P.S. Ever wanted to see the most beautiful pictures in the world?
Yeah, you betcha.
Go here. Go here now. La Tartine Gourmande will blow your mind. It exceeds the category of "food photography"; it's sheerly some of the best photography my untrained eye has ever seen.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Roast yourself some garlic
It's basic. It's simple. And it's my favorite thing to do these days.
Roasting garlic is probably the best decision you can make. It's the perfect winter dish, for those who are living in a normal February zone. It's also perfectly reminiscent of summer, for those of us who are undergoing the early springs, like what's happening in Portland right now. It's making me imagine summer pasta dishes with luscious fresh tomatoes and huge salads full of salad greens (ohhhh, salad green season).
What I'm trying to say, I think, is that I'm ready for it to be growing season, but I'm taking my roasted garlic along with me.
Photo by the generous and ever-lovely Emily F. Samstag.
Roasted Garlic
It's rather easy. So easy, in fact, that it doesn't really take a recipe. But it's delicious in just about anything in which you would use normal garlic.
For starters, cut about a half inch off of the top of a head of garlic (always use a head. Using individual cloves will make the cloves undergo a strange and bitter melding with their papery outer layers). Drizzle it liberally with a quality olive oil, making sure to let it soak between the cloves and coat the papery outside. Stick it in something over-safe, and roast somewhere between 400 and 500 degrees Fahrenheit, for 20-25 minutes. Check it periodically throughout the roasting process and douse with more olive oil if it starts to look dry. Toss with pasta and some Pecorino Romano, or spread on a slice of artisan bread.
Roasting garlic is probably the best decision you can make. It's the perfect winter dish, for those who are living in a normal February zone. It's also perfectly reminiscent of summer, for those of us who are undergoing the early springs, like what's happening in Portland right now. It's making me imagine summer pasta dishes with luscious fresh tomatoes and huge salads full of salad greens (ohhhh, salad green season).
What I'm trying to say, I think, is that I'm ready for it to be growing season, but I'm taking my roasted garlic along with me.
Photo by the generous and ever-lovely Emily F. Samstag.Roasted Garlic
It's rather easy. So easy, in fact, that it doesn't really take a recipe. But it's delicious in just about anything in which you would use normal garlic.
For starters, cut about a half inch off of the top of a head of garlic (always use a head. Using individual cloves will make the cloves undergo a strange and bitter melding with their papery outer layers). Drizzle it liberally with a quality olive oil, making sure to let it soak between the cloves and coat the papery outside. Stick it in something over-safe, and roast somewhere between 400 and 500 degrees Fahrenheit, for 20-25 minutes. Check it periodically throughout the roasting process and douse with more olive oil if it starts to look dry. Toss with pasta and some Pecorino Romano, or spread on a slice of artisan bread.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Single's Appreciation Day
Christmas was a bit of a let-down for me this year. I spent it with a few friends and ate a lovely meal, but it wasn't the completely enthralling, October-November-December-consuming holiday of my childhoods. Same for Halloween (I used to start planning my costumes in June). Which means that what I'm about to tell you about may be, in fact, my favorite holiday.
I went to college in Maine for a year, at Bowdoin College, to be precise. While there, my friend Doris imparted to me her own (very wise) riff on February 14: Single's Awareness Day. Together, we began the ritual of eating lots of chocolate, watching Boondock Saints, and appreciating being single and having such good friends.
Fast-forward another year: I'd transferred back West, and I'd begun introducing the holiday at my new school. I'd changed the name to "Single's Appreciation Day", but of course I'd kept the chocolate and the Boondock Saints. Emily and I had a small celebration with our friend Eira and her roommate.
And now we're in 2008. My beloved holiday is taking on a life of its own; one that involves pre-planning, and email invitations, and baking the night before. Brenna, Zoë, Emily and I are hosting a viewing of the movie at The Miracle (the house where Em and I live), and expecting many a Singles-loving person to show up.
The Rules, as I sent them out: "ASD is a day for glorying in the single life. There will be no bitching about being single. There will be no discussing of significant others. Should anyone have the gall to show up with an S.O. in anything but faking a "This is my distant cousin" sort of way, they will be immediately subjected to doubtful looks and criticism ("Are you sure about that choice?", "When ARE you going to be single again, anyways? You can't put it off forever, you know..."). Enjoy watching two attractive men with accents kill people and eat some chocolate and be with the people you love (your friends)."
