Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project – A recipe-by-recipe adventure working our way through a treasured set of 1980s subscription-based cookbooks.

16-6: Tosca Cake

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods March 30, 2025March 30, 2025all-purpose flour, almond extract, almonds, baked goods, boiled, breakfast, brunch, butter, cake pan, cakes, chopped, creamed, dessert, Easter, eggs, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, flavorings, glazed, granulated sugar, melted, milk, Mother's Day, nuts, party food, pecans, peeled, Scandinavian, sliced, spring, stand mixer, Swedish, toffee, untested, vanilla extract, vegetarian, walnuts

Happy Sunday! Spring has sprung here, so I present to you a lovely, light cake option, 16-6: Tosca Cake. They even used tulips in the picture!

Tosca cake (or toscakaka) is a well-known thing, essentially a Swedish almond cake. There’s a million other recipes out there for it, but we’re here to talk about this one, so let’s do that.

Lots of brunch occasions in the springtime…this could be a great dish to bring with you or to serve at your own table if you have any upcoming plans. You can even play with flavor extracts if you want to give it that extra something.

14-1: Chocolate Fondue

Jamie Martin Group 14: Hot Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods March 27, 2025March 27, 20251970s, apples, bananas, black cherries, blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, cherries, cherry liqueur, chilled, chocolate, chopped, cognac, dark chocolate, dessert, easy, egg-free, fairly inexpensive, favorites, fondue, fruit, gluten-free, Grand Marnier, hot desserts, kiwis, liqueur, mangoes, melted, nectarines, orange liqueur, papaya, party food, peaches, pears, peeled, pineapple, plantains, raspberries, raspberry liqueur, semisweet, sliced, strawberries, untested, vegetarian, whipping cream

As promised, I did keep up at least for another week–here’s this week’s dessert, 14-1: Chocolate Fondue.

Alas, there was no party to serve it at–it was a random Thursday (tonight actually) and just the two of us. But with a mini electric fondue pot and a pre-prepared fruit bowl from the market, any day can be fondue day. This, my friends, is the future.

15-46: Mousse Casablanca

Jamie Martin Group 15: Cold Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods March 24, 2025March 26, 2025biscotti, chilled, chocolate, chocolate curls, chopped, cold desserts, creamed, crème anglaise, crushed, custard, dessert, egg whites, egg yolks, eggs, expensive, fairly easy, garnish, gelatin, granulated sugar, half-and-half, maraschino cherries, meringue, mousse, nuts, party food, semisweet, soaked, stiff peaks, untested, walnuts, whipped, whipping cream

We’re closing in on the 11th anniversary of this project, and if I ever have hopes of finishing it (which I still do), I need to figure out a strategy. I’ve spent enough time in my real life learning how to “professionally” manage projects, so I’ll apply some of that here and aim to knock out at least one recipe a week until I finish everything non-meat-related. Then I might just dump the rest online and call it a day.

You don’t care about any of this–you’re here to read about 15-46: Mousse Casablanca, right? Everyone wants to “jump to the recipe” already.

Blah blah something about how this is fancy and 80s.

Here’s the thing with this recipe–it seems too “kiddy” to be an adult dessert recipe, but is also something you most likely wouldn’t serve to kids (unless you grew up as a quasi-adult like I did). I’m not sure who this is supposed to be for?

3-12: Springtime Vegetable Soup

Adam Martin Group 03: Soups, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters March 12, 2025March 12, 2025asparagus, black pepper, blanched, boiled, carrots, cauliflower, chicken bouillon, chicken broth, dinner, egg yolks, eggs, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, gluten-free, lunch, parsley, peeled, salt, soups, spinach, spring, strained, sweet peas, untested, vegetable bouillon, vegetable broth, vegetables, vegetarian, whipping cream

Editor’s Note: This is part of remediating the backlog–turns out we both had some “spring cleaning” to do.

I know it’s been a while and don’t expect to hear much more. 3-12: Springtime Vegetable Soup was the last recipe I had prepared for this blog project. I took the photos and had them sitting on a hard drive for years. Because we don’t leave fallen soldiers, I’m proud to present this formerly LOST recipe.

I’m as big a fan of vegetable soup as the next guy. Radishes, asparagus, and cauliflower aren’t my favorite, but they all work well together when combined.

19-1: Lettuce Varieties I

Jamie Martin Group 19: Basic Ingredients, Section 4: Cooking School March 11, 2025March 12, 2025Bibb lettuce, Boston lettuce, chicory lettuce, cooking school, curly endive, iceberg lettuce, ingredients, lettuce, salads, vegan, vegetables, vegetarian

Is anyone excited by lettuce? No? Well, too bad, because I’ve got two of these to get through.

First up: 19-1: Lettuce Varieties I. Simply Delicious knew they had to break this up into multiple installments, because who could handle all this lettuce at once?

This copy sounds like AI garbage long before that was even a thing. In fact, I think the AI sounds better, and I hate AI.

Sigh…I’m having just a hard of a time selling lettuce to you as they are. Let’s just keep moving.

12-12: Pasta Shells with Tomato Sauce

Jamie Martin Group 12: Pasta & Rice, Section 2: Main Courses March 10, 2025March 18, 2025basil, black pepper, blanched, crushed, crushed tomatoes, dairy-free, dinner, easy, egg-free, food mill, herbs and spices, honey, inexpensive, lunch, new book, olive oil, pasta shells, pasta/noodles, peeled, salt, summer, tomato sauce, tomatoes, vegetarian

*tap tap* Hello? Is this thing still on?

