I have a bunch of things I've been meaning to post, but time gets away so easily. In the meantime, a photo of the sunrise over Lake Michigan on Easter morning (April 8, 2012):

Chicken Chickpea Stew and Escargot

I took the suggestion from squawkfox to see what I could do with a whole roasted organic chicken. I haven't gotten 22 meals from mine, but 1) my chicken was a bit smaller and 2) I ended up freezing about 6 cups of broth and maybe 1/2 lb of cooked chicken meat that I haven't used yet. As I'm just one person, I can only do so much. I would say that I should very easily get 22 meals for one out of this 3-4 lb chicken. I originally roasted it a-la Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking- amazing what a constant basting with butter and olive oil will do for a chicken skin. And then I used the crockpot to make broth. I love my crockpot. I cooked chickpeas and they turned out beautifully, which is great considering that canned chickpeas cost more than dried but cooking dried chickpeas has always been more effort than it's worth. I cooked mine on high heat for about 3-4 hrs and they were perfect (after an overnight soaking, of course).

I then made this delicious stew (or is it more of a soup? hard to tell, but it's not very liquidy, so I'm calling it stew) with some of the leftover chicken. I've been calling it Chicken Chickpea Stew, but there's quite a bit more than just chicken and chickpeas.

I based this roughly on the recipe from squawkfox, but pretty much added whatever I happened to have on hand:

3 small potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 tbsp olive oil

2 small onions, diced

3 cloves of garlic, diced

8 oz mushrooms, sliced

2 c cooked chickpeas

1 c dried lentils, washed and drained

10 oz package frozen spinach (thawed, but straight from the freezer worked fine too)

1 can tomato sauce

cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper

~1.5 c cooked, shredded chicken

4 c chicken broth

1. pre-cook potatoes in the microwave- about 3 min on high, covered. (I find this prevents the soup from getting too starchy)

2. Saute onions, garlic, and mushrooms in olive oil in large pot on med heat, until onions are cooked through and translucent

3. Add potatoes chickpeas, lentils, spinach, tomato sauce, chicken, and broth. Add spices to taste. Cook for about 30 min, or until lentils are cooked and soft. Serve with a nice crusty bread.

Next time I would amp up the tomatoes, maybe adding chopped fresh tomatoes as in the original recipe. The chicken, chickpeas, and lentils make this for a very hearty meal. I've also been eating it spooned over roasted cauliflower. Why did I not realize how delicious roasted cauliflower was before? I'm really not a fan of raw cauliflower on the veggie trays, but roasting things brings out the lovely caramelization and of couse that's delicious in any vegetable.

I also finished my Escargot hat!! I love this hat, and it makes me slightly sad that the weather here has been unseasonably warm for February so I don't have much excuse to wear it. I did wear it into work on Thursday, and my coworker was like, "you know it's supposed to be 40 F today, right?"

I hold out hopes for continuing to wear this this year, as it's only February and knowing the weather it will snow in late March.

I think if you wanted to be super geeky it would be fairly simple to modify the pattern to have two swirls, one on each side of the hat, to give a pseudo-Princess Leia look. With brown yarn (maybe no contrast). However, I will refrain from such things, not least because my project list is already way too long considering all the 'real' work that I should be doing (operative word is 'should').

Pattern is from the Winter 2011 issue of knitty.

I had vague ideas of entering the amateur cooking contest for baconfest 2012, but again, that involves time to actually develop a dish and test it. I do have some ideas, but no time to do test runs. So, unless some time miraculously falls into my lap, I may have to wait for baconfest 2013. Unless someone takes my brilliant idea, in which case I will need to further brainstorm what one could do with bacon.

petits fours

I've had an urge to make my own petites fours. Why? I keep seeing them for sale on gilt taste, and I can't help but think that while those may be very tasty, I could do that. So I did a little googling, and voila!

I have to say, I'm very pleased. I started with the blog post from bakerella on pound cake and petites fours. Other articles I read said to use a sponge cake, but I think the pound cake was brilliant- it's a very tasty cake in and of itself, and it held up nicely to the cutting. I didn't have any cream cheese so I used a tried-and-true pound cake recipe I had on hand:

Pound cake:
2 3/4 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter
2 c granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream butter and sugar until smooth, beat in eggs one at a time and add vanilla. Slowly beat in flour mixture.

Normally this gets baked in a 10-in bundt pan for over an hour @ 325F. This time I put it in a jelly-roll pan and baked it for about 25 min @ 325F.