I will be doing my part by baking one of my favorite means of chocolate consumption: Gâteau au chocolat fondant.
Gâteau au chocolat fondant
adapted from my recently acquired, and dearly beloved copy of Je veux du chocolat ! (ok, so, I'm full of lies. I actually have the English version. It was $20 cheaper. But really, the French title just sounds SO much better than I Want Chocolate! which, let's be honest, sounds like a bratty five-year-old more than anything else). I love this cake. I LOVE this cake. I made it for this year's Christmas dinner; and Orangette over here used something like it for her wedding cake, which is about the most delightful thing I can think of. Maybe I'm just a bit too fond of fantastic yet slightly homely products in high-falootin settings (we did go out to pizza for my Senior Prom dinner), but if I were going to get married in the next decade or so (well, I suppose we never know...) I'm pretty sure that that's one idea (of many) I would be stealing.
7 oz best-quality dark chocolate
14 Tablespoons butter
1.25 c. granulated sugar
5 eggs
1 Tablespoon flour
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Use 8 inch round pan (or cupcake pans, if you want to, say, hand out individual small cakes)
Melt chocolate and butter together (in microwave or in double-boiler). Let cool slightly (I grease and cocoa* the pan at this point). Add sugar, blend until the sugar is somewhat dissolved. Add eggs one at a time, incorporating each completely before going on to the next. Add the flour. Batter should be delightfully blob-ish (mine always sticks together in the coolest, most gelatinous, horror-movie kind of way).
Deposit batter in to pan, bake for around 22 minutes. The middle will still be somewhat jiggly, as this is a soft, fondant cake.
*cocoa-ing in place of flouring, since it's a dark cake, and flour would look a little out of place
Photo by the generous and ever-lovely Emily F. Samstag.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Awe in Mouth
In case you were wondering, this is the trendy week to have the flu. What can I say, all the cool kids are doing it, and when there's a good trend, I just can't help myself.
Ok, so, that last sentence is entirely untrue. But the part about the flu is pretty accurate.
Wanted to pass along a couple of super-important bits of information:
The first... I am now a daring baker. Oh, yes. (Do you even know how long I've been waiting to describe myself in such an awesome way?? Ten billion years or thereabouts, I would say). I've actually just last night signed up to be a Daring Baker. There will be more on that later, when challenges actually roll around, but for now, I'll be all glowy with the thought of actually joining myself to other bloggers in some way.
The second is Luna & Larry's. I tend to shy away from product reviews, mainly because I'm just plain not interested in them, but Coconut Bliss, as the word "Bliss" implies, really needs a shout-out. They, and their lovely dessert, are all from my hometown of Eugene, Oregon, which is pretty damn cool in and of itself. I remember a few years ago when they started up, and all of a sudden Sundance was posting signs for having sold out, and Sweet Life was judging them good enough to sell right next to their gelato. Despite all of this, I'd never actually tried Coconut Bliss until I wandered into my local co-op last week and wasn't able to get the phrase "Cinnamon Chocolate Flake" out of my brain. I bought it, pulled out a spoon and... was sadly disappointed. I'm going to blame this one on my penchant for ice cream (in all its dairy-having glory), but the Bliss seemed a little, well, anemic would be a good word for it. Thin, and without anything in it to pack a real oomph. I was disappointed, but, shamefully, not incredibly surprised. However, if there's anything my hippie roots will lead me to do, it's to give a vegan product a second try. And so, half an hour later, I was back at my freezer, spoon in hand, and awe in mouth.
(Picture ruthlessly abducted from www.coconutbliss.com, but used with only the best of intentions)
I think the reason that the Bliss is so good (besides the obvious marketing tactic of its name) is because it's less sweet than normal ice creams. Most of the sweetness comes from the coconut itself, and the rest comes from agave syrup, which means that the flavor is much more complex than the normal pint of, say, Ben and Jerry's. It's one of those desserts that feels natural and good, in that it's still, you know, a completely decadent dessert, but it doesn't feel like someone picked up a bag of sugar and ten bags of candy and poured them together for your enjoyment (because, honestly, I of course enjoy those ice creams, too). It's also not a vegan replacement-for-something-better dessert (I hate those). It's lovely entirely in its own right. And I'll say it again a few more times: the flavor is complex. Complex, complex, complex. Complexity is the key word here.
