Cooking Coq Au Vin

To preface: as many of you may know, I LOVE to bake. Cooking is all well and good and is obviously more necessary than baking, but stand mixers and icing bags and the smell of sugar and butter being creamed together are just about as good as it gets in the kitchen.

Nonetheless, husband and I cook alot at home. Sometimes just simple stuff to get us through the week, and sometimes more interesting but also complicated things because while Joe is still learning to cook (I'd put him at the end of beginner into beginner/intermediate level...) he thinks it's really fun to crack open a Lee Brothers cook book and request that we make, oh I don't know, Frogmore Stew (you can find it on their homepage. It's not for the faint of heart). Which, BTW, we still haven't made because what usually happens when the husband gets ambitious is the following: "Dianna, go sit down, read or something, I got this. Seriously, I'm getting my mise en place together (yes he says that) and I'm going to be fine." 15 minutes later: "Hey honey, could you could help with something really quickly..." 2 hours later: ... well you can guess who finishes dinner. HOWEVER, it is pretty great to have a man who likes and is interested in cooking, and who knows, 5 years down the road I may be able to retire from the stove completely.

So to get to the point of this post, last week was our 3-year anniversary. Charlottesville has a host of just really really amazing restaurants, but we've been to most of them multiple times and wanted to do something a little more special for dinner than just go somewhere we'd go back to anyway. So Joe, of course, gets the idea to make Coq Au Vin. Well, as I mentioned earlier, I usually only get excited about baking and am wary of classic dishes perfected by greats like Julia Child. But, there is one thing that rallies me back in the kitchen for dinner -- my dutch oven. For whatever reason, when a recipe calls to pull out that 15 lb. pot, I'm all over it. *(You can find a short review of mine below the pictures.) SO, when husband pulls up this Serious Eats Coq Au Vin (trans: rooster in the wine) recipe which would require meat browning and stewing in my pretty enamel pot, I was game.

You should also know, I'm a horrible photographer 1. because I still only sort of know how to use my camera and 2. because I ALWAYS FORGET TO TAKE PICTURES! Is this difficult for other people? Sooo, I only have a couple shots below of our fantastic anniversary dinner, but it was a lot of fun to make and delicious to eat. I basically just followed the Serious Eats recipe, but found I had to de-glaze once or twice before it actually called for it. We paired it with super easy and absolutely perfect rosemary potatoes (recipe below) and of course the vin rouge used in the dish.

Roasted Potatoes:
6 red new potatoes, quarted
2 tbsp. olive oil (or in this case, I used the leftover bacon fat)
Salt and Pepper
2 tbsp. rosemary sprigs

Toss it all together in a bowl then pour out on a baking sheet lined with alumium foil. Roast on about 400 degrees for 40-50 minutes, stirring occasionally. They should be crispy and slightly brown and will be nice and tender on the inside.

Finally, in case you're interested, my dutch oven is a Fontignac. Not a brand I had heard of before setting out to buy one, but I've been very happy with it for my first year of ownership. I would obviously love to have a Le Cruset or Staub or even a few in different sizes, but sometimes a budget just doesn't permit spending $300 on a pot. I did a TON of research and ended up settling on a 6.5 quart Fontignac that could be bought and BBB for 1/3 the price. We've probably cooked about 15-20 dishes in it in the last year and it's cleaned up nicely after each one.. even when I char the heck out of the bottom. Supposedly it's owned by the makers of Staub, but whether that's true or not, to me the quality has been just as good. Even heating, no enamel chipping, perfect-fitting lid, and cleans up after each use. I'd be happy to share more about it if you're curious!

Happy Friday!
DD

Pumpkin Dilemma

Well things have been a bit busy lately - or I guess they haven't stopped being busy - but even with evyerhing else going on I just haven't been able to shake my itch to bake.  I knew wahtever I made it had to involve pumpkin. Afterall, you can never go wrong with pumpkin desserts in October, right?? Wrong.  I settled on a recipe for "healthy pumpkin cupcakes" and I guess I got was I was asking for.  I gathered my ingredients and gave the recipe a whirl.  Instead of moist, fluffy pumpkin goodness I ended up with what was basically a bran muffin with a pumpkin aftertaste. I left those guys un-iced and gave them to Joe for his daily snacks. Was that wrong?

Anyhoo, I'm still on the hunt and have a few recipe prospects in mind.  I'm craving something like this guy from The Cupcake Blog - though of course mine will never look this good..

 

 

Or these delicious looking super pumkpin-y cupcakes from The Baker Chick.

