No, no--not bad for us at all. Okra is a vegetable, so how can it be bad, even wrapped up in flour and fried in oil?

Oh, Riene, I seem to have missed the BACON FAT! Well...uhm, er...perhaps we shouldn't have the okra too often when it's cooked in bacon fat or substitute canola oil?

But, comfort foods are comfort foods. I remember that Julia Childs was quite fond of McDonald's fries. She said they were still cooked in lard, which was THE RIGHT WAY TO DO IT, and that you just had to have a little self-discipline and not eat them all the time. Cook them the right way and eat occasionally only.

Ah, yes, self-discipline. When it comes to food, this is an on-going struggle for me.

Here's how you do this.

Get a copy of the movie Frida and the cd of the soundtrack and invite a bunch of your liveliest friends to come join you.



First, put the cd in the player and turn up the volume
Next, open your favourite beer or mix up some margaritas and take a sip or two*
Now, begin preparing the food.
When everything's cooked and assembled, get a big plate of food and sit down to watch the movie.

*Warning: Additional beers or margaritas may be required.

I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy as long as I can paint.
Frida Kahlo



Some people paint, some people (like Maura O'Connell) are fabulous singers and some people are happy when they create in the kitchen. Well, I guess I'm a singer who paints in my kitchen. Oh, with margarita in hand. Coooool!

Now, here's the menu:

Tacos With Chipotle Marinated Steaks, Chicken and Vegetables
Black Bean Salad
Cumin Roasted Potatoes
Roasted Peppers and Onions
A chocolate dessert that one of your friends brings

And for the recipes:

Chipotle Grilling Marinade
1/3 cup chipotle sauce
(Chipotles are fully ripened red jalapeno peppers which have been smoke dried. They are usually found canned whole in adobo sauce. I like the pureed version that comes in a small 7oz can.)
cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 T. dry oregano
1 T. powdered cumin
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped

Combine in a heavy duty plastic bag and drop in a couple of sirloin steaks or deboned and skinless chicken breasts. You can also use the same marinade for vegetables. I like a mixture of eggplant, yellow crookneck squash and zucchini because they are meaty enough to take the grilling and they do well with the spicy marinade.*

Allow to sit overnight, pull out of the bag and grill on a blazing hot grill. I sprinkle sea salt and pepper on the veggies just prior to cooking, but add nothing else to the meats.

Char well on one side, then on the other and cook until just barely done for the chicken and rare or medium-rare for the steaks. For the veggies, be sure to brown well on each side and cook long enough for the center to be soft, but still slightly firm. Place on a dish and cover with foil. Allow to sit for 10 minutes. They will continue to cook and the natural juices will stay in the meat, instead of coming out onto the cutting board. Okay, now you get a very sharp knife and cut up the meat in thin strips. Cut on the diagonal for a nicer presentation and for a more tender bite.

The smokiness of the chipotle pepper with the smokiness of the grillwell, its just a match made in heavenor is that made in the kitchen. Ah, no matter, the kitchen can be heaven!

Serve as is, with a side of cumin roasted potatoes and black bean salad or use for making your favourite tacos or fajitas. You can offer additions or toppings: sour cream, salsa, lettuce slaw (made with shredded iceberg lettuce, thinly sliced onion, lime juice and olive oil) and cheese.

*Veggies can be used alone for a vegetarian meal or served as a side dish to the meats.



Cumin Roasted Potatoes
2-3 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered lengthwise
sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper to suit your taste
2 T. ground cumin
2 T. dry oregano
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
cup extra virgin olive oil
*1/3 cup chipotle sauce

Toss and pour into a roasting pan. Cook in a 425F oven for about one hour. Potatoes should be tender in the center and brown with crispy edges. You MUST remove one to taste, before you allow your guests to have any. (Quality control in the kitchen is very important to a potato-loving cook.) Remove and set aside for about 10 minutes. Serve.

*Optional, if you want to fire up the flavour a bit.



Black Bean Salad
4 cups black beans (canned are fine, but be sure to rinse, drain and add a pinch of salt)
cup chopped red onion
1 cup corn
cup chopped cilantro
black pepper, freshly ground (about tsp)
sea salt, to taste
cup apple cider vinegar
cup extra virgin olive oil

How easy can it be? Stir to combine and leave for several hours before serving.

You can use this as a side dish to grilled meats, as a garnish to top carrot, pumpkin or butternut squash soup or to add a layer of interest to a taco or guacamole dip. Whoo-hoo!!! How about as a garnish on a thick and creamy black bean soup? Serve in a wide and shallow bowl, top with a generous dollop of sour cream and garnish with a spoonful of this salad.


