Twilight Bunco

Every year about this time my neighbor and I hostess a party where we wine and dine a bunch of our friends and then try to take all their money in a dice game called Bunco. Unfortunately they usually end up taking all our money, but the more important thing is that we have a hilarious evening with a bunch of whooping and hollering and carrying on.

This year, in deference to the fact that we live around the corner from vampire central (Forks), we asked Edward to supply the meat which I used to make the celebrated dish from the Julia movie, Boeuf Bourguignon, accompanied by a green salad, garlic bread (in case Edward was still hanging around) and Julia's French Puff Pastry with raspberries and whipped cream.

As has happened so often in this quest, the first thing I discovered was that I didn't have all the equipment. Some of her recipes list 'Essential Equipment' and in the pastry recipe she listed a rolling pin 16"-18" long. I just assumed mine was in that vicinity until I measured it and got the bad news that in fact it was only 10". So off to the store, and then the next store and then the next store and finally at the 5th store, Bed Bath & Beyond, they had a monster 18-incher for only $8. While I felt like like a victor for having located one at a reasonable price I had also squandered almost 2 hours and what had been an ample time budget and I was once again approaching a critical situation.

The first item on my cooking agenda was the French Puff Pastry. Since I have become better acquainted with Julia I have come to expect some butter to be part of most of her recipes, but this pastry was literally half butter! The ingredients are 6.5 sticks of unsalted butter, 4 cups of flour and a little salt. That's it. You begin by dicing all the butter into little mini cubes, and then putting them with the flour into your mixer using the flat beater attachment. I didn't even know what a 'flat beater' attachment was, but after Googling it, I was extremely pleased to discover that I had one. And I think that turned out to be my undoing.

Julia was quite proud to have developed a recipe that utilized a mixer instead of the traditional hand method, and of course I was quite happy to be using the mixer instead of doing all that mixing by hand, but now that I have a greater understanding of the recipe I think all that hand mixing may be the key to success. The essence of this dough is many many alternating layers of flour and butter which are acheived by mixing them, rolling them out, folding it over, rolling it out again, folding, and so on. She actually suggests that the final product, the result of 6 turns, consists of at least 730 leaves of dough. While I don't quite understand the math behind that figure, I now realize that since it does not contain any leavening, the thing that makes French Puff Pastry puff up is the fat melting into the many layers of flour and causing them to become rigid, thereby creating many impossibly thin distinct layers separated by air and drenched in butter. Delicious, except that mine didn't really puff that much, which I believe was caused by the mixer overly mixing the flour and butter. It was, sad to say, a 'do over'.

Not so the Boeuf Bourguignon. The master recipe in this case is Zinfandel of Beef, or beef stewed in red wine. She recommends a fat-trimmed 3-4 pound roast of either round or chuck because they tend to maintain their shape during an extended simmer. The meat is cut into 1-2 inch cubes, dried with a paper towel, and browned in vegetable oil. Next saute the carrots in the same pan and then put it all into a large pot, adding tomatoes, smashed skin-on garlic, bay leaf, thyme, salt and lots of red wine-until it is deep enough to cover the meat. Simmer 2.5-3 hours, strain the broth, reserving the meat, and discard the vegetables. To thicken the broth whisk in a Buerre Manie, a paste made by combining 1 T butter and 1 T of flour per cup of broth, adding it to the stew and then briefly returning it to a boil.

While this completes the stew, but it does not make it Boeuf Bourguignon, which requires a couple of more ingredients. The first is 24 tiny white onions, which need to be skinned, (boil for 1 minute, shave off the root end and the skin will come right off) sauteed in clarified butter and finally simmered in a little chicken broth for 25 minutes. The second is 3 cups of mushrooms, which should be quartered and then fried at a high heat in a little olive oil and butter. Plop both of these into the stew and now you have Boeuf Bourguignon. And it lives up to its reputation.

I also served my family's famous garlic bread and I will include my recipe for that here too. Melt 1.25 sticks of butter in a sauce pan and add at least 4 peeled and mashed cloves of garlic, allowing them to saute for several minutes. Remove the garlic and apply the butter with a pastry brush to a baguette sliced lengthwise. Then broil it a couple of inches from the broiler until it is browned but not burned, watching it the whole time or it will certainly end up burned rather than browned.

The party turned out great although it was not without incident. We had barely begun to play when another of our neighbors dropped by to announce that a couple of emergency vehicles were down the street at my parents' house with their lights flashing. Luckily that turned out to be indigestion rather than a heart attack and play resumed shortly. Then, as I was preheating the oven to bake the pastry, some of the players (and the smoke detector) noticed that the air was getting fairly dense. That turned out to be the result of a grease fire in the oven caused by butter run-off from the garlic bread. That disaster was also narrowly averted and in the end the Bunco Babes loved all the food because even flat French Puff Pastry tastes delicious with fresh raspberries and whipped cream.

