croissants, was re: the summer of gelato, #3

it was a weekend ideal for a long, lonely cooking project: two days at a nearly-empty beach house with a spacious kitchen and a mile-long countertop, with only a few guests, lousy weather, and no specific plans. i had made it my mission to finally tackle the infamous tartine takes-three-days-to-make-them croissant recipe. i packed my yeast and my scharffen-berger 70%, my printed-out copy of the recipe, with kitchen notes, and my rolling pin. i was determined.

reality hits hard, though. this third weekend of the planned summer of gelato, much like its misnomer of a title might suggest, did not go according to the plan at all. wait, that is unfair. it did, in many respects, go according to the plan. i went out late on thursday night, conveniently missing dinner, avoiding the hellish dash from midtown manhattan to queens that had come to define my fridays. i came armed with my ingredients, although, did i mention that my mother told me not to pack my yeast? and then that she forgot to pick some up for me at the supermarket? so i didn't get to start on friday.

saturday dawned cool and cloudy and my first order of business was to head for the supermarket and my forgotten yeast. this accomplished, i left the starter of the croissants to proof for two hours under some warm lights in the kitchen. i came back to find a lovely, spongy dough-like creation which i dutifully scooped into my mother's no-brand mixer, and began incorporating butter and milk. by now i had an audience consisting of my mother, her parents, my dad's father, and my grandfather's lady-friend. the lady-friend in particular was entranced when i announced that the resulting dough now needed to proof again, for another 5 or 6 hours.

i could mention at this point the serious dysfunctionality of my family, but to explain it would get much too complicated and take away from my magnificent croissant project. i will just say that having four senior citizens loitering around the kitchen was not an experience i would describe as conducive to creativity and peace.

six hours passed, and i came running back to my dough, eager to start the plaque-making stages. this was the stage of which i was most afraid, this dreaded turning process. my dough fought me every inch of the way, although beating it occasionally with my rolling pin seemed to help. marginally. at length, i got the dough to the prescribed 28 inches in width, and began dotting it with butter. salted butter, a relic from last weekend's french-chef-inspired cooking. i worried about this, but not enough to defy the edit of my mother, who declared that having three pounds of butter in the house was more than enough for her, thank you, and that i had damn well better use what was there before getting more.

the method of making the butter plaque was fascinating and great fun. i pulled out the butter and my rolling pin, creamed it for a few quick minutes, and then pounded the crap out of it with my rolling pin. i took a perverse sort of glee in this, because no one was expecting it. but the butter needed to soften, so what could i do? i began spooning out bits of this softened butter and dotting it over two-thirds of the rolled-out dough. then i did the classic layered-pastry fold, like a business letter, and fought with the dough for another 15 minutes in an attempt to roll it out. again. ultimately i had to enlist the help of my taller, stronger male friend. please, sisterhood, forgive me. :-)

the dough went into the fridge to chill, prompting a "yet again?" round of comments from my audience as we sat down to dinner and i prepped my dessert (the buttermilk chocolate cake from the delectable chocolatechocolate by lisa yockelson, topped with strawberry compote and honey-cream from emily luchetti's passion for desserts). after about an hour, i pulled the plaque out for its final turn. this time i fought with it so hard that i nearly hurt myself, until i had an epiphany and realized that i already had it stretched to the proper dimensions so far as height went. so, sneakily, i turned it around another quarter-turn and rolled it from there. this proved much easier since i already had some leeway.

after leaving the dough in the fridge for the rest of the night, i awoke early, refreshed and ready to complete my task. i rolled out the dough. AGAIN. beating it a few times just for emphasis. my original plan had been to make an assortment--some plain ones, a few ham and cheese, and a few chocolate. but my sister argued, with surprisingly impeccable logic, that making an assortment would mean that there were fewer chocolate ones. so i made only chocolate ones. i cut the dough into more-or-less evenly-sized rectangles, put a few slices of scharffen-berger 70% in there, and rolled them back up to rise for about 2 hours while i played some tennis.

i came back to a marvel of baking science--beautifully-risen pastries, ready to pop in the oven. i felt emboldened by my success and the (relative) ease of the recipe. this is easy, i was thinking to myself. it's just something you have to plan for!

well, all of that was before these babies went into the oven. my major problem, as it turns out, was this: i didn't have proper baking pans. that is to say, jelly roll pans, with edges. all i had were cookie sheets. no problem, right? i wrapped them in a layer of aluminum foil and slid the pans into the ovens. that's right, ovens, because this beauty of a beach house has TWO.

then the oven caught on fire.

nothing major, just the butter dripping out of the laminated dough was so hot that it ignited, briefly, when it hit the bottom of the oven. my mother, seeing this and (understandably) panicking, opened the oven in question, fueling the fire and giving us a major scare. we pulled the croissants out and had an emergency strategy session. we lined the bottoms of the ovens with more foil to catch the butter and hopefully stop the intense smoking that was happening. this worked, to a point, except the foil started catching on fire. all in all, we had 3 serious scares.

