Friday Night, Boeuf Bourguignonne

The idea came from Anthony Bourdain's show on techniques, the same show that inspired the homemade pasta dish last Thursday night. Throughout the whole show he made this beef dish, while it cut to different chefs doing their "technique dish". I'm sure I made this before but I probably didn't do it exactly the same way. I am sure I used more vegetables and I didn't use all wine as the braising liquid like he showed, more like a American beef stew. It was hard to tell exactly what he did...Did he keep adding wine as it evaporates...Did he add something else...Did he cover the roasting pan, it didn't look like it...So I did it his way and my way.

Muhammara

I looked through some magazines to find an appetizer idea that I haven't made and I found something. Muhammara, which is a Syrian roasted pepper and walnut spread that is a great alternative to hummus. You just throw all the ingredients into a food processor until a coarse puree forms. The recipe calls for walnuts (I used almonds), I don't know how it happened but I was out of walnuts, I always have a big bag from BJ's in the freezer. It's 12 oz of roasted red peppers, 1 cup of almonds or walnuts, 1/3 cup of Panko bread crumbs, 2 Tbsp olive oil, 2 tsp of lemon juice, 1 tsp of cumin and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper. I served it with store bought pita chips. Really good and easy to do and not bad for the waist line.

Boeuf Bourguignonne

I would normally use my LeCruset heavy bottomed cast iron enamel covered pot for something like this and just brown the meat in two batches. Instead though, Anthony Bourdain used a heavy bottomed roasting pan spread over two burners on the stove top, it saves time to do it with the roasting pan. The reason is because when you brown the beef chunks, you really need to space them out a bit, otherwise you will end up with a tan color on the beef and it will turn watery and start to steam, and that is not what you want. So I browned some 2 inch pieces of chuck beef on all sides in a little bit of olive oil, which takes about 10 minutes or so. Remove the meat pieces to a plate and pour off the extra fat. Place the pan back on the heat and add an onion that's medium diced. Cook the onion over medium heat, scraping the brown bits and making sure the onions don't burn for about 10 minutes. Add Burgundy wine (about 2-3 cups, he didn't really say but that's what I did) and continue scraping the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add big 1 inch chunks of carrots and the meat back in and just let it cook for 3 hours. Now that's when I was worried about evaporation, he never said he covered it but I took a big sheet of parchment paper and wet it, squeeze out the excess water and put it right on the stew, tucking it along the inside of the pan and every 30 minutes I removed the parchment and stirred it and replaced the parchment. It was still evaporating a little so I had made some beef stock a week earlier, it was sitting in the freezer, so I heated it to defrost it and reduced it down a bit. After it was reduced I added the stock to the stew when it needed it. I don't know if Anthony Bourdain did that, but I would suggest you do that. If you add more wine later on it won't taste very good, and you want a nice meaty sauce in your Boeuf Bourguignonne, it won't be good if it's dried out. That's it, after cooking for 3 hours the meat is very tender and the sauce is rich and tasty. Plate it in a shallow bowl and garnish with fresh parsley.


Homemade Basket of Flavored Breads and Butters

After going to the Mill's Tavern last week and getting a basket of flavored breads, it inspired me to do it myself. I have been making bread lately from Jim Lahey's book, the no-kneed method. At the restaurant they served a fennel and raisin bread, a sourdough and an Italian bread. I had a thought one day that the spice fennugreek (which has a maple syrup flavor) would pair well with bacon. So I thought I would do two breads; the fennel and raisin; the fennugreek and bacon. I cooked the ingredients ahead and after the second rise of the dough when I was shaping them into the final bread shape, I incorporated the ingredients to make the two flavors. The butters were just a really good European style butter which has a higher percentage of fat, and in turn it tastes really good. The other butter was something I never had and I kind of knew it might not go with Boeuf Bourguignonne but I made it anyway was, apple butter. It's apples and cider, sugar and spices and you cook it down until it gets really thick, which takes 2 1/2 to 3 hours. It was really good, I think it would be perfect with pork.


Mixed Berry Tart with Coffee

I have made lots of tarts... apple, peach, chocolate... I don't believe I have ever made a berry tart with pastry cream. I can't believe it myself! If I did it was a long time ago. So I got John Barricelli's new book, he is a guy that Martha Stewart has made famous. He's on her shows once in a while and he's like the 3rd generation of bakers in his family. He's got a bakery in Connecticut called The Sono Baking Company. He's got some good looking pictures of this berry tart in his book, I had to make it. I wanted to make the smaller tartlet shapes but I couldn't find the mini pans you need in the couple days I had, so I just used a bigger 12 inch tart pan. It's really easy to do and impressive looking. The one thing I would change is the crust, I made his which is very different than I usually do, his is a much more wet dough. So you make the dough and "blind bake" it, and let it cool. You make a pastry cream, which is simple and delicious. Use whatever berries you want, I used black berries and raspberries. To assemble just spread the pastry cream onto the cooled off tart crust, heat a couple Tbsp of apricot jam and coat the berries in the jam then spoon the berries over the top of the tart. Sprinkle some sliced almonds on the edges. Serve it with a rich cup of coffee.

Friday Night at the Mill's Tavern

I had plans to go to Boston on Friday morning with a friend so I thought, instead of rushing to put together a fancy meal after returning home from Boston, I would take this opportunity to suggest going out to dinner. Tony is always saying, "You know if you don't feel like cooking we can always go out...". It turns out we never went to Boston because it was such a rainy and raw day. So we kept our plan to go out anyway and we decided that the Mills Tavern in Providence was the place.

The thing we love to do is sit at the bar at the Mill's Tavern to dine. They always serve a small bowl of cashews, which we have started to do at home, at times, and we find that cashews go well with a drink. But I have to say this time the cashews were different. They seemed to be very buttery almost like they tossed the nuts in butter in a pan. They didn't feel buttery in your hand but a definite butter taste. I like them a little less buttery and a little more salty myself.  Tony asked for blue cheese stuffed olives in his martini, but the bartender said they were not available (they usually are at the Mills).  But "Tomolives" were which Tony also likes.

The options for an appetizer are limited. They have a "raw bar" and Tony always takes advantage of that, he got some oysters, which he always enjoys very much. He says they have extra good ones there. For me it's a salad. I have probably gotten all of them and they are always pretty big and can be filling so I opted for the mixed greens with raspberry vinaigrette. It's a good size and not filling at all. They served some mixed breads, raisin with fennel seeds, sourdough and Italian. It's hard to resist trying each of them.

I ordered the Filet Mignon with a grilled duo of beets. I was drawn to it because the Filet was served bone-on which you never see. Usually it's cut off the bone so I thought, I have to see what this looks like. I have made porterhouse steaks many times and basically that the same cut with the NY Strip still attached to it. So that was very flavorful, delicious and moist. The beets were interesting, it was red and yellow beets and you could see the grill marks on them. They had a very interesting and pleasant smokey flavor. Tony will be trying to recreate them on his smoker some time.

Tony ordered the Braised Short Ribs with Orange flavored Fennel. Of course we had a bite or two of each others and his was really yummy. Super tender, meaty short ribs and the fennel cooked perfectly with what seemed to be grated orange zest as the orange flavor, very interesting. I'll be stealing that idea.

We shared a side of Sweet Potato and Carrot puree. It was very fall tasting because it had a strong Cinnamon flavor to it. It paired nicely with both of our meals.

For dessert we shared the Cream Brulee with Warm Berry Compote. Very nice with the warm raspberry over the top, it could have used more berries. I will be stealing that idea too.

Thursday Night, Fresh Pasta

This weekend I knew we were going out on Friday night so I did a "quick fancy meal" on Thursday. After watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show, I was intrigued by a pasta dish. It was a show on "techniques" and he had guest chefs on. Scott Conant was making "pasta with red sauce" and he did some different things while making the sauce. I didn't have the real recipe, I just guessed at the amounts. What he does is uses fresh tomatoes that he peels the skin off of and puts it in a pan with a little olive oil and a good pinch of salt. The salt will help to break down the tomatoes, but he helps it along with a potato masher and lets it cook for 45 minutes. I used canned San Marzano whole tomatoes because I didn't want to go to the store and they were, I am sure just as good. While the tomatoes cook down he infuses olive oil, he said 2 cups I did about 1/2 cup or 3/4 maybe, with 10 whole garlic cloves, a handful of fresh basil leaves and a good pinch of crushed red pepper. He said he thinks of it as tea, just cook over very low heat until the oil takes on all those flavors, it probably took about 10-15 minutes. Once the tomatoes are cooked down and the oil is infused you strain all the oil into the tomatoes and mix it together. When he's ready to serve, he does one serving at a time by putting one serving of the tomato sauce in a skillet and cooking one serving of spaghetti then adding the pasta to the sauce along with a little pasta water and toss it with about 1 tbsp of butter, more fresh basil, more olive oil and more red pepper flakes. He tosses adding a bit more pasta water if necessary until the sauce becomes almost creamy from the butter added at the end. It's heavy duty with all that oil and butter but it is good, I must say.

To make it special I made fresh pasta. You can make fresh pasta with out a recipe and the amounts aren't important. I scoop some All Purpose Flour onto my butcher block counter, probably about 2 cups and a pinch of salt. Mix it together a bit and make a well in the center, add room temperature eggs into the well; you can do all yolks, all whole eggs, some of each... I usually do some of each, this time I did 3 whole eggs and 1 egg yolk...The last couple times I made pasta I have used some olive oil and I like that addition. The oil adds a nice texture to the dough, again no measurements, maybe I used 1-2 Tbsp this time. Use a fork and break the eggs and mix, adding some flour a bit at a time with the tines of the fork and when it's thick enough start to bring it together with your hands and a bench scraper, adding more flour as you need it but not so much that it starts to make a tough dough. Then roll it through the pasta machine (I have the attachment to my Kitchen Aid) about 10-15 times until it's silky then rest, covered with a damp towel for about 30 minutes. Then roll out and cut into spaghetti. It's ready to be boiled now, but I let mine sit on the counter with a little flour until I was ready, about an hour later. Fresh pasta only needs about 3 minutes of cooking in boiling salted water.

I served a salad before the pasta. Tony smoked his own bacon and a beef brisket last weekend and we hadn't tried the bacon yet. I cut the bacon as thin as I could with a chef's knife. I wanted to cook some as is and some of it with brown sugar. Place a cooling rack on a sheet pan and place the bacon strips on the cooling rack. Over half of the slices sprinkle on brown sugar, maybe 1-2 tsp per strip of bacon. Place into a preheated 375 degree oven and 15-20 minutes later it's done. So I tossed the brown sugar bacon, fresee lettuce and thinly sliced radishes together. I made a salad dressing using shallots, mustard, honey, sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and after emulsifying it I grated some Parmesan Reggiano in and stirred together. I was thinking of Caesar Salad Dressing with the grated cheese. Toss it together and it was really a great combination.

Friday Night, Braised Chicken Thighs

This week the style of "a`la Florentine" was on my mind. A` la Florentine means; In the style of Florence Italy, which is something (like chicken) presented on a bed of spinach and topped with Mornay Sauce. I didn't want to do chicken breast, which is my first thought, I wanted to do something I haven't done much and believe me, I have cooked plenty of plain old chicken breasts. Chicken Thighs came to mind because it's Tony's favorite cut. I thought the best way would be to braise them, cook them so they fall off the bone and make a really comfort food dish.

Steamed Artichokes with Almond Saffron Dip

I've often thought that artichokes are an enormous waist of time and artichoke (really), to deal with from the produce department so I never buy them. I usually buy them marinated in a jar or I have even gotten them frozen. Today I thought, Ok let's give artichokes a chance again, they looked nice and fresh at the store. I wanted to try this whole steamed artichoke that you kind of scrape out the goodness from each leaf of the artichoke with your teeth. It was surprisingly good with this Almond Saffron Dip, which you can find on the Foodnetwork.com, it's by Ellie Kreeger. I cut off the top 1/3 of the artichokes and removed some of the outer leafs, then snipped off any pointy tips that were left. Cut the stem off at the Base of the artichoke. Steamed in a big pot with the stem side up for about 40 minutes. Then I removed the choke and filled in where the choke was with this dip. It makes a good snack before a meal because they are really not filling at all, but it gives you something to chew on.

Braised Chicken Thighs Florentine Style

Instead of making the sauce separately I wanted to make it all in the same pan. So I seasoned the chicken thighs (bone-in, skin-on) with salt and pepper and seared them in a cast iron pan with olive oil on both sides. I removed them to a plate and poured off any fat. To the pan I added a good splash of white wine, a splash of water (out of chicken stock), crushed garlic, bay leaf, 1/2 of an onion cut in half and black pepper. I removed the skin from the chicken and put the chicken into the liquid in the pan, covered tightly and simmered gently for 90 minutes (turning over the chicken half way through). Once it's falling off the bone, remove the chicken to a plate and keep warm. Pour off the liquid in the pan and return to medium heat. Put a bit of olive oil in the pan and throw in some minced shallots. After about 5 minutes add minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds, add about a cup of white wine and reduce in half. Add about 1 cup of heavy cream and reduce that in half. Whisk in about 1/2 cup of fontina cheese, a bit of fresh parsley. Place the chicken back into the pan and coat with the Mornay Sauce.

