I Make Baking Powder and Amaze Bruce

I took another stab at chicken and dumplings tonight because I had just made some chicken soup. The soupier version is what my significant other was after so I tried again. I use a rotisserie chicken to make soup. Cover and simmer for 2 hrs with 1 bay leaf, half an onion, carrots and celery. Drain and pick off the chicken bits, set aside. After the broth has cooled in the refrigerator the fat is easy to take off.

Usually I cheat with the broth and add some Better than Boullion, but there was none to be had. Simmering the broth for about a half an hour concentrated the flavors. I sauteed some onion and carrots and added them to the broth along with a teaspon of thyme. Now for The Dumplings: (Melinda Lee's recipe)
1 cup, all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon, baking powder
1 teaspoon, coarse salt
1 tablespoon, chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon, finely chopped fresh chives or minced scallion greens scant
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 large egg at room temperature
6 to 8 tablespoons, whole milk at room temperature
2 tablespoons, unsalted butter melted and cooled

I had no baking powder! Plenty of parsely this time, but no baking powder. I remembered that baking powder can be made with cream of tartar. How many people actually have cream of tartar in their pantries I don't know. I don't know why I did but it saved the day.

Here's the recipe:
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cornstarch.

My significant other said the chicken and dumplings were very good, "better than cowlips!" (He was watching Amazing Race at the time.) I emerge victorious.

Green Split Pea Soup with Ham

I'm the first to admit that pea soup is not very photogenic so I took a picture of ingredients. My significant other is not the only one I know that won't touch the finished product with a ten foot pole. I have a great recipe and my dad and I enjoy it for weeknight dinners.

Andersen's split pea soup is famous in these parts. Billboards along 101 on the way to Buelleton feature a cartoon of two chefs, Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee trying to split a pea with a mallet and chisel, or stirring a huge pot of soup. I finally tried the famous soup a while back. What a disappointment! Their recipe is almost identical to mine but it didn't include the ham. It even needed salt. My recipe is much better.

Here's the recipe:
2 cups of dried green split peas
1 cup chopped celery
1 bay leaf
1 quart water
1 quart chicken stock
1/2 cup chopped water
1/4 tsp thyme
1 ham bone (HoneyBaked if possible)
1/2 cup diced carrots
salt & pepper
Put everything into a crock pot on high for 1 hour, turn it down and cook 4-5 hours or longer.
Take out the ham bone then spoon the liquid off the top and strain any fat. Add the strained broth back to the rest of the soup. Use a wand blender if you like the soup smooth. Add any ham bits to the soup and salt and pepper to taste.

This can also be made on the stove top. Simmer covered 2 1/2 to 3 hours

Comfort Food on a Rainy Sunday

Last Sunday there was an Oktoberfest celebration on a nearby farm and we were all set for bratwurst and beer when it started to rain. OK, change of plans. What do you cook on a rainy Sunday but chicken and dumplings? I must say, although my mother was a great cook, this was not part of her repertoire. My SO's mother had made it though so I got a thumbs up from him. He likes simple cooking but I usually have a hard time getting it right the first time. I felt confident in my dumpling making ability, now being on speaking terms with biscuits and scones. Melinda Lee spoke in glowing terms about a chicken and dumplings recipe I used that and made some adaptations to make allowances for what I had on hand. I didn't want to go out in the horrendous occasional drizzle after all! I used frozen chicken breasts, cut into quarters, instead of the whole pieces the recipe calls for, and left out parsley,since I didn't have any. The final product didn't come out very photogenic so I'm posting one that looks better on my blog. Note to self - add the blasted parsley and maybe a photo of the dish would be blog-worthy.

Melinda Lee's recipe comes out to be more of a chicken dish with sauce and dumplings. I doubled the amount of chicken stock after the initial cooking to make it soupier and cooked the dumplings on top of the chicken and stock. After the dumplings were finished cooking I followed Melinda's recipe and finished the sauce with the cream and eggs. I liked the creaminess of the sauce and the large pieces of chicken. The review on the dish was "More dumplings, less chicken." Bruce remembers it as a soup covered with the dumplings. There will be another rainy Sunday to get a little closer to the mark.

Splendiforous and Spectacular

No corners were cut for Deb's tea. Every surface was adorned. Tiny teacups were wrapped in cellophane and sat at each person's place as favors.

