Culinary Q & A with Diane

Occupation: Career Counselor

What did you eat today?

Cereal, fruit, nutribar, cheerio snacks

What do you never eat?

Cottage cheese, yams, sage, relish, canned orprocessed meat, tofu, chili peppers, meats with fruits

What is your personal specialty?

Omelets, pancakes and scalloped potatoes

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My paring knife

World ends tomorrow. Describe your last meal.

Asian salad, cauliflower withwhite sauce, smoked ham, garden peas in their pods and tapioca pudding. No wait, the sampler platter at Yianni's and tiramisu!

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Lately, takeout from Fusion Noodle

What's the best place to eat in Edmonton?

Yianni's on a sunny Saturday afternoon

If you weren't limited by geography, where and what would you eat?

I would be in Greece, easting dolmades, spanokopita, humus with pita, lamb withgarlic, Greek salad with lots of olives and feta, rice, roasted potatoes, fresh calamari with lemon and onions - oh my goodness, my mouth is watering!

The Cooking Chronicles: Red Grapefruit Chiffon Cake

Only the Dads and the children were supposed to cook for the Mother's Day potluck hosted by one of our family friends. Thus, I offered to make a Red Grapefruit Chiffon Cake, a recipe requested by my Mum.

It was my first time experimenting with chiffon cake, noted for its light and airy quality, so when I ended up with some yolk in my egg whites, I was worried that it wouldn't turn out. The final product seemed alright, albeit was a tad on the dry side. It would have been better served with a dollop of whipped cream and berries of some kind, in my opinion.

Red Grapefruit Chiffon Cake

The Cooking Chronicles: Buttermilk Biscuit Sandwiches, part deux

My sisters and I decided to make breakfast for our Mum on Sunday instead of taking her out for a traditional brunch.

Inspired by the Tim Horton's breakfast sandwich (which I love), and using a Bobby Flay recipe I have already tried in the past, we made our own sandwiches with bacon, over-easy eggs, and shredded marble cheese.

Homemade Buttermilk Biscuit Sandwiches with egg, bacon and cheese

While Bisquick biscuits are undoubtedly quicker to make, nothing beats a buttery, flaky, hot-from-the-oven biscuit augmented by cheese and bacon. Yum.

Happy Mother's Day, Mum!

The Cooking Chronicles: Breakfast Pizza

Inspired by the version made by Pizzeria Prego, Mack and I decided to try our hand at making a breakfast pizza, customizing it to our tastes.

Using a Giada de Laurentiis pizza dough recipe from the March 2007 edition of Bon Appetit, we had to wait an hour for the dough to rise. That gave us more than enough time to prepare our toppings – shredding mozzarella cheese, dicing tomatoes, slicing mushrooms, microwaving bacon, and scrambling eggs.

After kneading and forming the dough into a circle (okay, it turned out more like a heart), we piled on our toppings. We waited the recommended fifteen minutes, and took out our creation. It wasn’t bad, but for next time, I’d make sure the bacon was extra crispy (there is no opportunity for it to crisp up under the layers of additions), undercook the eggs slightly (they, on the other hand, would continue to cook in the oven), and to add the basil after the pizza is out of the oven. Cheddar would have also been a better cheese to pair with the smoky bacon.

In the end, though the idea of a breakfast pizza makes a great and unusual dinner (or brunch) dish, the execution never seems to do the individual items justice – this is one example where the sum isn’t greater than the parts.

Breakfast pizza

The Cooking Chronicles: Lemon Muffins

I had spied an interesting recipe in the April/May edition of Taste of Home for Lemon Crumb Muffins, and thought they would make an ideal treat for my coworkers.

I started the recipe a little later than I originally intended, but with my Mum’s help, was able to get them in and out of the oven just after midnight. The crumb portion of the recipe didn’t work out (was I supposed to use brown and not granulated sugar?), so I ended up omitting the topping all together. The muffins came out a little paler than I was expecting, and not as lemony as I wanted however, so I’m not sure I’d make them again. My coworkers didn’t seem to mind the imperfections though!

