Leek Soup... Breaking the norm here, no baking involved

My new edible obsession: Leeks!

yummm

Okay, so if you have never had leeks before (like me prior to the Olympic experimental cooking posted last week) they are awesome! They kind of have the taste of subtle green onions but give the feel of a much more substantial vegetable presence... think cabbage or brussel sprouts (another newly aquired taste of mine). On a random aside, have you ever seen how those grow? Brussel sprouts, I mean. They are flippin' awesome! Check it out! I want to grow them just cause they look so cool, and they taste pretty darn good too.

Anyways, if you haven't had LEEKS don't be afraid of them, they are my new friend, they are nice, they are easy to get along with. Play with them in your kitchen. 

So after the galette I wanted to experiment further. Soup sounded perfect in rainy chilly mid April... yes, that is how far behind I am with the blogging.... 

Ingredients:

4 tbs Unsalted Butter

1 lbs Mushrooms of your choice (i like crimini or baby bellas) chopped roughly

2-3 Large Leeks; white and pale green parts only, cut into 1/4 inch rings 

3 tbs AP Flour (look! see? still using a left over Kurio ingredients)

3 cups Chicken Stock or Canned Low Sodium Broth

Salt and Pepper to taste

1-2 cups Milk (optional)

See? souper simple... hehe

First, to prep the leeks. Cut them into good bite sized rings discarding root ends and darker green leafy ends. Place in a large bowl of cold water to rinse. They are very gritty/dirty/sandy/what have you and need this bath. And it is also a good time to break apart the fun little layers of rings so they cook more evenly later. 

In a large stock pot over medium high heat melt 2 tbs butter until hot but not smoking. Saute mushrooms, stirring occasionally until lightly browned. Transfer to a large bowl and save for later. If you have more mushrooms than space on the bottom of your pan you can do this in batches. Just remember to add more butter with second half of mushrooms. As Julia says "don't crowd your mushrooms." 

In same stock pot heat remaining butter. Stir in leeks, cover and cook, stirring often, until soft. 

Add mushrooms back into the pot. Sprinkle vegetables with flour and stir to evenly coat. Stir in chicken stock/broth. I also added a cup or two of milk to mine for a creamier rather than just brothy soup. 

Bring to a boil stirring often. Add salt and pepper to your liking, reduce heat to low "set lid ajar" and simmer for roughly 15 minutes. If you have the patience. I didn't. I was hungry and it smelled so good and I kind of liked the little bit of crispness the leeks still had to them. I honestly don't know if they would go completely mushy if you cooked them for too long but it seemed like a possibility... and I'm impatient sometimes. 

Soup can be made up to 2 days ahead and refrigerated, covered. If you can wait.... 

and it's so pretty! 

mmmmm Fondue!

So for the Oscars Jaxcie decided to host a fun and glamourous Fondue and Syrah tasting evening. The wines are another blog, but the cheese and chocolate was awesome! Everyone was assigned to bring things to dip and of course for me that meant BAKE! 

Two loafs of homemade bread for the cheese course.

These were okay. They were dry and a little... I donno.. gritty? They were weird and I don't recommend them, at all. But I said I would post successes and failures... so here ya go! 

Egg Bread

4 3/4 to 5 1/4 cup AP flour

1 package active dry yeast

1 1/3 cups milk

3 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

In a large mixing bowl stir together 2 cups of the flour and the yeast; set aside. 
In a medium saucepan heat and stir water, sugar, margarine, and salt just until warm (120 to 130 degrees) and margarine almost melts. Add water mixture to dry mixture along with the eggs. 
Beat with an electric mixer on low to medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Okay so here i must interject that I used my stand mixer and maybe beat the crap out of my dough... maybe this lead to the gritty or mealy texture... I donno. 
Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface.
Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes total). Or maybe its that I am still wokring out my kneading vs. wedging issues.
Shape the dough into a ball.
Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface of the dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size (about 1 hour). Also would like to say this took forever and a day! not just 1 hour... so maybe my yeast is dead or something...
Punch dough down; turn dough on to a lightly floured surface and divide dough in half.
Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
Lightly grease baking sheet. S
hape each portion of dough into a loaf by patting and shaping with floured hands. 
Cover and let rise n a warm place until nearly doubled in size. (About 30 minutes). 
For the sesame seed loaf, I just beat an egg, brushed over loaf and sprinkled with the untoasted seeds.
Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and loaf sounds hollow when you tap the top. (Don't burn yourself).
Remove bread from sheet and cool on wire racks. 

It was weird... I don't know what happened. It was pretty... but not so tasty. Good thing it was chopped up and dipped in such yummy cheesey goodness! (Jaxcie, we may need to share that recipe on here too... its not baking, but it is relevant.)

And a Pound Cake for the chocolate course!

I have never made pound cake before.. this was my very first one and with the awesome assistance of Mr. Alton Brown, it was fantastic!!! This one I recommend completely and totally! TRY IT! Uber-easy and just as tasty! If you have never baked from an Alton recipe, he has this thing about measuring ingredients by weight, to be extra precise... I am not that anal... that may have something to do with my consistency issues with my cookies, but oh well! This is why I am no longer trying to sell them! Anyways, I will include his weights and my measures.


