If It Tastes Good, It IS Good

Inside Out German Chocolate Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Fri, 27 May 2011 04:56:00 +0000

Did you know that the "German" in German chocolate cake has nothing to do with lederhosen or the beautiful green hills of Bavaria? It refers to Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate, an American product developed by Sam German. The recipe was submitted by a Texas housewife and was first published in 1957.

This version is from an Epicurious recipe I found a couple years ago. I thought it looked great, but was too blown away by the richness of it to make it right away. It's finally found its way to the top of the queue, and it is a humdinger. It's a three-layered, very moist chocolate cake with dulce de leche, toasted coconut and toasted almond filling. The whole thing works because it is topped with a bittersweet ganache that balances the sweetness of the filling. The toasted pecans in the filling really hit a lovely nutty note contrasting with the berry-like fruitiness of the chocolate ganache icing.

Having grown up with a born and bred German grandmother, I suffered for many years under the illusion that this over-the-top confection was one Grandma Gusti must have eaten as a golden-haired youth. Grandma was the widely heralded baker in my family. I remember she always had a fresh pound cake ready for visitors. During holidays, my naive Midwestern palate was entertained by lebkuchen and vanillekipferln. I had no idea what I was was eating, but I loved it.

When I read the book, "Confections of a Closet Master Baker" by Gesine Bullock Prado, my heart started to ache a little bit. She tells of the relationship she had with her German mother-- the culture she learned from her and fond memories of her baking native treats. I only wish my grandmother was still alive for me to ask all sorts of cooking questions. Alas, I found my love of culinary arts too late. I can only hope that Grandma is somewhere looking down and saying, "My Gott, I am so proud of you!" Absence really does make the heart go find her.

Bacon and Eggs and Asparagus Salad

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Fri, 20 May 2011 05:08:00 +0000

Quick post--

I happened to look at "French Fridays with Dorie" the other day and noticed this recipe was on the slate for this week. I did a quick calculation and was happy to find out that although it looks like a high calorie dish, it's really only around 225 calories per serving. That fits into my down-sizing plan!

How could you not love a recipe with bacon and eggs? I used white asparagus for fun. It does taste a bit different than the usual green stuff. Kind of more "woodsy" tasting, surprisingly. My favorite part was the soft-boiled egg. When I cracked it open, the partly cooked golden yolk oozed out onto the slender, ivory asparagus. Rolling the egg in hot bacon grease before serving is my idea of genius.

Whoopty Doo, It's Easter

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 05:13:00 +0000

Isn't it funny when people in real life or on TV taste some food prepared by a contestant and proclaim, "Well, THAT'S not the way you make lasagna/peanut butter and jelly/apple pie/carne asada/ cheesey poufs!" As if their idea of whatever they're eating is the ultimate, unquestionable definition of the dish. As if Granny or Aunt Mabel or Chef-Boy-Ardee perfected it and it is beyond improvement. My goodness, if Granny made it with canned peas and Campbell's mushroom soup, that MUST be the best and ONLY way to make it.

Whoopie pies have become publicized of late by reality TV cooking shows and food magazines. Apparently, these are a lexicon of childhood indulgence in New England and Pennsylvania. While trying to find a good recipe on the internet for whoopie pies, I came across some rabid proclamations that marshmallow fluff was NEVER to be used in an honest whoopie or the maker would be shunned far and wide by little children and grown-ups alike. Others asked, "Can't you just give me the recipe that uses the cake mix? It sounds so much easier."

Well, I don't know how "authentic" whoopie pies taste, but I do know when I taste something gross. That was a good description of the first whoopie pie recipe I made from the book "Whoopie Pies" by Sarah Billingsley, Amy Treadwell and Antonis Achilleos. The filling was made with marshmallow fluff, sugar and shortening. The shortening made the mouthfeel kind of waxy and just gross.

I found a recipe for the cake part that I really like because it has an intense chocolate flavor. I think it may be more chocolate-y than the traditional Amish version, but I don't care. I like it. Finally, I found a cream filling recipe that is not as waxy as the one in the book and doesn't require refrigeration.

From what I understand, whoopie pies traditionally have a lightly sweet filling that is NOT supposed to be like frosting!!! I'm somewhat horrified that I'm using shortening in both of these recipes, but I guess that's the standard here. Eventually, I'll try a shortening-free recipe, but for now-- I share my version of perhaps non-authentic, yet still delicious whoopie pies.

Whoopie Pies
Yield: 18 filled pies

Cakes
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa (I prefer Hershey's Special Dark)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment and set aside. (I use my precious whoopie pie pan)

In a large bowl using an electric hand mixer or stand mixer, cream together the sugar and the shortening. Add eggs and beat well.

Onto a sheet of parchment, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add to the wet ingredients, alternating with the buttermilk. Add vanilla extract and beat well. Drop by 1.5 tablespoons (#40 cookie scoop) onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake until tester comes out clean, about 9-10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and cool on wire racks.

