Cooking Mag Mommy

This month's Bon Appetit has 3 menus created to make use of 3 essentials of the summer garden season.  I raved in an earlier post about the outstanding zucchini menu that I shared with our friends, the Knapp's.  Tonight was corn's turn to shine.  Last night, I made the first recipe from this menu to beef up another menu and lighten the amount 3 people had to eat from this one.  I really enjoyed the Tagliatelle with Fresh Corn Pesto and would add it to this menu if a few more people were eating with us.  Tonight, I made the other 3 recipes that began with a main dish of Grilled Mustard Chicken with Fresh Corn Polenta.  I choose to bake the chicken instead of grill it and I was happy with this change.  I find it really hard to monitor the grill temperature for bone-in chicken and often get the outside too crispy before the inside is done.  This dish has enough flavor without the added smoke of grilling as well.  The seasoning under the chicken skin added wonderful flavor and

I really have been lucky.  For as much as I cook, I really should have some better stories about the stuff I've messed up on than I do.  Really, other than a Polish meal my friend Heather and I made that the salt got away from and a white chocolate cranberry cheesecake that Richard swears was the worst thing he's ever eaten, I've got very little.   (A few early blog posts may beg to differ but let's not go into that now.)   The only reason I even thought of food failures tonight is that once again I made something with white chocolate and once again, it did me wrong.   You can't really tell in the picture (I guess that was the point.) but tonight's White Chocolate Cherry Mousse Pie was full of tiny little white lumps.  They weren't lumps of chocolate as far as I could tell.  The mousse didn't congeal smoothly and it was off putting.  The cherry compote was wonderful but the pie itself, either because of or in spite of the lumps, didn't have a uniform

I sure hope blueberry stains come out because after tonight's meal, I had a few of them and so did Eyrleigh.  I've mentioned before one of the things I look about Bon Appetit is the magazine is enthusiastically thematic, sometimes to the edge of being cheesy.  Tonight was one of those borderline nights.  Grilled Salmon with Quick Blueberry Pan Sauce sounded strange from the get-go.  Blueberries are a quintessential fruit, little pockets of sweetness that seem only fitting at the conclusion of a meal.  Pairing them with a rich fatty fish like salmon seemed a gamble at best.  To be fair, the dish wasn't bad, though I wouldn't say it was really good either.  I just didn't think the flavors worked.  You could taste blueberry, you could taste salmon but the compliment just didn't work for me.  The herbs, garlic, and shallots helped cut the sweetness along with the vinegar but the taste of blueberry was still there.  I almost felt bear-like, rumbling along from the mo

This month's Bon Appetit has 3 menus based completely on 3 staples of summer gardens, zucchini, corn, and tomatoes.  Tonight I played caterer again and was bringing dinner to my friends, Devi and Dan Knapp and their two girls, Sophie and Lily, ages 5 and 3.  I really enjoy this almost monthly tradition and it gives us a chance to see our good friends on a weeknight.  I try to precook as much of the meal as possible and bring everything I need, down to the salt, so I can put it together quickly with a minimum of disruption to Devi's kitchen.  Tonight I made the zucchini menu and I'll try to explain not only how the food tasted but how I packed it "to go".  The menu began with Tender Zucchini Fitters with Green Goddess Dressing.  Since the zucchini needed to be grated and drained before frying up the fritters, I actually transported the grated zucchini rolled in a dish towel.  The extra drying time was great.  I often find that anything I try to frying while still c

I mentioned in a post not long ago that June got away from me.  I didn't post once the whole month.  In hindsight, July wasn't much better.  I posted only four times and made only fifteen recipes from the month's Bon Appetit.  June's excuse was the bi-annual trip to my parents house in New Hampshire, where we attended my brother's burial service and a special memorial service held at his work.  The trip is usually a vacation but this year carried a bit more weight.  Our more restful summer vacations took place in the month of July and the beginning of August this year.  Eyrleigh and I got the chance to join my friend, Lynette, on a trip to Sarasota, Florida where we enjoyed the ocean for a few days and spent a day at the surprisingly extensive Ringling Circus and Art Museum.  Then on the next to last day of July, we all flew to Denver to attend the wedding of  Richard's brother, James.  We decided that spending almost $800 on airfare for 3 days was

My grandmother, Ruth Elder, was in many ways the inspiration for this blog.  She has always been my ideal of the perfect hostess.  Her home was beautiful.  She was an interior decorator and was still working into her 70's.  Her style was probably best described as Classic.  Each room was filled with antiques but never looked cluttered or dark.  She loved large windows, long drapes, and soft colors.  My grandparent's house was always immaculately clean and anyone who entered was offered a cold drink and something to eat as soon as they arrived.   Someday, I'd like my house to be the type of place where people feel comfortable as soon as they enter.  I don't want to worry that they see a spider web in the corner of the ceiling or that there are unwashed dishes in the sink.  I want to remember to offer everyone a drink and have something in the pantry for them if they are hungry.  I'm not there yet.  I have dishes in my sink right now.  I'm sure there

Richard was my photographer tonight.  He got impatient waiting for me to take a picture of our food before we could eat and he just grabbed the camera.  He just got home from work and was pretty hungry.   I didn't have the heart to retake them because he thought he was being helpful but I don't like the "bird's eye" view of this food.   Looking at the picture makes me a little dizzy, like the plate will start spinning in a circle any moment.   I'm going to make this a short blog post so I don't have to keep staring at the pictures.  Tonight I made two dishes from this month's Bon Appetit magazine.  Neither were a dish that intrigued me greatly but tonight crept up on me and I needed quick and easy.  I made the Piri-Piri Chicken on page 69 and to be even quicker and easier, I used boneless chicken breasts instead of a whole chicken.  I might have sacrificed a depth of flavor in the meat itself but with a flavorful sauce, I knew there would be plenty of