Roasted Peppers and Onions
6 sweet peppers (I use a combination of 2 red, 2 orange or yellow and 2 green)
4 large sweet yellow onions (Vidalia or Peru type)
sea salt, to taste
cup fresh thyme or 2 T. dry
cup extra virgin olive oil

Wash the peppers, cut out the stem, cut in half and remove seeds and the connected white tissue. Cut peppers into 1 1/2 - 2" squares.

Peel the onions, cut off the root then cut in half lengthwise. Cut each half into 4 or 6 wedges (you'll figure it out), depending on how big each onion is, so that each wedge is close to the size of the pepper pieces.

Toss and pour into a roasting pan. Cook in a 375F oven for about one hour. You can serve as a side dish to grilled fish or chicken and even to top your favourite fajitas.

This seems like an awful lot of onions , but the amazing thing is that, once they're cooked, onions release their natural sugar and become amazingly sweet.

The green peppers add just a teeny bit of sharpness, but the onions are so, so incredibly sweet when theyre cooked that you barely notice. Its just enough to balance the sweetness.

Well, for years I've had buffalo wings and hot wings and honey-jalapeno wings and...you get the picture. For years I've enjoyed them, horribly messy though they are to eat, but I've never had the desire to make them myself.

Dewey and his son Thomas tried several times during Thomas' early teenage years. They've always enjoyed cooking together. So, Dewey and Thomas tried various recipes and sauces and methods, but I never had the desire to make them myself.

Yesterday, I made them myself.

Dewey plays golf every Friday afternoon--it's like meditation for him. Actually, it's probably more like swimming in a big pool with friends and sipping adult beverages. Following the Friday golf, sometimes the guys and their significant others--yes, I am significant--gather at somebody's home with some sort of food in-hand and the adult beverage of choice. This way, the hosts only provide ice, dishes and such and clean up after. Very easy.

Dewey and I decided that I'd pick up wings from a local bar. This would have been easy--really easy--because I don't usually work on Fridays. Well...I ended up working half a day, so, by the time I got through, and because we are pet-sitting a friend's dog and I didn't want to leave him in the car for long, I decided...YES, you guessed it, that I would make the wings myself! This way I'd only have to make a quick stop at the grocery store, which I'd planned to do anyway, and get myself (and Smokey Joe, the dog) home a lot faster!

Here's what I came up with:

24-36 chicken wings (cut the skin in the joints to help absorption of seasonings and to speed up cooking)
1 cup apple cider vinegar
2 T. Texas Pete Hot Sauce

Toss the wings in this mix and allow to sit (covered) at room temperature for 45-60 minutes.
Remove wings and place on a rack in a baking pan.
Bake at 450F for 35-45 minutes. You're looking for the meat around the joints to be fully cooked and the skin to be browned and crispy.
From this point, depending on which recipe you are preparing, drop the cooked wings into a big bowl and pour the sauce over the wings.
Toss well, place wings back on racks in baking pan and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes.
Remove the wings, place back in the mixing bowl and toss again with the same sauce.

Buffalo-Style Hot Wings
1 cup Texas Pete Buffalo Style Chicken Wing Barbecue Sauce
(Now ain't this one easy!!!!)
Serve at once with green onions and your favourite blue cheese salad dressing. Mmmmmm...hot and good and easy.

Honey-Chipotle Hot Wings
2 T. barbecue sauce (any regular red barbecue sauce that you buy at your favourite grocery store)
4 T. chipotle pepper sauce (I use San Marcos)
8 T. honey
1 T. chopped cilantro to sprinkle on the wings just before serving
Serve with green onions--no blue cheese with these.

Great! Let me know how they turn out and if you liked them. My favourites were the honey with chipotle.

I have updated my pesto recipe (see earlier post).

I also have a new way of using the pesto. Why don't you give this a try with your favourite dipping vegetables. I took the following to a friend's party last night. Try it and see what you think.

PESTO MAYONNAISE
1 cup Duke's mayonnaise (not that other Yankee mayo!)
1 T. fresh pesto

Mix, cover and refrigerate for one hour.

Serve with red and yellow sweet peppers and my grilled shrimp recipe.

SPICY GRILLED SHRIMP

1 lb large shrimp (deveined and peeled, tail on)
This is the 26-30 count shrimp, which means that you'll have at least 26 shrimp, depending on how large "large" is.

