After a quick tour of the oil-pressing equipment, we sat down to this intriguing array of plates and dishes:

Set up for olive oil and vinegar tasting

I was very curious to know what the sugar cubes were for!

In the blue cups were four different olive oils, and in the white dish on the right were 3 infused oils.  We learned how professionals taste olive oil. First you stick your nose deep in the cup and take a big sniff. Then you take a little sip and inhale quickly to suck it across your tongue to the back of your throat. If it irritates your throat (or even makes you cough), that’s a sign of a high-quality olive oil!

Tasting the olive oil

It turns out the sugar cubes were for tasting the red wine vinegar. You pour some vinegar over the sugar cube, then quickly pick it up and suck the vinegar out before it disintegrates. The sugar helps takes some of the sharpness out of the vinegar so you can taste the underlying flavors better.

Pouring red wine vinegar

After the more formal tasting, we were given two plates of food and a bowl of salad greens and had free time to experiment with the different oils and vinegars to see how they affect the flavors of the food. It was really fun!

A plate of food for tasting…

More food for tasting.

All in all, a great break from wine tasting and a very fun experience.

We came home with bottles of Blood Orange Olive Oil and Cabernet-Merlot Red Wine Vinegar.

I made a wonderful vinaigrette with the Blood Orange Olive Oil.  I served it drizzled over fresh, wild halibut and tossed it with asparagus.  Fabulous!  It was also good as a traditional salad dressing.

Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Print Recipe

• 1/2 cup Blood Orange Olive Oil
• 3 tablespoons sherry vinegar
• 1 medium shallot, finely chopped
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Combine all ingredients in a jar or bowl.  Shake or whisk until combined.  Taste, and add more sherry vinegar or salt and pepper, if necessary.

This week’s French Friday’s with Dorie recipe was a super-easy appetizer called Goat Cheese and Strawberry Tartine.

Here is the non-recipe:  Spread soft goat cheese on slices of baguette.  Top with strawberry halves, sprinkle with freshly ground pepper, and (optionally) drizzle with balsamic vinegar.  Voila!

I used a balsamic glaze from Trader Joe’s.  I should have practiced my drizzling skills first, because as you can see in the picture below, my drizzling was more like big drops and not very pretty.

The best thing about this week’s recipe is that I actually had an appropriate event to enjoy these!  We had my mother-in-law over for a very-belated Mother’s Day dinner and this was our appetizer.  I served the tartines with a light, slightly bubbly, white wine and it was delicious.

What a perfect late-spring/early-summer appetizer!  Very easy and delicious.

Wow, I’m actually on time for a French Fridays with Dorie post!  Anne Leblanc’s Pistachio Avocado was a super-simple, yet unique, dish.

Aside from the avocado, the main ingredient was pistachio oil.  I could not find it locally, so I looked for it on my recent trip to the Napa Valley.  I found some imported French pistachio oil (I think it was the same brand that Dorie uses) at Dean & Deluca.  But it cost $55 for an 8 ounce bottle!  Oh, my!

Homemade Pistachio Oil

I did find a less-expensive brand on Amazon, but decided to make my own instead.  Astute Dorista Paula found a recipe at Food & Wine that I think many of us tried.  If you are interested, you can find the recipe here:  Toasted Pistachio Oil.

I’m not used to eating avocado as a side dish, but this was good.  I served it with Lemon-Grilled Chicken Breasts as recommended by Dorie in the Bonne Idée.  It really was a great combination!

I am curious to know how real pistachio oil tastes compared to the infused oil I made, but not enough to spend $55!

Scones! This month for my Bouchon Bakery Challenge I tried two of the scone recipes from Bouchon Bakery. I was gong to make only the Plain Scones, but my sister insisted that I try the Cinnamon Honey Scones too. Since the Cinnamon Honey Scones recipe makes use of the Plain Scones dough, I decided to use half the dough for the plain ones and the other half for the cinnamon honey.

It’s hard to go wrong with all the good stuff packed into these scones: butter, heavy cream, and crème fraîche. Cake flour is used for a tender crumb.

Cinnamon Honey Scone

These are excellent scones. The texture is perfect: slightly crunchy and short on the outside and tender on the inside. They are very flavorful without being too sweet. The Cinnamon Honey Scones are wonderful on their own, while the Plain Scones are the perfect foundation for butter and a special jam. The cookbook mentions that the Plain Scones would make a great base for shortcakes, and I agree.

Plain Scone with Meyer Lemon & Lavender Marmalade

A great thing about these recipes is that shaped scones are meant to be frozen overnight before baking.  This provides so much flexibility!  Having a big celebration?  Get the scones made a few days early and pop them in on the big day.  Having a small celebration, or baking scones “just because”?  Just bake what you need and save the rest for later.

