And the First-Born Turns 29

My darling daughter turned 29 today, which may or may not be a problem for her, but is a little freaky for me!  I offered to cook a birthday dinner over the weekend and she (as usual) requested paella.

Paella is a good dish when you are having a group of people with different food preferences eat with you.  While I'm sure it is not the traditional approach, I group the seafood in one area so those who would rather not eat prawns or clams can avoid them.  I usually have chicken throughout the dish and I keep the chorizo large enough to identify so those who aren't fans of spicy sausage can avoid that.  I really don't mind people picking and choosing - after all, I want them to be happy!

Along with the paella I had a couple fruit dishes:  ribbons of cantaloupe with crispy prosciutto and watermelon with a lime dressing. 

And for dessert, peaches with vanilla ice cream, a bourbon caramel sauce and spiced pecans.  No picture because Bob was too busy eating to point and click!

Leftovers flew out the door and everyone went home with some extra treats for later.  We didn't sing or blow out candles, but it was still a happy birthday celebrated by Sean, Grandma, Bob and me - and of course, the birthday girl, Elisabeth!

Crustacean Cornucopia

Since I'm not doing the Daring Baker's challenge this month, I thought I would write about some of the other cooking I did instead.

*********SEAFOOD ALERT!!**************
Warning:  If descriptions and pictures of little crustaceans are more than you can handle - scroll quickly!

On Thursday, while preparing for dinner, I got a call from Bob saying he was bringing home some crawfish - live crawfish!  Whoa!  This meant springing into immediate action:  checking internet for live crawfish recipes, finding the SwampFire Seafood Boil that I knew I had because I'm an impulse shopper with no self-control, and finding another pot in which to cook the little beasties.  Since I was already planning to have prawns for dinner and couldn't delay that since they were ready to cook and all the prep had been done, I had two large pots on the cooktop heating up to receive the bounty headed in their direction.

My plan for dinner was a new recipe from the New York Times.  The Yucatan Shrimp recipe is from a restaurant in the Sanibel/Captiva Islands off the west coast of Florida.  The restaurant, Doc Ford's, is owned by a writer of detective stories (I have one of his books waiting at the library), and the description of this recipe and its popularity intrigued me.  While they use Gulf shrimp, I'm not sure how viable an option this will be in the future.  In any event, I used other shrimp and it seemed to work.  The sauce is a butter, garlic, lime, and sambal oelek (Indonesian hot chile sauce) mixture, and a little jalapeno pepper and cilantro are tossed in at the end.

INSERT PERSONAL OPINION HERE:  I added the cilantro because Bob likes it.  I do not understand why anyone likes cilantro - it smells awful and tastes like soap.  I know there is a physiological reason some people dislike cilantro and whatever it is, I've got it.  I picked all mine off.

The whole dish is extremely easy to pull together but messy to eat, since the shrimp are cooked with the shell on.  Spicy, limy, buttery - yum!  I threw together a mango and pineapple salad with a little more lime juice and some mint to counteract the heat of the shrimp.

This clearly would have been a good meal by itself, but I still had the crawfish to cook.  I had heard about SwampFire seafood boil and promptly ordered some because I "had" to have it.  If I had a plan, I don't remember what it was, but as it turns out, it was the right thing to have sitting on the pantry shelf.

A true crawfish boil uses potatoes and onions and spicy sausage (andouille, perhaps), a lot of lemons and the crawfish.  Not only did I not have potatoes or andouille, I had no room in my pot for them.  Instead, I added several lemon halves to the seafood boil, and heated it up.  When the crawfish arrived, they did not need purging - they were very clean - so we just rinsed them off, Bob gloved up and transferred them to the boiling mixture.  About 6-7 minutes later, I turned off the heat and let them soak up the spicy mixture for a while. 

