Funston

There has to be some kind of terrible mistake - a dog this cute could not possibly be capable of trying to kill another animal three times her size.

Chicken Roll-ups

When Martin and I were "thirtysomethings" we used to hang with Jerry and Lynette B. An evening together would consist of dinner and then some kind of card game. Lynette was the kind of person who could cook adequately but didn't really consider time in the kitchen much fun. Her passion leaned more towards all kinds of crafts and home decorating, so any recipe she endorsed was likely to be something that could be thrown together quickly and with minimum fuss. Sometimes the lack of time spent in the kitchen might have been a bit evident but there was one dish she made that I always thought looked good and tasted even better. Of course, I had to have that recipe, especially after she confessed to how easy it was to prepare. As with many different things I've prepared in the kitchen over the years, I go through phases with this dish - making it often for a period of time and then forgetting it for months or even years.

Today, I was driving home from getting my hair done and realized I needed to buy chicken breasts to cook up for my 11 pound canine killing machine. Since Funston decided to try and eat a fellow teacher's dog, we've been working with our own dog whisperer to tame the wild beast hidden beneath her furry little body. The trainer has us using chicken bits as a very special treat to lure Funston to our sides when another dog comes on site. So far, we've been through plenty of poultry with mixed success.

Since I was buying chicken breasts it seemed sensible to figure out a recipe that would use some of the leftovers - and that's when Lynette's recipe suddenly came into my consciousness. I wasn't even sure if I remembered all the ingredients but decided to take a risk and go for it anyway. When I got home I couldn't find my recipe card so I looked up one on the internet that appeared to be a reasonable facsimile of Lynette's original.

I really figured none of the family would even remember what chicken roll-ups were but the minute I put the plates on the table Tim made a comment about how long it had been since he last ate whatever the thing was on his plate. Martin was the one who right away tagged our dinner as chicken roll-ups - major surprise that he could recall the name of what he was eating.

Tim's memory of the last time he ate a chicken roll-up was specific. "Did you put the mushrooms in these?" he wanted to know. Mushrooms!!!! That was the other ingredient I couldn't quite remember! Obviously, in my younger years I was afraid to risk leaving anything out of the recipe as written. Silly me! Now I'm a wild and crazy kind of cook who can forget mushrooms and still serve up a roll-up with perfect confidence that it will be well received. At least by my family.

Chicken Roll-Up Recipe
1 c. cubed cooked chicken (2 breasts)
8 Pillsbury crescent rolls
1 (3 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
6 tbsp. melted butter
scallions
mushrooms (optional)
3/4 c. seasoned bread crumbs
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine cream cheese and half of butter. Mix well. Stir in chicken and scallions. Don't forget mushrooms! Separate crescent rolls into 4 rectangles. Spread each with chicken mixture. Fold roll dough over the chicken mixture and crimp shut. Also crimp ends of the rolls. Dip rolls in remaining butter and then coat with crumbs. Bake 15-20 minutes until golden.

Cottage cheese, avocado and scallion salad

We like watching Master Chef with Gordon Ramsey. If I were to go on that show and a challenge came up involving going to the pantry, finding ingredients and then making up a fabulous dish on the spot....I know just what I'd do! These old legs would be running for the cottage cheese, avocado, scallions and Spike. Ok, maybe I wouldn't have to race quite so hard because maybe, just maybe there wouldn't be a giant run on those ingredients...

Here's the deal - I'm a by the recipe kind of gal. In all my life of cooking, I think I've only "created" one dish of my own - and guess what ingredients that masterpiece needs?

I can just picture it now...Gordon would sample my dish and say something like, "well, it looks like dog vomit but has a surprisingly good taste. Where has this simple but so tasty dish been all my life? Well done, Barbara, you may take your place back in line while I totally eviscerate some other poor soul"

At that point, I'd have to grab up my bowl of newly lauded food and walk out the back door because that's as good as it would get for me! From that highpoint of creativity, I'd be having to sneak cookbooks into the room in order to make ANYTHING beyond a scrambled egg.

I won't sit by the phone waiting for my invitation to be on Master Chef.

