Today’s French Fridays Post is a double-header featuring Butter & Rum Crepes, Fancy & Plain and Garbure from the Supermarket. The savory garbure is this week’s recipe choice. I’m tardy with the crepes. My crepe pan stayed behind in Colorado. Since my daughter, Melissa, visited me this week, she brought hers.
Missy last spent a week with me in June 2012, after Michael died. Our time together then was bittersweet as we closed a 26-year chapter of our lives. Since then she’s opened her own business, juggling her family’s lifestyle to accommodate this new schedule. In the past 20 months I’ve packed up, moved to Colorado and done some juggling of my own.
I can only imagine the hoops she jumped through to leave her girls, husband and work place to make that six-hour drive from Bishop to Cambria. But, she needed a break and I raised my hand. Last Saturday afternoon she happily arrived at my doorstep.
Butter & Rum Crepes, Fancy & Plain
Melissa’s Arrival last Saturday. Note that her outfit matches her car.
During her earlier visit she’d put together two French Fridays posts for me, over-baking the Hazelnut Biscotti but preparing darn good Crunchy Ginger-Pickled Cucumbers. She had resigned herself to more mother-Dorie-daughter kitchen time so we got busy with the crepes soon after she arrived. I mixed together the batter, which included grated orange and lemon zest, dark rum and Grand Marnier, for an overnight in the fridge. Early the next morning Missy oiled her pan and made the first here’s-how-you-do-it-Mom crepe before handing the pan off to me. I batted .666. Pas mal.
Missy, making the first crepe. Because I was not going to include her in the photo, crediting her with this crepe, she inserted herself into the picture, singeing her hair tips.
For breakfast we just sprinkled powdered sugar on our crepes but Dorie suggests making a yummy honey-orange sauce (recipe here) for a pour-over or a lemon curd filling. Any topping/filling will do but with this batter sweet works over savory.
A Daily Early A.M. Jaunt on the Moonstone Beach Boardwalk
Now, the garbure. “Essentially this is a hearty vegetable soup made heartier with the addition of meat (pork, duck and beef sausage),” Dorie explains.
Hiking the Point Buchon Trail located near Montana de Oro State Park. When the tide is out (and, it was) you can explore the underwater caves.
We like the local mom/pop restaurants. Sunday breakfast at Cambria’s Creekside Gardens
Soups and stews, I love, and this garbure is no exception. Simmering, at least three hours, is the key to unlocking its flavors. The result is memorable. Here’s the recipe. Don’t be dismayed by the ingredient list. (A tip: if you don’t have Piment d’Espelette, use cayenne pepper.) With a baguette to sop up the broth, it’s a meal.
We ate the best Thai lunch at Noi’s, a tiny spot located on a side street in Los Osos
These women turn out delicious food in their little kitchen. I will never complain about my space again. Promise.
Choosing veggies for the garbure at the Los Osos farmer’s market
As many of you know, Mother-Daughter relationships are twicky. I didn’t raise a shrinking violet and I’m no soft touch so there are always detours to navigate around, through, up and over. Love is the easy part. What Life throws in our paths, not so easy. We’ve found what works for us, as you can see in these photos, is to always find the Laughter.
We ate our lunch, sitting inside on two of the three available stools, and watched the women navigate the kitchen. I loved my Red Curry.
Our favorite place for coffee, Top Dog in Morro Bay. Some java is especially necessary before walking into the book store located next door. (Please note that you can also get married at the bookstore. I did not do that.)
At the new&used bookstore, I gave Melissa an unlimited budget and she exceeded it.
We spent our last night having a few beers at Cambria’s Ale House, the locals’ pub (seven stools). Last week Lady Gaga spent a “pleasurable”, sake-filled evening there. She was here while filming a video at Hearst Castle.
French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s “Around my French Table, more than 300 recipes from my home to yours.” If you would like to look at our group link, go here. If you wish to know more about Lady Gaga’s visit to the Ale House, go here.
A gift from Missy. TO MOM: BECAUSE WHAT WE DO BEST IS LAUGH
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice is Pommes au Four, baked apples filled with fruits and nuts. My first thought? Who can’t bake an apple? In Iowa, when I was a kid, we picked apples at the local orchard, hauled them home and helped Mom turn them into sauce, pie, crisp, cake, salad and, yes, baked.
