Mother's Day Popovers

For our family, Mother's Day is all about the Cottonwood Rodeo. But there's no reason it can't be all about Rodeo and Scones, too.

To be honest, the only thing I've ever purchased at Neiman Marcus is food. When my sisters whisk me off to Las Vegas for a Sister's Weekend, we always end up eating a delicious, girly lunch at Neiman Marcus's Mariposa restaurant.

The meal is all about The Popovers - brought to the tables warm and served with strawberry butter. Divine.

I made these for Easter a few weeks ago. We should have served them on pretty Wedgewood Plates with a spot of tea and a flute of champagne. Instead, we ate them standing at the kitchen counter, pulling the steaming pastries apart and dipping them in blueberry butter. Pretty darn good, even without the fine china.

Here's a link to the recipe - they are easy and perfect for a Mother's Day brunch. If you don't have a popover pan, buy one. Buy two. They are THAT good.

Neiman Marcus Popover Recipe

It's All About Butter

It's that time, again....a post from last year:

The freezer is cleared out in preparation for my annual holiday ritual: The Stockpiling of the Cookie Dough.

I make about 70 pounds of this shortbread dough in December -- we give away most of the cookies - to customers, friends, roving bands of neighborhood teens. It's my favorite holiday recipe because it's SO simple and still so amazingly good.

You can roll the dough out, cut out fancy shapes. You can decorate them or drizzle them with melted chocolate. But I prefer them plain, naked -- pure, simple perfection.

I started with a recipe from Jeremiah Tower -- but I added vanilla to it and played with the baking time, so I consider it mine, now.

Feel free to consider it yours:

Christmas Shortbread Cookies

1 pound butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups flour


Cream butter, sugar and vanilla. Mix in flour. Form dough into logs and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least one hour. (Logs can be frozen.) Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Slice dough and place slices on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for thirty minutes.

The cookies should be pale, not browned - so keep an eye on them, as oven temperatures vary.

Enjoy!

Shana Tova - "A Good Year"

The new Jewish year has begun and we're celebrating the arrival of 5771 with some glorious fall weather here in the North State. Our family will be feasting tonight, when we finally gather all the kiddos together - not an easy feat, between dancing, classes and work.

Apples are traditional for Rosh Hashana, so I'll be whipping up this Caramel Apple Cake from the Epicurious website. Apple Cake with Caramel It's absolutely decadent and worth every calorie.

This month, we're also giving away free downloads of our song I Never Knew I Could Fly. The song celebrates survivors and it seems an appropriate way to head into a brand new year: hopeful, resilient.

Click here to go to our website - then go to the Free Download page: Still Married


Shana Tova to you and thank you for stopping by.

Now Being Served in the Pool: Hot Fudge Sundaes

We visited with my sister Nora and her husband JB a couple of weeks ago. They may be the cutest couple ever:

Nora's best thing is spoiling her guests, so while the gang was splashing in the pool, we assembled Hot Fudge Sundaes in the kitchen and she delivered them to a happy, grateful, drippy crowd.

This is the Never-Fail Recipe I use for luscious, creamy hot fudge:

Hot Fudge Sauce from epicurious

Enjoy either in the pool or safe on dry land, with:

ice cream

brownies

nuts

whipped cream

Grilling tonight? Try Mark's Bread

Mark is married to my sister Katie -- he's a fire captain and an amazing chef who's used to whipping up hearty meals for hungry firefighters. We love going down to Mark and Katie's Simi Valley home because we get to enjoy a feast and we don't even have to fight fires to get it.

Last time we were there, Mark grilled garlic bread for us - it was simple and astoundingly delicious. We call it "Mark's Bread" -- we have a whole boatload of recipes like that -- "Mark's Potstickers," "Mark's Coq au Vin," "Mark's Potatoes." But for now, Mark's Bread:

Start with an unsliced loaf of good sourdough or Italian bread. Slice it into 1-inch thick pieces.

Lay the pieces in a dish and drench it in good olive oil. I mean REALLY soak it, dip it, saturate it -- it's the olive oil that makes it amazing. You'll use about 1 - 2 cups, depending on the size of the loaf of bread.

Grill the bread over medium heat until lightly toasted. Sprinkle both sides with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Slice a fresh garlic clove (or 2 or 3) and rub the garlic on the surface of each slice. Sink you teeth in and enjoy.

Down-Home Ranch

We eat bushels of fresh veggies this time of year -- love the organic produce at the Farmers Markets and our Cottonwood Holiday Market.

This Ranch Dip/Dressing is much better - and more wholesome -- than the bottled versions. We go through a lot of it. The secret is the Cow Camp Garlic Season-All:

- I've found it at Holiday and at Winco -- I imagine it's available at other food outlets, as well.

