Amaretti

These little cookies are perfect to enjoy with an espresso.

Ingredients

2-1/2 cups almond meal flour
1-1/2 cup sugar
3 egg whites
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp orange extract
Almond slices


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line baking sheets with parchment.
Beat egg whites into stiff peaks. Fold in almond meal, sugar, and extracts.

Scoop 1/2 teaspoon of dough, roll into ball, and place on baking sheet.  Place almond slice on cookie. Repeat, setting subsequent balls about 1 inch apart.  Bake until just golden.  Start checking at 10 minutes.  Remember, oven temperatures vary; in my electric oven, they are done in 10 to 12 minutes and in my very slow gas oven, it takes 20 minutes.    Cool on parchment paper before handling cookies.

Easy Meatballs

Ingredients

1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 lb. hot Italian sausage
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg
1/3 cup Betty Crocker Potato Buds
1 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbs finely diced onion
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp garlic powder

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
Place a rack over the baking sheet; spray rack with nonstick cooking spray.

Combine all the ingredients together in a large bowl.  Lightly form 1-1/4 inch meatballs.  Place meatballs on the rack and bake for 15 minutes or until meatballs have reached an internal temperature of 160 degrees.

Told you it was easy!

Upgrade Tuna Salad

Try adding a 1/4 cup of toasted walnut pieces, along with diced celery, mayo, and a pinch of salt, to your next batch of tuna salad. Delicious!

A Favorite Breakfast #1

A ripe Bartlett pear, a few walnuts, and a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese (Swiss light).  A little fruit, a little fat and a little protein:  Perfect!

Chocolate Bark

 

Chocolate bark is easy to make, and it is a terrific gift to bring to a host or hostess.  The key is good chocolate; use the best you can buy.  The bark pictured above was made with Velrhona French chocolate, 70 percent cocoa.  After melting the chocolate and spreading it over a sheet pan lined with parchment paper, pistachio nuts and dried cherries were sprinkled on top along with a little salt.  Delicious.

August Clam Bake

You don't have to be at the shore to enjoy a delicious clam bake.  We put one together at home with fresh corn and potatoes from the farmers' market, and clams, mussels, and rock lobster tails from our local fish monger.  Fantastic!

Thanks to my husband, Bill, who was the chef for this wonderful feast.

Absolutely Delicious, No. 1, Oven-Fried Chicken Thighs

I've been trying to assemble a recipe that makes crispy, moist chicken without too much added fat.  Instead of lots of oil and butter, to pump up flavor this recipe uses chicken thighs.  Thighs are not as lean as chicken breasts, but have a much superior taste. And since I'm only eating one piece of chicken, I do want it to taste delicious.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

4 large bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
2 packages Saco Powdered Buttermilk
2 cups water
Tabasco Sauce

1 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour
1/3 cup corn meal
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
2 Tbs olive oil
cooking spray

The morning before cooking this chicken:

Reconstitute two packages of Powdered Buttermilk with 2 cups of water in a bowl large enough to also hold all the chicken pieces.  Add a few shakes of Tabasco Sauce to the buttermilk and stir to combine.  Add the chicken, cover the bowl, and refrigerate.

When ready to cook:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.  Place a rack over the sheet, and lightly oil the rack to prevent the chicken from sticking.  I rub the rack with grape seed oil, but you could also spray it with cooking spray.

Combine the flour, cornmeal, salt and pepper in a bowl.  Pour the mixture onto a plate.*  Remove a piece of chicken from the buttermilk marinade.  Allow excess marinade to drip off.  Sprinkle a little salt on the chicken, and then dredge it in the flour mixture.  Repeat with the remaining pieces of chicken.

Put the 2 Tbs of olive oil into a large fry pan and heat over medium.  Brown the chicken in the oil, 2 to 4 minutes a side.  Place the browned chicken on the rack and lightly spray the chicken pieces with cooking spray.  Place the rack into the oven for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is done.

Serve it up!  Yum!!

* You should have more than enough of the flour mixture than necessary to coat four chicken thighs.  When breading chicken, I prefer to have more than I need because running short is extremely aggravating.

Artisan Vanilla Extract

In April I bought a bunch of vanilla beans and began the process of making vanilla extract following the directions at Vanilla Review.  Today for the first time I used my extract and made sugar cookies.  To add to the vanilla of it all, I sprinkled the cookies with vanilla-flavored sugar.

The cookies are great, and making the extract has been fun.  Can't wait to continue tasting my "artisan" vanilla extract as its flavor continues to mature.