Commitment

It's been two months sense we've posted anything here.  I'm so embarrassed.  I have so many excuses... Shop Party kept us busy, and it was a great success!

Shop Party.  Photo by Zohn Mandel

Photo by Zohn Mandel

Holiday festivities made us dizzy, what with all the fancy cocktail parties, Cioppino feeds, our open house, NYE candlelit dinner, and our annual New Years Day brunch.  Unfortunately this out of focus picture is the only thing to show of it.

This year I went against tradition and made some new year resolutions, one of which is to take more pictures.

Then we made hundreds of cookies a dozen cakes for a dreamy Descry event in San Francisco. 

We Dream in the Daytime Too event at Photobooth.  Photo By Photobooth

Devoured dreamy cakes and cookies.  Photo by Photobooth

All of a sudden I came to- and it was February!

Nick and I celebrated Valentines day early and went to Sea View for the weekend.  I prepared a dream lovers menu for us.

Day 1

Mimosa

New Mexican Pinon coffee

Real Belgian Waffles with maple syrup, strawberries, and pancetta

Oeufs en Cocotte

Cheese plate

Roasted fennel & pancetta salad

(this is where the camera battery died)

Roasted balsamic cinnamon pears with vanilla ice cream

Day 2

Broiled grapefruit

Coffee
Toast

Valentines Day has me thinking about commitment... I'm prepared to re-commit myself to this blog.  I'm prepared to share what I'm eating and cooking with greater success.  I hope we haven't lost you for good.  

LOVE

b&r

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. I love getting together with so much of my family, I love the warmth, I love the food. The whole family loves the food, and we don't skimp or pace ourselves. It is not uncommon to be stuffed with all the delicious hors d'oeurves before dinner is even ready. I am bringing an easy cheese plate with crackers, caramelized onions, crusted squash, nasturtium greens, and homemade jam. There will be multiple other starting dishes, wine, and cocktails- last year my cousin, the hostess, made incredible cranberry martinis.

When diner is ready in the late afternoon I take a deep breath and dig in. Oof! After dinner I give thanks for the tradition of serving Akvavit, a digestive, because dessert is not far behind.

I was inspired to bring a dessert this year too, but I wanted to bring something to brighten us up after all the rich food. I decided to make cranberry sorbet.

This sorbet is tart and bright and the color makes me so happy. I can't wait to share with my family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Life's a Bowl Full of Strawberries

I've been drooling at all the new and beautiful veggies, and especially fruits showing up at the farmers markets.  Berry season can never seem to get her quite fast enough.  Finally we have strawberries!  

My favorite way to eat strawberries is off the vine, slightly warmed from the sun.  When I was little, and it was my turn to pick the strawberries, I would often make myself sick, eating berries by the handful before my basket was even half full.
On occasion I will control myself long enough to make some jam or bake them into something... eggs and cream perhaps.

Cherries Clafoutis is one of my favorite desserts, or breakfasts, or snacks.  Traditionally baked with the cherry pits still in, I like to work (a little) for my dessert.  I also like to remember to SLOW DOWN.  I have an incredibly simple and tasty clafoutis recipe, adapted from The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market Cookbook.  Sadly we don't have a cherry tree.  We do have a strawberry patch.

Cherry Strawberry Clafoutis

Preheat the oven to 400F. 
Butter a shallow 10 inch baking dish.
In a bowl whisk together 1/2 cup sugar, 3 large eggs and zest from one lemon until combined.
Add 1 cup heavy cream (on this occasion we used half and half because that was in the ice box) and 1t vanilla extract.  Whisk until combined.  Add 1/2 cup flour and a pinch of salt, whisk until frothy.
Pour about half the batter into the prepared baking dish then add a pound(ish) of (stemmed cherries) trimmed strawberries.  Ours were quite large so I cut them in half.
Bake until golden and puffed up.  Devour!

Remember:  If you are serving this dish cherry pits and all remind your happy guests before they dig in.  It would be a sad dessert if some unsuspecting friend chipped a tooth. 

