Soupe á l’Oeuf, Provençale

So I picked this weeks Mastering the Art of French Cooking recipe, Soupe á l’Oeuf, Provençale or Garlic Soup with Poached Eggs. I guess I felt the potato leek soup was a little too easy in a book I have always pictured in my mind as tres difficile (very difficult). So yesterday, I strapped on my pearls and my very girliest of aprons and tackled this recipe.

Really it is two recipes in the same challenge. In order to complete the Garlic Soup with Poached Eggs, I figured I probably needed to learn how to poach some eggs first. Well really simultaneously as I was making the garlic soup/ broth and making these oh so delicious apple cardamom cupcakes with the carmel frosting.

The cupcakes turned out delicious.

The eggs that I simply poached in water following the directions on page 116 were the best poached eggs I've ever had. Really. I've been a lifelong, hard-core dieter, and I can tell you poached eggs tend to be fairly watery and gross. These poached eggs were different though. They were downright decadent.

As for the soup, it's made from garlic, water, and your standard pantry herbs, thyme sage, bay leaf, etc. In the introduction, Julia says, " Enjoying your first bowl of garlic soup, you might never suspect what it is made of. Because the garlic is boiled, its after-effects are at a minimum, and its flavor becomes exquisite, aromatic, and almost undefinable." She is 100% spot on. I don't know how to describe the flavor of this soup. It's delicious. It's savory.

Trying to describe what it tastes like though is like trying to describe the color orange. Maybe Tracy or Super G will have a better description.

Potage Parmentier

So like many many people I saw the movie Julie and Julia. And I liked it. And I was happily surprised (although it wasn't really a big surprise) to see a girl I went to elementary school with was in several scenes with Meryl Streep.

I also have a long standing love affair with the idea of Julia Child. She was a bigger and not terribly dainty woman (like me). She smoked (like I used to). She was madly in love with her husband (like I am). She was close, as an adult, with her sister (as I am with mine). Who happened to be taller than her (I'm the only family member nowhere close to 6 foot tall). And when asked by her husband what it is that she really like to do, she responded "eat" (ok the parallel here is obvious).

And she had such joy in her life. I want that.

So, when my much taller sister Super G, approached me and asked me if I would cook my way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking (volume 1 although I have both), the first thing I said was "not in one year." She explained that she had heard that this was how good cooks got to be great was cooking their way through Julia's cookbook. I think it sounds like fun so I hopped aboard.

This week Super G picked the very first recipe in the book: Potage Parmentier or Potato Leek Soup. It was delicious! Boiling it for 50 minutes seemed like an eternity, but I was stunned that potatoes, leeks, water, salt and some butter could taste so absolutely delicious! I'm not going to be posting the recipes because we're going to cook all of them and it wouldn't be right. But Super G, her friend Tracy, and I are going to rotate picking a recipe every week and blogging about our results on Sundays.

If this first recipe was an indicator, this will be a very fun and delicious experience.

Daring Bakers' Dobos Torte!

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonfulof Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular DobosTorte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: ExquisiteDesserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

This torte turned out to be pretty tasty. As usual, I cannot be trusted with an entire chocolate cake in the fridge, so I took some to the Brain's office, took some into the jewelry store (did I mention I got a job? I work in a jewelry store! I like it.) and I have a chunk to give to my friend A if she ever gets back from vacation! The general consensus however, is that the caramel layer is too lemony. The ladies at the jewelry store think that a salted caramel would have been much tastier. They really liked the chocolate buttercream though.

There are thousands of Dobos Tortes floating around the internet today. Go check out the rest of the Daring Bakers! Also take a peek at the Daring Store!

Beef Tamales!

So look at me! Two posts in one week! Wheeeeeee! And to top it off these were dinner tonight. Wow am I on top of it!

Let me start at the beginning. I love tamales. I mean I LOVE tamales. I had my first tamale in 1993 when I was flunking out of the University of Michigan and fairly lost as to who I wanted to be. My very good friend and I decided to take a massive road trip from Ann Arbor to Texas. One of our mothers told us we had to pick a direction we were going and the other told us we had to narrow it down to a state. So four days later, when after a beautiful trip down the Natchez Trace Parkway, my friend L and I were sitting down having lunch in San Antonio. I had my first tamale and I. was. hooked.

From then on, if I could find a tamale on the menu I was likely to order it. My aunt mentioned at one point that she got together with her husband's family every year at Christmas to make tamales. We had a lovely swap for several years where I would trade her an enormous box of Christmas cookies for a homemade tamale lunch.

