French Fridays with Dorie - m. jacques' armagnac chicken

This week's Dorie recipe is a total winner!  We had this for our Sunday dinner with the whole crew, so I had to cook two chickens.  Let's just say, I should have cooked three!  Everyone loved the flavor of the chicken and the vegetables (personally, I think the onions and carrots for absolutely amazing!)  I didn't get any great pictures as I was rushing a bit to get dinner on the table.  The chickens took a little longer since I put two in my giant le creuset pot.  Oh well, they were so worth the wait.  I used brandy instead of Armagnac as I am on a food budget and trying to use things I already have instead of buying new single use ingredients.  Tasted amazing...don't think it made too much of a difference.  I also served stuffing from Thanksgiving (we had so much left, I froze a bunch...oh my gosh...it was so much better than on Thanksgiving...our new secret is going to be to make it a month ahead of time & freeze it.)  I also made my wonderful no-knead bread.  Every one's happy when I put a loaf of this fabulous bread on the table.  All in all, it was a really terrific dinner.

Wondering if everyone else in FFWD loved this as much as we did?  Check out their posts here.

French Fridays with Dorie - cauliflower-bacon gratin

What happens when you combine this

With this

And a whole lot of this?

You get this!

A really amazing side dish, that might actually become an addition to our annual holiday table (and that's saying a lot!)  I made this dish early in the month to serve with the chard-stuffed pork roast.  It was a great compliment to the pork.  My guests and my boys gobbled this up.  My sister suggested that we add it to our Thanksgiving repetoire.  I said sure, great!  What current tradtional side dish can we cut?  She laughed and said, none...just add this!  We'll see next year.

Speaking of next year, Happy 2012!  This will be my last blog post of 2011...and all I can say is goodbye 2011, hello 2012.  I'm looking forward to great things in the coming year (including lots of great food with my fellow Doristas).

French Fridays with Dorie - potato chip tortilla

Did you know that I'm a tennis player?  No???  Well I am.  Not a great tennis player, and many days not even a good tennis player.  But a tennis player I am.  When we moved to Coronado, my first order of business was to find some folks to play tennis with.  I pursued this with a vengeance.  Eventually, my persistence paid off and I was able to join a weekly round robin women's event.  16 to 20 women play each week.  There's a good mix of talent and a great mix of personalities. Many weeks, after we play, we share some food.

Each week, this is a chance for me to make something fun and impress my fellow tennis players.  Most weeks, this has actually worked.  At one point, the organizer informed me, it's ok if you can't play this week, just come for the lunch...with something you've made.  I laughed out loud.  I know the way to any one's heart is through the stomach.  And while I might play a game where love is part of the score, I get to show the real love by providing a home cooked treat to my fellow tennis aficionados who are from Coronado (hey, it rhymes!).

So, 9 long weeks ago, I injured myself on the court.  Leading to my inability to play the game I love.  Leading to great sadness on my part. While each week I've been hoping to resume my game, my body is not cooperating.  Oh well, the ladies still invite me to the weekly celebrations, so I get to cook and visit.

I decided that Dorie's potato chip tortilla was the perfect appetizer to bring to our holiday tennis luncheon.  Easy to make, easy to serve, hopefully tasty.  (I think St. James actually doesn't like the fact that I'm quite willing to try a new recipe out for the first time for an event or a get together or a party...although the other night I heard him bragging to some of our guests about that exact fact.  There is always a risk of serving a new recipe to guests...but I can always order pizza...right?  And given that there are about 85,689 recipes that I want to try, I don't really like to cook the same things over and over (except for Jacques Torres' chocolate chip cookies and King Arthur's no-knead bread, which I would make daily, if allowed to).

The secret ingredient to this egg casserole is potato chips...although it's not much of a secret...cause it's in the name!  It becomes a secret if you don't tell those you are serving the dish to what the name of the dish is, because when you try it, you cannot tell that there are potato chips in it.  It just tastes like potato.


All the herbs I used in this "tortilla" were from my herb garden, as well as one lone jalapeno that has been wondering when it was going to get picked.

I'm going to confess, I must have over-cooked this a bit.  It was a tad dry.  Also, I didn't use enough salt, as I thought the salt from the potato chips would be more than enough.  If I were to make this again, I might add a bit of cheese (maybe even cream cheese) to add a bit of creaminess.  For my tennis lunch, I cut it into bite-sized pieces and served with toothpicks.  The plate was empty at the end of the party...so I'm hoping folks liked it.  To see how my on-line friends fared this week, click here.  Have a great week and take time to enjoy the holidays.

French Fridays with Dorie - chard-stuffed pork roast

Oh how I love December.  And I have to say that the recipes that have been selected for French Fridays with Dorie are so perfect for the season.  This week's recipe was a lovely chard-stuffed pork roast.  Really a simple recipe.  You make the swiss chard stuffing by sauteing onions and garlic and the chard and then add raisins (or cranberries...which is what I used).  I used red chard and the color of the stuffing was very Christmassy! 





