FFWD – Fresh Orange Pork Tenderloin

February 8, 2013February 8, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 16 Comments

Have I mentioned that I have some envy issues when it comes to citrus? Reading about other Doristas walking into their yards and picking fruit for the week’s recipe emphasizes the drabness of Vancouver winter a little too keenly. I was able to find some lovely Cara Caras today, so that’s some consolation.

Another consolation is that the orange in this dish didn’t wow me. Next time, I’d reach for some apples instead. Cardamom-rubbed porkloin, roasted in an apple cider and balsamic sauce, now that seems more my style. Not that I minded the stove-top method. It gave me more room in the oven to roast some potatoes and garlic, which I smashed with butter and a little milk before serving.

Now, I’m off to enjoy the long weekend. Next week, it’s coeur à la crème and the dreaded V-word.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Fresh Orange Pork Tenderloin

FFWD – Brown-Sugar Squash and Brussels Sprouts en Papillote

February 1, 2013February 2, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 37 Comments

The usual obstacles to a properly chopped ingredient are dull knives (got that covered – there’s a good sharpener in the drawer), poor knife skills (improving every year, thank you very much), or unripe produce (great selection at the local market this week). I have another, quite individual obstacle, in the person of one small dog:

Imagine that face staring intently at you while you prepare your meal. Distracting, right?

Roxy’s five now and when she was two, she got quite ill and had to be put on a diet of home-prepared pork and yam for a year-and-a-half. She’s back on dog food now, but is only allowed small quantities of fruits and vegetables as snacks. All this has led to her belief that everything prepared in the kitchen is for her.

This week’s dish included two of her favourites, squash and apple. There was some whining involved and it may come as no surprise that not quite the entire apple called for in the recipe made it into the oven. I also may have hurried through the chopping process a little, rendering my cubes of squash and apple a little less than uniform.

Distraction aside, this recipe was quick to put together and, en papillote, easily left to its own devices in the oven while the rest of dinner is prepared.

I liked the combination of Brussels sprouts, squash, and apple. Sage and brown sugar brought the flavours together well, though I think I might add some nutmeg next time. I also think I’ll forgo the foil – a little caramelization would really make this dish.

And Roxy? She moved on to demanding a portion of the blueberries I added to this banana bread. Everything in the kitchen. For her.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Brown-Sugar Squash and Brussels Sprouts en Papillote

FFWD – Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles

January 25, 2013January 25, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 20 Comments

I’m not entirely sure I should be claiming to have made this week’s recipe, but I’m certainly not alone in this. Once again, our Problems & Questions thread was very busy and this week’s subject was tomato purée. Those who’d made the recipe early felt the purée overwhelmed what might otherwise have been a perfectly good stirfry. Those of us, not naming any names here (particularly mine), who tend to do things a little last-minute mostly decided to reduce the amount of tomato or eliminate it altogether.

I eliminated it and didn’t really have to tweak the rest of the flavours at all. Next time, I might squeeze some lime juice over the stirfry just before serving, but I was quite happy with tonight’s results. I did play with the recipe in other ways – substituting a mix of fresh wild mushrooms for the dried tree ear mushrooms and brown rice vermicelli for the cellophane noodles, but the seasonings in the original recipe were quite well-balanced, so I stuck with them. The five-spice powder was especially good with the shrimp and sesame-soaked noodles. If you’d like to see a delicious-sounding adaptation of this dish, here’s Patty’s version.

I’m not sure what it is about this month’s recipes, but our Dorista discussions have really taken off. Perhaps it’s because we’re getting close to the halfway mark of our project, or perhaps it’s just because January was chosen as the month to get a few challenging dishes out of the way. I suspect that it’s also because we’re becoming so intimately familiar with the style of cooking in this book that we’re going to see ever more creative riffs on each week’s recipe. I’m looking forward to it.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles

FFWD: Chicken Liver Gâteaux With Pickled Onions

January 18, 2013January 20, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 21 Comments

It’s been an interesting month for us at French Fridays. Last week’s recipe caused controversy over technique; this week’s recipe provoked one of the liveliest Problems & Questions thread that we’ve ever had. Liver is a challenging ingredient for many and this recipe seemed doubly challenging for some because the chicken livers are blended into custard cakes. (Meat custard…mmm…)

The results, however, are wonderful, at least for those of us who love pâté. This isn’t the pâté of my youth, a hearty country version that my mother’s family used to bring to us (safeguarded in their carry on luggage) when they were visiting from Manitoba. That pâté, Del’s, is famous amongst those who grew up in St. Boniface and gets shipped around the world to nostalgic Franco-Manitobans. Dorie’s Chicken Liver Gâteau is a much lighter affair, with subtle hints of sage, thyme, and rosemary.

I elected to ‘lighten’ it even more by using a lower fat milk in place of the whole milk and heavy cream, but it’s still very rich. There are several eggs in this recipe (and that’s before you add more yolks). I also put the custard into smaller molds, since I was serving these as an appetizer. My mother suggested baking them in mini-muffin pans for a Christmas buffet. I’ll have to put a note in my calendar to remind me of this ’round about mid-November.

