This dressing started out as a dipping sauce for Vietnamese summer rolls. Jan really likes it. It has become a standard dressings for salads at our house.

Karl’s Peanut Dressing
This dressing started out as a dipping sauce for Vietnamese summer rolls. Jan really likes it. It has become a standard dressings for salads at our house.

Karl’s Peanut Dressing
Filed under California Fusion, Chicken, Salads, Sauces and Spices
Last week, Jan really liked the za’atar corn I made and as I was thinking about a weekday meal I suggested that I could add that spice blend to my seafood chowder. She said that if I did, I should also used yogurt—instead if cream—in the dish. So I did.

Karl’s Middle Eastern Seafood Chowder
Filed under California Fusion, Main Dishes, Potatoes, Seafood, Shrimp
For Labor Day it is tradition to have a barbecue. Just to be different this year, I decided to make koobideh hamburgers. Another typical dish for Labor Day is coleslaw, but how to make it more Middle Eastern to go with the meat? Adding sumac seemed the ticket. Sumac is a sour dried berry that is ground to a powder and used as a condiment and spice in Middle Eastern cooking.

Karl’s Colorful Coleslaw with Kumquat Marmalade Sumac Dressing
Filed under California Fusion, Salads, Side Dishes, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Eilene’s friends came over to binge watch the last two episodes of GoT. I really do not mind feeding them, as long as Eilene gives me more than a five minutes warning that the hungry hordes are descending. Eilene and her friends like to be “spontaneous,” but this time they gave me 24 hours notice—one of them even requested three bean salad.

Karl’s Three Bean Salad Plus with Kumquat Marmalade Dressing
Filed under California Fusion, Salads, Side Dishes, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Jan had brought some ghost chili products back from a trip to Monterey. As a result, I was doing a Cal-Mex cuisine Sunday dinner. I did not want the usual beans and rice, so I decided to make enchiladas.

Karl’s Poblano and Bean Enchiladas
Filed under Beans, Side Dishes
Several years ago, Cook’s Illustrated had a oat muffin recipe. While it was a tasty oat cupcake, it was not a “muffin”—too sweet! They did, however, have some good techniques for enhancing the oat flavor by toasting the raw oats and then grinding them into flour.

Karl’s Banana Oat Mini Muffins with Fresh Raspberries
Filed under Breakfast, California Fusion, Desserts & Treats, Side Dishes, Vegetarian
It has been a long time since I have cooked anything en papillote. To cook something en papillote means that you are cooking it in a parchment packet—although these days it is more common to use aluminum foil. As I was looking for dinner ideas, I came across several recipes like this, but none that matched what I wanted, so I just took out on my own.

Karl’s Peach Chicken and Potatoes en Papillote
Filed under California Fusion, Chicken, Main Dishes, Potatoes, Poultry, Steaming
When I made mitsubi for Eilene, I had leftover sushi rice. While onigiri are usually made with plain, unseasoned rice, I decided to turn the remaining rice into small rice balls. Onigiri usually have some kind of filling, with what I had on hand I chose to use Ebi Fume Furikake.

Karl’s Furikake Onigiri
Filed under California Fusion, Rice, Side Dishes
Spam Misubi is an Hawaiian-Japanese adaptation of a rice ball dating from WWII. Daughter Eilene loves them, but mother, Jan, will not allow Spam in the house. Jan is teaching a night class, so I thought I would make Eilene spam misubi for dinner.

Karl’s Spam Misubi
Filed under Main Dishes, Pork, Rice