Lemon Muffins

The Cooking Chronicles: Apple Cranberry Crisp

Like picking the perfect restaurant for a special occasion, I agonized in a similar manner over what dish I should make for a dinner Mack's Grandma was hosting.

Desserts to be served with berries (zabliogne, trifle) were out of the question due to the fruit being out of season, and heavier choices (chocolate cake) wouldn't have paired well with the healthy salmon she was serving as a main course.

As a last resort, I browsed the Food Network Canada site (much more quick scan-friendly than the American version, in my opinion), and came across Anna Olson's recipe for Apple Cranberry Crisp. It seemed the perfect spring dessert - warm, rustic, and light.

Using frozen cranberries and Granny Smith apples (Mack had fun with the apple corer), it was a cinch to pull together. We placed the fruit in a glass baking dish, topped it with the crumble, and snapped on a lid to transport it to Grandma Male's house. We had to borrow her oven to heat it up, but the timing worked superbly; it finished baking in the time it took us to dine on the main dish.

We ended up serving the crisp with a scoop of Smarties ice cream (only $1 at Superstore's "Dollar Days"!) instead of the vanilla we bought and absentmindedly left at my house, but the chocolate added some nice sweetness. The apples were lovely - warmed through and softened somewhat, accented with bursts of cranberry freshness and a citrus note reminiscent of summer days.

I highly recommend this dessert - it would be ideal served on an outdoor patio in the spring.

Crisp before baking

Crisp plated and partially eaten

Salmon with Dill Sauce, Stuffed Potatoes, and Salad (Mack's favorite!)

Grandma Male, Bry, and Tom peruse old photos after dinner (absolutely lovely picture)

The Cooking Chronicles: Flourless Chocolate Cake

Though I typically try to bring either an appetizer or a main to potlucks, I thought if there was ever an occasion to break that rule, our lunch gathering at work on Wednesday was one such day.

Having experienced the sublime richness of a flourless chocolate torte at Culina last week, I was decidedly focused on recreating that cake with a Tyler Florence recipe. I had meant to pick up a jar of dulce de leche topping at Superstore, but ended up substituting whipped cream instead.

For anyone with high cholesterol, I would recommend staying far away from this cake – 9 separated eggs later, we were halfway to completion. Mack helped me whip the egg whites into stiff peaks while I melted the semi-sweet baking chocolate and butter over a double boiler. Unfortunately, a lack of instruction reading on my part meant that we ended up folding the chocolate mixture into the whites, instead of the other way around, though it didn’t result in a too-deflated cake at the end.

For whatever reason, the cake took more than double the recommended time in the oven, but seemed to turn out okay. Overall, it didn't provide me with the Culina reminiscence I was looking for, but was a sweet treat that tasted like a cross between a chocolate cake and a brownie. The whipped cream provided some needed coolness, but I think this cake would work best chopped into pieces to top a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a sundae.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

The potluck spread (we look like a fairly healthy bunch, don't we?)

The Cooking Chronicles: Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Bisquick is a life-saver.

For the second time this weekend, Mack and I turned to the dry mix to simplify a meal, this time using the off-the-box recipe for pancakes, supplementing them with a handful of chocolate chips. Mack finished his off with some sliced bananas and syrup.

Not difficult or a cooking accomplishment, Bisquick pancakes are still a great way to start off a morning!

Chocolate Chip Pancakes (with bananas!)

The Cooking Chroincles: Better Butter Chicken

For Jeanie and Chris's housewarming/Jeanie's birthday party, Mack and I made Better Butter Chicken, an Indian favorite from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry. I had helped with this recipe at May's house last year, but for some reason, couldn't really remember the steps involved.

I wasn't sure if using a rotisserie chicken (as opposed to cooking raw chicken) would result in dry-tasting meat, but actually, it turned out fine. Mack did a great job de-boning the bird, flaking off large chunks of meat, while I prepped the ingredients for the base. We followed the instructions closely, with the exception of adding an entire ~750mL can of diced tomatoes. To Mack's surprise, between the two of us, we were able to pull this recipe together in just over a half an hour.

While some of the guests complained that the dish wasn't spicy enough, I personally prefer a milder version of butter chicken. Of course, with the ease of the recipe as a whole, it wouldn't be difficult to incorporate chilies or more chili powder into the sauce to taste.

Thanks for inviting us to your house, Jeanie (and Chris)! And happy birthday!

Better Butter Chicken

In the kitchen

Andrea & Gord

Playing "Rock Band"

Watching "Rock Band"

The Cooking Chronicles: Savoury Waffles

Inspired by a food trend as reported in Cosmopolitan (yes, Cosmo), Mack and I decided to make Savoury Waffles for dinner.

Given that it was Friday and we were both lazy, we resorted to using Bisquick to make the waffle base. It was the first time either of us had used a waffle iron, so it took a bit of trial and error for us to know how much batter was needed for the "perfect" sized waffle (not too thin, etc.).

Once the waffles were done, we topped them with shredded turkey breast, sliced white mushrooms, and a generous handful of medium cheddar, and placed them under the broiler to melt the cheese. Five minutes later, the "pizza waffles", as Mack called them, were done.

I chose to garnish mine with a bit of green onion, which provided a nice sharp bite, but really, any food item with that amount of cheese would taste satisfactory. Mack wanted to know how we might make the waffle portion taste less like a breakfast dish for next time, but I wasn't sure.

The savoury waffles weren't bad for a quick dinner fix, but they definitely weren't the picture of healthy that we should have been going for.

Savoury Waffles with turkey, mushrooms, cheese and green onion

Culinary Q & A with Gord

Occupation: Retired Student. Couch Tester. Human Garbage Disposal.

What did you eat today?

I had to answer this so early in the morning. Unfortunately it's exam season, so my dietary habits are about as poor as they can be. I'm back on the Coffee (a food group unto itself) and while I do normally enjoy a muffin at the bus-stop, I've been working on emptying the fruit bowl before it goes bad. Therefore, I had a mandarin for breakfast. I can tell you with certainty however, that I'm having Garage Burger for dinner. More on that later.

What do you never eat?

If I were starving, I would eat anything. See occupation. However given the nature of modern western gluttony, I have my pick of what I don't eat. After hearing a story about Lobster, it is one of the last things I would ever order. I won't go into detail, because it would ruin Lobster for you as well.

In the interest of being polite, I'll eat my brussel sprouts or kidney beans. It's extremely rare for me to leave something on my plate. However I've become quite accustom to cutting the gristle off my meat and throwing out the toast which I burn too badly.

I guess to that end if something is cooked poorly, I'll let you know by leaving it behind.

Overcooked steak is gross. I don't eat leather.

What is your personal specialty?

In regards to my favourite foods, or what I prefer to cook? If I had to make a meal for a king, it would be my Monolithic French Toast.

Thick sliced raisin bread is the only way to go. Cut the bread in half before you go any further.

Crack your eggs into a square shaped Tupperware container, into which bread naturally fits. A round bowl is not conducive to this exercise.

Adding water or milk to your eggs is a mistake. Adding cinnamon to this step makes more sense than adding it after cooked. Keep in mind that you must strongly whip the eggs and cinnamon, in order for it to mix properly (if at all). Leave the bread pieces in the egg longer than you think you need to. You want the bread permeated all the way through, not just on the surface.

With a single half-piece of bread added to the un-oiled frying pan, slide the second half-piece soft side to crust, such that the pieces smoosh into each other a little. Continue this practice until the pan is filled with 4-5 pieces of bread, all intertwined. Pour some of your egg-batter between any remaining spaces, and wait for it to cook. Once cooked, allow it a little longer. Not burned, but enough that it is nearly dry on top. Once that point is reached, you should have only 1 solid mass to flip.

Because you've left it longer on the first side, cooking on the second side is primarily to allow it to brown. Sliding the Monolithic French Toast off the pan onto a plate is your last step. Personally I suggest butter or margarine WITHOUT syrup. If you didn't leave the bread in the batter long enough, your toast might be dry and still require some syrup.

