FENNEL, WATERCRESS, AND ORANGE SALAD WITH FIG DRESSING

During his "naps" Dash has been busy building what he calls "big cakes" by stacking clothes, toys and stuffed animals. These towering creations come up to his belly button. I can see him stacking things through the keyhole in his bedroom door.

Meanwhile, I've been busy building salads. Here's one that I tried several times last week. The flavors are intense but if you cut the fennel very thinly and finish the salad off with paper thin curls of parmesan, the texture can be quite delicate.

SALAD OF FENNEL, WATERCRESS, AND ORANGE WITH FIG DRESSING

Once sliced, the fennel needs to be dressed immediately or it will turn brown. This salad is best done at the last minute. If you can't find fresh figs, rehyrate some dried figs with a little warm water and chop them finely OR puree them in the food processor for a creamier dressing (feeds one with some dressing left over).

3 figs

2 teaspoons sherry wine vinegar

squeeze of lemon

1 shallot, finely chopped

3 tablespoons olive oil

salt

pepper

1 navel orange

handful of watercress or arugula

1 fennel bulb

parmesan

12 or so parsley leaves

For the dressing. Cut figs in half, scoop out flesh with a teaspoon, and put it in a bowl. Add vinegar, lemon juice, and chopped shallot to fig flesh and mix well. Let sit for a few minutes. Slowly whisk in olive oil.

With a serrated knife, remove the peel from the orange. Cut out the orange sections from between the white membranes. Catch all the juice. Add half the juice to the salad dressing. Cut the fronds and a bit of the root bottom off of the fennel bulb. You can peel off the outer layer with a vegetable peeler if it looks tough or bruised. Very thinly slice about half of the fennel bulb by hand or with a mandoline. It looks nicer if you start slicing from the root bottom.

Combine fennel with watercress, orange sections, and parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Toss with some of the fig salad dressing and toss the salad with your hands. It needs lots of dressing. Add parmesan to top of salad with vegetable peeler. Drizzle over a bit more olive oil and some crunchy salt.

Variations:  Add pine nuts, grapefruit or avocado. Or all of the above. Try balsamic vinegar instead of sherry vinegar (sweeter but still quite good). If you want the dressing to have a little more bite add a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and some grated garlic.

JAMIE: A LOVE STORY

The past few weeks are a Jamie Oliver blur.

Turns out it's very easy to get people to rave about Jamie Oliver. The collected impressions add up to quite a love letter. The orange quotes throughout the post are from others. The rest of the gushing (black text) is from me.

"He's young."

"He's innovative."

"He's a humanitarian."

"He's totally hot and like the bad boy of culinary exquisiteness."

When someone comes over to our house, Dash runs up and says, "You wanna see Jamie Oliver? You wanna SEE him?" As if we're hiding him in the bathroom. Then he pulls out Jamie Oliver cookbooks, points to different photos of the chef and asks, "Is that Jamie? Look that. Fig tart. We make that recipede."

Yes we did. 

FIG TART

Tart shell. Bella and her friend Jacob cream the butter and sugar by hand. They slice open the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds. After dumping the dough on the table they gather it together and mush it into squares. Very satisfying, they say.

"Jamie Oliver taught me how to cook."
"Jamie taught me how to be an intuitive cook."

"I became the owner of each recipe."

"Less about recipe. More about cooking."

 

Frangipane filling. Almonds, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, more vanilla bean. Splash of grappa, if you have some. We put in Grand Marnier instead.

Assembly. Even a sleepy 2-year old can do it. Spread frangipane in bottom of half-baked shell. Press in figs. Sprinkle with almonds, orange zest, lemon zest, sugar, and thyme. Bake.

It actually looks a lot like the photograph in the cookbook. This doesn't happen very often. Serve it with mascarpone. And dessert wine. But be warned, it's very sweet.

 

"He's effortless."
"I like a flirty recipe."

"He writes visually. Knob of butter. Glug of olive oil."

"Jamie Oliver taught me how to stock my pantry. Olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and lemons."

Cooking shows can be so awkward. There's no flow. Everything is already prepped and half-cooked. There is often this look of confusion in the host's eyes as he or she searches for a spatula or salt in his or her "kitchen." Not so with Jamie Oliver.

It's a beautiful thing to watch Jamie Oliver whack the shit out of herbs, garlic, lemon, salt and olive oil with his mortar and pestle. Even his first cooking show (The Naked Chef)—with the odd format of a woman interviewing him off-camera—shows him in his element. We are with him in his actual kitchen.  Over the years as the kitchens (eventually sets?) get lovelier and lovelier, Jamie still manages to dance around the space, reaching behind him without looking to grab a sheetpan, twirling around to whip the vegetables out of the oven just a little too late.

