peach melba

Posted on 24/08/2012 by oneexpatslife

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Peach Melba, is the big 1 0 0! That’s right, we have now made 100 recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table. Ok, full disclosure, I personally have only made 99 because I am officially boycotting the olive fougasse recipe until the day after I buy a standing mixer. But still, it is a noteworthy milestone.

When I first set off on the grand adventure of cooking my way through Dorie’s delicious book, I wasn’t working and was dealing with some not so fun medical stuff, all of which left me with lots of time for thinking. Thinking too much in such situations is never good and I desperately needed a distraction. I was aware that Dorie had a new book and a new cooking group, I liked to cook, I liked Dorie, why not throw my spatula into the ring? Maybe I would learn something new along the way, improve my kitchen skills, and get some tasty food out of it to boot.

100 recipes later (okay okay, 99) a lot of things have changed. I have a new job and I haven’t set foot in a doctor’s office in over 6 months (yay!). But this group has turned into so much more than the distraction which I was initially looking for. I really have learned a lot and made some crazy delicious food which I never would have made were it not for this group. And I have met a fun and amazing group of home cooks whose company I truly enjoy.

All of these thoughts were going through my head as I made this week’s recipe, which turned out to be the perfect milestone for several reasons. Not only have I never made Peach Melba before, I’ve actually never tried or even ever heard of this dish before. Had someone asked me, I probably would have guessed that it had something to do with peaches and melba toast. But no, it turns out that peach melba is an ice cream sundae made with poached peaches and, at least in Dorie’s case, home-made raspberry cassis ice cream. Which begs the question, HOW had I never heard of this before?

That’s why I love Dorie’s book and why I love this project. Dorie has introduced me to so many wonderful recipes which I had never made before and this wonderful group has given me the support and encouragement to keep cooking and trying new ones, one week and one recipe at a time. I’ve had a blast with this first 100 and can’t wait to see what the next 100 brings.

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warm scallop salad with corn, nectarines, and basil

Posted on 17/08/2012 by oneexpatslife

This week I am getting back on track with my French Fridays with Dorie switch up by making last week’s recipe, Warm Scallop Salad with Corn, Nectarines, and Basil. Some weeks you just need a gimme, and last week was one of those weeks, so Carrot Salad it was.

Despite the fact that my fellow Doristas seemed to unanimously love this salad, I was still a little skeptical. While all of these ingredients are ones that I love separately, I was not entirely convinced that they would all come together into a cohesive dish. It also sounded like it had the potential to be too sweet with all that corn and fruit. But I set my doubts aside and dutifully set about making this dish.

And, as usual, I was happy that I did. I think I recall reading last week that someone described this dish as ‘summer on a plate’ and I would agree with this description. I loved the scallops, I loved the corn, I loved the nectarine, I wasn’t crazy about the lime dressing but it would be easy enough to substitute another one next time. And I particularly loved the basil coulis. In fact, Dorie’s herb coulis recipe has been a brilliant addition to my favorite tricks for pepping up just about any dish. I’ve made it with mint, cilantro, and now basil, and it’s just such a quick and simple trick for adding a bit of flavor.

Now that I have caught up with the rest of the group I am looking forward to next week’s recipe which, by my calculations anyway, will be French Fridays with Dorie’s 100th! Crazy huh! And how appropriate that it will be a dessert.

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cafe-style grated carrot salad

Posted on 10/08/2012 by oneexpatslife

When planning a meal, I often find that sides are the most difficult. Maybe it is because most cookbooks tend to pay only lip service to the sides. Who knows. But this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe… well, actually, this week’s recipe will have to wait until next week because, between being out of town on the weekend and my crazed work schedule, this week demanded something simple. But next week’s recipe, Cafe-Style Grated Carrot Salad, answers the call for a little something different on the side.

