Julia Child's Crepes

I had extra milk and eggs the other day, so I decided to make crepes using a recipe from Recipezaar.com. It came out just alright... a little bland, a little rubbery, it got a half-hearted "mmm" from Brad.

Determined to make better crepes, I thumbed through Mastering the Art of French Cooking and found Julia's version. It was much better--lighter, crispier, and more flavorful.

I didn't have any filling ingredients, so I made "crepe pancakes" with a pat of butter and a drizzle of maple syrup on top. My friend Fran (who is from France) later told me that I could have sprinkled sugar and lemon juice in place of a filling. Who would have thought? I'll definitely be doing this next time.

Here's Julia's version...

Crepes Fines Sucrees (Light Batter for crepes Suzette)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup cold water

3 egg yolks

1 Tb granulated sugar

3 Tb orange liqueur, rum, or brandy

1 cup flour (scooped and leveled)

5 Tb melted butter

An electric blender

Put the ingredients in the blender in the order they're listed above. Blend for a minute at top speed, covered. If there's some flour stuck to the sides, just scrape it off and blend for three more seconds. Finally, cover and let sit in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight.

When you're ready to cook, rub a skillet with butter or oil and put over heat until it smokes. Remove it from the heat and pour 1/4 cup batter into the pan. Tilt the pan so the whole bottom is covered in a thin layer of the batter. Return to heat for 60-80- seconds, then loosen the crepe. If the edges are a light brown, it's ready to be turned. Brown for another 30 seconds on the other side.

Note that this is my abridged version of the recipes on p. 190 and 648. The cookbook version goes into much more detail, so be sure to pick it up if you haven't! :)

The batter

Julia Child's Ratatouille

I have to admit that I was expecting a "prettier" dish. The movie Ratatouille made this famous dish look like a work of art. The eggplant, zucchini and such were cut into coins and then laid out in a casserole like a deck of cards. Not so with Julia Child's version.

The trick to ratatouille, according to Julia, is cooking the elements separately first and then combining them in the end to simmer. This method retains the "shape and character" of each ingredient. If you don't own the book, you can find the recipe here, straight from the publisher (it's a pdf):

http://knopfdoubleday.com/marketing/cooking/Ratatouille-condensed.pdf

I would also highly recommend watching this entertaining and informative video. It's an "homage to Julia Child", and an excellent demonstration of how to prepare the ratatouille.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efQlr1RYgrk

The dish I made was pretty good and it only took an hour or so to make. I think it would have been better if I had salted the eggplant ahead of time to get out the bitter taste (I just didn't have time for this--I was hungry!). Also, I didn't have onions on hand, so this was a missing element of the dish.

Cook the zucchini and eggplant first, one minute on each side, then cook the onion and bell peppers.

Peel the tomatoes. This is the first time I did this and I was surprised how easy it is! Drop the tomatoes into boiling water for exactly ten seconds. Then peel!

Layer everything together and simmer.

Bon Appetite!

Julia Child's Poulet Saute (Sauteed Chicken)

For lunch today I made Julia Child's Poulet Saute (Sauteed Chicken) with one chicken thigh. The recipe is on page 254 in her cookbook. According to Julia, a true saute has the chicken cooking entirely in butter or oil; the bird never touches liquid until the very end. This gives the bird that nice crunchy brown exterior.

To cook this dish, just put some butter in a pot or casserole dish, turn up the heat to moderately high, and wait until the butter's foaming starts to subside. Next, place a towel-dried chicken thigh (or any other part of the bird) in the butter for a few minutes, then turn. Make sure the chicken browns on both sides and the butter doesn't burn.

Season the chicken with herbs (I used basil, tarragon and thyme), salt and pepper. For the next 15 minutes, turn down the heat to moderate and cover the pot. Baste the chicken 2 or 3 times during this time period and turn occasionally. Make sure the butter doesn't burn.

Remove the chicken. For the sauce, I just added some dry white wine and a bit of beef stock and butter to the pot. I deglazed the pan and poured the sauce over the chicken. Bon appetite!

Note: Of course, this is a condensed version of Julia's recipe. Hers is two and a half pages long. Buy the book if you haven't already, and let me know which recipes you like to make! :)

...

There's not much to say today except "Mmm.. Leftover meatloaf."

On the menu for later this week: Julia Child's Ratatouille. It sounds like a simple dish, but Julia herself proclaims that it isn't a simple endeavor if you want to get it "right". I'm up for the challenge. Stay tuned!

Coconut Macaroons with Stevia

I've been eating too much sugar lately, so I decided to find something that would satisfy my sweet cravings but still be sugar free. Enter Stevia. I took the recipe from this website:

http://www.candida-cure-recipes.com/coconut-macaroon-recipe.html

The macaroons had a wonderful texture, but they were too sweet. I didn't even add all the stevia recommended--I used about 3/4 of the amount recommended. Next time, I will cut the amount of stevia in half.

