Never underestimate the healing power of nature. Throw in a 12-ounce veal chop smothered in rosemary butter … and you’re golden. Joie de vivre on steroids. This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice is Veal Chopswith Rosemary Butter, a hearty lunch for a chilly September Sunday.
A 12-ounce Veal Chop
The first of September is always my personal New Year’s Day. Hold the champagne but spike the cider. If I choose to banish New Year’s Eve totally and celebrate September 1st as the official day of renewal and fresh beginnings, I suggest that it’s about time. Dorie’s version of Veal Chops with Rosemary Butter was the perfect dish for a September New Year’s Day feast.
My initial knee jerk reaction to this week’s recipe was “ewww!” Visions of cuddly calves confined to crates danced in my head. The good news is our USDA now discourages this cruel, inhumane method. Talk to your butcher and source your veal.
This week’s recipe is quick and easy, pan-roasted chops flavored with a white-wine/chicken broth mix and a generous dollop of rosemary butter. For a taste-you-can-believe-in, season the chops a day in advance. Rosemary butter may already be a staple in your freezer but, if not, it’s simple to make. I picked up Olathe corn and Colorado peaches at our Saturday Farmers Market to complete my plate. Auld Lang Syne and Happy New Year!
In the spirit of new beginnings, it was time to finally bring order to my tiny kitchen. Admittedly, I’ve been living in blissful disarray for these past few months. It was either enjoy my first summer back in the Rockies or continue unpacking, organizing and playing Martha Stewart. There really wasn’t a choice.
It’s not pretty. It’s my kitchen.
But now it’s September and my friend, Judy, a brilliant cook with a small, very organized kitchen, grew weary of my incessant whining. “This kitchen space just has me flummoxed,” I would tell her. Over and over and over again.
Judy is re-thinking our Friendship.
Finally we made a deal. If I unpacked all my kitchen equipment, dishes, utensils, pots and pans, she would spend a Saturday to bring order to my kitchen and pantry. In a flash I made friends with my storage unit again, unpacking boxes, loading my car with kitchen essentials, hauling them to my condo and praying Judy would not forget our date. (I called every day to remind her.)
I hung out by the counter. Sorta supervising.
What can I say about last Saturday. I love this woman. She arrived with her label maker, storage bottles and croissants. It took her only four hours to accomplish what I hadn’t in five months. (I admit to drinking coffee, munching on my croissant and being grateful.) My kitchen “works” in ways I never could have imagined. My pantry closets are expertly shelved. Each item has its place. Even the spices are labeled and in alphabetical order. Seriously?
Judy labeled each spice jar and placed them in the IKEA cart, A to Z. (The IKEA cart arrived in 2,500 pieces with the directions in Swedish. Don’t ask.)
“Now, Mary,” she cautioned, more than once,“the secret to a small kitchen is to return everything exactly to it’s place.”
What are the odds, do you think, that I can keep those spice jars soldiered up correctly from A to Z? There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell ……………..
I have a new guy. You all are the first to know. We have a connection, sharing the same passions and interests. In fact, Friday, August 9th, is his 69th birthday. Since this week’s FrenchFridays with Dorie recipe choice is Duck Breasts with Fresh Peaches, I’ve decided it’s a perfect and festive entrée for a special birthday dinner.
Dazzling duck breasts with fresh roasted peaches, both doused in a balsamic, honey and port sauce
In America when we think about special home-cooked meals, duck breasts do not come to mind. As Dorie suggests, “For us, duck is often thought of as a fancy restaurant dish; for the French, it’s something that can be seared, sauced, and served in under 30 minutes on a weeknight.”
I’m skeptical. The one and only time I cooked duck, it was a two-day process. Since then my rule has been, if it quacks, don’t even think about cooking it.
Mise en Place
To find duck breasts in Aspen was a bit of a huff. I finally gulped three times and stopped at The Butcher Block. The Block has been a local landmark for more than 40 years. It is the high, high-end destination for aged beef, veal, pork, poultry, fish,cheeses, gourmet items, caviar, fresh sandwiches and delicious soups. To shop at the Block, it helps if you are a celebrity or gazillionaire. I am neither.
But, they had four duck breasts and I didn’t. Sold.
Fortunately, the purchase was the hardest part. This week’s recipe is simple. After scoring the fatty duck skin in a crosshatch pattern and seasoning with salt and pepper, I placed the duck breasts, skin side down, in a cast-iron casserole. Set the burner at medium high heat. I cooked the duck for eight minutes, skin side down, and, after turning, for four more minutes. The duck breasts were then transferred from the pot to a loosely folded tinfoil packet and stuck in a 250-degree oven.
Next, I put thyme, garlic and 4 fresh peaches, halved, in the same casserole for five minutes before removing to join the duck breasts in the oven. I made a flavorful and smooth sauce by adding honey, port, vinegars and butter to the pot. (In hindsight, I wish I’d doubled-down on the sauce.)
