Easter Supper for Eight: Taking full advantage of spring produce!

Easter weekend marked the first real spring weekend in New Jersey. A few months ago, our friends were kind enough to invite themselves over for easter supper (haha!), so A and I were left with no choice but to pull together a spring-themed feast.

A handled the shopping. Initially, I thought this was a great idea, as it gave me time to grab lunch with one of my girlfriends. Then A got home. I walked into a kitchen filled with more produce than I had ever seen in my life.

- Honey, what is all this?

- You told me to get baby vegetables, so I got everything that could have been considered a baby.

- You what????

- Well, yeah, and I hope that nobody else is planning to buy baby vegetables today because I bought everything they had.

- But we just needed carrots, and a few other root vegetables. Did you get baby beets?

- No, I didn't get beets. But I did get fresh baby corn, baby artichokes, baby fennell, baby turnips, baby potatoes, fiddleheads...

- You bought fiddleheads? But why? We don't even know how to cook those.

- They are baby ferns. I told you, I bought everything they had that was baby.

Seriously? All I could do was shoot him my best "exasperated wifey look" and make a mental note to never let him do the shopping alone again. With hindsight, I must admit, it is a good thing he bought every vegetable they had because everything got eaten. Once the last guest had left, there was scarcely a leftover to be seen.

Here is the menu:

Goats Cheese and Olive Tapenade Crostini

Manchego Crostini with Romesco Sauce

Fresh Fava Bean, Baby Corn and Feta Salad

Grilled Leg of Lamb with Tomato and Fennel Vinaigrette

Roasted Baby Vegetables

Sauteed Asparagus and Fiddleheads with Chanterelles

Strawberry and Orange-Scented Mascarpone Tart with a Port Wine Reduction

Homemade Vanilla and Cinnamon Ice Cream

Pistachio Macarons with Pistachio Gianduja

Guests J-squared (ha!) brought a lovely fig and orange toast with goats cheese that I somehow did not manage to take photos of! Probably because it got eaten too quickly.

Prep for the party took about a day and a half. While none of the recipes were particularly difficult, the sheer volume of vegetables meant several hours of sousing. A decided after peeling 3 lbs of asparagus that we might not ever serve asparagus again. While I do enjoy it, I am okay with sacrificing asparagus if it means I never have to peel them again. Tossed with fiddleheads, chanterelles and tarragon, they were lovely, but probably not worth the trouble.

Crostini is definitely our new go-to appetizer. It is very low stress, as the spreads can be made in advance, and the bite-sized pieces are crowd pleasers. For the two varieties we made this weekend, the romesco sauce was leftover from a week night dinner (shh!) and the olive tapenade can be prepped up to a week ahead of time. Garnish with your favorite cheese (in our case goats cheese for the olive spread and manchego for the romesco sauce) and you are good to go. For the bread, I pulled together a batch of pain a l'ancienne from the Bread Bakers Apprentice, a must have book for anyone who is interested in making bread at home.

The weather was very much in our favor - bright sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. If anything, it was almost too hot! A tossed some lemon and mint into a pitcher of water to keep everyone refreshed, and offered up sun-screen to accompany glasses of white wine.

   

Dessert continued the spring theme. Two of our guests, D and J, gave us an ice cream machine as a wedding gift a few years ago. As such, whenever they come over, I make it a point to whip up a batch of fresh ice cream. Today was no different, and I looked to my favorite recipe for vanilla bean and cinnamon ice cream. A and I had run out of serving dishes, so the ice cream was served as a "palette cleanser" in mini-martini glasses. It looks like we were being fancy, but really, we just didn't have any more dishes.

The ice cream was followed by a decadent strawberry mascarpone tart. I made the mascarpone myself, and added sugar, lemon zest, orange zest, lemon juice, orange juice and vanilla to flavor it. The entire tart was drizzled with a port glaze before serving.

 

We closed the meal with pistachio macarons because I just don't think I can host a party without them anymore. For the macarons shells, I used the same recipe I have referenced before on this blog, but subbed in ground pistachios for half of the almond flour. I also added green food coloring. For some reason these macs had much softer texture than those I have made in the past. Maybe it was the pistachios?

All in all, it was a successful event. Maybe hosting easter supper could become a tradition for us. I honestly think I enjoyed it more than our annual barbeque.