Filling

1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup warm whole milk

Place all ingredients in large bowl if using hand mixer, or the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat on medium-high to high speed for about 5 minutes. The mixture will suddenly transform from a liquid into a thick cream. When it thickens, beat another minute or so. Use a piping bag or spatula to apply a generous 2-3 tablespoons to one half of a whoopie. Top with matching half.

Peeps Heavy Cake of Sadness

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:21:00 +0000

You know how it is when you get into a little fuss with someone at work? You're mad and hurt and kind of want to plot revenge, but starting rumors is childish and horse heads are kind of hard to come by. Then you realize that you're just torturing yourself obsessing about such a minor, stupid thing. I bet most men don't really care if everyone likes them. Why should they? Why do I?

Oh, well. Make a cake. Share it with your nemesis. Life goes on.

This is Paula Deen's coconut cake recipe decorated in the style of cheap, white trash for Easter. Appropriately, it was real purty on the outside, yet somehow a heavy and bland disappointment on the inside.

2/12/11 I'm Too Lazy Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 22:18:00 +0000

I'm too lazy to get out one of the many, many cookbooks on my shelf, find a recipe to make, then go to the store and buy the ingredients. Instead, I see what's on the counter, in the fridge, tucked away in the pantry and find a recipe to fit it. More challenging that way, don't ya think?

I bought pineapples on sale, two for the price of one, at Sprouts the other day. One of them, I juiced. The other was sitting on the counter, looking perky but out of place. Flour by Joanne Chang is one of my newest cookbooks. I found it has a divine recipe for "Old-Fashioned Pineapple Upside-Down Cake." Lazy-ass that I am, it has more steps than I might tolerate on an ordinary day. But what the hell, it's Saturday and I needed to burn some calories. I'm too paranoid to post the whole recipe, but if you are interested, shoot me an email and I'll share.

Look at this luscious hunk o' sugar, fruit and butter. Golden caramel, juicy pineapple, delicate crusty cake... Oooh, makes your salivary glands squirt!

Biscuits--The Way I Like Them

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 20:04:00 +0000

On a family trip when I was around ten years old, we somehow became stranded in my mom's hometown without a place to stay overnight. I think we were passing through and were going to stay at my grandpa's place but he wasn't home. We ended up staying at the sweet, small home of my mom's elderly uncle and aunt. They were the old folks from Kentucky and I think they were thrilled to have visitors. I was a bit shy, so I wasn't that thrilled to be spending time with people I didn't know very well. All that dissolved, though, when we were served wonderful homemade Southern biscuits for breakfast.

I had always loved biscuits, but no one in my inner circle ever made them regularly. Oh sure, my step mom would bust out the Pillsbury cans now and then, but she usually poked a hole in the middle and fried them for "doughnuts." Mom was more likely to make a rare baked good with grains used by ancient cultures to build pyramids. I was left to my own devices to fill my primal need for homemade buttermilk biscuits.

I started with the recipe in my little Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. They were edible, but leaden. Eventually, I moved to biscuit country in Tennessee and started using the White Lily Self-Rising Flour biscuit recipe from the back of the bag. Occasionally, that recipe produced semi-respectable pastries. Sometimes they were soggy. Sometimes they were crumbly. I kept trying to find my holy grail biscuit formula. Over the years, my cooking skills improved and after making thousands of biscuits, I have come close to a solution. My recipe is based on one from Tyler Florence of the Food Network, of all people. Hey, he IS from Charleston, so maybe it's not that surprising.

This recipe is lower in fat than many of it's cohorts. That's partly because I prefer a lighter texture and partly because the lower calorie count means you can eat twice as many. Shortening is a man-made wax that should never taint delicious biscuits, so my recipe uses only butter. I also prefer a flaky, rather than fluffy, biscuit so I borrowed a technique suggested by Cook's Illustrated magazine to enhance the flakiness . You can use all buttermilk, half buttermilk and half plain yogurt, or half yogurt and half regular milk.

The most difficult thing for me is getting the moisture content just perfect. The quantity of liquid required seems to vary almost every time I make it. It's impossible to tell you exactly how much you will need, but you want a dough that feels moist, almost sticky. If the dough is crumbly, add a couple tablespoons more of liquid. It is better to err on the side of a bit too moist because the finished product will be better than if they are too dry. If the dough is sticky when you are rolling it out, just dust it with more flour.

Tabitha's Holy Grail Light Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits
Yields 8-9 biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour (use White Lily if you can get it)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons ice cold (from freezer) butter cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup buttermilk

In a mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients with a fork. Toss the butter cubes into the dry ingredients, making sure each cube is separated and coated with flour mixture. Using your fingers, rub the butter cubes into flat discs about the size of pennies. When all the butter is flattened, add the buttermilk and gently stir just to combine all the dry ingredients.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Gather dough into a ball, kneading gently a couple times just to bring it into a cohesive form. Flatten the dough ball to about 1/2 inch thick with your hands or a rolling pin, dusting top of dough with flour as needed to prevent sticking.

