Freya, age 6, the daughter of Andrea who writes “The Kitchen Lioness, notes from a very small German kitchen” drew this picture of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus for me. Her Mother included it in the Christmas card she sent as part of the FFWD exchange. It now hangs center-stage on my refrigerator. Neither Mother or Daughter realized how especially meaningful it would be to receive the drawing this week. Thank you, Freya.
My daughter, Melissa, and her best friend, both busy women, make time to walk together early in the morning, once a week. This Fall, during one of their sojourns, the friend said to her, “You know, Melissa, your Mother loves you SO much.” (They obviously were discussing me!!!)
To that remark, Melissa replied, “ I know. That’s the problem.”
When Missy related that story to me, she knew I wouldn’t be offended, that I would understand. And, of course, I did.
Cheez-it-ish Crackers, the FFWD recipe choice of the week, can be entirely made in the food processor and results in moist curds, shown here, that are turned out and kneaded together into two disks.
Therein lies the rub. We Women – Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts – to name a few, love our children soooooo much. Mine. Ours. Yours. Theirs. That’s why the pain of Sandy Hook is so unbearable. While there’s nothing more I can say – those more knowledgeable and eloquent already have – I will only add this.
I realized how naive I was about classroom security when I didn’t even know school doors were now locked. It made me wonder what else I don’t know about a world I’ve grown out of now that my children are adults.
But what I am not naive about is politics. And, once these 26 are mourned and buried, Life returning to normal for most of us, there is little chance that Congress will pass effective, meaningful gun-control legislation. Trust me on that.
Unless……those of us who believe our kids deserve a childhood as safe and secure as we can possibly provide, are “all in” for the “long haul.” ***
Form the moist curds into two disks, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Honestly the very last thing I wanted to do this week was walk into my kitchen and make Cheez-it-ish Crackers, this week’s FFWD recipe choice. Like many of you, my thoughts are in Newtown. However, normalcy was my goal and Dorie’s crackers needed to be made.
These little wafers, oozing with cheese, were fabulous. Dorie suggests them as a nibble with before-dinner drinks (white wine or champagne, perhaps). These are not crackers with a specific purpose. I suggest them warm out-of-the-oven or as a mid-morning lift or as a late afternoon pick-me-up. An anytime snack. These are two bites of goodness to whet your appetite.
I used a champagne flute to cut the rolled-out dough into wafer-like crackers. Dorie suggested making them smaller but I liked the two-or-three bite size better.
Five ingredients – butter, cheese (I used Gruyère but Conté or Emmenthal would work), salt, pepper, flour. In a hurry? Treat them as a slice-and-bake, as Dorie suggests in her Bonne Idée. I rolled my dough out, after chilling it for 3 hours, and used a champagne flute for my cookie cutter. After 14 minutes in a 350 degree oven, they were lightly golden and firm.
I taste-tested these with good friends who joined me for dinner Tuesday evening. They would be leaving to enjoy a family Christmas in California so we needed to do our celebrating early. The verdict? Enjoyed by all.
I served these very tasty Cheez-it-ish Cracker to my friends, Ardyth and Harold, who joined me for dinner to celebrate an early Christmas together.
As you read this, I am also in California because tonight is my grandchildren’s school Christmas program, something we’ve been coming to since Emma started preforming in preschool. Clara (9) is playing the piano (“I’m even using the pedal, Grandma.”) while her sister, Emma (11), sings “Away in a Manger.” Clara has been practicing the piece since September. As both girls explained to me last night, this is not easy!
It’s not difficult to understand why I’m “all in” for the “long haul”, is it?
If you wish to try this recipe, go here. If you want to see what my colleagues made this week, go here. If you want more information about involvement in the gun control legislation process, go to my friend Diane’s Blog, Simply Living and Eating: Newtown, No Simple Answers.
Today’s Post is a stroll down Memory Lane. Join me. I think you’re going to like it.
My mantle is filled with Christmas cards received from my French Friday with Dorie blogging colleagues. Many of the cards have food-related scenes and many are handmade.
This week’s FFWD recipe is Chicken, Apples, and Cream à la normande, a sweet, rich stand-alone main course, honoring its namesake. The French region of Normandy is recognized for its apples, brandy-like Calvados, cream, Camembert and butter. Four of those five ingredients are in this dish. Yes, Dorie does admit it’s ‘decidedly rich’.