First let me say that this is not the first time I have made this salad. In fact, it may very well have been the first non-baked Dorie recipe I ever made, after stumbling across it on her blog years ago. Second, let me say to all of my fellow cooks who are planning to make this salad next week, keep an eye on the dressing! I have often wondered if there was a typo in this recipe because half a cup of oil seems to be quite heavy handed for 4 servings and I find that there is a bit too much dressing here for the amount of carrots. However, if you simply dress the salad with whatever amount looks right to you (the leftover dressing is very good on salads or veggies so I usually just make up the full batch) then this is a very quick and easy side to add to your repertoire. It’s probably not the recipe which you will pull out when you are cooking to impress, but it is absolutely one which I pull out on a regular basis to feed the ones I love with tasty and nutritious fare.

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tomato-cheese tartlets

Posted on 03/08/2012 by oneexpatslife

This past weekend I had to say goodbye to the little furball who has been keeping me company for the past 11 years. It was a very difficult decision to make and one that I struggled with as he got sicker and sicker. How could I be sure that we had done everything we could? At what point was my reluctance to let him go doing him more harm than good?

This particular furball apparently never got the memo that cats are supposed to be loners because he would greet me at the door every day when I arrived home and follow me from room to room until I left again. My husband called him my stalker. Whenever I was in the kitchen cooking, my stalker would settle himself on a chair to watch the goings on, offering his assistance only if he heard the sound of a can being opened.

So this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Tomato-Cheese Tartlets, was set to be my first foray into the kitchen without my stalker. Between that, a hectic work week, and the fact that the recipes were posted late, I had basically given this week up for lost. But then, Thursday night I curiously opened the book to see what the recipe was all about, and was shocked to discover that I actually had everything I needed in the fridge. Even puff pastry! Only since joining FFwD do I just happen to have puff pasty hanging out in my freezer. Not just that, but it looked easy enough, so why not give it a go?

I’m not going to lie, cooking without my stalker was a little weird. But this was a simple and delicious recipe which I am so happy not to have missed. As Dorie points out, the possibilities are endless and I am looking forward to seeing what kind of inspiration my fellow Doristas can give me for next time.

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lemon barley pilaf

Posted on 27/07/2012 by oneexpatslife

This summer, as my friends and family in the US suffer under the heat wave, I find myself living in the country which summer forgot. Actually, summer seems to have forgotten about most of central Europe this year because we have been having freakishly cool and rainy weather. I can’t work out all the Celsius to Fahrenheit conversions in my head at the moment, so I’ll describe the ‘summer’ we’ve been having through my wardrobe. Most mornings I leave the house with a sweater or jacket and a scarf. Yes, it is almost August and I am still wearing a scarf on a daily basis.

But last week a strange thing happened, the weatherman started to predict an improvement. At first, most of us just ignored him. He has cruelly raised and dashed our hopes before. But day after day he kept insisting that clearer skies lay ahead, and slowly my hopes started to raise anew. So on Saturday morning, it was in this hopeful and optimistic sate, in the absolute pouring rain, scarf tied firmly around my neck, that I headed to the grocery store to buy fixins for grilling out. As the rain-soaked into my shoes I was having a very hard time holding onto my hope, but I trusted that weatherman darn it and thank heavens, he did not let me down.

Yes, I am happy to report that this past Sunday, the sun finally came out to play. My husband and I headed outside, blinked confusedly at the strange glowing object in the sky, slowly unwound our scarfs, and proceeded to enjoy a real summer day.

Generally when we grill with friends, everyone brings a side of some sort to share with the group. This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Lemon Barley Pilaf, could not have been timelier. I decided to go with Dorie’s Bonne Idee and added some peas, chicken and mint coulis. Very tasty. Next time I will probably leave out the chicken, but I thought that the mint coulis was wonderful and really added a nice flavor to the dish.

In all the excitement of actually being outside without several layers on, I rather neglected my picture taking responsibilities. But I did manage to get one rather hurried photo. I was too hungry to bother with more:-)

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salmon with basil tapenade

Posted on 20/07/2012 by oneexpatslife

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Salmon with Basil Tapenade, was the dish that just did not want to be made. But let me start at the beginning.

Business hours in Germany are very different from what I was used to in Chicago. Very different. Living in Chicago, I can honestly say that I don’t even know what the hours of my local grocery store were. It’s really a question which I never had to give much thought to, because it was always open when I needed it.

Not so here in Frankfurt. Most of the shops in my neighborhood start to close up shop at 6pm. A few ambitious ones will stay open until 7pm, and 1 lone little supermarket puts in the effort to stay open until 8pm. Saturdays are usually slightly reduced hours where shops start to close up in the late afternoon. And Sundays are a day of rest and quiet; only restaurants are allowed to be open on Sundays. So if you forgot to buy a key ingredient on Saturday, well, you are officially out of luck.

Since I usually get home from work around 8ish, grocery shopping during the week is not an option.  This is one of the reasons why my whole schedule falls apart when we don’t have the recipes for the new month on time. Trying to get an unplanned recipe in during the week can quickly turn into a comedy of errors. And, while this week’s recipe was hardly unplanned, it did turn into a comedy of sorts when our Saturday shopping plans fell apart due to a very sick cat and we were not able to make it to the grocery store.

I will not bore you with my tales of mad dashes out of the office in futile attempts to make it to the store before closing time. Sufficed to say, this recipe did not get made until the last minute. Thank heavens it turned out to be a pretty straight forward one.

Dorie’s recipe calls for salmon fillets to be stuffed with a black olive tapenade and herbs, sauteed for a couple of minutes on each side, and then roasted shortly. I served our fillets with some sauteed zucchini and summer squash. Start to finish (including whipping up my own tapanade!) I think we had dinner on the table in 30 minutes. Tasty and quick. Heck, I might even thing of this as a weeknight meal if fresh fish were easier to come by during the week!

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blueberry-mascarpone roulade

Posted on 13/07/2012 by oneexpatslife

I never would have made this recipe if I were not part of the French Fridays with Dorie cooking group. As tasty as it looked in the picture, it also looked complicated. And I wasn’t buying Dorie’s assurances that it was really very easy. Sorry Dorie, but I was more than a little skeptical.

Dorie said that it was not all that hard. I was skeptical.

Dorie seemed to think that I could get the cake out of the pan without it falling apart. I was skeptical.

Dorie assured me that I could roll, unroll, and re-roll the cake, and still have it come out looking perfect. I was skeptical

Dorie (or at least her picture) said that I could mix the blueberries into the cream without turning the mixture blue. I was skeptical.

Dorie’s picture further promised that I could cut nice clean slices of cake without making a mess. I was skeptical.

Dorie was right, I was wrong.

Dorie said that this was delicious. I believed her 🙂

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crunchy ginger-pickled cucumbers

Posted on 05/07/2012 by oneexpatslife

I finally have a camera again! I’m so excited. So excited in fact, that I almost forgot to take a picture of this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Crunchy Ginger-Pickled Cucumbers. Maybe I’m just out of practice after a month of picture free posting. Or maybe it’s the fact that I was home from vacation in the states for exactly one day before I had to pack my bags again for a business trip. Yep, here I am, typing up this week’s post from a hotel room in Amsterdam.

But on my one day home I did manage to get in this week’s recipe. After a week of feasting on all my favorite foods in Chicago (why is it that we never miss the healthy stuff) I thought that Dorie’s light and easy side salad was just what the doctor ordered. I paired it with another Dorie recipe which has become a staple in my house, Quinoa, Fruit, and Nut Salad.

Dorie’s pickled cucumbers were incredibly easy (thank goodness because I don’t think that I could have handled a complicated one this week) and pretty quick too. My husband really enjoyed them and said that he would like to make them again. As for me, I maintain a general indifference to cucumbers, which this salad could not shake me out of. I neither love them nor hate them. Though I will say that this salad was far better than I expected. And pretty too!

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corn pancakes

Posted on 02/07/2012 by oneexpatslife

This week I am in Chicago, enjoying time with friends and family and celebrating the wedding of a dear friend. Expat friends generally agree that trips home are bittersweet. I usually find myself going into sensory overload as I try to take in all of my friends and family, sounds and smells, sights both familiar and new. A simple trip to the grocery store can turn into a mini trip down memory lane as I wander the aisles, greeting familiar foods like old friends. Sometimes it is the most mundane foods which prove to be the most alluring. This time I walked out with chips & salsa.

There is never enough time. We end up running from one visit to another. Monday with the rents, Tuesday with friends, Wednesday morning a visit to gram’s house, Wednesday evening Mexican food with my siblings. Feelings get hurt because we can’t find time for everyone. No matter how you try to organize it, there is never enough time.

This week I am surrounded by family and, even as I drink in their presence, I feel their pending absence even more strongly. People often ask me about my decision to move overseas for love and wonder how I could move so far away from my family. Some even rudely assume that it must mean that we do not have a close relationship. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love my family dearly and we keep in close contact with regular visits, phone calls, and emails. It is because of their love and support that I had the courage to move. It has not always been easy, but 5 years later I am more in love than ever and I would do it all over again.

In the midst of it all I did manage to get in this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Corn Pancakes. Of all the June recipes this is the one I was least excited about, and it turned out to be the one I liked the most. Go figure.

It was also a bit different from what I was expecting. I was expecting fritters, and instead Dorie stays true to the recipe’s name and delivers up pancakes. Like regular pancakes these were insanely quick and easy to throw together. My husband enjoyed his with creme fraiche and lox. I enjoyed mine plain with a side salad. I could absolutely see making these again, maybe even for breakfast.

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seaweed sables and soccer

Posted on 21/06/2012 by oneexpatslife

As I type this, Denmark and Germany are duking it out in the Euro 2012. For anyone not living in Europe, or otherwise not a rabid soccer fan, this is a tournament which takes place every 4 years between the european national teams. And in case you were not aware, it is a VERY big deal. The tournament lasts almost exactly one month and, during that month very little else is discussed. In fact, it is such a big deal that it’s darn near impossible for me to exaggerate its importance. I seriously think that the entire North American continent could suddenly sink into the sea and it would only make the second page of the local paper. My normally mild mannered husband has transformed into a screaming fan.

It’s the kind of event which I find particularly entertaining in Frankfurt because of the international makeup of the city. Published statistics are usually consistent in reporting that around 30% of the city’s population is not German. Turkish expats make up the majority of that figure, followed by Italians, Croatians, Poles, and then Serbs.  My fellow americans and I don’t show up until place 15! This hodge-podge makes for a very colorful city during such tournaments. Flags are hung from apartment windows and attached to car windows. When your country’s team wins, the accepted method of showing your joy is to hop into your flag bedecked car and drive around the city honking your horn. I find the whole thing highly entertaining and can usually be found cheering for the German team alongside my husband. It really is one of those if-you-can’t-beat-em-join-em types of situations.

Unlike the superbowl, this thing goes on for a month and therefore it’s not really practical to indulge during every game. But for this weekend’s game I decided to do a French Fridays with Dorie cocktail nibbles theme. The table included gougeres, toasts smeared with goat cheese and slow roasted tomatoes, roasted peppers, and this week’s recipe, David’s Seaweed Sables, a recipe I have been curious to try for quite some time.

But here’s the trouble, I think I might have messed up by pairing it with some of my all time favorite Dorie recipes, because somehow, it just didn’t hold up. We polished off the gougeres (luckily it was just a few frozen leftovers from the last time), savored every last roasted tomato (yummy!), sipped our cocktails, cheered for our winning team (thank goodness), and somehow the sables were mostly ignored.

Oh well, can’t love em all. But we will not have long to worry about it because this is going to be a very busy French Friday in my house. First, and possibly while you are even reading this post, we will be cheering for the German team as they take on Greece in the quarter finals. Second, we will be packing for our trip to Chicago next week. And third, I will of course be trying to check in with all of the my fellow FFwDers before we go.

I just hope the German team wins, otherwise I will be sitting next to a very grouchy husband on the 9 hour flight tomorrow!

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