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I got voluntold to do the newsletter for my MOMS club and was stumped as to what I should put in it. So I just grabbed a favorite recipe- Nigella's breakfast bars- and ran it with my comments (I never use coconut because I hate it, and I love this because you can make a big batch and have breakfast for a week, and unlike storebought granola bars there's not a ton of cane syrup or high fructose corn syrup. And it takes about two seconds.) And y'all, you'd think I'd published some state secrets or something. The moms went bananas over it. I keep getting emails and calls- "More recipes, please!"  One mom told me that she made them and then tore her old granola bar recipe up. "I just TORE IT RIGHT UP!" 

So you should make those. People are enthusiastic about them.

And for a sneak preview, next month's newsletter recipe by popular demand will be these muffins- I made them with sweet potato for yesterday's playgroup and they were a huge hit with kids and moms. (And, the mashing of the sweet potato could not have been easier- I quartered it and roasted it the night before, all prepared to get out my food processor, but when it was cool enough to handle the peel just slid off and it mashed with a fork.)

Biscuit fail

Biscuit fail, originally uploaded by hannahcooks.

I've often wondered if you can prepare buttermilk biscuits in advance. Yesterday I asked Jeff if he wanted biscuits with the fried chicken and hot slaw I had planned for supper and made the mistake of asking him in front of Nathan, who eats at 5 (we eat around 8, so Nathan usually gets something lunch/snack-y for supper and our leftovers for lunch). "I want biscuits please!" So I made two biscuits for Nathan and left the rest on a baking sheet in the fridge til our suppertime, figuring there's no such thing as a BAD buttermilk biscuit so how wrong could it go? Ha.

Maybe you can make biscuits ahead (don't cut them until you bake them, perhaps? Let them come to room temperature before baking?) but that was not the way to do it. They burnt on the bottom and the butter melted out and everywhere. The biscuits Nathan had were perfect- flaky and rich. These were disastrous, heavy and sodden.

I'm trying to update this a bit more often. I'm also trying to not save so many old magazines, so each month when I'm done with one I save all the recipes that were any good and toss the rest.  So here's what I'm saving (and what I'm not) from the current Cooking Light.

Keepers:

Dijon Croque Monsieur.  I only made this to use up some leftover Christmas ham, and it's not like Croque Monsieur is a new recipe for us, but the haricots vert salad that went with it made it. I made the full amount of the haricots and snacked on the leftovers the whole next day.

Grownup Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. I love grillled cheese in any form, and have a whole book on the subject which I refer to often, but can always use a lighter version. More spinach is always a plus.

Jalapeno, Sausage, Jack and Egg Breakfast Braid. I used regular pizza dough for this but otherwise pretty much followed the recipe. It was super easy and I'm already thinking of variations.

Chipotle Bean Burritos.  I don't even normally like bean burritos but these were awesome.

Rosti Casserole with Baked Eggs. This was the best recipe of the whole issue, I think.  Serve with tons of hot sauce.

Made, but skipped clipping:

Beef and Pinto Bean Chili. Good, but not any better than any other chili recipe I've got.

Roast Chicken with Balsamic Bell Peppers. Forgot I even made this until I was going back through the magazine.

Clipped even though I haven't actually made it yet breaking my rule already:

Chocolate Cherry Heart Smart Cookies.

Lee Brothers Cornbread

Lee Brothers Cornbread, originally uploaded by hannahcooks.

I have very strong feelings about cornbread. It should not be sweet, and it should not be like a cake (although Nathan loves "corn cake!") but it should also, you know, taste good.

For New Year's Day I made this cornbread and fell in love because a)it's freaking delicious b)the crust on the bottom is gorgeous c)it's the first food that Nathan, James, Jeff and I all shared as a family. (I'm not really sure if you're supposed to feed small babies cornbread but James, at six months, was totally into it.) It does contain a teaspoon of sugar but trust me, even a purist will forgive that teaspoon.

Here's the recipe:
1 tablespoon lard or unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups stone-ground cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups whole or lowfat buttermilk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 450. Grease a 12-inch cast iron skillet with the lard or butter (or, if you cooked bacon in it and forgot to drain the grease, just leave that in there) and put it in the oven. Melt and cool the other butter.

Whisk together all the dry ingredients (cornmeal-sugar) in a large bowl. Whisk the egg in a smaller bowl until frothy, then beat in the buttermilk. Stir (or whisk, I just whisk it all since I've got it out anyway) the egg/milk into the dry ingredients. Then whisk in the melted butter.

The fat in the skillet should be all melted and sizzling, so hurry and pour the batter in. Return to the oven and cook for 15 minutes. To die for.

