Tag Archives: blueberries

August 30, 2016 · 4:32 PM

Tuesdays with Dorie Rewind!

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It’s rewind week at Tuesdays with Dorie. That means we can try a make-up recipe, or remake an old favorite. I am choosing to catch up on a couple of recipes I made over the last month but haven’t had a chance to write about yet: Cornmeal and Berry Cakes and Esquimaux Pops for Grown-Ups.

Cornmeal and Berry Cakes

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During a particularly stressful week early in the month, I decided to take a break and bake Cornmeal and Berry Cakes. It was very therapeutic to get out some flour, sugar, and eggs and bake something! And these sunny little cakes are just the thing to brighten one’s day.

These cakes are are simple olive oil cakes, gussied up a bit with fine cornmeal, lemon juice and zest, and berries. I made two small changes: I made cupcakes rather than the 4 small loaf cakes Dorie suggests, and I used blueberries instead of raspberries.

Cornmeal and Berry Cakes are delicious little snacking cakes. Mine turned out a little heavy, but I think it’s because I did not adjust for altitude at all (I usually do when making cakes). I always enjoy the flavors of lemon and blueberry together. I froze half the cakes for future snacking, and they froze well.

Esquimaux Pops for Grown-Ups

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When Esquimaux Pops for Grown-Ups showed up on the Tuesdays with Dorie schedule, I knew I would be making them! These are fudgy little ice pops with flecks of dark chocolate. What makes them only for grown-ups? The addition of liqueur!

To make these pops, we first made a chocolate mousse, mixing in tiny bits of chocolate at the end. I used Dorie’s favorite crème de cassis as my choice of liqueur because I had some on hand, but Kahlua would be wonderful as well. The mousse is simply spooned into popsicle molds and frozen until solid.

Yum! My husband and I have been enjoying these adult treats each night after my daughter goes to bed. They are the perfect size: a sweet treat that leaves you wanting just a tiny bit more. I will definitely make these again and it would be fun to experiment with different liqueurs.

If you are interested in trying either of these recipes, you can find them in Dorie Greenspan’s delicious book Baking Chez Moi.

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July 5, 2013 · 9:59 PM

Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad + Sablé Breton Galette with Berries

I hope all my U.S. readers had a fun Fourth of July yesterday!  Perhaps you took today off too and enjoyed a long weekend.  Yesterday we took a drive past a very busy Lake Tahoe and went instead to a much less busy (though busier than usual) Spooner Lake for a picnic lunch and a walk.  I wrote about Spooner Lake last year.

I will be telling you about two French Fridays with Dorie dishes today:  Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad, and Sablé Breton Galette with Berries.

Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad

Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad

Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad was the perfect dinner for this hot week we’ve been having.  The wheat berries and hard-boiled eggs were cooked early in the day, and the rest was just assembly.

I don’t believe I have eaten cooked wheat berries before (though I already had some for making sprouted wheat bread).  I liked their chewy texture.

The wheat berries were tossed with a simple vinaigrette, celery, onion, red pepper, red apple, and albacore tuna.  The salad was placed on a bed of mixed greens, then topped with grape tomatoes, avocado, and hard-boiled eggs.

I really liked this salad!  The flavor combination was great.  My husband said he liked everything but the wheat berries.  He also declared his love for hard-boiled eggs and said if I made a batch of them every week he would eat them for breakfasts and snacks.  In fact, he has brought up the idea of hard-boiled eggs (and also gone so far as to suggest deviled eggs) every day since we ate this salad, so I see more hard-boiled eggs in our future.

Sablé Breton Galette with Berries

Sable Breton Galette with Blueberries

I made Sablé Breton Galette with Berries last week on my birthday.

What makes this galette special is the crust.  Instead of a typical tart crust, this is a soft cookie-like crust inspired by the buttery sablé cookie from the Brittany region of France.

I made four small galettes (galettelettes?) instead of one large.  They were topped with homemade lemon curd (from the recipe given in the book) and blueberries. Heavenly!

The French Fridays with Dorie group does not share recipes, but Dorie herself shared the recipe for this galette in her newsletter.  If you do not own a copy of Around My French Table (why not?), you can find the recipe here.

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July 20, 2012 · 9:26 PM

Salmon with Basil Tapenade + Blueberry-Mascarpone Roulade

I’m back to my every-other-week schedule this week!  I have two French Fridays with Dorie recipes to share with you:  Salmon with Basil Tapenade and Blueberry-Mascarpone Roulade (although mine is not a roulade).

First we’ll talk about the Salmon with Basil Tapenade.  This was a very simple, but tasty, dish.  First off, a mixture is made with black olive tapenade (I purchased mine at Trader Joe’s), minced basil, lemon zest and juice, and freshly ground pepper.  This mixture is stuffed into slits in the salmon, which is roasted.  Finally, a sauce is made from a bit of the tapenade mixture, olive oil, more basil, and more lemon zest and juice.  The sauce is spooned over the salmon on the plate.

Salmon with Basil Tapenade

This was delicious!  The flavors all went so nicely together and the whole family enjoyed it.  I served the salmon with one of my favorite green bean dishes ever:  Warm Green Bean Salad with Pine Nuts and Basil.  A great meal!

Next is a wonderful dessert called Blueberry-Mascarpone Roulade.  Except instead of doing a roulade, I took inspiration from the two Bonne Idées included with this recipe.  Apparently, the batter for this cake is the same as the batter for ladyfingers, so I decided to try my hand at making ladyfingers.  Fun!

Ladyfingers

To asseble the dessert, I made what I called “Blueberry Tiramisu Parfaits”.  I layered ladyfingers and the blueberry-mascarpone filling in glass dishes for a very pretty dessert.  I brushed a little creme de cassis on the ladyfingers, but I had too light a hand and couldn’t taste it.  I wish I had used more.

Blueberry Tiramisu Parfaits

I loved this dessert!  I could have eaten spoonfuls of the vanilla-flavored mascarpone cream filling – it was fabulous!  The blueberries were a delicious counterpoint to the sweet cream, and the ladyfingers rounded out the flavors and textures perfectly.

All in all, a delicious two weeks of French Fridays with Dorie eating!

 

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