As I write this, I have another big bag of zucchini to make this soup a second time. It was so easy to make and it was SO good. The recipe comes from Milk Street, and there’s a caution here – don’t overcook the zucchini, so it keeps the more vivid color. I used an immersion blender (rather than my regular blender) because I prefer the soup to have more texture, but that choice is yours. The soup is equally good hot or cold. It was developed as a hot soup, but one hot day I tried it cold and thought it was just fine.

What’s GOOD: the flavor is beyond wonderful. After making and eating it for several days, I concluded it’s the pumpkin seeds that give the soup character (flavor). Zucchini is a rather bland veggie, and needs some oomph to make it taste good.

What’s NOT:  Not a thing. There’s not much of any protein here (I suppose the pumpkin seeds have some, but not much!), so if you have hungry eaters maybe make a grilled cheese sandwich alongside? Or make some cheese toast. I think that would be a good accompaniment.

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How could a chicken salad sandwich have such an amazing taste? Because it has a thin schmear of pineapple jam on it.

It’s been awhile since I posted, friends. It’s been 19 years I’ve been running this little blog of mine, and I was running out of steam, let alone the energy to try more and more new recipes. I decided I wanted to make some of my old favorites (which I figure would bore all of you since I might have reposted them), and I’ve been doing that with regularity. And thoroughly enjoying every single one of them. If I’m so inclined I’ll put up a post about all the recipes I’ve made in recent months, all from the blog archives.

Yet I’m still collecting recipes. I’m still a crazy person about that, still reading numerous blogs, magazines and collecting them from my friends. In my recipe software I have an astounding 8,000+ recipes. Never in my remaining lifetime will I get to but a fraction of them. I’m turning 85 in a few weeks, but yes, I am still cooking. Still living in my lovely home, still driving (safely, I think), still visiting with friends, going out to lunch or dinner, going to plays, etc. And reading. I do a lot of that!

For the last several months I’ve been making myself a green smoothie for breakfast. Oh gosh, it’s delicious. It started after I’d had a weekend of way too much food, some of it quite rich. My regular yogurt and fruit breakfast didn’t appeal to me. So I dug out a recipe I had for a green (greens and fruit) smoothie and have perfected it over the last months. I suppose I could post the recipe for that, but I expect 95% of you wouldn’t be at all interested in such a recipe! And you might decide I’ve gone around the bend! If any of you are interested, leave a comment and I’ll email the recipe to you.

One of my granddaughters has just become a doctor (an M.D) and is a surgical resident now. I live vicariously through some of her real-life stories. I’m terrifically proud of all of my grandchildren, but she’s grabbed my attention recently with the interesting surgeries she’s done since she began working as a surgical resident. I have 5 grandchildren and 2 great-grands. None of my kids or grandkids or great-grandkids live near me, but I do see all of them – mostly they come to me, which is lovely.

So, this sandwich. Awhile back I’d saved a Food & Wine magazine recipe for a tuna salad tartine, and in the ingredients it called for pineapple jam. Thinking nothing of it, I went onto amazon (of course I did!) and found some pineapple jam, ordered it. Once it arrived, I noticed it had a customs label on it – what? Went to look up the order and realized it had shipped from England and after paying $8 for the jam, I paid $9 for shipping. I hadn’t noticed the jam didn’t have amazon prime with it. Geez! Very precious, this little jar. I’d best enjoy it!!

So, one recent day I was thinking about that tuna sandwich thing, and had chicken on hand, so I winged it. I didn’t even look up the tuna tartine recipe but made my own chicken salad mixture, but used a lovely slice of country bread I had in the freezer. A few weeks ago I visited Tartine Bakery in Pasadena and bought 2 loaves of their sourdough country loaf (gave one to my son and his family and I brought the other one home, sliced it up and froze it). I also bought some flash fried shallots at Trader Joe’s recently. I used the bread and the shallots in the sandwich.

