Home effort

Brian requested a chocolate mint cake for his birthday on Sunday, which gave me an opportunity to put some of the Pastry class skills I've been acquiring to use. The above pictured cake is the result of my effort and, while it looks a little lumpy in places, it tasted really great. It had three layers of chocolate cake, two layers of chocolate mint ganache and chocolate mint buttercream.

I'm still pretty crappy at getting the buttercream to look right on the cake, and not having the right equipment (offset spatula, cake comb) didn't help the matter. But the taste of the buttercream was by far the best thing about this cake.

I've never liked the kind of buttercream that you make with powdered sugar--it is just too damn sweet and makes me feel like I'm going to go into diabetic shock. And frankly, it freaks me out to see a recipe with a whole pound of powdered sugar in it.

One of the best things I have learned in my pastry class is that there is a buttercream that I can love--French buttercream. There is only 1 C of granulated sugar in the recipe which makes a buttercream that is far more palatable to me, and it also has a great texture with none of the chalkiness that can come from powdered sugar. The technique sounds like a pain in the ass when you first hear it, but it really is pretty simple--beat up some egg yolks until they are thick and light. While the mixer is beating away, heat up the sugar with 2 oz water and make a syrup that reaches the soft ball stage (240 degrees). Then with your mixer still running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl (so it doesn't splatter or make little hard droplets in your buttercream). The heat of the sugar cooks the yolks so they are safe to eat. You can add your melted chocolate and peppermint extract now. Then you leave the mixer running and beating the hell out of the stuff until it is pretty cool. Then blop in pieces of room temperature butter until it is all combined.

The frosting is silky smooth with just the right amount of sweetness and richness. Brian tasted it and his whole face lit up--it is that good--and both of us had to resist sitting down and eating it with a spoon.

Chocolate Mint Buttercream
adapted from Recipezaar

enough to frost and fill a 3 layer cake

8 oz granulated sugar
2 oz water
4 egg yolks
10 oz butter, softened
1/2 t peppermint extract (switch to 3/4 t vanilla if you want plain chocolate buttercream)
3 oz good quality bittersweet chocolate, melted over a double boiler and cooled slightly

1. Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil while stirring to dissolve the sugar.
2. Continue to boil until the syrup reaches a temperature of 240 degrees F.
3. While the syrup is boiling, beat the yolks with a wire whip or the whip attachment of a mixer until they are thick and light in color.
4. As soon as the syrup reaches 240 F, pour it very slowly in a thin stream down the side of the mixing bowl into the beaten yolks while whipping constantly.
5. Beat in the peppermint extract and melted chocolate.
6. Continue to beat until the mixture is completely cool and the mixture is very thick and light.
7. Whip in the butter a lump at a time. Add it as fast as it can be absorbed by the mixture.
8. If the icing is too soft, refrigerate it until it is firm enough to spread.

Home in progress...

In between dealing with the zucchini and tomato overloads, small person wrangling and pastry making, I've been slowly attempting to improve our living space. Our house is a work in progress and Brian and I are leisurely at best, and lazy at worst, about making the necessary improvements (did I mention the three foot deep pit that rendered the front door inaccessible for over a year?). But every once in a while we get a burst of improvement energy (or present environment disgust) and tackle another project.

The room which is currently our (small) living room (previously the dining room and before that, the kitchen--we've been shuffling rooms for a while now) finally got walls in August (trim coming in November!) It was down to the studs for a few years, then we insulated it and stuck up some plywood, and three years later I finally had the energy to push for drywall.

It isn't the greatest mudding job since I did it myself, but it is my hope that within the next 3 years (ok, maybe 5 years...), we will have started to build a living room addition on to the back of the house and the current living room will be transformed into a hallway/pantry and a half bath. Thus the lumps and bumps in my mudding will eventually be covered with shelves or tile.

