This week, for me, has been one of those lucky-to-be-alive times to grab and hold tightly. In our family we accept Life as it comes, with its peaks —quite often, with its valleys. That’s why I’ve made a pact to not waste a moment of “peakness”. This week has been a whoop-de-doo, hoop and hollering cause for celebration. Nothing’s more delicious than Happy.
My week is best told in pictures.
While unpacking, what could taste better than Goat Cheese & Strawberry Tartines
First, please try this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Goat Cheese and Strawberry Tartine. Although this little bit of yummy is best served at cocktail time with a chilled glass of Chenin Blanc, I made this for a simple, quick and tasty lunch.
After dripping balsamic glaze on the strawberries,let them rest for 5 minutes so the glaze can seep into the fruit.
Slice a baguette. Spread with goat cheese. (I used goat cheese with honey.) Place sliced strawberries on top and sprinkle with coarsely ground pepper. Finish with balsamic vinegar, if you wish. I chose to drip a balsamic vinegar glaze over the strawberries. The glaze disappeared quickly, seeping into the berries and, when eaten, creating a sensational burst of flavor in the mouth. After you slice your bread, leave it fresh or toast it. I did both. Which is better? It’s a draw.
Second, the construction and cleanup chores on my condo were finally completed so I could begin to move boxes from my storage unit to D-203. By the time you read this, I will have my kitchen in order. Unpacking old friends to hang on walls or put on tables and in cupboards turns a condominium into a home. I’m surrounded by the familiar and it’s a wonderful feeling.
Lastly, after an absence of nine years, I am now back in uniform. It’s official as of this week. Being a volunteer US Forest Ranger carries with it the responsibility of knowing and interacting safely not only with tourists but also with the natural world – the plants, birds and critters. To that end, this week I’ve participated in wildflower and birding field trips, a botany class and an evening river float. It’s tough duty but somebody’s got to do it. All part of Life back in the mountains.
Early morning birding at the Maroon Creek Wetlands in Aspen
An early evening float east of Aspen to see nesting Great Blue Herons. This colony of Blues, at 8,000 feet in elevation, is the highest one in N.A. and is the only one occurring in blue spruce trees.
I love Herons but this was my first Float e-v-e-r. I don’t swim. I didn’t wear the right equipment. My paddle got stuck in willows several times. The water was cold. AND, as you can see, it was stormy!!!
A full-day wildflower and birding field trip. After a 5am wakeup call for a 7am meet-up at the trailhead, we finally stopped for lunch at 12:30pm. I was thinking about my ham and cheese sandwich by 11am.
If I had tried to orchestrate this week’s French Friday with Dorie recipe scenario, I could not have done better. From beginning to end, it was the perfect storm.
Literally.
Springtime in Colorado
Today’s recipe is Financiers(fee-nahn-see-AY), tiny rich buttery cakes. created a century ago at a patisserie near the Bourse (the French Wall Street). These treats were popular with stockbrokers as pick-me-up, finger food.
What makes these exceptionally delicious is beurre noisette, (brown butter). Financiers require oodles of butter. When cooked to a golden brown coloring, it acquires a nutty flavor. NOTE: Go the extra mile and brown your butter.
Beurre Noisette, in the making…
One cup of sugar and almond flour, 2/3 cup A-P flour and 6 egg whites later, you’ve got batter ready to chill for an hour or two. Overnight is better.
Although the Financiers can be any petite shape, I only could find a mini-muffin tin in my moving boxes. I found gorgeous raspberries at the store. Thus, fruit Financiers. To celebrate my first week in Aspen, I decided to share the spoils with the young people manning our front office.
To those of you who have asked, The Gant, my new home, is an 143-condominium complex located in the heart of downtown Aspen. Built in 1975, each condo is individually owned. It is basically a resort rental complex with all the amenities and staff (100) that go along with that moniker. Most homeowners come for the summer, holidays and a week or two during the ski season. Only 8 other owners live here full-time.
Nine years ago, because of my husband’s health, we needed to escape the altitude, find a kinder climate and be nearer our kids. After selling our house and thinking we could at least enjoy the Aspen summers, I bought a condo here at The Gant. When it became apparent we couldn’t return, Donnie Lee, the general manager, promised me, since my hands were full, that they would take care of our condo. Whenever they needed to buy, build, install, improve, or change something in my place, someone would call to get my approval. They did the rest. Every year I’d return for 3 or 4 days to check in. That’s why I’m lucky enough to know all the staff and consider them family.