"He changed how I make salad. Layers, not tossed."

"So many vegetables." 

ROASTED VEGETABLES

We flip through Jamie's cookbooks for inspiration.  I pile up all our fall vegetables on the counter and just start peeling and chopping. Dash scoops the seeds and pulp out of the delicata squash. He does a face plant into the scraps and inhales deeply. "Yum," he says. He tastes the raw squash and spits it out.

Potatoes, sweet potatoes, delicata squash (did you know you can actually leave the skin on this particular squash?), a dozen cloves of garlic still in their skins, lots of salt, pepper and thyme.

 

" He cooks with and for his kids." 

"Feels like you're part of his family. I want to be part of his family."

Jamie started cooking as a teenager at his dad's pub in Essex and worked his way on up to be the executive chef at London's River Cafe. He has over 10 cookbooks and just as many cooking shows. He started a restaurant in London called Fifteen that trains and hires young adults—many of whom were formerly homeless, unemployed or addicted to drugs. Three more restaurants following this model have opened in Amsterdam, Melbourne and Cornwall. So far he has 6 Italian restaurants. He also has THREE KIDS. And he's only 34.

"He mixes meat with fruit."

"He zests lemon into everything."

"Smell, touch, taste, adjust."

"Sometimes he steps back and just marvels at the beauty of a cooking step or an ingredient."

BAKED PORK CHOPS WITH TURNIPS, PEARS, AND POTATOES:
Make a marinade by pounding rosemary, thyme, lemons, and garlic with a mortar and pestle. Throw potatoes, pears, and turnips into a roasting pan with pork chops and marinade. Don't bake it for 45 minutes like we did.

We make a delicious but very dry pork. Look at the caramelized lemons resting on the finished pork. We smear it on bread with the roasted garlic.

"He's an important person."

"He progressed from a good chef to an incredible human being." 

"A humanitarian through food."

Jamie believes that feeding processed foods to children is a form of child abuse. Over the past few years he has been trying to teach everyone how to eat better—from English schoolchildren to Middle Americans. After Jamie exposed the horrors of school lunches to the public, the British government invested over ONE BILLION DOLLARS to try to make some changes. Holy shit. Imagine what an organization like Edible Schoolyard could do with that kind of money.

"Isn't he the one that kicked off the whole campaign about better school lunches for children? A chef that creates a global consciousness for school kids understanding the benefits of health food. Now that is hot!"

BRAISED LAMB SHOULDER:
We start cooking lamb pretty late one afternoon. Bella reluctantly agrees to help, but when I bust out two knives for her she is totally psyched. She scores the meat with a little too much energy. Then she tucks rosemary and garlic underneath the shoulder. Salt. Pepper. More rosemary and garlic on top. Cover it with a lid or tin foil. We throw it in the oven and forget about it (on purpose) for 4 hours. We serve it with roasted vegetables and couscous. Bella gets out of bed at 10pm to taste the caramelized ooey gooey lamb and pronounces it A-MA-ZING. She sits down with us and has a second dinner.

I don't want to put words in Jamie Oliver's mouth but I have a strong sense of what he stands for.  Know where your food comes from. Taste as you go along. Grow some herbs on your window sill. Support local farms. Cook with your kids. Use organic ingredients. Improvise. Cooking doesn't have to be a chore. Cooking can be fun. Cooking is messy. And anyone can do it.

And my big revelation this week? Our fridge is so full of lamb and pork and vegetables and tarts and sauces.  The freezer is packed with pesto and cookie dough and bread and meat scraps and tomato sauce and chicken stock and cakes. ALL OF THIS TIME SPENT COOKING IS ACTUALLY MAKING OUR LIVES EASIER IN THE LONG RUN. We have so many options for school lunches and leftovers for dinner.

P.S.: Here's what Bella said about Jamie Oliver: "I love his food AND I love Nigella Lawson's cakes." So do I. Nigella's chocolate cakes coming soon...

RECIPES  

Fig Tart (adapted from Crostata di Fichi in "Jamie's Italy")

As beautiful and as delicious as it was, I still found it too sweet. I would try this tart again with apricots or plums. Or you could replace the sweet tart dough with an unsweetened dough. A cornmeal dough would be great as well. The tart dough recipe that I've listed tastes very good and it browns nicely.  You'll need a deep 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Or a shallower 11-inch pan.

tart dough:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp

1 cup powdered sugar

pinch of salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 egg yolks

seeds from one vanilla bean OR 2 teaspoons vanilla

zest  of 1/2 a lemon

zest of 1/2 orange
2-3 tablespoons ice water

frangipane filling:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp

1 cup blanched ground almonds or almond meal

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

seeds from 1 vanilla bean OR 2 teaspoons vanilla

1 tablespoon grappa or Grand Marnier

12 figs, apricots, or plums

teaspoon of thyme leaves

zest of 1/2 orange

zest of 1/2 lemon

handful of blanched chopped almonds
1 tablespoon of sugar (preferably chunky like turbinado)