Beautiful Chard

Then you butterfly your pork roast, stuff it, tie it up, smear the top with olive oil and cracked pepper and coriander seeds and roast it.  Simple and quick.  You can make this in about an hour (with 40 minutes of that being cooking time).  Great for a not too busy weeknight or weekend.







Butterflied and stuffed



All dressed up and no where to go (except into the oven)






Out of the oven, resting

Such a lovely dish!




I invited one of my sisters and her daughter over since I knew we were going to have a lot of food.  At the last minute St. James invited a tennis buddy also, so we had a nice group.  Everyone loved the pork roast (and the rest of the dinner, some of which I will be writing about later this month).  I loved, loved, loved the crust and the stuffing and the pork.  All so perfect together.  I honestly think I'll be adding this to the monthly repertoire. 

Do yourself a favor...put Dorie's book on your Christmas list...and then cook from it.  It's such a treat!  Check out my fellow Dorista's pork roasts here.

French Fridays with Dorie - matafan (fluffy mashed potato pancakes)

Yeah, back on the Dorie band wagon.  The couple of weeks before Thanksgiving were a little crazy and I actually did not cook one Dorie recipe for Turkey Day, so I didn't post last week either.  Ah well.  I'm so much gentler with myself and felt no remorse at all.  However, I did feel a bit of pressure to make sure I posted this week!  Lucky for me, we were making a relatively simple recipe, at least in the number of ingredients (only 5 - potatoes, salt, flour, eggs, milk).  The recipe itself had a few steps, but with the ever helpful Ethan by my side, we were able to make these for a weeknight dinner.

Baked on a bed of salt.

Luckily, I remembered at 3:30 that the potatoes needed to bake for 1.5 hours, so in the oven they went.  On a bed of salt.  How fun!  I have no idea if it had the desired effect (drying out the potatoes as they baked), but my potatoes definitely did not seem to have any extra moisture in them (I wonder if anyone saved the salt, I didn't, but probably could have). 

Love my ricer!

After baking, I got to "rice" the potatoes.  I love my ricer...I just don't use it very often.  Mainly because I usually have 5 lbs of potatoes to rice, which takes forever.  But with just two potatoes, it was the perfect tool for the job. 


On a side note, Dorie says to only use Russets, not Yukon Golds and definitely bake, don't boil.  For Thanksgiving, I was making The Pioneer Woman's fantastic mashed potatoes (which I have made at least 50 times) and using Yukon Golds.  Those gosh darn (this is definitely the G version, the actual version had a hard R rating) potatoes melted away to nothing when I boiled them.  Literally, there was nothing left of the potatoes (I had to make potato soup out of them and start again).  Luckily, I was making them the day before (since they are sort of like a casserole and can go in the fridge and then the oven after they are mashed) T Day, so I was able to make another batch with Russets on T Day.  Anyone ever have that issue with Yukons?  It's happened to me twice now and I don't think I'll ever use them for mashed potatoes again.

Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand, Ethan gladly beat the egg whites as I riced the potatoes and make the pancake base.  As I was making it, I was reminded of a grougere or pate a choux dough.  It had the same consistency and beautiful golden color from the egg yolks. 

Have you seen a more lovely pancake batter?

Alas, as I was adding the beautiful egg whites that Ethan had so lovingly beat to firm peaks, I realized I'd not salted or peppered the dough.  After the egg whites were folded in, I thought it was too late and didn't want to deflate the dough.  So I added a bit, but not much.  When I cooked the pancakes, Dorie says to flip them after the little bubbles form and pop in the batter, just like a regular pancake.  Well, I don't know about others', but there were no bubbles in my batter upon cooking.  So, I just turned them when the bottoms were done.

Cast iron is perfect for these beauties!

Before butter and syrup.

While we enjoyed the pancakes, Ethan's remark was "they need salt."  I laughed.  At least salt is easy to add at the table.  I think these would be terrific with a little onion or maybe some cheese mixed into the batter.  They tasted like a potato omelet, only very light and airy.  We did add butter and syrup, just cause if it's a pancake, it's gotta have butter and syrup!  We liked them enough that I think we would try them again.  Also on our plate for this dinner was Dream Dinners' French Onion Chicken (probably my favorite DD chicken dinner of all time) and some steamed broccoli.  All in all, a relatively healthy and satisfying fall (almost winter) dinner.  Wondering how my fellow Doristas fared this week?  Find out here.  Have a terrific week and enjoy the holiday season!!

