chicken breasts diable

Posted on 01/03/2013 by

Well, this should be an interesting month. For the first time ever, not a single recipe for which I voted made the roster. What the heck! Are my tastes really that weird? Probably best not to contemplate that question for too long. Instead, let’s talk about this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Chicken Breasts Diable.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Dorie knows her chicken. I’ve liked most of the recipes from this chapter of the book and a few have been turned into oft repeated favorites in my house. This week’s offering was an easy main, quick enough to be a weeknight meal. Apparently I’ve been living under a rock or something because I’ve never heard of chicken diable before. In the end it turns out to be a rather self-important name for a simple creamy dijon pan sauce.

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So, to wrap up: simple, easy, and tasty. Another keeper.

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long and slow apples

Posted on 27/02/2013 by

I was apparently pretty useless over the holidays and ended up missing quite a few French Fridays with Dorie recipes. Among them was this one, Long & Slow Apples. Not the most exciting sounding recipe in the world, but my fellow Doristas assured me that it was worth the long and the slow.

The long part refers to the oven time and the slow part refers to the low oven temperature. But I thought that it also took a while to get the recipe together, even before it went into the oven. Here’s the deal, first you slice the apples as thin as possible (a job for my trusty mandolin) and then you layer them in ramekins, brushing with melted butter and sprinkling with spiced sugar and orange zest as you go. Then you top your ramekins with parchment paper (my version of the book said nothing about plastic wrap) and wrap them in foil. Then weigh the whole thing down, and into the oven.

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Hours later, my apples had shrunk down by at least 50%, and taken on a pale caramel color. To be honest, they just didn’t look that exciting. But looks were deceiving, because they sure did taste good. Delicious in fact. I really enjoyed this recipe, but given how long it took to come together, it would probably have to be a pretty special occasion for me to break it out again.

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2012 – a FFwD year in review

Posted on 24/02/2013 by

FFwD442 039_DxOWell, it’s February, and long past time for the ubiquitous year-end posts. Why am I even bothering at this point? Good question, and I guess the answer is that this is more for me than for you. I kind of like looking back over all the recipes I made in the past year with my fellow French Fridays with Dorie cooks and remembering my favorites. We’ll just call this my own personal little FFwD Oscars.

To start with, Dorie has changed the way I roast chickens, earning her m. Jacques’ Armagnac Chicken my Favorite Savory Recipe of the year. Her method is simple and straightforward and the end result is juicy and flavorful. It has become my go-to chicken recipe which I have made more times than I can count. And on the sweeter side of life, Dorie’s Coconut Friands was my Favorite Dessert. This was another incredibly easy recipe and has become the recipe which I pull out anytime I have egg whites to use up. Which means that I make these little cakes pretty much every time I make ice cream.

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FFwD025 036The one which I least expected to like, and thus the Most Surprising Recipe of the year, was Dorie’s Sardine Rillettes. This recipe caused quite a stir among the Doristas and not everyone was a fan. But I learned that I like sardines and this delicious spread makes a quick and easy party appetizer. This recipe also reminded me once again that the recipes which push me out of my comfort zone remain my favorite FFwD experiences. Whether I end up liking the recipe or not, I enjoy the experience of trying something new.

All of the recipes I’ve listed so far were easy, but the all time Easiest Recipe of the year was Dorie’s Hummus. I eat hummus all the time and had no idea how simple FFwD019 005it was to make it myself at home. But, while Dorie’s simple recipes will probably always make my heart go pitter-patter, one which was decidedly not easy, but Well Worth the Effort, was her Blueberry-Mascarpone Roulade. I had never made a roulade before because I had always been too intimidated by the process. But Dorie patiently walked me through it and the end result was elegant and delicious.

FFwD415 008While not exactly a true repeat of Dorie’s original recipe, her Nutella Tartine inspired me to start spreading nutella and orange marmalade on my morning whole wheat english muffin, and thus becomes (kind of) the Most Repeated recipe of 2012.

And, as I did last year, I have to pay tribute to my husband for joining me on this little culinary adventure of mine. His favorite recipe, and thus the Happy Husband recipe of the year goes to Dorie’s Top Secret Chocolate Mousse. Did I mention that he has a sweet tooth?

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cheating-on-winter pea soup

Posted on 24/02/2013 by

Running more than a bit late with last week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Cheating-on-Winter Pea Soup. I actually made it a few weeks ago, but then I was skiing last week and didn’t get a chance to post until today. I can’t tell you how happy skiing makes me. Maybe it’s the Vermonter in me… actually, I’m quite sure that it’s the Vermonter in me… but there is nothing in the world that matches the feeling of swooshing down a snowy mountainside.