For the tart shell. Cream butter, sugar and salt by hand or in a food processor. Add yolks, vanilla and zests. Mix just to combine. Add flour. Mix briefly until it resembles coarse cornmeal. Pulse or mix in 2 tablespoons ice water. Add more water if dough seems too dry.  Dump onto the counter and press into a flat disc. Wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Roll out and press into tart pan. The dough is hard to work with. It's fine to patch holes and tears with extra pieces. Once it's cooked no one will know the difference. Chill for at least a half an hour.

Preheat oven to 325°F.

For the frangipane. Combine almonds, flour and sugar. In a separate bowl cream the butter. Mix in the almond mixture. Add the eggs, vanilla and liquor. Mix until just combined. Chill in fridge until you're ready to use it.

Bake off the tart shell for about 15 minutes at 325°F until slightly golden. Cool for 10 minutes. Fill the half-baked shell with the frangipane. Spread it out evenly. Jamie has this great fig trick. Cut off stems. Cut an x in the top of fig. Press the bottom of the fig up an through the x. Press the figs down into the frangipane with the x facing up. (If you're using using apricots or plums, cut them in half, remove pits and place halves face up.) Sprinkle with almonds, lemon and orange zests, and sugar. Throw it in the oven. Check after 45 minutes. Cover with tin foil if it's browning too much. It's done when the frangipane is puffed and golden. It's okay for it to be a little bit gooey in the center.  Sprinkle on powered sugar, cinnamon or both right before serving. Serve with unsweetened mascarpone, creme fraiche, or whipped cream.

Pork Chops (adapted from Tray-Baked Chops with Herby Potatoes, Parsnips, Pears and Minted Bread Sauce in "The Return of the Naked Chef")

This dish is great over polenta and smeared with any kind of pesto.

8 Pork chops
8 cloves garlic, skins on

2 sprigs of thyme and/or rosemary
3 quartered lemons, seeds removed
salt
pepper

3 pears

6 turnips and/or parsnips

10-12 yukon gold potatoes

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Pound garlic, herbs, and lemon with mortar and pestle.  Or just beat the heck out of it in a bowl with a mallet or wooden spoon. Spread marinade over pork chops. Marinate for a few hours or overnight if you want (but not necessary). If pear skin isn't too tough leave it on. Cut pears in half. Core. Cut into eighths. Cut potatoes and turnips/parsnips into smaller pieces since they need to cook longer than the pears. Mix vegetables and pears with marinated pork. Generously season with salt and pepper. Spread out on sheetpan and throw in the oven. Check them after 25 minutes. Cut a chop open to check it out. You still want the chops to be faintly pink in the center when you take them out.

Roasted Lamb Shoulder With Caper Balsamic Mint sauce (adapted from Incredible Roasted Shoulder of Lamb with Smashed Veg and Greens in "Jamie at Home"):

This is so good with roasted root vegetables (see below).  It's also great served over couscous or polenta.

1 boned shoulder of lamb

1 head of garlic

lots of rosemary and thyme

salt

pepper
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon capers with brine
1/2 cup chopped mint
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Crank your oven up as high as it goes. Score fatty side of shoulder. Slather whole shoulder with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Place shoulder with fatty side up. Place a bunch of rosemary, thyme, and whole garlic cloves still in their skin underneath the shoulder. Place more garlic and herbs on top of the shoulder. Cover with tin foil or a tight-fitting lid.

Turn oven temperature down to 325°F. Throw lamb in the oven for 4 hours. Check every hour or so. If anything is sticking or burning add a little water or wine. It's done when it's just falling apart when you pull it with a fork.

Remove lamb. Put it on a plate and cover it to rest. Dump out most of the fat and herb stalks. Place back on heat and add the flour. Stir constantly for 2 minutes as you cook out the flour flavor and scrape up the goodies in the pan. Add the stock and cook down for a minute. Add capers and cook for another minute. Add vinegar and mint. Season with salt and paper to taste. Poor over lamb and serve.

Roasted Root Vegetables:

Cut up (to about the same size) a combination of potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, turnips and  parsnips. Carrots work well too. Add the garlic cloves still in their skins, several tablespoons of olive oil, pepper and lots of salt. Add several sprigs of rosemary and thyme. High heat (400°F) for 45 minutes or so. Check and stir often. Let the vegetables caramelize and burn a little bit.

LUNCHTIME MINUS DASH AND BELLA

Today I'm starting a new set of posts called LUNCHTIME MINUS DASH AND BELLA.