The onions take a very short time to prepare and after a day in the refrigerator, they’re addictive. It’s a little dangerous knowing how easy pickling can be. I have to be careful not to make too much, since we’re a two-person household. Or, I could just make them for the rest of the family, as I did this week.

The gâteau is meant to be plated on a bed of mixed greens, with the pickled onions on the side, but I served it on a plate with olives and herb crackers along with the onions. It made a lovely savoury appetizer plate and was absolutely not as scary as our P&Q conversation might have led you to expect.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Chicken Liver Gâteaux With Pickled Onions

FFWD – Herb-Speckled Spaetzle

January 4, 2013May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 32 Comments

As you can see, my spaetzle are a little creamier than they are supposed to be. I made them gluten-free and though I think they’re pretty good for a first attempt at converting the recipe, they’re not exactly what you’d expect if you were ordering spaetzle from a menu.

Most cuisines have a comforting dumpling or pasta and this German version was tasty, if a bit messy to execute. I pushed the batter through a flat grater to shape them and it seemed to work well enough. Though you can’t tell from the photo, the spaetzle held their shape through boiling and pan-frying, though they never lost the creaminess that came from not getting the proportion quite right in my gluten-free flour substitution.

I served the spaetzle as I would rice, alongside the pork version of Dorie’s Chicken, Apples, and Cream à la Normande from a few weeks ago. The next day, I sprinkled a few of the leftovers in red pepper and tomato soup, as I was heating it up. Noodles and dumplings are something my partner doesn’t get much of since his celiac disease diagnosis, so the spaetzle have been a nice treat for him. Still, I don’t think I’ll be making spaetzle often. Maybe it’s a post-Christmas abstemiousness, from so much rich food over the holidays, but I’m leaning more toward soups these days. (This carrot soup, for instance.)

I don’t feel finished with desserts, though – I finally caught up on the chocolate mousse from November and am trying to come up with an excuse to serve it again. So good and far too quickly put together for something so elegant. It’s also much prettier than my version of the spaetzle. Not that we stopped to admire it long before eating it.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Herb-Speckled Spaetzle

Here’s everyone else’s take on the Top Secret Chocolate Mousse

FFWD – Go-With-Everything Celery Root Purée and Beef Cheek Daube With Carrots & Elbow Macaroni

December 28, 2012March 14, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 14 Comments

Since the beginning of our time together, my partner and I have had a special dinner on Christmas Eve. We usually watch It’s a Wonderful Life, too. This week’s assigned recipe (along with a catch up from late November) was perfect for our Christmas Eve meal.

The celery root purée was almost as simple as mashed potatoes, just cubed celery root and potato boiled in a mixture of water and milk along with onion (and in my case, garlic), then puréed in the food processor with lashings of butter. I skimped a little on the milk, because I had other plans for it, but I don’t think that harmed the flavour of the purée at all.

The purée seemed like a great accompaniment for stew, so I also made the beef daube that I’d missed at the end of November. I didn’t bother tracking down beef cheek – the week before Christmas is hectic enough and I’d gotten a great deal on stewing meat at the grocer’s. I also skipped the elbow macaroni and replaced the regular flour called for in the recipe with a gluten-free all purpose blend. Beef, red wine, carrots, and a little chocolate at the end make a beautifully rich braise. Along with the buttery, slightly sharp taste of the purée, it made for an elegant supper.

This time of year, I think about how important societal rituals can be for making life meaningful, while at the same time, how hard they can be for some folks. Creating personal traditions helps to mark our passage through the year, while removing some of the hurt that many people carry through the standard holidays. At the darkest time of the year, we need all the light we can get.

This is my last post of 2012 (and it also happens to be the 200th post on this blog). I hope you ring in the New Year safely and joyously. See you in 2013.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Go-With-Everything Celery Root Purée

Here’s everyone else’s take on the Beef Cheek Daube With Carrots & Elbow Macaroni

FFWD – Chicken, Apples, and Cream à la Normande

December 14, 2012May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 14 Comments

I write about community and cooking here, sometimes trying to combine the two, whether it’s cookie swaps or sharing food with family and friends. There’s another aspect of community that plays into the food writing I do here and that’s the online community built by French Fridays participants. A number of us are participating in a holiday card exchange organized by Alice of A Mama, Baby and Shar-Pei in the Kitchen. It’s been just over two years and 100 recipes since French Fridays began and this card exchange seems like the perfect way to express appreciation to at least some of the people that make our community so worthwhile. It’s been a privilege to get to know these folks a little and to communicate through our blogs and the comments we exchange. Thanks, Alice for organizing the card exchange – I’ve received a few already and they’re lovely.

