Lily and her husband managed a ranch of considerable size for investors in England. It was an extremely busy life for all of them. Not too long after taking this job Lily decided she needed to eliminate some of her jobs. She decided to clean house only every other month or so. Cooking was another job she simplified.

“I kept the cooking basic as well. I didn’t make dishes the way fancy eastern housewives did–souffles and sauces and garnished this and stuffed that. I made food. Beans were my specialty. I always had a pot of them on the stove, and that usually lasted two to four days, depending on how many cowboys we had around. My recipe was fairly simple: Boil beans, salt to taste.When we weren’t having beans, we had steak. My recipe or steak was also fairly simple: Fry on both sides, salt to taste.”

Yes, that’s pretty basic cooking. I’d like to think Lily had a garden out there on the ranch and was able to add some veggies to the family’s diet. My book club isn’t the only one to read and talk about this book. In The Book Club Cook Book (my review is here), a book club in Lebanon, Pennsylvania read the book and devised a dish to match the story. They developed Cowboy Hash served on Cornbreaed Fritters. I thought it sounded delicious and decided to give it a try.

The Cowboy Hash is very similar to how I make chili: ground beef, chili seasonings and beans. I usually add tomatoes but they added kernels of corn. What really caught my eye was that they served the Cowboy Hash on Cornbread Fritters. Cornbread squares or muffins are familiar to me, but I’ve never made Cornbread Fritters. I decided to give them a try. Here’s the recipe.

Cornbread Fritters

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 2.5 teaspoons sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon oil, plus enough for frying the fritters
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, stir together cornmweal, sugar, salt, flour and baking powder. In s small bowl, beat together egg, oil, and buttermilk. Stir liquid into dry ingredients. Mix well.
2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. The recipe called for 1/3 to 1/2 cup. I thought that was too much so I used XX.
3. Drop by spoon into the hot oil – similar to the way you make pancakes. Cook on each side for about 2 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve the Cowboy Hash (chili) over the top of the Fritters.

This made 20 Fritters, each about the size of a silver dollar. They had a nice crunchy corn taste and were good mixed with the Cowboy Hash (or chili) on top. Overall, the Fritters were good but not great. My husband said they reminded him of Johnnycakes. He said they were good but he likes my regular cornbread better.

Because I am counting my carbs, I figured this one out. Each Fritter was 8 grams of carbohydrates. Not bad for carbs. I don’t think I want to know the fat grams as I suspect it’s high.  I won’t be eating these on a regular basis.

Weekend Cooking is a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

It’s been a bit of a struggle. It’s hard to change old habits. I’ve been experimenting with various lunch ideas and will keep on trying. But of course, I know that salads – plenty of fresh veggies – are one of the best solutions. Until now, salads for lunch were out of my comfort zone.

I had a lovely break-through on salads while in a local restaurant a few weeks ago. I ignored the sandwiches on the menu (even though they have the second best Reuben I’ve ever tasted) and concentrated on the salads. One caught my attention. It was called the Anything and Everything Salad. It was so good. It was a big bowl filled with all sorts of delicious things. I thought I could get enthusiastic eating a salad like that all the time. So I paid attention to everything that was in the salad and imitated it at home. Here’s what I do:

At the base of the bowl is a good mix of lettuces and fresh spinach. On top of that I add as many non-starchy vegetables as I have in the house. Then I add some protein, and a couple of tablespoons of salad dressing.

Here’s a look at my latest creation. One thing I’ve learned to do is mix all the greens together when I bring them home from the store. It saves a lot of time each day at prep time. The salad above has carrots, cold beets, English cucumber, celery, broccoli florets, grape tomatoes, low-fat cheese, a teaspoon of bleu cheese crumbles, lean ham, red onion, and chopped walnuts. I used a raspberry vinaigrette, and had four cracked pepper water crackers. That total lunch was one carb. I felt very righteous about that, plus it tasted delicious.

I’ll take any suggestions you have for other low-carb lunches.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

A year ago Margaret at Books Please posted a recipe for Asparagus Soup. It sounded so good that I’ve saved it a whole year until our asparagus was fresh from the ground. And now, it’s time to give it a try.

