FFWD M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken.

Sunday dinner

It's been another busy week around here so I'll keep this short.  We loved this recipe.  It reminded me of one of my favorite dishes from growing up.  We didn't eat very much meat at our house, but for Shabbat dinner on Friday nights my mom would often make chicken.  My favorite was a baked chicken dish with potatoes and carrots.  I never gave too much thought to what was in the dish, and I was shocked when I finally asked my mom for the recipe and it involved onion soup mix and apricot preserves.  My mom shops almost exclusively at the organic co-op, and almost never uses packaged anything!  This was almost as shocking as the time I discovered that she made my favorite chocolate cake by adding an extra cup of chocolate chips to a boxed cake mix...But anyway, I have no problem reaching for packages when I'm short on time, and I still love that chicken!

This chicken was certainly more sophisticated than my childhood favorite, but also very comforting in a way only meat and potatoes can be.  I loved the complexity that the armagnac gave the dish, and I also liked the addition of the prumes.  I'm curious to see if buying armagnac was really necessary.  I wasn't planning on it but I was out of cognac anyway so I decided to give it a try.  I also really loved how easy this dish was - I set it up and then had plenty of time to make an onion soup for later in the week and the Quarter-Quarts cake (which I'll write about next time) while the chicken baked.  We almost never eat in front of the TV, but we made an exception this Sunday so we could watch the end of the Broncos-Steelers game (I don't even know what to say about Tebow), and this was a perfect easy and comforting meal to end the weekend.  I also thought the leftovers held up very well - maybe even improving.

Chicken out of the oven

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As part of my goal to catch up on all the recipes everyone made before I joined FFWD, I made the Spiced Butter-Glazed Carrots to go with our dinner on Wednesday night.  We loved these - I really thought the cardamom added a lot.  They were much more interesting than my usual glazed carrots (not that there's anything wrong with those!).  I served it with some string beans, and an onion soup.

FFWD Bubble-Top Brioche

I love baking bread.  I've been making it for almost five years now, and it never fails to amaze me when it actually works.  Maybe it's because there were so many times, especially early on, when I messed something up and my bread failed to rise, but it makes me happy every time when I see my dough start to rise.  This was a perfect recipe.  I loved Dorie's very detailed instructions.  This recipe also made me very grateful that I own a stand mixer.  The dough was incredibly sticky - I can't even imagine having to beat this one by hand.

I prepared the dough the night before while I was cooking my New Year's Eve dinner. The first thing I did when I woke up on New Year's Day was shape the dough for the second rise.  Years ago, I was watching the Food Network and Ina Garten was baking cookies.  She stood there with her kitchen scale and measured out exactly one ounce of dough for each one, so they'd be perfect.  I thought she was absolutely nuts, and couldn't understand how anyone could be that exacting....Well, when I found myself weighing out each 3/4 ounce ball of dough and carefully placing them - pretty sides up - in my muffin tins, I knew I had finally lost my mind!  It was worth it, though, I was very happy with how nicely the rolls came out.

This definitely required coffee

While the rolls were rising, I started on breakfast.  I've been wanting to make Ina's blintzes for a while now - blueberry blintzes are one of my all-time favorite foods - but kept deciding they were too unhealthy.  So, I decided they'd be our special treat for New Year's brunch (my diet always starts tomorrow!), before I was planning on making brioche.  Blintzes and brioche together were a bit starchy, but they both tasted great.

Blintzes with blueberry sauce

New Year's Eve

Most years Paul and I go out for dinner on New Year's Eve, but this year we decided to eat at home.  Sometimes when I decide to make a nice(r) dinner, I already have something that I want to make in mind.  This time I didn't have any idea.  I had just cooked a large meal for Christmas Eve, though, so I was looking for something less time-consuming.  I started flipping through my Ina Garten cookbooks, and found a recipe for Tagliarelle with Truffle Butter.   On the last night of our honeymoon we went to this incredible little restaurant in Rome (The Library), and I had this pasta with truffles that I still think about.  It had cheese, butter, cream, and shaved white truffles.  Not exactly health food, but it was amazing.  The Ina recipe didn't sound quite as good, but it did sound simple and less expensive.  (I looked just for fun and the cheapest fresh truffles I could find were $70 an ounce!)  So, I decided on that for the main course.  The rest of the menu came together around that.  I decided on more substantial appetizers since the main course didn't have meat and a big salad since the main felt so unhealthy!  For dessert, I decided on the eclairs I have been eyeing from my new Tartine cookbook.  Then, for some crazy reason that didn't sound like enough, so I decided to make sorbet too.  I wrote out the menu while I was procrastinating.

Both appetizers were from the Canal House cookbooks - I love these!  The deviled eggs were good, but the pickled celery was really the hit of the night.  It sounds strange, I was definitely worried about it, but it was really excellent.  It was pickled in mirin and rice wine vinegar with ginger and some other spices, and had a very complex but still subtle flavor.

For the salad, I combined a couple of recipes.  First, I made a roasted artichoke recipe from Ina Garten.  Then, I started to make a preserved lemon vinaigrette from Canal House, but I got lazy and realized that the artichokes were also marinated in a vinaigrette, so I ended up adding my minced preserved lemons to the artichokes, throwing in some extra olive oil, and calling it done.  I served it on top of mixed greens and also added some olives for color.

Ina's pasta was even better than I hoped it would be.  The hardest part was ordering the truffle butter and the pasta she recommends!  I prepped the other ingredients before dinner - I dutifully shaved 3 oz of parmesan with a vegetable peeler as she instructs, although I didn't think it was necessary and would probably just grate it the next time - and got the water boiling before we sat down.  Then, the whole pasta came together in five minutes.  This wasn't an inexpensive entree, but we loved it.  I'll definitely be making it again.

Before the eclairs, I served David Lebovitz's green apple sorbet.  This was good, but not amazing.  It tasted just like frozen applesauce.  I shouldn't have been surprised because that's exactly what it was, but for some reason I was hoping for more from it.  I also wasn't completely happy with my eclairs.  The eclair part and the glaze worked beautifully, but my pastry cream was way too thin.  I couldn't piped it like I'd wanted to, so I had to split the pastries in half, spoon it in, and cover them back up.  It still tasted great but I was mad at myself.  For some reason, I listened to the instructions which said to stop cooking the pastry cream as soon as you see bubbles.  I've made pastry cream enough times to know that you really need to cook it until it coats the back of the spoon.  Oh well, I still enjoyed the left-over eclair I ate after lunch today!

2012 is off to a good start!  I didn't make any resolutions this year - they never seem to last anyway - but I do hope to keep cooking, and keep enjoying the food with family and friends.  I'd also like to be more consistent with this blog.  My goal is to catch up with French Fridays with Dorie - I joined a year after it started, and would love to make all of the recipes I missed!

FFWD Cauliflower-Bacon Gratin

I don't think I've ever owned a camera.  Maybe a plastic one when I was very young.  I have used a couple of disposable ones over the years, but that's really about it.  For this blog I've been borrowing Paul's camera, but I am absolutely clueless when it comes to photography.  I had Monday off of work this week so I decided to make the Cauliflower-Bacon Gratin for lunch.  This meant that for the first time ever, I was able to try to photograph something in natural light.  As you can see, my pictures look mostly like shadows.  I could tell shadows were a problem but I had no clue what to do about it (should I have actually taken the food outside to shoot?) and was frankly too hungry to care, so my photos are quite shadowy. I do like the brightness, though.  I can definitely tell that if I had any clue what I was doing photos taken in natural light would come out much better than the usual ones I take in the dark.

 Luckily, the gratin came out much better than the photos!  I bought 2 cartons of eggs last week thinking for sure that would be enough, but when I opened the fridge to make this recipe I realized I was down to four eggs.  I guess I went through a lot of them making dinner for Christmas Eve!  Oh well, I just used the eggs I had and decreased the amounts of the other ingredients a bit to compensate.  I also increased the ratio of milk to heavy cream, wanting to feel less guilty about eating this after big meals Christmas Eve and day.  

Gratin and shadows

Even with the changes, I was very happy with how this came out.  I especially loved the edges.  They browned and got a bit crispy, which I just love.  I served this with some brussel sprouts that I roasted simply with olive oil, salt, and pepper and some gougeres that were left over for Christmas Eve.  They weren't quite as good as fresh, but they did toast up pretty well!  This recipe was easy and we both enjoyed it.  It's definitely one I'll make again.

Lunch

FFWD Creme Brulee

Crème Brulee is probably Paul's favorite dessert.  This is often an issue when we want to share a dessert at a restaurant.  He often wants to order the creme brulee, and I very rarely do.  It's not that I don't like Crème Brulee.  Custard is one of my all-time favorite foods.  It's just that I think it's a little bit boring.  Unless the flavor is interesting--like lemon and ginger, green tea, chocolate--I always know exactly what to expect.  For our wedding, I finally got smart and registered for a creme brulee set which includes the ramekins and a small blow torch.  Now, I get to make  Crème Brulee at home, and when we go out we get to try more interesting desserts.

Loved the jam

I think David Lebovitz's recipe for Lemon-Ginger Crème Brulee (in Ready for Dessert) is probably my favorite, but I definitely liked this recipe.  It was incredibly easy to make, and I thought the custard had a perfect texture.  I used a black cherry jam that I found in my pantry, and really liked the flavor that it added.  It was definitely more interesting, and a nice contract to the smooth custard.

