Lesson #1
Don’t put onion, celery, and carrots in the container and chop all at once. Chop each type of veggie separately.
Lesson #2
Pulse, don’t puree the onion, celery and carrots for the minestrone soup.

We’ve reached the winter doldrums in the kitchen a little early this year. Elegante Mother, Dear Husband, Second Son and I eat a fairly wide range of foods but it seems that we get to the middle of the winter and we eat the same dozen things or so again and again. To make matters worse, no one wants to help me plan the meals they will be eating. Personally, if it weren’t so darned expensive and so bad for a diet, I’d just as soon go out to eat.
I decided that I would try a new recipe this week, and opted for Tortilla Soup. I pulled six or so recipes from the Internet and read through them. When we were in Hawaii two years ago, we had an incredible soup at the Hula Grill that was basically a tortilla soup with chunks of fish. I picked the recipe that I thought came closest to that soup.
I pulsed cilantro, onion, garlic, a can of diced tomatoes, and a jalape

I tried a new Christmas “cookie” this afternoon. I wanted to see if a short-cut cookie might be something to add to our list of favorites.
The recipe used ready-made peanut butter cookie dough. You divide an 18 ounce tube of dough into 24 pieces and bake them in tart-sized muffin tins. During the last two minutes of cooking you press a rounded measuring spoon into the dough to create a well, then continue baking until the dough is golden.
The peanut butter dough makes a tart base that holds a fudge filling.
It seems to me that the tart is a bit thick. It makes quite a substantial cookie, perhaps one that men would like more than women. I know….that’s sexist. Don’t bother to point it out.
I’m going to freeze the tarts and then add the fudge the day before the cookies are given as gifts. I’ll have to see if the combination of the peanut butter base and the fudgy center will draw anyone back for seconds.

Cookie Day for 2006 has been officially canceled.
(sigh)
One of my nieces has been transfered this week, and has to work on Sunday, and another slipped and broke a toe. She can’t stand through a day of cooking. Several other ladies have just too much to do to give up a day to bake.
So…I need to look over the list of cookies and plan a strategy for baking a few a day until we have enough to fill our gift boxes.
I have some old favorites, and a few new recipes to try. The favorites include:
Russian Tea Cakes (Mexican Wedding Cakes), Sugar Crisp, Turtle shortbread, Peanut Butter Blossoms, and Raspberry Ribbons.
Here are the new ones I’d like to try:
Choco-Coco Pecan Crisps
Fudge Tarts
Pastry Pillows
Frosted Sour Cream and Chocolate Drops
Apricot Nut Diamonds
Chocolate Mint Thumbprints
Old World Raspberry Bars and
Chocolate Mint Snow-Top Cookies
Since there’s some duplication (but who can have too much chocolate?), I’ll weed a couple out after I read the instructions again.
I also found an old recipe that my mother made when I was a child, for Kolache. She used to fill them with raspberry or apricot preserves, and sprinkle confectioner’s sugar over them. hey were light, and sweet, and a favorite of the entire family.
I had to make a stop at Sur le Table to find the coarse sugar I needed for the Pastry Pillows. That doesn’t seem to be a common ingredient in most grocery stores.
And, I may give in and do a recipe of Sugar Cookies that can be iced. We don’t tend to do the traditional decorative cookies, so this might be a tip of the hat toward tradition.

For my friend, Cop Car, who recommended chamomile tea:
Do you believe in serendipity? The day you suggested that I try a cup of chamomile tea for my aches, I read a recipe for it at my herb group.
Pour two cups of hot water over one tablespoon of chamomile flower heads, and 1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger and let steep for five minutes.
Strain the herbs from the liquid. Use Stevia or another sweetener if needed. Serve hot, or chill.
I think I’ll stick with Lipton’s.

In August, Cop Car came for a visit, and helped us can the 2006 chili sauce. Elegante Mother’s chili sauce is a condiment that is used with pork roast, and can be used with leftover roast pork to make a sandwich spread. It’s made of tomatoes, peppers, celery, onions, and LOTS of spices and vinegar. We’ve made a batch every year for at least ten years, probably longer. If you’re interested in the recipe, I’ve posted it here.
I had to move some things in the mud room, and I needed to store this year’s batch of chili sauce. Somehow FOUR BOXES of half-pint jars ended up on the counter, waiting for my attention. Meanwhile, my sisters are saying to me that they want the annual distribution of chili sauce!
I went to the mudroom closet this afternoon, and started checking out the stack of boxes filled with canning jars that I had stored there. Box after box came out of that black hole. In all there were easily ten boxes filled with home canned goods. As I looked through the boxes, I discovered that many of them don’t have a date or label. Some of the jars have a little masking tape tab with the year, and some of the boxes have a date on the side, but there are 82 half-pint jars of chili sauce, and 39 of them are unmarked.
I have 16 jars of 2006 sauce, 17 jars of 2005, and 10 jars of 2003. I suspect one box of twelve jars is the 2004 vintage. I also have 11 full pints of chili sauce from 1996! AND….a dozen jars of mustard pickles from the same year, which will be thrown out. I didn’t like the results of that batch and shouldn’t have bothered to keep them.
I’m going to get Elegante Mother and Dear Husband to assist me, and we are going to create “gift boxes” of chili sauce for my sisters. We’re going to clean the mudroom closet. YES! I think 27 little jars of chili sauce will be going down the tubes unless I can find a way to make potpourri of them. I have one of those itty bitty crock-pots that you use for simmering potpourri. I bet I could heat the chili sauce with a little water in one of those and the house would smell WONDERFUL! The clove and cinnamon scent would be perfect for the season.
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. Waste not, want not. Doesn’t chili sauce potpourri sound like a virtuous thing?? *G*