Shape the flattened dough into a rectangle with your hands. Fold the rectangle into overlapping thirds, like a business letter. Press the dough into a 1/2 inch thick rectangle again and fold into thirds once more. Roll or flatten dough to 1/2-3/4 inch thickness and cut biscuits out with a 2.5 inch biscuit cutter by pressing down on the cutter without twisting. You can use a glass after dipping it in flour if you don't have a biscuit cutter. I have also made square biscuits by cutting 2.5 inch wide squares from the dough with a knife.

Gather up the scraps and very gently re-incorporate them into a cohesive piece of dough, roll to 1/2-3/4 inch thickness and cut out more biscuits. Repeat until all dough is used. The "re-rolled" dough won't make "purty" biscuits, but they are still very tasty. It is important to handle the dough gently during all steps of shaping. Too much kneading develops gluten in the flour and makes better bread than biscuits!

Place biscuits at least 2 inches apart on a heavy baking sheet, preferably lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. If you don't have parchment or silicone mats, just put the biscuits directly on the baking sheet. If they stick a bit, use a spatula to remove them after cooling a few minutes.

Bake on middle rack in pre-heated oven at 400 degrees (or 380 degrees if you are lucky enough to have a convection oven). Bake for 13-16 minutes, turning baking sheet 180 degrees half way through baking time.

Watch them very closely because they go from raw to overcooked in a heartbeat sometimes! I like to leave the oven light on and start watching them through the oven window during the last 5 minutes of cooking time. Remove them from the oven when they are medium golden brown on top. They never all get the same color, so just take them out when all the biscuits have at least some brown on top. Let cool on baking sheet a few minutes before serving.

Sometimes I make sausage gravy to smother the biscuits. Other days, homemade jam or apple butter is the perfect lighter breakfast. If you want a nice, unusual treat serve the biscuits with butter and warm maple syrup. I guess it's a southern thing, but I can't imagine that anyone wouldn't like it once they've tried it!

12/23/10 "My Go-to Beef Daube"

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:48:00 +0000

I've overdone the holiday eating and imbibing. Rumple Minze, pinot noir, sauvignon blanc, flourless chocolate cake, sugar cookies, peanut brittle, candy canes, glazed nuts, coquito, enchiladas, turkey... It's easier to list the things I haven't eaten in the last two weeks!

I'm not sure if I can muster up any interesting ideas to write about right now. Not that I ever sit down with any particular intention for a story. Usually I just start typing, and before you know it, mental purging begins and I'm spilling out information that may be funny or offensive.

I am trying to de-tox from the holidays with juice and yoga. I bought a new juicer after resisting for the last couple years. Shockingly, fresh vegetable and fruit juice is kind of addictive. I can't even believe I'm saying that. I grew up subject to my hippie-ish mom's crazy health food avocation. It's taken 30 plus years for me to overcome my aversion to beets after she deceptively told me we were having "beef burgers" for dinner when I was around 10 years old. In reality, she had said beet burgers and, yes, my psyche was deeply bruised by the experience.

She had other cute, clever tricks she tried on me, but I was almost never fooled. I just groaned and went along with it most of the time. At least, that's the way I remember it. Don't even get me started on the humiliation of being a social outcast at the elementary school lunch table. While everyone else was cramming bologna sandwiches and Twinkies in their pieholes, I was quietly gnawing away at my peanut butter and alfalfa sprouts on homemade wheat bread that was "so good for you that you can't even swallow it." Now that I'm an adult, I realize my mom put more love in my lunches than all the WASP Stepford wives ever even felt. Ah, but I digress...

On Christmas day, we had been invited to join our sweet neighbors for dinner. Knowing I'd be foregoing the usual all-day cook-and-get-drunk fest I look forward to every year, I made "My Go-to Beef Daube" on Christmas Eve. Dorie's recipe is easy and turns out a delicious end product. Get this, I used golden beets instead of parsnips. This recipe is different than the one I've used for beef daube in the past in that there are no tomatoes. There is, however, an entire bottle of syrah in there. The flavor was a bit less acidic but still multi-layered and worthy of a special meal. At least when I say I'm making beef, you can be sure I'm talking about meat (with maybe just a little bit of beets in there, too).

Sweet and Spicy Nuts Plus Some Other Tasty Morsels

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 02:22:00 +0000

I put off posting this because I just haven't felt like writing anything lately. Maybe it's the holidays wearing on my last nerve like that God damned Lady Gaga song, "ra-ra-ra-ra-ra ooh-la-oh-la-la..."