I love the challenge of throwing something together in 15 minutes or so that's JUST FOR ME. It's often a combination of odds and ends from my fridge. I thought these posts might be a nice counterbalance to the (wonderful) CHAOS of cooking with Dash and Bella. I'm feeling the need to tell some shorter stories AND to create my own recipes. See quick meals or twitter in the right navigation bar for previous entries. Here's what I ate for lunch today (actually, inhaled for lunch) while Dash redecorated his room instead of napping.

ENDIVE, POMEGRANATE, BLUE CHEESE, AND WALNUT SALAD WITH WALNUT AND ANCHOVY DRESSING (serves 1)


I have a huge jar of anchovies in my fridge. I put them in everything. As long as you keep them covered with olive oil they last forever.  In this recipe they just bring a nice saltiness to the dressing. It doesn't taste fishy at all. I'm now down to the very end of parsley and basil on my porch but I keep throwing those final sad leaves into my salads. I keep walnut oil in my fridge. But olive or hazelnut oil would work for this recipe. Leftover lamb or pork would also work nicely in this salad.

Dressing:
1 teaspoon grainy dijon mustard
1/4 anchovy filet
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons walnut oil

Salad Components:
Big handful of endive, arugula or mixed greens
Leftover cooked white meat chicken, cut up
Seeds from 1/2 a pomegranate
Chunk of blue cheese, crumbled
Parsley and basil, coarsely chopped
Pepper

Chop or mash anchovy and place in a bowl. Whisk in mustard and vinegar. Slowly whisk in walnut oil. Set aside.

Put greens, chicken, pomegranate, blue cheese and herbs into a bowl. Toss with dressing. Add pepper to taste. No salt necessary because of the anchovy.

Serve with crackers to scoop up the goodies on the bottom of the bowl.

SUGAR COOKIES

Dash is two years old. Two days ago he was assembling and running the Kitchen Aid mixer. Tonight he was trying to snort goat cheese up his nose through a straw. Check out some of his mature (and one not so mature) moments this week while we made sugar cookies with Bella and her friend Jacob.

 

HALLOWEEN SUGAR COOKIES (adapted from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook):

4 sticks (1 pound) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 3/4 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract or 1 tablespoon vanilla paste*

1 teaspon salt

5 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough

any kind of sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Beat the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time. Scrape down sides after each addition.

Add the vanilla extract or vanilla paste. Mix just to combine. Scrape down sides.

Whisk together flour and salt. Add flour in 4 batches to butter/sugar mixture. Scrape down between each addition. Don't overmix.

Dump out dough and split into 3 or 4 piles. Gently gather and flatten each pile into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least a few hours or up to a week. You can freeze the dough for a really long time.

Remove a disc from the fridge and let it soften for a few minutes. Using flour to keep the dough from sticking, roll the dough out to desired thickness (not too thin because it's nice to have a crisp outside and a less cooked center). Place parchment or a silpat on a sheetpan. Cut out shapes with cookies cutters.  Place cookies on sheetpan. Decorate with nothing, a bit of sugar, or unbelievable amounts of sprinkles. Chill in fridge for 15 minutes before baking.

Bake until edges just start to get golden and the center is still uncolored, about 8-12 minutes.

Remove from oven and let sit for 2 minutes. Use a spatula to carefully slide the cookies onto a cooling rack. Or just slide the parchment or silpat off the tray onto a cool surface.

*My new favorite ingredient: vanilla bean paste. One tablespoon is equivalent to an entire vanilla bean. 

CHANGES

Blogging is like cooking. There is no help desk.

This week I lost an entire post, learned about blogger forums, felt grateful for the blogging community's support, and most importantly learned who is visiting the blog outside of my own little neighborhood (people in Zagreb, Perth, Duluth, Dallas, Sydney, Staten Island, Holsbeek, Mechelen, Medford, Atlanta, Van Nuys, North Hollywood, and Pirae to name a few).

Looking forward, here are few changes I've been playing with.

1. I'm going to alternate between longer and shorter posts. Mostly with kids, a few without. All about cooking. The lengthy posts I've been doing take two weeks from beginning to end to cook, photograph, edit, write, edit, write, edit, write.  I won't bore you with any more details. But just know that different kinds of posts might start popping up over the next few weeks to bring some balance to my life.

2. I'm going to add the recipes I make with Dash and Bella at the end of each post.

3. I've installed an email subscription option. If you sign up, every time I put up a new post you will receive an email with the latest post. I'm not sure it will include the photos so make sure you click through to the blog. Check it out on the right below the blog archive. Just remember to activate it in your email inbox.
 
