TWD Real Butterscotch Pudding

Yes, it is 9:36 PM on Tuesday night. I am tired, and I have had a couple of glasses of wine. After dinner I go the Butterscotch pudding made. I had read the comments from the TWD website on Sunday , so I was ready! I had a near miss with the food processor, but no mess. I was happy with the outcome. My only surprize is it tastes a little boozy?!

3rd (and last) day of Tikka

OK, so I skipped a day. Last night was the 60th anniversary for our local cinema. That was not to be missed! There was a retro price (50 cents) and popcorn was in a reasonable sized retro bag. What was different was all sales and donated nonperishable food was donated to the local food shelf. Is this a real neighborhood or what?!

So tonight (Tuesday) was the third and final night of Tikka. The best was saved for the last! yes, South Africa's Woolworths Tikka Curry Paste. Yum! Fru one onion in a little butter, add three chicken breasts (or in my case thighs), two tablespoons of the Tikka paste, three chopped tomatoes, and fifteen minutes later, wow! Add a little yoghurt and chopped coriander (or parsley in my case) on top of a bed of whole grain rice and it is a fab dinner!

2nd day of Tikka

So the 2nd day of Tikka was really Butter Chicken. And it really was not anything like Indian restaurants in Cape Town. Bukarra in particular has amazing Butter Chicken. The best thing I can say about this mix is that it is very easy, quick, and easy to clean up, so three things actually! Taste is not one of them. I'm looking forward to the 3rd day of Tikka with the classic old standby Wollie's Tikka paste, YUM!

12 days of Christmas? No 3 days of Tikka

My friend Jane is in Cape Town South Africa for six months. A few weeks ago I got a little surprize package from Jane. It was two packets of Chicken Tikka Masala and Butter Chicken mix. Both of these are different dry mixes that you add to cooked chicken and sliced tomatoes. So last night (Friday) was the first day of tikka. We tried the Chicken Tikka Masala. Sorry, but I forgot to get a photo of the dish! Saute the chicken in 2 TLB oil, add 4 sliced tomatoes and the dry mix. In about 20 min it is done. I drained the oil before adding the tomatoes, this wasn't in the instructions, but that was too much oil to keep. Made some jasmine rice to go along with the tikka. At best I would say it was ok. Would I recommend? No, stick with the Wollie's version (that will be the third day of tikka!)

Preserved Lemons

I made a new batch of Preserved Lemons a couple of days ago. It is really easy to do. 3-4 firm lemons, 4 TBL salt, brine solution of 1 heaping TLB salt in 2 cups hot water. Cut and quarter the lemons, rub 1 tsp of salt over each piece. pack into a canning jar. After the brine has cooled pour and cover the lemon wedges. Screw on lit and place in fridge. That is it! The catch is they last 2-3 months. A couple of weeks ago when I made Lemon Chicken Tagine, I found out that the Preserved Lemons were too old and kind of gross!

TWD Grandma's All-occasion Sugar Cookies

I made the dough on Sunday night and put it in the fridge. Monday night after work baked them off. No problems. The recipe said 50 2 inch cookies. I got maybe 25 2 inch cookies. The cookies are fine. But what I realized is they are not my Nana's sugar cookies, they are someone else's Grandma's sugar cookies. And this is ok. But what I realized is, I miss the ones Nana used to make.

Fragrant Chickpea Soup

Fragrant Chickpea Soup almost ready for the immersion blender on the stove.

Lemon Chicken Tagine

Lemon Chicken tagine just about finished cooking

Lemon Chicken Tagine and Fragrant Chickpea Soup

Saturday 06 December, 2008

So I am still on a tagine/North African food run.

Here is a photo of the tagine closed. As I was making this, about 3 hrs before a friend comes over for dinner I realized that the preserved Lemons I had made and kept in the fridge went bad. So, this had to be made with a non-preserved preserved lemon (if that makes sense). The smell in the kitchen is great. The ckicken is very tender given all the steam that the tagine keeps in. The ckicken was a bit of a challenge. It was still a bit frozen when I had to take a big cleaver to the legs. Let's just say I think I could have scared anyone looking in the window with the multiple hacks of the cleaver on the chicken!

Cinnamon Chip Scones at Open Arms of Minnesota

Saturday 06 December

This morning was one of my baking Saturday's at Open Arms of Minnesota. Today I baked 250 servings of Cinnamon Chip Scones. Sorry, no photo. This was only 50 eggs. Much less than the 300 servings I baked of Yellow Cake on 08 November 2008 which took 144 eggs! The scones were easy and fun to bake. I think they will make a tasty breakfast treat for clients this week.

