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You Don't Need Basil for This Pesto

Don't throw away those carrot tops. Put them into pesto.

I got the idea when I bought tender young carrots at the Windrose Farm stall at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

"Do you want me to cut off the tops for our compost?" asked the girl who handled my purchase. I decided to keep the feathery greens and asked what she did with them. 

Her suggestion was to turn them into pesto, which I did, using the ingredients she suggested. There it is at the top, framed by Windrose carrots. 

Serve the pesto with pasta or on crackers or baguette slices as an appetizer.

CARROT TOP PESTO

Tops from 1 bunch baby carrots
1/3 cup walnut pieces
1 large clove garlic
Salt
1/4 cup olive oil

Remove the tops from the carrots, wash them and drain well.  Pluck the leaves, leaving only the tender stems at the top. There will be about 1 cup leaves.

Place the leaves, walnuts, garlic and a dash salt in a food processor. Process until the nuts are ground.  Add the olive oil and process again until well blended.

Makes about 1/2 cup.  

Disclaimer: Carrot leaves contain allergens that may affect some people, just as some are allergic to peanuts. They are high in nutrients, however, and not toxic. 

What's in These Truffles? Bacon!

An all-bacon party this weekend brought out an incredible assortment of food, from bacon spring rolls and bacon-infused vodka to more desserts than you ever thought could be made with bacon.

I took chocolate-peanut-bacon truffles (at top), around which I arranged bacon-chocolate bark. The bark is easy to make. All you do is mix crumbled bacon with melted chocolate, then spread it out on foil or wax paper to harden.

The truffle recipe came from Cakebread Cellars' culinary director, Brian Streeter. It's easy, too. Here are the steps:

First, grind peanuts, bittersweet chocolate chips and sugar in a food processor until very fine (above).

Next, mix in creamy peanut butter until smooth.

Place the mixture in the refrigerator until firm, then form it into 1-inch balls and return to the refrigerator. 

Cook bacon until crisp and drain it well on paper towels.

With a heavy knife, chop the bacon into fine crumbs.

Melt chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl over simmering water, stirring occasionally as the chocolate softens. Mix in the chopped bacon and let the mixture cool slightly. 

Coat the peanut-chocolate balls with the melted chocolate mixture and then with cocoa. The shape will be irregular, but that's the way truffles are in nature. 

These are only slightly sweet. Perhaps that's because they're meant to go with red wine--Cakebread Cellars Syrah. No one brought that to the party, so I substituted a Spanish Garnacha, and that was a good pairing too.

If you don't plan to serve the truffles with wine and want them sweeter, you could use semisweet chocolate chips instead of bittersweet. I had a little coating left over, and that's how I got the idea of making bacon bark.  I liked it so well that I cooked more bacon and melted more chocolate in order to have enough bark for the party. 

PEANUT BUTTER AND BACON TRUFFLES
Cakebread Cellars

1/2 cup salted dry roasted peanuts
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
6 slices bacon 
1/4 cup cocoa for coating, plus additional cocoa

Combine the peanuts, 2 ounces of the chips and the sugar in the work bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture is ground to a medium fine texture. Transfer to a bowl, add the peanut butter, and stir until evenly combined. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon until crisp, drain on paper towels and chop fine. Set aside.

Remove the chilled peanut mixture from the refrigerator and form into 1-inch balls. There will be about 24. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt the remaining 6 ounces of chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water over medium heat. Stir occasionally, until smooth.

Remove the bowl from the heat, stir in the chopped bacon and set aside to cool until just warm to the touch. Sift the cocoa into another bowl and set aside.

Working with a few peanut balls at a time, coat them evenly with the melted chocolate mixture, then place in the bowl of cocoa and coat completely. Add more cocoa if necessary.

Transfer the truffles to an airtight container sprinkled with additional cocoa. Repeat with the remaining balls. Refrigerate up to a week. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Makes 2 dozen.

Cooking with Cara Caras

I hadn't expected to wind up on-screen when I went to Sunkist's cooking demo at Sur La Table.

But that's why we bloggers were there, not just to watch but to cook along with chef Robert Danhi (at top) as he demonstrated how to use the Cara Cara navel orange.