Marinate for 15 minutes in the following:
1 T. chipotle pepper sauce
1 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 T. Texas Pete Buffalo Wing Barbeque Sauce
pinch each of sea salt and pepper

Thread onto bamboo skewers* and grill until the shrimp turn pink. These can be served immediately, at room temperature or cold. How much easier can this be?

*Make sure to soak the skewers in water for about an hour or more, so that they don't burn in the grilling process.

So, it's the summer AND we both work AND we both have aging parents with health issues AND there are two kids to watch over AND we want to see our friends AND relax AND...do you get the picture?

One of the ways that we make it easy on ourselves is to develop more and more easy or flexible recipes. Here's one that we take to social gatherings all the time.

BRATWURST WITH HONEY-MUSTARD SAUCE

6 bratwurst, cooked and cut into diagonal slices about 1" thick. I cook mine in the oven for about 30 minutes at 400F in an oiled glass baking dish. They don't burn, they brown evenly and I don't have oil all over the stove.

Serve with pickled okra and this easy honey-mustard sauce
3 T. Dijon mustard
4 T. honey
1 T. Dukes mayonnaise
Mix well with a whisk and refrigerate.

Do you want a quick dinner idea? Bake a pork tenderloin, allow to rest for 10 minutes and slice. Serve with this sauce and with your favourite pasta. Steamed asparagus on the side is great and easy!

Bye-Bye, Mr. Mikie, Goodbye... (Sung to tune of American Pie)

Good friends, Mike and Jennifer Sonntag have officially moved from our little spot in South Carolina. They left yesterday and should be well on their way to Presque Isle in Maine. We went by their house yesterday to pick up a gas grill that they'd left for us and to dig up a couple of plants. These plants were transplanted from friends of theirs who had moved years earlier. There's a symbolism and connection in tranplanting the same plants again, this time to our yard.

We had SO many wonderful dinners at Mike and Jenn's! Actually, the last dinner we had with them was wonderful and I have almost gathered all of the links to the recipes that Mike prepared that night. I will post those later. Today, in honor of Mike's good cooking and of the great memories of eating and drinking with Mike and Jenn, I am sharing a recreated recipe for Rosemary-Orange Chicken. I asked Mike about this and he could not remember everything that went in the marinade, but I'm experimenting and will continue to update this recipe as I improve it, if it requires improving. It's our scheduled dinner for tonight.

MIKE'S ROSEMARY-ORANGE CHICKEN
8 chicken leg quarters
2 cups fresh orange juice
1 cup chopped fresh rosemary
coarse sea salt
freshly cracked black pepper

Remove excess fat and skin from chicken, cut into the joint a bit (on the outside of the joint) and cut slits into the chicken on the skin side. This will speed up cooking in the joints and allow the marinade flavours to permeate deeper into the meat--better flavour.

We prefer dark meat at our house, but you can also do this with white meat. I would caution you to leave the skin and bones ON as this will yield a much more delicious meat and it will be moist and juicy.

Place the chicken in a bowl or heavy duty plastic bag, pour in the juice, add the seasonings, cover or seal and allow to marinate for 24 hours. YES, it does take this long to get the flavours deep into the chicken.

Place on a hot grill and cook until just barely done. Transfer to a platter and cover with foil. Allow to sit for 10-15 minutes. This will give the chicken a teeny bit longer to cook and will give the juices time to retreat back into the chicken.

Garnish with springs of fresh rosemary and orange slices or wedges and serve with asparagus or green beans and a potato dish of your choice. We will have ours with brown basmati rice and a cucumber-lettuce salad.

CUCUMBER-LETTUCE SALAD
2 cucumbers
1 head romaine lettuce (washed and dried)
1 small sweet yellow onion
2 T. white vinegar
6 T. extra virgin olive oil
sea salt to taste
black Kalamata olives*

I slice the onion and cucumbers very thin, pit the olives, gather the leaves in a big roll and slice. (The lettuce will come out in 1/4" to 1/2" wide strips.) Toss with the remaining ingredients and serve right away. Do not make this ahead--the lettuce will wilt, once you've added the salt and dressing.

*optional

Mike and Jennifer's Last Supper

We had the usual assortment of wonderful appetizers with wine and margaritas. The way it works is that the guests sit around the tiled kitchen island while Mike cooks and drinks and talks.

