FFWD—December Roundup—My Go-To Beef Daube, Sweet & Spicy Cocktail Nuts, and Speculoos

Just a quick round up of the recipes for French Fridays With Dorie for December before December and the year are through!

A couple weeks ago I made Dorie’s Go-To Beef Daube (pages 244-245).  I made just a few simple changes.  The recipe called for 2 large onions and 6 shallots.  I don’t think so! ;)  I did use one onion.  And that was plenty.  I didn’t have any parsnips.  Instead of Cognac or brandy, I just used water.  In place of the red wine, I used POM Wonderful pomegranate juice.  And I didn’t have any fresh herbs for the bouquet garni, so I used dried herbs and didn’t put them in cheesecloth.  All my changes worked well.  This was a great Sunday meal.  I made mashed potatoes to go with it.

I made the Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts (page 18). I doubled the nuts and egg, but not the sugar and spices.  I’m glad I didn’t double the sugar, they would have had too much.  The spices were also perfect without doubling them.  I used one cup each of cashews, pecans, almonds and walnuts.  I gave lots of these away for Christmas and munches on my fair share! ;)

And finally for this month, I made Speculoos (pages 406-407).  These are a fun, perfectly Christmas cookie.  Similar to a thin crispy gingersnap, but with cinnamon as the key flavor and not ginger.  I like them!

These were easy and fun to roll out (the dough chills while it is already rolled in between plastic wrap.  I had fun with different shapes and some sprinkles!

Taylor wanted to make one, so he made a big gingerbread boy cookie and had fun decorating it.

There you have it, December French Friday’s With Dorie at my house.  Get the book and join in the fun.

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My little Sammie didn’t feel very good today, this is him about 5:00 p.m.

He went to bed with a fever (but medicated).  :(  Bummer!  Speaking of bed, I must go there so I can get up early and workout.  Wishing you all a Happy New Year!  Be safe and have a wonderful 2011.  I’m looking forward to it!

Here’s our spoiled little puppy.  He comes in from going potty outside in the foot of snow on the ground and gets all wrapped up in a towel to dry off and cuddle.  No, he’s not spoiled at all. ;)

FFWD—November Round Up—Potato Gratin, Roast Chicken and Caramel-Topped CHOCOLATE Semolina Cake

I decided last month after finding it hard to get French Fridays With Dorie posts up every Friday, that I would just do one post for the month with a quick recap of the things I made.  So while most FFWDers post every Friday, I plan to post on the last Friday of every month. What?  I know, it’s not Friday.  Well, cut me some slack, it was a holiday weekend, but I do want to get this post up before November is gone.

I made three of the four recipes that were chosen this month.  The one recipe I didn’t make was for Pumpkin Gorgonzola Flans, page 146.  I just couldn’t get it done, I wanted to try it, but certainly not with gorgonzola cheese.  I just don’t “do” moldy cheeses.  So I really was going to try it with another cheese and still plan to sometime because I do love pumpkin.  I may even just try a small, scaled down version of this soon because I have some pumpkin in the fridge to use up. 

Weeks ago though, I did make the Pommes Dauphinois (Potato Gratin), page 360.  How cute are these little individual gratin dishes I found months ago?  They are only about 1/2 cup each. 

 

I made about 1/4 of the gratin recipe and three little gratins (one was in a 1/2 cup round ramekin.  What is not to love about potatoes and cream baked with cheese?  The cream is infused with garlic and the potatoes are seasoned with a little thyme in between the layers of potatoes.  Topped with Gruyere cheese and baked, these really are a dinner treat.  I only took a bite of the one I served Kevin.  I just couldn’t do that much fat in my dinner at that time.  But for sure, someday when I’m really going to splurge on dinner, I will surely make the gratin again.

 

I made the Roast Chicken For Les Paresseux a couple weeks ago for a Sunday dinner.  It was pretty easy and the chicken was nice and moist, but neither Kevin nor I really like bone in chicken or dark meat.  So I felt like it was a lot of work and a lot of meat no one really wanted.

I need a Dutch oven.  I’m going to put on one my Christmas wish list.  The only thing I had that would even slightly work to cook the whole chicken in is the ceramic bowl to my Crockpot.  It actually worked fine, but I think it was a little small for the whole chicken and the potatoes and carrots, so I didn’t get as much browning on the chicken as I would have liked.  It also made it so I had A LOT more juice/liquid/stock in the bottom of the bowl underneath the chicken, the piece of bread underneath pretty much disintegrated.