I’m back, and like most times where I take an extended break from this, it’s because I’ve been up to things in my real life. In this instance, it was losing 100+ pounds, which can really impact the food/cooking blog hobby. This is more than just “cooking/food” and “blogging”, so I’m making yet another attempt to resurrect this beast, now almost 11 years old.

I honestly did not cook a thing for this blog in 2024 (and haven’t yet for 2025), so we’re still working off the 2023 backlog…which is dwindling quick. I’ll remedy that soon. For now, here’s one of the last few left–12-12: Pasta Shells with Tomato Sauce.

This is a recipe I had specifically saved to make with homegrown tomatoes and basil from a summer garden. Tomatoes and basil are two of the few things I’ve actually been able to grow in my garden, so it was worth the wait.

16-22: Apricot Swirl Cheesecake

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods July 14, 2024December 26, 2024all-purpose flour, almond meal, almonds, apricots, cheesecake, china caps, Christmas, cold desserts, cream cheese, creamed, dessert, dried fruit, dusted, eggs, fairly easy, fairly expensive, garnish, granulated sugar, grated, grind, jam/jelly/preserves, lemon peel, lemons, marbled, nuts, purée, sieves, simmered, springform pan, strained, strainers, summer, toasted, untested, vegetarian, whipping cream, XMAS 23, zested

In an attempt to finish off last year’s Christmas dishes (XMAS 23) before this year’s Christmas gets here, here’s 16-22: Apricot Swirl Cheesecake. Probably more of a summer recipe, but whatever, cheesecake is good any time of year. I made this together with 16-20: Chocolate Mousse Cake, because you need both a chocolate dessert AND a fruit dessert.

Fun fact: this may look okay-ish in the picture, but trust me, this does not go well. Jump behind the cut for the details (and mistakes).

16-20: Chocolate Mousse Cake

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods July 13, 2024July 13, 2024almond paste, almonds, cake pan, cakes, chilled, china caps, chocolate, Christmas, Cointreau, cold desserts, dessert, double boiler, egg yolks, eggs, fairly easy, fairly expensive, food processor, frozen, fruit sauce, gluten-free, Grand Marnier, granulated sugar, grated, grind, liqueur, mousse, orange liqueur, orange peel, powdered sugar, raspberries, raspberry liqueur, raspberry sauce, semisweet, stiff peaks, vegetarian, wax paper, whipped, whipping cream, XMAS 23, zested

I had high hopes of catching up on this thing in a timely fashion, but let’s face it–we’re all surprised I’m even still updating it all at this point. The 10-year anniversary came and went a few months ago without much (or any) fanfare, but I AM still here–just not as attentive as I used to be. Let’s face it–a LOT has changed over the last 10 years. No plans to completely let it die yet, but I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it.

Anyway, here’s 16-20: Chocolate Mousse Cake, which was one of two desserts I served for Christmas 2023 (XMAS 23).

Seemed Christmas-appropriate, plus it’s gluten-free! That doesn’t matter to anyone that’s in this house, but someone out there might care about something like that.

11-11: Lobster Thermidor

Jamie Martin Group 11: Fish & Seafood, Section 2: Main Courses April 24, 2024July 13, 2024all-purpose flour, bay leaves, Béchamel sauce, black pepper, boiled, broiled, butter, carrots, cheese, Christmas, coral, dinner, dry mustard, expensive, fairly hard, fish bouillon, fish stock, French, garlic, leeks, lobster, melted, Parmesan, parsley, party food, peppercorns, reduced, roux, salt, seafood, serving shells, shelled, shellfish, sliced, split, strained, the sims, thyme, tomalley, untested, whipping cream, white wine, XMAS 23

Still catching up on things I made for holidays past, but at least now I’m up to 2023. 11-11: Lobster Thermidor isn’t just the grand meal we had for Christmas 2023 (XMAS 23), it’s also the final recipe I have for the Fish & Seafood chapter, as well as a famous fancy dish you make in the Sims. I feel like finally making it (and posting about it) is quite the celebration in and of itself.

It’s a very indulgent dish, and took us a while to put together as it became difficult to find whole lobsters for a while, at least out here on the west coast of the US. Once we finally found a frozen cooked pair at Costco, it was game on.

8-35: Flambéed Steak Diane

Jamie Martin Group 08: Beef, Section 2: Main Courses April 23, 2024April 21, 2024beef, black pepper, brandy, butter, chives, chopped, cognac, deglazed, dinner, egg-free, fairly easy, fairly expensive, flambé, hot sauce, lemon juice, lemons, liqueur, parsley, pearl onions, peeled, salt, sautéed, scraped, shallots, sirloin, steak, untested, white onions, Worcestershire sauce

Today I have something “old-school” for you–8-35: Flambéed Steak Diane. This is a dish that’s been around for a while and is considered “retro” today. It is similar to steak au poivre and is another of those “quick pan-fried steak” recipes that use butter and some sort of umami as a sauce.

This is the last entry from the batch of beef-but-not-beef recipes I made to clean out the freezer–I’ve had those posts sitting in my queue for quite a while. I had to space them out because they’re all SO similar. You can scroll back to 8-39: Tournedos with Blue Cheese Sauce and 8-38: Brandy Two-Pepper Beef Steak for the other entries in this recent “mini-series”.

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