Tarragon and Chives

oatmeal chocolate chip muffins Mix in a medium size bowl: 4 mashed bananas 1/3 cup almond butter 1/4 cup honey 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1/3 cup almond milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Stir in: 1&1/2 cups rolled oats 3/4 cup all purpose flour 1&1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon sea salt 1&1/2 teaspoons cinnamon Fold in: 1/2 cup chopped almonds 2 tablespoons hemp seeds 2 tablespoons flax 1/2 cup chocolate chips Bake: 350 F, 18-22 minutes Makes a dozen muffins

Chermoula is a Moroccan marinade that packs spices  (garlic, cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, cilantro) into a healthy diet.  Chermoula is especially good on a cauliflower salad and also can be used as a marinade to liven up chicken before grilling.  I prefer to use  heads of purple and/or yellow cauliflower in my salad. for the salad 1 large head of cauliflower or 2 smaller ones that include a purple cauliflower, cut into florets 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, enough to drizzle over the cauliflower 1/2 red onion, sliced about 1/4 inch thick 1 cup shredded carrots 1/2 cup raisins 2 tablespoons fresh chopped cilantro 2 tablespoons sliced toasted almonds Preheat the oven to 400F Line a baking sheet with parchment, spread out the cauliflower(s) and drizzle with olive oil, sea salt and pepper.  Bake for about 15 minutes, add the onion slices and stir the mixture.  Roast until tender and everything is slightly charred on the edges (10-15 more minutes). ...

Salade Kale Quinoa Apple Pecan with Feta  1&1/2 cups water or vegetable broth  3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained 1/2 cup dried cranberries  6 cups curly leaf kale, washed, rinsed, trimmed and chopped Sea salt  1 Fuji apple, cored and thinly sliced 1 small shallot, thinly sliced 1/3 cup toasted pecans, chopped 2 ounces crumbled Feta 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard  1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon maple syrup 1 tablespoon lemon juice Piment d’Espelette, to taste, or a generous pinch Freshly ground fermented white pepper, to taste In a medium saucepan bring the water or vegetable broth to a boil and add the quinoa, reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes or until water is absorbed and quinoa is tender.  Fluff with a fork and place the cranberries on top.  Cover the pan and let steam for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, place the kale in a large salad bowl and season with the sea salt, rub in about 1 teaspoon salt and massage with y...

We loved this dense chocolate-y not too sweet cake made with my favorite unsalted Irish butter, unsweetened cocoa powder and Guinness extra stout.  This simple dark chocolate cake is then iced with a luscious cream cheese frosting that transforms the cake into a lookalike frothy pint.  I'm thinking this will be my go to chocolate cake for a gathering, serves 12 generously.  Wonderful for a Saint Patrick celebration with family and friends. This recipe comes from Nigella Lawson (NYT food section) I have made a few adjustments to the following recipe for my taste.  For the Cake 1 cup Guinness extra stout 10 tablespoons unsalted Kerrygold Irish ☘️  butter, cut into pieces 3/4 Cup unsweetened European style cocoa powder 2 cups extra fine sugar 3/4 cup sour cream 2 large eggs 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 & 1/2 teaspoons baking soda For the Frosting 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature  1 & 1/2 cups confectioners sugar 1/3...

 This rich and tender lemony almond flavored pound cake uses at least two of the Meyer lemons from my fully loaded potted Meyer lemon tree.  I can't think of a better use of my lemons.  My side yard neighbor has a huge lemon tree covered with lemons all year round, I see it from my kitchen window -which is very nice. I asked him what he does with all his lemons and he told me that each year he donates bags of lemons to a crab feed.  I noticed that he also leaves bags of lemons in front of his house for neighbors. I'm sharing this lemon almond pound cake recipe because it's just so good baked with the sliced almonds on top and lemony glaze, not bad looking either. 1&1/2 cups all-purpose flour 4 large eggs, room temperature 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, plus 1/4 cup -for the glaze 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest, plus 3 tablespoons lemon juice, divided-for the glaze 1 cup almond flour 1&1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 tea...

