A crowd-pleasing peanut sauce

Last night Bryan and I were trying to get in the holiday spirit by watching "Night of the Demons." After all, who can resist a cheesy '80s horror flick when Halloween is just a week away?

During the ultra-cheesy character development in the beginning, the heroine's mom was mercilessly teased because she always makes the recipes on the backs of cereal boxes. Why does everybody always have to diss compulsive recipe clippers? If I see a recipe that looks good, I clip it, no matter where I find it: on the back of a cereal box or any other food product, with the Sunday coupons, and really, anywhere in the newspaper or online. And then I feel like I have to lie about where I got the recipe if anybody asks. What, it's not from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" or "How to Cook Everything"?

Well, I may be somewhat of a food snob, but at least I'm not a recipe snob. However, I can't lie about the success rate with my compulsive clipping habit. I've had about as many misses as hits, but there's always room to improve any recipe. And besides, the repeat performers make up for all the not-so-tasty meals, plus you only know whether something is good if you try it.

And today was definitely a hit. Christina asked me to bring my crowd-pleasing guacamole to her daughter's 2nd birthday party, but I wasn't quick enough to play the avocado-ripening game. So I found a peanut-sauce recipe in Parade magazine last weekend that I figured would do the trick, especially considering that I'd been promising her peanut sauce for years, and that half of our friends are vegetarians.

I adapted the recipe a bit, including using green onions instead of bean sprouts because I'm scared of E. coli. So I'll share my adapted recipe and hope the magazine doesn't sue me.

Noodles with Peanut Sauce

1/4 c. plus 2 T. peanut butter

1/4 c. plus 1 T. soy sauce

1-1/2 T. sugar

1 T. warm water

2 T. sesame oil, divided

1 T. rice vinegar

1 t. garlic-chili sauce

1-inch piece ginger, minced or grated (use a Microplane! It's the bomb!)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 T. sesame seeds

1/2 pound spaghetti

1/2 pound fried tofu*

2 pickling cucumbers, cut in slivers

1/2 red pepper, cut in slivers

about a dozen snow peas, thinly sliced across

1/2 c. chopped green onions

Mix the peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar, water, 1 T. sesame oil, vinegar, garlic-chili sauce, ginger and garlic in a food processor or blender. Mix the cooked spaghetti with the tofu and remaining 1 T. sesame oil. Add the peanut sauce and sesame seeds and mix well. Place in serving bowl, then sprinkle the vegetables on top.

*The original recipe calls for shredded chicken, boiled in 6 c. salted water with 1 clove garlic and 4 slices ginger. I also made it one night with about a 1/2 pound of cooked shrimp, which was superb.

Note to fellow party-goers: I accidentally doubled the amount of noodles, which is why they weren't very saucy. I know you like it that way, Sakina, so go ahead and use the entire package of noodles! But the rest of you might actually want to follow the recipe a little more closely than I did.

Pot roast warms the autumn chill

Last week when I thought I had swine flu (but what I now think is just the autumn allergies I always forget about), all I wanted was to curl up with some comfort food. I asked Bryan to make me a pot roast, but he didn't think he was up to the challenge.

We scoured "The Taste of Home Cookbook" that his mom got me for my birthday, and found a recipe for Maple Pot Roast that served two and that we also could make in the few hours that we had. But I just wasn't satisfied. The dish served two, and I'm sorry, but pot roast is something that you're supposed to have as leftovers for days. And throughout the week I started to feel better, but as the weather kept getting grayer and grayer, pot roast beckoned yet again.

For the second time around, instead of a sweet roast, I went the spicy route and made an adapted version of the Cajun-Style Pot Roast from the same book. I think I should have turned the Crock-Pot off after 6 hours, because it ended up a little dry, but the delicious sauce makes up for it! Don't hold back on the cayenne seasoning if you want it a little spicier.

Cajun-Style Pot Roast

1 boneless beef chuck roast (2 to 3 pounds)

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 t. cayenne pepper

1 t. basil

1 T. olive oil

1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes

2 7-ounce cans diced chiles

1 medium red pepper, chopped

1-1/2 c. chopped celery

10 pearl onions

1/4 c. cup quick-cooking tapioca

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 t. salt

Mix together 4 cloves minced garlic, cayenne and basil, and rub all over roast. Pour olive oil in non-stick skillet heated to medium-high and brown roast on all sides. Transfer to a 5-quart slow cooker.

