FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE: Spinach-Bacon Quiche

I was working this afternoon on this recipe for the French Fridays with Dorie cooking group so that I could get it posted tomorrow. I made a pastry crust, got it all fitted into my quiche plate and assembled my ingredients: bacon, spinach, onion, garlic, eggs, heavy cream, some salt and pepper, parmesan cheese...quiches are generally pretty easy to put together and I'm glad about that, particularly today. Last night, you see, we had some of the worst thunderstorms I've ever quivered my way through, complete with tornado sirens and howling winds, hail and whirly, twirly clouds in the sky. It was quite a night and left me with a storm hangover: all day long I've been twitchy and dove for the downstairs bathroom -- a windowless interior room -- when an ambulance's siren wailed by outside.

Anyway, quiche is a lovely, comforting food and this one sounded so good. I finally have given up on Dorie's pastry crust because it just never turns out right for me. Instead, I tried one from Paula Deen's cookbook, Paula Deen's Kitchen Classics, and I'm happy to say that it turned out perfectly: easy to throw into the food processor, easy to roll, chill and then fit into my quiche plate. Plus it was delicious, flaky and light the way pastry is supposed to be. I don't know what it is about those Dorie Greenspan pastry crusts, but I just hate them. All that butter and shortening going into a crust that shrinks and tears and doesn't cook evenly is a bit of wastefulness that I find extraordinarily annoying.

So! Quiche! It wasn't until I had everything ready to go that I realized that the bag of spinach I bought last week? It was nowhere to be found. Did I actually buy it? Did I buy it and then didn't realize that the girls were making salads like busy little rabbits? I don't know.

What I do know is that I made a very delightful Spinach-Bacon Quiche with no spinach, and it was very good indeed.

French Fridays with Dorie: Garlicky Crumb-Coated Broccoli

[In which I do nearly everything wrong, but the recipe turns out well anyway;
thank you, Dorie.]

So, you'd think that a recipe featuring steamed broccoli and six other simple ingredients - bread crumbs, garlic, butter, salt & pepper and lemon zest -- would be pretty much foolproof, right?

Probably would be, as long as you're not counting this particular fool.The only thing I did right through the entire fifteen minute recipe was steam the broccoli correctly.

Here's the run-down: Steam broccoli until it can be pierced with a fork. In the meantime, gently saute the garlic in the butter. DO NOT ALLOW THE GARLIC OR THE BUTTER TO BROWN. Add the crumbs and toss until gently toasted. Salt and pepper the crumbs to your taste. ADD THE LEMON ZEST. Stir, then add the broccoli and toss to coat the florets in crumbs. Serve.

I had the crumbs and the butter. Garlic, yes. I had the salt and the pepper. I didn't have the broccoli, which I think one could argue is a necessary ingredient in a recipe titled "Garlicky Crumb-Coated Broccoli," but I remedied that shortly before it was time to get to cookin'. But I forgot the lemon.

It was while I was frantically searching the fridge for the lemon I'd neglected to buy when I was right there in the produce department of the grocery, buying the broccoli, that the butter and the garlic got brown. My head was deep in the fruit drawer, my hands pawing through some apples and plastic clamshell of grapes, when all of a sudden I thought, "Wow, that butter smells brown. And so does the garlic."

I bumped my head on the refrigerator door and then hit my elbow on that very same door in a get-to-the-stove-fast maneuver that could have been choreographed by Cirque du Soliel if it hadn't involved my yelling, "Ow! OW!" At the stove, I noted dismally that the butter and the garlic were indeed too brown. Not burned, no, but brown.

The crumbs went into the skillet and were duly salted and peppered: I gave up on finding them lemon and resorted to the use of ReaLemon, a fridge staple that I have a love-hate relationship with. Hate, because it's nowhere near the real, fresh thing; love because of forgetting to buy lemons and well, LEMON SQUARES. Anyway, it will do in a pinch and I sprinkled the crumbs lightly. After than, it was a simple manner to get the broccoli from the microwave steamer, give it a quick pat with a paper towel, and add it to the skillet to toss it with the buttery seasoned crumbs.

It had, I thought, a very nice presentation. That's not one of my best pictures, but there it is up above, posting next to the cheeseburger I ate for dinner. The girls and I liked it a lot, but my husband allowed that he prefers his broccoli with cheese sauce. A keeper recipe, for certain.

