My Guilty Pleasure

I have belonged to the Good Cook Cookbook club for about 23 years. It used to be Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook club, but they combined into one several years ago. That is why I have hundreds of cookbooks. I get catalogs and have a website, and then I collect points and get really good deals. It really is an obsession, I have a hard time NOT buying them. Here are a few of my new books that just came. "The Spice Merchant's Daughter" was a gift from friends. As you can see I am into Artisan bread baking right now. Let me know if you want to join the club too....I get free cookbooks for every friend who signs up......(gulp:)

Don't You Love a Diner?

My father knows where every single roadside diner is between Salt Lake City and Santa Fe, and Denver and Las Vegas, and probably every other route north bound as well. He can tell you who makes the best biscuits and gravy, pancakes, soup or burger. One of the best meals I ever ate was at a roadside diner somewhere in New Mexico. Fried Eggs and Enchiladas. Any good Mexican-American knows enchiladas are best the next day with fried eggs. Only the menu didn't even say the eggs were coming with enchiladas. It was like this magical, blessed manna from heaven, when my plate was served.

New Mexico/Colorado Mexican food is way different than the California style Mexican food we get at restaraunts here in Utah. I grew up in Denver, so you can guess which style I am partial too. I always have several ziploc bags of roasted Hatch chile's in my freezer, and some sort of tamale, homemade of course. But, that is a subject for another post.

I pulled this book off my library shelves, yesterday and was mightily inspired by some excellent All-American Diner food. I was tempted to make the Onion Rings, the Ruben Sandwich, and of course the Famous Cheesecake. But, when I woke up ravenous after a long evening of election news, I knew I needed food, and I needed it right now!

Western Omelet
4 eggs beaten
1/4 onion, green pepper combined
cubed ham
1/4 cup grated cheese (optional)
1 tablespoon olive oil, or bacon fat if you must.

Preheat the oil or fat in a skillet for one minute. The secret is a hot skillet, then add the cold oil.
Swirl the oil around, put the onion and green pepper and ham in, and saute for a few hot seconds.
Add the eggs, and after about 30 seconds, start lifting the sides of the cooked egg and let the uncooked egg make contact with the skillet and let them cook. Repeat around the other edges. Add cheese if desired. Roll the omelet onto a plate.Take a potato and run it through the slicer sides of a box grater. Rinse the slices to remove the excess potato starch and pat dry. In a hot skillet with preheated oil, spread out the potato slices and let them cook about 3 minutes on each side. To get the authentic diner flavor you MUST sprinkle with onion salt. Serve with Tabasco or hot pickled peppers.

I go through about 8 jars of these a year. Me, solo, no one else, and can eat about 5 peppers with any given meal.
I used to pack these to Malaysia, I cannot live without them.

Ummm. Comfort food = diner food.
Especially if served on a vintage plate.

Cindy's Posh Lavash

I got on the Internet at about 2:00 and noticed everyone was blogging about the Daring Baker's challenge today! I thought WTH??? It isn't the end of the month yet. These bakers shouldn't be blogging until the 30'th!!!!. We'll the joke's on me. I fiber optically ran over to the website and notice the date was today.

I have been so stinking busy today. I had the Activity Day Girls from my church over at 9:00. Then I had to run to the Provo Art's Council, because I am entering some art in an art contest. Yes, I am an arteest. I have been out of the game for a year and and craving some new challenges, so I ran over to the art store today to get supplies for my next project. And then I had to run home to take some art over to the church for an art exhibit. Then that is when I took a breather and looked on line and saw all the drama!!! I got my fanny into the kitchen post haste!

So yes, I have been thinking about the challenge. I have been wanting to make the:

Avocado and Green Pea Hummus from Nigella Express
to put atop my lavash

Nothing but good in this book. Especially page 201

I did make one change to the recipe though.
I used Edemame peas in place of processed canned peas.

So here are the seasonings I chose for my lavash.
This is from McCormick's steak house seasonings
bold and spicy. It is an item I use almost daily. Look at all the goodies in this spice.

Then I used kosher salt and black sesame. This was my least favorite.
I used too much salt. I didn't press the seeds in enough and lots of them fell off. But the toasty sesame flavor was really nice.

Thank you so much to Shellyfish for choosing such an easy yet different recipe for our challenge. Look at the delightful color of this cracker!

I cut my crackers into concentric circles. I thought they would look really interesting as a Canape'.

You can see I had some fun in the presentation of this fun challenge.

They turned out nice and crispy!

The Avocado and Green Pea Hummus recipe is as follows:
1 ripe avocado
2 T. lime juice
1/2 clove garlic, minced
10 ounces edemame peas, un-thawed or lightly steamed if fresh.
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Mix in a food processor. How easy!!!

It was really fun to knead this recipe. 10 minutes knead time in total. My posh oven has a bread proof setting so this cut the rise time down by one third. From start to finish including blog time and photography time 4 hours. I will make this again and take it to a holiday buffet if anyone ever asks me to their home. You can link to the recipe here at Shellyfish and there are some cute ideas for you to see too!

Ultimate Baking

You have probably seen the cookbook at left many times by now. Well I pre-ordered it last December and when I received it this last month my mouth watered, and my stomach rumbled. Most of all, my hands went to work. I made the above creation, thank you very much. It is the Iced Hermit recipe from the Cookies book and it is on page 102. It was one of the few recipes that didn't have a photo. What attracted me to this recipe was the large amount of candied ginger. It is my favorite ingredient besides the chocolate chip. It can be purchased in bulk from the Good Earth for a paltry 3 dollars a pound. It is great to snack on because a little goes a long way. And, it is good for your digestive system. See all these are fabulous reasons to make this fabulous bar cookie. And you thought baked goods were bad for your thighs. Sigh....

WHY DIET'S DON'T WORK!!!

This is probably the best cookbook of 2007. Reserve it from the library, or Amazon.com.

Sherry Yard is Wolfgang Puck' s executive pastry chef. She grew up in Brooklyn and this is as much a biography as it is a cookbook. It has great recipes from her fabulous childhood such as pretzels and bagels. It even playfully makes fun of her mother's lack of culinary skills. Sherry includes a recipe for "Mom's Cuisinart Chocolate Mousse" that her mother inspired and she refers to it as "the most exciting culinary event that had ever occurred in our kitchen."


Okay, so here is the most exciting culinary event that is occurring in my kitchen. It ain't low fat , but it is loaded with vitamin A.

Pumpkin Bread

• 3 cups canned pumpkin puree (one large can)
  
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 4 cups white sugar
• 6 eggs
• 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 9x5 inch loaf pans. Or one Bundt pan and 1 large loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together by hand, the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger; stir into the pumpkin mixture until well blended. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. The top of the loaf should spring back when lightly pressed.
4. Can add chocolate chips. I like the Ghiridelli 60 % Cocoa chips from Sam's Club.