Armenian Parsley & Walnut Salad

When entertaining last weekend, we did a mixed grill: racks of lamb (3), Sicilian-Italian sausage with cheese in it (about 2 pounds), and some marinated chicken breasts too. We had grilled provolone cheese (I'll post the recipe soon) and some wonderful coriander lime shrimp as appetizers, so wanted a fairly simple side to serve with the meat. This salad came to mind as it's just wonderful with grilled meats, and it has a kind of Italian bent with the Mediterranean olives mixed in.


The recipe came from Nicole Aloni, a Hollywood caterer and cookbook author. She taught a cooking class some years ago, and we all enjoyed the food, but her stories about entertaining the celebs in Hollywood was most interesting. She kind of became a caterer to the stars by default - lucky, I guess - but her food is very good. Nothing healthy about it, usually, although this salad isn't a bad choice. She particularly works at preparing food the day before a party.


The salad is mostly composed of parsley (the curly leafed, not Italian) and toasted walnuts. But it's accented with Kalamata olives, green onions and fresh tomatoes, then tossed with a cumin, lemony dressing. Oh, and a bit of red chile flakes.


Cook's Notes: You could easily change the proportions of these items to suit your tastes, but the parsley needs to be the featured green. Ideally, make this one day ahead, but any longer than that and the parsley wilts down to nothing. Once you've made the salad, taste it and decide if you'd like to add more tomatoes, or parsley. Or perhaps more olives. Chop the olives fairly small, as they can overpower your taste buds if you get much of it in one bite. And don't skip the walnut toasting step - they add a wonderful grace note to the flavor in the overall salad.

Armenian Parsley & Walnut Salad
Recipe By : Nicole Aloni, author and caterer
Serving Size : 8
1 cup walnuts -- chopped, toasted, or almonds
2 bunches parsley -- regular curly, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup kalamata olives -- pitted, minced
1/2 cup scallion -- minced
1 cup fresh tomatoes -- peeled, seeded, chopped
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Kosher salt and pepper to taste
1. Toast nuts at 325° for about 10 minutes. Cool completely before using in the recipe.
2. Remove stems from the parsley and coarsely chop. Do not use a food processor for this as they will be too fine.
3. Chop the olives, walnuts and green onions, then combine all ingredients, tossing with the dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste. Chill.
NOTES : If the tomatoes are out of season, add just a teaspoon of sugar to sweeten them. You can also add mint to this salad if that is a flavor you enjoy. Be sure to use regular curly parsley (not Italian flat leaf) as it gives the salad some "lift." This improves if made a day ahead.
Per Serving: 248 Calories; 24g Fat (82.7% calories from fat); 5g Protein; 7g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 365mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 1/2 Lean Meat; 1/2 Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 4 1/2 Fat.
Printer-friendly recipe, click title at top.

Bishop's Bread - a Christmas keeper - and this is NOT fruitcake!

I've been waiting for months and months to give you this recipe. Since I only make this at Christmas-time, I didn't think it appropriate to share it when the temps outside were in the 90's. Although this is not my original recipe, I will tell you I've been making this for about 40 years, and this is one of those recipes - if you're a regular reader of my blog - that I say - "now, listen up! I'm about to share something important." Hence it is. Important.

My mother's friend Mary gave me this recipe, back in about 1969 or 1970. We had a group of us - 4 women: my mother, Fay, and two of her friends, Esther and Mary, both near her age. And me. We played the Japanese version of Mah Jong about every 2 weeks or so, and one of us provided lunch. It had to coincide with when my daughter, Dana, went down for her nap, so more often than not, it was at my house. After eating the repast we'd then play the game for a couple of hours.

So, Mary brought this, one Mah Jong day, when it was close to Christmas. My mother (and dad both) liked fruitcake. But I never did. Still don't. I've been known to try a nibble, with somebody's prized recipe, thinking that maybe my taste buds have changed, that I've matured somehow. Or that somebody has found some unique new way to make fruitcake palatable. Sorry. No. I still don't like fruitcake. I detest citron, and anything close to it. So, when Mary brought this over, explaining that it was something like fruitcake, I was suspicious. However, she quickly said she didn't like fruitcake, either. Oh good. I became a bishop's bread convert from the first bite. SO:

• I do like maraschino cherries. Certainly I don't eat them 11 months of the year. I mean, where do we ever even SEE maraschino cherries anymore except on some caterer's platter or in a Shirley Temple. I went through a stage in the 1970's when red dye was an anathema, but that didn't keep me from making bishop's bread, I'm sorry to say. So much for my dedication to the shrine of a healthy body! But now they don't use the bad red dye (supposedly), so I hope that since this is only consumed by me for these few, short weeks, maybe I'll live another day.
  And, I like chocolate too. You all already know that. You can use Nestle's chips, or cut up your own, or use some other brand. The better the brand the better the bread. You could use milk chocolate too, I suppose.
• And, I like walnuts.
• But, I don't like fruitcake.
• Enter, ta da: Bishop's Bread!