but more importantly, the croissants were unharmed. i pulled them out in all of their glory:

now, back to that issue about the salted butter. it's true that i couldn't taste much of a difference within the layers, except that they were rich and savory (and, incidentally, would have been perfect for the ham and cheese croissants i had wanted to make). the problem was that the author of the recipe included a sprinkle of salt in the pre-baking egg wash. this threw the entire pastry out of balance (although, truly, i think i was the only one to notice). i was briefly upset about this until i considered the larger picture: i had made croissants. i had made croissants. me. by myself. in a regular kitchen. if i had done it once, i could do it again.

and this time, i would skip the salt in the egg wash.

for more information on this recipe, i would urge you to visit veronica's test kitchen. her replication of this recipe (for an original daring bakers challenge), complete with her cooking notes, where what saved me from myself as i made my way through each step.

my weekend with a four-star chef - the summer of gelato, week 2

this was a weekend i’ve been looking forward to for at least a month. even still, i found myself getting nervous as friday approached. seems ridiculous to be nervous for a weekend, right? i mean, the weekend i went to visit an old pseudo-boyfriend after not speaking to him for almost three years, that was nerve-wracking. the weekend before my new job started? i barely slept. but this weekend, this was just a simple weekend out of the city with my parents and a few friends.

except that it wasn’t. one of dad’s friends happens to be a bona-fide four-star chef at a french restaurant in new jersey. and, to compound the issue, dad told him that i like to cook. so of course chef is all polite and tells dad that we should cook together. saturday morning, i was speechless all through breakfast because i wasn’t sure what to say. would i be expected to, like, know stuff? to be useful? to be a student? or to stay out of the way?

my answer came slowly as we sat by the pool. mom asked chef what he wanted to make for dinner, and my dad asked about dessert. my dad he who won’t eat cooked fruit, actually requested that chef make use of some of the fresh peaches, even if it meant pie or a tart. here was my moment of glory: “oh, i made a really excellent peach tart tatin this week.” chef looks at me and asks me what i used for a base--puff pastry? “no,” says i. “i made a pate brisee.” chef gives me this huge smile and says, “if we make a tart tonight, you’ll make the pate brisee?” “of course,” i answer. and suddenly i am not feeling so awkward. we spend several happy moments following this one settling on an actual dessert (white cheese citrus ice cream with a peach and blueberry compote) and determining our dinner menu (corn valoute with a fresh pepper relish, marinated skirt steak with red wine, garlic, ginger and thai basil, couscous with almonds and golden raisins).

our afternoon we gave over to the farm stand on route 27, getting corn, peppers, garlic, clinatro, and other staples. i found--oh joy--another yellow watermelon to cap my summer. we went home and began a very happily chaotic mise en place.

we started with the ice cream, since that would have to chill. chef made it up as we went along, starting with a simple syrup and ending with sour cream and candied orange peel. the ice cream base was born from the cross-breeding of a sorbet and a philly-style ice cream. the tang from the sour cream was shockingly pleasant as it was mixed with a lemon-sugar syrup. we decided to break as the ice cream cooled, but i couldn’t help myself. i made a ginger shortbread cookie (inspired by emily luchetti’s passion for desserts) and began dicing the peppers. after all, i needed the knife practice. i had only just finished when chef came back in from the pool and we began all over again. we had a list, but neither of us could keep track, and it’s nearly a miracle--except, of course, with a four-star chef at the helm, it’s not--that we got dinner on the table in time. i learned a lot about food plating. i was put in charge of the marinade. i got an extra smile out of chef when i asked him to describe what the corn valoute should look like as it thickened. “should it coat the back of my spoon?” i asked. the flanksteak was cooked to medium-rare perfection, and we soaked the golden raisins in some of the leftover simple syrup to bloom them for the couscous.

we macerated the fruit with some sugar and some cointreau. each plate got a scoop of the cream, a spoonful each of blueberries and peaches, and a sliver of ginger shortbread for a crunch.

for sunday, i desperately wanted chef to teach me how to make crepes. unfortunately, i had to settle--oh, the humanity!--for the secret to his life-changingly good french toast.

creme fraiche is the new green

i’ve been so excited ever since meeta announced this month’s mingle that i’ve actually been almost afraid to sit down and write it. the theme, you see, is “earth food,” something i think about a lot. i’ve been accused of being a vegetarian, a vegan, a “crunchy granola hippie,” and a treehugger, and while none of that is true (especially the bit about the vegetables), it IS true that i think a lot about reducing my impact on the environment.

it actually began as a hobby of mine when i was quite young--12 or 13, probably--and started learning about global warming and holes in the ozone layer and how aqua net and styrofoam were really, really bad. like most things, environmentalism passed through my life as a phase, but a part of me never quite let it go.

