Travels with The Rayman

This is a picture of a cake I made for New Years Eve.  It actually looked better than this picture in person.  Anyway, I learned how to make chocolate shards and that was fun and easy.  Yes, easy.  So, keep that in mind for your next party!

Last night I made a fish Vera Cruz dish.

Here’s the recipe. What I liked about this dish is that it was easy.  It called for green olives.  Ray doesn’t like green olives.  However, once you cook them it changes the taste.  And Ray ate and enjoyed them.  It also calls for pickled jalapenos.  No problemo.  They sell them in cans and I’m sure they will keep as they are Pickled!!  So, try out this dish.  You won’t be disappointed.  Oh, I did put in a splash of dry white wine and used the fire roasted Muir Glen organic tomatoes instead of fresh ones.

It was time to have a party!!!  Our friends from Bakersfield were coming over to visit and play golf so we decided we should invite some other folks for dinner.  Hey, what are friends for.  And I thought paella would be a great party dish.  Well, I didn’t have one paella recipe anywhere.  So.  I called Ruthie.  She fixed me up with all kinds of recipes.  She even sent me a picture of one of her paellas.  Yummy looking.

Well, I definitely wanted a fish paella.  And I love chicken so I wanted a fish and chicken paella.  And as luck would have it, I had ordered Spanish chorizo (it’s like a hard salami) in the frig.  Bought it on-line at Zingerman’s.  So, I was set.  I have filed the recipe in my Food binder for easy reference.

Along with paella, I offered champagne, a butter lettuce salad with oranges, avocado, and red onion (soaked in ice water for 10 minutes to reduce the bite).  Muy bueno!!

It’s been a quiet time in the kitchen of late.  Or has it?

Roasted chicken is a great dinner.  Easy.  Really easy.  I bought an organic, free range, no antibiotic chicken from the local organic store.  Came home, rinsed it.  Salted it.  Stuck it uncovered in the frig.  This dries out the skin and it ends up crispier.  Just before going into the oven, I punctured two small Meyer lemons and stuck them in the bird, put some fresh ground pepper on it and rubbed it with EVOO.  Stuck it in the convection oven at 400.  It’s been about 50 minutes and it is about done.

Served it with baked yam fries and peas.  The house smelled great and all is well with the work!!

P.s.  The picture was not of a roasted chicken in my kitchen.  This is a picture of rotisserie chicks in Arls, France (at their farmer’s market!!)

It has been raining for days.  Grey skies, heavy wind.  Just wants to make you cook comfort food.

I’ve made paella in the past.  In fact, a good friend, Ruth, gave me a great recipe.  Of course, I lost it so when she called this week on another matter, I asked if she would send along another recipe that she likes.  Paella recipes are her specialty.  She owns a cookbook full of them.  So, it pays to have good sources.  She sent me the above picture.

Speaking of sources, the L.A. Times has a great food section on Wednesday.  The number of dishes that’s I discovered in that section is quite impressive.

Anyway, I’m awaiting the mail to receive the paella recipe so that I can plan my shopping.  Shopping takes a great deal of time and advanced planning.  Living miles from anything renders advanced planning totally necessary.  Being retired affords me the luxury to time to plan.  I love it.