Tea sandwiches were set out and guests arrived ready to enjoy the get-together. One guest brought hats that tempted even the most reluctant to try one on for at least one picture. My sister and I wore hats our mother had worn in the 50's. Everyone seemed to get into the spirit.

Deb started the tea with a toast. Her hubby made up a delicious beverage and I managed to snag the recipe:

1 pint vanilla yogurt
1 pint raspberry sorbet
2 shots triple sec

Half fill a blender with champagne (they used Frexinet) and ice. The amount of ice depends on how slushy you want the drink. Add a scoop each of sorbet and yogurt and the triple sec. Blend on high. Pour into champagne flutes and garnish with mint leaves and a raspberry.

Tiny mushroom pastries, carmelized onion feta cheese bites and the
savories I had made were served hot along with the sandwiches.

The next course was the scones, hot out of the oven. They were served with Devonshire cream, lemon curd and jam. One guest brought marmalde butter which was delicious on the scones. Sometimes a scone is just a lemon curd delivery vehicle but I think the Martha Stewart's Blueberry Scone recipe came out lighter than a lot of scones I've had and were good by themselves.

Finally we brought out all the desserts. The miniture lemon cakes came out cute. Maybe they were a little too big for one serving but they were basically the size of a cupcake. The little strawberry cakes were pretty on the table but a little too sweet. I made sure to add enough butter to the crust for the Key Lime tarts so they held together for once.

I think Deb was happy with the overall impression the desserts made.Everyone had a wonderful time and no one left hungry!

A Fantabulous Tea

Creating tiny tidbits and nuggets for Deb's upcoming tea had my sister and I zipping around the kitchen in a creative frenzy. We had the best time playing. Here's what we made:

Savories (Artichoke Cheese and Pesto Cheese)
Chicken Salad in Cream Puff Shells
Bluberry Scones
Golden Almond Scones
Miniature Bete Noir
Strawberry Mini Cupcakes (with jam chamber!)
Key Lime Tartlets (the tangy version)
Lemon mini cakes

Most everything was from a tried and true recipe but after extensive testing a spinach filling for puff pastry savories and coming up with a really delicious recipe it was determined that it was not a good thing to even think about right now so I wound up with an artichoke and cheese and a pesto and cheese substitute. It was OK but neither of them really filled out the puff, not enough to it. Maybe I'll try adding an egg to the mixture next time and see if that helps add substance. Washing off the marinade from the artichokes, or using plain artichoke hearts, might also help allow more artichokes to be added to the mixture.

The pate choux for the chicken salad came out fine. I had used Alton Brown's recipe for an earlier tea and they fell flat! Trying to resuscitate them was useless. After consulting my Good Houskeeping recipe it seemed like either the time was wrong on Alton's (how can that be?) or I did something wrong. I cooked them for 30 minutes at 400 degrees and they puffed and stayed that way. Alton says to pipe them immediately and, as you can see from the picture, they are a bit flabby at first but stood up better after about a 10 minute rest before piping. The chicken salad was an old secret recipe - plain ol' chicken salad with a dollop of the ever elusive mango chutney.

The scones were a hit. I've learned through my biscuit adventures to handle with care. I used Martha Stewart's Blueberry Scone recipe, but I halved the amount of blueberries and considered myself lucky to get the fresh blueberries I needed.
My sis is a wiz with a pastry bag and created the snazziest decoration for cakes. Detail is her thing. She decorated the little chocolate cakes with tiny, itty bitty teapots and teacups and the mini pink cupcakes were festooned with little pink flowers. They were cute but more trouble than they were worth. The jam chamber alone took forever.

Miniature versions of the lemon cake I made for Deb earlier this summer were the the center piece for the desserts. Cooking with my sister is always fun. It's great to see what she comes up with.

A Cake and a Cobbler

A casual labor day cookout gave me the opportunity to experiment with something I've never made before - cobbler and an office birthday had me whipping up a cake this week.

Ripe peaches on hand were just begging to be made into something lucious. I've had my eye on the Cupcake Queen's peach cupcakes but the vote from my significant other was for a cobbler so the search for a recipe began. I wound up with one from FoodTV's Tyler Lawrence. It called for bourbon, yum, but I didn't have anything but brandy so I used that. I also thought that the cast iron skillet could be used on the BBQ but wound up cooking it in the oven anyway. It came out bubbly and crispy on top. I think I like cobbler. Here's the recipe:

Bourbon Peach Cobbler
8 peaches, peeled and sliced, about 6 to 8 cups
1/4 cup bourbon
3/4 cup sugar, (1/4 cup in filling & 1/2 cup in dumplings) plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing

Heat the oven to 375 degrees F.
In a large bowl add the peaches, bourbon, 1/4 cup sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon and mix well to coat the peaches evenly; set aside.

