Flat but good

Peanut Butter Jumbos
The Great American Cookie Cookbook Copyright 2001

½ cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 ½ cup peanut butter
3 eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 ½ cup uncooked old-fashioned oats
1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup candy-coated chocolate pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Beat butter, sugars, peanut butter and eggs in large bowl until well blended. Blend in baking soda, vanilla and oats until well mixed. Stir in chocolate chips and candy pieces.

Scoop out about 1/3 cup dough for each cookie (I used my 2-tblsp cookie scoop). Place on prepared cookie sheets, spacing about 4 inches apart. Press each cookie to flatten slightly. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until firm in center. (My smaller cookies took about 12 minutes.) Remove to wire racks to cool.

Makes about 1 ½ dozen cookies. (I got 4 1/2 dozen)

I didn't realize these were flourless cookies until I started making them. But it was too late to turn back so I gave them a try. These are very flat cookies. I don't mind the structural flatness but I think they could have used a touch of salt to perk up the flavor. I wasn't sure that I would make these again when I first tasted them, after baking them. But when I ate one (okay, two) for breakfast the next day, I decided that I would probably make these again, with a touch of salt added to the recipe. These are chewy and filling so they'll make a nice snack too. Oatmeal is healthy, right?

Another recipe from The Great American Cookie Cookbook. Previously I made the Cherry Butterscotch Bars. This cookbook is great for finding a recipe for just about any type of cookie or bar you could possibly want.

Better than a highball

One-Pan Whiskey-Flavored Pork Chops
The Best of Cooking Light Copyright 2004

2/3 cup fat-free sour cream I used light sour cream
½ cup water
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried rubbed sage
¼ teaspoon black pepper
4 (6-ounce) bone-in center-cut pork chops, trimmed I used boneless loin chops
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon olive oil
½ cup chopped onion
1 (8-ounce) package presliced mushrooms
½ cup whiskey

1. Preheat over to 300 degrees.
2. Combine the first six ingredients in a small bowl.
3. Sprinkle the pork with ¼ teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Heat oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork; sauté 5 minutes on each side until golden. Remove pork from pan. Add onion and mushrooms to pan; sauté 3 minutes. Carefully add whiskey to pan and cook 1 minute or until liquid almost evaporates. Stir sour cream mixture into pan. Return pork to pan; spoon sauce over pork.
4. Wrap the handle of the skillet with foil. Cover and bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour. Serve immediately.

This recipe is definitely a keeper. It has a spicy, peppery taste which I think is from the whiskey since there isn't an unusual amount of pepper in these. There isn't a pronounced whiskey taste either so I'm guessing the whiskey brings that peppery flavor to the table.

I didn't have the guts to use fat-free sour cream but Cooking Light is usually pretty good about not sacrificing taste over fat so I don't think they would have called for fat-free if it wouldn't work. I just couldn't bring myself to buy fat-free sour cream.

I have a year's worth of Cooking Light magazine in my collection but it's difficult to track down recipes in the individual issues. The Best of Cooking Light is much easier to work with. What I like about the people at Cooking Light is that I really believe they try to make food that tastes good, first and foremost. They'll use higher-fat ingredients in moderation when necessary. This is a very usable cookbook for anyone, not just dieters. We should all be cooking like this, most of the time anyway.

Lemon in meatballs - yay or nay?

Meatballs With Fusilli
The Essential Pasta Cookbook Copyright 1998

1 ½ lbs pork and veal or beef mince I used beef and pork
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley I used dried parsley
1 egg, beaten
1 clove garlic, crushed
rind and juice of 1/2 lemon
¼ cup plain flour, seasoned
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb fusilli I used mafalda, mini lasagne

Sauce
14 oz can tomato purée
½ cup beef stock
½ cup red wine
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1 clove garlic, crushed

1. In a large bowl, combine the mince, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, onion, parsley, egg, garlic, lemon rind and juice and salt and pepper, to taste. Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and roll in the seasoned flour.
2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the meatballs until golden. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towels. Remove the excess fat and meat juices from the pan.
3. To make the sauce, in the same pan, combine the tomato purée, stock, wine, basil, garlic, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil.
4. Reduce the heat and return the meatballs to the pan. Allow to simmer 10-15 minutes.
5. While the meatballs and sauce are cooking, add the fusilli to a large pan of rapidly boiling salted water and cook until al dente. Drain and serve with meatballs and sauce over top.

There was no fusilli to be found in my grocery store so I settled on mafalda, mini lasagne. And I did something I rarely do, I overcooked my pasta. Shame, shame.

I'm not sure how I felt about these meatballs. They weren't my favorite. I wasn't crazy about the lemon. But I loved, LOVED, this sauce and I loved the tang. Was that from the lemon in the meatballs? If it is, I think I would just use the juice next time, not the zest of the lemon.

The Essential Pasta Cookbook is one of my two favorite cookbooks as far as photography goes. The other is The Essential Appetizers Cookbook. They're both the same basic design - large, gorgeous glossy paperbacks. Pure food porn. The few recipes I've tried from them haven't been half-bad either.

Stinky but yummy

Seared Salmon with Balsamic Glaze
The Gourmet Cookbook Copyright 2004

¼ cup balsamic vinegar
¼ cup water
1 ½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon packed light brown sugar
4 (6 oz) center cut pieces salmon fillet with skin
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Stir together vinegar, water, lemon juice and brown sugar in a small bowl.

Pat salmon dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 2-onch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Increase heat to high, add salmon skin side up, and sear until well browned, about 4 minutes. Turn fish over and sear until just cooked through 3-4 minutes more.

Transfer salmon to plates and carefully add vinegar mixture to skillet (liquid will bubble vigorously and steam). Simmer, stirring, until thickened and reduced to about 1/3 cup, about 2 minutes. Spoon glaze over salmon.

Since my husband was having leftover Peasant Goulash tonight (see previous post) I had to scrounge something up for myself. I keep salmon portions on hand so I pulled one out of the freezer this morning. I quartered the recipe. This was wonderful. If I didn't hate the way my house smells after cooking salmon, I would make this more often. I think the glaze might be good with chicken too.

I paid more for The Gourmet Cookbook than any other book in my collection, $25. For that reason, if no other, I plan on trying plenty of recipes from this book. Most of the recipes are probably a bit too sophisticated for us but there look to be plenty of winners buried in there.

Cooking for Oscar Madison

I spend a good deal of time planning meals, choosing recipes to try, grocery shopping and actually cooking of course. All that effort is lost on my husband who immediately covers his food in condiments - bbq sauce, hot sauce, steak sauce, etc. If he doesn't recognize what I'm serving, he doesn't ask 'what is this?', he asks 'what can I put on this?' It doesn't matter if what I make has a sauce of it's own, it still gets covered up. I can hardly take this personally as he does this without even tasting the food.

Last night when he came home from work, there were egg noodles on the stove and the peasant goulash was in the refrigerator (I had cooked in overnight in the crockpot). I heard him open the refrigerator door and he called to me in the other room 'do I just put this on top?' and I answered 'yes'. When I came back into the kitchen, he had put together a plate of egg noodles, topped with the pasta with cauliflower and cheddar cheese that I made for my lunch this week. Pasta on top of pasta bubbling away in the microwave. I told him he was supposed to take the goulash but apparently it required to much thinking and/or effort to fix his mistake and he ate the pasta and cauliflower on top of the egg noodles for dinner (covered in condiments, I'm sure.)