Winter Lunches

Butternut and navy bean lasagna - I made this with canned pumpkin and beans, and ricotta instead of the cottage cheese. Delicious. Next time I'll make sure to spread the ricotta out a little thinner though. It's very dense and filling, so freeze half of it immediately or you'll end up wasting it.

Mushroom and fennel bread pudding - This one turned out pretty good but it needs some tweaking. The custard is pretty bland on its own; next time I'll mix the S&P into the custard rather then just sprinkling it over the top. I'd also try a more potent cheese next time since I couldn't really taste the pecorino at all. I did sprinkle the top with parmesan just before baking, which gave it a nice flavorful crispy crust.

I made chili this weekend, with some inspiration from the Homesick Texan. Unlike her, I do put beans and tomatoes in my chili so I didn't follow her recipe exactly but I did follow the steps for cooking, soaking, and blending dried chilis for flavoring in place of the more usual chili powder. What a difference! The dried chilis gave the final product a much more complex, smoky flavor than the powdered stuff. It's not as simple as shaking flavoring out of a can, but so worth the extra effort.

This week we tested out this recipe for salted caramel pots de creme. It's VERY salty. Next time I'd either cut the salt out of the custard entirely and top with finishing salt or halve the salt in the custard and top with bruléed sugar. I might prefer the latter as I really do love that crunch when you stick a spoon into crème brulée.

Fall Dinner Party

Komi-style dates stuffed with mascarpone and Greek yogurt
Butternut squash soup with creme fraiche and chives
Cheddar-bacon-green onion souffles with salad
Roast pork tenderloin with apples and onions, roasted red potatoes with thyme, green beans
Pear-ginger strudel with ginger custard sauce

Guests: Nicole, Sullins and Brian

The dates were awesome. I bought maybe half a pound and could have used twice that. I may go buy some more to use up the extra filling. Beth found a great finishing salt at Williams-Sonoma with nice flat flakes that made the perfect sprinkle.

Creme fraiche is very nice in the soup. Sour cream works, but it's nice to spring for the extra creaminess.

The souffle recipe made what seemed like an awful lot of cheese base. I made a recipe and a half, expecting eight people, but the five of us ate half of that (so 3/4 of a batch) quite comfortably. Of course, that was as one course among many, so the larger serving might be better if it's the main event. The souffles did not rise to quite the towering heights I had hoped for, but I was a bit rushed so I may not have whipped the egg whites quite long enough. For individual souffles I kept the temp at 375 but dropped the cook time to 20 minutes.

Today I stuffed some figs with gorgonzola, wrapped them in bacon, and baked them. I've decided it's better with wide bacon to just cut it in half crosswise and fold it in half lengthwise to wrap around the fig rather then using 1/4 of the strip. You get better structural integrity and more bacon flavor.

I baked them for 15 min at 425 and they were pretty good, but next time I think I'll precook the bacon at 350 for 5 minutes so some of the fat is rendered out but it's still pliable and then wrap the figs up and finish them off for another 10 minutes. That should crisp up the bacon a bit better without overcooking the figs and cheese.

I've also seen similar recipes that do this with dates or stuffed the figs with toasted almonds and orange zest.


UPDATE 9/24/10: I had some more figs and cheese and bacon lying around this evening and I didn't have the energy to put together an actual meal, so I tried this again. Precooking the bacon worked well, 5 minutes at 350. However, keep in mind that the bacon will shrink a little as you cook it so you'll want to use a whole strip per fig rather than half like I did before. Since this just adds more bacony goodness to each bite it's probably just as well.

I made Komi's mascarpone/yogurt stuffed dates today with vanilla yogurt, 'cause that's what we had around. Big mistake. The dates do not need any extra sugar. However, it's a tasty and refined-looking one-bite dish that's a piece of piss to put together, so I may make it for a dinner party soon, but with real yogurt next time. Also, you should start with the mascarpone and whisk in the yogurt slowly until you get something with a good tang but that's not too runny. Kosher salt will do, but sea salt is better.