French Fridays with Dorie - twenty-minute honey-glazed duck breasts

 Unbelievable, right?  Duck in 20 minutes?  Well, Dorie didn't lie...I got home at 5:15 and had dinner on the table at 6:00 pm...had to wait on the darn rice!  We all like duck at my house, but I rarely cook it (but when I do, I cook it rarely...hee hee hee.)  Ethan was excited when I told him we were having duck and the whole time it was cooking (all 20 minutes), he kept saying, "boy, something sure smells good!"  So cute.  The duck was very simple, quick and fairly tasty. 

Crispy skin and lovely sauce

Even though I went to my favorite meat store in San Diego (Seisel's), I've got to say the duck itself wasn't fabulous, just ok.  It had no real ducky flavor at all and except for the thick skin and layer of fat, it could almost have been chicken (almost, but not quite).  Which was too bad, given that it was $13.99 a pound (and I bought two pounds).  I wonder if there is a better, less expensive way to buy duck.  I'll have to investigate.

Look at that beautiful, rare duck

We've had a bit of a cranky week at my house, culminating with all three of us having a crappy day on Thursday.  The boys are off camping this weekend and I hope the fresh, COLD mountain air clears their heads and brings them back in a good mood.  I plan on cleaning the house top to bottom, certain to put me in a fabulous mood.

Have a great week and check out my fellow Doristas' creations here.

French Fridays with Dorie - Pumpkin stuffed with everything good

A funny thing happened to me last week.  After returning from my cruise (where I had a great time and got to see beautiful sights like this:)

Well, this wasn't so beautiful, Miami on the day we left

Jamica, beautiful!

Locals!

Grand Caymans...could have stayed forever!

Went to Hell & back!

Miami upon return

I thought I was suppose to make Dorie's Pumpkin stuffed with everything good.  So I did...and it was.  The funny thing was I was actually suppose to make pissaladiere.  Oops!  When I discovered my mistake, it was too late to slap together the pissaladiere, so I missed another week of FFwD.  Oh well.  I was still in vacation mode and didn't mind too much.

Unbaked

I stuffed the pumpkin with herbs and bread and cheese and BIG hunks of ham that I had leftover from one of the most amazing hams we've ever had.  The pumpkin looked amazing and the boys and I could hardly wait to dive in.  Unfortunately, the boys deemed it "just alright," not great.  I think the bread was the issue.  While I let the bread go stale (by putting it cut up on the counter all day), I think it really needed to sit out overnight.  It was very mushy and a little unappetizing.  Everything else tasted great and leftovers the next day were very tasty.  This is something I'd try again, with a few tweaks. It certainly is a perfect fall supper!  Check out my fellow Doristas pumkins here.

Baked

Artsy shot

French Fridays with Dorie - deconstructed BLT and eggs

This week, we did a little bit of deconstructing for our Dorie recipe.  We took the always delicious BLT, separated the ingredients, added eggs and made something that was...drum roll please...not quite as good as a regular BLT.  Don't get me wrong, this salad was very good and the boys and I ate every bite (we each had a huge portion).  But, as I ate each bite, I kept thinking that it just wasn't as great as taking a bite of a BLT.  Something about the perfect ratio of bacon, lettuce, tomato, bread & mayo that you get in each bite of a BLT was just missing from the deconstructed version.  Try as I might to get a little piece of each ingredient in a bite, I just couldn't quite do it.  Partly because my bread cubes were probably too big (tasty, given that they were sauteed in bacon fat, but too big!) and partly because there were quite a few individual ingredients, making the navigation of getting them all on the fork difficult.

Love, love bacon!

My favorite part!

Two things went amiss for me in the recipe.  I forgot to bake my homemade bread (it was all ready, resting in the fridge, and I completely forgot to get it out and bake it before I started the salad.  Ditto for the homemade mayo...completely forgot to do it until I got to the end of the recipe...at which point we were all starving and I was not going to take another 20 minutes to make mayo.

 While the salad was good, it seemed like a lot of work to make all the pieces.  I can make a BLT in as long as it takes to cook the bacon (maybe 20 mins)...this salad took almost an hour.  Maybe I'd make it to impress company, but if it's just the boys and I, I'll go with a regular BLT next time.  To see the wonderful concoctions that my fellow Doristas made this week, take a peek here.

Next Friday, I am flying to Florida and boarding a cruise ship to the Caribbean (Jamaica anybody?).  I'm hopeful I can get next week and the following week's posts done and in the que before I leave, but if not...I'll post when I return.  Everybody have a great couple of weeks!