and so now, being a grown up, or nearly so, contemplating my new, unfurnished apartment, favoring a 40-mpg-mini over the SUV that was the pride of my adolescence (i had, by far, the best car of all my friends, and we spent many happy days cruising back and forth from our tiny little suburban town to the shore, the catskills, and brian’s pool), and, worst of all, watching the energy policy debate as part of my old job in the U.S. Senate, i’ve drifted back toward my old tree-hugging ways. i use CFL bulbs. i recycle everything, even aluminum foil. i’ve sworn off water from plastic bottles. i’ve switched to organic shampoo. my house is filled with method cleaning products. i’m researching sustainably harvested wood furniture--i even got quoted on apartmenttherapy.com--and i keep my air conditioning above 70, with the blinds closed, at all times. all of my appliances are plugged into surge protectors, so that i don’t have energy “vampires.” (just call me buffy) i walk almost everywhere, always carrying an extra cloth bag in my purse in case i go shopping. i keep a bowl, spoon and mug at work so i don’t have to use plastic or styrofoam. i buy used books and used movies instead of new ones, and i read newspapers online.

and in the kitchen, bringing us back into the realm of culinary relevancy, i do my absolute best to find responsible groceries. for me, this year, that meant joining a CSA, shopping at farmers markets, and eating seasonally.

do i cheat? of course i do. i still love a big, disgusting fast-food hamburger for lunch, and let’s face it, my CSA delivery still needs to be driven in from long island. horizon milk might be organic, but it’s a factory farm, and my much-touted organic shampoo still comes in a big old plastic bottle. i think the key to finding one’s inner treehugger is realizing that there is no perfect solution, but making the effort to find your own way nonetheless. you’d be amazed at the viral effect of practical environmental evangelism. my mother started buying method cleaning products and biodegradable paper plates, just from listening to me talk about it. my dad, after making fun of me for spending the summer driving my old, now-reviled SUV, has since turned around and began working with the contractors at his real estate development company to investigate gray-water plumbing systems for their newest project. he’s learning about LEED certification while my mother is trying to find a brand of recycled napkin that doesn’t feel like cardboard.

and i continue to cook locally and seasonally. which brings me back to “earth food.” for the kick-off weekend of “the summer of gelato” (thus named because i promised my dad that i would make him fresh gelato every week with whatever looked tastiest at the farmers market), i decided to pair a raspberry gelato with a recipe out of emily luchetti’s a passion for desserts, which makes seasonal cooking easy by dividing each awe-inspiring recipe into an appropriate season. smack in the middle of “summer,” then, is this berry creme fraiche cake, which pairs buttermilk cake layers studded with poppy seeds and a plethora of summer berries, utilizing creme fraiche in the place of icing. in the spirit of meeta’s “earth food” theme, i used buttermilk, butter, cream and eggs from my CSA, and berries from the farm stand on sagg main road.

the best part about this cake, aside from, you know, the cake, and the berries, is that creme fraiche is a milder, tangier flavor than your basic buttercream icing, which makes it more palatable to folks like my family, who don’t eat a lot of sweet or desesrt-y things. i made the creme fraiche from scratch, letting it sit for two days to thicken and then beating it with some cream and just a tablespoon or two of sugar.

i could so be a browniebabe

this picture is unfair, because this picture isn't going to win me any browniebabe accolades.

but it should.
seriously.

these were life-changing brownies, startling in their perfection, wonderous in their flavor, lick-up-the-crumbs-with-your-fingers delicious, reforming a man who hasn't eaten cherries since his colonoscopy.

ok, maybe i went too far with the bodily functions on that one.

for the third browniebabe challenge, after missing the first TWO in spite of my love for brownies, i am determined to submit a contender for august.

one of my goals for the summer has been to cook extensively using the most local, fresh, responsible and seasonal ingredients i can find. a side effect of this has been that my cooking has gotten simpler--nigel slater is, after all, my hero--but it's also given me a chance to systematically work my way through the brilliance that is emily luchetti's a passion for desserts.

i should mention also that i am obsessed with cherries. sweet ones, sour ones, queen annes or rainers. doesn't really matter. i've been hoarding them like a fruitarian squirrel (i feel like i have used that simile before, but it still applies). last friday, i came home from work after walking from 86th and the central park great lawn all the way down to columbus circle and then across town to 39th and 12th. i was exhausted. but i opened up the fridge when i made my way home and found myself staring down 3 quarts of cherries. no lie. i knew what i had to do, of course--i had to bake!

i'd been looking forward to saturday for the entire week because i had planned my most favorite activity: sailing. friends of my parents, who are practically my other parents, invited me and my sister up to their boat on the hudson for a sail and a picnic, so i promised to bring brownies. quick, easy, delicious. done. when i saw the cherries in the fridge, i had a flash of brilliance: black forest brownies a la ms. luchetti, using the cherries, giving me a snack worthy of the sail, and giving me a contender of an entry for the browniebabe event.

and thus i present my black forest brownies, inspired by ms. luchetti but executed in hybrid format. i used my staple brownie recipe, king arthur flour's on-the-fence brownies, and combined it with ms. luchetti's directions for adding cherries and flavors. i threw in a quick pour of kirsch and a quick pour of almond extract, because one of the new discoveries of my summer has been the magical mix that is cherries and almonds. they baked up so quick, i didn't even need to dirty any dishes because i could prep everything in the microwave. they smelled unbelievable. and they overnighted even better, because the kirsch soaked into the brownie batter and infused its flavor into every crumb.

i am telling you, this picture doesn't do it justice. but these are browniebabe-worthy brownies.

black forest brownies
(adapted from emily luchetti's a passion for desserts)

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
I ounce unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 ounces (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
8 ounces (about 24) sweet red cherries, preferably Bing,
plus 16 whole cherries with stems, for garnish
i 1/4 cups sugar
3 large eggs
i teaspoon kirsch
¾ cup all-purpose flour
'/4 teaspoon salt
'/2 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of an 8-inch square pan with
parchment paper.


TO MAKE THE BROWNIES: Melt the chocolates together with the butter in a double
boiler (see page 23). While the chocolate is melting, stem, pit, and cut the 8 ounces
of cherries into eighths.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs. Whisk in the chocolate
mixture and the kirsch. Mix in the flour, salt, and baking powder. Gently mix in the
cut cherries. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out almost clean but still
with a little batter on it, 30 to 35 minutes. Let the brownies cool in the pan.

mid-summer update

i’ve really lost track of my writing lately. the fact of the matter is, moving is unsettling in so many ways. it’s easy to lose interest in things that once kept you spellbound. it’s hard to maintain old habits as you settle into a new routine. with new causes of stress, the old cures can lose their potency.

but all of these are excuses.

happily, in spite of my appalling lack of daily writing--the major reason i started this journal--i’ve managed to keep cooking. not every day, not by a long shot, and not with as gung-ho a philosophy, but i think these have turned into favorables instead of unfavorables. i’ve stepped back and learned to approach things more calmly and more systematically. with my CSA, i’ve learned to eat new foods and seen new ways to cook old things. with all of the fresh fruit, i’ve got six kinds of ice cream in the freezer. i’ve made pies, and cobblers, fillings and flummeries.

best of all, i’ve finally gotten on my way toward two goals: cooking through the kitchen diaries, and cooking through a passion for desserts.

it’s true that i made a list. probably a bit anal, especially considering my generally sloppy tendencies, but it’s been invaluable to me. every time i pick up some fresh fruit or get a new CSA dropoff, i can look at my list and pick something accordingly.

i carry my list around with me like a kind of talisman. i stare at it and make grandiose plans or daydream on a boring day. i learn new techniques and add new tastes to my repertoire. this has been particularly true with ice creams. last summer, i had a few favorites that i made over and over. this summer, it’s like i’m trying a new one every day. i’ve been hoarding summer fruit in the freezer like some kind of fruitarian squirrel--sour cherries were my most elusive quarry, to be sure.

i’m not settled in yet. i look at the mess i call a pantry and long for the will and the time to pull it all down and organize it properly. i still hate doing the dishes and watch them pile up for days at a time. six types of ice cream have left my freezer with little space left over for real food, and i’ve fallen into bad lunchtime habits with a string of fast-food restaurants on west 48th street. my stomach rebels.

and in the interim, i keep working on my list.

Asian Wraps
Flaky Curry Turnovers
Lotus Chicken Packages
Curried Chicken Salad with Grapes
Curried Coconut Chicken
Tandoori Chicken with Mango Chutney
Seared Steak with Wild Mushrooms
Fried Wild Mushroom Rice Wraps

East & Southeast
Vietnamese Pork Balls
Bok Choy Rolls with Spicy Chicken
Bulgogi
Chinese Dim Sum
Indonesian Chicken Martabak
Japanese Soba Noodle Salad
Japanese Fresh Corn Soup
Vietnamese Pancakes
Braised Duck and Ginger

The New Spanish Table
Truffled Turkey and Wild Mushroom Croquettes
Patatas Bravas
Tomato and Bread Soup
Castilian Garlic Soup
Rosa’s Wild Mushroom Soup with Garlic Shoots
Potato Soup with Fried Almonds
Chicken Soup with Mini Meatballs
Cherry and Beet Gazpacho
Chilled Potato and Bacon Soup
Frisee with Pears and Honeyed Lardons
Potato Tortilla
Eggs over Smoky Bread Hasg
Pork Tenderloin with Lightly Seared Strawberries
Braised and Glazed Pork Ribs with Applesauce
Albondigas
Catalan Meatballs
Garlicky Roast Chicken with Apple Compote
Chicken Flamenquin
Chicken and Apples Braised in Hard Cider
Smoky Mashed Potatoes
Creamy Basque Smoked Cheese Risotto
Inma’s Baked Macaroni
Sauteed Wild Mushrooms with Ham and Allioli
Basque Cream and Cherry Tart
Yogurt Cream with Honey Gelee