First I toasted the bread lightly – so the edges were crispy but the interior bread was still soft and every so lightly toasted. I spread it with a tiny bit of mayo, then put about 2 tablespoons of the pineapple jam on the bread and spread that out to the very edges so I’d get a bit of the pineapple jam with each and every bite.

In a bowl I combined the shredded chicken I had (it was actually from a can, Costco’s canned chicken), a diced up tomato, some fresh basil I had on the kitchen counter, and a little bit of mayo to hold it together. Then I added about a cup or so of finely sliced Romaine lettuce. You could use any kind of lettuce – even arugula, or head lettuce. I had Romaine on hand. The second time I made it I used arugula (in the pictures). After lightly mixing that in, I carefully piled the chicken salad on top of the bread. The shallots were added the second time which are optional. I cut the sandwich into handle-able pieces and devoured it. I mean, devoured it.

Here’s a photo of the HALF of the sandwich. Lovely, holey bread, the chicken salad on top, then the shallots garnishing.

ABOUT THE PINEAPPLE JAM: Without a doubt, it’s the pineapple jam on the sandwich that gives it such a divine, zingy flavor. In thinking about it, I suppose you could substitute kiwi jam (is there such a thing?), orange marmalade maybe? Daughter Sara said she had some lime marmalade on hand. Yes, that would work. What you want is a piquant sweet/sour flavor. Of course, all jams are sweet, but there’s an astringent taste in using a fruit that has a sour or acidic component. Or, if you’re so inclined and don’t want to pay that amazon shipping charge, make your own pineapple jam. I found this recipe that looks ever so easy. When I’m out of my precious jar of jam from England I’ll be trying that recipe.

What’s GOOD: this sandwich is just over the top. For me, it’s the little tiny bit of pineapple jam you get in each bite that makes it so good. Nothing else in it is unusual. The lovely country bread slice (toasted) also gives the sandwich an especially nice texture.

What’s NOT: nothing really, except that you do need to source some pineapple jam (or substitute as I mentioned up two paragraphs, or better yet, make your own). And don’t over-toast the bread, you want it just barely toasted.

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So easy. So delicious. So satisfying.  

As I type this I still have a smidgen of this soup left in my frig. Not enough for a serving. Darn! Maybe that means I’ll need to make it again, soon. This soup just hit all the right notes for my Mexican food-loving taste buds. Many of the elements of ground beef enchiladas. Probably corn isn’t very authentic for an enchilada, but it added nice texture. You could substitute finely minced cauliflower to this and you’d not know it was there, likely.

Truly, I do love my Instant Pot. It’s not like I don’t have time to cook – I can always make time, but there certainly are days when I am rushed. This is the meal to fix for that day. I always have red and green enchilada sauce (canned) in my pantry. I had a package of Costco’s lean ground beef. I had taco seasoning (I used a new brand – Cholula, this time, it was good), frozen corn and I had cream cheese. Yes, I had cilantro and sour cream too. Cook the onion first, then add the ground beef, then garlic and everything else. Put the IP on “SOUP” function (usually that’s 18 minutes), although it takes awhile to bring the IP up to pressure, so just because it cooks for 18 minutes, it likely took 10 minutes for the IP to build up to it. Right out of the pot it was just delicious. Shredded cheddar on top plus some cilantro and sour cream, and there’s a lovely soup meal. I’ve been buying Daisy sour cream in the stand-up pouch – it keeps for a good long time since there’s no air introduced to the sour cream when it’s squeezed out. If you haven’t tried it, I recommend it.

If any of you have made soups using cream cheese, you may have noticed (as I have) that often the cream cheese doesn’t fully melt. I’ve learned to mash it up some in the pan (in this case the IP) when you add it – using my spiral whisk, or a flat kind of implement. If the cream cheese is at room temp to begin with it’s easier to do. The other option is to whiz up the cream cheese with some of the liquid ingredients (use an immersion blender for this) before adding to the pot. I didn’t do that here as I had warmed the cream cheese beforehand.