4. And finally, I cannot maintain the "Lessons Learned From Cooking the Masters with 2 Kids" structure. I will get bored. You will get bored. Lessons feels limiting. And I'm running out of them. Instead of only lessons I'm going to start throwing out a combination of ideas, lessons, techniques, and observations. They will still be bold and capped and easy to see if that's all you really want to read. On that note...

COOKING WITH YOUNG CHILDREN IS LIKE JUMPING ONTO A MOVING TRAIN.

I'm amazed by the amount of swearing, sweating, and yelling that is required in order to avoid burns, broken dishes, cut fingers, oversalted food, and epic messes. "Don't touch that. That's hot. Oh my god. Shit. Back away. No. No. Please. Okay. Thank you for listening. No. No. No. Shit. Are you kidding me? Please listen. You're going to hurt yourself. Great job. You did it. Thank you for listening. Now please sit down."

Cooking with my children keeps me firmly grounded in the present. Reading Elizabeth David makes me want to run away from my life and travel.


"The Best of Elizabeth David: South Wind Through the Kitchen," is a compilation of David's recipes and articles chosen by friends, chefs and writers. Her life seems oh so far from mine. She was born in England in 1913 and from ages 16-32 she lived in France, Germany, Greece, Egypt, and India. She got to know many of the regional cooking styles in these countries and then wrote numerous cookbooks about her experiences.

And she liked sampling local pates and sausages from European cafes connected to gas stations. AND she liked to drink wine at 11am.

Eventually David made her way back to England and said of the food at one establishment (perhaps speaking of all English food) that it was "produced with a kind of bleak triumph which amounted almost to a hatred of humanity and humanity's needs." Through her cookbooks she hoped - and many say she succeeded - to bring her intimate experiences with Mediterranean food into English kitchens. After trashing English cuisine for so long she ended up giving it another chance and wrote several well-loved cookbooks about English spices and breads.

I look at a tomato and wonder if I should slice it or cut it into wedges. She probably looked at a tomato and thought, "Shall I make pumpkin chutney, moussaka, ratatouille, salsa, gazpacho, menerboise or minestra?"

I pick the kids up from school and tell them we're going to make Elizabeth David's Orange and Almond cake and Tomatoes a la Grecque (tomatoes stuffed with lamb and rice).

"I hate orange and almond cake," says Bella
"I've never had one. Have you?" I ask.
"I just hate them."

Dash decides he will not be cooking today at all. "Tomatoes are caca. That's bathroom word. I draw."

Both kids are occupied. Today it looks like I'm going to cook on my own. Calm meditative cooking. For a change.

I start setting out the ingredients for the cake. It's all in ounces and my scale is out of batteries. A stick of butter is 4 ounces or 8 tablespoons or 1/2 cup, right? I think so. So 4 ounces of sugar must equal 1/2 cup. WRONG. (See recipe at the bottom of the post for the actual conversions.)

Now that the sugar is visible I have two little creatures eager to help.

FOR MORE COMPLICATED RECIPES, SET OUT THE PRE-MEASURED INGREDIENTS IN BOWLS. LEAVE ONE OR TWO INGREDIENTS FOR YOUR KIDS TO MEASURE OUT ON THEIR OWN.

Bella measures out the sugar. Dash juices the oranges.

WHEN YOUR CHILDREN COAT BAKING PANS WITH FLOUR OR BREAD CRUMBS, HAVE THEM DO IT OUTSIDE.

They mix together the bread crumbs, orange juice and zest, sugar, ground almonds, and orange flower water. Bella wants to know why we're adding jasmine perfume to our cake.

FOOD SCIENCE IS LIKE MAGIC.

Whisk egg yolks and sugar to the ribbon stage and see the transformation in color, texture, and flavor.

Whisk egg whites by hand to really see the changes. Bella whisks the whites to the firm peak stage all by herself. You can see she is working hard but she tells me she DOES NOT WANT MY HELP.

Bella adds the yolk mixture to nut mixture and gently folds (can you believe she is folding now?) in the whites.

Ukulele  break.

DAVID'S RECIPES GIVE YOU A VERY STRONG SENSE OF HISTORY AND PLACE.

I sit down to read the Tomatoes a la Grecque recipe. Three-quarters of it is all about what you see and smell when you walk into into a Greek taverna. She describes going into restaurants kitchens to "peer into every stewpan" before deciding what she is going to eat.
  
DAVID'S RECIPES ARE OFTEN LESS TECHNICAL AND MORE VISCERAL.

How much of the tomato flesh should we scoop out? How long should we cook the covered tomatoes? What does she mean by leftover lamb? A few tablespoons of lamb or two cups? Should I cook the rice partway so that it finishes cooking in the oven inside the tomatoes? Funny how a recipe can bring about so many questions.