My other worry with a coconut milk-based dessert was that it would taste too tropical, like a Piña Colada or other. Nope. Wrong. The first few bites are a bit strong on the coconut flavor, but them it's just creamy and just sweet enough and flavored with spicy cinnamon and... mmhm. Just go buy some. (I'm not even taunting you with some hippie Oregon product; if you live in Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Hawai'i, Alaska, Montana, or Idaho, there is Luna and Larry's being sold somewhere in your state. That should really motivate you to go on a grand treasure hunt, stat). I'll leave you with the parting inspirational statement that, if I'm encouraging you to buy a product that needs to have its main ingredient (coconut [milk]) shipped from halfway across the world (Thailand), then it's got to be damn good.
Ok, so, that last sentence is entirely untrue. But the part about the flu is pretty accurate.
Wanted to pass along a couple of super-important bits of information:
The first... I am now a daring baker. Oh, yes. (Do you even know how long I've been waiting to describe myself in such an awesome way?? Ten billion years or thereabouts, I would say). I've actually just last night signed up to be a Daring Baker. There will be more on that later, when challenges actually roll around, but for now, I'll be all glowy with the thought of actually joining myself to other bloggers in some way.
The second is Luna & Larry's. I tend to shy away from product reviews, mainly because I'm just plain not interested in them, but Coconut Bliss, as the word "Bliss" implies, really needs a shout-out. They, and their lovely dessert, are all from my hometown of Eugene, Oregon, which is pretty damn cool in and of itself. I remember a few years ago when they started up, and all of a sudden Sundance was posting signs for having sold out, and Sweet Life was judging them good enough to sell right next to their gelato. Despite all of this, I'd never actually tried Coconut Bliss until I wandered into my local co-op last week and wasn't able to get the phrase "Cinnamon Chocolate Flake" out of my brain. I bought it, pulled out a spoon and... was sadly disappointed. I'm going to blame this one on my penchant for ice cream (in all its dairy-having glory), but the Bliss seemed a little, well, anemic would be a good word for it. Thin, and without anything in it to pack a real oomph. I was disappointed, but, shamefully, not incredibly surprised. However, if there's anything my hippie roots will lead me to do, it's to give a vegan product a second try. And so, half an hour later, I was back at my freezer, spoon in hand, and awe in mouth.
(Picture ruthlessly abducted from www.coconutbliss.com, but used with only the best of intentions)
I think the reason that the Bliss is so good (besides the obvious marketing tactic of its name) is because it's less sweet than normal ice creams. Most of the sweetness comes from the coconut itself, and the rest comes from agave syrup, which means that the flavor is much more complex than the normal pint of, say, Ben and Jerry's. It's one of those desserts that feels natural and good, in that it's still, you know, a completely decadent dessert, but it doesn't feel like someone picked up a bag of sugar and ten bags of candy and poured them together for your enjoyment (because, honestly, I of course enjoy those ice creams, too). It's also not a vegan replacement-for-something-better dessert (I hate those). It's lovely entirely in its own right. And I'll say it again a few more times: the flavor is complex. Complex, complex, complex. Complexity is the key word here.
My other worry with a coconut milk-based dessert was that it would taste too tropical, like a Piña Colada or other. Nope. Wrong. The first few bites are a bit strong on the coconut flavor, but them it's just creamy and just sweet enough and flavored with spicy cinnamon and... mmhm. Just go buy some. (I'm not even taunting you with some hippie Oregon product; if you live in Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Hawai'i, Alaska, Montana, or Idaho, there is Luna and Larry's being sold somewhere in your state. That should really motivate you to go on a grand treasure hunt, stat). I'll leave you with the parting inspirational statement that, if I'm encouraging you to buy a product that needs to have its main ingredient (coconut [milk]) shipped from halfway across the world (Thailand), then it's got to be damn good.
Monday, February 4, 2008
[decadent] re-gifting
It's been a strange week.
