From Scratch

Where have I been?  I’m not quite sure…  I think after I got busy in April I simply got out of the habit of blogging.  It didn’t help that my husband was working insanely crazy hours the last few weeks while I held down the fort.

As usual, I managed to keep up with my French Fridays with Dorie cooking, even though I wasn’t writing about it.  That’s means I have a lot of catching up to do.  Let’s get to it!

Cod & Spinach Roulades

This was a very interesting dish that turned out to be quite delicious.  Basically, the cod is pulverized in a food processor with egg whites and cream to make a fish mousse.  The mouse is spread onto plastic wrap, filled with a tasty spinach mixture, then rolled into “sausages”.

The fish sausages get steamed until cooked through, then they are served on a simple tomato sauce and garnished with pesto.  The tomato sauce and pesto were optional, but we felt they were necessary.  The whole family liked this one, including my daughter, though she managed to avoid most of her spinach while eating all of her fish.

Swiss Chard Pancakes

Savory pancakes made with Swiss chard!  This is a tasty way to eat your greens!  I really liked these pancakes (I served them as a side with pork tenderloin), though they were a little oily.  The last few batches I cooked were not as oily because there wasn’t much oil left in the pan, but they also weren’t quite as delicious.

Creamy Mushrooms & Eggs

Dorie serves this dish as a starter, but I made it as a special breakfast for one.  Toasted brioche (or challah in my case) is covered with a savory mix of sauteed mushrooms fortified with cream and topped off with an egg.  The recipe calls for a poached egg, but I’m not a big fan of runny yolks, so I made a fried egg instead.  Delicious!

I liked the mushrooms so much I made them again that night and served them with steak.

Coupétade

I really thought I was going to love this one.  I couldn’t wait to make it!  French toast, baked into a bread pudding with a vanilla custard base.  How could I go wrong?

I should have gone with my first instinct by omitting the prunes and raisins.  I didn’t like the taste of them in the pudding, which isn’t surprising since dried fruits in baked goods isn’t a favorite of mine.

I also didn’t care for the texture.  It’s almost like the custard didn’t soak into the bread enough.

The day I made this I ate it at room temperature for dessert (it had not been refrigerated at all).  The next morning I ate some cold for breakfast.  I liked it better cold, but I still wished I had left out the prunes and raisins.

Asparagus Soup

This is one of those magical soups where it tastes rich and creamy, but is actually light and healthy (well, maybe except for the crème fraîche, but there’s only a little bit so it doesn’t count).  It’s a very simple mixture of cooked asparagus, butter, leeks, onion, shallot, and garlic, pureed until smooth and topped off with a dollop of crème fraîche.

We loved this soup!  So creamy and flavorful, yet virtuous.  This will likely make a yearly “celebrate-asparagus-season” appearance on my table.

Whew, all caught up!  I hope to be back next week with my regularly scheduled posts!

April always seems to be a busy month.  Back in college it was well known on campus that April was the month everyone was crazy busy.  This year April seems to be particularly busy.  Between my daughter’s Spring Break, having two sets of house guests, planning for a little vacation, my home improvement project, and keeping up with day-to-day tasks, I’m maxed out!  Luckily it’s all fun stuff, so I’m not too stressed out about it.

Unfortunately the thing that seems to get put on the back burner when I’m really busy is my blogging.  I don’t get much time to write, and I also can’t seem to find time to read and comment on others’ blogs.  I feel bad that I’m not able to reciprocate when I get such nice comments!

I am still keeping up with my French Fridays with Dorie cooking and this week we made tasty little cakes called Financiers.

Financiers only contain six ingredients:  butter (which is browned), sugar, almond flour, egg whites, and all-purpose flour.  The result is very flavorful, moist, dense, little cakes.  I swear I can taste vanilla in these!

I really liked these cakes and couldn’t stop eating them.  My daughter liked them too.  Good thing I froze half of them for future enjoyment!

Last week we made some interesting little cookies called Pierre Hermé’s Olive Sablés.

I’m actually not sure if I liked these or not.  I liked the texture of the cookies, but they were sweeter than I expected and the olive flavor wasn’t very prominent.  My husband didn’t even detect the olives (I didn’t tell him what they were until after he tasted the cookies).

I think it comes down to a problem of atmosphere.  If I were nibbling these little cookies with a nice glass of wine at a cocktail party I’m sure they would have been wonderful!  But trying these on a wine-free weeknight just didn’t quite cut it.  I think I need to host a “French Fridays with Dorie”-themed cocktail party so I can serve and enjoy all the little nibbles we’ve made the proper way.