Oven-Baked Onion Blossom

Get the printable version of this recipe at www.susanmallery.com/recipes.php!

It all started with a tweet. The Food Network tweeted their recipe recreating the Blooming Onion from Outback Steakhouse. I love the Blooming Onion, so I couldn’t resist taking a peek. Oh, I wish I hadn’t! Because while my mouth watered, my arteries hardened just from reading the ingredients. I don’t want to know! A gallon of oil? Seriously? That’s just depressing. Delicious but depressing.

I wondered whether I could come up with a lighter version of this recipe. Full disclosure: my version is not as delicious as the real thing nor, presumably, as the Food Network’s. However, it has much less fat and really tasted pretty great. I was proud to serve it to guests, and their compliments seemed sincere. I wouldn’t call this health food, but at least you won’t have to have a defibrillator on standby when you eat it.

Oven-Baked Onion Blossom

1 large sweet onion
2 C flour
1 t garlic salt
1 t cayenne
½ t thyme
½ t ground cumin
½ t pepper
2 eggs
1 C milk
2 T mayo
2 T butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice the top off the onion. Peel, then turn cut-side down onto a cutting board. Spear the knife into the onion about half an inch from the uncut bottom. Slice down to the cutting board. Using this method, cut the onion into pieces about the width of your pinkie finger. (But don’t slice your pinkie finger!)

Combine the flour and spices in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and set aside. Combine the eggs, milk, and mayo in the smallest bowl you have that will fit the onion with the liquid. Mix well. Put the onion cut-side down into the egg mixture, then rotate so the cut side is up. Spoon egg mixture amidst the onion wedges, separating the wedges with your fingers, getting egg everywhere you can. Then hold the onion upside down over the bowl to allow the excess egg mixture to drop off. Put the onion into the Ziploc bag with the flour and shake gently to coat. You may need to open the bag, separate the wedges, and close it to shake again.

Place the onion cut-side up onto a cookie sheet. Drizzle with 2 T melted butter. Bake until golden brown all over. The tips of the onion wedges may get very dark, but that’s okay. You need to cook the onion long enough to soften the pieces thoroughly so they’re easy to pull from the blossom.

Serve immediately with your favorite salad dressing for dipping.

Snap Pea Cheese Canoes

I decided to re-post a recipe I shared last year, in a post with several Thanksgiving Appetizer Recipes. This one was my favorite of those (though I really loved the Butternut Hummus, too). They feel very Thanksgiving-y, since the snow peas look like little Native American canoes. You can get a printable version of this Thanksgiving appetizer recipe at www.susanmallery.com/recipes.php, as well as lots of other appetizer recipes.

Recipe: Snap Pea Cheese Canoes

8 oz snap peas
4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 green onion with top, cut into one-inch chunks
2 T minced chives
½ t garlic salt

Heat a quart of water to boiling. Add the snap peas and blanch for one minute. Drain, then put in ice water for one minute, then drain again. Carefully cut a slit into the straight side of each snap pea, then set aside.

Put the remaining ingredients into a food processor and pulse until smooth.

Put the cheese mixture into a Ziploc bag and cut a small triangle off the corner of the bag. With one hand, hold a snap pea so that the slit opens, then fill with the cheese mixture.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Quick & Easy Hummus-Ranch Dip

Read free excerpts of Susan Mallery’s lively contemporary novels at www.susanmallery.com – and you’ll find lots of free recipes there, too!

Three weeks ago, I posted a recipe for Slow Cooker Chicken Potato Pie. Two weeks ago, we had Slow Cooker Java Roast. Then came Linda Goodnight’s delicious Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies. I have been on a comfort food kick. I was nervous about whether readers would rush out to buy my latest book, ONLY HIS. Well, the results are in… and they’re great! ONLY HIS debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestsellers list, and hit #8 during its second week of release.

So it’s time to get back to being more mindful about what I’m eating. Which means lots and lots of veggies. I came up with this “recipe” for Hummus-Ranch Dip as a way to liven up plain veggies. Although it’s pictured here with grilled asparagus, it’s delicious with any vegetable on the vegetable tray. (I put “recipe” in quotes because this is so ridiculously quick and easy that it almost doesn’t count as a recipe at all.)

Not only is it delicious, it's perfect for those of us carb loading for our winter hibernation.

