Daniel Boulud's Café Boulud Cookbook

There was never a formal decision to make the Café Boulud Cookbook the next recipe book to focus on.  Paul was itching for me to make a tart, and I had had my eye on one in this book for a few weeks now- the Creamy Lemon and Raspberry Tart.  So while I was flipping through the book to find the recipe, I figured I should take a closer look at the recipes to see if anything else looked good for the weekend.  I found a number of recipes I'd like to try  and then passed the book off to Paul to peruse.  He marked recipes he was interested in, but his excitement upon seeing the photo of the Sea Bass en Croûte sealed the deal.  It was the biggest excitement since Coulibiac of Salmon (which we still have not made).  We made a list of ingredients we'd need for the first few recipes and went off to the farmers market and Whole Foods to get started on the project.  French pastry and dessert aside, we don't eat much French, or French-influenced food, but that is only due to our relative lack of exposure.  It's an area we would both like to explore further and hope that Boulud's "French American recipes for the home cook" will get us off to a good start with french cooking.

Chocolate Chubbies

Sarabeth's Bakery: Recipe 3

Faced with the situation of moving soon and having way too much chocolate on my hands, it didn't take me too long to turn to Sarabeth's recipe for Chocolate Chubbies.  As fortune would have it, this recipe called for the exact amount of chocolate I had left in my cupboard (minus the Valrhona which I reserved for snacking).  On the plus side these cookies were very easy to make.  They were best the same day they were out of the oven- maybe an hour after cooling. Every day after they deteriorated in quality, and were not really that enjoyable to eat by day 3, so if you make these cookies plan to share them, the recipe makes 2 dozen.  But do I recommend making them?  No, I can't say I do.  While they surely are chocolatey, they are lacking a certain something to boost them to the next level.  Maybe a bit of espresso would do them some good?  A good brownie makes for a better baked good in this case, and if you're after a really chocolatey cookie, go for Cook's Triple Chocolate Cookies, which are pretty perfect.  I don't think much of Sarabeth as a cookie maker so far.  Stay tuned to hear about her linzer cookies, however, which I am committed to making soon despite my shaky outcomes thus far.

Tagliatelle with Herbs, Caprino, and Marinated Tomatoes

Andrew Carmellini: Urban Italian; Day 10; Recipe 10

This was actually pretty good, but tasted more like two parts than one whole. First, the pasta:  the pasta was combined with an alfredo-like sauce made with milk, goat cheese, parmesan, rosemary, thyme, and black pepper.  It was a good sauce and good pasta. I thought it would have gone nicely with some chicken. Then, the pasta and sauce were topped with marinated tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes sat in a bowl with shallots, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and parsley. The pasta with sauce was creamy and rich, but not too heavy. The tomatoes were acidic and bright. Both components were quite good, but so different and I wondered, why were they put together? My theory is that if I had used a more tangy goat cheese, maybe that would have evened the flavor profiles of each component a little better, making for a more cohesive dish. In the end, I would make the pasta again, but with chicken, and use the tomatoes to top a green side salad. There you have a complete meal.

Asparagus a la Parmigiana

Andrew Carmellini: Urban Italian; Day 9; Recipe 9

Well, this dish makes a pretty picture, but sadly, it's virtue stops there.  Asparagus plus egg, breadcrumbs, herbs, cheese, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar (which had no business being part of the dish) does not a good meal make.  Bacon was an optional addition- and well, it was delicious as bacon will tend to be.  But nothing really came together on the plate. It was a collection of ingredients that might compliment each other in ways, but failed to come together as a whole. Paul thinks this a new low for the recipes of this cookbook.  I'm having a hard time thinking we'll make it to recipe 14 with this book, or even recipe 10.  Thing is, I like to eat good food and not waste my time and money on this sort of malarky.

Tomato Risotto

Andrew Carmellini: Urban Italian; Day 8; Recipe 8

First- tomato risotto in a red bowl was a bad decision, and the photo came out terrible, obviously.  I made this yesterday for lunch and was very disappointed.  I had oven roasted tomatoes with herbs, garlic, olive oil, and also tomatoes cooked on the stovetop.  All those tomatoes and not as tomato-tasting as i would have thought.  I did make two changes to the recipe- one, i did not swirl in mascarpone at the end, as I only needed 1 tablespoon of it, and did not want to spend $5 for it.  I instead used a tablespoon of butter. Next, for the tomato topping, I could not find cherry tomatoes (note: I will only buy tomatoes from the farmers market) so I used the smallest tomatoes I could find which I believe were plum.  I realize these substitutions might impact the recipe, possibly in significant ways.  Did I like my risotto?  Can't say I did. Would not make this again.  It reminded me a in many ways of Mark Bittman's Tomato Paella, except I like the Paella.  Bittman's main ingredients are tomatoes, tomato paste, onion, and paprika.  You start it on the stove top, then add the tomatoes on top- throw it into the oven, tomatoes get roasted, and you get a nice crispy bottom on the rice. It's good stuff.  But unfortunately, with the tomato risotto, I've got yet another failure under my belt.