Chocolate for my Valentine

I've been intrigued by this "Valentine's Sweetheart Cake" for awhile.  The cake is flourless chocolate and the ganache contains coconut milk, saffron, chile, rosewater, and several other intriguing ingredients. 

I don't love chocolate.  My valentine on the other hand, does.  What a perfect fit!  I personally was more excited about my red fondant flower for the top.  It measured about six inches in diameter, and was quite stunning.

In flavor, his certainly is a cake for chocolate lovers.  It's a big, dense, slap-in-the face of chocolate.  Though even non-chocolate lovers (me) can appreciate its bold assertion of that which is chocolate.

Playing Catch-Up

I used to make desserts according to my recipe and creativity five days a week.  Now I'm using someone else's ideas and recipe at work.  And so I have less material for writing.

Or so I thought.  My new goal is to write more about all food, this will mean more entries, but less on desserts.  And I think that's okay.

My kitchen is still a busy one.  Most recently with glazed salmon.  My father-in-law gave me a subscription to Cook's Illustrated for my birthday.  Talk about a gift that keeps giving.  I love it for their pursuit of perfection and constant experimenting (even if the writing is a little flat).  My glazed salmon is just one example.

The glaze is pomegranate.  I have to say the pomegranate doesn't have a pronounced presence.  The balsamic and mustard add such complexity that it gets slightly lost.  While the name may be a misnomer, as far as glaze goes it was delicious.

For the salmon It was seared and baked to 125 in a 300 degree oven.  It was tender, juicy, and flavorful: i.e. pure deliciousness.  I served it with Israeli couscous with dates and pistachios.  The flavor--accented with ginger, cardamom, and cilantro--was intriguing.  It complimented the fish well.

On the side was a bed of spinach.  Because I can't have a meal without vegetables.

I (heart) Zingerman's

I try not to be biased.  But I LOVE Zingerman's Deli.  I am wide-eyed and salivating every time I go there.  And it's not just because my husband works there.  It's because it really is an exceptional collection of some of the best foods in the world.  It is Disney World for people who love food.

All that quality doesn't come cheap.  Once in awhile, though, we use our discount and indulge.

In this case, a sampler  of cured meats and cheeses; something we became so accustomed to in Italy and now hardly eat.  For two month I had a sheet hanging on our bulletin board so I'd remember the names of what we had.  Finally I got rid of it, resigned to the fact I would never write of it. 

So, here I am, writing about it months later and can hardly remember a thing except a happy and full belly.  One of the cheeses I do remember was St. Nectaire, the one with the gray(ish) rind.  That was my least favorite, it had a moldy note that disrupted the flavor for me.  My favorite was the hard looking slab on the right.  It had crystals, like parmigiano does, and was caramel(ly) and delicious.

But really how can you go wrong with good bread, cheese, and meat?

Thanksgiving...Chicken

Thanksgiving, naturally, is my favorite holiday.  Because it's all about food. 

This year was particularly exciting because we hosted Thanksgiving at our house for the first time.  It was an intimate affair, my husband, mother, and grandmother.  We had a wonderfully relaxing day at home, decorating for Christmas and of course feasting.

The dinner menu was carefully planned with some of our favorite foods.  Our poultry was chicken instead of turkey, since the crowd was small.  I did a cranberry chicken, which I brined in a mixture of red wine, cranberry juice and some spices for two days beforehand.  The chicken turned a spectacular red color, looking like it came straight out of a magazine.

To accompany the chicken we made mashed potatoes with celery root (I love this combination, the celery root adds such intrigue!), Aunt Donna's cranberry sauce, cranberry pecan stuffing, and brussel sprouts.  For dessert we made a brandied chestnut pumpkin pie.  I really love chestnut, but found this recipe disappointing.  Both the pumpkin and chestnut got lost to each other and neither was as strong as it is on its own.


Thanksgiving was lovely with full tummies and sleepy heads...Grandma really bonded with puppy during her visit, as you can see.

Banana Cake with Brown Buttercream and Pecan Praline

It was my very-soon-to-be-father-in-law's birthday.  When Drew was a kid and asked his dad what kind of cake he wanted, he always said banana.  And so we made him banana.

Banana is a favorite of mine because pretty much no matter what  you do it will be moist, and people always like it.  There's something reminiscent of childhood I think.  We recently made banana popsicles with cinnamon and cumin.  The cumin was an excellent addition, really bringing out the flavors without screaming that it was there.  So we added it to the cake, and ended up with a deliciously moist cake with pleasing complexity.

The icing is an Italian brown buttercream, made traditionally but with brown butter in place of about half of the butter.  The result had all the pleasant nuttiness of brown butter, and was just sweet enough. 

Pecan praline is what you see encircling the cake, and was also between the layers.  The accentuated the nutty richness of the brown butter, complemented the banana flavor and added a little textural crunch.  Quite a success on all accounts.

Put an Egg on It, and Call it Delicious

I love eggs.  I'm picky about my eggs too.  I like them to be local and grass-fed.  They're so simple that quality is obvious and therefore paramount.  A well-raised egg is nutritious and lends deliciousness to most foods.  Particularly it is the runny yolk that I love.  As bright as sunshine, its viscous richness oozes into all the nooks and crannies of whatever you're eating, and only makes it more delicious.  I have played with yolks in numerous ways, mostly poached, and on top of salads, bean dishes, waffles, rice.  All are excellent.

Recently on a menu I saw a pizza with egg, and of course was intrigued. We decided to try it at home.  We made our crust, topped it lightly with tomato sauce, sauteed spinach, fresh mozzarella, and pecorino romano.  We put the whole thing on the grill and when it was close to being done cracked the eggs on top.  We broke the yolks slightly so they would cook more evenly, and pulled it off the heat while they were still slightly runny.

The pizza was delightful.  The saltiness of the pecorino balanced the richness of the yolk.  Together the flavor was intriguing with a slightly rich, meaty quality.  I highly recommend breaking an egg the next time you have pizza.

Greetings From a Long Lost Baker: Resurfacing

It has been a really long time.  And I have no respectable excuses except to say that moving, starting a new job, acquainting myself with Ann Arbor, and planning a wedding have kept me very busy.

I love fruit tarts, particularly mid summer when the bounty is rich.  This one is inspired by a pistachio grapefruit tart I had in Paris.  It is pistachio pastry cream with fresh plums from the farmer's market.  The plums had great flavor, though texturally they were disappointing.  A little too mushy.  My original idea was to combine the pistachio cream with cherries.  The cherries aren't in season yet in Michigan so plums stood in.   

The pistachio pastry cream was delicious.  Salty yet sweet, a perfect blend of flavors.  The plum combination, satisfactory, though cherries decidedly would be better.  Overall it made for a pleasing summer treat both aesthetically and gastronomically.