Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Lick-the-Pot Chocolate Pudding Pie
March 14, 2023 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, pie
When I made my Lick-the-Pot Chocolate Pudding Pie, I didn’t realize that our TWD posting date would coincide with Pi Day– what a treat! I haven’t made a pudding pie like this in ages, and it was so simple to do. A crumb crust, pudding and whipped cream…no making pastry, prepping fruit, baking for two hours and then furiously scrubbing goopy bubble-over off your favorite sheet tray or the bottom of your oven.
Crumb crusts are the easiest and tastiest, IMO. I didn’t actually have the spice cookies called for, but I had some Teddy Grahams and a jar of pumpkin spice, so I made do. Watching a bowl full of teddy bears get zipped up in the food processor was highly entertaining. Making a luxe chocolaty tempered egg yolk pudding on the stovetop is the hardest part of this pie, but it really isn’t hard. The pudding is called “lick-the-pot” so sneaking a chef’s treat spoonful before filling the pre-baked crust and chilling the pie in the fridge is a must.
A mascarpone-whipped cream topping finishes the pie off, diner-style. Dorie says to serve the pie as soon as possible after the topping goes on, but I find that mascarpone is great way (and also the tastiest way) to stabilize whipped cream, and that it holds up for a couple of days without issue. I sprinkled some cookie crumbs and chocolate speckles all over the top for some extra pizzaz.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Everyday Dorie: Salmon Brandade
March 13, 2023 at 9:42 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, savory things | 3 CommentsTags: everyday dorie, savory, soup
I’m pretty embarrassed by how late I sometimes write up my posts, but one good thing about being late to the game is getting to read the recipe reviews from other group members before I head into the kitchen. I picked up some tips for the Salmon Brandade I should have posted on Friday, but didn’t make until last night. I am very familiar with brandade as an olive oil-whipped salt cod and potato spread (yum!), but Dorie’s version here is like a mashed potato-topped salmon shepherd’s pie, using both smoked salmon and chunks of salmon fillet.
From Shirley, I got the idea to add some veggies to the filling…really just the last handful of peas I had in a baggie in the freezer. Diane mentioned that her husband doesn’t like smoked salmon, so she only used half of what is called for in the recipe and all was fine. My husband doesn’t like it either, and I didn’t want to hear any complaints, so although I love it, I followed suit. I did save $10 not having to buy a second packet, so I owe Diane a coffee if she’s ever in town. She also noted that the bread crumb topping didn’t get very crispy in the oven, and the dish could have used some more textural contrast. I tossed my panko crumbs in a bit of olive oil and baked them separately until they were nice and toasty brown, then sprinkled them on top of the cooked brandade. So, thank you Shirley and Diane! This came out a nice, cozy dinner for a chilly night.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Peanut-Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Paris Style
February 28, 2023 at 10:06 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, holiday
Peanut-Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Paris Style are like PB cookies at fashion week. (BTW, what’s with hyphenating peanut butter in the title…shouldn’t that hyphen go elsewhere? Maybe “Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies, Paris-Style” would be better.) All the stuff that would normally be within a dough is on full display on the outside of these cookies. The cookie itself is made from a more or less blank slate chewy PB dough, but the dough balls get rolled in chopped nuts before baking, and after baking, they are smeared and sprinkled with all kinds of good things. There’s homemade peanut praline spread gluing down more chopped peanuts and chocolate bits. Peanut praline dust and fleur de sel are sprinkled all over the the place. Even though making peanut praline sounds like a pain, it’s easier to do than true brittle, and makes these very special. Dorie turns hers into large cookies, but I made mine a bit more petite, at about 2.5 tablespoons each. Everyone I shared these with liked them, and I did, too, although they were a little messier to eat than a cookie that wasn’t turned inside-out.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Everyday Dorie: White Wine-Poached Pears