French Fridays with Dorie: Quinoa, [Dried] Fruit and Nut Salad

Quinoa, o quinoa! Little did I know how difficult it would be to track you down! I went to four different groceries and did everything but put on a deerstalker hat and carry a magnifying glass à la Sherlock Holmes, trying to track you down, you grain-that-was-a-staple-of-the-ancient-Incas, pronounced KEEN-wah, mild and almost bland in your flavor!

After I'd driven all over town, I discovered that I should have sought you out in a health food store. Bugger.

ANYHOO, I went back to the first grocery I'd visited on my quest and bought a humble box of couscous. I am familiar with couscous, using it in place of rice (which takes much longer to cook) in several dishes, and it was there patiently waiting for me. So, KEEN-WAH, I made a very nice salad, no thanks to you, you big snob lurking there on the health food store's shelves.

By the time all that was over, I'd run out of energy to cook, so it was a good thing this nice little salad was easy to prepare. Dorie advised using a number of different dried fruits and nuts to add taste, color and texture, so I used dark raisins, diced apricots and dried cranberries for the fruit and slivered almonds, chopped walnuts and sunflower seeds for the nuts. There was a light dressing made from ginger, olive oil and lemon juice to pour on after the couscous was stirred together with the fruit and the nuts and then all that was left to do was plunk it on the kitchen counter to give the flavors a chance to blend.

That time spent on the counter was the longest part of the recipe; the second longest was the part where the couscous had to cool to room temperature. So if you're looking for a salad that can be made with minimal effort on your part, but which yields a delicious flavor and an appealing appearance, this is your dish.

This salad was a recipe that I enjoyed very much and I'd definitely make it again. For one thing, it had a lot of eye-appeal, the EXACT AND COMPLETE OPPOSITE of that Tuna Noodle Casserole I posted below, which looks to be the color and texture of Elmer's School Paste. If you'd like to see the casserole but you're not on my main page, go down to the index and click on the FISH ON FRIDAYS link. But you may not want to

I made our individual salads in tiny bowls that I lined with a pretty bed of spring mix salad greens, placing about a half cup of the salad on top It looked really nice, but it tasted even better. The texture is very interesting, being both chewy and crunchy at the same time, but not in a way that interfered with one's ability to chew and swallow without choking, as some foods do, my primary example being Ants on a Log, that Food of Death posing as a delightful childhood snack-fave. The couscous had a very slight grainy texture that added some interest as well, but the graininess is so small that it's not as if you were working around it and thinking, "Oh my....CRUNCH and CHEW and GRAIN...FIND ME A NAPKIN!"

And then there was the taste, to which the couscous (and, I presume, the quinoa) didn't add a whole lot. It was there, I suppose, to add body. You can detect a slight butteriness from the couscous, but mostly what you're tasting is the dried fruit and the nuts, bathed in that delicious little dressing bath. I'm not sure what it is about lemon juice, ginger and olive oil that made such a tasty component to the salad; all I can say is that it was brisk without being sour, a very spring-and-summer sort of dressing.

Tell you what - this salad reminded me a lot of the Birdseed Salad that Carol and I enjoy so much at Stream Cliff Farm. It's a broccoli-onion-raisin-sunflower seed salad that's also known as Amish Broccoli Salad, depending on whether you're at Stream Cliff Farm or not. Although the ingredients are different (except for the raisins and the sunflower seeds), there's still that same element of texture and freshness. Birdseed/Amish Broccoli Salad is pretty common here in the midwest, so if you live here, you may well have eaten it. And if you've eaten it and liked it, then you'll probably like Quinoa, Fruit and Nut Salad as well. Alors, give it a try.

FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE: Salted Butter Break-Ups (Broyé)

Kayte, Katie and I have been really inconsistent in our posting of recipes made with the internet cooking group French Fridays with Dorie, which uses Dorie's lovely book Around My French Table and I am very relieved that FFw/D is not one of the more uptight cooking groups on the internet where if you fail to post a recipe on the assigned date, the other members of the group hunt you down and beat you with their spatulas. This week, however, we were all at the top of our game and made these weird little....cookies? Crackers? I don't think we've figured out exactly what they are yet; Dorie calls them "Salted Butter Break-Aways," but in France, they're called broyés, which means "crushed" or "crumbled."

This was one of the easiest recipes I've made so far -- uhhm, not that I've made that many from this cookbook -- but since it was a simple matter of flour, sugar, butter and sea salt, it was kind of hard to find a reason not to. So I did, and they're a very unusual....cracker? Cookie?....anyway, nothing like anything I've ever eaten before.

