crab & grapefruit salad - French Fridays w/ Dorie

I had been collecting ingredients for this over the week and today I finally picked up a can of crab meat at the market. The weather in the North East was practically hot last week. Perfect for a summery salad. This week it's been rainy and cold. I had a tough time getting excited for this dish but persevered to the delight of my family.

 The recipe couldn't be simpler, but the extended drying time for the grapefruit sounded a bit tedious. Of course, being me, I skipped that step and can't imagine it made a difference.  I thought it would be easiest to cut up the grapefruit by splitting it in 1/2 and running a knife around the inside, then in-between the segments. That's how my mom taught me to serve it (with a little sugar on top for me of course). I took out the pieces with a spoon and laid them in a paper towel lined strainer. We were supposed to dry these for at least two hours, but I couldn't understand the logic behind that when lemon juice is tossed into the salad. It's not supposed to be wet, but some moisture is nice and after adding a few spoonfuls of grapefruit juice as well, it was still a little dry. The color of the grapefruit was a bit pale, so I added in a blood orange. Next time I'd mix the juices, mint, salt & pepper, and Tabasco separately so it would incorporate better and not mush up the crab. I would also like to try it with avocado. After chopping and segmenting, we ended up with a tasty and refreshing dinner salad.

To go along with the salad I tried another recipe from the book I've been wanting to try. It's called Socca and is apparently pretty popular, as I just found out from doing a quick web search. David Lebovitz had a post with the recipe on his site. That part we didn't like so much. Dorie recommends stirring in chopped, fresh rosemary and David says to use Cumin instead. Since I have a couple cups of chickpea flour left, I'm willing to try this again. I didn't get the blackened blisters that are hallmarks of the crepe and I expect that will change the taste considerably.

Socca broiling

cocoa sablés - part deux

Made the second batch on Saturday. They came out lovely. I decided to slice all of these much thinner and like the results. The first batch was too thick, even for ice cream sandwiches.

cocoa sablés - French Fridays w/ Dorie

Cooling Cocoa Sablés

Everyone loves cookies and I rarely bake cookies if it's not Christmastime. To be honest, I still have Christmas cookies in the freezer. That's not to say I don't love cookies, I just don't love them as much as I love ice cream. But on to the sablés. Sablé translates to sand, which comes from the texture of the cookie. I found an audio translation at http://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-french/sable, since I kept making my 7 year old laugh each time I'd try to say it. I think I was channeling Pee Wee.

The ingredients are very similar to shortbread - butter, sugar, flour. The texture was completely different and I'm sure it's because I didn't use the extra 1/2 stick of butter and had planned on adjusting the flour but ended up adding a little extra cocoa and didn't really decrease the flour enough.

Very soft butter, given our 80 degree day!

I don't think this is what they mean by sandy texture

I don't think it made that much of a difference in the finished product. I did check out a couple of other FFWD people and one showed dough that was soft enough to roll out. Mine was hardly that soft. In fact, I had to add in a bit of water to get it to come together, like a pastry dough. That did work and I got it rolled into two logs - different sizes because the thought of turning these into ice cream sandwiches, as suggested in Around My French Table, sounded intriguing.

Tomorrow evening I'm going to bake the second half and make them thinner and not coat the tops with the sugar, but just on the sides, because I would like to make mini ice cream sandwiches to bring to a dinner on Saturday. I did need to give them a try and started to crumble a couple of the small ones into a bowl and these were so crumbly one of them exploded and went all over the counter. I managed to keep most of it in the bowl and it made a nice mix in for my mint chip ice cream. The chocolate flavor was nice and they had a good vanilla flavor to them as well. I really like the color of the special dark Hershey's cocoa.

