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.

FFwD: The AHA Moment!

To launch our celebration month after completing every recipe from Around My French Table, we were tasked with choosing our favorite recipe, and then making a top 5 list. (Okay, so I'm 20 recipes short of "every", but I'm at peace with that number.)

No question in my mind, my number one favorite recipe in this book is Gougeres. This was one of the first recipes I made, before I knew that French Fridays with Dorie even existed. I was not much of a cook at the time, and had a picky, cranky 1-year-old on my hands, but I decided to take a risk and try this cheesey choux dough--not that I'd ever heard of pate a choux--for no reason other than that the picture in the book looked delicious.

Glorious.

It felt like a miracle when Charlie ate one. Then two. Then as many as he could stuff into his face. Gougeres became the treat I made when we had long car rides ahead of us. They became my go-to party snack. Charlie learned to say "cheesy poof," our in-house name for gougeres, before he learned to say I love you. Cheesy poofs are dear to our hearts.

He was so leeeettle! I want to eat his face! And that cheesy poof.

I fully intended to bake a celebratory batch of gougeres today, but life got away from me, and now I don't have time. After a full morning of errands, my husband called and said that he'd broken his foot playing soccer at work (darn military and their mandatory PT!), was at the hospital, and that I needed to come and wait for him to be done, then bring him back to work. By the time I dropped him off, I had just enough time to pick Charlie up from school. I'm exhausted, and instead of gougeres and soup, my dinner will now consist of rotisserie chicken and whatever leftover grain/veg I can find in the fridge.

Matt's plan for tomorrow was to clean out our disaster of a garage. Now that his foot is broken, I guess I get bumped up in the queu. boooooo! Actually, he thinks he's doing it anyway. Um, no. I bump myself up in the queu, and he's going to have to learn to stop being productive for a little while. So, tomorrow may suck, but, by God, there WILL be gougeres!! And gougeres will make it all better.

It is nearly impossible for me to pick a top 5. Here's my best shot. I'm not counting gougeres. They're my #1, but this way, it's like I get a Top 6. Mwa ha haaa!

1. Provencal Olive Fougasse. If memory serves me, this was one of my first forays into bread. I was afraid of yeast before this recipe. After, I was like, "Oh. That was no big deal." Salty, lemony, bready goodness. What's not to love?

2. Cheese-Topped Onion Soup. This takes substantially longer to properly caramelize the onions than Dorie says, but it is so rich and delicious at the end, that I don't care. Best. Soup. Ever.

3. Beef Cheek Daube with Carrots and Elbow Macaroni. This one was a shock to me, because up until I made this recipe, I hated stewed beef with a fiery passion. I LOVE this recipe, and I've made it many times, whenever the temperature drops. I'm looking forward to having a real winter in DC next year (Did I tell you, we now have orders to Washington DC??!! Matt and I lived there for 8 years after college. I'm super excited to go back. It feels like going home, because we have so many friends in the area. I am SO going to feed them this beef.)

4. Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good. The name speaks for itself. Maybe I'm just hankering for cool-weather dishes right now, but I miss this dish! I can't wait to be reunited with the proper kind of pumpkin for it. They have pumpkin in Italy, but it's very different. I tried to make this once here in Italy, and it didn't work.

5. I literally can not choose between Marie-Helene's Apple Cake or the Tourteau de Chevre as my favorite dessert. I can't. I'm not even going to try. So there!

It feels so wrong to leave off the osso bucco and veal marengo and the hurry-up-and-wait roast chicken and dressy pasta risotto and potato gratin and the slow-roasted tomatoes and endives,apples, and grapes, and almond flounder mouniere, and the chocolate mousse, and...and...and...there's too much. I feel like a very lucky girl to have so many favorite recipes in my arsenal. Thank you, Dorie!!

FFwD: Chicken in a Pot

So this is it. The last recipe that the French Fridays with Dorie group is scheduled to cook from Around My French Table. We'll have one more month of cooking, where we highlight our favorites/recipes that taught us something/etc, but, really, this...is...it.

Chicken in a Pot. This is the recipe on the cover.

The prime placement, that gorgeous photo, and the fact that we saved this recipe for last, may have all served to build my expectations a bit too high. I love roast chicken. Love it. In combo with roasted-in-the-same-pot sweet potatoes, carrots, and white potatoes, it's one of my top 5 favorite recipes (and Dorie's Hurry-up-and-Wait Roast Chicken has become my standby). This one uses all my favorite elements (I omitted the preserved lemon), and looks spectacular in the picture.

Except for one thing. It turns out, this is not a roast chicken. That picture totally fooled me. After browning the vegetables, you brown the chicken, then put it in a pot to braise in broth and wine. Dorie calls for white. I used red, because I accidentally drank the white the night before. Well, the drinking wasn't an accident. The forgetting that I'd reserved it for this recipe was.

