Michelle

Pecan Kumquat Tarts spring from salad, parking shortage

April 1, 2015 by Michelle

These lovely bits of sweet and citrus began with a recipe from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco we were unable to visit last time we were there because there was no place to park, a problem the wonderful city is still figuring out how to manage. They also arrived because of a salad Michelle told Steve about some time ago. Steve remembers it had lentils and/or cabbage and citrus, but as she described its potential deliciousness, Michelle took exception to the inclusion of raw citrus peel. Asked what he […]

Categories: Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Kumquats, Nuts, Pies & Tarts

Pot roast with Guinness and dried cherries (skip the sweet potatoes, go for the slaw)

March 26, 2015 by Michelle

We have been working our way through a batch of beef we bought from our biodynamic farm neighbors. While we enjoyed much of it, we were unsatisfied with the lean roast cuts (one rump, one sirloin tip). We tried several different methods with them, and in each the meat turned out to be dry and fairly tasteless. The experience left Steve ruing not experimenting with barding and larding, and left Michelle with the idea to send Steve out to buy a chuck roast. When Steve returned from the grocery, he […]

Categories: Beef, Cherries, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Sweet potatoes

Al dente adjustment to a Jacques Pépin lentil, cabbage and bacon salad

March 20, 2015 by Michelle

Like most who inhabit this food-centric segment of the global web, Gourmandistan is not going to question the legendary Jacques Pépin. But we will cheekily update his recipe to add a bit more crunch. Michelle found this 1991 recipe (and its accompanying article declaring “la salade has arrived”) in the New York Times archives when looking for something to do with a Savoy cabbage. We thought the ingredient list had promise, but the cooking methods and the delicate Savoy made the end result a bit mushy and […]

Categories: Beans, Cabbage, Carrots, Celery, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Salad

Relative temperature in raspberry jam shortbread brownies

March 14, 2015 by Michelle

The baseline is clear: these brownies are very, very good. But at what temperature? Starting with some seedless raspberry preserves left after a cake proved disappointing, Michelle decided jam might be delicious if layered between shortbread and brownies. Adapting an Alice Medrich recipe, she produced a marvelous combination of crispy short crust, fudgy brownie topping and tartly sweet jam in between. Fairly simple to make, Michelle thinks they would likely work with other jam flavors such as apricot, cherry or strawberry. After sampling a bit of the very rich brownies, […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Recipes

Distinctive desiccation dazzles in apricot, date and nut loaf

March 8, 2015 by Michelle

While we still await our area’s first bits of fresh fruit (please hurry, strawberries!), we have made a nice discovery: apricots from Apricot King Orchards in Hollister, California, a farm in the northern part of the state that ships exceptionally good apricots as well as a number of other dried fruits. (Don’t worry, folks. Unlike many you read these days, this is not a sponsored post.) We’ve long searched for a good source of California apricots, which we find more flavorful than […]

Categories: Apricots, Breakfast, Dates, Food, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Summer returns in orange-filled triple ginger oatmeal sandwich cookies

February 28, 2015 by Michelle

During the warmer months we often write about our near-maniacal gathering of local goods, which we (OK, mostly Michelle) make into jams, frozen meals and other lovely things. While candying, drying and vacuum-sealing stuff can be a pain, our stored goods come in handy when (like now) it’s cold, ugly and almost impossible to bring groceries up to our house. Michelle’s work last summer with some locally-raised ginger meant we had both candied and stem ginger in syrup, along with some […]

Categories: Cookies, Cooking, Food, Orange, Vegetarian

Fighting frosty weather with fennel, radish, citrus and pistachio salad

February 20, 2015 by Michelle

It’s been an overall mild winter in Gourmandistan, and we’re certainly not in the same boat as those unfortunates in Boston. Lately we’ve even seen tiny signs (increased egg laying, daffodil buds inching above the soil) of spring waiting to arrive. However, we’ve also recently suffered a bit of Arctic frigidity. The Siberian blast has frozen our creek, dumped several inches of snow, and at the moment promises to chill and maroon us possibly until early March. So while we understand that […]

Categories: Fennel, Food, Nuts, Orange, Radishes, Recipes, Salad

Paleoanthropology and persnickityness in potée

February 1, 2015 by Michelle

While other forms of cooking undoubtedly predate the pot, there certainly couldn’t have been too many of them. Once humanity got the hang of fire and sticks, some genius must shortly have realized that cooking meat in liquid makes not only better meat, but (bonus!) a nice broth as well. Whenever this happened, however, it was a mind-bogglingly long time ago, as we were recently reminded by watching Werner Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” a documentary about the Chauvet Cave paintings. Chauvet’s astonishing art […]

Categories: Beef, Cooking, Cured meats, Food, France, Rabbit, Recipes, Soups & Stews, Vegetables

Soar, salty bittersweet: salted peanut brownies

January 26, 2015 by Michelle

Once again in the midst of a dreary Gourmandistan winter, Michelle decided she had to have something sweet. Steve tried to tempt her with a crispy Gold Rush apple, as he has found a local grocery still stocking the locally-grown fruit (though they may not last long now that Steve knows about them). While Michelle did momentarily consider tarte tatin, it wasn’t what she really wanted. A can of salted Virginia peanuts some friends brought over during the holidays gave her an idea, however—and salty peanut brownies with peanut butter icing […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian