Pineapple Curry Hummus

Try this tropical flavored hummus at a luau, barbecue, or outdoor party.

1 clove garlic
1 (15 oz.) can garbanzo beans
3 tablesppons pineapple chunks
1 teaspoon yellow curry
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup canola oil

Place garlic in a food processor and process until minced. Add beans, pineapple, curry, coconut milk and salt, and process into a puree.

With processor running, slowly add oil in a steady stream through the feed tube. Process until mixture thickens, about 1 - 2 minute.

Spoon into serving dish and serve as a spread for bread or crackers. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Makes about 1 cup

Chicken Piccata

When trying to please a crowd, especially on the West coast, choose a chicken recipe. This delicious dish is prepared a little differently than the usual Piccata chicken recipe to prevent the chicken from drying out and to minimize the time spent in the kitchen if you are hosting a party. The morning of the party, give the chicken breasts a quick browning on both sides without cooking it all the way through. Then, prepare the sauce, drizzle it over the breasts in a baking pan, and refrigerate until party time. Right before the party, all you have to do is heat it up in the oven to finish cooking the chicken. You have a dish the tastes like you've been in the kitchen slaving away during the party laying each lemony capered breast into the pan and cooking it to a golden brown when actually all the "active" cooking was done hours ago. It's a great make-head recipe and I've proportioned it for 50 peeps!

• 50 boneless, skinless half chicken breasts
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons salt
• 2 tablespoons pepper
• Olive oil

Piccata Sauce

• 1 cup butter
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 shallots, cut into slivers
• 1 (6-oz.) jar capers
• 2 cups Pinot Grigio
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Pound chicken breast with a kitchen mallet to 1/4-inch thickness. Toss together flour, salt and pepper and place on a dinner plate. Coat chicken in flour mixture. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Cook 4 - 5 chicken breasts at a time in skillet until flour coating is lightly browned, about 3-5 minutes on each side. Repeat process with remaining chicken breasts adding 1 tablespoon of oil for every batch. Place chicken in shingled rows in a 9x13-inch baking pan (see note below). Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Make Piccata Sauce immediately after chicken is browned. In same skillet, add 1/4 cup butter, oil, and shallots and cook over medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Add capers and wine and cook until wine reduces to 1/2, about 3 –5 minutes. Add lemon juice and cook for 2 minutes more.
Remove from heat and swirl in remaining 3/4 cups butter, 2 tablespoons at a time. Drizzle sauce over chicken in baking pan. Cover and return to refrigerator until ready to use. Chicken may be prepared up to this point on the morning of the event and then, fully cooked and served in the evening.

Preheat over to 325F (165C). Uncover pans of chicken and place in oven. Cook for about 15 minutes until chicken is no longer pink in the center. Arrange in a chafing dish or on a large platter and spoon Piccata Sauce from pan over top. Serve hot.

Makes 50 servings

Note: You will need at least three 9x13-inch baking pans to make all 50 chicken breasts. I’ve found about 15 breasts fit nicely into one pan. You can also use 8x 8-inch baking dishes or whatever you have in the kitchen. Or, purchase disposable aluminum pans from the grocery store.

Warm Lemon-Bacon Dressing on Scallop and Spinach Salad

Had an old friend over for dinner last night, and after spending the afternoon coloring 30+ Easter eggs and making a couple of loaves of delicious Easter Bread with Chocolate Chips in preparation for what I consider to be the busiest holiday for moms and dads, I wanted to make something really fresh and summery for dinner. Yep, I need it to be summer now with no homework or intense "parent-pretending" mythic holidays (i.e. being an awesome Santa or E.B.). Don't get me wrong, I love that my kids are still way into the spirit of Easter and the big ol' bunny (even though the 10-year-old knows the real deal). But, lordy me, I can't imagine how parents who aren't craftellas or craftellers (male equivalent) survive. I've been in craft/spokesperson deals with both RIT Dye for spring crafts and Michael's Arts and Crafts (a freakin' 10 city tour) and find Easter to be way more exhausting! Maybe it's because you invest so much emotionally in kid-centric holidays when you're a parent. Think about it. A kid only has about 10 cycles of a holiday where it's total magic, meaning that they still believe in Santa or the Easter Bunny, and the pressure as a parent is on! My daughter is 5-years-old, peak operating hours for creating happy holiday memories by filling the long days leading up to that morning of a sea of presents under the x-mas tree or a boat load of candy in a basket with activities to occupy their time and their precious, creative little minds. What does my mommy diatribe have to do with this salad? Cooking feeds my soul, relaxes me, helps me be a better parent.

• 8 strips bacon
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 8 oz. pack sliced fresh button mushrooms
• 8 jumbo sea scallops
• 8 oz. fresh spinach leaves

Warm Lemon-Bacon Dressing

• 3 tablespoons rendered bacon fat
• 6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• pinch of salt and pepper

Fry bacon until just crisp; reserve bacon fat. Remove bacon from pan on to a bed of paper towels to absorb grease. When cool enough to handle, coarsely chop bacon.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until golden brown out 8 minutes.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add scallops and cook until brown on underside, about 3 to 5 minutes. Flip scallops over and cook until brown on other side and just opaque (i.e. loose their glossy, translucent look and appear more of a milky white).

Add spinach, bacon, and mushrooms in a large salad bowl.

To make Warm Lemon-Bacon Dressing: Add rendered bacon fat, lemon juice, olive oil, water, sugar, salt, and pepper into a small saucepan. Cook while whisking over low heat until mixture loses its translucent appearance and any solid fat melts, about 1 to 3 minutes.