The recipe sounded as if they'd be something like a Lantz Captain's Wafer, you know, those little rectangular butter crackers that you can get in individual cellophane wrappers at salad bars? Or like a Keebler Club cracker: crunchy, slightly sweet, slightly salty. As it turns out, the broyés are not really like either of those things. For one thing, they're not as crackery, being crumbly yet more pliable and less dry than what we Americans think of as a cracker. Secondly, with two-thirds of a cup of sugar, they're much sweeter than any cracker we commonly eat, but with one teaspoon of coarse sea salt, they're much saltier than any cookie found on the aisle of any grocery store you care to name. In short, these coo-...er, ...cra-...whatever they are, simply can't be defined in terms of American tastes.

They are good, though! You mix up the dough in the food processor as you'd do for a pastry, shape it into a flattish square and then chill it for an hour. At the end of that time period, you roll it out into a nice, flat sheet, score it prettily with fork tines (my favorite part) and paint it with a glaze made of egg yolk. Yes, that's right: egg yolk. Not egg white, which is the most commonly used glaze ever if you want to give your food a nice shine. Yolk.

I am not much of an egg person, have I ever mentioned that? Especially the yolks.

When you bake the broyés or break-ups or whatever you want to call them, they're supposed to come out crispy on the edges and firm-with-a-spring in the center, which is how mine came out. To serve, you just....break off a piece, whatever size you'd care to eat. Which is kind of fun. I liked all those funny, misshapen pieces and broke up the entire thing so that it would be easier to store.

I found that broyés go deliciously well with, say, a slice of Swiss cheese. Maybe a nice, sharp Cheddar? I didn't have any of that, nor did I have any Gouda, but both seem like they'd pair up very amicably. I also pictured some sweet grapes or a sliced apple and a glass of moscato; in short, the makings for a very nice little picnic at the park on a day in the spring, just you and your bien-aimé, who would probably eat, lean back on one elbow and then say, "That was nice, but how's about we pack all this up and go get a real lunch?"

If I were to do these crookies -- that's the only way I can think of to describe them -- again, and I probably will because they were good, I'd use only half the sugar (or maybe even less than that) and a little more salt, just a pinch. And I would definitely glaze them, but only with white of egg because yolks are just so yucky.

All in all, a success!

FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE: Hachis Parmentier

 I'm a bit behind on my French Fridays with Dorie cooking schedule, but I am still plowing ahead with my head down, making, mixing, stirring and baking. It's been a lot of fun so far and this week's Hachis Parmentier (which I kept inexplicably mispronouncing as HASHISH Parmentier, a worrisome thing) was another recipe that interested me: the ingredients used exactly mimicked my own homemade meatloaf recipe, which I naturally serve with mashed potatoes on the side instead of on top. I was curious to see how this would play out.

  In looks, it reminded me a lot of my own Comforting Beef Pot Pie, with a golden mashed potato crust instead of a biscuit crust. My beef pot pie, which is a wintertime staple around here, has a mushroom gravy supporting the beef instead of the beef-bouillon-and-tomato-paste interior of the Hachis Parmentier, SO AS YOU CAN SEE IT WAS JUST A FASCINATING CULINARY ENDEAVOR AND STOP SNORING BECAUSE IT HURTS MY FEELINGS.

   The Hachis Parmentier went together in three steps, one of which I thankfully got to skip because I made a double portion of mashed potatoes to serve with yesterday's dinner of chicken and noodles, which made me feel like I'd been gifted with brilliant forethought. Which....usually isn't the case. Anyway, the first step was to assemble an aromatic beef broth by cooking the meat with parsley, garlic, onion, thyme, salt and pepper along with some celery and carrot chunks. I also threw in a little red wine, as Julia taught me to do. By the way, I opted for Dorie's easier version and used ground beef instead of a more expensive cut.

  The second step was to cook the sausage in some olive oil until it was still pinkish. I used the same spicy pork sausage that I use with the ground beef in my meatloaf. The recipe asked me to stir in a tablespoon of tomato paste (I make a lovely spicy tomato sauce for the top of my meatloaf) and then add the cooked ground beef mixture and a cup of the broth. Easily done. That whole bit went into my buttered Pyrex casserole dish -- I wish I had a gorgeous French oval like the one pictured in the cookbook -- and into the oven at 400 degrees for half an hour, where it smelled so delicious, my husband could even smell it even though he's suffering from a terrible head cold.