Mr. Lee, the Boss
Now back to the Financiers. After whipping up the batter Monday evening, I woke up early Tuesday to a raging spring snowstorm. Really? Wouldn’t warm little raspberry mini-muffins (the staff’s eventual name for my Financiers) be a tasty treat for the front desk staff who often work outside as well as in?
I filled the buttered molds with batter and raspberries and baked them 18 minutes until golden and springy to the touch. They popped out easily and, while still warm, I covered them carefully and pulled on my boots and heavy jacket to scurry over to the office.
Here’s what I can say about the Financiers. There is no photo because I didn’t have the heart to freeze-frame the staff’s enthusiasm, insisting they pose for this Post. However, with apologies to Roger Ebert, the bellmen each gave them a Ten-Fingers Up.
To see the absolutely gorgeous, fancier Financiers that my colleagues made this week, go here.
If Wacky and Wonderful can be friends, together they beautifully describe this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Sablés aux Olives Noires. Sablés are exquisite but crumbly, classic French cookies. More a shortbread than a Toll House.
Mise en Place for this week’s FFWD recipe choice.
What is special about these sablés is they were created by Pierre Hermé, France’s acknowledged pastry king, with a few twists and turns from Dorie, of course. Think potato starch, oily black olives and the yolk of a large hard-boiled egg! What’s up with that?
I’ve learned not to doubt Dorie so when she suggested this cocktail nibble was either ‘a sweet cookie with a spot of savoriness or a savory cookie with a touch of sweetness’, I put on my apron. Once the ingredients were gathered (the potato starch was a problem for some) and the egg, boiled, these little slice-and-bakes were simply made.
Pastry logs, ready for the Big Chill
Following Dorie’s directions and after making the dough, I made three pastry logs, wrapped them in plastic and chilled overnight. The next day I sliced two logs, making 1/4” cookies, and baked them for 16 minutes at 325 degrees. Brown the edges not the entire cookie. I wrapped the extra log in foil for the freezer.
Ready to bake
Friends were hosting a Welcome Home wine-and-nibbles party last night, providing me with a perfect and discriminating tasting panel for this week’s recipe choice. I wasn’t surprised to note that these delightful sablés passed muster.
Baked and Taste-Tested
My move to Aspen, I arrived last Monday, is now history. Right now I’m a bit altitude-weary, my condo is, let’s just say, disheveled and, yes, it’s snowed once or twice. However, I cannot stop smiling.
Nibbles
and Wine
To make these clever cocktail nibbles, go here. To see what my colleagues created this week with potato starch and an egg yolk, go to our French Fridays with Dorie link.
The distinctively flavorful Ispahan Loaf Cake, made with Rose Extract and Rose Syrup
Mary,
The Raspberry loaf is wonderful. You can really taste the Rose Syrup/Extract. I really enjoyed it! I just had a piece of it with a cup of tea and it was so delicious. I saved the other piece for Lorena [sister] (she hasn’t come in yet to the office) but if she doesn’t come in today, I am going to eat the rest of it. It is so moist and so flavorful and I can even taste the raspberries, which I love. I would say it’s one of my favorite desserts you have made! It sounds like it would be complicated to make because of all the different ingredients that you need, but maybe Mom would be able to make it. You might have to give her the recipe.
Thank you I really enjoyed it!
Adriana
The cake is loaded with strategically placed moist, plump raspberries.
This e-mail says everything that should be said about this week’s FFWD recipe choice, a remarkable dessert closely resembling a pound cake. Please don’t judge this cake by its cover. Although both loaf cakes are cut into thick slices, in taste they are not at all related.
Ispahan was once the capital of Persia and is also the name of a profoundly fragrant rose. It was the talented pastry maestro Pierre Hermé who first began infusing his sweets with intensely flavorful rose syrups and extracts.
I topped my first slice of cake with whipped cream and raspberry coulis. We ate the rest of the cake “naked”.
Since this is my last Blog Post from my Nevada kitchen, I was especially pleased to make a celebratory cake which I could share with friends who have been my loyal taste testers since its beginning in February, 2011. Without a doubt, Adriana and her husband, Bob, my incredibly kind backyard neighbors, have played the guinea pig-role the most — always with good will and candor. It was a bittersweet moment when I dropped this week’s FFWD sampling of cake at her front door Wednesday morning.