This was the first recipe I ever made from Around My French Table. Ibought the cookbook when it was first published in September 2010 but didn’t even know about the French Friday group. Always a Dorie disciple, I trusted when she wrote, “This dish is more luxurious, far fancier, and much prettier than either its ingredient list or the brief time it takes you to pull it together would lead you to believe.”
She is as good as her word. Chicken, the Normandy way, was as delicious then as it is this week.
Mise en Place – I always gather all the ingredients I need for the recipe on a tray. For this recipe, I used three chicken breasts instead of four and doubled down on the apples and mushrooms.
Following that meal and about six months later, I read about a FFWD group that, every week, makes a specific recipe from Dorie’s cookbook and then blogs about it. At that time my lifestyle, as you might remember, had changed drastically. Although I had adjusted as best I could, what I missed most about being alone and leaving our Colorado life was cooking, companionship at meals and entertaining family and friends. This group, I thought, might just put me back in the food business.
I joined up.
Naturally as I gathered the ingredients for this week’s recipe and put it together, I thought about my two years with the Doristas. In today’s New York Times (12/13/12), reporter Leslie Kaufman wrote an article about Deb Perelman, discussing the evolution of her popular food blog, Smitten Kitchen, into a best-selling cookbook. Kaufman talks about blogosphere friendships as important, developing “in a 21-st century way.”
I browned organic chicken breasts in oil and butter for 3 minutes on each side. Note the large pan.
Later I pulled up our FFWD Link on Facebook. Adriana Angelet who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and writes her blog, http://greatfood360.com, in Spanish and English, had left a comment and picture. “I am a little emotional today. Thank you for filling my tree with so many wonderful wishes.”
She was referring toour FFWD Christmas card exchange. Alice Bush, A Mama, Baby, & Sharpei in the Kitchen, who lives in England, suggested it and many of us signed on. She organized us and gathered addresses. Might I suggest that if Alice were in charge of America’s budget negotiations, that pesky fiscal cliff problem would be solved. We not only received our list but also our marching orders: mailing directions, deadlines and international postage costs – to Europe, Australia, Brunei, and the like. I love this woman.
Our virtual friendships which developed “in a 21-st century way” have turned snail mail and personal notes.
Alice Angelet, who lives in Puerto Rico and blogs on GreatFood360.com shows us her tree filled with Christmas cards from her FFWD friends.
For the past two years (and, more for those who joined on 10/01/10) our FFWD group has cooked and baked and blogged, sharing both our successes and failures, every single week. Surprisingly, and, I think I can speak for everyone, we began as colleagues with a common interest and have evolved into supportive, good friends.
So much has happened to us in the past year. We’ve welcomed a new baby (Emily) and calmed the jitters of a nervous but beautiful bride (Jessica). Ei moved to Naples but figured out how to keep cooking. Paula closed her Buenos Aires cafe and continues to be a good sport with recipe choices despite seasonal differences. When we’re making soups and daubes, it’s her summer.
Liz, Cher and Tricia sent their high school graduates off to college – always a lump-in-the-throat, heart dropping moment. Hey, Moms, send food. Kathy and Diane live in East Coast areas where Sandy was especially vengeful. Betsy went into the “bee business”. (You don’t want to know.) Mardi spent the summer in France and took us along virtually. I lost my husband and many others, including Andrea, lost loved ones.
Add apple, onion and mushrooms to the pan with the browned chicken breasts. Add more olive oil and butter, if needed, to be sure the added ingredients are well mixed and glossy. Then add chicken broth and simmer for ten minutes. Salt and pepper generously throughout the cooking process.
We cherish our pets, losing them is hard. We’re all pulling for Braveheart. Krissy dropped out to care for her family but, after a long absence, just returned. We’re glad. Trevor got his computer stolen, Rose, her camera. Pretty traumatic if you’re a food blogger. Many of us have changed jobs, moving on up!!! Congratulations. And, our fearless leader, Dorie Greenspan, has opened a wildly successful new baking enterprise in New York City called Beurre & Sel.
Dorie at the counter, Beurre & Sel, her unique cookie shop in New York City Photo: Travel & Leisure Magazine
We’ve never lost a beat, knocking off 52 recipes each year. (This is a 5-and-then-some-year project.)
