I’m off on vacation next week. My goal is to blog at least once but I’m not making any promises. I’m not going anywhere; just sticking close to home and getting a few home improvement projects done. If the weather permits, I’ll be spending my time digging in the dirt planting flowers, enjoying evenings on the deck with my neighbors and spending quality time with my favorite four-legged friend.

My friend AC had a birthday back in February and she requested that, instead of a gift, we get together and make a semi-complicated recipe together. It’s a strange birthday request but AC doesn’t ask for much so I’m happy to oblige. Right now the plan is to make gnocchi and maybe a chocolate-orange cake. Both may be recipes for disaster; I’ll let you know. I’ve had trouble posting photos from home, but I’ll do my best.

As for this weekend, my sisters and I are taking my mom to breakfast for Mother’s Day. How about you? What do you plan to do for your mom this weekend?

Mother's Day is on Sunday and my family usually celebrates by going out for brunch. But, you don't have to go to a restaurant to give mom the day off from cooking. Here are some easy recipes that are perfect for a spring breakfast/brunch that are sure to please any mom.

Belgian Waffles with Berry Cream

Lemon-Almond Waffles with Lemon Cream

Strawberries and Cream Pancakes

Puffy Oven Pancake with Berry Topping

Last Thursday I had just enough time to let my dog out after work before meeting my friends AC and Luke for happy hour at a local drinking establishment. We imbibed in a cocktail or two before heading home. I was not very hungry and had no intention of making anything other than toast to eat when AC and Luke kindly offered to bring all the makings of dinner over to my house (they live a block away).

They arrived with a bag full of chicken parts and a box of Bisquick (I kid you not). The only milk I had was over a month old and smelled like. . .well. . . not so much like milk anymore, so they were forced to provide that as well in order to make biscuits. I let them tinker around in my kitchen while I tried to put this, my newest IKEA purchase, together.

Within minutes my house smelled absolutely amazing and I suddenly remembered what it was like to have an appetite. Before I had completed my project, dinner was ready.

I basically inhaled the chicken breast and biscuits they made for me. When I asked Luke what he did to make the chicken taste so good he said he just seasoned it with salt and pepper, threw a few slices of garlic on top and baked it in a casserole dish. AC made the biscuits using a recipe off the Bisquick box, similar to this one, only they were drop biscuits because I don't own a biscuit cutter. We sat on my couch and ate while watching LOST. It was—by far—one of the best dinners I've eaten all month. (I eventually managed to put the nightstand together, and it’s a perfect fit for my printer, in case you were wondering.)

Good friends are hard to find. Good friends willing to make you dinner at a moment's notice are rare indeed.

"Food is not about chefs—it's not their job to feed you every day. What you eat should be made by home cooks because it's the real food that sustains your health."  These are the words of  Suvir Saran, who is the chef/owner of the Devi Restaurant in Manhattan. He is also the author of two cookbooks: Indian Home Cooking and his newest one, American Masala.

I recently took a cooking class that was taught by Chef Saran and after it was over, I immediately purchased his newest cookbook. This book isn't about Indian food—it's about adding new flavors to American favorite foods to liven them up a little.

The first two recipes that I tried were Steak au Poivre with Cilantro-Garlic Butter and the Cardamon-Roasted Cauliflower. The steak was easy to make and a take-off of the favorite French recipe by the same name where you just rub ground peppercorns on the outside of filet mignon steaks before grilling or frying them. The butter that is served with it is a combination of cilantro, shallots, garlic, lemon zest, garam masala (a purchased blend of dry-roasted ground spices) and salt. The butter was delicious and went well with the spicy steak.

The cauliflower was seasoned with olive oil, cardamom pods, red chiles, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, pepper and red onion and was so good that I would have been happy to eat it for diner even without the steak.

The next two recipes I tried were the Tamarind-Glazed Meat Loaf and Roasted Baby Potatoes with Southern Indian Spices. I made the meatloaf on a Sunday afternoon, which took me over an hour —which doesn't inclulde the 1 1/2 hours of baking time. It has 23 ingredients in it plus another six ingredients for the glaze. I made a special trip to an Indian grocery store across town  to purchase fresh curry leaves for the potato recipe and tamarind paste for the meatloaf glaze.

  Fresh curry leaves.

I baked the meatloaf on Monday night and served it with the potatoes. Our daughter-in-law, Katie joins us for dinner  on Monday nights and after dinner we packed some up for our son, Jason, to eat when he got home from his night class.

Jason called me the next day at work to tell me that it was the best meatloaf that he had ever eaten. His phone call alone made all the time that I spent making it, worthwhile. I had to agree with Jason that I loved the flavors in the meatloaf  too and will definitely make it again—when I have lots of time.

Another good Indian cookbook is Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking by Raghavan Iyer.

If you're like me, any excuse for a party will do. Next Monday is Cinco de Mayo which is a holiday that is celebrated in only some regions of Mexico and the U.S. It commemorates the victory of Mexican forces over French forces in the battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. If you don't have time to plan a Mexican-themed party this weekend, here is an idea for a family dinner on Monday night.

Mole Chicken is a dish that I like to order at Mexican restaurants because a good one can take hours to make. Mole sauces are made from toasted seeds and nuts, onion, garlic, chiles and a small amount of chocolate. The chocolate adds a dark, rich color to the sauce.

This recipe for Mole Chicken (from Cooking Pleasures Magazine) calls for some ingredient short cuts that I was able to find at my local grocery store including:

 Chipotle powder

Mole Paste

I made some Spanish rice (from a pacakge) and cooked frozen corn to serve with the Mole Chicken.  I even pulled out my antique Fiesta Dinnerware dishes to make our week-night dinner seem just a little more special. Olé!

