Seafood Salad with Tarragon-Mustard Dressing

This salad can be made with any combination of seafood you like - lump crabmeat, octopus, and squid will all work as well as what's listed below.

1 pound medium-sized cooked shrimp, shelled, deveined, and chopped
1 pound fresh bay scallops, cooked
1/2 pound steamed lobster meat (about 1 1/2 cups meat, the equivalent of a 3 1/4 to 4 pound lobster), shredded
2 green onions, trimmed, cleaned and thinly cut (white and light green only)
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup Tarragon-Mustard Dressing
2 cups mixed baby lettuces
2 or 3 hard boiled egg, chopped

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the seafood, onion, and seasoning.  Add one cup Tarragon-Mustard Dressing, and mix well.  Taste, and add more dressing if needed.

Arrange salad greens on six plates.  Place a scoop of seafood on each lettuce bed.  Sprinkle lightly with chopped egg.  Pass additional dressing, and chopped egg.

Pasta Puttanesca

One taste and you'll swear you're in the south of France!

This wonderfully robust pasta dish is quick and easy to prepare.  I love it, as it tastes like a pasta version of my favorite pizza dish at Les Olivades in Waterloo, Belgium.

If you're afraid of using anchovy fillets, you must try anchovy paste (available at most good grocery stores or Italian markets) which offers the same great, salty taste of the anchovies, without the feathery little bones that turn some people off.

1 pound of linguine
2 - 20 ounce cans peeled, diced, Italian plum tomatoes
1/4 cup quality olive oil
1 teaspoon oregano
1/8 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
1/2 cup tiny black Nicoise olives, pitted
1/4 cup drained capers
4 garlic cloves, chopped or 1 teaspoon crushed garlic
8 anchovy fillets, chopped (or a tablespoon anchovy paste)
2 tablespoons salt

While cooking pasta, drain tomatoes, and add to a large skillet, along with olive oil.  Bring to a boil.  Keep the sauce at a full boil, and add the remaining ingredients except pasta.  Reduce heat slightly, and continue to cook for a few minutes, or until as thick as you like.

Serve the sauce over the hot pasta with fresh parmesan cheese, and warm, crusty bread.

Choco-Cherry Christmas Mice

Kids, and adults will squeal with delight when they bite into these merry little mice!  

I borrowed this recipe from another room-mother at the kids school, years ago.  They're Christmas mice, made from Hershey's Kisses, and maraschino cherries dipped in melted chocolate chips.  I must thank the folks in Hershey for their Cherry Cordial Kisses.  What an awesome mouthful!


You'll need:
1 bag of Kisses (we use the Cherry Cordials, but you can use whatever variety you'd like)
1 jar of maraschino cherries, with stems
1 small bag of sliced almonds (for ears)
1 tube of red gel frosting (we like Wilton's glitter gel)
1 cup of Nestle's milk chocolate chips

Drain cherries, and wrap them in paper towel to absorb the remaining cherry juice.  You want your cherries as dry as possible.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Measure a cup of chips into a small glass bowl, and microwave at 70% power for 60 seconds.  Stir, and microwave a few seconds more to completely melt chips.  Don't overcook or the chocolate with burn.

Hold each cherry by the stem, and dip into the melted chocolate.  Quickly attach the free end of the cherry to the flat bottom of a Kiss, and place on the cookie sheet.  Continue until you've matched all the cherries and chocolates.


Pick through the almonds to find the pieces that look most like mouse ears.  Simply slip them into the tacky chocolate between the cherry and the Kiss.  Finally, use the gel to apply two eyes and a nose (the gel never really sets, so be careful when handling your finished mice).  Refrigerate to set.

To dispose of the mice, grab 'em by the tail, dangle over your tongue, bite and swallow!  Yummy in the tummy!


Note:  If you'd like, make white mice with white chocolate chips, and white chocolate Kisses.

BOO! Cookies

As a young mom, I was always looking for fun, fast holiday treats that I could make in bulk to take to the girls' school and club parties.  There was no internet to surf for ideas in the mid-eighties, so we relied heavily upon manufacturers' suggestions in women's magazines.

I found this cute and easy idea from the folks that make Nutter Butter peanut butter sandwich cookies, and they became an instant family and school favorite.  Of course, those were the days before the dreaded nut-allergy epidemic.

What's really nice about these treats, is that the children can actually help.  So many kid-friendly recipes turn out to be just the opposite.  We made these yesterday with my two-year- old grandson, and while he was a tad too young to dip the cookies himself, he had a blast watching and didn't have to wait long to sample and enjoy!