French Fridays with Dorie - cinnamon crunch chicken

This week's French Fridays with Dorie's recipe was a simple chicken dish.  It took 15 minutes to prepare (it took me much longer to drive to 4 different grocery stores to find the damn speculoos!  But that's starting to be an old story, so I won't bore you with it.).  Unfortunately, we all agreed that it was not very special...in fact it didn't have much flavor at all.  For the recipe, you brown some chicken, and then add creme fraiche (I used heavy cream, because if you thought it was hard to find speculoos, don't even get me going on creme fraiche) and broken up speculoos (a Belgium cinnamon cookie).  When you chop up the speculoos, Dorie says to leave some chunks, some little bits and some cookie powder.  The cookie powder helps thicken the sauce a bit and adds flavor, just not enough in our opinion.  Having said that, the boys cleaned their plates.  It wasn't a bad dish, just not great.  I'm really curious to see how my fellow Doristas did and what modifications they made to turn this into a fabulous dish.

French Fridays with Dorie - cafe salle pleyel hamburger

I love the look of this photo, even out of focus and overexposed.

This week, my fellow Doristas and I had the lovely task of making hamburgers.  But, not just any ole plain hamburgers, no, these were fancy, schmancy french hamburgers.  With ingredients like capers and cornichons (little french pickles, not miniature corn) and tarragon and sun dried tomatoes and Parmesan and onion jam.  The onion jam was very simple to make (just boil chopped onions with coriander, butter and water until it's, well, jammy).  Mine came out with a lot of liquid left, but I just drained it off and it was fine.  For the burgers, you add all the chopped ingredients to the meat, form burgers, grill and eat.  Simple, a little elegant and delicious (at least for some of us).

I made these burgers for some LA friends who came to visit us for the day.  I knew some of my guests were not adventurous eaters so I made two plain patties, just in case. 

On the grill, see the plain one?

Turns out I should have made three as St. James did not like the french burger.  In particular, he didn't like the tarragon, because he doesn't like licorice/anise flavored things.  (I have a sorry confession, I guess I've only used dried tarragon before.  I had no idea that tarragon was so anisey (is that even a word?  Well it is now.).  I love anise and all things licorice flavored.  So, imagine my surprise when I start chopping the tarragon and am overwhelmed with the scent of licorice.  I was so excited.  I didn't really think too long about the fact that St. James might not like these (the thought did cross my mind, but then I thought...maybe he won't notice).  I even mentioned it to my friend...let's see if St. James notices or just eats right through it. 

After about three bites, St. James says...do these have anise in them?  I coyly say no, just tarragon.  He says, well, what does tarragon taste like...and then I have to spill the beans.  He didn't take another bite.  Too bad...Ethan LOVED them and ate the leftovers for three more days.  Next time, I'll make a plain patty for St. James and Ethan and I can love these on our own.

I had a little ketchup and mayo on mine, couldn't help myself.

French Fridays with Dorie - bistro paul bert pepper steak

Goodness gracious but the boys were happy this week.  Steak is at the top of their list of favorite dinners, so when they asked what was for dinner and I told them filet mignon with cognac sauce and french style frites there were cheers!  How nice to make a recipe that I knew from the get go was going to be a winner.

I also got to use a new to me kitchen appliance (a deep fryer).  The deep fryer was from my mom's house (she had an amazing collection of brand new appliances, still in the boxes and this was one that I took (not really sure why, as I never deep fry things...but after using it, I'm so glad I've got it.)

We generally don't like filet mignon as much as other cuts of steak (New York & Rib Eye), but I decided to follow Dorie's recipe to a t...so I got filets (instead of t-bones...ha ha...get it...to a t...t-bones...guess you have to be in my mind to see the humor), and I've got to say I'm really glad I did.  These steaks were fork tender and had a great flavor (plus the cognac sauce was unbelievably yummy!!) Ethan's steak was a little big and he thought he'd save a bit to make a steak sandwich for school the next day.  However, when he got home from Boy Scouts, he decided to scarf the rest of his steak (he's getting good at eating two dinners each night!)

The cognac sauce, before stirring

With respect to the frites...I was not as successful.  Since I had a deep fryer to test out, I decided to follow Dorie's instructions and "blanch" the fries, let them cool and then fry again (at a higher temp).  As I got ready to cut my fries, I searched hi and low for my mandolin...you know...the one I've used numerous times to make Dorie's version of scalloped potatoes (other wise known as pommes dauphinois), but I couldn't find the mandolin anywhere.  Alas, I had to cut the darn things by hand.  Unfortunately, I did not achieve the beautiful, even cuts that my mandolin is so good at and some of my fries were more steak fry size than frite size.  With the blanching and then hot frying, the frites got a little too brown.  While Ethan and I loved them (especially with our sel gris on them), St. James said that he preferred thinner fries (aka McDonald's style).  Guess I'll just have to keep experimenting until I get them right.  (Although for all you deep fryer users out there, do you keep your oil or toss it?  It seemed like such a waste to dump all that canola oil, but I did.  I'm thinking next time I might put the fryer bin in the garage frig...any thoughts?)

Wondering how all my fellow Doristas did with this week's assignment?  Check them out here (and leave them some love in their comments...they're working hard to keep us entertained, enlightened and hungry!)