So, on to this recipe. If you're going to be a stickler for detail, I suppose this does bear some resemblance to fruitcake - it has a similar consistency - chunks of goodies glued together with a basic cake recipe. Kind of like pound cake. But, instead of citron and dried fruit (lemon, lime, orange, red candied cherries, dates, figs, etc) this has nothing but chocolate chips, walnuts and maraschino cherries. The cherries maintain their moistness, and you combine them with walnuts and chocolate, and it's a marriage made in heaven, I say. Yes, it's a bread-like shape, and you slice it like fruitcake, but it isn't. I promise. On my honor.

(left to right: cutting up the maraschino cherries with scissors, and clad in plastic gloves [or buy them already halved at Smart & Final], 4 cups of cherries, the goodies mixed with the dry ingredients, the finished batter mixed up and ready to pour)

You can bake it in bread pans, so you'll have just one loaf using the recipe below. Or, if you're a Bishop's Bread lover, then you bake in large quantity. Today I made a quadruple batch. It would make 4 bread pans full, but I had some smaller, cute little cardboard ones that are perfect for giving away (picture above). I made seven of them and one loaf pan. I'll keep the loaf sized one and very judiciously give away the others. Only to very special friends. You can interchange nuts if you'd prefer something different. And if you don't like maraschino, then substitute apricots, perhaps, or dried cranberries maybe. But it won't be the same.

Over the years I've tried to find out the history of this bread/cake. The internet hasn't been of much help other than to give me several similar recipes (purportedly dating to the 1950's) with candied cherries, sometimes almonds or pecans, chocolate, and dates. I did see a couple with maraschino cherries, so this must have been somebody's interpretation. Obviously, the way-back origin must be religious in some way with the word "bishop" in the title. I did find this, though:

• Any purchased or homemade cake decorated with the bishop's name and a tiny mitre can be used on the feast of a bishop-saint, the traditional cake is Bischofsbrot or "Bishop's Bread." (this was from a Catholic Church website)

It probably did have candied cherries in it at one time. Whatever it is, I adore this bread. And if you're a regular reader of my blog, and you like my recipes, then I sincerely request that you make this bread. Post Haste.

Bishop's Bread
Recipe: Mary Wilfert
Servings: 20 (slices)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup sugar
2 cups walnuts -- chopped
1 cup maraschino cherries -- drained, halved [or buy them in a great big jar at Smart & Final where they're already halved for you]
3 whole eggs
1. Preheat oven to 325°. Grease a bread pan and line the bottom with waxed paper (yes, it's important). Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add chocolate chips, walnuts and cherries and stir to coat the cherries.
2. With mixer, combine eggs and sugar, add to flour mixture and stir gently, but well, until combined. You don't want to see any pockets of dry flour. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 90 minutes. Test to make sure it's done. If baking in smaller pans, start checking for doneness at 60 minutes. Continue baking as needed and test at 5-minute intervals. Remove pan to a rack and allow to cool in the pan. When cool, remove and wrap well, or place in plastic bags and refrigerate. Per Serving: 255 Calories; 13g Fat (42.8% calories from fat); 6g Protein; 33g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 32mg Cholesterol; 82mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1/2 Grain(Starch); 1/2 Lean Meat; 2 1/2 Fat; 1 1/2 Other Carbohydrates.
To print a PDF recipe, click title at top.

Brownie Thins (cookies)

It may be a bit hard to see here, but those cookies are thin. THIN. Really THIN. But chocolately, rich, just like eating the top off of a rich brownie. Or maybe the very top of a muffin, even.

Usually when we return from a European trip, I'm craving salads and greens, and vegetables. Not so this time because we had ample on the ship. In fact, Lucy and I raved about the quality of the designer lettuces they served at the salad bar every day. Absolutely fresh from the fields that very day. And delicious dressings, all home made. But what I did crave upon our return was chocolate. We had almost none on the trip. A couple of times we had chocolate sauce on vanilla ice cream, and we had something similar at the dinner at Gundel. And one night they offered a chocolate terrine. I was sad to decline that but I knew the caffeine would keep me awake that night. But otherwise, chocolate didn't figure much in the shipboard menus.

So, since the cookie barrel is empty around here, I decided to make something chocolate. I was leafing through the December issue of Bon Appetit (how come I'm getting the December issue in the first or 2nd week of November, I ask you?), and spotted these chocolate thins.

