You know, don’t you, that brown-ish food doesn’t photograph well. Period. And pictures don’t look very nice if you move the camera when you press the shutter. Da—! But that doesn’t detract one whit from the TASTE of these guys. Oh so delicious. Loved this stuff. Worth making. Read on . . .

If I’d read this recipe in a magazine I’d have slid right on by. If I’d seen it on one of the tv food shows, I might have changed the channel. But when it’s served to you at a cooking class and you taste it, well, that puts these in a whole new category! Shrimp sliders didn’t SOUND all that good, but if Phillis Carey was making them I really thought they’d be good. Indeed!

It’s not necessary to use huge shrimp in this, since it’s all pulsed in the food processor. But you do need RAW shrimp, not cooked. And tails off, too. The shrimp (cut up into smaller chunks) is whizzed up lightly with an egg yolk, green onions, Dijon, lime juice, cilantro and some seasonings. A little bit of panko crumbs go into the shrimp cakes too, and they’re dipped into more panko before frying in vegetable oil. Meanwhile, you make a very simple mayo based aioli (with garlic, lime juice, Dijon, sugar, hot sauce and green onions). A bit of that is spread on each bun, the shrimp cakes are put on, a bit more aioli and a nice-sized fresh spinach leaf and you’re done. Easy. And delicious. You can make the raw shrimp cakes several hours ahead of time, and the aioli. At dinnertime, all you’ll need to do is cook the shrimp cakes, toast the buns, and you’re done. Phillis says she makes these often for catered parties she does – she does them in much smaller form as an appetizer and folks dip them into the aioli. She used to have to cut little bread rounds to put them on, but now most stores carry slider buns. Makes it super easy!

What I liked: well, how much I even liked mushed-up shrimp in a cake/burger form. It was really, really delicious. I like the bit of chewiness to shrimp anyway. And I liked the garlicky aioli Phillis put with it. These are easy.

What I didn’t like: nothing, really. I liked it all. Worth making as I mentioned at the top.

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Coleslaw isn’t foremost on my brain when I think about salads. Not that I don’t like them – I do – but I seem to associate them only with summer barbecues. That’s a shame, really, as they’re quite good with a lot of different meals. This one combines one of my favorite tastes – Caesar – with regular cole slaw ingredients. But the dressing is a mayo style with capers.

My apologies about the photo. Not as good as it should have been. Too many shadows. But don’t let that deter you from trying this – if you like Caesar dressing, you’ll like this version of an easy coleslaw. I was at a cooking class with Phillis Carey, and she made this to go along with a ground chicken burger with Caesar components. I wasn’t so crazy about the burger, but I loved the coleslaw. Phillis made it very easy because she used ready-cut coleslaw mix (a 1-lb. bag), some green onions, a little bit of grated Parm and the caper-enriched mayo dressing (mayo + sour cream + lemon juice + Worcestershire + garlic and capers). VERY easy to do. She told us we could also use those packages of broccoli slaw (mix) too – and mentioned that salad as a big favorite of hers. She feels quite virtuous when she gets in lots of healthy veggies (the broccoli) and enhances it with the Caesar style dressing.

You’ll find a Caesar dressing here on my blog already – actually there are several – but Phillis’ version (Mayo Caesar Salad Dressing) using mayo as the base is one of my real favorites because it’s so easy (no blender needed). This dressing here is slightly different, but you could likely use either of them.

What I liked: the Caesar flavoring was wonderful. Add just enough dressing to suit your own tastes.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all!

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Skirt steak! Not something I make with any regularity. But it was FULL of good, beefy flavor. It marinated for just about an hour in an oil/soy sauce mixture and grilled for 2-3 minutes per side. Topped with some caramelized onions. Really good stuff! I forgot to remind my hubby to slice it across the grain – but it really didn’t matter much because the meat was super-tender.

The other night I opened the freezer door and stared in there, wondering what to fix for dinner. You ever do this too? Chorizo? No, not for dinner. Must have bought that 6 months ago when our son-in-law was coming down, then I didn’t use it (he loves chorizo, obviously). Andouille sausage? No; I usually use that with something else, not as an entrée; not time for that. Chicken breasts? No, tired of those. Oh, what’s that package? Skirt steak. Well, why not? It had been in the freezer for well over a year, probably longer than that, and it had gotten tucked under something else so I hadn’t noticed it. My normal method of defrosting meat is to put it in a big bowl filled mid-way with water, and weighted down so the meat stays under the water (and therefore stays quite cold). This is assuming it’s in a Ziploc bag or vacuum sealed, of course. In a few hours it was completely defrosted.

I have a recipe for Mexican style skirt steak on my blog, but it’s part of a multi-dish ethnic dinner. Way too much work – besides I already had the side dishes picked out (also items from the freezer). I could have gone to Eat Your Books to hunt for recipes within my own cookbook collection, but I was in a hurry, so I just did a Google search for “skirt steak,” and one of the early search results was this recipe, from She Wears Many Hats, a blog I wasn’t familiar with. Amy’s recipe was very easy – the marinade went together in a hurry (some oil, soy sauce, a little bit of rice wine vinegar, ginger, garlic, S & P and it was done. It went right into the Ziploc bag I had used in the freezer. I squished it around a bit so all the surfaces of the skirt steak were saturated with the marinade and I plopped it in the refrigerator for awhile.