The Bottom Line
Zinfandel of Beef: Thumbs Up
French Puff Pastry: Do Over
Garlic Bread: Thumbs Up

Hot Salsa

I sent Adrienne a text this morning consisting of one word, "Market?". About 6 seconds later there are footsteps on the porch. Apparently we had already made plans a week ago to can salsa today so it was convenient that I was ready to go. The Ballard Sunday Farmers Market is a lovely place with beautiful vegetables and fruits and flowers and musicians and everybody in a great mood, but it is not a fast place to shop. It also does not have all the stuff you need, so including the other stores and the coffee shop we had 3 hours invested before we ever saw the inside of a kitchen.


This salsa recipe came from the wife of a printer who did some work for me a couple of decades ago. Everybody has a great recipe for something, so make sure you get it from them. This recipe will make about 6 pints and if you decide to can it you should put it into hot clean jars and process it in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

8-10 large ripe tomatoes, peeled

2 large red onions

2 green peppers

1 red pepper

2 Anaheim peppers

3 Jalapeno peppers

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1 can tomato paste-6 oz

1 T salt

2 cloves garlic chopped

2 t. chili powder

2 T fresh cilantro or 1/2 t. dried (or to taste)

1/2 t. strong oregano (such as Mexican)

To peel the tomatoes drop them into boiling water for 1 minute, promptly remove them and put them into ice water and the skins should slip right off. Unfortunately dicing them will still be tedious. Next chop the peppers and onions. A food processor works fine for this but you will need to do some additional hand chopping to get the long thin slices to a shorter length. Then put all the ingredients into a pan large enough to hold them, such as a stock pot, and bring to a simmer for 30 minutes being ever watchful that it does not burn on the bottom.

Adrienne and I were both singing the blues during the onion chopping portion of this endeavor when our neighbor Sue dropped by and suggested that we put something into our mouths to prop them open, such as a measuring spoon, which would enable us to breathe through our mouths rather than our noses, and pretty soon our onion problems were about gone.
A Big Shout Out to Sue!!

Thanks for tuning in.

Kay's Recipes

Pickled Beans. 9/14/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Neiman Marcus Cookies. 9/15/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Canned Pears. 9/23/9 Blog. Undecided
Twinky Cake. 9/23/9 Blog. Thumbs Down
Caprese Salad. 9/26/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Hot Salsa. 9/27/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Garlic Bread 9/29/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Pots of Berries 11/10/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Roasted Red Potatoes 11/17/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Kay's Pot Roast 12/14/9 Blog. Thumbs Up

Julia's First Dinner Party (@ Kay's)

Menu

Caprese Salad

Baguette with Olive Oil & Basalmic Vinegar

Braised Whole Salmon

Celery Victor

Saffron Rice

Poached Pears

Lemon Sorbet

This was a lot of cooking. I began with the Lemon Sorbet. Julia says the only difference between a sorbet and a sherbet is the speaker, 'sorbet' users being snootier than 'sherbet' users. You can see which I am.

Nobody should make both Lemon Sorbet and Poached Pears in the same day because they both require lemon zest and zesting is a tedious task. It requires the cook to peel just the colored part off the skin of a citrus fruit, leaving the white part of the rind behind. Julia recommends using a vegetable peeler. I thought I knew better and started out with a grater, but eventually surrendered to her expertise and went the peeler route. Either way it takes longer than you want to spend.

After securing your zest from 4-6 lemons you combine it with 1 cup of sugar in a blender for 2 minutes, then add 1.5 cups of water and continue to blend for another 2 minutes. Next put that mixture plus an additional cup of sugar into a saucepan and bring to a boil until the sugar is completely dissolved. Now remove it from the heat; add 3 cups of water and 1 cup of lemon juice that you have extracted from the lemons that you previously zested. Set the pan over a bowl of ice water and stir several minutes until well chilled. Whisk in 2 egg whites that you have beaten until foamy and then put the entire mixture into your ice cream maker. I use a Donvier which has a canister filled with this miracle liquid that you just keep in the freezer. When you want to make ice cream you take it out, fill it with your ice cream mix and then turn the crank several turns every 3 minutes for about 45 minutes.

Immediately after the Sorbet I got onto the Poached Pears. Julia lists Apple Compote as the Master Recipe here, but if you refer to the next page she lists the pear variation, which was my choice. I used Bosc pears, because of their firmer texture and after my lengthy lesson in how to tell when a pear is ripe last weekend, I feel like I am an expert in testing the base of the stem for readiness. The pears are peeled, leaving the stem on and slicing a bit off the bottom to flatten them out so they will sit nicely in the pan, and then poached in a syrup made of 2 c dry white wine, 2 T vanilla extract, and the zest and strained juice from 2 lemons. Bring the syrup to a boil to dissolve the sugar, lower the temperature to below simmer, which ended up being about 150 degrees on my candy thgermometer, and then add the pears for 12-15 minutes. Let them cool in the syrup for 1/2 hour and then refrigerate until serving, reserving the syrup to spoon over the fruit on the plate. The fact that I shaved off the bottom was insignificant due to the fact that they floated while cooking which resulted in one side of them being slightly off color. That could probably have been prevented by adding some Fruit Fresh to the syrup.