Cowtown Pattie is baking! She’s hot on the trail of pumpkin pie recipes. I’ve donated my mother’s recipe, and I thought I’d share it with all of you.
Pumpkin is not my all time favorite pie flavor, but Elegante Mother’s recipe is sumptuous! I love all the spices, and the house smells wonderful as it’s cooking!
I’m assuming that this is a 9″ pie. The instructions simply begin with the words PIE CRUST. As I recall, you prepare the crust and put it in the pan, but don’t bake it ahead of time. Also, prepare a narrow band of foil to cover the edge of the crust for part of the baking time.
1 1/2 cups canned solid pack pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar
3 whole eggs
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Mix all the ingredients well. Add to pie shell. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 325 degrees for 50 minutes. Use foil to cover the rim of the pie to prevent overbaking.
One large can of pumpkin will make two pies. (214 calories per slice, serves 8)
Isn’t this a wonderful way to usher in Fall?!

While Cop Car was visiting, she and I made a trek through the Farmer’s Market. We purchased the usual vegetable suspects, but at the last stall I picked up two quarts of peaches from a vendor who grows all sorts of fruit in the southwest corner of Michigan. Man, do they taste WONDERFUL!
Unfortunately, peaches don’t have a long shelf life, so this afternoon I plan to make Peach Crisp. Usually when we make a crisp, it’s apple crisp, and it’s a harbinger of the season. I’m modifying the recipe and using about eight medium peaches, skinned and sliced. I’m going to use an 8×8 glass baking pan, fill it with sliced peaches and then mound the topping over it.
I browsed on-line for recipes, and discovered that everyone publishes the one they remember from their childhood. Well, in MY childhood, the topping was made from rolled oats, flour, brown sugar and butter. You use a pastry cutter to blend it together, and then you sprinkle it over the fruit and bake it.
Can you imagine it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream?? Heck….my mouth is watering just thinking of it. There goes my weight loss for the week.
Cop Car, we’re finally going to get to the Parmesan Crusted Tilapia tonight. I’ll have to send you the recipe. I’m so sorry that we didn’t get that meal on the table while you were here. We’ll roast the rest of the asparagus, and steam yellow wax beans. If that’s not enough, Dear Husband can have some green salad. That’s the meal for the day at Buffy’s Best Inn!

I was famished at 6:00 with no dinner prepared. It was time to clean out the fridge! I had the most incredible salad….
Diced red and yellow bell pepper
Sliced new pickle cucumbers, the first of the season, astringent and crunchy
Carrots sliced into very thin julienne strips
Broccoli stems done the same way
A tiny bit of red cabbage
Crumbles of feta cheese
Julienned strips of turkey
Marzetti’s Asian Crunch salad topping
A bed of mixed romaine, iceberg and spinach,
topped with Green Goddess dressing
Until I got to the dressing, it was an incredibly healthy meal, and did it pack a CRUNCH! Perfect for a heat wave day.

Two of my friends have posted comments to a recent entry, and I find that my response is so long that I might as well make a couple of entries on the subjects.
The first was a continuation of the subject of strawberry-rhubarb pie. My mother used to make it, and I suppose that was where I learned to eat rhubarb. Now, we’re just as likely to stew the rhubarb with sugar, and eat it for breakfast. You have to understand that as Elegante Mother has aged, her sweet tooth has taken over her life.
It seems to me that Americans use sugar differently than Europeans. I don’t have a terrible sweet tooth; I tend to prefer salty, crunchy things if I’m going to ruin my diet. But, when I’ve tasted pastries from German bake shops, or other European confections, it seems as though they are not as sweet as American desserts.
Last night I served sliced strawberries with our dinner. My mother prefers them sugared, so I sprinkled a little sugar over them. (Adele, I doubt you would do that. Actually, I like mine plain, or dipped in dark chocolate!)) My 11-year-old nephew was gobbling them up, and paused to ask if they had sugar on them. I nodded, and he said, “THAT’S why they taste so good! So, our younger generation has been trained to like sweeter tasting things.
Adele, I would NEVER have thought to mix orange with rhubarb. I’ll have to share that concept with EM. I think it would be too tart for most Americans. I like black tea with a touch of orange added to it, or dark chocolate with orange, but rhubarb with orange seems a stretch for my tastebuds.
I surfed for a strawberry rhubarb pie recipe and found a compendium of rhubarb-something pies that I want to share with you. Adele, you’ll be pleased to note that there are TWO pies that have orange in them! Of course, there’s also a Zucchini-rhubarb pie. Ahem.