Cooking "Chez Jacques"

Mme Diat: The Super, Superbowl Cheesecake

2010-02-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

You've got a cold beer, some chili next to some antacids and you hear the familiar NFL kick-off music. It must be time for the Superbowl. For those of you who still think the Superbowl's about football, I am here with a public service announcement...it's not. It's about watching the commercials so you have something to talk about at work the next day and eating enough calorie packed food to put you into a food coma until next year's Superbowl.

While I am normally all for participating in the annual chili cook-off, this year I decided to make something a little sweeter. My brother, the not-so-petite-anymore-Diat, turned the big 21 earlier this month and I wanted to do a test-round for his dessert at the Superbowl party. Since I've made a habit of baking something for everyone's birthday, I promised the petite Diat a delectable chocolate layer cake with chocolate covered strawberries. I had the recipe planned out and everything about ready to go when I got a hushed phone call from my mother essentially telling me that she bogarted my cake and she hoped that I didn't mind. I looked towards the cake flour that I had been dying to crack into and just hung my head.

After some sulking and serious lamenting about having to wait on using the new cake flour [it was a new brand I was dying to try] I decided on cheesecake. I have, in my humble opinion, one of the best cheesecake recipes that I've ever tasted. Since I don't really like messing with success, I thought I would use my plain cheesecake recipe as a base for chocolate chip cheesecake. And because the only addition to the cheesecake were mini chocolate chips, it was great.

My only struggle, and to be fair this was a moment of idiocy on my part, was with the springform pan. Here was my dilemma: I lined the bottom of the springform pan with parchment paper for easier removal. After letting the cake cool for about an hour and a half, I took the springform pan out of the water-filled, deep dish pizza sheet that it was sitting in. As I lifted the cake out of the pan, I saw that the water had seeped into the cake pan. To put it mildly, I panicked. I took off the sides of the pan to let the water out. However, as I did that a small tear that quickly turned into a larger one, broke into the top of my cake. By this point, I was having a minor meltdown. A pro at navigating my meltdowns and my kitchen, my brother grabbed some Saran, wrapped the cheesecake up and put it into the fridge. I felt like I was getting a pep talk before a game, "It will be fine, you can cut along the tear before you put it on the table. It will be fine, you are bringing the cake to the party! Stop worrying, oh my gosh, I put the Saran around it, it will be fine..."

All in all, he was right and no one was the wiser. I let my perfectionism get the better of me, but the petite Diat kept his cool. The cheesecake was a huge hit, in fact, almost all of it was gone by the end of the night. Now I'm ready for what's next this weekend: tiramisu [hopefully] for a friend's birthday and my brother's double chocolate, chocolate chip cheesecake.

If you want any of my cheesecake recipes or tips on how to cook one, just send a comment!

Mme Pépin: A short story on pancakes

2010-02-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

One of the many perks to the life I enjoyed back when I lived with my parents, and still do enjoy when I visit with them on a weekend, is my younger brother's breakfasts. Petit Pepin enjoys making full breakfasts on Saturday mornings consisting of pancakes, eggs and bacon. He has become very good at these breakfast staples, especially since he has stopped (for the most part) putting food coloring into the pancakes (mmm green pancakes).

Last weekend I was gifted with a lazy Sunday. While assessing my breakfast options I noted that there was just enough milk in my fridge to make pancakes from a mix (and by just enough I mean just not enough, but I "adjusted" the other measurements accordingly-ish).

The mixing went well, the questionable measurements didn't seem too troublesome, what made this process go from "hey this is cute I'm making pancakes for breakfast" to "hmmm maybe green pancakes wouldn't be so bad right now" was the combination of the mix and the pan. Needless to say, my pancakes weren't dainty little circles, they more resembled what I'd expect early cellular life forms to look like. I attempted to flip them with ease, but every time a corner didn't quite manage to flip. They were browning fast, too thick, and the shapes were getting weirder still as the corners that didn't flip got stuck.

I ended up with four "pancakes". One light one, two very dark ones, and one that was still quite mushy inside, rendering it not fit for consumption.

Mme Pépin: Texas Beef Bake

2010-02-05T13:15:00.000-08:00

While sifting through the 'Beef' section of my Healthy Cooking for under $7 cookbook I came across a 'Texas Beef Bake'. It sounded interesting and filling, perfect for a meal in with Mike since he eats like a horse.

The ingredients were simple enough: ground beef, mashed potatoes (from baking potatoes), frozen broccoli, parm cheese, an onion, beef broth, and some seasonings.

For meals involving more than just throwing pasta into boiling water while heating up some sauce, Mike and I like to work together. While he got to work chopping the onion, I skinned the potatoes and waited for the water to boil so I could get them ready for mashing. While we continued to wait for that water to boil, Mike sauteed the onions and I got the rest of the ingredients ready to be added to his pan as needed. Note on the water: just now boiling, potatoes added. Whole. The recommended 15 minutes had passed and the potatoes were in theory supposed to be ready to mash. Mike was running out of things to add to the pan.