I also don't remember where I got this recipe from, or I would give credit where it's due. Normally I add 2 cups of blueberries (fresh or frozen) and some chocolate chips, if I'm feeling like it. And, I don't know how this happened, but last night I completely ran out of granulated sugar. Completely. I made up the difference with brown sugar, it was totally fine. And honestly, probably more flavorful than with white sugar.

Cool the cake, and then cut into 8 sections- I'm rather bad at cutting them into equal-sized portions, but it was ok. Then slice each section in half horizontally. There are some nice pictures on the bakerella blog. She said to apply a small amount of syrup to each piece- I didn't have a spray bottle so I tried just using a spoon. Way, way too much simple syrup. The cake started to fall apart as the liquid soaked through, after I added layers of jam and stacked it. So I skipped the syrup and just layered jam and cake. I used some blueberry rhubarb jam that I made over the summer. I also skipped the marzipan because I didn't have it and also I don't really like it that much.

The jam filling.

I decided to use a chocolate glaze instead of a fondant glaze. 1) because I love chocolate and 2) because I find fondant to be cloyingly sweet. I used a recipe from allrecipes for a shiny chocolate glaze. I doubled the recipe because I didn't want to run out. I think that was for the best, though I probably had a good cup or so of glaze left over. Still trying to decide what to do with that. I melted this over a pot of water on the stove rather than in the microwave, so that I could keep it warm over the water. I just turned off the heat and left the bowl on top of the pot.

I have no photos of the glazing process, because I only have two hands. I ended up with chocolate everywhere, possibly in my hair. But basically, I put the cake piece on a fork, and used a spoon to coat the cake with the glaze. It's pretty thin, making it super easy to pour over while it's hot. I then placed it on the silpat to cool. And then, after all of the cakes were coated, I melted some white chocolate, added some food coloring, and drizzled. :D I need to find a better method to drizzle chocolate (I am currently just using a fork dipped into the chocolate) because it sometimes results in globs of chocolate. And again, chocolate all over the kitchen.

So pretty!

feliz cumpleaños a mi padre

I dunno, I felt like it sounded better in spanish. :)

Vanilla butter sponge cake (a la Julia Child), with an apricot cake filling (I cheated- this was the canned stuff in the baking aisle) and vanilla whipped cream frosting. Wording written with chocolate ganache b/c that's what I had on hand. I topped the cake with the extra apricot filling because (1) it looks pretty and (2) that meant I didn't have to do another layer of frosting to cover the cake crumbs (I should have anyway to cover the sides better, but it was late on Wed and I wanted to go to bed).

I think I may have finally found a good frosting that will set and is not uper sweet. I used this sturdy whipped cream frosting recipe from all recipes, only I used marscapone cheese instead of cream cheese and added about 1/2 packet of unflavored gelatin (dissolved in about 2 tbsp of hot water). This stuff tastes vaguely like the cream filling of tiramisu (it's actually very close, just without the eggs and marsala wine), and I have eaten the leftovers by the spoonful. That's not bad, right? Cream cheese would of course be much more cost-effective than marscapone cheese, but marscapone cheese is actually super easy to make. I would just need (1) time, (2) a store that sells something other than ultrapasturized whipped cream (i.e. not Jewel or Dominicks), and (3) a sieve. When I've made this in the past I've used paper coffee filter rather than the cheesecloth, b/c I found that the cheese mixture just drained right through the cheesecloth and I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to happen. But I always forget to cool it before pouring it into the cheesecloth, so perhaps that's the problem.

baby brioche

It seems it's either drought or downpour here. Third post in two days. :P

So that brioche dough I made yesterday? I made some baby brioches. Katy very nicely sent me a set of 4 mini-loaf pans for my birthday (back in October). This is the first time I'm using them. The pans are super cute and lovely, but I don't bake a lot of things that need a loaf pan (quick breads are not really my thing, regular breads get just the pizza stone from me). Anyway. Instead of the one regular brioche using 1/2 the batch and one chocolate brioche, I made 2 mini regular brioches and 2 mini chocolate brioches. Let me just say, the chocolate brioche is wonderful and I am cutting myself off for tonight. Haven't tried the plain brioche yet, but I have some plans for brioche french toast in the near future...

up close

mmm, chocolate

I still have half the batch of dough left (I made enough dough for two one-pound loaves). I think I may bake it and then freeze the loaves, and make a brioche bread pudding in the future. I miss the brioche bread pudding from Sarah's Patisserie (well, I miss everything from Sarah's Patisserie, I have not found another bakery that does it quite like Tammy).