Honestly, there is just too much here for me to write-up all of the recipes. Recipes taken directly from other sites are linked above. After the jump, recipes for the pistachio gianduja, fava bean salad and the ice cream. If you want other emails, leave a note.

The Daring Bakers Challenge, March 2010: Blood Orange Tian with Honey, Saffron and Cinnamon

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I was pretty excited when I saw the reveal for the March challenge. Tian. I had no idea what a tian was... and I still don't really understand what it is. Consulting various online food dictionaries indicated that tians are commonly considered to be some sort of mixed vegetable casserole, a definition that did not match the challenge recipe. Our hostess, Jennifer, selected a recipe for what was called an "orange tian". The desert comprised of thin pate sable crust, covered in a thick layer of whipped cream, topped with a final layer of citrus segments and drizzled with caramel sauce.

Definitions aside, this was yummy, and I think I will definitely be making it again... or at least I will be making this type of tian again. I am embarrassed to admit how much of the dessert (and dessert components!) I inhaled before A made it home. It took him just minutes to polish off the leftovers when he did arrive.

As part of the challenge, Jennifer required that we stick to citrus and attempt to supreme said citrus. It was a little messy, but definitely a skill I needed to master. Sadly, the perfectionist in me has now decided that citrus for salads will no longer be quickly chopped... going forward only cleanly supremed segments would suffice.

I deviated from the original recipe a bit. I am a little burned out on oranges (my husband eats about 9 of them a day meaning that there is always an orangey scent in our home), but lemons and limes aren't really my thing. Grapefruit - too winterey. Blood oranges were the only solution as they offered a sweet flavor and striking color for my dessert. With some help from the Flavor Bible, I opted to add honey, cinnamon and saffron to the blood oranges to give the dish a little something extra.

Pate sable is really just a giant sugar cookie. In fact, in the end I decided not to mold all four of my tians in favor of eating the crusts like cookies. For this dessert, any old pate sable recipe will do. Just roll the dough out before you cook it and cut it into rounds with the mold you plan to use for building your tian. The dough should be fully baked before constructing the tian.

Assembling the tian can be a little tricky, particularly since the ring mold has a tendency to slide around as you arrange the citrus layer on the bottom. The citrus slices are particularly juicy, as it is best to allow them to soak in their juices (and a bit of caramel sauce) overnight after they have been supremed. I placed my orange segments in a circular pattern, starting from the edge of the mold and spiraling inward until the entire bottom layer was covered.

When you have finished arranging the citrus, spoon a thick layer of stabilized whipped cream on top until the cream reaches the edge of the mold taking care to ensure that the cream is spread evenly. (Note: to stabilize whipped cream, mix a small amount of dissolved gelatin into the cream as it is being whipped) Take a one of the pate sable rounds and spread thin layer of marmalade on the top. Place the round on top of the mold, marmalade side down, pressing gently to secure.

Once all of the tians have been constructed on the sheet, move the sheet to the refrigerator and chill the desserts for several hours or until the cream has had time to grow firm. (My kitchen was hot, so I had to move mine to the freezer. When you are ready to serve the desserts, remove them from the refrigerator, place them crust side down on a plate and gently remove the mold. (Full disclosure: easier said than done!) Drizzle with orange caramel sauce and enjoy!

Of course in the end, if you have trouble with assembly, it makes a lovely trifle. Just crumble up the crust, and fill a glass with alternating layers of crust, cream, citrus sections and marmalade. Garnish with a slide of orange.

After reading through this post, I don't think I have done a good job at all of describing this dessert. Recipes for a few of the components are posted below. For the rest, ask if you have questions... or... as this is a Daring Baker's challenge and not my own creation, I am sure that others have posted better descriptions on their sites.

Marmalade recipe and orange caramel sauce recipe can be found after the jump!

Screw winter: Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart

Today definitely felt like the first day of spring here in Hoboken. Sure, I suppose it could still snow a few more times before winter is truly over, but the cloudless skies and warmish weather made me forget that snow was still falling just a day or two ago. It is melted now - even the giant mountains of it that plows had pushed to the corners of parking lots are gone. Andstill more exciting than the beautiful weather are the golden crocus bulbs that are poking their way out of the soil.