Sunkist is promoting the Cara Cara as "The Power Orange," because it's so full of good stuff--vitamins A and C, foliate and potassium, fiber and lycopene, an antioxidant.

I'm not into science, so I'll just say that it tastes good--sweet and a little tangy--and the flesh has a beautiful ruby-orange color. I've bought navel oranges that had lots of skin and little juice, but the Cara Cara isn't like that. It has plenty of juice, and no seeds. 

If you're wondering how the orange got its name, it's from the place where it was discovered in 1976, the Hacienda de Cara Cara in Valencia, Venezuela. Cara Caras grow in California now. 

As the cameras worked--the demo was streaming online--we peeled, zested, cut up and squeezed oranges for three dishes.

Danhi had us put diced oranges into pico de gallo (above), along with tomatoes, chiles, red onion and cilantro. Compared to the usual salsa, this was a burst of color in a bowl.

Thank heavens there were plenty of chips so we could snack, to the envy of the viewers. "I hear mumbling, and I hear crunching," Danhi observed. 

If anyone had camera nerves, the next recipe took care of that--a sparkling drink loaded with Cognac-flavored syrup and sparkling wine.

We put zest and juice into the syrup and bits of orange into the cocktail. The flavor was punchy, sparkly and assertive enough to stand up to the spicy pico de gallo.

Happily, there was enough for refills, and we poured those later, after the cameras were no longer spying on us.

The last dish was a Vietnamese style crab, vegetable and rice noodle salad, with orange juice in the dressing and grilled orange wedges on top.

Danhi brought lemon grass from his garden to cut up for the salad, and tossed in mint, carrots and cucumber too. The Thai sweet chile sauce that he had concocted for the dressing was designed to mirror the color of the Cara Cara orange. 

The salad was perfect to end the demo, because it was lunch time, our work was finished, and all we had to do was eat and enjoy what we had made.

You can get the three recipes and see the video session at the Sunkist site. For starters, here is the pico de gallo.

CARA CARA PICO DE GALLO

1/2 cup Cara Cara orange segments, diced
2 medium roma tomatoes, diced
1 tablespoon red onion, diced small
1 teaspoon minced jalapeño chiles
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine the diced oranges, tomatoes, onion, jalapeño, cilantro and salt. Toss gently to mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.  

Yummy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

"Don't you dare touch those. They're mine, all mine."

Miss Lily was desperate to get one of these freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies. She loves crunchy cookies, and occasionally I give her a bite, but not this time.

These were too good. Crisp, tender and raisiny, they were exactly what I had been craving.

I came across the recipe in "Baking Basics and Beyond" by Pat Sinclair (Agate Surrey, $19.95), a book so full of tips and tempting baked goods  that there may be more fights with my rapacious cat.

Seriously, the book is a wonderful guide for those who think baking is too difficult to attempt. Sinclair writes as if she were standing in your kitchen, telling you exactly what to do so your cakes, pies, brownies, pizzas, coffee cakes, scones and muffins turn out right. 

You've read baking guides with long, detailed passages about the basics and recipes that you can't make without going back and scanning those sections with your sticky, buttery, flour-coated hands.

''Baking Basics'' isn't like that. Sinclair, a food consultant and cooking teacher, does provide instruction on techniques, equipment and ingredients. But the necessary tips are provided in each recipe and so painlessly that you may not realize how much you are learning.

You'll also learn things you never remember, or never knew, like bittersweet chocolate has more cocoa solids than semisweet chocolate and so has more chocolate flavor. And to make really good pie pastry, you should put in butter, for flavor, and solid vegetable shortening, for flakiness.

The oatmeal cookies were so simple they didn't need any special advice, other than the comment that using baking soda instead of baking powder makes them crisp. 

This is the second edition of Sinclair's book, redesigned and updated. "Learn These Simple Techniques and Bake LIke a Pro," the cover promises.

No book may turn you into a pro--that takes training and experience--but this one will make you confident enough to pass up storebought goodies and make really wonderful baked goods at home.

CRISPY OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES
From "Baking Basics and Beyond" 

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar 
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
3 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup raisins or dried cranberries

Heat oven to 350 degrees with oven rack in middle.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl.