If you're feeling too skinny, add Mangoes and Whipped cream for a sugary delight.

As for my specialty to devour, Toad in the Hole with beef Gravy is my favourite. Effectively a massive YorkShire pudding with breakfast sausages dispersed throughout, smothered in delicious gravy. Ok, now I'm making myself hungry.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

I'm a sucker for a sharp knife. Without that, any kitchen is an exercise in frustration. However since I don't want to steal Andrea's answer, I'll select the Banana Peeler. The hardest object in a kitchen to find. Confidently ask someone to fetch if for you. Observe their progress,

World ends tomorrow. Describe your last meal.

First and foremost, my plate better be served warm. There are few things worse than food served on a cold plate. Now onto the stuffs.

Prime Rib Roast, rare.
Chunky Mashed Potatoes, gravy.
Large Slice BBQ'ed Vegetables (green beans, red & green peppers, onion) with Sea-salt and Balsamic Vinegar.
Ontario Grown Peaches & Cream Corn on the Cob with a stick of butter for rolling.
Yorkshire Pudding, gravy.
Yorkshire Pudding, gravy.
Yorkshire Pudding, gravy.

All this served on a spaceship bound for somewhere that the world isn't ending.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

The Garage Burger Bar. Proximity to school as well as the fact that my grandfather bought me $100 in gift certificates for Christmas present an excellent opportunity for a broke student to eat out on a bi-weekly basis.

What's the best place to eat in Edmonton?

It really depends on what you're looking for. Unfortunately I find as places get popular, their quality of operation declines for pursuit of the almighty buck.

I was a huge fan of Pita Pit's Chicken Cesar Pita years ago. But as they got popular their quality tanked. Same goes for Funky Pickle's Hotdog & 3 Cheese Pizza.

Chicago Deep Dish pizza (downtown location) has the GREASIEST thickest Pizza you'll ever eat. 1-2 pieces is enough to fill ME. That speaks volumes.

Richard's Donair in Sherwood Park has the best Jumo Donair I've ever had. But those are 'After Bar' food ideas. If you're looking for quality dining or a personable dinner experience you have to broaden the scope.

'A taste of India' in Sherwood Park has an excellent Indian Buffet. I discovered the restaurant only after my sister worked there as a server. They bring their cooks over on temporary visa's from India. The recipes are family secrets and their Nan-bread is the best you'll have.

"Where everybody knows your name" is a typical business practice that keeps me coming back.
Chicken for Lunch and sister restaurant The Lingnan, have had my business for many years for their personal attitude and quality food. The Garage Burger bar is in the same category. The food's good too (Amy's Chicken and Cajun Burger are my staples respectively).

If you weren't limited by geography, where and what would you eat?

While I don't want to sound pompous, we live in a multicultural country where all of the best things on the planet are brought to us directly. I've had Pizza in Italy. I've eaten french bread in France. I think that Canadians have taken the base idea from these foods, and isolated their strongest points. Alternatively, like with the 'Taste of India' example, those international cooks can come to us! While the foreign experience is an interesting change, I do so enjoy my cuisine in Canada. Granted some Canadian is a big place and poutine gets better the further East you move...

However there are international things I've always wanted to try. I refuse to drink Guinness until I'm at a bar in Ireland. That's the only way to know it's the real experience. Belgian beer also makes Canadian beer look rather silly.

I've always wanted to try Rat. I figure there are only a few places in the world where that'll ever happen. I've also heard good things about Kangaroo.

Finally, living in Edmonton it is impossible to come across quality fresh fish. Something about being a land-locked province I guess. Luckily if I want sushi or fish in general, my brother lives in Richmond, walking distance from several fish markets.

Culinary Q & A with Meghan

Occupation: Administrative Assistant

What did you eat today?

For breakfast: I always have cereal for breakfast and I always eat breakfast. I’ve never understood how people could go without eating breakfast. If I don’t eat within the first hour of waking up, I start chewing on my own arm, I’m so hungry. Today I had a bowl of Honey-Nut Cheerios. Usually I have Oatmeal Crisp or Mini-Wheats or actual oatmeal.