It’s also good for me to cook something new every week (well, mostly every week) and to compare my results and variations with the rest of the group. I think I’ve become a better and more inventive cook over the course of this project. Speaking of inventive, I played a little bit with this week’s recipe. I added ground herbs to the (gluten-free) dredging mixture, I substituted two-percent milk for the cream, chicken thighs for the breasts and I skipped the alcohol altogether. (I didn’t read the recipe until this afternoon, I’m out of my all-purpose Cognac, and I wasn’t about to brave the lines at the liquor store on a December Friday evening.) Oh, and I added garlic, because I couldn’t help it.

It turned out really well, though I can see that adding Calvados, brandy, or Cognac would make it even more flavourful. We had some tonight on its own and we’ll finish it tomorrow, perhaps with spinach or broccoli as Dorie suggests.

Tonight, I’d also like to let our American Doristas know that I’m thinking of them.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Chicken, Apples, and Cream à la Normande

FFWD: Mushroom and Shallot Quiche

November 30, 2012November 30, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 14 Comments

I haven’t made the beef daube that everyone’s raving about this week, as it got pushed back in our schedule by Kevin’s lovely version of this gluten-free red curry soup – no complaints from me, though, as this has become a favourite. I’m planning to get to the daube later this weekend.

Instead, I’ll take this opportunity to catch up on a dish from the beginning of November that I made and photographed, but didn’t have an opportunity to post. Quiche has become a standard dish in our household, not least because Dorie’s tart dough adapts so well to gluten-free flour. This time, I made an olive oil version, as I forgot to pick up butter when I got the ingredients for the quiche. I was surprised at how well it turned out, though the dough wept a little olive oil – next time I make this substitution (if there is one), I’ll use a little less.

I deviated from the recipe for the filling, too, adding bacon (I couldn’t help myself) and substituting smoked cheddar for the Gruyère (it’s what I had on hand). I used all cremini mushrooms, because they were the nicest available that day. I added extra shallots and significantly more cheese than called for in the recipe, as well.

That’s what I love about a good quiche recipe – it adapts to whatever you have on hand and whatever your taste buds decree. What I especially appreciate about Dorie’s recipes is how well she explains technique, so that when we do vary the recipe we can do so with confidence.

My gluten-loving family loved this quiche, experimental gluten-free, olive oil tart dough and all. I might be making another for just Kevin and me, soon, because there’s a beautiful cave aged Gruyère at our local food co-op right now that’s calling out to me. After the daube, of course.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Mushroom and Shallot Quiche

FFWD – Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes

October 26, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 28 Comments

A last-minute post for this week’s dish. It’s been a busy few weeks and I’ve been home less than I’ve been away. I’m looking forward to having time to read and comment on other folks’ posts, as well as getting back to my Tuesday posts. I’ve really appreciated how easy our French Fridays picks have been lately, so I can at least keep up with the group.

This tagine was simple to put together and full of subtle sweetness – saffron, honey, and prunes, spiced with star anise, cinnamon, and a little cayenne for equally subtle heat. My just-before-dinner snapshot doesn’t do it justice, but it’s a lovely dish, too – the colours look beautiful on the plate.

I was happy to hear Dorie suggest that quinoa makes the best accompaniment for the tagine, as it’s my usual gluten-free go to for Moroccan-inspired recipes. I cooked mine in a mixture of water and chicken broth this time.

I’m looking forward to leftovers tomorrow. It’s the sort of dish that’s even better the second day.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes

FFWD – Spur-of-the-Moment Vegetable Soup (or, Turkey-Bacon Post-Thanksgiving Soup)

October 20, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 10 Comments

This simple recipe reminds me why I like Around My French Table so much. There are complicated recipes (with clear, reliable instructions) that appeal to seasoned cooks, but there are also basic recipes that would be invaluable to the novice cook, too. When you’re starting out, it’s important to have a guide for proportions, even for something as simple as a stone soup like this one. When the rest of my nieces and nephews move out of their parents’ houses, I’ll be giving them each a copy of this cookbook, in the youth household survival kits that I’ll put together for them.

But, back to my version of this week’s recipe. You may have noticed that it doesn’t look much like vegetable soup. I think it’s still in the spirit of the recipe, though, since this recipe is meant for what’s available in the kitchen.

I started with turkey stock, carrots, celery, garlic, and onion. But there was also a bag of leftover turkey saved from Thanksgiving weekend, along with a bag of leftover peas and sliced carrots. Better use those, too. Then, there was bacon for breakfast, so why not fry a few extra slices for the soup? Cooking down the onion in the bacon fat seemed like the next logical step. There wasn’t quite enough liquid, so in goes some chicken stock, too. Salt and pepper, of course, but a little smoked paprika in with the rosemary and thyme could tie all the flavours together nicely and some brown rice would make it a complete meal. Adding in the crisp bits of bacon right at the end just makes things perfect.

That’s the essence of soup-making for me. If you ask my mother what her recipe for soup is, she can’t tell you. It often has tomatoes in it, almost always rosemary and thyme, usually some noodles, rice, or barley in the mix, but everything else just depends. It’s always good. As was this soup. It had travelled a long way from the original recipe, but it was delicious and I didn’t have to go out to buy a single ingredient.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Spur-of-the-Moment Vegetable Soup