Combine the tomatoes, chiles, red pepper, celery, pearl onions, tapioca, 3 cloves of minced garlic and salt; pour over roast. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or until meat is tender. Slice and serve with rice.

Thai Cashew Chicken for those lazy days

The family gathered over at Mom's a couple of weeks ago for the annual fall birthday bash, and my brother was harping at me for not taking any photos of all my favorite dishes. Um, sorry, but I take my birthday off!

Alas, birthday week is now over, culminating with a fun-filled weekend in Vancouver, B.C., where we ate delicious Franco-German fare at La Brasserie and drooled over our Pannekoek and DeBakon at De Dutch. I will be back, Vancouver!

And then I had to come home with what I'd like to think is the swine flu but considering that all I have is a stuffy nose, not only am I probably not immune to H1N1, but also I am hardly ill enough to excuse myself from cooking.

However, that doesn't mean I have to torture myself over the stove. No, this week, I stuck with easy yet pleasing dishes such as this recipe adapted from SKOALZ on Allrecipes.com:

Thai Cashew Chicken

1/4 c. soy sauce

1/4 c. fish sauce*

1-1/2 T. garlic-chili sauce

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 T. grated ginger root**

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into thin strips

1 T. sesame oil

3 T. brown sugar

1 small onion, thinly sliced

3/4 c. water

3 T. creamy peanut butter

1 cup raw, unsalted cashews (available at Trader Joe's)

Combine soy sauce, fish sauce, garlic-chili sauce, garlic, ginger and chicken in a resealable plastic bag and marinate for at least two hours or as long as overnight.

Heat the sesame oil in a large skillet over medium heat, then add brown sugar and stir for a couple of minutes. Add the onion and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Reserving the marinade, add chicken to skillet and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the marinade and water and let simmer for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat another skillet and toast cashews until brown and fragrant.

When chicken is cooked through, stir in the peanut butter and serve over jasmine rice topped with the toasted cashews.

*The first time I made this dish, I asked Mom what kind of fish sauce to get. Her only advice, don't buy the cheap stuff. Go too cheap, and your whole house will smell like rotten fish. Remember that.

**I just got Microplane graters for my birthday from my mother-in-law (Thanks, Connie!), and I swear, nothing compares when it comes to grating ginger root. Greg Atkinson knows what he's talking about!

Enchiladas Verdes -- the easy version

I think I've finally perfected this recipe I clipped years ago from The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest magazine.

The first time I made it, I'm pretty sure it took all day, but with a little prep work and a few less steps, it's just a minutes-long process now.

First of all, I bought a rotisserie chicken and shredded it a day in advance, and I also bought a few jars of Trader Joe's cilantro-free Salsa Verde instead of slaving away over chiles. I swore the last time I made a chile verde sauce from scratch that I would never do it again, and I will stick by that rule. It is so not worth the effort when you can buy pre-roasted, deseeded and skinned peppers for the same price.

So all that left was the delicious beans, which took less than a half-hour, then fry up the tortillas, make the three-deck enchiladas, throw them under the broiler and don't catch your oven mitt on fire like I did!

P.F. Mai Ling's Spicy Eggplant with Chicken

When it comes to going out for Chinese food, I'm about as snobby as you can get. It's pretty much International District, or you're going to see some disgusted looks on my face. So what if I act like a child? I'm just spoiled by Mom's cooking!

But the truth is, I love it when my girlfriends plan a date at P.F. Chang's. Not that I'm admitting they necessarily serve real Chinese food, but they do a good job of making everything so darn attractive and tasty. Actually, I really wouldn't know about everything, because I always order the same thing when I go there: Ground Chicken and Eggplant. I suppose I ventured from my usual fare a couple of times, but I always go back to this dish because it's so close to perfection. Finally, I decided I should try to make it myself. So I scoured the Web, but the closest I came to was this recipe on CDKitchen.

I made a few changes, and although it's still not as sweet and saucy as P.F. Chang's version, it's probably better for me this way.