My Vue
Potato Ravioli with Mushroom Essence
Morels Stuffed with Chicken and tarragon mousse
Wild Duck with Cherries
Duck a l’orange
Apple Crème Brulee
Madeleines

Everyday Pasta
Jamie’s Italy
Fried Ricotta with Tomato Salad
Baked Mushrooms Stuffed with Ricotta
Sliced Mushrooms with Melted Mozzarella and Thyme

The Kitchen Diaries
Lemon and Basil Linguine
Lamb Chops with Lemon and Mint and Potatoes Crushed into the Pan Juices
A really fast cake with blueberries and pears
Roast Pork with Lemon and Potatoes
Raspberry ricotta pancakes
A chicken roasted with new garlic
Chicken and rice salad
Vietnamese Beef Salad
Orecchiette with roast tomato and basil sauce
Strawberry Mascarpone Tart
Strawberry Water Ice
Roast Lamb Rolls with Oregano and Garlic
Lamb-filled flatbread
Peach and Blueberry Sour Cream Cobbler
Orange Yogurt Water Ice
Grilled Chicken with Garlic and Lemon Butter

A Passion for Desserts
Honey Cream-Strawberry Parfaits
Ice Wine Ice Cream with Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote
Strawberry Ginger Sodas with Orange Sherbet
Best-of-Summer Shortcakes
Berry Crème Fraiche Cake
Bing Cherry Filo Rolls with Ice Cream
Lemon-Raspberry Bread Pudding
Candied Ginger Shortbread Stacks with peach-blackberry compote
Peach Blueberry Trifle
Red Berry-White Chocolate Trifles
White Peach Melba

A Passion for Ice Cream
Blackberry Sorbet-filled Peaches
Bountiful Berry Compote with Buttermilk Ice Cream
Cherries Jubilee with Butter Crunch Ice Cream
Iced Bellinis
Apple Cider Sodas with Penuche Swirl Ice Cream
Very Berry Sodas
Lemonade-Strawberry Floats with Mascarpone Ice Cream
Tangerine Creamsicle Sodas
Profiteroles with Orange Custard-chocolate chip Ice Cream and Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce

The Perfect Scoop
Chocolate-Rasberry Ice Cream
Vanilla Frozen Yogurt
Orange Popsicle Ice Cream
Toasted Almond and Candied Cherry Ice Cream
Sour Cherry Frozen Yogurt
Blueberry Frozen Yogurt
Peach Ice Cream (Frozen Yogurt)
Strawberry Frozen Yogurt
Fresh Mint Ice Cream
Watermelon Sorbetto
Lemon-Buttermilk Sherbet
Cherry Sorbet

the chief and the pastry puke

mikey and i had a harmonious afternoon in the kitchen after suffering through six hours of the Bar Mitzvah from Hell (Part 2). the menu, i think, was perfect--mikey did his chicken tikka, some flanksteak with pimenton, a bit of tuna for mona, and a large pile of beets in honor of mom. mom seemed a bit nonplussed to have us take over the kitchen but got over it quickly and spent the afternoon in more comfort on the back deck.

we had an even division of labor. mikey did all the savory bits, and i tackled my agonized-over dessert menu. i wanted to incorporate something out of passion for desserts, specifically the red berry-white chocolate trifle. but i didn’t think my family were the trifle type. fortunately, inspiration arrived in the form of a new book, dedicated entirely to pies and tarts. i really thought i had hit paydirt when i saw a recipe for a shortbread pie crust.

the reason for this perception of salvation is simple: alain ducasse. the spring jules verne menu incorporated a frais du bose shortbread with a strawberry coulis and a rose petal ice cream. only the shortbread tasted like a light lemon sponge-y perfection. when i compared the photograph of the shortbread pie crust with the memory of the parisian shortbread crust, i thought i had found a way to recreate the wonder at home.

the dough was ludicrously simple to make and had a lovely smooth texture as i balled it for chilling--but it was a bear to roll out. i think there is so much butter in the crust, all you have to do is touch it to have the butter start melting. i ended up flattening a disc of it by hand into a sort of oversized cookie and using that as the crust. unfortunately, it tasted like a shortbread cookie instead of a magical cake.