This is a divergence, but it boggles my mind whenever a recipe calls for a ton of veg, and then, when it wants you to brown it, makes a side note of "if necessary, do this in 2 batches." How big of a pan do these people have that could ever possibly brown this amount of anything in one pan?? Of course it's going to take two batches. In fact, this took me three batches! Pet peeve. I don't know why. I think because the batches always add extra time that I hadn't accounted for on first read. And, in this case, I don't feel that the browning added additional flavor to the veg after they soaked in that braise for an hour.

I appear to have done a terrible job browning my chicken. I'll admit outright that I am an impatient browner. It always takes so much longer than I think it's going to.

That gorgeous golden bread ringing Dorie's pan was a let down. She says that this seals in all the flavor. I, mistakenly, assumed that it would also be good for eating. Nope. It's basically just a putty to seal the pan closed, that is dry and flavorless once baked. Is this step really necessary? No. Not if you have a well-fitted lid, it's not.

One other complaint regarding the bread-sealed lid is that I couldn't check the temperature on my chicken.

In the end, this was a perfectly fine chicken. It took more time and more steps than seems necessary, especially when a straight-up roast chicken, with all the same ingredients, is exponentially more delicious. I wish I had a more dramatic love for our last recipe, but I don't. It was fine. It feels a little anticlimactic. Ah, well. Fine's not so bad.

FFwD: Cheesecake Tart

This week, the French Fridays with Dorie group was scheduled to bake the final dessert from Around My French Table: Cheesecake Tart.

I've been reducing my carbs and sugar lately, so I was really happy when I read through this recipe. As long as I omitted the tart shell, the only ingredients that interfered with my food plan was 3 tb of sugar and 3 tb of corn starch. Good enough for me. 

After I put the tart in the oven, I worried that it might turn into a giant disaster, because I hadn't buttered my pan. Luckily, the slices came out with no trouble.

The cheesecake filling was made out of cottage cheese, sour cream, egg yolks, sugar, corn starch, lemon zest, and vanilla, blitzed in the food processor until smooth and creamy.

This was good, even without the crust. It had a nice tang to it. However, if I'm going to eat cheesecake, I want a thick, luscious, rich NY cheesecake. This was tasty, but it just doesn't compete. On the other hand, this is a great recipe to keep in my back pocket for days when I want dessert without disrupting my meal plan too much.

I also made up two recipes this week. First, Tomatoes Provencal. I have no idea why it took me so long to make this. It's easy--Cut tomatoes in half. Sprinkle with oil, garlic, and chopped herbs. Roast. The tomatoes turn melty and sweet, with minimal effort. Delicious!

Last night, I made Chestnut-Pear Soup for dinner before having the tart. I've been avoiding this one for quite a while. I adore most of Dorie's savory soups, but I've been unhappy with all of the book's soup recipes that involve fruit. I had half of a bag of chestnuts in the fridge, because I made a chestnut soup from River Cottage Veg two weeks ago, so figured I should make Dorie's recipe, if for no other reason than to use up my chestnuts. To prevent the soup from turning too sweet, I used two very small local pears. They have a good flavor, but are crunchy, like an apple. There was so little meat, I figured they couldn't overpower the soup. I was right. I added toasted almonds on top, because I thought it needed some crunch.

Not pretty.

This soup turned out to be lovely, though it was not nearly as delicious as the River Cottage Veg version. If I were going to pick one of the two recipes to make again, I'd absolutely go with RCV. Still, I'm glad I finally checked this off of my list.

FFwD: Cabbage and Foie Gras Bundles

I was prepared to make Dorie's Cabbage and Foie Gras Bundles on schedule, a few months ago. I've had the foie gras in my fridge since November (don't worry, it hadn't expired yet.) How did I know it was from November? Because I had my friend, Hilary, pick some up for me while she spent a week in Paris, en route to Napoli, to visit us.

Fortunately, Hilary was staying with a friend in Paris, who brought her to a foie gras shop and did all the talking. I'd told Hilary what Dorie says in the intro, to "buy a small terrine of foie gras made from whole pieces of foie gras, not a mousse or pate made from ground or chopped foie gras." That was not enough information for the woman at the store. Over facebook, Hilary asked me what I was using it for. I told her that I was going to wrap it in a cabbage leaf and steam it. The shopkeeper was befuddled, and said she'd never heard of anyone doing that before. I told Hilary that it sounded like a tragic waste of foie gras to me, but that was the recipe. She had her friend repeat this to the woman. Hilary said that the woman hooted with laughter, and kept repeating, "Oui! Oui! Trajeeeek!" Quite the scene.

After that, I couldn't quite figure out the correct opportunity to make this recipe. I have friends over for dinner often, but don't usually do an appetizer or small plate type of thing. I could never figure out where to fit this in.

However, with the foie gras' expiration date fast approaching, and the deadline for Around My French Table looming, I seized upon the fact that our friends, who are about to move to San Diego, came over for one last lazy Sunday BBQ over the weekend as reason enough to crack open the foie gras and bust out this recipe.