I get some white rice and ground lamb cooking and then I start thinking it's just way too late in the day to do this recipe.  Dash did not nap. He is now frantically grabbing everything in sight. He gets a time out. And another time out.

SOMETIMES WATCHING THE COOKING IS ALL A KID CAN HANDLE.

Dash really wants to be a part of things so badly. I tell him to put his hands in his lap and not to touch ANYTHING. So he watches Bella's cooking show.

Scoop.

Strain. Press. Zest.

Bella adds currants. chopped onion, garlic,  salt, and pepper to the tomatoes and lamb. They start shoveling it into their mouths.

"Awesome. I'm putting the green tomato scoops back inside the green tomato."

We throw on some foil and bake it for forty-five minutes.

We take it out of the oven, remove the foil and see that the tomatoes are swimming in what looks to be tons of tomato water. Bella does her usual thing of trying to make me feel better: "Don't worry, momma. It will still be delicious."

Then I realize we forgot to mix the rice in with the meat mixture before stuffing the tomatoes. The rice would have sopped up so much of the juice. Bella suggests we add the tomato water to the rice. I like this idea. We strain about 3 cups of tomato water from the tomato dish, dump it onto the rice, and cook the rice down a bit. Luckily I had chosen to undercook the rice.

We still need to fix the tomatoes.  I decide to grate an entire chunk of gruyere, mix it with bread crumbs and sprinkle it over the top of the tomatoes. And then I broil it.

Modified menu:
Tomato Water rice with Pine Nuts.
Tomato Gratin with Lamb and Currants.

"What one is required to know about recipes is not so much do they work as what do they produce if they do work?" Elizabeth David.

Did it taste good? Yes. Did the recipe work? No and then yes. What did we produce? Two modified recipes that I would make again.

And the yucky cake? "Momma, can I have another piece?"

P.S.: For leftovers the next night I chop up some of the tomato and lamb gratin, mix it with whole wheat pasta and then top it with a bit of yogurt, mint and parsley.  And then we eat more cake.

Next week: Jamie Oliver AND Halloween cookies.

RECIPES

Cookbook: Elizabeth David's "South Wind Through The Kitchen: The best of Elizabeth David."

Tomatoes a la Grecque: 

(Even if you remember to add the rice, consider scattering the top with bread crumbs and gruyere for the final 20 minutes.) 

 "Displayed in enormous round shallow pans, these tomatoes, together with pimentos and small marrows cooked in the same way, are a feature of every Athenian taverna, where one goes into the kitchen and chooses one's meal from the pans arrayed on the stove. It is impossible to describe the effect of the marvellous smells which assail one's nose, and the sight of all those bright-coloured concoctions is overwhelming. Peering into every stewpan, trying a spoonful of this, a morsel of that, it is easy to lose one's head and order a dish of everything on the menu.

Cut off the tops of a dozen large tomatoes, scoop out the flesh and mix it with 2 cups of cooked rice. To this mixture add 2 tablespoons of chopped onion, 2 tablespoons of currants, some chopped garlic, pepper, salt, and, if you have it, some left-over lamb or beef. Stuff the tomatoes with this mixture and bake them in a covered dish in the oven (180C/350F/Gas Mark 4) with olive oil."

Orange and Almond Cake:

(For those of you not used to working with grams/ounces here are the approximate conversions: 4 oz  ground almonds = 1 1/3 cup ground almonds, 2 oz of breadcrumbs = 1/3 cup breadcrumbs, 4 oz sugar = generous 1/2 cup sugar. Butter the cake tin really well. Our cake stuck badly. I would agree with David that it is a very light cake. It tastes great with fruit. Only warning is that I found the cake to be a bit sweet. But serving it with unsweetened whipped cream might balance things out. Or just add a little less sugar.)

The juice of 2 large or 3 small oranges, grated rind of 1 orange, 4 oz (120 g) ground almond, 2 0z (60 g) fine dry breadcrumbs, 4 oz (120 g) sugar, 4 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, cream and, if available, 1 tablespoon orange-flower water. Mix together the breadcrumbs, orange juice and grated orange rind, add the ground almonds, and the orange-flower water.

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and salt until almost white. Add to the first mixture. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into a cake tin (2 1/2 inches/5.5 cm deep, 1 3/4 pt/I-I capacity) buttered and sprinkled with breadcrumbs. Bake in a moderate oven (180C/350F/Gas Mark 4) for about 40 minutes. When cold turn the cake out and cover the top with whipped cream (about 1/4 pint [150 ml]. Very good and light, and excellent for a sweet at luncheon or dinner.

PEARS AND PEPIN

September felt fast and furious and full of change. I swear there were more squirrels, acorns, and spiders than ever.  I now have rats in my attic. We all have colds and coughs. I'm sad to buy my last strawberries and tomatoes at the farmers' market. I'm never ready for fall.

