Let Them Eat Cake!

That's funny. Marie Antoinette was not talking about cake-cake (and there is speculation that she was even the person to coin the phrase; it has been attributed to Marie-Therese, wife of Louis XIV, as well). She was talking about something much different. According to The Straight Dope, Marie's "cake" can be defined as follows: The operative term was brioche, a flour-and-water paste that was "caked" onto the interiors of the ovens and baking pans of the professional boulangers of the era. (The modern equivalent is the oil-and-flour mixture applied to non-Teflon cake pans.) At the end of the day, the baker would scrape the leavings from his pans and ovens and set them outside the door for the benefit of beggars and scavengers. Thus, the lady in question was simply giving practical, if somewhat flippant, advice to her poor subjects: If one cannot afford the bourgeois bread, he can avail himself of the poor man's "cake."  Certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth to think of eating something like that.

I didn't make a cake (or "cake"_ for Bastille Day. I did make Pain au Chocolat. I cheated though. This literally calls for two ingredients and the patience to wait for them to bake. Sure, they're not as good as what you'd get from a street food vendor on the streets of Paris, but it's kind of like the cake/"cake" thing. This is the poor-man's chocolate bread! Honestly, I had no intention of making these at all. I had got it into my head that I wanted crescent rolls and picked some up at the grocery store on my way home. Then while looking at the cans chilling in my fridge I thought about the pain au chocolat I make with them and knew that I would be doing so again this evening.

On another note, how do you like my makeover? I have the lovely Blog Fairy, Emily to thank for it. I am beyond happy with it and even feel a little back to my old cooking self. If you're in the market for a makeover, definitely check out her portfolio. She's very reasonably priced and is a wonderful person to work with. Now on to the recipe!

Pain au Chocolat (the poor-man's way)
Recipe from some magazine I read years ago

1 package crescent rolls (I use Pillsbury extra flaky, but any brand or style will do)
Dark chocolate chips (10 chips per crescent)

1. Preheat oven according to directions on package. Open package and roll out crescents. On the fat end, place your chocolate chips (if you use the bigger crescents instead of the smaller ones, you'll want more chips). Roll up and repeat with each crescent.
2. Place crescent rolls on a large baking sheet and bake according to the directions on the package. When the crescents are golden, remove from the oven and allow to cool. Remove from tray and eat warm.

"Anyone Can Cook"

This past Sunday, I spent the day with one of my favorite little people in the entire world, my hubby's youngest sister B. B is nine years old, loves the color purple, and has a knack for making me laugh at some of the silliest things. We always play games, we always tell each other stories, and we always have fun together (I've been in her life since she was almost a year old). She's a more shy, younger version of me!

When I first got to B's house, she decided that she wanted to play Monopoly. Now this wasn't just any Monopoly, this was the Disney-Pixar Monopoly! The gamepieces were Nemo, Buzz Lightyear, that red car from that car movie I didn't like, Mike & Sully, and Mr. Incredible! You can't go wrong witha  cast like that! But the best one of all (and the one I got to play as) was Remy from Ratatouille. There's just something about a movie that has the message "Anyone can cook" that just tugs at my little heart.

I can't tell you what initially made me fall in love with the movie. We all know that the thought of a rat preparing a meal would make even the strongest stomach gurgle in protest. I can tell you that now that my favorite part of the movie, and why I watch it over and over again and get a tear in my eye (hey don't judge me!), is near the end when the food critic takes his first bite of Remy's ratatouille and is transported back to his childhood. The feelings of comfort and home overwhelms the great Anton Ego into waiting hours to meet the chef who is from very humble origins himself.

Ratatouille is a comfort food, and lucky for me and my goal of trying to eat healthier, is fairly healthy. Of course because the hubby and I are meatatarians we did have some grilled chicken along with it. To round out our healthy dinner we had a small salad and a chunk of fresh bread with some goat cheese. I borrowed this lovely recipe from Deb over at Smitten Kitchen and for once did not feel the need to do a thing to to it. Enjoy!

Ratatouille's Ratatouille
Recipe by Smitten Kitchen

1/2 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
1 cup tomato puree
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 small eggplant
1 smallish zucchini
1 smallish yellow squash
1 longish red bell pepper
Few sprigs fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.
3. Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.
4. On a mandoline, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.
5. Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.
6. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.
7. Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. (Tricky, I know, but the hardest thing about this.)
8. Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.
9. Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain

Le Soupe a l'Oignon avec un petit Croque Monsieur

I've been waiting since early April to tackle the soup lovingly known as French Onion Soup. I went garage sale-ing with a very dear friend, and I picked up some little white pots that I knew would be perfect for the soup. I knew that they were just going to be sitting in one of my cabinets though. You see, when the hubby was gone and my sister was living with me, I knew I would be eating it alone if I cooked it. Sweet Honey Mim is not going to like this post almost as much as she would not have liked to come home to this soup for dinner. 

