Green Apple Sorbet (Page 860)

RECIPE #1255

• Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2011 -- 5pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companion: Matty, Helen, and Charles
• Recipe Rating: B-
  

This was the LAST DESSERT I had left in The Book. That's right. There are NO MORE DESSERTS! It is a moment both for celebration and mourning. I am delighted to have made them all, but I am sad to see them go. I would have made this recipe much sooner, as I love sorbet and it only had a 15 minute active time. But the recipe requires a juicer strong enough to juice an apple and I don't have one. Luckily, it recently came to my attention that my friend Helen does have such a juicer and she was willing to lend it to me! This recipe was super simple. I boiled sugar and water to form a syrup. Then I crushed a vitamin C tablet into powder. I juiced the apples (skins, seeds, and all!) and added both the vitamin C powder and the sugar syrup to the juice. I chilled the juice until it was very cold, then froze it in an ice cream maker. That was it! This sorbet was OK. It definitely had a strong green apple flavor, but it had a bit of a weird flavor too. I couldn't tell if it came from the vitamin C tablet, or if it was from the skins of the apples. I'm not sure. But there was an off flavor that I couldn't get past. Unfortunately, omitting the vitamin C isn't really an option, as it is there to preserve the color of the sorbet. I enjoyed trying this sorbet, but ultimately it sat in our freezer for a while and then got thrown away. Definitely not a recipe I would make again.

The recipe is here.

Only 38 recipes left!

This was the last recipe in the Frozen Desserts and Sweet Sauces section of The Book that I had left to make. So, it is time to reminisce about some of the delicious recipes in that section! In no particular order, my top five recipes from Frozen Desserts and Sweet Sauces:

1. Cream Cheese Ice Cream -- I was suprised by how much I liked this cream cheese flavored ice cream. It was tangy and rich, and the texture was perfect. I made this for a bunch of friends in Boston not long after I started this project. Good times!
2. Kir Royale Sorbet -- Raspberry sorbet with champagne and creme de cassis! How can you go wrong? As it turns out, you can't. This sorbet was awesome. We brought this to Paul and Beth's house, and I was a little worried that we were getting underage Lauren drunk on boozy sorbet. She had a few servings! It was irresistably good.
3. Dark Chocolate-Caramel Ice Cream Sandwiches -- Emilee bought me animal shaped ice cream sandwich molds for my birthday one year, and this was the first recipe I made with them! Chris and I brought these very cute pig and cow shaped ice cream sandwiches to a Halloween dinner at Mike and Teresa's house. Both the chocolate cookies and the caramel ice cream were delicious on their own. They were even better together. Yum!
4. Raspberry Sauce -- This very simple sauce had a fantastic raspberry flavor. I made it back in the days when I cooked for the Talbot math conference every year. We ate it with molten chocolate cake, but it would be delicious on ice cream, or with a variety of other desserts.
   
5. Vanilla Creme Anglaise -- Creme Anglaise is always delicious and this was no exception. It had a great vanilla flavor. I made this one for the Talbot conference too, and it was enjoyed by all!

I can't believe I am not only done with this section, but also with all of the other dessert sections in The Book. Crazy!! The end of the project is in sight!

Now I have 12 sections completed and 9 sections left to finish. I am almost there!!

Roasted Squab (Page 406)

RECIPE #1254

• Date: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 -- 7pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: C
  

A while back I ordered all the squab I need for the rest of this project and they have been sitting in my basement freezer. I decided it was about time to pull some out and make another squab recipe. I prepared a mixture of butter, shallots, thyme, lemon zest, salt, and pepper, and worked it between the skin and the flesh of the squabs. I seasoned the birds, then browned them in butter. I roasted the squabs in a hot oven. As it turns out, I just don't like squab. This is the second squab recipe I have made from The Book and the second squab recipe from The Book that I have not liked. Fortunately there is only one more squab recipe left, and my plan is to put that one off for a while. It's odd because in general I very much enjoy eating poultry. But pigeon just isn't my thing. It is incredibly different in color, flavor, and texture than other poultry. The dark, livery meat doesn't appeal to me. My special gentleman is a bit more neutral about squab than I am, but even he couldn't get on board with this recipe. There was no sauce or other components to this dish, so it was the meat that was meant to shine. Unfortunately instead of shining it just tasted kind of bad. I certainly won't make this dish again.

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I ate dinner tonight at an establishment claiming to be the World's Largest Truckstop. I couldn't possibly verify the accuracy of their claim, but I will say that it was one of the largest truckstops I have been to. This particular stop was out of desperation -- about 6 hours into the 7 hour drive from East Lansing to Iowa City, I became extremely hungry. The World's Largest Truck Stop was the best option available.

I am in Iowa City now. This week was a whirlwind. We got home from our East Coast trip on Saturday night. Sunday I went to church and then spent the rest of the day desperately trying to prepare for the week ahead of me (grading, writing lectures, writing exams, working on my annual review documentation, etc...). I never did end up feeling prepared for the week. Indeed, I would say that this week kicked my butt. Being home for four days between trips is a little rough. It's long enough that you try to settle back into a routine. But it's not long enough that you can really buy groceries and unpack your suitcase. The contents of my suitcase were dumped in the washing machine, then folded and put right back into the suitcase. I am giving exams in both my classes tomorrow since I won't be there to teach. So this week included a lot of exam writing and meeting with students who were worried about said exams. That, on top of the usual stuff, plus some fun stuff (e.g. a Sarah McLachlan concert), and getting ready for another trip, made for a busy week. But I think that everything that needed to be done got done. I finished writing the second exam at about 1:30am last night. This morning I edited it, photocopied it, and handed it off to the friend who is administering it tomorrow. Then I did several related rates problems with a student before running home to get the house ready for the pet-sitter will be living there this weekend with our kitties. My special gentleman and I hit the road in the early afternoon. I dropped him off in Chicago, where he is staying overnight before catching a flight to Canada tomorrow. I continued on to Iowa City.

Now I am sitting in my hotel room, a little bit exhausted, but looking forward to what should be a fun weekend. There is a meeting of the American Mathematical Society happening here this weekend, and I am co-organizing a special session in the meeting. Some good friends of mine will be here, and we have a great line-up of speakers. It should be fun! And for the moment I am trying not to think about the fact that when I arrive home Sunday night I will have two sets of exams waiting to be graded, and a couple lectures to prepare for Monday! I have a feeling there might be another busy week ahead of me...

Tarragon Lobster Salad (Page 157)

RECIPE #1253

• Date: Sunday, January 9, 2011 -- 2pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: B
  

I put off making the lobster recipes in The Book because I wasn't too excited about the boiling of live lobsters. Now that I have done it a few times though it has become old hat and I am making rapid progress through the lobster dishes. For this dish I boiled some live lobsters then removed the meat and cut it into pieces. I stirred together chopped shallots, lemon juice, and salt and let the mixture sit for a bit. Then I whisked in mayonnaise, tarragon, and pepper. I added the lobster meat and tossed. I served the salad on toasted hot dog buns. It was as easy as that! My reaction to this dish wasn't terribly negative but my special gentleman had some pretty nasty things to say about it. He exclaimed more than once: "Why would you ever do this to a beautiful lobster?" He isn't a huge mayonnaise fan and the idea of adding mayo to lobster really bothered him. Apparently he had never experienced a lobster roll before and the existence of the dish made him very angry. In the end he scooped his salad off the bun, put the salad in a sieve and rinsed it under running water until all he had left was the lobster meat. Then he ate the lobster dipped in melted butter. No, I am not kidding. I, on the other hand, have eaten lobster rolls before, and do not find them to be particularly offensive. This, I thought, was a perfectly reasonable lobster roll recipe. The balance of ingredients was fine. The salad wasn't drowned in too much mayonnaise and the tarragon gave it flavor without being overpowering. Are there better ways to eat lobster? Yeah, sure. But if you are craving a lobster roll, this version is not bad at all.

The recipe is here.

Only 40 recipes left to go!

Our Spring Break adventures took us back to Boston this year (amongst other places) as my special gentleman and I were both invited to give talks at MIT. I lived in the Boston area for five years when I was doing my PhD. I have many fond memories of my years living in Boston, and also some not-so-fond memories. On the fond memories side, my special gentleman and I met in Boston. I was in my last year of graduate school at MIT and he was in his first year of a post-doc there. We have a lot of Boston memories so it was nice to make this trip back there together.