Summer produce needs so little attention. Sliced tomatoes with salt, oil and vinegar plus a chunk of cheese and some bread. There's your meal. Baby greens with vinaigrette plus prosciutto and melon. Another meal. Fall and winter cooking require so much more stewing, braising, roasting, baking and TIME.

The cookbook we're looking at this week is "Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques." This book is a combination and reorganization of two of his classic cookbooks: "La Technique" and "La Methode." I love the practical nature of this book. But if I didn't know how well respected he is as a chef and a teacher I might not have picked it up.  This book combines traditional French dishes with slightly fuzzy black and white technical photographs.

FIRST LESSON: A STUNNING PHOTO IN A COOKBOOK MIGHT INSPIRE YOU TO MAKE A RECIPE BUT IT DOES NOT TEACH YOU HOW TO COOK.

What Pepin does so brilliantly is he includes photos of most of the steps in each recipe. Describing in words how to fold parchment paper into a cornet (paper cone) for piping icing is close to impossible. But Pepin's written steps combined with 13 photographs of the parchment cone in all of its stages make it very clear. Culinary students use books like these in school, but it's not so common for the home cook. Pepin has compiled what he deems to be the essential techniques of cooking.  The book teaches you how to:

• clean a leek
  
• sharpen a knife
• carve a rack of lamb
• kill a lobster
• poach an egg
• carve a mushroom fish AND a cucumber turtle
  
• make chocolate bark
  
• stuff a pig's foot
• make corn crepes
• shop for broccoli
• stuff a flank steak 
• chop garlic
  
• roll headcheese
• make a flower vase out of a squash
• make a croquembouche
  
• turn a napkin into a gondola

Plus 293 more techniques.

Two weeks ago my friend Shannon gave me a bag of pears from her tree. She warned me about them. They ripen slowly and have a tough skin. Every fall she picks them and places them on a tray in the basement and forgets about them. She discovers them rotten a few weeks later and throws them out. I've had mine in the coat closet for 2 weeks. The stem ends are tender to the touch and I put them in a bowl so we can look at them. I like a challenge. I'm going to try to cook something good with them.

Dash, Bella and I take the dog for a walk and we run into our neighbors. They invite us to dinner. I offer to bring dessert. It has to be a Pepin recipe and I really want to do something with pears. There's only one pear recipe in the book so we don't have a choice. We're going to make Pears in Caramel on Puff Paste (Feuillete de Poires au Caramel, technique # 278, p. 734).

Puff paste. Puff pastry. Pate feuillete. Pate feuilletage. All the same. It's made up of equal parts flour and butter. You make a dough with flour and water called detrempe. In the photo below (at Tavern in Los Angeles), the chef is encasing the butter block in the detrempe.

This is followed by folding, rolling, chilling, and resting. Repeat 6 times or so. Temperature of the air and the ingredients, humidity, and rolling pin skills will all affect the final outcome. In the oven the butter melts and the steam causes the layers to separate and rise creating the thousand-layered effect. Pepin says: "Puff paste, or feuilletage, is the hardest dough to make, and it has its pitfalls even for professionals."

Look what Dash and I make. Aren't they gorgeous?

 

I know it looks like we spent the whole day folding, rolling, chilling and resting (six times) to make these gorgeous pastries.

SECOND LESSON: TWO-YEAR OLDS CAN'T MAKE PUFF PASTRY DOUGH FROM SCRATCH. BUY IT FROZEN.

You couldn't pay me to make puff pastry dough from scratch with my son. I've got frozen Dufour puff pastry dough that's been sitting in my freezer for a year. It's ready to roll out in about an hour.

I learn from Pepin that by rolling out the puff pastry with sugar and cutting it into ovals we are making pastries called carolines. Dash can't wait to get his hands on the sugar.

The sugar keeps the dough from sticking to the counter and the rolling pin. We roll it out, scatter more sugar over the dough, fold it up like a letter, and roll it out again.

Dash chooses the cookie cutters that we will use to cut out the puff pastry. Big heart, little heart, butterfly. We don't have an oval cookie cutter but we still want to call them carolines.

 Time to cut out the carolines.

THIRD LESSON: WHEN YOUR KIDS STOP LISTENING, GIVE THEM  MINI TIMEOUTS. DRAG THEM 3 FEET AWAY FROM THE COOKING SPACE BUT MAKE SURE THEY CAN SEE WHAT THEY'RE MISSING.

Me: You CANNOT lick the sugar off the counter.
Dash: I wanna listen.

 

Me: Are you a big boy?
Dash: I'm not a big boy. I'm Dashiell.

Look at those dirty fingernails.

