What can you make with a big bowl, a nonstick skillet, a classic skillet, a dutch oven, a roasting pan, and a baking dish? A whole lot of goodness, that’s what!

I had the opportunity today to look through Two Dudes One Pan and this book is all about lots of flavor punch with not much muss and fuss. In fact, it’s sub-titled Maximum Flavor from a Minimalist Kitchen. Given how busy life is these days, this is a treasure chest of good ideas just now. And remember a few months ago I moaned about wanting a dutch oven? Now I really, really want one!

This is a fun, chatty cookbook, and each recipe has a snippet of conversation to go with it. Vinny and Jon also go back in forth in the intro to the book as well as the segues into the chapters, which are named for the pot or pan you use for the recipes in it. And the recipes!

From the frittatas to the hot tip for perfect pancakes (extras go on the the pancakes right before you flip them, NOT in the batter) to the swordfish with fried green tomatoes (hello!!! fried green tomatoes!!!!) and bacon vinaigrette to the weiner schnitzel (if these guys can show me how to make that dish that I have been trying to replicate for 22 years, I will forever be in their debt) my non-stick skillet is about to get a real good workout.

And skipping over to the dutch oven chapter–hey I said I wanted one, and winter is coming, and I love to throw meals in the slow oven in winter–I’m salivating over the creamed brussels sprouts with bacon and the buttermilk-sage fried chicken. Buttermilk chicken? I’m so on that! And the beer-braised short ribs. Definitely need the dutch oven, ya’ll.

And as if by the TheClone’s special request, there’s even a recipe for pistachio tiramisu in here. Are you reading me, daughter of mine? Time to come see your mama!

Okay here’s the skinny: Two Dudes One Pan will be available in stores next Tuesday. The cover price is $24.95. And I will be doing a giveaway soon, in which this book will be a possible prize. Shh. Don’t tell. Ok, I’m kidding: tell EVERYbody!

Another week, another book review. Oh no, wait, I just did a book review yesterday, didn’t I? That’s ok, too, though, because the book I am reviewing today combines two of my favorite things. No, not knitting and cook, though that could be interesting. Except that I already do that, don’t I? Hmm, that bears thinking about. But the two things combined in today’s book are cooking and history. Let me introduce you to The Spice Merchant’s Daughter. Her name is Christina Arokiasamy. She grew up in Malaysia, and her mother was a …. wait for it … spice merchant.

Now I am the first to admit that I don’t know much about spices. I tend to think in terms of salt, pepper and garlic, the end. I only recently started adding paprika “for color”. I think at least part of that is due to the years I spent as a smoker. It deadens the taste, you know. I could only taste very strong or very hot spices, and so the more subtle ones escaped my notice. By the way, paprika is good for more than color. It has a sweety hot taste, kinda smokey, but not a lot. And it’s good on popcorn (thanks Ang.). But let’s get back to the book.

Ms. Arokiasamy precedes each chapter of recipes with a vignette of her childhood life. I could almost see and smell the people and spices as she opened up these windows into another culture. I I do plan to try a few of these recipes, particularly the sambals, which are served like a condiment, so the children can take it or leave it without it being a big hairy deal. I don’t cater to my children when I cook, but I do like to consider them. It seems only fair, after all, since most of them can’t cook yet

I have something a little different for you today. Instead of a recipe or book review, I am going to review a site for you. I’ve spent the bulk of the day sorting and stashing crafty type stuff, and I can almost see the light at the end of my personal tunnel of crafty doom, but I just don’t feel like messing with a lot more pictures right now. If you look at the stash page, you will see exactly what I mean. It’s looking perky over there, ya’ll, but my brain is just about fried!

Anyway, back to the subject. At ketingredient.com, you can search by recipes based on the (surprise!!) Key Ingredients. And girls, you should see the shrimp recipes! And the pancake recipes. If I wasn’t feeding the family a lasagna from the freezer so I could deal with Mount CraftMore behind me (relax, I made it myself), I might be having to make the Shrimp and Scallop Saute. Over Angel Hair.