When Life Gives You Lemons... Part II

We have a counter full of lemons.  Our neighbors give us lemons, my mom gives us lemons, and now our little lemon tree has flower buds on it.  Our friends down at Blue Label restaurant (can't wait to try their fixed menu for restaurant week) recently hosted a Meyer Lemon cook off, and Nick and I had the day off, so we used the opportunity to make some wild things we have never made before (lemon ravioli, lemon coriander vodka,  lemon steak noodle salad, lemon candy...) and still we have a ton of lemons, not to mention very full bellies.
Experimenting is really important, as well as really fun, unfortunately it's not always palatable (my raviolis were too bitter, and my vodka was not as lemon-y as I would have liked).  After experimenting for days, I just want something easy, classic, and promised to be delicious.

Lemon Bars!

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet.
For the crust, cream 1/2 lbs. butter and 1/2 cup sugar.
Add 2 cups flour and 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt and mix until just combined

Gather the dough into a ball.  Flatten the dough (with floured hands) and press it into the greased baking sheet, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides.  Stick it into the refrigerator to chill for 10 to 15 minutes.
Pre-bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until lightly browned.  Take the crust out of the oven to let it cool off and leave the oven on.

For the lemon, whisk together the 4 eggs at room temperature, 1 2/3 cups sugar, 1+ tablespoon lemon zest (3 or 4 lemons), 2/3 cup lemon juice, and 2/3 cup flour.  Once smooth pour the lemon mix into the crust and bake for 25 minutes, just beyond the when the filling sets.  Let cool to room temperature and dust with powdered sugar.

A good lemon bar can't be beat.  They are so easy to make, easy to transport, everyone seems to like them, AND four more lemons bite the dust!

I Love, Love And Apples

Apples are so romantic.  There are dozens of myths and lore and superstitions all over the world involving apple, yet I find them romantic because they are candy sweet and common place.  If you have been reading this blog you know I love simple things.  It is the simple and common that can be so extraordinary when it is, what it is.  For example, the satisfaction one experiences when biting into a ripe, beautiful, apple.

Apples are a wonderful dessert.  I wanted to make, a really special dessert without doing anything to our perfect apple.  An apple tart.  It looks incredible, and the apple is truely the star.

Preheat the oven to 400
Peel, core, and thinly slice approximately 3lbs of apples (make sure your apples are ripe and delicious, I like mine slightly tart)
Roll out some of the best tart dough (see previous post).  I rolled mine into a rectangle, but maybe you prefer circles, or maybe even a heart shape?  In any case, transfer the dough to a baking sheet, and put it in the icebox to firm up (10 minutes or so)
Remove from the refrigerator and arrange the apple slices fanned out overlapping each other
Brush the top of the apples with melted butter and lightly dust with sugar.
Bake for 45 minuets.
When the tart comes out it is quite common to brush the apples with an apricot jam glaze, I didnt have any (but if you have an apricot tree, I would be happy to help you use your fruit, let me know!) so I decided to brush the apples with my apple rosemary jelly. 
Simply warm the jam or jelly in a water bath to make it runny enough to brush on.

 

Once cool offer a slice to someone you love (yourself, maybe?).  These are sexy apples.  

LOVE

When Life Gives You Lemons...

The lemon tree on our front porch is still too tiny to be fruitful.  Luckily for us, I found a Meyer lemon tree around the corner from our house that was heavy with ripe, fragrant lemons.  Our neighborhood is rich with citrus, so during the winter I feel like a jewel thief.  I ride around on my bicycle and when those bright orange or yellow orbs call out to be plucked from their perches,  I do.   I always ask first if the fruit tree is in someone's yard- more often than not I've asked for a few lemons and ended up with bags full of fruit from a neighbor's backyard. 

In this fashion, I often end up with surplus foraged lemons.  As the old adage goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemon meringue pie. 

Lemon meringue pie was one of the first pies I successfully made over and over again. It was one of my mom's favorites, and one of her father's favorites too.  It is a classic dessert, simple enough for a home cook, and a mile-high meringue is sure to impress the guests.  

You can find a lemon meringue recipe in just about any decent cookbook.  For this pie, we made an Italian meringue, which uses boiled sugar-water rather than granulated sugar.  This creates a meringue that doesn't deflate as quickly and will not sweat.

The lemons gleaned from our neighbor's tree were delicious in pie-filling form.  The lemon pie was so good, it could've been served all by itself.  It was tart and lively, a lovely yellow hue.

 

Our lemon meringue pie was not long for this world.  I ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Something so light isn't meant to last.