But readers, this is an apple like no other. In Dorie’s words, “Baked apples are less a recipe than a construction: you core some apples, stuff their hollows with dried fruits, nuts, honey and butter, and then slide them into the oven. Which fruits and nuts? It’s up to you. Cinnamon or no cinnamon? Again, your choice. Hot? Warm? Chilled. with heavy cream? No one will tell you definitely.”
made this recipe last week-end, just before leaving for California. I enjoyed it hot, warm and chilled, with crème fraîche. I even diced up the leftovers to use as a topping for my oatmeal. If you follow the recipe carefully, Pommes au Four are simple to bake and delicious to eat.
I baked my apples in Aspen but am writing this post in Cambria, my winter home for the next three-and-a-half months. Yesterday I moved into our family’s rental house and, admittedly am enjoying the roominess. Although I’ve made peace with my 940-square foot Colorado condo, this house is nice, quiet and, sorta like this week’s baked apples, a real treat.
My biggest treat, however, will be seeing my nearby family more often. In their last e-mails to me, Emma, my blond, 12-year-old granddaughter, announced the tips of her hair are now dyed pink! Her sister, Clara, who is 10, wrote that she is negotiating with the neighbors to rent hen space in their chicken coop. To my mind, my daughter, Melissa, who is their mother, has either lost her mind or loosened her grip. I need to check in on Family Place to find out. (If it’s the latter, Ms. Clara and I are going to go purchase one great big noisy hen.)
If you’re interested in seeing how other Doristas peeled their apples this week? Go, here.
Paris-Brest, a delicate pastry dessert that was a splashy finish to my Chinese New Year celebratory dinner.
For anyone believing this holiday has come, gone and you missed it, I’m about to make your day. For more than five-thousand years the Chinese people have observed New Years their way. In the simplest of terms, it’s about the moon and our earth’s creatures. Once upon a time Buddha invited all the animals to join him for New Years. Twelve came to his party, resulting in a year being named to honor each one. This year, we’re observing the Horse.
Astrology doesn’t interest me. “What’s your sign?” is a question I can’t answer. I never read horoscopes. Every year a friend buys the current Chinese horoscope book and insists I read the chapter pertaining to me. I am a Monkey. For each of the last three years, the prognosis has been lousy. This year I flat-out refused to read it. “No, no, Mary, it’s good,” she promised. “You’re going to have a great year.”
I read. I saw. I’ll believe it after I live it.
Mussels and Chorizo with Pasta is a delicious and filling main course for any festive celebration.
Admittedly, Mary the Monkey is looking good for the next twelve months. On a scale of 1 to 12, I’d give myself a 9.3. Since Chinese New Year is a two-week affair, I still could honor that Horse, who is hopefully filled with good fortune, with a celebratory meal. I decided to make two recipes my French Friday colleagues had already made. I also baked blueberry-corn muffins and visited the winery-of-the-horse for vino. If the year ahead is as scrumptious as the dinner honoring it, I will be one merry monkey.
Blueberry-Corn Muffins added a touch of sweetness to the spicy seafood.
My entrée was Mussels and Chorizo with Pasta. You may think this dish was created by committee but it’s a Basquaise. With a nod to the simplicity of French Basque cuisine, these recipes often include tomatoes and sweet or hot red peppers. This dish includes both.
I bought my mussels at Piers 46 Seafood and already had a spicy pork link in the fridge. Since there’s a limit to the nod I want to give a Basquaise, I cut the diced fire-roasted tomatoes with green chiles by half. Fettuccine, with its slithery journey among the mussels, is the perfect pasta option. The sweetness of the blueberry-corn muffins provided just that tinge of sugar so needed with this spicy seafood dish.
It’s all about the horse, of course. I visited the Wild Horse Winery and picked a Pinot Noir.
If you’ll recall, last week’s FFWD recipe choice was a delicacy of caramelized almonds, pâte à choux and vanilla pastry cream. Knowing I didn’t have the proper equipment and pastry tips in my rental kitchen, I opted to save it until spring. Over the weekend, however, I experienced baker’s remorse. Each of my colleagues’ Paris-Brest write-ups were taste taunts to my stomach.
I used the heart pan to more easily pipe the Pâte à Choux into a shape.
Wasn’t the Year of the Horse worthy of a splashy dessert? Couldn’t this Monkey go the extra mile to cobble together the right stuff? Don’t Doristas always find a path? It took some scrambling but this week I put together my first Paris-Brest. Aside from its heart rather than round shape, I’m guessing it looked and tasted much like a novice’s Paris-Brest should.