Then I moved to Kansas. Besides having a hard time adjusting from the big city life of Chicago (where I finally got my degree at Loyola and would have stayed if I could have found a job), I suddenly found myself tamale-less. Yikes! While I consoled myself with a far more than healthy dosing of barbecue, occasionally I would find myself wishing I could find a tamale.

Courtney, over at Coco Cooks, had an event last March called the Tamale Open and I seriously thought about entering, but I was chicken. Tamales seemed to go together like magic and I am really no good at magic. So don't ask me why last month, when I was wandering around Detroit's Mexican Village with my family, listening to my sister M explain how the I-75 improvements were being built (she works for M-Dot) I decided I would bite the bullet and make my own tamales. Call me inspired by the delicious food, but I was determined to do it. I even picked up some masa harina.

I learned a whole bunch of things too. First- there is a reason that tamales are made to celebrate All Saints Day (Nov. 1) or Christmas Eve. My cozy little house is now a toasty 700 degrees inside from running the oven for an hour and a half and then steaming for an hour. Second- tamales are traditionally made with groups of women. I imagine they end up doing this assembly line style because I only made these with my good friend Two Buck Chuck and I ended up with dough and filling all over the place. Third- It is a good idea to read the entire recipe before starting. Dinner at 9:30pm is running a little late for me. And I don't think I would have made them the hottest week of the year so far if I had read about the cooking times. and Finally- It is important to check and make sure you have all the ingredients you need. I simply assumed we had another packet of beef stew meat in the freezer of meat. But we've been working hard to empty it (the fair is next week) and I had to substitute round steak.

So with all this learning. I was seriously doubting my wisdom in making these tamales. I even felt that it would be a good idea for me to taste one when they were done before calling the Brain and either offering to bring him some or order him a pizza. I was sure of failure. But hey these were pretty good! So good I'm not sure there's any point in sticking the leftovers in the freezer.

Beef Tamales

adapted from Cooking Light

Filling:
Cooking spray
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 pound round steak cut into 2 inch pieces

1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

14 large dried corn husks

Dough:
3 cups masa harina
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter, melted
2 teaspoons canola oil
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 cup water

Remaining ingredients:
aluminum foil

salsa

Preheat oven to 350°.

To prepare filling, heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion and garlic to pan; sauté 4 minutes or until onion is tender. Add beef; sauté 5 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Stir in 1 cup water and 1/2 teaspoon salt; bring mixture to a boil. Cover and bake 1 1/2 hours or until beef is tender.

Transfer beef to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Pour drippings into a glass measure. Add enough water to drippings to equal 1 cup. Shred beef into bite-sized pieces. Heat pan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Return beef to pan; sprinkle with flour. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in cayenne pepper; stir in drippings mixture. Reduce heat, and cook 7 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates, stirring often. Remove from heat; cool to room temperature.

Place whole corn husks in a large bowl; cover with water. Weight husks down with a can; soak 30 minutes. Drain husks.

To prepare dough, combine masa and 1 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Add butter and oil; stir well. Add broth and 1 cup water; stir until a soft dough forms.

Working with one husk at a time, place about 1/4 cup masa dough in the center of the husk; press dough into a 4 x 3-inch rectangle. Spoon about 2 tablespoons beef mixture down one side of the dough. Using the corn husk as your guide, roll tamale up, jelly-roll style; fold bottom ends of the husk under. Wrap each tamale tightly with foil to hold closed; stand upright in a vegetable steamer. Repeat procedure with the remaining whole corn husks, masa dough, beef mixture, and corn husk strips. Steam tamales, covered, 50 minutes, or until the dough is firm, checking water level periodically. Remove tamales from steamer; let stand 5 minutes. Serve with salsa.

Deep Dark Chocolate Sorbet

Hello. So much for frequent blogging.

I have finally returned from our annual "Family Vacation" with my husband's family. We left the unusually nice and cool summer up here in rural Ohio and headed for Hilton Head Island. There was a lot of golf, swimming in the ocean and the pool, happy kids running around, some wine, and general family enjoyment. Other than a minor jelly fish sting on my foot, and leaving my purse in a dive restaurant in West Virginia it was a really pleasant week. (The foot was just fine by the next day and we recovered the purse about 3 hours later after driving through West Virginia again to get it. Nothing was stolen and my credit cards were untouched. Whew!)

But now that we're back home, we've made the unhappy discovery that the lovely cool summer we were enjoying blossomed into a sweltering hot one. This is not fun. There's no ocean in rural Ohio. And we don't have a pool. I could drink wine, but that would be counterproductive. It's so hot that I've been cooking without turning on the heat in the house. Yeah for the grill! But before I get to any of those recipes (and really the camera needs new batteries so who knows how long that will take me!) let's enjoy a scoop of this rich, chocolaty sorbet. It's easy, delicious, and totally refreshing.