Beat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in bowl of a heavy-duty mixer on medium-high speed until creamy, scraping down sides of bowl once or twice. Add vanilla and eggs and mix well.

Reduce mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat until dough forms. By hand, stir in oats and raisins.

Drop dough in rounded tablespoons about 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. 

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until cookies are browned on edges. Let cookies stand on cookie sheet for 1 minute before removing them. Cool on wire cooling rack.

Store loosely covered at room temperature.

Makes 3 to 3 1/2 dozen cookies. 

 

A Mango Cake Goes to a Luau

We've been getting gorgeous, plump, green-skinned mangoes from Mexico, just what I needed to make a mango upside-down cake for a luau.

The cake was a hit. Of course, it wasn't very big, and there were a lot of people, so only a  few got a taste.

I found the recipe in a book that I've had for years, "Fruits of Hawaii," published by the University of Hawaii Press in 1955.

The authors were university home economists Katherine Bazore and Mary Bartow and Carey D. Miller, who headed the Foods and Nutrition Department of the Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station at the University.

From the recipes I've tried, they really knew their stuff.

The cake recipe works like a dream, and you can use the  batter with other fruit when mangoes aren't around.

To prepare the mangoes, first slice down on each side of the seed, making two large sections. With a sharp knife, cut around the edge of each, just inside the peel. This will make it easier to extract the pulp.

Cut the pulp crosswise in slices, then bend back the two ends of each section so the slices pop forward. Now you can slice them off the peel into a bowl.

Slice off any fruit clinging to the seed and remove the peel.

I used slightly more than the 2 cups of mango slices called for in the recipe, and a little more of the brown sugar and butter that line the pan.

This was a party, after all, and even the cake needed to  dress up, although it still looked pretty homey.

MANGO UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
From "Fruits of Hawaii"

2 cups sliced ripe mangoes
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon margarine (I used butter)
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup fat (butter again)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk

Combine the mango slices and lemon juice and let stand 15 minutes.

Melt the 1 tablespoon margarine (or butter) in an 8-inch cake pan or casserole (I used an 8-inch square baking pan). Add the brown sugar and press evenly to cover the bottom of the pan. Cover with a layer of mango slices.

To prepare the cake batter, cream the fat (or butter), add the sugar and cream together, then add the beaten egg and blend well.

Add the sifted flour, baking powder and salt to the egg mixture alternately with the milk. Pour the batter over the mangoes.

Bake at 375 degrees 50 to 60 minutes. (I used a slightly lower temperature, because my oven bakes hot, and the cake was done in 50 minutes. You can cover it loosely with foil if it starts to brown too much.)

Remove  the cake to a rack. Let stand 5 minutes, then invert onto a serving plate. Serve warm, with whipped cream or a lemon or lime sauce, if desired.

Makes 6 servings. (I cut mine in thirds, then crosswise in five parts, making 15 party-sized slices.) 

Roasted Corn for the 4th

Two barbecues celebrated the Fourth.  One with smoky ribs and lots of side dishes. The other with chicken, grilled vegetables and potato salad.

Appetizers for the chicken dinner included thin-sliced cured pork and paprika-coated Spanish goat cheese. Afterward came homemade cherry ice cream and cherry clafoutis (the contributors had picked the cherries themselves) and French vanilla with caramel-passion fruit sauce.

As an appreciative guest, I did very little--other than to clean my assorted plates.  For the chicken barbecue, I brought a bottle of Côtes du Rhône rosé. For the ribs, I roasted corn kernels with garlic and fresh basil from the garden. 

This is the perfect dish to take to a party, because it's good at room temperature, so you don't have to fuss about reheating it in someone else's kitchen.

The proportions are flexible. Put in as much garlic and basil as you like.

ROASTED CORN WITH GARLIC AND BASIL

9 ears corn (choose corn with large kernels)
Olive oil
6 cloves garlic, chopped
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
9 to 10 large leaves basil, shredded

With a sharp knife, slice the kernels off the cobs.

Heat a large, heavy skillet over medium high heat.  Add enough olive oil to lightly film the surface.