I returned Thursday from a trip to Grammy's that turned into a junk food tour of Texas- not that I am complaining, I just wish I had tried the chicken fried bacon.

But my system definitely needed a reset and thank goodness for Facebook! My high school friend Mat Schuster posted a clip of himself on the San Francisco local news and the soup looked like just the thing. I have a weird relationship with lentils where they always seem like a good idea, and then while I am cooking them I think, "Yuck, lentils," and then when I actually eat them I remember that I love lentils.  This soup was no exception, and with escarole and watercress it was absolutely phenomenal. Delicious AND with a little bit of pork fat in it, so my body didn't go into complete grease withdrawal.

I used to not love tomato soup so much but now I am kind of obsessed with it. The very best tomato soup recipe I know is from Sally Schneider's The Improvisational Cook and involves her versatile slow roasted tomatoes.  But the version above, from Vegetable Soups From Deborah Madison's Kitchen, is a pretty good bet when you only have canned tomatoes handy and the souffleed cheese toast is to die for. 

Adapted slightly to serve 2 with leftovers:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 very small onion, chopped
• 1 tsp dried basil or herb of your choice (I used herbs de provence since that's what I had handy)
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
• pinch of baking soda
• 1 1/4 cup stock (vegetable or chicken) or water
• 3/4 cup milk
• salt and pepper
• 1 egg, separated
• 1/2 tsp dijon
• pinch of cayenne
• 1/2 c grated cheddar
• 1/2 tsp minced scallion
• toasted bread

Melt butter in your soup pot. Add onion and herbs, cook til onion is good and translucent. Stir in flour and cook for a second. Then add tomatoes, baking soda, and stock or water. Bring to a boil, then simmer, partially covered, for 20 min. Off heat, puree with your immersion blender or cool slightly and puree in a regular blender.

Preheat oven to 400. (I did this part while the soup was cooking.) Combine egg yolk w/mustard and cayenne, then stir into the cheese.  Whisk the egg white until it holds soft peaks and fold into cheese. Spread on toasted bread and bake til puffed and golden, 5-10 minutes depending on your oven.   

While the toast is baking, stir in the milk and season to taste. Bring soup back to piping hot and serve w/a cheese toast half. Or two.

If you have this ridiculously awesome immersion blender, this recipe is super easy because you can use the blender attachment to puree the soup and then the whisk attachment to whisk the egg white. My mother gave me mine, and I never would have thought I needed it until I actually whisked an egg white with the whisk attachment. The motor on that thing makes a hand mixer look like a manual whisk.  And if you make soup at all, the immersion blender is so much easier than a regular blender. If I had my kitchen to stock all over again, I'd have started with this and considered the hand mixer and blender optional.

A few things about Mark Bittman:

He Twitters way too much.  I may have to stop following him, as half of his twitters are replies to people I don't even follow.   

I still love him, even though I have not read his newest book and am kind of grossed out by the idea of Wild Rice and Quinoa Breakfast Stuffing (it sounds great, I am just not eating it for breakfast).  Which is why I am not reading his newest book because I am sure he'd convince me it was a good idea.

His chocolate souffle is awesome and the individual servings fit perfectly in the Le Creuset heart shaped ramekins. I may not even wait til next Valentine's Day to pull them out again.

I have a whole bunch of things to say about my recent America's Test Kitchen run and will, someday, get around to it, I swear.

In the meantime, please check out my more local blog.

Current Sandwich Obsession, Toddler Version: Mozzarella and turkey, toasted open face, on brown bread from House of Bread. (Which always makes me think of House of Pain, which always makes me sing "I came to get bread, I came to get bread, so get out of your carseat and get bread! get bread! get, get, get, get bread!" to my perplexed son.)

Current Sandwich Obsession, Mother Version: Mozzarella and goat cheese and pickled onions grilled on the same brown bread.

I know I've made my own ricotta before, and was reminded by last week's NYT how easy it is. So I made some, and then made this pasta. I did it for my husband, because I am not a huge pasta fan, and I usually only like pasta smothered in bechamel. I certainly do not like pasta with tomato based sauces, and I especially do not like pasta with light brothy sauces. I do not know if it was the fresh ricotta or what, but I LOVED this pasta. I ate my whole serving and then some. I am going to make it again this summer- again with the broth using a base of carrots and onions and basil and fresh tomatoes all from the garden and homemade ricotta, and then I will die of smug domesticity.

I recently had an Amazon gift card and was torn between two books I've long coveted- Italian Easy and Spice. I had made a ricotta and tomato thing from Italian Easy way back when it was run in the NYT and loved it. I had also made crispy persian fried chicken and beet tzatziki and a red pepper goat cheese spread from Spice about a trillion times and was curious to see if the book had her Casablanca scallops recipe. I wound up getting some stuff from the Body Shop with the gift card and both books from the library.