As all cooks do, I played around with the recipe trying to make it my own. For one thing, I wanted the taste of onion in the soup. Leeks might have been best, but I didn’t have any. I also wanted to add a protein to the soup. Margaret had suggested crab, but I had some good ham on hand. I thought that seemed a good idea. Here’s how I made the soup.

 Springtime Asparagus and Ham Soup

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 of a finely chopped onion (try leeks)
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 pound fresh asparagus (that’s about 10 to 12 stalks)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup of chopped ham
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Gently clean the asparagus. Cut off the tips and set aside. Remove the woody ends and put in the compost bin. Cut the remaining stems into small pieces – about 1/2 to 1 inch. Set aside.
2. Cut the onion and garlic. Melt the butter and add the onions. Let that simmer for a couple of minutes and then add the garlic and the asparagus stems (not the tips). Let this mixture sizzle for about 4 or 5 minutes, stiring occasionally.
3. Add the flour to the mixture and stir to mix it completely. Gradually, add the chicken stock, stirring as you do. Lower the temperature to low. Cover and let it simmer for about 20 or 30 minutes. Check the asparagus with a fork. Make sure it feels soft. Keep cooking until it is.
4. Once the vegetable are soft, you could puree the soup in a blender or food processor. We like our soups chunky so I didn’t do that. I did mash it down a little with a potato masher.
5. Slowly add the heavy cream, stirring as you go. Add the cut-up ham and the asparagus tips. Let this simmer for 3 or 4 minutes, until the ham is heated and the asparagus is soft.

This was just the right amount for an evening meal for the two of us. It could easily be doubled or tripled. I really liked this experiment, but my husband wasn’t crazy about it. (He said it was “nice.”  That’s what he says when he doesn’t really like a dish but he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.) Of course, I’m a big fan of fresh asparagus. I thought it was light, yet filling.

We ate this soup with crunchy sourdough bread. A nice salad would go good with this, but we were satisfied with just the soup and bread. Vegans/Vegetarians could easily make this soup without the ham or the cream. It’s a winner. Thanks, Margaret, for the inspiration.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

I bought it as a one-inch seedling and planted it among flowers in my big pot outside the door. It has been the most faithful of herbs for a full a year.

I’ve grown flat-leaf parsley (sometimes called Italian Parsley) before in the midwest. I’ve never had it last this long. I’ve been giving this wonderful northern California weather the credit and it turns out I’m right. The truth is that in this mild climate parsley is a biennial. That means my plant will last one more year!

That’s a good thing because I use it in so many dishes. The nice thing about it growing near by is that when I need even just a little bit I don’t have to go to the market and buy a whole bunch. I just need to snip and chop only what I need.

I think all cooks have their own special uses for parsley. I find I use it in just about everything except sweets and desserts. I use it a lot with garlic. They seem to love being together. It seems to me that parsley is becoming more popular. Over the past few years I’ve seen parsley featured in such dishes as parsley pesto, parsley soup, parsley salad and so on.

I’d like to encourage all of you to add a pot of fresh parsley to your cooking supplies. Unless you’re a mega-gardener, I suggest you buy a seedling plant at your local nursery rather than a packet of seeds. They are rather tricky to grow from seed.

What I do is this: I put my seedling plant into a mix of soil and compost in a good sized pot. Then I water it once a week and keep it in lots of sunshine. Once it gets going good (about 6 to 8 inches tall), I start using it by clipping the outer edges.

As long as I’m already talking about how easy it is to grow parsley, let me add that garlic is super easy too. About a month ago I took a couple of old garlic cloves that were just starting to sprout. Rather than throw them in the compost, I stuck them down in the dirt next to the parsley. One of them is taking off and the second one (on the left) is a little slower.

During this past month the center of the plant has been spiking up. It’s as if it wants to bloom and create seeds. I’ll let it get about the size you see in the picture above. Then I’ll clip out those big center stalks.

Those stalks will be a special treat for our chickens. Yes, the “girls” love it. They fight each other for parsley. I like to think we benefit from their treat. No, I can’t see green parsley flecks, but I do believe their eggs have been flavor enhance by that parsley. Their eggs, with that bright golden center, are the best ever.

You may not be using parsley as a treat for chickens, but I hope you’re a regular user of the good green stuff. In the comment section tell us –  what is your favorite way to use parsley?