Rolled, sliced and ready to sugar

Counter covered with "sablé" crumbs

cheese soufflé - French Fridays w/ Dorie

I've made soufflé before. I've made sponge cake before. I'm not scared of the egg white. I am scared of hot and cold and cooking eggs when they're not supposed to be cooked. I'm also usually in a hurry (rushed), so I wanted to give myself time for this recipe. I sort of succeeded. I separated the eggs in the morning, taking care of one task that can be a bit time consuming. I thought I read the recipe thoroughly and saw that I'd need about an hour to bake it. What I didn't realize was I'd need 10 minutes to cook the base and about 10 minutes to let it cool before adding the yolks. The base didn't take the full 10 minutes to make. I also skipped straining the sauce and heated the milk in the microwave. It was the cooling part I wasn't sure about. I put the pan on an ice pack to speed up the process and it did get it down a bit. I also put in 1/2 the cheese, which was just out of the refrigerator. When I was able to touch the bottom of the pan I figured it wasn't hot enough to cook the yolks, so I added those and then the rest of the cheese. For seasoning, I skipped the nutmeg because I put in roasted Szechuan pepper salt for flavoring. Something was telling me that nutty, toasty, roasted flavor would be good. I was thinking of browning the butter but forgot about that idea and added the flour before I could do it, so the pepper salt made up for that mistake!

before egg yolks

after egg yolks

The egg whites beat up in no time and six whites is a lot! I went with my instinct on how much to beat these. I never see "shiny" as recipes suggest, unless there's added sugar. I beat until it stood up tall. Then I added the third to the sauce and mixed it in thoroughly before adding the rest. This is where you have to use judgement as well. There was a definite texture difference between the batter on the bottom and the batter on the top. I wanted it to be the same but didn't want to deflate the whites. I settled on getting most of it to be the same and when I poured it into the soufflé dish, the batter from the bottom of the pan sunk quite a bit in the middle, where I was pouring into (if this makes sense). To fix this, I did a few extra folds of the batter in the dish. I forgot about doing the fancy cap by running a knife in a circle around the middle, but it didn't matter. The folding seemed to take care of this because I didn't worry about making a flat top but just getting it into the over quickly.

As suggested I didn't even look at it until after 30 minutes had passed. At this point, it was getting close to 7 PM, when dance class ends. I was a little worried it wouldn't be done by the time Alan and Shara got home, but then I was also worried they'd be late and the soufflé would be overdone! I don't like having to time the serving so precisely. When they came home, it was ready to be served. I told everyone I was getting dinner on the table. I made a delicious strawberry salad to serve along-side and had that plated and on the table. I wish I took a picture of that. I took the delicious strawberry balsamic vinegar (syrup) and mixed it with walnut oil, a little Dijon mustard, salt, and lots of pepper, tossed in torn leaf lettuce, sliced strawberries and topped it with steamed asparagus. I was going to roast the asparagus but couldn't open the oven for 30 minutes while the soufflé was setting up!

So everything was ready to go. I had turned the oven down to 350 about 5 minutes before they came home and was itching to get this thing on the table. I told everyone dinner was ready and no one came. I then said they need to sit down so I can serve this and ooh and aah appropriately. They did and we loved it. Shara actually loved the salad most! It was much richer than it looks. I used Kraft low fat Swiss slices and sliced into think strips, so there were ribbons of cheese throughout. I'm always surprised by the richness of soufflés. If you make the bechemel ahead of time, this could easily be a normal weeknight dinner, but add in some chopped shrimp or crab - yummy dinner party fare!

Didn't want to wait to get the picture in case it fell! It was pretty sturdy though.

Roti

Last night I was making a very flavorful Moroccan stew and wanted something to go with it but not rice. I thought flat bread would be a good accompaniment but didn't have enough time to let anything rise. Sounds like Passover's just around the corner! Close to the Middle East is India and the recipe for Roti sounded perfect. It took 12 minutes to prep and 10 minutes to cook. I had all the ingredients and it was made with all whole wheat flour! I will certainly make these again, but will add a good deal more salt and/or other flavorings.

Pi Day

I know, I have to jump on any cute bandwagon and how could I not start a new tradition of making (and eating) pie on Pi day. This morning I hurried and got the dough and vanilla pudding made for a banana cream pie. I really like the taste of a whole wheat crust and looked for a recipe that I could use a little less butter and thought yogurt may be a substitute. I looked in Rosie's pie and pastry bible for a crust using yogurt and she actually had one. The amount of butter was the same and the yogurt replaced the water and vinegar. I still cut down a little on the butter. I think I should have put in more yogurt from the beginning and ended up over-mixing it. The flavor was good, but it was a little hard, not flaky. I also used beans for the first time to keep the crust from puffing up. Rosie suggested using a coffee filter to hold the beans and that worked very well. Some of the butter soaked into the filter though.

melted chocolate covering bottom of the crust

I made the crust while dinner was baking and the crust didn't have proper time to cool before being filled. I do believe when baking is rushed, a price is paid. The price paid for this one was a runny filling, since I threw the ingredients into a pot, ten minutes before having to leave for the bus stop. I didn't even measure the cornstarch and now realize I should have used more. However, it was really yummy - put a layer of melted chocolate on the crust to keep it crunchy, drizzled lemon juice on the bananas so they wouldn't turn brown, and the crust design turned out very pretty, I think. 