Add 1/3 of the corn kernels and 2 garlic cloves. Sprinkle with salt to taste and a few grinds black pepper. Roast, tossing often, until the corn is lightly flecked with brown but not burned. Stir in 1/3 of the basil.  Remove to a serving bowl.

Repeat twice, adding 1/3 of the ingredients each time. The corn should be in as thin a layer as possible to avoid steaming.

Serve hot or at room temperature.

Makes 8 to 10 servings.

The Sweetest Corn Soup Ever

If you don't have super sweet fresh corn, don't even think about making this soup.

Its essence is fresh, natural sweetness, lightly perfumed with tarragon.

I use Mexican tarragon, because it grows so easily in California and pops up fresh each year. But French tarragon would be lovely too, if you have it.

The inspiration for this sweet corn chowder was the creamed corn at Eva restaurant in Los Angeles. Owner/chef Mark Gold told me that he cooks corn cobs in water to make broth in which he then cooks the corn kernels. To finish the dish, he combines the corn with a bechamel sauce infused with tarragon and bay leaf.

The fragrance as the corn cobs simmer is mellow and buttery, the very essence of corn.  The aroma permeating the kitchen is one of the pleasures of making this dish, which you can then serve with a salad and good crusty bread--a light summer meal to enjoy as long as the sweet corn harvest continues.

SUMMER SWEET CORN CHOWDER

3 cobs sweet corn
5 cups water
1 green onion, bottom part only
1 clove garlic
2 bay leaves
Salt
2 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon flour
3/4 cup milk 
1 sprig Mexican tarragon or French tarragon

With a sharp knife, cut the kernels from the cobs. Place them in a bowl and reserve. There will be about 2 1/2 cups kernels.

Break the cobs in half. Place them in a Dutch oven. Add the water, green onion, garlic, 1 bay leaf and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, 1 hour. 

Turn off the heat and let the cobs cool in the broth. Then remove them and discard. Strain the broth and reserve. There will be about 2 cups. 

Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook and stir 30 seconds. Add the milk, remaining bay leaf and the tarragon sprig. Cook and stir until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens so that you can see the bottom of the pan as you stir.

Set aside to cool, stirring occasionally. Do not remove the herbs. 

Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter in a large saucepan. Add the corn kernels and stir 1 minute. Add 1 1/2 cups of the reserved corn broth. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer 5 minutes, stirring often.

Gradually stir several spoonfuls of the corn and its liquid into the white sauce, then return all to the saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook and stir 1 minute. Taste and add salt as needed. If too thick, add a little more of the corn broth.  

Let the chowder cool in order to develop the flavor. Reheat to serve, removing the herbs.

Makes about 1 quart, or 4 servings. 

This Showgirl Cooks up a Storm

Tina Martini swoops onto the stage like a Las Vegas showgirl. Only she's modestly covered by a blue uniform. And she doesn't dance. She cooks.

"Martini Time with Chef Tina Martini" is the newest show at M Resort Spa Casino in Las Vegas. Martini performs in what looks like a TV food show studio, complete  with cameras, lights and top of the line appliances and utensils.

Comfortable theater seats face a counter with a place setting for each person. This is the best part of the show, eating what Martini cooks. And she cooks with a vengeance. Her non-stop high energy spiel gets her through a lot of dishes in an hour. And when she's done, she swoops back where she came from.

But the show isn't over. A ticket includes a reserved seat for M's lunch or dinner buffet, depending upon show time. And it's a good buffet, judging by the dessert section, which is all that I had time to explore.

The show, with a rotating variety of topics, takes place three times a day Sunday through Thursday. For more information, go to www.themresort.com.

From the performance that I saw, here is the perfect dessert for Valentine's Day, a cheesecake that is as light as it is rich, with a pistachio biscotti crust and lots of pretty berry sauce.

HONEY RICOTTA CHEESECAKE
From Chef Tina Martini

The Cheesecake
8 ounces pistachio biscotti
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 (12-ounce) container fresh whole milk ricotta, drained
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup orange blossom or clover honey
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
4 eggs

Raspberry Sauce
1 pint raspberries
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Additional berries for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Wrap the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan with 2 layers of heavy-duty foil.

