Posted in beef, dinner party, favorites, french, gluten free on Dec 16th, 2009
The importance of the Go-To Thing was hammered into me recently. I was sitting at home doing basically nothing, unshowered and unchanged from my recent workout, when Dave called me from a bar half an hour away. “Everyone wants you to come hang out!” Uh…will they still want to hang out in an [...]
Posted in cookies, dessert, freezer friendly, french, tuesdays with dorie on Dec 8th, 2009
I was all excited about these cookies after I mixed up the dough, which tasted amazing. I was looking forward to how pretty they’d look once they were baked, tall and flat with glittery sugar around their edges.
Then I saw that there was some flavor variations that I could have played with. Because what’s [...]
Posted in beef, dinner party, french on Nov 29th, 2009
I don’t even know how to describe to you how awesome this lamb was. I think Dave and I spent the whole meal exclaiming over it. We’d sat down to eat, thinking, sure, dinner, yum, should be good. We each poured ourselves a glass of the wine that was leftover from making [...]
Posted in chocolate, custard, dessert, french, gluten free, tuesdays with dorie on Sep 8th, 2009
I’ve noticed lately that some of the fanciest desserts are actually the easiest to make. Crème brulée? Mousse? Molten chocolate cake? There’s nothing difficult about any of them, and the same can be said of chocolate soufflé.
You really just melt chocolate with sugar, then stir in milk and egg yolks. Whip [...]
Cooking, to me, isn’t a competition. It’s about sharing and exchanging ideas. Cooking for someone is like offering them a bit of a gift, and competition adds intimidation where there should be none. Plus, whether someone is more or less experienced than me when it comes to cooking, I’m sure I have something [...]
Posted in Bread Baker's Apprentice, bread, breakfast, french, yeast bread on Jul 8th, 2009
You know how you hear people talk about getting ready for bathing suit season? Um, yeah, I’m no good at that sort of thing. A month before I went on a vacation to the beach, I decided I should undertake a croissant project. A week before the trip, I made brioche. [...]
Posted in dessert, french, fruit, pie, spring, tuesdays with dorie on Jun 9th, 2009
Once I started making an effort to eat seasonally, I realized that apples were my best bet for a large part of the year. By the end of winter, I’m impatient for strawberries to kick off the farmer’s market season. I try to avoid apples in the spring and summer, because it’s nice [...]
Posted in french, gluten free, potatoes, side dish on Jun 5th, 2009
When I saw this recipe is a recent issue of Cooks Illustrated, it was immediately registered as “for special occasions only.” Seriously, I consider regular mashed potatoes fairly decadent, much less the cheese-laden variety. But then I managed to create a special occasion: Dave and I found a cheap, good bottle of Pinot [...]
Posted in bread, breakfast, daring bakers, french, recipe comparisons, yeast bread on May 24th, 2009
Someone must have told me “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” at a particularly impressionable age. Either that, or I’ve struggled through learning enough new subjects that I recognize the value of practice. Or maybe I’m just obsessive.
This was my first time making croissants, and it wasn’t perfect, which immediately [...]
Posted in breakfast, dessert, french, fruit, quick bread, spring, summer on Apr 18th, 2009
When I scoped out the fresh blueberry selection while shopping for the blueberry crumb cake a few weeks ago, I caught a strong scent of strawberries. Yay! I hadn’t seen them there, hadn’t even though to look for them yet, but I definitely wasn’t passing them up. After months of apples and [...]