Back to my recipe - the thing is, I really didn't much like the taste of cottage cheese growing up. When I was a young woman working at the University of Arizona it seemed like all the older ladies were always chowing down on little tupperware bowls of that stuff, some doctored up with tuna and some just plopped into the bowl in a white, lumpy mound. Growing old and eating cottage cheese were two fates I hoped I wouldn't have to endure for a very long time.

Yet here I am...an old lady eating...what else, but? If I was going to have to join the ranks of folks hoping for some kind of weight miracle by way of cottage cheese it was for sure I'd have to find a way to doctor it up pretty good. From this need to make that bland white stuff edible, I created...(drumroll, please) cottage cheese, avocado and chives salad.

Here is the recipe...

Dump some cottage cheese into a bowl. Preferably NOT Tupperware.
Cut up an avocado into chunks and add it to the cottage cheese.
Cut up a green onion and add the scallions into the mixture.
Sprinkle "Spike" on top and eat!

You can laugh at the simplistic-ness of this dish but I've made a few converts along the way. My mother thought the stuff was pretty good. Cindy gets periodic cravings for it. (In fact, I have to give credit where credit is due...I liked the original version with a tiny bit of salt or no seasoning at all, but it was Cindy who came up with the idea of using Spike to liven up the taste a bit. I can be spikeful or spikeless, depending on the day.)

Try it - you too might become a convert.

Coordinated Cooking

See what I mean about cooking to match my placemats?

Avocado Salad with Carrot Ginger Dressing

On picture perfect days like today, it's a pretty great thing to be a San Diegan. We have that shiny, shimmery sunglow to bask in, minus the miserable heat and humidity of less lucky locales. Today I decided to celebrate the beauty of early summer with late lunch on the patio.

I've been wanting to try a Smitten Kitchen salad recipe that involves carrots and avocado so today was the day. I think the hardest part of this dish was finding the sweet white miso. It's one of those ingredients that I figured everyone not born or grafted into the Stoops family would probably know so I felt kind of embarressed in my ignorance of what it was and where I'd find it. I spent some time skulking through Stater Brothers, searching in areas where I suspected I might have success, only to find lots of other Asian offerings but none of the sweet miso. And what exactly was I looking for, anyway? A plant? A can of something like Coke? Darned if I knew.

I felt slightly less stupid when none of the employees at Stater Brothers could give me any kind of definitive answer about the ingredient either. Some came out and admitted they didn't have a clue, others tried to confuse me with explanations but no product. Yea sure, guys! You people are as clueless as I am about what on earth this stuff is.

Sprouts provided the answer to my missing miso and I went on to prepare the recipe with no other problems. Though I will say right now that if I'm going to get more seriously involved in cooking new and different recipes, I'm going to have to invest in a food processor that doesn't look like it was made by Fisher Price. Just sayin'

The salad looks pretty. Actually, when I put mine on one of our breakfast room placemats, it looked like I'd deliberately cooked up something just to match the colors in the mat. The carrot/ginger/shallot and oils mixture (and don't forget the miso), gives each taste a bit of a tangy kick. And really - how could anything with avocados be bad?

My first taste of avocado came when I was a little girl living in West Virginia. My teacher brought in a few to give us children a taste of something exotic from far away. Who knows what we were "studying" at the time, as all academic knowlege related to this incident has obviously been erased from my memory bank. Here's what I do recall about that day. Every other child in my class HATED the taste of that strange fruit. I'm not talking a mild distaste or wavering opinion between maybe and not so much -these kids acted as though our teacher had calculatedly set out to poison them with a slimy green toxin. They couldn't spit their teeny little bites out quickly enough.

Except for little hillbilly Barbara, that is. The future Californian in me must've known that I'd one day be able to pick this strange new fruit from my own backyard...(ok, not really. But surely my mother-in-law's backyard is close enough to prove the point I'm making) because I couldn't get enough of that subtle but oh so wonderful taste into my mouth. Lucky me, with the rest of the haters in class, my amused teacher let me have seconds..and thirds...and fourths...til all her mini-crop was completely gone.

