Welcome to the Cooking with C.C. Blog. I will be discussing all things food and travel related. Be sure to join me for information from recipes, cookbooks, restaurants and places to visit. I look forward to hearing from you!
Cookie Love
If you've been in my house, you know that I have just a few cookbooks. But, I can ALWAYS use just a few more. I was excited to win a copy of Cookie Love by Mindy Segal in a drawing from my friends at Eat Your Books. I've been working on a few cookie recipes, so I was looking forward to reading some of the tips and tricks this book would have. If you don't know, Mindy has been a pastry chef at a number of the top restaurants in Chicago before opening her own restaurant Hot Chocolate. Last year, the IACP Conference was in Chicago and the optional city tour I took was one on Vanilla and Chocolate. Gale Gand was our tour guide and had selected Hot Chocolate as the restaurant for us to eat lunch. (The tour included a visit to the Nielsen Massey Vanilla Plant and the Barry Callebaut Chocolate Academy). So I've had the opportunity to eat some of Mindy's creations. They did serve us a cookie platter (standard fare at Hot Chocolate) as part of dessert. The cookies were all excellent. There are several of the recipes that jumped out at me - recipes…
Easy Weeknight Fish Dinner
If you need a quick healthy mid-week meal, then this one is for you. We've been saying we need to eat more fish and chicken and Lemon Pepper Fish is a very simple, yet tasty and healthy dinner. The ingredients are very minimal - white fish filets, lemon olive oil and pepper. I found some very nice cod filets to make for dinner. I've made this recipe with Tilapia and Halibut among others. You can walk in the door and have a healthy dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes. You start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Place the filets on a baking sheet. Rub some of the lemon olive oil onto the fish. Grind some fresh pepper over the fish. Now put the pan in the oven and roast for 7-12 minutes until the fish is ready. For the lemon olive oil, if you are in the Huntsville area - go visit my friends at King's Olive Oil and they have a very nice Lemon Olive Oil. If you can't get there, "O Olive Oils" makes another wonderful lemon olive oil. (I put both bottles in the picture so you could see them.) One key thing to…
Wagner Wine Dinner
It's really nice to know important people! Then you get invited to really great events! We were very excited to get an invitation to join my friend for a wine dinner at the Ledges featuring wines from the Wagner family. If you think you aren't familiar with the Wagner family - you are probably wrong. The family has been in the Napa wine business for 100 years, starting just before prohibition. The current patriarch of the family - Chuck Wagner - was 19 when he and his parents founded Caymus Vineyards in 1972. Today, Chuck and three children run a variety of wine labels in the Wagner Family of Wines. We had the opportunity to try many, many of them during the dinner. Son Joe started focusing on Pinot Noir wines and runs the Bell Glos brand. Son Charlie had focused on Chardonnay (Mer Soleil) but introduced the Conundrum Red Blend 10 years ago. The last family member to join the business is daughter Jenny who founded the Emmolo brand producing Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot. As a note, Jenny married Eddie Clark of Amizetta (See the post on our Amizetta wine dinner.) Fortunately or unfortunately, many of the wines we had…
“Nutella” First Attempt
Around our house, Nutella could be considered on the of the four main food groups. I was first introduced to Nutella while in Europe after I graduated from college. Several of the places I stayed offered small containers of Nutella (Like the little jelly plastic containers at many breakfast restaurants). A spread of Nutella on toast for breakfast - a very European way to start our day. Fast forward a few years and I first saw Nutella in a few specialty stores in the US. I made the mistake of buying some for Lori. We started by buying Walkers Shortbread cookies and spreading Nutella on top. (Of course, I might be found occasionally putting Nutella on toast for breakfast.) When we were living in Austin and Lori was pregnant with Carly, Nutella became a fixture in our house. Like I said before, it started with a little on top of the shortbread cookies. Then you could barely see any cookie under the Nutella. Next is was "forget the cookie - hand me a spoon!" The amount of Nutella I was purchasing during this time was staggering. Of course now you can find the tubs of Nutella in Sams and Costco. I…