May I just state that I feel like I live in an alternate universe right now, in which I'm like, "Oh yeah, come over for a casual barbecue. While the boys are grilling, we'll eat foie gras and some tartufo pecorino that I happen to have in the fridge." Moving home is going to be a bit of a shock to my system.

I liked that the recipe could mostly be prepared ahead of time, and the little bundles just steamed right before you want to eat them.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy eating these. My primary problem was textural. It was too soft and mushy. Paired with the livery aftertaste, it was hard for me to swallow. I did eat my entire bundle over the course of several bites, and even finished the last bite a few minutes later, when my friend (who LOVED them) told me that I should try them again, because they'd cooled off a bit and firmed up to the perfect consistency. Not for me. I know I've eaten and enjoyed dishes in restaurants that included foie gras, but I didn't like this. Matt liked them at first, but after he ate two, he didn't like the aftertaste. Whataya gonna do?

FFwD: Next-Day Beef Salad

I couldn't quite wrap my brain around this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe. Next-Day Beef Salad was created as a way to use up leftovers. Conveniently, I'd made a roast beef earlier in the week, so this used up the remainder.

Dice up the meat, then mix it together with a hodge-podge of refrigerator ingredients: tomatoes, capers, olives, red pepper, a tart apple, all mixed up with a mustard/mayo mixture, and served over lettuce (I used arugula). I also added cheese, because cheese improves any salad it touches. I like a thin smear of either mustard or mayo on a sandwich, so the thought of covering an entire salad in a combo of the two sounded kind of icky to me. Knowing this, I halved the dressing recipe.

Kind of tasted like deli pasta salad, which I hate. So why couldn't I stop eating it?

Even after eating it, I can't decide whether or not I liked it. I didn't think the dressing was great, but I did enjoy the crunchy/chewy/salty/sweet-tart elements, and that no two bites were exactly the same. I may play around with the dressing to tweak it to my liking, but this is a solid way to use up leftover meat. It certainly beats the hell out of simply reheating it.

I also have three makeups from this week.

Spice-Crusted Tuna was fine. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. Part of my problem is that I got food poisoning from a piece of tuna a few months ago, and I've had an aversion to it since then. This aversion is also preventing me from making up any of the Dorie's recipes that involve raw fish. I'm not ready. ha! So, I don't think I ground up my spices enough. I don't really like getting mouthfuls of practically whole coriander. This was not the right time for me to try this recipe. I may cook it again in a year, and have a totally different response to it.

My side dish--Broccolini with Sweet Tahini Sauce (I think that's the name), from Plenty More, is DELICIOUS, though.

I expected to like Jerusalem Artichoke Soup, because I've enjoyed the majority of Dorie's soups, and nothing about this one struck me as a risk. I didn't expect to love it as much as I did. In the absence of fresh truffle to shave on top, as Dorie suggests in her bonne idee, I stirred some truffle cream stuff that I'd bought in Umbria into the soup. Oh, Nelly. In the interest of fairness, I tried the soup plain, and it was good, but this cream stuff (it was too solid to be a sauce. I'm not sure what to call it.) brought it to another level. The flavors were made for each other.

Not the prettiest plate of food.

Last, but definitely not least, I made the Veal Marengo from a few weeks ago. I'd planned to cook this on time. I'd bought the veal, and everything. But then life got in the way, the veal went in the freezer, and cooking went on the backburner. Happily, I finally had the chance to make it.

Ooh la la! This cow was born in France, and was killed when it was younger than 22 months. Very informative label.

The sauce from this dish is one of the best things I've ever eaten. I don't even need the meat. I want to put the sauce on everything I ever make, going forward. I always thought that I didn't like normal white mushrooms. Apparently, my mistake was that I wasn't cooking them in enough butter. I'm embarrassed to confess how many of them I ate directly out of the pan, but not nearly as many of them made it into the stew as I'd anticipated. I couldn't find small white onions, so I omitted them, and I had to use red wine instead of white, and still, this was just mind-blowingly delicious. It joined the ranks as one of my favorite recipes we've cooked from the book.

My only complaint would be that the meat was still kind of tough after the recommended cooking time. I don't think there was enough liquid in the pan to have cooked it much longer, though, so I'm not sure what the solution is. I'm afraid that adding extra liquid would mess with the glorious balance of this sauce. I don't really care, though. So, so good.

FFwD: Cote d'Azure Cure-All Soup

I'll admit that I wasn't remotely interested in cooking the Cote d'Azure Cure-All Soup from Around My French Table. On paper, 10 cloves of sliced garlic, steeped in chicken broth with herbs (sage, bay, and rosemary instead of thyme), then thickened with egg yolk and Parmesan, and drizzled with olive oil sounded, at best, boring, and at worst, nasty.

Charlie wouldn't taste it, but he was impressed by the polka dots.