Carrot and leek soup is a bowl of sunshine in winter, specifically for dinner on a rainy gray January evening.  A bight flavored easy to make carrot soup embellished with a spoonful of mellow miso, a dusting of Rangpur lime zest with freshly snipped marjoram minced over warm creamy tops with a sprinkle of fleur de sel, reminding me of warmer al fresco dinners in the south of France.  This is the first installment of my soup and wine blog series.  I'm starting with a light but tasty winter soup, a soup that goes well with wine.  We start our soup and wine night by greeting guests with a Kir Royale, made with French champagne Laurent-Perrier and a spoonful of Crème de Cassis served in a flute.  I like to serve cheesy  gougères  from my blog to nibble, followed by a glass of Williams Selyem "Estate Vineyard" Russian River Valley Chardonnay to accompany our carrot and leek soup with miso, lime and marjoram.  A fun evening was had by all.  I ...

  The world's easiest deep dish cheesy pizza just became easier when I discovered SF Joe's Original house made pizza dough and sauce available for pick up anytime.  The first time I made a deep dish pizza in a skillet I used traditional homemade tomato pizza sauce, caprese mozzarella balls and homemade pesto sauce.  We loved this simple cheesy pizza with crispy edges and pesto flavors.  I've made it a few times for dinner, served with a green salad and a glass of red wine.  But after I discovered the pizza dough and sauce at Joe's, pizza became easier to make and it certainly is better homemade right out of the oven. I also like to use basil leaves in place of pesto for variety, even easier to prepare.  The 9" cast iron skillet is just the right size for the purchased pizza dough.  I had a little leftover pizza sauce after spooning it around the mozzarella balls over the risen pizza crust before baking in a hot oven.  I tucked sweet basil leaves a...

  My cookie exchange food blogger group continues to inspire my baking.  The week after our potluck cookie exchange party is always the kick off of my Christmas 🎄 cookie baking season.  I've had this excellent cut-out sugar cookie recipe from my friend Gina from one of our first get togethers and now it's time to share it.  We made sugar cookies to decorate for Valentines day with a small group at my house about ten years ago.  I was just checking our the pictures and I think we did a pretty impressive job on our homemade cookies.  My friend Lisa gifted us all a snowflake cookie cutter which I happily used to make my cut-out sugar cookies.  My daughter Katie gave me a small bag of candy cane Christmas sprinkles from Etsy and it was just time to put all of these wonderful things together to create a new blog post as I have fallen way behind on my usual posting.  I started this blog to share my recipes with friends and family during covid, which si...

 First ripe black figs are sliced and artfully arranged in an unbaked buttery tart shell.  They are brushed with a Meyer lemon glaze, sprinkled with Armagnac and baked in a hot oven for about 45 minutes.  I like to serve slices of fig tart with spoonfuls of crème fraîche, creating a simply luscious dessert for the fig lovers in my life.  I say, the more figs the merrier however the amount of figs and their arrangement is up to you.  Because I find it easier to roll out- my favorite tart dough is made using an egg whisked together with a teaspoon of ice water.  The tart shell doesn't need to be pre-baked and works very well with this quite saucy fig filling.  I also brush a small amount of the lemon glaze on the tart shell bottom before I arrange my fig slices, just to seal it up a bit.  Try to stick with a tablespoon of Armagnac sprinkled over the figs before baking as not to add too much additional liquid.  The abundant hot bubbling fig slic...

 Our intense, way too long heatwave seems to be winding down, finally.  Here is a recipe for cold soup for dinner for our way too hot-Bay Area's September heatwave of 2022, or one in the future.  I always thought September and October were too hot, but now...the word dread comes to mind.  So, I made this cooling gazpacho one night during the worst of the heatwave, like 112F during the day and over a 100F at dinnertime.  It wouldn't surprise me if we still have another heatwave before the rainy season which used to start in midway into October, now I'm dating myself, and we had snow in the Sierra in November. I am loving the addition of plums to my soup, instead of the usual cucumbers that are chunked up and blended with the tomatoes.  The plums came from the farmers market and were innocently sitting in a bowl, minding their own business, next to the tomatoes on my counter, when the idea to add them to the tomatoes in the soup came to me.  Plums add a ...