As it is, they will eat the lasagna, I will saute myself a no-sat-fat chicken breast and then I will continue with this:

Don’t you envy me?

Thankfully, it doesn’t look quite that intimidating anymore, because I have been working on it all day. Except for that quick trip to Wal-Mart.

Have you heard of the Eat Local Challenge? Well, Outstanding in the Field is the cook’s guide to how to do just that, plus. Jim Denevan drives across the country each summer, setting up outdoor dinners right in the fields where food is grown. He prepares and serves it with the help of his staff, and most of it comes from wherever they are. How cool is that?

The cookbook has got you covered from appetizers to dessert, and there are several menus listed in the back. Interspersed with the recipes are stories from places he’s been and meals he’s served. The recipes range from fairly standard fare such as cider braised pork shoulder to more exotic stuff—did you know you can eat stinging nettles?

The pictures alone are enough to make my mouth water, and are also the source of my one complaint. There are several that appear without a recipe beside them, and I can’t figure out what they are. I’m a very visual cook, usually deciding from the picture rather than the ingredients if I want to cook something, and of course, those are the recipes I want to try. Guess I’ll be reading the recipes this time, since it’s mentioned in the info if the picture is elsewhere in the book.

Of particular interest to me is the recipe for Green Tomato Marmalade. I have long loved fried green tomatoes, and one year my mom and I made green tomato jelly (you flavor it with jell-o of all things). The children wouldn’t eat it because I made the mistake of telling them what it was, but this recipe is loud and proud with green tomato pride, and it looks mighty tasty, too. I may have to make some to serve with salmon or pork roast.

There is a website that you can check to see if Jim and his team are headed to your area. They’ll be near me this fall, but the event is already sold out. And also, a blog, where you can read about dinners and see pictures.

Hey ya’ll! I’m still slogging through that book back log. Seven and a half inches to go! It seemed appropriate though, since the next book up dealt with food, to go ahead and relaunch the weekly Cass in the Kitchen segment. I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy my foodie self, and I missed dishing about dishes! Today’s book, though….it’s something else.

If diet is a four letter word, then this book could embarrass a sailor. I felt my arteries clogging just looking at it. I have to be right up front, and tell you that having been told to watch my cholesterol, I only allow myself 20 grams of saturated fat per day. Now, I can bank those grams, if I don’t use them all, and I do that quite regularly. You may remember that my family eats hot dogs every Saturday, and so I bank for that day and other grand occasions . And now, I bank grams of saturated fat for this:

You would, too. Right? Right.

I tell you, I could just cry! See, I think baking isn’t baking without real butter and real cream and real eggs. I like my cool whip now, but nothing substitutes for real cream. Nothing. I know there are recipes out there that employ less-than-full-fat-and-flavor dairy substitutions, but they are just that–substitutions. And I know butter is outrageous spendy, but when it comes to a perfection of cookie texture, butter flavor shortening doesn’t even compare.

The recipes here run the gamut from Chocolate Rice Crispies (surprise, not made with chocolate cereal as I had always imagined) to Chocolate Marshmallows to Chocolate Pecan Tart to the 18 layer (I counted in the picture, ya’ll) Gateau de Crepes with Green Tea Cream. But if I could make any one thing in this book tonight, it would be the Trio of Chocolate Mousse Cake. It’s umm, three different mousses frozen in layers, and ya’ll……….I love me some mousse. Made with cream. And eggs. And chocolate. I’m thinking I may need to forgo the hot dogs for a couple of weeks and cash in those grams for some of this.

In the back of the book are some great tips like how to brown butter and a simple sugar syrup (useful for iced tea and coffee as well as desserts) and how to temper chocolate (that’s what makes it shiny and gorgeous.

You know what? Ya’ll get ready and come on over. I can start that Mousse Cake, and when you get here, we can all have just a few bites, and my mouth and my arteries will both be happy. AND, I won’t have to wait so long to taste it!

