And the result is?

Undercooked again!  The third try is not the charm in the world of pastry cream.  It has to come to a boil, but not curdle or turn to scrambled eggs.  This is only the second recipe I've tried!  I went to my pastry school notes, and it was the second recipe we made!  I feel like I'm missing some big huge clue.  Perhaps it will come to me on the fourth try!

By the way, for my birthday I bought myself 2 more cookbooks (Ina Garten) and an ingredient substitution book.  Can't wait!  I did get rid of 4 more cookbooks to make room.  That's good, right?

The Great French Pastry Experiment - Raspberry Tart

Well, it's underway!  I've made the first recipe in the book, Pate a foncer speciale.  Translates into special tart dough.  I have 3 pieces of dough waiting for filling.  The plan was to make a raspberry tart.  It requires tart dough (check), raspberries (check), apricot jam (check) and pastry cream (AAARRRGGHH!)  I just finished making the pastry cream for the 3rd time, keep your fingers crossed, it must work (I've run out of cornstarch)  Undercooked the first time, overcooked the second time, possible undercooked again.  This is the point though, right?  Perhaps by the 6th or 7th time I would have figured it out and I'll be a pro.  Overcooked pastry cream is still yummy, although it doesn't look as pretty.  I ate too much of it yesterday and gave myself a stomachache.  I promise to take a picture of the final result, whenever I get there.  Thank goodness this tart dough can be frozen!

Geez, it's been a while!

Bad blogger! Bad blogger!  I know, the excuses are too many!  How do you expect people to read this if you never post anything new? So say the voices in my head and they are right.  But here we are.  Part of the problem is the lack of anything to write about.  But I may have come up with a solution.

I've been inspired (for a long time, now) by Julia Child.  Not at all by her fame, but how she found something she was passionate in, and followed it, rules be damned!  She was a native Californian who didn't know how to cook and met her husband overseas while they worked for the government during WWII.  They married and moved to France a short time later, when she was 36.  Her first meal in France was truly life changing for her and she decided to learn how to cook like the French and, very slowly, Mastering the Art of French Cooking was born.  Her story is very inspiring and if you want to read more, read, My Life in France.  It was written by her grand-nephew, Alex Prud'homme.  Fascinating book, I've read it many times over.  There are no recipes in there, just neat stories.  This of course led me to read Julie and Julia, about the woman who decides to cook her way through Mastering the Art in one year. 

Now, I am in the ballpark of 80-something cookbooks.  I need to do something with those besides let them collect dust!  I have a book (tome, really) from my mother-in-law, called Mastering the Art of French Pastry.  It was written in the 80's by Bruce Healy and Paul Bugat, an American and a Frenchman.  I graduated from pastry school 10 years ago, I may be getting a bit rusty in the technique department.  Soon I'm going to have a little more time to practice when school starts in the fall, and I need a project that will knock some of the rust off. Why not choose Julia's book?   I'm an extremely picky eater.  No way would I ever eat brains or offal, and I have no intention of trying to find them in a specialty store.  Call me closed minded or anything else.  But give me a fresh homemade croissant with real butter, baked to a dark, crisp perfection and I'm in heaven.  OK, maybe add a little chocolate.  If anyone reading this is in my neighborhood and smells the yummy smells coming from my house, come on over.  You can't expect me to eat them all can you?  And you want to keep reading, right?

Here I am again, miss me?

I am so disappointed in Michaels right now.  Why is there not a good bakery supply store in my area?  And if there is one, why can't I think of  it!!  I donated cookies to a fundraiser last month.  25 specialty cookies.  The winner called to cash in and she would like cookies for her daughter's first communion.  Easy, right?  ONLY IF YOU HAVE FIRST COMMUNIONS AT XMAS TIME, BECAUSE THAT'S WHEN YOU SELL CROSS COOKIE CUTTERS!  I cannot begin to explain how frustrating it is, everytime I need something and a certain store should have it, they don't because they have decided to stock up on 8000 different kinds of beads and glitter glue, but of the 3 cookie cutters they stock, mine isn't one.  They sell Wilton stuff, why not cookie cutters?  Where do other people go to get cookie cutters?  What am I missing?  Michaels cannot be the only cookie cutter place in town.  (Maya, I've found another million dollar idea.  Are you keeping a list of our ideas? Me either.)  Of course the Wilton online store sells them, for $.69, but I have to pay $7(!) in shipping!  Got a cross cookie cutter?  Call me. 