I came down with a cold on Monday, and all of a sudden, this soup sounded like the only thing I wanted to eat. I don't know if you have to be sick to like it, but this was a surprise hit. It was cozy and comforting and, because of the thickening from the egg and cheese, soothed my throat. I loved it. It didn't cure my cold, but, for a few minutes, it made me less miserable. Good enough for me!

I can't believe that we only have 10 recipes left to cook from Around My French Table. It's blowing my mind. I don't think I'm going to manage to complete all of my make-ups--I have more desserts than my judgment thinks I should bake in three months, and there are some things (dilled gravlax, chicken liver gateaux, arman's caviar) that I flat-out refuse to make. Including those, I only have 22 to make up after this post, so I'm going to try my damnedest to get that number down. So, here are some make-ups:

I always thought of Orange and Olive Salad as being an Italian dish, so I was surprised to see it here. Because I've made what was basically the same recipe in my cooking class here in  Napoli, I stalled on making Dorie's version, because it's not one of my favorites. I put this together this week, and I don't know what went wrong, but by the time I was done, my oranges, which were extremely sweet on their own, tasted BITTER with the onions and olives. That didn't happen when I made it in cooking class. Maybe the type of olive I used changed the flavor. Regardless, neither Matt nor I enjoyed this.

In the same meal, I made Salty-Sweet Potato Far. This has a strange list of ingredients--grated potatoes, bacon, prunes, raisins, eggs, milk--but I like all of those things individually, so I was open to the idea of them coming together and creating something glorious.

Maybe I didn't use enough bacon (I cut up 3 strips), but this was underseasoned. For the first few bites, I couldn't figure out if I liked it, though I was leaning toward yes, for it's nursery-type blandness and bread-pudding texture. Halfway through my portion, I'd had enough. Matt thought he liked it, but a few hours later, he tried to eat a cold piece, and he said it was disgusting, which ruined it for him.

I didn't hate it, but I wouldn't make it again.

Vanilla Beans are Better Spent in Cake

I didn't deliberately coordinate this, but the Tuesdays with Dorie recipe and the French Fridays with Dorie recipes that I've made recently both involve vanilla beans.

First up, the Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake from Baking, Chez Moi. This cake was really easy to throw together. The only problem was that I burned the first batch of browned butter and started over. Not that big of a deal, and an easy problem to solve.

I baked the cake to serve to my book club gals, and served it with barely-sweet whipped cream. I thought it was a bit dry without the whipped cream, but with it? SO delicious.

Hell yeah!

Last week's FFwD recipe from Around My French Table was Vanilla-Butter Braised Lobster. Unable to get my hands on lobster, I poached my bag of frozen shrimp in the vanilla butter. It was fine. I felt greasy after I ate it, though. I think eating all the little shrimp amounted to more surface area than a lobster tail would, so maybe I'd feel less disgusting if this was prepared as written. That said, the vanilla flavor was very subtle. I'm not sure it's the best use of a bean. I'd rather eat cake.

(The shrimp looked like shrimp. I didn't bother taking a picture.)

FFwD: Croquants

I've never heard of Croquants (pg 410 of Around My French Table) before, but it turns out they're one of the simplest cookies that I've ever made. Chop nuts. Mix with sugar. Stir in egg whites. You don't even have to whip the whites into a meringue or anything. Straight from the egg and into the batter. Then stir in a little flour. Then bake. That's it.

I used salted cashews, because Dorie says they're her family's favorite. Who am I to argue with the experts? I also added vanilla, because why not?

Hello, my lovelies.

I'm in real danger of eating the entire output of this recipe. Dorie says that they're defined by their crunch texture. The edges of mine are crunchy, but the middles are chewy, and this is what is causing me to devise excuses to pass through the kitchen and grab another.

The bottoms of the cookies on my second tray burned slightly. These are so simple that the slight burn ruined the cookies. I'm pretty happy that I could, in good conscious, throw half out.

The remainder have to go to work with Matt tomorrow, because I'll take them down if I'm left alone with them for too long. They're so light, I don't even feel like I'm eating anything. Trouble.

Conclusion: Love them. Too much.

Not Quite FFwD

I am having such a hard time keeping up/catching up with French Fridays with Dorie. This week's recipe was supposed to be a spice crusted tuna dish. Sounds good. I just didn't get there.

I have, however, made up a few old ones, which I promptly forget to blog about. I'm so irritatingly redundant. I apologize. I can't promise it won't happen again.

By substituting frozen shrimp for mussels, I managed to make last week's Curried Mussels out of items I had in my poorly-stocked kitchen after being in Siena for our 4-day weekend (Thanks, Martin Luther King, Jr.!) This was easy and totally delicious. I loved it. And it was easy enough to please everyone by cooking a few shrimp in butter on the side for Charlie. Shrimp is one of the few animal proteins he'll reliably eat. I really should cook them more often. This recipe will definitely be a repeat.

