Recipes

When Jana Schofield became a new bride more than 35 years ago, she wanted to impress her husband by making a different dinner every day during the first year of marriage. But her total recipe collection comprised only about a week of dinner recipes.

So she started organizing recipes and menus into a three-ring binder so that she could rotate and reuse them over the years. Her handy planning guide eventually became a self-published cookbook, “What’s for Dinner?” ($15.99), which has sold more than 19,000 copies since it came out in 2002.

The cast-iron Dutch oven is an old-time cooking pot that still commands a following among Utah cooks. But although many people might make stew or chili in a Dutch oven, they are often intimidated by the challenge of baking bread, cakes or pies using only charcoal briquettes as a heat source.

Bruce Tracy of Ogden has met the challenge and conquered it.

A past winner of the International Dutch Oven Society’s world championship, he shares his knowledge and recipes in his book “Dutch Oven Baking,” (Gibbs Smith, $15.99).

When Michelle Snow of Clinton writes a cookbook, it’s never just a collection of recipes. You also get some money-saving strategies for efficiently getting those recipes on the table.

Among her several cookbooks are a food storage system, “It’s In the Bag,” and the budget-stretching “The Queen of Common Cents.”

Now she’s back with “Quality Cooking at a Fraction of the Cost: Mastering the Art of Loss Leader Menu Planning” (Cedar Fort, $18.99).

There are lots of questions that you might ponder when tempted to make a salad. Some are easy to answer. Should I add fruit? (Answer: no.) Others are more complicated. When should I dress the salad? (Depends on what’s in it.) But the most important of these questions concern the heart of the salad, its green base.

Gone are the days of iceberg lettuce and even the unintentionally Obama-endorsed arugula. Today, it’s all about kale.

Deviled chicken was one of my mom’s standbys. Skin-on, bone-in chicken parts were smeared with Dijon-style mustard and broiled. It made for delicious skin, but the meat didn’t have much flavor.

My modern-day makeover gets rid of the skin. To keep the chicken moist and flavorful, I soak it in a combination of yogurt and mustard, mixing Indian methods with French seasoning. Then I coat it in panko bread crumbs and add a spritz of nonstick cooking oil spray. After baking, the chicken pieces get a brief trip under the broiler to brown the crumbs.

Turkey — it’s not just for Thanksgiving anymore.

Just in time for grilling season, local grocers are stocking various cuts of turkey for easy summer meal preparations.

Harmons recently contracted with Moroni Feed Company in central Utah to provide fresh, natural turkey for its stores. Cuts include whole breasts, drums, wings, thighs, breast meat strips, chops, cubes and freshly ground turkey.

“The thing that is great about turkey is how lean it is,” said Jessica LaRoche, dietitian at Harmons in Farmington.

Sweet, tender scallops need very little cooking. In fact, to remain delicate and flavorful, they should be cooked only a few minutes over high heat in a skillet large enough to hold them in one layer without touching. The result will be a crusty coating while the inside remains juicy.

Saffron Vegetable Pilaf

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 cup frozen, chopped onion

1/2 cup portobello mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup long-grain white rice

1 cup fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth