Cookbook Club - November 10, 2015

November 10, 2015

Our cookbook for this month was Wine Bites by Barbara Scott-Goodman. The subtitle of the book is "Simple Morsels that Pair Perfectly with Wine and each recipe is annotated with a suggestion for a type of wine to serve with the food.  Sadly, we did not provide the wine with each recipe but I think it was much safer that way. 

We had a wonderful selection of recipes as follows.

Janet brought the Kielbasa Bites which were hot and delicious.  She said they could not have been easier.  It should be noted that Janet is an excellent cook so for the average person, they may be a tad more difficult.

Anne and Greta both brought the Chocolate Cherry Cookies.  This was a very good thing because they were delicious.  They were both disappointed that the cookies spread as much as they did but they thought this was probably because there was a lot of shortening and butter in the cookies.  It was discovered that the eggs and butter need to be at room temperature to make the item rise.  Alex also shared the hint that refrigerating the dough would prevent the cookies from spreading.  Greta thought the Toll House cookie recipe would be just as good since you could add dried cherries to them.

Both Alex and Cari brought the Creamy Chicken Liver and Date Spread.  Cari said you need to plan ahead to make them because you need to soak the chicken livers in milk because the lactic acid breaks down the liver taste  You also need to chill the chicken livers.  Soaking venison and fish in milk will do the same thing.  Cari soaked hers for a little while but Alex soaked it overnight.  Anyway, it was very tasty.  Not my mother's chopped liver but tasty nevertheless.

I brought the Swiss Chard Mushroom & Chorizo Fritatta.  This looked very pretty and tasted very nice but it took over an hour to chop and grate and chop and grate everything.  The recipe called for the chard to be sauteed and then chopped which is not feasible since the pan is smaller than the chard.  There are plenty of other recipes which taste extremely similar but do not require to amount of work that was entailed for this recipe.

Trisha made the Spicy Chicken Salad and it was very delicious.  The recipe called for discarding the chicken bones and the rest of the ingredients after boiling the chicken and Trisha thought it would be much better to keep it for chicken stock.  This was a very attractive presentation since Trish used endive to serve as a vessel for the salad.  The recipe also called for chopped walnuts which she thought  was strange since it is not a nut used usually in Mexican dishes.  She thought maybe radicchio would be pretty instead of the endive but someone thought it would be too bitter.  Alex thought jicama may be a good choice.

Brenda made the very delicious chicken satay and did all of the preparatory work the night before.  She said the marinade was relatively easy and made it the night before and marinated the chicken and also made the dipping sauce the night before.  She didn't grill the chicken until the day of the meeting and it turned out very well indeed.

Mickee made the delicious blondie bites and was surprised they turned out so well because there was no picture of them.  She used 1/2 cup of nuts even though the recipe called for a 1/2 cup.  She had a little trouble finding the cake flour but did find it and Alex and Greta pointed out, you should not substitute all-purpose flour is the recipe calls for cake flour since cake flour is lighter and airier and helps the recipe rise.

Marlene brought the Spinach, Swiss Chard & Feta pie which looked almost exactly like the Swiss Chard & Mushroom Fritatta.  It was apparently much easier to make since Marlene said the hardest part was taking the stems off of the chard.  This recipe called for boiling the chard first instead of sauteeing it so it seems like the author is very versatile with chard.  Rinsing the chard is challenging.   This was a delicious "bite".

Donna elected to bring the Buttermilk Biscuit Bites which was a good thing because they were so very tasty.  She had half with turkey and half with ham.  The recipe called for a 1 inch scoop and she went up one to the next larger size.  They were the perfect size so take note of this.

Mary Anne brought the fresh fruit with Marscapone Dip for a refreshing and delicious break from the savories.  She said it was super easy to make and used the electric whisk for the dip.  A VERY HANDY TIP:  use pineapple juice to keep the fruit from getting brown.  Who knew???

Cindy was very worried about her recipe of Stilton Stuffed dates with Proscutto since her husband was not very pleased with them.  She needn't have worried.  Even persons who do not like Stilton liked the dates.  She said they were very easy to make.  So much for her husband's taste.

Natalie brought the Cherry Tomato, Corn and Caper Salsa.  Yummy and as she said very easy.  Certainly better than the jars of salsa you buy in the grocery store.

Who doesn't love crab dip?  Well, except for those who don't Arlene provided a very delicious crab dip which as a bonus, she said was very easy.  What a nice treat.

I am usually not a fan of white bean dips but Donna made the Herbed White Bean Spread which was a tasty treat.  She said she added garlic so that may have been the difference.  The croutons were very good too.

 Greta felt so so bad that her cookies were ugly that she also made Chesse Crisps.  She said the hardest part was chilling of the dough which took a little longer than 10 minutes.  Make sure you grease the pan.  She used parchment paper and rolled them like a log and then froze them for an hour.  Make sure you do this because the dough is crumbly.  You can freeze them for when company comes.  Alex says make sure you don't use pre-grated cheese.