 



 

 

I guess there really is no substitute to butter and white flour... or is there? Anyone? I willing to try again, but I really would rather not end up with bran muffins.

 

Love,

DD

Mardi Gras King Cake

Recently, I took on the task of making a from-scratch King Cake to celebrate Mardi Gras.  This would have been the first pre-Lenten season without one, and just because my proximity to New Orleans and the splendid Gulf Coast has changed does not mean traditions have to. It was quite an undertaking, but I’m admittedly proud of the result!

One popular way to decorate is with colored sugar crystals. You can buy them at some grocery stores and baking shops or make your own like I did! Just make sure you give the sugar ample time to dry before putting it on your cake... and, yes, unless you want your hands to be multi colored you should wear gloves.

The Sugar:

• Granulated Sugar
• Food Coloring

I just started with 1/4 cup of sugar in a bowl and added drops of food coloring.  Mixing with your hands, is the best way I know to combine and spread out the color evenly. Just keep adding sugar or coloring until you reach your desired color.  Spread sugar on a flat surface to dry (Could take a few hours)

The Pastry:

•   1/2 cup milk
• 1/8 cup butter
• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup white sugar
•  2 egg
• 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

 

In a small pot, scald the milk then remove it from heat and stir in 1/4 cup of butter. Wait a few minutes to allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, dissolve yeast in the warm water with 1 tablespoon of the white sugar. Let the mixture stand until it becomes creamy, which will take about 10 minutes. When yeast mixture is bubbling, add the cooled milk mixture. 
Next, whisk in the eggs and stir in the remaining white sugar, salt and nutmeg. If you have a stand mixer you can transfer the mixture to your stand bowl then beat the flour into the milk/egg mixture 1 cup at a time. 
When the dough comes together, either use your dough hook attachment to need the dough or pour it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic... this will make for a good arm workout as you knead for 8-10 minutes. 
Lightly oil a large bowl and place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume. This will take at least 2 hours but you can also let it sit overnight.
After the dough finishes rising give it a good punch!

The Filling:

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup chopped pecans
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Before making the delicious filling grease or line the cookie sheet with parchment. Now, combine the brown sugar, ground cinnamon, chopped pecans, flour and raisins. Pour the melted butter over the cinnamon mixture and mix until crumbly.... try not to eat it all.. I know it will be hard but save some for the cake!
Now, roll the dough into a large rectangle (approximately 10x16 inches or so). Sprinkle the filling evenly over the dough and roll it up tightly like a jelly roll, beginning at the wide side. Bring the ends of each roll together to form an oval shaped ring. Place the ring on a prepared cookie sheet. Then, with scissors, make cuts 1/3 of the way through the ring at 1 inch intervals. Now to wait again...let the dough ring rise in a warm spot until doubled in size which will take about 45 minutes. Don't forgot to preheat your oven while the dough is rising!

Had lots of fun trying to wrangle the filled dough into this guy... but I think he's looking pretty yummy, even pre-oven!  

Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or less (I baked mine the full 30 and it could have done to get it out a little sooner). Push the doll into the bottom of the cake. Frost while warm and pour on colored sugar crystals over the cake.  I added my colored sugar in sets of 3's, but decorate however you deem festive! Beads, masks, just go crazy... It's Mardi Gras!

The Frosting:

• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 tablespoon water

Hope I got your taste buds tingling!

Laisser les bons temps rouler!
DD

Super Bowl XLVI Goodies-Boston Cream Pie vs. New York Cheesecakes

A few weeks ago our dear newlywed friends, the DeBries, hosted a superb Super Bowl party. I promised to bring a dish, and with the gentle nudging of my culinarily adventurous husband I landed upon making mini desserts to honor each team (though we all know the real champions weren't playing... yes we are Saints fans over here!)  ANYWHO, you can find pictures and recipes below for BOSTON Cream Pies and NEW YORK Cheesecakes. I think of the desserts that night, the cream pies had it.