 We had a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes this summer.  I was only going to buy one cherry tomato plant but ended up with four different varieties, tomato plant retail therapy-I guess.  They all produced pretty well but two were outstanding, A+.  The little yellow and red round cherry tomatoes ended up in just about everything I put on the table this summer.  The exotic bright orange and yellow pear tomatoes were good but not big producers but I'm okay with that as the other two plants picked up the slack. Yesterday I made another salad recipe featuring-guess what!  I love Greek salads and this salad has just about everything except the salty black olives but they could easily be added.  I'm really into this block feta cheese cut in slices placed over the salad, then you can kind of 'do your own thing' with the feta as you eat your way through this delicious summery green bean salad.   Greek Style Green Bean Salad Serves 4, generously 1 pound ...

  Crimson red and golden slices of ripe plums adorn the hidden top of a slightly crunchy cornmeal cake in this recipe, all you have to do is wait until the cake cools before removing it from the pan and flipping it over to reveal the colorful display.  My husband loved this cake after dinner and for breakfast, that's all I needed to know before sharing this recipe with you.  The medium small purple plums came from our local farmers market, they ripened in a bowl on my counter just in time to top this not overly sweet wonderful crunchy cake. Ingredients and Recipe for Plum Upside-Down Cornmeal Cake Serves 8 Preheat the oven to 350F Spray an 8" Springform cake pan 8 medium small purple plums Cinnamon sugar *for sprinkling (about 1-2 tablespoons) divided * cinnamon sugar made with granulated sugar sprinkled with cinnamon to taste Prepare the Fruit Wash and slice the plums, removing the pits. Sprinkle the sprayed pan with cinnamon sugar and arrange the plum slices in the pan....

  Look 👀 I saved you a slice of this wonderful lemon tart.  I love this recipe, both for the bright sweet/tart flavor in the simple lemon curd filling made with extra virgin olive oil as well as the tender cookie-like press in tart crust, also made using olive oil.  Just what we need on one of our warm summer days, a slice of homemade lemon tart served chilled from the refrigerator.  I served my tart with a spoonful of crème fraîche on top but whipped cream would also work well.  I also used Meyer lemons 🍋  for the lemon curd filling, which is always a nice option for lemon curd.  I strain my lemon curd which adds an extra step but handily removes any pieces of cooked egg whites to ensure a silky smooth lemon tart filling. Tarte au citron is back in my dessert rotation thanks to this simple straightforward recipe from Rosa Jackson at Les Petits Farcis cooking school in Nice.  I was fortunate to attend a day long cooking school experience wh...

 We have bowls of tomatoes from our garden staged on the kitchen counter- waiting to be eaten or shared, either way-all good.  I've been on the lookout for new to me recipes using my tomatoes and this one for Greek style tomato rice is a five star ⭐️ winner.  I made a few adaptions to the original I found in a magazine that I have been hanging onto for way too long.  The rice will be fairly soupy, not like my photo which was taken the day after I served the recipe but I wanted to share because-so good.  And the day after greek stye tomato rice is still exceptional and would make a nice starter or first course before dinner.  The feta cheese on top is bomb 💣 and I loved using Ouzo instead of wine for the rice.  I used chopped early girl tomatoes, fresh oregano, shallots, Ouzo, Arborio rice, tomato paste, lemon juice, olive oil and butter in my tomato rice.  Check out my recipe. Ingredients and Recipe for Greek Style Tomato Rice Serves 3-4 2-3...

 Les petits farcis are a classic dish seen throughout the French Riviera. I particularly like the small zucchini balls stuffed with meat, tomatoes and vegetables so after doing a sampling of petits farcis on our trip to France to attend a lovely friend's wedding in Antibes I decided to recreate these savory zucchini balls in my own kitchen.  Lucky me, I found the petite zucchini balls at our local farmers market. I used house made spicy Italian chicken sausage for the meat, chopped tomatoes, yellow onions, chopped zucchini, toasted bread crumbs, garlic, Parmesan cheese, chopped parsley and extra virgin Olive oil for my filling. I perused recipes online for information and inspiration.  Et voila! my petits farcis were created, served for dinner with a green salad and immensely enjoyed, following is my recipe. Ingredients and Recipe for Les Petits Farcis de Tarragon and Chives Makes 6 petite zucchini balls 6 zucchini balls 1 small yellow onion diced 1 galic clove, minc...