Sounds idyllic right? It could have been, except for the sounds in the background of drunken revelers that marks the first weekend in March for all Hoboken residents. Yes, today was the annual Hoboken St. Patrick's Day Parade, a drunken orgy where twenty-somthings from the tri-state area descend on my town to "get wasted", vomit, and get in fights. No chirping birds for me - I get whooping ex-frat boys instead. Kill me now.

The stream of green t-shirts passing by my window left me inclined to start the day in a rotten mood. Apparently the kids these days prefer to wear "kiss me I'm shitfaced" over "kiss me I'm Irish". Further annoying me, A had left me home alone for the weekend while he dealt with work in Mexico. Poor lonesome me, holed up in the apartment all day so as to avoid the aggressive drunks outside. It makes me feel so old, as just a few years ago, I might have joined in on the festivities. Ok, maybe not.

Screw winter! Screw the town! If I can't go outside and enjoy the first real day of spring weather, spring would come to me via the kitchen. Time to rebel against seasonal vegetables! Comfort food is in order! I want basil... and chives... and cheese... maybe even a tomato or two. Surely in these "modern times" I should be able to find at least one decent tomato.

Tomato and goat cheese tart seemed like the perfect solution to my mood. Non-seasonal, cheesy goodness. Of course it would be better to hold off on this recipe until summer, but at this point, even mediocre tomatoes would make me feel better than another meal of root vegetables.

Goat cheese and tomato tart was a dish that I discovered last fall, before I started keeping this blog. It was a recipe that I put together after studying a number of different goat cheese tart recipes, both from Epicurious and elsewhere on the web. Specifically I was looking for a savory brunch dish that had components you could do ahead, so as to minimize active prep time in the morning. With this recipe, the tomatoes and garlic can be roasted a day ahead and stored in the fridge. The tart crust can also be prepared and placed into the tart pan ahead of time. If you really want to get ahead, you could probably saute the shallots and mix the custard a day early too. This only leaves pre-baking the crust and assembling/baking the tart the day that you serve it.

Recipe after the jump!

Daring Bakers Follow-Up: Ladyfingers, or Savoiardi

Making the ladyfingers was by far my favorite part of the February tiramisu challenge. I enjoyed it so much that I thought it merited a separate post. I don't really have anything special to say about them, other than a recommendation that if you ever need ladyfingers, you make them yourself instead of purchasing them. 

The recipe required by the Daring Bakers comes from Cordon Bleu at Home. I did think that the cookies tasted just slightly eggy (is that a word?), especially after they had sat out for a while. Fresh out of the oven however, they are deliciously soft and sweet. In the summer, I could imagine serving them as an alternative to tuiles on ice cream. 

The recipe struck me as very similar to macarons, only with egg yolks added and regular flour instead of almond meal. The technique is similar - whip up a stiff meringue and break it down carefully when you add the dry ingredients. Too make ladyfingers, you need the following: 

3 eggs, seperated

6 tablespoons/75gms granulated sugar

3/4 cup all purpose flour

2 tbsp corn starch

6 tablespoons confectioner's sugar

Start by whipping the egg whites into a meringue. Once soft peaks begin to form, gradually add the granulated sugar, and continue to beat the whites until they are stiff. Next fold in the egg yolks until the mixture is blended and pale yellow. 

In a separate bowl, blend the cornstarch and flour. Then sift the flour into the eggs and gently fold it in, being careful not to deflate the mixture too much (just like macarons!). The mixture will be shiny, but not smooth, and quite frankly kind of gross looking when its ready. 

Transfer the batter to a piping bag and pipe out into strips about 3-4 inches long. Sprinkle the piped batter generously with about half of the powdered sugar and allow to sit for about 5 minutes. Then sprinkle with the remaining powdered sugar and bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes on a baking sheet covered in either a silpat or greased parchment paper. 

Though the recipe says that these will keep for a few weeks in an air tight container, as I mentioned above, they definitely taste the best straight out of the oven. While still good after they have been sitting for awhile, I would not recommend eating them without some sort of accompaniment at that point. 

The Daring Bakers Challenge, February 2010: Tiramisu

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

I haven't been baking as much lately. It has been a little strange, but I think I just don't "need" to as much as before. My new job is keeping me pretty occupied, and most importantly, making me think again. In fact, I find myself excited enough about upcoming work related challenges that I don't feel as much of a strong need to channel my productive energy into flour and sugar. It actually took quite a bit of effort for me to motivate myself to get started with the February challenge. 