Prepare the dumplings: Into a bowl sift together the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) butter into small pieces. Add it to the flour mixture and cut it in with a pastry blender or your hands until the mixture looks like coarse bread crumbs. Pour in the cream and mix just until the dough comes together. Don't overwork; the dough should be slightly sticky but manageable. (I used a food processor and was VERY careful not to over mix)

In a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium-low heat, melt the remaining 4 tablespoons butter. Add the peaches and cook gently until heated through, about 5 minutes. Drop the dough by tablespoonfuls over the warm peaches. There can be gaps, the dough will puff up and spread out as it bakes. Brush the top with some heavy cream and sprinkle with some sugar; put it into the oven on a baking sheet to catch any drips. Cook for 40 to 45 minutes until the top is browned and the fruit is bubbling.

I had a birthday cake to bake this week and tried Billy's Vanilla Frosting for it that got rave reviews from the Cupcake Queen. It was my bright idea to decorate the top with a splotch of strawberry preserves. What does it look like to you? My significant other said it looke like an amoeba. Someone else took one look at it and said it looked like a loogie! Eeeew :( Not the effect I was going for!

Billy's Vanilla Buttercream

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

6 to 8 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup milk1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes. With mixer on low speed, add 6 cups sugar, milk, and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. If necessary, gradually add remaining 2 cups sugar to reach desired consistency.

Planning a Tea

My friend Deb and I are planning a tea later this month and preparations are in full swing. She loves all things Victorian so her house is perfect for this event. Charming vignettes are everywhere you look and she's created the atmosphere for a fantasy tea. Getting the girls together is the excuse for her to decorate and for me to help with the cooking. This week we got together to play with some recipes for the gathering.


A recipe for key lime pie in Bon Appetit and another one for key lime bars in Cook's Illustrated made me think that key lime tartlets would be a perfect addition to the tea. Since these were both new recipes, and I was fiddling with the presentation I definitely needed to test the tart version. The Bon Appetit version was a traditional rendition with a graham cracker crust while the Cook's test kitchen arrived at a version with a touch of cream cheese and an animal cracker crust.

First we worked on the cream cheese version. We chitted and chatted and patted the crust in a variety of tartlet pans. It was only after the filling had been added that we realized... um you're supposed to like bake the crust first! Ooops. Staring at them didn't seem to change anything so we went ahead and baked them. To our surprise the crusts held together and tasted fine, maybe not as crispy as it would've been otherwise but definitely presentable.

Here's the Cook's Illustrated recipe we used:

Key Lime Bars

Crust

5 ounces animal crackers (vanilla wafers were cheaper)

5 tablespoons packed brown sugar

Pinch table salt

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Filling

2 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1 tablespoon grated lime zest

Pinch table salt

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

1 large egg yolk

1/2 cup Key lime or regular lime juice

Garnish (optional)

3/4 cup shredded sweetened coconut toasted until golden

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and adjust oven rack to middle position.
Line 8x8 inch baking pan with tin foil, leaving overhang that can be used as handles to lift the bars from the pan. Spray foil with non-stick spray. Pulse animal crackers in a food processor until finely crumbled. Add sugar and salt and pulse. Add butter and pulse until combined. Press crumbs firmly into bottom of baking pan. Bake until golden, 18-20 minutes. Cool.

Stir cream cheese, lime zest, and salt in a bowl until softened and combined. Add sweetened condensed milk and whisk until incorporated and lumps are gone. Whisk in egg yolk. Gently whisk in lime juice.

Poor filling into crust and smooth surface. Bake 15-20 minutes or until set and edges start to pull away slightly from the sides of the pan. Cool 1-1 ½ hours. Cover with foil and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Loosen edges and lift bars from the pan. Cut into squares and garnish with toasted coconut.

The Bon Appetit Key Lime Pie recipe is a more traditional version that uses graham crackers and is a bit more tart. It's a matter of taste as to which you prefer. Here's the key lime pie part of the recipe we tested.