Still at a dead run, but mightily glad I was done with zesting I started on the Celery Victor. Julia has a different view of celery than I have been exposed to in the past, which is that you only use the hearts. So in this case, the recipe called for 1/2 head per person. All the tougher, stringier stalks are discarded, the tops of the heads cut down to 8", then the remaining innermost tender stalk is split in half and the root end of the stem shaved, being careful to keep the halves intact. The Master Recipe called for a Mirepoix, which is a handful each of diced onions, celery and carrots sauteed until soft in 2 T butter and seasoned with thyme, salt and pepper. The dish is assembled by spreading half the Mirepoix in the bottom of a buttered rectangular baking dish which is close in size to the area required by the celery. Next put the celery in the baking dish, cut side up, salt, and then spread the remaining Mirepoix over the celery. Add chicken stock to 1/3 of the depth of the celery and top with a piece of buttered wax paper. Bring to a boil on the stove, cover tightly with aluminum foil and transfer to a 350-degree oven for at least 30 minutes. Cool in the simmering liquid an additional 30 minutes, then drain reserving the liquid, and place on a serving dish, cut side up.

Now boil the reserved liquid until somewhat thickened and then add 2 t wine vinegar, 1 T Dijon mustard and 1 T diced shallot. Follow this by slowly whisking in 1/3-cup olive oil and then pour over the celery. Let it marinate, basting if necessary, at least 15 minutes and up to 2 hours. Then scrape off the remaining marinade, turn cut side down, and garnish with pimentos and anchovies laid in 'X' patterns across the celery and chopped capers, parsley and hard-boiled egg, mixed together, and laid around the ends.

Finally we are on to the Braised Whole Salmon. The first thing I didn't want to do was remortgage my house to buy the salmon, so I started by calling around to the local stores to see what they were charging for fresh whole salmon. The local QFC won hands down with fresh wild-caught Coho (Silver) at $3.99/lb. Julia says a whole salmon should arrive at the table well dressed, with its head and tail on, and I had purchased cucumbers to garnish the transition area from head to flesh, but the fish was already headless, it was too late to find it somewhere else, and once again I was learning the hard lesson of planning ahead.

This recipe begins by sauteing 2 cups of sliced onions and 1 cup each of sliced carrots and celery in 6 T of unsalted butter. While that is cooking wash the salmon inside and out, dry, and oil the outside with a "tasteless cooking oil" such as canola, and salt the inside. When the vegetables are cooked, taste and season them with salt and pepper.

To make this dish you will need a pan large enought to hold the fish, that has a rack. (Of course I didn't have one, so I headed back to the store.) Remove the rack from the pan, lay out a piece of cheesecloth about 4 feet long, place the rack in the center of it, oil it, lay the salmon on it and wrap the salmon and rack together with the cheesecloth, and put them in the pan. Then place the vegetables around the fish and add an herb packet, which is made by tying together a bundle of fresh parsley, fresh thyme and a bay leaf. Pour in 3-4 cups dry white wine and enough chicken stock to a depth of 1". Now heat to a simmer on top of the stove, cover with aluminum foil, and transfer to a 350-degree oven for approximately 45 minutes or until the temperature reaches 150 degrees.

Until this point this recipe had seemed pretty straight forward, but I ran into trouble getting the fish out of the pan intact. The fish was too heavy to grab the cheesecloth and lift it out, the liquid was too hot to put my fingers in to lift the rack and I couldn't figure out how to get any tool under the rack and lift it out, so I ended up burning my fingers and again wondering why in the heck I didn't plan ahead. In addition I had figured that my salmon at 5.5 pounds minus its head, must need to cook the whole 45 minutes because Julia had called for a 4-6 lb. salmon including the head. But it was too done to remain intact by the time I was done removing its skin and bones, so I ended up scrunching it together to be fish-shaped, when in fact it had been reduced to a pile of fish meat.

The final installment of the Braised Whole Salmon was the sauce. The recipe called for boiling the braising liquid down to 1 cup and then adding 1 cup of heavy cream and continue boiling for another couple of minutes and then pouring some of the sauce over the salmon and serving the remainder in a bowl. But I had at least 4 cups of braising liquid and after boiling it down for a half an hour, and still having a long way to go before it was reduced to 1 cup, I took a cup out of it and added the cup of cream. It think the result was less tasty and too thin and in retrospect I would have had another glass of wine and waited it out.

The other items on the menu: Caprese Salad, Saffron Rice and Baguette with Basalmic Vinegar and Olive Oil are not Julia recipes, but are delicious and easy to make. For Caprese Salad slice tomatoes, preferable heirloom, and add a fresh basil leaf and slice of mozzarella cheese, preferably buffalo mozzarella, and a light sprinkling of salt. I buy the package of Vigo Saffron Rice and just make it according to package directions. I currently prefer Mezzetta first cold press Extra Virgin Italian Olive Oil and Napa Valley Naturals cherry wood aged Basalmic Grand Reserve Vinegar with my sliced fresh Baguette (slender loaf of French bread).