When the sauce was ready I placed the duck breasts on a platter, piled on the peaches and doused with sauce. This is, without a doubt, one of the best dinner entreés I’ve ever made. If your game, you can find the complete recipe, with all its nuances, here.
Now about my beau. He’s perfection. Tall, dark, handsome, a bit chubby in an adorable-sort-of-way. Full head of hair. He’s a good-natured guy, doesn’t say much, and never talks back. Oh, he growls every so often but his growl is worse than his bite. He doesn’t know a stranger and loves to hang out in the wilderness with me. When I mentioned that I wanted to spend the Winters in California, he was fine with that. Says he’ll just be sleeping anyway.
HAPPY 69th BIRTHDAY, SMOKEY BEAR
Not too surprising that Smokey Bear and I found each other, him being my sidekick-of-choice these days, is it? He’s been America’s wildfire-fighting icon, a friend of the forests and wilderness for the past 69-years, and now he’s mine!.
Smokey has recently become more social media-savvy also according to Ragan’s PR Daily. “A new campaign casts him as a warmer character.” Ragan writes. “In contrast to his role as an ominous forest watchman, the new Smokey is more personable and gives “bear hugs” to responsible campers.
Smokey’s message reaches his audience on social sites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn , Tumblr, and Google+. The bear hugs, seen in the TV commercials, are tweeted as #SmokeyBearHug, along with a bear hug emoticon, to congratulate safe campers or reward someone who shares a helpful fire prevention tip.”
LOL.
Although Smokey would have been just as happy with his favorite menu of choice, peanut butter sandwiches, bluefish and trout, Duck Breasts with Fresh Peaches and a celebratory chocolate cake were his birthday fare.
If you want to wish Smokey Bear a Happy Birthday, go to any of his social media sites. If you wish to see what my colleagues cooked up this week, go here.
The one thing you all must know about my French Friday with Dorie colleagues is that we try to be good sports. There are more than 300 recipes in “Around my French Table”, the cookbook we use that was written by Ms. Greenspan. We are committed to trying each and every one of these recipes, six years of Fridays. Including……
Sardine Rillettes.
Seaweed Sablés.
Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes with Garlic.
Seriously???
An unmolded chicken liver gâteaux served on a bed of butter lettuce tossed with champagne vinaigrette and pickled onions.
This week’s recipe choice, Chicken Liver Gâteaux with Pickled Onions. provided another “Seriously ?” Moment for me. In French, gâteaux means cake. A chicken liver cake? Dorie, however, treats this as a salad, “The idea of having cake at the start of a meal is too irresistible.”
When I stopped by my local grocery store to buy 1/2 pound of chicken livers, I was clueless. The butcher helped me find a carton of these squishy, runny, scraggly morsels. They didn’t look like anything I would ever place inside my mouth. After removing all their veins, fat, and green spots, according to directions (the yucky part), the gâteaux was ridiculously easy to put together. Throw everything in a blender, whir two minutes, pour into buttered ramekins and bake 40 minutes. The pickled onions were even easier, something I made the day before and will keep on hand to use often in other dishes.
The ingredients of the chicken liver mixture is the consistency of custard and pours easily into the buttered ramekins. To de-bubble the mixture (seen here) before baking, I rapped each ramekin on the kitchen counter. Worked like a charm.
I tasted one of the little cakes immediately, treating it as a warm paté and spreading it on rustic crackers. It was not particularly flavorful. I refrigerated the others overnight and unmolded them today to serve as a salad. They possessed the strong flavor you’d expect from an excellent paté. The vinaigrette and pickled onions kicked up the flavor even more. To my surprise, I enjoyed my cake-salad. Very, very much.
Chicken livers, anyone? To learn how to make this recipe yourself, go here. See what my colleagues thought of this week’s choice at French Fridays with Dorie.
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.
My neighborhood friends, Adriana and Michelle, both share late-Fall birthdays with me. Each year we celebrate this with a girls-night-out together. Being that the three of us are at our local gym by 5 am each week-day morning before starting our busy work day, our girls-night-out is not the norm. It’s 5:30pm pizza at our favorite local joint. Pitiful, huh?
Since I will be moving back to Aspen soon, this year’s celebration will probably be our last together. Because my FFWD recipe this week was to be Beef Cheek Daube with Carrots and Elbow Macaroni, we decided to push the dining hour forward by an hour or two (7pm) and enjoy a girls-night-in (at Chez Hirsch).
Although decorating the Christmas tree is #@%!!& times two, the end result makes me happy. Each decoration is a joyful memory, I believe, of a past well-lived. We all thought the tree contributed greatly to the evening’s festive spirit.
If you recall, Michelle, a lawyer and judge, also graduated from culinary school. She’s a pro. Sicilian-born Adriana, who learned at the elbow of her talented mother, Pina, is a wizard with fruits and vegetables. We all contributed to the success of our deliciously flavorful dinner where, in this case, pictures are more tasty than words.