There is nothing difficult about making this cake once you’ve gathered the ingredients. I ordered the Rose Extract made by Star Kay White on line through Amazon. (Yeah, go figure.) After buying Rose Water at Whole Foods, I made my own Rose Syrup. Almond flour can be bought at any grocery store and the other ingredients, whole milk, confectioners sugar, eggs, sugar, AP flour, and butter are regulars in my kitchen. My raspberries were fresh, plump and organic.
The raspberries are layered carefully on top of the batter —- twice.
Although I did embellish my first slice with whipped cream and raspberry coulis, my taste testers and I enjoyed the rest of the loaf just ‘plain and simple’. Wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, this dessert keeps well at room temperature for up to four or five days.
“All the surprises are in the finished cake,” Dorie writes. “The color is pink. The flavor is haunting. The crumb is soft, tight, and pleasantly springy. Then there are the fresh raspberries – they dot the interior of the cake and permeate it with both their distinctive flavor and their perfume. It’s a remarkable cake.”
Layer #1. Next, cover with batter, repeat raspberries and cover again.
I loved this cake and, when I make it again and again, it will always bring back memories of the remarkable friends I have made during my eight-and-a-half years here in Henderson.
Allow me to embellish a wonderful quote by Molly Wizenberg from her book, AHomemade Life:
“When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It’s also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be.”
to that I would add…….”and where we have been and who we have met along the way.”
If you’d like to try this recipe, go here for the directions. If you want to see what the other Roses who belong to FFWD baked this week, go to our Link.
Are any of you hooked on The Canal House? Have Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer (no relation) reeled you into their culinary world? Each weekday I receive an e-mail, accompanied by the most gorgeously enticing photograph, describing these ladies’ lunches.
This week’s recipe, Cheating-on-Winter Pea Soup, pairs perfectly with cornbread slathered in honey and Black Mountain Vineyard’s Pinot Noir.
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice, Cheating-on-Winter Pea Soup, presented the perfect opportunity for me to play house like Melissa and Christopher. I returned to Nevada last weekend, after spending the week in Colorado organizing my March move. So, for the next month, most of my days are revolving around sorting and tossing and donating and selling and packing and not having any fun at all. (Okay, that last part is a fib.)
As you can tell from the Mise en Place, The ingredients for this simple soup are probably already in your pantry, refridgerator or freezer.
So, for Lent, instead of giving up something, I’ve promised myself I will stop each day and make a nice, nutritious lunch. Nothing fancy. Nothing difficult. Just lunch. A catch-up-with-yourself moment. And, thanks to Dorie, Thursday’s lunch was quickly created and delicious.
“The soup, made in about 15 minutes, is the liquid version of a classic French dish, peas with lettuce and onions,” Dorie explains.
Everything in this soup was already in my cupboard and fridge – no last-minute trips to the grocery store. The bag of frozen peas, found at the back of my freezer, were just begging for attention. I melted some butter to soften the coarsely chopped onion. After seasoning, I poured in the chicken broth, bringing it to a boil. Then I added the peas and the trimmed, sliced romaine lettuce to the broth, asking it all to simmer while I made corn bread.
Warm Corn Bread is always a treat. Drip a little honey on top, even better. This was a perfect opportunity to sweeten up my lunch menu.
Don’t you think corn bread slathered with honey goes well with just about anything? I decided to go all Pioneer Woman and make it in my cast iron skillet. Just loved smelling the aroma while I pureed the soup in my blender. Because I wanted a smooth, silky texture, I then strained it. Rather than garnish my pea soup, I browned and added some pancetta bits before adding a dash more of pepper. A civilized, tasty meal break during a busy day.
PART TWO: COEUR À LA CRÈME
The End of the Story: For last week’s FFWD recipe dessert, we made Coeur à la Crème, and I used Dorie’s recipe as well as the Barefoot Contessa’s (Ina Garten) for my two Coeurs. Both desserts were admired and willingly devoured, calories be damned. Because Dorie’s Coeur was refrigerated for three days, Ina’s, only 24 hours, it was firmer. I preferred that. Otherwise, the two complemented each other and we noticed little difference.
Admittedly, my friends would rather cook than pose but they indulged me for the sake of FFWD. Charlotte (l), is smiling, kinda, but worried about her garlic burning (it didn’t). DonnaG (middle), our always generous hostess, helped me make the dessert. DonnaC’s, (r), task was to add the panache to DonnaG’s and my Coeur à la Crèmes. As you will see, that lady can work wonders with raspberry coulis.