We, The Main Eater and I, were pleased to host my brother Bill Gustavson and his fiancee, Pam Senter to our first Julia Dinner Party. We all loved the starters, the Caprese Salad and Baguette. I got rave reviews for the Celery Victor from Bill and Pam. The Main Eater liked it as well until he had the misfortune to bite into an anchovy, but personally I despise cooked celery and while I did try a few bites, it is hard to embrace a food that you just can't stand. Everyone was actually the most enthusiastic about the salmon, probably because they hadn't seen the picture of what it was supposed to look like in Julia's book and because they are used to having salmon overcooked. Everyone but me finished off their pears and I thought the syrup was delicious, but I am not a fan of soft fruit and a poached pear is bound to be soft. My greatest dinner moment was the lemon sorbet, which was topped with a couple of spoonfuls of Aquavit, a Norwegian liqour, and is the only Julia recipe from this dinner that I will make again.

The Bottom Line

Caprese Salad: Thumbs Up

Baguette with Olive Oil and Basalmic Vinegar: Thumbs Up

Celery Victor: Thumbs Up

Braised Whole Salmon: Thumbs Down

Saffron Rice: Thumbs Up

Poached Pears: Thumbs Up

Lemon Sorbet: Thumbs Up

Bon Appetit

Of Pears and Twinky Cakes

So yesterday was pear canning day. As is so often the case, the first thing that happens is we realize that we should have been getting going on this a few days ago. Well actually a few weeks ago would have been even better because then we could have harvested my neighbor's pears (instead of allowing them to rot on the tree and then bomb my husband's tomatoes). But that ship had already sailed, so we were out shopping for pears. First we hit the Ballard Sunday market, which had lots of pears, but no ripe pears. Then we stopped at Top Banana which had some ripe pears, but not enough, and so it went before 5 stops and 2 hours later we were finally ready to get started.



While the pear shopping expedition had not furthered the cause of getting going on the canning early it had given us the opportunity to discuss pears with lots of grocers. Produce sellers can be a passionate group when it comes to pears and after too much discussion with lots of people we decided to can red pears, which are ready when the top is slightly soft. They seemed to have a sweet good flavor yet a somewhat firmer texture, which is important because pears have to process (can-speak for cook) for a half hour which can easily lead to extremely soft canned pears. In fact that is why I hate canned pears, they are too mushy.



But Adrienne and Sue want to can pears and I hate to miss a party, so pretty soon we are all up to our eyeballs in peeled pears and jars and syrup. Ever mindful of calories we choose a very thin syrup which is made by mixing 1 cup of sugar with 4 cups of water and bringing it to a boil. While the syrup is cooking fill the canner at least half way with water so it can be heating too. Then get to peeling and coring and halving those pears. As soon as the pears are prepared rinse them off and start filling jars (to about 1 inch from the top) as they will begin to deteriorate soon after they are peeled. I think it is easiest to use wide mouth jars because you have more room to manipulate the fruit inside the jars. After the pears are in the jars add the hot syrup, up to one half inch from the top. Make sure the lip of the jar is clean, put on a lid that has been softening in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes, put on the screw band hand tight, then set it in the rack which is resting at the half way point in the canner. When the rack is full, usually 7 jars, gently lower it into the hot water, bring to a boil, cover and process for 30 minutes. The gently boiling water must continue to cover the tops of the jars throughout the processing, and you may end up having to add some, so it is best to have another pot of boiling water on the stove. If you end up having to add water which is not boiling, do not count the time when the canner is not boiling as part of the 30 minutes. When they are done lift the rack out of the canner and place the jars on a towel on the counter to cool and listen for the totally satisfying 'pop' as they seal.



However, this is not all that is going on. Even though my kitchen has pear goo and syrup from one end to the other, I still have to make a Twinky Cake. It is Jeff's birthday and for my birthday he gave me (incredibly) a Twinky Cookbook. It was a sweet idea, but frankly I haven't quite known what to do with it. If anybody ever gets married it has a rather unique Twinky Wedding Cake recipe, but so far that hasn't been needed. So his birthday was really the perfect opportunity to use the cookbook and maybe somebody who buys a Twinky Cookbook would actually like something made from it. Of course it requires a bundt cake pan, which I don't have, so like all projects this one starts at the tool store. But beyond that it is easy as pie.



You buy a box chocolate cake mix and 6 twinkies. Make the cake according to package instructions, and pour half of it into the bundt cake pan. Then cut the Twinkies in half and stick them into the pan, cut side down, all around the cake, then pour the rest of the batter into the pan, covering the Twinkies, and bake according to package instructions. The only problem was that all the Twinkies floated to the top so there wasn't going to be any surprise Twinky layer in the middle.