After the drywalling, I painted the living room. First a hideous shade of too-bright almost-lime green (another of those "Whoops! looked ok on a swatch" moments), and after a couple of days of squinting and thinking that I needed sunglasses to stay in the room, I repainted it a softer green. I picked a Martha Stewart paint swatch (Fern Shoot) since all her colors are sort of subdued and I wanted to be sure we wouldn't be blinded by the room. I had them color match it using Olympic paint since it is zero VOC and I've done enough damage to my brain over the years without voluntarily inhaling toxins.

I like the color--it is cheerful without being overwhelming, but it does represent a decorating challenge. It needs neutral colors to balance it out. I have a bunch of nice black and white prints of my dad's photography that are matted and framed in silver frames that will look good on the walls. But our furniture? Well, that's another story.

Our couch used to be red twill, though it has faded and been beat up over the years of pet and kid ownership. It looked fine in a cream or white room, but horrific with the green walls. We have a beige ultra suede slipcover for the thing that we are currently using and which provides a neutral couch experience (a rich chocolate brown one would be nicer, but right now our aging and ailing cat often is puking on the current one so this is not the time to invest in an upgrade). Big bonus--the thing washes and drys well and fast.

So it is to the couch throw pillows I have turned my attention. I bought some fabric from Fabric.com to cover the hideous, but really comfy big pillow:

In the process of being swallowed, ahem, covered.

And I think it looks pretty good next to the nifty $7 Ikea Hedda covers.
I like the way the Queen Ann's Lace botanical print softens up the modernist plant on the Ikea pillow. Much as I love mid-century modern stuff (that would be my Dad's aesthetic and the one that I grew up with), Brian and I are a little too quirky to go that pure route. But the modernish-accents help keep our weird stuff, like this print (look closely--under each cow is a car brand or model), or Brian's Fez collection or my subversive toile, from looking too kitchy.

I also bought a couple of yards of the negative of the pillow fabric (currently on clearance): I haven't decided what to do with it yet--cover some more pillows? Make a roller shade for the window in the room?

Cider making time

I present to you the totally self-serving birthday present I am giving Brian for his birthday:
Nope, I'm not planning on deep frying a turkey; this stainless steel beauty is perfect for beer brewing and (drum roll please) hard cider making!

Now we need to pick a cider mill. The cider can be pasteurized (since we are adding champagne yeast to the cider to ferment it) but cannot have any preservatives (most of the stuff you get at a standard grocery store will have preservatives. So when Meijer's is having a sale and cider is $1.50 a gallon, go ahead and get it for mulling, but don't expect it to ferment).

The closest mill, Dexter Cider Mill, fits the bill--they don't even pasteurize--but unfortunately, we bought a half gallon there a couple of weeks ago and I wasn't impressed with the flavor. It was pretty bland stuff, lacked the spicy kick that I crave and tasted like it was overloaded with bland, sweet apple varieties, like red delicious.

Right now I'm tempted to try Erwin Orchards, in South Lyon. I wouldn't be tempted to go apple picking there because they don't have my favorite apple, the Jonathan, available. But I have heard good things about their cider from an email list I'm on.

The other three mills under consideration (all of which I'd have to call to find out if they add preservatives) are:

• Parmenter Northville Cider Mill
• Ostbaum Orchards (also in Northville)
• Wasem Fruit Farm (in Milan) which I'm feeling quite warmly toward because they got my fruit-o-phobic kids to try different varieties of apples on their respective school field trips to the farm last week.

I went a leeeetle bit overboard....

at the Farmer's Market today...
But how could I resist this huge box of tomatoes for $5? They are ostensibly "seconds" but other than the odd spot or crack (and all Brandywines have cracks in them) they seem like "firsts" to me. There's a nice mix too--heirlooms (Brandywine and Golden Jubilee), romas and some standard reds of indeterminate origin.

I stumbled (the box is heavy) down to the next market stall and bought some peppers and eggplants:
I might have gone a little overboard in the eggplant department too....

So what to do with this bounty?

• I'm still hooked on the eggplant-feta-mint salad that I raved about here a couple of weeks ago and it uses tomatoes and peppers too. I'd like to keep a container of this stuff in the fridge at all times for snacking. It leaves me with garlic-dragon breath, but so what?
  
