FFwD - NOT Endives, Apples, and Grapes

Thanksgiving Squash and Apples

Yes todays French Friday assignment  was for Endives, Apples, and Grapes but there was no endive in two grocery stores so I decided to go with Dorie's bonne idee and use squash instead.  I just happened to have 1/2 a butternut in the fridge since I had made butternut risotto a few days ago....remember the day the news came out that rice is high in arsenic?  Yeh, I heard that as I'm stirring my risotto.

Anyhow, we loved this and it will be making an appearance on our Thanksgiving table.  I served it with baked pork chops but I can imagine it with turkey and cranberry relish.  It was delightful to have something entirely new, a whole different set of tastes and textures.  And the smell?  Divine!  A raw grape will never again be quite as satisfying as one sauteed in butter with rosemary!  Tossing with toasted pecans is a must and completes the interesting textures going on!  I can't say enough good things about this dish!

Check out all the amazing French Fridays blogs and see what everyone is up to this week!

Butternut Sage Risotto

I just wanted to share a photo of my risotto because it was the best I've ever made.  The sage with the squash was extremely flavorful and paired perfectly with the creaminess of the rice.  It made a heavenly dinner followed by Tuesdays with Dorie nectarine upside down cake which I have yet to blog about.....but I will eventually.

Fig Walnut Cake

I live in the middle of Oklahoma.  We don't have an abundance of fresh figs.  Gary and I love love them, though, so when I saw my fellow French Friday with Dorie cook, Andrea at The Kitchen Lioness, had baked a fig walnut cake I wanted figs and I wanted fig cake and I wanted it immediately!  Alas, I had to wait until figs made an appearance in my grocery.  When I found them at Forward Foods, a wonderful specialty shop in Oklahoma City, I hurried home to make Andrea's fig walnut cake.  

Fig Walnut Cake

I pronounce it a huge success!  The cake is basic and simple to make.  You add ground fresh walnuts and walnut pieces to the batter and Andrea stresses they should be fresh walnuts but I used all my luck finding the figs and had none left to help with fresh walnuts so I had to use packaged grocery store nuts.  While I hope to have fresh walnuts and fresh figs together one of these days I was happy with what I produced.

I will say using fig preserves as a topping with a touch of whipped cream makes all the difference.  The flavor of the figs in the cake is subtle and the preserves help highlight the figgyness.  

Homemade Fig Preserves

My lovely sister-in-law in Memphis has a fig tree and gave me enough figs to make 6 pints of preserves.  They are our new favorite jelly!

Lately I'm on a roll with cakes, this one and a nectarine upside down cake, but Andrea has so many great looking cakes on her blog that I want to keep baking.  Unfortunately my jeans have requested a cake free week or two.  I'm taking it under consideration.....

FFwD - Chicken Basquaise and Spice-Poached Pears

Chicken Basquaise

Delicious! We loved this one!  In fact we seem to be on a winning streak with Around My French Table.

This time of year the garden is winding down its pepper production but it was nice to use what I had and only supplement with a banana pepper from the store.  The tomatoes were a big disappointment!  I bought a 4 pack and two of them were molded by the next day!  I keep telling myself I'm taking produce back to the store when that happens but once again I didn't.  Luckily I had some cherry tomatoes to throw in.  And I didn't peel:)

Last week I was in Mill Valley, CA sharing a beautiful house with a friend.  We had a great time in Muir Woods and Sonoma and Napa Valley.  Great food and wine shared in a beautiful setting with a good friend.  Does it get any better than that?  But that's a whole other post...

One of the fun things about the trip was cooking in the gorgeous state of the art kitchen of the house we were in.  We made delicious breakfasts most days and a couple of dinners.  My spice-poached pears were a welcome dessert served with a piece of salted dark chocolate.  A perfect ending to a perfect day and a memory to cherish.

Spice-Poached Pears

Don't forget to go by the French Friday site!