Apparently I am not the only one out there with an extreme love of bacon. A colleague recently forwarded me this article from the Dallas Morning News  that features a recipe for bacon cookies, and another coworker brought a little bag of Bacon Brittle in to work to share. The brittle is from a restaurant called Cowboy Ciao in Scottsdale Arizona. I tried it and, as much as I wanted to love it, the mixture of candy and my favorite breakfast food was just too weird for me. I still prefer my bacon naked and nuked.

We have a company store in the building where I work and I sometimes stop there after work to pick up some ingredients for dinner.

Last Thursday, I purchased an Old El Paso Gordita Dinner Kit.

Instead of following the package directions, I decided to make the recipe on the back of the package for Mexican Pizzas.

Mexican Pizzas

Prep Time: 20 Min
Start to Finish: 30 Min

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 box Old El Paso® gordita dinner kit
1 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef
1/2 cup water
1 can (16 oz) Old El Paso® refried beans
4 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (16 oz)
1 can (2.25 oz) sliced ripe olives, drained, if desired
3 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions (3 medium), if desired

1. Heat oven to 425°F. In 10-inch skillet, heat oil over medium heat until hot. Cook Tortillas (from dinner kit), 1 at a time, in oil about 20 seconds or until golden brown; turn and cook 10 seconds longer. Drain on paper towels.

2. In same skillet, brown beef; drain. Stir in Seasoning Mix and water; heat until hot. Spread 2 tablespoons refried beans on each Tortilla. Top with 2 tablespoons beef and 1 tablespoon of Ranch Sauce. Sprinkle each with 1/2 cup cheese; garnish with olives and green onions. On ungreased cookie sheets, place pizzas.

 3. Bake 5 to 7 minutes or until cheese is melted.

8 pizzas  

 I used only four of the eight thick tortillas (from the package) and decided to freeze the remaining four.  This was my chance to try out my new Reynolds Handi-Vac vacuum sealer. I put the remaining tortillas into a quart size Handi-Vac freezer bag and then removed the air with the vacuum sealer by placing the sealer on the special bag and then pushing the blue button on the top until all the air was removed. It was really easy and took only seconds.

The sealer cost around $8.50 at the grocery store where I shop and a box of

14 freezer bags was $2.89.

My sister Carrie invited me over for dinner on Wednesday night. I’ve had absolutely zero desire to cook recently so the invitation was especially welcome. She made the tortellini dish I love and blogged about here.

I was washing the dishes after our meal when Greta, my three-year-old niece, came over and waved the Cheerios cookbook at me. She was especially enthusiastic about the book and went through it page by page telling me how much she liked the pictures and wanted to make each and every recipe. 

I edited the cookbook a couple of years ago and it remains one of my favorite projects, so I was thrilled to see her take an interest in it (my sister later told me Greta often takes the book in the car and to bed to "read"). I told Greta we could get together sometime and make one of the recipes together.

“No, Aunt Heidi,” (which runs together and sounds like ‘Aunt Tidy’ coming from her little mouth), “We have to make ALL of them!” she insisted.

With Greta on board, I think cooking could be a whole lot more fun.

On Monday date I was a substitute player for a friend’s Bunco game night. The group, all from the same neighborhood, has been getting together for a while, but they recently instituted a new rule: The host can only serve food out of a box.

If you’ve ever been involved in any kind of weeknight monthly get-together, you’ve experienced the craziness of cleaning your house and trying to get home from work in time to start preparing the food. I really like the only-out of-a-box rule, as it eliminates some of the stress that goes into planning a book, knitting or game-night group gathering. Bottom line, you get together with friends to talk and have fun. If you’re exhausted from getting ready, what’s the point?

Here’s a photo from our out-of-the-box (okay, a can was also invlolved) dessert: Root Beer Floats.

The city is coming back thanks in large part to the people who have returned to rebuild. It’s possible to travel there today and stay in a nice hotel, eat at wonderful restaurants in the French Quarter or Warehouse District, go to the Convention Center or the Dome and think everything is back to normal.

New Orleans needs tourists to return and that's what I did last week, while I attended the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) conference there. Here are a couple of breakfasts that I enjoyed.

At the Hilton Riverside Hotel I had the Bayou Scramble for breakfast which was a big Southern breakfast of scrambled eggs with diced smoked sausage, potatoes, green onions and zesty Cajun spices. This was served with grits (in the small bowl), a breakfast tomato and toast.

One of the most popular breakfast spots in New Orleans is Café du Monde. Here is what is left of my Café au lait and beignets (fried doughnuts with lots of powdered sugar on them).

Pralines 

Pronounced “praw-leens”

1 pound light brown sugar

1 cup whipping cream

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 to 2 cups pecan halves

1. In a 2-quart microwave-safe bowl, combine sugar and whipping cream. Microwave on HIGH for 10 to 13 minutes or until soft-boil stage (234°F. - 238°F on a candy thermometer); stir halfway through cooking.
2. Stir in butter, vanilla and pecans.
3. Beat 2 minutes until thickened, creamy and slightly cloudy.
4. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto waxed paper.

24 pralines

At a party last weekend, someone asked me why guacamole is called guacamole since it's basically smushed up avocado. (What can I say? I'm a cookbook editor; people tend to think I have answers to these kinds of things.) I didn't know (surprise! surprise!), but in looking into it I came across this: www.foodtimeline.org  In addition to providing a wealth of information about avocados and guacamole, the site also provides answers to such deep, probing questions like when Oreos were invented and what, exactly, toad-in-the-hole is (a dish I won't be trying anytime soon).

I'm in New Orleans, attending a conference of the International Association of Culinary Professionals this week.

It's quite likely that I'm indulging in some crawfish, which are freshwater crustaceans that resemble small lobsters. They are most plentiful in March, April and May. I've found a website with lots and lots of recipes for them at www.crawfish.org