We arrived in Boston on Sunday. Our whole vacation was full of meals with friends, which was fantastic, but on Sunday night we took the opportunity to have a special dinner, just the two of us, at a restaurant we went to very frequently during the first year of our relationship. It was special being back there. After dinner we walked by his old apartment, and the apartment I lived in when we met. It was a very nostalgic and sweet evening.

On Monday my special gentleman and I both gave talks at MIT. I go back to Boston pretty frequently -- indeed I was there this summer -- but it had been a while since I had been back at MIT while school was in session. My good friend Mike was also back in town. He and I went to graduate school together and to say that we spent a lot of time together would be an enormous understatement. Mike was very much a part of my MIT experience. On Monday he and I met for lunch, at one of the places we frequented as students. Eating burritos together and walking the halls with him felt just like old times, but so many things had changed. It was tremendously unsettling. It was weird to be there but not be a member of the department any more. It was strange to speak in front of a seminar that I attended every week for many years. It was bizarre to be standing at the chalkboard, looking out at the audience and thinking about all the times I sat in those same seats, and listened to someone give a talk on those same sliding boards. It was in that room that I once fainted during seminar, at a time when I was having some medical problems. It was in that room that Mike dropped his notes for his talk behind the sliding boards and couldn't reach to get them because his pants were baggy enough that they would have fallen off. It was in that room that a particularly famous speaker threw a piece of chalk at a very famous faculty member's head. It was in that room that I taught linear algebra recitations. It was in that room that a screeching squirrel slid down the window pane, having been forced out the window of the room above it. I also have dozens of mathematical memories of that room: things I learned there, pictures people drew on the board, concepts that I understood for the first time while sitting in the audience in that room... All of those thoughts went through my head as I was giving my talk. I have been in that room so many times, but this time it was incredibly different. So many of the people I associate with my years at MIT have since moved on: Mike, V, Chris, Lars, Vero, Andre, Tyler, Ricky, John, Matt, Michael, Angelica, Jenny, Nora, Peter, Francesca, etc... And new people have moved in. And while a few audience members were the same: Mark, Jacob, Big Mike, etc... mostly it was different. Of course our field is small so the new faces weren't unfamiliar. I knew almost everyone in the audience. But Kyle or David or Clark or Kirsten, they weren't part of my MIT experience and it was just weird to see them there. The whole thing was very unsettling.

My talk went perfectly fine, but right afterward, and still now, I had a terrible feeling about it. I can't explain why. It just felt so weird.

Even now, a few days removed from the experience of being back there, I am having a hard time sorting out how I felt about the trip. Did it make me miss MIT and the community of topologists there, or did it make me glad to have moved on to somewhere else? I am genuinely not sure. Maybe the real answer is, both. The visit reminded me of all the fantastic things about being at MIT and also all of the not-so-fantastic things about it. It was a weird and emotional few days in Boston. I am glad to be back home now.

More on the rest of our trip another time...

Hunan-Style Tea-Smoked Chicken (Page 355)

RECIPE #1252

• Date: Wednesday, January 5, 2011 -- 6pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: B-
  

I put off making this recipe because I had heard from a couple other people that it resulted in a house full of smoke and a not-very-tasty chicken. The warnings about the smoke discouraged me from making this during the many years that I was living in an apartment. Now that we own a house, and excessive smoke and a sounding smoke alarm are inconveniences only for us and not for other people living in the same building, I decided to make this dish. I marinated the chicken in a mixture of rice wine, salt, Sichuan peppercorns, scallions, and ginger. Then I put the chicken on a steamer rack in a wok and steamed it over boiling water until it was cooked through. I dried out the wok and lined it with foil. I put black tea leaves and dark brown sugar at the bottom of the wok and set the chicken on a rack above the mixture. I covered the wok and heated it over high heat until smoke started to pour out. I continued to smoke the chicken for 6 minutes, flipped it, then smoked it for 6 minutes more. I took the wok off the heat and let the chicken stand, covered, for a bit longer. I had never smoked poultry before and it was pretty amazing. Yes, the kitchen filled with smoke. Yes, our eyes burned and it smelled for days. But the smoking process was amazingly effective. Perhaps a little too effective. The chicken was incredibly smoky. It was one of those dishes where the first bite was fantastic. The second bite was a little overpowering. By the third bite it was barely edible. It was just too much smoke. It's a shame because the meat was beautifully cooked. It came out moist and tender. Although it was hard to eat, I am glad I made the dish -- it was a fascinating experience. I never would have guessed that I had the equipment at home to infuse that much smoky flavor into anything. There was a lot of chicken leftover, since we could really only eat a few bites. The next day I mixed the meat with lots of rice and some soy sauce, which diluted and balanced out the intense smokiness a bit. It still wasn't a mildly flavored meal, but it was pretty tasty that way, and in the end we ate it all.

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I made the mistake of looking at my calendar today. As I flipped through the weeks I got more and more scared. I thought the last few months had been busy, but by the looks of it, it is only going to get worse! From now to the middle of June, between me and my special gentleman we are traveling to Boston, Princeton, Iowa, Banff, small-town Illinois, Las Vegas, Chicago, Switzerland, Germany, Switzerland (again), France, Italy, and California. Of those destinations, I myself am only going to 10 of them, but it still feels like a lot! Add to that 8+ more house guests spread out across the between-trips periods that we are home, and I think it is going to be hectic! That said, I am looking forward to seeing our visitors and I think all of the trips will be fun. In addition to containing work (in the form of giving talks, working with collaborators, and attending conferences) we will also see lots of good friends and visit some nice places during our travels.

First up: Boston. Today was the last day of classes before Spring Break and tomorrow morning we are hitting the road. My special gentleman and I are both giving talks at MIT on Monday, so we are headed first to Boston. We decided to drive and stop at Niagara Falls on the way, to make it feel a little more like a vacation. Later in the week we are headed down to Princeton where my special gentleman will give another talk. It won't be the warm weather Spring Break on the beach that I have always dreamed of, but it is sure to be fun! We have lots of great friends on the East Coast and I am excited to see some of them! We are leaving the cats at home, under the careful watch of some friends of ours. After the rat poison incident, I am a little nervous about leaving them. But they are in good hands!

I suppose it is about time for me to start packing for our trip!

Lobster Bisque (Page 103)

RECIPE #1251

• Date: Saturday, November 6, 2010 -- 7pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
  
• Dining Companions: Brad and Deniz
• Recipe Rating: B+
  

This recipe is slightly out of order. I made this dish months ago, when Brad and Deniz came to visit us in Michigan. At the time I was really sick from my new medication, and when it came time for dinner I was so ill I barely ate. Indeed, I was so ill that I forgot to even take pictures of the food! Immediately after dinner we froze the leftovers of this dish, to be enjoyed later. But it was a while before my special gentleman stumbled across the leftovers in the freezer one evening and decided to have lobster bisque for dinner. When he did, I took a picture. So now I am able to blog about this dish!

I began by boiling two live lobsters in a mixture of water, white wine, tarragon, bay leaf, and salt. When the lobsters were cool my special gentleman removed all the meat from the claws, joints, and tails, reserving the shells but discarding the bodies. I cut the meat into pieces. We pounded the reserved shells with a mallet to break them up. I finely chopped carrots, celery, onions, and garlic, then cooked the vegetables in butter. I added the lobster shells then Cognac, tomato paste, cayenne, the lobster cooking liquid, and reserved lobster juices and tomalley. I simmered it all for an hour and a half, then discarded the bay leaf. I transferred the solids to a food processor and pureed them as much as possible, then forced them through a fine mesh sieve. I returned the pureed solids to the cooking liquid and brought it to a boil. I thickened with cornstarch, then added cream, lemon juice, the lobster meat, and salt and just heated it through.

This bisque was pretty good. As I said, I was pretty ill that day, so I didn't eat much. But the general reaction around the table was positive. It had a lovely lobster flavor, and the chunks of lobster meat were well-received. There were two complaints that kept this out of the A- category. One, it was a little bit thin for a bisque. The other complaint came from my special gentleman was just said that it, "wasn't amazing." His standards for lobster bisque are high, and this didn't quite meet them.

