chocolate pudding

This is a good, low-fat recipe for chocolate pudding, originally from Cooking Light. I've experimented with different types of chocolate, and you can't go wrong, whether you prefer semi-sweet, bittersweet, or milk chocolate. I actually like to eat the pudding when it's still hot, but technically you're suposed to refrigerate it:

Chocolate Pudding

2 1/2 cups fat-free milk
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

Bring 2 cups of the milk to a boil in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat. In a large mixing bowl, mix sugar with cornstarch and salt. Separately, combine remaining 1/2 cup milk with egg yolks, mixing well. Add egg yolk mixture to sugar mixture, stirring with a whisk. Slowly add half of the hot milk to the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly (you do this so the eggs don't curdle). Return everything to saucepan, bring to a boil, then simmer one minute, stirring, until thick. Add butter, vanilla, and chocolate, mixing until melted.

Spoon pudding into a bowl. Place bowl in a large ice-filled bowl for 15 minutes or until pudding is cool, stirring occasionally. Or eat it while it's hot, then cover remainder and chill.

split pea soup

Probably most of us need to eat more vegetables. I can always manage to incorporate one or two in a day, and I can do vegetarian entrees, but I often find myself lacking imagination with side dishes or easy main courses. Usually I don't beat myself up about it, but there's a baby on the way so I've been trying to eat better. (I'm also feeling the urgency to catalog all the recipes I make on a regular basis so I will have easy dinner ideas to turn to once my life turns upside down). On a lazy Saturday when I might otherwise succumb to the urge to just make cheese quesadillas for lunch, I've been making the split pea soup recipe from 101 cookbooks. These are the quantities I use for two people, especially since it's so easy you can make it again sometime, and you may not feel like eating leftovers later...

Split Pea Soup

1 onion, chopped
dash olive oil
1 cup green split peas, rinsed
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vegetable boullion (I use Better Than Boullion)
2 1/2 cups water
dash cumin or smoked paprika
lemon juice (optional)

Saute onion in olive oil until translucent. Add split peas, boullion, salt, and 2 1/2 cups of water, and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered, at least 20 minutes, until peas are tender. Mash with potato masher, add a dash of your favorite spice and a squeeze of lemon juice at the end. Serves 2.

Best Ever Muffins

I've adapted a muffin recipe to make it healthier, with the added result that putting wheat bran in gives these muffins a sweet, crunchy crust. Ideally this is with fresh cranberries, but I can't find them now that it's spring, so you can use dried cranberries, raisins, or blueberries instead. These are very quick to make.

Best Ever Muffins

1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cups wheat bran (not wheat flour, but wheat bran)
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped fresh cranberries (or 1 c. dried)
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup melted Smart Balance organic spread
1 teaspoon grated orange peel (or lemon)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg


Preheat oven to 400°. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add cranberries. In a separate bowl, combine milk, butter, orange peel, vanilla, and egg; add to flour mixture, stirring just enough to mix. Spoon batter into 12 greased muffin cups. Bake at 400° for 18 minutes. Remove muffins from pan; place on a wire rack.

Sour Orange Marmalade

We have a normal orange tree and a tree that gives sour oranges... and after devouring every single one of the oranges from the sweet tree, we are always at a loss as to what to do with the fruit from other one. My mother helped me to make orange marmalade-- we improvised using her canning knowledge (she makes pear jelly every year), and quantities from a pectin package. Looking up recipes on the Internet (with fancier titles like "Valencia Orange Marmalade), I was deterred by how elaborate they were, but she had some good short cuts, so we didn't need muslin or a canning set-up to boil the jars later. With some homemade Moroccan bread Nour baked up at the end of the day, our marmalade ended up delicious, one of those glad-to-live-in-Florida experiences. I probably wouldn't make these without organic oranges just out of nervousness for all the chemicals, but since our trees have nothing on them, it's safe. For future reference, here's how we did it:

Sour Orange Marmalade

7 sour oranges
1 sweet navel orange
10 cups sugar (slightly less than a 5 lb. bag)
2 packages of sure-jell pectin (one box had 2 packages in it)
1 package canning wax (available at most grocery stores)
Assortment of jelly jars (also available at grocery stores, or Target)
Large pot, Dutch oven size

Using a vegetable peeler, remove just the orange part of the peel from the oranges. Chop up into small pieces, place peels in Dutch oven. Add 1 1/2 cups water and 1/8 tsp. baking soda, bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, peel off the white part and throw it out. Squeeze the juice into a large bowl, then chop up the orange pieces, removing seeds, and throw the orange pieces into the bowl too. After peels have simmered 20 minutes, add the orange pieces and juice from the bowl, simmer 10 minutes.

You can stop here and do the rest another day if you want, putting it all in the fridge. The final steps: canning. It's not as difficult as it sounds. Wash your jars in hot, soapy water, rinse and drain. Take the lids and put them in a pot with boiling water for a few minutes, drain that.

