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Our Madeleines

The first cookbook I bought as a semi-adult was The Mystic Seaport Cookbook by Lillian Langseth-Christensen. It’s out of print now, but Amazon has 27 used copies. (Husband, then Boyfriend, and I bought it on our first road trip together, to Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. I guess it says something about us that that’s where we chose for our first road trip.)

I haven’t used it much over the years, although at least twice a year I make its Chocolate Silk Pie, which is, without exaggeration or hyperbole, the best pie in the world. But one thing I used to make fairly frequently and haven’t for many years is  the Chicken Pie with Cheese Crust. Husband and I both remember it fondly, although #1 Son doesn’t remember it at all, which tells you how long it’s been since I’ve made it. So when I decided to make it this week, I was worried: Would it live up to our memories, or were we going to be disappointed and lose yet another piece of our youth?

I won’t keep you in suspense: It was every bit as good as we remembered: chunks of chicken and potatoes immersed in an amazing gravy. It’s the apotheosis of comfort food. (And it’s even better cold. #1 Son just came in and hugged me in gratitude because he had a bite now that it’s been sitting for a couple of hours.)

I had a farmers market chicken in the freezer, so I defrosted that overnight, dreading the job of disjointing it for the pot. And then this morning at Trader Joe’s, I noticed whole kosher chickens, already helpfully disjointed and wrapped in cellophane. I’ll remember for the next time.

The morning got away from me yet again, and we wound up not getting home from all the errands till 2. #1 Son generously offered to stay home from his teen group meeting in the city to help me, and I happily took him up on it. (Somewhat to his chagrin, I think, but he was great about it.) So I handed him the chicken and a few knives and told him to go at it, and go at it he did. The learning curve was steep, but in the end I had a bunch of chicken pieces in my four-quart pot.

And then began the four-hour process of making this stew. I will type up the recipe tomorrow, but I wanted to get this published before a whole week went by again (as it did before I published last week’s Friday entry, which despite its date was actually published about 10 minutes ago.

I had forgotten how long and labor-intensive this is. I suppose it’s like giving birth — if women remembered what it was like, every child would be an only child. I’m going to make notes in the book this time, so we won’t wind up eating at 7:30 next time.

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And if you’re having anything with gravy, there must be biscuits. I have discovered Heather’s Buttermilk Biscuits, the Only Right Way, and she’s not kidding. If you’re going to make biscuits, make these. Light, fluffy, perfect.

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Dessert was once again Dorie. Tune in Tuesday for details!

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baking Dorie

Tuesdays With Dorie: Pumpkin Muffins

For years I made pumpkin muffins from a recipe I cut out of the Philadelphia Inquirer — cut out, with a pair of scissors, and then kept track of on a little piece of newsprint. It’s so archaic. But somewhere along the line I lost my recipe; no more Andrew’s Pumpkin Muffins. They were excellent, by far the best pumpkin muffins I had ever had in my life.

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe gave me a chance to replace my beloved recipe. And Dorie’s came close to Andrew’s (whoever he may have been) — or, at least, close to my no-doubt-nostalgia-enhanced memory of Andrew’s. We had them for breakfast rather than dessert, so I made them with King Arthur’s white whole-wheat flour. It’s great flour — we really can’t tell the difference in most baked goods — and I feel less guilty about serving it for breakfast.

And then, of course, I had to do something about those raisins. Over the objections of #1 Son (who has developed something of a raisin obsession lately), I used chocolate chips instead. (Breakfast? Who said anything about breakfast?)

So, without any further ado, here are my pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips and pecans:

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Family review:

Husband: They were good all-around muffins — not transcendent, but quite tasty. The chocolate chips were a plus.

#1 Son: They were good, very good. There wasn’t a whole lot of pumpkin flavor, just enough to let you know you were eating pumpkin muffins but not enough to really make an impact. Texture was good, chocolate was good. Yay.

#2 Son: Um nom nom nom nom. (Translation: He liked them.)

I will definitely make these again. (Maybe with more chocolate chips. A cup? Two cups? The sky’s the limit!)

If you’d like to try them, Kelly over at Sounding My Barbaric Gulp! has the recipe. Really, go now. Try them. You won’t be sorry.

And if you’d like to see what other bloggers did with and to them (many no doubt much more creative than my chocolate-for-fruit substitution), check out the blogroll at Tuesdays With Dorie.

Categories
bread food Friday dinner meat recipes

Bicultural Friday Dinner

I had some lamb cubes in the freezer — grass-fed, organic, local lamb, straight from the farmers market. What to do with lamb cubes? Around here, there’s really only one answer. Irish stew:

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I started with the recipe from Cook’s Illustrated‘s The New Best Recipe, #1 Son’s bible. We gave it to him after his bar mitzvah in 1995, and almost four years later it’s still his go-to cookbook for just about everything. (He made a cheesecake yesterday to take to a gathering of teenage homeschoolers today; he used it for a class on the science of cooking.) But the CI recipe called for shoulder chops, and I, of course, had the aforementioned cubes. So I played around with the proportions, but the technique is basically theirs.