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My apologies for the long blog silence. We have had a lot of visitors lately so I have been trying to spend my free time being a decent hostess rather than writing in my blog. Last Thursday our friend Chuck drove up from Bloomington. He stayed with us for a couple nights and gave a seminar in the math department on Friday. It was really fun to hang out with him! He left Saturday morning and on Saturday evening Mike and Tim arrived from Virginia. They stayed with us for two nights and we jammed in lots of fun things during their weekend visit! On Saturday night Helen, Charles, Clara, and Mark joined us for a dinner from The Book. The eight of us ate veal sweetbreads (i.e. the thymus gland of baby cows) with parsnip and potato puree, snails, chicken livers wrapped in bacon, beef with marrow, mushroom risotto, beets, salad, and a white chocolate and grapefruit cake that Helen made... It was quite a meal! It was really two meals in one. Mike always enjoys eating nasty things from The Book, so I was aiming to have a full meal of dishes that would likely be gross (i.e. the veal thymus, snails, and chicken livers), but then also a meal of dishes that would be good so we would have something enjoyable to eat (i.e. everything else on the menu). As it turned out, nothing was as gross as expected so there was a ton of food!

The next day we walked around Lansing for a while, visited the fish ladder, and strolled along the river trail. In the afternoon we went to the rodeo! It seems that I work at a university which holds an annual rodeo on campus. Crazy! Mike was as enthusiastic about going to the rodeo as I was, so on Sunday afternoon we braved a blizzard to see some professional cowboys in action. Needless to say, it was pretty awesome. I hadn't been to a rodeo in years. As I remembered it was a little bit terrifying, and super fun. Mike and Tim left Monday morning, and on Monday evening another house guest arrived. This guest, Adam, is a mathematician in my special gentleman's field. He is giving several lectures in the math department and working with my special gentleman during his visit. He is staying with us for almost two weeks!

So, it has been a hectic time with people coming and going. All the chaos has left me way behind on my blogging, so one of my many goals for the upcoming week is to make a little progress on my backlog!

Bouillabaisse (Page 346)

RECIPE #1250

• Date: Friday, December 31, 2010 -- 7pm
• Location: Westerville, OH
• Kitchen: Karen and Dave's House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Dining Companions: Dave, Karen H, Brad, and Deniz
• Recipe Rating: B
  

My special gentleman's family likes seafood more than most people in my life, so I made this fish stew as part of New Year's Eve dinner at their house. I started by making some croutons by slicing a baguette, brushing the slices with oil, and toasting them in the oven. Once they were toasted I rubbed them with garlic cloves and set them aside. I then cooked a live lobster by plunging it into boiling water. My special gentleman cracked the boiled lobster into pieces. I cooked tomatoes, onion, and garlic in oil, then added peeled, cubed potatoes, fennel fronds, bay leaf, saffron, sea salt, and pepper. I added fish stock and brought it all to a boil. I reduced the heat and simmered until the potatoes were almost cooked, then added 2-inch pieces of halibut and cod. I stirred in the lobster and cooked the stew for a few minutes. I stirred some of the broth into the rouille (see post below). I then put croutons in each bowl and ladled some soup on top. I served the soup with the rouille on the side. I was a pretty indifferent about this soup. It did have halibut in it. I love halibut. There aren't too many types of seafood that I get seriously excited about, but halibut is one of them. We served halibut as one of the entree choices at our wedding. That's how much I love it. So the halibut was delicious. The rest of it? Eh. I could take it or leave it. I hate, hate, hate putting toasted bread on the bottom of a soup bowl and pouring soup on top of it. The bread instantly becomes soggy, and hence disgusting. The Book is very big on the soggy-bread-in-the-soup method and I just don't get it. Plus, this soup was already served with soggy bread sauce (aka rouille), so why did we need more soggy bread? We really didn't. The flavor of the soup was fishy (as one would expect). The fish flavor from the fish stock drowned out some of the other things I was hoping to taste, like the fennel. But it wasn't bad. Nobody had anything terrible to say about this dish, nor any particularly high praise for it. It was a decent fish soup, which I am unlikely to make again.

The recipe in The Book is similar to this one, but the one in The Book doesn't call for clams or mussels.

Only 43 recipes left to go!

Nothing makes you realize how much you work like having someone visit that you want to spend time with. My mom was here this week, and at the end of every day I thought, "I wish I had had more time to spend with my mom." That's not to say that we didn't do anything fun -- we did. We watched the Super Bowl, we had some of my friends over one night, we went to the MSU/Penn State basketball game, we went out to eat a couple times, we did some shopping, we watched a movie... But most days I left for work before my mom woke up and there were several nights when I was still working (although at least from home) at midnight. And I did a lot of multi-tasking -- when I was "watching" the Super Bowl, I was simultaneously writing midterm exams. It was a busy week. On top of the usual stuff, I was giving exams in both my classes. Between writing the exams, grading the exams, and helping nervous students prepare for the exams, it adds up. With just one class (or several sections of the same course) it is pretty manageable, but this term I am teaching two classes that are very different from one another so it was a significant amount of work. I also had research-related deadlines/meetings/goals for the week that contributed to the busyness.

This coming week, I think, is going to be significantly less busy. Looking at my calendar, it seems like it will be a piece of cake! I am hoping to have a productive week and not put off a long list of tasks for the weekend (like I usually do!) because Mike and Tim are coming to visit. They will be here next weekend and I am already scheming about what kind of crazy Book dinner we will make... Sweetbreads are definitely on the menu, and I have been thinking about making some snails too (plus some beef, so that we have something to eat if everything else is too unappetizing!). Fun! Speaking of Mike, it's his birthday today. Happy Birthday to Mike, who is always willing to cook and eat crazy shit from The Book with me! That's a sign of a good friend!

Rouille (Page 347)

RECIPE #1249

• Date: Friday, December 31, 2010 -- 7pm
• Location: Westerville, OH
• Kitchen: Karen and Dave's House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Karen H, Dave, Brad, and Deniz
• Recipe Rating: B-
  

This recipe was a component of a fish stew I made for New Year's Eve at my special gentleman's parents' house. I am not a huge fan of soggy bread, so rouille is never my favorite. This soggy bread and garlic based sauce was simple to make. I poured water over some fresh bread crumbs that I made from a baguette. Then I mashed together garlic, sea salt, and cayenne. I mashed the wet bread crumbs into the garlic mixture, then added olive oil. That was it. The result was exactly how it sounds: soggy bread with garlic, cayenne, salt, and oil. To be fair, while it certainly wasn't something I would be interested in eating by the spoonful, it did add flavor to the stew that it was served with. In the past I have made rouille in the food processor and the texture came out better. My mashing by hand didn't incorporate the bread crumbs well enough to make this really feel like a sauce.

The recipe is here.

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My special gentleman is traveling a lot this semester. He has been away since Friday, and is arriving home late tonight (or very early tomorrow morning, depending on how you look at it). He will teach his class tomorrow afternoon, then fly out again tomorrow evening for another trip, which will last almost a week. I have to admit it, I don't like it when he is away. We basically have the same job, and I also travel a lot, so of course I understand why it is necessary and I never try to stop him from traveling. But that doesn't mean I enjoy it when he travels. You would think that after years of living in different states I would be accustomed to being apart. These short trips are nothing compared to the amount of time we spent apart when he lived in Boston and I lived in Indiana, for instance. But I think those years apart made me more sensitive to distance rather than less. When he calls me at night from some faraway state or country, I can't help but think of the hundreds of times we had similar good-night phone calls when we lived apart. At least for that second I feel as though we are living apart again, and it is a terrible feeling. Plus, for reasons I can't explain, I am less productive when he is away. I am less focused, less motivated... So when he is traveling I count down the days. And I look forward to the summer, when we can travel together rather than separately.

Luckily, this week my mom is visiting, so my attitude about my special gentleman being away isn't nearly as bad as it otherwise would be. We have been having a really fun time!