Crust

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

3 tablespoons sugar

Pinch of salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling

1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

4 large egg yolks

1/2 cup fresh Key lime juice or regular lime juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cracker crumbs, sugar and salt in medium bowl. Add butter and stir until crumbs are moist. Press mixture onto bottom and up sides of a 9 inch pie dish. Bake crust until set and lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Cool Crust completely.

For filling whisk sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks in medium bowl to blend. Add lime jice and whisk until blended. Pour filling into cooled crust. Bake pie until filling is set. about 18 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate pie overnight.

My coworkers were my guinea pigs and taste tested both versions. I served both versions with a dollop of whipped cream and some toasted coconut. The voting was 80% for the cream cheese version and 20% for the classic recipe. Deb and I both liked the tangier taste of the Bon Appetit filling but We liked the vanilla crust in the other tarts.

Flourless Chocolate Cakelettes

I must get a new recipe to experiment with in every Bon Appetit. This month the cover shows a flourless chocolate cake. I had to try it out and thought it would be a perfect addition to the teas I'll be cooking for. I wanted to make finger food so I cut each piece small and coated them with the ganache topping. They were intense dark chocolate. These were taste tested at the office and with friends and found to be perfect for chocoloholics but a little messy on the fingers. The recipe makes a whole cake. I can't imagine having an entire slice. My niece was in town and helped with the ganache coating. She's becoming quite a cook and has started her own blog.

For the tea I cut them into small rounds and put them in papers. I had melted white chocolate just begging to decorate some. I must say they looked quite snazzy on a tiered tea tray. The 1 inch circles were just the right size.

Here's how I did the cakelettes:

Cake

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

9 tablespoons (1 stick plus 1 tablespoon)

unsalted butter, diced

18 ounces bittersweet chocolate - chopped

6 large eggs

Ganache

1 cup heavy whipping cream

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Lightly sweetened whipped cream

For cake: Preheat oven to 350

Butter 8 x 8 square pan. Combine 1 cup water and sugar in small saucepan. Bring toboil over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Melt butter in microwave and add chocolate whisking until smooth. Whisk sugar syrup into chocolate; cool slightly. Beat eggs and add a spoonful of the chocolate to the eggs to temper then add the egg mixture to the chocolate and whisk until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan. Place cake pan in large roasting pan. Add enough hot water to roasting pan to come halfway up sides of cake pan.

Bake cake until center no longer moves when pan is gently shaken. Check at 40 minutes. Remove from water bath; transfer to rack. Cool completely in pan. Remove cake. I used a silicone pan which made the unmolding very easy. Lining the pan with foil would also be helpful. Using 1" circle cutter cut rounds dipping the cutter in hot water between each cut. For squares cut the entire cake into 1" squares.

Ganache

Bring whipping cream to simmer in microwave. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth.

Cool slightly. Frost the tops of each cakelette with the ganache. Refrigerate until set. Decorate with nuts, coconut, nonpariels or white chocolate - or whatevery you like!

Chutney Crisis

They've taken my chutney away! During the past week I've been in full production mode for a tea I was cooking for. Experimenting and trying new things is one fun part of this but I stick to one or two tried and true things. Chicken salad made with Trader Joe's Mango Chutney in mini cream puff shells is always reliable. I used the last of the jar to have my girlfriend taste test it and she pronounced it delicious. Even my significant other liked it. Yay! The subtle spices and touch of sweetness it adds makes it taste different than everyday chicken salads and is just plain good. I was relieved not to have to experiment on this. The next night my friend called and informed me that Trader Joe's has discontinued the chutney. No! Now I had a quest on my hands. Harry and David's Mango Chutney was good but not the same and I used it with satisfactory results. It actually looks better in the jar. Smart & Final has one I'll have to try. The color is the same.

Rant begins here:

How could they do this to me and the chutney loving public? Am I going to have to make it myself? I don't even really know what chutney is exactly but I count on it. I just want to stroll into my neighborhood Trader Joe's and pick up a jar. There are lots of references on the web to this exact ingredient. Epicurious.com recommends it. Someone make them bring it back!

OK, I feel better now.

Peaches are wonderful right now and I had one big ripe one I wanted to use. Fresh peach pie only happens for a short time and I didn't want to miss the window. I again experimented and had a happy, if small, success with this version. I used a 4 1/2 inch springform. It's a nice size for a small dessert.