We began with french champagne, Bollinger, served with Dorie’s Herbed Olives (which just taste better and better). And, birthdays = presents. Michelle always keeps Adriana and me up-to-date with kitchenware and, this year, she didn’t disappoint. (More in later Blogs.) Adriana, ever the foodie was generous with wine and chocolates and real Italian pannettone “from the old country”. I brought them momentos from my South American trip, handmade Chilean scarves.
This daube was to be anchored by Beef Cheeks — yeah, Moo! Moo!. Although I’m an Iowa girl, this ingredient had me stymied. My tried-and-true Whole Foods could not get me beef cheeks nor could my two local butchers. I used, per Dorie’s suggestion, boneless beef chuck roast. (I now know that Beef Cheeks can be found at Latino/HIspanic/Mexican grocery stores.) Lesson learned.
Although I made the daube the day before, adding carrots, onions, bacon, wine and beef broth, I didn’t add the macaroni nor finely chopped bittersweet chocolate (the secret ingredient) until the last moment. Love the steam.
Adriana’s glorious salad, something we request over and over again. For our birthday celebration, she didn’t disappoint.
In May 2011, Michelle spent a culinary week in Italy, learning, cooking and writing about Italian cuisine. She carried this bottle of Brunello Di Montalcino 2003 back as a gift for me. I had saved it for the perfect evening………this was it. Like Adriana’s salad, this wine did not disappoint either. Fabulous.
Michelle spent an entire Saturday (serious, not kidding) making croissants. Might I just mention that she is a perfectionist? She then froze them individually (as dough). She brought a cookie sheet of croissants, already proofed, to my house and we baked them off just before dinner. They were as good as they look.
A bowlful of beef daube with carrots and macaroni, something that I will make often this winter. No complaints from my guests, either.
There were a number of champagne and wine toasts during our evening together. I think this toast with Michelle was suggesting she return to Italy for more wine!
And was there any doubt about dessert nor that we would lick the plates clean? Michelle made a heavenly and creamy yogurt-honey-vanilla bean panna cotta drizzled with apricot honey brought back from her summer place in Bainbridge Island, Washington. The panna cotta was enhanced by Moravian spice cookies and the last of the red wine. Good night…….
Once again, Dorie came through with a hearty, rich and rustic main course for an evening meal. I cannot praise her cookbook, Around my French Table, enough. It would be a wonderful Christmas gift. I would also like to extend my gratitude to two wonderful friends who have been unbelievable neighbors the past eight years. For this meal they both contributed the best they can make and bake and shared an evening of happiness in my home, around my table. As you all know, evenings like this, shared with friends and family, are what I love best. And, what I need.
Being Foodies, we all know the Games of the XXX Olympiad cannot officially begin until we have our menu planned for tonight’s opening ceremonies. Luckily this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice, with a tweak or two, fits nicely into my All-American lineup.
The star is Barley, which Dorie calls “an odd-man-out kind of grain” in the French (and, American) kitchen. Also called “groats”, barley is a hardy, earthy grain, commonly used for animal fodder and beer. This week we’re using its most polished version, Pearl Barley, to create Lemon Barley Pilaf. Since we are still suffering 110 degree temperatures here, I preferred Dorie’s Bonne Idee and made a cold Ham & Barley Salad.
A delicious cold Summer entrée: HAM and BARLEY SALAD.
I cooked the barley, as suggested, and let it cool to room temperature before putting it in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, I cored, seeded and cut one red bell pepper into small cubes and sliced a dozen black olives. I tossed that together with 3 cups of diced ham (a 1 1/2 pound center-cut slab) and refrigerated it also.
A look at the butter, finely chopped onion, salt, pepper and pearl barley as it initially cooks before the broth, water and bay leaf are added.
For the dressing, I made a lusty whole-grain mustard vinaigrette:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons whole-grain Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1-2 teaspoons salt (since the ham is salty, back off a bit, if you wish)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3-4 drops of Sriracha
Directions:
In a small bowl, whisk together all the ingredients until thoroughly blended. Chill. Just before serving, pour lightly over the combined barley, ham and vegetables until thoroughly coated and to taste.
This salad will make 4 ample servings. I plan to add sliced heirloom tomatoes (seasoned), chunks of American swiss cheese, and crusty country bread to the plate. Beer, wine or soda all compliment this menu.
After adding the broth, water and bay leaf, everything comes to a boil and then simmers, covered, for 45 minutes (longer than Dorie suggested).
You can’t miss the Olympics, even if you try. NBC will broadcast 272 1/2 hours, starting with the opening ceremony tonight (Friday). MSNBC has 155 1/2 hours with NBC Sports picking up 292 1/2 hours of team sports. CNBC has 73 hours of boxing. Bravo has 56 hours of tennis. There’s more: NBCOlympics.com will live stream every event for a record total of 5,535 hours.
With memories of and honoring the Israeli athletes murdered forty years ago at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, my wish is for a safe, harmonious, and peaceful global competition during the next two weeks.
I’ll be hooting and hollering for my country’s athletes just as other FFWD bloggers, Paula, Andrea, Mardi, Rose, and Cakelaw, to name a few, are cheering for theirs.