Shara even liked it. At first she was very skeptical about not having a chocolate base for the bananas, but when she smelled the vanilla pudding, she realized it was the right choice. She ate her whole piece. 

saint-germain-des-pres onion biscuits - French Fridays w/ Dorie

What a quick recipe. Last night I got home from work, thinking Alan had to leave for a meeting at 6 pm. Shara had to do a homework project that gave examples of measuring devices. I thought I'd kill three birds with one stone and make the FFWD recipe, show how I use measuring tools in my hobby, and get dinner on the table in less than an hour. Since the meeting didn't actually start until 7:30, I didn't have to rush as much as I thought but still got it done in relatively little time.

I used my 1/2 cup measuring cup to get the correct amount of chopped onions. Showed how I measured out the butter using the markings on the side of the wrapper and started in with the measuring spoons when it was clear that Shara wasn't interested. Oh well, I tried. What I did manage to do successfully was make some mighty tasty biscuits! I'd put in more onion next time and maybe even add some garlic. The rest of it was great though. I only had skim milk and used 1/2 white flour and 1/2 whole wheat. The color was off from the wheat, but the taste was fine. I was actually surprised they rose as much as they did. I thought I may have over-mixed the dough, but apparently not.

Really in a rush - didn't even flour the board

I did use the more efficient cutting method - a knife instead of a biscuit cutter, but cut them in triangles to give some visual appeal. They made the perfect side for our quick scrambled eggs w/ spinach, onions and cheddar dinner.

Roasted Salmon w/ Lentils - French Fridays w/ Dorie

Last week we were on vacation and didn't even attempt to complete the FFWD dish, yet I will because it was French Onion Soup, one of my favorites. You can read all about the trip at my more personal blog. This week I'm way behind on everything, having come home Sunday night and working all week. As of this minute, I'm actually out of milk, have no idea if there are eggs, and have been going through the freezer for dinners. Alan even chipped in and made a wonderful tuna noodle casserole that we've been enjoying most of the week as well, and just finished last night.

The issue with the Roasted Salmon is a timing thing. I think fish has to be fresh, if you can get it that way. Since I can, and often do get very fresh salmon around here, I'm going to make this tonight and will be late in posting. Roast salmon happens to be one of my go-to meals, and Dorie's lentils are my new recipe of choice for prepping these interesting little legumes. I've tried other recipes where they taste too healthy and turn out mushy and rather unappealing, but her recipe is great. They're almost al dente and have great flavor, I think due to the one little clove added to the pot. More details will follow tomorrow.

Tomorrow, actually now. Last night we made the Salmon and all of us loved it. As I mentioned above, Dorie's lentil recipe is the one I've been making for some time now, but I never thought to puree it and make it into a sauce. The texture was great and Alan commented that he really liked the flavor of the lentils with the salmon. I agreed and Shara ate hers up too! It was hearty and didn't need the roasted broccoli and bread that I served on the side, but I was starving so it was fine with me. The bread was also good for getting the last bit of lentils off the plate!

Since these were recipes I've made before, I made a couple of small changes. I needed to buy more lentils and the only ones I could find were the standard brown or red. I got the red and added them to the 3/4 cup of green I still had. In the end, the green ate up the red so there was no color difference in the finished product. The other change was to add some seasoning to the salmon. My sister gave me a great sesame seed seasoning mix for fish that I put on the salmon. I wasn't sure how it would work out, but it was perfect. I think she got it at Marshal's. It's called "Victoria Taylor's Seasonings" - toasted sesame ginger seasoning: sesame seeds, ginger, black sesame seeds, garlic, sea salt, red pepper, toasted sesame oil.