These are made in a bowl, so quite easy. It couldn't have taken more than 15 minutes to complete the preparation, and another 20 minutes max to bake them all. Pretty cinchy. And, they are really delicious. But I do warn: they're very fragile. I'll have to figure out how to package these carefully so they don't break - they tend to break in half very easily. But they're very tasty.

Added note 3 days later: these cookies are so, SO thin, they're not easy to serve. You pick them up and they break apart, I'm sad to say. So, make them a bit thicker when you pat out the dough, and make sure they are getting browned around the edges. These are soft cookies - there's nothing crispy about them. But the chocolately taste is wonderful.

You whip these up in a bowl - no mixer needed. I used good Scharffen Berger unsweetened chocolate in these.

There they are on the Silpat before baking. It's a bit tricky spraying the plastic wrap, laying it over the little blobs of dough, then very gently patting the cookies out thin. I wonder if I made them a tad too thin? Maybe next time I'll try them a bit thicker just to see. Once you remove the plastic wrap, you add the nuts. I used walnuts because that's what I had on hand.

Brownie Thins
Recipe: Andrew Schloss, "Homemade in a Hurry" via Bon Appetit, Dec. 2007
Servings: 24
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate -- chopped
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 piece kosher salt
1/4 cup pistachio nut -- or walnuts
1. Position rack in lower third of oven. Preheat to 350. Butter 2 baking sheets. (I used a silpat in each).
2. Place butter and chocolate in a microwave-safe medium sized bowl. Microwave on medium-high power until almost completely melted, about one minutes. Whisk until smooth. Add sugar and egg and whisk until smooth, about one minute. Add flour (both quantities), both extracts and salt, stir just to blend. Let batter sit for 10 minutes.
3. Scoop rounded teaspoons batter onto prepared sheets, spacing apart (12 per pan). Spray a sheet of plastic wrap with nonstick spray and place, sprayed side down, on top of cookies. Using your fingers, press each mound into 2 1/2 to 2/3/4 inch rounds. Remove plastic wrap. Sprinkle nuts on top.
4. Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, until slightly darker at edges and firm in center, about 7 minutes. Cool on rack for 2 minutes, then transfer cookies to rack and cool completely. Can be made 5 days ahead and stored at room temperature.
NOTES : These taste just like the way the very top layer of a brownie tastes. They're extremely fragile until they're cool, and even then, they're still fragile. Let them cool completely and put waxed paper or plastic wrap between layers.
Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 69 Calories; 5g Fat (62.1% calories from fat); 1g Protein; 6g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 17mg Cholesterol; 82mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 1 Fat; 1/2 Other Carbohydrates.
To view a PDF recipe, click title at top.

What's New about Chocolate Chip Cookies

I come from the school of taste that says cookies are supposed to be crisp. I suppose I should qualify that - most cookies are meant to be crisp. Surely there are some that simply can't be crisp by their very nature. My mother loved persimmons, and every year she made persimmon cookies. More like little bite-sized cakes than cookies to me. I like persimmons, but not that kind of soft cookie. My preference, always, is for crisp. Some years ago I read a very in-depth article in Gourmet Magazine about cookie standards, and exactly what makes a cookie come out crisp vs. soft, vs. crisp outside, soft inside. That kind of thing. It was fascinating reading the chemistry of it all. I still have the article, although I rarely refer to it.

One thing I know for sure is that using butter makes for a crisp cookie. I haven't used margarine for anything in many, many years. I used to use Plugra unsalted for all my baking, but have found that it's too HIGH in butterfat, if you can believe that! So I use grocery store types at the high price end because I don't want butter that is watered down. Grocery store brands usually contain less butterfat and added water. So I use Danish Creamery, or something similar. I always keep a pound of butter in the refrigerator and usually one in the freezer. Just in case I feel inspired.

Last night after I'd gone upstairs to go to bed, my DH's blood sugar went a little low, so he rooted in the freezer hoping to find a frozen cookie somewhere. No luck whatsoever. We ate the last of the homemade cookies about 3 months ago. Since my broken foot on July 6th, there's been zip-zero-nada baking going on in this kitchen unless he did it. He's never made cookies in his entire life, so that wasn't about to happen! But, now that I have my walking papers, he said, please make some cookies. As a Type I diabetic, my DH doesn't eat many desserts. Or at least, he's very careful about when and why he eats anything sweet. But he does enjoy an occasional cookie. Some sweets I'm able to incorporate Splenda, so he can have all he wants. I have yet to try chocolate chip cookies using all Splenda. They might be just fine.