Remove dressing from heat and pour most over spinach and ingredients in salad bowl; toss until
ingredients are coated. Arrange scallops on top of salad and drizzle remaining dressing over them. Serve immediately.

Makes 2 to 4 servings

Photo credit: wwsocookbook on flickr

Easter Wreath with White Boas and Blue Eggs

Hang this fab feathery boa wreath on your front door to welcome guests for Easter.

Easter Bread with Chocolate Chips

Found in many a heritage is the tradition of baking an Easter bread that contains colored or dyed eggs. Bread, being the "staff of life" as symbolized by Christians, and eggs representing renewal are both iconic of the religious meaning of the Easter holiday for many. My Catholic mother-in-law, Rose, bakes this bread every Easter and helped me out with tips when I developed the recipe. Not being able to resist modifications, I decided to pack the bread with chocolate chips, per Rose's blessing as I didn't want to appear sanctimonious in my quest for a tasty holiday treat. Use non-toxic dye when coloring the eggs as the dye may rub off on the bread (see recipe and note below). Also, the eggs are raw when dyed, as opposed to the traditional method for coloring Easter eggs where they are hard-boiled before the coloring process. Finally, I suggest storing this bread in the refrigerator to keep the encrusted eggs safe for consumption. If the bread happens to stay out overnight or on a shaded brunch table for more than 2 hours, remove the eggs and discard as children are drawn to them.

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 (1/4 oz.) package active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup warm milk
• 2 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon canola oil

For Decoration:

• 5 uncooked eggs colored with non-toxic Easter egg dye (see recipe below)

Combine sugar, yeast, salt, and 1 cup flour in a large bowl. Heat milk and butter in a small saucepan over low heat until milk is lukewarm 110F and butter has melted. Pour milk into dry ingredients and beat well, for about 2 minutes. Add eggs and 1/2 cup flour and beat for additional 2 minutes until batter thickens.

Add remaining 1 1/2 cups flour and stir until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. Turn out dough on to lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic but not sticky. Use more flour if necessary.

Oil a large, clean bowl and transfer dough into bowl. Turn dough over once to oil top of dough. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place in a warm, draft-free area. Let dough stand until it doubles in size, about 2 hours.

Butter a baking sheet. Punch down the dough in bowl and return to a lightly floured surface. Knead in chocolate chips until incorporated throughout dough.

Divide the dough in half. Roll each half into a 2-foot rope. Loosely twist the two ropes together and form into a ring on a prepared baking sheet. Pinch ends together to close ring. Carefully split twist in ropes to make a place for each egg. Gently push eggs down into splits in ropes as deep as possible. Loosely cover bread with wax paper and let rise in a warm, draft-free area until bread doubles in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Brush surface of bread and Easter eggs with canola oil. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in bread comes out clean. Place on a wire rack to cool.

Makes 1 round loaf

Home-made Easter Egg Dye

Combine 1 cup water with 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar. Stir in drops food coloring until liquid is desired color. Immerse egg in dye for 30 minutes. Pat dry with paper towel.


Photo Credit: Crisco.com. Check out Crisco's Easter Bread Recipe.

Roast Duck with Hoisin-Cilantro Glaze

Lordy me, do I love duck. Went to the grocery store yesterday and a little duckling called to me so I made this incredibly easy, delicious recipe. Of course my kids were freaked out by the notion of eating duck thinking that I was somehow destroying their childhood memories of bath time and rubber duckies. They treated the kitchen like a CSI scene and dared not enter until all traces of the mahogany-glazed fowl had disappeared. For those who have never prepared duck know this, it's a fat-fest in the oven, popping and splattering all over the place. You should place your oven rack a little lower than the middle rung and keep the roasting pan in the center for best chances of fat not winding up all over the oven walls. And, while duck doesn't require basting, you need to remove the fat that accumulates in the pan during the cooking process. Serve this Roast Duck with Hoisin-Cilantro Glaze recipe at your next dinner party accompanied by a simple vegetable stir fry like chopped pencil asparagus, Shitake mushrooms, sesame seeds, sesame oil, and a sprinkling of sea salt.

• 1 cup Hoisin sauce
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
• 1 (5 lb.) whole duck

Thaw duck overnight in refrigerator or in cold water. Allow duck to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before prep and roasting for best results of evenly cooked meat.

Preheat oven to 400F. Mix together Hoisin and vinegar; set aside.

Remove plastic wrapping on duck. Remove neck, liver, and gizzards from body cavity.
Cut duck along the breast bone to open it up but don't cut through the backbone. Rinse duck, thoroughly cleaning skin and underside, and pat dry.

Place duck flat, skin side up, in a roasting pan and prick skin with a fork trying not to pierce the meat underneath. Sprinkle salt all over duck. Lather duck with Hoisin mixture over skin and on underside. Scatter cilantro over top and rub it into the skin to release the herb's oils.

Cook duck for about 1 hour, removing fat from pan as it accumulates every 15 minutes using a baster. Duck is done when skin is a gorgeous mahogany and a fork inserted into breast yields juice that is light rosy pink for medium rare or clear for more well done meat.

Carve duck into 2 servings and for each one: Cut off leg and thigh as one piece, cut off wing, remove breast meat as a whole from bone and then slice on the diagonal. Arrange pieces on individual plates and serve warm.

Makes 2 servings