Irish Stew (adapted from The New Best Recipe)

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 pound lamb cubes, cut into whatever size you like
2 medium onions, chopped into whatever size you like
a little less than 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
2 cups of water, divided
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon salt
3 medium potatoes (the book recommends Yukon Golds, but you can also use reds)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Sprinkle the lamb cubes with salt and pepper, to taste. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and brown half the lamb on all sides. Remove to a bowl. Add another tablespoon of oil and brown the other half of the lamb on all sides. Remove to the bowl. Turn the heat down to medium-low, add the last tablespoon of oil, and cook the onions till they’re softened, about 5 minutes. Add the flour and stir till the onions are coated evenly. Add one cup of water and stir, scraping the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Add the thyme and the salt. Gradually add the other cup of water and continue to stir until the stew begins to simmer. Put the meat back in and bring the stew back to a simmer. Put the stew in a Dutch oven or covered baking dish and bake for one hour. Remove from the oven, add the potatoes to the top of the stew, re-cover, and bake for another hour or so, until the meat is tender. Stir the potatoes into the stew, let it stand for a few minutes (it’s really, really hot), and enjoy.

And if you’re having Irish stew, you must also have Irish soda bread. Again I turned to The New Best Recipe, and again it didn’t let me down.

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Irish Soda Bread (adapted from The New Best Recipe)

3 cups (15 ounces) lower-protein (read, not King Arthur) all-purpose flour
1 cup (4 ounces) plain cake flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1½ teaspoons cream of tartar
1½ teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus 1 tablespoon melted butter for the crust
1½ cups buttermilk

Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and preheat the over to 400 degrees. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Work the butter into the dry ingredients (with a fork or your fingers) till the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the buttermilk and stir with a fork just till the dough begins to come together. Turn it out onto a floured work surface and knead just till the dough is cohesive enough that you can form it into a loaf. The less you mess with it, the better. Pat the dough into a round about 6 inches across and 2 inches high; place on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. I used a round stoneware pan. Use a serrated knife to cut a cross shape in the top of the dough; each cut should be 5 inches long and ¾ of an inch deep. Bake till the loaf is golden brown and skewer inserted into the center comes out clean (or the internal temperature reaches 180 degrees), about 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter. Cool to room temperature before cutting.

I’m not really a big fan of soda bread, but Husband loves it, so I make it several times a year. This is the best recipe I’ve tried — I actually liked the bread. If you like soda bread, you’ll love it.

And for a change, dessert wasn’t a Dorie recipe. (This week it’s pumpkin muffins, and we’re having them for breakfast tomorrow!) #2 Son goes to a secular Jewish Sunday school (and #1 Son works there), where they learn all about the history and culture and traditions of Judaism. And apparently one of those traditions is celebrating the harvest festival of Sukkot by building model sukkahs out of graham crackers, pretzels, and frosting. When they did this at Sunday school they used that nasty frosting in a tub. But I don’t roll that way. So …

This afternoon I bought graham crackers, spice wafers, three different pretzel shapes, a couple of different kinds of candy corn, mini M&Ms, big marhsmallows, mini-marshmallows, and probably some other stuff I’ve forgotten. Then I made vanilla buttercream icing, chocolate buttercream icing, and royal icing (for architectural purposes). After dinner, the boys went at it.

#1 Son went with a traditional sukkah, complete with autumn leaves scattered on the ground:

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#2 Son, the someday architect, went for something a bit more modern (and a bit less stable):

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Uncategorized

Tuesdays With Dorie: Lenox Almond Biscotti

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This week’s Tuesdays With Dorie recipe was Lenox Almond Biscotti, and we liked them a lot. They were softer than the biscotti I’m used to, the kind you have to dunk into coffee or risk breaking your teeth. There’s cornmeal in them, which gives them an interesting texture, and lots of almond extract. I was actually worried about using so much, because most recipes call for just a quarter or half teaspoon, but it worked, and it worked well.

I had some bananas quickly heading toward rot, so I made David Lebovitz‘s Roasted Banana Ice Cream (from Perfect Scoop; if you make ice cream at home, you must acquire this book) to go with the biscotti. We also had some caramel sauce left over from last week’s TWD adventure.

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I did not write this post on Saturday, as I usually do (we spent the day in Manhattan! it was fun!), so I don’t have a full family interview this time. (Two are still asleep; one’s getting ready to go to work.) I’ll try to fill in their opinions later,

I did ask #1 Son for his pithy quote last night:

#1 Son: Good almond flavor, chewy texture. Not at all like the biscotti you get in coffee shops, which are as hard as rocks.

Update:

Husband: They were a little uneven in terms of their texture, but very tasty. They were brittle on the ends and little toothier in the middle. I prefer them that way, actually. And they were really delicious.

#2 Son: I liked how they were slightly chewy and the almond flavor. They were very good with the ice cream.

So these are a keeper. If you want to try them yourself, head on over to Canela and Comino, where Gretchen has the recipe and quite a few delicious-looking variations. And check out what all the other TWD bloggers did with these at Tuesdays With Dorie. You’ll see all kinds of creative changes to this recipe, I predict.

Categories
baking Dorie

Tuesdays With Dorie: Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake

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This week’s TWD recipe was Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake. Husband’s birthday was last Thursday, and so this was a perfect ending to our Friday dinner.

I was on my own for this one, and I didn’t start till mid-afternoon. The cake came together pretty quickly, which was nice, and it was out of the oven an hour after I started.

The topping came a couple of hours later, just before dinner, and it too was fairly simple. I’ve had issues with caramel before, but this came together nice, exactly as described in the book.

And when I brought it to the table, it was beautiful. Mouthwateringly beautiful.

Unfortunately, it just didn’t live up to the promise of its name and beauty. It was fine, but not brilliant. It reminded me of a restaurant dessert, one of those that sound incredible when you read the description on the menu but are ultimately disappointing.

From the name, I thought the cake would be more of a giant brownie, but it was actually a cake, and the caramel was a bit bland.

We had vanilla ice cream with it; I think that’s absolutely necessary. It balanced the sweetness and richness of the chocolate and caramel.

Family reviews:

Husband: It was more cakey than I thought it would be, not as chocolatey. It worked as a whole package, when the ice cream was added in.

#1 Son: Not a lot of depth of flavor, and the texture was disappointing. But the caramel and the peanuts were good.

#2 Son: The cake was not the texture of either brownie or cake, kind of in between. Still really good — I like the bittersweet chocolate. The peanuts were good — they added that little bit of salt — and the caramel was awesome. Great with vanilla ice cream!

The next day, two of us liked it more (richer flavor), and two of us liked it less (drier cake).

This recipe was chosen by Tammy over at Wee Treats by Tammy. She’ll have the recipe over there if you want to try it for yourself, or you could go buy Dorie’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. And if you want to see what tons of other bloggers thought of it, check out the blogroll at Tuesdays With Dorie.

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Uncategorized

Tuesdays With Dorie: Crème Brûlée

This week’s TWD recipe is Crème Brûlée. It needs a blowtorch. Much to the dismay of #1 Son, who has been looking for an excuse to make crème brûlée for well over a year now, I could not justify spending $32 for a blowtorch at Wegman’s last week, and Target doesn’t carry them.

However, now that I’m writing this I finally went to the Tuesdays With Dorie page and read all the comments there, and it turns out I could have found a much cheaper torch had I shopped around a bit (I hate shopping), and that I could have caramelized the sugar under the broiler instead. But I didn’t, and it’s too late now. Sorry, #1 Son. It also turns out I could have made something else from Baking: From My Home to Yours. Anything I wanted! And had a good excuse!!! But again, I failed.

So, if you want to read about some yummy and no doubt gorgeous crème brûlée, check out all the other TWD bloggers. And if you happen to have a blowtorch and want to try it yourself, the recipe will be posted at Mevrouw Cupcake.

Categories
baking Dorie

Tuesdays With Dorie: Dimply Plum Cake

I wasn’t going to do Dorie this week. You know, the whole fruit thing. But yesterday was my mother’s birthday — and the first day of fall — so I figured that was a good enough reason to bake, even if there was fruit involved.

Unfortunately, I decided this after I had been to the farmers market on Saturday morning. Fortunately, I had bought nectarines. So I made Dimply Nectarine Cake. And it was good.

I made it Sunday night, because the recipe said the cake was moister the next day, and moist sounded good.

Because the nectarines were considerably larger than plums, I cut them into quarters rather than halves. Oh, and I left out the orange zest, because I didn’t have any oranges, and the cardomom, just because. Other than that, I made it as written.

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Everyone really liked it. My mother and I had it plain, but it was apparently also good with ginger preserves (#1 Son):

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and Greek yogurt (Husband):

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and raspberry jelly (#2 Son, but no photo).

This was a good buffet-type cake: not too sweet, probably excellent with coffee. It wasn’t anything jaw-droppingly spectacular, but it’s an excellent recipe to have on hand when you need something a little unusual and not too labor-intensive.