Back to the store. Buy another cake mix and another box of Twinkies. Try again only this time cram those puppies into the bottom of the pan. They don't dare move. But when we eat the cake, the suprise Twinky layer doesn't have any Twinky filling, which apparently has melted out of the Twinkies and become part of the cake, but what is a Twinky without filling? Hugely disappointing.

The Bottom Line

Canned Pears-Too early to tell

Twinky Cake-Thumbs down

Recipes from Julia Child's Cookbook

The Way to Cook

Soups

Chicken Stock/Broth: p. 4 See 11/6/9 Blog. Thumbs Up.
Rice and Onion Soup Base: p. 6
Veloute Soup Base: p. 8
Leek and Potato Soup: p. 13
Brown Beef Stock/Beef Bouillon/Broth: p. 14
To Clarify Stock: p. 15
All Purpose Chowder Base: p. 20
All Purpose Mediterranean Soup Base: p. 24

Breads

Dough for French Bread & Hard Rolls: p. 38
Whole Wheat Country Bread: p. 44
Spiced Brioche Dough for Bread Etc.: p. 48
Rosemary’s Classic Pizza Dough: p. 53

Eggs

To Hard Boil & Peel Eggs: p. 62
To Poach an Egg: p. 64
To Scramble Eggs: p. 66
The Tossed Omelette: p. 68
Individual Timbales of Fresh Corn: p. 70
Cheese Soufflé: p. 72
Vanilla Soufflé: p. 76

Fin Fish & Shellfish

Broiled Fish Steaks: p. 82. See 11/10/9 Blog. Thumbs Up.
Fish Steaks Braised in Wine with Herbal Fresh Tomato Sauce: p. 84
Braised Whole Fillet of Salmon in Wine and Aromatic Vegetables: p. 85
Fillets of Sole Poached in White Wine: p. 88. See 9/13/9 Blog . Thumbs Up
Whole Salmon Braised in Wine: p. 94 See 9/26/9 Blog. Thumbs Down
Whole Roasted Fish: Trout Meuniere: p. 97
Fillets of Sole Meuniere: p. 98. See 9/15/9 Blog. Thumbs Up.
Stove Top Poaching: p. 101
Lobsters: Steaming: p. 105
Peeled Skewered Shrimp: p. 109
Scallops Sautéed with Garlic & Herbs: p. 115
Scallops Poached in White Wine: p. 116. Blogged 10/7/9. Thumbs down.
Oysters Broiled in Garlic Butter: p. 119
Mussels Steamed in White Wine: p. 120
All Purpose Fish Mousse: p. 124

Poultry

Sautéed Chicken: p. 137
Ragout of Chicken & Onions in Red Wine: p. 141
Chicken Simmered in White Wine: p. 144. See 10/6/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Broiled Butterflied Chicken: p. 154
Broil-Roasted Turkey: p. 158
To Roast a Large Chicken or Capon: p. 163. See 10/21/9 Blog. Thumbs Down
Traditional Roast Turkey: p. 168
Brown Turkey Stock: p. 173

Meat

Sautéed Beefsteaks: p. 192
Sautéed or Pan-Fried Hamburgers: p. 199
Sautéed Ham Steaks Simmered in White Wine: p. 206
Sautéed Calf’s Liver: p. 208
Broil Roasted Sirloin Steak: p. 210
Scotch Broth: p. 215. See 11/1/9 Blog. Thumbs Down. NAM
Broiled or Barbequed Spare Ribs: p. 216
Roast Prime Ribs of Beef: p. 218
Roast Leg of Lamb: p. 224 See 10/20/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Roast Leg of Fresh Pork: p. 228 See 11/17/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Braised Whole Ham: p. 230
Zinfandel of Beef: p. 236 See 9/29/9 Blog. Thumbs up
Boeuf Bourguignon: p. 237. See 9/29/9 Blog. Thumbs Up. NAM
Pot Roast of Beef: p. 243. See 12/14/9 Blog. Thumbs Down
Beef & Pork Meat Loaf: p. 251 See 12/7/9 Blog. Thumbs Up.
Pork Sausage Meat: p. 257
To Corn Your Own Beef: p. 260

Vegetables

Blanched Broccoli: p. 269. Seel 10/6/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Steamed Cauliflower: p. 270. See 9/15/9 Blog. Thumbs down
Blanched Brussels Sprouts: p. 274. See 11/17/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Blanched Green Beans: p. 276
Cooked Chopped Spinach: p. 278
Steamed Artichokes: p. 279
Plain Boiled Asparagus: p. 284 See 11/22/9 Blog. Thumbs Down
Cabbage Steamed in Wedges: p. 288
Steamed Shredded Cabbage: p. 289
Steamed Whole Eggplant: p. 291
Grated Sautéed-Steamed Beets: p. 293
Grated Sautéed Zucchini: p. 294 See 11/30/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Braised Celery, Mirepoix: p. 297. See 9/26/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Braised Endives: p. 299. See 10/20/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Stuffed Onions: p. 302. See 9/13/9 Blog. Thumbs Down
Braised Cabbage Rolls: p. 304
Whole Cooked Chestnuts: p. 310
Ratatouille: p. 317
Homemade Mashed Potatoes: p. 320 See 11/30/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Potatoes Dauphinoise: p. 322. See 10/20/9 Blog. Thumbs Down
Plain Boiled White Rice: p. 327. See 10/6/9 Blog. Thumbs Up
Wild Rice Braised with Mirepoix: p. 330. See 11/10/9 Blog. Thumbs Up.
Pressure Cooked Beans: p. 332
Open-Pot Bean Cookery: p. 332
Cooked Lentils: p. 337
To Cook the 3 Kernels: p. 339
Cooked Polenta: p. 342

