The Play-It-Again-Dorie Recipe

This week, we're talking about the recipe that we keep coming back to, over and over again. It isn't necessarily our favorite recipe, but the one we've made most often.

It's hard to pick one, but based on number of times I've made it, I have to call out Creamy Cauliflower Soup Sans Cream. I love this soup. It's easy to make, tastes delicious--especially with cheese melted on top--and makes me feel virtuous, even when I eat three bowls in one sitting (ahem, always).

Plus, the kiddo likes it. He won't admit that he likes it, but I can get him to eat it. When he genuinely doesn't like something, no power on earth can get it in his mouth. When he merely wants to be contrary, there are ways to work around it.

I made the cauliflower soup two weeks ago to accompany my gougeres. Charlie was not allowed to have a cheesy pouf until he had ten bites of soup. He ate ten bites.

Then, I told him he could only have a second gougere after he ate some more soup. He said, "29 more bites?" Ummm...sure. Twenty-nine bites will be fine.

He did it, and earned himself all the gougeres he wanted. That's what passes as a crowd-pleaser recipe in this house.

We're heading out tomorrow for an 11-day trip to Ireland (SQUEAAAL!), so I will not manage to write next week's post--the final FFWD post!!--until the following week. I'll sit down with a box of tissues and a cup of tea and catch up with all the other Doristas' posts then.

Never Doubt Dorie

Even though I absolutely hated the outcome of the Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar recipe from Around My French Table, it seems like the perfect write-up for this week's French Fridays with Dorie post, in which we were tasked to "Choose the recipe that might not have been your favorite or even something you enjoyed making or even something you were skeptical about but which taught you a technique or gave you an idea or provided a lesson of some kind."

I did not enjoy making or eating this recipe, in which salmon is brined, then packed into a jar with olive oil, herbs, and vegetables. I was 100% skeptical of it, going in. I knew I would hate it, and so I instantly started backtracking and trying to find ways to not follow the recipe. Granted, I did follow the Roasted Cured Salmon bonne idee, so I didn't go totally rogue, but it turned out horridly. I know that cured fish is technically not raw, but when starting with such dull looking salmon to begin with, cured was too raw for me. I roasted it, and it turned into an overly fishy salt-bomb. This provided the lesson. Two lessons, actually.

Lesson 1: Always, always, always use the freshest ingredients possible. My salmon was gross looking, straight from the supermarket, and so there was no chance in the world I was going to prepare it as written. I should have looked harder for a better product.

Lesson 2: As I quote Matt as saying in my original post for this recipe, "Next time, just trust Dorie!!" It was years ago, but I can still hear his wail as he tried to scrape all that salty fish off his tongue. It was pretty funny.

Going rogue works for some people, but for me, I'm better off when I just trust Dorie.