For lunch: I brought lunch with me to work today and I usually do unless I forget it at home or if the only thing left in our fridge is frozen peas. Today I have a meager lunch of left-overs: cheesy rice with broccoli mixed in (not home-made but pre-made from the grocery store) and some baked ham (also not home-made but pre-made from the store. I try not to eat too much packaged food because then I start feeling like I’m living after the apocalypse or like I’m living on a spaceship. While both of those scenarios are kind of appealing, sometimes I need to eat a real vegetable.)

For dinner: Sad to say but I will probably try to finish off the ham left-overs. I’ll probably make some pasta to go with it and we have a bag of Caesar salad that I have to use up.

I also try to eat little snacks throughout the day because if I don’t I end up ready to gnaw on own foot by the time lunch or supper rolls around. Usually, I will have some fruit or a granola bar.

What do you never eat?

Hmm…I never eat sushi. I don’t like most seafood and I hate raw fish. I wish I did like sushi because it’s such a trendy, sophisticated thing to like but alas, I am neither trendy nor sophisticated.

What is your personal specialty?

Well, I’m really good at picking up the phone and ordering pizza. I like to cook but I’m not very good at it or very creative so I don’t really have a specialty. I like to try new recipes from allrecipes.com. That is my favorite cooking website (aside from cookingforengineers.com – oh my god…best beef stroganoff recipe ever) because they post user reviews which are always helpful.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My slow-cooker is my favorite kitchen item because it allows me to be a lazy cook while appearing like I’m not.

World ends tomorrow. Describe your last meal.

Eggs Benedict from The Upper Crust. So. Good.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

I love The Italian Kitchen in the West end. It’s a real hole-in-the-wall place and it’s a little divey but the food is soooo good and cheap. The owner makes the food himself, from scratch so you have to wait a while but it’s always worth it. My favorite dish there is the spinach mushroom crepes in a cream sauce.

If I don’t feel like cooking and I want something fast-foody, I will get a salmon bowl from Tokyo Express.

I don’t eat out too much because it really adds up (money wise and calorie wise) but it’s one of my favorite things to do. I love food and I love going to new restaurants.

What's the best place to eat in Edmonton?

Even though I love to eat out, I really don’t do it enough to know where the best place to eat is. A few of my favorites are:
-The Italian Kitchen (For cheap, delicious Italian food)
-Punjabi Sweets (In my humble opinion, the best Indian food buffet in the city. It too is a bit of a dive but the quality of the food more than makes up for it.)
-The Upper Crust (for breakfast)

If you weren’t limited by geography, where and what would you eat?

This is a tough one. I love Italian food so I guess Italy would be the “where” and anything loaded with carb-y goodness would be the “what”. Or possibly some crusty bread and cheese from France. Oh and wine…oh god…the wine.

The Cooking Chronicles: Seared Salmon with Balsamic Glaze and Dirty Rice

With a resolve to eat healthier, Mack and I prepared a relatively balanced meal on Friday for dinner.

Seared Salmon with Balsamic Glaze was on the menu, as was an interesting recipe for Dirty Rice, which incorporates coffee as one of the liquid additives. A side salad of Italian greens (packaged, we cheated), completed our plates.

The salmon was quick to prepare - though we had skinless fillets instead of the recommended skin-on type. I delegated the searing job to Mack (a splatter screen would have been a good idea), and though one end of my fish ended up slightly charred due to the thickness differential, the salmon ended up deliciously crispy and cooked through. The balsamic glaze was a wonderfully easy way to punch up the flavour of what would have been a perfectly fine entree on its own, and is something that elevates salmon to a "fancy" dinner party dish.

The rice didn't turn out as well as it could have as I should have left it on the stove for another five minutes or so. Still, the coffee flavour was negligible, and all we could taste was the oregano.

The best thing about our dinner was the fact that it took virtually no time or planning at all. With a well-stocked pantry and the will to continue driving past restaurant and fast food alternatives, a good, healthy meal can be had at home.