Fontina Stuffed Risotto Cakes

I made just a basic risotto in the morning, but you can also do it the day before. It's butter and oil in a pan with some onions then garlic and some short grained rice (I used Carnarolli). After toasting the rice for a couple minutes you add some white wine and evaporate it completely. Then over the next 25-30 minutes you add ladles of chicken stock, one ladle at a time letting it evaporate each time, and stirring the whole time. When you stir the grains of rice rub against each other and the starch is rubbed off and after 25-30 minutes you have perfectly cooked rice that is in a "creamy" sauce. So later in the afternoon I took the risotto out of the refrigerator and stirred in some thinly sliced scallion tops for color and flavor. I was able to make 9 risotto cakes out of the one cup of rice I cooked. They were about 1/3 of a cup in size. I made a little indention in the center of each one and put in a small square of aged fontina cheese. I filled in the hole with more rice and shaped them again. I coated each risotto cake in some panko crumbs (Japanese bread crumbs). Put them on a plate and chill in the refrigerater, covered, for at least 20 minutes, I let mine sit for a few hours. When I was ready to serve I heated about 2 Tbsp olive oil and 1 Tbsp butter in a non-stick skillet until the butter melts and added in 4 of the risotto cakes. Cook over medium heat until the outsides are golden brown and they are heated through so the cheese melts in the center, this takes only 5-6 minutes total. This was really a good way to do it. In the past I have made these, coating them with flour, egg and regular bread crumbs, I have to say this is a much better way of doing it.

Trumpet Mushrooms

I saw these mushroom at Whole Foods and they looked very fresh. I had never had them and I am still exploring different mushrooms to find the ones I like. They are expensive per pound but I only needed a little bit to go along side our dinner and they don't weigh very much. And that is what Friday Night is all about, spending a little bit more and trying really good and different stuff, instead of going out and spending even more. Well I am happy to say it was a good choice. I did cook them in really good European style butter and a little olive oil but they tasted buttery, I think on there own, and they were very nice, Tony loved them. So what I did was cook them until they were done and I put in some baby spinach and 30 seconds later it was done. I put that combination on the plate and put the chicken over it. Very nice!

Caramel Brownies with Fleur de Sel and Deep Fried Dulce de Leche Ice Cream

On the show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate", someone was saying they loved the brownies at this place in NYC, where they made these brownies and layered in the middle of the batter some caramel sauce. I saw that episode a few weeks ago and I have been thinking about them ever since. I gave it a go and they were tremendous brownies but the layer of caramel got lost in the batter somehow. They showed them pouring in the caramel before baking them off and I think they made a thicker caramel and maybe they put more than I did. Then I thought well I can't just have a brownie for dessert on a Friday Night so I thought of every one's favorite thing...ice cream... but what can I do different? "How about fried ice cream, I have heard of it, I never did that"!! So I looked it up and came across some "You Tube" videos and basically there are two ways of doing it. You can either cover a scoop of ice cream with slices of pound cake and fry it or do what I did and that was coating it with corn flakes mixed with a little bit of sugar then egg wash then more cornflakes and sugar, freezing the balls between to make sure they are really hard and frozen then you fry them in canola oil very quickly (before any ice cream leaks out and splashes everywhere). I did it and in 30 seconds they were golden brown and delicious. It was interesting but I don't know if I would do it again, I am happy with just a scoop of ice cream. But now I can check -Fried Ice Cream- off the list.

Friday Night, Rack of Lamb

This menu started with the "persille'" that was a component of the lamb. It just takes that one seed to get things started. I was thinking about what I saw Jacques Pepin do on his cooking shows and he did something called a "persillade" to finish off a lot of his dishes. It's taking fresh parsley and garlic and chopping them together and chopping finely, then sprinkling it over a finished dish; meats, eggs, vegetables, etc... So I looked it up in my favorite book "Food Lover's Companion" to see what it said about it and basically it said just what I said but also...a dish finished in this fashion is often described as a persille'. For example lamb persille' is a lamb dish topped with persillade mixed with breadcrumbs." So the seed started to grow and here's the menu.

Creamy Mushroom Bruchetta, Watercress and Goat Brie Salad

I have been on this kick lately with mushrooms, I am discovering that they are pretty good. I have always ordered dishes without them or pushed them aside, and I am still not sure of some like I really don't think I like the portobello, maybe I'll try them again some day. Again, the show "Follow That Food" was on mushrooms and Gordon really raved about a dish that was made in Europe somewhere, "Sauteed Mushrooms in a Hot Crusty Pita". So instead of the pita I thought that same mixture would be good on crusty bread and so that's what I did. I used Baby Bella and I used some European style butter that I found in the cheese department at Whole Foods, that butter costs a little more but it's really something delicious. You can get that recipe on fineliving.com and instead of pita I took Chibatta bread and sliced about 1/2 inch slices and toasted them under the broiler on both sides, salt, pepper and olive oil. Then just for fun I saw this goat's milk brie cheese at WF, never had it before so I gave it a go and it's a little funky but it was very nice in our opinion. Along with the mushroom bruchetta I served the cheese and some good looking watercress tossed in some homemade shallot and sherry vinaigrette. Delicious!!

I probably wouldn't have done the horseradish creme with this dish because it already had a lot going on but Tony had picked up some fresh horseradish a couple days before and I wanted to use it. I mixed sour cream, lemon juice, fresh horseradish, salt and pepper, honey... I think that was it, just keep tasting it until it's right. I seasoned then seared the rack of lamb in a skillet and removed it to a plate. I brushed mustard on top of the rack where I wanted the persille' topping to go. For the persille' I combined a couple cloves of garlic with a handful of fresh parsley and chopped it, then mixed in an equal amount of fresh bread crumbs (that I let sit out for about 3 hours to dry a bit) and just pressed this mixture over the rack on the top side. I covered it and put it in the refrigerator just because I wanted to get that step done so there is less to do later. Then when I was ready to roast it I allowed the lamb to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before putting it in a pre-heated 425 degree oven. I roasted it for about 30 minutes but for me I should have left it another 5 -8 minutes. Tony thought it was perfectly done but he usually orders things more rear and I am more medium-well.

For the roasted garlic mashed potatoes I just roasted the whole head of garlic in a 400 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes. I first cut the top off and drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper over the garlic then wrap it tightly in aluminum foil then into the oven. Make the mashed potatoes as you normally would and just squeeze all the garlic from the paper into the mix.