I made up exactly eight boxes of holiday goodies to send in lieu of real presents for friends and family members. I've nearly come to terms with my utter distaste for frenzied, panicked purchasing of any bauble just to have some material object to hand over on THE BIG DAY to everyone you fear may be accosting you with the same. I do enjoy cooking, so I just use this time of year as an excuse to make particular items which I have been craving and send the excess to relatives.

Never mind the incomparable joy of taking the boxes to the shining pillar of holiday cheer: the United States Postal Service office. Last year, I waited in line for what must have been at least 15 hours. When I finally arrived at the desk, my friendly customer service rep asked how I wanted to mail the package. I hadn't mailed anything in such a long time, I was relatively unfamiliar with the modern terminology required to properly categorize a shipment. I replied, "Oh, I just want to ship it parcel post or whatever you call it. Whatever is the cheapest." The lady just stared at me. "Parcel post? Parcel post? There's no such thing. I don't know what you're talking about." My cheeks instantly caught fire, partly from embarrassment, partly from rage. I later confirmed that the USPS does indeed have a service designated as parcel post. God. I bet she had a friggin' orgasm over that exchange.

One of my Xmas faves is peanut brittle. Oh, and I know how to make it just the way I like it, too. I use a recipe from my crappy, stained, old paperback copy of Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook my mom gave me when I went to college. None of the other recipes are worth reading, but the peanut brittle is a masterpiece. Every time I make it I can be heard muttering, on the verge of tears, "Sh!t, sh!t, sh!t. I burned it!" But every time, it turns out so delectable, with just the slightest burnt sugar taste. That taste is actually the key to the confection. This year I even made dark brown sugar pecan brittle with fleur de sel. Can I get an Amen?

I made the Sweet and Spicy Nuts recipe from "Around My French Table" to include in the Xmas goody boxes. I made it twice, using five spice powder for one batch and ancho chili powder for the other. I was hoping the chili powder batch would be extra spicy, but alas, it was just spicy-- not hot in any way.

Let's see... One day last weekend, I was craving poached eggs. I concocted a restaurant-quality dish comprised of Diner-Style Home Fries with Poached Eggs and Green Salsa. Thank you very much to Cook's Illustrated for instruction on the poaching of eggs and the recreation of home fries.

These home fries were certainly nothing like the ones in the "diners" I worked in as a teenager. One specific diner was supposedly famous for its home fries. I got a job there when I was a wild and crazy (read: stupid) 15 year old. I started out washing dishes and was slowly trained on how to do some food prep. I have to say that they were the ones who showed me how to properly hold a knife, but some of the stuff that went on there was questionable, for sure. The place was an institution not unlike a faded rose in my small town. I had the privilege of working there during the last year of its operation. The male owner was known to stand at the cash register and frighten his customers by glaring at them through the entirety of their meals, while his wife and son screamed at each other in the kitchen.

Known to the public by the official moniker the Hoosier House, it was affectionately known to its employees as the Hooter House thanks to our shared enjoyment of recreational substances that some caring soul stashed between the boxes in the basement supply room. Between leisurely trips to restock the canned vegetables, I peeled many, many, many potatoes for the famous home fries. It was really texturally unappealing because they baked the potatoes then let them sit in the fridge for a while. The taters formed an icky, cold slime that coated every millimeter of my hands and made it nearly impossible not to cut myself. The Nazi-like female restaurant owner would not allow the use of any motorized prep devices and was not afraid to come over and show you what a bad job you were doing. Well, one day a waitress came back to the kitchen with a lovely morsel a customer found in her food-- a longish, yellowed old lady fingernail. The female restaurant owner (hmm, an old lady with long yellow fingernails) puzzled over the foreign object and blessed us all out for allowing such a thing to happen.

So, there you go. My memory association with home fries. My new version was FAR superior and had absolutely no unwanted scraps of human keratin in them.

12/9/10 Speculoos

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 04:50:00 +0000

In a recent conversation with a co-worker, I was reminded of the interminable lack of sunshine one must endure as part of winters in the Midwest. Couple that with day after day of sub-freezing temperatures and it's nearly impossible not to become despondent, at the very least, braving one winter in Indiana. Spend half your life there and you are sure to develop angst any 14 year old would salute.

As a 10 year old, I took a glass of water to the bedroom at night to be ready for emergency hydration requirements. When I awoke, parched at two a.m., I had to break through a thin film of ice covering my beverage before I could be quenched. As a 16 year old, I used a Bic lighter to melt the inch thick ice covering my 12 year old VW Bug's windshield so I could have a "peephole" through which to navigate the slick roads. With winter's razor-sharp fingers around my throat, I couldn't conjure the image of an idyllic place where the sun is always shining. It might have been easier to survive lo' those many years if I had known there was a new life in store for me. An alternative that would not manifest until my hair was at least as grey as it was brown.