This was actually quite the laborious task. I had always wanted to make tiramisu, but it just seemed like a little too much work for something that the Italian bakery down the street already does quite well. Going forward, I think I am going to leave the tiramisu to the bakery. While it was quite satisfying to pull of such a complicated dessert in my own kitchen, I am not sure that mine will ever taste as good as their's. Each component that I made tasted good on its own, but when put together I felt that the dessert lacked that rich coffee flavor that is so prominent in the best tiramisus. 

The interesting thing about tiramisu, is that none of the individual components are particularly difficult. You need pastry cream, whipped cream, some mascarpone and lady fingers, espresso and zabaglione. Simple right? It's simple when you only need to make one or two of those items. Making all of them for a simple dessert means that tiramisu prep can take days. 

A few days before I planned to assemble the tiramisu I prepared the lady fingers and the mascarpone cheese. I think that home made mascarpone is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I took the leftovers that did not make it into the tiramisu and whipped them in my stand mixer with a handful of chives. Voila - home made chive cream cheese for bagels! 

The pastry cream, whipped cream, mascarpone and zabaglione come together very easily with a rubber spatula. My mixture was a creamy white color with a very runny, soupy texture. I think the heat in my kitchen caused it to liquefy some. The mixture did firm up some when spread into my pan and cooled in the fridge, but melted again pretty quickly when removed from the fridge for serving. 

I selected some three inch spring form pans to assemble my tiramisu(s). The pans were only deep enough for two layers of ladyfingers and cream, so I had a lot of ingredients left over. To assemble, prepare a mixture of warm espresso and rum extract. Quickly dip the lady fingers into the espresso mixture and then use them to line the bottom of the pan. Cover the layer of lady fingers with the pastry cream/mascarpone mixture. Repeat with another layer of lady fingers and pastry cream. 

Once assembled, the tiramisus to the fridge to chill overnight. This step is necessary for the desserts to firm up enough to cut. Once tiramisus have hardened enough, remove them from the fridge, garnish them with some cocoa powder, slice, and serve!

Recipes after the jump!

Cookbook Review: ad hoc at home and pizza with romesco sauce

I didn't really intend to do any book reviews on this blog, but ad hoc at home turned out to be so unbelievably amazing that I had to share. I know that there are already dozens of reviews for this book on the web, but one more won't hurt, right? Past experiences with Thomas Keller's recipes have been mixed. Okay, maybe mixed isn't exactly fair, unless I qualify and admit that "mixed" refers to my willingness to try his recipes, not the results of his recipes.

A few years ago, in a fit of insanity, A and I picked up a copy of The French Laundry Cookbook hoping that it might help us experience a little bit of Keller in our own kitchen. We cracked open the book... to discover that Keller's recipe for lamb comes with instructions for how to butcher the beast yourself! Yeah... right. I live in a small Hoboken apartment, not on a country farm with a tanning room. I managed to make one recipe out of the book - the fresh pasta. The results could not have been better, but it pretty much confirmed that I would likely not be cooking much else from that cookbook, as the pasta was one of the only recipes that didn't call for odd ingredients or overly complicated cooking techniques. Needless to say, A and I should have done our research before shelling out the cash for the book.

When ad hoc arrived on my doorstep, courtesy of our LA friends, I expected more of the same. More Thomas Keller... more impossible recipes. Boy, was I wrong. He promised accessibility and he delivered. I think that with ad hoc, Keller demonstrates that he understands the home cooks that dine in his restaurants. The recipes in this book seem tailored for foodies who fuss about ingredient quality and are eager to cook delicious food at home without having to purchase a sous vide machine. For every dish in the book, Keller provides instructions for the dish overall, as well as recipes for any "prepared ingredient", such as bread crumbs or herb sachets, so that each and every dish can be made from scratch, starting with raw ingredients.

A and I spent a few moments flipping perusing the recipes on Friday and decided that this would be a Thomas Keller weekend, selecting a number of recipes to sample over the next few days. On Saturday night, we started with wild cod en persillade, served over asparagus and tomato-bacon stew. Persillade sounded scary at first, until we saw that it was a fancy way to say parsley and bread crumbs. On Sunday, we settled on lentil and sweet potato soup, monkfish, and creamed leeks.