For the swiss chard I cooked off some bacon and removed it from the pan. Drain the extra oil off and add in the swiss chard stems that are cut into 1 inch pieces. cook for a few minutes and add the swiss chard leaves that are cut so it's easy to eat. Season with salt and pepper and add the bacon back in to warm though. I used thick cut bacon just to get a more meaty bite, and it was good but you don't need too much bacon maybe about 1/4 cup to a whole bunch of chard.

Cherries Jubilee aside a "Bruleed" Crepe Pie with Chocolate and Cherry Sauces

I saw a picture of a dessert where the crepes were stacked high and it looked like a cake with many layers. I remember trying this same idea along time ago, I don't remember if it was a success. I thought of the crepes I made about a month ago on Friday night the butter and sugar crepes, they were so good. So I thought I would do the same idea but stack them and the butter and sugar will kind of "glue" them together then I will cut a shape out of them and use the blow torch to "brule" the edges. Well the "brule" thing didn't work but the crepes were very good and I love how it looks. I found a jar of cherries at WF and I needed some kind of fruit to go with the crepe pie and I thought I would do Cherries Jubilee. It's cherries cooked with a little sugar and Kirsch (cherry flavored liquor), then you flambe' it and pour it over ice cream. I used Cherry Garcia ice cream. If you are going to have cherries you need some kind of chocolate so I made some chocolate ganache and to enhance the cherry flavor I got some cherry juice and reduced it to get a nice syrup for the plate. I was trying to made a decoration but it didn't work, I think the chocolate ganache was too thick, but it tasted really good!

Got some Sun

We've been considering another quick trip to Mohegan Sun Casino for a while now.  We needed to get out of the house, so today was the day...

We left the house about 11:30 and headed down Route 290.  By the time we arrived, we were hungry for lunch so we immediately tried to find Bobby's Burger Palace.  This is the latest restaurant by Bobby Flay of Food Network fame.  We had heard about the place from a feature on Channel 5's Chronicle program.



After finding a seat at the bar, we each ordered a beer and a burger.  Jeanne went with the "L.A. Burger" and I did the "Napa Valley Burger".  I guess we were in a California mood today. We ordered one side of sweet potato fries to share.

The burgers arrived with a side of regular potato fries (not sweet potato), but this worked out OK.  They were well salted and crispy.  The chipolte dipping sauce they were served with was great.  The burgers were good, we were very impressed with the bun, creative toppings and the high quality pickle on the side.  Unfortunately, the burger itself was mediocre at best.  It seemed that not the best quality beef was used, or maybe it was just over handled.  It's hard to describe, but the burger meat had some little hard bits in it.  It was the type of thing that you avoid when you form your own burgers at home.

After lunch, we did some wondering around the casino.  After a bit we ended up at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville for a drink.  The margaritas were quality and the atmosphere reminded us of Key West (or at least the last Jimmy Buffet concert at Gillette Stadium).  Here's some video of the restaurant's hourly "blender" show....

Friday Night, Tilapia

As you all may know I am new to the seafood thing. Salmon is so far my favorite. I have tried Black Sea Bass (Momofuko restaurant) and that was a strong fish flavor so not one of my favorites. I had salmon a few ways and...It's good. A few people have said to try Tilapia so that's what I did. I think it was meant to be that I try this recipe because I was trying to get more familiar with sauces and in my "Food Lover's Companion" book, I saw a sauce called, Bagna Cauda [BAHN-yah KOW-dah] so I was reading about it and it's a specialty sauce made in Piedmont, Italy, made up of olive oil, butter, garlic and anchovies, usually served warm with raw vegetables. So I went on The Food Network about five minutes after reading about that sauce to look up a tilapia recipe. I came across "Tilapia with Citrus Bagna Couda". The only reason I was drawn right to it is because it was rated with 5 stars and about 250 people rated it. You know it's good when that many people rated it with 5 stars and I couldn't believe that the recipe included the very sauce I was curious about. So when I went to Whole Foods Market I went to the fish counter and the guy was just putting out some fresh tilapia, of all things. So It was meant to be...

Smoked Salmon Beggars Purses with Spicy Lemon-Dill Oil

I don't remember what gave me the idea to make these but I have seen different chefs do Beggars Purses in the past and if I made some, it was a while ago. It's crepes that are filled with something and then tied with a long piece of scallion or leek. I thought I would just put a dollop of creme fraiche (basically a sour cream and whipped cream combined) and smoked salmon and maybe some capers or chives, I wasn't exactly sure. I looked on foodnetwork.com and Michael Chiarello has a recipe that's pretty much what I was thinking except he was using marscarpone cheese and cream cheese, both of which I had in the refrigerator, so I decided to make it that way. His recipe doesn't have a sauce but I wanted to make something so I mixed together in a blender 1/2 of a bunch of fresh dill (blanched and shocked in cold water to help retain the green color), 1 tsp mustard, 1/2 of a lemons juice and zest, 1 Tbsp capers, 6-7 peri-peri picante peppers (tiny little spicy red peppers from a jar), salt and pepper to taste and olive oil to emulsify. It was perfect with the Beggars Purses. I garnished the plate with a few more spicy peppers and very finely cut scallions at a very sharp angle so you get long strands, then into ice water until they get crisp and curly.

Tilapia with Citrus Bagna Cauda Sauce

This is Giada De Laurentis' recipe, you can find it on foodnetwork.com. We didn't get a very good picture of this but it was on the plate. The tilapia was simply cooked in a skillet with olive oil for a couple minutes on each side and the citrus bagna cauda sauce was spooned over. The mistake that we made was Tony offered to spoon the sauce on the fish while I finished cooking the rest of the fish fillets and I forgot to tell him that the sauce is 6 portions...the zest in the sauce was a little much, so if you make this don't use anymore than 1/6th of the sauce per portion. Otherwise it was good, very mild tasting fish.

Zucchini, Carrot and Baby Red Potatoes cooked en Papillote

En papillote means to cook in paper or parchment. In order to do this you really have to cut everything fairly thin, otherwise it can take forever to cook. I thought the potatoes might take longer than the vegetable so I made two packages. The potatoes I cut into 1/4 inch disks. I drizzled them with olive oil, salt and pepper and I added some sprigs of fresh thyme. For the vegetables I cut them into a very thin Julienne and put them on a piece of oiled parchment. I topped them with more thyme, a couple pats of butter, salt and pepper and a couple thin slices of lemon. You top the oiled parchment paper with another piece of oiled parchment and fold all around the edges to seal it tightly. I pre-heated the oven to 400 degrees and put the parchment packages on a sheet pan. I cooked the potatoes for 30 minutes and the vegetables for 20 minutes and they were perfectly done. I do like to cook this way because the flavor has no where to go. I really noticed this with the potatoes, they were very potatoey (if you will).