School started, of course, I've talked all about that. I felt like I dropped off the face of the planet there for a bit, really. I guess nothing was going to compare to the idyllic lifestyle I was leading in December and January (Eden, anyone?), near-constant blogging included. Emily, dearest photographer of my heart, is in LA for the week, becoming some sort of tanned, biking wonder, or so I am to understand. I spent the majority of the past week with my Linguistics reading, and a copy of Les Fleurs du Mal, or several, and not with cookbooks or whisks in hand. All the same, Saturday I couldn't resist baking some bread, and Sunday I went a little crazy and made a huge dinner, complete with pots de crême for dessert. (Butterscotch, no less!)
Unfortunately, I am not the mother, or even distantly related cousin of any of these, since they were all found on other blogs which are far too comprehensive and pretty to need any of my commentary. Thus, I'm using this past week as an excuse to tell you about two other blogs which far surpass my own small grassroots-of-the-grassroots spot, and which you should most definitely be looking at.
The first, Orangette, has probably spawned an entire generation of bloggers. Go anywhere, and you'll see her delightful and shockingly fresh writing style (and its slightest hint of campy naivety) all over the web. This weekend I made her panade, as well as her butterscotch pots de crème which have an addictiveness level which I assume is quite near to crack cocaine. The panade is made with chard, onion, and gruyère, and, while not quite to perfect taste the first day, is pleasingly stuffing-like on the second. I tried the pan-frying of the leftovers as suggested, but, um, really just succeeded in heating them up in a frying pan. I couldn't really handle the thought of involving any more oil in them, so perhaps that was why?
But my real weakness is dessert, and, if you haven't already immediately clicked on that link as you were reading the words "butterscotch" and "pots de crème", well, go now. Even if you are a complete scrooge and hate dessert and sugar and potentially even food itself, go for her pictures. The post is called "pots of gold", and damned if those aren't the most appealing metallic food photographs I have ever seen. They glimmer, people, like they're flecked with actual gold. Mine were delicious and all, to the point of needing to give them away to housemates, but hers. Wow. It appears to be some actual incarnation of the Midas myth. Go try your own, and if you can figure out how to make them look like that, well, get back to me.
But for all the words of excess and delight, the last think I have saved for you is, I think, the gastronomic equivalent of an insider trading tip.
Farmgirl Susan (oh, yes) lives on 240 acres of farmland in rural Missouri. Uh-huh. She used to live in California, and now she has sheep, and a farmdog, and god knows probably even a turkey or two hidden somewhere. I still can't decide whether I'm enchanted at the writing and novelty, or terrified because there's this slight possibility that it could be my future some day. I'm not terribly familiar with the site, having just stumbled upon it with the finding of this recipe, but if you don't mind a cutesy-named animal and the concept of farms, I recommend checking it out. Or, just make the following bread recipe with her in mind as you realize that you have stumbled upon the true definition of "alchemy". I've included the recipe because, well, if I'm ever stranded on a dessert island with just my blog and a six-pack, I'll need this recipe.
Whole Wheat Beer Bread
... IS SO EASY. When I said alchemy, I meant it. I first made this after agreeing to bake with a friend. We were even a little disappointed when we finally sat down and looked at the recipe, because it takes nothing. NOTHING. You mix and stick in oven. We forgot salt and it was still delicious. I made a loaf again the next day (remembering salt) to give to my father, and kept double-checking the recipe since I couldn't even believe my own memory of it being so simple. Read, bake, and be awed.
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
14 oz beer
Mix ingredients in bowl, beer last. Dump into appropriately-sized oiled and floured bread pan. Squeal like it's your third-grade science project while it bakes for 45 minutes at 375 degrees. Let cool for twenty minutes.
Now go, go, GO!
School started, of course, I've talked all about that. I felt like I dropped off the face of the planet there for a bit, really. I guess nothing was going to compare to the idyllic lifestyle I was leading in December and January (Eden, anyone?), near-constant blogging included. Emily, dearest photographer of my heart, is in LA for the week, becoming some sort of tanned, biking wonder, or so I am to understand. I spent the majority of the past week with my Linguistics reading, and a copy of Les Fleurs du Mal, or several, and not with cookbooks or whisks in hand. All the same, Saturday I couldn't resist baking some bread, and Sunday I went a little crazy and made a huge dinner, complete with pots de crême for dessert. (Butterscotch, no less!)
Unfortunately, I am not the mother, or even distantly related cousin of any of these, since they were all found on other blogs which are far too comprehensive and pretty to need any of my commentary. Thus, I'm using this past week as an excuse to tell you about two other blogs which far surpass my own small grassroots-of-the-grassroots spot, and which you should most definitely be looking at.