These friends that I’ve met “in a 21-st century way” welcomed me with kindness and generosity and did put me back in the food business. Sometimes virtual becomes the real deal.
To see if my collegues liked the Normandy dish as well as I did, go here. If you would like to make this tasty entree, go here.
Chef François Payard’s wildly popular, kinda healthy, amazingly delicious Flourless Chocolate Cookies. An extra bonus? They’re Kosher. Photo by www.domiciliate.net
He has been named the Pastry Chef of the Year by both the James Beard Foundation and Bon Appétit. He’s all about butter, eggs and cream, owning patisseries/chocolate shops in Manhattan, Japan, South Korea and Las Vegas. His Brazilian wife, Fernanda Capobianco, is a vegetarian who also owns a bakery in Manhattan. Called Vegan Divas, it is located on the Upper East Side. She’s all about coconut oil, egg substitutes and tofu. Her chocolate mousse, made with tofu and world-class Carbonet chocolate, has 42 calories. His chocolate mousse, made with that same chocolate (plus eggs, cream and sugar) isn’t.
Regarding his cookbook, Simply Sensational Desserts, our revered leader, Dorie Greenspan, wrote, “With this wide-ranging collection, Francois shares his extraordinary talent and surprises us with his knack for simplifying even the most sophisticated sweets. There isn’t a single recipe for one of his astonishing desserts that can’t be made – perfectly – by anyone with an oven, a mixer, and a sweet tooth.”
Simply Sensational Desserts by Chef François Payard Photo by amazon.com
His name is François Payard. In 2009 he opened Payard Patisserie & Bistro at Caesars Palace here in Las Vegas. On Monday, to commemerate that fifth anniversary as well as National Pastry Day, Chef Payard taught a two-hour cooking class at his patisserie.
Time is my friend these days. My daily routine, no longer closely structured. My schedule, flexible. If Dorie’s ‘wizard with a whisk’ was going to celebrate National Pastry Day, this Dorista was going to celebrate with him. Hanging around, watching a master at his craft, is always inspiring. I signed on.
Time-out for a photo opportunity with the Chef.
My afternoon with Payard was just like his cookbook, simply sensational. Remember, we’re at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, so please know this was not your average cooking class. The chef was affable, the entire patisserie kitchen was ours and the staff to participant ratio was 1:3.
We began with food – choosing scrumptious treats from a buffet table that groaned with canapes, sweets, sandwiches and three different Bûche de Noels (Yule Logs): chestnut, chocolate and raspberry. After making three desserts: Flourless Chocolate Cookies (his most popular product, selling about 1,000 a day), Chocolate Pudding Cake topped with raspberries and Hazelnut Tart with chantilly cream, we also devoured those results.
Here a macaroon. There a macaroon. Everywhere a macaroon.
Sweet Relief, a creamy little concoction of heaven
Throughout the demos, Payard was constantly teaching, asking us questions, having us taste, smell and feel the food. We learned he thinks television food shows should be more about cooking and less about competition. “More like Julia,” he says.
He bakes his tarts in rings with no bottoms. To test caramel, he drizzles some on white paper. “It’s not done until the color is right,” he cautions.
The Chef, removing his Flourless Chocolate Cookies from the oven.
Eggs, especially whites, are the home baker’s nemesis, he says. “In America, you have all different sizes. In France we have one egg and we know the exact weight of the shell, yolk and white.”
Again and again, he reinforced many of the things I already knew, using the best ingredients and equipment, for example, always telling us his favorites. It was two hours pastry-packed with baking nuggets of wisdom.
An assistant, finishing up the Chocolate Pudding Cake, so we could move on to the Hazelnut Tart.
Chocolate Pudding Cake topped with juicy raspberries.
An extra bonus? You gotta love his accent.
Gift bags. When we left, Payard’s very-French manager thanked us for coming, handing us gussied-up, yellow-tissued Payard sacks bursting with goodies which included his autographed cookbook and macaroons in every color. The venue dictated limited space, the cost, $85. To my thinking, a sweet bargain.
Hazelnut Tart with Chantilly Cream.
I want to share the recipe for his wildly acclaimed heart-healthy Flourless Chocolate Cookie (55 calories per cookie according to Self magazine) which can be found here. How popular are they? Do a Pinterest search for that answer. While simple to make, the caveat is the egg whites.
