Cook the Book Fridays – Stuffed Vegetables & Babas with Pineapple

August 31, 2018September 2, 2018 ~ Teresa ~ 9 Comments

I have an ice cream problem, and not the one you’d think. I’ve stuffed the freezer with homemade tomato sauce, berries, rhubarb,and all the other summery goods that I’ll be grateful for in winter. But, I’ve left no room for the bowl of my ice cream maker. So, instead of apricot kernel ice cream, I’m catching up on the other two recipes for August’s Cook the Book Fridays, which I made on time and then neglected to post about.

Stuffed Vegetables (Légumes Farcis)

I made these at the beginning of the month, but I was just so busy that I didn’t have an opportunity to post about it. I made the full amount of these, sending some home with my mother so that she could have an easy dinner component while my Dad was away. I was grateful for the same with the ones I kept.

I used eggplant, zucchini, red pepper, and tomato as the vessels for this dish and I used ground moose in the filling. I changed the seasonings a little, adding some smoked paprika and mixing it with fresh thyme and rosemary from the garden. Otherwise, I stuck to the recipe, finishing the dish with Italian parsley and basil from my garden.

I enjoyed these, but they were a little drier than my usual recipe, which incorporates rice. They made for a good meal, though, with duck fat potatoes. (Hey, that makes three catch up recipes this week!) You can see the potatoes at the top of this post.

~~Kirsch~~ Babas with Pineapple

These were fun to make. They’re a little like popovers, but they seem so brittle when they come out of oven. I thought they’d disintegrate when I gave them their syrup bath, but they plumped and shone, becoming miraculously resilient. The pineapple is a terrific accompaniment for these, and so easily made, once the messiness of breaking it down is through. I stuck with rum for these, simply because I couldn’t find kirsch at the closest liquor store.

I’ll leave you with a photo of a dish only tangentially related to the group – a tomato and goat cheese tart that I made to test-drive Mardi’s pâte brisée from In the French Kitchen with Kids. It was so easy to work with and baked up beautifully!

You can read through everyone’s posts here and here. And consider joining this community of wonderful cooks and lovely people, as we work our way through David Lebovitz‘ My Paris Kitchen.

Tuesdays With Dorie – Cold Chocolate Crémeux, Wine-Poached Cherries and Lots of Crumbs & Rosemary-Parm Cookies

August 28, 2018August 28, 2018 ~ Teresa ~ 7 Comments

It’s one of those rare months when I’ve had the opportunity to make everything on the schedule for this month’s Tuesdays with Dorie picks. I even managed to post about them, twice!

Cold Chocolate Crémeux, Wine-Poached Cherries and Lots of Crumbs

The first dessert is one I’ve been meaning to try since I got the book. Cherry season is fleeting, though, and I’ve never managed to get ’round to this one until I had the extra prompting of having it on the Baking Chez Moi schedule. I’ve been missing out. All the components of this dessert are delicious in their own right and together they make a beautiful and delicious treat. I made this dessert on the same day as I made the Babas with Pineapple for Cook the Book Fridays. I gave some of each to my parents, with the following instructions:

Baba + pineapple + whipped cream.

Crémeux + cherries + cocoa crumbs.

They quite happily followed (then flouted) my instructions and loved every bit of them.

As did I. The crémeux was a joy to make and managed to be perfectly smooth and creamy without straining. I love the texture that gelatin gave the pudding, which was so rich and chocolatey that it could pass for ganache. The cherries were wonderful poached in wine and I made extra, which gave my morning yogurt a little sophistication once the crémeux was gone.

The crumbs, though. I’m not sure how happy I am to know how easy it is to make them. They were incredible in the dessert and could easily be added to, well, almost everything. It reminds me of whenever I’ve made the caramelized Rice Krispies for Dorie’s Crispy-Topped Brown Sugar Bars. Everyone wants them in everything.

The best part of this week’s dessert is how easy it was to schedule and make an impressive multi-part dessert. I’m considering organizing a neighbourhood dessert party this winter, mostly because it helps me distribute my baked goods. I’d love to have a dessert bar loaded with components of desserts that people can mix and match, as my parents did with the desserts I left for them.

Rosemary-Parm Cookies

I’ve been procrastinating about this one, even though I was the one who suggested it for the schedule. My rosemary plant is prolific, I’ve got all the ingredients on hand, and I can’t wait to try them. What I haven’t had is a good occasion for them. These are cookies I want to pass around, seeing what everyone thinks. So, I’m making them as I write this post – something I do quite a lot, come to think of it. My compromise was to divide the dough into three, one small one to bake off tonight and two larger disks for when the occasion calls for some adventurous cookies.

The dough itself comes together beautifully and my hands and my kitchen are still fragrant with rosemary-sugar. I love Dorie’s trick of rubbing aromatics into sugar more than just for its effectiveness at distributing flavour. It’s a soothing process that engages the senses, making me more attuned to the texture and fragrance of the dough as I work it in turn. The perfume it leaves behind makes its hour-long rest in the refrigerator seem longer, though.

