Ina Fridays -- Desserts -- Ina's Outrageous Brownies with Alyce's Twists and Icing

To say that I'm well-fed is a nice way of putting things and is somewhat of an embarrassment. Dave insists I'm simply...well...maybe we needn't go into it.  Suffice it to say he doesn't complain.  (I love that man.)

I am, however, not well-fed because I stuff my face with a plethora of sweets.  At one time in my life, I ate way more sugar than now and was much thinner. What's that noise?  I can pass by cookies, pie, cake, most candy (not Hershey's kisses), and even lots of ice creams.  I cannot, however, pass by truly decadent frosted scratch brownies.  If you have made brownies out of a box -- and many people know no other brownies than these -- you need have no fear; I won't even glance up.  No matter how you doctored them. Whatever fat and dried-up chocolate they're using in those boxed mixes is not anything I'm lusting after.

Dave's Cranberry Almond Chocolate Bars with Tangerine Zest And a Little Christmas

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Chocolate Begins Here....

Chocolate, chocolate everywhere and lots of drops to drink.

Chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate.  Christmas is chocolate.  Sounds like a good song.  And it's just the fourth day of Christmas.  Four calling birds.  And so on.  Until Epiphany...which can also go on.

The chocolate bark from our goodie tray this year is a bark that Dave had made for me for Valentine's Day a couple of years ago.  Truth to be told, his bark is better than mine.  Candy maker, I'm not, though my toffee was to die for this year.  (pat pat)


This bark is at the top and center of the goodie tray.  Gotta have chocolate on a holiday cookie platter.

If you're bringing a little goodie to the New Year's Eve party, maybe you might want to try this sweet bark, which is tres lovely with a nice red.  Of course, I favor Pinot Noir, but you might like a big Cabernet Sauvignon, a Zin or even an Italian red.  No special dessert wine needed.  Just have a little plate of this chocolate ready for dessert.  If you have a neighbor drop by for coffee, this is just the thing to pull out.  Make someone happy.  This recipe came from the Food Network (courtesy Dave Lieberman), as do so many scrumptious things these days.  There is hardly an easier dessert to make except perhaps to clean strawberries and arrange them in a bowl come summer.  And that's not really making dessert.

Dave's Cranberry Almond Chocolate Bars with Tangerine Zest

1/2 c slivered almonds
3 cups chocolate morsels (I like 1/2 milk chocolate and 1/2 bittersweet)
1/2 c dried cranberries
1/2 tangerine, zested

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Line a 13x9" baking pan with aluminum foil.

Lay out almond slivers on baking sheet.  Bake in oven until light brown, shaking the baking pan occasionally to mix them around, about 10-15 minutes.

Melt the chocolate morsels in a double boiler over low heat.  Mix in the cranberries, almond slivers and tangerine zest.

Pour into prepared pan.  Smooth the chocolate mixture out into an even layer.  Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate until hard, at least 1 hour.  Use a knife to break up chocolate into jagged, varied sized bars.

Oh, I almost forgot this...Jen gets Emi's Hair all beautiful for Christmas!

Cooking with Music-French-Session II

If you haven't been here before, I occasionally teach cooking classes at home.  Each class teaches a whole menu and each menu is focused upon a culture, country or culinary form.  This is the second session of Cooking with Music-French and there were two students--mom and four-year-old daughter. 

While August isn't, perhaps, the very best time to learn how to bake quiche, it IS the very best time to learn how to make a great salad.  And is anytime a bad time to learn how to make a pie crust?  And, hey,  the quiche tastes wonderfully for lunch.  Chocolate mousse?  Whenever.  Here's today's bunch:

Chocolate Mousse = First, of course

Life is short

This is a no-egg chocolate mousse as eggs are bad boys right now:

Just melt 3/4 c chocolate chips with 3T butter and let that cool.

Whip up 1 cup of whipping cream and add 1T sugar at the end.

Fold a tiny bit of whipping cream into the chocolate to lighten it up a bit and

then fold into the chocolate the rest of the cream in three or four batches.  Spoon into pretty glasses or ramekins and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to a few hours.

Garnish with a dollop of whipping cream, some berries or grated chocolate

Et voila!  Mousse au chocolat!

Moving on from mousse to pate brisee, the super easy crust for the quiche.

"Hey, I can make a pie crust; who knew?"

