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.