Eggplant Tartine with Tomatoes, Olives and Cucumbers - FFwD

I've been a bad, bad blogger!  Its been a month of ups and downs...personally and FF recipes too.  I'm just gonna say it.  I did not like the carrot salad or the zucchini and cucumber salad.  The peach melba was a different (and better) story.  So with one thing and another I haven't posted in a month!  What kind of blogger is that?  I've decided to recommit to French Fridays.  I miss my blogging friends and neighbors and I want to see this project through to the end!

Eggplant "Tartine"

I love Dorie's creativity but how she figures roasted eggplant slices are kind of like bruschetta is a leap I can't make.  The tomato, celery, olive mixture on top is delicious though.  So while I'm trying to convince myself and Gary that the roasted eggplant is good the truth is we were wishing for a nice crunchy slice of bruschetta instead.  The eggplant really needs to be peeled completely as the strips Dorie suggests leaving were too tough to cut or chew.

A delicious use for any left-over topping - mix with a bit of mayo and spread on a chicken sandwich.  We agreed this was the best part of the meal.

Grated Cafe Style Carrot Salad

Here's proof that I'm just a bad blogger and not a bad FF cook!  I did the two salads and while I didn't care for them I expected Gary would.  He usually loves salads of all sorts but particularly 'not green' ones.  He didn't really like them either.

Just didn't work at our house but I bet it was just us.

Minted Zucchini Tagliatelle

I'm not sure how I've lost the peach melba picture but I did.  Where did it go?  I don't know but the Peach Melba was really, really good!


Check out the other French Friday posts at frenchfridayswithdorie.com.  The site is experiencing technical difficulties but will be up and running soon.

FFwD - Warm Scallop Salad with Corn, Nectarines and Basil

Port St. Joe
August 2012

My birthday at the beach with the entire family!  Does it get any better than this?  Surely not and yet it was and is a very difficult thing for me to adjust to being 60.  I'm not sure yet why other than the obvious that I'm getting old.  I don't really mind being older, though; in many ways it beats being young.  Partly its disappointment in myself.  I haven't turned out the way I would have liked.  Guess that's one good thing about 60, I'm not too old too change......I hope!

Warm Scallop Salad
Around My French Table
Dorie Greenspan

I didn't really get the 'salad' aspect of this recipe so I decided to turn it into a salad.  Instead of plating the components side by side I mixed them together with the scallops on top.  We loved the lime dressing with the corn and nectarines.  The tomatoes were lost in the shuffle.

This recipe is a keeper except for the fact the scallops were $24.99 a pound!  I have to admit they were absolutely delicious and worth every penny!  Fresh and sweet!  And I live in Oklahoma!  Thank you Whole Foods:)

The downside?  The next day my house still smells like scallops!  Not so nice today.

Check out all the French Friday posts!

TwD - Blueberry-Nectarine Pie

Blueberry-Peach Pie ala Baking with Julia

I'm about to put a whole lot of angst onto one little recipe but this pie caused me to reconsider my participation in TwD.  What am I doing and why am I doing it?  I have an excellent pie crust recipe I've been using successfully for years and yet because of my participation in cooking groups I try others with varying degrees of success.  Why?  I guess the point is to grow as a cook by experiencing new recipes and techniques but when its a chore instead of a joy its time to step back.

I didn't enjoy this recipe.  Perhaps I did some mis-measuring on the crust as I've read other blogs that loved it.  It was too short for me and difficult to work with, almost a shortbread.  And why the cake pan?

The filling was fussy.  Why make a simple syrup to soak the berries?  I've made tons of pies with peaches or nectarines and blueberries, add a little lemon and put the fruit in the crust, mix sugar and flour, and top it with another crust.  Easy.

We love pie and this was a good one if not a pretty one but I can make one just as good and twice as easy.  In the future I'll be more discriminating in following the recipes.  I know many of the other TwD cooks use their experience and knowledge and often stray from the recipe and I'm going to do the same.

Guess I'm just a slow learner:)  Our hosts for this recipe were Lizzy and Hilary and they both had great success with the recipe which they give on their blogs!  See what all the other Tuesday with Dorie bakers thought of the recipe.  

