Hosted by Barbara J Nosek
& Misty the FoodieCat
CS friends, help yourself to tasty resources!
♦ CatChat – Misty previews this week’s salon ♦
♦ TIDBITS – pb&j mug cake / spirited chocolate donuts / phooey on freezer burn ♦ CS MARKETPLACE SPOTLIGHT – Martha tells all ♦ FEATURED RECIPE – Girl Scout cookie dessert & an oopsie & bonus recipes ♦ TIP – talkin’ cheese ♦ THE WEEK – fresh pb / toast 2.0 / good read, no recipes?
Misty’s History ♦ Misty’s Gallery
♦ TIDBITS ♦
Newsy, schmoozy stuff for cooks
♦ So, in our Feb 15, 2019 Salon we shared a link for mug cake recipes on google, all kinds of flavors. Now I’ve come across a one dear to my palate. Peanut butter and jelly mug cake! And like the others it’s pretty much 5-min or less from taking the empty mug out of the cabinet to taking the filled mug out of the nuker. You have to scroll a bit through the text to reach the directions, and once there note that there’s an alternative for making a fudgier, peanut butterier version.
♦ Could this be the best way ever to start your day? To be honest, the folks at Irish
Central actually position these donuts, Chocolate Baked Guinness Donuts with Irish Cream Glaze, in the dessert slot. I say, your choice. Since I already have Guinness for the Irish stew featured in our 03.15.19 Salon, just may give this a try. And if I do, CS friends will be among the very first to know.
♦ What is freezer burn, what does it look like, what does it do to food – and most important, how can we avoid it. Food & Wine has the answers in this super helpful article.
♦ CS MARKETPLACE SPOTLIGHT ♦
“The Martha Manual”
We first mentioned this new book from Martha Stewart in our 03.08.19 Salon, noting its thorough coverage of cleaning, organizing, repairing, laundry, decorating, crafts, 
gardening, pet care, entertaining – and cooking which we promised would get a closer look.
Here her comprehensive take guides us on tool repurposing, produce purchases, freezer use, leftovers, ingredient timesavers, basic methods, kitchen troubleshooting, baking skills, and frosting tips. Within each, so much illustrated detail.
There aren’t really recipes, but you will find preps in this section. For example, I found instructions for vegetable broth, nut butters, corncob chowder, baked butternut, pan sauces, parchment cooking, a proper omelet, refrigerator 
pickles, more.
Party prone cooks may also be interested in the “Host and Entertain” and “Celebrate” sections. The former is food oriented, the latter fun oriented.
The 387 pages add up to a blueprint for an easy, organized, enjoyable life with a whole lot of pretty touches along the way. It’s 4 1/2 stars on Amazon, now $24.50 {vs $35} for hardcover, $14.99 for Kindle.
“The Martha Manual” ♦ Stewart’s other books & more
CS Marketplace – Cook-friendly books, videos, tees & sometimes more
♦ FEATURED RECIPE ♦
Thin Mints rule the crust
The oopsie first. In our 02.08 19 Salon I mentioned that the Girl Scout cookies available on Amazon didn’t indicate any time limits, which was true. But decided I better check a little further 
and received this reply: “. . . usually just during the first few months of the year – until we run out of this year’s stock.” Right now Thin Mints and others still show as available.
The pie recipe on the site is actually for peppermint chocolate cheesecake on a Thin Mint crust. You can access this by clicking the link below, selecting Thin Mints from the recipe list, and then scrolling down to the pie and, I might mention, passing a whole bunch of other good stuff on the way.
I started with their crust prep, 10 oz bag Thin Mints crushed and mixed with 3T melted butter. But then went a simpler route, filling it with banana cream pudding and after thoroughly chilled, decorating it with some caramel striping.
Note: if you can no longer find these cookies, you can still make a comparable crust for either the cheesecake or the pie {or any other filling} with store-bought chocolate mint cookies. I’ve done this previously the same way, 10 oz bag, 3 T melted butter.
And, a chuckle: This is from one of the Internet cartoon collections: How many boxes of those Thin Mints do I have to eat before I start seeing results???
Girl Scout cookie recipes ♦ GS cookies on Amazon
♦ TIP ♦
Cheese It!
I just came across some tips from the “Hot & Cheesy” cookbook that I had kept note of because they seemed particularly valuable. Here’s some of what author Clifford A Wright has to say . . .
- Store cheese separately from other foods {like in a compartment}
- When aged cheese melts, it will be grainy
- When young cheese melts, it will be creamier
- It should be cooked briefly and gently, just until is has fully melted
- It’s easier to grate, crumble or slice when it’s cold
- 1 cup of shredded or crumbled cheese weighs about 3 ounces
- {love this one} “Nonfat cheeses never melt, but I don’t use them, as they have no taste”
♦ A PEEK AT MY WEEK ♦
Welcome to my kitchen and living room
♦ Thinking next time I make that Thin Mint/banana cream pie I’ll decorate it with peanut butter stripes. Maybe what brought that to mind is the fact that pb has two honorary mentions in this week’s Salon. And that brings me to this question? Do you ever make your own? It really is so easy, just dump a jar of peanuts of your choice in the food processor. I don’t even add oil, but rather just keep processing until the nuts release enough of their own oil until, voila! peanut butter.
♦ 
Bye bye breakfast blahs. That’s what I thought when I read this Food & Wine article, “12 Healthy Ways to Spice Up Your Morning Toast.” For some folks, Healthy is a caution, for others an invitation. Think both groups will be happy with these flavorful and colorful a.m. upgrades. Actually the dozen is spread over three “bases” – peanut butter, ricotta, and avocado. Here is my pb/carrot strips/chile garlic sauce/lime strips.
