By request

It’s a great compliment when someone requests one of your recipes, but, if you’ve been to three cookouts this month, and been asked for your signature dish every time, you and your family have probably had enough of it. Each summer I like to add a new favorite to my classics so we don’t get bored.

These next couple of days, I’ll post recipes I’ve been asked for recently. If there’s one you’d like me to post, just let me know.

My Classic Potato Salad has a lot of ingredients (my friend Lynne would be very disappointed in me, the list of ingredients should never be longer than the list of directions), but it’s easy—dice, shake, and toss. The Warm Potato and Green Bean Salad (Lynne requests this one all the time!) has several selling points: It’s served warm (great for last-minute plans), it includes a vegetable (almost every gathering these days includes someone avoiding carbs, they can just pick out the potatoes), and it has no mayonnaise (no spoiling in the hot sun).

Classic Potato Salad

1 bag small red potatoes, boiled and diced
1 t onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2-3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
2 pickles, chopped
1½ T oil
1 T vinegar
1 T pickle juice
½ c Miracle Whip salad dressing
salt and pepper, to taste
1/8 c Dijon mustard
½ c sour cream
dill and parsley to taste (fresh, if you have it)
basil or tarragon to taste (fresh, if you have it)

Place potatoes, onion, celery, eggs, and pickles into large bowl. Shake condiments in a jar for dressing. Pour over potatoes. Toss salad—shaking in a covered plastic bowl works best. Chill. Top with fresh herbs before serving.

Warm Potato and Green Bean Salad
from The North End Italian Cookbook

2 pounds fresh green beans, tips removed, snapped in half
1 pound new potatoes, unpeeled
2/3 cup olive oil
6 tablespoons white wine vinegar
6 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons oregano, dried
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
2 pinches red pepper flakes
salt and pepper, to taste

Steam green beans 8-10 minutes, until tender. Drain and place on serving platter. Boil potatoes until just tender. Drain, do not rinse, let cool, then cube, leaving skin on. Add to green beans. Using a large spoon, gently toss beans and potatoes with remaining ingredients. Serve salad at warm or at room temperature.

Eating from our plenty, part II

I’m bound and determined to make it through the week—and possibly the long weekend—without hitting the grocery store. I’m just plain tired of it.

So, I’m cleaning out the pantry and the freezer again. I had some Cajun Sausage Stew in the freezer, and I decided to make rice to go with it. Thinking about the New Orleans roots of the stew, I remembered a dish from my Desperation Dinners! Cookbook (which had been a gift from my book group when I was expecting my third son—the meals are all ready in 30 minutes or less, gotta love that!). Taken from Blue Runners and Rice, which is red beans and rice (“Blue Runners” is a brand of canned beans for the family in which the recipe originated); these are spectacular! The original recipe includes one pound of turkey kielbasa for a main dish—add a salad and you have a meal; to make them a side dish, as below, I omit the kielbasa.

Red beans and rice

2 t olive oil
1 c onion, chopped
1 c celery, chopped
¾ c red or green bell pepper, chopped
2 t garlic, minced
½ t thyme, dried
½ t basil, dried
½ t oregano, dried
½ t black pepper
½ t salt
½ t Tabasco (more or less to taste, optional)
2 bay leaves
1 14½-oz can fat-free chicken broth
1 15½-oz can red kidney beans (I prefer Progresso dark red kidney beans)
1¾ c instant (5-minute) rice
½ c okra, fresh, chopped or frozen, not thawed, chopped
½ c water, if needed

Heat oil over medium heat in a 12-inch skillet that has a lid. As you chop them, add the onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic to the skillet. Cook vegetables until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in thyme, basil, oregano, black pepper, Tabasco, and bay leaves.

Raise heat to high, add broth, cover skillet, and bring to a boil. (If using kielbasa, cut it into ¼– to ½-inch thick slices and set aside.) Drain and rinse the beans.