I've been trying to plan our meals for every night for each week so that I don't come across the problem we had when I was in high school ("Hey mom, what's for dinner?" "I don't know. What would you like?" "I don't know. Just make something.") And on and on it would go until my mom finally made the rule of whoever asks that question will be the one responsible for making dinner. Anyway, I'd been planning on making this soup for the past week and was ecstatic to finally be putting my crocks to good use. I went searching for the perfect recipe. I was shocked to see just how many variations there are to something that is essentially pub food. I finally found three similar recipes that each had only minor variations and decided to put them together to make my own recipe.

I first turned to the Bible of French food, Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking (Hey Anne, I finally got to use the cookbook). That woman was a genius! I then pulled out my other love, Jamie Oliver and his Jamie at Home. Lastly, I turned to The Bon Appetit Cookbook by Barbara Fairchild. Following Ms. Child's recipe almost completely, I added a little bit of Jamie and a touch of Barbara to come up with something my hubby and I both enjoyed. I hope you like it too...

Soupe a l'Oignon Gratinee avec un petit Croque Monsieur (it just sounds cooler in French)
Recipe by Julia, Jamie, Barbara, and me

5 medium sized onions, thinly sliced (I used 3 white and 2 yellow)
3 Tbl butter (homemade...yumyum)
2-3 glugs olive oil
Handful of fresh sage leaves (I think I used about 8-10, but I didn't really count it out)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
3 Tbl flour
2 qts boiling beef stock (I used 2 - 32 oz. boxes of beef broth)
1/2 cup dry white wine or vermouth (Red Bicyclette chardonnay for me)
Salt and pepper to taste
3 Tbl cognac (or brandy cause that's what I had on hand)
Fresh baguette, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
1 cup coarsely chopped ham
1-2 cups freshly grated Gruyere cheese

1. Preheat broiler. Place the butter, oil, and sage leaves in a large stock pot on medium heat. Heat until butter is melted and add onions. Cover and cook the onions slowly for about 15 minutes.
2. Uncover, raise heat to moderate, and stir in salt and sugar. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes stirring frequently, until onions have turned an even, deep, golden brown (trust me on this, don't rush this step, and don't leave the lid on; my onions never colored since I forgot the lid).
3. Sprinkle in the flour and stir for 3 minutes. Add the beef stock/broth and the wine. Season to taste. Simmer partially covered for 30 to 40 minutes more, skimming occasionally. Correct seasoning as needed.
4. Just before serving, stir in the cognac/brandy. Ladle into soup bowls. Place slices of baguette to cover the top of the soup. Top with a bit of the ham and gruyere, place bowls on a baking sheet, and set on the top rack under the broiler. Allow to broil for approximately 5 minutes, or until cheese is hot and bubbly. Serve with extra pieces of baguette and butter.

To toast baguette slices and make them more like croutons (yumyum), place the slices on a baking sheet inside the oven as it preheats for approximately 5 minutes. Turn the slices over and heat for another 3 minutes. You want to leave them in long enough to get crisp, not long enough to start to color. I preheated my oven to 375 first and then bumped it up to broil after I was done with the baguette only because my oven is fickle and would have just torched them.

Macaron FAIL

So here is the FAIL I talked about last time I posted: macarons. Ever since the first time I checked out Tartelette's blog, I have been intrigued with the cookie. Two crispy shelled cookies encasing a creamy sweet center, sounds like a perfect cookie to me (especially if you make a chocolate version).

Mrs. Tartelette, being a sweet French lady, has several recipes posted on her blog, each with beautiful pictures of the delectable cookies that I so desperately had my heart set on. The recipe I used is here. I followed all of her directions to a tee...er...ok, except one. I did not pass the powdered sugar and pulverized almonds through a sieve (I had been in the kitchen literally all weekend making yummy snacks for the party and making meals for my sister and friend so we wouldn't have to lose precious time by going to get food).

Needless to say, I set the timer for recommended time and let the cookies do their magic. When the timer went off, I went to check. Seemed pretty wet to me still, so I added a couple of minutes and went about cleaning the kitchen. Ding! Checked again, still not done, two more minutes. The first batch cooked for almost 20 minutes before I finally pulled them out of the oven. As they sat cooling on my counter, they began to deflate. By the time the tray was completely cool, I took a spatula to the first cookie only to find that it still wasn't done. Where did I go wrong? Was it the one simple step I didn't follow out of lazi...uh...tiredness? Could it be the excessive humidity messing with the airiness of the egg whites? Was there something else I missed? I'm still intrigued by these yummy cookies, but I'll be waiting until the temperatures cool down again before attempting another go round. Maybe one of you might have a suggestion in the meantime???