfect Baked Potatoes
What is it about a really good baked potato? I am reminded of a movie that came out many years ago, Eating, all about women and our issues with food. There’s a line where one woman says, “I think I’m looking for a man who can excite me as much as a baked potato.” See the trailer here. I remember seeing the movie and discussing it with a coworker, who then went on to tell me about a baked potato she had a couple of years before that was so amazing, and why couldn’t they always be that way? Over the years, I have come across different baked potato recipes,…
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Lokma Chicken Sandwich
Back in May, Ted’s mom and I took a Friday off and went to San Francisco to see the Monet exhibit. I had seen it back in March, with Ted and Maya, but wanted to see it one more time before it left. It turns out that my MIL had been to Monet’s gardens once with Ted’s brother, several years ago, and she also loves Monet. Who knew? I love finding common cause. It’s especially nice to find out that you have more in common with someone you love than you thought. So, we went to the City and looked at beautiful art, then perused the gift shop, drove out…
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Chicken Tchakhokbelli (Chakhokbili)
My most recent visit with my Great Aunt included a lovely lunch with both my Great Aunt Flo and my Aunt Carolyn at Red Lobster, a trip down memory lane looking at photo albums, and of course, Aunt Flo giving me things. One of the things she gave me is this recipe, which apparently my Grandma used to make when they had company. I considered making it for Maya and Ted, but 1. It looks horrible, and 2. See number 1. They both said they would not eat it if I did make it, so why bother. One conversation that came up was about typing, and why the bottom of…
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Monday Randomness
Since finding the pomegranate in a bush last year, I have had my eyes out for pomegranate trees and bushes. There is one on the path of my daily walk, and I noticed the other day that it has both flowers and little pomegranate buds. Aren’t they cute? I will be interested to see how many large pomegranates the tree gets. I don’t know whether the people whose yard it is eat them, or if people take them, or perhaps squirrels and birds. We shall see what happens. I’ve lived here for almost 23 years, and this is the first year I’ve really paid attention to pomegranates in the area.…
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Happy Birthday Puppy Boy!
Mulder is 4 years old today! Happy Birthday Puppy Boy! We took him for a nice long walk, and I gave him a piece of bacon this morning. Ted just brushed his teeth and he had a carrot (his reward for teeth brushing or fur brushing), and later I am going to bake him some homemade peanut butter dog cookies. In case you are ever so inclined, here is the recipe. I once made him some from an Ina Garten recipe, but he likes these just as much, and they are fewer ingredients and easier to make, so I’ll go with these. Someone from the dog rescue where we got…
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Chicken or Fish with tomatoes, capers, onion, and butter
Last week, we received a flyer in the mail for Whole Foods, which included a picture of some delicious looking fish served on tomato sauce. Pretty, isn’t it? The fish was on sale, and so were the tomatoes. They did not have a recipe for the dish as shown in the flyer, but they did have a recipe for the sauce, which you can also find here. I decided to splurge and buy the fish (sea bass, spendy), and I added some capers to the recipe. I just made the sauce, added capers, and then when it was about finished, added the fish and simmered until it was done. It…
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Lentil and Tuna Salad
I was trying to decide on what to make for dinner the other night, and looking at what we had in our kitchen. We had some lovely French lentils and some good quality tuna, so I went looking for a recipe that would combine them. I found this recipe at NYTimes cooking. I couldn’t see why you would buy tuna in water, then use olive oil in your vinaigrette, so I used the olive oil that the tuna came with, and it was delicious. I mixed it with some baby spinach to give it greens. When I had some the next day for leftovers, I bought some arugula, and it…
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Ode to Sancerre
I adore California Chardonnay, and haven’t found a lot of French Chardonnay that I enjoy. I wish this were not true, because I feel less sophisticated for preferring a big oakey wine to one that is more subtle. But I live in California, and buttery and oakey wines are very popular here. While we were in France this summer, I decided to steer away from French Chardonnays, and instead went with a lovely Sauvignon Blanc, Sancerre. When we came home and found ourselves longing for France, we stated looking for Sancerre around here. You can find fairly decent selections of wine at your local Safeway, and even CVS and…
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Cooking with Aunt Flo
My Great Aunt Flo (Florence) has a hoarding problem. She LOVES recipes, and has them all over the front of her house. They cover the dining room table, the coffee table in the living room, the card table in the living room (where my Grandma used to do puzzles), and the coffee table in the family room. She sorts them and looks at them and worries about them. It is her overwhelming passion and hobby at this stage of her life, when she doesn’t have my Grandma to look after anymore. It has taken me awhile to figure out that she loves them and wants to keep them. I had…
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Pomegranate, Orange, and Avocado Salad
Ted and I were out walking the spaz (aka, Mulder the Puppy Boy) the other day, and we passed a house we often pass, and I happened to notice that an ordinary looking bush that borders the sidewalk is a pomegranate bush. How did I know? Because I happened to spy a beautiful pomegranate buried deep inside from the corner of my eye. See how lovely it is, hidden in there? Backtracking a bit, Ted’s mom came to visit last weekend, and she brought me a beautiful pomegranate and some avocados. So for Halloween, I was trying to decide what to make, and found a recipe for stuffed peppers where…
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Good Eats / Birthday Weekend / Bloody Mary recipe
Thursday was Maya’s birthday, and we celebrated by going to our favorite Dim Sum restaurant in San Francisco, then we did some shopping near Union Square with her gift cards. At some Dim Sum restaurants, you order off of a menu (like the place we went last year). At others, the staff bring food around to the tables, either on carts or on trays, and you say yes or no to each item as they bring it around. So they come by and say, “shrimp dumplings?” and you say yes or no, and if you say yes, they give you the shrimp dumplings and mark your check to show that…
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Chicken with Wine and Shallots
I came across this recipe, I think on Facebook, which should be evidence that Facebook is not entirely useless. You can find the recipe (and picture) here. I made this for dinner one night, and it is delicious. I generally read comments on online recipes, and one person in the comments said they added peas at the end. That sounded good to me, so I added a bunch of peas at the end, when you add the cherry tomatoes. Really good. I buy bone-in, skin on thighs, because I think they give flavor to the dish. I cook with the skin, and then remove it when we eat it. Give…