The first, Orangette, has probably spawned an entire generation of bloggers. Go anywhere, and you'll see her delightful and shockingly fresh writing style (and its slightest hint of campy naivety) all over the web. This weekend I made her panade, as well as her butterscotch pots de crème which have an addictiveness level which I assume is quite near to crack cocaine. The panade is made with chard, onion, and gruyère, and, while not quite to perfect taste the first day, is pleasingly stuffing-like on the second. I tried the pan-frying of the leftovers as suggested, but, um, really just succeeded in heating them up in a frying pan. I couldn't really handle the thought of involving any more oil in them, so perhaps that was why?
But my real weakness is dessert, and, if you haven't already immediately clicked on that link as you were reading the words "butterscotch" and "pots de crème", well, go now. Even if you are a complete scrooge and hate dessert and sugar and potentially even food itself, go for her pictures. The post is called "pots of gold", and damned if those aren't the most appealing metallic food photographs I have ever seen. They glimmer, people, like they're flecked with actual gold. Mine were delicious and all, to the point of needing to give them away to housemates, but hers. Wow. It appears to be some actual incarnation of the Midas myth. Go try your own, and if you can figure out how to make them look like that, well, get back to me.
But for all the words of excess and delight, the last think I have saved for you is, I think, the gastronomic equivalent of an insider trading tip.
Farmgirl Susan (oh, yes) lives on 240 acres of farmland in rural Missouri. Uh-huh. She used to live in California, and now she has sheep, and a farmdog, and god knows probably even a turkey or two hidden somewhere. I still can't decide whether I'm enchanted at the writing and novelty, or terrified because there's this slight possibility that it could be my future some day. I'm not terribly familiar with the site, having just stumbled upon it with the finding of this recipe, but if you don't mind a cutesy-named animal and the concept of farms, I recommend checking it out. Or, just make the following bread recipe with her in mind as you realize that you have stumbled upon the true definition of "alchemy". I've included the recipe because, well, if I'm ever stranded on a dessert island with just my blog and a six-pack, I'll need this recipe.
Whole Wheat Beer Bread
... IS SO EASY. When I said alchemy, I meant it. I first made this after agreeing to bake with a friend. We were even a little disappointed when we finally sat down and looked at the recipe, because it takes nothing. NOTHING. You mix and stick in oven. We forgot salt and it was still delicious. I made a loaf again the next day (remembering salt) to give to my father, and kept double-checking the recipe since I couldn't even believe my own memory of it being so simple. Read, bake, and be awed.
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
14 oz beer
Mix ingredients in bowl, beer last. Dump into appropriately-sized oiled and floured bread pan. Squeal like it's your third-grade science project while it bakes for 45 minutes at 375 degrees. Let cool for twenty minutes.
Now go, go, GO!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Have I told you about how I am the long-lost brother of Tupac Shakur?
So, school starts again on Monday. Oh, whine, whine, whine. Complain and then some more. I know. This has already happened for literally every other college student I’ve talked to. It’s part of being a student. You, you know, go to school. To boot, our breaks here are almost sickeningly long. All the same, I’m not ready for it. I finished last semester out by hyperventilating under a desk while eating pumpkin pie from a tin and guzzling coffee. Then I slept for about twenty-two hours. Break has been nice, I'll say: I’ve developed habits such as a dependence on regular sleep and biking. Plus, there’s so much I haven’t done yet. Especially, I haven’t gotten around to baking croissants. And this part, it’s significant, because my dedication to French pastry is serious business.
All the same, it’s kind of looking like it’s not going to happen. The next two days are rather packed, and I’m out of butter, and there are so many other things that the responsible part of me says I should probably do, such as... my laundry. And my readings for class on Monday.
Ah well. It’s a tough life I lead. I’m going to have to content myself with another French stand-by, the crêpe. It’s not quite as refined and nose-tappingly posh, but it’ll do in a pinch. Or in any situation in which you want delicious food, actually. I’ve been making crêpes all over the place lately.
