I haven't really been slacking off the past couple weeks on blogging, I have good excuses why. Two weeks ago on Friday night we went to a Neil Young concert in Worcester at the Hanover Theater. We had received a gift certificate to La Scala restaurant in Worcester for Christmas and hadn't used it yet, so we thought it would be a perfect time to use it. The restaurant was small, not too fancy, but very good basic Italian food. I felt like I was eating at some Italian family's house. Last week we had a yard sale on Saturday and we really didn't have everything pulled together for it ahead of time so Tony suggested we order a pizza and make it an easy night. I couldn't do that completely...we had pizza but I made it. I also had in my mind that I would make key lime pie for dessert and since it could be made easily that morning and sit in the refrigerator all day I decided to do that too. Instead of a regular graham cracker crust I mixed it up by adding in some ground almond flour to the mix and I actually topped the whole pie with meringue which we loved.
So this week I finally had time, but I had to keep it simple and I couldn't be too creative because I have this tooth ache that is driving me crazy. I got a tooth ache out of the blue. I made an appointment with the dentist and they scheduled me for the next day...Wonderful, only to find out I didn't have a cavity, instead I need a root canal. So now the root canal is scheduled for Wednesday (5 days later) 5 more days of tooth aches. So instead of the "bites" I went back to simpler times and did an appetizer, main dish and dessert.
Steamed Dumplings in a Flavorful Thai Broth
I bought these dumpling wrappers from a Asian market in Westboro and I hadn't used them yet, they had been sitting in the freezer. I looked for a dumpling recipe and I found these by Alton Brown on the Foodnetwork.com. (Vegetarian Steamed Dumplings) He uses tofu and cabbage and a whole bunch of other flavors and after they are steamed he likes to dip them into a broth, so that's what I did. I had some homemade chicken stock and I just added some to a pot with a couple cloves of garlic just cut in half, a couple pieces of fresh ginger about the same amount as the garlic, a dried Thai chili pepper ripped in two, salt and pepper. Just keep tasting it until it tastes right. Alton's recipe was really good, as most people rated this recipe with 5 stars. It's a nice light and flavorful appetizer to serve before Spicy Chicken Coconut Curry.
Spicy Chicken Coconut Curry with Jasmine Rice
This is a Tyler Florence recipe also found on Foodnetwork.com. A lot of people rated this recipe with 5 stars also, but once in a while someone said it wasn't flavorful enough, and I see what they mean. It was very good but the only thing it needed was more fresh herbs at the end or mixed in. Tony even thought that a fresh salsa spooned over the top would be a good addition. It wasn't spicy at all so maybe some spice in the salsa so someone can have it as hot as they like it. I cooked some Jasmine rice and served the curry over the rice.
Tangerine Creme Brulee
This sounded so good I had to do it. It was found in a French Style book I have. It's one of those books that has lots of pictures of French homes and gardens and there are also some recipes at the back of the book. They make this with Creme Fraiche, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla bean and they used Clementines. It was supposed to bake for 30 minutes in a 300 degree oven. It didn't work, I cooked it at least an hour and at some point I put the temperature up to 350. It never set up completely. After taking it out and cooling it a bit I chilled it and by the time dessert got here and Tony torched the sugar to make the "Brulee" part, It had set a bit but it also seemed to separate, it almost seemed like I poured some melted butter in the mix, but there was no butter. I know I did every thing the recipe said to do, maybe in France there Creme Fraiche is made differently, I don't know. The flavor was excellent. I will make this again and just use an American version custard with the orange flavors from this recipe. I topped the dessert with some shavings of orange chocolate bar I found at Whole Foods Market.
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