French Friday's with Dorie: Chocolate Financiers

~After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book.~

Okay, I haven't made anything for French Friday's in a coon's age as they say. Today I was inspired by Elaine's French Friday's post, so I made my own batch. She made these lovely little chocolate cakes that are so pretty. Sadly, mine did not work out at all! They are tasty, but they are ugly. You really should go to her blog to see how it should be done.

See...uggggly.

The Rice Experiments: Introduction and Part I ~ Rice Pudding

For the last several months I have been trying to avoid sugar and wheat. (Okay from about August on, but not including December; for there was a lot of sugar and wheat eaten in December!) So I have decided to try to add more rice to my diet to compensate for the huge hole that has been left with the removal of noodles and bread. (Yes, there are rice noodles, but that is another post!) I asked a friend of mine from Korea, figuring he has probably eaten more rice in his lifetime than I have, what brand of rice he liked. He suggested Kokuho Rose True Varietal. Now this series of posts are not going to be only about this brand of rice, but that is what I am playing with right now.

I thought I might have to search a bit to find Kokuho Rose, but it was easily found at my local Cub Foods. The first thing I made with it was Dorie Greenspan’s Creamy, Cheesy, Garlicky Rice with Spinach. It worked wonderfully in that recipe! Then this morning I used my Oster Rice Cooker to cook two cups of raw rice. I used the four cups of water that Oster suggested in the directions, but I might use a tiny bit less next time. While this rice is supposed to be sticky, I think it was a bit too wet.

Once I had my rice cooked I had a bit of a conundrum. How was I going to eat it? I really did not fancy a bowl of plain rice. I thought for a bit and I came up with an idea. I love a dish that I call Pasta and Peas. Basically I take peas, pasta, butter/oil, parmesan cheese and some spices; and mix them all together. Sometimes I add bacon, sometimes other things. This time instead of pasta I just used rice, and it was mighty good! I think the stickiness was actually very helpful. It sort of made it a coherent dish. It all went together without needing to be cooked together.

I still had a lot of rice to use however. I figured I could warm the rice and make Peas and Rice for lunch tomorrow again, but really I had a lot of rice to use. So I thought, “Hmmmm…maybe I could make a sugar free rice pudding?” I went through some cookbooks and some websites and I came up with a plan. Upon checking my cupboards I did not really have everything that my plan called for, so I altered it a bit more. To sweeten it I used a combo of dates and raisins where the original recipe only called for raisins, because dates are so sweet, and I used a banana instead of sugar. I think you could leave the banana out, but it does add an interesting note. My rice pudding ended up being Vegan, Sugar Free (in that there is no actual sugar added), and I believe Gluten Free. And you know what? It is darn tasty!  It makes a great dessert and I think it will make a good breakfast too.

Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk and Banana

2 cups cooked Kokuho Rose True Varietal rice

3 cups of coconut milk (though I think any milk should work)

1 banana that is quite brown

½ cup combo of raisins and dates (I used ¼ cup golden raisins and ¼ cup dates)

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

1. Put the banana and some of the coconut milk in a blender and whiz to make a liquid. I used my Magic Bullet for this. Of course you could just mush it up well, but I am not sure it will have the same sweetening powers if it is not distributed equally in your pudding.

2. Combine ingredients in a pot on the stove.

3. Cook until the milk has been absorbed and the mix is at the consistency that you like in rice pudding.

4. Eat!

French Friday's with Dorie: Creamy, Cheesy, Garlicky Rice With Spinach

~After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book.~


Creamy, Cheesy, Garlicky Rice with Spinach, found on page 380, was the French Friday's recipe for last Friday, but I just made it yesterday. I had seen this recipe on Yummy Chunklet’s and Elaine’s blogs and their's looks so good that I just had to make it. I am so glad I did because it was fabulous! As you can see below I used Dorie's Bon Idée of stuffing the rice into peppers. 

I will be making this often. It was fairly easy to make too. We still have leftovers and I am looking forward to them for lunch tomorrow. 

French Friday's with Dorie: Orange-Almond Tart

After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book. 

This week’s French Food with Dorie recipe was an Orange-Almond Tart. Oh, how I loved the sound of that! Oranges are just so perfect at this time of year. They are in season and they remind you that the sun will return. 

However, there were a couple of issues with it on my end:

One, I could find no one who wanted to eat it with me. And I just could not eat a whole tart because…

Two, next week is both my birthday and Valentines Day. I expect there will be an over supply of sugar heading my way. I could not justify this tart, Brit’s cake and next weeks’ sugar overload.

Then there is three, I am going off sugar after my birthday. I have been eating far too much sugar in the last few months. So for health and figure reasons I am cutting sugar out. I will elaborate on this plan in the next week or so.

Now go look at the other participant’s tarts. I expect they will be fabulous, as usual. I will be back next week with Short Ribs in Red Wine and Port. (Oh my, that sounds quite decedent! Hmm….I am not sure the cooking budget will allow for all that extra alcohol. We shall have to see…)

French Friday's with Dorie: Paris Mushroom Soup

As I said in an earlier post I have joined a group called French Fridays with Dorie. Together we are working our way through Dorie Greenspan’s book “Around My French Table”(AMFT). This week's recipe is Paris Mushroom Soup (page 72). It was a fairly simple recipe to make. Next time I need to refine my technique, but it came out very well.

The recipe calls for making a “salad” and putting the soup over it. I quite liked the play of textures that gave. To go along with the soup we had Levain Bread from Rustica Bakery with White Bean Dip from Surdyk’s. It was a lovely accompaniment!

Now the soup was supposed to have crème fraîche on top of it and Dorie has a recipe for it on page 491. I had all the ingredients so I made some. I suppose that means this was the first recipe I made from AMFT, but we will just let that go. When I checked it yesterday morning it didn't seem right. So I bought some when I was out yesterday afternoon. Well I completely forgot to put it on the soup! Then, last night, when I checked the crème fraîche I had made at home it seemed ready. It has a more sour smell than the store bought, but it tastes about the same. The only problem is that now I have a lot of crème fraîche to use up!