Boston Cream Pie Recipe:

For "Cream":

• 2 large egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Whisk yolks until smooth... this may take a few minutes, but its a good forearm workout! Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add milk in a slow, steady stream. Cook, stirring, until mixture begins to bubble and thicken which will take about 5 minutes.
Pour 1/3 of milk mixture into yolks, whisking constantly. Return mixture to saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until thick, 2 to 4 minutes. Stir in vanilla.
Pass vanilla cream through a fine sieve into a bowl. Press plastic wrap directly on surface. Refrigerate until cold, at least 1 hour, or up to 2 days.
****My biggest tip, for with anytime you are dealing with sugar, have the pot hot and your liquid and spoon ready.. sugar burns quickly and makes custard look like this mess on the left.****

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For  Pie "Crust":

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for tins
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 3 ounces (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for tins
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 and butter and lightly flour muffin tins.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.
Meanwhile, warm milk and butter in a saucepan over low heat.
Beat room temperature eggs and sugar with a mixer on high speed until the mixture thickens.
Bring milk and butter to a boil, then with you mixer on low speed, add milk mixture to batter, and beat until smooth.
Add vanilla.
Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each halfway. Bake cupcakes until light gold, about 15 minutes. Let cool in tins for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire racks. Let cool.

Using a serrated knife, cut each in half horizontally. Spread 1 tablespoon vanilla cream on each cupcake bottom. Sandwich with top.

For Chocolate Glaze:

• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 6 ounces semisweet/60% Cacao chocolate, finely chopped (I never use chocolate chips for ganache, chopped makes a smoother glaze and burns less)
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Bring heavy cream to a boil in a small saucepan and stir it often. Then, remove the cream from heat, and add chocolate and corn syrup, and let it stand for 5 minutes.. I know! Patience. Once it has thinkened, wisk until it is smooth and blended.Transfer the ganache to a bowl and let cool, stirring often.

Finally, spoon glaze over each sandwich and serve immediately.

The mini cheesecakes were much simpler, and I took a shortcut by topping them off with canned dark sweet cherries.. if I had more time and resources I would have remade my husband's home brandied cherries and added a little whipped cream garnish. Whatever your preference, you can find the recipe below. 

Easy Mini New York Cheesecakes:

• 24 vanilla wafer cookies
• 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese (or substitue neufchatel cheese for a healthier cheesecake), softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs, room temp
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Pie filling or other fruit topping

Preheat oven to 325. Line two muffin tins with cupcake liners and place one vanilla wafer in each cup. Then, in large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in the room temperature eggs one at a time, then stir in the nutmeg and vanilla. Pour mixture evenly into prepared muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until set. Cool completely, and top with pie filling or other fruit of choice.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Hope you enjoy! Let me know how your recipes turn out!

XOXO,

DD

Not Enough Hours...

So to begin this post, I would like to share the story of how I wrote a blog post about how there are not nearly enough hours in the day to do everything Joe and I would like and how very frustrating it is. I very deliberately set 30 minutes aside to do so, and 45 minutes into the post, it was deleted. An unfortunate tragedy, but we must continue on.

I have been through this cycle of life before, i.e. busy days of college, but Joe and I are quickly having to re-familiarize ourselves with the concept of not have enough time in the day.

Things have become a little hectic lately with my long weeks of work and Joe's many hours of studying. The days of Joe taking care of all things domestic are over, and we are learning the joys of shared duties after coming home at the end of the work day, exhausted, but with dinner to cook, house to clean, plenty of personal projects, quality time to spend together, cat to take care of (and yes cats do require time, at least our spoiled one does), oh and a socail life to maintain.

Sometimes I wonder what God was thinking when He created 24 hour days. Doesn't He know that if you try to get any decent amount of sleep, there is simply not enough time to do everything else? I suppose maybe the Creator of the world knows more than we do, and maybe this just means we need to prioritize...

I pray daily for more strength, but I feel like it takes the energy of an Olympian to survive these days. If anyone has any tips on how to balance work and EVERYTHING else, I believe I speak for Joe and I when I say, we are all ears!

We did manage to slip away a few weekends ago to visit some of the local vineyards. What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Other than our weekend trip, I can't say it's been completely all work and no play.  We've checked out the c'ville bowling alley and attended a few IL section H events (which would be Joe's 1st year law school group).

This past Friday we went to a section H potluck. Joe signed us up to bring dessert, and I was inspired by this very yummy local grocery's bakery across the street from our apt. to try my hand at coconut macaroons. I found them to be SUPER easy, and very yummy. They're a great party dessert, because they are accessible like cookies and if you melt a little chocolate and drizzle it over the top, people think you really know what you're doing.

Here's the recipe I used (modified from a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook):

14 ounces of sweetened flaked coconut

1 1/3 cup of sugar

2/3 cup of all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

6 egg whites

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1). Preheat oven to 325º

2). Line 2 cookie sheets with wax paper or grease and lightly flour (be aware it can still stick with ungreased waxed paper)

3). In a large mixing bowl stir together all the dry ingredients.