Recipe Notes

• The Plain Scone recipe is ready-made to be tinkered with. Try adding nuts or dried fruits, flavorings, or use your imagination. I am thinking of trying to reproduce the petite vanilla scones they have at Starbucks or doing something with my leftover rose extract.

• The recipes give instructions for baking these in both convection or standard ovens.  A comment suggests they will have a slightly higher rise in a convection oven.  Since my oven has a convection feature that I don’t use very often I gave it a try.  My scones turned out slightly sunken in and the interior was a little dense, almost like they weren’t cooked all the way through (but they still tasted good!).  In a bolt of inspiration (after I took most of my photos) I decided to try baking some of them using the “standard” instructions and they turned out much better.  Fully risen and cooked through.

You can really see the sunken look in this photo:

Sunken Scone

This scone was baked in a standard oven.  See how it’s nicely rounded at the top?

Cinnamon Honey Scone baked in a “standard” oven.

Altitude Adjustments

None. I generally don’t need to make adjustments for scones and biscuits, especially those recipes without eggs. I was slightly “ungenerous” when measuring the baking powder and baking soda, but that’s it.

I do think that my troubles baking these in convection mode is somehow related to altitude. The issues are similar to high altitude issues: the “fallen” look and dense interior. Perhaps the temperature was too low to support the rising dough? One of the recommendations for combating fallen cakes is to raise the oven temperature a bit, which causes the batter to “set” before the cells expand too much and collapse. Just some rambling thoughts…

Next Month

For June I will be making the Doughnuts (page 196) with my sister while I am visiting family in Seattle. I will share my results with you on June 25th (my birthday!).

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!

I have always liked caramel popcorn but had never tried making it.  The first time I looked through my copy of Bouchon Bakery, the recipe for Caramel Popcorn caught my eye and I knew I would be high on my list of things to make.

Caramel popcorn is fun, but hectic, to make.  From start to finish it took me less than an hour to produce a very impressive treat.

This popcorn is so good!  It might be the best caramel popcorn I have ever eaten.  It has the perfect balance of sweet and salty, and just the right amount of crunch.  In fact, I cannot stop eating it!

If you are interested in trying Caramel Popcorn I found a slightly adapted version of the recipe here.

Recipe Notes

• You have to move quick once the caramel is ready.  Have everything in place and ready to go, move kids and pets out of the way, and go for it!

• I found that half a cup of unpopped kernels produced just about the right amount of popped corn (maybe slightly too much, see below).

• My caramel didn’t coat the popcorn kernels quite as much as I would have liked, but I think this is due to my using a little more than 10 cups (more like 12 cups).  It is still good though, so don’t fret about getting the exact amount of popcorn.

Altitude Adjustments

Surprisingly, yes!  Even though this recipe involved no baking, adjustments need to be made when making candy due to the lower boiling point of water at higher altitudes.  I used this formula to adjust the temperature down when making the caramel.  For Reno (elevation 4500 feet) I adjusted down 9°F.

I think this is the reason why I have had trouble making caramel and other candies in the past.  I always end up burning them while I wait to get the temperatures up the final few degrees.  Now I know why!

Next Month

May is already moving quickly, so I have chosen another simple recipe:  Plain Scones (page 68).  I will share my results with you on May 28th (hopefully!).

I apologize for being late with my April Bouchon Bakery Challenge recipe, Caramel Popcorn.  I was on vacation earlier this week and I thought I would have time to get it made before the trip, but it didn’t quite get done.  Soon though!

This post is about my vacation.  My parents offered to babysit for a few nights (thanks Mom & Dad!) so my husband and I took a much-needed vacation to the Napa Valley.  We had a lovely time relaxing, sipping wine, and of course eating!

Now, I couldn’t take a trip to the Napa Valley without heading into Yountville for a stop at Bouchon Bakery!  It was hard not to go crazy, but I ended up with three tasty treats.

Strawberry Croissant

The Strawberry Croissant may have been my favorite of the treats.  It was half a croissant filled with almond cream, covered with strawberries, and sprinkled with a streusel topping.  Yum!  I could eat one of those every day and be happy.

Ready to eat my Strawberry Croissant

My other treats were chocolate-themed:

Chocolate Macaron and an Oh-Oh

The Chocolate Macaron was delicious, but I wish I had waited a while to eat it.  The filling was a little hard from being in the air-conditioned bakery.  An hour or so in the warm car would have made it perfect.

Chocolate Macaron

The last item I got was an Oh-Oh, the bakery’s take on a Hostess Ho Ho.  Oh, my it was good!  Sorry I didn’t get a more detailed picture of it, but rest assured it was tasty.

If you ever find yourself in the Napa Valley (or Las Vegas, New York City, or Beverly Hills) be sure to hit Bouchon Bakery!

This little guy really wanted to share with me!