COCONUT MACAROONS WITH STEVIA

3 large egg whites
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups dried, unsweetened, fine shredded coconut (the finer the better)
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon dried ground stevia leaf (note: original recipe says 1 tsp, but I thought it was too sweet)

optional – ½ teaspoon cinnamon


Whip the egg whites. I whipped them by hand instead of machine because according to Julia Child, you must be able to do it by hand in order to understand the "vagaries of eggs". Don't you love her? My arm got sore, so Brad and I switched off.



Fold in the dry ingredients.



Place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet, about a tablespoon for each macaroon. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 325 degrees. (Mine actually took 25 minutes!). Macaroons are done when the tops are golden brown.



Voila!

Poulet Saute aux Herbes de Provence (Julia Child's Chicken Sauteed with Herbs and Garlic, Egg Yolk and Butter Sauce)

Tonight's dinner party was a success! We had so much delicious food, and everyone left with happy bellies and faces despite the horrid heat wave.

Dinner Party Menu:

-Creamy Carrot and Sage Soup with Cinnamon Croutons

-Tossed Salad with Mushrooms, Cucumber, Tomato, Red Onion, and Parmesan Crisps

-Julia Child's Poulet Saute aux Herbes de Provence (Chicken Sauteed with Herbs and Garlic, Egg Yolk and Butter Sauce)

-Bananas Three Ways: Rosemary and Whiskey Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream, Bananas and Sour Cream, Toasted Coconut Banana Muffins


Creamy Carrot and Sage Soup with Cinnamon Croutons

See "A Sneak Peak" post for the ingredients. I garnished this with some sour cream and bacon (not shown). This is such a delicious and satisfying soup, and the cinnamon croutons make it even more outstanding.



Parmesan Crisps with Herbes de Provence

Ron and Fran made these crisps, and they were sooooo good!



Tossed Salad with Mushrooms, Cucumber, Tomato, Red Onion

Ron and Fran brought this salad. It was the perfect refreshing accompaniment to the chicken.



Julia Child's Poulet Saute aux Herbes de Provence (Chicken Sauteed with Herbs and Garlic, Egg Yolk and Butter Sauce)

Wow. Sure, Julia Child's dishes take a long time to make, but the effort is so worth it. This chicken was so juicy and tender, and the hollandaise sauce that accompanied it was full of flavor. Brad insisted that we must make this dish again. And again. The sauce is a variation on the standard hollandaise sauce because it uses the pan butter drippings and white wine instead of just plain butter.



Rosemary and Whiskey Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream

I got this recipe from Eric Ripert's blog, and it is so delicious (and unusual!). I omitted the pepper, but everything else was the same. You make the dish in the toaster--how easy is that? (Eric Ripert actually has a whole bunch of dishes on his blog that you make in the toaster oven. )

The man is a culinary genius, and this is just one of his interesting and delicious creations. I highly recommend trying it yourself.

http://aveceric.com/category/recipes



Desert was really 3 banana deserts in one (hence the name "Banana Three Ways"). I also served my sour cream and banana dish (see "$50 a week challenge" post) and toasted coconut banana muffins. I was surprised that the coconut banana muffins actually came out tasting great after a toasting and a dab of butter! We gave some to Ron and Fran to take home, but made them promise to toast them with butter before eating them.

Mayonnaise, Take 2

TARRAGON DEVILED EGGS AND BACON ON TOAST : TAKE TWO

I am not one to take defeat lightly, so after my mayonnaise failure yesterday, I was determined to master mayonnaise today. I made sure to add enough olive oil, and sure enough, it got thicker and thicker!



Once it was thick enough, I added chopped tarragon. This really makes the dish.



Next, add the chopped hard boiled eggs



Place on toast. Garnish with tarragon. I discovered that it is much better to chop the bacon into small pieces instead of leaving it as strips. It's just too clumsy to eat when the bacon isn't chopped up.

The finished dish!

Eggs Baked in Ramekin (Ouefs en Cocotte)

For breakfast today, while Brad was out surfing I made myself Julia Child's Ouefs en Cocotte, or Eggs Baked in Ramekins.



Here's the recipe in pictures:

Boil some asparagus until they are tender, then place them in iced water to stop the cooking process. Mince and add them to a buttered ramekin. Add a tablespoon of cream and some chopped parsley.



Put the ramekin in a pan of simmering water (3/4" water) until the cream is hot.


Add 2 eggs, then put one more tablespoon of cream, a bit of parsley, and a pat of butter on top. Transfer the whole thing (including the pan and water!) to a 375 degree oven for 7-10 minutes. (Mine actually took longer than 10 minutes--closer to 15 minutes!) Take the dish out of the oven when the whites are set but still tremble.