  In the picture above, you can see the crispy golden mashed potato crust with the filling bubbling underneath, just as I pulled it out of the oven.

  And here it is, in all its Shepherd's Pie....I mean Hachis Parmentier glory, looking savory and delectable on Meelyn's dinner plate. We all ate it with appreciation, but agreed (to my pleasure) that we all like my beef pot pie better. This, to our taste, was really bland and required a lot of salt, plus a generous application of hot peppers to ooomph it up. It was good and filling and we enjoyed it, but agreed it was a dish that they would never request and I would never voluntarily make. I found this very strange since, as I mentioned, the ingredients were almost exactly what I use in my meatloaf. We always find that very flavorful. Eh bien, I think the French population needs to learn about my beef pot pie and maybe my meatloaf too - it would rock them from Provence to Normandy, and both recipes have the added benefit of being easier to throw together than this was. Alors!

FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE: Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

 "Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup?" I asked, puzzled, when I first saw this recipe was featured for October. "I thought this was a French cookbook." Dorie, bless her, answered my question in the first paragraph on page 98 of Around My French Table:  "Because of France's long and deep ties to Vietnam (a former colony)," she writes, "it's common to find Vietnamese restaurants in even the smallest French towns." She goes on to add that Vietnamese ingredients can be found in French fridges, and that most chefs have a Vietnamese recipe or two tucked up the sleeves of their white coats. Photographed on my kitchen counter and ready to be swaddled in cheesecloth and bound with kitchen twine are a mort of aromatic spices and herbs: cilantro, coriander, anise and pepper.

 I had to make some substitutions in this recipe, most notably with the dried red chilis, which I couldn't find anywhere, and the Asian fish sauce. The chilis were an easy substitute - I just threw in a teaspoon of crushed, dried chili peppers from the big bottle we always have on hand in the refrigerator (we like our food spicy.) They looked pretty in the golden broth, particularly once I'd added the cilantro. But then there was the fish sauce. Hmm. Was this, I wondered, a sauce for fish, or a sauce made out of fish? Because the first option would be do-able, but the second? No way. I know it sounds hidebound and unadventurous, but none of us are that crazy about "fish" around here. And we like our chicken noodle soup to taste like, well, chicken. So I passed on the Asian fish sauce, feeling a little bit ashamed. [Just did a little research and discovered that Asian fish sauce is made out of anchovies, so thank heaven I didn't use it.]

 The soup got a last-few-minutes-of-cooking addition of pretty, lacy cilantro leaves and a squeeze of lime juice. The rice noodles, like most pasta, were cooked in boiling salted water, drained, and added to the rest of the soup. I added a garnish of cilantro and lime to each bowl and it looked very nice -- hearty and healthy and fill-you-up-with-good-things delicious, yet also exotic and interesting.

I'm not sure how I managed it, but I actually caught steam wafting up from the bowl. The soup was spicy and chickeny and had a fresh, citrus hit from the cilantro and lime that I found very appealing. The rice noodles, like so many store-bought noodles, were fairly tasteless and didn't add all that much to the flavor or the texture, but I am the Supreme Goddess of Noodle Making and I refuse to bow even to the Amish ladies on this, so I might be a bit biased. I make a mean noodle, of wheat flour of course. Maybe I'd be a dab hand with rice flour, too. Who knows? But anyway, this was a nice comforting soup and I was happy to try it, especially on a weekend when I'm suffering from a head cold. I added some hoisin sauce as a condiment and enjoyed it tremendously. Thanks, Dorie, for a very simple and delicious recipe.

FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE: Gerard's Mustard Tart

 ALDI came through for me again by displaying a row of German mustards (that would be the one in the glass jar) two weeks before the recipe for Gerard's Mustard Tart came up. ALDI already has a variety of other mustards, including a Dijon that is actually very nice indeed. The German mustard is the "whole grain" kind that is known in France as "l'ancienne" or old-fashioned. It was good not only in the tart, but also on ham sandwiches we made for lunch later in the week.

 The crust for the tart is found in the back of Around My French Table. It was really incredibly easy to throw together in the food processor -- Dorie wanted it whirred around until it was crumbly and would stick together when pinched. She suggested rolling the crust out between two pieces of wax paper, parchment or plastic wrap, which I did. This dough did require a bounteous amount of time in the fridge and the freezer so that it would be nice and cold for the roll-out, so it's not a terribly quick thing to throw together. One of the things I like about the Dorie's cookbooks, though, is that she passes on a lot of hints for how to make things beforehand so that you can either put them to use within the next few days, or freeze them for later. I had an entire afternoon at my disposal to make this recipe so I wasn't crunched for time, but if I ever want to make this lovely, eggy tart crust again, I'll remember her helpful hints.

