Toasted Almond Shakes

If you are the sort who likes to drink your dessert, this milkshake for grown folks is for you! It's nutty and rich, perfect for summer's fade into fall. My older boy would say it's a girl's drink. Me, I say it's for anyone who has a sweet tooth. But it is pretty perfect for a group of girlfriends to enjoy together.

Toasted Almond Shake

2 oz. Kahlúa

2 oz. Amaretto

 2 pints vanilla or coffee ice cream, softened a bit

Put everything in the blend and whirl it together until it's smooth. Serves 4. 

Curried Beef Skewers

In the summer, my dear wife loves to grill, especially when she has tunes going and can dance as she makes dinner. I am not so much for actually using the grill, but I like to prep food to go on it. This is a favorite of mine. You can make these as an appetizer or they can serve as a main course, with rice and cucumber salad. As a main course, they serve 4-6 people.

Curried Beef Skewers

1/4 c. curry powder

1/2 c. peanut oil

2 lb. filet of beef, cut into 1" cubes

Salt 

Toast the curry in a dry skillet on very low heat for about 10 minutes. Place in a bowl and allow to cool. Add oil and stir to a smooth paste. Add beef and toss to coat well. Refrigerate overnight (or at least a few hours). When ready to grill, bring to room temperature and preheat the grill (or broiler, if need be). Thread onto skewers (if you're using wooden skewers, you'll want to soak them overnight), placing about 3 cubes on each. Grill or broil until medium-rare, a minute or two per side. Season to taste with salt. 

Chunky Corn Chowder with Ham

I just love corn chowder, although I'm not a big fan of the kind that seems to be fashionable currently, that's full of red peppers. This version makes carnivores happier than the vegetarian version I make more often. If you do make this without the ham, it will be perfectly lovely, too. Throw some corn muffins in the oven, serve with some fruit on the side. This serves 4.

Chunky Corn Chowder with Ham

6 oz. diced ham

1/2 c. diced onion

1 c. diced potatoes

1 c. water or chicken broth

2 c. corn (if you're making it in summer, use sweet corn cut off the ear)

12 oz. evaporated milk (skim is fine)

2 tbsp. chopped parsley

4 oz. shredded Cheddar (2% is fine)

Salt & pepper

Mix ham, onion, potatoes, and water/broth in a pot. Cook about 10 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients. Heat through, making sure cheese is melted. 

Chocolate Caramel Bread Pudding

How many of you will complain if I tell you to eat the whole dessert in one day? I thought not many. Seriously, you wouldn't have to eat it all, but it does get a little weepy when left overnight, so it's a great dessert to make when you're having company to dinner. My wife loves bread pudding, but is always disappointed in restaurants, where there are invariably raisins in it. Of those, she is not a fan. So, I like to try different versions of it on her. This one is yummy and definitely different. I got the recipe from my friend, Kristal, who uses cinnamon chips in her version. I was unable to find those when I was getting ready to make this, so I subbed caramel chips and a new dish was born.

Chocolate Caramel Bread Pudding

8 oz. French bread, crust cut off

1/4 c. butter, melted

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. cocoa powder

1/2 c. caramel chips

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 3/4 c. milk

1 c. half & half

50 Hershey Kisses

2 eggs, beaten

1 c. caramel chips

1/2 c. half & half

1 c. powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2 qt. baking dish. Cube enough of the bread to make 6 cups. Toss with butter. Mix sugar and cocoa together. Toss with bread cubes. Add 1/2 c. caramel chips. Put in baking dish. Heat milk and 1 c. half and half just until bubbles form around the edges. Remove from heat. Add Hershey Kisses and stir until melted and incorporated into a smooth mixture. Gradually add to eggs (if you add it too quickly, it will give you chocolate scrambled eggs). Pour over bread cubes in pan. Bake 30-35 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for about an hour. Melt 1 c. caramel chips with 1/2 c. half & half. Add powdered sugar, stirring to incorporate completely. Serve warm with bread pudding. Serves 10-12. 

Lemon Vinaigrette Asparagus with Goat Cheese

This post should actually have been written in May, so it's just a catch-up. I can't remember what the meal was that night, but this made a good side dish. Personally, I would probably omit the cheese if I was making it again, but that's just me. Jeannene liked it with the cheese.

Lemon Vinaigrette Asparagus with Goat Cheese

2 lb. asparagus, trimmed

Juice & zest of 1 lemon

 1 tbsp. olive oil

Salt & pepper

1/3 c. crumbled goat cheese

Steam asparagus until crisp-tender. Mix lemon juice with oil, salt, & pepper. Drizzle over the asparagus. Sprinkle with cheese and garnish with zest. Serves 4-6.

Muffuletta Pizza

The first time I ever had that classic New Orleans sandwich, the muffuletta, I was working as a cashier at Sunshine Grocery in Nashville. The store had a wonderful deli that offered all kinds of sandwiches and other lunch possibilities. We were allowed, for our lunch, to choose any cold foods in the store, including any pre-made sandwiches from the deli. During the summer, one of my favorite lunches was fruit, bread, and brie cheese. However, one day, I sampled a muffuletta (ours were all vegetarian) and loved it! I've been a fan of the sandwich ever since.

When my sweetie got home from work yesterday, she'd not really eaten lunch. I told her that "I had a cookie" doesn't count. So, in honor of our honeymoon in New Orleans coming up, I whipped up a muffuletta pizza. With a green salad and some fresh fruit (we've been pretty partial to melon this summer), it's a simple & yummy meal. If you're vegetarian, you can just leave out the meats---and maybe add some extra olives! And if you have olive haters, well, perhaps make one for them with just the cheese & meats.