Ranch Dip/Dressing

Combine in a small bowl:

2 tablespoons Cow Camp Garlic Season-All

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon dried dill (or a tablespoon of fresh)

Add:

1/4 cup sour cream or mayonnaise

2 cups plain yogurt

Whisk together and refrigerate.

Here's a link to a printable version: Ranch Dip/Dressing

Kitchen Composition

Cooking is a lot like songwriting - Start with a few ingredients, a little inspirationand attempt to put them together in a way that's unique and satisfying.

Yesterday I came home itching to cook something wonderful for dinner -- and I found virtually nothing exciting in my pantry or refrigerator. But sometimes you must plow ahead using whatever turns up. What turned up was: a couple onions, a Granny Smith apple and a few slices of bacon. Bingo. I decided to create an Onion Apple Tart. It was inspired.

Onion Apple Tart

Your favorite pizza dough recipe (If you don't have one already, this one from The Pioneer Woman is good: Pizza dough)

3 slices on bacon, chopped
2 onions, sliced

a little olive oil

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and chopped in 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 cup of heavy cream

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (or use your favorite cheese)

kosher salt

fresh cracked black pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Cook the bacon til it's brown and then use a paper towel to sop up most of the grease in the pan. Pour a little olive oil in with the bacon and saute the onions in the same pan. When the onions are soft, put the apples in the pan and saute til the apples soften.

Pour the cream into the pan and cook on low until most of the liquid evaporates. Let the filling cool while you roll out the pizza dough.

Roll the dough out - I use an insulated cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. I rub a bit of olive oil on the paper before I spread the dough out. Pile the topping on the dough. Sprinkle with kosher salt, black pepper, and Parmesan cheese.

Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes - or until the crust is nicely brown and cheese is melted exactly to your liking.

When it comes out, it will look something like this:

We enjoyed it with a 2005 Ravenswood Syrah from the Grocery Outlet. Wonderful meal - and loads easier than writing a hit song.

Bacon Experimentation: 3 out of 4

Bacon with bananas and tabasco: Yes!

Bacon with rumaki - (marinated chicken liver and water chestnuts): Yes!

Bacon with pinto beans, overnight in the crockpot: Yes!

Bacon in Chocolate Chip Cookies: Disturbing

I tried - really, I did. I was excited about Bacon for Dessert. George Clooney himself - possibly the sexiest man on earth -- raved about a bacon chocolate bar. So I did it for George.

I made a huge batch of my award-winning cookie dough, only to discover that a large handful of crispy bacon bits did not improve them in the least.

Sorry, George.

Here's the cookie recipe. You can add bacon - but I don't recommend it:

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

2/3 Cup butter
2/3 Cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 teas vanilla
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
3 bars (3 oz each) good quality dark, sweet chocolate (I like Lindt), broken into ½ inch pieces
2/3 cup chopped pecans


Heat oven to 325 degrees.

Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugars, egg and vanilla at medium speed until fluffy. On low speed, beat in flour, just until mixed. Stir in chocolate and nuts.

Refrigerate the dough. Form into balls with an ice cream scoop, and place on parchment. Bake one sheet at a time, for about 17 minutes. Do not over bake – cookies should be lightly browned and tops almost dry.

Enjoy.

The #1 reason I'm not a vegetarian

1. BACON

Yes, I'm aware that it's nothing but salty fat dripping in horrific chemicals.

But my-oh-my, what a fine way to dress up those carcinogens. In our not-even-close-to-kosher home, we are all big bacon fans.

That's why I was drooling over TIME magazine this week -- reading out loud a story on bacon making its way onto the dessert menu. Those long, dismal hours between dinner and breakfast no longer have to be "bacon-free." You can have your cake and bacon, too.

Goodies like Maple Syrup Pudding with Bacon and Bacon Chocolate Bars. I am intrigued. And salivating. There will be Bacon Experimentation at our house this weekend.

Here's a recipe for an hors d'oeuvres that was a favorite of ours years ago -- back before kids -- when we led a shallow existence and spent our weekends organizing dinner parties, wine tasting and leafing through gourmet magazines.

These are salty, spicy, sweet, delectable morsels - we served them before dinner, but they could easily do double-duty as dessert.

Yeah, it makes a big old mess in your oven -- but what a way to go.

Bananas in Bacon

Slice a couple of firm bananas (yellow, but not mushy) into 1/2 inch slices. Place a drop or two or three of Tabasco Sauce on each slice and wrap each banana piece in a half-strip of uncooked bacon. Secure it with a toothpick. Broil them til the bacon is cooked -- you may need to turn them halfway through cooking, but watch carefully -- try not to set the kitchen on fire.

Here's Joel Stein's article in Time

And a few Bacon-for-Dessert recipes. Enjoy.