The only thing I had trouble with was caramelizing the sugar.  Did anybody try the browning sugar that Dorie recommended?  I didn't have any, so I used regular brown sugar for the first two.  I had a lot of trouble getting it to melt without burning it (like the ones in the picture below!).  For the next ones I used regular white sugar, which is what I've used in the past, and it seemed to work better.  I couldn't taste the difference and it was easier to keep from burning.  I'm definitely curious to try the browning sugar the next time we're in the mood for Crème Brulee.

Slightly burnt tops

FFWD Potato Chip Tortilla

By the time this posts, I'm hoping to be asleep on the beach in Puerto Rico.  It's been another busy week, but the good news is that this week ends in a vacation!  I did all of my cooking on Sunday this week because I had plans Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night (that absolutely never happens to me!) and then on Thursday morning we're flying to Puerto Rico for a short vacation.

I try to avoid buying my lunch at work, so I decided to make the potato chip tortilla and some broccoli slaw on Sunday to take for lunch during the week.  Before I tasted it, I was absolutely thrilled with how the tortilla turned out.  As I mentioned, last Sunday I tried to make a swiss chard frittata and while it tasted great, it looked ugly.  I had a lot of trouble keeping it from sticking to the pan, I tried to flip it which only made it more of a mess, and it basically turned into scrambled eggs.  This tortilla, however, came out looking beautiful - if I do say so myself.  I used a smaller pan and a little bit more oil which I think really helped with the sticking, and I love Dorie's broiler method.  It's always so much easier than trying to flip it over. 

Finished tortilla

Since I've been blogging I've been paying more attention to how dishes look than I used to, but I'm still primarily concerned with the taste.  On that dimension I liked, but didn't love, this recipe.  I was a bit wary - I can't remember the last time I purchased potato chips - but it was definitely easy and I liked the flavor they added.  The one thing I think I messed up was the salt.  I didn't add any because I thought the chips would add enough salt, but once I tasted it I wished I had.  It was good, but maybe a bit bland.  I liked the color the herbs added - I used what was left in my vegetable drawer: basil, parsley, and cilantro - but was surprised that they didn't add more flavor.  This is definitely something I'd make again if I had extra potato chips around, but I doubt I'd go out of my way to make it.  The broccoli slaw (http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/05/broccoli-slaw/) is definitely something I'd make again.  It was quick, easy, tastes good, and is actually reasonably healthy.

Lunch

FFWD Matafan

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but it's been another crazy week!  I'm hoping it will calm down in January, but this blogging schedule has been harder for me than I thought it would be.  I thought I would easily be able to post once a week for FFWD, and I'd probably post at other times as well.  I'm lucky if I get my FFWD post up by Sunday!  I'm definitely going to try harder, but it's hard because I do most of my cooking on Sundays, and then the work weeks get so crazy I have a hard time getting anything written up by Friday.  But anyway, on to the food....

We got our last CSA basket of the year on Friday and it was full of good stuff.  We got a 4.5 pound rutabaga - I've never even eaten rutabaga before, but I braised some with some of the turnips we got, roasted some with some more of the turnips we got, and mashed the rest up with a potato for a kind of mashed potatoes.  I was a little worried about it, but I actually enjoyed the rutabaga.  I still have some more turnips left, though.  I'm hoping to roast those tonight.  We also got a daikon, but luckily I learned that they store really well so I'm keeping that one in the basement for a while.  We got a napa cabbage which I used to make a big Asian-style salad with roasted peanuts and tofu.  We got some escarole which I made into an Italian soup with turkey meat balls.  And we got swiss chard.

The swiss chard would have been perfect for this week's Dorie recipe (chard-stuffed pork roast), but I don't eat pork.  So, since I completely missed last week I decided to make the Matafan everybody else made last week and serve it with a swiss chard frittata.  I wish I had read everybody's posts before I did my menu planning!  I thought the Matafan was going to be more like a potato latke, so I agreed when my husband suggested we eat pancakes for breakfast.  After breakfast I sat down to read everybody's blog posts, and noticed that several people said Matafans tasted a lot like regular pancakes.  It was hard to believe given the amounts of potato and flour called for, but you all were right!  I made them for dinner and they did taste a lot like regular pancakes.

Lots of Matafan

I don't think I'd make this recipe again.  I'm probably not a fair judge since it was my second time eating pancakes that day, but I really like pancakes and just didn't think these were that special.  I think I prefer my regular pancakes recipe (Emeril Lagasse's, actually) for breakfast, potato latkes for a dinner side dish, and the buckwheat blinis if I wanted something for an appetizer.  I was happy I got to use the food mill I bought a couple of weeks ago as part of an apple canning project (apple butter and apple sauce), though, and I also really liked the swiss chard frittata (from Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food) so it definitely wasn't a bad dinner, just probably not something I'll make again.

Our dinner

P.S.  Paul asked if the pomegranate seeds went with the pancakes.  I told him they were just necessary to make the photo look less ugly.  Eggs and pancakes definitely aren't the most appealing combination visually!