February 25, 2023 at 10:32 pm | Posted in cakes & tortes, everyday dorie, groups, simple cakes, sweet things | 5 CommentsTags: cake, everyday dorie
Imagine pears bobbing around in a honey-sweetened white wine syrup flavored with ginger, vanilla, cinnamon and star anise. White Wine-Poached Pears are so fragrant! They make an elegant stand-alone dessert, but poached pears are also great alongside ice cream or a piece of “simple” cake. I have a jar of leftover syrup in the fridge…I might use it to make a champagne cocktail before the winter’s through.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see all of our cakes this week.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Swedish Fika Cake
February 14, 2023 at 10:31 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, brekkie, cake
I do a solo coffee break most afternoons, but wouldn’t it be fun to fika with friends, with a big pot of coffee and slices of Swedish Fika Cake? We’ve already done a related recipe for Swedish Visiting Cake Bars, but this one is a full-on butter-ball of a cake, crowned with a crisp, sugared almond topping. In the recipe, the cake part is just flavored with vanilla, but I added a splash of almond extract along with that to make it a bit more marzipany. I also tossed an extra handful of sliced almonds into the topping to take in more of the buttery sugar syrup that forms a baked-on shell on top of the cake. This was a good one, and I enjoyed more than one sliver of this moist cake in the weekday quiet of my kitchen.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Everyday Dorie: Twice-Flavored Scallops with Lemon “Goop”
February 10, 2023 at 4:15 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, savory things | 3 CommentsTags: everyday dorie, savory, soup
I made these Twice-Flavored Scallops with Lemon “Goop” way back in April 2020. Not sure why I chose to make them then…maybe I just wanted something nice that kind of reminded me of restaurant food when there were no restaurants open to go to. The first flavoring involves marinating sea scallops in a flavored soy sauce mix. After they are seared off in a hot skillet, they get their second flavoring– a cooked down lemon jam that Dorie calls “goop.” It’s sweet, sour and tart and kind of preserved lemon-like. (A by-product of the goop is the leftover cooking syrup, which kept forever and made a very good add to salad dressings.) The marinated scallops with little ploops of goop were really tasty. It’s been a few years, so could be time to make them again, or maybe use a different fish as Dorie suggests in her Playing Around notes.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.
Everyday Dorie: Subtly Spicy, Softly Hot, Slightly Sweet Chicken Stew
January 27, 2023 at 10:56 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things, soups | 3 CommentsTags: everyday dorie, savory, stew
You may be thinking that Subtly Spicy, Softly Hot, Slightly Sweet Chicken Stew is a strange name for a number of reasons, including the part about chicken in a recipe that actually calls for beef. I don’t eat red meat, so I swapped boneless, skinless chicken thighs in for the beef stew meat in this traditionally-made, but unusually-flavored, stew.
Dorie admits to doing a bit of a pantry raid to come up with the flavorings in this recipe. Meat is marinated in a bath of gochujang, soy, red wine and aromatics like ginger and cilantro stems. Because I used chicken thighs, I only marinated them for a few hours, instead of the overnight soak Dorie calls for with beef. Again, this is a recipe where I didn’t measure a thing, just eyeballed amounts and taste-adjusted as the stew cooked. I decided to leave the cranberries out of the stew because I didn’t want to have to buy a big frozen bag of them just for a handful, and they sounded odd to me anyway in here. Instead, I tossed in a parsnip along with the carrots (and I didn’t strain them out at the end, since my stew only took about and hour to cook with the chicken thighs, as opposed to three hours with beef). Towards the end of the stew’s cooking time, I thought it seemed to be missing something in the flavor department, and then I looked at the ingredient list and realized it was! I entirely forgot to add the cinnamon stick and star anise. D’oh! I stirred in a spoonful of five-spice powder instead. Because I think just about everything can use a bit of acid, I added in a splash of Chinkiang vinegar off the heat.