Once broth boils, add beans, okra, and rice (and kielbasa, if using). Reduce heat to medium-low, cover the pan, and cook until rice is tender, 5 to 10 minutes. If the broth is absorbed before the rice is tender, add additional ½ cup of water. Serve hot.

Don't labor on Labor Day

My sister, Bridget, is having my parents and aunts to dinner over the holiday weekend, and she wanted the food to be ready so that she could visit, and not spend the day in the kitchen. She wanted to make use of the seasonal vegetables (she usually has some great garden offerings, either her own or from friends), and grilling.

I told her that lately my do-ahead meal has been fajitas. You can do the chicken and steak and leave them slightly rare, and keep them warm in the oven on low or in the crockpot on warm until you're ready to eat. They don't have to be hot, hot, when you serve them, just warm, then you can make all the fixin’s: salsa, guacamole, cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, sour cream, flour tortillas, tomatoes, lettuce, jalapeños, ...

If you aren’t in the mood for Mexican, you can do a nice salad and top it with the steak and/or chicken. You could do some other nice seasonal treats to go along with the salad, almost like a salad bar (nice tomatoes, cucumbers, marinated zucchini), and some corn on the cob on the side.

These are also great meals for those crazy back-to-school nights when we don’t know if we’re coming or going.

What do you think? What do you serve when you don’t want to miss all the fun while you work in the kitchen?

It's that easy?!

I don’t make everything from scratch, despite that my husband teases me that I’m like Martha Stewart. I do make some things from scratch: Last week I made taco seasoning mix, to me it just seems wasteful to buy another spice when I have all the necessary ingredients in my pantry already. I also made marshmallows, a la Martha Stewart and Ina Garten, I thought the kids would get a kick out of them, but they weren’t as excited as I thought they’d be. I may make them again, to go with my homemade cocoa mix around the holidays (cute hostess and client gifts), but I won’t make them for my family until my daughter Grace is old enough, but still young enough (I may have missed the boat with the boys, they’re too old) to enjoy them.

I’ve always been intimidated by jams and jellies and canning, but canning seems like such a great idea when you make a large batch of something that you only eat in small bits. So, last week I made blueberry jam and canned (jarred, actually) it. I could not believe how easy it was!

I used a recipe from Martha Stewart's Kids magazine (May/June 2004) which had been kicking around the house.

Basic Blueberry Jam

4 c blueberries
3½ c sugar

Preheat oven to 250°. Put a plate in the freezer. With a potato masher or spoon, crush 1 cup of blueberries in a medium heavy-bottom nonreactive saucepan.

Add remaining 3 cups blueberries and ½ cup water; bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon to break up berries, until berries are soft, about 6 minutes.

Meanwhile, spread sugar on a rimmed baking sheet. Heat in oven until warm, about 5 minutes.

Slowly stir sugar into saucepan; return mixture to a simmer, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook at a slow boil until thickened, 45 minutes to 1 hour. To test for doneness, drop a small amount of jam onto the chilled plate; it should wrinkle when pressed with your finger. Refrigerate jam in an airtight container up to 2 weeks, or can in sealed, sterilized jars up to 6 months.

To can the jam, pour warm jam into warm jars (you can boil the jars or run them through the dishwasher). Wipe the rims of the jars with a dishtowel or paper towel. Place lids on jars and hand-tighten them. Place filled jars on the rack of a pressure cooker. Process according to the pressure cooker's directions (for mine, I fill the pressure cooker with enough water to cover the jars, bring the cooker to full pressure for 10 minutes, and then let cool until pressure is released). If you don’t have a pressure cooker, there are several sites that can help you get started canning, try www.canningusa.com, Canning 101, homecanning.com and Home canning at about.com. Let the jars rest for 24 hours, and remove the rings to be sure the lids are still in place (nudge them gently with your finger to make sure they don’t move). If they do move, you can re-process them. If they don't move, you’re good to go, label your jam, and store it in a cool, dry place.

It really is easy! Give it a try. Next up, I’ll be doing my New York-style hot dog onions and that killer barbecue sauce.