Ouma Scholtz Buttermilk Rusks (Dirk's Grandma)

Friday 05 December

I have not seen Dirk's recipe for his grandmother's rusks for a while. It was definately time to make them again! It is basically an Afrikaner version of a big breakfast biscotti. It is very crunchy so you can dunk them in tea/coffee if you want. Easy to make. It is the time! It can take up to 8 hours of drying in the oven to get them just right. When done right, they taste great, when done wrong they taste stale.

The photo is the rusks in the oven, before they are cut into bars, turned on sides, and dried back in the oven.

Little cookbooks and Fragrant chick pea soup

Tuesday, 02 December 2008

I was digging around in a bookcase over the weekend. What fell out of a book was a small cookbook thay came with a Le Creuset Tagine I bought a few years ago. I have not seen the small cookbook in quite a while. It opend up to the page I had always used. Fragrant chick pea soup, Lemon chicken tagine, Preserved lemons, and Honeyed, spiced chicken tagine. The book, really booklet is roughly 3 in X 5 in and has ten recipes and only ten pages in English. But they are ten great recipes! So tonight I made a batch of the chick pea soup. The name is correct, it really is fragrant, and so was the kitchen tonight! Sorry, no photo.

TWD Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

The baking gods were not smiling last night!

Profile a Culinary Persoality

As part of the UCLA Extension: Food Writing Online Class, I had to write a profile on a culinary personality. Earlier in October, Clotilde Dusoulier author of Chocolate & Zucchini blog and books Chocolate & Zucchini and Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris was a guest speaker for a teleforum of the Food&Culinary Professionals Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association. I listened in to Clotilde's presentation, emailed her a thank you and then emailed a request to set up an interview. She said yes! We had the interview yesterday and I am still working on my notes.

Again what a great experience!

UCLA Extension: Food Writing Online Class

Monday 24 November 2008

Well, my six week on line class on Food Writing ended yesterday. The instructor Dianne Jacob, was also the author of "Will Write for Food." Great experience, and learned a lot. Weekly topics included; Intro to Food Writing, Understanding what publications want, Developing your story idea, Researching and writing your story, Recipe writing, and Restaurant reviewing. Wow, a very busy six weeks!

I would definately recommend the class and the instructor!

TWD Round 2 for Arborio Rice Pudding, just white this time

Monday, 17 November 2008

So I made Arborio rice for a second time. This time I increased the rice from 1/4 to 1/2 cup and I increased cooking time from 30 to 55 minutes. Definately not rice soup this time! I only made the vanilla version. After almost 24 hrs in the fridge, I tried it. Very tasty, not soupy, and the vanilla was really pleasant. I would say a success, next time re-try the chocolate! But I have a question, what about the growing bubbles of skin when it is cooking? I had to mix it fairly frequently to keep the bubbles from getting too big.

TWD Arborio Rice Pudding, White, Black (or both)

So it is late afternoon on Sunday 16 November. Here in Minneapolis, MN we woke up to a little spitting snow, not enough to stick, but very pretty. I read the recipe this week for TWD (tuesdayswithdorie.wordpress.com) and got to work. Photo at left shows you the resuls just prior to putting plastic wrap over the puddings and into the fridge for at least 6 hours. After doing all of this is when I went to the TWD site to read the postings. Itw as then I read there were some problmes with the time of the pudding on the stove. Oh well. I plan on making this tomarrow night after work and it will be great. Also planning on reading posting prior to starting to bake next time. No complaints, and anyway, I LOVE rice pudding so now I woill have two batch es of both vanilla and chocolate!

Let them eat cake!

Saturday 15 November 2008

I was baking at Open Arms of Minnesota today. Instead of making a recipe for over 400 servings, I frosted and decorated cakes. My job for today was to take eight frozen cakes (baked earlier in the week) and frost and decorate them. The cakes were then to be placed in cartons and kept in the walk -in for distribution this week. When clients have a birthday, an individual birthday cake is included with their weekly meal delivery. So today half of the cakes I frosted with scratch made chocolate frosting, and the other half with scratch made cream cheese frosting. Decorations included mini M&Ms, mini butterscotch morsels, and multicolored fine granulated sugars. It took longer than I though, and it was a lot of fun. I hope clients with birthdays this week enjoy the surprize!

Photo test and a meal from South Africa

Wednesday night 12 November

This was my test to try and post a photograph with a post. It looks like it worked! The photo is a sample meal from an after school program outside of Cape Town South Africa. I will post more on that soon. Now it is off to french class this evening.

Yellow Cake; It's not like it was in school!