♦ So, now reading Rhys Bowen’s “Heirs & Graces,” her next Spyness book after “The 12 Clues of Christmas,” featured in our 03.08.19 Salon. It’s off to a good start with Mummy smack dab in the spotlight, but not for long as Georgiana could have predicted. One thing I want to note though – I haven’t seen any recipes in this one. So if you’re just looking for a good read from this top selling mystery author, probably any of her books would be fine, but if it’s recipes you crave may want to give it a leaf-through first.
So far next week: tater flake tricks, you eat whaaaat?, best biscuits, braid your eggs, spud art, wowsa pancake, cauliflower upgrades
Looking for something in CS? – scroll and check Misty’s previews OR enter the item in the search box OR email me at bjnosek@gmail.com
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Photo credits: Donuts/Irish Central, Martha book/Amazon, Martha pic/her site, cheesecake/Girl Scouts site, banana cream/mine, cheese dish/Wright’s book, pb/mine
All pages ©2019 CooksSalon.com
Cook with passion and a party spirit, whether for a crew, or for two, or just for you
eb4823
overcooked mac, Hellman/Best mayo, and finely grated onion. Where it goes from there determines if it’s tasty or just filling. The Taste newsletter has an interesting 
you to tasty alternative. So in that article linked in the 
We all pretty much know how to cook bacon. But . . . do we know the best way to cook bacon. Food 52 gives us the benefit of their research {oh, the sacrifice!}, for turning out perfecto strips. But . . . the answer has a bit to do with your preferences. In that regard, still helpful. Tune in 
look? Shown here, just a couple of the many artsy possibilities available.
& kitchenware, collages & sayings.
with pecans and bleu cheese, chicken grilled with ham & cheese, there are ethnic classics including saganaki, raclette, queso fundido and fondues. Great tips too for selecting, measuring, cooking, serving and storage.
After trying different methods, this is what I’ve found works best . . .
Leave it in the store package, which you’ve cut along the top on three sides. After each use tuck the wrapper tightly around on all sides, and then place it in a zip bag, wrapping that tightly around after squeezing out as much air as possible.
in the rest of the meal with roast chicken, sides, brown bread & dessert. But the same source, Irish Central, not surprisingly also offers us a prep for 
Your children may not aspire to tv kitchens, but for any that do show an interest in cooking, this stuff is for them. It’s a confidence builder comes with a whole lot of fun.
It comes from a cookbook by David Venable known to many from his QVC show, “In the Kitchen with David.” The title is short but every word warms your heart, “Comfort Food Shortcuts,” 
specializing in satisfying dishes that marry your cooking talents to grocery store convenience, showing us the latter in his recipes.
Mine are thickly coated so I couldn’t try this. You can see the full details via the link which takes you to the Cooking Light story, but it has to do with pressing the beater into each half kiwi and then twisting to pop out four even quarters from the skin.
down the white sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 of a cup and they’re still sweet enough. Also put them in a larger pan, 10×15. Now if you prefer the blondie-like texture mentioned in their recipe notes, by all means stay with the 9×13.
be able to do just what this headline says in a 
Of course it’s also a fast resource for an individual ingredient, a single food item, or an entire dish. Alphabetical, thank you. What fun!
sauerkraut! Although I served this as a side dish, since that the kraut already had joined bacon, onion, garlic and tomato, this also works as an entree. A bit of sour cream won’t hurt either.
lovely gift basket with chocolate, maybe a stuffed animal, decorations.
for a filling inside chocolate cake topped with ganache.
very tender, cooled till handle-able.
nutmeg. Let this simmer while you peel, seed and rough cut the squash, and then mash or blend it smooth with a 1/2 c cream.
have a wine cooler and just love it, also keep my coffee in there. On the site you’ll find all kinds of helpful wine information along with a form to sign up for the newsletter. Worth a look for any wine lover.
having on hand a universal lid.
it to cover big bowls of hot food.
This is actually an amalgam of Nutella cookies and Nutella brownies, and recipes are shown for these individuals too. The final one adds up to four ingredients with the addition of a bit of salt.
pickles & olives. How to include salad without having to drag out forks and bottles of dressing?
looks like it would take it to a whole new level and can’t wait to try it. Here’s the 
prep, make stock, time, substitute – like a pro.
there’s another I like to make that’s pretty darn good. In fact at one get-together after four of us had seconds, one of the guests went and picked up the platter and proceeded to finish it off by herself – didn’t ask if anyone else wanted more because I think she didn’t want to risk the answer.
Drink your dessert. What a tasty idea for a morning starter, a midday pick-you-up, a sippable dessert, or with a spirited addition, an after dinner libation. The 
As for some of the other contributors, Sarah Paretsky pays homage to V.I.’s mom with Chicken Gabriella, Sheila Connolly gives us an Apple Goodie, James Patterson checks in with Grandma’s Killer Chocolate Cake, Rhys Bowen offers up scones and a reminder that there are recipes in all her books, Peter James shares his fave martini, and to wash it all down, Lee Child schools us on the best way to make and serve coffee.
put the clove on a work surface {if very large, cut in half, cut sides down}, then take a regular flatware fork and start pressing down all around the edges, gradually making your way to the center.
she managed to factor the size of the squash, the amount of meat, the baking temp and time so that it all came out of the oven perfectly remains a mystery {maybe the above writers could help!}.