Shortcut: rather than take out some of the lentils and broth to puree, I just took out the clove and carrots and cut them up. Then I took my immersion blender and pureed the onions and some of the lentils. I added back in the carrots and boiled down the lentils a bit. I don't know the texture was supposed to be, but we really thought this was fine.

The next day I took the leftover lentils and put them on top of baby spinach, popped them in the microwave for a couple of minutes and had a great lunch.

salmon and chorizo without pasta - french fridays w/ dorie

Mussels are in the recipe from the cookbook but when they didn't have them at the fish truck I go to, I tried to come up with a bon ideal and, since my daughter's favorite fish is salmon, though, salmon should work. The recipe isn't anything too crazy. It's a tomato based fish dish with added chorizo for the main flavoring, other than the seafood. I've actually made similar before with swordfish, olives and orange for flavors. I had ground chorizo in the freezer that I love to add to sauces like this, so threw in some of that and only used 1/2 the red pepper called for in the recipe. I also had some fennel stems & fronds in the freezer and something told me to use that too, so I did. I've been very aware of listening and following my gut instincts when cooking and making other decisions in life. It's really paid off.

This was our Valentines Day Dinner. What I hadn't counted on was that my daughter would be so sick with a cold that she wouldn't be at all interested in the meal and leave to go and find something else to eat. I also didn't count on not even tasting the chorizo or the red pepper. However, the salmon tasted wonderful. It was still a little soft, not at all over-cooked. I served this with the no-knead bread that I've fallen in love with, but cut off the "dark brown (burnt)" crust. I had also bought a very white Italian type bread for said daughter. Good thing too, because that's the only part of the meal she really liked! Poor kid - I don't think she understands that food tastes bad when you have a cold and it's not so much the food as not being able to smell it. Though she adamantly said she can smell everything! A glass of wine was also consumed. Not sure it enhanced the flavor of the meal, but it did help me enjoy my evening a little more.

Valentine's

My funny valentine is finding it hard to smile the past couple of days, but this breakfast did cause her to smirk. Shara lost her right eye tooth yesterday at lunch on the slightly stale rice crispy treat. This morning while eating an ice pop for her sore throat, she lost the one on the left!

Yes, Shara started with a cold, riding on the heels of the ear infection. Better this week than next though. And she feels good enough to go to school today. I suspect the valentine celebration may be a good motivator.

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French Fridays w/Dorie - nutella tartine

Nutella - yum! I love it but it's such a decadent treat I buy it very infrequently. I also noticed that it's not an all natural product, which does put me off. However, I did buy a small jar and assumed, teach me, that I'd be able to find challah. I knew Brioche would be difficult, and I wasn't up for making it homemade, so I was going to settle for challah, not that we don't love challah, mind you.

Last night I stopped by the market near where I had a meeting scheduled. They had a nice bakery, but the only breads were more of the Italian type. Looking in the bread aisle wasn't much more of a variety. I even looked in the frozen section, hoping for inspiration - a frozen challah? Natural white bread? Anything? Nothing! So I ended up getting some multi-grain English muffins and rethought the whole thing and came up with a delicious breakfast. Toasted English muffin w/ apricot fruit spread, swirled with Nutella. Gobbled up happily by my daughter and not quite the nutritionally absent dish of the original.

I had already bought the Nutella but in my bread hunt, I found a different hazelnut spread, Guianduia, that I'd really like to check out. If anyone has any experience with this one, let me know what you thought. It is all natural, but now I'm wondering if it had chocolate or not. David Lebovitz has a nice post about hazelnut spreads..

Local, sustainable, organic meats

So I'm highly unqualified for a promotion from Foodie Blogroll (need to have a measly 5000 monthly impressions), however, I was still sent the info and checked it out.


"Our friends at Applecheek are looking to engage the Foodie Blogroll community to spread the word about Applecheek farm's Boston Buyers Club - sustainable organically raised meats available to people in the Boston area with monthly deliveries direct from the farm."