Place the biscotti in a food processor and grind to fine crumbs. Add the melted butter and process until the crumbs are moistened.

Press the crumb mixture over the bottom of the prepared pan but not the sides. Bake until golden, about 15 minutes. Place the pan on a rack to cool completely.

Clean the food processor. Add the ricotta and process until smooth. Add the cream cheese and sugar and blend well, stopping the machine occasionally and scraping down the sides of the work bowl.

Blend in the honey and orange zest. Add the eggs and pulse just until blended.

Pour the cheese mixture over the cooled crust and smooth with the back of a moistened spoon.

Place the springform pan in a large roasting pan. Bring the foil slightly above the sides to protect the filling.  Add hot water to come half way up the sides. Bake until the cake is golden and the center moves slightly when the pan is gently shaken, about 1 hour 5 minutes. 

Transfer the cake to a rack and cool 1 hour. Refrigerate until cold, at least 8 hours and up to 2 days. Cut into wedges and serve with raspberry sauce.

To make the sauce, combine the raspberries, sugar and lemon juice in the food processor and process until smooth. Strain through a mesh strainer to remove the seeds.

Spoon the sauce over each slice, adding additional berries such as blueberries, blackberries and raspberries to the sauce if desired.

Makes 12 to 16 servings. 

Great Shrimp from the Grill

Put these shrimp on the barbie, and you'll put them there again and again.

The recipe is from my friend and former colleague in the food section of the Los Angeles Times, Mary Ellen Rae.

Mary Ellen is now giving cooking classes, catering parties and private cheffing through her company, Personal Touch Gourmet.

The shrimp are one of her most popular party appetizers. (I tasted them at a holiday party at her home and couldn't get them out of my mind, they were so good.)

Infused with lemony flavors associated with Thai and Indonesian cooking, they also taste of fresh dill, a seasoning from another part of the globe.

The recipe is really convenient. Part of the marinade seasons the shrimp. The rest becomes a dipping sauce. 

If you're not an outdoor cook, you can grill the shrimp with equal success on a stovetop grill pan (that's what I do). Skewer them on decorative bamboo picks for a party appetizer, or serve them over fragrant jasmine rice at a summer buffet.

For more information about Mary Ellen's classes, go to http://www.personaltouchgourmet.net.

LEMONGRASS AND DILL GRILLED SHRIMP
(From Mary Ellen Rae of Personal Touch Gourmet)

1 pound shrimp (21 to 24 to a pound)
3 lemongrass stalks
1/3 cup chopped dill
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
1/2 cup canola oil

Preheat the barbecue grill.

Peel and devein the shrimp.

Remove the tough outer leaves of each lemongrass stalk and trim the stem end. Finely dice the bottom 4 inches of each stalk. Discard the leafy tops.

Place the lemongrass, dill, garlic, shallot, salt and rice vinegar in a blender or food processor.

While the machine is running, slowly drizzle in the oil. Blend until smooth. Add more salt if wanted.

Reserve half of the marinade to use as a dipping sauce. Coat the shrimp with the remaining marinade and set aside for 15 minutes.

The shrimp can also be prepared in advance and marinated in the refrigerator. In this case, remove them from the refrigerator and let them stand at room temperature 20 to 30 minutes before grilling.

Grill the shrimp 2 to 3 minutes on each side or just until no longer translucent in the center.

Serve on bamboo picks with the dipping sauce.

Makes 8 appetizer servings.

Reustle: Wine, Food and Prayer

There is much that is spectacular about Reustle-Prayer Rock Vineyards.

The wines, of course, and the extravagant new wine cave fitted out with chandeliers, painted ceilings a la Sistine Chapel, angels carved in the walls and Bible sayings on the floor. And dinners that must be remarkable, judging by the one Reustle recipe that I have been able to obtain. 

This relatively new winery in Southern Oregon's Umpqua Valley--it opened in 2006--has an ambitious goal.

"I'm only going to make world class wine," insists Steve Reustle, who founded the winery with his wife, Gloria. "Our passion is wine," he says. "Our other passion is agriculture."

After a career in marketing, Steve Reustle became a self-taught, hands-on winemaker. Gloria conducts structured wine tastings paired with food and cooks dishes from her native Puerto Rico for winemaker dinners.

