chicken with olives and roasted lemons

DELICIOUS! A Lydia Bastianich recipe that I played with.

Here's what I did:

Slice 2 lemons thinly . Place on parchment paper on a baking tray. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Roast in the oven at 375 for about 15-20 minutes until browned on edges.

Meantime:

Salt, pepper and flour boneless skinless chicken breast.

Heat olive oil in skillet over high heat. Add chicken and saute until brown each side about 6 minutes total.

Add chicken broth, 2 T capers, sliced green Italian olives, some chopped fresh tomatoes and cook about 8 minutes until reduced.

Add chopped parsley, spinach, 1T butter and the lemons for about a minute or two. Season with S and P and serve hot.

A hit all around. No exact amounts because I winged it. The sauce was so good!

Maui

It's amazing how it's only been a week but it seems so much longer than that.

I enjoyed Maui a lot but still Hawaii is my favorite. We did manage to find some authentic areas there---down from Haleakala in the Surfing Goat Dairy area and that coolest of cool spot: Makena!

The sushi at Sansei Sushi in Kihei was killer.

The girls loved seeing celebrities at the hotel. I loved being away. The best thing I did: NO EMAIL for 10 days..aahhh!

ballerinas help make life more beautiful...

don't they?

Randomness

I couldn't help myself today. When I went to the nursery there were all these lovely plants, just calling out to me to buy them. They even have some heirloom tomatoes and peppers there. I know it's a little too early with MayGray/JuneGloom coming up but I had to. This is the beauty of living in SoCal. The state may be belly-up, but the weather still is perfect.

Good words of advice I'd gotten in the past that we were laughing about yesterday:

"Never say yes right away. Say I'll get back to you on that"

"I will work for what you pay me."

"You want me to do that for free? Would a lawyer do that for free?"

These are all very funny and very relevant given the day's events yesterday. Now let's see if the change is going to come.

LJ Farmer's Market

Our favorite: mango with lime and pico

Gorgeous broccoli and all kinds of beans you can imagine.

Love this potato stand. We got the best yams for Thanksgiving ever here.

Kid trying to start the engine while I admire the citrus.

It's almost spring but some of the best looking salad greens are here.

Got a bunch of the pink ones today and they are delicious.

Lettuces and mushrooms.

Love the Farmer's Market on Sundays.

My favorite flower stand. The nicest guy works here and these tulips last a week easy.

English peas are so sweet and the bunch onions are great in cooking.




My favorite fruit stand.

Killer Pink Ladies. We buy a ton to last one week...and they will last maybe 3 days.

There are these Farmer Market snobs in San Diego. This one at LJ is truly wonderful but because there are crafts, the CH'ers knock it and say it's not authentic. But most everything here is organic and there are superb stands with crepes, mini donuts, the best Mexi food, East African stand (my favorite),etc etc. And where else can you buy gorgeous bonsai, buddha bracelets, undersea treasures and the freshest produce. So yah, Hillcrest and Little Italy have some great stuff: HC has the largest produce selection and LI has cheese and meat but I love LJ!

Pear cake

Today's project is Mom's Pear Cake. I loved it so many years ago and since it's raining and blustery in San Diego, it will make the house smell good and feel cozy.
The mise en place.

The pears actually are beautiful at Von's. Screw locavore, we want pear cake today!

Mixing the diced pears into the batter.

I love my hand mixer. I'd been only using the Kitchen Aid stand mixer but I love my new hand one. It's what I'd always used many years ago and it's the only thing mom used and it's her pear cake recipe after all.

Covering the batter with the sour cream mix, to be followed by chopped walnuts, sugar and cinnamon.

40minutes later!

A couple minutes after that! It is delicious and we all enjoyed pear cake after our whole wheat penne with chicken, broccoli and sundried tomato dinner.

YUM!

PEAR CAKE

1-2 Bartlett pears peeled and diced

1/2 c milk

1 1/2 c flour

1/4 c softened butter

1/2 c sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 c sour cream

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon, divided

1/3 c chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375. Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon (1/2 tsp) and salt. Cream butter with 1/2 c sugar until smooth then add one egg and milk and mix until smooth. Blend in flour mix. Pour into 9 x 9x 2 greased and floured baking pan. Mix sour cream with one egg until smooth and spread on top of batter. Mix nuts, 1/4 c sugar and 1/2 t cinnamon together and sprinkle on top of mix. Bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes, until cake tester comes out clean.

