Toasted Fennel seed cookies

This light and crispy cookie is low in fat by using a reduced fat sour cream. The dough will be a little soft, more like a brownie batter.

2 eggs
1 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream
5 Tablespoons melted margarine
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon fennel seed

To begin, preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Next, to toast your fennel seeds place them in a small pan and turn the flame to medium heat. Gently move the seeds until begin to darken slightly.  This will take only about 2 to 3 minutes and is the most difficult part of the recipe.  Remove the seeds from the pan to cool and later divide them in half. Mix the eggs, 1 cup of the sugar and sour cream together until there are no lumps. Next slowly add the melted margarine and the vanilla.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and half of the fennel seed.  Add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix to combine all of the dry. Mix the remaining fennel seed and one tablespoon of sugar together.  To prepare your cookie sheet apply a little non-stick spray.  Drop the sticky batter out in a heaping teaspoon size and top with the fennel sugar mixture. Bake 8-10 minutes. Makes about 30 cookies.  Each cookies contains 58 calories about 28% from fat.  Consider that most store bought chocolate chip cookie are at least 60 to 80 calories each and are usually 50% fat.

Pineapple Coffee Cake

The fat in this coffeecake can be almost completely eliminated by using both low fat cream cheese and low fat sour cream.  Will it be worth it? You may loose some of the rich satisfying taste coffeecake is known for. You can still be within the daily allocation for calories from fat if you are not making the low fat substitution. So, we can compromise and use only low fat sour cream. This cake is best served warm.  It can be portioned and frozen as well.

1 can (8 ounces) crushed pineapple
4 ounces cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup low fat sour cream
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour*
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Pineapple glaze

1 cup confectioners` sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons pineapple juice
(from crushed pineapple)
1 Tablespoon dark rum (optional, chefs touch)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Coat a 9 or 10 inch tube pan with non-stick spray and dust with flour. Strain the juice from the pineapple and reserve. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, combine cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add the egg and vanilla; beat well. Stir in the pineapple and sour cream, mix until blended. In another bowl, mix the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Add the dry into the creamed mix and stir until just blended. Turn this into the pan and bake 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool the cake 10 minutes. While the cake cools, mix the glaze and brush it over the warm cake. This will yield 10 portions with each portion having 283 calories.  About 22% of the calories are from fat.

Roasted garlic and wild mushroom salad with polenta croutons and buttermilk dressing

This is ideal year round salad.  The subtle flavor of the roasted garlic blends well with the earthy mushrooms, the crispy croutons and the velvet-like dressing. The smell of the roasting garlic will fill your entire house so those who do not love garlic may choose to either omit it or tell others to evacuate.

1 cup whole, peeled garlic cloves, with the ends trimmed
11/2 cup olive oil*
3 cups milk
1 cup polenta (coarse ground cornmeal)
2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cornstarch 1/2 cup flour
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground coriander
salt to taste
2 large heads romaine lettuce
4 large tomatoes
1 cup quality blue cheese, crumbled
4 cups mixed wild mushrooms such as shiitake, crimini, oyster or chantrelle

Preheat the oven to 250.  Place the garlic and oil in an oven proof pot with a lid and roast in the oven 2 1/2 to 3 hours until the garlic is soft. Remove, let the garlic and oil cool with the lid off and strain. This can be done days in advance. Refrigerate the garlic cloves.

In a medium saucepan combine the milk and salt and bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Slowly whisking in the polenta, reduce the heat to low when polenta is incorporated.  Switch to a heat resistant spatula or spoon stir the polenta until it pulls away from the sides.  It will be quite thick so be careful not to scorch to bottom of the pan. Lay the polenta on a flat surface such as a cake pan or a flat bowl to give it about a 1/2-inch depth.

In a large bowl, add the buttermilk, sour cream, mayonnaise, pepper, coriander and salt.  Mix without lumps and refrigerate.

To prepare the salad, trim any brown leaves from the lettuce and slice off the stem. Rinse the lettuce by letting cold water run into the stem end.  Shake off excess water and slice the lettuce lengthwise into four parts, reserve.  Core the tomatoes and dice them into medium pieces, reserve.

To begin the assembly unmold the polenta and dice it into cubes (it should cut cleanly if cooked correctly otherwise it will be grainy and hard to cut) Mix the cornstarch and four together and drop the cut polenta in. In a large sauté pan or wok, heat 1 cup of the reserved garlic oil on medium high heat for 2-3 minutes.  with your hands, scoop the polenta from the flour and shake off the extra flour. Carefully drop the polenta into the oil and fry about 3 minutes or until the polenta has browned on the edges. Remove the croutons onto a paper towel to drain.  Put the mushrooms into the warm oil and cook them until they lose their volume.  Remove the mushrooms onto a paper towel to remove any oil. To build the salad, mix the dressing over the lettuce and place onto a plate or a large bowl.  Top with the warm mushrooms, polenta croutons, garlic and lastly the tomatoes and blue cheese.

(* the remainder of the cooked garlic oil can be used to marinate meat, in vinaigrettes or to dip bread in)

Chilled tomato broth with gingered lentils, cucumber and cilantro

A refreshing soup with subtle characteristics.   It takes three days to make but is worth the reward.

1 large metal strainer (with small holes)
1empty and clean plastic milk container (1 Gallon)
5 pounds large ripe organic tomatoes
_ cup salt
1 cup green lentils
1 tablespoon peeled and thick sliced fresh ginger
4 cups water
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon cumin seed
2 cucumbers
1 bunch picked cilantro leaves
juice of 1 lemon

To begin the soup, fill a medium sized stockpot with 2 gallons of water and the _ cup salt and bring to a boil.  Fill a large bowl 2/3 full of ice and then enough water to float the ice.  With scissors or a razor blade, severe the top _ of the gallon container, or enough to fit your strainer. With a sharp knife, carefully remove the core of the tomatoes and score the skin with an "x" on the bottom.

This recipe is best when the tomatoes are not cooked, so your goal is to just remove the skins.  This is best facilitated by quickly dropping the tomatoes 2 or three at a time in the water, and within no more than 5 seconds into the ice. This is the most difficult process of the soup as if you can not get the skins of easily you can put them briefly back into the boiling water.  Place the strainer into the milk container and crush the skinned, cored tomatoes into the strainer.  Cover the strainer with plastic wrap.  The soup will get progressively easier as this process will yield the liquid from the tomatoes.  Let the tomatoes hang for 2 days in the refrigerator

Banana cake with marscapone and mexican chocolate frosting

_  pound butter
 3cups sugar
2cups mashed bananas (2 medium)
4eggs
2 t vanilla
4 cups cake flour
1 t b-soda
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
1 cup sour milk ( or  sour cream)

1.375 degrees for  1 9 inch pans or 2 9 inch spring form
2.cream butter add sugar slowly until light and fluffy
3.add bananas , eggs and vanilla
4.mix well add dry then sour milk
5.bake 45 minutes check with toothpick

The frosting
8oz mex. Chocolate
6oz semi sweet
3-4cups cream
3-52 T butter

1.chop chocolates add hot cream & butter