My impatience was warranted, by the way. These cookies are sandy in the best sablé cookie manner, they’re flavour is both delicate and earthy, barely sweet and just a touch salty. The rosemary and Parmesan don’t overwhelm, while the pecans give a nutty undertone rather than taking centre stage.

It’s a balanced, pretty, delicious little cookie and I’m looking forward to taking out the remaining discs of dough when it’s time to share.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this month’s recipes from Baking Chez Moi here and here.

AND

August’s Dorie’s Cookies goodness can be found here and here at Tuesdays with Dorie.

Baking Chez Moi – Almond, Ginger, and Olive Oil Cake

August 14, 2018August 14, 2018 ~ Teresa ~ 6 Comments

People are hard, including me. Even the simplest interactions can so easily go awry and the work that it takes to negotiate one another is life-long. I mean, it’s worth it when we forge friendships that can withstand misunderstandings and differences, when we accomplish things despite the obstacles that are so often one another, when we love the imperfection in ourselves and others.

And on those days when those things are hard to envision, I will show you I care by baking way too much, way too often. It’s also how I show a little care for myself, because the challenges of the kitchen may also be life-long, but they are manageable, predictable, and measurable mostly against my last effort. I am kind to myself in the kitchen, in a way that I am not often in other spheres of endeavour. I’ll never win any prizes for icing work, but you’ll enjoy every last bite and that’s enough for me.

So, in the middle of a difficult day, in the middle of a difficult week, I took the time to bake these cakes. I made them in mini-loaf pans so that I can freeze some to share later, in gestures that are equally for my own pleasure and that of the recipients. I also made them to share with you, in a probably mostly selfish act of connection which may (I hope) bring some pleasure to you, too.

Especially if you go ahead and make some for yourselves. I used almond flour in place of hazelnut, because it’s not the sort of week that I’m looking for any ingredients I don’t already have on hand. But ginger and olive oil taste just as good against a background of almond and polenta, I suspect. These cakes are moist and dense in the best possible way and I’m almost sad to put the rest away in the freezer. I won’t be any longer, though, when I have the opportunity to share them.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this month’s recipes from Baking Chez Moi here.

Dorie’s Cookies – Chocolate-Raspberry Thumbprints

August 7, 2018August 7, 2018 ~ Teresa ~ 11 Comments

I’ve been working a lot in the vegetable garden lately: moving my decade-old thyme from a pot that it literally burst out of to a bed near my fig tree; repotting the miraculously long-lived oregano that was the thyme’s companion; training my squash and mouse melon vines along their trellises; harvesting whatever’s been ripening along the way (quite a lot of kale this year). But, I’ve also been planting more pollinator-friendly perennials and leaving a lot of my plants to the bees this year. I’m grateful for all the goodness pollinators give us and I want to nourish them as long as I can before this neighbourhood is converted to a tower-filled concrete heat island.

I’ve not harvested many squash blossoms this year and I’ve let more of my herbs go to seed than is prudent for human purposes. In return, my fruits and vegetables have been plentiful (though I didn’t plant as much as I would have liked this year). I’ve also worked my way through loads of berries, cherries (sour and sweet), figs (from my own tree), and am deep into stone fruit now. I just picked a tromboncino squash that barely fits into my refrigerator and I have almost more green beans than I know what to do with. That’s a lie, there are never enough freshly picked green beans.

I’ve managed to do a bit of baking, too. This week’s cookie might not include anything from my own garden, but its ingredients are pollinators’ gifts that I’m grateful for. The combination of raspberry and chocolate is a classic and irresistible one and these cookies showcase that beautifully.

Dorie’s Do-Almost-Anything doughs are ones to keep in mind any time you’ve got a lot of cookie-baking in mind. Both the vanilla and chocolate produce quadruple batches of cookie dough and Dorie provides four recipes for each in Dorie’s Cookies.

At this time of year, my freezer is a little full, so I only made a half batch of the chocolate dough. I only baked 15 cookies, though, so I still have a bag bursting full of the prepared balls for future cookies. I’ll make more of these, for certain, but I may also experiment with fillings and toppings, too.

I sent a dozen of the cookies home with my parents, who have reported that they love them, and kept three for myself to enjoy. Normally, I would not be so abstemious, but I have at least a pound of cherries in the fridge, a fig version of Feast’s lunar cake just baked, and a tiny apple pie, too. So, I’m going to wait to bake more of these cookies, even though I wish I hadn’t sent so many of them out of the house!

I’ve made rolled out cookies with this dough in the past and have found it very easy to work with. It’s even easier to form into balls and press the indentation for the jam with a knuckle. I used a raspberry jam that only ran a little, firming up nicely once the cookies had cooled. After drizzling a bit of melted chocolate on each, they were done and delicious.

I can’t promise I’ll make it all the way to fall without making some more of these, even if it’s high stone fruit season and I really should be making some pies…

July’s Dorie’s Cookies goodness can be found here at Tuesdays with Dorie.