Yum Time

I left my camera charger on the island of Kauai several months ago and have only just replaced it.    Now I’m back!

I preceded my dinner prep tonight by looking in the fridge and figuring out what we already had in there – an eggplant.  Niko is the ultimate leftover refurbisher, and I am the ultimate “I’ll just willingly convince myself there’s nothing in the fridge so I can buy a bunch of new food and make what I want”-er.  But the tables turned tonight, and I got inspired to make Ratatouille from our lone eggplant.  I used the Silver Palate recipe and added purple carrots because they were at Rainbow grocery and sooo beautiful.  I started by putting the eggplant in the oven, forgetting it was there, and baking it beyond recognition.  Niko says he is going to fashion this post-eggplant-mass into baigan bharta, my favorite Indian dish, so it’s in our fridge now.  The eggplant that started it all didn’t actually make it into the ratatouille.  The rest of the recipe/cooking, however, went well, and below is a pic of the end product which we had with a bottle of Kokomo 2007 Pinot Noir  and some bread from the enigmatic Brick Oven Bakery, which doesn’t appear to have a website but claims on its packaging to be located in Oakland.

I’ve been away for a while, gearing up for my greatest baking experiment to date: croissants of the regular and the chocolate variety!

People warned me these would be a lot of work, and they were.  I followed the Tartine Cookbook recipe, and from start to finish they took about 36 hours.  For anyone else who is going to try this recipe, I added 4 extra tbsps of milk when mixing the dough (not the preferment, which is like the pre-dough you make the night before you do the actual dough).   I didn’t whip the butter as recommended by the recipe and instead pounded it out as advised by this awesome how-to YouTube video.  Before baking, I did steam the croissants for about 1 hr in my oven, as recommended by the recipe.  I was suspicious about the steaming because the whole issue with baking croissants is that you fold in layers of butter, and the butter *cannot* melt.  I was afraid the steamy oven would be butter-melt city, but somehow beyond my comprehension the butter stayed solid  and the steaming just caused the dough to rise.  I might steam 2 hrs in the future, assuming I ever do this again.  Also, I baked for about 25 minutes at 375 instead of the recommended time and temp.  Here are some pictures of the process and the finished product:

fluffy dough

ta-da!

View from the inside

Chocolaty goodness

And a corgi and a Devin, for good measure

Is there anything more destructively cute than the cupcake jab followed by the corgi left hook?  These chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting are from the book CUPACKES!, which I received at a White Elephant party at work (thank you M.S., cookbook gifter!).

If there is one think I hate in this world, it’s butter cream.  These cupcakes are my tribute to cream cheese frosting goodies everywhere: I salute you!  It is also a nod to the world’s cute dogs, of whom Blixa is surely the cutest.

Prah-leans =  Geaux Saints.

Bakin’ friands to Deltron 3030 .  Common name: mini chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache.   A breeze to whip up the batter and ganache – about a million years to get the sticky batter into each cupcake holder (a pastry bag would have been useful).   I’m feeling under the weather so Niko took these friands to Dan and Kenny’s house warming in my place.  May they be eaten and enjoyed.  Meanwhile, I will be at home with my new friend, the Neti pot.

Every Christmas my Grandma sends me a box of toffee.  It’s the only time of year I eat toffee – but I don’t know why because toffee is one of the most delicious of snacks.   It’s not really a dessert.  It’s more of an unhealthy alternative to an apple or a granola bar.  Today I walked over to our local cooking supply shop, Cooks Boulevard, and got myself a candy thermometer for $13.  At first I was afraid to heat the sugar – would I burn my eyes out?  Would I ruin my pan and spatula forever?  I proceeded as follows:  Open Tartine Cookbook, add ingredients to pan with thermometer, heat until 295 degrees, pour contents on top of roasted almond slices on parchment paper, cover with chocolate and more almond slices.  Joshua and Niko graciously co-cooked, with Joshua manning the chocolate chipping and the adding of wet ingredients to very hot sugar mixture.  Niko poured, scrapped, and spatula-ed the mixture into its beautiful form.  Dan contributed as first impartial taster.  Burn count: 0. Irreparably damaged pan count: 0 (toffee remains come off in hot water).  Batch of delicious toffee count: 1.