I clicked on the link to the farm's site and was very impressed with all they had to offer. I know it's organic, but it is a little pricey. If you're in the area, it would be a good opportunity to place an order. You can order online and pickup is for Sunday, Feb. 19th. noon - 1:30 PM at:
City Feed and Supply
672 Centre St, 
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 
www.cityfeedandsupply.com


I'm certainly tempted, but we won't be in the area that day. It's not clear if this is going to be a recurring event or not. City Feed and Supply looks like a really cool store and good excuse to take a trip to Jamaica Plain. Maybe make a pilgrimage to the original JP Licks too! I actually think I have a free sundae left on my frequent buyer card!

Super Salmon Supper

Pickled ginger, sweet potatoes, scallops, salmon, mesclun, broccoli, in a sesame, ginger juice, chili oil, coconut, and almond dressing. Phew!

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gorgonzola-apple quiche - french fridays w/ Dorie

Part 2 - eaten and am now enlightened
We ate the quiche for dinner tonight and my daughter took one bite and opted for an egg. Alan and I both enjoyed it very much. Honestly, the crust was excellent, but that's not what I'm supposed to be concentrating on. So the filling was very tasty, but we both agreed the apples were lost. Now this wasn't the best batch of apples I've had, so I'm not that surprised. The blue cheese did overpower in some places because apparently I wasn't very good with my distribution. I had no clue the filling was made with soy creamer, but if there had been more of it, I may have. Many quiche I've tasted and made have a very creamy, custard filling. This one had more "guts".

I didn't think everyone i the house would want the quiche, so I made sure to have a side dish I figured would be a winner. I cut up some sweet potato, tossed with Garam Masala, and roasted. I also roasted asparagus w/ brown butter, then sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. This recipe was from A New Way to Cook. Looking back, this is the cookbook that made me rethink how to cook, but limiting fats but keeping the flavor. The asparagus called for 1 tbsp + 1 tsp butter. You melt the butter and cook until it browns. Then brush it on a cookie sheet, lay out the asparagus, brush on more butter, salt & pepper, and roast for about 1/2 hour. Long story short, I had quite a bit more butter left, so I brushed it on the sweet potatoes and then cut up another apple, sprinkled  it with more Garam Masala and browned it in the butter. Yum!

gorgonzola-apple quiche - french fridays w/ Dorie

Part 1 - since I haven't tasted it yet.
Yesterday morning I made the dough and started rolling out the crust this morning. I used white wheat flour and a stick of butter. This was from the Pie & Pastry Bible and she calls for 2 tsp. apple cider vinegar. That's the biggest difference between a basic tart dough. I rolled the dough out to a round, but had to go to the bus stop before I could get it as thin as I would have liked. I had it wrapped in plastic, since that's how I rolled it, and then just popped it into the pie plate, all wrapped, until this evening. If became a dome and I was able to pull off the plastic and press it into the plate.

You can sort of see from the picture that it wasn't big enough and after I baked it, it did shrink up quite a bit. But the smell was wonderful! I didn't put the foil & beans (blind baking) in it before baking, so it did puff up even though it was very cold when it went into the oven.

I'm sure making this as written would be wonderful, but this recipe didn't do much for me so I decided to experiment. I'm not sure if that's the best way to go. If I'm looking forward to a recipe, I want it to taste as delicious as possible so am careful about changing things. I was going to get Gorgonzola, but got cheap and went for the reduced fat bleu cheese. I get it often and really can't taste much of a difference between that and full fat. On the other hand, there's nothing like the wonderful Great Hill Blue Cheese. It's one of my favorites. Now I'm second guessing my decision and wish I'd gotten a good quality Gorgonzola! The other major change I made was to switch the heavy cream for Silk Soy Creamer. Now I have no idea how that's going to turn out. When I mixed it with the beaten eggs, it became sort of gelatinous and it didn't look close to being enough filling. I remember other quiche I've made, using the same size crust, and the recipe called for 4 eggs and 2 cups of cream. I'll be curious to hear what other's experience was with this.

I baked it for 1/2 hour and it looks and smells just fabulous. I took Dorie's suggestion and added a handful of walnuts. I'm not sure how much of this cheese 2 oz. would be. I had a 5 oz. container of crumbles and can't imagine using half of it. 2 oz. of a cheddar is a 2" cube. I think this would be about 1/3 a cup, which seems way too much. Maybe Gorgonzola is a bit more mild.