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

It’s lemon season here in northern California and they are plentiful. Here are some of my favorites: lemon chicken, lemon pie, lemon muffins, lemon bars, lemon anything.

I was thinking about lemon cake as I finished listening to the audiobook, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Amy Bender. The author was asked if she had a recipe for Lemon Cake and she did. Here’s what she had to say about her lemon cake and her book:

This is a recipe for lemon cake, similar to the one in my book, but different in some crucial ways. So, the cake in my book is also a lemon cake, but it comes packed with other stuff — the main character, Rose, requests a lemon cake for her ninth birthday, and I liked the idea of her wanting a type of cake that is sweet and sour at once. As soon as she bites in, that cake wakes up a certain new capacity in her, where she can taste the unknown feelings of the chef in the food prepared, and what is normally one of the most lovely and innocent parts of childhood comes packed with complication. 

And so begins Rose’s odyssey through the world of food tastes. Her brother’s friend George, a science geek, helped Rose experiment with food and her feelings. He took her to various restaurants, had her taste the food, and tell him what the cooks were feeling when they made the food. Then he asked the cooks what was happening when they were preparing the food. Their answers always matched Rose’s. Rose’s childhood was marred by her strange affliction. The only comfort she found was in manufactured food.

I’m sure most readers of this book have done what I did – tried to guess the cook’s feelings as we tasted various foods. Nothing happened for me, thank goodness. My feelings remained with the ingredients. I decided to try Amy Bender’s Lemon Cake recipe. I sincerely doubted I would feel sad. The result was just the opposite. As you can see, I took the liberty of changing the name of the cake so it tells you how it made me feel.

Happy Lemon Cake

Ingredients:

• 10 tablespoons butter, plus a little extra for greasing the pan
• 2½ cups all-purpose flour, plus a little extra for flouring the greased pan
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar, plus 1 heaping tablespoon if you decide to make syrup
• Grated zest of 1 organic lemon
• 3 large eggs
• ½ cup milk, warmed in a small saucepan
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)

Directions:

1. Dice the butter and melt it in the microwave at low power.
2. Use a pastry brush to grease the bottom and sides of a 10-inch round cake pan with butter. Sprinkle the pan with flour, turn it all around to spread the flour evenly, and tap out any excess.
3. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
4. Sift the sugar into a bowl. Add the lemon zest. Mix the sugar and zest well with your fingers, then whisk in the eggs. When the eggs and sugar are thoroughly combined, whisk in the melted butter and warm milk. Add the flour and baking powder, whisking constantly throughout.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 8 minutes. Lower the heat to 300°F and cook about 40 minutes more. The cake is finished when the blade of a knife inserted in its center comes out dry.
6. Remove the finished cake from the oven, unmold it onto a cooling rack, and let cool.
7. Just after cooking you can, if you like, use a pastry brush to coat the cake with syrup. Just boil 4 tablespoons water with 1 heaping tablespoon confectioners’ sugar for a couple of minutes. Allow it to cool, then stir in 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Brush the syrup on the still-warm cake.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

It really is a happy cake. I didn’t think it needed frosting at all. I hope you’ll gice it a try with all the fresh lemons available right now.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

The first thing to be done is to gather together a good collection of chili peppers. Dried chili peppers are now rather plentiful in most markets. (I even saw them at WalMart.) The chilis take their flavor from the type of pepper they are and the area where they are grown. There is a Mexican market in our little town of Windsor whose chilis come from the north of Mexico as well as the Sacramento Valley of California. (The clerks were happy to talk about their peppers.) They vary in temperature from mild to a furnace poker hot. Which peppers you use is up to you. Get all hot or all mild or a mixture. It depends on how spicy you like your enchiladas.

Making the sauce requires very few ingredients. Here’s what you need:

• 10 to 12 dried chili peppers (half hot, half mild)
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 tablespoon oil (vegetable, canola)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano (plain is fine)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/3 cup chili powder (approximately)

Before we begin I want to mention some safety precautions. You will be working with very hot chili peppers that can actually burn your skin, eyes, or other places on your body where they might come in contact. After my first experience with chili peppers, I’ve used plastic gloves religiously. Okay, let’s move on with making the sauce. Here are the directions:

1. Rinse off the chile peppers under running water. Place them in a large saucepan and cover generously with water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat off and cover. Let stand covered for 30 to 45 min or until the peppers are soft.