Caramelized Pineapple with Creme Caramel and Banana Ice Cream

This was from "Follow That Food" show on pineapples. I remember Julia Child saying her favorite dessert is a creme caramel and I had never made one up until now (that I can recall). I remembered she said that because Gordon Elliot (the host of the show) said the same thing. So I had to make it. I thought it was good but I'd like to do it again and add some Flor De Sal to the caramel, I love what salt can do to caramel. I almost did it but decided to follow the recipe exactly. I also would fill up the ramekin a bit higher to get a taller finished creme caramel. Otherwise it was very simple to do. The pineapple is cut into thin rounds and basically is macerated with a mixture of some of the caramel from the creme caramel, orange juice, rum, vanilla extract and raisins. As you know I would have made the ice cream myself but I couldn't find a good recipe using eggs. They all used corn syrup or sweetened condensed milk and I just gave up and decided to buy some. All I could find at the store was Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey which was perfect because the chocolate chunks in it worked with everything. It was all a great combination together.

By the way, I love how things happen. A few weeks ago I told you about a brazilan mojito I had at Bar Boulud's in NYC and how I was trying to make it at home. Well we got the April addition to Food and Wine magazine and Daniel Boulud was featured in it. One of the recipes they put in the magazine was a drink that was very similar to the mojito. It was a Caipirinha which is 1/2 ounce fresh lime juice, plus 3 lime wedges, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 ounce simple syrup and 2 ounces of cachaca. I changed the lime to lemon, I put in natural sugar cane granules, a bit of fresh ginger and some fresh mint and muddled all that then added the cachaca and ice and shook it with ice. I think that is it exactly!!

Friday Night, Orecchiette Alforno

I thought we needed a good "comfort food" night. This is a recipe I had made many times before, except it usually is called Penne with Five Cheeses. Quick story... We had been to Alforno restaurant in Providence RI before, that's where we went the night Tony purposed to me. One day a few years later I was watching the Bearfoot Contessa on the food network. She was making this recipe and she said she ate it at Alforno restaurant and loved it, she asked for the recipe and this is it. So I printed up the recipe and soon after we went to the restaurant and it was still on the menu so I ordered it. I was soooo good, it was made with a really good imported pasta that was cooked al dente. It's mixed with a creamy cheesy mixture and baked so the top gets slightly charred and the bottom half is so creamy and yummy...

Antipasto Platter with Homemade Ciabatta Bread

I wanted to do an appetizer with an array of different flavors and textures because the main dish would be just the one pasta dish. So I did some different olives, cherry peppers stuffed with cheese, artichoke hearts, caprese salad (stacked mozzarella, fresh tomato and fresh basil) and what I thought was going to be something different and ended up being a fancy biscuit. I saw this recipe for "Pancetta and Peccorino Cakes", and read the recipe quickly and it seemed like something different, and it looked like something that was going to be baked and crispy (which I wanted something crispy for the texture). It was good but I had made the homemade ciabatta bread and it was like having two breads. It was all very good and the bread was great, I love that book I got called "My Bread" by Jim Lahey. If you want to impress your friends you must try his recipes.

Orecchiette Al forno with Five Cheeses and Pancetta

Al forno is Italian for "baked or roasted". This is an easy and great recipe, it's not low calorie though. In a bowl add 2 Cups heavy cream, 1 Cup crushed canned tomatoes, 1/2 cup grated peccorino romano, 1/2 cup shredded Italian fontina, 1/4 cup gorgonzola, 2 Tbsp ricotta, 1/4 fresh mozzarella and 6 basil leafs chopped. Par-cook Penne or Orecchiette pasta, about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way done. Combine with the cream mixture and pour into a gratin dish then dot with a bit of butter to help it brown. Place in a pre-heated 500 degree oven and bake for 7-10 minutes until bubbly and brown on top. I like to add some thick cut pancetta that I cook ahead of time and chop, just add it to the cream mixture when you add the par-boiled pasta.

Frozen Chocolate Malted, Malted Milk Balls and Gourmet Smores Stack

Well guess what? I bought some malted milk powder and it was inspired by our NYC trip. When we stopped at Momofuko's Milk Bar for cake that night Tony had a chocolate cake that had malted milk crumbs and charred marshmallow between the layers. I got some malted milk powder when we got home. So I saw a recipe for the Frozen Chocolate Malted and decided to do that. So what goes with something like that??? I remembered Tony's cake had the marshmallows and so I made homemade marshmallow, homemade Graham crackers and made a double stack of the smores with chocolate rounds that I melted and formed into the same size round as I made the other two components. Put it in a low oven for about 5 minutes so everything is ooowy and gooey. I needed one more thing to make the plate look finished so I made the malted milk balls, which is just melted white chocolate mixed with the malted powder until it's thick enough to form into balls and then chill. Once the are hard dip them in melted chocolate and chill again.

Saturday Night, Birthday Pork

Yes that's right, Saturday night this time. Well I don't know where I got it, but I got a cold that took away my taste buds, which was not very nice. I went to the store for all the ingredients on Thursday and did some prep. When I woke up on Friday, I just wasn't feeling up to cooking, or eating, because everything I ate had no taste. I got about 30% of my taste back on Saturday so at least I could taste a little. Saturday was Tony's 39th birthday and I asked him what he wanted for dinner. He suggested... "a whole pork roast maybe the one you made before with peaches"... I made this recipe from Jamie Oliver a few years back and it was very good and I have been meaning to make it again. It calls for a whole pork roast with the bones in. Bone-in makes a big difference in the finished roast, but I have trouble finding bone-in unless it is around the Holiday's. I thought well I will make the pork with peaches if the store has a bone-in pork roast but if they don't I will make this other pork roast in my Thomas Keller cookbook. Well they didn't have bone-in and so I made Fig Stuffed Pork Loin from Thomas Keller.

Devils on Horseback

If you read my last post it was about our trip to NYC last weekend and this was my recreation of one of the appetizers we had at The Spotted Pig. It is prunes stuffed with pear wedges and then it's wrapped in bacon and roasted. I first soaked the prunes in port wine for about an hour and I roasted wedges of pear for about 15 minutes. Assembled them with the bacon and put them in the oven until the bacon was crisped up. I thought they were very close to the restaurant but Tony thought they tasted sweeter than he remembered. Maybe my taste buds were off because of my cold, so he may be right. But we did eat them so fast that I didn't get a chance to snap a picture of them.

