brown rice
Long grain. Perfect. I should ask Margit for the proportions before she leaves!
steamed broccoli
underdone, but not severely
minestrone
Me worrying about vegan protein. I gave Kevin two quarts of beans, a can of tomatoes, and two hours. He made some really good soup, with lots of veggies and roasted garlic. Turns out, we didn't really need it, and it didn't get eaten at dinner because there was so much other stuff.
sauteed spinach
Completely extraneous. I thought that the tofu needed it and was wrong.
salt and pepper five spice tofu
Tofu in the wok with even parts salt, pepper, ginger, and sugar, and slightly less five spice powder. This was very easy and reasonably good, but not as good as last week's baked tofu.
mahi mahi en papillote
Gorgeous huge sides of fish, not quite thawed when I took them out. We baked them on a cookie sheet at 500 degrees for an hour, with many thin rounds of lemon and a little bit of olive oil. Aluminum foil over the whole sheet, not fish-by-fish. Just barely done on time. This was naturally wonderful food that I managed to not screw up in any way. The bits that didn't fit on the primary sheet got thrown in another oven with the excess bacon for the tart. These were especially good, in part because we didn't put them out, so you had to discover them.
saffron and red pepper aioli
I didn't even try this. I gave the recipe to Margit, and I'm pretty sure it came out perfectly, but it wasn't what I expected and the fish looked so good on its own...
apple potato and fennel tart with blood sausage and bacon (deux porcs a deux pommes!)
Store bought puff pastry, covered in yogurt mixed with a ton of minced red onion and a little sour cream. Then oven crisped bacon. Then thinly sliced fennel. Then boiled and chopped potatoes, and pan fried apples. Baked at about 400 degrees for an hour and topped with blood sausage. This would have been better if 1) I had been more consistent about seasoning each layer, instead of counting on it coming out in the end, 2) There had been more apples, 3) I had fried the apples for the meat tart in bacon fat, instead of frying all the apples together and using olive oil to keep them veggie, and 4) There had been a final drizzling of the yogurt mixture on top. Also I should have rotated the pans halfway through the cooking time. NB. 4 boxes of puff pastry are exactly enough for 2 of our big sheets.
strawberry pie with homemade orange flower marshmallows
All Margit, ahead of time. From Paris Sweets. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and tastier than it looked. (I've made this before myself; my marshmallows were nicer, but her crust would destroy mine, and her pastry cream was better by a hair. And the marshmallows are just dressing, so she wins on this one, by a lot.)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
A bit of catch-up
French Menu #2
Pounti Auvergnant (Clotilde's Edible Adventures, page 97)
Tons of leftovers. I liked this, but the house did not. Do not make again!
Vegan Cassoulet with biscuits (Veganomicon page 172)
Not nearly as good as when I made a small test batch on my own. I'd do this again, but I'd make sure the beans were really well cooked, and that there were plenty of vegetables to go around, especially the leeks. The flavors are mild enough that this can't carry extra beans the way that some soups can. Also, the biscuits took much longer to cook than expected and were good-not-great. Probably not worth doing next time. Maybe on the side?
Beautiful Salad
Beautiful
Amazing Yogurt Almond Cake with Mangoes and Strawberries
Next time, do Clotilde's yogurt cake, or the almond cake from Vegetarian Planet. The Dorrie Greenspan French yogurt cake is a lot more work for very little extra yumminess. The mango puree from Clotilde's Edible Adventures, however, was extraordinary. I believe that Rebecca cut down (cut out?) the sugar, and pureed all the mango instead of half.
Asparagus with yogurt sauce
Asparagus: always good. Yogurt Sauce: usually good. Today, not so much.
Post-Special Dinner "light" menu
(after Judie's in Amherst, in response to Margit's Flying Biscuit meal)
Popovers from the Bread Bible
excellent day of, too buttery as leftovers.
Apple Butter
More of a chunky, heavily spiced apple sauce. But very, very good. Worked with everything, not just popovers.
asparagus
Chez Panisse Vegetables "asparagus with crispy ginger." The asparagus ended up a little under cooked, and there wasn't quite enough ginger for the whole preparation to be worthwhile. We would have been better off roasting or grilling it.
Sweet Potato Fries
Kevin Chan. Perfect. Matchstick thin, and cooked on a preheated pan with almost no oil. Too much food, but perfect.
