Category: Food

Jicama (He-ca-ma).

I recently saw jicama described as a cross between an apple and a potato. I’m not sure that makes it sound appetizing, but it does have the texture of something like that. The flavor is a bit reminiscent of mild apple. Bottom line, it is sweet and crunchy.

In 1985, California Pizza Kitchen’s first location opened in Beverly Hills. I think it was a bit later as they rapidly opened other locations, that I had my first CPK pizza. I don’t know that they were the first place to offer wood-fired specialty pizzas, but it was certainly my first experience and I was hooked. I can’t remember my favorite but somewhere along the line I had their Barbeque Chicken Chopped Salad and that was that.

Although I wasn’t making near as much from scratch as I do now, I had discovered the pleasure of good ingredients and of experimenting with the variety of fresh fruit and vegetables available in California markets. The menu noted that jicama was in the salad and by process of elimination, I knew it to be the small, white cubes of sweet crunchiness.

I relied on CPK visits to meet my cravings for Barbeque Chicken Chopped Salad until I left California.

I think I’ve made a version of the salad off and on but nothing like this weekend’s which was a rousing success!

From the tortilla strips made from my own homemade tortillas to a homemade barbecue sauce based on Simply Scratch’s Homemade Barbecue Sauce Recipe to my own homemade mayonnaise & buttermilk herb dressing…

Everything fresh.

The original recipe uses a mix of romaine and iceberg, but I had “just out of the ground” spring lettuces from the Bigfork Farmer’s Market.

My salad looks a lot greener than CPK’s, but taste-wise I had no complaints and had to stop myself from a THIRD helping!

It was an excellent salad. It was better than my memory of the CPK version. It will be made again!

And contrary to the forecasts, our weather has been more blue sky and sunny than cool and rainy.

They keep saying this will change and typically it is cool and rainy for Memorial Day. But until it does, Bob, Bear and I have been outside whenever possible.

The weekend post had a photo of things I was cooking/baking/roasting on Saturday afternoon which included a dish labeled “Greek Potatoes”. I don’t know if the Greek Potato Recipe is actually a Greek recipe. According to the source blog and several commenters, the dish is served in many U.S. Greek restaurants. What motivated me to make it was the lemon-olive oil-oregano marinade that went over all.

I’ve made 4 variations since seeing the recipe last week. I made it as written with russet potatoes twice (1/3 the quantity), but in between I made it with a combination of sweet potatoes and beets.

And this morning…

From left to right: russet potato, sweet potato, fennel, cabbage, beets and carrots.

Good golly – good!!

And the bit of herby oil left in the baking dish makes a wonderful “dip” to mop up with a piece(s) of crusty bread or even a drizzle for some fresh pasta with the veg and maybe some roast mushrooms.

Surprising, to me – my favorite of the veg were the cabbage and fennel.

Roast veg over quinoa = one excellent lunch.

This is what happens when I have a little too much time.

A process was running on my computer. Waiting for that to finish, I had all of the ingredients for making mayonnaise in the jar but you need to wait a minute for all to settle before starting the process that emulsifies all into the mayonnaise.

I’ve had in the back of my mind making a quick video of the mayo making process because it is so quick – at least this immersion blender in the jar version. But, I am not a fan of video and my plan of setting up a table that I could be behind with the camera on a tripod in front of me, etc., etc… not happening.

So, here I am. Waiting. I could have washed a window or 2, but that’s no fun. I pick up my phone with the intent of a test video. No lighting, no script, no notes, no plan except just to see how the phone camera (and I) would do – for the fun of it.

I decide it is not that bad and I can live with the corniness and the fact that I forgot to mention a very important ingredient – THE OIL!!! 5/8 cup olive oil to be exact. But, here it is, missed ingredient, silliness and all.

MakingMayonnaise: I forgot to say 5/8 cup oil from Liz Summers on Vimeo.

I don’t feel that I’m letting down my cookery hero, Julia Child, as even she demonstrated making mayonnaise with a blender. And my first mayonnaise was made all by hand which is a definite arm workout. I’ve also made it in a food processor and the Blender Express mini system I have in the motorhome. But this immersion blender version is absolutely the fastest, least amount of cleanup and I cannot discern a taste or texture difference between methods.

The whole egg scenario credit goes to Jennifer Perillo, In Jennie’s Kitchen homemade mayonnaise.

Traditional mayonnaise is made with egg yolks. If you click on the link above and view Jennie’s post, she makes both an egg yolk version and an egg white version. I decided that if egg whites alone worked, a whole egg would probably work as well. I always have the best intentions when I have whites or yolks left from a recipe that uses one or the other but typically, I end up forgetting about whichever until it is too late. So, this whole egg mayo works well for me. I fiddled with the quantities of acid (vinegar or lemon juice) and oil a few times and ended up with this version which has worked every time for me. I am using an XL fresh farm egg.

I don’t use a lot of mayonnaise, but I make a mayo-yogurt-buttermilk-black pepper-herb dressing/dip, the occasional chicken or egg salad and a new thing for me: potato salad. I’ve never been a fan of the picnic-style potato salad smothered in mayo and made from boiled potatoes. But several weeks ago, I was deciding what to do with a leftover 1/2 baked russet potato. I had a hard boiled egg and mayo in the frig.

Potato salad for 1 was born!

This combo made a quick potato salad that was fresh and flavorful.

Homemade mayonnaise and potato salad for 1.