Crown Roast of Lamb (Page 499)

RECIPE #1248

• Date: Friday, December 31, 2010 -- 7pm
• Location: Westerville, OH
• Kitchen: Karen and Dave's House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Dave, Karen H, Brad, and Deniz
• Recipe Rating: B+
  

My parents and my special gentleman's parents both do not like lamb. My special gentleman and I have long been puzzled by this fact, as lamb is delicious. It's true that lamb prepared badly can be really bad, much more so than with beef, for instance. But lamb prepared nicely is absolutely divine. This was the last lamb recipe I had left to make for my project, and I would have made it long ago, but crown roast of lamb isn't so easy to find. When I saw it at the Whole Foods near my in-laws' house, I was desperate to buy it. But first, we had to talk them into letting us make lamb for dinner! Luckily, they are very open-minded about trying things, and were willing to consider the possibility that the lamb they had in the past just hadn't been cooked well. Plus, we promised to make another dish to go with this one that they were certain to like: Bouillabaisse! So, a New Year's Eve feast was born. We had crown roast of lamb. We had fish stew with lobster in it. We had porcini risotto, and a big salad. We had a caramelized pear tart. It was a feast fit for New Year's Eve!

This recipe was super-simple to make. I rubbed the crown roast with a mixture of garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper. I put a ball of foil in the center to help it hold its shape. I also covered the bone ends with foil. I roasted it in the oven until it reached an internal temperature of 135 degrees. While it rested I deglazed the pan with beef stock. I added thyme, rosemary, arrowroot, cream, and port, and boiled until it was thick. I seasoned with salt and pepper. I served the crown roast with the pan sauce. That was it! This lamb was tasty. It was cooked nicely and the herb rub contributed a good flavor to the meat. The pan sauce was delicious. I gave this one a B+ rather than an A- only because there are much better lamb recipes out there. In particular there are more than a few lamb recipes in The Book which are more interesting and delicious than this dish. I liked this dish a lot, but it wasn't spectacular, and I doubt I will make it again. That said, it did convince my in-laws that not all lamb is bad! They seemed to like it a lot actually. That's an outcome of the meal that I can feel good about: convincing a couple people that lamb can be tasty!

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I grew up in Wisconsin, and we occasionally had snow days when I was a kid (or sometimes, cold days). I definitely remember being excited when school would get canceled for snow. But I certainly don't remember ever being as excited as I was this evening when I found out that classes at MSU are canceled tomorrow! I did a dance. I sang a song about it. More than once. My special gentleman thought it was so funny that periodically throughout the evening he asked, "Hey, did you hear tomorrow is a snow day?" just so that he could see my song and dance again. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But I have been very busy lately. And while I planned to take some time to relax this weekend, I ended up working a lot. Plus, Wednesdays are long days for me. I have two and half hours of office hours in the morning, which are usually quite populated with students as both my classes have homework assignments due Wednesday afternoons. I have 15-20 minutes scheduled to eat lunch between my office hours and when I teach, but often that amounts to eating granola at my desk while helping someone finish their assignment. Then I lecture an hour of calculus and an hour of "Foundations of Higher Mathematics," which is an introduction to proofs class, mostly populated by future elementary school teachers who are majoring in math. My two hours of lecture are followed almost immediately by two hours of seminars (first the algebra seminar, then the topology seminar), and often we go out to dinner with the speaker after the latter seminar. By the time I get home I am tired, and I haven't yet had any time in the day to work on my own research. So, if there is one day of the week when a snow day really helps me out, it's Wednesday. Tomorrow I am going to stay in my pajamas all day. I am going to drink hot chocolate while working in front of the fire. Thursday I don't have to teach and I don't have any appointments, so if it's still snowing I will stay home then too. That gives me two days to do some intensive work, without any distractions. Just thinking about it makes me want to do my snow day dance again! Supposedly they haven't called off classes at MSU because of snow in more than 20 years. But I am pretty delighted that they did now!

Oysters Rockefeller (Page 52)

RECIPE #1247

• Date: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 -- 6pm
• Location: Westerville, OH
  
• Kitchen: Karen and Dave's House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Dining Companions: Karen H, Dave, Wes, Brad, and Deniz
• Recipe Rating: B
  

I hadn't made this recipe yet, as oysters aren't so easy to come by in Lansing. There is a huge Whole Foods near my in-laws' house in Ohio though, so when we were visiting them over the holidays I seized the opportunity to make this hors d'oeuvre. My special gentleman graciously agreed to shuck the oysters for me (not my favorite job!). He also cleaned the shells once the oysters had been shucked. Meanwhile, I stirred together finely chopped Boston lettuce, spinach, scallions, dried bread crumbs, parsley, celery, and garlic. I cooked the mixture in butter, then added some Pernod, anchovy paste, cayenne, salt, and pepper. While the mixture cooled I cooked some bacon, then crumbled it. I stabilized the bottom halves of the oyster shells on a baking sheet using kosher salt. I placed an oyster in each shell and moistened them with some of the oyster liquor. I put some of the vegetable mixture on top of each oyster, then piled on some crumbled bacon and more dried bread crumbs. I baked them until the edges of the oysters curled, then we served them. These oysters were pretty good. The flavor of the vegetable mixture was nice and the bacon was, of course, a delicious addition. I didn't care so much for the extra bread crumbs on top. I can imagine bread crumbs that would have achieved a delicious crunchy texture. But the recipe called for fine dried bread crumbs which instead of giving the oysters a nice crunch, gave them a doughiness that I didn't like. The ratio of topping to oyster also seemed a bit high. So while they were tasty, they weren't amazing, and I probably won't make them again.

The recipe in The Book is very similar to this one.

Only 46 recipes left to go!

I did laundry today. As I was putting the second load into the washing machine, I realized that I hadn't done laundry in over a month. Yet somehow my underwear drawer was never empty and there were always clean pants in my closet. I haven't been to the grocery store in three weeks, yet there is food in the fridge. And while I have only loaded the dishwasher once or twice this month, all the dishes are clean. Basically my special gentleman is amazing. This month was tremendously hectic, and in the little free time that I had, I opted to get some sleep rather than help around the house. Not once this month did my special gentleman complain. Now, the tables are turning. The big things that were making this month crazy for me are now all off my plate, and my responsibilities are back to just the usual ones. My special gentleman, on the other hand, is entering a month full of travel, visitors, and extra time-consuming responsibilities. He is working even harder than usual. So today I did the laundry and made dinner. Tomorrow I will go to the grocery store. I will likely be doing most of the dishes this month. There is a rhythm to our marriage that I appreciate more and more with each passing month. When one of us is exceptionally busy the other person always manages to pick up the slack, without discussion. When we are both extremely busy, we work together to get the things done that absolutely need to be done. What I appreciate about it the most is that it's easy. I always imagined marriage as a partnership that would be empowering. And indeed it is. As a month of craziness comes to a close I am especially thankful for my special gentleman, and hopeful that as his crazy month begins I can be as supportive to him as he was to me these past four weeks.

Minced Squab and Pork with Rice Stick Noodles (Page 408)

RECIPE #1246

• Date: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 -- 7pm
  
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Recipe Rating: C+
  

There are three squab recipes in The Book, which I hadn't made because it turns out squab isn't so easy to fine. I finally got my hands on some though, so my special gentleman and I made this recipe. We started by soaking dried shitakes in water, then mincing them. I also minced some squab and pork tenderloin, then marinated the meat in a mixture of soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil. While that was marinating, we deep-fried rice stick noodles. I made a sauce of water, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, salt, and cornstarch. Then I heated some peanut oil in a wok and stir-fried the squab mixture with the mushrooms, scallions, ginger, water chestnuts, and the sauce. We served the meat on the rice noodles, with Boston lettuce leaves for wrapping. My special gentleman and I both had similar reactions to this dish. It looked and smelled like something we would really want to eat. But it didn't taste that way. Both components of this dish were disappointing. The deep-fried rice noodles were cool in a way. I had never fried rice noodles before and the way they puffed up was really interesting. But they were terribly bland, and as soon as the meat mixture sat of them for a few seconds they were soggy and gross. Ick. As for the minced pork and squab mixture, it just didn't taste very good. Squab has a distinct flavor which didn't go well with the Asian flavors in the dish. I would have liked the dish better with just pork. The pigeon definitely didn't help it. My special gentleman and I wanted to like this dish, but just didn't particularly.

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Only 47 recipes left to go!