Yes, there is a Prayer Rock in a vineyard, and  it  is used for that purpose. The Reustles are members of the North Roseburg Evangelical Free Church.  Church volunteers handle the harvest. What they would have been paid goes to mission work in Romania.

Reustle's unique wine is Gruner Veltliner, a varietal that Steve admired in Austria, determined to make it himself and became the first in the United States to do so.  

The first vintage was 2005. The 2008 Gruner Veltliner will be released at the end of February, 2009. Almost dry, with undertones of citrus and other fruits and a long finish, it is "a great food wine," Gloria says, with enough character to stand out even if one drinks it after a red wine.

Dropping into the tasting room last October, I signed up with other visitors to sample five wines snd three appetizers. Since then, the tasting room has moved into the wine cave. Tastings are $10 and now include four wines and three food pairings. 

My tasting started with a palate cleanser, the dry 2007 Riesling, 

Next came the 2007 New Zealand style Sauvignon Blanc, which emphasizes fruitiness rather than grassy, vegetative flavors. Sprightly acidity makes it a good companion to spicy food, and so we were served chicken flautas.

Avocado-topped crostini, spread with goat cheese and seasoned with olive oil and black pepper, came with the 2006 Pinot Noir. "We disagree that this is not an area for Pinot," Gloria says.

She poured a luscious 2006 Syrah next, followed by the 2006 Tempranillo, with which we ate thin slices of Pecorino Romano cheese coated with honey and pepper.

These were simple accompaniments, but Gloria's Puerto Rican Garlic-Roasted Chicken blends rich, complex flavors and makes a handsome dinner party dish

A key ingredient is adobo seasoning, which is not a liquid marinade but a powdered mixture of salt, garlic, oregano, pepper and turmeric. It is available in markets that carry Latin American products.

The chicken cooks on a bed of vegetables until so tender the meat falls away from the bone, so it isn't something that you can carve at the table, 

Arranged on a platter, with roasted sweet potatoes around it and the zesty tomato-red vegetable mixture from the pan on top, it is as delicious as it is spectacular,

PUERTO RICAN GARLIC-ROASTED CHICKEN
From Gloria Reustle of Reustle-Prayer Rock Vineyards

1 large (5.5-pound) chicken
½ pound carrots, sliced
½ pound mushrooms
1 (8-ounce) jar sliced sundried tomatoes
1 large sweet onion, cut into 1-inch wedges
1 tablespoon adobo seasoning (Goya brand)
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
½ large lemon
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 head garlic
6 sweet potatoes

Use a large roasting pan with a lid, such as a turkey roaster, for this dish.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Remove the neck and internal organs from the chicken. Wash the chicken with cold water and pat dry with paper towels.

Arrange the sliced carrots, whole mushrooms, drained tomatoes and onion in the bottom of the roasting pan to make a bed for the chicken.

Season the chicken cavity with 1½ teaspoons adobo seasoning and the 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning.

Squeeze the juice from the lemon half. There should be at least ¼ cup. Spoon 3 tablespoons lemon juice into the chicken cavity, keeping the chicken tilted so that it does not run out.

Spoon in 1½ tablespoons olive oil. Push the squeezed lemon half into the cavity.

Cut off the top of the head of garlic and place the whole head in the cavity. Tie the chicken legs together with cooking twine to keep the stuffing in place.

Place the chicken breast down on the bed of vegetables. Pour the remainder of the lemon juice and 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil over the chicken. Sprinkle with the remaining 1½ teaspoons adobo seasoning.

Cover and bake 2 hours.

Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes and place in a bowl of cold water.

After 2 hours, uncover the chicken and place the drained sweet potatoes around it. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Turn the potatoes over. Do not turn the chicken over. It roasts breast down to keep the meat moist.  Raise the heat to 450 degrees and bake 15 to 20 minutes to concentrate the juices in the pan.

Carefully remove the chicken to a cutting board. With 2 forks, pull off the meat, discarding the bones. Place the chicken on a serving platter. Arrange the sweet potatoes around it and spoon the vegetables in the pan over it.

Makes 6 servings.