Seared Salmon with Balsamic Glaze and Dirty Rice

The Cooking Chronicles: An Afternoon of Desserts

Though I was thoroughly exhausted from the experience of hosting a dinner party last year, at the end of it, I knew I had been bitten by the entertaining bug.

The concept behind a gathering of friends with food is inherently appealing to me – a blank slate to develop an appropriate menu and design an unobtrusive setting and ambiance. Ideally of course, the edibles and the décor will fall away, unnoticed, to allow for conversation and connection.

Though I'm pretty sure the idea of a dessert party was introduced to me by Real Simple Celebrations, the desire to host a sweets-specific shindig has been with me for so long now that I wasn't sure if I'd ever get the planning off the ground. In March, I finally stopped dragging my feet, picked a date, and actually committed my mental fantasy to paper.

Planning

Like my dinner party, I decided that paper invitations were a must. While Facebook (cough) or Evite e-mails may be more convenient, there is nothing like a handmade paper invitation to help set a tone of simple elegance.

I downloaded a fill-in-the-blank template from Real Simple, printed it with Mack's help on kraft-patterned cardstock, and attached a bright segment of ribbon in place of baker's twine. While we could have mailed the finished invitations, we ended up hand-delivering most of them on a Sunday afternoon two weeks prior to the party for an added personal touch.

Invitations

As for the menu, I've had possibilities floating about in my head for months. I knew my ideal menu would contain a "statement" cake, a custard-based dessert, a cupcake, a tartlet, and a white cookie. After a few trials over the past few weeks, I whittled a few shotlisted items down to one selection per category, and compiled a shopping list for a grocery run on Friday.

Preparation

Though Mack blogged that we officially began cooking on Saturday afternoon, it was actually closer to 5pm when we finally got going (he Twittered progress updates throughout the evening).

Tablet station

I wished all of the desserts were as easy as the Panna Cotta to prepare (which I've blogged about in the past). What I failed to recognize until that night was that most of our recipes required the creation of both a base and an icing or a filling, which, if we had access to an unlimited number of disposable bowls and/or a behind-the-scenes Food Network staff to assist us with cleanup, would have been much less painful.

One of many rounds of dishes

After the glasses of Panna Cotta were tucked safely away in the fridge to set overnight, we tackled the Vanilla Cupcakes. A Crumbs Bake Shop recipe from Gourmet Shops of New York, this was one of the two recipes we were preparing for the first time that day. The batter was easy enough to put together, though because we had to use the extra-large muffin tin liners I had in the house, we ended up with only 10 cupcakes instead of the suggested number of 24.

Using an ice cream scoop to measure batter

Awaiting icing

While the cupcakes were in the oven, we moved on to Beatty's Chocolate Cake, something we had made last month.

Pouring cake batter

Before heading out for a much-needed dinner break, we finished the icing for the cupcakes. Mack still thinks I switched bowls on him when he turned his back, but in reality, the butter just needed a little more time with the electric mixer to attain the right consistency.

Perfect!

"Sprinkles make me sneeze"

What turned out to be the most difficult item to make were Donna Hay's Melting Moments - essentially shortbread sandwiches with a lemon filling. While the preparation of the cookie mixture involved nothing out of the ordinary, I had no idea how we would be able to pipe such stiff dough through a fluted nozzle.

Doing my best to make a cookie out of a trail of dough

Luckily, Mack came to the rescue - he was a piping machine! The warming of the dough after working with the piping bag for a while made the process slightly easier, but I wouldn't hesitate in saying that Mack earned his baking stripes with this trial.

Piping expert!

Out of the oven

The last item for the oven that day were the phyllo pastry cups that would be filled the next day to form White Chocolate Tartlets (I decided to forgo the hazelnut toasting).

Phyllo cooling

Our last concoction before we could rest was the chocolate icing for the two-tiered cake. I left Mack alone on this one, and with flash-chilled baking chocolate, he beat a smooth, nearly perfect icing. Spots be gone!