Fig Stuffed Pork loin

You brine the whole pork loin for 10 hours and then remove it from the brine, rinse and dry it. Cut a hole through the middle of the pork to make way for the stuffing. His recipe for the stuffing is figs, balsamic vinegar, sugar, black peppercorns and lemon juice. After making it I realized he probably meant fresh figs. I used dried figs. It tasted fine in the end but mine didn't break down like his looked. I made the filling a couple days ahead so when I took it out to use it I reheated it and added a bit of water and let it cook down for probably an hour, I wanted it to soften up a lot. To finish the fig filling you saute some bread pieces and fennel in oil then add the fig jam with some chicken stock. Let it cool before stuffing it in the pork. I stuffed it and trussed it and put it in the oven for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees and it was perfectly done.

Glazed sweet potatoes

These were really good too. They are another Thomas Keller recipe. They are cut into thick steak fry shaped wedges, placed in a single layer in a baking pan, pats of butter over the top of them, covered tightly with aluminum foil and then baked for 35 minutes (that can be done ahead of time). Just before serving dip one of the cut sides into brown sugar and back into the baking pan with the sugar side up and then placed under the broiler until it caramelizes. I thought it would have been fine with less butter and no sugar. The extra butter and sugar were good but not necessary.

Tempura Brussels Sprouts with Spicy Soy Vinaigrette

This was another NYC dish we had at Momofuko. It was so good and I think even with only 30% of my taste buds working, I did a good job on these. The first hint was that Tony couldn't stop snacking on them as I was making them (before sitting down to eat dinner), and all I heard was mmmmmmm, woww, yummmm. I have a book that gives the definition of everything food related and for Tempura it says...A Japanese specialty of batter dipped pieces of fish or vegetables. It is usually accompanied by soy sauce...So I looked in my Joy of Cooking book and found a tempura batter which to my surprise was only two ingredients...2 cups of ice water to 2 cups sifted self rising flour. You mix the flour and water together, not too much, it will be a bit lumpy. Then I thought OK well I need a soy vinaigrette and the one that was served at Momofuko was a fish sauce vinaigrette. I don't have any fish sauce so I combined a little worcheshire sauce, soy sauce, saracha hot sauce and bit of honey to even things out a bit and then I whisked in a little olive oil to make it a vinaigrette. It was perfect. After draining the fried tempura Brussels sprouts on paper towels I tossed them in the bowl with the vinaigrette.

Banana Cake with Hazelnut filling and Hazelnut Praline Crunch

I wasn't happy with this cake. It was OK but I was trying to reproduce the cake at The Milk Bar in NYC and I wasn't even close. I made a banana cake recipe from Martha Stewart and I found the Gianduja Chocolate at Whole Foods that I had never heard of before. It's a hazelnut flavored chocolate. I made the hazelnut praline crunchy bits. I thought the filling was almost caramel with the hazelnut chocolate mixed in so I made Dulce De Leche by slowly heating sweetened condensed milk and it slowly turns into a caramel color, texture and taste. So I mixed it into the chocolate that I melted and as I was mixing it, it started to seize up. I thought it would be OK but it ended up hardening too much and it wasn't the owy, gooey, deliciousness that the other cake was. The cake itself wasn't banana-ee enough and I made a cream cheese frosting that wasn't on the original (I am not sure what the frosting was). So we just have to go back to NYC so I can try it again and study it better.

NYC Trip

This week we had "Friday Night Dinner" in New York City. We took the train out of Providence on Friday about noon time and by the time we checked in to The Waldorf-Astoria (Tony had enough Hilton Honors points for a couple free nights) and got going it was about 4 or 4:30. We tried to cancel that morning because we watched the news and it looked like the snow was going to make it hard to walk around. The news showed pictures of the roads in NYC and they were pretty bad. Al Roker said NYC could see another 9 inches. When we called the Waldorf-Astoria they said if we wanted to cancel we would be charged for one night, so we said...no, we'll be there... It turns out Friday was the worst and it wasn't that bad. Saturday it was really just dealing with the puddles (every one's pants were wet on the bottoms, unless you were a smart New Yorker and you wore your snow boots with your pants tucked in). It was chilly but really, not as bad as we thought it would be, and all the fantastic food made up for it.

We visited quite a few restaurants from Friday 4:30 pm- Sunday 9:00 am. Friday was "The Spotted Pig" and "Momofuko" and "The Milk Bar". Saturday was "Jacques Torres Chocolates", "Bar Boulud", "Carmine's", "Blue Smoke" and "Les Halles". Sunday was only one, "The Bread Factory Cafe'".

Lets start at the beginning. The Spotted Pig was awesome. We heard about it, where else, but on the Food Network. On the show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate", Danny Boome talked about this place and he said...the deviled eggs and the devils on horseback were great... so that's what we had. These were on the menu as "Bar Snacks". The Deviled Eggs were very tangy with rice wine vinegar (my guess) and Flur De Sel (sea salt). The salt gave the eggs a salty crunch, the vinegar was great and it was finished on the plate with a drizzle of olive oil. I just tried to recreate it and I have to say I was pretty damn close. The Devils on Horseback was different and really good too. It's prunes stuffed with a pear wedge and then the whole thing is covered with a piece of bacon and it's broiled. There may have been a touch of maple syrup on the bacon. The crunchy, salty and chewy bacon on the outside was nice with the crispy but somehow cooked pear on the inside. I will guess that the pear is roasted for a short time before being stuffed in the prune. The prune may have been soaked in wine to rehydrate a bit. That is something I have to try to make in the next day or two while it's fresh in my memory.

We also got the"Fried Buffalo Mozzarella Ball". It was an appetizer that we shared. It was a softball sized piece of cheese wrapped in Serrano Ham and then it was breaded with eggs and Panko bread crumbs and the whole thing is put into a deep fryer until it's golden brown. It was served with more Serrano Ham on the side and a nice Mescalin Salad. That was good too.

The next stop was Momofuko Ssam Bar. We got lucky and got a seat at the bar, they don't take reservations and it was packed. Tony got a drink called "Pickle brine Martini", it had something that was probably... lemon oil? The bartender only put a few shakes in the bottom of the glass then a little pickle brine, gin and vermouth. At the very end he peeled off a good sized section of a fresh lemon and just twisted it over the top of the glass and then threw it out. The amount of lemon smell was amazing, that's why I think there was lemon oil at the beginning too. I had a glass of Pinot Noir. The owner of Momofuko has other restaurants and they all have an appetizer of Steamed Buns with Braised Pork Belly, Hoison sauce, cucumbers and scallions, so we had to get that. Something else caught our eye and it was Brussels Sprouts with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette. The Brussels sprouts were in a tempera batter and deep fried and then tossed in the vinaigrette with fresh mint and fish sauce and it wasn't fishy at all, which was what I was worried about, to finish it off they added rice cake pieces for a nice crunch.