Before the holidays, I spotted Jerusalem artichokes at the Italian supermarket. I thought, "Ooh, I need to make up the 2 Dorie recipes soon!", but dawdled too long, and when I tried to find them, they were gone. However, I spotted one lonely package of them at the market last week, so I grabbed them, even though I couldn't remember what else went into the recipe for Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes with Garlic. Turns out, it's mostly just garlic and olive oil. Score. I had rosemary on-hand, but did not have thyme. No big deal. Due to their name, I shouldn't have been surprised that these sunflower tubers taste exactly like artichokes, but I was. I hate preparing artichokes, but really enjoy eating them. I'm on a new mission to substitute Jerusalem artichokes for every Italian preparation of artichoke that I've learned since I've been here. Next month's Italian cooking class involves a dish of artichoke, potato, and cheese, baked together in the oven. Sounds to me like that recipe was built for a Jerusalem artichoke substitution!!

A while back, I made the Warm Scallop Salad with Corn, Nectarines, and Basil. I had to use frozen shrimp, frozen corn, and frozen peaches. It was pretty flavorless. I hold it against my ingredients, not the recipe. If you don't have fresh food for this recipe, don't bother. 

I'm certain that I uploaded my pics to my computer, but they're not showing up. No time to sort it out right now. Charlie's 5th birthday is on Sunday, and there is much to be done. (FIVE??? HOW IS HE FIVE????)

FFwD: Beef and Dried Apricot Dutch Oven

Okay, so today's French Fridays with Dorie recipe is supposed to be Lamb and Dried Apricot Tagine. I knew I wasn't going to find the cut of lamb Dorie specifies, but I thought I could get my hands on some ground lamb, and use all the same ingredients, but treat it like Indian keema recipes that I've made. However, I couldn't find lamb. I grabbed ground beef, because I've made the aforementioned keema recipe with beef before, and it turned out fine. Not as good as lamb, but not bad. I had no idea if beef would work with the predominant flavors of this recipe--coriander and apricot. I'd planned to get back to the store this week to try and find some pork or veal to stew instead, but it didn't happen, so I returned to my ground beef plan.

It worked out fine. I'm 100% certain that it would be better as a lamb stew, per the recipe, but I really wanted to do something, to stick to the schedule. Once I fall behind, I stay behind.

I have no strong feelings about this recipe. Its biggest draw is that CHARLIE ATE IT. Well, he ate the meat and the rice. Good enough for me. I was shocked. After dinner, he found a stray coriander seed on my counter. He has a thing about seeds. He'll spit out an entire piece of fruit if he gets a seed in his mouth, and refuse to take another bite. I don't get it. He asked why I had a  seed on the counter. I told him it was in the meat--the meat that he liked. He said, "Oh, so you took this disgusting thing and made it yummy." Sure. I guess. Kid brains are weird. Ha!

My one gripe was that I could have broken up the coriander seeds more. I would prefer a rough grind, rather than "broken", in the future. I don't like chewing on the seeds. Maybe Charlie's on to something after all.

FFwD: Tartine de Viande des Grisons

Tartine de Viande des Grisons is a long and mysterious name for a simple tartine that the French Fridays with Dorie crew made this week. Bread? Check! Butter? Check! Bresaola? Check! Walnuts (or in my case, toasted almond slices)? Check! Olive oil? Check! That's it.

The deep red color of bresaola has often caught my attention at the supermarket here in Napoli, but I was never really tempted to buy it. I find the color off-putting. It's just SO red. I'm happy to have found this recipe, though, because it turns out to be delicious!

This is one of those recipes that tastes better than its individual parts seem to warrant. The butter, oil, and toasted nuts really pull the toast and meat together into one delicious bite of food.

Matt got home late from work the other day, so I put a tartine together for him while his soup re-heated. Instead of eating any soup, he turned the rest of the (sizeable) loaf of sourdough bread into tartines and devoured them all. Needless to say, we loved this. I thought it would be good, but I didn't anticipate how good!

FFwD: Butternut Squash and Chestnut Soup

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Beatrix's Red Kuri Soup. I had to google red kuri squash, because I had no idea what it was. After seeing pictures of it, I knew I was going to have to come up with an alternate plan, because I'd never seen that squash here in Napoli. They have other squashes, but nothing that looks like red kuri.

Fortunately, Dorie provides a bonne idee in the sidebar that butternut squash and chestnuts can mimic the flavor of red kuri. Weird. Weird, and convenient. I already had a butternut squash in the house, and I currently own more roasted, peeled chestnuts than I will ever know what to do with. I still have to catch up on the Pear and Chestnut Soup, so I ordered the vacuum-sealed chestnuts on amazon. I could only get a 4-pack, and I didn't realize that 20 oz bags are huge.

This would be a good spot for me to request all of your favorite chestnut recipes. Really. What am I going to do with all of these???

Unfortunately, my digital scale ran out of batteries. I eyeballed what I thought 7 ounces might be. I think I added way too many chestnuts.