Getting dirty...but eating fresh!  Like two minutes old.

Talk about organic food.  Making Jamie Olivers's chopped salad. (click here to see the video)

Pixie dusting the salad with kosher salt and the pepper she ground.

FINALLY getting to eat dessert.  Took long enough.

We did it.

We not only cooked, we cooked together.

What a day.

We can now make--for ANYONE!!--the following menu:

Menu

Salade Printemps (spring salad w/ fresh herbs)

Quiche avec jambon et fromage (Ham and Cheese quiche)

Mousse au chocolat  (Chocolate mousse)

Fromages (cheese)

Baguette (long, thin loaf of bread) avec buerre (with butter)

Vin: (wine)

Bourgogne (blanc) (2007)-Laboure-Roi, Meursault, Cote d'Or, France

Beaujolais (2008)- Pierre Chermette, Saint Verand, France

Next Cooking with Music is

ITALIAN

Pizza as an appetizer

Two main course soups (one vegetarian)

Apple crostada (free form pie)

Offered Saturday, September 18, 2010

12:30-?

We'll cook and eat together.

Students may invite one guest for dinner each- approximately 5:30pm

Includes wine

Cost:  $50 per student

I have one opening for this class at present, but am happy to repeat it if I have requests.

This is a meal wonderful to learn for a dinner party because everything but the pizza (and it's nearly ready) can be done in advance so that you can be...

NOT NERVOUS

HAVE TIME TO BATHE AND DRESS

ENJOY YOUR OWN PARTY

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Two-Dog Kitchen and Around the 'Hood or Kitchen:

Grilling Colorado peaches for a peach salsa or dessert...a blog to come!

There's the grilled peach salsa--perfect for bbq grilled pork chops, shrimp tacos or salmon.

Skippy Jon Jones--visiting Aunt Alyce and Uncle Dave again

And they called it "puppy love."

A few things you might do around the kitchen this week:

Buy a bunch of green beans, trim them and blanch them (2-3 min in boiling water) and throw them in freezer bags into the freezer for the winter.  I got mine for 88cents a pound.

Ditto zucchini or summer squash.

Ditto corn on the cob.  Cook it, let it cool, cut it off the cob and put it in freezer bags.

Buy a dozen red, green, yellow peppers and cut them up and freeze them in small quantities.

Go to the nursery or wherever and buy some herbs to pot and take indoors for the fall.

Stake out your apple-picking spot.  Plan a picking date.

Clean out your freezer and defrost it while it's still warm so you'll be ready to cook, bake and freeze this fall.

There's still time to make peach freezer jam while the peaches are very inexpensive.  I saw some Colorado peaches for 99 cents a pound at King Soopers'.

Eat lots of salad with lots of fresh herbs and great tomatoes.

Try a home-made Cobb or a Greek Salad with grilled chicken.

Make gazpacho.

Make caprese salad.

Consider making and freezing tomato sauce.

Blueberries from Canada are still available if you want to freeze some.  Just throw them in the bag unwashed.  (Rinse them when you use them.)

Sing a new song,

Alyce

Book Club and Cookies: Good for your Heart..

     I added a few grains of sea salt to some of the cookies ... Wow.


Our Book Club (no-name) meets the first Wednesday of every month.  You pick your month by figuring out when you have time to clean your house and bake a couple of cookies or buy a bottle of wine.  We're kinda new at this; we just met for the third time.   We seem to be growing by small increments, adding one new person each time.  So far, we're all women.  Until now, we all lived in the same small up-on-the-mesa neighborhood.  Last night we had a good friend of mine join; she lives in the north end of town.  We agreed:  when it's time for her to host book club, she'll rent my house.  We don't want to drive.  The wine may have something to do with liking to walk.  Perhaps this is a bit exclusive.  I don't think we care.  Boy.

So last night was my night.  The book was MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather.  What a book.  It sparked lots of conversation about life on the plains, immigrants, and our own nationalities and backgrounds.  Maybe more than about the book itself.  Two of us discovered that each has an American Indian grandparent.  We all found out that one of us went to a  one-room school house; her father went to the same school.  Another still has a few words of German, even though her family came from Germany in the 1850's.  We now know who feels at home in Colorado Springs and who would rather be elsewhere.

We work it this way (so far):  if you host, you choose the book for the next meeting.  The library has an extensive collection of book club books and we've been able to find one each time and get free copies for everyone.  Cool... and it's accessible in lots of ways with a six-week check-out period. 