And now here I am - all grown up and eating avocados whenever I want. Life is good.

Avocado Salad with Carrot-Ginger Dressing
From Smitten Kitchen

Serves 4, with dressing to spare

1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1 small shallot, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh ginger
2 tablespoons sweet white miso
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seed oil
1/4 cup grapeseed or another neutral oil
2 tablespoons water

1 small/medium head of lettuce (I used Bibb) or mixed greens of your choice
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
1 avocado, quartered

Whiz the carrots, shallot and ginger in a blender or food processor until finely chopped. Scrape down the sides, then add the miso, vinegar and sesame oil. While the machine running, slowly drizzle in the grapeseed oil and the water.

Divide the lettuce among four bowls, add some of the onion and a quarter of the avocado. Drizzle with plenty of dressing and serve.

Smitten Kitchen Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Thick, Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

The trick to getting a really thick, chewy cookie is to chill the dough before you bake it. You can scoop it and then chill it, or, if you’re like us, scoop it, freeze them and store them in a freezer bag so you can bake them as you wish. I find they’re always thicker when baked from the cold — only a couple extra minutes baking is needed.

This is a half recipe. It makes a couple dozen standard-size cookies. (I get more because I make them tinier.) I always feel like I’m swimming in cookies when I make the full volume, but if you’re feeding a crowd, go ahead and double it.

1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt (I often use a half teaspoon, but I like more salt in my baked goods)
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, raisins and walnuts, if using them.

At this point you can either chill the dough for a bit in the fridge and then scoop it, or scoop the cookies onto a sheet and then chill the whole tray before baking them. You could also bake them right away, if you’re impatient, but I do find that they end up slighly less thick.

The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes (your baking time will vary, depending on your oven and how cold the cookies were going in), taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.

oatmeal raisin cookies

My oldest son informed me yesterday that he's invited 75 people to come and say good-bye to him before he leaves for his move to Cincinnatti. And where is this gathering to be? Right here at the house, with good ole' mom coming up with food and drink for the event.

As soon as I stopped screaming and banging my head against the wall, Number One Son hastened to add that the actual number of attendees would undoubtedly be WAY smaller than the first terrifying number he threw out. This because he did his invites via Facemail (how else) and targeted everyone he wanted to come, no matter what state they live in. Realistically, it's somewhat hard for his sister to come from New Haven - especially with one day's notice.

OK...so now I know I'm having an undertermined number of folks show up. What to do? Well, this is one of those times when I will NOT be baking tons of fabulous home-made goodies but, instead, making a run to Costco to see what I can buy that will be easy to make and feed crowds. I do actually have unopened bags of chips left over from recent class pool parties so those will be hauled out of the garage and added to whatever the good folks at Costco can entice me with - and what can fit in my oversized shopping cart.

That said, I did decide to make Smitten Kitchen oatmeal raisin cookies this morning. Because when you're expecing an undetermined amount of guests to show up later in the day, what else do you do but bake up a batch of cookies for your family?

I've made lots of oatmeal raisin cookies in my day and I think I can turn out a fairly credible cookie. Not too hard, not too soft -just right. I use the recipe straight from the top of the oatmeal box. I have this theory - the folks at Quaker Oats really do have an investment in whether you like their cookies enough to keep buying boxes of oats so you can produce more. It is NOT in their best interest to devise a recipe so idiosyncratically weird that only the marginal few will actually like the resulting cookies. Moral of the story - trust the tried and true recipes put out by the people who have the greatest stake in coming up with pleasing results.

That said, it took a tiny leap of faith to try Deb's version of oatmeal raisin cookies. While I like pretty much everything she creates, she does sometimes add that extra flair that can spell doom in the Stoops household. Would she tweak the cookie recipe to the point where my family would turn up their noses at my cookies and beg for the old recipe? Reading through her ingrdients and process, it seemed like she was pretty close to the boxtop original so I went for it.

The cookies are everything an oatmeal raisin cookie should be. All the familiar taste of oatmealy goodness and just the right texture. Martin's so happy with the result that he took a baggy full to the train museum. And when Hubby is happy, so am I.