The main dish for me was Wild Striped Bass with Kabocha Squash, Sassafras and Honshimeji Mushrooms. Anybody that knows me, knows that's is not like me, but I wanted to step out of the box and order some different things. I am just starting to try more fish and salmon is really good, this Bass was more fishy but it was OK, I ate almost the whole thing. The mushrooms and squash flavored with sassafras were really good too. Tony had the Corned Beef Terrine. He really enjoyed it. It came with Fried Egg Sauce and Tea Brined Egg Salad.

We left Momofuko's Ssam Bar and went next door to Momofuko's Milk Bar for dessert. It was packed so we almost said forget it let's go somewhere else, but the line seemed to be moving quickly so we went in and boy am I glad we did! I normally would get one of the chocolate cakes or some ice cream but I thought, OK what's something different...the Banana Cake...it was really super duper good! The moist banana cake, the layer between each cake layer that I am guessing was Dulce De Leche, which is like a caramel. There is a layer of Gianduja Chocolate which is a hazelnut flavored chocolate. Then the layers are also sprinkled with hazelnut crunch (praline, I'm guessing). Tony got Chocolate Malt Cake which was layered with malt fudge, malted milk crumbs and charred marshmallow between each layer. Wow they know their stuff!

Saturday morning we decided to walk to the upper west side because there were some food stores we wanted to check out. We had breakfast at a cafe', nothing special. On our way we wanted to stop at Jacques Torres Chocolates, cafe'. It was featured on the Food Network, on The Best Thing I Ever Ate show. Giada DeLaurentiis said the Wicked Hot Chocolate was the best chocolate dessert she ever had, so we got two of those and sat by the window nice and toasty warm as we watched the people walk by who were obviously chilly. The ingredients in the hot chocolate is Cocoa powder, corn starch, vanilla, whole milk, spices and chili. The corn starch gives it a slight pudding consistency. The chili which I think is cayenne pepper gives a nice warmth and that's the "wicked" part in the title. They were served in small cups and at first I thought, that's it, it's so small. But it was so heavy duty, we wouldn't have wanted any more than that. It was really delicious and if you want chocolate, this hot chocolate really delivers!!

We went to Fairway Market and Zabar's on the upper west side. I found some wheat berries and some green french lentils. I had been looking for both and haven't come across them at home so I carried them around all day, which was fine.

After the food stores we headed south on our way to our next destination we came across, Bar Boulud. Daniel Boulud has cookbooks and restaurants and he has been on different shows. He's a French chef and as soon as you walk into Bar Boulud it's got French written all over it. We sat at our favorite spot, the bar, and the fancy wine bottles were everywhere. We hadn't planned on going to this restaurant but I think it was meant to be. The slices of fresh bread were placed in front of us with a really fresh round of butter, something was special about that butter. We ordered a drink. I never ordered a Mojito anywhere, I know I've had one before, but this was a Brazilian Mojito and let me tell you I am still thinking about it. It was made with Cachaca and fresh mint, ginger, and there were bit's of "sugar in the raw" every so often. I have to figure that drink out. Tony got a Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA beer. I got the Cauliflower Soup. Tony got the Smoked Salmon Club and the waiter asked if we'd like an order of French Fries and we said yes. The fries were good but not as special as we thought they might have been. My soup was buttery and absolutely perfect with some ground black pepper and a few pieces of cauliflower for garnish. It was cold outside so it warmed me up nicely. Tony enjoyed his smoked salmon club that came with house made potato chips.

We made our way to the next stop, but before that, we stopped for a beer at Carmine's restaurant. It's a great Italian restaurant that has family styled service, big bowls of pasta served in the middle of the table and you help yourself. We didn't eat anything there, we just wanted to take a break from walking and have a beer.

Next, we made our way to the Blue Smoke restaurant. It's a fancy BBQ restaurant, we were hoping to get some appetizer sized potions of barbecue, but we ended up getting BBQ Potato Chips served with a Blue Cheese Dip that had fresh chives and bacon sprinkled over top. I liked that idea. Everybody loves chips, these were house made and it was a good idea for something to do at home for a party.

Our final destination was Les Halles on Park Avenue, a French restaurant that Anthony Bourdain worked at for a long time, he now has a show called "No Reservations" on The Travel Chanel. We actually went to this restaurant before, but we went to another one that was in the financial district, we didn't realize there were two of these restaurants. Last time Tony got the Muscles and this time he got the Muscles again! This time he ordered 1/2 of an order. I got an appetizer that was a big wedge of brie cheese on top of lightly toasted French Baguette slices. The cheese on toast was placed under the broiler to melt the cheese a bit and then a honey and black pepper sauce was spooned over the cheese. It was served with a bit of mescalin salad with candied walnuts and shallot vinaigrette on the side. I already tried to recreate this dish and it was just as I described but I think they used another kind of honey than Clover Honey, basically I heated the honey in a saucepan and sprinkled in cracked black pepper corns. It was very close to the restaurant, maybe the honey should be more mild.

We stayed for dessert at Les Halles and got the Rum Raisin Crepes with Chantilly Cream and Caramel Sauce. It was very good! It tasted like something I would make for dessert. Chantilly Cream is just whipped cream sweetened with sugar and flavored with vanilla. The Rum Raisin part was just raisins soaked in rum until they plump up. You make some crepes and caramel sauce and there you go!

That's it! The next morning we had to catch the train at 10:00, so we left the hotel thinking we would stop at an interesting cafe', whatever looked good. Well they say "the city never sleeps", we know when they sleep, on Sunday morning! Everything was closed, we found a place called "The Bread Factory Cafe". Tony had an authentic NYC bagel with smoked salmon cream cheese that he enjoyed.

Here's the google map of our little trip:

View Feb 2010 NYC Trip in a larger map

Friday Night, Filet Mignon

I was thinking of Filet Mignon for dinner. I tend to buy the NY Strip because it really is our favorite cut, but I thought, it has been a while since I made Filet Mignon. I was flipping through one of my Italian cookbooks (Giuliano Bugialli's) and the page just opened up to a picture of a Filet on a vegetable sauce. So I figured it was meant to be that I make this dish. I flipped through some more and I found this polenta dish that is spooned over cold Mascarpone cheese, It is topped with shaved white truffles, but I didn't have the extra $100.00 to buy a white truffle so I did some Shiitaki Mushrooms instead.

Valdeon Spanish Blue Cheese Tart with Arugula and Walnuts

The Spanish blue cheeses are so good, especially Cabrelas, which is hard to find at the local markets, Valdeon is almost as good. I bought it and instead of just serving it as is, I decided to make a savory pie tart crust and bake it off ahead of time and just before serving it I put the cheese on the tart and place it back in the oven to melt. After it came out of the oven I sprinkled on some toasted walnuts and I decided to top it with an Arugula Salad tossed with a champagne vinaigrette that I made. It was a hit. You can't eat too much of it though because of the crust with all the butter is pretty caloric.