Well, this is a food blog...so how about a little about the food?   I served wine:  a nice California zin (Cigarzin) and an Alsatian Pinot Gris (Helfrich) to accompany a little cheese spread that's great for spring.  Note:  I heard "Giada" talk about this spread and remembered it--not original--except for the addition of black pepper.

Mix equal amounts goat's cheese and ricotta.   Add grated lemon rind and minced fresh basil to taste.  Optional:  a little fresh ground pepper on top.  Serve with skinny, crispy crackers.

(I saw this made on the Food Network--Giada, I think.  I don't know if there's a real recipe.)

I also served coffee and some sweet little cookies.  These are a riff on a cookie from Ina Garten's BAREFOOT CONTESSA PARTIES, and Ina got the recipe from Eli Zabar.  Hmph.  Cookbooks bring people together; never doubt it.  Here's how I did it:

BOOKCLUB COOKIES (Tiny shortbreads dripped, no--dipped! in chocolate)

3/4 # butter, unsalted (3 sticks) at room temp
1 c white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t salt

3.5-4.5 oz dark chocolate  (I like Valrhona Guanaja; you can try orange Lindt as well)

1/4 c sea salt, optional

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar for 2 minutes until light and fluffly.  Add vanilla; beat 30 seconds.   Mix salt (yes, it's really only 1/4 t) into the flour and beat together with the butter-sugar mixer until the dough holds together well.  Dump dough onto counter and shape into a flat disk.  Wrap in plastic and chill 30 min.

*Preheat oven to 350F.  Remove dough from refrigerator. 

*Roll the dough out 1/4-1/2" thick (your choice).  Cut out with 2" fluted cookie cutters and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake about 15-20 min, depending on thickness.  Cookies should remain fairly pale, but are done when they just begin to brown around the edges.  Cool on racks.

*Melt chocolate by placing in a deep, microwave proof small bowl, covered with a plate.  Microwave on low for about 2 minutes.  Stir; heat a little more if required.  Note:  some people would rather melt chocolate in a double boiler.  If you'd like to do that, bring a small pan of water to simmer and place a pan with the chocolate on top of the pan with water.  Make sure the chocolate bowl doesn't touch the water.  Let chocolate melt slowly, stirring often until completely melted.

*Set out large cookie sheets or platters (2-3) and line with waxed paper.  Take a totally cooled cookie and dip its edge into the melted chocolate.  Let drip (you can wave it a little) a second or two and carefully place it on the waxed papered tray to cool and harden.  Add a couple of grains of sea salt if desired.    Repeat (this is time consuming) until all of the cookies are done.  Let sit just like that 2-3 hours until chocolate is solid.  Store covered with wax paper between layers. 

*You can also choose to leave the cookies plain, in which case they will keep longer--for weeks.

Sing a new song; bake a new cookie; read a new book; get to know your friends better....
Alyce

TWO-DOG KITCHEN  --up again.  Sorry if you missed it!

If I Knew You Were Comin', Ida Baked a Cake....

Sometimes, when good friends come to visit, or even acquaintances, they say, "When I come, will you make ____________?"  I'm happy to oblige.  Who wouldn't feel good about that sort of request?

Sue knew she was coming for several weeks and said, "The only thing I want is a big chocolate cake; I've just seen that new Meryl Streep movie, 'It's Complicated."  Well, Sue doesn't really eat much chocolate.  Ever.  I didn't know what to do with the request and I hadn't seen the movie.  I make killer chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and, once when I sent some for her birthday, she took them to the office and told me, "You know I don't hardly eat chocolate."  And now she wants a chocolate cake?  Too weird.

Anyway, I absolutely LOVE chocolate cake. Seldom make it because my husband is not a chocolate eater.  Though he, too, seems to be coming around. Hmm.  Once, when I was staying at Sue's, we stopped at a sweet cafe for dessert and I happily waded through a huge piece of multi-layer dark madness because I just never get any at home and, truly, most restaurants don't have good dessert.  (So sad..........)

So what kind of a chocolate cake was I going to make?  I had made a Chocolate-Hazelnut torte for Thanksgiving.  One of those deep, murky, thick and seemingly  heavy, but sweetly light, melting things made in the springform pan.  Almost no flour. Great for gluten-free.  Basically ground hazelnuts (which made the "flour") and melted oh-so-fine Callebaut bittersweet chocolate.  I thought I'd see a rerun of that cake.  Ooooo.  Did I really have a reason to recreate it?  I was in heaven.

