When the first recipes were announced (this is a 2 recipe per month group only which made it much more feasible than had it been 4 times a month – we’d only ever be eating Dorie food!), I was at the same time nervous and happy that this group was going to force encourage me to bake bread. Again. And not just any bread. Any easy bread. White loaves (pp 81-82 and hosted this month by Laurie and Jules).  OMG. Really? Like, you know, sandwich bread? That has to look like bread. Not like my clumsily elegant damper. Or the simple peasant boule I was fairly successful with. No, this one had to look and taste right.

I made this a couple of weekends ago when Neil was away. Because there’s nothing worse than someone being at home when you bake bread and it comes out as hard as a rock.  After the damper and boule experiences though I am *just* starting to figure out what bread dough should look like at its various stages. And I nervously trusted my instincts. And was justly rewarded:

Yeah, I know. I was seriously leaping around the kitchen when this came out. It looked good, it sounded right and it smelled amazing. But I had to wait until it cooled down to see the inside. Would “the crumb” be right?

OMG OMG OMG! I emailed pictures of this to Neil at his conference I was so excited!  It looked right on the outside AND the inside

I gobbled one slice with butter when it was still warm. And I made another Dorie recipe (for this week’s French Fridays recipe) with a second.  The rest, I sliced and placed in Ziploc bags in the freezer and was delighted to learn it freezes well. And is amazing toast.  I’ll be making this again. What a sweet start to Tuesdays with Dorie. I can’t wait to see where this group will take me

Join us cooking through Dorie’s “Baking with Julia” in 2012 – read the rules and join Tuesdays with Dorie here.

Tuesdays with Dorie participants do not publish the recipes on our blogs except if we happen to be the host for the week, rather, we prefer if you purchase Baking with Julia for yourselves which you can do here on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository.  Go on, you know you want to It’s a beautiful book.

I really think I nailed the chocolatey jus….

Here’s the recipe – don’t panic – it looks way more complicated than it is!! Just be methodical with each step.

Yeah, it’s a bit of an extravagance for a Sunday lunch for two but oh wow. I will definitely be making this again – I forgot the liquid smoke in the potatoes at the last minute but would definitely add it next time. The chocolate jus was sweet without being cloying or overpowering and the potatoes creamy and fluffy.  The beef was cooked to perfection. Thank Cole for what I am sure will be appearing on a dinner party menu soon – it’s one of those dishes that looks and tastes like you spent way longer in the kitchen than you actually did!

I also had the opportunity to interview Cole via email and I asked him, out of interest what the top 3 restaurants on his “must eat at” list (anywhere in the world) are and why?  His first pick?  The French Laundry – Cole says it would be incredible to eat at the place that he reads about all the time and the place that he aspires to work at.  His second pick? The Fat Duck.  Cole’s pretty big into science and has a lot of respect for Heston Blumenthal’s approach to cooking.  Third on his “must eat” list is  Alinea, since he has always been interested in Grant Achatz and Alinea but after reading his book Life on the Line, he wants to eat there even more!  Unsurprisingly, given this “top 3″ list, the chef Cole has the biggest admiration for is Thomas Keller.  Cole has had the opportunity to meet him and hear him speak when he was in Toronto a few years ago and this completely changed his whole mentality and approach to food.  Cole believes Keller’s whole approach to food and respect for ingredients and people is something to learn from.  The French Laundry cookbook is like his bible, not for the recipes necessarily, but for the philosophy and wisdom.

I was so interested to hear Cole’s responses about where he would like to eat, work and who he admires that for my Lee restaurant giveaway, I asked people to tell me where their top 3 “must eat” restaurants were.  The Fat Duck featured prominently in people’s responses, along with Alinea, Noma and Per Se while Le Chateaubriand in Paris got a few flags and there were a few nice Canadian shoutouts too – The Black Hoof, Vij’s and Charlie’s Burger to name but a few. I really enjoyed reading all your responses and, indeed, they made me add a few “must try” places to my own list   Random.org picked the winner last night – congrats to Norm (whose choices were Noma, Momofuku Ko in New York and Rafa’s in Spain).  I hope you enjoy dinner at Lee!  I’ll get in touch with you via email very shortly

After 2010′s cheesecake and 2011′s Nutella lamingtons, this year I tried something I have been meaning to make for a long time… macarons craquelés.  No, no, not failed “cracked” macarons (though goodness knows I have had my fair share of those in my macaron making adventures…) but serious on purpose cracked-topped little cookies – à l’ancienne – much more like the original macarons de Nancy – more cookies than delicate airy macarons.

Many argue that the macaron originated way back in the late 1700s, when Carmelite nuns baked these sweet treats as a way of supplementing their meat-free diet.  According to the Larousse Gastronomique, these nuns followed Theresa of Avila’s principle to the letter: ‘Almonds are good for girls who don’t eat meat’.   During the French Revolution, two nuns who were in hiding in the French town Nancy specialised in making the macarons and became known as “Les Soeurs Macarons” – in 1952, the street where they operated was named after them and Macarons de Nancy are still sold there today.  The original cookie was simply ground almonds, sugar and egg whites – similar to what we all now know as a macaron today but completely different in texture (and way less fussy to make!).  Check out an image of les macarons de Nancy here.