No, grazie.

I wanted to like this soup, so that I could use up the rest of my chestnut supply on it, but I really don't. There's no strong flavor, apart from the sort of muddy taste of the chestnuts. If you blindfolded me, I'd never guess there was butternut squash in there.

Not much else to say. It's better with the chopped apples that she suggests as a topping, but that's only because the apples provide a bit of texture and much-needed flavor.

I'm not a fan.

I'm posting this early, because we're heading to Vienna on Thursday. Yahooo! 

FFwD: Osso Buco a la Arman

Finally! A French Fridays with Dorie recipe that gives me a sourcing edge over people who don't have access to an Italian supermarket. Ipercoop may not have duck or brown sugar or affordable avocado, but veal? They're up to their eyeballs in veal (which is kind of weird, because the adult beef offerings are poor.) Odds are good that veal is available in the already-cut meat section, any way you want it cut. As soon as I read Dorie's description of the veal shanks ("cut crosswise from a veal shank, thick slices of osso buco are round, with meaty nuggets surrounding a central hole, which is filled with marrow"), I thought, "Yep, I've definitely seen that at Ipercoop." Score: 1 for Italy. Or should I say, "GOOOOOOOAL!"

One of three. 3 euro a piece. Not too shabby.

On a side note, I'd like to mention how very, very grateful I am that I didn't have to walk up to a butcher with my google translation of "veal shank." I can never be sure that the words coming out of my mouth are appropriate. For example, when we first arrived here, I looked up the word "pecorino," because I love cheese and wanted to know what the word meant. Google informed me that it meant "doggy style." In disbelief, I contacted my Italian friend and interrogated her. Apparently, pecorinA means doggy style. PecorinO means cheese from a goat. Google has since corrected its mistake. I'm certain that it also makes errors when translating from English to Italian, so who knows what I'm actually saying to people. Always an adventure. I digress.

Armed with my shanks, at the last minute, I decided to invite some friends over for dinner. It felt like a meal that needed to be shared. Much to my delight, two of our favorite families came on short notice, and we had a wonderful, relaxed evening. "Sunday dinner" with the extended family (closest friends, in the military) is one of the many ways that Italy has steeped into my blood. It's one of my favorite customs, and one that I hope to bring home with me.

This was a perfect recipe to cook for company because all the cooking is done ahead of time. There aren't any last-minute steps. Take it out of the oven, break the meat apart so it looks like a stew, and bring it to the table. Dorie said to skim fat off the top, but mine somehow didn't look greasy enough to bother. The meat was so tender. I didn't even care when I had a mouthful of fat, because it literally dissolved. Dorie's Orange Rice Pilaf paired perfectly with the stew. Three shanks fed six adults. The only problem was that there were no leftovers. At all.

Last night, I caught up on Rice Pudding and Caramel Apples. I love rice pudding. It's one of those desserts that takes me right back to my Mom's kitchen. She always put raisins and a bit of cinnamon in hers, and I have to say, I missed them in this.

I compulsively made the pudding, because it struck me as a decent way to keep myself busy, and hopefully distract myself from stressing about the fact that everyone else we know who is Matt's rank and scheduled to move next summer heard from the detailer last week, receiving their next assignment. We haven't heard a peep. We're exhausted from the stress of waiting. So, rice pudding.

As I stirred, the phrase, "The solace of stirring," popped into my head. For a few seconds, I marveled at how perfect that phrase felt right at that moment, and that clearly I'd missed my calling as a poet. Then I remembered that that is a section title in Nigella Kitchen. My bad. Nigella, you were spot-on with that description. There is much solace to be found in stirring.

Due to my anxiety level, I had zero interest in making caramel and cooked apples. At first, I planned to put a layer of applesauce on my pudding, and then drizzle with caramel I bought in Brittany. I forgot about the applesauce, and just went with the caramel. It was good, but I didn't drizzle any on my second bowl of pudding, and missed the raisins and cinnamon the whole time I ate it. Sometimes, you just want Mom's recipe. This was delicious, and it was exactly the type of nursery food that I needed yesterday. Unfortunately, I ate so much of it yesterday that there's only a little bit left to see me through today's stressful wait. GRRR!

FFwD: Celery-Celery Soup

I so wanted to rave about this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe: Celery-Celery Soup. I mean, I cooked this for dinner on Friday, so provided that I managed to blog about it by Saturday, I'd almost be participating in real time! Fancy that!

Unfortunately, I did not love this soup, which primarily consists of celery, celery root, and apples. After scanning through Dorie's soup section, I've come to a realization about my own tastes. I've adored the majority of her savory soups. I haven't enjoyed a single one that involve fruit. I just don't dig sweet soup. See that? I've learned something about myself.

Hideous.

Matt ate one bowl and said he didn't want another. Charlie actually ate most of a bowl, but it was only because I was dangling dessert over his head. All's fair in feeding kids.