Yum.
Here’s the recipe for the Mussels and Chorizo with Pasta. If you’re interested in the Paris-Brest recipe, here it is. If you’d like to see what my colleagues are making this week, go here. For the past three weeks I’ve been focused on Dorie’s recipes that this FFWD group made before I joined. I’ve completed my seafood and fish catch-up and next Friday I’ll be following our regular FFWD recipe schedule.
Happy New Year, readers. Horse or no horse, may we all find goodness and joy in the months ahead.
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice is Pommes au Four, baked apples filled with fruits and nuts. My first thought? Who can’t bake an apple? In Iowa, when I was a kid, we picked apples at the local orchard, hauled them home and helped Mom turn them into sauce, pie, crisp, cake, salad and, yes, baked.
But readers, this is an apple like no other. In Dorie’s words, “Baked apples are less a recipe than a construction: you core some apples, stuff their hollows with dried fruits, nuts, honey and butter, and then slide them into the oven. Which fruits and nuts? It’s up to you. Cinnamon or no cinnamon? Again, your choice. Hot? Warm? Chilled. with heavy cream? No one will tell you definitely.”
I made this recipe last week-end just before leaving for California. I enjoyed it hot, warm and chilled, with crème fraîche. I even diced up the leftovers to use as a topping for my oatmeal. If you follow the recipe carefully, Pommes au Four are simple to bake and delicious to eat.
I baked my apples in Aspen but am writing this post in Cambria, my winter home for the next three-and-a-half months. Yesterday I moved into our family’s rental house and, admittedly am enjoying the roominess. Although I’ve made peace with my 940-square foot Colorado condo, this house is nice, quiet and, sorta like this week’s baked apples, a real treat.
My biggest treat, however, will be seeing my nearby family more often. In their last e-mails to me, Emma, my blond, 12-year-old granddaughter, announced that the tips of her hair are now dyed pink! Her sister, Clara, who is 10, wrote that she is negotiating with the neighbors to rent hen space in their chicken coop. To my mind, my daughter, Melissa, who is their mother, has either lost her mind or loosened her grip. I need to check in on Family Place to find out. (If it’s the latter, Ms. Clara and I are going to go purchase one great big noisy hen.)
On my first day in Cambria I spotted a herd of the normally elusive zebras, a remaining bloodline from William Randolph Hearst’s zoo, grazing in the pastures along Highway 1 near his castle at San Simeon. A good omen, for sure. Note the dry meadow. This area needs moisture. Please, Mother Nature.
If you’re interested in seeing how other Doristas peeled their apples this week? Go, here.
This week, I must admit, has been humbling. During the past few days I’ve found myself on-the-hunt for my sense of humor and good will. This is not a week when I’ve felt the love from either our Dorie or Mother Nature.
Today the French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice is Almond-Orange Tuiles (pronounced tweel), a paper-thin cookie and perennial favorite in France. Dorie describes tuiles perfectly, “lacy, fragile, light, curved and naturally elegant.”
Heavy sigh.
Wednesday evening I mixed together the tuiles batter, consisting of sugar, flour, Bob’s Red Mill Almond Meal/Flour, orange juice and butter, for an overnight sleepover in the fridge. So far, so perfect. Thursday morning I woke up with a can-do attitude, threw on my bathrobe and charged into the kitchen to bake these treasured gems.
I noticed, however, I already had a text from Melissa, my daughter who lives in California. “I am sorry about the Aspen weather, Mom. Not to be bossy, but maybe you should stay inside today.”
I fired up my Mac and clicked to our weather link. Throughout the night the snow accumulation in Aspen had jumped to more than 14”. Not too alarming. We need the snow. The temperature? Currently registering at minus-17 degrees Fahrenheit. (For my international readers, that’s -27.222 degrees Celsius.) Baby, it’s cold outside.
Amazed but undeterred I soldiered on, precisely following Dorie’s instructions, suggestions and tips. The result? This is a cookie that fights an amateur baker like me every step of the way, from the initial hand-rolled ball to the moment it curves over the rolling pin.
I ate my tuiles with my morning coffee and enjoyed every crumb. I came. I saw. I didn’t conquer. Tuiles-la-la.
STILL LIFE: Almond-Orange Tuiles at -17 degrees and 14 inches of snow.