Saturday 08 November
This morning was my every other Saturday baking at Open Arms of Minnesota. I am usually there for 2-2.5 hrs and typically produce over 300 servings of what I am making. To learn more about Open Arms of Minnesota check out the website at http://www.openarmsmn.org/ So what did I make today? Yup, yellow cake, and 420 servings of it! It was a little retro to think about yellow cake. I was right back in junior high study hall helping the lunch ladies. But this yellow cake is nothing like the old school sheet cakes. This was scratch baking at it's finest. I was working with 18 lbs of butter, 33 lbs of sugar, 144 eggs, 28 lbs flour, 21 quarts of buttermilk, etc. You get the idea. And we ran out of buttermilk so we made some from scratch. Milk with lemon juice and mix. The recipe was so large I had to make it in halves and then still have to use three bus tubs to finish a final mix. It looked great, and smelled really nice! A fun way to spend 2.5 hrs on a Saturday.

Now I am home making Choclate-Glazed Chocolate Tart for a dinner party tonight. This comes from the September 2008 Paris issue of Gourmet. It is easy to make, beautiful and delicious. What more could you ask for?!

First snow of the year

Friday 07 November

When I got up I looked out the window as I was making coffee in the kitchen. It was still dark out so I really couldn't see very much. It looked a little hazy, but not sure. When I opened the front door to get the newspapers, I saw it! It was snowing! To me there is something amazing about the first snowfall of the year. It didn't stick, but it was great to watch walking to the garage and driving to work.

Now it really feels like fall in Minneapolis!

Election Day Rugelach

OK, so note to self; in the future don't try a recipe for the first time after a really long day at work and then trying to watch the election results.
So what I need to do differently next time; Dorie said dough could be refrigerated for up to one day. I had to leave it in the fridge for two days due to schedule error. Also, what is it about when I read be careful to not overwork the dough, I tend to underwork it! And, next time pay attention to chopping nuts and chocolate a bit finer and less listening to the political pundits!
It was nice to have such a great smell from the kitchen watching the election results. I'll still bring them into work tomarrow morning and I think they will be gone quickly.

Tuesdayswithdorie

Well, it is official! I got the email from "LW" and saw my name and roomatthekitchentable on the http://www.tuesdayswithdorie.wordpress.com/ website! If you are not familiar with this website, check it out. This was the push I needed to put together this blog. To participate in tuesdayswithdorie (TWD), you need a blog. Basically once a week a recipe is chosen from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, and over 300 (I think) bakers make the recipe and blog about it. Too cool! So, since this is my first week I wanted to get a jump on the Tuesday (hence the name of the blog) deadline to post. So, I made the dough for the Rugelach which is this weeks recipe. Tomorrow night I'll make the filling and glaze and bake them.

So now in addition to my goal of trying to bake each Sunday afternoon from le Cordon Bleu recipes, I now have at least every other week goals of TWD. This will keep me busy in the kitchen on Sundays!

Recent books on le Cordon Bleu-Paris

01 November
Have you read "The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry" by Kathleen Flinn? What about "Sacre Cordon Bleu; What the French know about cooking" by Michael Booth? Both of these books are great reads on the experiences of going through the training at le Cordon Bleu-Paris to complete le Diplome de Cuisine. I am not aware of any recent books published from graduates of le Diplome de Patisserie or le Grand Diplome from le Cordon Bleu-Paris. Ms. Flinn an American and Mr. Booth a Brit describe the experiences of going through the training in cuisine at le Cordon Bleu-Paris of, shall I say mid-life career changers? Both are very interesting and entertaining. While Ms. Flinn's is very positive of her experiences, Mr. Booth gives a slightly different perspective on the experience. Is this based on male vs. female or American vs. Brit perspectives? I would recommend you read them both and decide for yourself, they are both great reads. For more information check out http://www.kathleenflinn.com/ and http://www.michael-booth.com/ .

What is my experience with le Cordon Bleu-Paris(LCB-P)? I started taking one day and then one week classes three years ago. In June-July 2008 I attended and graduated from the Intensive Basic Patisserie class. LCB-P classes are structured as Basic, Intermediate and Superior for both Cuisine and Patisserie. Completing the three levels in either discipline results in le Diplome and completing both disciplines results in le Grand Diplome. Check out http://www.cordonbleu.edu/ for more information.

Chocolate

31 October

So this seemed like a good day to post about chocolate! Last Sunday my friend Diane and I got together to make some chocolates. Last March-April we took a two part chocolate class with B.T. McElrath at Bret's Table in Minneapolis. There were six of us in the class, so we got a lot of attention and had a lot of fun.
Since the class, Diane and I have gotten together to make chocolates twice. The last time was in late August. Mmm, that was a learning opportunity! Now I know that the AC needs to be cranked up and not run the dishwasher if you want to make chocolates in August in Minneapolis.
So, last Sunday I went to Diane's and we really produced a lot of different chocolates. We made some solid chocolates in a variety of molds, dipped apricots, dipped candied orange peel, two different liqueur ganache chocolates and some dipped toffee. My office mates at the hospital and classmates at my French class enjoyed the results of our work.

Check out http://www.bretstable.com/ and http://www.btmcelrath.com/

Hopefully this week I will learn how to post photos on the blog.