This week it was really all about Sandy. Again, those of us who belong to this French Friday with Dorie gang were reminded of our being about much more than cooking. Soon after this hurricane had rock-and-rolled its malice and destruction up North America’s eastern coast, those of us left unscathed were checking on our colleagues.
News from them started to dribble in late Tuesday via Twitter, E-mail and Cell Phone. We all posted those updates on our FFWD Facebook page until we knew everyone was safe and accounted for albeit without power, conveniences and gasoline. Mother Nature’s power is humbling and I know we all hold the victims of this disaster in our hearts.
Mushroom and Shallot Quiche
This weeks FFWD recipe is a Mushroom and Shallot Quiche. Not too much different or unique about this quiche but it’s no-fail and absolutely delicious. “Mushrooms and shallots are a classic combination and the base of the traditional finely chopped filling called duxelles,” Dorie reminds us. “The result is a deep, earthy flavor.”
Spread 1 TBS of fresh minced thyme on the half-baked tart shell before adding the filling.
To that I would add a bold, even strong, taste. Besides salt and pepper, fresh thyme is the only herb used in this dish. Thyme bows to no one, edging out both the shallots and scallions to bring an edge to this quiche.
The classic combination of mushrooms and shallots, finely chopped, which is the basis of the filling called duxelles.
Dorie provides the recipe to this excellent quiche here. It’s fast, easy (serve warm or at room temperature) and goes well with soup, salad or on its own.
Oven-ready
This was not a sharing week at the Hirsch household, shameful as that may sound. This quiche was so tasty, I decided to eat the entire dish by myself………….yep, you got it, real women do eat quiche. To see if other Doristas were better at sharing this week, go here.
Gone. No sharing this week.
I also want to echo Diane Balch’s column this week about Voting in the upcoming American election. A democracy only works if every citizen is engaged, participating in the process. In the 2008 presidential election a disappointing 43.2% of eligible Americans did not vote.
The past few weeks I have been working for my candidates. Both parties are all about Getting-out-the-Vote. To that end, I commited to helping my Party’s choices by standing at Aspen’s HIghway 82 S-Curve at 7:30 a.m., waving signs promoting early voting and candidates while a constant ribbon of cars and trucks come into town. We’re talkin’ hundreds. Might I mention that it’s Colorado cold here – 40 degrees? God bless America.
Getting Out the Vote, 7:30am, Aspen, Colorado, 40 degrees
To be honest, it’s been crazy fun. One of my first thoughts was “Here I go, embarrassing my children again.” But, when the Thursday edition of the Aspen Times carried a picture of us in our early-morning “Get-Out-The-Vote Poster Wave”, Melissa plastered it on her Facebook Page. “That’s my mom in the middle! I don’t care what side you are on, this is a GREAT country!
This morning at 7:30A.M., the last day of Early Voting, there were eight of us, bundled up and ready to wave. We’ve always received honks, thumbs up, thumbs down, and the #$@%#@!% shout-outs. This morning, our last, and, it being Friday after all, we decided to throw in a little choreography. Yes, sign-routines. The car, truck, and bus crowd loved it, parties be hanged.
Why do I do this? America has a population of 157 million women. Only 46.2% of females 18 and older voted in our last national election (2010). As far as I’m concerned that’s just not good enough. If I lived in Brunei or Saudi Arabia, for example, I wouldn’t even be able to vote. If I had lived in the United States before 1920, I couldn’t have voted either. My standing on a Colorado street corner in freezing temperatures urging people to vote pales in comparison to the efforts of our Sisters who won the vote for us:
“The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving the right to vote to women (1920) took 72 years:
and, required 56 referendum campaigns, 47 campaigns to get state constitutional conventions to write women’s suffrage into state constitutions, 480 drives to get state legislatures to hold those referendums (5 referendum campaigns in South Dakota alone), 277 campaigns to get state party conventions to include women’s suffrage planks, 30 campaigns to get presidential party campaigns to include women’s suffrage planks in their platforms and, 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses.” ***
A stack of corn cakes filled and garnished with apricot preserves with morsels of chevre (goat cheese) introduced for some tartness.