We made them for a welcome-home brunch for James the other day, and I made them tonight for myself as dinner. They’re not exactly healthy dinner fare, but they’re just that deliciously quick. You make them in a blender, and they still look like something I bought from that crêpe-seller the last time I was in Paris (I say “that crêpe-seller” because he notoriously spent the better part of ten minutes explaining to me that he is, in fact, Tupac Shakur’s long-lost brother, separated at birth and turned into a white Frenchman. But that’s a story for another day). They’re kind of the opposite of croissants, actually.
The pictures portray them so well that around here we've been referring to them as "sex crêpes", and I've been teasing Emily about her first forays into food porn.
I myself am probably going to go make another batch, to freeze (crêpes freeze well, and when frozen on a cookie sheet, they're perfectly stackable). When I'm mid-March and exhausted with semiotics and linguistics, hopefully I'll pull out a crêpe and remember that there are breaks out there on the horizon.
Crêpes Fines (et peut-être Sucrées)
I stole this recipe ruthlessly from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One, via Epicurious. I didn’t change a single thing. It’s amazing. I mentioned the blender, but this recipe can seriously do no wrong. It says in the original to let the batter sit for at least two hours to let the flour molecules expand. However, I just made some straight from blending to hot pan in about three minutes, with only an extra bit of milk to thin the batter, and they were possibly even better than previous batches. Seriously, this recipe could get away with murder. It’s stellar with the old stand-by, melted chocolate and raspberry jam, but (magic!) it’s possibly even better with just the slightest glaze of butter and a smattering of sugar. It’s custard-y and browned and eggy in a way I never even knew I craved. It’s like something a professional crêpe-man would make, but even better because you made it in your blender. I rest my case with the below recipe.
3/4 cup cold milk
3/4 cup cold water
3 egg yolks
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
3 Tablespoons orange liqueur, rum, or brandy
1 cup flour (scooped and leveled)
5 Tablespoon melted butter
butter for the pan
Place all ingredients in blender, blend for one minute, checking to make sure there are no lumps left. [According to the recipe,] refrigerate for at least two hours.
Heat a frying pan or crêpe pan over medium-high heat. Gloss the pan with a little butter. Pour in approximately 1/4 cup of batter (more or less depending on the size of the pan). Quickly tilt the pan in all directions so as to coat the entire bottom of the pan with a thin layer of batter. Pour out any excess. This should all take only a few seconds. Cook the crêpe for 60-80 seconds, until the edges begin to brown, and the underside is lightly browned. Turn it over with a spatula. Cook until this second side is also browned, although there will only be spots of browning. This quasi-browned side is traditionally seen as the less attractive side, and put on the inside of the finished, filled crêpe.
The first crêpe is generally a throw-away (or rather, for eating with one's hands as the rest of the crêpes cook) to test conditions.
Fill crêpes and roll/fold them any way your heart desires.
Photo by the generous and ever-lovely Emily F. Samstag.
All the same, it’s kind of looking like it’s not going to happen. The next two days are rather packed, and I’m out of butter, and there are so many other things that the responsible part of me says I should probably do, such as... my laundry. And my readings for class on Monday.
Ah well. It’s a tough life I lead. I’m going to have to content myself with another French stand-by, the crêpe. It’s not quite as refined and nose-tappingly posh, but it’ll do in a pinch. Or in any situation in which you want delicious food, actually. I’ve been making crêpes all over the place lately.
We made them for a welcome-home brunch for James the other day, and I made them tonight for myself as dinner. They’re not exactly healthy dinner fare, but they’re just that deliciously quick. You make them in a blender, and they still look like something I bought from that crêpe-seller the last time I was in Paris (I say “that crêpe-seller” because he notoriously spent the better part of ten minutes explaining to me that he is, in fact, Tupac Shakur’s long-lost brother, separated at birth and turned into a white Frenchman. But that’s a story for another day). They’re kind of the opposite of croissants, actually.
The pictures portray them so well that around here we've been referring to them as "sex crêpes", and I've been teasing Emily about her first forays into food porn.
I myself am probably going to go make another batch, to freeze (crêpes freeze well, and when frozen on a cookie sheet, they're perfectly stackable). When I'm mid-March and exhausted with semiotics and linguistics, hopefully I'll pull out a crêpe and remember that there are breaks out there on the horizon.