Pound Cake
8 oz. butter - 1 stick cubed and softened
8 oz. cake flour - 2 cups
8 oz sugar - 1 1/4 cup
4 eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup whole buttermilk, room temperature

Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 375 degrees F.

Coat a  loaf pan with butter and dust with flour.

Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and cream for 6 minutes on medium speed, using the paddle attachment. Stop once to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. With the mixer running at lowest speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, making sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. Again stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla and salt and beat on medium speed for 30 seconds.

With the mixer on the lowest speed add the flour in 3 installments, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour, making sure each portion is fully incorporated before adding the next. After the final addition, beat the batter for 30 seconds on medium speed until almost smooth.

Scoop the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 40 minutes. The crust will be golden brown and spring back when pressed, but the crack around the center will appear moist. I like this visual explanation of how to tell when it is done rather than the time allotment, very nice for those of us with unreliable ovens. 

Remove the cake from the oven to a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and cool on the rack. Store the cake on the rack covered with a tea towel for up to 3 days. 

So moist and yummy it won't dry out... if it lasts that long. Don't put it in an airtight container or plastic wrap etc. it will get gummy and funky. 

Make it! It's easy and super good! 

The spread! yuuummmmmmmm

Now that I think about I also brought Jaxciedoodles along that night for dipping in the liquid chocolate goodness... but I will save those for a later post because the dipping lead to inspiration for a kind of homemade milano cookie that I sent off to NY as a baby welcoming gift. I will post those later! Promise!

Remember the Olympics? Those were a while ago, but here's some French food (and drink) anyways!

Thought I would reach way back this time for this one. Have to catch up! Will catch up!

So way back when... when Vancouver, BC was hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics my friend was hosting an opening ceremonies party. For food we all chose a different country to represent and made recipes traditional to that land. We also chose countries to bring representational drinks for too. Being 'Oui Oui Potporri' I couldn’t not choose France! For both my food and drink. While there are plenty of yummy and tempting French deserts (which I do still want to try to make one day, I’ll keep you posted) I chose to break free of the “Katrina always brings desert” mode and made something savory instead… but it still required baking, of course. And as a personal challenge I didn’t want to fall on the tried and true quiche, I wanted to try to make something I haven’t ever made before… or even heard of really… or if I am being 100% honest, am still not entirely sure how you pronounce it… ‘galette’…. Hmmm I am sure my Francophile Crepeist can help me with that one, Ellen?

Anyways here is what I made! Had to make two different ones so that maybe by some rare and unexpected occurrence my pickypants husband would at least try one of them!

First the crusts, the two recipies came with different crust recipes but I used the simpler of the two for both of them. If you’d like a little more flavor they had added dried sage leaves to the crust for the Butternut Squash version. By the way Epicurious is awesome! You can search recipes by country! 

Crust:

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

4 tablespoons (or more) ice water

The temp. of the butter and water is important here, it makes the crust flakier and just better in general.

Pulse flour, butter and salt in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Drizzle ice water evenly over mixture and pulse until it just forms a ball. Do not overwork dough, or pastry will be tough.

Gently press dough into a 5-inch disk and chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 1 hour.

Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled. Let stand at room temperature 15 minutes before rolling out.

Butternut Squash Galette

For filling:

1 (2-pound) butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 2- by 1/4-inch slices (4 cups)

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 leeks (white and pale green parts only), thinly sliced crosswise

6 ounces soft mild goat cheese, crumbled (I believe I used some other cheese in place here…feta maybe, cutting back on all other added salt, or maybe cream cheese and added a little more salt… too long ago now I can’t remember… but options for you!)

-Preheat oven to 500°F with rack in middle.

-Toss squash with sea salt and 1 Tbsp oil and arrange in 1 layer in a 17-by 12-inch shallow baking pan.

-Roast, stirring once halfway through roasting, until golden brown on edges and undersides. The recipe says this should take 20 to 25 minutes, my psycho oven did it in 15, and it is okay for the squash to be a little firm, it will bake further later.

-Remove squash from oven and reduce oven temperature to 375°F.

-Meanwhile, wash leeks, then cook in remaining 2 tablespoons oil with a pinch of sea salt in a 10-inch heavy skillet over medium heat, loosely covered, stirring occasionally, until tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

-Transfer to a large bowl to cool slightly.

-Add squash, cheese of choice, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and toss gently.

-Roll out dough into a 13-inch round on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin.

-Transfer to a baking sheet.

-Arrange filling in an even layer in center of dough, leaving a 2- to 3-inch border.

-Fold dough in on itself to cover outer rim of filling, pleating dough as necessary.

-Brush pastry with beaten egg and bake galette until crust is cooked through and golden on edges, 35 to 45 minutes. Again, these are loose ‘in a perfect world’ recipe time estimations, so keep an eye on it.