Birthday cakes galore

In our family, June, July, and August are lousy with birthdays and anniversaries. I think my sister, Bridget counted 24, but that doesn't include my husband's side of the family, and we've got 8, I think. Anyway, we make a lot of birthday cakes in the summer.

My sister, Eileen, is planning for her hubby's 40th birthday tomorrow. Brad eats the craziest, sweetest things you can imaging, and he is the thinnest man I've ever met. Mind you, he never stops moving, biking, running, hiking, boating; he coaches track and skiing at the high school where he teaches. Funny that he married the least outdoors-y sister, but I digress (and she's adapted quite nicely BTW) ...

Brad is famous for his breakfast of oatmeal with peanut butter and chocolate chips mixed right in. So, Eileen found a recipe for a peanut butter ice cream cake at http://www.recipes4cakes.com/icecream/peanut_recipe.htm, but she wanted to add chocolate to the recipe. I had just made a great, dense chocolate cake with chocolate icing for my son, Jude's 10th birthday, so I suggested adding that layer. I made the cake today (for Jude's 2nd birthday celebration, because really, you're not 10 if you don't have more than one birthday party, are you?), here's the recipe I ended up with after making some modifications from the original.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Ice-Cream Cake

2 cellophane packages of graham crackers
3/4 c salted peanuts
1 stick butter
4 t sugar
1 qt vanilla ice cream, softened (Have you noticed that "half-gallon containers" no longer contain 2 quarts of ice cream? The Hood New England Homemade Vanilla ice cream I have contains 1.75 quarts, so you'll need a little more than a half of a "half gallon.")
1/2 c peanut butter
8 oz semi-sweet chocolate
8 oz heavy cream
1/2 c salted peanuts, chopped, for garnish

Preheat oven to 375°. Process crackers and peanuts in a food processor or blender. Melt butter in 8" x 11" baking dish. Combine cracker crumbs, nuts, sugar and butter into baking pan, mix and press down for crust. Bake for 8 minutes. Cool, place in refrigerator to chill.

Meanwhile, in a Pyrex bowl over simmering water, melt chocolate. When chocolate is melted, combine heavy cream, let sit to cool slightly. Combine softened ice cream with peanut butter until blended.

Spread ice cream over chilled crust. Top with chocolate, and sprinkle with chopped peanuts. Freeze 6 hours or until firm.

This will be delightful when we come in from a hot August day at the beach today to celebrate Jude's birthday and my in law's 44th wedding anniversary.

Happy birthday, Jude. Happy birthday, Brad. Happy anniversary, Nonni & Nanno.

HOT! HOT! HOT!

Not! How ‘bout Rainy! Rainy! Rainy! — and at the worst possible point in the summer for me and mine. We went to Hampton Beach for 4 days, rain. We were trying to end the baseball season, rain. We went to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Foxboro Stadium, rain. We went camping at Old Orchard Beach, rain. But I’m not complaining, in fact, I’m turning it to inspiration ... that, combined with the National Blog Posting Month topic of “Hot,” has turned me to “hot” recipes — some new ones and some tried-and-true.

This is one I’ve always loved at a party. They take a little time, so make them up ahead of time, then just heat them at the last minute, and enjoy your guests. Beware, they’re hot!

Cheesy Chicken Pepper Poppers

1 jar hot cherry peppers in vinegar, stems and seeds removed
2 chicken breasts, poached and shredded
6 green onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
12 oz cream cheese, softened to room temperature
2 eggs
3 T heavy cream
1 c Monterey Jack cheese, grated
1 T cumin
salt and pepper, to taste

Combine chicken, onions, garlic, cream cheese, eggs, cream, cheese, cumin, salt, and pepper; mix well. Stuff each pepper and place on a baking sheet. (Peppers can be covered and refrigerated at this point, or packaged in an airtight container and frozen for later use.)

When ready to serve, preheat oven to 350°. Place peppers on baking sheet in preheated oven. Bake until filling is puffed and peppers are soft, about 45 minutes. Serve hot.