FFwD - Salmon with Basil Tapenade

I HATE blogging!  There I got that off my chest.  I like being part of the blogging community but honestly sometimes the blogging part is SO much more difficult than the cooking part that it makes me CRAZY!  I am starting this post again for the THIRD time due to technical difficulties beyond my ability to understand or explain!

Salmon with basil tapenade minus the basil tapenade:(

I'm pissed that I left the tapenade off for the picture because it was really, really good and complimented the fish so nicely....and it was kind of a pain to make because the little oil cured black olives don't give up their pits easily.  As I was cutting out the little devils I was saying this better be worth it and it was!  If you're smart you'd just buy some tapenade from the grocery store and make everything so much easier.

When I went to the market to buy the salmon the farm raised was on sale for $4.99 a pound.  That caused me to stop and think.  Did I really want to pay $12.99 for the wild caught?  I mean the nutrition and flavor are so much better with wild caught (plus no dye) but how do I KNOW its really wild caught and that's quite a price difference.  In the end I went wild and I'm glad I did.  It was worth every penny and the flavor said wild caught!

Our French Friday moderator is on vacation but you can find some of the other sites on facebook.

FFwD - Blueberry-Mascarpone Roulade

Blueberry-Mascarpone Roulade

This is a perfect summer dessert!  Its light, not overly sweet.  You could use any summer fruit.  And the cake bakes in under 12 minutes so you don't run the oven too long, heating up the kitchen.  Bake the cake in the morning.  Prepare the berries and refrigerate them.  Make the filling in the afternoon, assemble the cake, let it chill for a few hours and you have a fantastic dessert that looks and tastes like you worked on it for hours.....and you did...but most of those hours were spent with a book, the components cooling and chilling and setting.

Our French Friday website is unmoderated lately but hopefully we'll be back on line soon! Go to Facebook to see what the other cooks thought!

Happy Friday the 13th:)  Be careful!

Our home away from home!

Do you think I can keep up with French Fridays in a travel trailer using a toaster oven and no fancy pans or equipment?  We'll see and I look forward to the challenge.  We just bought a 27 foot Slingshot and plan to give it a test run next week.  This has been a dream of ours for several years and we've begun making it a reality.  The lure of the open road and all that.......

FFwD - Crunch Ginger Pickled Cucumbers

Crunch Ginger Pickled Cucumbers
Around My French Table

We're off to a great start with our FFwD recipes for July!  These pickles are delicious, light, and fresh, everything you want in a summer side dish.

These pickles are super easy to make.  A little ginger, a bit of vinegar and a pinch of red pepper flakes.  Leave the in the fridge for a couple of hours and voila, your cucumbers are pickles!  I used a hot house cuke and I definitely recommend it.  The milder flavor lets the ginger shine!

A friend and I took a road trip to Memphis to spend a few days with another friend.  I LOVE spending time with my favorite girls!   I made these for our 4th of July cook out.  Everyone enjoyed them and I'm already wanting another cucumber so I can make them again.

My friend decided Memphis has the best margaritas...or at least the best margaritas are at the Jones's house...or wherever Mr. Jones and his margarita shaker might be!

We went to the Peabody to see the ducks, walked on Beale Street and spent time floating in the pool.  The most fun of all, though, was spending time with my friends.  A special few days well worth the 8 hour drive:)

I hope everyone enjoyed the pickles and the 4th as much as I did.  Check out all the French Friday posts!

TwD - Hazelnut Biscotti

Hazelnut Biscotti
Baking with Julia

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date!  We have so much going on here that I didn't get these made in time for posting last Tuesday.  Its okay, though, because I ended up making them while visiting a friend and it was fun to share my baking project!

These were really delicious and easy to make.  They were especially easy since my friend took care of removing the skins from the hazelnuts!  Thank you DeLynn!  Next time I might leave the skins on.  Doesn't seem like it would hurt anything!

I can't wait to make biscotti with other additions.  The possibilities are endless!  Our hosts for this recipe were Jodi and Katrina.  Be sure to go by the Tuesdays with Dorie site and see what the other bakers thought of this recipe!

They were especially delicious with a cup of tea!

I hope you had a happy 4th of July and that your summer is going well:)