Fresh Peach Tart
1 cup flour
1 tsp orange peel
2 TB butter
2 TB brown sugar
Mix and pat into pan bake 10 minutes at 350 until golden


1 large peach - sliced
1 tsp brown sugar
Combine and let macerate

For the glaze combine and bring to boil in saucepan:
1/4 cup orange juice
1 TB Grand Marnier
1 TB brown sugar
1/2 TB cornstarch
Stir until thickened and cool completely. Mix with peaches and place mixture in crust. Decorate with whipped cream.

I love the almond-peach flavor combination. I wonder how some Amaretto would work in the glaze. . .

Overnight guests gave me an excuse to cook an interesting breakfast and my significant other requested the roulades I had made for a get together in San Diego. Sara Moulton made them with Serrano Ham and Manchego Cheese but the great thing about this recipe is that you can put anything inside.
This is the third time I made them and was not worried because they came out both times. My secret weapon was silicon parchment paper, but this time I used Easy Release foil, and adjusted the recipe for medium eggs. Perhaps the earlier successes made me a little cocky and I rushed a bit. When I tried to do the rolling a lovely split showed up. A little extra cheese hid most of the damage but the spiral really didn't show up very well when they were cut. Today, instead of the ham and cheese I put in sausage and cheese. I also made a small one for a non-cheese eater. That one at least looked good.

Roulades:
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
1 1/4 cups whole milk, heated
4 large eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Filling:
2 cups coarsely grated cheddar cheese
3 ounces cooked breakfast sausage

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a buttered 15 by 10 (1-inch) jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Butter the paper, dust with flour, and tap out the excess.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes. Increase the heat to high, whisk in the milk, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and whisk in the egg yolks 1 at a time. Season with the salt and pepper. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Stir 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture and fold in the rest. Pour the batter into the bottom of the prepared pan and smooth gently with a metal spatula. Transfer to the oven and cook until golden and firm to the touch, about 15 minutes.

Increase the oven heat to 375 degrees F. Cover the egg sponge with a buttered piece of parchment paper, buttered side down. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and invert onto a work surface. Peel off the paper from the top.

Sprinkle the cheese over the sponge, leaving a 1/2-inch border on all sides. Arrange the crumbled sausage and on top. Place a flat baking sheet next to the sponge. Starting with 1 of the longer sides, use the towel to help roll the sponge up jelly roll fashion. Carefully roll onto the baking sheet pan. Return the roulade to the upper third of the oven and bake until the cheese has melted, 8 to 10 minutes. Use a serrated knife to cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices.

I made biscuits too. The biscuit recipe I use is the result of a quest started by a challenge from my significant other. He remarked, after my first attempt at biscuits, that the best biscuits he ever ate were at the Homstead in Jacksonville Beach. I researched flour types and different recipes. I was about to order some White Lilly online when Alton Brown gave me some great clues in a biscuit episode. He suggested mixing cake flour with regular flour to get close to the kind of flour used in true southern biscuits. I tried about a dozen recipes before my S.O. proclaimed them satisfactory. Here's the winner, adapted from my good ol' Betty Crocker cookbook.

Baking Powder Biscuits

1/4 cup shortening (I used Crisco sticks)
1/4 cup butter
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk

Heat oven to 450. Cut shortening and butter into dry ingredients. I use a food processor and pulse until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add the milk and pulse 2-3 times just until barely combined.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead very lightly turning about four times. Pat into a rectangle about 1 inch thick and cut into 8 large square biscuits. Brush with butter. Bake until golden brown, about 10-12 minutes. (You may notice I forgot the butter today.)

Another week, another experiment. This week's foray into cakedom was a cake for a luncheon celebrating 3 adult graduations. I wanted to make the lemon cake again but thought that if it was a bigger cake the cream cheese frosting would be way too sweet if used throughout. It wound up being 4 layers 2 with strawberries, 1 with the lemon curd frosting mixture I've used before. It was a good combination. Next time I may use a stabilized whipped cream frosting in combination with the beloved lemon curd and still add the strawberries.