The mashing was not a success, the potatoes were still too hard (note that I'd already drained the water). So, Mike lowered the heat on the contents in the pan, as I got the water boiling. Again. The potatoes sat in the boiling water for another 15 minutes. Still too hard to mash as Mike tested their firmness every few minutes with a mashing utensil. We even debated if the utensil I gave him was appropriate for mashing. Finally Mike said, perhaps we should have cut them up before boiling them. Lightbulb. I looked in the cookbook, and noted that the ingredients called for the potatoes to be cut, not the directions (where I'd been looking this whole time). Oops. Needless to say that made a world of difference and we were back in action.

After everything had been sauteed (the pan turned into a large metal bowl as we ran out of space), we transfered the contents to a pyrex baking pan, sprinkled on the cheese (note next time I will not get grated parm, I'll get shredded), and popped it into the oven. The bake time took longer than expected, Mike attributed that to the cheese being grated.

When all was said and done, Mike did most of this meal, as I threw complications his way left and right (unintentional of course). Despite some of the set backs, the meal tasted excellent. It was incredibly filling, leaving plenty of leftovers (score for me, I got to bring it to work for lunch!).

I will say, don't make this as a company dish since it's quite the opposite of appetizing looking. But it does taste great, is under 400 calories, and is simple to make: if your baking partner isn't me.

Mme Diat: More of the Thanksgiving Marathon

2010-01-22T12:46:00.001-08:00

A week later, another Thanksgiving. This time, I was heading over to my aunt's home in Palos. This time around, I wasn't expected to cook anything so I brought a few wine selections instead. I ended up with Gabbiano Chianti and Fat Bastard Chardonnay. As someone who isn't always a fan of white wines, I really have to say I enjoyed the Fat Bastard. I bought it because I knew my extended family, being Italian, and my immediate family, being German, Lithuanian & Bohemian, would appreciate the wine choice.

Even though I didn't cook a dish for my second Thanksgiving, I wanted to write about it because for the first time, I tried a brined turkey. I have to be honest, maybe it was the way it was cooked, but I was not impressed. The turkey seemed dryer than normal and there was really nothing special that would make me recommend it to anyone. Just to be sure, I am planning on brining my own turkey sometime soon. I've heard such good things and I don't want to give up on it just yet.

Now onto my final, and real marathon, Thanksgiving. Since my whole immediate family couldn't be at the "Official Family Thanksgiving" it was declared that we would have our own small meal the next weekend. I was absolutely turkey-ed out at this point, but I offered to make the dinner.

The Menu:
Turkey
Southern Sweet Potatoes [the same ones I made with Mme. Pépin]
Mashed Potatoes
Cauliflower
Peach Stuffing [Mme. Pépin's traditional contribution to the holiday meal]
Sausage Stuffing [a manlier alternative for the growing Diat boys]
Cranberries w/Pear [also a Mme. Pépin favorite]
Apple Pie

Since it was rainy that weekend, grilling the bird was out of the question. I opted for a nice roasted turkey with a vegetable & herb seasoning mixed with butter for under the skin and oranges stuffed inside for moisture and added flavor. The mashed potatoes were just the general variety, milk and seasonings for flavor. The cauliflower was absolutely fantastic. I was torn on whether or not I wanted to make it with bread crumbs, a family favorite, or baked with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. I opted to bake the veggie and was not disappointed. It's such a great way to spice up an otherwise boring vegetable.

For my dessert, I decided to go the classic pie route. I had been wanting to try my hand at pie crust and fruit pie for some time and I thought that my third Thanksgiving was as good a time as any. The only thing that I have to say was that I followed the recipe exactly, and wound up with entirely too many apples. I could have made about 3.5 pies with that recipe. Take a look at your recipes before hand an if 12 apples sounds a little intense, it probably is. Scale back some of the other seasonings and start with about 4-5 apples instead. I presume that would have been more than enough for my pie.

All in all, every meal was a success. A friend who had attended all 3 holidays with me remarked that my final masterpiece was the best of the 3. Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal and leftovers were gone within a week. My only request after all of it: that we not have turkey anywhere near our Christmas menu.

Mme Diat: A Pre-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving

2010-01-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

Happy 2010 everyone, I'm truly sorry for taking so long to get back to the blog. The winter months were littered with more birthdays, parties, holidays, and events than I could even fit into my already packed schedule. Blogging was a welcome break that I didn't have much time for. Even now, I'm writing on my lunch break at work. So to get everyone up to speed, I will re-cap some of the cooking mishaps, victories, and learning experiences that I had closing out 2009.

Thanksgiving 2009 #1:
To start, I say Thanksgiving #1 because I had 3 this year. It was like the marathon of Thanksgivings for me. Three weeks, three turkeys, and three families [so to speak]. Thanksgiving #1 was the second annual holiday event co-hosted with Mme. Pépin. As Mme. Pépin and I begin planning for Thanksgiving up to 3 months in advance, I had time to work out a menu that would challenge me.

It was more than assumed that I would be cooking the turkey because of the two of us, I was the only one who could handle prep of the raw bird. To free up our oven for the afternoon I decided it would be interesting to grill the turkey. I decided on this recipe from Martha Stewart to season the bird. I wanted to make sure that since I was grilling, the skin was infused with as many herbs as I could find. We used a charcoal grill and cooked the bird for about 6 hours. It turned out absolutely magnificent.