It is now mid-December. Just beyond the window is a cerulean blue sky. Trees have emerald leaves, tiny yellow and orange flowers sprout gaily out of the desert shrubbery, and dozens of quail are busily gorging themselves under our feeder. It's going to be 75 degrees here today, for Christ's sake. I sleep at night with a mere whisper of a cotton blanket, and even that's too much sometimes.

When I hear friends and relatives whining about how all their pipes burst and how they have to ingest mouthfuls of vitamin D capsules to keep their skeletons from twisting up like pretzels, I don't feel a twinge of nostalgia at all. In fact, I feel a little guilty when I sit on the patio sipping a margarita while the finches sip water from our swimming pool. Somehow, this is just not right.

When you grow up in the Midwest, you build your frame of reference around the seasons. Spring: cold. Summer: not as cold. Autumn: cold. And winter, oh winter... icy, dark, and painfully cold. Now my seasons are fewer: FallWinterSpring is sunny and warm, while Summer is sunny and hot. My frame of reference is so shot that without a calendar, I'm left to guess at the month.

How can I get myself into the holiday spirit when the time comes? I've developed a system of external cues to ease my psyche into the Christmas spirit. I considered building an inverse S.A.D. light therapy box which Hoovers your soul out of you, but I couldn't secure a copyright so I had to explore other avenues. Mind you, all of it involves cooking, eating, and drinking. None of it involves decorating my surroundings with lights, plastic snowmen and other confusing adornments.

A good way to wet the holiday whistle is with a batch of speculoos. Made popular by the Dutch and Belgians, other Europeans have embraced this cookieform (I made that word up on the spot). Dorie Greenspan included a recipe in Around My French Table saying of speculoos, "their smell will hint of Christmas and their flavor will just about exclaim it."

Yeah well, maybe to you, Dorie. I have no trouble making the leap from gingerbread to thin, crispy wafers subtly spiced with cinnamon, ginger and a tiny bit of cloves. My co-workers (a.k.a. the people I give all my extra cookies to so I don't eat six dozen of them myself) might not be so open-minded. With the amazing, giant tin of butter cookies from Costco sitting in our break room as competition, I knew I had to up the ante on these cookies or they might sit uneaten for days. I used David Lebovitz' method for making dulce de leche, then converted the humble speculoos into Spectaculoos sandwich cookies! Warm cinnamon wafts into your nose just before you break the crisp cookie shell. Sticky, sweet dulce de leche oozes out the sides. The only sane thing to do is to lick your fingers clean. It's a cookie that could build a new tradition in this country. It just might be enough to trigger my limbic system into full holiday mode.

12/3/10 Leek and Potato Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 23:55:00 +0000

When I was a little kid, my dad used to cook all kinds of things for us. Some of it plain, such as Banquet frozen pot pies, and some of it fancier-- in the realm of homemade croutons. We usually ate the delicious little toast squares with Campbell's tomato soup, but they were delicious nonetheless!

My dad also used to make potato soup that we just loved. I don't think we ever had croutons on the potato soup, but it sure is a good idea. I followed Dorie's suggestion to try making my own croutons with a little dried sage sprinkled on for flavor. I have to remember to make these more often. They're a good, crunchy counterpoint to creamy soup. More poignantly, they remind me of a simpler time when my brother and I pretty much worshipped my dad.

The soup itself was not unlike potato leek soup I've made and adored from Mark Bittman and others. However, it did have that little something special because I used thyme and sage to enhance the flavor. I often use an immersion blender to partially puree potato leek soup, but this time I just used a potato masher to mash about a third of the veggies. This thickened the soup a bit, which was nice since I used 1% milk instead of the whole milk called for in the recipe.

Our finished product was certainly savory and comforting. However, it was not what I'd call photogenic. I really had to put some effort into making the photo of the soup in the bowl not look like a pile of gruel. Ah, well... beauty is in the eye and tastebuds of the beholder.

11/25/10 Roast Chicken for Les Paresseaux and Potato Gratin

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 18:41:00 +0000

Roast Chicken for Les Paresseaux

I saved the roasted chicken recipe for Thanksgiving. We only had two people (us) for Thanksgiving Day dinner, so it seemed more practical to cook a chicken, albeit gigantic at 5.5 lb., rather than a turkey. I decided to serve the potato gratin/pommes dauphinois alongside the chicken, et voila! While listening to "The Splendid Table" on NPR, I discovered that my menu was in good company. Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin said he was making roast chicken and pommes dauphinois on Turkey Day. In essence, in my fantasy world, I had Thanksgiving dinner with Eric Ripert. And he was cute, funny and smelled good.

Potato Gratin

The anxiously awaited bread-beneath-the-bird cook's special appetizer was a savory comfort food miracle. My chicken turned out beautifully browned. I used the convection roast function on my oven for the first time. It really cooked the bird evenly, but I think I left it in a little too long. The temperature was in the range of 185 F by the time I checked it at 90 minutes! Oh well, the meat did not seem to suffer much, if at all, so live and learn. I threw all my odds and ends from the crisper in the pan with the chicken-- potatoes, green beans, summer squash, onion and carrots. My vegetables also got a little dark, but tasted great-- nicely carmelized. The other item on the plate is our favorite chicken apple sausage dressing. It combined well with the two items from "Around My French Table."