The main thing that came out of this event was the little mortar boards I put on the cake. I wanted a chocolate version of the decorations I had seen and had grand visions of draping white chocolate ganache over mini muffins for the base. At around 11:00 pm I discovered white chocolate doesn't work like regular chocolate in the world of ganache. I had three sticky little muffins to show for my efforts. There were no square molds around that would work for the mortar boards themselves so I just melted some chocolate and spread it on foil to harden. When I tried cutting them they were too hard and broke. That was around 5:30 this morning. Writing Congratulations even with my bleary eyes worked well piped with melted chocolate but I had intended to luster dust it gold and forgot to do that. I made another attempt at the mortor boards and found they cut easily when the chocolate was just barely warm. Leaving them in a slightly warm car for an hour this morning worked perfectly! The tassles were another matter. In my mind's eye they would be made of royal icing that draped beautifully over the side. The royal icing somehow never materialized and the hats really needed something. Luckily the white chocolate was at just the right maleability to create little tassles that could be set up to curve over the side of the chocolate square. A big blob of frosting served for the base of each hat. I'd like to do more with molding white chocolate. I hear fondant is nasty tasting and have seen some cake decorators use white chocolate.

The lemon crop is coming in here in California. Everyone I know is trying to distribute lemons to worthy recepients. Besides making some wonderful lemonade and lemon curd I'm trying my hand at limoncello. I even had a snazzy Patron bottle that I didn't have the heart to get rid of. Basically the process calls for letting lots of lemon peels sit in vodka for weeks. Here's the recipe I'm using.

Melinda Lee is featuring some wonderful lemonade recipes this weekend, one uses lavendar. I think I'll try the mint version.

This week's cooking adventures included creating some interesting meatloaf nuggets for a weeknight dinner. I didn't want to a. wait a whole hour for my meatloaf to finish and b. heat the house any more than I had to so I put my standard recipe, the classic Lipton Onion Soup version tweaked with 1/2 the amount of breadcrumbs replaced with oatmeal, into cupcake pans. That way the individual servings are ready and freezing the leftovers are easy. The fact that my significant other refers to them as meat bombs has more to do with their size and shape than to their taste or aftereffects. If he insults something he's actually giving props - I tell myself.

An influx of sushi grade yellowfin, bluefin and albacore from a friend back from a long range fishing trip was a pleasure to deal with. I've got all the paraphernalia for sushi but am hesitant to strike out and try it. I just stick to a quick sear with a little garlic. A drizzle of Paul Newman's Sesame Ginger salad dressing was a successful experiment. I did make up some ceviche from the ahi and used a well tested recipe:

• 2 cups cubed ahi
• 2-3 chopped serrano chilis
• 2-3 green onions
• 1/4 cup minced cilantro leaves
• 1 tsp Mexican oregano
• 1/2 cup lime juice

Mix everything together. Refrigerate. The lime juice cooks the fish and will take 2-3 hours. I usually leave it overnight. When the fish turns opaque it's done. Mix in 1 roma tomato - chopped, and serve with tortilla chips.

I love to cook so I use any excuse to get in the kitchen. Of late I've been fascinated with cupcakes. They're small enough to allow you to have one and not derail your diet, especially the mini versions. Chockylit's blog has not only gorgeous photos but wonderfully creative recipes. The Cupcake Queen got me started on this kick.

I figured out that serving frozen desserts is easier if made up as individual cupcakes. I did this when I catered a bridal shower and used my new silicon cupcake pan for my favorite Frozen Lemon Mousse recipe. You have to turn them inside out to get them out of the pan.

I wanted a red, white and blue dessert for my 4th of July barbeque and made up a frozen dessert as individual cupcakes. Chocolate crust, vanilla ice cream, raspberry sorbet and some frozen raspberries and blueberries. Once they were frozen hard I popped them out and topped with whipped cream. I thought an addition of a tiny flag was cute, but my dad, who doesn't really see very well, almost ate one!

Earlier in June I made up Bon Appetit's orange layer cake as cupcakes to bring to a barbeque. They were quite festive. As is usual with me I was rushing to get everything done and didn't take a picture. I used my fabulous new silicon cupcake pan and figured everything would pop right out - not so much. The cupcakes took just as much persuading to get out as they would have in a regular pan. I decorated the top with a berry or two and a drizzle of raspberry juice. The drizzle really looked nice on the big cake, but sort of looked like, well, blood on the white frosting of the cupcakes. They'd be great as eyeballs. I'll have to remember this recipe for Halloween.

One of my recent experiments was with a lemon cake for a friend's birthday. Pillsubury Lemon cake, frosting from Bon Appetit's recipe (orange water replaced with lemon peel) and Martha Stewart's lemon curd on top. The filling was the outside frosting with a couple of tablespoons of lemon curd. My significant other said it looked like a step pyramid. My friend and her family all liked its lemoniness and have asked for the recipe.