Over the years I've collected plenty of cookie recipes and make a variety throughout the year, and enjoy having something stashed in the freezer for the occasional afternoon cup of tea, or a snack now and then. My first choice, though, is always chocolate chip. It used to be the usual back-of-the-bag Nestle's recipe. But, because I've had trouble a time or two with the recipe (the cookies would come out too flat) I've made one significant change to the master recipe: I add approximately one tablespoon of additional flour to the mixing bowl. If I happen to use Plugra butter (remember, more butterfat) I add 2 tablespoons. I'm also a fan of chocolate chip cookies WITH nuts. Any nuts could be okay, but walnuts just float my boat, as they say. So, these cookies are chocolate chocolate chip walnut cookies.

This time I wanted to do something different, so I added 2 heaping tablespoons of Dutch process cocoa to the batter too. And, I used Nestle's relatively new "Chcolatier" chips that are made with bittersweet chocolate, rather than the usual milk chocolate chips in the yellow bag. So these are really chocolate bittersweet chocolate-chip cookies with walnuts, with 1 T. of added flour.

A few months ago I had trouble finding Dutch Process cocoa when I ran out, so since I needed some new spices and herbs anyway, I ordered it through Penzey's. If you don't know about Penzey's, you're missing a real treat. I buy nearly all my herbs and spices from them now. Even though I live in a busy urban area teeming with grocery stores, and my local markets carry just about everything. But nobody had Dutch Process cocoa. This cocoa from Penzey's is fragrant and dark. The label says it has twice as much cocoa in it as grocery store varieties. Good!

I don't know about you, but I always make one pan of cookies to make sure the batter is right. That's what I did here, and they came out just fine. And if you don't have one of these scoops shown above, you should. If you're a cookie baker, this scoop makes short work of putting the dough onto sheets. I use large sheet pans with a Silpat on each one. There are three sizes of scoops - they're made in Britain. This one is the tablespoon size. The larger is more for muffin sized scoops. The smallest, the teaspoon size, I don't know what I'd use for. My scoop came from the Baker's Catalog (the one associated with King Arthur Flour). Click here if you're interested.

If you want the recipe, click here for the original Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie from Nestle's site. If you use rich butter, just add a T. of extra flour, and about 2 T. of Dutch Process cocoa. Dutched cocoa is processed differently than regular cocoa, a very fine smooth powder that easily dissolves in liquid and disperses in baked goods.

So, DH, these are for you. Look in the freezer in the Ziploc bags in the door. So, excuse me, I need to make a cup of tea.

Apple, Dried Cherry and Walnut Green Salad

(photo from wholefoodsmarkets.com)
There's maple syrup in this salad dressing. Sounds way too sweet, doesn't it? Well, it is on the sweet side for a green salad, I'll admit. But there is something seductive about the mixture of mayo, maple syrup and champagne wine vinegar. You counter the sweet with the vinegar, and it's sublime. Usually I serve this in the Fall, and we're steamy here in So. California these days, so I'm waiting for the new crop of apples to come in before I make this again. Although Granny Smiths are good year around, I know. This is kind of reminiscent of a waldorf salad, except there isn't any celery in it. So think of this as a waldorf-ish green salad maybe.

This came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey, a cooking instructor I've mentioned before on this blog. She has such a creative culinary mind. I'm not that inventive - sure, I can put something together if the ingredients are plopped down in front of me, but I'd never have thought to make a salad dressing with mayo and maple syrup. And the combo of the apples, dried cherries and walnuts too.

I think there are too many apples in this salad, although maybe Phillis wanted the apples to be predominant. I prefer to make the lettuce the star (I may use more greens than noted) and the dressing shines through. Then the fruit comes in as secondary. The recipe below is exactly as Phillis made it, with my notes in parens. But, as you start thinking about apples, maybe you'll think about this salad. It's excellent in whatever proportion you choose to use!

Apple, Dried Cherry and Walnut Salad
Recipe By :From a cooking class with Phillis Carey
Servings: 8
DRESSING:
6 tablespoons mayonnaise
6 tablespoons maple syrup
4 1/2 tablespoons champagne wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
SALAD:
10 ounces baby lettuce leaves (I use more)
4 whole Granny Smith apple -- or pears (I use 1, not 4)
3/4 cup dried cherries -- not sweetened
3/4 cup chopped walnuts -- toasted
1. Dressing: whisk mayonnaise, syrup, vinegar and sugar in a medium bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in oil mixture, until it is slightly thickened. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Will keep in refrigerator for 2-3 days.
2. In a large salad bowl combine the lettuce, cherries and half of the toasted nuts. It is not necessary to peel the apples or pears, but you may if you choose. Cut the apples into julienne strips and add to the salad, then toss with enough dressing to coat the salad.
3. Divide salad equally onto 8 plates and sprinkle with remaining walnuts.
NOTES : This has a sweet tinge, obviously, with the maple syrup as a sweetener, but it's very tasty and easy. It helps if you have a mandoline to do the julienne apple strips.
To view a printable recipe, click on title at top.