Yes, among other things! Remember I said we were camping this weekend? That means constant grilling, so when I got a chance to check out Bobby Flay’s Grill It!, I leapt at it. I truly was not disappointed. Beginning with a discussion of the type of grills, and ending with recipes organized by main ingredient, this book rocks!

Now, I had a pretty good idea of what we’d be cooking while we camped before I opened the book. Did I change a few things? Sure! But I also plan to just adapt some of the things we were already having. For instance, I had planned on steak and baked potatoes. We’ll still have the steak, except I also plan to serve it with Balsamic-Rosemary Butter. And asparagus

And the chicken? Well, that’s likely to become Chipotle-Honey Glazed wings, except I’ll need to use green chiles so the kids can take the heat.

And fruit! Not for camping, mind you, but just in general. It never occurred to me to grill fruit, but somehow those peaches with the grate lines on it just looked so … right, somehow. And the Grilled Banana and Nutella Panini? That’s breakfast right there, ya’ll. And Mushroom tacos? I didn’t think so either, but after reading the recipe, I’m thinking a different think. And 9, count them, N-I-N-E ways to grill salmon. And shrimp.

And then, there is the chapter on eggplant and squashes, which happen to be some of my favorite foods. And then there are the fish recipes. Have I said “and” enough? Can you totally tell I reviewed this book as I read it? Well, I have two more ands to go:

And I am getting me a gas grill as soon as I possibly can.

And I think I need to give a copy of this book away. We haven’t done that in a while, and I think the time has come. Here’s how to enter:

The contest will start when I hit publish, and will run through midnight June 1st. I’ll announce the winner via random number on Monday June 2nd. You can get an entry by commenting on this post. You can get another entry by “stumbling” this post. (You can use the button right under the post (or your toolbar) to do that.) You can get two more entries by writing about this give away on your own blog with a link back to this post. And let’s throw in an experimental entry method: if you are a member of a crafty or cooking type forum, and you post about this giveaway with a link back, you’ll get another entry. You’ll need to come back and let me know you’ve done that by leaving a link to your forum post in the comments.

If you have never commented on this blog before, then your comment will be moderated. I’ll approve it as soon as I get back to the keyboard

I think that’s enough fine print, let’s get started!

P.S. Thanks, Bobby for the tip on how to boil eggs on the grill.

So sorry this is late, and I actually even thought about skipping it, but I did that last week when I got slammed, and I’d hate to let that become a habit. I enjoy this segment, and I have a bunch of recipes waiting in draft mode, and yet more pictures of recipes on the camera card, so I really do want to keep up with it. In addition to the cooking, I am still reading mags and cookbooks, so I certainly am not out of kitchenly things to say, and probably won’t be for some time to come!! So, let’s get on with our little cooking show!

Shrimp Scampi

2 sticks of butter
1/4 to 1/3 cup minced garlic
lemon pepper
basil
thyme
oregano
cilantro
2 pounds of shrimp, peeled and deveined
2-3 pounds frozen mixed veggies (I used Normandy Blend)
12 ounces angel hair pasta

Melt the butter in a large skillet, add the garlic and spices and saute until it smells so good you begin to drool. It’s very aromatic an a totally pleasant way. In the meantime, partially thaw those veggies in the microwave about 7 minutes, and set the water to boil for the pasta. Add the shrimp to the butter/garlic/spice mixture, and stir them in. Just as they begin to turn orange, add the veggies, and stir them in real well, too. I know scampi is usually served with veggies on the side, but, man, I had to take advantage of that butter-y, garlic-ky prefection!

Start the pasta when you add the veggies. It will only take 3-4 minutes to cook, and your veggies should be done in about that time. You want them to still be a little crispy. Drain the pasta. I put mine in a big bowl, and then poured the shrimp/veggie/sauce over it, and mixed it up.

Here’s what it looks like on the plate. Divine, right?

