Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table

1) Our meals had again become routine, 2) It is the new year, and 3) We are going to France; these are the reasons to begin the recipe book project again, hopefully with better luck, and again we have attempted to immerse ourselves in French cuisine. Greenspan's book was chosen because all the dishes seemed to have the right ingredients and immediately looked like the very thing you want to be eating. The caveat was that we had already tried one entrée, the one on the cover, actually, Chicken in a Pot: The Garlic and Lemon Version; and it didn't go well at all. But we own the book and need to give it a more representative chance. Besides, how would the chicken in a pot taste if we tried it again? Even if we have our doubts much of the time retesting  may be necessary in order to draw a valid conclusion. An aim will be to get to know French cooking before we arrive so that we can compare notes. How does our food approach theirs? What are we doing wrong or, maybe, more preferably? When we are at a café, bistro, or restaurant, what will we order? Hopefully we'll have a better place to draw answers from with the six months homework we expect to undertake.

Whole Grain Waffles

Alice Waters: The Art of Simple Food; Recipe 20

We have been collecting maple syrup.  Problem is, we don’t eat enough foods that call for maple syrup.  Not the biggest fans of pancakes (they are heavy after all), we thought we might prefer waffles.  But it’s been years since we have had waffles.  Do we even like them enough?  Not to mention we don’t have a waffle iron. In order to find out more about us and waffles, we borrowed an electric appliance and turned to Alice Waters for guidance.  Though pancakes sit heavy with us, there was no denying the success of Alice’s whole grain pancakes we made a few months ago.  Figuring she’d come through on the waffle front as well.  And she did.  The batter consisted of whole wheat pastry flour, all-purpose flour (note: recipe calls for no all-purpose flour- I ran short on the pastry flour.  Using all-purpose will make the waffles more dense, but we did just fine adding some in), cornmeal, and rye flour, whole milk (should have been buttermilk), baking powder, eggs, and a whole stick of butter(!).  Luckily we pulled my father into this meal, so we didn’t consume that whole stick by ourselves.   So these were just as heavy as pancakes, but we liked them better.  The recipe was tasty and the waffles were both crisp and fluffy which was preferable.  Used Burton’s Maple Syrup from Indiana and saw a lot of possibilities for gourmet-ifying waffles with add-on ingredients.  Alice Waters came through again with a simple flavorful batter and I would certainly make waffles again with this recipe.  Please excuse the photo, which I forgot to take until I was more than halfway done eating my waffles. 

Linzer Hearts

Sarabeth's Bakery: Recipe 4

Made October 14th.  Making these linzer hearts was not difficult, but it did take time.  Sarabeth warns you of this.  First you have to toast and de-skin the hazelnuts, then turn them into flour, mixing with all the other dry ingredients. Then you make the dough and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.  Next, you roll out the dough and stamp it with the cookie cutter, which of course, does not have to be a heart, but I had a heart shaped cutter and used it.   Once you have your baking sheets full of hearts, they need to go in the refrigerator again for another half hour.  Bake, cool completely, and make into sandwiches with jam in the middle.  Then, the real shocker, is that Sarabeth says to let the cookies stand for 8 hours, or overnight, before eating so that the jam can set.  Well, I didn’t want to wait that long and lo and behold, the jam ran out the sides of the cookie upon first bite.  So I thought she was right, you should wait.  But then when I had a cookie the next day the jam also got smooshed out of the cookie, albeit of a thicker consistency.  On day three, the jam escaping the cookie was less of an issue, though it still happened.   The cookies were a bit on the thick side, but that is only because my rolling pin skills are not that advanced yet.   These cookies are good, there is no question.  But are they good enough to warrant all that time?  Am I going to want to make these cookies again?  No, probably not.  I am more likely to try another recipe that might produce more impressive results.  These are easily the best Sarabeth cookies I have made so far, so I don’t want to knock them too much, but I would have liked dough that had a bit more zip to it brought about by spices I presume. As for the jam, I made a good choice with the relatively thick Mediterranean Organic Raspberry jam.  

Sage and Butternut Squash Risotto

Alice Waters: Chez Panisse Vegetables

Made this on October 7th and am running with my earlier Alice Waters theme, even though this is not from The Art of Simple Food.  This might have been more accurately named Butternut Squash Risotto with sage, but no matter, because it’s a winner.  It’s creamy, flavorful, and hits the spot.  I made it twice within 10 days.  It’s very simple to make as well and requires few ingredients- squash, sage, butter, broth, parmesan cheese, white wine, risotto rice.  This will become a regular autumn staple, I can see it now.  Thanks, Alice.