Finny and Keke also greatly appreciated the subtle nuances of the Gruyere cheese and crispy-skinned chicken. They savored each bite, heck it probably took Keva a full 30 seconds to eat her entire meal :).

11/12/10 Pumpkin Gorgonzola Flans

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 04:42:00 +0000

I chose this calorie-laden dish this week for the French Fridays with Dorie group. We had another recipe from the book, Scallops with Caramel-Orange Sauce. The flans were definitely the strongest item on the plate.

You could easily impress company with these flans. In reality, they are very simple to make. The recipe goes something like this: 1. Dump everything into the food processor and mix. 2. Dump the mixture into the ramekins and bake.

The final product is surprisingly light, yet rich. The pumpkin flavor is more subtle than I thought it would be. Not like a pumpkin pie, more like a nice butternut squash soup.

I'd recommend this recipe to anyone looking for something easy, impressive, unique, and snarfable. Heck, Randy ate two :).

11/11/10 Croissants

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 04:30:00 +0000

Croissants have infected my brain. They taste pretty good, too, but the bottom line is they are my white whale. I will pursue them until victory is mine. This could be a long battle.

I made the Cook's Illustrated recipe again today. I'm getting better at dealing with the super buttery, fragile dough. I don't think I took the Lord's name in vain one time during the construction of this pastry.

The flavor is wonderful and I figured out how to make the outside brown but not black by turning off the convection fan in the oven during the last few minutes. I'm getting closer!

11/5/10 Caramel-Topped Semolina Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:54:00 +0000

Mmmm, Cream of Wheat. I love it as a cereal and mixed into pancake batter, a la IHOP. Now here's a lovely, custard-y cake courtesy of Dorie Greenspan.

I know I keep saying this, but this recipe was sooo simple! First, make an easy liquid caramel with sugar and water. Pour caramel into cake pan. Then you cook the Cream of Wheat in some milk. Mix in egg, sugar and raisins. Bake and eat.

We ate it with the leftover expensive, fancy, store-bought vanilla gelato (good, but still not as good as my homemade Emily Luchetti vanilla ice cream which my cousin and uncle ate like three servings each despite the fact that it's about 1000 calories per half cup-- and yes, I realize I am a homemade food snob).

It reminds me of cross between bread pudding and flan. The only complaint is it's rather humble appearance. I wonder if it would be more aesthetically appealing baked in individual ramekins? I thought it needed to be, I don't know, taller?

10/29/10 Marie Helene's Apple Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:09:00 +0000

I whipped this little number up during a family visit. It's a very easy recipe. The most difficult part was peeling the apples. I wonder how it would be if the apples were unpeeled. I always kind of like having the peel on, anyway. Maybe next time.

Rome, Granny Smith, Cameo, and MacIntosh apples went into the cake after being peeled and chopped. The recipe recommends using a variety of apples. I think it's a good idea to provide a more balanced flavor, but I couldn't taste individual varieties in the finished cake.

All of my springform pans were too large, so I just used an eight inch standard cake pan. I greased it and lined the bottom with parchment. I had no trouble getting the cake out of the pan, so I would not hesitate to use this technique again.

The cake is reminiscent of apple pie, but easier to execute. We served it with some really good vanilla bean gelato. Yum! The mild rum flavor with the apples was really warm and unique. Heck, we ate the leftovers for breakfast and it was even great in that role. A multi-functional, easy, delicious cake. Can't ask for much more than that!

10/22/10 Hachis Parmentier

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 04:16:00 +0000

"Ha-she Par-mont-yay" That means Parmentier's dish. Parmentier was an ingenious cook who originally made this dish. It is very similar to shepherd's pie, although it uses no veggies and no lamb.

From Wikipedia: "The dish is named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French pharmacist, nutritionist, and inventor who, in the late 18th century, was instrumental in the promotion of the potato as an edible crop. The word "hachis" means a dish in which the ingredients are chopped or minced, from the same root as the English word "hatchet".^[2]^[3]"

Dorie Greenspan's version was simple, but did take some time to make. I was extremely fortunate to have an expert kitchen assistant for this recipe, my one and only: Mom. The one who taught me the importance of fresh tomatoes, the joy of Indiana sweet corn in summer, and the singular joy of eating home-grown rhubarb with salt, lent her skill to this hachis parmentier.

We thought it turned out quite well. The mashed potatoes on top were so creamy! The browned Gruyere cheese so toasty. We all enjoyed our dinner and had Dorie's recipe for chocolate mousse for dessert, but that's a post for another day.