Alessandra, the Payard baker who tested this recipe for home baking and publication purposes, says, “This recipe completely depends on your egg whites. If you’re using large eggs, medium eggs, etc., it will make a huge difference. Start by using 2 egg whites, and then slowly add the rest. The mix should look like thick brownie mix that can be scooped. Depending on the day…hot, cold, humid, not humid, your product will change a lot, as do all pastry recipes. Don’t add all your whites at once, and check for the consistency first. If you don’t use all the whites, it is OKAY.” www.domiciliate.net
The Chef and his wife, Fernanda Capobianco, a vegetarian who owns a vegan bakery in New York City. Photo by Elizabeth Lippman
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but Payard’s cooking class (and, his cookie recipe) is a secret worth sharing. Enjoy.
For the past several weeks, since returning to Henderson for the Winter, my nightime social life has skyrocketed from zero to seven (on a scale of 1 to 10). While that’s a good thing, it’s played havoc with my usual 8:30 pm bedtime but I’m not complaining.
This week’s FFWD recipe, Creamy Cauliflower Soup sans Cream, is smooth, silky and beautifully white in color. (I mention the color because this picture implies that the soup is a light pink. My bad. Annie Leibovitz was unavailable.
This past month, many friends who could not attend Michael’s service in Aspen, have found their way to Las Vegas to see me and have dinner. Next week my brother and his cronies, Denver businessmen turned wannabee cowboys, are here for their annual junket to the 10-day Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. Since I’ve never attended next week’s event, I’m joining them (and, 175,275 other fans).
Lastly and even better, last night was Date Night.
My Date (l), always a good sport, and my long-suffering Trainer ( r).
Every year the physical trainers in Anthem Country Club’s Athletic Department have a very, very nice holiday party for all their clients. I have never attended and, because my trainer is the head honcho, I know it has hurt his feelings. This year, realizing it would be my last opportunity before moving back to Colorado, one of my early morning workout colleagues told me I was to be his date for this year’s party. He’d be by at 6:30pm to pick me up and, he added, “look nice”. I didn’t even hesitate – Ray is 49 years old, good-looking and very buff. Way to go, Mary.
You might be asking what all this has to do with this week’s FFWD recipe, Creamy Cauliflower Soup sans Cream. Here’s the segue…..
A mixture of onions, garlic, celery and fresh thyme are cooked slowly in a soup pot after first warming the pot with olive oil and melted butter.
Although Ray is sweet in temperament, he is not sweet in taste. He doesn’t do sugar. To thank him for the anticipated evening as well as acknowledging his being a good sport, my baking some Christmas goodies was a non-starter. However, when he asked what I was cooking for Dorie this week, I answered, “Cauliflower soup.” His response, “I would really like some of that.”
Done.
I like cauliflower so this soup was on my radar and I was anxious to share it. Surprisingly, it emerged to be full-bodied and robust. No cream nor potatoes for thickening usually translates to watery, thin soups but not in this case. Just less calories. Expecting the soup to possess the pungent earthy flavor of the vegetable itself, I was surprised by its mildness. I would have enjoyed more of a kick.
After buying a large head of cauliflower, remove the leaves and break into florets. Be sure to discard the tough core.
This is a relatively simple soup to make. Just add chopped onions, garlic, celery and thyme to a soup pot containing warmed olive oil and butter. Season with salt and pepper (I always use more seasoning than Dorie suggests.) After simmering that mixture for 20 minutes, pour in chicken or vegetable broth and toss in the cauliflower florets. Bring to a boil and simmer another 20 minutes.
I allowed my soup to cool a bit before using my immersion blender to puree it to a very smooth liquid, leaving no chunks. Reheat and then season to taste. Be creative with a topping of your choice – shaved truffles, crème fraîche topped with caviar, or grated Parmesan or Comté. I drizzled a little walnut oil on top of the soup and then tossed some chopped, toasted walnuts onto that, adding some crunch.
I toasted some walnuts and then coarsely chopped them. After drizzling some walnut oil on the soup I then threw some chopped walnuts on top.
A perfect lunch or light dinner. Add a salad of fresh greens and crusty bread and you’ve got a memorable meal.
If this is a soup for you and your friends, go here to find the recipe. See how other Doristas coped with cauliflower this week by linking to French Fridays with Dorie.
The drizzle of walnut oil topped with toasted chopped walnuts added a nice texture to the smooth and silky soup.