Crêpes Fines (et peut-être Sucrées)
I stole this recipe ruthlessly from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One, via Epicurious. I didn’t change a single thing. It’s amazing. I mentioned the blender, but this recipe can seriously do no wrong. It says in the original to let the batter sit for at least two hours to let the flour molecules expand. However, I just made some straight from blending to hot pan in about three minutes, with only an extra bit of milk to thin the batter, and they were possibly even better than previous batches. Seriously, this recipe could get away with murder. It’s stellar with the old stand-by, melted chocolate and raspberry jam, but (magic!) it’s possibly even better with just the slightest glaze of butter and a smattering of sugar. It’s custard-y and browned and eggy in a way I never even knew I craved. It’s like something a professional crêpe-man would make, but even better because you made it in your blender. I rest my case with the below recipe.
3/4 cup cold milk
3/4 cup cold water
3 egg yolks
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
3 Tablespoons orange liqueur, rum, or brandy
1 cup flour (scooped and leveled)
5 Tablespoon melted butter
butter for the pan
Place all ingredients in blender, blend for one minute, checking to make sure there are no lumps left. [According to the recipe,] refrigerate for at least two hours.
Heat a frying pan or crêpe pan over medium-high heat. Gloss the pan with a little butter. Pour in approximately 1/4 cup of batter (more or less depending on the size of the pan). Quickly tilt the pan in all directions so as to coat the entire bottom of the pan with a thin layer of batter. Pour out any excess. This should all take only a few seconds. Cook the crêpe for 60-80 seconds, until the edges begin to brown, and the underside is lightly browned. Turn it over with a spatula. Cook until this second side is also browned, although there will only be spots of browning. This quasi-browned side is traditionally seen as the less attractive side, and put on the inside of the finished, filled crêpe.
The first crêpe is generally a throw-away (or rather, for eating with one's hands as the rest of the crêpes cook) to test conditions.
Fill crêpes and roll/fold them any way your heart desires.
Photo by the generous and ever-lovely Emily F. Samstag.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Windy City
Did you read Little House on the Prairie when you were a kid? I did. I don’t have any particularly good reason for bringing it up, except that lately, life around here has been reminiscent of my memories of the book. I don't remember a whole lot, except for the fact that winters in the Little House always seemed so personified. Long winter nights had the worst of intentions, and snowbanks had a bad habit of abducting fathers and valued cattle. And the wind, oh, the wind. It gets its fair share of attention in other literature, but to a small girl living in the middle of the prairie in the flattest of the flat lands, the wind must have seemed like celebrity enough to engulf every single person inside that tiny log cabin.
We’re having a bit of a winter like that right now. Biking home this morning, I pedaled slower and slower, and began to realize that had I been going the opposite direction, I wouldn’t even have had to move my feet. It’s coming through cracks in windows, and it’s yelling outside like the worst of pioneer kidnappers. When you find the rare protected street, the weather is almost balmy, until you turn a corner and are reintroduced to the meaning of the words “wind chill”.
Part of the romance of those books for me was the exoticism of needing to store a winter’s worth of food, or starve. I was a strange child, and enjoyed games of desperation and apocalypse scenarios, so I suppose it makes sense that this would have fascinated me. The bizarre, extreme nature of this other lifestyle made my own, snowless Oregon winters seem puny and anemic in comparison. I wanted white Christmases, and I sure as hell wanted to stockpile all the food in the pantry. Maybe I just wanted a smash-bang snowstorm to keep me out of school for a few days. I suppose I’ll never know.
Either way, the romanticism lives on in this particular winter. There are few things that will send me out to brave a bike ride in the cold, but they exist: the need to rent the next season of Alias, a few more bottles of wine, or a trip to the backyard larder for supplies.
Squash Soup with Sage
This soup definitely merits trips to the larder or to the store for ingredients. I mean, really, there's not much better for windy winter days than homey soup ("homely" works well, too; the best soups are straight-up ugly) and a brown bread. The recipe is roughly based off of one from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: I tweaked several things, and didn't really go by the recipe so much as adding milk, vegetable stock, squash, and sage until it poured well and tasted soup-like. Do it to taste, people, extremely to taste. I changed the squash from pumpkin to butternut (although I'm sure the transition back would be just as rewarding). It's not cooked in its own shell (if you read the book, you'll understand why), and being the people we are, we added an entire head of roasted garlic instead of three measly cloves. I'm honestly of the opinion that once you have roasted garlic, there is no actual taste-based limit, only that of how much you can carry home to roast in the first place.