We had another fun food-related experience on our trip that I hope to share with you in the next few days!

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.

Lemon-Steamed Spinach

There’s not much to say about this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Lemon-Steamed Spinach.  It is a very simple side dish of lightly scented steamed spinach.

The interesting thing about this recipe is the technique; it is quite ingenious.  Instead of flavoring the spinach after it is steamed, Dorie has you do it first.  Baby spinach leaves are tossed with olive oil, lemon zest, salt, and pepper, much like tossing a salad.  Then it is steamed and served immediately.

The end result is a lovely, simple side dish.  I served mine with Chicken Piccata and the two dishes went perfectly together.

Ispahan Loaf Cake

Last week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe was a very unique cake called Ispahan Loaf Cake.  The word “Ispahan” is the name of a type of rose, and indicates that the cake is rose-scented.

This is one of those dishes I would never have made if not for French Fridays with Dorie.  I would not have taken the time or shelled out the money to buy rose syrup and rose extract.  But, in the name of FFWD I did!

I did not make any altitude adjustments while making this cake.  It already contained 4 eggs, including whipped egg whites, so I wasn’t sure I would need to add any more.  There also wasn’t any baking soda or baking powder to reduce.  It turns out I should have added an egg.  This is what a cake without altitude adjustments looks like:

I should have adjusted for altitude…

It wasn’t pretty, but the cake still tasted good and was nice and moist.

I liked this cake!  The rose flavor was very subtle. Perhaps it was the rose syrup I used, which wasn’t very strong.  The cake is studded with raspberries.  They aren’t a favorite of mine, and my favorite bites were the ones without raspberries in them.

I thought the rose tea cup was appropriate!

I would like to try making this cake again without the raspberries and with an extra egg.   I may add a little extra rose extract to amp up the flavor.  I also need to find other ways to use my bottle of rose extract.  I have an idea for rose cupcakes…

Croissants!  They seem like the kind of thing that can only be made with good results in a bakery.  But, if you have some time and follow the instructions in Bouchon Bakery, you can make them at home.

Making croissants is quite a process.  First you make a poolish, with flour, water, and a pinch of yeast.  This sits overnight until the yeast has exhausted it’s food supply.

These kind of look like snails to me…

Next, the fun part begins!  First, you get to pound a block of butter with a rolling pin until it is flattened into a rectangle.  Then you mix the dough and let it knead in the mixer for 20 minutes.  The dough then rests for an hour (the dough rests a lot in this process!).

Then the rolling and folding process begins, to encase the butter in the dough in lots of layers.  Let’s just say there is a lot of rolling, folding, resting in the freezer, and more rolling.  There is a nice description of the process (with pictures) on King Arthur Flour’s blog:  Making Croissants.

Finally, after several hours, the dough can be shaped into croissants.  The book gives instructions for both traditional croissants and pains au chocolat (aka chocolate croissants).  I made both!

Pain au Chocolat

After shaping, you’re still not done!  The croissants have to proof (rise) for a couple of hours before they are ready to go into the oven.  I got so anxious to get these in the oven I forgot to do the final egg wash, so they are not as shiny and browned as they should be.

My house smelled like a bakery while these were baking.  It smelled so good!  I could hardly wait to try my first one.  It was worth all the effort!  I was very impressed by how well these turned out.  The outside was crisp and flaky, and the inside soft and moist and buttery.  They tasted like croissants should taste.  And the pains au chocolat  were amazing!!

Buttery interior

Recipe Notes

• Definitely use the European-style butter called for in the recipe.  I could really taste the difference!

• The recipe makes it sounds as though the dough needs to be shaped and proofed immediately after it is ready.  Because of time constraints, I shaped some of the croissants right away (but proofed it the next day), and left half the dough in the refrigerator overnight before rolling it out and shaping it.  I didn’t discern any problems doing this.

• The recipe also makes it sound as though the unproofed and unbaked croissants should not be frozen.  To me, it seemed easier to freeze the unbaked croissants rather than the baked ones.  So I froze most of the pains au chocolate and a few of the traditional croissants.  As an experiment, I tried one of the frozen ones today and it turned out great.

• To prepare the frozen croissants:  Thaw the croissants in the refrigerator overnight.  The next morning, place them in a warm place and let them proof for about 2 hours.  Bake as instructed.  Because I only baked one croissant, I used some canola oil spray instead of the egg wash.  I know, blasphemous!  But I thought it turned out fine – nicely browned and flaky.

We had chicken salad sandwiches on our croissants!

Altitude Adjustments

None, but I did have to use all of the extra water the authors have you reserve in case the dough seems dry.

Next Month

April is going to be a busy month, so I have chosen a recipe that can be made in less than a day:  Caramel Popcorn (page 338).  I will share my results with you on April 30th!