Recipe: Quick and Easy Hummus-Ranch Dip

½ C Low-fat or fat-free Ranch dressing
½ C prepared hummus

Mix. Dip

Cold Veggie Ranch Pizza

This recipe is from the Fool’s Gold Family Recipes Cookbook, a PDF cookbook that you can download for free at www.foolsgoldca.com/funstuff.html. The full-color cookbook has 48 pages of recipes contributed by the characters of Fool’s Gold – everything from Mayor Marsha’s Citrus-Grilled Steaks to Low Carb Cheesy Cauliflower from Dakota Hendrix, the heroine of the latest Fool’s Gold book, ONLY MINE.

I love the vegetables of summer. I know we have the luxury of being able to get fresh vegetables year round, but somehow, the vegetables of summer taste better. They’re more colorful, more flavorful. I’m sure there’s a reason – probably because they’re coming straight from local farmers instead of being shipped north from Chile.

One of my favorite ways to use fresh vegetables is in this cold vegetable Ranch pizza. It’s something of a misnomer to call it pizza, since only the crust is cooked – and it’s not actually a crust but rather crescent roll dough. But I don’t know what else to call it, so I stick with pizza. My husband doesn’t love it. I think he’s crazy, but I’m convinced the reason for his ambivalence is because the word “pizza” creates expectations in his head that this pizza doesn’t meet. So bite into it with an open mind and enjoy. If you love vegetables and ranch dip, I don’t see how you can go wrong.

Recipe: Cold Veggie Ranch Pizza

2 tubes Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough
1 pint sour cream
1 package Ranch mix
4 C fresh vegetables, in ¼-inch pieces
2 C cheddar cheese, shredded
1 can sliced black olives (optional)

Flatten the crescent rolls in a single layer in an ungreased 13x9-inch pan. Cook at 350 until golden brown, 10-12 minutes. Cool. Meanwhile, mix the ranch dip with the sour cream. When the crust is cool, spread the ranch dip over it. Top with vegetables, cheese, and olives, if desired.

When choosing vegetables, stick with those that won’t get slimy or wilted if you’re planning to store the pizza for a few days. (I like to make it on Sunday and then have it for lunch throughout the week.) I use carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, sugar snap peas, red peppers and onions. Plus, I drain a small can of Green Giant Niblets corn and include that. The more colors, the prettier!

Gravlax (Salt and Sugar Cured Salmon)

Find more free recipes - and excerpts of my books, including the latest Fool's Gold romance, ONLY MINE, at www.susanmallery.com!

I'd like to welcome Louisa Edwards to my kitchen! Louisa writes a series of steamy, sexy romances with a cooking twist.

Louisa Edwards:

My next book, Too Hot to Touch, is out on August 2nd! It’s the first installment in my new contemporary romance trilogy, and it introduces a team of talented young chefs competing in a high-stakes culinary competition for fame, fortune…and each other’s hearts.

As you might have guessed, there’s plenty of food in my books! I think you can say a lot with what you choose to cook—and my hero, Max Lunden, definitely understands the language of food. The language of love? That, he needs a little help with. Luckily, he’s got Jules Cavanaugh, their tough-talking team leader…who just happens to have had a crush on Max since they were teenagers. Now that they have to work together, though, she’s determined to keep her cool—no matter how hot it gets!

The competition is fierce, and the whole team has to pull together to create a winning menu. I wanted to share one of the three recipes that appears in the back of Too Hot to Touch. This one is for gravlax, one of my favorite things to make. It’s a super adaptable recipe, perfect when you’ve got houseguests or a dinner party, because it’s one of those where you throw the ingredients together and then just stick it in the fridge and forget about it.

I know it sounds fancy, but gravlax is just salt and sugar-cured salmon—sort of like smoked salmon without the smoke! The salt/sugar blend “cooks” the fish, and leaves it with a firm, supple texture and a delicious, lightly sweet and herbal flavor that you can change, depending on what you add while it’s curing. I’ve made it with dill and gin instead of tarragon and Pernod, with no alcohol at all (it’s completely optional), and it always tastes delicious and refreshing. Perfect for such a hot summer!

I hope you enjoy the Too Hot to Touch team’s version…and if you want to find out whether the recipe helps them win a spot in the Rising Star Chef competition, and if Max and Jules figure out how to tell each other what they really feel, read the book!

Too Hot to Touch on Amazon
Too Hot to Touch on Barnes & Noble

Recipe: Beck’s New York-Style Gravlax

2 lb whole salmon fillet, skin on (ask fishmonger to remove all pin bones)
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup salt
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon black pepper
4 bunches fresh tarragon
¼ cup Pernod, or other anise-flavored liqueur (optional)

Rinse the fish, checking for loose scales, and pat dry with paper towels.

Stir together the garlic, sugar, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Coat the bottom of a 9 x 13 casserole with about a third of the mixture.
Lay the fish, skin side down, across the sugar mixture in the pan. Place one bunch of tarragon around the sides of the salmon, then pour the rest of the sugar mixture over the top of the fish, making sure to cover it completely.