Update 2/15/13:  I make this about once every ten days now.  It is so easy that when I out of food and dinner ideas this is almost always something I can and do easily whip up (that's a one-hour whip-up, which is about how long I usually spend making dinner).  I almost never have sage in the house but I somehow always manage to have thyme and the thyme has been my go-to herb for this recipe.  I have no crispy fried thyme to replace the crispy fried sage that sits atop the risotto (see photo), but no matter, it's tasty anyway.  Just put in the amount of thyme that seems right to you.  I put in about a tablespoon or so during different stages of the cooking process. 

Andrew Carmellini's Bow Tie Pasta with Tomato, Arugula, and Mozzarella

Café Boulud Cookbook: Recipe 5

This was a mistake.  I should have known better.  I had such poor results with the Urban Italian cookbook, why would I take on another Carmellini recipe?  Is his food better under the wing of Daniel Boulud?  No.  As a side note, however, this is not to say I wouldn't go to his restaurants, I just can't trust him to write a recipe for the home cooking audience.  That said, this did not come together, quite literally.  Boulud praises the sauce, says that that is what this dish is all about, but it was not special and  it was not even that good.  The small bow ties did not hold the loose sauce well at all, and I had to think the sauce should have been thicker, but it doesn't stay on the stove very long.  Too much olive oil is used throughout the recipe which I think adds to the loose consistency. You add the cooked pasta to the sauce and then, after plating or bowling, add the cherry tomatoes, arugula, and mozzarella on top of it.  This is not what I call a recipe.  This is what I call making pasta and putting things on it.  It tasted fine, but only just that and I had a difficult time finishing my portion.  Glad there were no leftovers.

Corn Soup with Nutmeg

Boulud Recipe 4

Making this recipe was sort of cheating because it is from a different Daniel Boulud Cookbook, Cooking with Daniel Boulud.  Being somewhat discouraged with the three "Café" recipes I have made, I thought going a step up to a more "restaurant" type of focus that I might have better luck.  And I did.  Since I moved back to New York (state) I felt like I could start eating corn (on the cob) again.  Sorry midwest, but I don't trust you when it comes to corn.  Your fields are too vast and the sacks your corn comes in, even at the farmers market, seem a little too corporate to be non-gmo or monsanto or both.  But back here in the empire state, Hand Melon Farm in Greenwich grows a number of varieties of corn, all unsprayed.  The variety I bought for this soup was Providence, and it was sweet.  Best eaten uncooked.  But cook it I did, because though Boulud's recipe makes a cold soup, I wanted a hot soup.  He offers in his introduction to the recipe that you can throw in the some aromatics, celery, carrots, onions, perhaps some potatoes, and make this into a corn chower.  Corn chowder was just what I wanted, but how to make it come together as a chowder is information that is not offered.  Undeterred, I simply cooked the vegetables in butter until soft and set aside, following the recipe the normal way, then adding the vegetables back into the mix at the end.  This worked just fine.  And it wasn't difficult.  The soup had good corn flavor, though less strong than I had expected. The chives were a nice touch as a garnish, and my only qualm was that the nutmeg was barely discernable which is easily resolved by adding a little more than called for in the recipe.  Overall, this was a success and enjoyable to eat both hot and cold, as well as a few days later as leftovers.

Heirloom Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad

Café Boulud Cookbook: Recipe 3

Made this back on July 22 and it was not a recipe to repeat.  For something as simple as tomatoes and goat cheese with a pesto vinaigrette, it was way too fussy.  Had the recipe been straightforward this could have worked.  Instead, Boulud has you marinating the tomatoes in a pesto.  But this pesto is thick and terrible, really.  Had the pesto been the simple basil, pine nuts, parmesan, olive oil variety then all might have been well.  In addition to the pesto, you throw parsley and oregano into the salad, which is not necessary as the herbs add little to nothing.  This was a complete flunker and I think even the worst cook could have put together a more successful version of this salad by just using common sense.  Please note that I photographed the salad before adding the goat cheese.  The goat cheese covered a lot of the salad and it is easy to imagine what goat cheese would look like on this.