Flexibility - a necessary tool

When it comes to families and dinner planning, one must always be prepared for change. I suppose that goes for all food planning really - ingredients can be unavailable or spoil (!), or just not taste as good as hoped, and I wouldn't want to waste them on a "good" meal. Take today for example. We got out of church, ran home to grab snow pants, which were then forgotten on the back of the chair, stop for lunch on the way to the in-laws for a quick visit before going for a hike at a local Audubon site. On the way home, I ask each of the family if they are hungry. We had eaten lunch out and that always can lead to a question at dinnertime, plus we didn't leave for home until close to 5 PM. I had planned on making mushrooms stuffed with a creamy, cheesy, spinach filling, baked falafel (from the Bob's Red Mill site), and cheese (cheddar bacon spread) & crackers. Yes, picky, fun foods. However, Alan was still full from lunch and it was far too late to make the mushrooms or falafel in time for dinner. To the rescue was the frozen pizza I bought yesterday. I know, I rarely have processed foods in the house, but I couldn't resist. At Shaws they had 2 California Pizza Kitchen pizzas for $10 and you got a free container (can't say 1/2 gallon anymore - pout) of Edy's Ice Cream. How could I pass that up? And guess what? It was really good! Shara voted for the spinach, garlic & cheese pizza. We had that along with our leftover roasted broccoli from yesterday. I also had a salad and then we ate big squares of the rice crispy treats we made yesterday too. Great day!

broth-braised potatoes - French Fridays w/ Dorie

I wanted to make this week's FFWD recipe early because last week at this time I was nice and relaxed. I made the quarter-quarts the Monday before and had several days to put up the post. Too many times Friday comes about and I'm trying to figure out the logistics of making the assigned recipe and getting the pictures and summary posted, not to mention figure out what to serve with it and when.

Now you may be reading this and thinking, "why is she so stressed out over a club that's supposed to be fun?" The answer is, I really don't know. It's ridiculous, however the real issue is that I do enjoy it because it's a creative challenge, in the kitchen, yes, but also the blog component. How can I make a lump of dough look interesting? And sometimes more difficult, what interesting point can I make about a lump of dough? Being challenged is important to me and maybe I'm a masochist, but I'm never bored! In fact, I'm trying to figure out a way to not need sleep. Imagine what could be done if we didn't need downtime? Can you tell I'm suffering a severe deficit right now?

Anyway, with eyes burning, and close to a years worth of FFWD recipes completed, I give you, Broth-Braised Potatoes. I actually made these once before and I highly recommend them. I love little boiled potatoes and often in the summer we'll make a meal of sliced tomatoes, corn and steamed & salted potatoes. Add good rye bread and it's heaven. On a rainy winter evening these were a welcome accompaniment to our super-quick after dance night dinner. I was given another challenge of making egg sandwiches too. My daughter was given a choice between pancakes or fish and she went for secret option number three; egg sandwiches. Timing the eggs to be done but not overdone was tricky, but I managed to pull it off. I put the eggs down just as I heard the garage door open and then by the time they were ready to sit down, the eggs were done.

So the eggs & potatoes were joined with turkey bacon - Applegate Farms and I swear I thought I was going to have a mutiny on my hands but we all really liked it, though I thought it looked terrible - and that's pretty much it. No other vegetable or fruit. Just lots of starchy goodness! Boiling the potatoes in a broth well seasoned with garlic, herbs, and lemon is a fabulous way to flavor what could be bland potatoes. The ones I got weren't organic, very unusual for me, but they were nice little fingerling potatoes. Perfect for this preparation.

garlic & herbs, awaiting the broth

egg & potato face

quarter-quarts - French Fridays w/ Dorie

This recipe is a basic pound cake, but lighted up by whipping the whites and folding them in at the end. It's a small recipe, so you can make it for a family dessert and not have to wait for a crowd. There is a good sweetness to it, but not overwhelmingly so. I made this last Monday on our day off for Martin Luther King Jr. day and we're still enjoying it. Actually the last piece is slated for me tonight (shh).

I thought a pound cake sounded good, but wanted to jazz it up. I thinly sliced a few apples and sprinkled the with lemon juice. I then made a little bit of caramel - just sugar and more lemon juice. I heated it until it colored and poured it in 1/2 of the bottom of a springform bundt pan.