Salad

Oil & Lemon Dressing: p. 350
Tossed Green Salad: p. 351
Fresh Tomato Relish: p. 359-NMA. See 10/23/9 Blog. Thumbs Down
Cooked Sliced Potatoes for Salad: p. 361.
Machine Made Mayonnaise: p. 363
Cooked Pasta for Salads: p. 367. See 10/23/9 Blog. Thumbs Up.
Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes & Basil: p. 368-NMA. See 10/23/9 Blog. Thumbs Down
Coleslaw: p. 375. See 11/9/9 Blog. Thumbs Up.

Pastry Dough

Butter Dough for Pastries & Pie Crusts: Pate Brisee Fine: p. 381
French Puff Pastry Dough: p. 389 See 9/29/9 Blog. Redo
Choux Pastry: p. 396
All-Purpose Crepe Formula: p. 405

Desserts

Fresh Lemon Sherbet: p. 414. See 9/26/9 Blog. Thumbs Up.
Applesauce: p. 424
Oven Baked Apple Slices: p. 428
Apple Compote: p. 441. See 9/26/9 Blog. Thumbs Up.
Crème Anglaise: Custard Sauce : p. 446

Cakes & Cookies

Spongecake Batter: p. 457. See 10/16/9 Blog. Thumbs down
Genoise Cake Batter: Pate a Genoise: p. 458
Sweet Pastry & Cookie Dough: Pate Sablee: p. 489

Cookies For Beau-More Fish For Me

My neice, Chelsea Jamison, and I have been making and sending cookies to her friend, Capt. Beau Harer currently serving in Afghanistan with the US Army. I was planning to make the single cookie recipe that Julia classified as "Master", but it is a sugar cookie and seemed like it would have a hard time comparing to the incredible Neiman Marcus cookies that Beau has gotten used to receiving from us, so that was put on hold for another day. This recipe came to me over the internet several years ago and it is the most extremely luscious chocolate cookie that has ever been created. Special note to Beau: Imagine how great these cookies would be if they weren't 2 weeks old. For anyone who is interested, the recipe is at the end of this blog.

But what I really wanted to report on was my next two master dishes, which I made last night. It is hard to imagine that she rates 'Steamed Cauliflower' that high, but then she did have a couple of flourishes for a dish that I routinely make a couple of times a month anyway. After my rousing success with Poached Sole in Wine Sauce the other night I decided to stay with fish for my second outing and make Sole Meuniere.

She recommends that the Cauliflower be broken into flowerettes and then the stems peeled before steaming. This was not too onerous a job and may have added a bit of polish to a somewhat ordinary presentation. But the more interesting instuction was to steam it for only 3 to 5 minutes. This seemed ludicrous to me as I would normally cook it for about 15 minutes, but I dutifully tasted it after 3 minutes and it was still raw, then I tasted it again after 5 minutes and there was precious little change so I left it steaming. I finally took it off at 9 minutes and still felt it was far from done. In addition to The Main Eater and our neice, our daughter Alyss was also in attendance last night and the vote was tied at 2 all. Both Chelsea and Russ preferred the harder cauliflower while Alyss and I thought it way underdone.

Sole Meuniere is another name for fried fish. Julia recommends drying the fillets, salt and peppering them, dredging them in flour just before frying (taking care to shake off all the excess), and then frying them in hot clarified butter (made by melting butter and then using the yellow liquid and discarding the white solids) for a couple of minutes per side. The only complication I encountered was flopping the fillets into the pan without paying attention to where the grease might spatter, in this case all over my hand, but the learning curve is pretty steep on that one so I doubt I will make that mistake again. All in all this was a simple recipe, quick and inexpensive to make, and everyone but me loved it. I thought it was okay, but it seemed somewhat plain.

Neiman-Marcus Cookies
2 c. butter
24 oz. chocolate chips
4 c. flour
2 c. brown sugar
2 t. soda
1 t. salt
2 c. sugar
1-8 oz. Hershey Bar-grated
5 c. blended oatmeal
4 eggs
2 t. baking powder
2 t. vanilla

Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder. Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and soda. (If you have a dough hook beater for your electric mixer it will probably work better than the whisk type beater.) Add chocolate chips and grated Hershey Bar. Roll into balls, place 2" apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes @ 375 degrees.