I was also in charge of the sweet potatoes and a dessert. To get away from just mashing all of our starches I picked this great southern recipe from Martha Stewart for the potatoes. I peeled and sliced them, which was much harder than I expected. I then put them in the oven to bake. After that I took them out, spinkled butter, brown sugar, pecans, and some cayenne pepper on them and popped them back into the oven for a few minutes. The result was absolutely phenomenal and everyone loved them.

As for the dessert, I was dead set on hand making a pumpkin pie but there wasn't a sweet pumpkin for miles. I must have checked at about 5 different stores and I couldn't find one. Why I couldn't a week before Thanksgiving I will never know. So I settled, begrudgingly by the way, for the canned pumpkin puree. They say that there's seasoning in it and it's "Pie Ready" but I was not about to believe that. I added my own spices [from this recipe], made the crust, and baked it. As an aside, I've been experimenting with pie crusts lately. I want to find the best crust for every pie and so far I've been impressed time and time again with Pate Brisee's crust. It's easy and just great. As for the pie, it turned out absolutely amazing. Though, I don't want to make a habit of using the canned puree.

All in all, Thanksgiving #1 was a hit. For the turkey, I would absolutely recommend grilling. The bird was so moist and flavorful. If you want to try something different and free up some oven space, don't be afraid to grill. You won't regret it.

Mme Pepin: "Real" Food and BBQ Picante Chicken

2010-01-21T20:59:00.000-08:00

I recently read a book by Michael Pollan called "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual". I was drawn in by the well designed cover (Yes, as a graphic designer I do judge books by their covers). It was a quick read, and aside from Tim Gunn's book "A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style", I've never been so influenced by a book before. Pollan's concept wasn't anything novel or original, yet in today's day and age I suppose it bore repeating: eat REAL food. Not over-processed food, not food with ingredients that make you scratch your head, but food that is fresh, healthy and actual food. There were some other very informative parts of the book, including HOW to eat (insert smart-ass comment here), but rather than jilt Mr. Pollan out of book sales, go read it (I had it done in a matter of hours and it cost me about $7).

So what does this have to do with me, and cooking? Well, after reading Pollan's book, I evaluated the Cheez-it's that were tucked away in my purse. As I ate (one of my favorite snack foods) I noted what Pollan was saying about too much salt, too much to the point where it was artificially and unnecessarily salty. I looked at the fake bright orange color. I looked at the ingredients. Now things didn't click right away for me, I was on vacation and was subject to whatever food was going to cross my path (including my grandmother's delicious biscotti).

But when I got back to my natural habitat something strange happened: I really wanted an apple. I wanted that apple for several days, until I finally made it to a grocery store, purchased that apple (and several others) and ate it. Of all things I was full afterwards. Well go figure. Apparently, not only are apples filling and low calorie, they are incredibly good for you, they are probably one of the healthier fruits you can come across. So, I decided to adopt the old "apple a day" policy. So far what I've noticed is that I'm not craving chocolate and sweets very much anymore. I'm not eating when I'm not hungry. I'm not eating processed foods as much. I think Mr. Pollan may be onto something here... more to come as more happens.

Well, tonight I finally hit rock bottom in terms of the amount of consumable dinner food at my apartment. There was a lot of 'fake' mac & cheese (another old fave) which had lost it's magical pull over me. Some sherbet, apple sauce and a whole host of things that should (and since have) be thrown away living (and breathing, haha just kidding about the breathing part) in my fridge. I decided I really wanted real food. So I walked to Jewel (I don't own a car) and picked up dinner for the boyfriend and myself for Friday night (more to come on that after Friday night happens) and dinner for myself tonight.

I decided that since the boyfriend and I were going to have beef on Friday, I'd have chicken tonight. SINCE WHEN IS BEEF CHEAPER THAN CHICKEN?!?! Ah well, can't overdo it on the red meat thing, so I bought some chicken breast. I've been seeing those commercials lately for Pace Picante sauce, and since I do enjoy salsa, and could recognize/pronounce all of the ingredients on the label, decided that that would be the topping to my chicken. When I returned home I checked online at Pace's website to assess the situation and they even suggested BBQ sauce mixed in, hell's yeah! I do enjoy my BBQ as much as my salsa.

I started to heat some olive oil in the pan, putting A LOT more than usual in (the boyfriend did it the other night when he made pork and it turned out really juicy). Even with oven mitts on once I put the chicken in the pan I was getting burned. I turned the heat down, still popping, gah it was a bit of a mess. I then started to paint the chicken with the BBQ-Picante mixture until I decided that the chicken was done (several years ago I turned chicken into rubber, so now I'm always careful not to cook it too long). I had two thin chicken breasts with the mixture on it, and it was really good. And filling.

For dessert I mixed fresh blueberries into plain yogurt and drizzled honey on top. It's been several hours now and I'm not hungry, I'm not scouring my place for chocolate and I don't feel bad about what I ate. Awesome.