They ate that?! Part 2

Kids, do not read this post - this is for your parents only.  Are they gone?  Good.  My kids ate ice cream.  That, by itself, is no strange feat.  What they don't know is that they ate SPINACH ice cream!  And it was GOOD!  I had some too.  It was good.  We had Mint Chocolate Chip.  It had mint flavor and chocolate chips.  What made it green was the spinach.  (I borrowed Double Delicious, by Jessica Seinfeld, from the library.  This is her second cookbook using veggie purees to get kids to eat their veggies, without them knowing it.  Sneaky, but it works.)  What's better?  You don't even need an ice cream maker.  You add spinach puree, mint flavor, chocolate chips, powdered sugar and yogurt.  Mix with a spoon and put in freezer.  That's my kind of recipe.  We also made Lo Mein with pork from her book.  It uses sweet potato puree, and that was really good too!  My kids actually ate pork!  Ususally the only 2 pork products that go in their mouths are hot dogs and bacon.  Straight pork?  Almost never.  So they ate the meat, but not the pasta.  When I asked the 5 year old why, "The pasta made me cough."  Regardless, they ate pork!  The next recipe we are going to make is Teriyaki Chicken with rice pilaf.  That entails carrot puree for the chicken and cauliflower puree for the pilaf.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Here are the recipes!

Well, I am a day late, but they are here anyway.  Gumbo is good ALL the time, no need to wait for Mardi Gras!  And since the King cake is decorated with my kids' favorite colors, I may be making this more often as well.  King cake is a tradition in New Orleans around Mardi Gras time.  They used to bake a plastic baby in the cake, and whoever's piece had the baby, had to bring the King cake the next day or have the next party.  I subbed with a pecan or almond.  When I bake it, I don't use the nut or baby, can you just see a kid choking on it?  I can't believe they let Jon's class do that.  I bet that doesn't happen anymore!  Don't let the length of ingredients scare you for either of these recipes.  It's all yummy and perfect on a cold rainy day.

Chicken Gumbo – Adapted from Emeril

1 tbsp + 1/2 c vegetable oil

1 lb smoked sausage (andouille or kielbasa), cut in 1/2 inch thick slices

4 lbs chicken, bone in, skin on or skin off

1 tbsp Essence of Emeril (or other Creole type seasoning)

1 c AP flour

2 c chopped white onion

1 c chopped celery

1 c chopped green bell pepper

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

3 Bay leaves

9-10 c low sodium chicken stock

Garnishes:

Chopped green onion

Parsley

File powder

Hot sauce

Rice

1.       In a large pot or enameled cast iron Dutch oven, heat 1 tbsp veg oil over medium-high heat.  Add sausage and cook until well browned.  Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.  Set aside

2.       Season chicken with Essence and add in batches to the fat remaining in the pan, don’t overcrowd.    Cook over medium-high heat until well browned (doesn’t have to be fully cooked yet).  Remove chicken, let cool, remove skin and refrigerate until ready to use.

3.       Combine remaining 1/2 c veg oil and flour in the same pot as the chicken drippings.  Cook over medium heat, stirring slowly and constantly, for 20-25 min, to make a dark brown roux, the color of chocolate.

4.       Add onions, celery and green bell pepper, cook stirring until wilted, 4-5 min.  Add the sausage, salt, cayenne, bay leaves, stir for 2 min.  Stirring slowly, add the chicken stock until well combined.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally for 1 hr.

5.       Add the reserved chicken to the pot and simmer for 1 1/2 hr, skimming off any fat that rises to the surface

6.       Remove the pot from the heat (check to make sure the chicken is fully cooked).  Remove the chicken and let cool slightly.  Remove the chicken from the bone and shred meat, add back to pot.