 The veggies had to steam beforehand with a sprig of rosemary. I was able to clip some off my nice little rosemary shrub out front, which was a delightful bonus for this recipe. The carrots and green onions, however, were grown by someone with a great deal more talent for nurturing plants that I have. Dorie's recipe actually called for leeks, but I loathe working with leeks: too expensive, too big, and apt to have sandy dirt in all their nooks and crannies. Plus I don't think they taste as nice as green onions.

 Dorie recommended using a tart pan, the kind of baking apparatus that has collapsible sides so that the baked crust can be lifted out in an impressive manner. But I don't have a tart pan and I didn't want to buy one, so I pressed my crust into a quiche plate and it looked very nice, I thought.

 Here's Gerard's Mustard Tart just before I put it in the oven, and I have to say that I was feeling some trepidation about this recipe. I mean, mustard? I like mustard, but I've never used it as the main flavoring in anything before -- it's always been a piquant addition to add flavor. But I'm willing to try (just about) anything.

The tart baked beautifully and it smelled delicious while it was in the oven. I let it cool down just a bit and then we sliced into it for a sample. And you know, it was actually very, very good. The mustard flavor was not overpowering at all; I suppose the custard mellowed it out a good bit. But the creamy filling with the savory mustard-y flavor combined with the rich, buttery crust was something unusual, something that I'd be very willing to serve again. It was simple, yet elegant. It made me think "chardonnay" although I think that "iced tea" wouldn't be a bad accompaniment. I can see making this for a ladies' luncheon kind of thing, a petite sliver as an appetizer, perhaps. I liked it better than the gougeres, even, so this recipe was a definite success.

FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE: Gougères (Week 1)

This was the first week of the French Fridays with Dorie internet cooking group, and I am so happy to be able to participate, especially since we started out with such a yummy little bang -- although maybe it would be more accurate to say that we started off with a yummy little *poof*

The assignment for this week was to make the first recipe in the book, which was for these tasty little French appetizers called gougères. That sounds very fancy and could be a little intimidating, I suppose, until you realize that "gougère" is the French word for "cheese puff," an appetizer that has been on these shores for many a year. In fact, I believe that these pretty little things are the more upscale French cousin of our very own Sausage-Cheddar Balls, a down-homey Bisquick recipe that might be better with a smidgen of sweet sherry or even a very cold beer. Dorie writes in Around My French Table that the traditional drink with gougères is the cocktail known as kir, but that she herself prefers champagne. See what I mean about "more upscale"?

At any rate, the gougère is a savory pastry that puffs up in the oven and is flavored primarily with cheese, a sharp cheddar in my case, although many different kinds could be used.Gruyère is typically used, but apparently any kind of sharper, bolder cheese will work. I wouldn't think you'd want to use a mild, mellow cheese because it would just blend in with all the buttery egginess and it would be a little bland.

As you can see in the second picture above, all my simple ingredients came from my favorite discount grocery store, ALDI. They happened to be out of whole milk on the day I did my shopping, so I opted for half-and-half instead of waiting for the dairy truck to arrive. The ALDI in my city carries unsalted butter year 'round (it used to be available only during the holiday season and at Easter) and everything else is readily available, so this was probably one of the easiest shopping trips I've ever had. In three weeks, I have to buy star anise, and well just see how chipper I'm feeling about that Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup recipe then, won't we?

Picture number three illustrates the soft dough after the milk, butter, salt and water have been boiled, the flour added, the eggs cracked and the grated cheese tossed in. I mixed it all with a hand mixer and it was very easy; one thing I appreciate so much about Dorie's recipes is that she doesn't automatically assume that you have a stand mixer that cost more than my first car sitting in regal pride of place on your kitchen counter. If you have one, that's great, is her attitude. If you don't, use a hand mixer. Or your own sturdy arm. She is flexible, and luckily, so is my arm. As I mentioned, I used my hand mixer and didn't have to resort to using my own physical strength, which dwindles as the week goes on and can only be partially revived by a large glass of wine.

The last picture shows two piping hot gougères, sitting on a napkin and waiting to be eaten. I didn't have any champagne, but I did have a nice, cold glass of iced tea. My husband had one and allowed that he thought a French cheese puff would be just as good with a cold beer as a Sausage-Cheese Ball would be. Meelyn and Aisling were appreciative of a nice little treat as they finished up their schoolwork at the dining room table, so all in all, I'd count this first week as a great success.