FOURTH LESSON: WHEN YOU'RE DONE CUTTING OUT WHAT YOU NEED, GIVE YOUR KIDS SCRAPS TO SQUEEZE, STRETCH, CUT AND EAT. 

FIFTH LESSON: KNOW THAT YOU ARE GOING TO SACRIFICE A PEAR OR TWO. IT'S HARD FOR TWO-YEARS OLDS TO PEEL PEARS AND CORE THEM WITH A MELON BALLER.

SIXTH LESSON: GIVE YOUR KIDS EASY TASKS LIKE COMPOSTING.

I make some caramel, swirl the pears around, turn the heat down, and put on the lid.

Pepin says that the pears should take about 5 minutes to soften. He says to be careful because you don't want them to fall apart. I check after 5 minutes. Hard as a rock. Again after 10 minutes. Still hard. I'm worried the caramel is going to burn. I turn the heat down some more. 30 minutes later the pears are mostly hard with a few soft spots. Shannon warned me about these crazy pears.

SEVENTH LESSON: DON'T ASSUME THAT HALF AND HALF IS A GOOD REPLACEMENT FOR HEAVY CREAM.

I don't have any more time to cook the pears. Time to finish the sauce. I mix in some half and half because I'm out of heavy cream. Instant curdled caramel sauce. The caramel sauce that has been cooking for half-an-hour doesn't react well with the half and half. Because cream has more fat it is less likely to cause the sauce to curdle. Yuck. I scrape the curdles off of each pear and strain the sauce. A bit better.

Pepin says to take the pears off the heat and "cool until cool."

 Carolines and pears with curdled caramel sauce wrapped and ready to go.

My neighbor Laurel is incredibly organized. We arrive and a printout of Pasta Carbonara is in the recipe stand. The salad greens are washed. She has a squeeze bottle of homemade salad dressing ready to go. The water is boiling.

Dinner outside. Gin and tonics. Delicious pasta. Great wine. Four kids. Three adults. Not too crazy.

Bella and her friend Jacob plate all of our desserts. Carolines topped with sliced pears and ice cream.

• Carolines: Beautiful, light and delicous.
• Pears: Too sweet from stewing in the caramel for so long. Jacob very politely passes his serving back to Bella.
• Haagen-Dazs Brown Sugar Ice cream: Pretty perfect.

Just look at those ice cream faces.

I've just learned that Shannon is going to replace her pear tree with a fig tree.

And I just noticed that Pepin's technique #270 is for FAST Puff Pastry.

P.S.: This week's leftovers? We're going to keep our last caroline and use it as a Christmas ornament. Next week: recipes from the amazing Elizabeth David.

RECIPE: BELLA'S MINT CHOCOLATE COOKIES

I've gotten some requests for Bella's cookie recipe. It's pretty much the classic Toll House Cookie recipe base with a few tweaks. 

Make sure you undercook the cookies a bit or they will be dry. Mint extract is extraordinarly powerful so don't add more than 1 teaspoon.


BELLA'S MINT CHOCOLATE COOKIES:


Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• big pinch of salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
  
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon mint extract
• 1 cup or so bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped into cherry-sized chunks (or whatever chocolate bar scraps or chocolate chips you have lying around the house)
• fresh mint, optional  

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 375° F.
• Sift dry ingredients together (or just whisk them together). Set aside. 
• Throw butter and sugars into a mixer (or beat by hand with a wooden spoon and a big bowl). Beat on high until smooth, creamy and light. 
• Add one egg at a time, scraping down the sides after each addition. 
• Add the mint extract. Mix just to incorporate. 
• Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, scraping down after each addition. 
• Scoop out balls of batter (with fingers, spoon or ice cream scoop) to make either small, medium or large cookies. Place (not too close together) on a nonstick cookie sheet and put in the oven.
• Take the cookies out when they're golden but still a tiny bit doughy/gooey in the center. Depending on the size of the cookie it will take anywhere from 8-15 minutes*. Cool. 
• Meanwhile melt the chocolate slowly in a double boiler or in a pot over very low heat. Sandwich the cookies together with the melted chocolate. Decorate the tops of the sandwiches with chocolate in any pattern you like. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to harden the chocolate. 
• Bella would tell you to garnish the cookies with mint before eating.

Variation: 

CLASSIC CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES: Same as above except add 2 teaspoons vanilla instead of mint extract,  after dry ingredients are added mix in 2 cups chocolate chips and 1 cup chopped walnuts. Cool completely (very important) the cookies before sandwiching them together with slightly softened vanilla ice cream. Freeze for 30 minutes. Drizzle with melted chocolate. Freeze again for 30 minutes. Eat them. If you freeze them for a few hours or overnight, allow to sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before eating.

*All ovens are different.  We all make different sized cookies. Just check on them every few minutes. Timers are great in general but don't rely on them completely.