Cold Curried Chicken
Wok fried chicken slices, cooled and mixed with yogurt + curry powder + dried ginger + honey. Better than Judie's
Ginger Tofu
From Vegetarian Cooking for everyone. Like coming home to an old friend, but better, because I love the bulk tofu so much.
Lettuce and Cucumbers
To put the protein on. I heart cucumbers.
Banana-Coconut-Cranberry Chutney and Roasted Peanuts
Cranberries cooked in a very small amount of fresh orange juice until they burst. Enough raisins to soak up the juice. Some toasted coconut, and as many fresh banana slices as I had the patience to provide. And Roasted Peanuts.
Quinoa and chickpeas with lemon and tahini
From 101cookbooks. Good, healthy, not amazing. Not much got eaten night of, but the leftovers seem to have just barely disappeared over the week.
Soupe de Chou-Fleur, Curcuma et Noisette
Actually, almonds, because noisettes coutent trop chers. And this was for the best. The soup turned out to be a waste of my time and the house's almonds. I thought that it was excellent, but I can only eat so much, and apparently no one in the house shares my love of cauliflowers and turmeric. Maybe a third of it made it all the way through the week. This was not helped by the fact that it was labeled simply "tree nuts" in the fridge, though. Once I relabeled it "Vegan Cauliflower Soup with North African Spices and Almonds," it did start going.
Pounti Auvergnant (Clotilde's Edible Adventures, page 97)
Tons of leftovers. I liked this, but the house did not. Do not make again!
Vegan Cassoulet with biscuits (Veganomicon page 172)
Not nearly as good as when I made a small test batch on my own. I'd do this again, but I'd make sure the beans were really well cooked, and that there were plenty of vegetables to go around, especially the leeks. The flavors are mild enough that this can't carry extra beans the way that some soups can. Also, the biscuits took much longer to cook than expected and were good-not-great. Probably not worth doing next time. Maybe on the side?
Beautiful Salad
Beautiful
Amazing Yogurt Almond Cake with Mangoes and Strawberries
Next time, do Clotilde's yogurt cake, or the almond cake from Vegetarian Planet. The Dorrie Greenspan French yogurt cake is a lot more work for very little extra yumminess. The mango puree from Clotilde's Edible Adventures, however, was extraordinary. I believe that Rebecca cut down (cut out?) the sugar, and pureed all the mango instead of half.
Asparagus with yogurt sauce
Asparagus: always good. Yogurt Sauce: usually good. Today, not so much.
Post-Special Dinner "light" menu
(after Judie's in Amherst, in response to Margit's Flying Biscuit meal)
Popovers from the Bread Bible
excellent day of, too buttery as leftovers.
Apple Butter
More of a chunky, heavily spiced apple sauce. But very, very good. Worked with everything, not just popovers.
asparagus
Chez Panisse Vegetables "asparagus with crispy ginger." The asparagus ended up a little under cooked, and there wasn't quite enough ginger for the whole preparation to be worthwhile. We would have been better off roasting or grilling it.
Sweet Potato Fries
Kevin Chan. Perfect. Matchstick thin, and cooked on a preheated pan with almost no oil. Too much food, but perfect.
Cold Curried Chicken
Wok fried chicken slices, cooled and mixed with yogurt + curry powder + dried ginger + honey. Better than Judie's
Ginger Tofu
From Vegetarian Cooking for everyone. Like coming home to an old friend, but better, because I love the bulk tofu so much.
Lettuce and Cucumbers
To put the protein on. I heart cucumbers.
Banana-Coconut-Cranberry Chutney and Roasted Peanuts
Cranberries cooked in a very small amount of fresh orange juice until they burst. Enough raisins to soak up the juice. Some toasted coconut, and as many fresh banana slices as I had the patience to provide. And Roasted Peanuts.
Quinoa and chickpeas with lemon and tahini
From 101cookbooks. Good, healthy, not amazing. Not much got eaten night of, but the leftovers seem to have just barely disappeared over the week.
Soupe de Chou-Fleur, Curcuma et Noisette
Actually, almonds, because noisettes coutent trop chers. And this was for the best. The soup turned out to be a waste of my time and the house's almonds. I thought that it was excellent, but I can only eat so much, and apparently no one in the house shares my love of cauliflowers and turmeric. Maybe a third of it made it all the way through the week. This was not helped by the fact that it was labeled simply "tree nuts" in the fridge, though. Once I relabeled it "Vegan Cauliflower Soup with North African Spices and Almonds," it did start going.
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