4). With a large spoon (I used a wooden spoon) stir in the egg whites and vanilla.

5). Using a 1/2 tablespoon, drop rounds of the mixture on the cookie sheets 2 in. apart. (I fit about 20 macaroon balls per cookie sheet)

6). Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the macaroons are lightly browned on top.

7). Set aside on cooling rack.

If you want to add the extra chocolate drizzle, just heat about 4 ounces of semisweet chocolate (chop if you use a bar) with approx. 1 tsp of shortening.  Stir continually until the chocolate is completely melted.  Immediately remove from the heat and drizzle onto the cool macaroons.

Easy peasy.

One last note. Tomorrow is a big day for the Majors and formerly Majors women.  I will be arriving at my 24th year of life, AND it marks the beginning of the 2 month countdown until Jennifer gets married! Keep my sister and Philip in your prayers; they are getting very close to the big day!

Lots of love,

DD

Waffles and Devo

As a very newly married couple, I am proud to say we have already established a family tradition: Saturday morning waffles and family devotion.

Since our very first Saturday in our new home, we have been taking advantage of our waffle maker (why, yes it was a wedding present) with an awesome recipe that we tweaked from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything." (which, by the way, is a great cookbook but is even better as a great teaching tool on the basics of cooking.  I am happy to report my husband has made wonderful use of it.)

Our Saturday mornings start out with us getting to use our two favorite appliances.

LOOOVE my Kitchen Aid!

To make the waffles we use this recipe (half of Mark Bittman's original recipe for

 Everyday Buttermilk Waffles with a few variations)

1/2 cup whole wheat all purpose flour

1/2 cup white all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup of yogurt thinned with 1/8 cup of milk

1 egg, separated

2 tablespoons butter

Combine the dry ingrediants in a large bowl.  In another bowl wisk the yogurt with milk and egg yolk.  Stir the butter into this mix. Combine all the ingredients. Then, in a separate bowl, beat the egg white until it holds soft peaks.  Fold these into the batter.

Brush the preheated waffle iron with a neutral oil (we use grapeseed oil).  Pour 1/3 to 1/2 of the batter into the waffle iron. When the iron is finished (3-5 minutes), enjoy soft, golden waffles.

*We divide our batter to make 3 waffles, we learned the hard way not to overfill your waffle iron*

Following our delightful waffles, we settle on the couch (and sometimes our darling cat even joins us) for our Saturday morning devotion. We take turns reading out of Devotional Classics. It is a book comprised of selected readings from well-known theologians and Christian authors.  The selections are beautifully written passages and sermons to lead the reader into "spiritual renewal." So far, we have heard from the likes of C.S. Lewis, Dallas Willard, Jonathan Edwards, Francis de Sales, and Spanish monk John of the Cross.

If you are looking for a deeply spiritual, well-written devotional, I highly recommend this.

Attempt at a family portrait.

We are still working hard on our apartment, so stay tuned!

Hopefully before and after pictures will be up soon!

Wheat Waffles

Yummy Saturday Morning Waffles!

As a very newly married couple, I am proud to say we have already established a family tradition: Saturday morning waffles and family devotion.

Since our very first Saturday in our new home, we have been taking advantage of our waffle maker (why, yes it was a wedding present) with an awesome recipe that we tweaked from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything." (which, by the way, is a great cookbook but is even better as a great teaching tool on the basics of cooking.  I am happy to report my husband has made wonderful use of it.)

Our Saturday mornings start out with us getting to use two of our favorite appliances.

LOOOVE my Kitchen Aid!

Healthy, Yummy, Wheat Waffles

1/2 cup whole wheat all purpose flour

1/2 cup white all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup of yogurt thinned with 1/8 cup of milk

1 egg, separated

2 tablespoons butter

Combine the dry ingrediants in a large bowl.  In another bowl wisk the yogurt with milk and egg yolk.  Stir the butter into this mix. Combine all the ingredients. Then, in a separate bowl, beat the egg white until it holds soft peaks.  Fold these into the batter.

Brush the preheated waffle iron with a neutral oil (we use grapeseed oil).  Pour 1/3 to 1/2 of the batter into the waffle iron. When the iron is finished (3-5 minutes), enjoy soft, golden waffles.

*We divide our batter to make 3 waffles, we learned the hard way not to overfill your waffle iron*

Top Waffles with honey, agave, or just good ole fashioned Maple Syrup!

Bon Appétit!

Dianna Davis