At 4:30 today I’ll appear on Channel 12 Valley Dish with Tram Mai, where we’ll be making my Corned Beef, Cabbage, and Potato Pizza, along with this Mint-Chocolate Shake. If you want your shake to be green, it’s important NOT to use green colored mint chocolate chip ice cream, but instead, the more natural white ice cream. When blended, the green ice cream turns a lovely chocolate brown from all those chips! You’ll be using green food coloring to turn the white ice cream green. Either way, green or brown, this is one heavenly holiday treat! Now you can go to the “In The News” page on the left and watch the video of the show…

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Time to gear up for the green! Tomorrow it is finally St. Patrick’s Day, and coincidentally I need to make a couple dozen cookies for a friends, so green it is! These soft cake-like cookies would be perfect for a Tea or Brunch. The “High Tea” theme is popular for wedding and baby showers, and so are these cookies. For a wedding shower you could tint one half of the icing the color of the bridesmaid dresses and leave the other half white. For a baby shower, pink and blue are the obvious choices. No matter what color theme you choose, these cookies will disappear as fast as you put them out!

I tested baking the cookies on both a Silpat lined baking sheet and one that was sprayed with Pam. Although I generally use the Silpat when baking, the cookies turned out a crisper on the unlined pan and in this case, crisper is better. You can see the results for yourself in the pictures below. And thanks to my “cookie tester and model”- Connor, who is home for spring break!

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The lovely people at Pom Wonderful sent me a case of 8-ounce bottles of their wonderful Pom Wonderful juice and I want to share them with you.  The first 3 people to comment and leave a recipe using pomegranate juice will receive 2 of those 8-ounce bottles. Mind you, it will not count if you use a recipe already posted here by me! If you use an already published recipe from a cookbook, website, or magazine – that is fine, just be sure to credit where ever you are using it from.  To get you going… here is a little recipe from me to you.

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In April, it will be two years since we remodeled our backyard and this winter has, literally, shown the fruits of our labor. We added a blood orange, Meyer lemon, and Mexican lime tree to our existing navel orange, Lisbon lemon, and pink grapefruit – for a true citrus grove!  Last year did not produce any of the new fruits, but this year, the proof is in the colorful picture above and I am one happy girl! The Meyer lemon has been the most prolific of the three new trees. These cookies are delicious with regular lemon zest too, so don’t discount them if you can’t find Meyer lemons.

The almond meal can be found at most grocery stores under the Bob’s Red Mill brand and at Trader Joe’s, or you can make your own almond meal. For about 1 1/3 cups almond meal, place 2 cups whole, unbalanced almonds in a food processor, pulse several times until a medium-fine textured meal forms. Do Not over-process or you will end up with almond butter! Put the ground almond meal in a clean flour sifter, sift and place any large almond particles back into processor and pulse again, sift. That’s all it takes!

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Six months, 185 days, 180 posts, 175 recipes! That’s right, today is my 180^th post in the past 185 days (which is 6 months) and during that time, I’ve put up 175 recipes – wow, I have actually kinda impressed myself! To celebrate, I’m having chocolate pudding with only 6 ingredients. OK, there is a pinch of salt that I am not counting as an official ingredient, although you do need to put it in, to punch up the chocolate, so don’t leave it out just because it’s not part of the ingredient list. I mean, we both know you have salt in your pantry!  And then there is the optional whipped cream and shaved chocolate… but, they are optional, so again, I’m not counting theml! To add to the symbolism of it all, I’m using 6 tablespoons of both the cocoa powder and the cornstarch – but if you want to be a party-pooper and you don’t want to play along - you can just use 1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons of each, it’s the same thing.

I not only chose chocolate pudding because of the six ingredients, but also in honor of my dearly departed Aunt Connie, who was the best cook I knew when I was young and who was a major influence on me in the kitchen. Aunt Connie is my dad’s older sister and she and Uncle Paul would invite our family of six to dinner every other month or so. I cannot remember a time that we did not have her made-from-scratch Chocolate-Mint Pudding for dessert. All four of us kids looked forward to that pudding the moment our parents told us we were going over for dinner. The very second dinner was finished, we would ask to be excused and race to clear the table, wash, and dry the dishes so we could get back to the dinner table and have dessert. So as I dig into my pudding, I shall toast myself with the martini glass we are serving it in and say, “To my lovely and talented Aunt Connie and to another six months, and beyond!”

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To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Dave and I went out to the Queen Creek Olive Mill for their special “Olive Affair” lunch in the olive grove. The Mill offered three different packages, we chose their “Ciao Bella” (Antipasto), which included roasted vegetables, sausage, roasted garlic, artichoke and sun-dried tomato tapenades, a French baguette, tuxedo strawberries, candied pistachios, pistachio bark, a bottle of Chianti and more. It all came beautifully packed in a lovely “Olive You” bag with a corkscrew, high quality clear plastic stemless wine glasses and plates plus a cute red-heart tablecloth. They had live music, it was a gorgeous day outside, and the place was packed! I highly recommend you treat yourself and your loved one next year. Until then, I’ll treat you to recipes for candied pistachios and pistachio bark. I decided to use the candied pistachios in the bark, but plain pistachios may be used instead.