Another little aside:  Bob doesn't like to work for food.  When we have Dungeness crab, I spend time cracking and extracting the crab meat so he can just eat it without having to waste his time dealing with the shell.  Dungeness crab is a piece of cake compared to other crustaceans.  The meat is easy to remove, comes in pretty large pieces and it doesn't take too long to have enough crab to feed a couple people.  Crawfish, on the other hand, are a lot more work.  There is very little meat - just the tail of the critter - and it isn't easy to get to it.  The head, which you twist off, can (and should) be sucked, but the tail has to be broken open.  It takes a long time to get any amount of crawfish into your belly.  And I don't do crawfish for Bob -he has to do his own.

This was a messy, multiple-napkin meal and we didn't even start eating until after 8 PM.  There were leftovers since 2 pounds of shrimp and 75 crawfish are way more than two people can eat.  And there were lots of shells to dispose of and pots to empty.  But it was well worth the effort and last minute frenzy for this meal.  And I got leftovers for lunch!

Pate' Party

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate' with freshly baked bread as their June challenge!  They've provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

Imagine - the French countryside - Provence, maybe - all lavender and sunflowers and breezes.  Old stone houses, quaint villages and wonderful shops with glorious food.  Now imagine the Pacific Northwest in the pouring rain - endless, pouring rain.  Where would you rather be?

No choice at all for me - home is home and I like the rain, even in June.  However, the food of the French can be very enticing and this month's challenge let me bring a little of that to my table.  A little pate', cornichons, chicken liver mousse and homemade baguette - maybe even a bottle of rose' - practically like being in some small bistro in an ancient village without the airfare or jet lag.
 
I love pate' and have several recipes set aside to try at some point, so this was a fun challenge.  I had to tweak the hostesses' recipes a bit because I had to delay doing this challenge until nearly the last minute and didn't have time to check a variety of stores for some of the ingredients that weren't available at my usual grocery store.  I decided on the pork pate' but also added some some strips of ham, which I did not process with the rest of the mixture, to give the pate' a more rustic feel.  It was porky and salty and had a great texture.  Perfect with the cornichons.

I also made a chicken liver mousse, which is not really a pate' but seemed to me to be in the same general family.  It was a pretty simple recipe.  I thought the end product was a bit underseasoned by itself, but it is served with a shallot jam which was rich and dense with flavor (shallots, balsamic vinegar and brown sugar), so the combination worked well.

The baguette recipe I used was from Ashley Rodriguez's blog, Not Without Salt, and is one of those supersimple breads in which all the ingredients are mixed together, kneaded lightly and then put in the refrigerator overnight.  I removed enough dough the next day to make one loaf and will be able to have freshly baked bread for a couple more days from the remaining dough.  It was crusty and tasty, but not as chewy as I would have liked.  I'll have to figure out why and see if I can fix that for the remaining dough.

Ta-da!  The pate', with bread and cornichons, and the mousse, with shallot jam. 

There's some good eats there!  Or perhaps I should say c'est magnifique!  (Please - anyone who actually speaks French, excuse my errors since mine is limited to reading menus!)

Croquembouche Maybe

The May 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake.  Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montee, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump's Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Okay, May was a challenging month in many respects. In addition to being a co-host for the May Daring Cooks challenge (an exciting but time-consuming endeavor), I fell (sigh) and badly sprained my right hand. This was a serious limitation for the month - very hard to do anything, from typing to stirring. My resident sous chef was called on daily to open cans, slice vegetables and lift things. I was pretty useless. Needless to say, the thought of trying to produce this impressive French pastry was a bit overwhelming. But - optimism triumphed and I plunged in.

Croquembouche is a tower of cream puffs held together with caramel and embellished with caramel or other decorations. Cream puffs - that means piping, right? My favorite activity and I'm so GOOD at it. Actually, I did all right. The weakness in my right hand had abated enough to pipe the puffs and it is amazing how a finger dipped in hot water can repair the occasional flawed puff. I did okay with this part. Yea!



That was day one. Carefully sealing my pate choux (or puffs) away in an airtight contained, I headed for day two with the plan to make the pastry cream. I can do this - no new techniques, have successfully tempered eggs and made custards - no problem! Well, no problem except that batch one turned into a lovely rich, creamy, sweet scrambled egg dish. What was it I said about knowing how to temper eggs? Maybe the milk mixture was not quite hot enough. Try again. Fail again. What's the deal? I know how to do this!!