I haven't blogged in ages. I have been swamped this month. I had a bunch of work that needed to get done before the semester started, so I was working very long days during the first week of the new year. The second week of January was the first week of classes, which is always a bit of a mad house. And this past week, I was traveling for work from Sunday to Saturday. Missing the second week of classes was obviously not ideal, and it took some real work to get ready to go away. But some kind souls covered my classes for me, my trip went well, and now I am home. Being home again means catching up on all the things I got behind on while I was away. That includes not just work, but also things like running, cooking, and blogging! Also, relaxing. My flight got in yesterday afternoon, and I will admit that I spent the rest of the day napping, eating, and just hanging out with my special gentleman. It was delightful. Today, confronted with all the work I could have started catching up on yesterday, I regretted it a bit. But I needed a day off. It is looking like this is going to be another very busy week, but I am hoping things will settle down pretty soon. I knew that the month of January would be rough, but I am not traveling at all in February, so likely things we feel a little less hectic then!

Chocolate Prune Pave with Armagnac Creme Anglaise and Candied Orange Zest (Page 820)

RECIPE #1245

• Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010 -- 6pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Helen, Charles, Clara, Corbett, Mary, Allison, Ben S., Marcie, Kendra, Jubin, Watson, Linda, and Bob K.
• Recipe Rating: B
  

When we hosted our pre-Thanksgiving dinner in November, I only had two desserts left to make for my project. I chose this one to serve with dinner. I had put this off for a long time because chocolate and prunes just didn't sound that good together to me. But the time had come to finally make this dish! I started by pureeing prunes with Armagnac in a food processor. I then forced the puree through a medium-mesh sieve. When I first read this recipe I noticed it had an Active Time of one and a half hours. But reading the recipe it just didn't seem like it could possibly take that long. In fact, that steps all sounded very quick, and they weren't very many of them. Well, I quickly solved the mystery of the hour and a half. The step that took forever: forcing that puree through a sieve. Prune puree is very, very thick and gloppy. It did NOT want to go through a sieve. That step took a nice long while. Once that was done I melted some chocolate with cream then added it to the prune mixture and blended it all in the food processor. I poured it into a loaf pan that was oiled and lined with plastic wrap. I chilled it overnight, then inverted it out of the pan, topped it with Candied Orange Zest, and served it with Armagnac Creme Anglaise.

This dessert was much tastier than I expected it to be. I was worried about the prunes, but they were very subtle. Knowing they were there, it was easy to detect their flavor, but if I hadn't known I probably wouldn't have guessed. They actually contributed a fantastic sweetness and fruitiness to the dish. The predominant flavor, though, was that of the chocolate. The texture was very smooth. The dessert was quite rich -- in fact it was so rich and chocolatey that I found it hard to eat more than a few bites. Eating a slice of this was like eating a giant prune and Armagnac flavored truffle. I would have preferred a chocolate cake to this pave, but it certainly exceeded expectations!

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Only 48 recipes left to go!

This was the last recipe I had left to make in the Fruit Desserts section of The Book! This section had some odd things in it (the Broiled Grapes in Mascarpone come to mind), but overall I enjoyed making these fruit recipes. In no particular order, my top 5 recipes from this section:

• Fruit Crumble -- I have to include this one because this has become my go-to peach crumble. I have made this at least 10 times since first making it in 2006. It is super-fast, super-tasty, and easy to make for a huge crowd. If you need to throw together dessert for 50 people in a flash, this is the recipe for you!
  
• Strawberry Shortcake -- My special gentleman still talks about this recipe, which we made back in 2006, shortly after he and I met. It was indeed memorable!
• Baked Apples -- I made this one at the very beginning of my project, before I even started taking pictures of the dishes! These are the best baked apples I have ever had, and the recipe is so, so simple. The baked apples are filled with creme fraiche at the end and the result is superb!
• Chilled Sour Cherry Soup -- Soup cherry soup is one of my special gentleman's all-time favorite foods and I still remember the shocked look he gave me when he realized that we could make it ourselves! This is a good version of the dish, and we make it often in our household.
  
• Blackberry Cobbler -- Nothing says summer like a good fruit cobbler, and this one was indeed good! The biscuit topping was delicious and moist and the berry mixture was not too sweet. A winner!

Another section complete! Yay! I have so far completed 11 sections of The Book with only 10 sections left to finish. More than half the sections are complete -- I can hardly believe it! Plus, three of the sections I have left only have one recipe remaining, so hopefully I will finish them off soon!

Candied Orange Zest (Page 820)

RECIPE #1244

• Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010 -- 6pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Helen, Charles, Clara, Corbett, Mary, Allison, Ben S., Marcie, Kendra, Jubin, Watson, Linda, and Bob K.
• Recipe Rating: B+
  

This recipe was a component of a dessert I made for our pre-Thanksgiving dinner a while back. This was super simple to make. I peeled some navel oranges and cut the zest into thin strips. Then I combined the zest with Cointreau and simmered until the liquid had evaporated and the zest was translucent. I spread the zest out on waxed paper to dry. That was it! This sort of thing is difficult to grade. Candied orange peel basically tastes like candied orange peel. There isn't a huge amount of variance. This peel was less sweet and more boozy than some though, which was an interesting change. It was pretty, and worked nicely as a garnish for the dessert that it was served with (which I will blog about next).

Only 49 recipes left to go!

I have been thinking the last few days about what my resolutions for the new year should be. Here are some that I have come up with:

• Run every day that I am not traveling -- Over the last few years I have learned something about myself. If I resolve to run three days a week, I won't run at all. If I resolve to run every day, I will do it. Apparently, having the option of not doing it some days leads to me not doing it every day. The one exception I am giving myself: when I am traveling. Often when I travel I have little control over my schedule, and trying to fit in a run becomes very stressful.
• Finish the Gourmet Project! -- Yes, I said that last year, and didn't quite make it, but this year I am going to do it! I have less than 50 recipes left, which is very manageable. I will finish in 2011!!
• Eat some fruit every day -- Every year I say I am going to eat more fruits and vegetables. The reality is, I already eat a lot of vegetables, but I am just not a huge fruit person. It's not that I don't like it, but I never crave it, and hence don't eat it as much as I should.
  
• Get eight hours of sleep every night -- I know, that sounds totally ridiculous. Who actually gets eight hours of sleep every night? Certainly not me. But I realized recently that when I do sleep a full eight hours I feel happier, more motivated, and I can think more clearly and hence get more work done. My special gentleman and I don't have kids so we still have the luxury of setting our own sleep schedule, and in 2011 I am going to take advantage of that. I am aiming for eight hours a night!
• Bike to work every day -- I did a good job of this in the fall semester, but I would like to be sure to continue biking in 2011!
• Stick to my work schedule -- I am more productive if my schedule has some structure to it, so I have a system that I use to self-impose some structure. In the fall, though, with the craziness of starting my new job, I got off schedule early in the term and never completely got back on it. In 2011 I am going to try to stick to my schedule a little better! I have LOTS of other work resolutions, but I won't list them all here.
  
• Answer emails more quickly -- This one is in the front of my mind, as I have many, many emails awaiting response in my Inbox.
  
• Explore the Lansing area and the rest of Michigan -- The fall was so busy that I didn't have time to do much exploration of the area we now live in. In fact, I haven't even gone hiking once since I moved here! In 2011 I would like to see more of Michigan: the sand dunes, the upper peninsula, etc... I want to go to a Lansing Lugnuts game, visit the zoo, canoe on the river... I have a long list!
• Continue to build relationships in the math department, in the residential college, at church, in our neighborhood, etc...
  
• Be a good wife, family member, and friend.

That's plenty to start off the year with! Looking at the list it seems to me that everything is very achievable (well, maybe with the exception of sleeping eight hours a night!). Hopefully a year from now I will be reflecting back on the success I had with my resolutions!