Deep Dark Chocolate Sorbet

from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book

2 cups water

1 cup sugar

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Combine the water and sugar in a heavy saucepan and place over medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Whisk in the cocoa and bring the mixture to a simmer. Simmer for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from the heat and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Stir the cool mixture and then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Daring Bakers' Mallows and Milanos

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

I did the challenge with my sister. And I'm glad I did. The Milan cookies were really easy to make and the batter went together in a snap. But apparently, I'm super bad at sticking them together with chocolate. I personally prefer the smaller and crunchier cookies, but I ate the bigger chewier cookies too because they were also delicious.

Then we did the Mallows. The recipe said 10 minutes of prep time, 5 minutes of inactive prep time, and 10 minutes baking time yields 2 dozen. I think that's wrong. We spent the entire day making these cookies. Trying to roll the cookies out was like trying to roll out chocolate chip cookie dough. We solved the problem by splitting the dough in thirds and continuously rotating pieces we weren't using into the freezer. And I think you can see we got a LOT more than 2 dozen. We got 2 gross. Super G and I are math geeks and when we finally counted the cookies we had 200 and we had been sampling cookies all day. So we figured 244 was probably not a bad estimate. I think if the base cookie had been tastier these would have been excellent cookies. But to me, the base cookie just tasted like pie crust. blech.

Photos curtesy of Super G. I forgot my camera.

You can find the recipes here and check out the rest of the Daring Bakers and see what they did!

Cheap Pork and Pea Pods

Um, okay, so if you haven't noticed, we're in a recession. The unemployment in my county just dropped down to 15.0% from a high of 18.3%. I think we can come to one or two conclusions here. 1) the economy is getting a teensy bit better and/or 2) recessions are not good in rural areas that depend on the automotive industry. Either way, it pays to be cheap.

I'm very very blessed that my garden is flourishing and that we have a chunk of pig and lamb to eat up before the county fair next month where we will most likely be buying a new pig and lamb to eat. We also have what seems like 30 pounds of green beans in the fridge. Anyone know something good to do with green beans?

Last month, while hunting for a job (which I've pretty much been doing all summer), I just happened to be wandering through the Borders ( fyi- you need to apply to them online) and found this book Eat Cheap but Eat Well by Charles Mattocks. Charles Mattocks is apparently "TV's The Poor Chef" but I'm sorry to say I've never heard of him. Anyhow, I've made a couple recipes from the book and they are tasty! He has a recipe for Stuffed Pepper Jack Peppers that's worth the cost of the book, but we ate those so fast I didn't have time to take a photo.

On the next page is a recipe for Beef with Pea Pods. Now, we do have a bunch of beef in the freezer also, but we don't buy a cow at the fair. And remember that chunk of pork? Well that's what I used instead. I believe it was a fresh ham steak package. The peas in my garden had become home to a family of rabbits by this point so I bought the peas. I have to tell you that this was delicious, cheap, and really fast to make. And I really like Mr. Mattocks' idea that just because you are eating cheap, it doesn't mean you have to eat crap (like a certain TV "chef" who decorates her kitchen to match her "tablescape" and uses prepackaged processed garbage instead of just chopping a vegetable).

Cheap Pork and Pea Pods

as adapted from Eat Cheap but Eat Well

1 pound pork (I used a fresh ham steak, but I think any cut would work)

2 tsp cornstarch

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 Tbsp soy sauce

3 Tbsp canola oil

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

2 pounds fresh snow peas, stemmed

1 8-ounce can sliced water chestnuts, drained

2 cups hot cooked white rice

Cut the pork into bite size slices about 1/4 inch thick. Set aside

In a small bowl, mix together the cornstarch, sugar, salt, and pepper. Blend in the soy sauce and 1/4 cup water. Mix well with a wire whisk to remove any lumps.

Heat 2 Tbsp of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until a sprinkle of water causes it to "pop". Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry until they begin to release fragrance, about 30 seconds. Add the snow peas and water chestnuts and cook, stirring until the pea pods are crisp tender. 1 to 2 minutes. Pour the mixture into a bowl and set aside.

Add another 1 or 2 Tbsp of oil to the skillet and then add the pork. Cook, stirring, until the pork is done, about 3 minutes. Pour the soy sauce mixture into the pan, stir with a whisk, and then add the cooked vegetables. Cook, stirring, until the sauce thickens slightly, about 1 minute.

Serve with the rice.