Impress everyone with this easy biscotti

1 stick butter, softened
2/3 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 c all purpose flour
1/3 c cocoa powder
1/3 c ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c slivered or sliced almonds

Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla and almond extract.
In separate bowl combine flour, cocoa, ground almonds, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture.
Add slivered almonds.
Batter will be a little sticky. dump onto a floured surface. Use floured hands to work with it. Divide into two balls. On parchment paper on a cookie sheet make 2 flat logs that are about 14" long by 4" wide.
Bake at 350 for 35 min. Let cool 10 min.
Slice into 1/2-3/4" wide biscotti. Lay all biscotti on one side and bake 10 min. Turn all biscotti onto other side and bake 10 min.

Free Natural Room Freshener

Some rosemary sprigs from the yard and lemon rinds left over from the kitchen make the house smell fresh and crisp when set to simmering on the stove.

3 Ingredient Cauliflower Soup

I ran across this recipe online while trying to find inspiration for a cauliflower I bought a few days ago. It actually is quite rich and tasty (butter!) so I've added it to my recipe box.

1 head cauliflower, chopped
1 small onion, sliced
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons salt
3 cups hot water

1.Melt the butter in a soup pot on low and add onion. Let cook 15 minutes.
2. Add salt, cauliflower and 1 cup hot water. Cover and cook on medium-low 20 minutes.
3. Remove cover and add 2 cups hot water. Cook uncovered on low 20 minutes.
4. Use immersion blender if desired.


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Easy Texas Salsa Recipe

This recipe can't be easier (and it's sooo healthy):

3-5 tomatoes, diced
1 large onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalepeno pepper, finely diced
1 handful cilantro, chopped
juice of 3 limes
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine and let flavors mix in the frig for a few hours. And don't worry about exact amounts - I love cilantro so my salsa tends to be quite green. Be sure to microwave the lime halves for about 20 seconds after squeezing them - you'll get a lot more juice to add to your salsa. Serve with tortilla chops. Enjoy!

Oxymoron of the Day: Kosher Creole

Can this be? Can shellfish-rich creole food be kosher? Can Nawlins Jazz and Jewish Klezmer make beautiful music together? What do YOU think?

Second Liners Jambalaya

• 1 1 lb jar gefilte fish, drained
• 2 C cooked rice
• 2 T butter or pareve margarine
• 1/4 C chopped green pepper
• 1/2 C chopped onion
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1 10.5 oz can condensed tomato soup, undiluted
• 1 C milk
• paprika

Saute onion and green pepper in butter until tender but not brown. Add salt, pepper, thyme, soup, and milk. Mix with rice. Pour into greased 1 1/2 qt baking dish. Arrange fish on top. Press into rice mixture and sprinkle with paprika. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

How to Cook Greens

My gracious and generous neighbor, Redneck Mother, dropped off a mess of Swiss Chard from her garden the other day and I wasted no time in cooking it up. A few years spent in Mississippi taught me to truly appreciate plants with huge dark green leaves. Although they may look a little daunting (I have seen my MIL refuse to cook them up because they are 'too much trouble to wash') , they don't have to be labor intensive. Here's my shortcut, good for greens of all persuasion:

1. Put the greens in your kitchen sink and fill it up with cold water from the tap. Let sit for about 30 minutes. Any grit left on the leaves will have sunk to the bottom of the sink.


2. Take the greens from the sink and set them aside. Don't worry about drying them off - a good shake to get most of the water off is sufficient. The water that still clings to them will be used to cook them in a minute. Chop them roughly. (I like to include the big stems but some people prefer to cut them out.)


3. Heat a big skillet. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil and a minced clove or two of garlic. Saute the garlic for a minute.


4. Add the chopped greens. Cook, tossing occasionally, for about 2-3 minutes. You want them wilted but not mushy. (See? The water still clinging to the greens steams and cooks them!) And don't worry about an overly full skillet - these babies shrink up a lot.


5. Put them on a plate and add a little salt and pepper. If you're from Mississippi, you'll have a bottle of pepper sauce handy. If not, a splash of balsamic vinegar is nice, too.

Artisan Bread For Dummies

I got this great bread book for Chrismas - thanks, Leigh! The book is Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
and I figure I am the perfect test case since I have never attempted to bake my own bread. (Bread machines don't count.) Here's what you do: Mix up a big batch of dough that will keep in your frig for 2 weeks. (And I do mean mix - no kneading required.) When you are ready to bake a loaf just pull off a hunk. The '5 minutes' is how much time you actually handle the dough - there is some added wait and bake time, but who cares about that? I am happy to let the dough rest for 40 minutes while I do something else and then bake for another 30 minutes while I still do something else. And no kneading. Ever. Big plus. The photo above is the basic loaf, but the book contains lots and lots of different recipes. I made the sweet rolls the other night - very tasty but a little too much work for lazy me. I'm going to stick to the easy ones like this...

Tomato Cobbler ... really!

I was searching the web for the pickled onion rings recipe from the Cock of the Walk in Jackson, Mississippi, (and believe me, they are worth searching for) when I came across this recipe for Tomato Cobbler. Not two words I would normally put together, but it rang a bell. My father-in-law, who hails from the Magnolia State, once reminisced about having eaten tomato cobbler. I'm not sure any of us actually believed him at the time, but having found evidence of its existence I had to try it out. So here it is in all its glory. If you can get past my poor photography and even poorer presentation (no, I don't have a nicer casserole dish, and no, I do not have the patience to weave a lattice top out of pastry dough), it is actually quite good. I had DH sample it before telling him what it was and he gave it a thumbs up. The recipe is shown below in case you also feel the need to prove it for yourself. Of course, to be fair, anything with that much sugar and butter has got to good.

Deep Dish Tomato Cobbler

• 2 1/2 lb ripe tomatoes
• 3/4 C sugar
• 3/4 C brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 T vanilla
• 1/2 C butter
• 3/4 C water
• pastry dough for an 8" pie

1. Preheat oven to 450 F.
2. Simmer all ingredients (except the dough) for 20 minutes.
3. Roll the dough thin, then cut in half. Cut one half into small squares about 1/2" wide.
4. Drop the small squares into the pan and simmer 5 more minutes.
5. Pour into baking dish.
6. Cover with the rest of the dough cut into strips.
7. Sprinkle with sugar.
8. Bake at 450 F for 15 minutes or until browned.