All you need to get started, is a bag of Nutter Butter cookies, a bag of white chocolate chips (I used a block of white chocolate) and some gum drops or gummy fruit rings.

Melt the chocolate in the top of a double-boiler or in a glass dish in the microwave.  I prefer the double-boiler method because it's easier to keep the temperature constant so the chocolate doesn't burn.

Dip half a cookie (kids can help with this because the chocolate never gets hot enough to burn the skin) in the melted chocolate, and place on a parchment covered cookie sheet.  Continue until all the cookies have been coated.

Cut the ghosts' eyes from the gum drops and press into the still soft chocolate.   I put the cookie sheet in the refrigerator for fifteen minutes to speed-set the chocolate, then let the kids enjoy.  Richard loved them as much as my girls did!

It's just so darn hard to choose which one to eat first!

That little guy with the red eyes looks tasty.

Here goes!

I put the ghosts that survived Richard, in a plastic container.  They'll keep for quite a while in a cool, dry place.

Judy's Pork with Apple Kraut

This is my favorite sauerkraut recipe, courtesy of my Aunt Judy.  It reminds me of the the delicious pork and kraut dishes served in Germany, where the sauerkraut isn't sour, but sweet, and almost always cooked with apples.     

1 pork tenderloin, cut into large pieces, or 6 pork chops
1 cup peeled, chopped, Granny Smith Apple
2 tablespoons butter
1 (16 ounce) package sauerkraut, drained
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
2 bay leaves
1 (10 ounce) can Campbell's French Onion Soup

Melt butter in dutch oven; add apples and saute until soft, then remove.  Add pork, and brown on all sides.
Add remaining ingredients in the following order:  sauerkraut, caraway seeds, brown sugar, bay leaves, and onion soup.
Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.  Absolutely delicious!


As alternative, after browning, you may layer pork, apples, sauerkraut and remaining ingredients in a casserole dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Eggnog Spice Bundt Cake

This cake is really different from an ordinary Bundt recipe because it's so light in both taste and texture.  You don't have to be a fan of spice cake, or eggnog, to enjoy this truly unique sponge cake.  I'm substituting pumpkin spice pudding this year too.  It's always fun to change things up a bit!  

Finally, if you don't have a Bundt pan, no worries.  This bakes equally well in a 13 x 9 glass dish, 2 - 9 inch layer pans or a large loaf pan.  Just keep an eye on your baking time by testing for doneness with a toothpick.


Another quick and easy recipe.

1 (18 ounce) box spice cake mix
1 (4-serving size) box instant vanilla or cheesecake pudding and pie filling mix
1 cup nonfat vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup eggnog
1 egg
3 egg whites
1 1/3 cups toasted chopped pecans
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat a non-stick Bundt pan with cooking spray (I sprinkle a little Wondra flour in the pan too).
Combine all ingredients except pecans and powered sugar, in a large bowl.  Beat until creamy.  Stir in pecans.  Pour into prepared pan.  Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove from pan, and cool on wire rack.  When cool, dust with powdered sugar.

Thumbprint Cookies

Everyone loves a thumbprint cookie!  My mother's recipe calls for putting a dollop of buttercream in the center of a tender little butter cookie, rolled in pecans.  The size of the frosting dollop is dependent upon the baker and her sweet-tooth.


The best thing about thumbprints, is that the kids can help make them, as well as eat them!  Another 'quick and easy' baking project for kids.

Cookie Dough:
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups butter, softened
4 eggs, separated
4 cups flour
3 cups finely chopped pecans

Buttercream Frosting:
powdered sugar
butter, softened
few drops milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

Cream together sugar, butter and egg yolks.  Add flour.  If dough is too soft to handle, chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Using a rounded teaspoonful of dough, form balls by rolling between the palms of your hands.  Dip each dough-ball into beaten egg-white.  Roll in pecans, and place on cookie sheet.

Make a thumbprint in the center of each dough-ball, being careful not to press too hard.  Bake for 8 minutes.  Remove from oven, and carefully reset the thumbprint if needed.  Bake 8 minutes longer, or until the pecans just begin to toast.  Don't let them cook too long, or the cookie will be dry.

When completely cool, fill centers with buttercream frosting.  I always tint the frosting with food color or the holiday.  These can be frozen, but flash freeze on a cookie sheet first to protect frosting.