That liquid was probably close to 2 inches deep.  We didn’t use it for anything.  Then, see if you notice anything wrong with this next picture--

Did you figure it out?  Well, I had NO clue until I was carving in to the chicken.  Here, does this help?

Nice chicken butt shot (sorry, Mom).  Well, turns out the whole thing would have looked a lot better AND been much easier to carve if it hadn’t been UPSIDE DOWN.  Maybe the breast side up might have even browned up nicer.  Yep, I cooked the bird upside down, photographed it upside down and had no idea the whole time, until I was carving it and though that chicken had the worst breast meat I’d ever seen.  Ahh, see, we don’t eat much whole chicken around here.  That and I’m just a dork.

We actually did enjoy the nice moist chicken once I figured out where it was.  sigh   Let’s move on.

Today (Sunday) I decided to give the Caramel-Topped Semolina Cake (pages 438-439)  a try.  Since there is Cream of Wheat in the cake, I remembered in the past, I had bought some chocolate Cream of Wheat.  When I went to find it at the store a week or so ago, it was Malt-o-Meal that makes the chocolate one.  Looking at the ingredients of both regular cereals, they were the same, so I went with the chocolate Malt-o-Meal to give this cake flan-like dessert breakfast treat at try.  I knew no one would eat this with plain Cream of Wheat and raisins.  It had to be chocolate.  So not only did I used Chocolate Malt-o-Meal, I also added mini chocolate chips in place of the dried fruit.  Scott loves Chocolate Malt-o-Meal, so I think he’ll eat the cake.  He hasn’t tried it yet.  I taste a few bites of it.  It’s okay, but not something I’d ever make again.

I also had issues with the caramel.  I’ve made Dorie’s caramels on the stove before, but this one was different—it was sugar and water with a splash of lemon juice.  I did everything exactly that the recipe said for the caramel and two times it turned to crystal within minutes.  It never caramelized.  I was quite annoyed.  What was the problem?

 

Kevin thinks its a high altitude—too much water issue.  He didn’t come up with that idea until I decided to make a different caramel—using the method from some of Dorie’s other recipes.   I put 1/3 cup sugar in a dry skillet, let it start to turn amber and smoke a little.  Then I added 3 tablespoons of cream and stirred it over the heat until it smoothed out.  I removed it from the heat and added one teaspoon of butter.  It looked much better and I forgot to take a picture of it.  I poured it in to the hot baking pan, which I only had a nine inch round pan and not an 8 inch.  Then topped it with the “cake” batter and baked it. 

  

I was happy that it came right out of the pan and the caramel looked good.  The cake is thin because I used the bigger pan.  I think it turned out exactly how it was supposed to. 

It really does taste okay.  But I would never consider it a dessert that I’d make for company or anything.  Not sure I’d ever even make it for breakfast, though it has everything you’d eat for breakfast, milk, eggs, Malt-o-Meal—and chocolate. ;)  I’m always glad when I try something new.  Now on to December recipes in between lots and lots of holiday baking!  Stay tuned for all that.  (And make that potato gratin sometime—it’s heavenly!) 

FFWD—Marie-Helene’s Apple Cake

French Fridays With Dorie today is Marie-Helene’s Apple Cake on pages 432-433 in the new book, Around My French Table.  This cake is actually more apples than cake.

I made the cake on Sunday along with the TWD All-American, All-Delicious Apple Pie and this delicious Marbled Chocolate-Sweet Potato Cake.  We had family over to enjoy all the desserts.  And that they did.  Some liked the pie the best, some the bundt cake and some liked the apple cake.  That’s a well-rounded spread, I’d say.

My cake didn’t quite look like the others I’ve seen, but I think it was fine.  Cindy liked it so much, she took home what was left (almost half), which I was happy to let her do!  I only took one bite of the cake.  It’s apple-y.   Scott really liked this cake, too.

   

Get the book, join the group, cook and bake along with us.  It’s fun to try new recipes.  What will November bring?  Wait and see!

FFWD—Hachis Parmentier

What in the world is that?

It’s our recipe for French Fridays With Dorie this week.  It’s basically a shepherd’s pie made with leftover beef.  Get this—I followed the recipe exactly!  But I didn’t use leftovers.  I just happened to have some beef chuck about three weeks ago, so I decided to use it for this. 

I knew Kevin would like this and that I wouldn’t really care for it.  You see, I don’t like sausage—of any kind.  But I wanted to make this as Dorie wrote it, so I added some sausage.  I don’t like touching raw meat, and I consider removing sausage from its casings just about as bad as it gets.  BUT, I did it. 