Mme. Pepin: Welcome Back

2010-01-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

Happy 2010, sorry it's been a few months, November and December are my prime entertaining months and I'm going-going-gone during that time. I'll recap a few of the cooking highlights:

Thanksgiving 2009

I'm just going to say it, I know that I'm an adult now that Christmas is no longer my favorite holiday of the year, don't get me wrong, I still love the traditions and holiday cheer, but to me, Thanksgiving takes the cake. What's better than an entire holiday centered around food and family? I've got two dishes that I look forward to making each Thanksgiving (okay, for a few different Thanksgivings held over the past 2 years, and hopefully many more to come). The first is the often overlooked (until now) cranberries. The second is the stuffing. Ironically enough, up until I started making the stuffing and the cranberries from recipes that I found, neither of those dishes ever found their way onto my dinner plate.

I found the recipe that I frequent for cranberries from Good Housekeeping's Thanksgiving issue back in 2008 (I believe). It doesn't produce the jello-esk cranberries that so often hold a place at a Thanksgiving table, this recipe turns out much more like a relish of sorts. Aside from the obvious, cranberries, this recipe features ginger and pear. Last year I used ground ginger from a container, but this year, I got adventurous (and perhaps a little overzealous) with fresh ginger that I ground myself. One word: Micro-plain. Go buy one. So my first batch for my pre-Thanksgiving dinner was a little heavy on the ginger, I got it right for the actual big day.

The stuffing came from one of Martha Stewart's staff members, written up in Martha Stewart Living's Thanksgiving 2008 (once again, I believe) issue. It is a peach stuffing, and tastes fresh and delicious if I do say so myself. The recipe features stale rustic Italian bread, a can of clingstone peach halves and frozen orange juice concentrate among other things. I find it difficult not to pick at the dish while I'm waiting for the right time to put it into the oven. It had a large following this year at my parent's Thanksgiving table. And had tough competition at the pre-Thanksgiving dinner when it was up against my brother's "Man Stuffing", which featured summer sausage, eggs, and mashed potatoes.

All in all, the pre-Thanksgiving and actual Thanksgivings were culinary successes and I look forward to next year.

Ah yes, I almost forgot to mention that for the pre-Thanksgiving I made the delightful Cannele. This time they turned out harder on the outside. I'm chalking that up to working with an oven that can actually get to the correct temperature. Not sure which way I prefer the outer shell to be, but both times they were a crowd favorite.

Into the New Year:

I've procured some new cookbooks throughout the holidays and I'm excited to get cracking on them. I'm going to use this blog to continue my work with Jacque's cookbook, but also to share some of my other culinary adventures.

I just got back from a long (chilly) weekend in Florida. I wanted something warm and simple to make for my boyfriend and I for dinner that didn't consist of driving to Wendy's, pre-made food, or my standard tri-color rotini with olive oil and parmesan cheese. In one of my new cookbooks full of healthy meals for under $7, I found a recipe for sirloin steak with blue cheese and basil. I was running behind schedule, so (what turned out to be) thankfully, Mike was there to keep my company as I cooked. I couldn't find any fresh basil, so I took that out of the mix, and I made whole wheat gnocchi as a side. I was about to put the steak (seasoned in sea salt, olive oil and lemon pepper) onto the pan when Mike pointed out that there was a lingering piece of black paper stuck to the bottom of the steak (from the packaging), phew, caught it before I started a fire. I must have been really absent minded last night as the kitchen started to fill up with smoke due to the fact that I was searing the meat on high heat instead of medium heat (thanks again to Mike for pointing out that error). There wasn't much damage done to the meat other than a few well done edges, and we got the window open before the fire alarm went off. When the steak had cooked for about 5 minutes on both sides I added the blue cheese and cooked it for another 4 minutes while the steak finished and the cheese melted.

It tasted very good, I'd make this again in a heartbeat. The few little mishaps aside, this meal was simple and quick to make as well as relatively healthy and inexpensive. I was worried that I had put too much salt onto the meat, but thankfully the cheese took care of any issues in taste that could have occurred from too much salt.

Mme. Pépin: Tortilla Pizza

2009-11-02T14:48:00.000-08:00

Since this weekend was a tad all over the place due to holiday festivities, I didn't want anything too complicated for Sunday night's meal. It was to be a smaller gathering, so I decided that the Tortilla Pizzas would be appropriate for size and difficulty. Unfortunately, Mme. Diat had to cancel as she had family obligations. The number for dinner would be four.

They were really quite simple, and I highly recommend making them as a quick dinner. Mme. Poupée and myself stopped by Jewel to pick up the few ingredients that were required. Upon arriving home, we got another dinner guest involved (the fourth was running late) and formed an assembly line of sorts. I prepped the tortillas (flour as I'm allergic to corn) by coating them in olive oil on both sides and sprinkling on some parmesan cheese as Mme. Poupée sliced the tomatoes and the remaining guest grated the fresh mozzarella. We placed the tomato slices atop the tortilla, sprinkled it with cheese and then put it in the oven at 500° for 8 minutes. Upon completion in the oven fresh basil was cut up and placed on top.

It was a success (marking our second success that weekend) and was both simple and flavorful. Jacques also has recipes under that recipe for a salmon pizza and a seafood pizza.