The Bottom Line

Steamed Cauliflower-Thumbs Down

Sole Meuniere-Thumbs Up

Neiman Marcus Cookies-Thumbs Way Up

Thanks for reading. K

So What if Julia Doesn't Pickle Beans

There are those who think pickles are better than candy. I'm not one of them, but my daughter Adrienne is and she suggested that we get busy and make some last weekend. Well Julia has not one word to say about preserving foods but luckily my good friend Pam is an expert. Pam is a fairly amazing woman who could just have easily have lived in the pioneer days as now. She can hunt it, shoot it, catch it, skin it, butcher it, smoked it, grow it, can it and cook it. Both Adrienne and I have apprenticed under her in the past and this year decided to try it on our own.

So to make pickled beans you have to start with the freshest ingredients possible. Pam would start her day at the U-Pick field, but Adrienne and I chose to begin with a latte at the Ballard Farmer's Market. After tasting all the beans at the market we bought 28 pounds of the freshest imaginable plus 2 bunches of equally fresh dill and a jar of already peeled garlic.

We prefer wide mouth pints for our beans, and assuming your jars are already clean, they should be put in the dishwasher, without soap, and the cycle started. Then the beans should be dumped into the sink with cold water, rinsed, and cut to fit into a jar with the pointed end down and the cut end extending to about 3/4 inch from the top of the jar. In addition the dill needs to be washed and the flower ends cut off and put in a bowl and the same thing done to the feathered parts, plus the garlic cloves cut in half. While those tedious task are going on make brine out of 1 quart of 5% cider vinegar, 2 quarts of water and 3/4 cup canning salt, brought to a boil and left to barely simmer on the stove. Next fill your canner full enough that the water will completely cover the jars plus another inch, and get that boiling.

Now take the jars out of the dishwasher as needed (the cycle doesn't need to have finished) and put 3 half cloves of garlic and a small handful of the feathered dill plus 1/8 t. red pepper flakes in the bottom of each jar. Then beautifully fill the jars with the beans so that they are all standing on end and add a dill flower to the top. Just before you get 7 done, put the lids in very warm water to soften the sealer. Then fill the jars with enough brine to just cover the beans but not completely full, making sure none of the dill is protruding onto the lip of the jar (which would effect the seal). Then place a lid on the top and secure it in place with a hand tightened screw band. When all 7 jars are ready, and the canner is boiling, put the rack in the canner resting at the half way point and gently load the jars into the rack (being ever careful not to spill boiling water on yourself). Then gently and carefully lower the rack to the bottom of the canner, put the lid on it and set the timer to 5 minutes. When the time is up carefully raise the rack and set it and its contents on a towel placed on your counter top. When they have cooled just enough to take out of the rack, set them to cool and begin your next batch. One of the great joys of canning is listening for the 'pop' as they begin sealing, which will begin in about 15 minutes. The jars should be stored in a cool dry place and will be ready for eating in about a month. The 28 pounds of beans will make about 60 pints of fabulous pickled beans. Any jars that do not seal should be discarded.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Pam's Pickled Beans

As the Scouts say ,"Be Prepared"

I do not consider myself a 'novice cook' however there are some lessons that I seem to need to repeat over and over. After posting yesterday's blog I was determined to begin my cooking sojourn immediately. So I grabbed my cookbook, my husband, my basket and beat feet down to the Pike Place Market. My husband, also known as The Main Eater, had to drive because I needed to plan my dinner on the way. The result was rushed, disorganized and somewhat less than satisfactory.

I decided to make Fillets of Sole Poached in White Wine found on page 88 of the book and Stuffed Onions from page 302. The sole was both straight forward and relatively easy but the onions much less so.

Our first stop was the wine shop for a white French vermouth that I have noticed in many of Julia's recipes. The sommelier didn't stock it but recommended an Italian vermouth that he said was very similar. Who knows what Julia would have said but I bought it. Then to the fish monger for the sole, the bakery for the white bread for making bread crumbs, the dairyman for the heavy cream and butter, and various green grocers for the lemons, Walla Walla sweet onions and shallots. Of course it is a crime to visit the market and not pick up a $5 bouquet of fresh flowers. Also, as an afterthought I also stopped at Delaurenti's which is rumored to have the best chocolate chip cookies in the city. We ate those in the car on the way home and it would be hard to turn one down.

On arrival back home I began to organize myself. When making a meal that takes more than a minimum of thought I regularly write down the various tasks associated with each dish, estimate how long they will take to accomplish and then list them according to start times. That way I know what I need to be doing and when I need to be getting on it.

That's when I noticed that the Stuffed Onions needed to boil before peeling, then boil again for 15 minutes, then get stuffed and finally bake for 1.5 hours! Dinner was obviously a ways off. Thank goodness that I had bought an additional bottle of wine.

The initial boiling was to make the skin removal easier, which is pretty easy anyway, and in retrospect it probably would have saved time to just peel the suckers and be done with it. I was a bit apprehensive about digging the centers out with a melon baller and making sure to leave 3/8" worth of onion but that turned out to be fairly easy too. So while the onions were in their 10-15 minute preboil I got busy with the stuffing.