We were on a timetable (gosh, I hate those nights sometimes – have to sit down to eat by 6 in order to be at choir rehearsal by 7). We prefer to eat at about 6:30 or 7 on most nights. It’s just the routine we’re into.

I’ll include the recipe for the caramelized onions too. I made these a week or so ago, using a new recipe that included a little bit of dark rum and thyme, and served it with something else. But those little puppies go a long way, so I had sufficient for another meal. It was just perfect with the steak. The sweetness of the onion blended so well with the steak. My DH grilled the meat in no time at all – probably just 2-3 minutes per side – as we wanted it to be rare to med-rare in the middle. I got dinner on the table before 6 and dishes were done and put away in ample time.

What I liked: the flavor of the beef – the marinade isn’t overpowering at all. The soy sauce is mellow in this as well – I used Trader Joe’s low-sodium. Also loved the caramelized onions on top. Make a bunch so you can have left overs. My plan as I write this, is to serve the leftover beef on top of a Greek salad.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Delicious. I’d make this again.

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Luscious leeks in a bit of butter, a little jot of maple syrup, some orange juice, orange zest and some orange supremes over a salmon fillet and you’ve got a little salmon magic.

The photo doesn’t do this justice. The salmon fillet there on the bottom, is lapped with all those delicious morsels of leeks, maple syrup and orange segments. Oh my. This dish was absolutely fantastic. And EASY besides. I can’t take all the credit for this, as Phillis Carey devised the original recipe. I just did a riff on it and made up my own proportions. I added maple syrup and I added orange zest and the supremes as well.

The salmon almost cooked too long – it’s so hard to tell with salmon – I couldn’t have simmered it for more than about 5 minutes and already the white collagen had begun to seep up through the top layer, so I knew it was truly DONE. Quick like I took out the fish and finished the sauce with the addition of the zest, the orange supremes and a bit of cream. Really not very much – just enough to give the leek mixture some “sauce” consistency. Piled it on top of the fish and it was served.

Be sure to have everything else for your dinner completely finished before you start, as it comes together that quickly. Please make this!

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Well, you chocoholics out there, this one’s for you! Biting into this very chocolatey cake has you biting down on chocolate air. It’s so very light. Veddy French too.

You know, there’s just something about chocolate and whipped cream. Together as a pair -  it’s made in heaven in my book. In my culinary opinion! I was pretty sure I was going to like this cake when I watched Laura Calder make it (she has the show on the Cooking Channel called French Cooking at Home). I was having a chocolate craving (which occurs with some regularity but I don’t succumb to it very often). In any case, when I went online to read the recipe on the network’s site, Laura described at the end to “serve with a drift of whipped cream.” That did it for me. The word drift. It conjured up all kinds of mouth-watering visions of a bite of chocolate heaven. Had to try it.

It’s not difficult at all to make, although it does require one bowl to whip up the egg yolk mixture, another bowl to whip the egg whites, and a pan to melt the chocolate and butter (a double boiler, or a bowl set on top of softly simmering water). Then it requires the 8-inch springform pan, of course. Parchment papered on the bottom, then greased and floured too. So it takes a few dishes, I’ll admit.

Wanting to make it sugar-friendly for my DH, I used half sugar and half Splenda, which worked out just fine. But then there’s also sugar in the chocolate. I’m glad my MasterCook program will tell me/him how many carbs are in a slice.

I suppose this cake is a kind of sponge cake (because egg whites are whipped) but it’s not really the same proportions. It’s kind of like a soufflé cake too. At any rate, you combine the chocolate/butter mixture and the egg yolks, then gently fold in the whipped egg whites and pour it into the prepared springform pan. I left just a few wisps of egg white visible, and they baked a different color – you can see it toward the top of the cake in the upper photo. So make sure you stir in all the whites so none are visible.

Once baked you can almost watch the cake sink in the middle as it cools – that’s when some of those craggy top pieces are formed. I let it sit for about an hour (after I’d swiped a thin blade around the outside edge so none of the cake would stick). It was still warm when I hand-whipped just a little bit of whipped cream and set that drift on top. It was heavenly. Absolutely heavenly. Even with half Splenda – I couldn’t tell the difference.

What I liked: oh my – the heavenly SOFT texture of the cake. It’s almost molten when it’s warm, but yet it’s not liquid at all. Served warm it just slips into lightness in your mouth. Not literally, because it has a distinctly chocolate feel to it. The next day, though, the cake was more like a tender soufflé cake. I’d definitely eat it warm – for me anyway, it was infinitely better. With the leftovers I heated each slice in the microwave for 15 seconds. Just right.

What I didn’t like: only one thing and it was my own fault – I didn’t quite mix the egg whites in thoroughly enough – those areas cooked differently and had a different texture. Just mix thoroughly, that’s all. No streaks of egg white.

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