Filet Mignon with Vegetable Sauce

This sauce is made with celery, carrots, red onion, garlic, parsley, basil, bay leaf, clove, red wine, salt and pepper. He simmers all the vegetable for 45 minutes with a "piece of boneless beef or veal". I bought Boneless short ribs to cook over the weekend and I only needed 2 oz for the sauce so I used a small piece of that. It's just used to flavor the sauce and then it is discarded. After cooking the sauce it's put through a food mill and just before serving you cook the sauce in a Tbsp of butter just to heat through and the butter adds richness. He cooks the Filet Mignon under the broiler but instead Tony cooked them to perfection on the charcoal grill. They were a nice change and I think the portion size is perfect.

Polenta with Mascarpone and Shiitaki Mushrooms

I have made polenta a few different ways, usually with cream and butter and herbs and so on... This recipe I liked because it's just stock, salt and stone-ground cornmeal. He uses homemade beef stock, but I went ahead and used chicken stock from the store. He also says that it cooks for 45-50 minutes of constantly stirring. I tried that but after about 25 minutes it was thickening up and it tasted done to me so I turned off the heat and added a splash of water and covered it. I used this time to saute some Shiitaki mushrooms in some butter until they were perfectly done and I sprinkled on some salt. When the Filets were done and we were ready to plate I turned the heat back on the polenta and mixed in the splash of water in until it came together with a nice consistency, it worked out perfectly. The cold Mascarpone cheese is placed on the individual serving dishes (about a Tbsp on each plate) and the hot polenta is spooned over the cheese to completely cover it. When you sit down to eat it, even through I put it there, the cheese was a surprise, it just oozes out and it's great. The Filet, the sauce, the mushrooms and the polenta all worked perfectly together.

Ruffled Milk Pie

I saw this on Martha Stewart's show one day a couple months back and I have wanted to make it ever since. I finally made it and it's a great recipe. I looks impressive, it tastes fantastic and its pretty easy to make. It's a two step process which is another good thing because I did the first process earlier in the day and just before we sat down to dinner I did the second part so it was fresh out of the oven, which is what the recipe says, to serve it immediately (it's delicious cold too as I found out this afternoon). After buttering a 13 inch round cake pan with clarified butter you take store bought phyllo sheets and scrunch them up and layer in the pan to make a circle inside of a circle inside of a circle until you have what looks like a rose, you end up using about 8-9 sheets of phyllo. Brush the "phyllo rose" with more clarified butter and sprinkle on cinnamon. Bake for 25 minutes. This is where I stopped and did this second part about 6 hours later. Whisk together eggs, whole milk, sugar and vanilla and pour over the "phyllo rose" and bake for another 25 minutes. You end up with a custard that's scrumptious but it's got a bit of delicious crunch from the tops of all the phyllo that peeks out from the custard. Excellent ricipe!

Affogato

I actually decided to made this as the dessert but thought it needed a cookie or something to go with it and that's when I remembered the Ruffle Milk Pie. This is an Italian dessert which is simply a scoop of vanilla gelato or ice cream and you pour over espresso or strong coffee. I never made it before but you can bet I will do it again. I got some great tasting coffee from Whole Foods, decaf Buzz Free (It's called). I made the coffee strong and I got some Haagen Daz Vanilla Bean ice cream. One big scoop of Vanilla Bean and fill up the mug with the coffee and it quickly turns from a smoken hot coffee to a cold delicious melty shake. Affogato is pronounced (ahf-foh-GAH-toh) which is great because if I forget the name of it I just have to say... I forgot Oh, and it's sounds the same!

Friday Night, French Night

I didn't have a clue what I would make for this Friday Night. We have had a lot of pork lately, I just made duck and chicken so poultry was out. We had a steak last week. Tony had a veal chop at a restaurant mid-week. I was lost. The only thing that made sense was seafood. I started looking through an old Gourmet magazine March 2008 to be exact. It was a magazine all about French cooking. I flipped through the pages and the whole menu was born.

Cheese Platter

The platter included; 2 French cheeses, Country Pate, Chardonnay Gelee that I made, and slices of crunchy French bread. The chardonnay gelee was great, it really paired nicely with the aged blue and aged brie cheeses I bought. The gelee is made by simmering down 1 cup of chardonnay with 1/2 cup of sugar and a small section of star anise, then you add a tsp of unflavored gelatin that has been softened in a little water, and you let it set up in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours. For the country pate, I bought it at Whole Foods already made, it was a French meal so why not?

Saumon Aux Lentilles

This was fantastic. The lentils are cooked with leeks and there is a butter that's made and added right into the lentils. The butter is combined with whole grain mustard, lemon, fresh tarragon and chives, salt and pepper. Half of the compound butter is added to the lentils and the other half is saved for a topping when it's served. The recipe called for French Green Lentil's but Whole Foods didn't seem to have them. I did find some lentils from Spain that claimed to hold their shape and pair well with fish, which was what they said about the French ones. Anyway the ones I got were perfect! The salmon was simply seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked in butter. About 8 minutes or so later they were done. This was my favorite method so far for salmon, and Tony said it was the absolute best salmon dinner he's ever had.

Butter-Sugar Crepes with Cinnamon Whipped Cream and Calvados Sorbet

I saw these crepes on the last page of the Gourmet Magazine and they spoke to me. I made a crepe dessert before with whipped cream, strawberries and chocolate ganache, and they were really good so I said "Yeah, a different crepe dessert, it's definitely French". This one was great because you make all the components ahead of time and last minute it's easily transformed from a simple crepe to something so melt in your mouth fantastic you can't believe it.

I made the crepes about 6 hours ahead of time and put them in the refrigerator. When I was ready to serve them the crepes are simply brushed with melted butter then sprinkled with sugar, folded in quarters and heated through in a pan that has more butter and sugar and a pinch of salt. After about 4-5 minutes in the pan they are done.

In the same magazine I came across a recipe for Calvados Sorbet and I thought that might go very nicely with the crepes. Calvados is an apple flavored liquor. It was simple to make. Just cook a little simple syrup for 5 minutes and chill in an ice bath. Add in the same ice bath the Calvados and some non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider. Chill then put into the ice cream machine.

I presented them first by dusting a strip of powdered cinnamon across the plate (for decoration but also to add a kick of cinnamon because apples love cinnamon). Second I placed on two of the crepes per person, a scoop of the Calvados Sorbet and a scoop of whipped cream flavored with sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Well let me tell you, it was something else!