The scallion, cilantro and orange gremolata sounded like a bizarre garnish to me, but I’m glad I didn’t skip it because I really liked that fresh herb punch and raw garlic zing as a finisher. I thought this stew was quite (surprisingly!) delicious made with chicken, and I’ll keep it in mind because I usually do have the needed pantry ingredients on hand.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Iced Honey-Apple Scones with Spelt
January 24, 2023 at 10:37 pm | Posted in biscuits/scones, breakfast things, BWD, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, scones
If I don’t need to blog about scones, then I really don’t make scones (or muffins, for that matter) because I’m never able to get a baked good cranked out by breakfast time. And no way I’m waking up early on a weekend to try, so these Iced Honey-Apple Scones were consumed as dessert. Actually, I froze two of them to be a future microwave-defrosted breakfast treat. These scones contain pretty much what their name says, plus some tangerine zest. I don’t have any spelt flour right now, but do have a box of farro flour, so I made that swap in the the dry ingredients. I cut my apples into quite a small dice, and I had nice little bits running throughout the dough. The dough was sticky, but I liked portioning the scones with a quarter-cup scoop and think the mounded look is quire appealing.
Just a bit of honey sweetened these scones, so the icing was definitely welcome. I have a bottle of boiled cider, and used that as the liquid to make the powdered sugar icing. Instead of bee pollen (come on Dorie, who has that?) as garnish, I just grated on some more flecks tangerine zest since I wanted a bit more of that flavor anyway. For breakfast or dessert, these are good, and not too much in terms of size, sweetness or richness.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Everyday Dorie: Eggplant and Ginger Tartines
January 13, 2023 at 11:28 pm | Posted in condiments, cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things, veggies | 3 CommentsTags: everyday dorie, salad, savory
Eggplant and Ginger Tartines are another “things on toast” recipe that makes for a good lunch, if you have some extra time or if you do some prep in advance. These open faced sandwiches feature a charred and seasoned chunky eggplant spread on top of crusty bread. I’ll just be straight here and tell you that it would never even occur to me to actually measure the flavorings and seasonings in something like this eggplant spread. I looked at the ingredients list and added enough stuff (tahini, pom molasses, lemon, sumac, ginger, scallion, cilantro and salt) to the smush until I liked the way it tasted. Also, I grated my ginger, as opposed to coarsely chopping it, because I was, in fact, not paying attention to anything other than the names of the ingredients themselves. I only realized the ginger was supposed to be chopped when I read Kim’s post– haha- sounds like maybe it was a good mistake.
I assembled my tartines on some toasted homemade polenta sourdough. The eggplant spread is, shall we say, drab in color, but the tartines are garnished with some pretty bits to jazz them up. Sliced pear (or apple, in my case) and radish give the tartines some crunch. Arugula provides more pepperiness and pomegranate seeds give some pop.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see what we all thought.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Potato-Parm Tart
January 10, 2023 at 6:22 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, pies & tarts, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, savory, tarts
I made and froze a disk of Savory Galette Dough the other day for this Potato-Parm Tart and then promptly forgot about it. New year, same me. Luckily, if you either have the dough RTG or have a sheet of shop-bough puff pastry kicking around, you can finish the tart off pretty quickly for an on-the-fly lunch. A par-baked round of your chosen crust (this isn’t made in a tart pan, but instead is baked off as a flat disk) gets a schmear of cream cheese, Parmesan and a scattering of something in the allium family. I used leftover sautéed leeks. Then overlapping circles of potatoes sliced on the mandolin, or thin as you can cut them, are spiraled on top and seasoned. Pop it into the oven and then pull it back out 25 minutes later with frilly, bronzed potatoes and a salty, crispy crust. I really wanted to have my slice with a glass of white wine, but stuck to just an arugula salad, since I had to go to the dentist later in the afternoon and felt weird about drinking before a doctor’s appointment. Maybe with a re-toasted leftover sliver to celebrate no new cavities…
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it twice a month. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
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