Steve

A decent excuse for roasting: Duck Fat Focaccia

November 9, 2012 by Steve

It’s not as if Gourmandistan is unfamiliar with ovens. After all, we’re about to buy a new one because half of our decades-old double unit burned out from fun tricks like 24-hour pork roasts and 550° “turn the place into a pizza parlor” sessions. But we have been somewhat unsuccessful with home-roasting whole ducks. Saint Alice of the Incredibly Simple Roast Chicken Recipe (that’s salt, pepper, 400°, 1 hour) once disappointed us with a boring, too-greasy duck, though fervent acolyte […]

Categories: Cooking, Duck, Food, Recipes, Yeast breads

Calvados overdose: Calvados Ice Cream with Apple Calvados Compote (now with bonus Calvados!)

November 3, 2012 by Steve

Those Norman French sure love their apple brandy. A sidebar next to this recipe in Susan Herrmann Loomis’ French Farmhouse Cookbook lists seven rounds of Calvados served at the end of old-school Norman meals, including the coup de pied au cul or “kick in the ass.” Gourmandistan’s recent relocation to Normandy saw us imbibe several shots throughout many meals, some as apéritifs and some in desserts, but never seven in one sitting. (Steve would not have fared well, as Steve […]

Categories: Apples, Cooking, Food, France, Fruit, Ice cream, Recipes, Vegetarian

Thigh-Mastering Taiwanese General Tso’s Chicken

October 26, 2012 by Steve

When it comes to chicken, Michelle takes a dim view of dark meat. She admits the flavor is better than breast meat, especially from our local birds. But the lurking presence of fascia, tendons, cartilage and other “icky” pieces of non-contiguous chicken flesh always give her pause. Chicken thigh meat is one of the metrics Michelle uses to rate Asian restaurants (“This will tell the tale,” she reportedly once said while cutting into a piece of deep-fried Chinese restaurant chicken […]

Categories: Chicken, China, Cooking, Food, Recipes

Progressive Farmer Pecan Praline Bars

October 23, 2012 by Steve

Michelle’s 98-year-old grandmother passed away peacefully a few months ago, inside the farmhouse she and her husband built on their Western Kentucky acreage. Postwar poster children for America’s re-energized agricultural community, they were named 1950’s “Master Farm Family” by Progressive Farmer magazine and the University of Kentucky Extension Service. While “crops, pastures, livestock, farm equipment and farm management procedures” gained Papo recognition, Mamo was declared “the Master Farmer’s Wife” for her “home furnishings, comfort devices, labor-saving equipment and home management […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Family, Food, Nuts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Saffron Noodle Cake with Sautéed Peppers: worth raiding the reliquary.

October 15, 2012 by Steve

There is a small jar in our pantry. Inside, much smaller than the small jar, is a dark envelope. The envelope holds a few shreds of something quite precious. It’s not the True Cross, it’s saffron. Saffron is expensive, and while we usually have it on hand (Gourmandistan must uphold its inventory, after all) we tend to think of it as something used only for special occasions. Deborah Madison’s Saffron Noodle Cake is making us reevaluate our stance on the […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Pasta, Peppers, Recipes, Vegetarian

Tenacity & tok-sel lima beans

October 7, 2012 by Steve

“NuLu” is the trendy term for Louisville’s East Market district, currently reigning over Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenue as the street deemed “Restaurant Row.” (Non-trendy Louisvillians have many more “restaurant row” streets to choose from. Some of them have battling all-you-can-eat buffets.) Before it was “Nu” East Market was more “Ew”—a place of derelict buildings (complete with actual derelicts!), Christian missions and one amazing chef. Bruce Ucán opened Mayan Café on East Market while many people still automatically locked doors and […]

Categories: Beans, Cooking, Food, Mexico, Recipes, Restaurants, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Food, Photoshop & Frustration: Chocolate Pear Macaroon

October 5, 2012 by Steve

Making the chocolate pear macaroon dessert wasn’t really that difficult. A few pears, a bit of cocoa powder (Steve would have preferred a bit more cocoa, actually), almonds, an oven, etc. The difficulty comes from Photoshop, a program Michelle has always seen as a time-sucking vortex from which she will never escape. Inspiration for both the dessert and Michelle’s new obsession came from the same place: Roger Stowell of the Food, Photography and France blog. As part of our recent and […]

Categories: Chocolate, Food, France, Fruit Desserts, Pears, Recipes

Plum, Dumb & Full of Crumb

August 21, 2012 by Steve

Sorry, people who put him in the “crazy” camp: Steve was not doing exactly the same thing and expecting different results. After all, these smaller, redder plums were purchased from a different vendor. And this time Steve did not leave them sitting in a bowl on the counter. He left them sitting on the counter in a paper bag, which somehow rendered them invisible. Fortunately, these plums ripened much less violently than their predecessors, with only a few having matured […]

Categories: Blueberries, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Plums, Recipes, Vegetarian

Impulse to action via Roasted Plum Frozen Yogurt

August 13, 2012 by Steve

We have been talking about fresh plums all summer long. When we finally spotted them at a recent market, we (OK Steve) couldn’t resist snapping up a bagful without bothering to ask the vendor anything regarding variety, locality or organicity. When we returned home all we knew was they were big, very purple and seemed very, very unripe. A few days later we also discovered they were very, very sensitive, as almost half of our purchase “ripened” into juice-weeping balls […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Plums, Recipes, Vegetarian, Yogurt