Now, out of ingredients, I have to regroup. I give up for the day and find a different recipe. David Lebovitz, an American who lives in Paris and does all things dessert with incredible results, has just released a compilation of his favorite and most popular dessert recipes, Ready for Dessert. I find his version of pastry cream, which uses flour instead of cornstarch and takes a slightly different approach to assembling the whole product. New supply of eggs and milk, new recipe - let's try again. And...perfection! A smooth, not too sweet pastry cream. Beautiful texture, delicate flavor - ready to go. I cover and cool it in the refrigerator.

Day four should have been assembly day, but we were out of town, so on to day five. The pastry cream is fine, the caramel is good to go. Unfortunately, the puffs have not held up too well and I'm not prepared to do them again. They are soft instead of crispy and well past their prime. I soldier on. My plan is to stack them in a modified cone with the caramel, decorate with edible flowers and top with a candle (in honor of Bob's birthday which is now over but it is the thought that counts). I manage to create a sort-of tower, shove in the flowers, put the candle on top and rush to take photos. Battery in the camera is dead. Quick search for new battery. Meanwhile, puffs are rebelling and seeking lower ground. Repair. Photo quickly. Total collapse.



Okay - what did I learn? Making pate choux or puffs is not a problem. Making pastry cream with the right recipe is not a problem. Probably better to make the pastry cream first, let it chill overnight and then make the puffs and fill them. The caramel is quick. Honestly - I might do the components again but I would never try to stack them. A bowl with a couple of cream puffs topped with chocolate or caramel makes more sense for us. Even if I had been much more successful with the outcome, I would rather focus on the food than the appearance. I know the "eat with our eyes" adage, but I think a lovely plate with a trio of cream puffs would be more appealing than a tippy tower.

Challenging, yes, but probably more for the construction than for the components. I abandoned the puff and just ate the pastry cream, which was nummers treats!

A Challenging Cinco de Mayo

Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

The May Daring Cooks challenge was very special since Barbara and I hosted the challenge. This was quite the undertaking. We agreed to do at the end of last year and started working on it January, exchanging information and drafts via e-mail. Since our challenge ran from April 17 to May 14 and included May 5, Cinco de Mayo, we decided to do a Mexican dish. As it turned out, this was a very popular choice!

Our recipe was stacked chicken enchiladas with a green chile sauce. Above is the photo of the raw ingredients. The little green things with papery husks are tomatillos, an ingredient which is frequently used in Mexican cooking but which is not universally available around the world, as we found out.

Challenges have to be something that stretches the Daring Cooks. We required a homemade sauce. If the ingredients or flavors for the green tomatillo and chile sauce were not available or not something the cook thought would work, any other sauce was an option. People did red sauces, moles, cremas, and some very innovative things with local ingredients (North African sauce, anyone?). While we suggested stacked enchiladas with corn tortillas, people were free to roll their enchiladas or use flour tortillas or even some other substitute if tortillas or the ingredients for making them were not available. We suggested using grilled chicken, but there were beef, black bean and a wide array of other fillings used. And we used Monterey Jack, but there were lots of other cheeses, including Mexican cheeses, that people added to their enchiladas. Recipes are supposed to include variations for vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free cooking. This recipe was really ideal for all that. Corn tortillas for those avoiding gluten; vegetarian fillings for those avoiding meat; cheese optional for the vegans - worked out really well.

The creativity of the cooks was absolutely amazing. And the pictures! As I took my turn commenting on and complimenting those Daring Cooks who posted their results, I was drooling continuously. So many intriguing combinations, interesting marinades and solutions to problems finding ingredients - truly inspirational.

This was my final product and it was just as good as the first time I made this recipe years ago. I added some chipotle Tabasco sauce to the chicken, along with salt, pepper and some cumin, making the heat in the dish slightly more pronounced. The roasted chiles and tomatillos make a really succulent and spicy sauce. Below is a picture I "borrowed" from Barbara of the chiles as they went from raw to roasted. Mine looked pretty much the same, but her picture was better (thanks, Barbara).