Mme. Poupée: The Why

2009-11-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl, I would sit content watching my mother bake all sorts of goodies. Cookies, pie, cake, brownies, everything she made tasted delightful. I would always lean into the counter, pointer finger first, only for her to stop me and say, "Help me by watching, not touching!"

This, I believe, set me on the path I am now: undomestic goddess.

Never did I get to measure out flour, crack an egg, or spoon butter into a pan. Occasionally, if I was a good girl and if my mother left the room, I got to lick the spoon.

Now that I am a grown woman nearing my mid twenties and finally living on my own, I am embarrassed to say that I consider Velveeta mac and cheese a challenge. Armed with a decent sized kitchen but no counter space or any sort of entertainment, and cheap utensils that typically bend out of shape, I can honestly say I hate to be in the kitchen. I have no desire to be a good cook. Scratch that. No desire to be any kind of cook! There is even a joke I have yet to live down that involves a whisk and spatula. How was I supposed to know the difference?

Currently, I am in training for the longest run of my life, a marathon. I train after my work hours and arrive home often after the 8 o'clock hour. After a shower, I am in no hurry to cook myself something. My dinners have been as follows: a bowl of cereal, or oatmeal, or an apple, and if I'm feeling really brave, I will microwave some dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets. Embarrassing, I know.

When Mme. Pépin informed me of the loss of her dear godmother and the cookbook project, my first thoughts were that the dishes would be too complicated for me to help. I own two cookbooks. One of which is a book on stirring up cocktails. I am completely unqualified. I figured I could help by bringing some bread or some cookies, I do have a sweet tooth, or return to my days as a little doll and "Help by watching".

I hope that as the project continues, I become more useful and take some of the knowledge with me. Both Mme. Pépin and Mme. Diat have so much to offer with their cooking skills and I would be happy to be half the cook they are someday. I don't even have the patience to start a recipe. One day, I hope to tackle on a meal by myself and prove to myself that I can be a good cook. Here's to hoping..

Mme. Pépin: Cannelé

2009-10-31T23:42:00.000-07:00

After much online research, and no time for shipping, I found a few stores that might sell Cannelé pans. Since my friend and I were already headed for a day at the mall, we figured we'd check out Bloomingdales, William Sonoma, Anthropologie (long shot, but any excuse to visit that store...), and Crate & Barrel. We never quite made it to Macy's home section as we never made it past the shoe section. After purchasing some great boots we decided to call my father to inquire where one might find Sur La Table, where this pan allegedly existed.

A few towns over we found Sur La Table. After locating the bakeware section we found individual Cannelé molds... at $8 a pop. Seeing as we would need quite a few, that did not sound like a practical option. Next we found a rubber pan that had the same shape and size cavities as the $8 molds. It only made 8 and was still more than we would have like to have spent (we'd need a few of those rubber pans to make the whole batch). So, being the resourceful former art students that we are, we found a charming pan of beautifully shaped molds. They looked to be about right. A little shallow, but there were plenty of cavities and it wasn't going to cost me my first born child.

After watching Charlie Chan and the Wax Museum (and scaring ourselves plenty) we decided to remove the mixture that we made yesterday, load up the pan, and start the oven process.

Attempt 1: we each took a spoon and started to spoon the mixture into the molds. That took too long.

Attempt 2: we filled a turkey baster with the mixture and poured it into the molds. That was even more involved then the spoons.

Attempt 3: my friend saw a tea pot on my hutch. We filled the tea pot with the mixture and poured it into the molds. Bingo. It was clean, efficient, and quick.

The cannelé start at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. At which time the oven gets increased to 400 degrees for the next 40 minutes. Since our pan wasn't as deep as the one in Jacques' photograph, we decided not to leave the cookies in the oven for as long. We took them out after 30 minutes instead of the prescribed 40. They smelled great. The pan was non-stick so they came right out of the pan (thankfully I didn't have a repeat of the Tomato Hand Pie's incident). And, they tasted excellent. Hard on the outside, soft on the inside, sweet. Perfection.

It rounded out our perfect Halloween.

Mme. Pépin: Pre-prep for Cannelés

2009-10-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Halloween. My un-domestic friend and myself have opted to have a quiet night in as opposed to the ever-so-popular-amongst-our-age-group boozy night on the town. I've obtained some of my childhood favorite scary-ish movies (several of the Charlie Chan flicks and Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein), which we will watch tomorrow night. While we were planning our evening in, my friend was looking at Jacque's cookbook (she hadn't looked at it yet). Having a major sweet tooth she went straight for the dessert section and settled on the page featuring the Cannelés. We decided that would nicely round out our evening festivities.

Cannelés, according the Jacques, feature crêpe batter and sugar cooked in a special pan. While the outside hardens, the inside stays creamy. They are a very French dessert.

The recipe needs to be started a day in advance, so tonight we plan to make the first part of the recipe.

Cannelés require a special pan of sorts, appropriately called a Cannelé Pan. Obviously, the gourmet chef that I'm not, I do not have one of these sitting around my apartment, nor does my friend. Now, unlike the cheesy potatoes, I'm not going to just improvise with my tools, lesson learned. We will not need the pan for this evenings portion of the recipe, so we will head out tomorrow in search of it.