• If I can keep the small people subdued long enough to buy myself a little kitchen time this afternoon, I'm hoping to try this recipe for Tortino di Melanzone that was posted today on Gastronomical Three. I like the sound of the souffle-like addition of whipped egg whites which should lighten the dish up from the density of a traditional eggplant Parmesan.
  
• Some of the tomatoes are destined for pico de gallo so I'll have to make something Mexican in the next couple of days to serve as the delivery device (other than just a big bag of chips...). I know there is a hunk of pork in the freezer which will probably be utilized.
  
• And there's always ratatouille, though I don't yet have a favorite recipe--I don't think I've ever made a bad ratatouille, but I also haven't made one that knocked my socks off. If you have a favorite recipe, please send it my way.

Napoleon was a fatty...

...because he ate a lot of these:
Ok, so my Napoleon is leaning a little bit...but that's because it is soooo full of creamy goodness! I had one with a cup of tea this afternoon and the puff pastry is terrific--super buttery and crisp and sturdy enough to support that quantity of cream.

Yesterday I also made this:
but I didn't get to taste it because it'll be served on the dessert tray in the restaurant. Inside are three layers of vanilla chiffon cake, two layers of Bavarian cream swirled with raspberry sauce and punctuated with fresh raspberries (punctuated is probably the wrong word to use, but that's what it felt like as I poked the raspberries into the Bavarian cream.)

I have a feeling that my family are going to have higher expectations for their birthday cakes once this class is done...I won't be able to get away with churning out a batch of my favorite Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes topped with a powdered sugar stencil.

Look!

Look what I made!
Isn't it pretty?

I can't actually testify as to how the Marjolaine tastes all together, since it was to be served in the restaurant at WCC, though I did sample the parts that made up the whole--the hazelnut meringue, the chocolate and praline French butter cream, the ganache. I imagine that put together they packed quite a wallop of fat and sugar intensity.

I tried a couple of the plated desserts this week and wasn't terribly impressed with either. There was a raspberry sorbet with Champagne sabayon
and vanilla souffle with chocolate sauce.
The sabayon and the sorbet were fine, but not memorable, and whose idea was it to stick a wheat cracker in as a garnish? Ick. The souffle looked pretty but really tasted mostly of eggs, not of vanilla and the chocolate sauce was watery and tasted like cheap chocolate was used (it probably was cheap chocolate since it wasn't going to be served to the public.)

So the noshing at the last class wasn't as good, but at least my Marjolaine turned out!

Re-reading

I used to be a dedicated re-reader, but until this past month, I've been forging on ahead on my endless "to read" list without much back tracking. But September proved to bring together some circumstances that allowed me to enjoy a couple of re-reads.

In the first place, the kids started up school again and that requires a hell of a lot of brain power on my part. Getting them into the routine again, meeting the teachers, staff, parents and new kids and helping ease the transition from the looseness of summer into the more-interesting-and-yet-more-stressful atmosphere of the school year has left me with few spare brain cells to devote to paying attention to new fiction. I've started and abandoned a number of books this month.

But a couple of things came to my rescue. The first was my wonderful book group chose to read Suite Francaise (which I read last January). Last time I read the book, I neglected to read all the author's notes at the end of the book which really was a disservice. Sarah emphasized that I really needed to read them to understand the scope and trajectory of the book that Nemirovsky had intended to write.

The notes are heartbreaking in a different way from the book. The stories in the book are exquisite and it is hard to believe that they are not her final draft. But the notes in the back reveal the urgency of the writer, the pressures (if you can call Nazi occupation and being of Jewish ancestry merely a "pressure") under which the composition took place and the purpose with which she embarked on creating her fiction.

I read the notes and then went back and re-read some of my favorite parts of the novel--particularly those sections about Lucille. And this time, thanks to the notes, I had some idea of what would or could happen to the character in the intended, but unfinished at the time of the author's death, final three parts of the book.