If you’d like to try it yourself, Michelle will post the recipe over at Bake-En. And if you’d like to see the myriad variations that all the other TWD bakers come up with, check out the blog roll at Tuesdays With Dorie.

Categories
baking Dorie

Tuesdays With Dorie: Chocolate Chunkers

I’m late! I always get these posts done by 8 a.m. on Tuesday (well, usually over the weekend, with an automatic post at 8 a.m. on Tuesday). But it was a rough few days around here. I apologize to my thousands of early-bird readers who were disappointed this morning.

This week’s recipe was Chocolate Chunkers, chosen by Claudia of Fool for Food; she’ll have the recipe (in both English and German, most likely!) if you want to try them yourself.

I made these cookies in a rush, which is never a good way to do anything, on Friday morning before a picnic. There were going to be lots of people there, including lots of kids, and I thought it would be nice to have lots of people to eat these things, because otherwise we were going to wind up eating way, way, way too many.

The recipe calls for raisins. Anyone who has read more than a couple of my posts can predict that I left those out, much to the chagrin of #1 Son. I made half as written (using milk chocolate rather than white, because I forgot to buy white, and because I like milk better), except without the raisins, and added shredded sweetened coconut to the other half. Everything’s better with coconut, right?

Turns out, not these cookies. They were great without the coconut, really amazing, and just good with it.

They taste like little brownies, rich and moist and oh-so-chocolatey. All of four of us loved them, and all four of us preferred the non-coconut version (which didn’t prevent us from eating the coconut ones too, mind you!).

These were by far my favorite Dorie cookies so far.

With coconut:

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And without:

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Try them both ways. See which you prefer.

If you want to see what everyone else did with these, check them out at Tuesdays With Dorie.

Categories
baking Dorie

Tuesdays With Dorie: Chocolate Whopper Malted Drops

Rough week here. But I couldn’t skip Dorie, now, could I? So I made the batter on Friday, amidst all the other goings-on, and managed to bake one batch of 12 before dinner. But that was it.

We ate a few after dinner on Friday, when they were meant to be our special Friday dessert, but we were all so tired by the time dinner was done that the sense of ceremony was lost.

And I didn’t have time to bake on Saturday, either. Once again, #1 Son to the rescue. He pointed out, quite rightly, that the batter was once again delicious. And that he had not been terribly impressed by the cookies. And that we had most of a carton of vanilla ice cream in the freezer, which had been intended to go with the cookies for Friday dessert.

The logical conclusion: Chocolate Whopper Malted Drops Dough Ice Cream!

The batter had been sitting in the fridge overnight, so it was pretty solid. I portioned it out into ice cream-appropriate bits and froze it for a couple of hours. Then I softened the ice cream in the food processor, à la the Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte. Then I combined the two and stuck the result back in the freezer to harden.

It was a very good thing.

Comments on the cookies were as follows:

#1 Son: No depth of flavor — it didn’t taste like a malted-milk cookie. The Whoppers didn’t come through. But the dough was excellent, like chocolate frosting.

#2 Son: They’re just chocolate — you don’t really get anything else out of them.

Husband: I liked the soft and chewy texture, but the taste wasn’t particularly complex or interesting.

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But everyone loved the batter in the ice cream, especially with Ovaltine sprinkled on top!

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If you want to see what everyone else did with the actual cookies, head on over to Tuesdays With Dorie. And if you want to try them yourself, either as cookies or as batter — complete with raw eggs! — check out the recipe at Confessions of a Tangerine Tart (or, even better, buy the book!).

Categories
baking Dorie

Tuesdays With Dorie: Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters

I’ve been making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for years, the ones from the Quaker Oats box. Everyone loves them, and I get requests for them from people I haven’t seen for months at a time. They’re really good.

All that is prelude to my saying that this week’s Tuesdays With Dorie recipe was for peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, taking mine just a bit further flavorwise. #2 Son helped out this time, making the batter completely on his own.

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I refrigerated the batter for about three hours, and then scooped it out with my lovely little cookie scoop. (The batter, by the way, was really good. We ate more than was strictly a good idea.)

Baked them. Ate one. Wow. Warm chocolate chip cookies are one of the little pleasures of life.

But I couldn’t leave well enough alone. All the other TWD bakers have inspired me to push everything just a little further.

So I slapped some vanilla ice cream between a couple of cookies, and let me tell you, that was incredible.

I would have eaten most of the cookies myself, along with most of the ice cream, but luckily I had two extra 16-year-old boys here overnight (in addition to the usual one), and they polished off the couple of dozen cookies and nearly half a gallon of ice cream that were left after dinner.

But I would have.

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Check out how far all the other TWD bakers pushed this recipe, and if you want to try it yourself, head on over to Proceed With Caution, where Stefany will have it all typed up for you.