2. Carefully take the chili peppers out of the pot. (I use a slotted spoon Be gentle with the chilis so you don’t take off the now delicate skin.. (Don’t throw out the water. You’ll need it in a minute.) Pull the stems off the chiles and gently rinse off any seeds that may have come loose. Discard stems and seeds.

3. Place the chili peppers in a blender. Then add one cup of the water left over from boiling the peppers.

4. Blend all the peppers until they are pureed – less than 30 seconds.

5. Pour the blender mixture into a sieve over a bowl, and rub through the sieve to eliminate any pulp or seeds.

6. Heat the oil in a medium skillet. Add the diced onion and saute until they start to look translucent.Then add the spices and swirl around in the oil a few minutes until fragrant. You now have a lovely rue.

7. Slowly add the pureed chili and water mixture. Stir it until it’s completely blended. Bring it to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for a few minutes. It will become a little thick. If it becomes too thick, add a little more of the saved water or you could add some stock (chicken or veggie).

Use the sauce with your favorite enchilada recipe. My son learned to make sauce this way when he lived in New Mexico. In that part of the country enchilada are traditionally made flat. The tortillas are laid flat with the filling in between. It’s like a Mexican lasagna.

This recipe is very flexible and very forgiving. You can alter the “heat” of the chilis as well as the spices. You may want to experiment with the cumin or oregano or try others like coriander, etc.  Once you try your own enchilada sauce from scratch, I doubt you’ll ever use the canned stuff again.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

Nothing against a good party, unless you seriously want to watch the game. My husband played football in high school and has been a fan ever since. Football in our house is serious business. We have religiously followed the various teams during the season. Tomorrow’s game will determine which team is the best. We don’t mind being social before and after the game. Just don’t talk about anything except football while the game is being played. (Gossip about the players is permitted.)

Serious football fans at our house are serious about their football food too. I usually prepare a crock-pot full of something that can take care of itself, like chili. Tomorrow’s food will be a combination of the tried and true and a fairly new favorite (Crab Dip). In case you are still looking for an idea for tomorrow, let me tell you what I’m planning.

For half-time:

• Chili with crackers and/or Fritos (An extremely delicious recipe given to me by fellow blogger Alex @ the Children’s War. Alex has the recipe on her Weekend Cooking post today as well. It’s here.)

Snacks during the game:

• French onion dip (from the store) with carrot and celery sticks, radishes, cucumbers
• Crab dip with cucumbers
• Margot’s Shrimp Dip spread on crackers

Most of the others coming over tomorrow will also bring more food, so we’ll not go hungry. I usually set out a bowl of fruit, a bowl of Peanut M & Ms as well and popcorn.

I’ve already featured most of these dishes in the past, so you can click on the title if you’re interested in a recipe. There’s one more favorite snack food that I should mention. I hadn’t planned to make it tomorrow, but I’ll bet lots of other folks will be. It’s my Bacon Cheddar Pinwheels. I gave this recipe on a post last February and it’s become the number one post on my blog. Imagine that!! They are pretty good. Maybe I need to re-think this.  ‎

No matter which team you’re cheering for tomorrow, I hope you have fun and that your food is delicious. If you watch with serious football nuts, try not to talk about anything but football during the game.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

“Seven percent of Americans say they never cook; 30 percent say

they cook three or four times a week.”

I found those statistics hard to believe, so I asked you to tell me your experience with cooking at home. I honestly thought the results of my survey would be skewed in favor of more home food preparation. After all, I was asking this question during the Weekend Cooking post. Weekend Cooking’s bloggers and readers are “foodies.” I thought they would show higher numbers for cooking at home. Here are the results:

Good news: 76% of survey participants eat the majority of their meals at home. That’s 35 people who rely on outside food places for 5 or less meals each week. According to Mark Bittman (and others), these folks are healthier. He believed that, once a person focuses on food at home, they begin to see food in a different way. We begin to see the raw ingredients in light of what they can become. The creative process encourages the home chef to try even  more creative endeavors. In the process, everyone eats healthier.