What’s GOOD: for me, someone who loves Mexican food, this soup was a #1 winner. Definitely I’ll be making it again – and it’s just a boon that it can be done in the Instant Pot. Add toppings of your choice. FULL of flavor and texture. Loved it.

What’s NOT: hmm, not a thing.

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This is a Stanley Tucci recipe. What’s unique are the flavoring extracts – anise, almond and vanilla. Also, it was sweetened partially with honey.

When my friend Linda and I were in Florence a few months ago we bought a package of premium biscotti (actually we got them at the wine store 50 steps from our front door). They were just scrumptious. They were relatively plain – maybe they had chocolate chips in them, or maybe almond. I don’t remember which.

Every once in awhile I get the urge to make biscotti. I have a number of recipes in my collection. This one will be on rotation again. What I liked were the flavorings – the extracts used: anise, almond and vanilla. The cookies baked a bit differently than some – 30 minutes at 350°F and then after they’d cooled and I’d sliced them, 10-15 minutes (to dry them out) at 250°F. They sliced nicely, too, with only a couple that broke off the ends of the slices.

The prep was the normal stuff – cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add eggs and egg yolks, then the extracts. Honey is added also, and raw almonds. That’s what the dark specks are in the dough.

There are the usual ingredients in the dry mix and that was added in just until it came together and no specks of flour were visible. The dough needed to be chilled for awhile (30 minutes) then shaped into two long logs. Then baked, cooled some, sliced, and re-baked at a lower temp just until lightly browned.

What’s GOOD: these are just delicious. A little bit of crunch from the almonds, and subtle flavor from the extracts. I think next time I’ll add more anise (just because I love anise biscotti). Otherwise, the recipe is perfect. Notice how yellow the dough is – from the eggs and egg yolks. But they make the biscotti more tender, I think. And richer.

What’s NOT: not a thing. A keeper.

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Comfort food at its finest. Plenty of chicken and vegetables in a sauce or gravy then topped with super-flavorful English muffin cubes, Gruyere and Parm.

My mother used to make a wild rice casserole – I think it used all wild rice (not a blend with other rice types) and because my dad wouldn’t eat chicken I think she used ground beef. And canned cream of mushroom soup. It was a favorite of mine, maybe because we had it so rarely. I don’t think wild rice was all that expensive back then like it is today. In fact I couldn’t even find straight wild rice at my market. So I followed the recipe (mostly) from The Pioneer Woman, which uses a wild rice blend. It worked perfectly well in this case.

This casserole was so delicious. To me it was the gruyere that made it taste so darned good. Gruyere has a unique flavor – it would have been far less tasty using a more bland cheese, so don’t substitute. Trader Joe’s has imported Gruyere (what I used) and a domestic version. I’ve never used English muffins as a topping before, either, and it was so easy to do. Mixed with the gruyere and grated Parm, it made a very tasty mouthful. And the top of the casserole looked so pretty with those toasted bread cubes.

I won’t tell you this isn’t a bit of work – you have to cook the wild rice blend, then cook the vegetables, then make it into a kind of gravy. Some soy sauce is added to the sauce (adds good umami flavor). If you don’t already have cooked chicken to use, you’ll need to cook that too. I decided to combine the topping ingredients so they were mixed well. The butter has to be melted as well – yet another small pan to clean. There certainly was a bit of cleanup after making this. It could be made ahead (the topping is added after partially baking it). The topping can be made ahead also – just keep in the frig until needed. Don’t overfill the casserole dish you decide to use – it might overflow once it’s baking. Mine nearly did. The instructions tell you to put the bread topping about 1″ away from the edges. Good advice.

What’s GOOD: everything about this was good – wonderful flavor in the dish, and especially the Gruyere and Parm added to the bread topping. It will feed at least 10 people unless you have football players at the table.

What’s NOT: only that you’ll use a number of pots and pans, so quite a bit of cleanup required.

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