Spread the rest of the tarragon over the coated fish, then (if you want) pour the Pernod over all and cover with plastic wrap.

You may place a weighted 8 x 11 pan on top of the covered salmon to help the curing process and absorption of the tarragon oil into the sugar, but it’s not strictly necessary.

Put the pan in the refrigerator and allow to cure for two to three days. Check the salmon every twelve hours or so to make sure it’s still covered, adding more sugar and salt if needed.

When ready to serve, remove the gravlax from the pan and rinse well. Pat dry with paper towels and slice thinly across the grain. Great on sandwiches, in salads, with eggs—anywhere you’d use smoked salmon! It’s especially good on crackers with sour cream, diced red onion, and capers…

Thanksgiving Appetizer Recipes

This week, I decided to do something different. Instead of offering one recipe, I’m offering several. I came up with some fresh ideas for Thanksgiving appetizers, and I am so proud of how they turned out! You can get printable versions of these Thanksgiving appetizer recipes at www.susanmallery.com/recipes.php, as well as lots of other appetizer recipes. If you make any of these appetizers, I would love to hear from you. Post a comment here, or send me an email via my website.

Recipe: Snap Pea Crab Canoes

8 oz. snap peas
8 oz crab meat
4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 green onion with top, cut into one-inch chunks
1 t lemon juice
1 t Dijon mustard

Heat a quart of water to boiling. Add the snap peas and blanch for one minute. Drain, then put in ice water for one minute, then drain again. Carefully cut a slit into the straight side of each snap pea, then set aside.

Put the remaining ingredients into a food processor and pulse until smooth.

Put the crab mixture into a Ziploc bag and cut a small triangle off the corner of the bag. With one hand, hold a snap pea so that the slit opens, then fill with the crab mixture.

If your family doesn’t like seafood, try this variation instead:

Recipe: Snap Pea Cheese Canoes

8 oz snap peas
4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 green onion with top, cut into one-inch chunks
2 T minced chives
½ t garlic salt

Heat a quart of water to boiling. Add the snap peas and blanch for one minute. Drain, then put in ice water for one minute, then drain again. Carefully cut a slit into the straight side of each snap pea, then set aside.

Put the remaining ingredients into a food processor and pulse until smooth.

Put the cheese mixture into a Ziploc bag and cut a small triangle off the corner of the bag. With one hand, hold a snap pea so that the slit opens, then fill with the cheese mixture.


The next recipe was inspired by Smitten Kitchen’s Sweet Potatoes with Pecans, Goat Cheese, and Celery. One of my goals with this blog is to help bring attention to great recipes on other blogs, and this one looks incredible.

Recipe: Sweet Potato Rounds with Roasted Garlic and Feta

2 large sweet potatoes, sliced ¼-inch thick
2 large heads of garlic
2 T + 1 t olive oil, divided
1 t salt
1 t dried sage
¼ C crumbled feta cheese

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. With the sweet potato slices in a bowl, add 2 T olive oil, salt, and sage, and stir to coat. Place the slices in a single layer on two cookie sheets. Put each head of garlic on a square of aluminum foil. Drizzle 1 t of olive oil over the two heads of garlic, then wrap them both with aluminum foil and place on the cookie sheets. Roast for 10 minutes, flip the slices, then roast for another 10-20 minutes, until the slices are brown at the edges. Remove from the oven.

Turn the oven to broil. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves into a bowl and mash roughly. Spread mashed garlic onto the sweet potato rounds and then add a bit of crumbled feta to each round. Broil for about 2 minutes.

Recipe: Bruschetta Bites

1 tube of crescent roll dough
4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 T mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, minced
20 whole fresh basil leaves
3 small, sweet tomatoes, sliced thin
Parmesan cheese, sliced thin

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Take the crescent roll dough out of the tube but leave it in the tube shape. Slice into ¼-inch rounds and place in a single layer on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown, about 11 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Mix the cream cheese, mayonnaise, and garlic. Spread each dough round with cheese mixture, then layer with one basil leaf, one tomato slice, and one parmesan slice.

Recipe: Butternut Hummus

1 butternut squash, about 2 pounds
2 cloves garlic
½ C tahini
¼ C olive oil
2 T lemon juice
½ t salt
½ t paprika

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cut the squash in half and place cut-side down on a cookie sheet. Bake for 45 minutes.

Scoop the flesh of the squash out of the skin and place in a food processor. Add remaining ingredients and pulse until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Serve with pita bread.