We got together last week to eat French food, drink French wine, and talk about this wonderful book.
Clockwise from upper right: Daube Provencal, sauteed greens, mushroom gratin, and salade vert. And for dessert I made chocolate orange creme brulee:
My favorite item in the meal was also the simplest--Lea made the perfect salade vert. I love a good salade compose with complex mingling of varied ingredients, but there is something about the purity of a salade vert that I crave in a totally different way. Simple, tender butter lettuces dressed with a perfect tarragon vinagrette make a convincing argument for less is more. Lea shared the recipe with me (listed below) and I'm going to make it again this week.

The other circumstance that lead to a re-read, or more accurately a re-visiting though this time in audio CD format, was the amount of work that needs to be done getting this house prepared for the change of season. The library kindly delivered up to me the full audio CD set of Harry Potter 7, all 17 discs worth, and I have downloaded it onto my MP3 player while I caulk and patch and prime and repaint chunks of the house. I have discovered that I'm not as fond of audio books when I haven't read the book version already. Call me a dinosaur, but the words are more real for me if they are on paper and first enter my brain in this format. But I do love a good audio book as a re-read (or whatever you call listening to fiction) and I think the Harry Potter series are remarkably well read by Jim Dale.

Now that we are (sort of) settled into our new routine I think I can spare some brain cells for new fiction again and our next book group book won't be a re-read for me: The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea.


Salade Vert
adapted from Epicurious

Large bowl of washed and torn butter lettuces tossed with the following dressing:

1 1/2 Tbsp tarragon vinegar
1/4 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp finely chopped parsley
2 tsp finely chopped tarragon
1 tsp finely chopped chives
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup olive oil

Whisk together all the dressing ingredients except for oil. Then add oil slowly while whisking to emulsify the dressing and toss with butter lettuces.

Sugar-high Fridays

I've been spending Friday evenings desperate for raw vegetables as an antidote for what I've been doing all day. I'm taking the Pastry I class out at WCC and that means spending 5 hours each Friday playing with lots of butter and sugar. The pastry chef teaching the course is Terry Morrow who owns and runs the Queen of Hearts bakery in Depot Town. I haven't been to the bakery itself yet (apparently it was in Saline for a long time and moved to Depot Town recently), but Terry is great and her enthusiasm for what she does really comes across in the kitchen.

I forgot my camera the first week so I only have a photo of a couple of the éclairs that my group made once they had traveled home in a foam container:
Still pretty darn tasty though! Our Pate a Choux turned our really well, as did the Bavarian creme we piped inside. The chocolate sauce we made could have used a little more hot cream beat into it to make it flow a little better, but it still tasted good.

This past week my group (we are doing European Pastries right now, and will rotate with the other three groups in the class through Tarts, Cakes and Plated Desserts) made a whole lot of stuff that we will transform into impressive things next week: puff pastry (which takes a hell of a long time--lots of rolling, folding, chilling, then do it all again) which we'll make into Napoleons, a sheet of hazelnut meringue that we'll turn into an insane sounding construction called a Marjolaine (layers of meringue, ganache and praline French butter cream all covered in more ganache) and the custards for Creme Brulee that are just waiting for their sugary crust (we couldn't find a blow torch so I'll bring mine in next week).

We didn't make anything we could eat this week, but there were plenty of things to try from the other groups; some of the things we make are frozen or refrigerated and used in the restaurant at WCC, but there are plenty of things that won't store well and won't make it until Monday or that we sacrifice one of a batch to try. First we had profiteroles with homemade vanilla ice cream: The ice cream was great, the chocolate sauce was a little thin.

Then there was the Pecan Flan, with a cream cheese filling and apricot glaze:
Good, but a little too sweet for my taste.

And we had Apple and Pear Charlotte with Creme Anglaise and warm caramel sauce:
This one was my favorite, but then I'm a sucker for fruit desserts. I also came home with a slab of chiffon cake with butter cream and raspberry filling.

The atmosphere in the kitchen is one of controlled chaos--everywhere you turn there is some wonderful smelling concoction being made and it does take a little bit of discipline to stay on task and not wander over and breathe in the fragrance of, say, a fresh baked carrot cake. As far as the price for the amount of experience you get in the kitchen, this class can't be beat. The class lasts a full 15 weeks so I have 12 more Fridays of Sugar Shock to enjoy!