Muffuletta Pizza

1/2 c. finely chopped celery    

1/4 c. chopped Castelvetrano olives (you can use regular green olives, as well)

1/4 c. capers

1 tbsp. olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 oz. diced ham

3 oz. diced salami

2 c. mozzarella

Pre-baked pizza crust (I used a thin crust this time)

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Mix everything but the crust together. Spread on the crust and bake 13-15 minutes. Serves 4-6.

La Luna Cooks Mrs. Yoder: Oatmeal Chip Cookies

You wouldn't think it to look at me, but I am actually pretty dang picky about cookies. Cake, too, for that matter. When I saw that my first recipe in the cookies section would be oatmeal chip, I thought, "Oh, no! Yuck! Well, good, I won't want to overindulge." Normally, I completely abhor oatmeal cookies with anything but raisins in them. Well, dried cranberries are acceptable. They are not supposed to have nuts, though, in my food rule-ology. They are most certainly not supposed to have chocolate chips, much less butterscotch chips, too. For some people, that would sound like food of the gods. For me, it sounded like a waste of good oatmeal, good nuts (which I mostly prefer in savory dishes---I make a killer batch of rosemary mixed nuts---but dislike nuts in brownies or chocolate chip cookies), good chocolate, and good butterscotch.

However, I had agreed to make everything. I knew Jeannene would likely love them and the day of making them fell on an Uppity Book Women night. That's my book group. So, I figured they'd be pretty easy to pawn off. The second loaf of last night's cake has gone to friends across the 4-lane and I hoped I could get rid of a bunch of these pretty easily, too. Jeannene is just delighted with this project because it gets me to make treats I wouldn't ordinarily make. Flourless chocolate cake, yes. Plain old brownies, yes. Apple crisp with a streusel type topping, yes. Even oatmeal raisin cookies---but the raisins give my darling the heebies. But never oatmeal chip cookies in my ordinary food universe.

This is the first recipe of this project that was relatively no-brainer for me. It makes a bunch. I'd say 3 or 4 dozen. I could tell you for sure, but I haven't baked the rest of the dough. I wanted them to be still warm for the Uppitys, so I waited until the very last possible minute, baked 2 dozen, stuck the rest in the fridge for later (perhaps the new neighbors' welcome gift?), and hit the door. There wasn't one thing in the recipe that I didn't already have in the house. I always have a bounty of chocolate chips, nuts, and so forth. I seldom use cream of tartar in my normal cooking life, but I did have it on hand, fairly recently purchased for something special. I also tend to keep butterscotch chips on hand so Jeannene can make worm balls if she gets the notion. Oh, the rest of you might call those "haystacks." You know, those chow mein noodle, peanut butter, butterscotch concoctions. They were a favorite family Christmas recipe when she was growing up, something they did together each year. They weren't part of mine and I looked askance at them my whole life---until Jeannene made them our first Christmas together. Oops, they're actually really yummy. I didn't need to know that.

Since Mrs. Hershberger (not the same Mrs. Hershberger of last night's hickory nut cake) didn't specify the nut variety, I went for pecans again. It was either that, peanuts, pistachios, or slivered almonds. I might try them again with salted peanuts. That'd be interesting. But the pecans were good. The directions were fairly well complete, although there was, again, no cooking time. Having baked cookies since I was a wee thing with my mama and my grandmom, though, I knew that a good number of cookie recipes bake for 9-11 minutes. So, I set Grandma Sadie's timer for 10 minutes and they came out perfectly. Admittedly, I kind of dropped them by tablespoon instead of the prescribed teaspoon. But they looked lovely, all puffy and browned, when they were done. I hate when my chocolate chip cookies are puffy like that, but this was right for the sturdy sort of cookie they are.

I'd snitched a little dough before popping them into the oven---I know, I know, I could be paralyzed for life or even die of salmonella poisoning. I know that in this day & age, we are absolutely not allowed to eat raw cookie dough. But I've been doing it since I was a little kid and I figure I might as well keep doing it. There are enough risky behaviors I don't indulge in that I figure I can toss back a smidgeon of raw egg in cookie dough every now and then. I have promised my wife that I won't eat pre-packaged cookie dough raw, but she did not extract the same promise regarding from-scratch dough. I figure I'm grandfathered in. Anyway, I was astounded to discover that the dough actually tasted good. Not just not revolting, but good. Huh. How about that? And when the cookies came out of the oven, they smelled good. I exercised admirable restraint in not actually eating one until I opened the container at book group (okay, it doesn't really count as restraint when you're simply not tempted). I'd managed to get them there still warm. Brenda didn't even want us to eat her cookies after she saw mine. I thought that was completely silly, as she'd brought my absolute favorite, plain old chocolate chip, so I brought one home for later. Jeannene ate I don't know how many and had no room for Sue's gazpacho (although she did have a nice, big helping of my split pea soup). I had the one and was perfectly happy---and I managed to give most of them away. Jeannene will be happy to see, though, that there are still a few left for her snack at work tomorrow.

I really liked the butterscotch-y undertones and I found that I didn't object to the wide variety of ingredients. Normally, I don't like cookies with a bunch of different flavors, but these were pretty good. I wouldn't make them on purpose for me, but for people who do like ingredient overload, they would probably be the bomb diggity.