The finished dish! (I took a bite out of it.) Look at that runny yolk. :)



On another note, all of this cooking has its rewards! Last night Brad treated me to a delicious sushi dinner at Sakura for all my hard work :)

The $50 a Week Challenge

You know how Rachel Ray has her show "$40 a Day" in which she tries to eat all her meals in various cities for "just $40 a day"? Well, I always thought to myself, "Big deal--$40 a day is a lot of money for just one day. She should try $20 a day. Or even $10 a day.." (Can you imagine that show? Hello McDonalds!)

Inspired by Rachel Ray, I originally wanted to challenge myself to cook every meal for just $40 a week. Then I realized that no matter how I stretch my dollars, that just isn't going to happen. I'd rather not sacrifice quality to save a few extra bucks, so I settled on the more reasonable goal of $50 a week.

Friday is my grocery shopping day, and since I've been cooking a lot (all 2 weeks worth :P), it's been sort of crazy. I go to at least 3 places to get all my groceries: Whole Foods for meats (organic when possible), Ralphs for veggies and fruits, and Trader Joes for the rest (butter, eggs, cream, etc--I prefer organic dairy, and TJ's has it cheaper than Whole Foods does). When I can, I also go to farmers markets and the Santa Monica Coop.

Today I bought $110 worth of groceries for both Brad and I. That's $55 each--not bad, but I didn't reach my goal of $50.. :( Maybe next week!

Today I came up with this simple but amazing desert:

BANANAS AND SOUR CREAM WITH CINNAMON



I remember seeing some recipes for sour cream banana cake and pancakes, and thought, "Why not just cut out the extra flour and sugar?" The resulting recipe is healthier, but still satisfies your sweet tooth.

Ingredients:
1 banana
A dollop of sour cream
a pinch of sea salt
cinnamon
stevia to taste

Slice the banana into coins, put a dollop of sour cream on top, a pinch of sea salt, cinnamon, and then finally sprinkle with a very light dusting of stevia. It is so good!

A close up of my second helping:



DEVILED EGGS AND BACON ON TOAST



I wanted so much to make mayonnaise by hand as Julia Child instructs in her cookbook, so I decided to make deviled eggs for lunch today. I'd made mayo before from scratch in the food processor; it was a piece of cake. However, Ms. Child said that one should really know how to do it by hand in order to gain a good understanding of the egg.

So to become "one with the egg", I whipped, and whipped, and drizzled oil, and more oil... I guess I stopped before adding enough oil, because the mixture never really gelled like it did in the processor. Oh well. I still made the deviled eggs with my runny mayo, and it was fine. File this mayo under "works in progress".

Ingredients:

2 hard boiled eggs
Handmade mayo made from 2 egg yolks, olive oil, mustard, pepper, salt, hot sauce
1 Niiman ranch bacon strip
1 slice toasted Ezekiel bread

The hard boiled eggs


The mayo "work in progress"...


LEAF'S SIDE SALAD

I did eat out once this week, at a raw restaurant called "Leaf". I got their side salad, which turned out to be quite large. It was surprisingly tasty--much better than their collard wraps. There are some crispy nuggets of raw nuttiness under all that yellow sauce.



LEFTOVERS FOR LUNCH

Yesterday's lunch: leftover boeuf bourguignon with added cauliflower and watercress. Oh, this dish just gets better and better the longer you wait!

Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon

Today I attempted to cook a dish I can't pronounce. In fact, it's a dish with a name I can't even spell--I need to google it just to make sure I'm spelling it right each time!

I finally bought Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". It's $40, and I was lucky to find it at a Border's in the Valley--it's been sold out everywhere else! Of course, the famous recipe from the movie Julie and Julia is Boeuf Bourguignon, so I couldn't wait to make this recipe. I bought all the ingredients except the bacon rind (they didn't have it where I went). I served it with creamy polenta, made from white organic cornmeal that Brad's mom gave us. The polenta was amazing--I cooked it slowly for an hour on the stove with this recipe:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Buttered-Polenta-233990

The Boeuf Bourguignon was tasty, but I think I seared the meat a little too long because it was not as soft as I expected it to be. The sauce was also very thin, so I had to thicken it with some arrowroot (trying to boil it down didn't do much). I had a lot of leftovers, so I'm looking forward to having this tomorrow because the flavors will only get better.

Boeuf Bourguignon recipe: http://www.recipezaar.com/Boeuf-Bourguignon-a-La-Julia-Child-148007


The meat after browning, before going into the oven with stock and wine.



The slow cooked grits



The sauce, thickened with arrowroot



The finished dish..