To begin with you dice a cup of the onion that you have previously removed with the melon baller and saute it in 2 T of butter. Then you blend in a cup of cooked rice. Cooked rice? Yikes! Thank goodness The Main Eater and I had East Indian food the night before and had brought home the left over rice or this dinner would have been a really long way off. Then you add 2 T of bread crumbs. I searched that cookbook from stem to stern but could not locate any difinitive directions on how to create bread crumbs which I normally buy in a shaker at the grocery store. Luckily the internet was also available and some nice cook somewhere advised just slicing the bread and baking it for a few minutes at 350 degrees, putting it in a baggy and rolling it with a rolling pin. Worked like a charm. But then it turned out that the parsley I had intended to use from the garden had gone to seed, that I had forgotten to buy basil and the Swiss cheese I thought I had in the refrigerator was actually gorgonzola. My enthusiasm was definitely at a low ebb. But necessity is the mother of invention so I substituted the gorgonzola, moved past the basil and parsley, got those babies stuffed and in the oven, and turned my attention to the fish.

That required buttering the bottom of the baking dish, dicing the shallots and dumping half of them in the bottom of the pan, laying out the sole fillets on top of the shallots, salt and peppering the fish, throwing on the rest of the shallots, pouring in enough dry white French (or in this case Italian) vermouth to cover the fish 1/3 of the way up and topping the whole thing off with a buttered piece of wax paper (buttered side down). Then bake it for 6 or 7 minutes at 350 degrees. A piece of cake after sweating through those onions.

So how did it all turn out? I'm pretty sure the Stuffed Onions turned out pretty much like Julia intended them to, at least mine looked about the same as hers did and they met her tests for readiness. The stuffing was pretty tasty, but neither The Main Eater nor I really liked eating large pieces of soft onion. In addition it was a huge amount of work and I think that the work ought to correlate with the greatness of the dish, which in this case it did not. The Fillets of Sole Poached in White Wine however, was delicious, easy, fast, relatively cheap and pretty low in calories. In other words, perfect.

The Bottom Line:

Poached Sole in White Wine Sauce

Stuffed Onion

Julia Visits the Pike Place Market

My mother and my sister have almost the same birthday so that creates a lot of stress for me around the end of February each year. In 1995, faced with this annual dilemma again, I was intrigued to read that Julia Child would be having an autograph party at Sur La Table at the Pike Place Market in Seattle to sign her new book, The Way to Cook. So I conspired with my mother to buy a copy for my sister and with my sister to buy a copy for my mother which didn't leave me with enough money to buy a copy for myself so I got a signed bookmark. We knew the meeting would be brief but we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to at least glean a little knowledge from her so we debated between asking her how to keep the pie crust on a lemon meringue pie from getting soft and what restaurant she recommended in the market. Lunch was looming so that won out and she acknowledged that she like Maximilien's, the little French restaurant at the southwest corner of the market just past the fish tossers. Just as she promised, lunch was delicious and our lemon pies have continued to languish with soggy crusts. Following lunch the cookbooks disappeared onto the bookshelves at my mom and sisters' homes and I promptly lost my bookmark. Neither of them have ever reported making a dish from the books.



Fast forward to last weekend when our friend Summer and my husband and I went to see the new movie Julie and Julia. You probably know all about it, but in case you don't, it is about this young woman, Julie Powell, who dreams about being a writer while she languishes in a dreadful customer service job answering insurance claim questions. Eventually she decides to make all of the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, (around 600) in one year and blog about it. The movie then switches back and forth between Julia (played by Meryl Streep) and her life living in France, learning to cook and writing about it, and Julie and her life, which of course ends with her getting famous.

In the days following the trip to the movies I began wordering whatever happened to theose cookbooks. I asked my mom if she still had hers and if it would be alright if I borrowed it. It was still in a near virgin state and incredibly that elusive bookmark was even still holding a spot next to the front cover.

It is written as a more modern cook's how-to book incorporating both modern technology and time and waist saving techniques. This latter was especially helpful as I couldn't imagine how she ended up being average sized after hearing Meryl Streep exclaim over and over, "I just love butter".

It is divided into chapters on soup, bread, eggs, fish, poultry, meat, vegetables, salad, pastry, desserts and cakes and cookies. Each chapter has a number of 'master recipes' ranging from a paltry 3 in cakes and cookies to 23 in vegetables. She believes that once the novice cook has mastered the masters that she can then utilize that skill and wisdom to create the other recipes in the chapters. Okay.

So why do I care? Well it turns out that I am closing in on my 60th year and would like to commemorate it in some way. When I turned 50 I walked 500 miles in one month and I certainly don't want to do that again, unless it is around the deck of a cruise ship. So I'm thinking of something somewhat the opposite of excessive walking-excessive eating preceeded of course, by excessive cooking. Julia has included exactly 100 master recipes in The Way to Cook and I intend to accomplish all of them before my 60th birthday, August 24, 2010.

Tune in to see how it all turns out.

K