What is so exciting about my peanut butter cookie? It has a brown bottom and it is cooked all the way through! Yes, the very sweaty, but nice, repair man came by today to fix my oven. It wasn’t anything complicated he just had to reprogram the electric part of the stove. I of course had to make sure that the oven was indeed working so I made my dog her second favorite type of cookie. As you could see, she too was admiring the lovely brown color of the cookie. 
I’m coming into this with just one day before the deadline but just stumbled across the food blog and thought it seemed like such a fun idea that I didn’t want to pass it up. It was a little tricky since I had no oven and had to think of something I could make that would not involve that appliance.
Since I lived in Arizona for much of my life I chose Mexico as my first influence. But since I now live in Seattle I decided to add a Pacific Northwest twist to it.
Tostadita De Salmon
2 ounce smoked salmon
4 corn tortillas, mini about 4″
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup tri-color bell pepper, diced
1 teaspoon horseradish, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 jalapeno pepper, finely minced
1 cup crumbled goat cheese
3 cups oil, for deep frying
1. Heat oil to 212 degrees.
2. Deep fry corn tortillas until golden brown. Place on paper towel to absorb extra oil. Lightly salt. Set aside.
3. Mince a mixture of tri-colored bell peppers. FIne mince the jalapeno and add to the bell peppers. Mix well.
4. Add horseradish to sour cream and finish with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Spread cream mixture evenly on a tostadida shell
6. Spread a layer of bell pepper mixture evenly over the cream mixture.
7. Lay a thin layer of smoked salmon over the top of the pepper mix.
8. Garmish with a light touch of goat cheese
I was going to make raspberry Margartias to keep with the Mexico theme but it is late here and I don’t think the downstairs neighbors would appreciate the blender running at 2am. So I had a bunch of key limes from a frozen souffle I made(for SHF…recipe will be up in a week and a half) and decided to make something with those. Key limes though often thought of as being a Florida “thing” actually has it’s orgins in Southeast Asia.
Key Lime Gimlet
3 oz Citrus flavored vodka
- 3/4 oz Key Lime Juice
- 3/4 oz Simple Syrup
Shake with ice in a cocktail shaker, strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.
Oven or not I still have to make something to bring to Book Club. So given that I always make dessert I am going to have to branch out. So I tweaked a recipe for Goat Cheese and Pistachio Spread from Gourmet Magazine(Nov 92).
Goat Cheese and Pistachio Spread
two 4 ounce logs of mild soft goat cheese
1/2 stick of unsalted butter
1 8 ounce package of cream cheese, room temperature
1 large garlic clove, minced and mashed to a paste
1/4 cup chopped pistachio nuts, toasted lightly and cooled
1/8 cup thinly sliced chives plus chive blades for garnish
In a bowl with an electric mixer beat together the goat cheese, the butter, the cream cheese, the garlic paste, the pistachio nuts, the sliced chives, and salt and pepper to taste until the mixture is combined well. Spoon the spread into a serving dish, and chill it, ist surface covered in plastic wrap, overnight. Garnish the spread with the chive blades and serve it with crackers or french bread.
Well my oven is dying. I made 2 souffle cakes(that I have made time and time again with no problems) and they both were soup. Ugh. So now I have to wait for my apartment people to get around to coming by. It is suppose to be hot this week anyway, so maybe this will force me to do something else.