Yum!

January in So Cal

Beautiful and we love it!

This is not to make you jealous if you don't live here but to show my appreciation

Happy Bday from scratch

No formal quinceaneras here. Just a family day and nice dinner out. So I will make 2 kinds of cupcakes from scratch...on a very hot SantaAna day here in SoCal. Found the carrot one by googling (forget which site it was) and red velvet ones courtesy of the RecipeGirl of course.

Mise en place? Sorta--I pulled the ingredients out at least.

It's not a birthday without candles.

I could eat this right now, but I won't

Composter gets fed too.

Carrot cupcakes sans icing.

Gifts, cards and cupcakes!

And balloons. Happy Birthday, sweeties!!

Food Poisoning sucks

Ok, no photos for this one and you are thankful.
We flew back from NY on NYEve. We all had different things for b-fast and on the plane the kids had Zone bars and coke and we just had different airport stuff....no common denominator.
Got home around 6 and it's just too late to pick up salmon from El Pescador so we decided to do our fave local Greek place. But they are booked, so I order takeout. Well, as it ends up only one kid had her own special dish and the rest of us shared all the same stuff. Bill ate the most and by 11pm, he was barfing big time. Next gal goes down around 1am after keeping me up with her misery for an hour or so. By 5, I who ate the least, am worshiping at the porcelain god. Gal 2 and I are fine after the initial insult come Rose Parade time but Bill is a mess until well into 2009. Gal 1 is unscathed having only had her special dish and no sharing.

It doesn't take 2 MDs to figure out it's food poisoning and by the timing, it's likely Staphylococcus. Google it to find out how it gets into food and then you will feel sick too.
So no NY champagne and basically Gatorade, jello, bananas and chicken broth until Jan 3. Nina wonders how she lucked out to only love the gyros.

I got a nice response from the manager although it was to offer another free entree and not to fire the loser who was contaminating the food as I'd asked. I wrote him only to make sure it doesn't happen again. The worst thing a restaurant can do is to poison their customers (not to overcharge during restaurant week). And (I understand why he had to do this) he said his restaurant was perfect and maybe we ate something else or even had a little too much bubbly. No sir, no bubbly for us this year...we were too busy returning the Greek food in the bathroom!

So for the second time in my life I have gotten food poisoning that I am sure of and it is awful. Sucks because I loved their food in the past and we rarely eat out so this is a double insult.

If you can, just cook yourself---per Bittman--it's so much nicer. Although I am happy having survived the "barnyardish" wontons at Big Wong King in Chinatown over Christmas!

In the pantry

Yes, that's premade chicken stock there!

In the icebox, yes, premade pie crusts too!

I love Mark Bittman and I love him on the "Spain on the Road again" PBS series with Mario (Gweneth not so much at all). He has a great article in the NYT this week on what you need in your pantry. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/dining/07mini.html?_r=2&ref=dining

I am happy to see I have everything he lists and then some. But there are 2 things I just must disagree on: dried beans only and no premade pie crusts. With 2 kids that are really liking to do some cooking and long job hours for me, these 2 are life savers. Sure, I could put those dried cannelini in the pressure cooker but that is still 45 minutes and yet another pot. So I will use dried beans when I can but never will I ban the canned ones from the pantry.

Premade pie crusts? My MIL made a lovely pie once and knowing she is one of ultimate convenience, I wondered how she had the patience to make such a good crust. She revealed her secret of Pillsbury in the refrigerator section. They are good, yes they are. When I was on call for the entire 4 day Thanksgiving weekend, Nina went into high gear and made the pies and she did a great job with the pre-made crusts. And a little less cleanup when I did get home (yes, they haven't quite mastered the cleaning up after cooking part!) They do have their place and I do have a pack in the freezer as I type.

So, yeah Bitty, I do agree almost all the way, but do not take away these two. I'm also coming around to the homemade stock concept. I had to figure out, however, you do not just pitch the bags in the freezer. They conform to the shelves and you can't get them out without thawing the whole freezer!