This week’s First Friday with Dorie recipe is the answer to every Iowa girl’s dream. Since I’m a born ‘n bred Iowan and more than a lil’ bit country, I consider myself an authority on CORN.
Dorie, did you know:
1. In 2011, Iowa corn farmers grew almost 2.3 billion bushels of corn on 13.7 million acres of land.
2. Iowa has produced the largest corn crop (most of it field corn) of any state for almost two decades. In an average year, Iowa produces more corn than most countries.
3. Corn has been the dominant crop in Iowa for more than 150 years!
The Sprout character was introduced in Green Giant® advertising in 1973. He is an apprentice to the kindly Green Giant® and helps the Giant tend the vegetables. The Jolly Green Giant® is the third most recognized advertising icon of the 20th century, behind Ronald McDonald and the Marlboro Man. (greengiant.com)
In fairness to our neighbors to the north, I’ll concede that the Jolly Green Giant and his sidekick, Sprout, raise more sweet corn for the consumer market than we Iowans. That’s why the canned corn you use for this recipe might have grown up in Minnesota.
Yes, for this recipe we are using canned corn, those sweet little krammed-with-karbohydrates kernels. Dorie suggests we find a can that is without sugar or corn syrup. Although corn is low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, 82 percent of the calories in this food are from carbohydrates. It is, however, a good source of dietary fiber, thiamin and folate.
But I digress. French housewives have been using canned corn to make these little pancakes for years. Who knew? They were first introduced stateside in the mid-Eighties after world-famous chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten arrived here. He paired them with crème fraîche and caviar. Of course he did! Although they are fine as an hors d’oeuvre, they also are an interesting accompaniment to any meat dish to replace potatoes, rice, or noodles.
Mise en Place, the ingredients for making corn cakes. Just a few are needed for this simple delight.
For these little wonders, throw three ingredients, corn, eggs, and flour, into your blender or processor. Salt. Then use a tablespoon to drop the batter into a skillet well-lacquered with grapeseed oil (or, any mild oil). Once you achieve a golden color on each side (2 minutes per side), pat off the excess oil and transfer to the warm cookie sheet waiting in the oven.
When making pancakes for breakfast, my Mother would call these “silver dollar” pancakes in size.
After making the pancakes and cooling them to room temperature, I tried three different versions. Serving them with guacamole as a garnish to accompany my lunch of chilled corn and crab salad was delicious. For dessert, I made them into a Raspberry-Crème Fraîche Shortcake. So tasty. If crème fraîche is too strong a taste for you, try whipped cream instead. I just thought the three flavors, sweet fruit, tangy sauce, and corny cake, played well together.
Corn pancakes, garnished with guacamole and served as an accompaniment to chilled corn salad and crab.
For dinner, just needing a snack, I used apricot preserves as a filling for a corn pancake stack to which I introduced morsels of chevre (goat cheese). This idea was actually my favorite taste.
Corn pancakes filled and garnished with crème fraîche and added raspberries.
Although we don’t share recipes from “Around My French Table”, because we would like you to buy the book, I believe you’d make good corn pancakes by blending a 15-ounce can of corn with 2 eggs and 6 tablespoons of flour. Don’t forget the salt. To see how my colleagues, who probably aren’t “corn-fed” did with this week’s recipe, go here.
The world-famous Iowa State Fair butter cow is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. As a kid, I would visit the butter cow during our family’s annual trip to the fair. As a Mother, I made sure my girls never missed the fair. (Rodney White/The Register)
I know what you’re thinking. Who needs another baking powder biscuit recipe? This sounds like an appetizer party-nibble to me. Hey, who even hosts cocktail parties anymore?
Okay, maybe this was what I was thinking yesterday morning when my feet hit the floor, earlier than usual, to channel Dorie and bake this week’s FFWD recipe. However, I’ve learned not to underestimate Ms. Greenspan who carefully tested and selected each of the 300 recipes that appear in her cookbook. So, within fifteen minutes the onions were sizzling in the skillet; the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder, whisked together; the milk and butter bits, ready-to-mix.
Carmelizing onions at 6am in the morning. That’s a first!
I measured the dry ingredients, put them into the bowl with the softened onions and poured in the liquid – whole milk.
Another fifteen minutes later, and barely through listening to NPR’s Morning Edition’s first segment, I placed the baking sheet into a 425 degree oven.