7.       Serve over rice with file powder, green onions and hot sauce.

King cake

3 1/2 c AP flour

1/2 c sugar

1 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp fine sea salt

4 1/2 tsp active dry yeast (2 packets)

Grated zest from 1 lemon

1 c lukewarm water (not more than 115F)

5 egg yolks

1/2 c butter softened (1 stick)

1/2 c chopped dried fruit, optional

1 pecan or almond, optional

1 egg, lightly whisked with 1 tbsp milk

1.       In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, nutmeg, salt, yeast and lemon zest.  In another bowl combine water and yolks.

2.       Add egg mixture to flour mixture.  Blend in the butter and fruit, using hands or mixer with a dough hook.

3.       Knead with hands on a floured surface or with a mixer.  Dough is finished when it is smooth and satiny.  Butter or spray a large bowl and place your dough ball in.  Cover and let rise in an draft free place for 1 1/2 hr.

4.       Punch down the dough and shape into a cylinder or braided ring, and move to a baking sheet covered with parchment.  Press the pecan or almond into the ring until it is completely hidden.  Drape the dough with a cover and let rise in a draft free place for about 45 min.

5.       Preheat oven to 375F.  Just before baking, brush dough with egg wash.  Bake 30 min.  Slide cake to a wire rack to cool to room temp.

6.       When cool, make the icings and let drizzle over the cake.  Then sprinkle the colored sugars over the icings immediately, forming rows of green, purple and yellow strips.

Icing

3 c powdered sugar

1/4 c lemon juice

3 Tbsp water

1.       Combine and whisk until smooth.  If too thick, add more water.

Colored sugars

1.       Add 1/4 granulated sugar to a container with a lid.  Add appropriate food color, cover and shake until all sugar is colored.

2.       Repeat for other 2 colors

It's been a while.....

And I'm back, sort of.  I've had a few distractions the last couple of weeks, and after the weekend you should see me around here a little more.  I am co-chairing a fundraiser this Saturday (Trivia Night at St. Mary's!) and I have a big boo-boo on my finger, making cooking and typing difficult.

On to a tastier subject:  Mardi Gras!  Holy crap!  Fat Tuesday is next week!  In honor of Fat Tuesday, my husband (a New Orleans native) and because it sounds good today, I'm going to make our chicken gumbo and a King Cake next week (minus the baked in baby).  I'll even post the recipes, maybe even ahead of time in case you want to cook along, but don't hold your breath!  The key to the chicken gumbo is to really blacken the chicken and get a dark roux.  We thought we had ruined it last time (If you've been reading previous posts, that would be the losing-5-wooden-spoons-in-a-day incident) but it turned out to be the best!  Although I still haven't replaced the spoons....

And the verdict is...

Loved the blueberry muffins!  We even made another batch today, doubled it and added half blueberries and half strawberries.  Delicious!  I also tried the Oatmeal Sandwich bread from Good to the Grain, and it was great.  Especially with butter and strawberry jelly, yummm! I think the best part came from the 5 year old when he said that it tasted just like the other bread and he'll eat it.  I'm taking that as a ringing endorsement!  And it was so easy, this could become a staple in our house.  On to the bread I was working on from Chad Robertson's, Tartine.  I REALLY wanted to make this bread.  You make the starter yourself, growing it on the counter, feeding it everyday, making real, honest to goodness homemade bread.  It didn't work for me.  I got to the point where you start to make the bread and I couldn't get the homegrown yeast to do their thing.  It could be because it is so cold here (Seriously, it was -4F when I woke up.  Air temp! Not wind chill!) that the guys couldn't get going.  I may try again when it warms up.  You know, around June.  It really is an inspiring book and I tend to like those.  Stay warm folks!  And here's something to warm your toes, Cubs pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training on Monday!  That is a sure sign that spring is on its way!  One day, before kids, the hubby and I were driving in Evanston in the winter and we passed a church marquee that said:  "The 4 best words:  Pitchers and Catchers report"!  Gotta love it!