Spicy Eggplant with Chicken
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 T. soy sauce
1 t. red wine vinegar
1/2 t. sugar
2 t. garlic chili paste
3 T. vegetable oil, divided
1/2 t. salt
1 lb. Asian eggplant, cut in bite-sized chunks
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-1/2 T. grated ginger
2 scallions, chopped and divided
1 t. sesame oil
1/2 c. chicken stock
1 t. corn broth
2 T. Hoison sauce

Pulse chicken in a food processor until it's ground. Move to bowl and stir in soy sauce, red wine vinegar, sugar and garlic chili paste. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, then add 2 T. vegetable oil and salt. Cook eggplant for about 5 minutes, until soft, then remove from skillet.

Place remaining 1 T. vegetable oil and sesame oil in pan. Cook garlic, ginger and half the scallions for about 30 seconds, then add the marinated ground chicken and stir until cooked through. Stir chicken broth and corn starch together, then add to skillet and stir quickly until evenly distributed. Add Hoison sauce, the remaining scallions and cooked eggplant, and mix well.

Serve with rice.

Roasted bell peppers make the pasta sauce

I can't be the only one out there who simply can't stomach jarred spaghetti sauce. I'd rather open up a can of crushed tomatoes and simply heat it with some olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes. There's something about the flavor that is so, oh, I don't know, I guess artificial.

If I have a little more time to spend on the sauce, though, my favorite thing to add is roasted bell peppers. Previously I've used a recipe that has you halve plum tomatoes and roast them for an hour at 375 with a red bell pepper and an entire clove of garlic wrapped in foil. The garlic part I'm a big fan of, but I think I might actually prefer simply using a can of tomatoes. Some people might think you're sacrificing flavor, but it's so much easier -- not to mention skinless.

Here's my new favorite pasta recipe. It makes enough for about four generous helpings that require bread to slop up the extra:

Roasted Bell Pepper Sauce

3 red, orange or yellow bell peppers

1/2 onion

14.5-ounce can tomatoes

3 T. extra-virgin olive oil, divided

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 t. kosher salt

Heat grill on high. Rub 1 T. olive oil on the cut side of the olive. Leave the skin on. Place onion cut side down on grill along with whole bell peppers. Check peppers every 5 minutes and turn to char the entire pepper. Turn the onion once or twice while peppers are cooking. When peppers are blackened and onion is soft, remove from grill. Place peppers in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

After vegetables are cool enough to handle, chop the onion, then remove the skin and seeds from the peppers and chop them. Place onion, peppers and tomatoes in a food processor and pulse until the sauce is well blended.

Heat 2 T. olive oil over medium-high in a skillet and cook garlic for about a minute. Add sauce and salt, and cook until heated through. Mix with your favorite pasta, and serve with fresh Parmesan.

Let the roll-making begin

You now how most people, when they get a bread machine, it just goes in their garage and gathers dust until they decide to sell it at a garage sale? Well, that's not me. I don't remember how I got obsessed with the idea of making bread, but right before I made my first loaf from scratch, Mom offered to give me her bread machine instead.

I was always anti the square loaves, until my friend Chelsea, who's a trained chef with impeccable taste, convinced me that they're not so bad. Pretty much any food-related item that Chelsea gives her stamp of approval to becomes good enough for me that easily. I am so gullible.

So began the obsession with baking break. It started with the recipes that came with the bread machine. But then I came across Beth Hensperger's "The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook," and I think it might have been love at first sight. I started making the recipes from front to back, then I got sidetracked by a few and now I'm all over the place. But I never strayed from loaves.

OK, I sculpted a few lopsided pizza crusts and calzones that started off in the bread machine, but I was really scared of anything having to do with cutting the dough into chunks. Rebekkah Denn once tried to convince me that cinnamon buns are easy to make after I marveled at her ability to make these overnight rolls and take care of her two children, but to no avail.

However, last night, I didn't really have a choice when Bryan came home with a delicious-smelling smoked port butt from his SouthPaw BBQ buddy. Well, I suppose I could have gone BACK to the store to get hamburger buns, but who wants to go to the grocery store twice in a day? That is just silly. It makes much more sense to just decide on a whim at 5 o'clock at night to make hamburger buns from scratch.

Oh my gosh, it was so easy! Why have I been scared of dough my whole life? I suppose it has to do with Mom's countless failures at getting it to rise, but that's when the bread machine comes in handy. The rest just takes a gentle touch and a lot of flour.

Now take a look at this scrumptiousness ...