Grilled Turkey with Cranberry Gravy (Page 381)

RECIPE #1243

• Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010 -- 5pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Dining Companions: Helen, Charles, Clara, Corbett, Mary, Allison, Ben S., Kendra, Jubin, Watson, Linda, and Bob K.
• Recipe Rating: A
  

Part of the reason we threw our pre-Thanksgiving dinner party last month was because I still have several turkey recipes left to make from The Book. We selected this one for our party. I started by prepping the turkey. I stuffed the cavities with some lemon halves and herb sprigs. Then I seasoned the bird with salt and pepper and rubbed it with butter. I put it on a rack in a roasting pan and put some water in the pan. My special gentleman was in charge of grilling the bird. He turned off the middle burner on our gas grill and balanced two disposable loaf pans on the burner tents of the middle burner, under the grill rack. One loaf pan had water in it. We punched holes in the bottom of the other loaf pan and filled it with some apple wood chips which had been soaked in water. My special gentleman put the rack back on the grill and put the roasting pan with the turkey over the turned-off burner. He grilled the turkey over indirect heat for about three and a half hours. Meanwhile, I cooked some cranberries and sugar in a saucepan, then pureed them in the blender. When the turkey was done we took it off the grill and let it rest while we made the gravy. We reserved some turkey fat and discarded the rest of the fat off the pan juices. Then we deglazed the roasting pan. We made a roux from the reserved turkey fat and some flour, then added the pan juices, some chicken stock, and the pureed cranberries. We cooked the gravy until it had reduced appropriately, then we strained it and served it with the turkey.

In a word: Yum! It was easily the best turkey I have ever eaten. The flavor from the grill was amazing, and the meat came out fantastically moist and delicious. On top of that, the cranberry gravy was incredible. I will be making cranberry gravy for years to come. It was so, so good. Everyone raved about this turkey. In fact my special gentleman raved about it so much to his parents on the phone after our party that they requested that we make it again for them -- which we did this week! It turned out great again! We did learn one thing from the repeat preparation though. The Book says to keep the grill between 350 and 375. At home we couldn't get it up to 375 with one burner off, so we cooked it right around 350. Here at Dave and Karen's their grill easily got up to 375, so we cooked it at that temperature. Both turkeys had the same great flavor, but the one at our house was moister, so I would aim for 350 degrees in the future. I don't know how well this method would work for a huge turkey, but if you are looking to cook a 12-14 pound bird I highly recommend this recipe. Yum!!!!

The recipe is here, although the recipe online only gives instructions for a charcoal grill, whereas the one in The Book gives instructions for a gas grill too.

Only 50 recipes left to go!

Well it is that time of year again -- time to reflect on the resolutions I made for 2010 and see how I did:

• Be a good homeowner and neighbor -- This one has gone pretty well. The house hasn't fallen down and to our knowledge we haven't pissed off any neighbors. So I will call this one a success.
  
• Eat more fruits and vegetables -- I did pretty well with this one too. I have been stocking the fridge with fresh produce and we have definitely been consuming more fruits and vegetables than in the past!
  
• Eat less processed food -- I would call this one a definite success. I stopped buying ramen, boxed mac and cheese, microwave popcorn, crackers, cookies, cereal, etc... more than six months ago now, and it has been great! We never ate a ton of processed food, but now we eat even less and I feel good about it. We make all our own bread, cereal, etc... and it has been great!
  
• Finish the Gourmet Project! -- Well, clearly that didn't happen. But I have only got 50 recipes left to go (actually less as I am a little behind in my blogging), and I definitely WILL finish in 2011.
  
• Run five 8-minute miles -- Ugh, this also didn't happen. I have no excuse.
  
• Do 20 consecutive real push-ups -- Again, didn't happen. I've got no excuse other than laziness.
  
• Get a lot of research done in my semester of not teaching -- I feel like I used my time pretty well last spring. I didn't accomplish as much as I would have hoped, but I never do.
  
• Bring a lot of energy to my new job in the fall -- I think I did pretty well at this one. I am more or less happy with how my first semester went.
  
• Be a good wife and friend -- I hope I did well at this!
  
• Put effort into meeting people and making friends in East Lansing -- This went better than expected. I definitely put in a lot of effort trying to meet people, throw dinner parties, etc... and it paid off in a big way. Six months ago I barely knew anyone in East Lansing and now I feel like I have some friends there!
  

Overall, I feel pretty good about the last year. Certainly I didn't achieve my fitness goals, and that is something I would like to improve upon in 2011. But overall, I accomplished many of the things that I wanted to in 2010. Today I need to do a little reflection and think about what my resolutions should be for 2011!

Happy New Year's Eve!!

Fresh Corn Madeleines with Sour Cream and Caviar (Page 40)

RECIPE #1242

• Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010 -- 5pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Dining Companions: Helen, Charles, Clara, Corbett, Mary, Allison, Ben S., Marcie, Kendra, Jubin, Watson, Linda, and Bob K.
• Recipe Rating: B
  

I made these tiny madeleines as an hors d'oeuvre for our pre-Thanksgiving dinner party last month. I started by making the madeleine batter. I whisked together cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and pepper. I added egg, buttermilk, melted butter and chopped corn kernels. I brushed mini-madeleine molds with butter, then spooned some batter into the molds and baked them off. Once the madeleines had cooled I piped sour cream on top of them, and topped some of them with caviar. I left a few of them without caviar, as not everyone loves to eat fish eggs. These madeleines were pretty tasty. I liked the texture of the madeleines themselves -- the corn kernels in them added nice contrast. The caviar gave each bite-sized treat a burst of flavor, but even without the caviar they were good. While I liked this dish and had no serious objections to it, I didn't find myself wanting to eat a lot of these little madeleines. I apparently wasn't alone in this sentiment -- with many other tasty food options, this was one dish that didn't get completely eaten at our party.

The recipe is here.

Only 51 recipes left to go!

A few weeks ago we were driving down the highway and we saw a horrible accident happen. It was snowing and the road was slippery. One car spun 360 degrees and another car slammed into it at highway speed. We were so focused on not hitting anyone or getting hit ourselves by the spinning cars that it didn't occur to us that we should stop until we were well past the accident and couldn't get back to it. So I called 911. They asked for the location of the accident and I described which interstate we were on and the mile marker at which the accident had happened. The dispatcher asked me, "Near (insert some city name I can't remember here)?" I answered, "I don't know. I'm not from around here." He took my name, thanked me for calling, and that was the end of the call. As soon as I hung up I realized I hadn't said which state I was in. Presumably cell phone 911 calls are routed to a dispatcher somewhere close to your current location, but the accident was near the Indiana/Michigan border and the interstate in question goes through both states. I hadn't mentioned that the accident was in Indiana. I felt terrible. I am sure a half a dozen people called 911 and reported that accident, so no doubt the rescue personnel arrived quickly. My concern was that because of my call rescue personnel were also dispatched to that mile marker on the interstate in Michigan, to find nothing there. Who knows what happened, and even if my call had gotten dispatched to Michigan rather than Indiana it would have been an honest mistake on my part. I certainly wasn't trying to send anyone on a wild goose chase. Yet I felt terrible. I spent the remaining hours of the car trip obsessing about how badly I felt. I have been wondering lately if I beat myself up too much about that kind of thing: situations where I have good intentions but end up making a mistake.

More than a decade ago now I dated a really sweet guy. At the time I tried to treat him well, but in retrospect I don't think I was always the best girlfriend. I feel badly about the way things ended between us, and about my half of the relationship in general. And although he has never complained to me about anything that I did, I have long felt like it wasn't my best showing. He and I exchange emails on occasion, maybe once every year or two, but we aren't close any more. A few days ago, though, I got a very nice email from him. The message was a thank-you for the love and support I gave him back then, which he said made his life better. He mentioned some general things he appreciated, but also some specific little things (e.g. I made oyster soup for his grandfather after his grandmother died years ago) which of course I had forgotten. When I read his email my first thought was, "This is really sweet of him. If I were a better person I would send more emails to the people from my past who made my life better." My second thought was, "Maybe I am too hard on myself." And maybe I am. The reality is, I did try hard to be good to him in that relationship, and although I made a lot of mistakes, what he remembers is that I tried hard. Perhaps that is what I should remember too. One of my goals for the new year is to try to cut myself a little slack.

Twenty-First-Century Beef Wellington (Page 418)

RECIPE #1241

• Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010 -- 5pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Helen, Charles, Clara, Corbett, Mary, Allison, Ben S., Kendra, Jubin, Watson, Linda, and Bob K.
• Recipe Rating: B+

I made this Beef Wellington to serve at our Pre-Thanksgiving dinner last month. Calling this Beef Wellington (even with the Twenty-First-Century added on the front) feels like a bit of a misnomer. Traditional Beef Wellington involves coating beef tenderloin with pate de fois gras and mushroom duxelles, and then wrapping the whole thing in puff pastry and baking it. This recipe called for beef tenderloin to be coated with a cilantro walnut filling, and then wrapped in a sour cream dough that was closer to a pate brisee than a puff. Indeed while The Book calls this Twenty-First-Century Beef Wellington, online the recipe is called Beef en Croute with Coriander Walnut Filling, which seems like a much more appropriate name. The above might seem like a silly discussion, having little to do with the actual success of the recipe, but in this case it did influence my perspective on the dish. If you are expecting Beef Wellington, it's hard to eat this and not think, "This isn't Beef Wellington," and feel a little disappointed. If you were expecting Beef en Croute with Coriander Walnut Filling, this dish wouldn't have been at all disappointing.