This particular confection is not French, but Italian, and is called................

Torta Gianduja     ( as I tell my students, "Anything in Italian sounds good to eat!")

and the recipe had come from COOKS ILLUSTRATED ITALIAN FAVORITES.  Since I'm now testing recipes from COOKS, I was even happier to try it all again and see how it went.  Their recipes are amongst the very well-tried and true resources for serious cooks.  If  you ever  use them, you'll see the difference.

 I had no memory of the time involved to make this cake.  I had made it a few days before Thanksgiving because the recipe indicated "can be wrapped in plastic and stored in the refrigerator for several days."  Who wouldn't do that at holiday time?  Besides, I wasn't even cooking Thanksgiving dinner last year; I was just filling in the holes for a dinner my friend, and phenomenal cook, Tony was making.  I could take my time and make the few dishes I was responsible for...at my leisure.  Oh  joy.  NO timetable really.  But, as I began to put things together this time, I realized this was time-consuming.  Not terribly, but somewhat.  So, I warn you.  This involves slowly melting chocolate; don't try the microwave for this one, though I otherwise recommend it for chocolate.  It takes 15 minutes to roast the hazelnuts the first time around and then you have to towel, towel, towel them to get the skins off.  You must then roast them a second time. This is if you have bought SHELLED hazelnuts and I usually buy nuts in the shell for something like this--just to insure freshness.  Nothing worse than stale nuts.  If you shell the nuts, that's another half-hour or more if your hands aren't in great shape.   You're beginning to get the picture.  So, leave an hour and a half for making this cake.  It took me two hours because three people called in the middle of the prep and the puppy had to go out oh, twice.  Big breath.  Definitely worth the effort. Not something you make every week, is it?  So, here's the cake I made...huge thanks to COOKS'

CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT CAKE
TORTA GIANDUJA
SERVES 8 EASILY

8 T unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for the pan                                                      
6 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate

1 1/3 c hazelnuts (about 6 2/3 oz), shelled, toasted, skinned,

            and toasted again*

1 c granulated sugar, divided

2 T unbleached all-purpose flour or gluten free flour mix

6 large egg yolks

3 large egg whites
1/4 t salt                                                                                                 

Confectioner's sugar

Whipped cream, optional                                                                         

Preheat oven to 350 and put rack in middle of oven.

Generously butter 9" springform pan and set aside.

Place chocolate in heatproof small pot set over pan of simmering

water.  Melt, stirring occasionally.  Cool to room temperature.

Place toasted, skinned hazelnuts in food processor with 1/4 c

granulated sugar and process until finely ground.

In mixing bowl, with electric mixer (handheld or stand),  beat butter until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Gradually add remaining 3/4 c sugar, beating until creamy, 2-3 min.  Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add cooled chocoalte and beat briefly.  Add ground hazelnut-sugar mixture by gently stirring in. 

In another very clean and dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites with

salt and beat until stiff peaks form.

With rubber spatula, fold in one-third of whites to chocolate- nut

mixture.  Repeat twice, folding carefully to maintain lightness.  Pour batter into prepared pan.

Place in oven and bake 40-50 minutes until fairly firm and toothpick comes out clean.  Center of cake will be moist.

          Cool completely on wire rack for 

3 hours.  Cake can be wrapped in plastic and stored in the refrigerator for several days.  Just before serving, dust with confectioner's sugar.  Cut cake into wedges and serve with whipped cream, if desired.

*Toasting the hazelnuts:  Toast the nuts in a skillet or in a 350 oven for about 15 minutes.  Transfer nuts to kitchen towel and gather the corners of the towel together.  Twist the gathered corners to seal in the nuts.  Rub nuts together through the towel to scrape off as much as possible of the brown papery skins.  Ok if some patches of skin remain.  Carefully open towel on flat work surface.  Gently roll nuts away from skins.  Return nuts to oven or pan and roast/toast for 15 more minutes.

      

and, of course... NEWS FROM THE TWO-DOG KITCHEN:  

Thanks for a great visit, Suzy ; I loved making the cake.  The dogs enjoyed you, too!!

Sing a new song and bake a new cake, Alyce