Once of the things that I learned from the weekend's cooking extravaganza, is that just about everything tastes better when cooked in rendered pork fat. While Keller's creative use of fresh produce does result in healthy recipes, I think that the quantities of bacon called for may cancel out some of the benefits. Following his recipes will certainly lead to a varied, vitamin rich diet... though at the price of a coronary. Man, did it taste good though.

Needless to say, I think these were some of the most delicious meals that A and I have ever cooked. Fish - perfect. Veg - perfect. Is Thomas Keller a genious or is pork fat just really freaking good? Probably both. For the cod, Keller recommended a quick sear on the stove followed by a brief pan roast. Who knew that the humble cod could rival sea bass for flavor? The smoky bacon flavor gave the asparagus and tomato-bacon stew a certain je ne sais quoi only found in the best restaurants. 

The leek soup was actually my favorite and will become a go to recipe for our household in the future. Simple to prepare, the first 3/4s of the recipe can be prepared up to two weeks in advance, making it an excellent option for busy weeknights, while the soup itself is pretty enough for dinner parties. A garnish of more bacon (of course) and cilantro finished off each bowl.  

The monkfish and leeks over romesco sauce turned out to be A's favorite of the weekend. The monkfish is pan fried with garlic and rosemary in a generous helping of butter. The rosemary was actually my favorite part of this dish. The frying makes it crispy enough to eat almost like a potato chip.

  

The romanesco sauce recipe yielded a tremendous amount of extra sauce... which A and I turned into pizza on Monday night! Yum.

Pizza recipe after the jump! I'm not sharing any other recipes because you really should just go and buy the book.

 

Mocha Buttercream and my first sale!

Subject: Cake Order

Message: Randy's sister's birthday is coming up... Are you up for a birthday cake order?

Seriously??? Am I up for a birthday cake order??? My instant reaction was, OF COURSE!!! Recipes started flooding in to my mind, only to suddenly to be replaced by panic. Someone was going to pay me for cake? Were they sure? What if the result was a baking disaster and I couldn't deliver the goods? I only put my pretty stuff on this blog for the most part - many disasters have preceded the sweets featured on this site.

Putting a dollar value on my hobby almost seemed like too much pressure. Sure, my ambition is to eventually get paid so that I can finance my sweet tooth, but not until I am sure I am ready. Honestly, I am such a perfectionist that I am not sure if I ever would be really ready. That only meant that I had to accept the offer - you have to start somewhere, right? First, I decided that a layer cake was out of the question. I have a history of fallen cakes, making it too risky. Cupcakes it is. I also figured that bargain pricing ($1 a cupcake vs the $2+ charged at most NYC bakeries would make D more forgiving of deformed pastries.  No skimping though - I still planned to use high quality, gourmet ingredients!

D had a few flavor requests. The sister-in-law liked tiramisu-like coffee flavors, vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, and apple cake. I thought that vanilla cake would be least error prone. Though I spent hours researching recipes for tiramisu flavored cupcakes, I lacked enough time for testing to ensure good results. That being said, vanilla + chocolate seemed a little dull, and my standard chocolate frosting is a bittersweet chocolate ganache. No good, birthday cake should be sweet!

After more internet research, I settled on a mocha buttercream recipe that I found at Zoe Bakes. The recipe made me a little nervous. (Ok, so selling baked goods might not be a good idea in the future. It makes me incredibly neurotic!). First, it was an egg-based buttercream (not American style), which can be quite controversial, as many adults find true buttercream to be too sweet. Also, raw eggs scare me. Reading a few too many articles about food safety has left me petrified that I am going to give my friends salmonella. Second, the recipe called for eggs and egg yolks, not egg whites, something I have never made before. My love of experimenting got the best of me, even though I knew that maybe this was not the time to test something new.

Surprisingly everything worked out. Aside from the pile of reject cupcakes on the counter (did I mention that I am a perfectionist!), the frosting came together nicely and I had enough winners to pull together two dozen for the party. Both the flavor and texture were exquisite. The frosting was soft and silky smooth, while the rich, chocolatey flavored seemed almost mousse-like. Garnished with chocolate pearls, boxed up and ready to go: my first sale. Let me know if you want to be number two!