  What to make for dinner if you're over sixty; something really delicious, fresh and simple, like pasta with fresh tomatoes and a handful of arugula.  The sweet basil is a nice addition, just a few leaves on top with the freshly grated Parmesan.  I also like a drizzle of hot chili infused extra virgin olive oil over my pasta, but feel free to drizzle extra virgin olive oil without the extra kick from hot chili. I like leftovers for lunch so I tend to make extra, just like the time I went to the nursery to buy a tomato plant and came home with six tomato plants.  Now, I'm reaping the rewards with a daily tomato harvest a few steps from my back door.  I went big into the cherry tomatoes so it's a good thing we love them. I've noticed there is a ripeness window when it comes to picking the tomatoes off the vine, if you let them get overly ripe they squish in your hands and the skins get a little tough.  I like to make some version of pasta with tomatoes fairl...

 Good grief, Easter is in the rear view mirror and we are deep into this new year.  And once again it's tea time at my house.  This chamomile tea cake is a beautiful sweet addition to any tea ritual, especially my favorite, chamomile tea, which I rediscovered in my hotel room in Carmel earlier this fast moving year.  I highly recommend a slice of chamomile tea cake with strawberry 🍓 icing with a cup of chamomile tea to just take a moment and slow this year down.  Baking with tea is both creative and fun.  Earlier this year I made Earl Gray sugar cookies which are made using the same method of infusing the butter with loose tea.  For my tea cake I also rubbed the lemon zest into the sugar -another way to lend a pop of citrus to your baking. The strawberry icing is made using freeze dried strawberries, I pulverize them in my spice mill and then they are pressed through a fine sieve into the confectioner's sugar.  In addition to using lemon zest rub...

 Last week we were tricked, by our weather, to believe that winter was over.  One afternoon last week the temperature was over 85 degrees, almost 90.  I planted six tomato 🍅 plants, eggplants 🍆 peppers 🌶 two kinds of squash, cucumbers 🥒  and a few herbs 🌿  Just like that everything changed and a wintery bone chilling cold front blew in over the coast of Northern California and it was freezing 🥶 this morning. I'm also wondering why we don't have a squash emoji ??? with all the new emojis you think we would have one.  Today is a perfect soup weather day.  A spoonful of sage walnut pesto stirred into a hot bowl of soup is a small taste of wintered over potted herbs 🪴  I'm very thankful for these herbs 🌿 because they add so much flavor to my cold weather soups and other dishes, with a reminder of summertime.  I'm adding sweet basil to my garden as soon as this cold snap passes.  My husband and I loved this healthy flavorful butternut...

  Attention readers: Today's post is a lemon buttermilk pound cake with lemon curd made using my Meyers.  One dozen medium small size Meyer lemons make a cup of fresh lemon juice, enough for about three cups of lemon curd.  I'm happy about that as I have a drawer in my fridge filled to the top with citrus, mostly lemons that need to be juiced and zested.  Making lemon curd is an annual event, making pound cake is more like semi-annual.  Looking for new lemon pound cake recipes is a casual hobby.  I find cake baking and curd making to be a nice distraction these days, I hope you enjoy my photo and the following recipes.  The lemon curd recipe for the pound cake makes extra (3 cups total) for your toast or as a dessert sauce.  Lemon curd sealed in a sterile canning jar will last several weeks in the fridge.  The Meyer lemon pound cake which is baked in a bundt pan isn't overly sweet while packing lots of lemon flavor, very nice for an afternoon...

  Lemon meringue pie is one of my favorite pies 🥧 Meyer lemons 🍋 from my potted Meyer lemon tree  and Eureka lemons from my backyard neighbor's huge lemon covered tree, work perfectly together to deliver both pucker power and brightness to my lemon meringue pies.  The olive oil crust was a new recipe for me, my go to pie 🥧  crust being all butter and we love it, but the olive oil crust is also a winner.  Olive oil pie crust is a good choice for this lemon meringue pie and while it's not a flaky butter type pie crust, it most definitely has a tender crumb with a rich flavor complementing the pie filling.  We go through bottles of olive oil, where does it all go?  Not just in salads, now I'm using olive oil in cakes and pastry, like, pie crusts-highly recommended.  I adapted this recipe from King Arthur Flour and I'm going to share it with you below 👇 with my instructions for a successful olive oil pie crust. Ingredi ents and Recipe for Mey...