Mid-icing

Packing up for the night

Bright and early the next morning, infused with the goodness of an Egg McMuffin, we set out to finish and plate the desserts. I'm thankful that my parents were able to lend me a hand in tidying up the house, so I could focus on food just before the party started.

Prep table

Though we lost Mack's iPod Touch in the final moments, resulting in a CD rotation of too much Norah Jones for his taste, we were ready for our friends by 1pm.

Ready to serve

Flowers and cake

Cupcakes

Melting Moments (we axed the lemon filling and opted for jam from a jar instead)

White Chocolate Tartlets

Panna Cotta

The table is set!

Party

After all of our preparation, I was happy to finally be able to share the fruits of our labor. Our friends seemed to enjoy themselves, and though we had some leftover desserts, it was a manageable amount for my family to consume.

Waiting to start

Andrea pretending she didn't get her arm stuck

Annie finished her massive cake slice!

We ended off the afternoon with some wine and (More) Dirty Minds. I think this was the first time I played the game based on the prescribed set of rules, and boy, was it difficult! Or maybe we'll just blame the sugar high.

Strategizing

Janice, May and Mack

Double D-i-r-t-y

I had no idea a dessert party would end up being more work than a dinner party, but it was. Of course, though I won't be immediately hosting another gathering, it's just a matter of time before my next idea rears its head.

Thanks to everyone for coming! The rest of my pictures are here.

The Cooking Chronicles: White Chocolate Tartlets

Dessert party practice-run #2 involved a Giada recipe for White Chocolate Hazelnut Tartlets. As neither of us had worked with phyllo pastry before, I knew we had to try it with time to spare before attempting to duplicate it without error next week.

After finding out that toasting hazelnuts would take nearly half an hour, I decided to leave them out this time. The white chocolate and whipped cream mixture was a cinch to whip up, and after it had chilled in the fridge for an hour, it was time to move on to the phyllo.

I had let the package thaw on the counter since the afternoon, so the thin sheets of pastry were more than pliable. So much so that a tear appeared in more than one sheet. Thankfully, the layers of brushed butter and phyllo covered any small mistakes we made.

We scrunched them down in large muffin tins, doing our best to create "artful" edges, and baked them for about 8 minutes. We figured the mini-muffin tins would be better for dessert-party servings, and will be making smaller versions next week.

A drop of Nutella into a cooled phyllo cup, a dollop of white chocolate whipped cream, and a sprinkling of chocolate shavings later, the tartlets was done. One that should be made just prior to serving, it may be the only dessert that we will be creating from scratch (the Nutella doesn't count, Andrea), the morning of.

Just over a week to go!

Mack doing the dishes (he offered!)

White Chocolate Tartlets

The Cooking Chronicles: Buttermilk Biscuit Sandwiches

Before my string of cooking experimentations, I was quite used to biscuits made from dry mix. Just recently, I found out how much better from-scratch, cold butter-incorporated biscuits are. Ina Garten's Cheddar-Dill version turned out great, and this afternoon, Mack and I decided to give Bobby Flay's Buttermilk Biscuits a try.

I gave Mack the most difficult job of creaming the butter with the dry ingredients, and then having to try to form a ball of dough with the small amount of buttermilk we were permitted to wet the mixture with. I will admit to cheating a little and adding slightly more milk than called for in the recipe, but who wouldn't? Also, because we had the intention of forming sandwiches out of our biscuits, we used a 3 inch circular cutter instead of the recommended 2.5 inches to allow for a more hearty serving.

Scooping up slices of chicken breast and shredding some marble we had sitting in the fridge, our sandwiches were born (we considered scrambling eggs briefly as well, but by then, we just wanted to assemble and eat them). The biscuits were flaky and crunchy, just the way I like them, though really, with the butter content, this recipe is almost fail safe.

I'd be interested in playing with different filling combinations (basil/buffalo mozzarella/tomato, crushed fruit), and making this recipe a weekend breakfast standby.

Buttermilk Biscuits with Smoked Chicken and Marble Cheese