I didn’t see the notes for the quick method by using ground beef until I’d already started making this with the beef chuck.  I’d rather use beef like that for a really good roast/potatoes/carrots in the crockpot or something, so if I make this again, I’d for sure use ground beef, which is the only way I’ve ever made shepherd’s pie in the past and think it’s just fine that way.  Maybe sometimes I’ll throw in some sausage for Kevin, but since it had sausage, I really only at a very small amount of it. 

I’m happy to be cooking and baking along with Dorie’s new book, Around My French Table, but I’ve decided something—I’m not a photographer, well, I knew that already.  And I’ve had some not-so-good pictures and some really bad ones, even with sweet desserts and things that I actually enjoy photographing.  But try as I might, I just don’t think I’ve got that knack for snapping shots of savory food.  I know it’s me and my lack of skills.  I guess I’ve improved in my photography overall since starting my blog, so now that I’ll be trying to photograph savory food more, maybe it will improve over time.

That said, I’m not sure shepherd’s pie is all that photogenic, so this one really isn’t ALL my fault. ;)  Now I give you a few pictures of the pie, just so you can see that I did make it.

I even took a fun prep photo with my very dirty looking cutting board in the background.

The beef is ready to go.  (Yes, I did add the carrots and stuff from cooking the meat, Dorie said it was optional, waste not want not I always say.  Except if you know me, do you really think I added all those extra onions? 

 

Yeah, that just really doesn’t look that good to me.  It did get eaten up here though!  I do prefer the ol’ traditional American shepherd’s pie with ground beef and when I do make it, I usually add all kinds of veggies, whatever I have.  That’s just the way we like it. 

I’m  really excited to make more savory dishes from Dorie’s new book (AND the desserts!) so stay tuned for that.  In the meantime, can’t wait for apple week coming up.  TWD—apple pie.  Next FFWD—an apple cake.  Yep, now THAT sounds good!

FFWD—Gerard’s Mustard Tart (And CSN Stores Giveaway Winner!)

Double posting again—be sure to check out the yummy Apple Betty Bars below that I posted for Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies.

French Fridays With Dorie is here again.  We are in to the second week of cooking and baking along to Around My French Table.  The recipe Dorie chose for this week looks great in the book.  I was excited to give it a try.  I don’t LOVE mustard.  I would never purposely put it on a sandwich.  But I have been liking it okay when it’s in dressings or certain recipes where it isn’t the key flavor.  Looking through the ingredients in the recipe for this mustard tart, I was a little skeptical that I wouldn’t  like it with as much mustard that is in it.  Besides that being an issues, I just knew that the whole tart wouldn’t get eaten here.  I LOVE crust, but have noticed that Kevin often leaves a lot of the crust uneaten, even with the most delicious of pies.  Scott does the same thing.

So, I decided to halve the recipe, but when making the tart dough, went ahead and made the full recipe.  I plan to use the other half of the tart dough for something else (next week’s TWD recipe!).  I ended up making two 4 inch tarts and having enough filling left over that I made a crustless one in a four inch cake pan.  The egg-y, frittata like tart full of veggies was pretty good.  I could definitely taste the mustard (I used all Dijon, didn’t have grainy mustard).  I would eat a slice of this tart if I was served it somewhere, but not sure I’d make it again.  OR, I’d make it again and cut way back on the mustard, I do like having a little bit of that taste there, but maybe not quite that much. 

Oh, and it’s no surprise that I don’t really like leeks, since they are in the onion family.  So I skipped the leeks and cut up some carrot, red and green peppers and some cremini mushrooms and I browned them up in a skillet with a clove of garlic and some olive oil first.  I used some dried thyme for the herb as I didn’t have any fresh and I don’t care for rosemary.  The tart really did taste good.  I love the idea of putting lots of veggies in and making such a simple lunch with the mini tarts.

 

This is so fun to be cooking some new things here.  Steppin’ out of the comfort zone.  Next week—some Spicy Vietnamese chicken noodle soup!

 

And now for the announcement of the CSN Stores $75 giveaway winner—I chose a winner randomly from the entries received and the winner is---Sarahe!

sarahe said...

looks wonderful!
If i won I would get some new baking pans...mine are kinda sad :(

October 06, 2010 7:17 PM

Congratulations, Sarah, I will be contacting you for the correct information to get the $75 promo code from CSN Stores to you!  Yay!  (Thank you, CSN Stores for allowing me to have this giveaway!)

FFWD—Gougeres

Here we go!  A large group of us have begun cooking and baking through Dorie Greenspan’s new book, Around My French Table.  I know, I’m a little crazy right now as I also just started with the 12 Week’s of Christmas Cookies group, which are also posting on Friday.  So be sure to check out that post, too, for some great Christmas cookie ideas and links to even more from the rest of the group.