as for the topping, i turned back to passion for desserts and used the red berry-white chocolate mousse as my tart. i’m embarassed to admit that it took me two tries to get the mousse to mousse. i’m not even sure what i did wrong the first time, only that i wasted over an hour trying to salvage it when it only took me 20 minutes to get it right on the second try. it was delightful when i got it right, though. light and airy, a hint of grand marnier, not too much white chocolate and a nice mousse texture. it was heaven with the fresh berries and the strawberry sauce, too.

i think the family were pleased with our efforts. nothing too heavy and a pleasant way to recover from the Bar Mitzvah from Hell (Part 2). what more can you ask for on a gorgeous saturday afternoon in june?

early summer "scoops"--or, diplomacy is overrated

finding myself with a surfeit of diplomat cream was a bit of a dilemma.
for about five whole seconds.

on the advice of several of my fellow daring bakers, i decided to freeze the custard in an ice cream maker. but i couldn’t leave it at that, oh, no, not me. i poured in half a can of cherry pie filling and no, i’m not even a tiny bit ashamed of myself. it must have been the egg whites in the cream that made the texture so silky. the cream itself is very sweet, but fortunately i like that and i’m already plotting profiteroles.

for my next trick, i turned to emily luchetti and drew praise for her passions. what i failed to mention is that something seriously wonky has been going on with my ice cream maker.

both of them.

my first thought was that the addition of alcohol to the custard base lowered the freezing temperature of the ice cream to the point where it was just not going to happen. i arrived at this conclusion having churned the stuff for half an hour in mixer #1 and another 15 minutes in mixer #2. however, my next attempt, which was tonight, had similarly soupy results and like a lightening bolt struck over my head i thought to check the freezer temperature.

bingo! it was set at 1, the highest temperature setting out of 5. that would do it, all right. i adjusted the setting and turned my attention back to the almost ice cream. shrugging my shoulders, i poured it out of mixer #1, into mixer #2, and let it go until the condensation was nearly pouring off the bowl like water out of a tap. fortunately by this point i had a semi-solid cream, so i spooned it into a container and left it to temper in the freezer.

this was especially heartbreaking because this recipe was a total eureka moment, a perfect mesh of inspiration and leftovers. i took a small pile of the chocolate-covered coconut candy chunk cookies i’d made from chocolatechocolate, spooned in a pile of bittersweet chocolate chunks, and attempted to make an adaptation of my chocolate chip cookie ice cream recipe. unfortunately, i totally spaced out even while i was mixing the custard ingredients and added regular milk instead of the coconut milk i’d been saving. plus, i was out of coconut rum.

between this and the mixer fiasco i haven’t even had the heart to taste it yet...

first dinner party in the new apartment

for once i actually plotted out an ideal menu, easy to prep, easy to serve, light and yet vaguely impressive.

first course: gazpacho with mozzarella en carozza dippers.
main course: gnocchi in a thyme-butter sauce
dessert: ice wine ice cream with strawberry rhubarb compote.

i turned yet again to giada for advice on the gnocchi. every time i make gnocchi, i feel discouraged at first as i re-read the recipe and then slowly empowered as i remember that it’s really not that much work after all. giada, with her microwave shortcut, would horrify a true pasta purist but saving an hour of heating water and boiling potatoes is right up my alley on a saturday that got swallowed by chores and laziness. for the first time, i get a truly lovely gnocchi dough, which is mixing just as my first guests arrive. in spite of this success, i am forced to classify gnocchi as a work in progress, since i still need practice on forming the dumplings properly.

meanwhile, ms. luchetti continues to inspire and amaze with her passion for desserts. i’ve been saving this particular recipe for the arrival of berry season and it was worth the wait and then some. it’s true i’ve been collecting ice cream recipes for nearly two years now, and i do have a few staples: my chocolate chip cookie ice cream, my raspberry linzertorte ice cream, my cannoli ice cream, my cherry fudge ice cream.

i am absolutely going to have to add ice wine ice cream to the list. the only thing i did is tweak the custard base in order to utilize my own super-duper-secret ice cream strategy. (picture me as the busch’s beans guy, only with a really fat cat instead of the talking dog--only me and indy know the secret, and he’s not talking!)

the tartness of the rhubarb, even when mixed with the strawberry, would seem antithetical to the sweetness of ice wine but when the two met it was like i could hear the romeo and juliet theme in the background, they were so well-matched. it probably helped that due to my secret strategy, the ice cream was uncommonly smooth and that due to my friend dino’s overcooking of the rhubarb compote down to rhubarb pie filling, the fruit was more like a sauce than anything else. we ended up slurping every drop out of the dishes and attacking the leftover fruit with a set of spoons.