To aid in our search I did a little pre-research into where we might find cette pan. Sur la Table appears to have something, and William Sonoma said they had something when they appeared on Google, but I have yet to find it on their site. I suppose tomorrow will be an adventure as we locate the final piece to our recipe.

More to come.

Part 2.

My friend and I met up after my office's Halloween party. The ingredients for the Cannelés were pretty simple, and aside from the Milk I had all of them. Though once we got started we realized that Dark Rum was needed, somehow I missed that one. Thankfully, I had an unopened bottle of Amaretto from well over a year ago when I moved into my apartment, and we decided that that would be an appropriate substitute.

The assembly was pretty simple. Melted the butter in the milk. Added an egg and an egg yolk. Added the Amaretto, flour and sugar. Mixed it together bit by bit so as to avoid lumps. And put it into the refrigerator to thicken overnight.

More tomorrow.

Mme. Pépin: Gratin Dauphonaise

2009-10-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday a smaller group assembled to gather round another one of Jacque's recipes. This time I planned to re-create the dish that my Godmother and I made together, the dish that inspired her to give Jacque's cookbook to me, the Gratin Dauphonaise, or in plain English, cheesy potatoes.

Becky, my Godmother, loved to cook and made it look effortless. After we made the potatoes, she whipped up a Bananas Foster just to give me a brief demonstration (I'm not ready to try that one on my own yet, especially not in my small kitchen). Everything, of course, turned out delicious.

Coming off of a successful rendition of the Onion Soup, I felt that this would be another notch to add to my belt of cooking successes. Though, I should mention, as not all of you are aware, the smell of onion lasted for almost a week in my apartment, and when I traveled to Texas for Becky's memorial (which I will mention was flawless), all of my clothing smelled of onion and needed to be aired out.

My dear Mme. Diat had taken ill, so I'd be doing this one with different aid. My sister and my other best friend stepped in to help with a few tasks as I orchestrated the meal. The plan was to have the cheesy potatoes with some steamed broccoli.

Becky emphasized the value of using a food processor on the potatoes, showing me how thin and even the potatoes could be. Unfortunately, I do not own a food processor (ergo, the Not-so-Palatable Pesto Disaster of 2008), so I set to work cutting the potatoes. Needless to say, my slices were rather thick and uneven. After a potato and a half, my hands were aching so my sister stepped in and finished cutting the final potato. I had my friend take care of the garlic. Knife in hand, she did her best to get the pieces of garlic as small as possible. Just to finish painting your mental picture of this scene, all of this is taking place in my living room as my kitchen doesn't have any counter space and is quite small.

While my sister was finishing up cutting the potato, I filled the large saucepan with half and half, a little salt, and some pepper (we couldn't figure out what peppercorns were and where to obtain them). The mixture, along with the potatoes went onto the stove and was left to boil. After reaching its boiling point, I poured the contents of the large saucepan (I feel like there's a better name instead of large saucepan) into a more shallow pan (I didn't have a gratin pan and Mother said a brownie pan would suffice), added the cheese, and popped it into the oven for an hour.

Needless to say we didn't eat until almost 9pm, but no one complained since the apartment smelled great. When the timer went off we anticipated the cheesy greatness that we were about to ingest.

What came out of the oven looked a little like skin and melted cheese. My sister inspected the situation and deduced that the 'skin' look was just the cream forming a skin (for lack of a better word), and that underneath it, the meal would look like the beautiful photograph in Jacque's book. For all intensive purposes it did. Sort of.

We sat down to eat, carved our portions from the brownie pan (literally had to carve it, the potatoes weren't coming out without a fight) and added the steamed broccoli to our plates (I bought the steam in the microwave in the bag stuff since I wanted to focus on the potatoes, and 5 minutes in the microwave couldn't be that difficult). There was bad news and okay news. The bad news was that the broccoli was cold and soggy, so much for 5 easy minutes in the microwave equaling broccoli perfection. The okay news, the cheesy potatoes were, well, okay.

Truth be told, they weren't as cheesy as the photograph or my memory let on. They also had completely fallen apart upon contact, perhaps they were over-boiled?

As much as my dinner guests (thankfully they were few in number this week) assured me that it was good, I was unsatisfied, I didn't do this meal justice. I will tackle it again at some point, and next time, I will be victorious.

Rebecca Wolfe 10/5/09

2009-10-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

This morning as I sat on the El waiting for my arrival into Chicago my mother called from Texas (she has been there for Becky's final weeks) in tears. Becky was unresponsive. The rest of the day passed in a haze. I sat at my cube aimlessly checking e-mail. My eyes felt like they were melting off my face. Every time my phone rang my stomach dropped, that was it. But it wasn't. By 3pm my father and I had made contact and he had informed me that Becky had no pulse but that her heart was beating double time. It's fitting that the last thing to go on this wonderful woman was her heart. I cancelled my dinner plans and arranged for the rest of my family to meet in Oak Park.

As we sat down at Friday's and ordered our drinks we talked of how strange the day's events had been. When our drinks came my father proposed a toast to Becky. As we lifted our glasses a thought passed over me, I felt it, part of me knew it was over at that moment. My father felt it too and a minute later my mother called. Becky had passed as we were toasting her. It's like she knew that we needed each other and that we were finally all together. She was surrounded by those she loved, practically the entire town was there at her bedside.