I feel that my cheddar cheese was not as salty as cheddar sometimes can be, so my gougères probably would have benefited from an extra pinch of salt. I'd definitely like to try them again, perhaps with a different kind of cheese. They were really easy to make, just about foolproof. And delish, so what's not to love?

Coming up in the next few weeks on French Fridays with Dorie:

• October 8, 2010 - Gerard's Mustard Tart
• October 15, 2010 - Vietnamese Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup
• October 22, 2010 - Hachis Parmentier
• October 29, 2010 - Marie-Helene’s Apple Cake

   

French Fridays with Dorie - October cooking schedule

The October cooking schedule was published for the French Fridays with Dorie group at the website. If you'd like to join, there's apparently still room for more. I am excited about these five recipes because guess who chose them?

Dorie herself!

The recipes all sound fairly easy to manage and none of them have crazy-weird ingredients that could wind up being hard to find in central Indiana, except maybe for the "two points of star anise" called for in the Vietnamese Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup. I have a bottle of anise seed; I've seen star anise in pictures, but don't know if I've ever had the pleasure of meeting any personally; I have no clue what a "point" of star anise is. Can I convert that to teaspoons?

The gougères are little appetizer cheese puffs and sound a tad more impressively sophisticated than the Bisquick sausage-and-cheese puff common to these parts, although if you've ever had a Bisquick sausage-and-cheese puff made with really spicy sausage and really sharp cheddar, you know that they're a great thing to enjoy at a party with a really cold beer. Dorie recommends kir (there is a very interesting sidebar on page 6 that talks about that famous apéritif) with these little dainties, however. Either that or champagne, so you can see that those of us with baking mix in the pantry are going to take a few steps up.

Gerard's Mustard Tarte sounds very straightforward and simple, a lovely savory custard with carrots, leeks and rosemary garnishing it -- although I'll just come forward right now and tell you that I, in the interests of not breaking my grocery budget, am just going to use plain old scallions and not fool with their more expensive leeky cousins -- and, naturally, mustard. Two different mustards, in fact. The smooth Dijon kind made famous by those snooty men in the Bentleys and the grainy kind that we like to eat on ham sandwiches. I may have to scouting for different mustards, though, because the mustard section of the condiment aisle is one of the most fascinating places in the whole grocery store. This tart, Dorie advises, can either be served as a starter or as a main course and I appreciate that kind of versatility.

Hachis Parmentier is the French version of shepherd's pie, the meat pie with the toasty mashed potatoes on top -- I am already mentally steeling myself for a comment like the one my husband made about my beef bourguignon last spring: "This tastes just like what I ate when I was in the army!" Because your hachis parmentier is his shepherd's pie and pretty much a staple in my kitchen come winter. Marie-Hélène's Apple Cake, however, will likely prove to be a hit with everyone; the picture of it in the cookbook made my mouth water. And what could be better for a chilly fall Friday than a warm piece of homemade apple cake?

October 1, 2010 - Gougères, pp. 4-6

October 8, 2010 - Gerard's Mustard Tart, pp. 154-156

October 15, 2010 - Vietnamese Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup, 98-100

October 22, 2010 - Hachis Parmentier, pp. 258, 259

October 29, 2010 - Marie-Hélène's Apple Cake, pp. 432, 433

French Fridays with Dorie

Dorie Greenspan, beloved of many kitcheny types, has a new book out titled Around My French Table: More than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours and I've joined a new internet group to cook my way through it. My friend Kayte urged me to sign up with her, knowing my deep appreciation for French food, cooking it and well, eating it.

The two of us have decided that we'll skip over the recipes that call for the enormously expensive ingredients French cuisine sometimes insists upon -- saffron, truffles, sirop de cassis at twenty dollars an ounce -- but I have already steeled myself to a huge financial outlay because, BUTTER. We may have to buy a cow and keep her in the laundry room where she can earn her keep by giving us milk and folding the towels.

If you'd like to join the group yourself, click here to register; the first recipes are to be posted on blogs on October 1. I'm not sure what number that the group is limited to, so nip right over there if you're interested. To protect Dorie's copyright, no recipes will be posted online, so you're going to need to buy the book. That shouldn't be a hardship because Dorie's cookbooks are so lovely.

Bon appétit to us all, mes chéres!