One medium butternut squash (I think we ended up using about a 4-pounder)
1 large head garlic
olive oil for garlic roasting
(about) 1 quart vegetable or chicken stock
(about) 1 quart milk
(about) 1 Tablespoon dried sage
salt&pepper
To begin, roast the butternut squash and the garlic. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Squash first: Split the squash lengthwise, and gut the seeds/stringy seed surrounds. Place into a glass pan, cut sides down, and pour in approx. 1 cup water, or until the squash is 1/4-1/3 covered in water. Cook for at least an hour, until the flesh is tender. Let cool, and remove the flesh from the rind.
For the garlic, cut about 1/2 inch off the top of the head. Place on a baking sheet or small dish, and pour olive oil liberally over the head. Make sure the olive oil gets in between the cloves. Roast until the cloves are tender (it really does depend, I find it usually takes our oven about 20 minutes, but it could be as little as 15 minutes, and as many as 45). Let cool, remove cloves from the papery surroundings.
Puree the roasted squash and garlic together. Deposit the puree into a large pot. Add stock, milk, sage, and s&p until the soup has reached desired taste and consistency.
Photo by the generous and ever-lovely Emily F. Samstag.
We’re having a bit of a winter like that right now. Biking home this morning, I pedaled slower and slower, and began to realize that had I been going the opposite direction, I wouldn’t even have had to move my feet. It’s coming through cracks in windows, and it’s yelling outside like the worst of pioneer kidnappers. When you find the rare protected street, the weather is almost balmy, until you turn a corner and are reintroduced to the meaning of the words “wind chill”.
Part of the romance of those books for me was the exoticism of needing to store a winter’s worth of food, or starve. I was a strange child, and enjoyed games of desperation and apocalypse scenarios, so I suppose it makes sense that this would have fascinated me. The bizarre, extreme nature of this other lifestyle made my own, snowless Oregon winters seem puny and anemic in comparison. I wanted white Christmases, and I sure as hell wanted to stockpile all the food in the pantry. Maybe I just wanted a smash-bang snowstorm to keep me out of school for a few days. I suppose I’ll never know.
Either way, the romanticism lives on in this particular winter. There are few things that will send me out to brave a bike ride in the cold, but they exist: the need to rent the next season of Alias, a few more bottles of wine, or a trip to the backyard larder for supplies.
Squash Soup with Sage
This soup definitely merits trips to the larder or to the store for ingredients. I mean, really, there's not much better for windy winter days than homey soup ("homely" works well, too; the best soups are straight-up ugly) and a brown bread. The recipe is roughly based off of one from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: I tweaked several things, and didn't really go by the recipe so much as adding milk, vegetable stock, squash, and sage until it poured well and tasted soup-like. Do it to taste, people, extremely to taste. I changed the squash from pumpkin to butternut (although I'm sure the transition back would be just as rewarding). It's not cooked in its own shell (if you read the book, you'll understand why), and being the people we are, we added an entire head of roasted garlic instead of three measly cloves. I'm honestly of the opinion that once you have roasted garlic, there is no actual taste-based limit, only that of how much you can carry home to roast in the first place.
One medium butternut squash (I think we ended up using about a 4-pounder)
1 large head garlic
olive oil for garlic roasting
(about) 1 quart vegetable or chicken stock
(about) 1 quart milk
(about) 1 Tablespoon dried sage
salt&pepper
To begin, roast the butternut squash and the garlic. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Squash first: Split the squash lengthwise, and gut the seeds/stringy seed surrounds. Place into a glass pan, cut sides down, and pour in approx. 1 cup water, or until the squash is 1/4-1/3 covered in water. Cook for at least an hour, until the flesh is tender. Let cool, and remove the flesh from the rind.
For the garlic, cut about 1/2 inch off the top of the head. Place on a baking sheet or small dish, and pour olive oil liberally over the head. Make sure the olive oil gets in between the cloves. Roast until the cloves are tender (it really does depend, I find it usually takes our oven about 20 minutes, but it could be as little as 15 minutes, and as many as 45). Let cool, remove cloves from the papery surroundings.
Puree the roasted squash and garlic together. Deposit the puree into a large pot. Add stock, milk, sage, and s&p until the soup has reached desired taste and consistency.
Photo by the generous and ever-lovely Emily F. Samstag.
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