To make the dish I started by preparing the filling and dough (see posts below). I seasoned and seared the beef tenderloin. I put some of the filling on the dough, then set the beef on top of the filling and spread the remaining filling on the beef. I carefully wrapped the dough around the beef and decorated with some dough cut-outs. I brushed everything with egg wash, then chilled it for an hour. I baked the beef wrapped in dough until the beef reached 115 degrees. After it rested it was ready to serve! The dish was pretty tasty. It's hard to go too wrong with beef tenderloin, and wrapping meat in pastry is almost always a good idea. I wasn't super-crazy about the cilantro walnut filling though. It was neither great nor terrible. It certainly wasn't mushroom duxelles and pate de fois gras -- Yum!! If I were going to make this type of beef en croute again, I would definitely replace the cilantro filling with duxelles. But even as it was, it was quite tasty. It made for an elegant addition to our Pre-Thanksgiving dinner.

The recipe is here.

Only 52 recipes left to go!

Merry Christmas! My special gentleman and I have had a lovely holiday, full of celebrations! On the 22nd my immediate family went out for a very nice dinner then the six of us opened presents at my parents' place in Madison. The next day we headed to Oshkosh, Wisconsin where my extended family lives. The whole family gathered at a local bar for hours of card playing and catching up. On Christmas Eve we went to my aunt's house, where the 24 people on my mom's side of the family gathered to eat turkey, open gifts, play cards, and take the annual family Christmas photo:


It is always fun celebrating with my mom's family, and this year was no exception. The highlight: my cousin Alex doing the Double Dream Hands dance along with the instructional video. Apparently he memorized it during finals week. Ah, to be an undergraduate!

Early in the evening on Christmas Eve we left Wisconsin and headed for my special gentleman's family in Ohio. The upside of driving through the night on Christmas was that there was no traffic. The downside was that the weather was really rotten for the first 4 or so hours of the drive, and nothing was open along the way, save for one McDonald's. In total it took about 9 hours, but we made it and got a few hours of sleep before it was time to open gifts on Christmas morning. After present-opening my mother-in-law's extended family came over for dinner. The 24 of us ate beef tenderloin and exchanged gifts. We ended the evening with a round of Kill Doctor Lucky, followed by a game of Risk that lasted until 2am. Today we are preparing for another celebration as my father-in-law's family is coming over to celebrate Christmas. We are expecting 26 people for dinner. Speaking of, I should go help with the preparations.

Merry Christmas! I hoping everyone is having a fantastic holiday season filled with loved ones!

Sour Cream Pastry Dough (Page 419)

RECIPE #1240

• Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010 -- 5pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Helen, Charles, Clara, Corbett, Mary, Allison, Ben S., Kendra, Jubin, Watson, Linda, and Bob K.
• Recipe Rating: A-
  

This dough was a component of a beef wellington recipe that I made for our pre-Thanksgiving dinner last month. This was a standard pastry dough recipe, made with flour, butter, salt, sour cream, and water. The dough was lovely -- it rolled out beautifully and was generally easy to work with. And once baked it came out very flaky and delicious. It was the perfect dough for encasing a big piece of beef.

The recipe is here.

Only 53 recipes left to go!

Whew -- the last few days have been a mad rush to finish up the semester and get ready for Christmas! On Wednesday I administered my final exam, so the latter half of the week included a lot of grading! It also included some more enjoyable activities: lunches and dinners with friends, a Christmas cookie party, Happy Hour with colleagues, an MSU basketball game, and of course: Christmas shopping! It was a hectic few days. Now I am happy to say that most of the Christmas cards are written, the presents have been purchased and wrapped, and my course grades have been submitted. So I am ready for the holiday! This morning I drove from our house to my parents' place in Madison, WI. The six hour drive was very easy -- nice weather and no traffic (even in Chicago!). My special gentleman is dropping off the kittens at his parents' house and spending a couple days there before meeting me in Madison. We will stay in Wisconsin through Christmas Eve, then drive through the night to be in Ohio with my special gentleman's family on Christmas Day. All of our siblings are coming home for Christmas this year, and we are very excited to see everyone! This is one of my favorite times of year!

Cilantro Walnut Filling (Page 420)

RECIPE #1239

• Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010 -- 5pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Helen, Charles, Clara, Corbett, Mary, Allison, Ben S., Kendra, Jubin, Watson, Linda, and Bob K.
• Recipe Rating: B
  

This was a component of a beef dish that I made for our pre-Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks ago. I started by blanching some spinach, cilantro, and parsley. Then I drained the greens and squeezed out as much liquid as possible. I toasted some walnuts and ground them in a food processor. I added the greens, garlic, fresh bread crumbs, honey, egg whites, salt, cumin, coriander, and pepper and pulsed until smooth. I thought this filling was pretty good. It begged to be compared with pesto -- nuts, herbs, and garlic ground up together. But I think the basil-pine nut combination in pesto works better than the spinach-cilantro-parsley-walnut combination did here. That's not to say that it was bad. It wasn't. It just wasn't as good as an excellent pesto. And although I liked it pretty well in the beef dish, I couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't the best filling for the job. This recipe was perfectly satisfactory, but I wouldn't make it again.

Only 54 recipes left to go!

The recipe is here.

And just like that, the semester is ending. Tomorrow morning at 7:45am I give my final exam. Once the exams are graded and the course grades are computed and submitted, I will be done for the term! I am ready for the semester to be over, but nonetheless I feel like the end snuck up on me. On the one hand I feel as though the semester flew by. On the other hand, if I think about how much more comfortable I feel in my new job now than I did at the beginning of the semester, it makes September seem like ages ago. New situations make me nervous. And in starting this new job there were a lot of new situations, and hence a lot of anxiety. As the semester went on I could feel my stress level dropping each week though, as fewer and fewer things were new. I got into a routine. I learned the basics about how things work in both units in which I am appointed. I made friends. And slowly I became more and more comfortable. Indeed I think next semester will go much more smoothly than this one, if for no other reason than that I will be so much less anxious. In the meantime, I am in the midst of finals week. Hopefully my students do well tomorrow morning!

Foolproof Grilled Chicken (Page 363)

RECIPE #1238

• Date: Saturday, November 6, 2010 -- 7pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Dining Companion: Brad and Deniz
• Recipe Rating: A-
  

My special gentleman and I made this recipe when his brother and sister-in-law came to visit last month. I started by brining the chicken overnight in a mixture of water, salt, and sugar. Then we made a vinaigrette of lime juice, fish sauce, minced garlic, cilantro, mint, red pepper flakes, salt, and vegetable oil. My special gentleman seared the chicken pieces on the grill, then moved them to a part of the grill where they got only indirect heat and continued to cook them. When the chicken pieces were cooked through he tossed them with the vinaigrette and served them with grilled limes. This grilled chicken was quite tasty. I am always a fan of brining and this recipe didn't disappoint. The meat came out moist and flavorful. The vinaigrette added nicely to the dish. The bold flavors in it stood up well against the char on the chicken from the grill. Everyone seemed to enjoy this dish quite a bit -- Deniz noted how much she liked it at least five times during the meal! It was definitely one of the better grilled chicken dishes I have had.

The recipe is here.

Only 55 recipes left to go!

My apologies for the blog silence. We had a bit of drama in our household this week. Over the weekend my special gentleman and I went down to Bloomington, Indiana. As we were only gone for two nights, we left the cats home alone and had our friends come and feed them on Saturday. We arrived home Sunday evening, excited to see our little kittens after a weekend without them! Little did we know the unpleasant surprise awaiting us. Apparently the kitties had gotten hungry between when they were fed on Saturday and when we got home on Sunday. So they went looking for something to eat. What did they find? Rat poison! We obviously had no idea it was there -- apparently it was left somewhere in the basement by the previous owners. We still don't know exactly where the cats found it. We had scoured the basement, removing hazards, before letting them down there. But the basement has crawlspaces, and vents, etc... and obviously we missed something. Somewhere they found a package of rat poison. They had chewed the package open and eaten the poison!