Best Birthday Cake, courtesty of Smitten Kitchen

Best Yellow Layer Cake

Everyone needs a killer yellow cake recipe. This is mine, and dare I say, it should be yours too. It just works. Every time. And if you’ve ever tried a yellow cake mix and wondered why yours didn’t come out that consistently plush (but not freakishly unnatural) at home, dare I say it’s because you hadn’t made this one yet?

Yield: Two 9-inch round, 2-inch tall cake layers, and, in theory, 22 to 24 cupcakes, two 8-inch squares or a 9×13 single-layer cake (I have yet to audition the cupcakes, shame on me)

4 cups plus 2 tablespoons (480 grams) cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon (5 grams) table salt
2 sticks (1 cup, 1/2 pound or 225 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups (400 grams) sugar
2 teaspoons (10 ml) pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk (475 ml), well-shaken

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. (I like to drop mine a few times from two inches up, making a great big noisy fuss.) Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.

macaroni and cheese revisited

Why do I continue with this elusive search for the perfect macaroni and cheese when I don't even like the stuff? Perhaps because my husband loves it and, when served a version that he approves of, will heap big mounds on his plate. Nothing more satisfying as a cook than watching someone obviously enjoy your food to the point of near gluttony.

OK...so I'm now formally retired from teaching and wanting to get in the kitchen more. An astounding TWO THIRDS of my readership has been clamoring for updates on my culinary endeavors (thanks Emily and Amanda!) meaning it's time for me to begin writing again.

At the beginning of this week I set out to the store, iPad in hand, grocery list loaded on Paprika, and ready to stock up on ingredients necessary for a number of chosen recipes. It's still been kind of crazy at work so the cooking has had to come between meetings, retirement parties, clean-out sessions at the school etc...Not to worry - this too shall end and I'll have plenty of time to cook my heart out.

Back to the macaroni and cheese. Remember I was less than thrilled with the Pioneer Woman's way too thick, creamy and cheesy version so I found another recipe to try out. This one came out of a lean cooking cookbook Jody gave me a few years ago. (It's probably not a good omen when your super skinny, beautiful sister-in-law feels the need to get you a cookbook specifically designed for helping take off those unwanted and unsightly pounds!)

I liked the look of this macaroni and cheese as it cooked up. No "curdling" of the cheese and milk mixture was certainly a good sign. In fact, the milk, flour and cheese (all four varieties) mixture looked textbook perfect in it's smooth, silky texture as I was whipping it for well over the eight minutes designated in the instructions.

Serving this up, I really did think it would be a hit with Martin but...not so much. I finally tried a bite myself and figured it might be too subtle and non-cheese taste-in-your-face for his palate. It was creamy and it tasted fairly rich, in spite of supposedly being low-cal (how can anything be truly good for weight when it has four different kinds of cheeses in the recipe????).

If I made this again, I'd probably tweak the cheeses to suit my family - maybe just throw in a whole block of the cheddar and forget the rest.

And one last side note. I actually liked the taste and texture of adding the melba toast crumble to the top of the macaroni though it may well have been the "exotic" difference that scared Martin off.

Creamy Four Cheese Macaroni Recipe

3 cups uncooked elbow macaroni
1/3 cup all purpose flour
2 2/3 cups low fat milk
3/4 cups shredded swiss cheese
1/2 cup grated fresh parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
3 oz. light velveeta
1/4 ts. salt
cooking spray
1/3 cup crushed onion melba toasts
1 t. butter, softened

1. Cook macaroni according to package directions. Drain
2. Preheat oven to 375
3. Lightly spoon flour into a measuring cup, level with knife. Place flour in a large saucepan. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Cook over medium heat until thick, about eight minutes, stirring constantly. Add cheeses, cook three minutes or until cheese melts, stirring frequently. Remove cheese mixture from heat, stir in cookied macaroni and salt.
4. Spoon mixture into 2 qt. casserole coated with cooking spray. Combine crushed toasts and butter, stir unti well blended. Sprinkle over macaroni mixture. Bake at 375 for thirty minutes or until bubbly.