-Cool on baking sheet on a rack 10 minutes before serving. **

Zucchini, Lemon and Ricotta Galette

Don’t let the name of this one throw you off too much. The lemon is there, but not as strongly as you would expect given that name… I would call it a Zucchini Onion Galette instead. Yummy whatever you call it.

Filling:

5 2/3 cups coarsely grated zucchini (about 1 1/3 pounds) Large hole cheese greater works great and leaving the peel on adds color and vitamins! + +

1 1/4 teaspoons salt, divided

4 tablespoons butter, divided

4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup finely chopped onion

1 small garlic clove, minced

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 1/4 cups ricotta cheese I actually think I really did use ricotta for this one

1/3 cup plus 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese Real, fresh parm here people that weird powdered kraft stuff does not cut it.

1 large egg

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Fleur de sel

For crust:

Same as above! Super simple and yumalicious!

For filling:

-Place zucchini in colander set over large bowl. Sprinkle with 3/4 teaspoon salt and toss to coat. Let drain 30 minutes.

-Working in batches, squeeze zucchini in kitchen towel to remove as much liquid as possible. Seriously squueezeeeeee it! I couldn’t believe how much water is in zucchinis, the more water you get out the less sloppy your finished product will be.

-Melt 2 tablespoons butter with oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat.

-Add onion and sauté until soft and translucent.

-Add garlic and sauté until fragrant.

-Add zucchini and lemon juice; reduce heat to medium-low and cook until zucchini is tender, stirring occasionally. Depending on the grate size of your zucchini this could happen pretty quickly, keep an eye on it, you don’t want mush.

-Cool to room temperature.

-Whisk ricotta cheese, 1/3 cup Parmesan, egg, lemon peel, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt in medium bowl.

-Stir in cooled zucchini mixture.

-Preheat oven to 425°F.

-Line large baking sheet with parchment paper or foil

-Roll out dough disk to 1/8-inch thickness.

-Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter.

-Spoon filling into center of  dough round, leaving 1 1/4- to 1 1/2-inch border.

-Carefully fold up border, pleating dough edges to create round pastry with exposed filling in center.

-Brush crusts with melted butter. This is fine and dandy and tastes just as good, but the egg wash over the crust that was called for in the first recipe makes for a much prettier finished product. I will do that instead when I make these again.

-Drizzle any remaining melted butter over filling in center.

-Sprinkle galette with remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.

-Sprinkle lightly with fleur de sel. I am pretty sure I used plain ol’ sea salt here for lack of fleur de sel.

-Bake galette for roughly 20 minutes.

-Reduce oven temperature to 375°F.

-Bake until crust is golden and filling is set and begins to brown, about 25 minutes longer.

-Run spatula under galette to loosen. These are large and difficult to move. Imagine a pie not in a pie pan… and trying to move it from a baking sheet to a pretty serving pate… my flat airbake cookie sheet was perfect because it doesn’t have edges to cause problems like I had with the first one…

-Let rest 5 minutes. Can be made 4 hours ahead.

-Let stand at room temperature.

-Serve galette hot or at room temperature.**

** I covered these with foil in a sad attempt to keep them warm. However as I am sure many of you know Olympic Opening Ceremonies are hours and hours long. No worries though, they were just as good at room temperature as they were reheated the next day! Awesome!

One last side note on the zucchini galette: if I make it again I think I will try larger chunks of zucchini rather than the fine grate. This preparation was originally intended for individual sized mini galettes and for that scale the grate would be good I am sure. But on this large scale it kind of left me wanting more of a variation in texture, something to mix it up. Larger chunks of zuch, or bigger onions pieces not cooked quite so thoroughly. Things to think about for next time…

And yes the picky pants did try both of them! He preferred the zucchini which surprised me due to the presence of onions. I however have a major weak spot for anything butternut, and have a new found LOVE for leeks (enough to inspire some experimental leek soup which I may include on here one of these day too) so that one was my fav. by far.

And now finally on to my libation contribution for the evening!

French Cosmos

I have a sneaking suspicion that they aren't really French at all… but it fit, and I am a girly girl when it comes to my drinks and I enjoy the cosmos!

Here we go:

1 oz Ciroc vodka
1/2 oz Grand Marnier® orange liqueur
1/2 oz sweet and sour mix
1/2 oz cranberry juice
1/4 oz lime juice
1 drop grenadine syrup

Mix all save the grenadine. Pour into your favorite girly martini glass (or mason jar as the case may be) and add the drop of grenadine last. It will settle to the bottom and make a pretty pink fade effect. Enjoy! And repeat!

OH! And by the way I was attempting to make this an authentic French drink when I was looking for recipes. Ciroc Vodka is apparently French vodka…. I didn’t know what I was getting into until I got to the liquor store and it was not only on the top shelf but also had no price tag… at all… scary! So I just grabbed the trusty standby (you know the one in the giant plastic jug with the handle… one on the bottom shelf). And it was lovely!

We were too busy cheering on our countries, critiquing the ridiculous outfits/costumes of each country and stuffing our faces with lovely food from all around the world to take pics of the drinks but they looked pretty much like this:

Oui Oui!!!