Recipe: Crème Brûlée

Who doesn't love crème brûlée?  The silky custard against the crunch of carmelized sugar... the contrasts of textures and temperatures...  I am a sucker for this stuff.

It's so disgustingly easy to make, too.  I should do it more often.  And it gives my pyromaniac child a chance to use my fave kitchen gadget:  the butane torch. 


Recipe is from the 1997 edition of Joy of Cooking.

Crème Brûlée (with Caramel Glaze III)

2 cups heavy cream
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat cream almost to a simmer.  In a four-cup measuring cup, stir eggs and sugar until just blended.  Gradually stir in the cream.  Stir in vanilla.  Pour into six 6-ounce custard cups and place in a water bath (in a 13x9 pan).  Set the pan in the oven and set the oven temperature to 250.  Bake until the custards are set but still slightly quivery in the center - 1 to 1 1/2 hours.  Remove custards from the water bath and cool on a rack to room temperature.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 8 hours or up to 2 days. 

Shortly before serving, remove plastic wrap and gently blot any liquid from the surface.  Sprinkle 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons sugar (turbinado is good) over the surface of each custard.  Carmelize the sugar with a torch.  Serve at once.

Serves 6.

Modesty

Haiku: The 2011 Soccer Collection

They move like the wind
On the far side of the field
And my camera sucks

Come closer, my son
And slow down a little; no.
This camera just sucks.

Long ago, he thought
Mom's vuvuzela was cool.
But now, not so much.

She goes at full speed
Neither stopping nor slowing.
Yet another foul.

The trunk of my car
Holds umbrellas, two blankets,
Chairs and a raincoat;

Many games are soggy,
In rain, drizzle, fog-darkness...
This builds character.

The guy with the beard
Our assistant principal
(and substitute coach)...

...is British, of course.
This is Camden.  We must play
To stereotype.

Recipe: Mixed Greens with Roasted Beets, Walnuts and Goat Cheese

Mixed Greens with Roasted Beets, Walnuts and Goat Cheese

Arrange mixed greens on a platter.  Top with julienned roasted beets*, thinly sliced red onion, toasted walnuts, and crumbled goat cheese.  Dress with red wine vinegar and olive oil.



*To roast beets:  Clean and trim them, drizzle with olive oil, seal in a foil packet and cook at 375 for half an hour to an hour, depending on the size, until tender.  Allow to cool, then peel.

Recipe: Spaghetti Squash with Parmesan and Sage-Garlic Brown Butter

The idea of a sage brown-butter sauce as a topping for baked chicken comes from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian.  Here I added sliced garlic and drizzled it over Parmesan-topped spaghetti squash.  Talk about comfort food.



Spaghetti Squash with Parmesan and Sage-Garlic Brown Butter

1 smallish spaghetti squash
8 sage leaves
4 plump garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1//2 - 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Salt & pepper

Slice the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds.  Roast on a baking sheet, cut side down, at 350 for about 50 minutes or until just tender.  Pull out the flesh, separating it into strands, season with salt & pepper; cover and set aside to keep warm. 

Melt the butter in a small frying pan over medium heat.  Add the garlic and sage leaves and allow the butter to brown - watch it carefully so it doesn't burn.

Divide the squash among four bowls (reheat if necessary) and top with Parmesan cheese.  When the butter is lightly browned, pour over the cheese on the squash.  The butter and cheese will sizzle together and form an amazing crust.  Divide the sage leaves and garlic evenly among the bowls.  Serve immediately.

Serves 4.

Recipe: Sage and Garlic Roasted Chicken

Based on a recipe from the New York Times, this method involves roasting the bird on a bed of sturdy bread.

Pros:  The bread absorbs the drippings and becomes a rich, crisp and delicious side dish.

Cons:  The bread absorbs the drippings, so there's nothing with which to make gravy.

Sage and Garlic Roasted Chicken

1 4-5 lb. chicken, rinsed and patted dry
6 whole garlic cloves, peeled
4 springs fresh sage
1 stalk celery, cut in 1" chunks
1/2 small yellow onion, cut in chunks
1/2 loaf leftover (stale) homemade Italian or French bread, thickly cut (about 3/4")
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

Season chicken cavity liberally with salt & pepper.  Stuff with garlic, sage, celery and onion.  Rub skin with olive oil and additional salt & pepper.

Place the bread slices in a heavy roasting pan and place the chicken on top.  Dot butter on any pieces of bread which are not covered by the chicken (this will keep them from drying out and burning).  Roast at 425 for 1 1/4 hours or until juices run clear.  Let stand 10 minutes before carving.  Serve chicken with bread from the pan.

Serves 6.

A fall feast

The leaves are starting to turn, the nights are cool, and the days are getting shorter.  We have successfully navigated school reentry and settled into routines.  Apples are ready.  The CSA shares include larger squashes and root vegetables - garlic, onions, beets and potatoes. 

It's a drizzly Saturday and rather than tackling any of the things I should be working on - these would be the projects I have put off all summer because the weather was too nice, just as I put them off last winter and the summer before...  yeah, so basically I have three years worth of filing to do and a closet stuffed so full of outgrown clothes that the door won't shut and about a dozen unfinished knitting projects and six bags of unspun wool and a half-warped blanket on the loom and a freezer that really, really needs to be defrosted and windows which really, really need to be washed and a bunch of weird stuff from my mother's house that I don't have a clue what to do with. 

Which explains why I spent the day doing laundry and putzing in the kitchen with Farmer Tom's vegetables.

Sage and garlic feature in both a basic roasted chicken and a side dish of spaghetti squash topped with brown butter and Parmesan.  An earthy salad of roasted beets, greens and goat cheese rounds out the meal.  Recipes to follow.