Duck Confit

I used this recipe. It looked a little scary when it came out, kind of grey, but once you get the skin off the meat underneath is still pinkish, moist, tender, and delicious. The duck fat is pretty expensive but you can use it again afterwards to saute stuff.

Iron Chef Throwdown!

THE MENU
First Course - Battle Avocado
Beer-battered fried avocados with shrimp, scallop, crab, and snapper ceviche (me)
v.
Seared sea scallop with guacamole salad and jalapeño pesto (Jay)

Second Course - Battle Duck
Coffee-cardamom grilled duck breast in fig-balsamic sauce with pear-onion potato hash and grilled broccolini (me)
v.
Award-winning duck gumbo with fried boudin balls (Jay)

Dessert - Battle Chocolate
Cappuccino fudge cheesecake in chocolate sauce (me)
v.
Duo of bread puddings with sweet cherry sauce and crème anglaise (Jay)

The beer batter needs a little work - it didn't coat as thickly as I'd like. I used 1 cup flour, 1 cup cornmeal, 2 cups Shiner, salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of cayenne, set for two hours.

The fig balsamic sauce was a great success. Equal parts fig preserves and balsamic vinegar simmered on low until reduced by half, then an equal amount of duck stock added and simmered until reduced by half again. Chicken stock would probably be fine for other applications, but the duck stock made a significant difference in flavor.

For the duck breasts I used this recipe with the marinade from this one. The spice notes were a lovely enhancement without overpowering either the fig sauce or the flavor of the duck itself.

I should get Jay's recipe/experiment with jalapeño pesto. It had a nice burn without being overpowering and is tasty on all kinds of things. I mixed it with some mayo to eat on the leftover boudin balls, and it's awesome.

Restaurant Week at Mockingbird Bistro with Mom tonight. First course was a chilled cantaloupe soup with prosciutto and lavender honey drizzled in the bottom of the bowl. The waiter said there were sweet peppers in the soup, which I guess accounts for the lack of overwhelming melon sweetness in the soup itself, so the honey made a nice accent rather than being overpoweringly sweet. I could figure out how to make this.

Peach cupcakes with brown sugar frosting - The cream cheese frosting completely drowns out the taste of the peach in the cupcakes. Maybe a lighter frosting? Maybe just muffins.

Chai cupcakes with honey cinnamon cream cheese frosting - I made these with 2 tbsp of chai tea, which didn't seem to be quite spicy enough in the final mix, so I added a bunch more cardamom, cloves, white pepper and ginger, to excellent effect. The frosting is also nice.

Cold zucchini soup - Next time, use one lemon and one clove of garlic. Two is too much. It also needs a base note, maybe some pine nuts?

Rosemary parmesan focaccia - to keep focaccia dough overnight, flatten it down after the first rise, divide in half, and put each ball in a ziploc to chill until the next day. Bring to room temp before stretching and baking.

Red potato tart with blue cheese and rosemary - Make sure to boil the potatoes until really tender, not just al dente. They don't soften as much in the oven as you think they will. Also, maybe change the custard to be eggier, more quiche-like. It's a little runny as written.

Note for rice and beans - in the future, use pork necks rather than ham hocks for the meat component, as you get more actual meat off the necks at the end.

Summer Dinner Party

Prosciutto-melon skewers: in the future, wrap the melon cubes with ham separately rather than weaving the ham through several cubes on a skewer. It'll be easier to eat that way.
Summer squash soup with mint-parsley pesto
Stuffed baked branzino with lemon-caper sauce, greek salad, rosemary foccacia, green onion and pine nut couscous
Strawberry tiramisu: even though the epicurious comments are full of people whining that the original instructions have too much Cointreau, ignore them. Those commenters are pussies.

Roast chicken with carrots, potatoes, and onions
Steamed asparagus
Chocolate cupcake from Baked and Wired

We've decided we prefer the Thomas Keller method of roasting chicken to the Joy of Cooking method, because it gives you a crispier skin while keeping the meat moist. I wish I had a rotisserie though, so the bottom and sides wouldn't be so soggy.

Roast 25 minutes at 475 F, and then reduce to 400 F and roast 45 min or until inner thigh registers 180 F and juices run clear.