THE MOHAIR MOMENT.
Our hostess pulled out some special plates, beautiful heirlooms from her family, for serving and to honor this special dessert.
It took a village to produce these two Coeur à la Crèmes but aren’t they pretty? Note the bow (r) which DonnaC recycled from our earlier present exchange.
“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him… the people who give you their food give you their heart.” Cesar Chavez
Welcome to my first Work-in-Progress Post. This week’s French Friday withDorie recipe is the very appropriate and élégant Coeur à la Crème.
The most difficult part of making this week’s recipe was finding the heart-shaped molds. I finally found two 7-inch molds at Sur La Table. Guess where???? On The Las Vegas Strip. Go figure. FANTES.COM
Explanation, please. According to Barron’s Food Lover’s Companion, KEWR ah la KREHM is French for heart with cream. This classic dessert is made in a special heart-shaped mold with holes and little feet to hold it up. Cream cheese is mixed with sour cream or whipping cream (and, sometimes confectionary sugar) and placed into the cheesecloth-lined mold. The dessert is then refrigerated overnight, during which time the whey (liquid) drains out through the perforated mold. To serve, the dessert is unmolded and garnished with a coulis and fresh fruit.
After beating cream cheese, confectionary sugar, salt and vanilla to a smooth and velvety texture, it was set aside. We whipped heavy cream until it just began to hold firm peaks. (pictured here).
Like many of you, I had seen pictures of this classic dessert in fancy food magazines but had never eaten it nor even considered making it. That’s one of the many reasons I joined FFWD. To belong to this cooking group and remain in good standing, you must cook each week ……a specific recipe for the team.
We folded the cream cheese mixture gently into the whipped cream AFTER FIRST gently stirring about one-quarter of the whipped cfream mixture into the cream cheese to “lighten” it. After fitting a dampened cheesecloth square into each heart, we filled the molds.
Admittedly, I’ve never been considered a team player. At a recent birthday gathering I was described as “tenaciously independent” – by a family member. Although said more in exasperation than jest, it really wasn’t meant to be a compliment.
But, as a Dorista, I’ve been a pussy cat, so onward and upward to making what Dorie describes as “an indulgently luxurious coeur à la crème with a texture so light you could fool yourself into thinking you were eating sweetened air.’”
After filling the molds, we folded and wrapped them in the dampened cheesecloth and put in the refrigerator to chill overnight. This dessert can be made up to three days in advance.
Realizing that I would be in Colorado for this week’s food project, I loaded and lugged my KitchenAid mixer, the non-refrigerated ingredients and two 7-inch heart-shaped molds to Aspen. My friends, Donna and Bernie, are hosting a dinner party for me tonight so I offered to bring dessert. Donna, not only a delightful hostess but also a talented cook, suggested we make this dessert together, a first for both of us.
For the topping (ever so slight), we made a raspberry coulis by pureeing frozen raspberries, staining the seeds, and adding framboise. Incidentally, the raspberries were from Serbia which we found interesting.
Yesterday morning (Thursday), we made this little bit of dessert heaven, needing very few ingredients, with no trouble at all. It was simple. So far. So good. We refrigerated our two molds and filled a strainer with the leftover batter to chill overnight. We cannot wait until tonight to unmold our coeurs, drizzle our homemade raspberry coulis over the top, toss a few raspberries on the plate and present what we hope is party perfection to our eager taste-testing friends. May the hooping and hollering begin. Photos to follow.
Tonight, Donna and I will unveil and serve our FFWD Coeur à la Crème. Feeling a little pressure. Just like in Nevada, my friends here are all extremely fine cooks so I want this to look beautiful and taste wonderfully. These are good friends, after all, all in fun, but this has been a week-long “talk-in-progress” so here’s hoping for another Dorie-success story. Photos to be posted – success or failure – later this evening.
If you want to make this heart dessert , find the recipe here. To see the finished Posts of my colleagues, go here. I would like to urge you readers to buy the cookbook we are using for FFWD, “Around My French Table”, by Dorie Greenspan. Even if you don’t want to make some of the recipes I post every week (and, as you know, I don’t love everything), there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t learn some terrific technique or clue or idea or variation from this cookbook. Dorie takes complicated recipes down to simple and enables the average cook (which I am) to succeed , flourish and have a great time. My book’s cover is torn, some pages are stained, there are coffee rings on others, and many corners are dog-eared. It’s a cookbook with character, that’s for sure, and I so enjoy using it every week.