Ice Wine Ice Cream with Strawberry Rhubarb Compote
(adapted from emily luchetti’s a passion for desserts)

ICE WINE ICE CREAM
I cup sugar
4 1/2 cups heavy (whipping) cream
Pinch of salt
¾ cup ice wine
STRAWBERRY RHUBARB COMPOTE
10 ounces rhubarb, cut into '/2-inch pieces
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons water
I pint strawberries, hulled and quartered

TO MAKE THE ICE CREAM: Warm the sugar, cream, and salt in a medium saucepan
over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until bubbles form around the edges, 3 to 5
minutes. Pour the cream in a bowl and cool over an ice bath (see page 28). Stir in
the ice wine. Refrigerate for 4 hours to overnight.

Freeze the cream in an ice cream machine, according to the manufacturer's
instructions.


TO MAKE THE COMPOTE: Cook the rhubarb, 5 tablespoons of the sugar, and the
water in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until the
rhubarb is soft, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and cool to room temperature.
Stir in the strawberries and the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar. Store at room tem-
perature until ready to serve.


PLANNING AHEAD: The ice cream can be made a couple of days in advance. For
freshness, the strawberry rhubarb compote should be served the day it is made.

a springtime night for light indulgence

in preparation for my attempt this weekend of gateau st-honore, i decided to plan a small menu around it and sieze the opportunity to finally pull my vue out of its exile on the shelf. i first heard about this delightful book on the martha show, when i realized that for all of my pasta, pizza and wagamama books i have no tomes on basic french-inspired cuisine (even if, in this case, it came by way of australia). i liked shannon’s casual approach to his french food when i saw him on the show and i liked him even more as i perused his book for ideas this morning.

i settled on his pea soup creation when i saw the inscription for it: “perfect for a springtime night of light indulgence.” the recipe consisted of a very basic, very simple and very delicious pea soup with no fuss and no muss, to be accompanied by scallops wrapped in pancetta. here’s where i started making changes: i used chicken, because i had it in the fridge and because i don’t eat things that swim, and i also used proscuitto because while i do have pancetta in the fridge it isn’t sliced and i wasn’t feeling up to dealing with my mandoline and making slices.

that took care of the entree. for the hors d’eouvres--and this, i really thought, was inspired--i took a scrap of the leftover puff pastry and the leftover egg whites from my gateau and made a mini quiche lorraine. was it perfect? no. i didn’t pre-bake the puff crust enough. was it delicious? you bet your ass it was.

a triple celebration on a friday night

it’s that most beautiful time of the week again, and a personal favorite of mine: friday night. i’ve written before about my love for this most sacred of days--in pretty much every sense of the word. in the past six months or so, i’ve been making an effort to literally separate the sacred from the profane on the jewish sabbath--not in an orthodox manner, per se, but by setting aside friday night as a night to relax, to rejuvenate, to cook and to enjoy the simple peace of a simple evening.

this friday night in particular was worth celebrating. i:

1. finished my first full week of my new job
2. made it to memorial day weekend, with three glorious days of freedom ahead of me
3. i bought a new apartment, free and clear, all mine, in the chelsea area of new york city.

i floated home as i walked down 44th street, stopping at the chelsea garden center and finding, oh joy, a small pot of thai basil, the one herb i’ve been unable to locate for my new kitchen garden. my office closed at two PM and i took advantage of the afternoon to clean up the apartment, the kitchen, to set up photography projects for the summer, and best of all, scout some seriously delicious tasks to keep me busy all weekend.

i began with a simple and delicious friday evening meal. while snacking on my favorite appetizer of fresh mozzarella and sliced proscuitto, i delved into giada de laurentiis’ new book, everyday pasta, and came up with a perfect springtime dish: lemon cream chicken with penne. since today was the first really hot day of the year, blasting through 90F on the thermometer, the lemon with the light sauce was an ideal way to go. the only thing i did wrong was to get a bit overzealous, as i always do, with the cayenne pepper...



dessert was equally simple and sublime. turning to that old seasonal standby, emily luchetti’s passion for desserts, i pulled out a recipe that had been languishing on my to-do list since last summer: strawberry ginger sodas. now that we’re finally entering strawberry season here in the US (although not here in new york city for another few weeks), i felt secure picking up a quart of berries from the supermarket and bringing them home with me, where i blended them into a puree and mixed them with a can of ginger ale. i topped this off with a few small scoops of orange sherbet (store-bought, but don’t tell anyone) and sipped pure summer heaven through a straw.

beef mani--err, rigatoni (WCC #14)

there was lots of meticulous planning happening today on account of my impending birthday and my intense, izzie-stevens-like baking craze.

so of course i got clobbered at the grocery store. i had this grand list, i’d been working on it all day. i’d plotted out my strategy to make dinner and also start making a cake from dorie in time for wednesday (yellow buttermilk cake, with alternating layers of white chocolate ganache and bittersweet chocolate pastry cream). i even remembered to defrost the beef for the manicotti.