Be a queen...or a bat...

I finished sewing a dress up cape for Fiona's preschool's fund raising auction (which isn't until November, but I'm trying to be organized this year). I made it with purple satin with little sparkles on it and lined it with light blue satin. Fiona was happy to model it for me:
But unlike most normal 4 year olds, it didn't inspire her to pretend to be a princess or queen, or, for god's sakes, anything human.
She announced that she is a bat and her name is "mosquitoes". (Most of her pretend animal characters get named after their favorite food: "Meaty" the T Rex, "Leaf" the giraffe, "Buggy" the frog, etc.)

I'm also knitting a baby sweater and hat set for the auction and, after knocking this cape out over the weekend, I'm beginning to sniff discontentedly at the amount of time that knitting takes. Even when knitting for a small person, the gratification is much more delayed.

Whew!

We made it through the first week of school (pant, pant) though I do feel like I've just run a marathon after having sat on my butt for a few months.

I did a little therapeutic cooking midweek which was also designed to decrease the insane baseball-bat sized zucchinis that greeted me when we came back from Georgian Bay. I swear the thing was about 5 inches long when we left for a beautiful week of camping and canoeing at Massasauga Provincial Park but I could have easily used the zucchini I found upon our return as a weapon. Since I'm too cheap to throw the massive zuchs away, I figured grating was the answer and Zuccchini Feta pancakes were on the menu.
This is the third recipe for Zucchini Feta pancakes I've made this summer and, so far, the best of the three. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I got the other two recipes but both were a bit on the flabby side. So I did a little web searching and decided on a recipe on Epicurious for Turkish Zucchini pancakes; I was swayed by the fact that everyone who reviewed the recipe (a feature I really like about Epicurious, though I often forget to add my own comments to the stream of advice) said that they would make it again--it's rare that a recipe gets a 100% approval rating.

I also liked that these had plenty of flavors added to make up for the blandness of the zucchini--feta, walnuts, dill, scallions and mint. With such a cast of supporting tastes, I probably could have used cardboard as the base and it still would have tasted good. But I dutifully shredded my massive zucchini instead. It was a little scary when I realized that it would only take half of my huge zucchini, even with the spongy core carved out pre-grating, to produce the pound of zucchini called for in the recipe. My zucchini isn't quite the size of Iron Stef's which had to be restrained by a seat belt in the car, but it came pretty close!

The walnuts are a great addition to the pancakes and make them into a substantial dinner. I tweaked the recipe a bit (the original calls for tarragon and even more green onions--1 1/2 cups are plenty!) and served them with a yogurt garlic sauce.

Turkish Zucchini Pancakes
adapted from Bon Appetite

1 pound zucchini, trimmed, coarsely grated
1 1/2 cups chopped green onions
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup chopped fresh dill or 1 1/2 tablespoons dried dillweed
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
a shake of cayenne pepper
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (about 3 ounces)
2/3 cup chopped walnuts (about 3 ounces)
Olive oil

Place grated zucchini in colander. Sprinkle zucchini with about 1 1/2 t salt and let stand about an hour. Squeeze zucchini vigorously between hands to remove liquid.

Combine zucchini, chopped green onions, 4 eggs, flour, chopped dill, parsley, tarragon, 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper in medium bowl. Mix well. Fold in crumbled feta cheese. Fold chopped walnuts into zucchini mixture. Preheat oven to 300°F and place a baking sheet in oven.

Film the bottom of large nonstick skillet with olive oil and heat over medium-high heat. Working in batches, drop zucchini mixture into skillet by heaping tablespoonfuls. Fry until pancakes are golden brown and cooked through, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer each batch of pancakes to baking sheet in oven to keep warm. Serve pancakes hot. Makes about 20.

Serve with a yogurt garlic sauce:
Mix 1 clove of minced or pressed garlic and 1 t salt with about 1 C greek yogurt, or 3/4 C of regular yogurt and 1/4 C of sour cream. Stir to combine thoroughly (can also add shredded cucumber, chopped mint or dill, etc.)