Alas, Drama is allergic to dairy, so she got this instead:

Dori Sander’s Country Cooking

I also had a fun and profitable trip to the library, as I think I mentioned. I checked out a couple of cooking books, and one of them was the delightful Country Cooking by Dori Sanders. This was a delightful read, and I do mean “read”. The book is full of stories about her life past and present. I found out she lives just a few hours fro here, so how neat is that.

There were several recipes I want to try in here, and I found the first one on the the fly leaf, a reference to fried green tomato parmigiana, which I have never had or heard of, but which sounds like food perfection. I’ll be having to test that one out when green tomatoes are cheap.

I also thought the recipe for boiled noodles looked pretty interesting. You make the dough and then push it through a colander or sieve into a pot of boiling water. The book has lots of simple techniques that like, so don’t think you’ll need a lot of fancy equipment to make the food.

I thought the baked eggs and grits looked good, too. I have several breakfast casserole recipes, but this is the first one I’ve seen that includes grits. I love me some grits, ya’ll!

Finally, I want to make this cobbler that practically makes itself, you just pour the ingredients one over the other, and the crust bubbles up through the fruit as it cooks. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

I’ll be checking this book out again when I am ready to some more experimenting, and I may get a copy if we like what we taste. Which basically boils down to: might as well order it right now.

Welcome again to Cass in the Kitchen. First, get coffee: as you can see from the title, we have a LOT of ground to cover. I was a busy girl this week, and I took pictures of everything. In fact, the kids are now used to me shooting the food before they can eat it! So seriously, get coffee, and let’s see how many shots I can upload at once without freezing the laptop. And relax, I’m not going to show you everything today, just what’s in the title. You’ll have to wait for the green chili recipe.

Loving Martha

I have to tell you all before I begin, that I really dislike Martha Stewart. When she’s on tv, I’m changing the channel. When I see her wares in the store, I go the other way. I mean, it’s much a part of me as curly hair, this dislike of Martha. Until now. Now, I like Martha. How can you not like a woman who designed a table of contents that looks like this?

I mean, that’s pure genius, because how often do you think “I want a cookie,” and you can already feel the texture of it on your tongue? Yeah, me too. Also, this book will be responsible for me buying a new cookie press, since I can’t find my old one. And it has already cost me two silicone baking sheets, which you will meet below.

Now, when I looked over the book, I had firmly intended to make those brownies shown above, because they looked so good. Don’t they look good? Yes, they do. But I still haven’t made them. No, Because I found this recipe for Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies instead. So, I went to Wal-Mart for groceries, and the stuff to make these ended up on the list somehow, and I followed the recipe exactly except that I used baby food bananas instead of fresh (my hands aren’t what they used to be, so I save them for the important stuff) aaaaand, I kinda got excited and we poured in the walnuts before we remembered to roast them. Roasting nuts for your cookies is one of the bits of advice I gave over on Mothering Many at Christmas, so I am appalled that I forgot to do it. Blame the book.

Baking Cookies

We did have a wee accident:

I also had amazingly beautiful helpers:

The dough, it was divine:

And the cookies, they were so good my eyes crossed when I put them in my mouth. See?

Buying Stuff

And right about when I took that last picture, I was forming a mental shopping list:
cookie press
cookie scoop
cookie jar
cookie baking mat
mixing bowls
mixing spoons
extra measuring cups and spoons

You’ll note that most of this is pictured below. The scoop is on it’s way from Pampered Chef, and I haven’t purchased the press yet.

This baking and the taking of pictures? It is fun.

GiveAway

NOW THEN! This book, this book filled with delicious cookie recipes which make people cross their eyes, will be the next giveaway here on Cass Knits! If you want a copy of your very own, that can happen! To get one entry, leave a comment. (First time blog commenters are moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. I’ll approve it when I get back to the key board.) If you blog about the giveaway and link back to this post, you’ll get two more entries. And if you stumble his post, you’ll get another entry! The giveaway will commence when I hit publish, and it will end at midnight, March 23rd. Yep, that’s Easter! I’ll announce the winner on Monday the 24th.

Good luck!