Write to her at LindaCiceroCooks@aol.com.
Janet Marie Livingston was looking for a cookie recipe that her late grandmother always made at Christmas. She described them as looking like little doilies and knew they contained oatmeal. Sometimes her gran dipped them in chocolate.
You can’t beat granola for fiber and lots of other healthy nutrients, so it’s a good alternative to fatty or salty snacks. But watch the serving size as the sugar count can go pretty high depending upon the dried fruits you add.
Q. My husband and I were just reading in The Miami Herald about the passing of Wolfie’s owner, Samuel Kaye. The article mentioned the pickled green tomatoes they used to have sitting on the tables … what a rush of memories! Might you have their recipe in your files somewhere?
Chinese New Year begins Monday, a perfect excuse to try a new stir-fry recipe. I found a good one in Feeding The Dragon (Andrews McMeel, $24.99), a new cookbook I enjoyed as much for the anecdotes as the recipes. It was written by sister and brother Mary Kate and Nate Tate, who logged 9,700 miles biking back roads and trudging through mountain passages to explore Chinese kitchens from grand palaces to humble shepherd’s huts.
Q. Is it possible to get the recipe for T.G.I. Friday’s broccoli cheese soup? A friend of mine enjoys it so much that I would like to make it for her.
Nancy Marino asked for help finding a lost recipe for Hawaiian bread made with coconut and pineapple, which she thought might have come from the label on a container of oats. Lucy Bryant sent the recipe here, from 3-Minute brand oats.
Quite a few readers responded to a plea for help in finding a recipe for baps, “a Scottish breakfast bread that was always on my grandfather’s table when he was growing up.” J.R. McIlrain wanted to make it for his grandpa, “as he will turn 87 in January. He often talks about these baps and how he’d slather them with orange marmalade.”
Lee Henderson asked for help tracking down a recipe for “a French cookie that is something like a sugar cookie but much more tender and buttery.”
I’ve been searching for years for a recipe my grandfather, born in Italy, made each Christmas. It was a fried “cookie,” for lack of a better description — strips of a crisp, light dough that he sprinkled liberally with confectioners’ sugar and/or honey. Since he died when I was a teenager, I’ve thought about those treats every holiday season, and made many an unsuccessful attempt at resurrecting that taste.
Q. Last year a friend gave me a tin of peppermint bark for Christmas and it was really delicious. I have seen a similar item in a kitchen-store catalog for $24, but I know she made this herself. Do you have a recipe?
The Meatball Shop Cookbook (Ballantine, $28) is a funky homage to the restaurant of the same name in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a place that attracts Wall Streeters and city workers alike.
Q. I am not fond of pumpkin pie, but a few years back a sister-in-law brought a pumpkin pecan cake to our Thanksgiving gathering that was just fantastic. Unfortunately she is no longer a sister-in-law and did not respond to a note I sent her requesting the recipe. I do remember her whispering to my mom that it started with a cake mix. Can you help?
There’s a fascinating hotpot of cookbook authors coming to the Miami International Book Fair running Sunday through Nov. 20, with subjects as varied as Caribbean, Southern-Latino, African, Chinese, Cuban and American cooking. There’s even a new venue for food aficionados — on Nov. 19, three authors will be cooking a recipe from their books, then sharing with the audience at Miami-Dade College’s Miami Culinary Institute at the Wolfson campus, 415 NE Second Ave. Tickets are $40 per author session, include the cookbook, and are on sale at www.miamibookfair.com. You can also download a schedule of everything going on at the book fair at the same website. Here is a brief rundown on two of the authors:
I have a recipe by that title, cut from a Land O’ Lakes butter carton when I first started baking. You do indeed make “snow” on the bars by sifting confectioners’ sugar on top, so hopefully this is the taste you remember.
Bill Hansen Catering of Miami and chef Tim Andriola of Timo in Sunny Isles Beach shared a quick recipe for entertaining. If you prepare all the ingredients in advance, you can pop their shrimp and baby artichoke casserole in the oven and serve in less than 10 minutes.
I’ve published quite a few recipes for cabbage rolls and cabbage soup. It is hard to know which recipe you are seeking, so I’ll share my favorite, which is also the easiest. It dates to 1984, when reader Natalie Chernow let us know you can get the flavor without all the fuss of actually rolling cabbage leaves with a ground beef and rice stuffing.
Q. The late Carnavale, on Lincoln Road, made a wonderful paglia e fierno with tiny shrimp and peas. It had a great flavor and I would love to be able to make it. Any chance of the recipe?
Miami chef and television personality Lorena Garcia ( The Next Great American Restaurant, Vida Gourmet and El Arte del Buen Gusto, among other shows) has a new cookbook called New Latin Classics: Fresh Ideas on Favorite Dishes (Ballantine, $32.50). It is a fun exploration of the Venezuelan-born Garcia’s fusion of Latin cooking with Asian, Italian, French and other influences. The recipes are intriguing, plus there are interesting anecdotes and lots of helpful tips.
I am a connoisseur of the Cuban dish vaca frita, which is less well-known than ropa vieja but has many of the same characteristics. For those unfamiliar with the dish, the simple translation of “fried cow” does not do it justice. When made as it should be, the meat is both tender and crispy, redolent with spice and citrus. (When not, it’s tough, stringy and bland.)
I remember the Oyster House well, especially whenever I make the gone-but-not-forgotten restaurant’s coleslaw. I never got the recipe for their crab cakes, but since “deviled” means a dish made with spicy seasoning, I think you’ll like this recipe, which I got at a food writers’ conference in New Orleans in the 1980s. It uses the “holy trinity” of Creole cooking – onion, bell pepper and celery – along with the backbone of Cajun seasoning, three colors of ground pepper. For those who want their crab cakes to sizzle on the tongue, there is also the option of adding Tabasco.
Virginia Kessler’s daughter came home from a Girl Scout camping trip raving about homemade donuts they’d had for breakfast that started with a can of refrigerated biscuits. She couldn’t find a recipe, but readers were quick to respond with instructions and reminiscences.
Jean Gordon asked if anyone had a recipe for the spicy mussels served at the gone-but-not-forgotten Restaurant St. Michel in Coral Gables. Henry Lambert replied with the recipe here, which has just the right degree of fire in a garlicky sauce that begs for crisp baguette slices to sop up the juices.
Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis has a new collection of kitchen and food products for Target — like a Genovese-style basil pesto, roasted tomato vinaigrette and tapenade — that make it easy to spruce up humdrum meals in a few minutes. I wowed guests last weekend with her recipe for Caprese burgers.
One of my favorite food blogs is “The Pioneer Woman” written by Ree Drummond, who describes herself as “a desperate housewife. I live in the country. I channel Lucille Ball, Vivien Leigh and Ethel Merman. Welcome to my frontier!” Over the past five years at www.pioneerwoman.com she has chronicled her life as a city girl who became a rancher’s wife and mother of four in Oklahoma; it’s a wonderful blend of humor, poignant family farm stories and intriguing recipes with beautiful step-by-step recipes.
For a long time it seemed no one was canning anything anymore, and finding jars and other necessities took a hunt. This year, however, home canning has been declared one of the top food trends. There’s been an explosion of cookbooks on the subject, and sales of home canning supplies are up 35 percent in the past three years.
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