Blueberry Muffins from The Bread Bible

Did you know that fresh blueberries look amazing in the dead of winter?  Seriously.  I took the kids to TJ's this morning to get their favorite crackers.  $35 later we were on our way home.  Those are some expensive crackers!  What really happened was....we ran into blueberries.  They looked so good and so juicy and so blue, especially after their long flight from Chile.  We couldn't resist.  Not wanting to waste them, I  made blueberry muffins this afternoon (and as a little side, I was able to substitute half of the AP flour with whole wheat).  Found a recipe in The Bread Bible, very easy, smells delicious, now the hard part...waiting for the 5 year old to get home so we can eat 'em!

I'm also in the process of making 2 loaves of different bread.  The first is one I've been working on for about a week now.  It's the Basic Country Bread from Chad Robertson's book, Tartine.  I borrowed this from the library and it must be pretty popular because I've been on the waiting list since OCTOBER and I just got it 2 weeks ago!  If the bread turns out as well as it's supposed to, I may have to get it.
The second bread is the Oatmeal Sandwich Bread from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain.  The last recipe I made from this book made rock hard chocolate chip cookies.  We're in the first rise now, so far so good!

They ate that?!

And that would be Roasted Butternut Chowder with Apples and Bacon, from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook, which I will have to purchase.  Yes, the kids ate it!  I think the main reason is because Daddy told them it was bacon soup.  I did put in more bacon than he requested, but bacon is gooood.  And then they ate it as leftovers!  The only bad part was actually cutting the squash.  Next time I may have to try a fine bladed chain saw.  Can you buy squash already cut into chunks?  I may have to find that out.  Here are the basic engredients:  butternut squash, apples, onion, garlic, bacon (and more bacon), wine, chicken stock and some spices.  There's roasting involved then cooking in the pot, then pureeing (also key, my kids don't like unidentifiable chunks and neither does their mom).  Seriously easy.  Two thumbs up. 

Has anyone watched the Anna and Kristina's Grocery Bag show on OWN?  They have my dream job!

Good to the Grain's Choc chip cookies

Well, I tried the first recipe from Good to the Grain.  I really want this book to work because I think it has amazing ideas for how to incorporate different whole grains into your meals.  That means a healthier you!  So the first recipe was chocolate chip cookies.  I followed the directions (some of you may know that I don't always read the directions all the way through and sometimes that comes back to bite me, but this time I did!)  It says to mix the butter and sugars together just until they are blended.  Normally you want to cream the butter and sugars together, which is a good few minutes at the mixer.  So, I mixed until just blended and went on with the recipe.  The end results were: #1 mine didn't look like the picture and that bothers me, and #2 they were hard as a rock unless you devoured them right out of the oven, which I did, and that gives you roof burns!  So, my conclusion would be to cream the butter and sugar, not just mix.

As for my goal of trying to cook something out of the mountain of magazines I get every month, I'm gonna try.  But I was thrown a little curve ball by the 2 year old.  He has developed food allergies to peanuts, tree nuts and milk.  So, we'll see how that goes.  Bon Appetit usually doesn't make their recipes allergen free!

By the way, if anyone is going to be in House Red's neighborhood in Oak Park on Jan 20, my friend Kevin from Kokku Gourmet is having a chocolate and wine tasting.  Check it out!

I also forgot to mention that I found a show on Oprah's new network that I love, love, love!  It's called Anna and Kristina's Grocery Bag.  So far, they've been picking recipes from random cookbooks, testing them out under a time constraint and then having other chefs critic their work.  Would soooo love to have that job!

New Beginnings

Well, I've ruminated enough about the holidays, time to move on to something more productive and yummy.  I bought some new cookbooks over the holidays (I can hear everyone's gasp of shock!)  I bought Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table (it's backordered.  That's what happens when you offer the book at $12!), Rice, Pasta and Couscous (I thought it would be more Italian and French, it's really more Mediterranean, like Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt) and then I received Good To the Grain.  If I were to pick one book to bake my way through, I think it may be this one.  There are soooo many yummy looking recipes that I may be able to do just that.  I was planning on making the first recipe tomorrow, Choc chip cookies with 100% whole wheat.  We'll see how that goes.  How can that be bad?