At a certain point, Mike, as usual, will disappear to the deck for grilling maintenance. On this occassion, after a couple of visits to the grill, this is what we had for that last supper--Korean-Style Grilled Flank Steak. You wrap up the steak in lettuce and add your pick of side items. In the recipe, the cooked rice goes in too, but we ate the delicate, aromatic and nutty Jasmine rice on the side. The wraps get a little "drippy", so you need the rice to absort those juices when they fall on your plate.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recip ... ews/238936

Everything was topped off with a lovely, luscious and perfectly arranged lattice-topped blueberry pie, courtesy of another visiting friend, wonderful guitarist and composer Bob Kilgore. Just enough lemon juice in this pie to make me want to pick up the plate and lick all that purple pie juice...and I did.

Here's Bob's MySpace page, in case you'd like to listen to some of his guitar work. He gives away his music, so you can download two entire cds for free...and legally! Disclaimer: You may become very, very relaxed while listening to this music. Please do not listen in the midst of driving or operating heavy equipment.
http://www.myspace.com/bobkilgore

Ah, the good ole summertime!

Well, not for me. I go flying from the heat and humidity and have several serious layers of sunblock AND a big hat on when I'm in the sun. It's not that I'm not utterly Greek in my tanning abilities ('cause I am), but I've been afflicted with hyperpigmentation, thanks to having arrived at that age when women's hormones go firing off here and there, all unruly and sloppy, causing such mayhem as they do that I cannot begin to tell you what 'fun' it isn't! So, unless I want patchwork skin, with ugly blotchy splotches all over my face, I've got to protect and cover my skin which does not a pretty picture paint. Such is life.



Hubby Dewey and the kids, on the other hand, live for the summer where lying by the pool, playing tennis or golf, swimming and grilling in the back yard are prime time activities. So, for our family vacation this year we headed off to Hilton Head. From where we live, it's usually an easy 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive. This time it must have taken over 5 hours, due to heavy traffic. It appears that every other family in South Carolina had decided to travel to Hilton Head on the same day and at the same time as our family. SO lucky!

The nice thing about all this effort is that it was all worth it! We had a wonderful time, Thomas (18 year old) and I reading the last <sob> Harry Potter book, Dewey taking our oldest granddaughter for her first kayaking trip (on the sea water, brave 5 year old that she is) and Emme (21 year old) reading Saul Williams' book of poetry--The Dead Emcee Scrolls. There was leisurely lazing about, licking of ice-cream on a cone, walking on the beach lit by moonlight, anytime-you-feel-like-it napping and lots of good eating out. Hilton Head offers some of the best eating and drinking anywhere, but we planned a couple of dinners in. That's eating in as in no makeup, no freshening up, no hair gel, no dressing up and no reservations! The following is one of our dinners.

Dewey went to one of the local docks (Hudson's) where fresh fish are caught and brought in daily. Just that morning, they'd brought in cobia, which is also known as black kingfish. While these fish winter in the Gulf of Mexico, in the summertime, their migration habit brings them up the east coast of America as far north as Maryland. It's a tasty fish with big flakes when cooked. What this means is that it's perfect for grilling--just what we were looking for! He also found local green beans, corn on the cob and tomatoes. Aha! Now we're cookin!



Grilled Cobia With Greek Grilling Sauce

2 lb fillet of fresh cobia
salt and pepper

Sauce:
1 t. dry oregano
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 small yellow or red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup extra virgin olive oil

Grill the cobia over hot coals. This should take about 15 minutes, depending on the coals and the grill. You know it's ready when you try to pull apart using a fork and the fish flakes easily.

Whisk together all the sauce ingredients or place into a mason jar and shake like a martini. Pour the sauce over the fish, just as soon as it's off the grill.

Green Beans and Corn:
If the green beans are fresh, all you need to do to prepare them is put them into a pot of salted boiling water and cook until they are beginning to soften up. Drain immediately and place on a serving platter, along with the fresh corn. Again, for the corn, the key is to find it as fresh as possible. The sooner you get it, once it's been harvested, the better it will taste with all of the natural sugars still at their peak. To cook the corn, dump it all into the same boiling water as the bean and cook for no more that three minutes--yes, that's all, really. Serve up the corn on the same platter as the green beans and forget the butter--you just won't need it.



Greek Tomato Salad:
Slice four big ripe tomatoes and cut into quarters. Combine with sliced yellow or red onion and combine with 1 T. dry oregano, salt and pepper to suit you and enough extra virgin olive oil to coat everything. No, don't need vinegar. The fresh and properly ripened tomatoes will add the acid juice to the dressing; this replaced the vinegar. How clever. If you have them, add black Kalamata olives and feta cheese and toss once more.