I hate to say it, but we threw out the leftovers. We all knew they'd mold over in the fridge before any of us went back for seconds. Oh well.

Dorie, Dorie, Everywhere.

Are you tired of me saying that I'm behind on my Dorie posts yet? I don't blame you. I'm tired of it, too. The whole cooking-along-with-the-group thing is a lot less fun when you're not actually cooking along with the group. On the plus side, I've busted out quite a few make-ups and feel like I'm beginning to close in on my list. Sort of. I have a butt-load of dessert to catch up on. I better get a move on, since baking through Dorie's new baking book begins in November. I thought I had more time before tackling Baking: Chez Moi. If I don't bust these tarts out before the new dessert book begins, I'm not certain I'll get it done. The countdown begins.

Since it was a more recent recipe, I'll start this off with French Lentils: a Basic Recipe. I didn't have du Puy lentils, but the normal Italian ones I bought maintained their structure and worked just fine. There was a time when I hated lentils. I'm glad those days are gone. This was easy to throw together since there wasn't much chopping involved, and it made for a very tasty lunch.

Everything looks better in Polish pottery.

I originally skipped Twenty-minute Honey-glazed Duck Breasts because I can't find duck here in Napoli. I even asked my Italian friend if he knew where I could get some. He looked baffled, then said, "No. We don't eat that here." Okay, then. I'm certain that this recipe would be more delicious with duck. In the interest of finishing all my recipes, I grilled some chicken cutlets and then drizzled them with the sauce. I expected a thicker, more honey-centric sauce. The balsamic vinegar was what monopolized the flavor. That's not a complaint. I like balsamic. I just think it should have earned a spot in the title over honey. It's entirely possible that I did not reduce the sauce enough, and if I had, it would have become more honey-ish. Regardless, delicious, easy, and barely used any ingredients.

For dinner one night, I made Dieter's Tartine. I rubbed my toasted sourdough bread with a garlic clove, because Italy has taught me that doing so makes all versions of bruschetta exponentially more delicious. Then I smeared it with ricotta (rather than cottage cheese) and topped it with Dorie's tomato and cucumber mixture. It was fine. Unremarkable.

At the same time, I made Roasted Peppers. This was a pretty basic roasted pepper recipe, so I don't have much to say about it, except that I love roasted peppers, and would take the tartine I made them into over the Dieter's Tartine any day of the week.

I know I've bemoaned the state of avocado at the commissary on many, many occasions. It is the reason that I skipped Pistachio Avocado, which, it could be argued, is the easiest recipe in the book. All you're supposed to do is halve an avocado and fill the pit-hole with pistachio oil. Okay, the second reason I didn't make this is because I don't own and have never seen pistachio oil. The third reason is that eating a hole full of oil doesn't appeal to me.

I got my hands on a decent avocado, and knew I needed to do something to tick this recipe off. I smashed it on some German rye bread, drizzled lovely olive oil on top, and sprinkled it with sea salt. It bears little resemblance to the original, but it's the best I'm going to do before the group finishes the book in the spring, so I say it counts.

Last, and maybe least, I brought Crispy Crackly Apple Almond Tart to a JAG wive's lunch thing hosted by a higher-up. I liked that I had everything in my house that I needed to bake this recipe, and that it came together easily.

I expected to love this, but I didn't. I blame my apples, not the recipe. They had no flavor, and the almond mixture wasn't impressive enough to carry the absence of apple deliciousness. The dish I carried it on got a lot of compliments, though.

Okay. Phew. That covers what I've cooked lately. Now I have to get my hands on a celery root by Friday, so I can participate in real time. They sell them at the Italian supermarket, but I hate having to make a special trip there for one item. We'll see if I get there.

FFwD: 2 Make-Ups

The recipe that the French Fridays with Dorie gang is cooking this week is Curried Chicken, Peppers, and Peas en Papillote. I've made this dish several times. Each time, I amp up the measurements and the variety of the spices I use, and each time, it turns out bland. For me, it's a cozy kind of blandness that I don't mind. Matt, however, grumbles and moans and says it doesn't taste like anything. It may be bland, but it's so, so easy, and one of these days, I'm going to figure out a good way to make the spices stand up to the amount of water that leaks out of the vegetables.

Because I mistakenly thought that I'd already done a post about this dish back in the day when I first made it, I decided to skip it this week and catch up on two recipes that I missed.

First, I made Potato Chip Tortilla. Yuck. I like potato chips. I like Spanish tortillas. I'd skipped this recipe originally, because dumping half a bag of potato chips into my eggs didn't exactly align with my dietary ambitions at the time. I shouldn't have worried about it. I ate three bites and threw the rest out. I would think that food cooked with half a bag of potato chips would be salty, but it wasn't. It was remarkably underseasoned, and the texture was weird, to the point of being gross. I'm pleased to say that I hated this one. I could have been in trouble if I thought it was delicious.