Sigh, as you can maybe tell, I wasn’t quite ready to come home. But soup! Today we are talking about soup.

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Dorie’s pea soup, made at any time of year with frozen peas, was quick and easy. I made it on a weeknight and had dinner on the table in 20 minutes flat. The resulting soup was a bit thinner than I had expected, but tasty nonetheless. The leftovers are sittin pretty in my freezer, ready for a late night when I have no time or energy to cook.

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coeur a la creme (sans coeur)

Posted on 14/02/2013 by

I can’t really generalize and say that Germans do or don’t celebrate Valentine’s day. It seems to be split. Some see it as a sweet holiday for lovers. Others see it as an American invention which the local flower industry is trying to import. And still others can’t be bothered to think of it all. If the fact that I can easily walk into most restaurants on the big day without a reservation is any indication, that first group seems to be the in the minority. Which I guess means that I can’t be too fussy with my boss for sending me out of town for work this week. I have the feeling he falls into that last category.

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Which means that I made my Coeur a la Creme (aka, Cream Heart), this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, last week. Too bad really because this recipe has Valentine’s Day written all over it. Though, lacking the necessary heart shaped mold, I used my strainer, which made mine more Creme than Coeur.

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In the end, I couldn’t have cared less what shape the cake was in, because it was freakin delicious! Imagine cream cheese frosting in cake form. Yum! We topped our cake with passion fruit and, in addition to being very valentiney, it turned out to be the perfect flavor combo. Passion fruit is not overly sweet and I think that it provided a nice balance to the very sweet and very rich cake. I loved this one.

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fresh orange pork tenderloin

Posted on 08/02/2013 by

Oh WordPress, let me count the ways that you have annoyed me today. Losing my entire post after I clicked the Save button is at the top of the list. So here I am, typing it again. If you lose it again, I may be forced to reconsider our relationship.

And speaking of relationships, I have long had a tumultuous one with pork. It just seems to be such a moody meat which can go from dangerously undercooked to dry and tasteless within the blink of an eye. And then of course, everyone’s idea of perfectly cooked pork is different. Mine falls much closer to dangerously undercooked than dry and tasteless. I like my meat to retain a slight rosy hue. But more often than not, I miss the window and my pork comes out inedible. Blah.

All of which is to say that I approached this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Fresh Orange Pork Tenderloin, with a certain amount of trepidation. I’ve been disappointing too many times. Why should I believe that this time would be different?

Okay, okay, that’s probably a bit overly dramatic for a piece of meat. (But seriously!) I’ll settle down now and admit that Dorie’s recipe managed to impress me. I glared at that piece of pork the entire time it was cooking, but I followed Dorie’s instructions to the second, and it came out perfect. Slightly pink in the center, juicy, tender, perfect!

I was so happy with how the pork turned out and will absolutely use Dorie’s method for cooking it again. The fresh orange sauce, not so much. It wasn’t really bad, but maybe a bit too sweet for my tastes. It left me wondering what Betsy came up with to placate Howard this week. I’m guessing that I would have liked his version better.

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brown-sugar squash and brussels sprouts en papillote

Posted on 01/02/2013 by

The whole en papillote thing has never really worked for me. Which is not to say that I don’t like foods cooked with this method, but that foods which I try to cook using this method, never actually seem to cook. I can’t tell you how many times I have removed half raw foods from my oven and just wanted to give up. But after much trial and more error, I have determined that it is not en papillote which is my problem, but rather, en aluminum foil. Some combination of an oven which is too weak and foil which is too strong has caused me much anguish.

But not this time! No, I’ve learned my lesson. So even though this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Brown-Sugar Squash & Brussels Sprouts en Papillote called for the use of aluminum foil, I used parchment paper. And not to get all pedantic but, isn’t that what en papillote means to begin with?

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Anywho, setting that little rant aside for now, this week Dorie has us chopping up brussels sprouts & squash, wrapping them up in neat little packages, and roasting them in the oven. I’ll admit that I was mighty tempted to leave the papillote out all together and just roast those darn veggies. But then, it wouldn’t have really been a new recipe, because roasted squash or brussels sprouts (though admittedly not usually together) is one of our pretty standard sides.

So en parchment paper it was and both my husband and I agreed that it was pretty darn tasty. Better than simple oven roasted? No. But a nice alternative which I can see us using again.

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