Prior to my mother's phone call I had planned to write Becky today telling her of the Onion Soup. I feel like it was more than a coincidence that the beginning of my culinary adventure happened at the very end of her life. I just wish she knew that the first dish went well, I know she would have enjoyed hearing about the evening.

I'll be leaving soon, traveling down to Texas for my final goodbye. Upon my return I plan to make the dish that started it all, the Gratinée Dauphinois.

I'll end with my favorite quote:

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt"

-Kurt Vonnegut

Mme. Diat: Onion Soup Gratinée

2009-10-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

My body has hated me from day one and thus tries incessantly to overtake me. I have acid reflux that normally dictates it's unwise to eat onions; so I traditionally steer clear. However, as a soup, cheese, and bread lover, if French Onion Soup is on the menu, I am there. Last night, Mme. Pépin and I [with the assistance of my younger and much burlier brother] took our first venture into Chez Jacques with an Onion Soup Gratinée.

Aside from eating at almost 9 p.m., the dinner was absolutely delicious. In my mind, I had envisioned a product vaguely reminiscent of the Thanksgiving Cheese Soup that ended up, well, gray. For those of us not color blind, we realize that cheese should never take on a gray hue.

For this gratinée,Chez Jacques called for the onions to be thinly sliced and then browned. Fearing that we would get large, uncooked, onion chunks [see Thanksgiving Cheese Soup fears], I suggested that we grate the vegetable instead. Aside from causing me to physically weep while working, the idea turned out well. Though I can see why Chez Jacques asks that you slice them. Grating the onions makes the bits quite small and they often get lost with the cooked bread. The next time I try this recipe I will remember that and, to test the consistencies, I will try slicing instead of grating.

The friend who was in charge of purchasing baguettes decided to bring one French bread baguette and one multi-grain baguette. And while I appreciate a bread with personality, I don't think you want anything other than an Italian or French baguette. Straying from those two options might lead to some awkward questions such as, "What is this seed in the soup from?" That's, more often than not, a question that you don't want to hear.

The recipe asks that you brown the bread in the oven before putting it into the broth. While I was eating, I thought about the French Onion soup that I'd come to love. The bread in every variation that I've tasted had a spongier and lighter feel. I have to wonder what we can do next time to achieve that kind of airiness in the bread. It was a tad heavy and tasted more like a mushy dumpling than the bread I had remembered.

All in all, the soup turned out fantastic. And I wouldn't at all hesitate to repeat the recipe again. Once the soup was out of the oven, it was a welcome surprise as our dinner guests were getting antsy, Mme. Pépin and I hesitantly looked at one another as we took our first bite; first recipe down, a whole book left to go.

Mme. Diat: The Why

2009-10-05T11:40:00.000-07:00

When I was in 7th grade, I took my first job at the rectory adjacent to my school. My duties were simple, I was kitchen staff. I was meant to answer the phones and the door, take messages, serve and clean up dinner, and assist in cooking. It was during these seven years as staff at the St. Leonard rectory that I developed my passion for cuisine.

I remember working with Louise, a fiery Italian woman from the south side of Chicago, who would tell me, "a pinch of onion and a pinch of garlic. You can't go wrong with a pinch of onion and a pinch of garlic." Sitting in that kitchen with the warmth from two ovens and a stove filling the room, listening to her describe how to make the perfect soup stock or how to create her family marinara you would picture a child sitting at the feet of their grandparent. To be honest, that's how it felt. Louise taught me that cooking was more than just a cup of water combined with a pinch of salt. There was a heart and soul to each dish that you gave to the people sharing in it. She took me in as a daughter and passed onto me family recipes brought with her mother from Italy.

There comes a moment when the student must become the teacher. When I left the warm hearth of that rectory kitchen, I knew that for me, it was time.

When my best friend who, as undomesticated as she is tries- with all of her heart, presented me with a brand new cookbook and a plan, all I could do was smile. Normally, my best friend is contented with pretzels and applesauce for dinner. So when she proposed that we cook our way through Jacques Pépin's favorite recipes, I knew that there was no way I could say no. When the two of us get together, it is always an adventure and I knew that this trek into squab, tripe, clam chowder, and the delicious desert section would be no different.

Harriet Van Horne wrote, "Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all." Over 10 years ago, my passion for cooking was bore out of a friendship that I will not soon forget. Today, I know that another friendship will create some dishes that will soon not be forgotten.

Mme. Pépin: Onion Soup Gratinée

2009-10-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

The unique thing about Jacque's book is that he accompanies all of his recipes with a narrative of sorts about how that recipe fit into his life. As I was reading the narrative preceding the Onion Soup Gratinée I grew apprehensive about my abilities, culinary and equipment wise, to complete that recipe.

He writes of how his mother would prepare her version of the Onion Soup. There were crusts of cheese to break, wine and such to pour into the soup and 30 minutes worth of browning the onions. Thankfully, his recipe was slightly less complicated. Though I must have overlooked the part about needing individual soup carafes. Ah well, I had two iron pieces that I could fill as needed and that could go into the oven.