There are still some of us who see food preparation as a job. I totally understand. I do remember those times, after working all day, when the last thing I wanted to do was face a stove and then all those dirty dishes and bowls and pans. Take-out, fast-food, or restaurants were attractive alternatives. I knew I wasn’t eating healthy, but I was caught in a cycle where other things than food had a higher priority. I’m sure we’ve all been there.

What’s the solution? Mark Bittman has an idea:

“Cooking has to become hip. It has to become

just as much fun, just as prestiious, just as much a part

of the culture as watching others cook.” 

I think he’s on to something there, but I think it’s also something more. Preparing healthy food needs to be fun or hip for everyone. I know many men today are spending more time in the kitchen. That’s a good thing, but I still don’t see many at the grocery store.

Who does the meal planning for the week? I’m suggesting the whole family become involved. I know children can be included in both meal planning and preparation. A good trend is the number of schools whose curriculum includes gardening – the growing of vegetables. I’d love to see that trend extend to more home gardening by children. Even a pot of chives or other herbs would be a good start.

Perhaps those of us who participate in Weekend Cooking can help the 24% of survey participants who prepare few meals at home. Do you have a tip or two for those days when you have very little energy for cooking? Any ideas for quick meals children can help prepare? I’ve given this some thought too. You’re going to see more posts in the weeks ahead that will contain easy, healthy food ideas. I encourage my fellow Weekend Cooking participants to join in.

I played around with some ingredients I had on hand and came up with a new-to-me soup. Fortunately, this one turned out good so I’m willing to share it. This recipe is going to be very casual, just the way I made it.

1. In my large pot (2 quarts) I heated about a tablespoon of olive oil on medium high heat.
2. I added two cups of chopped leeks and two cloves of minced garlic.
3. I stirred and cooked that for about five minutes until the leeks became soft.
4. Then I added a large box (32 oz.) of chicken stock. I turned down the heat to medium low. (This would have been better if I’d had some homemade chicken or vegetable stock, but I didn’t have any. I’ve got to get to it. After all, it’s soup season.)
5. Then I added two cut-up potatoes and stirred everything. I covered the pot and cooked about ten minutes.
6. Next, I opened a can of artichoke hearts. Artichokes? Well, why not give it a try. I drained them and cut off the stem. I chopped them fine, and added them to the soup. I covered the pan again and cooked it for another ten or fifteen minutes.
7. As to seasonings, I only added about a half a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of fresh ground pepper. My husband added a bit more salt and pepper, but for me, that was enough.

Result: Not over the top Wow, but quite delicious. It was just right with a grilled cheese sandwich. I’d love to see what else can be done with this combination. Besides being delicious, it was a one-pot dish and easy. I just did a little chopping and stirring. All in less than an hour. Not bad for a cold winter day.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

According to Mr. Bittman, Americans don’t bother to cook anymore. He said, “Seven percent of Americans say they never cook; 30 percent say they cook three or four times a week.” He said most Americans “rely on anything but cooking to put breakfast, lunch, or dinner on the table.”

I’m having a hard time believing those statistics. I’m not saying Mr. Bittman is wrong. He is a reliable source, a member of the New York Times staff. (I’ve read his column for many years, here.) It’s just that most people I know cook at home. Is my impression wrong? It could be that I only know home cooks, but still – one-third of Americans only cook three or four times a week???

I’ve decided to conduct my own informal survey. I’m asking all of you to participate. Here’s what I want to know:

How often do you cook at home?

It only requires a little simple math. I’m asking you to concerned on the three main meals a day – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Don’t count snacks, unless a snack is your meal, such as popcorn (see last week’s post). For one week, that’s 21 meals. Think back to a recent, typical week. Deduct from 21 meals all the times you didn’t cook.

Example:

21 total meals possible

 -1  dinner out on Saturday night

 -1  ordered pizza

 -1  brought home take-out food

 -5  bought lunch while at work

 13  total meals cooked at home

The survey is located in the right side bar. (See the black and white place setting.)  I’ll let you know the results and more about Mark Bittman’s latest book on Saturday, January 28th. The survey will end January 27th.

One clarification: If you eat a home-cooked meal at a friend’s or family member’s home, that counts as a home-cooked meal.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature at Beth Fish Reads. Click the button below and it will take you there.

Photo credit: Food Clip Art