i stood in the dry goods aisle, surrounded by cans of tomato products and bags of rice and boxes and boxes of pasta. in spite of this overabundance of carbohydrates i could not find a single box containing manicotti. all i could find was rigatoni. oh, hell, i figured. surely i could mix up the filling and just layer it in a baking dish full of the pasta.

this, as it turns out, was completely true, and very reassuring. the beef was so moist and tender, which i chalk up to the fact that it was local and organic and all of that good stuff you look for in meat. i decimated my stock of cheese, pulling out ricotta and mozzarella and parmesan.

i should mention my other clobbering, which was my complete lack of cornstarch. i should have expected it. just last week i was cleaning out the crevice i call a “pantry” and found an empty box of cornstarch. forgot to replace it while i was shopping today. so even though i had gone so far as to triage my cooking tasks for tonight, i had to shelve my plan to make the pastry cream until tomorrow. i suppose i could make the pastry cream without the cornstarch, but i have enough trouble with pastry cream as it is without removing an ingredient that will help thicken and stabilize it!

today at work i was reading old journals and marveling in my delight in the fresh fruits of summer. it’s cold, and blustery and still winter and i usually try to not buy non-seasonal fruit in january but i was reading about the fresh july strawberries and i couldn’t help myself when i saw the piles of chilean and california fruit stacked up all neatly at whole foods. a small basket of strawberries, a container of raspberries and a container of blueberries found their way into my cart, along with what i expect will be a final sack full of blood oranges (these were noticeably less tangy than usual).

in order to make the best of this unusual harvest, i present my WCC #14 - a fruit salad. while i was digging through all of the cheeses in my fridge, i also found half a tub of farmers market mascarpone. the solution was obvious: cannoli cream fruit salad. it’s a giada de laurentis recipe that i usually keep handy during the summer months. i decided to bring it out of hibernation a bit early...

fruit salad with cannoli cream
(adapted from giada de laurentis)

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
sugar, to taste (i used splenda)
1/4 cup chocolate chips
fresh fruit: 1 segmented blood orange, a scattering of blueberries, a double handful of raspberries and 3 strawberries, hulled and halved

mix cheeses, sugar and chips until creamy and smooth. dollop on a plate with fresh fruit (macerated, if you like that sort of thing, maybe with a squirt of lemon juice to keep everything tangy)

since it is winter and i can’t live in complete denial, shivering here in my apartment, i whipped up some hot chocolate.

triple chocolate hot chocolate
(adapted from emily lucetti’s a passion for desserts)

1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
pinch salt
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
2 oz. white chocolate
1 oz. semisweet or bittersweet chocolate

simmer milk and cream, then temper all 3 chocolates and salt until melted and smooth.

new year's eve menu and notes - final draft and photos

Dim Sum – Appetizers

Edamame
Spiced Tofu Katsu
Marinated Beef Skewers with Egg Noodles
Duck and Green Apple Spring Rolls
Bok Choi Rolls with Chicken

Ginger, Blood Orange and Pomegranate Martinis

Soup and Salad

Japanese Fresh Corn Soup
Trimbaugh Riesling 2002

Indonesian Gado-Gado with Spicy Peanut Dressing
Domaine Zind Humbrecht Gewurztramainer 1999, Clos Windsbuhl

Intermezzo

Main Course

Asian-Style Short Ribs with Laquered Baby Carrots
Served with steamed Thai Jasmine Rice
E. Guigal Cote-Rotie 1995, Chateau d’Ampuie

Dessert

Warm Chocolate Cakes with Lemon Mousse and Citrus Compote
Mueller-Catoir Riesling 1999, Eiswein

falling into....

having great luck with my braises and stews book. tonight, i modified the sausage and lentils recipe (since i hate lentils) and combined it with a recipe from my rice cooker book to make braised sausages with brown rice. i cooked the rice partway and then threw in, as per my braising recipe, some tomato paste, a pile of cooked mushrooms, and a bay leaf. yum-my. the only bad part was that after my mushroom soup (FINALLY found a recipe that works from this month’s issue of martha stewart living) and the huge slice of french bread (which i made this afternoon), i could barely do more than taste it.

it’s been an excellent weekend for cooking. last week i also tried the braised curried chicken and some jasmine rice. makes me really glad i finally remembered to steal the rice cooker from mom.

the apple cake out of my new “passion for” cookbook was really pretty and fun, but i guess i overcooked it. i also KNOW that i didn’t make the batter quite right, because the butter wasn’t evenly distributed. i’m going to pull more stuff out of that book--i love it, and i love how it is divided up by seasons--to play with this week. i anticipate having some time, since we’re in recess, and an audience of eaters if i bring the leftovers to work. also on this week’s list: plum pastry and the apple splits. i made honey creme anglaise to go with the apple splits. (which i was going to make tonight but now i am not so sure...)

my new resolution, since it was one of the reasons i justified my impulse buy of the digital camera, is to take pictures of my creations for my journal and my side project, the little blog.