While I may not have excelled at cookie baking this week, I did shine in another department. Although I choose to call The Gant my home, it is really a destination hotel and resort with no covered parking. Therefore when the weather is fierce, my vehicle is brutalized. If cars could talk, mine would be filing for divorce.
Determined to make nice, I bundled up, grabbed a shovel, window scraper and spent more than an hour cleaning it. I don’t mind admitting I was quite “I-did-it–myself-proud” of the result.
These are frigid and snowy times throughout most of North America. To all my readers, not to be bossy, please take care and be safe for the next few days. Mother Nature is quite unforgiving right now.
Today would have been my husband Michael’s 85th birthday. This day always kicked off the holiday season for our family. Moving from birthday to Thanksgiving to Christmas celebrations and gatherings, Michael relished it all. I planned to bake a cake and savor the memories.
So when close friends invited me to a cozy dinner party last night, not realizing this upcoming date, I volunteered to bring dessert. Dorie Greenspan’s All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake was a perfect choice. Each moist and tasty slice of goodness combines every imaginable Thanksgiving flavor. Pumpkin. Cranberries. Pecans. Apples. Spice those flavors up a notch with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Add a drop, dollop and drizzle of maple syrup icing. You’ve got spectacular.
Once again, friends and food turned a bumpy day into happy. Fred and Cathy, who are also my neighbors and go-to hangout, are always the perfect hosts. Realizing it would have been #85, Fred pulled out some very special Bubbly to begin the evening. Cathy is a phenomenal cook and treated us to Sweet Potato Curry Bisque, Braised Lamb Shanks garnished with Gremolata, Mashed Potatoes with Fennel and Roasted Brussel Sprouts doused with Cognac. Fred served delicious French wines that he had carried home from their recent trip to Paris. Amazing cannot describe this meal.
Once again, Dorie lifted up my baking talents to create the perfect finale. Here’s the recipe for All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake. Perfect for your table anytime during the upcoming holiday season.
All-In-One- Holiday Bundt Cake
by Dorie Greenspan, Baking, From my home to yours
Makes 12 servings
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract ( I substituted with 2 teaspoons of Licor 43)
1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
1 cup sugar
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
Preparation: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.Butter a 9- to 10-inch (12-cup) Bundt pan. (If you’ve got a silicone Bundt pan, there’s no need to butter it.) Don’t place the pan on a baking sheet — you want the oven’s heat to circulate freely through the Bundt’s inner tube.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and ground ginger, if you’re using it (not the grated ginger).
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and both sugars together at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat for 1 minute after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the pumpkin, chopped apple and grated ginger, if you’re using it — don’t be concerned if the mixture looks curdled. Still on low speed, add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. With a rubber spatula, stir in the cranberries and pecans. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top with the rubber spatula.
Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding, then cool to room temperature on the rack.
Just before bringing the cake to the table, dust it with confectioners’ sugar.
Serving: Because of the apples, cranberries and nuts, this cake doesn’t lend itself to being cut into dainty slices — and that’s just as well: you really want to get a mouthful, the better to appreciate the cake’s many flavors. It needs no embellishments if you’re serving it as an afternoon treat, but it is nice with softly whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream. For brunch, toast the cake lightly and spread it with a little salted butter and/or a slick of pure maple syrup. Or, drizzle Maple Syrup Icing over the top and garnish with chopped pecans.
Storing: Wrapped well, the cake will keep at room temperature for up to 5 days, at which point it will be perfect for toasting; or freeze for up to 2 months.
MAPLE SYRUP ICING: To make a maple-flavored icing for the cake, sift 6 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar into a bowl. Stir in 2 tablespoons maple syrup. Add more maple syrup little by little, until you have an icing that runs nicely off the tip of the spoon — you might need another 1/2 tablespoon syrup to get the right consistency. Put the cooled cake on a sheet of wax paper and drizzle the icing from the tip of the spoon over it. Let the icing set for a few minutes before serving.
Notes: Since my bundt pan is 10-cups rather than 12, I had more filling than needed. Don’t overload your bundt pan. When I make this again, I would make my icing a bit thicker. In my opinion, the cake needs the sweetness of the icing.
Today’s French Fridays Post is a double-header featuring Butter & Rum Crepes, Fancy & Plain and Garbure from the Supermarket. The savory garbure is this week’s recipe choice. I’m tardy with the crepes. My crepe pan stayed behind in Colorado. Since my daughter, Melissa, visited me this week, she brought hers.
