Happy Bastille Day: Dinner (And the 150th Post!)

Yesterday's night's multi-course affair was the conclusion of a day inspired by the foods and flavors of France. I spent about 2 1/2 hours in the kitchen, preparing and cooking and plating. Mike and I also shared the meal with Jacob and Kari, increasing our table from two to four. The extra mouths were welcome as I was positive that Mike wouldn't be entirely appreciative of the haughtiness and flavors of some of the foods, but he was a good sport throughout the meal.

The meal began with an entree of parmesan and parsley gougeres. Gougeres are made with a pate a choux dough. For those of you that didn't study French (including myself), "choux" means cabbage and is meant to describe the way that the dough puffs up into little balls that are airy and light and more pop-able than pringles.

The next course was a soup course. I made leek and artichoke soup for Jacob, Kari and myself, while Mike had a tomato soup, made with ample amounts of butter and campari tomatoes.

For the palate cleanser before the main course, I juiced some limes and removed the inside, blended it with ice and a bit of agave nectar, then refilled the lime and froze them. The result was somewhat like an icier lime limonata. Everyone seemed to enjoy the presentation.

Next came the plat principal. I was originally planning on doing the pasta course followed by the main course, but I decided to combine the two. This course consisted of a lemon capellini with lemon zest and parmesan cheese, poulet saute aux herbes de provence (herbes de provence traditionally consists of savory, fennel, thyme and basil, among other herbs) atop a dijon-y, hollandaise-y sauce made from homemade yogurt, egg yolk, lemon juice, butter and the pan sauces from roasting the chicken. The side dish was a braised endive

The course is sadly missing the lemon slices that had been roasting in the toaster oven as we were enjoying our palate cleansers. My first culinary fail of the night.

But we persisted on with the salad course. I made a salad of mesclun greens with dried cranberries, chopped walnuts and gorgonzola cheese, and a balsamic vinaigrette of 3 parts oil to 1 part balsamic vinegar, a teaspoon of dijon mustard and salt and pepper. I think the salad was Kari's favorite part of the meal. The cheese course was combined with this course. We had brie cheese and butter and slices of homemade wheat bread.

The dessert course I was planning on making was crepes with chocolate and whipped cream. Unfortunately, last night our tiny kitchen was the setting for 3 separate dinner parties. So we had a simple dessert of chocolate squares and Trader Joe's gummy tummies.

Coffee was also left out because of the kitchen and it was just too hot.

All in all it was a success, and I'm looking forward to more national holidays so I can plan a day of menus.

Shoutouts to Kari and Jacob for sitting through my experiments in flavor and texture, disguised as classically-influenced courses. And a big thanks to Mike for being the most disinterestedly interested sous chef

Happy Bastille Day: Lunch, and Presenting, the Dinner Menu

I'm happy to say that today my blog shot past 500 views, all since May 29th, shortly after a reevaluation of theme and direction. And on that note, I continue with my Bastille Day posts.

Lunch was simple, partly because I wanted to begin compensating for what will be a lavish dinner, but also because I was forced to cut my lunch short due to work responsibilities. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the asparagus-pea soup that I made earlier in the week, along with some toasted, homemade bread and butter. All savored at the table, rather than eaten mindlessly in front of the TV.

But for the finale, the dinner menu, as of 4:11 pm.

Entrée: Parmesan Cheese and Leek Gougeres
Soup Course: Leek and Artichoke Soup, Tomato Soup
Palate Cleanser: Limonata
Pasta Course: Lemon Capellini
Plat Principal: Poulet Sauté aux Herbs de Provence (or a modified Poulet Provençal) with Braised Endive
Salad Course: Mesclun Greens with Dried Cranberries, Walnuts and a Red Wine Vinaigrette
Cheese Course: Roasted Figs stuffed with Gorgonzola Cheese, Caramelized Onion and Brie Tart
Dessert Course: Chocolate Crepes with Whipped Cream and Roasted Coconut
Finale: Coffee

Happy Bastille Day: Breakfast

Happy Bastille Day, everyone. I'm not one to celebrate national holidays that belong to other countries, but given that this is a food blog and France is the culinary mecca of our world, I thought it only appropriate to honor the storming of the Bastille and the excessive use of the guillotine by planning a French Cuisine-themed menu. That is a menu to cover the entire day.

Let's start with breakfast:

I finally bought My dad bought me a cast iron set (like a dutch oven, with a deeper pot on the bottom and a lid that is also a larger, shallower pot) on the drive back home from Chesapeake, at a Cracker Barrel of all places. But it was real cast iron for an unreal price and it was too good not to buy. (My dad gave himself some cast iron gifts, as well, so I didn't feel too guilty). For some reasons why you need cast iron, read here.

The first thing  I cooked was a loaf of bread, followed by calzones. Then I thought to myself, this shallow pan would be perfect for making crepes. so I woke up early, mixed together a batter, washed some fruit, and made sure Mike woke up in time for his first Bastille Day meal of the day.

Needless to say, he made it.

Basic Crepe Batter

As you know, the foundation of many of my basic recipes are based on the ratios found in Michael Ruhlman's book, Ratio. This way I don't have to search for a recipe every time I want to cook something. Rather, the basic ratio is memorized and I can add flavor and seasoning as I see fit. 

The ratio for a crepe batter is 2:2:1, liquid:egg:flour. (This is where a kitchen scale comes in handy, but it's not essential, just more accurate and is better than having measuring cups and bowls dispersed in a tiny kitchen, or any kitchen for that matter.) If you want 3 medium size crepes, I suggest 2 eggs (an egg is ~2 oz, 1 oz yolk, 1 oz white), 4 oz liquid (I used water, you can use milk as well), and 2 oz flour (I used all purpose, whole wheat flour would be nice, too). It is a very thin batter, thinner than pancake batter. To give it more flavor, add a teaspoon of vanilla, as well as a dash of cinnamon and/or nutmeg.

I then let it soak for 30 minutes to saturate the flour with the liquid, give it one more stir, heat up the cast iron pan over medium heat, melt some butter, then make some crepes. 

I used a measuring spoon to pour the batter over the hot griddle, starting in the center and then slowing moving out in a circle. Let the crepes firm up before flipping over, that way you don't have to worry about batter dripping everywhere and you get a nice brown color on the crepe.

We filled our crepes with fresh blackberries and blueberries and kiwi, topped with homemade whipped cream and blueberry preserves that I made last night. Next time the plan is sliced strawberries and chocolate. Hopefully I'll remember to make a pot of French Roast coffee and then it will really be on.

The third crepe was wrapped up for Mike to take to work, along with some cheese and blueberries. Whether or not he wraps the cheese or the blueberries in the crepe is beyond my power, but that is about as French as he is going to get during lunch.

Looking forward to dinner, though. I'm planning a multi-course affair. And for a little teaser, some of the prep work I did for dinner this morning.

Leeks