I will always remember making this with my mom. Warm and fuzzy :).

10/17/10 Chocolate Chunk Muffins Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 19:57:00 +0000

This morning, I made another of Dorie Greenspan's great recipes from a different book. I've made these a few times, and although they seem like they'd be too sweet and rich for breakfast, they're really not. The crumb is pretty light and delicate for a muffin.

I always mess up following the directions, though! It tells you to melt HALF the 4 oz. of chocolate with the butter to mix in the muffins. The other 2 oz. you are supposed to chop and mix in at the end. Well, my subconscious mind must want more chocolate because I often melt the entire 4 oz. to mix into the batter. By the time I realize what I've done, it's too late to turn back so I end up chopping another few ounces of chocolate to mix in at the end to make the "chunks." Luckily, it doesn't detrimentally effect the muffins. I also add a teaspoon of espresso powder to my batter. Makes it taste even more chocolate-y!

After seeing all the incredible photos people have in their supposedly "amateur" food blogs, I felt I needed to step up my game a bit. I did some reading about food photography yesterday. Here is our first attempt at a prettier food photo. It ain't perfect, but it's a step in the right direction. Thanks to Randy for the photography.

10/15/10 Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 19:38:00 +0000

Posting late, once again!

Bouquet Garni Under Construction

Making this recipe was really quite simple. I'd say it took maybe a bit over an hour to finish the whole thing, but a lot of that time was just cooking time.

I accidentally used light coconut milk instead of regular. The soup was good, even so, but if I make it again I will definitely use full fat coconut milk. I think at least half the reason most of the recipes from this cookbook are so good is the judicious use of fat. One can be satisfied with a smaller portion of food when it tastes so good and has real butter, coconut milk, etc. I also had to use a seeded serrano chile because I couldn't find any dried chiles the day I shopped for ingredients.

Most of the Ingredients in the Pot

I would also like to try the alternate version with curry. I like my food on the bold side! As it was, the flavor was slightly spicy, slightly sweet.

Finished soup with a spritz of sriracha and a side of yuca bread-- I like to go international!

10/7/10 Gerard's Mustard Tart

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:50:00 +0000

Week number two for the cooking group. The recipe is for "Gerard's Mustard Tart." It has one of my new food infatuations in it-- leeks. The unexpected ingredients are Dijon mustard and country-style grainy mustard. The veggies are steamed then cooked in a tart shell with sort of a custard base.

This time I started early and finished early on the recipe for French Fridays with Dorie. I made the easy tart shell the day before making the tart. I was very simple to make using the food processor-- just buzz the dry ingredients with the cold butter chunks, gather in a disc and throw it in the refrigerator wrapped in plastic. Rolling it out the next day was only a bit challenging. I rolled it out between two pieces of plastic wrap to decrease the mess. In true Jesus H. Christ fashion, I discovered my only tart pan was a 10 incher, not 9. Oh well. I'm not gonna let that stop me...

As I cut the leeks and carrots into matchstick-sized pieces, I wondered if maybe I had too much of each. They steamed in about 12 minutes and looked great. Steaming has a way of brightening the colors of vegetables.

Creme fraiche is not so easy to find around this end of the valley, but I managed to score a small container for about $5! I'm glad I did, but I think using whole milk yogurt would work just fine in it's place. Next time, I will add another egg, another 2 tablespoons of creme fraiche, and a teaspoon extra of each mustard to better fill my 10 inch tart pan. The crust still worked pretty well in the 10 inch pan--just a smidge too small.

I do think I had more veggies than the recipe intended, but I put them all in and baked it. It was finished in 30 minutes, with just a couple dark, extra crispy areas on the veggies that were sticking up.

The tart was served with Spice Crusted Tuna (also from the same book) and a bottle of incredible Roessler pinot noir. The tuna was really good (it better be for $24.99/lb.) but the tart was, in the words of the "Double Rainbow" guy: "WOW. WOW. OH MY GOD!"

This is one of the best things I've ever made!!! The leeks! The mustard! The buttery crust! Oh, I'm so fortunate to be able to prepare and eat stuff like this whenever I want. I feel so sad for people who don't cook.

9/29/10 Croissants Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:47:00 +0000

I finally got over the trauma of making croissants in the hottest part of the year last year. I guess my life was getting too easy, so I decided to make them again. In the hottest part of the year. This recipe was from "Baking with Julia," by Dorie Greenspan (but not from the French Fridays with Dorie challenge).

I got too impatient with rolling out the dough this time. I just couldn't seem to get it thin enough, so settled for "almost." Then I proofed them in an area that was a bit too warm and a lot of the butter melted out of them. Arrgh! The regular croissants ended up lumpy and heavier than last time. They were still very good tasting, but lacked that wonderful, yeasty flakiness they had last year. I didn't think they were good enough to share, so poor me and Randy have to eat them all by ourselves.