From the comments we received, I think the Daring Cooks really enjoyed this challenge. For many of them, it was an introduction to Mexican cooking; for others, it was a chance to try something new. And, as might be expected, there were also a few mentions of margaritas on the menus!

My very special thanks to Barbara, without whom I could not have done this. She not only has an incredible blog to showcase her creative culinary endeavors, she is a master of the world of blog technicalities and dealt with the links, the pictures and the formatting. Plus her pictures were really good and she has an eye for detail. I think we were a good team and I'm very proud of our efforts.

Steamy Pudding

The April 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

No suet around here and I looked. I ended up using Crisco, so what I made is not the traditional British pudding but perhaps a facsimile. I've never had a steamed pudding which means I don't really know how close I got. I was not extremely enthusiastic about this. While Esther said we could make something savory, like steak and kidney pudding, that didn't really sound too appealing either. Because we are not big dessert eaters and because this was not something I could ship off to the starving students in Boston or the "I'll eat anything chocolate" friend in the neighboring city, I wanted to make something more manageable for the two of us. Rather than make one 4 cup steamed pudding, I decided to make smaller versions and choose a different filling for each.

The filling is the main ingredient (fruit, chocolate, etc.), combined with sugar and butter. All is put into a bowl which has been lined with a suet pastry - or in my case, a Crisco pastry - and then topped with more pastry. The result is covered in foil, sealed up with a string and steamed for whatever period of time seems to work. I did mine for 4 1/2 hours to be sure the crust was golden and the interior all melty.



The pastry was quite fragile. It rolled out pretty well but fell apart when I lined the ramekins. I ended up just pressing the crust into place, which probably contributed to its failure to come out in one piece. Frustration number one.

I used a bamboo steamer I usually use for potstickers and dumplings. It worked pretty well, although I had to watch the water level closely. Subsequently, I read some finished challenge posts on the Daring Kitchen website and realized I could have used a slow cooker, which would have been so much easier and I could have done all four of the puddings at once. Maybe next time, if there is a next time. Frustration number two - spent all day steaming puddings that could have been done all at one time using the slow cooker.

The flavors I chose were lemon (using a whole lemon), chocolate, cherry and mango. And the results? The lemon I liked, but probably no one else would because it was really pretty tart. The recipe said to use a whole lemon, pierced through the skin with a skewer. Maybe a Meyer lemon would have been a better choice, but I didn't have a Meyer lemon. The seeds in the lemon were annoying to deal with when eating it, but it did transform into a lovely lemony sauce which went well with the pastry - even if the whole thing was ugly to look at since it did not pop out but had to be scraped out in pieces.

The chocolate (I used bittersweet) was not quite as successful or interesting. Both the mango (Bob's favorite) and the cherry (which I really liked) were much better. The fruit was soft and succulent, the butter/sugar melted together to form a caramelly sauce around the fruit and the pastry added some texture. So to sum up: looked horrible, tasted OK to pretty good. Would I do it again? Not without reading a lot more about technique and maybe tasting one done properly. Trip to England is essential, obviously.

A Fine Kettle of Stew

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf's Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

I used the Lee brothers' recipe, with some modifications. The base of this stew is an extremely chicken-y stock which really surpassed every other chicken stock I've ever made. Basically, the recipe calls for chicken stock in which is cooked another chicken, and the resulting broth is so rich and so good. The stew itself called for rabbit and chicken, but other meats can be used. The premier Australian Daring Cook used alligator (!) in his. I'm not that daring, so I just used chicken and I really don't think it needed other meats. The stew also has corn, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and onion. And, since the chicken meat is cooked in the stock before all those veggies are added, there were also serrano chiles, celery, bay and bacon flavoring the broth. All those items are discarded, the chicken is pulled from the bone and shredded, the veggies are added and all is cooked for a long time until the flavors blend. Add a little lemon juice and red wine vinegar for tartness and a little Tabasco for heat and there you have it! Perfect warm meal for a blustery April day.