Italian Easy was, well, easy. I already have the sformata di ricotta recipe and do not really need a whole book of ideas on things to put on bruschetta and things to throw on the grill with some olive oil and lemon. If I had never ever cooked before and needed a first cookbook of things that were simple and delicious, this would be great. But I don't need to buy it now.

Spice, though? This book, I need. I made the vanilla-scented carrots about five times. (Alongside just about everything, but with the tamarind braised beef short ribs they were indeed the best.) The scallop recipe was not identical to those I remember from Casablanca, but with orange-saffron butter and crispy rice cakes who is complaining? (And her method of cooking scallops- searing on one side only til cooked through- is brilliant and makes for a tender, seared, but not overcooked scallop.) Crispy roast chicken with za'atar and lemon confit. Phenomenal onion tarts. I hated to return this book and definitely will be buying it.

Lastly, do yourself a favor and make this chicken chili. Have plenty of sour cream and lime on hand.

Things Jeff loves:

-Beacon Restaurant
-Asian-ish chicken wings

We haven't been to Beacon together in well over a year, and when the LA Times ran this recipe I maybe pouted about that a bit. "I didn't even know they HAD chicken wings!"

Chicken wings are not sophisticated or snazzy, and I'd been put off frying my own chicken wings after my one attempt at Buffalo Wings. (I don't know why, frying chicken is not hard. I have two books called simply Fried Chicken both of which have gotten a ton of use. But something about Buffalo Wings was a major pain. Anyway.) But these wings were super easy to fry (I am coating all my chicken wings in cornstarch from now on) and the sauce. Oh, man, the sauce. I didn't have sake handy, so I added a little rice vinegar, and it coated the wings and they were just perfection. I could have made a triple batch just for the two of us. They were so good, I don't even need to go to Beacon and try theirs. Which is good because I always need room for the ahi tuna pizza.

The Teddy Bear Bread I Told the NYT I Was Going to Bake

Aesthetically lacking, perhaps, but very pleasing to Nathan, originally uploaded by hannahcooks.

Nathan loved, loved, loved doing this. But he hated not being allowed to eat all the dough or eat the bread straight from the oven- he pitched full on tantrums, a rarity for him.

Once the bread had cooled, though, I let him eat two feet. He was quite pleased with his efforts. (Although all he really did was poke at the dough. The sadly shaped bears were all my doing.)

Unlike some people I have a vision of myself in my golden years, spending each morning writing lengthy letters to my newspaper, my representatives, and companies far and wide. Being a full-time or even part-time crank sounds awesome. (Of course, nowadays I guess all any of us need for that is a blogger account.)

Nonetheless, I am now well on my way to seeing that vision realized. (I won't tell you about the stack full of letters to and from Henry Waxman in my drawer.)

Highlights and lowlights from the June/July Cook's Country:

-Smokehouse burgers. Yum. Ginormous (the friends we had over for this took half of theirs home for lunch the next day. Jeff and I scarfed ours down but I did give some of mine to Nathan.) Excellent with pickled onions.

-Chopped Cobb Salad. Possibly my favorite salad ever- sauteeing the chicken in the bacon fat was an inspired bit of fat recycling. It's not wasteful AND it's delicious. I'm not usually a fan of blue cheese dressing, but either the Stilton I bought or the recipe was exceptionally mild.

-Chipotle-grilled Pork Tacos. Not my favorite use of pork tenderloin, but the pineapple-chipotle slaw topping is worth remembering.

-Crispy chicken salad wraps. At first I though the problem was the less pliable (but more delicious) handmade tortillas I used. (Handmade by Trader Joe's, not by me.) Then I thought, why would you heat chicken salad? Why? Still, I am going to add a dollop of sour cream to all my chicken salad from now on. I'm just not going to wrap it in a tortilla and fry it.

Wilted red onions, pickled beets, Humboldt Fog

Wilted red onions, pickled beets, Humboldt Fog, originally uploaded by hannahcooks.

If you pickle some vegetables the night before you can have supper on the table in two minutes. Add some sourdough from House of Bread and you can make little pickle sandwiches.

(From Lee Bailey's Country Weekends. A fine resource even if it is not the weekend and you are not in the country.)

I am not a vegetable lover so when I find a vegetable dish I love I get really excited. I get excited when I find a vegetable dish I like, in fact. But love is even better, especially when it is a new vegetable, because one can only eat roast asparagus so often.