Here is a photo of the chocolate version. They are marginally prettier than the plain variety I made.

Baking is such a wonderful pain in the ass. Eating one's mistakes and trying again never gets old.

9/23/10 Gougeres

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:29:00 +0000

I made my gougeres early, but somehow STILL managed to miss the posting deadline!

The recipe was really easy to make. I had made profiteroles several years ago using pate a choux, and my memory was of a more cumbersome task. Maybe it was just because I didn't know what to expect before. This time, I think I made the whole recipe in maybe 30 minutes.

And it was 30 minutes well spent. These gougeres are slightly crispy, cheesy and light. I cooked about half of them and froze the remainder. True to Dorie's instructions, I was able to take the frozen gougeres out of the freezer and bake them without thawing first. They turned out just as delicious as the freshly baked batch.

We ate the first batch with various entrees, including "Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good" from the same book. They seem to go well with many different flavors. I wonder how they'd taste with blue cheese instead of gruyere. Or, I could also see adding some hot chiles or sweet corn. I'm sure the French would NOT approve :).

I'm joing French Fridays with Dorie

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 22:42:00 +0000

Can't wait to start cooking through "Around My French Table," Dorie Greenspan's new book. Shoot, I gotta make something besides donuts sometime!

5/6/10 World Peace Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Fri, 07 May 2010 04:37:00 +0000

*Warning: bodily functions are alluded to in this post.*

Have you ever wondered if you were losing your sanity? I've had some serious concerns over the last couple of weeks. After returning from a fabulous Kauai vacation in which I ate anything that crossed my path that looked good (thanks, Duane's Ono Charburger), I had some concerning digestive issues. For nearly two weeks, every time I thought I was getting back to normal, I was disappointed with another round of bitter unpleasantness.

Diseases on my list of possible crazy lady afflictions: IBS, celiac disease, food allergy, giardia, traveler's d* (it's unseemly to mention it in a food blog, isn't it?), hepatitis, kidney failure, cancer, pancreatic insufficiency, and horror of horrors-- for a while I thought maybe I had been eating too much sugar! Then I started to worry that I was becoming a hypochondriac and causing all my problems by getting stressed about it.

Finally, all systems are go again. To celebrate, I whipped up a batch of Dorie Greenspan's "World Peace Cookies." Damn, they're good. Very dark and chocolatey. Not too sweet. Delicate texture cookie contrasting with melty bittersweet chocolate chunks. And just a bit of salt to make it taste incredible.

I'm going to forever think of these as "Inner Peace Cookies."

4/22/10 Carrot Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Mon, 03 May 2010 05:06:00 +0000

I was so happy when one of Randy's co-workers asked me to make a cake for her birthday! I love making cakes, especially when someone asks for it. I made carrot cake from a recipe shared by the wife of one of my employers. The original recipe is from a cookbook put out by the Silver Palate restaurant. Everyone I work with just raves about this cake when she makes it once a year.

I made the recipe once before and had pretty good luck with it, although mine was just a bit dry. Since the last time I made it, I've learned a few tricks in cake baking. The best tip/trick is to listen to the cake to see if it is finished cooking. Pull the cake out of the oven and put your ear close to the surface. If you hear a lot of little moist bubble-popping sounds, it's not done yet! I use that trick in conjunction with the old toothpick tester. I plan to start using a better thermometer to test for temperature, but I never really trust those thermometers. They've lied to me too many times.

Anyway, I had fun making this cake. I added a few extra spices to the recipe and it was even better than the original. Look, I even tried to put a decorative touch on it. My cream cheese frosting was a bit too thin, but oh well, I'm a vet not a professional cake decorator. Besides, I'm much more interested in taste than appearance.

4/8/10 Macarons

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha) — Mon, 03 May 2010 04:28:00 +0000

I keep seeing all these conversations and magazine articles about French macarons. They didn't sound that good to me-- almond flour, sugar and egg whites? Sounds like kinda bland meringue or something. What is so appealing about macarons? Is it just that they sound fancy and come from France? I had to find out.

I turned to Cook's Illustrated for a recipe I knew would turn out a predictably good end product. Making the cookies was not difficult, although waiting two hours for them to air dry before baking was a bit tedious. My cookies looked just like the photos I had seen. I was a bit lazy and filled them with fake Nutella instead of the recommended buttercream frosting. The finished product was light, not overly sweet, a little crisp, a little creamy and overall pretty tasty. I don't really see myself craving them, though.

However, I happened to be in the neighborhood of Essence Bakery in Tempe, AZ a few days after I made macarons. They are well-known to make good macarons so I stopped by and bought a variety pac. Theirs were similar in flavor to mine, but the texture may have been a little lighter and the filling was definitely more delicious. I think theirs was a buttercream with different flavors added like raspberry, lemon, etc..

I might try making macarons again with a different recipe and a different filling. I think I saw one that is flavored with lavendar. Now that sounds good!