Caramel in the pan

Topped the caramel with the apples and then tried to gently top the apples with the batter. I only had enough caramel to do the one half of the pan, but it didn't change my baking time. I baked at 350 for 28 minutes.

I read in one of my classic, go-to cookbooks how to make pineapple upside down cake, thinking the concept was similar. It sounded pretty close, so I followed the instructions on how to unmold.

I think the caramel solidified too much and stuck to the bottom along with some of the cake, of course, but I was able to piece it together. The taste was great even if it wasn't as picturesque as I'd have liked. I liked the apple side best, but the plain side had a very lovely and rich taste as well. It may have been because of the vanilla I used. My father sent me a Mexican vanilla which is amazing. It has a sweet and almost coconutty flavor. Not much like vanilla and really stands out almost every time I use it. The other flavor that added to this was the lemon juice. I think it cut down on what may have turned out to be too sweet.

I'd love to serve this cake with berries and whipped cream. It will make a lovely spring dessert. But this time it made an unintended birthday cake for Dr. King. Yes, we did sing.

m. jacques armagnac chicken - French Fridays w/ Dorie

Another recipe where I can understand why they didn't put a picture in the book, however after you taste it you won't wonder why it's in there to begin with. I had gotten a chicken from my sister, who raises them, several months ago and didn't have a chance to roast it yet. I took it out of the freezer a few days before I was going to cook this, to give it time to thaw, and put it in out downstairs refrigerator. I always thought the refrigerator didn't feel cold enough, and was a bit nervous that I'd be ruining this, but apparently it's fine. After two full days the chicken was still frozen on the inside. So the rest of this story is not a good representation of the recipe, since I didn't want to wait to cook this. It was actually Sunday, so I did have quite a long time before the "deadline", but that wasn't the point. The point was I wanted to make the chicken on Sunday. So I did.

I cooked onions, carrots, and parsnip in a little oil, just until they were heated through a bit. I really didn't believe I would be able to fit a chicken in the pot too, but managed. Originally I was going to use my Le Creuset pot and then realized the handle wouldn't heat to 450 and I didn't feel like taking it off for this project so switched to my stainless one. I didn't think there would be a need for the iron because nothing would be caramelizing.

The carrots and parsnip are from my winter CSA. I have been saving these for special dishes and thought a Dorie one would be worthy. After these cooked a bit, I got the chicken and did not do any washing of the bird. None was needed, especially since half of it was frozen anyway. I know, I could have done a water bath and had this bird thawed in an hour or so, but I didn't want to. I actually thought that we would eat it on Monday and I'd just cook it longer. I was simply being lazy. After I put the chicken in I got out the only brandy in the house that I would use for this. My mother has always put apricot brandy on her roast turkeys and baked stuffed chicken breasts (with the skin on so they'd get nice and crispy - oh these were sooo goood!) and I always have a bottle around for similar situations, this being one of them. I didn't think the raspberry brandy would fit this dish. I also realized that baking this at 450 wouldn't be too cook for a 1/2 frozen chicken so I lowered it to 400. After 5 hours (just kidding, it was about two) I took out the chicken and it looked fine. There was a good amount of juice and fat, so I was actually happy to be waiting until the next day so I could take off most of the fat. The smell was incredible. I think this would be on my list of favorite food smells and it's all about the brandy. I will try it with  Armagnac because I love prunes with roast chicken. My mom used to make Chicken Marbella as well! After the chicken cooled I put it in the refrigerator and realized with all the vegetables it would be difficult to get the fat off. To make it easier, I rested the pot half-way on a lid so it would tilt the juice to one side. I am a genius (at the time sure I felt like it (- : 


The next evening I had by husband take out the chicken and put it in a 350 oven when he got home. I then turned it up to 400, took the lid off and got it heated up more, removed the chicken and cooked down the juice on the stove a bit. There was so much juice I didn't add the water. I served it with leftover mashed potatoes, thanks to my mother-in-law, and that was pretty much it! It tasted wonderful and I'm sure it was due to the quality of the ingredients over the cooking method. 

Brioche, part deux

Ok, these are sort of odd looking, but the kitchen smells amazing. I topped these with a little bit of orange zest mixed into about a tablespoon of sugar. I then pushed a bit if that on after brushing with the egg wash. I hope people like them. I have to serve them to non-family!

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