The setting I used to debut the Onion Soup was a Sunday night dinner among friends. There was going to be enough of us there that it warranted a double recipe. Everyone decided to pitch in and help in the creation of the soup. As soon as one of my friends showed up with the baguettes, the preparations began. One chopped the garlic and grated the fresh onions, which brought the whole room to tears, and is still giving me a bit of a headache, as another got the onions browning (which took an eternity-not his fault, there were a lot of onions to be browned). I cut the bread and browned it, lined the two iron pieces with it, lay the cheese on top of it, and left it to wait for the onions to finished.

A side note, last November I attempted a cheese soup, which seems very similar to what I made this evening. Except that one went horribly wrong. The onions weren't cooked enough, the base wasn't made correctly, the end product turned out... grey.

So needless to say, this time, I was making sure those onions were cooked properly. When the time came we put the onions into a pot of chicken broth along with the garlic, salt and pepper. That was a whole lot of liquid to boil, even with the lid on.

Finally, the soup was ready to be put into the bread and cheese lined iron pieces, and covered with more cheese. After 30 minutes in the oven, what emerged smelled and looked not too much unlike the photo in Jacque's book. In fact, I didn't fill the iron pieces to the brim, so my soup wasn't overflowing and making a mess as was the soup in his photo (although photographically interesting, cheese didn't sound like something fun to be scraping off of my iron pieces).

I solved the problem of not having individual carafes for everyone by using my ladle to slice the cheese into sections and made sure everyone had a bowl full of cheese/bread/soup. Aside from a few people noting that it was incredibly hot (I warned them), the overall conclusion was that it turned out very well. In fact, some people admitted to be very surprised. I must admit that I too, was a tad skeptical at first, but quite pleased with the outcome. I would definitely make that meal again.

My boyfriend's adage about the quality of my work vs the time it takes for me to complete cette work, holds very much true. Yes it turned out very well, but it took quite a while to get to that point. One down... how many more to go?

Mme. Pépin: Trip 1 to Jewel

2009-10-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

Weather.com = sunny, upper 50's. Outside = raining. Hair = adorable. Scratch that, ruined. Thankfully Jewel is only a 10 minute walk from my apartment. I was pleased that the first recipe only had a few ingredients, some of which I already owned. Phew, I didn't feel like spending a small fortune to cook my first dish. As I gather the necessary ingredients I breathe a sigh or relief, not too expensive. Onions, check. Garlic, check. French bread, I'll pick it up tomorrow in time for dinner. Chicken Stock, oh geeze, 16 cups! 8 cans later... Cheese.

According to M. Pépin, I have the choice of using emmenthaler, gruyère or jarlsberg. Considering I've only ever heard of gruyère, I figure that's my safest option. I arrive at the cheese counter. No gruyère. No emmenthaler. But there is jarlsberg... for almost $10/lb! I asked the lady behind the counter if they carried gruyère, she'd never heard of it before. Hmmm. I wasn't even going to try to ask about the emmenthaler, since I'm pretty sure I could barely say it correctly. So jarlsberg it is. The lady asked if I was sure that I wanted 1.5 pounds of it at almost $10/lb. Unfortunately for me, I was sure. $14 and some change worth of cheese later, I was on my way to the checkout.

The rest of the ingredients totaled up to barely $20, then the cheese was rang up and my grocery bill jumped. Ah well, I'm sure $14 and some change for cheese will seem like nothing by the end of this endeavor. When I got home, I tasted a small slice of the cheese that broke the bank, one thing's for sure, it's going to make for some good soup. I hope.

Mme. Pépin: The Why

2009-10-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

Why would the most undomestic of my parent's three children want to face the challenge of cooking through "Chez Jacques", Jacques Pépin's 100 favorite recipes? This is the person whose friends run in fear if she ever mentions that she made a pesto, the person whose kitchen has one piece of counter space, the person who is still scared of her gas oven after living in that small kitchened apartment for over a year now.

The why is that my God-mother is about to die. I only knew her well enough to know how amazing she is for a short time. One of her passions in life is cooking, and on one of my visits to Pittsburg, TX (yes, such a place exists) she insisted on showing me how to make Gratin Dauphinois from Jacques Pépin's "Chez Jacques". A month or so later she sent that cookbook to me with the inscription:

"To live outside oneself – to make others happy is a great joy – try it with cooking. Love Beck"

Now, as we count down the days until her departure from this earth, I've decided to do something with that cookbook, that inscription. I wrote to her a promise, that I'd cook through "Chez Jacques". Is it going to be painful, quite possibly. Expensive, most definitely. Scary, yes.

Thankfully, one of my best friends has decided to join me for this culinary adventure. Together we're going where few 20-somethings who aren't already chefs have gone before. Into a world where people eat things like sweet breads (and no I'm not talking about the rolls, look it up).

My mother was pleased when she heard my quest, she also thumbed through the book and veto-ed a few things: fois-gras, tripe, and headcheese. My boyfriend offered up "You're not a bad cook, it just takes you 3x as long to complete a recipe". Armed with my friend, some less than adequate cooking utensils and Jacques' thoughts and recipes I set out.