Flori Cooks

I had several friends over for brunch today to finally celebrate the successful Chanukah event that we headed up at our synagogue. David and I had a ball cooking. I made latkes and David made a fabulous blintz casserole (I will ask him for the recipe and add it to the

Semolina Spice Cake

site) we did bagels and lox, of course, and ended with this great cake.  I’m lucky enough to live near a Super King market which has a crazy assortment of middle eastern food so I got some Saffron Pistachio ice cream to dollop on the cake. The candied citron I used in the cake was made last fall from a Buddha’s Hand that I used in a centerpiece last fall.

The linen are washed and put away and now I’m going to have a glass of champagne and a bagel with lox since I didn’t have one at brunch.

Amanda was here for an overnight on Wednesday and like the foolish doting Nana that I am I let her sleep with me – NEVER AGAIN! If I got 2 hours of sleep all added up I’d be surprised. By the time I got home from driving round trip to Ojai to take her home yesterday I was wiped and couldn’t even think about food. Since it was pretty warm here I went for yet another try at duplicating Wendy’s avocado salad.  When Wendy and Michael lived here this was truly one of the high points of Bowen Court potlucks BBQs for me.  Simple, utterly yummy and yet I can’t quite get it right.  What I make is pretty good though – good lettuce (butter or other soft variety) and way more thinly sliced avocado than you would think. Salt, freshly ground black pepper, good olive oil and a squeeze of lemon. This and a glass of wine was all I needed last night. But I still miss Wendy (and Michael too)

OK, I promise to do better at remembering the camera in the kitchen. Last night’s dinner was not only tasty it was pretty cool looking too. Using the leftover chicken from Monday I made a biscuit topped casserole (quasi chicken potpie).

In the shallow 1 quart casserole that I had stored the chicken in (one less thing to wash on a weeknight) I layered the cut up chicken, sautéed mushrooms, frozen pearl onions, cooked carrots and frozen peas, poured most of a box of Trader Joe’s turkey gravy over it (actually pretty decent stuff) and topped it with biscuit wedges. I was going to make a full-on double crust pie using TJ’s frozen piecrust but didn’t think about thaw time for the dough. I’ve never used it before but know someone who makes delicious pies with it. (It has palm oil as part of the shortening, which is a turnoff for me so we’ll see if it lives in my freezer forever). Anyway I made half a recipe for buttermilk biscuits (1 cup of whole wheat flour, 3 T of butter, 1 T of buttermilk powder, 1 T of baking powder, a pinch of salt and 1/2 cup of water) in the small food processor, patted it out into a circle slightly smaller than the casserole and “exploded” the wedges on top on the stew. Baked for about 40 minutes at 375° and didn’t even bother to make a salad to go with it…

A couple of weeks ago when beautiful hormone-free chickens were on sale at Whole Foods we picked up 3. I roasted 2 of them and cut the other up to freeze. Last night as I was putting the chicken pieces (now without their skin but well seasoned) on a sheet pan I thought of my first marriage and the Friday night dinners of dry baked chicken pieces and the family arguments that accompanied them. Well, I should have listened to that voice and added sauce – maybe a can of tomatoes, a chopped pepper and some herbs. I’ll rescue the chicken in potpie tonight…

The roasted asparagus and cauliflower made up for the chicken though.

The first 2 chickens were roasted with my modified Zuni Cafe method and were FABULOUS! I’ll post that the next time I make it.

Oh, yes – the skin and fat? That went into a saucepan on the stove-top to render. I’ll use it on Sunday to fry latkes for a brunch I’m hosting.