Tarragon and Chives

Raspberries and Meyer lemons showing up together here in a cheesecake bar cookie have this thing; it's a lively, tangy, bright and tasty flavor thing, I'm all about loving it and so will you. I love valentines ❤️  day.  The cards, gifts, treats, special dinners with your sweetheart, what's not to like? I made my raspberry Meyer lemon cheesecake bars to celebrate valentines ♥️  day yesterday so they would have an overnight in the fridge to firm up before cutting into bars, I still had trouble and they came out a bit messy, oh well.  They taste great anyway and I will make them again during our official raspberry season which comes earlier every year, not sure that's a good thing.  However, we are smack dab in the middle of lemon season and that feels normal and good.  My tree as well as all my neighbors who are lucky enough to have lemon 🍋  trees are all experiencing a huge lemon 🍋 crop.  I think lemon tart is my next baking project, meanwhile I'...

  We're planning a trip to France 🇫🇷  this summer and of course I'm already thinking about the restaurants we will try and the meals, including apéro that we will be enjoying during our visit.  My husband and I are  going to the wedding of a dear friend in the South of France, in Antibes to be precise.  We are staying by the outdoor market which is wonderful, I visited the market a few years ago.  We will be surrounded by bakeries and cheese shops as well as assorted take away food emporiums.  Of course I had to take a small apartment in the middle of the old town which has many outdoor places to sip Rosé🍷  while nibbling on appetizers or apéro as they say in France, which sounds delightful.   I made this savory quick bread or cake inspired by Dorie Greenspan from The NY Times, so we could practice apéro -savoring small bites of thick sliced bread with glasses of crisp cold white wine- before dinner at home in Northern California before ou...

  Besides the striking blonde color of these popular bar cookies, what makes a blondie a blondie?  Is it the lack of chocolate or is it the addition of brown sugar and the butter?  Or the maple or the bourbon?  Definitely not the maple or the bourbon, but don't leave those out.  Blondies have a dense texture, like a fudge brownie, neither gooey or cakey, we are not talking gooey bars here.  My vote is on the just right combination of brown sugar and the butter in the batter, they're just not blondies without a firm whisking to thicken these necessary ingredients. Also the nuts, I prefer chopped pecans sprinkled on top.  I've always been a fan of blondies, they are just so wholesome, almost a kind of health food.  I followed the NYT recipe fairly closely, with a few changes, so here is the recipe. Maple Brown Sugar Bourbon Blondies Ingredients and Recipe  Makes 16 bar cookies 1 stick or 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted 3/4 cup brown sugar, pack...

One day it's Christmas 🎄 cookies for lunch and the next day it's a fruity nutty salad, must be January.  My house, after Christmas, feels decluttered and cleaner but colder without my holiday decorations.  I know that's what the fireplace is for but you have to admit that a roaring fire in a living room filled with Christmas decorations makes everything feel cozier.  January is a month to catch up with good friends, organize, diet and eat salads, the tastier the better.  A tasty salad 🥗  for lunch helps to take the sting away from an empty cookie jar. Our dear friends from Portland sent us a box of delicious pears 🍐  I peeled a few, didn't really need to do that, and then sliced them for my salad.  The slices of pears are hidden under the greens that I piled up on top.  A sprinkle of hazelnuts, blue cheese and dried cranberries over the mounded pears and greens are just waiting to be mixed together in each bite. I drizzled a very good extra vir...

 well here we are again Christmas 🎄 and covid. This time with a side of alfajores on a fish plate.  Do you have a favorite Christmas cookie or cookies?  As long as the flour, butter, eggs, vanilla and sugar keep flowing- I will be baking Christmas cookies, might even slide over the December 25 cutoff and into January this year. We moved in October.  After a week long getaway to Bandon Dunes, Oregon.  We came back to a new one level, slightly smaller inside and outside new to us home in our same town of Novato.  I think we have electricity gremlins though.  I'm ready to invite my electrician to Christmas dinner since he's here every week.  The latest problem a doorbell chime that almost melted down after continuous buzzing for a day, he's looking for a short in our wiring-don't like the sound of that.  He found it and fixed it, hoorah. We have a ton of unpacked boxes in our new big white garage.  My husband Scott ordered a backyard studi...

Summer = Heirloom tomato + Sweet basil +White wine.  This tasty equation adds up for me.  Heirloom tomato risotto is always better made with and accompanied by Chardonnay.  We love tomatoes 🍅  I try to keep a large footed serving plate piled high with heirlooms in my kitchen at all times.  My goal is to create a steady stream of sliced or diced summer tomatoes coming out of the kitchen with no end in sight.  So, when I found a recipe for risotto using a generous amount of cut up tomatoes as well as sliced tomatoes, I added + ...make a tomato risotto to my above equation.  I made a few changes to a NYT recipe so here is my adapted recipe. Ingredients and Recipe for Heirloom Tomato Risotto   Makes 4 servings Extra virgin olive oil 1 large yellow onion, diced Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 1&1/2 cups arborio rice Pinch of red pepper flakes 2 garlic cloves 1/2 cup white wine 2 cups cored and then diced heirloom tomatoes 4 cups...

  I just now finished reading about a little girl who decided to wear a mask to school in Tennessee and her teacher who told her to remove it because she was having trouble hearing her speak.  Talk about lack of freedom.  Yes, the freedom to protect yourself in public from a deadly disease by opting to wear a mask. How long will the children be able to stay in school?  How soon will the Covid start circulating?  We are all ready to move on but Covid isn't finished with us.   So now I'm thinking shrimp cakes and where have you been all my life?  I've enjoyed crab cakes over the years; one of my favorite meals- served with veggies and a salad.  Now I have discovered shrimp 🍤 cakes and I'm loving this new to me recipe, a perfect substitute for out of season crab 🦀  Ingredients and Recipe for New to Me Shrimp Cakes with Dill and Scallions Makes 6 shrimp cakes 3/4 pounds raw shrimp, peeled and deveined 1/2 cup panko  1/3 cup diced red bell ...