We went immediately to the veterinary hospital where the kitties were given activated charcoal. We were assured again and again that unlike dogs, cats don't actually eat rat poison. They may play around with it, but cats never eat it. The activated charcoal was a precaution, they said. An hour later the cats started pooping out pellets of poison. Apparently our cats aren't typical cats! They had indeed eaten it. Rat poison is scary stuff. It works by blocking production of Vitamin K, which causes the animal to internally bleed to death. There is a delay of 2-3 days before symptoms appear, so if you didn't know that your cat had eaten it, it would probably look fine for a few days and then just die. The treatment, after getting as much of the poison out of their system as possible, is Vitamin K therapy. After many terrifying hours at the veterinary hospital we were able to take the kittens back home. They were horribly sick all night on Sunday (from the charcoal and sorbitol that they got at the hospital) -- they cried and cried and we felt terrible for them. Each day since then they have gotten better though, and today they are acting like their usual selves. We need to give them Vitamin K twice a day for the next month, but it looks like they will be fine.

It was a horrible and scary few days. We love our little kitties so much and the idea of losing them was terrifying. And on top of the fear of course we both felt terrible that we had let them in the basement when there was rat poison down there. Now I feel hugely relieved and tremendously lucky that they are going to be OK. Poor little kitties.

Apricot Souffles with Vanilla Rum Creme Anglaise (Page 843)

RECIPE #1237

• Date: Friday, October 15, 2010 -- 7pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Fellow Chefs: Clara and Helen
  
• Dining Companions: Matty, Charles, Karen H, and Dave
• Recipe Rating: A-
  

I would have made this dish earlier but it specified that it needed to be made with dried California apricots. Most dried apricots you find in stores are from Turkey, not California. Eventually I gave up finding California apricots in the store and ordered them online. To prepare this dish I started by boiling the apricots in water and sugar and then pureeing the mixture until it was smooth. I stirred in some lemon juice, rum, vanilla, and salt. I beat egg whites with salt and cream of tartar. Little Clara helped me add sugar to the whites and I continued to beat them until they reached stiff peaks. I folded the whites into the apricots then ladled the mixture into buttered and sugared ramekins. I baked them until they were puffed and golden. Helen helped me pour some of the Vanilla Rum Creme Anglaise into each souffle and then they were ready to be served! These souffles were quite good. I could actually taste the difference in flavor between California apricots and Turkish apricots in this dish, and I think it was worth it to go out of my way to find the apricots from California. The texture of the souffles came out absolutely perfect. They rose well and were cooked nicely. The creme anglaise gave the dish some richness and contrast, which was lovely. Would I have preferred to have a chocolate souffle? Probably. But if you are going to make an apricot souffle, this is about as good as it is going to get.

Only 56 recipes left to go!

This was the last recipe in the Puddings, Custards, Mousses, and Souffles section of The Book! In no particular order, my five favorite recipes from this section:

• Almond Flan with Summer Fruit -- I usually don't particularly like flan. It can be gelatinous and eggy. But this flan was awesome. It had a fabulous almond flavor and a wonderful smooth texture. We ate this in Charlottesville with Tom and Ashley after a lovely meal of fish tacos. Good memories!
  
• Sticky Toffee Pudding with Toffee Sauce -- I made this one with Mike and we were deeply, deeply skeptical. The dish was largely baked pureed dates, which we weren't so sure we would like. And it looked... well... not so appealing. But one bite and we changed our minds! Oh my gosh -- Yum!! Mike and I still reminisce about this dish frequently.
  
• Warm Tapioca Pudding with Rhubarb -- I love, Love, LOVE pudding, and particularly tapioca pudding, so I was super-excited about this recipe. It was great with the rhubarb, but the pudding would be delicious even without the rhubarb topping! I made this back in graduate school for a Wednesday dinner -- a tradition where a bunch of friends would get together on Wednesday nights and cook from The Book. That night I got so wrapped up in the dinner conversation that I neglected this pudding and it burnt to the bottom of the pot. It was still tasty though!
  
• Sticky Rice with Mango -- Although I love sticky rice, I had never made it myself before making this dish. The coconut sauce was out-of-this-world, and the rice came out appropriately sticky and moist. I made this for dinner with my special gentleman's family. My brother-in-law Brad made an awesome Indian dinner and I made this dessert. Teamwork!
  
• Classic Creme Brulee -- It's hard to go wrong with a classic like creme brulee. This wasn't the best creme brulee I have ever had, but it was still super tasty. I made this for dinner with Mike, Teresa, Cornelia, and Tricia in Bloomington and we were all scraping every last bit out of our creme brulee dishes.
  

These dishes bring back such great memories -- not just of the food but also of the good friends that I ate them with! now I have 10 sections completed and 11 left to complete! Almost done!!

Vanilla Rum Creme Anglaise (Page 844)

RECIPE #1236

• Date: Friday, October 15, 2010 -- 7pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Helen, Charles, Clara, Dave, and Karen H
• Recipe Rating: A-
  

This recipe was a component of a souffle dish I made when my in-laws came to visit last month. I forgot to take a picture of the creme anglaise alone, but you can see a bit of it dripping out of the souffle above. I started by boiling half-and-half with a vanilla bean. Then I scraped the seeds of the vanilla bean into the half-and-half and discarded the pod. I whisked egg yolks, salt, and sugar, and added the hot half-and-half. I cooked the mixture on the stovetop, stirring, until it reached 170 degrees. Then I strained it and cooled. I stirred some rum into the sauce and refrigerated it until it was very cold. As expected, this sauce was delicious! It's hard to go wrong with creme anglaise. It is rich and flavorful and wonderful. The balance of vanilla and rum was great in this sauce and it complemented the souffles very well!

The recipe is here.

Only 57 recipes left to go!

When I was in culinary school I was instructed by several excellent chefs. Chef Stephan was the one who made the largest impact. I was mildly terrified of him. He had a way of shouting my name across the kitchen that could stop me in my tracks. His standards were extremely high and he wasn't particularly flexible about them. I remember more than one occasion when it was 1am and everyone was exhausted and ready to go home but Chef Stephan would make someone re-plate their dish because he or she had violated some rule for proper plating. We all had to wait for this re-plating to occur before the food could be critiqued and the kitchen cleaned. Not infrequently we were still in the kitchen at 2am and everyone was cursing Chef Stephan under their breath. Secretly, everyone loved him. I think often of the lessons I learned from him. He taught me a lesson one night about seasoning that honestly changed my life. It involved a vat of pureed vegetable soup, a dozen small dishes, and a box of salt. It was simple enough, but an absolutely brilliant example of what my colleagues would call "active learning."

Chef Stephan wasn't a particularly warm and fuzzy kind of guy. He was more scary than cuddly. But he had a soft spot for at least one thing: creme anglaise. Every time we were in the kitchen he would instruct the person making the dessert to make some creme anglaise to go with it. Chef Stephan thought everything went well with creme anglaise. Cheesecake and creme anglaise? Sure. Ice cream with creme anglaise? Why not. He would drink the leftover creme anglaise out of a mug at the end of class. Creme anglaise is incredibly rich (being mostly egg yolks with heavy cream or half-and-half)-- every time I saw him drink it by the cupful my stomach would turn a little. Chef Stephan lived near the culinary school and rumor had it that late at night he would raid the school walk-ins for leftover creme anglaise from other classes and drink that too.

While I was in school, Chef Stephan's partner died of cancer. Everyone felt terrible, and helpless. I did the only thing I could think to do: I made creme anglaise for him. I carefully labeled my container of creme anglaise, "For Chef Stephan." When I opened the walk-in to leave it inside, I was greeted by container after container of creme anglaise, each labeled "For Chef Stephan" with a different handwriting. It was really moving.

I think of Chef Stephan every time I make creme anglaise. Remembering his class always brings a smile to his face. Now that I am a teacher myself I think often about the examples of excellent instruction that I have experienced in my own life. Chef Stephan's course certainly stands out as an amazing learning experience.