Now find out how many cups of the juice/peel mixture you have. For six cups of the juice/peel mix, you need 10 cups sugar. We had 7 cups of juice/peel, so we measured out 11 cups sugar. Stir all the sugar into the juice/peel mixture, then bring to a full rolling boil. Stir in both packages of pectin. Return to a full, rolling boil and boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

Ladle jelly into jars, leaving about 1/2 inch at the top. Wipe the inside of the jar rim with a clean, wet paper towel to make sure no juice is left on the inner rim. In a saucepan, melt the block of wax. You'll do two stages of pouring wax on top of the jelly-- this preserves it so you don't get sick. (If there's one jar you're going to eat right away, you don't need to do the wax with this one). After jars are filled with jelly, pour wax on top, leaving about 1/4 inch. Let it set-- could take 30 minutes to an hour. When it's obviously set (it appears white), melt some more wax or re-melt what you might have in the saucepan, and pour this on top of the other wax layer. Let this set, too-- another 30 minutes or so. When it's also dry, squeeze the lids on tightly. And that's all there is to it.

Baked Chicken Enchiladas with Salsa Verde

I first had enchiladas with salsa verde in Madrid in 1996. It was my first encounter with tomatillos, and since then I often order them at Mexican restaurants. I've tried my hand at elaborate recipes that involve making your own tomatillo salsa, but lately, as time seems in shorter and shorter supply, I've been looking for shortcuts. This is a good one.

Chicken Enchiladas with Salsa Verde

1 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup cilantro
2 minced garlic cloves
1 7-ounce can salsa verde (can be found at any Mexican grocery store, or even in supermarkets)
1 large chicken breast, cooked and shredded (poach 15 minutes with an onion, peppercorns, and parsley)
1/3 cup cream cheese
1 cup chicken broth
Package of flour tortillas, small or large
1/4 cup monterey jack cheese, with jalapenos, or queso fresco
1/2 tsp. chili powder

Preheat oven to 425.

Combine onion, cilantro, garlic and salsa verde in food processor, process until liquid. Mix shredded chicken and cream cheese, stir in 1/2 cup of the green salsa mixture, reserving the remainder.

Place about 1/4 cup chicken mixture on a tortilla, roll up and place in greased 11x7 baking dish. Repeat with remaining tortillas, pour salsa mixture over all, sprinkle with cheese and chili powder. Bake 18 minutes or until cheese is nice and bubbly.

Ina Garten's macaroni & cheese with gruyere and tomatoes

This one, from the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Channel, is worth the splurge on gruyere, which makes it so much more elegant and rich than normal everyday macaroni and cheese. And the tomatoes add something special too. I divided the recipe in half, which would have easily served four...

1/2 pound macaroni
2 cups milk
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups Gruyere, grated
1 cup extra-sharp Cheddar
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
dash ground nutmeg
2 small fresh tomatoes
3/4 cup fresh white bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Cook macaroni acc. to package directions.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan just until hot. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. While whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a minute or two more, until thickened and smooth. Remove from heat, add the Gruyere, Cheddar, 1/2 Tblsp. salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Add the cooked macaroni and stir well. Pour into a square baking dish.

Slice the tomatoes and arrange on top. Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter, combine with the fresh bread crumbs, and sprinkle on the top. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the macaroni is browned on the top.

Vietnamese summer rolls...

I've seen two recipes for Vietnamese summer rolls recently and thought about tackling them-- they seemed intimidating somehow, but as soon as Mark Bittman (The Minimalist column in the NY Times) described their preparation as basically like rolling up a burrito, I thought I could handle it. We have an Asian grocery store close to our house, and they had all the ingredients I'd never bought before-- including rice paper rolls (burrito-sized, comes in a round plastic box), rice vermicelli, and fish sauce... All much cheaper than in a regular grocery store.

I've made them several times now, along with a peanut sate dipping sauce I like (Bittman has another dipping sauce, included here, which is also good-- but I prefer peanut-y flavors). These are not difficult to make at all-- the recipe makes enough for a small dinner party (he says 4 servings), but you could also reduce it and just basically throw some things in a roll and it will be a delicious snack.

Vietnamese Summer Rolls with Two Dipping Sauces

16 6 inch rounds rice paper
8 leaves lettuce, washed, dried & torn
2 cups cooked rice vermicelli, rinsed and drained
1 cup shredded peeled carrots
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup basil leaves
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
32 poached shrimp, split lengthwise (or slices pork)

Dip a rice paper round halfway into a bowl of very hot water for 2 seconds. Turn it and dip remaining section, then lay on DAMP TOWEL (important, or else it sticks). Put a little lettuce, rice, carrots, mint, basil, cilantro, and shrimp in the bottom third of the round. Roll up as if rolling a burrito, fold ends over before reaching the top, then roll up all the way.

Peanut Sauce:

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/8 cup soy sauce
1 tsp. red chili paste (also available at Asian groceries)
1 Tblsp. brown sugar
juice from one lime
1/4 cup hot water

Mix in food processor or blender, scraping down sides.

Bittman's dipping suace:

1/2 cup fish sauce (nam pla)
1 Tblsp. sugar
1 Tblsp. minced ginger
1 tsp. red chili paste
salt & pepper

Mix in a bowl with a fork...

Dip and enjoy!