Our first recipes for the month of October for French Fridays With Dorie were chosen by Dorie herself.  She has put together a fun menu this month.  Today we start with gougeres, I don’t even know how to pronounce it.  There is an accent over the first e.  BUT, essentially, these are cheese puffs—and I’m not talking about the ones from Frito-Lay. ;)

I have made them twice (half a recipe each time).  The first time I made them, I don’t think they came out very well.  These were sort of flat—not puffed up and they were concave on the bottom.  I’d say I don’t know what I did wrong, but while I was making them the first time, the appliance repair guy showed up to fix our gas problem with our new cooktop.  I’m excited that we got a new cooktop, but right now, it’s been about a week since I’ve had a working one.  We waited for him to order a new regulator for the cooktop and the moment I started making the gougeres downstairs on our “spare” stove a couple days ago, he showed up.  Yes, I’m having fun running from the downstairs stove, cooking things, then carrying everything back upstairs (it’s more of a trip that you’d think with the distance and all the heavy pots and pans I’ve been carrying).  BUT, I’m not complaining because not many people have two stoves and the ability to adapt when necessary.  MUCH worse things have happened and I’m not going to complain.  BUT, when he showed up with the new part, I had just finished the first step in making gougeres by boiling the milk, water, butter and salt and added the flour and stirring vigorously.  Though when the doorbell rang, I wasn’t sure I’d stirred vigorously enough.

I ran upstairs with the pot in hand and answered the door.  Happy to see the repair guy with the part we needed, I set the pot down to talk to him a minute.  I figured it was okay because that it right where the recipe says to put the dough in an electric mixer and let it sit a minute before beating in the eggs.  But that minute might have really been 5-10 minutes.  Then while I was standing in the kitchen and the guy was taking the cooktop apart, I talked with him and one by one began adding the eggs and let them beat.  Also at the same time, I was listening to a kid or two yell at me about something or other and calling Kevin so he could conference call with the repair guy about the cooktop. 

I plopped the tablespoonfuls of cheese puff dough (having used gruyere cheese) on a baking sheet and popped them in the oven.  I timed the puffs just as the recipe said and even remembered to turn the oven down.  This is also when the guy realized the company he ordered the regulator from sent him the wrong one.  It didn’t fit.  This was on Wednesday.  The repair guy wasn’t happy and had told me about his day of things going wrong.  He didn’t come until 6 p.m. or so, and was really hoping installing this regulator and having everything work well was his changing point for the day. :(  Nope.  To top that off for us, he was heading out of town Thursday afternoon, so even though he reordered our part next day, he wouldn’t be around to install it until this coming Monday.  AND we don’t even know if this will for sure solve the problem with the cooktop.  It’s not regulating the amount of gas to each burner correctly and when you turn the first one on, it sound like a blow torch, a big one, ready to scorch anything and everything around.  Then when you turn on subsequent burners, with each one, the flame almost dies completely.  Anyway, where am I going with this?

I blame the gougeres not turning out perfect on the repair guy. ;)  I baked them the exact time the recipe suggested.  We’re going on over a week with no upstairs stove and although quite annoyed by it, we do feel super lucky and blessed to have the one downstairs.  That’d be a lot of eating out if we didn’t have that. ;)

So here’s my flat concave cheese puffs.

I’m embarrassed to show this when I’ve already looked at a few who have posted for FFWD and theirs look great, just like the photo on Dorie’s book.  I have done exactly as the recipe says besides the extra few minutes of the batter sitting before adding the eggs. 

So today I decided to buck up and try them again.  I used fontina cheese this time.  Again, followed the recipe exactly, and this time where it says to let the dough rest in the mixer for a minute, that is what I did, then added the eggs one at a time and beat, beat, beat.  I was excited when I looked at the puffs halfway to switch the baking sheet around and they were more puffed than when I’d made them a few days earlier.  I called them done at 24 minutes.  Here’s the second attempt.

Just slightly puffier.  But as I have been writing this up, they have fallen back down again and are concave underneath.  Sigh.  I have decided that I think they are not baked long enough to maintain that puff by crisping up the outside more.  The other night, despite their not-so-puffiness, the boys ate one or two each with their dinner.  Scott mentioned that they tasted eggy.  I agree.  This second batch isn’t quite so eggy tasting and I like the fontina cheese better.  What goes well with cheese puffs?

I’m looking forward to the mustard tart for next week!