Last night I was making this caramelized ginger chicken saute (in which the chicken is more poached than sauteed, but whatevs, Cooking Light) but did not want to make steamed bok choy to go with it as suggested because I may be cooking light but I don't totally hate myself. Which is what I tend to assume about people who eat steamed vegetables. So I turned to How to Cook Everything and as it turns out I love stir-fried bok choy.

Heat a big pan over pretty high heat for a few minutes. Add some peanut or canola or other high-heat tolerant oil and directly after that add some minced garlic, grated ginger, and thinly sliced scallions. Cook for just a smidge and then add a mess of bok choy that's been cut up into nice slices. Saute, stirring, for a few minutes. Then add a good amount of chicken broth and continue to cook until the liquid's all gone. Then add a little salt and pepper the heck out of it.

Beet and goat cheese salad with peppery cider vinaigrette, originally uploaded by hannahcooks.

I cannot believe it is salad season already. But it is so, so hot here right now I don't think I ever want to turn the oven on. I'll miss you, pizza.

Fortunately I have beets in the backyard and they are phenomenal. Of course I had to turn the oven on to roast them but it was worth it. I've been pulling up other beet recipes and found both Deborah Madison and Lee Bailey recommend chopped beets with a red onion pickle so I am definitely all over that next. Even though I could eat them with goat cheese and cider vinaigrette day in day out.

I just read the Omnivore's Dilemma and feel that Michael Pollan really didn't stress enough the best part of growing your own food- it tastes amazing. A month ago I made my standby spinach lasagne with spinach from the garden- the recipe calls for mature spinach which is hard to find anywhere, so I had always used baby spinach. I let my spinach grow and then used that and was shocked at the difference- the mature spinach DID hold its spinach-y flavor throughout the cooking process. (Why I thought Cook's Illustrated was lying about that, I do not know.)

I'm trying to go through little used cookbooks and cull out the ones I don't really need. So this week I pulled out The Silver Palate Cookbook which I had bought and then set aside because I looked at the famous Chicken Marbella, thought to myself, "Prunes?" and never opened it again. (A snap and unfair judgment, I'm sure. I also irrationally think the whole book is determinedly "eighties.")

So this week's menus are all pulled from the Silver Palate and last night we had minted pea and spinach soup. This was probably a very unfair choice because a)I don't actually like soup all that much and b)I have an amazing and beloved pea soup recipe in my repertoire already. Plus I was making unfair judgments while cooking like, "A half a bunch of mint is supposed to yield one cup of leaves? How big were bunches of mint in the eighties?" (I have no idea how big a bunch of mint is now, I have an herb garden.) And then, "They want me to strain out the peas and spinach and process them separately in the food processor? Wouldn't it be easier to just put the whole mess in the blender? Just how enamored of their food processors were they in the eighties?" As it turns out, they had good reason to do that- then you can add some of the broth back in and some heavy cream and make yourself a very thick soup. A very thick, delicious soup, which you can then spoon up on hunks of bread. It's not like my other pea soup at all but it will make you want to have two pea soups in your repertoire. (And my 11 month old, who hates being spoon fed as much as he hates spinach-- he let me spoon feed him a whole bowlful.)

Tonight we had pork chops with black currant preserves (apparently they liked to waaay overcook their pork chops in the eighties- I checked mine less than halfway through the designated 20 minutes and they were done) along with a carrot and sweet potato puree (again with the food processor). The sauce masked the overdone chops well, at least, and the puree was great (although they used a lot of butter in the eighties- you can cut that butter amount down by quite a bit, and if I'm cutting out butter, a recipe has too much butter).

Tossed Lasagne Gratin with Spinach and Goat Cheese

Tossed Lasagne Gratin with Spinach and Goat Cheese, originally uploaded by hannahcooks.

I totally love the spinach lasagne from Cook's Illustrated but it is super fiddly and a pain to make, so I only make it when someone is having a baby (and then I make one for them and one for us) or when I'm feeling super ambitious and am making dinner ahead.

When I ran across a recipe for lasagne noodles tossed with bechamel and goat cheese in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone I thought, hey, that looks easier.

And it was. I had some garlic herb goat cheese from the farmer's market, so I did not make an herb bechamel, just a regular one- and I did not follow Deborah Madison's instructions to heat the milk with some sauteed onion first before straining into the roux, because that seemed fiddly, but I did warm the milk and she was right about using hot liquid- no lumps. Just a bechamel thick enough to stand a spoon up in. Fortunately you loosen that bechamel up with some heavy cream before baking. I also was not about to make fresh spinach pasta so I used plain fresh lasagne noodles and stirred cooked chopped spinach into the bechamel along with the cream and goat cheese.

Serve with extra bread to wipe up the bechamel.