from Edible Iowa River Valley Recipes

After reading multiple recipes online, I did a "american test kitchen" style experiment (albeit at a smaller scale) and I have nailed the popper... at least, to my taste.

Spiced Pecans

Good as a snack, or as an ingredient in a stuffing or salad.
Yields 4 cups.

I have plumbed the internet, and found two recipes, neither of which reflects the fantastic and odd creation I made this morning for our breakfast, loosely based on a recipe from a Paris cooking school I attended last year. This was good enough to remind myself what worked, and what I'd change.

Philippe also loved it, and suggested it could be dinner or an appetizer.

Oeufs en Meurette at Epicurious.com

Sauce meurette is one of the grand classics of French country cooking, a dark concentrated essence of red wine, stock, and vegetables. You would expect it to be paired with the equally powerful flavors of meat or poultry, but no — meurette is unique in accompanying fish, or poached eggs, as here. For extra flavor, I like to poach the eggs in the wine, which is then used for the sauce; they emerge an odd purple hue, but this is later concealed by the glossy brown sauce. For poaching, it's well worth looking for farm-fresh eggs as they hold their shape better than store-bought eggs.

Oeufs en meurette is a favorite restaurant dish, not least because it can be prepared ahead and assembled to order. However, most regrettably, it is not a dish to make in a hurry. All the elements can be prepared in advance, but the full glory of oeufs en meurette is ruined by trying to cut corners.

Wine for Cooking For six months in the year, we live in northern Burgundy, where the local pinot noirs are inexpensive and appropriately light for this dish. Equally good for meurette would be a pinot from the northern end of Oregon's Willamette Valley. Avoid the "blockbuster" type of heavy pinots that come from the hotter climes of California and Australia.

Wine to Drink To do justice to the richly flavored sauce, let's move up to something grander. A premier cru red from one of the villages in Burgundy's Côte de Beaune would do nicely, as would one of the more refined pinots from California's Carneros district.

via chocolateandzucchini.com

She tells a sweet story of a childhood recipe forgotten...

Until last week, that is, when I bought a package of Boursin -- a soft garlic and herb cheese -- the lid of which offered a simple recipe for oeuf cocotte, baked in the oven. And that's what we had for dinner the other day, to deliciously simple and satisfying results. /blockquote>

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Posted by christina at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

Recipe - Dilled Crab Salad on Artichoke Bottoms

Dilled Crab Salad on Artichoke Bottoms

Dill is the perfect herb for any picnic, we believe. The fresh brightness it adds to cold dishes refreshes in the summer months and helps cool the body. For this crab salad, we prefer not to use mayonnaise, and instead allow the dill and crab to stand on their own. The hint of sweet vinegar makes for a puckery taste, and serving it in artichoke bottoms makes it an easy yet somewhat elegant picnic hors d’oeuvre.

found on chez pim a Crab Beggar's Purse a la David Kinch

Landy just shot over his recipe for crabcakes-- wanted to make sure I got it for future use....

These little beauties caught my eye in my new book Gordon Ramsey's "A Chef for all Seasons"... I'll be making and eating them as soon as philippe's off south beach....

Lately I've been reading the Julie/Julia project, which I love, and preparing for a trip to france. This is turning me into a mini-francophile: listening to french language tapes while doing Yoga, seeing "Le Divorce" (which is, btw, so-so to completely sucky-- Paris doesn't even look particularly appealing, more like my gray vaguely gothic fears about what it would be like to live there), collecting guidebooks and, of course, opening up Julia Child's classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking which I've now completely bookmarked to death with things I want to try to cook in the upcoming days.

This one is a gorgeous simple and tasty appetizer that I tried to make into an aspect of a proper meal, as if it were a side dish. That didn't really work-- they are terribly self contained and don't seem to go with anything except their happy selves. But they are so delicious I'll do it again anyhow. This is definitely a candidate for the Christmas table as well.

This Christmas, I made this pate/mousse as a treat for the family. Like so many Jacques Pépin recipes, it turned out beautifully and was remarkably easy. It was considerably tastier the second and third days, when it had a chance to rest and the flavors meld together, so I would recommend doing it the day before. I served it with slices of the toasted Amish white bread, and the slightly sweet bread was the perfect compliment.

Definately a dish to impress people with....

Landy wrote me during one of San Francisco's odd heat spells to ask for my gazpacho recipe. I wrote back:

This is a very tasty and simple way of using foie gras for dinner or guests.

I love gougeres.. i eat them all the time as a midafternoon snackie in france. I just found this recipe and haven't had a chance to try it out, but plan to. FYI, if you aren't familar with gougere, they are a kind of little cheese puff made with gruyere cheese that people use to cleanse their palate when wine tasting (and line their stomach, i suspect)

The tortilla is a way of life in Spain. Unlike mexican tortilla, tortilla in spain is a kind of omelet or frittata. it is simple and good served hot or cold.