The candied pistachios call for an ingredient you may not be familiar with, Turbinado sugar. The first pressing of the sugar cane yields Turbinado sugar, which is considered to be healthier since it receives less processing than granulated sugar. One teaspoon of Turbinado sugar contains 11 calories, while granulated sugar contains 16 calories. Because of it’s higher levels of moister, it should be stored like brown sugar, in an airtight container. One of the most popular and easy to find brands of Turbinado sugar  is “Sugar In The Raw.” A fabulous use for Turbinado sugar is on crème brûlée because it melts and caramelizes easier than granulated sugar.

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It’s been raining here in Arizona all week. Yesterday and this morning have been especially harsh; flooding, high winds, closed airports, several feet of snow up north, (plus a leaking roof for me!) – just crazy stuff for our dry desert state! This weather makes me want to bake and the chilliness and dark skies make pumpkin and spices seem like the perfect thing to pop in the oven.  I was planning to make a regular Bundt cake, but while digging through the cake pans, I found my mini-rose shaped Bundt pan. These pretty little cuties bring a little warmth and sunshine to an otherwise cold and rainy day.

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There are some things in the world of cooking that are like money in the bank or resemble beautiful gold treasure. Things like having a really well-stocked pantry and freezer. You know what I’m talking about; when you want to make a recipe that calls for chili paste or tamarind or cake flour… there is no getting in the car and going to the market for you, just open a cupboard and there it is – smiling back at you! Pure Jubilation! Hugs, high-fives, and kisses for everyone in the house!

Or how about when your spouse comes home and tells you that last week he/she signed up to bring two dozen homemade cookies to the office potluck, by the way, the potluck – well it is tomorrow!  Sure, as you walk towards that  pillow that is calling your name, you could say, “Darling, how absolutely fabulous! Now you have fun making those cookies tonight, sweetie, I’m off to bed.”  That method doesn’t work when the entire office knows you cook for a living.  Edible, in fact delectable, cookies are anticipated and expected! So that gold treasure in this case is “slice and bake” cookies that you have in your well-stocked freezer. Even your older kids (when they casually mention that they need fresh-baked cookies for the school carnival, that is (wait for it…) of course, in the morning.) could do the slicing and baking without you anywhere to be found.  Your home is instantly filled with Joy, Peace, and Happiness for all!

The espresso powder can be found at an Italian deli or ordered online, and I found the cappuccino chips at Trader Joe’s.  This recipe makes three logs of dough. I generally refrigerate all three for the 8 hours, then slice and bake one log. I double wrap and freeze the other two logs for up to 1 month. The frozen dough does not need to be defrosted before baking – just slice the logs and bake about 1 minute longer. Or the logs may be thawed in the refrigerator, if that works into your schedule better. After all it’s all about you – as it should be!!! Oh, and these are going in the “Easy-Breezy” category on the recipe index too, because they are just a more adult version (hence the “big girl” reference) of good old Toll House cookies and nothing is easier or breezier than slice and bake!
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we're friends and we're neighbors! Lori, Ronnie, Amy, and me

Before you even look at this recipe, disclaimers all around! This is not an original recipe, this amazing cake was inspired by a recipe in the December 2007 issue of Bon Appétit. Since it just was not expensive, time-consuming, or impressive enough already; I added in the toppings of vanilla pastry cream, whipped cream and fresh berries! Want to know what is really crazy– I made this cake 5 times! I needed to make a total of four cakes for two separate cooking classes that I taught back in December (four cakes so I would have the various stages of the cake for each class). I used two of those cakes to actually serve at the classes, two as prizes for students who visited my blog, and finally the fifth one was for my dear friend, Ronnie’s, birthday. Unfortunately, the pictures do not show the cake with its toppings because I was too tired, broke, overbooked, and overworked to put those on Ronnie’s cake.  Although, even without the extra work and calories of the toppings,  it is truly a showstopper and undeniably delicious too!

Ronnie not only got gypped by not getting the cake toppings, but also was ripped-off on my blog, when I didn’t even mention that it was her birthday! You see, her birthday is December 23, so I’m sure that all her life, she’s felt slighted in the birthday department -always being upstaged by Christmas, and here I did it to her again. Sorry, Ronnie, I love you and dedicate today’s blog to you! xoxo

Consider making this cake for the next big birthday in your house or maybe even for Valentine’s Day, as long as there are at least a dozen of you celebrating together (kinky!) because, boy is this thing rich!

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Connor made these pretty bars to add to our cookie collection today. He used both the red peppermint and the green creme de menthe flavors of Andes candies and then sprinkled them in stripes on the bars. Pretty and sweet! Thanks, Con.
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