Now all you need is that loaf of crusty French bread that I keep talking about. You'll need this to dunk into the grilling sauce and the tomato salad. Can't let all that goodness get away!

Do YOU have some summer favourites?

I learned to make this from my mother who learned from her mother, I imagine. My mother died of pancreatic cancer when she was 47. I was 18. There were many things about her and her life that I never learned, so I am assuming that her mother showed her how to make this soup.

I also learned how to make mayonnaise from my mother, by drizzling in the olive oil very, very slowly. She'd make the mayonnaise for her Russian Salad from a recipe in her Greek cookbook. I still have this book and there are so many things in here which make me laugh--the French recipes, yes, written in Greek; the measurements like "one coffee cup full" or "one glass full", which make me wonder WHICH coffee cup or which glass? You just cannot standardize Greeks, I guess! My sister and I, both, were there every time she cooked and this book was there too. Having people over to dinner was an exciting time, filled with memories of my mother cooking. I cannot tell you how vivid these memories are or what they mean to me!

While I may not know my mother as well as I would like (For what does an 18-year old girl pay attention to?) I still do remember this cooking time she spent with her daughters, me and Antonia; this is one reason that food and cooking are so meaningful to me--they connect me with my mother.



This soup is such a comforting meal, laced with extra virgin olive oil and vinegar and topped off with a couple of Kalamata olives at serving time--it soothes and caresses the body and soul. Trust me--even though this is a completely vegetarian meal, you will not miss the meat!

GREEK LENTIL SOUP:
1 Whole onion, scored to middle (remove after cooking & before serving)
3 cloves garlic, peeled, mashed and chopped
1 (28 oz) can tomatoes and juice (crush tomatoes)
2 bay leaves
1/3 cup olive oil
salt, to suit your taste
1 T black pepper
1 (1lb) bag brown lentils (soaked overnight or for several hours)



To dress:
balsamic vinegar
extra-virgin olive oil
Kalamata olives

Pour oil in pot and heat, add garlic and saut lightly. Add drained lentils and stir to coat well with oil. Continuing to stir, add bay leaves, tomatoes, onion, salt & pepper and enough water to cover lentils plus 3-4 cups more. Bring to a boil and lower to a medium heat for the duration of the cooking process, stirring occasionally to avoid sticking/burning.

When lentils are tender, bring soup to boiling and reduce until liquid to solids ratio is about 2 to 1. It is very important to stir often and to watch carefully during this period--sticking & burning can happen easily. Stir in a few grinds of freshly cracked black pepper.

Ladle into bowls, drizzle with 1 tablespoon each of extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Top off with three olives.

Serve with crusty French bread and a nice chunk of Feta cheese on the side. No appetizer, no knife and fork, no fine china and no dessertjust a huge warming hug in a bowl!

Oh, and for those who like it hot, like Dewey, a big pickled jalapeno pepper on the side is just the thing!

In honor of Ms. Maura's birthday this Sunday (Sept. 16), I have created a menu of fine foodlets. I hope you like it, Maura.

MENU
Guacamole Ole
Grilled Jumbo Shrimp with Pesto Mayonnaise
Sliced Tomato and Feta Salad with Kalamata Olive Dressing
Surf and Turf Over Burned Butter Penne Pasta

LIBATIONS
Margaritas with the appetizers
Leaping Horse Chardonnay with the entree (it's inexpensive, balanced and will pair well with the buttery element of the salmon and pasta)

Stay tuned for the recipes...

...and now, for the recipes.

Guacamole Ole
2 Haas avocadoes*, cut in half, pit removed and meat scooped into a bowl
juice of 1/2 a lime
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
3 large cloves garlic, peeled, smashed and finely chopped
generous pinch of salt
1/4 cup finely diced fresh tomatoes



Mash the avocadoes with a fork so that you have some chunks still left. Mix in the lime juice then the remaining ingredients. Stir in the salt and taste. Make sure that there is enough salt or the guacamole will not taste as it should. The salt really does puncuate the other flavours.

Store, covered, in the refrigerator overnight or for several hours. If you miss this step, the garlic will not mellow out and the flavours of all the ingredients will not have time to marry.

I serve with a side of sour cream and one of salsa (your favourite store-bought will do). I do like Tostitos organic yellow corn and blue corn tortilla chips with this. I really think that these chips are exceptional!

*if the avocadoes are smaller than usual, use three