Quinoa also makes a nice side dish, and it's something a little different than the usual potato/pasta side dish. I like this recipe and it reheats well if time is an issue, just add the pecans and fresh parsley after you reheat. I've often left the parsley out completely, only because I didn't have any and couldn't buy it here, and it was still good, just not as "pretty". Quinoa with Cranberries and Toasted Pecans 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil 1 medium onion, finely chopped 1 large rib celery, finely chopped 1 1/2cups uncooked quinoa, rinsed 2 cups chicken stock 1/2 cup orange juice 1/2 cup dried cranberries 1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted Grated zest of 1 orange 3 Tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Heat the butter or oil in a medium casserole. Stir in the onion and celery and cook over medium heat until the onion is translucent and golden. Stir in the quinoa, pour in the stock and orange juice, bring to a boil, then turn the heat to low. Stir in the cranberries, cover and cook until all the liquid has evaporated, 12-15 minutes. Remove the cover and fluff with a fork. Stir in the pecans, orange zest, parsley, salt and pepper. Serve at once or keep warm over low heat, stirring occasionally. I agree, that there's enough green in your meal, so if I went with a vegetable side dish, I'd lean toward the sweet potato or a roasted root vegetable medly, or maybe acorn squash stuffed with a rice or vegetable filling. Dessert? The summer torte is good with nearly any fruit, it's easy and can be made in advance. Barring that, I'd probably go with something chocolate. Annie

Busy weekend here so I'm reporting in late. I made the flourless cake that Gina posted. I saw Linda's too but only had eight eggs in the fridge. I added some rasberries and sauce for serving. This is a wonderful and VERY rich cake. A small slice will take care of your chocolate fix for sure! Beverly asked me for this recipe a couple of weeks ago. I'm posting it here and hope she finds it. I don't have her email addy....might post a new thread so she can see??? A friend brought this over for Labor Day Weekend. We took a quick pic on her phone so it's not the best but you get the idea. She got the recipe from Women's World but they don't have a web site. We found this one on google and it's the same that was in the magazine. Deluxe Dirt Cake Posted by shirley on May 10, 2008, 6:59 pm in General ( Shirleys collections) Ingredients: 1 pkg. (18.25 oz.) devil's food cake mix eggs, oil and water 2 pkgs. (3.9-oz.) instant chocolate pudding and pie filling 1-1/2 cups + 3 tbsp. milk 1 cup butter, room temperature 1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese room temperature 5-1/2 cups confectioners' sugar from 2 (1 lb.) bags 1 tsp. vanilla extract 36 Oreo cookies Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 (9-in.) round cake pans. Prepare cake mix according to package directions, adding 1 pkg, pudding filling to batter. Divide batter between pans. Bake 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10-minutes. Remove from pans to racks; cool completely. 2. In bowl, whisk remaining pudding filling and 1-1/2 cups milk until thickened. Chill until set, 15-minutes. On medium speed, beat butter and cream cheese until fluffly. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar, remaining tbsp. milk and extract, 1-minute. 3. Place 10 cookies in plastic food storage bag; crush coarsely with rolling pin. Stir into pudding mixture. Place 1 cake layer on plate. Spread with 1-cup frosting, then with pudding mixture, leaving about 1-inch border. Top with remaining layer. Transfer 1-1/2 cups frosting to pastry bag fitted with star tip; reserve. Frost cake with remaining frosting. Pipe reserved frosting around edge of cake. Break up 10 cookies; place in center. Press remaining cookies into bottom of cake, (Cookies form a bottom border.) Chill before serving. Yields: 16 servings Another great collection of recipes to work through for sure! Kate, mustard sound like a good topic too. I have one in mind when Nancy starts the new post. David

Pecans! Anything with Pecans! Add some dried cranberries and pecans to plain ol' greens and it's a danged $10 salad!! I wonder if it's regional?!?!? Pecans don't grow here. Hazelnuts do. They're not as "gourmet" here because everyone can get them reasonably. I'm just 45 minutes from the Pacific, most seafood is no big deal. You can buy it fresh all the time. I'll bet truly fresh shrimp, salmon, crab is hard to come by in the Midwest, huh? It's so true though that just adding that 'little something' extra can sure change a meal. Deanna

I think I'm about baked out too for now. I had to get the box to New Orleans in the mail yesterday so during the week I made Ann T's Chocolate Chip Shortbreads, the four different times I baked them they all came out good. Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pudding cookies, one pan of those I overcooked and they're pretty stiff, but edible, saved those for us/me. Made the ricotta cookies by hand after my non stand mixer crapped out and they came out tough. I find I have to make at least a double batch of cookies to use my stand mixer. Last week I had made some oatmeal cookie dough so I baked some off for the kids[N.O.]. I made some of the dough for the cutouts/press cookies posted by Lori I believe it was.. mind is gone tonight. I was planning to use my cookie press and somehow both of the tubes were cracked and therefore the press was unusable. I didn't have the energy by then to cut out cookies so I made some into a linzer type cookie with raspberry jam. I just pushed the dough out of the tubes with the ratchet and the end off and cut off slices. One down on pan, then one I cut hole in with a decorating tip. Just liked you'd do for any linzer cookie. Worked out well and since I had both tubes filled, it was for sure the easiest fix. The crew in New Orleans also always gets a pecan pie which I forgot until about ten Thursday night, so, had to whip up some crust and get that baked off. I cook them pretty well done when I mail them but this got a little extra well done. I'm sure it will still taste good. Since I had enough crust for two pies I just put that crust into a foil pan and froze it. We also made fudge for the family down there. It's Christy's tradition and these days it's her that makes it. I did some of the heavy beating. Today I still had some doughs in the fridge for the Chocolate Chip Shortbreads and the sugar dough so I made those up to have around here. I froze the rest of the Pudding Chocolate Chip dough so we can have fresh cookies at Christmas. Froze some of the cutout dough too. Think I'll try some as Kolacky with it. Since I had that frozen pie crust in the freezer.... we had a couple of Jonagolds that needed to be used so I had the nerve to make a apple crumb pie. We were both so exhausted that we didn't even cut the pie tonight. LOL..