I discovered these last summer, after seeing them featured on Cuisine.tv then visiting Patisserie Aurore Capucine in Paris.  They are certainly unique treats – more brownie/ cookie like than French macarons, even though they have basically the same ingredients.  The ones I sampled with my best taste-tester, Cathy, were quite large:

(and quite colourful!)

I’ve had this this recipe for a while now, just never had a chance to make it.  I felt Nutella Day would be the perfect occasion, and so I substituted ground hazelnuts for the ground almonds the recipe calls for, and added cocoa powder instead of honey. I also made mini versions – these are about the size of my regular macarons – a one, maybe two bite affair.

Hurrah! Macarons that are SUPPOSED to be cracked on top!

The filling, a thin coat only, unlike French macarons, is a combination of Nutella and some of the cookie dough batter. Don’t worry, the egg white is actually cooked before you put it in the oven! It’s SO good….

Easy to make, super tasty (and rich – the mini sized ones are perfect!) and pretty in their clumsy cracked way…

Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside (especially once the filling has had a chance to soften the interior of the cookie a little), these are macarons for everyone!

Happy Nutella Day!  Even if you don’t make anything – grab a spoon and celebrate!

* Are you in the Toronto area? If so, enter my giveaway for a $150 dinner at Lee Restaurant. Contest closes today, Sunday February 5th at 9pm EST.

This was great, just warm out of the oven. And later on at room temperature. And reheated the next day And the next. When the main ingredients are butter, cream, cheese, onions, apples, I mean, you really cannot go wrong.  It’s a thin quiche, reminiscent of those served in French cafés with a simple green salad.  Contrary to what it sounds like, it makes a nice light meal.  I loved this combination and will remember it for the future. I kind of like the idea of mini quiches for a cocktail party….

Want to join us cooking through Dorie’s “Around my French Table” in 2012? Join French Fridays with Dorie here.

French Fridays with Dorie participants do not publish the recipes on our blogs, rather, we prefer if you purchase Around My French Table for yourselves (trust me, you definitely want this book!) which you can do here on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository.  Go on, treat yourself and join us this year!

* Are you in the Toronto area? If so, enter my giveaway for a $150 dinner at Lee Restaurant. Contest closes Sunday February 5th at 9pm EST

This week Les Petits Chefs delved into – ewwwww – raw meat.  When I saw Jamie Oliver’s recipe for chicken sausage rolls in Meals in Minutes, I knew immediately that I wanted to make these with the boys.  So simple – just a handful of ingredients and, providing the sausages are not full of nasty ingredients, incredibly healthy. I love recipes that show the boys how to make foods which, when store bought are not always the healthiest, but which are so simple to make that they might not ever want a store bought product again.  Having made these now myself, I will most definitely make them again.  I might even, you know, grind my own sausage meat, now I know how to!

This week, we used chicken sausages from Rowe Farms. Ingredients: Chicken, salt, spices. No bad stuff at all.  Many of the boys pronounced that they didn’t want to work with the raw meat. Others jumped right in:

Note to Les Petits Chefs: At some point this term, you will work with raw meat. Even if it’s just for a few minutes. I do feel that it’s important to know what food feels and looks like raw, and cooked.  Those boys who were not working with the raw meat did a rocking job peeling and dicing some apples:

Zesting lemons and chopping rosemary…

And then most of us got our hands dirty rolling the meat into the puff pasty (no, we didn’t make our own – in one hour, it was a miracle we even got this done!!)

Our puff pastry was quite warm by the time we got to this stage so we didn’t cut the long rolls into small sausage rolls before they went in the oven.   If we were able to work faster, I would have. But no matter – they turned out beautifully!

The verdict?  Boys and parents gave this rave reviews.  A couple of the boys didn’t like the apple in there (it’s a combination I love but I understand that some people might not like it) so I suggested they make it again with onions instead for a more savoury flavour.  In any case, I was pretty pleased with how this turned out.  Get Jamie Oliver’s recipe for chicken sausage rolls (with great step by step pictures) here.

One of the things I love about running cooking club is hearing from the parents about how they make the recipes with their sons at home.  Recently, two families have made the Siu Mai dumplings that Les Petits Chefs made with Chef Vanessa Yeung   And on Monday, one of my little guys turned up with this:

Yes, Petit Chef Richard has convinced his mum to buy the book, gone through the book’s list of essentials for a well-stocked kitchen to make sure they have everything they need and has commited to cook dinner for the family on Sundays. I can’t tell you how proud I am. This is why I do what I do.

Look for Meals in Minutes on Amazon, Amazon Canada or, for free worldwide shipping, on The Book Depository.

* Are you in the Toronto area? If so, enter my giveaway for a $150 dinner at Lee Restaurant. Contest closes Sunday February 5th at 9pm EST