Ready to shove into a 425 degree oven
CAUTION – My biscuits were finished to perfection, top and bottom, in 9 minutes, half the time that Dorie suggests.
To put this biscuit in the “little quick bread” category (which it is) seems a great disservice. To reserve it primarily for cocktail circuit fare is just plain wrong! The faint flavor of carmelized onions blended wonderfully with the orange marmalade and raspberry preserves I spread on two of the warm biscuits. Served with an omelet or frittata, even better. What a feast to enjoy to honor International Women’s Day (March 8th).
Who knew? A baking powder biscuit + carmelized onions + raspberry preserves. Mmmmmmmmmm
Really, these biscuits are so subtle in their taste and texture they will work with many different food choices. Why not make them a house special, as Dorie suggests. Rather than baking off all three-dozen biscuits, I froze some on a baking sheet until they were solid, packed them airtight and placed them in my freezer where they will last for two months.
This is the week I realized that Michael Greenspan, Dorie’s husband, and I could always sit at the same table. He and I bonded, although he doesn’t know it, over today’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Matafan. These delightful little morsels are fluffy mashed potato pancakes, a longtime French staple. Michael’s Matafan-of-Choice is warm and swimming in maple syrup. To that I might say, “Michael, never swim without adding whipped cream.” Dorie reminds us that the French Matafan, which sits somewhere between a pancake and blini, wears many hats. Usually eaten mid-morning to keep hunger at bay, it can be a side dish, snack or starter.
MICHAEL GREENSPAN’S IDEA OF BLISS, served with Syrup
“ I have been collecting recipes for Matafans for some time now, because they’re emblematic of le Pays de Savoie. There are a whole lot of recipes, because everyone does them differently. Families all through this stretch of the French Alps do their own variations on the pancake but different, some serving them with toppings to be eaten with knife and fork, some slapping local cheese between two of them to make a delicious fluffy warm sandwich to eat with your hands. These are great prepared in advance of a good uphill hike and taken out of the sack to serve as a fortifying lunch. Indeed, for what’s in them, you can estimate that a couple of Matafans will be the equivalent of a small 2 egg breakfast with hash browns and bacon, so plan some extra activity to burn them off.”
My good friend, Judy, a Francophile who lives in Philadelphia, loves her buckwheat blini topped with crèame fraîche/caviar or salmon roe. If you’re stuck with some extra Idaho Russets, these fluffy Matafans, blinis in disguise, could serve that same purpose and be delicious.
HAPPY NEW YEAR HAPPY NEW YEAR HAPPY NEW YEAR HAPPY NEW YEAR
FREEZER-READY IN ANTICIPATION OF THE UPCOMING HOLIDAYS
Other Dorista’s treated this French peasant/country fare with panache and flair. If you’re curious to see their take on Matafan, check out http://www.frenchfridayswithdorie.com/.
Roasted Rhubarb with Homemade Black Walnut & Vanilla Ice Cream
I’m an Iowa farm girl so I know a thing or two about rhubarb. The French have not cornered the market on this fruit. In the Midwest we called it Pie Plant. It often grew in residential alleys. When I moved to Colorado in 1988, I took some rhubarb roots with me and loved watching the stalks pop-up, after the last snow, in the late-Spring.
My Mother made the most sublime Rhubarb Meringue Pie. Her sauce was to-die-for and we loved it on, over and under everything! I miss you, Mom.
But, roasted rhubarb. I was a skeptic. Why do I doubt Dorie? The result was delicious. We ate it for breakfast, lunch, and finalized our Roasted Rhubarb Experience by pouring it over our homemade black walnut vanilla ice cream.
” SPINACH AND BACON QUICHE” This week’s “FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE” selection. FFWD is an online cooking group dedicated to Dorie Greenspan’s “Around My French Table”, her latest cookbook. http://www.doriegreenspan.com/ This quiche is a savory tart where flavors (smoky-bacon, sweet-onion and garlic, mineral – spinach, creamy-custard) converge, providing a tasty punch to your palate. An innovative twist to ingredients that works well. (If you substitute turkey bacon (I like Trader Joe’s uncured), use canola or grapeseed oil for your fat for the veggies.)