Last night, I served one of my old Dorie favorites: Creamy Cauliflower Soup Sans Cream. To go alongside, I made Socca from Vieux Nice, which is a simple batter made from chickpea flour, water, olive oil, salt, and chopped rosemary. A thin layer of this goes into a cake pan, where it's baked for a few minutes, then broiled to brown and (ideally) burn the top.

I didn't cook mine properly. I baked it for the specified amount of time, but hit a snag with my broiling. My oven is gas, but the broiler is electric, and takes a looooong time to get going. I switched over from baking to broiling, and let it sit there for quite a while, but I don't think the broiler was even warm yet when I finally took the socca out of the oven. I made the executive decision to remove it, even though there were no brown or burnt patches, because it looked like it was drying out.

Not a looker.

For such simple ingredients, the flavor was surprising and delicious! Chickpea flour. Who knew? The best bits were the crunchy edges, so I imagine this would have been even better when cooked properly. Dorie isn't joking when she says it should be eaten immediately. When Matt got home from work, his portion was gummy and dense. He ate it anyway, but after tasting both, I can confidently say it was much better hot out of the oven.

Despite the fact that easyjet flies cheaply from Naples to Nice, I haven't really been interested in going, because it's so expensive to stay there. Now I kind of want to go, just to try "real" socca. We'll see.

Ticking Them Off...FFwD

I don't have this week's recipe for French Fridays with Dorie prepared yet, but I do have a butt-load of recent make-ups to report on.

First, Provencal Vegetable Soup. Lots of veg. I liked the pesto mixed into the broth. Very tasty. I added chicken to make it more filling.

Conclusion: Liked it. Don't know that I'd go out of my way to make it again, but it was fine.

I actually made the Gateau Basque on time, but didn't post about it last week. I really wanted to enjoy this more than I did, primarily because the cherry preserves that I'd bought in April during a trip to Alberobello turned out to be DELICIOUS. I feel like I wasted the preserves, because I really wasn't impressed by the cake. I thought it was dry, and the cake itself didn't have a lot of flavor.

Conclusion: Just okay.

Lastly, the Coddled Eggs with (Pork Pate, not Foie Gras). Ugh. I don't even know what to say. The pate was gross, on its own, so I don't know why I thought it would taste ok in the end product. I cooked this according to Dorie's instructions. The egg appeared to be cooked right, but when I cut into it, the whites were still raw.

Ew. Then, I tried to just make poached eggs with all the same components--pate, tartufo spread, eggs. Again, I undercooked the eggs. I tried to eat it anyway. That pate made me want to puke.

After wasting 3 eggs and 2 spoonfuls of tartufo spread, I called it quits and made bacon and eggs. Classic. Perfect. Ha!

FFwD: (Cheese) Filled Zucchini Blossoms

Fried zucchini blossoms are near and dear to my heart. Growing up, my Italian-American next-door neighbor fried batches of flowers from her garden all summer long to lure me and her daughter out of their pool. Now, whenever I visit my mom during the summer, Ann makes a point of frying zucchini blossoms for me, because she knows how much I love them. (During winter visits, she inevitably brings over cookies. She's a good neighbor to have.)

Years ago, I asked Ann for her recipe. She gave me a list of ingredients and told me to mix them together until the batter looked right. This will come as no surprise, but my first run at frying my own zucchini flowers was an epic failure. Matt will eat just about anything that's fried, and even he found them inedible. I haven't really tried again since then, so I was very excited to give Dorie's zucchini blossom recipe a try.

Technically, Dorie's recipe is for Shrimp-Filled Zucchini Blossoms. I'm sure that's delicious, but here in Naples, I've only seen zucchini blossoms come with one filling: cheese. In my ongoing effort to learn to duplicate things I love from my time here, I decided to follow Dorie's cheese-filled variation instead of the shrimp one.

Finding zucchini blossoms was easy. Italians are crazy for these things (with good reason). They actually sell fresh packs of them at the supermarket. Or so I thought. I didn't realize until I got home, that I'd actually bought fiore di zucca. Pumpkin. Not zucchini. Oh well, no big deal. I couldn't tell the difference.

I don't know what army I thought I would feed with this many flowers. We wasted quite a few.

Is club soda the same as sparkling water? I don't think so. I used sparkling water, because that is what the lady in my Italian cooking class uses. If it's good enough for Vera, it's good enough for me.

This batter fried up perfectly. These flowers were crispy and delicious. I'll always love Ann's zucchini flowers best, because they're made out of love, but this is now my go-to recipe when I need to fry flowers--or any other vegetable, for that matter--myself. The cheese filling was, frankly, better than a lot of what I've eaten at restaurants around here. Well done, Dorie.

After much prodding, Charlie tasted, then devoured an un-stuffed flower, while skeptically reciting Green Eggs and Ham ("You may like them, you will see..."). Score.

Matt said this was one of his favorite dinners in ages. All hail my beloved zucchini flowers!