Posts from — June 2011

And an extra special Happy Father’s Day to the Superdads in my life. My Dad, Gene. Seen here doing Superdad stuff with me and my brothers, Andy and Dennis.

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Today is Phase 2 of Marissa moving away from me! Don’t get me wrong, I am so happy for her, so thrilled for this new and exciting chapter in her life!  This is what you wish for; for your children to be independent, on their own, living their lives, chasing their dreams! But I’m going to miss her! She is a perfect daughter and a gorgeous, caring, smart, and amazing woman and I am proud.  I shall be putting her on a plane to San Francisco today at 3:30.  When she arrives there, she has a place to stay for the next three nights, and then… not 100% sure. On Sunday she has an appointment to go see an apartment that hopefully (more like praying to God!) she will be able to sublease, beginning on the forth day.  If that doesn’t go through, oh I can’t even begin to think about that! And on Monday morning, she starts her new job.

When I get home from the airport I think I’ll just get on the internet and start planning my trip to visit her, to see her in her new wonderful home by the bay.  Either that or sit down and have a good cry!  Honestly, I am so excited. I am so very proud. And mostly, I am exceedingly blessed! Blessed and honored to be her mom.  Marissa, I love you!

I promised you a recipe today and a great recipe you shall get … not only am I a proud mom, I am also a carnivore.  I am not a vegetarian, vegan, raw vegan, or any other such noble person.  I am more of a Big Night,  Like Water For Chocolate, Babette’s Feast, or Mostly Martha sort of movie girl rather than a Food, Inc., Fast Food Nation, Forks Over Knives, or Earthlings movie girl.  I like to live with my head buried deeply in the carnivore sand.

That said, I don’t think I’ll ever make beef, chicken, or pork taco again!  Obviously, not because I have anything against beef, chicken, or pork… but because these red lentil tacos are so much better.  Really they are!  If you make them and you don’t agree, I’ll give you your money back.  Honestly, every penny you’ve ever spent coming to my free blog, I shall refund to you, in full, if you don’t think these are the best tacos ever!!!  Now that’s a money-back guarantee if ever there was one. xoxo

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I’ve had this cute little picture on my desktop, copied from somewhere that now I can’t recall, for months and have been waiting for a time to slap it into a post. Today is just the day because I have no time to put up anything other than an explanation of why I’m not putting up anything. It is 5:35 AM and we (Dave, Marissa, my dad, and I) are heading off to Marissa’s storage unit to empty it and put all her furniture in our garage. Hopefully, it’ll only be there for a month or so, just until she can find a permanent place to live in her new home… San Francisco! 

Of course, we could’ve just decided to keep everything in the storage unit, as we have never had a problem with them before. But since we don’t know when she’ll actually be leaving, I think it’s better for us that we store it in our garage, as it will be much less hassle in the long run.

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I was surfing around the net yesterday between blogs I follow, Twitter, and Facebook and I came across a Top 10 list I can truly relate to – The Top Ten Signs of a Bad Cook posted by Chow. Check it out and let me know what you think.  Number three had me laughing out loud, I know people like that!

I promise, if you have this wonderful strawberry jam in your refrigerator, you will show the world that you are not “one of those people”!  And although it takes hours to make, it doesn’t take much effort, if you are planning on being home, just set a timer to go off every 15 minutes, stir, and there isn’t much more to it than that!

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During the “decision-making” time about what to make for our graduation class last week, I had several suggestions to choose from for one of the main courses, among them, tacos or Greek salad.  Both are good ideas and both work well on a buffet, but we already had decided on another salad, and “Plain Jane” tacos seemed a bit tame for the rest of the menu.  So we combined the two and made Greek Tacos… they were a huge hit with students and guests alike.  If your family is the more adventurous type, go with the ground lamb, otherwise, either ground beef or ground turkey work perfectly well.

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You’ve heard of the “Six Degrees of Separation” before, right?  The idea is that everyone is six steps away from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, “a friend of a friend” can, on average, connect any two people in six steps or fewer. It was originally set forth by Frigyes Karinthy and then popularized by a play written by John Guare.

That really has nothing to do with today’s recipe, I just love the idea of that, how connected we all are… OK, on to macarons, French macarons to be exact. These are a completely different breed than the coconut macaroons you might be more familiar with.  Those are easy to make, these are not!  And the only reason we even attempted them in the teen class graduation last week was that one of my long-time students, Steven, requested to make them. Steven has been coming to Les Petites Gourmettes since he was 8 years old… he is now 16 and drives himself to class.  How time flies!!!

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Two weeks ago when I posted a picture of all the tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and garlic that we’d be using in classes, a loyal follower asked to see a picture of what my refrigerator looked like at the start of classes. I said, “Oh no you don’t!” I assured her that it was so full, that one had to worry about things falling out when opening the door, and that my extra freezer in the laundry room was so full that I had to use duct tape to ensure that it would keep closed – embarrassing but true! But she insisted that she would enjoy seeing the fridge, so I told her I’d post a picture before the next set of classes… the day has come…ouch!

Above is the new set of tomatoes, potatoes, citrus, and friends and below……. is the fridge – don’t judge, it’s my job.  And you will never see a picture of the duct-taped freezer, and that’s final!

Yes, the drawers have been over-filled so many times, that they no longer have usable tracks to run on. They are currently so full that you couldn’t fit a tiny jalapeno into any one of them right now!

Now on to prettier and tastier things…

Ganache (pronounced /gah NAHSH/) is a rich mixture of chocolate and cream which can be used as a frosting or filling. Depending on the intended use, different ratios of chocolate to cream are used, to create anything from a light glaze to a dense and rich chocolate truffle. Although ganache is exceedingly luxurious, it is what I like to call “easy-breezy” to make!  Ganache was developed in the mid-1800s, and both France and Switzerland claim credit for the invention.

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One of my favorite comfort food desserts is pineapple upside-down cake, well it’s actually a toss-up between that and my famous carrot cake.

For their graduation luncheon, the teens in last week’s class requested  “cake, cupcakes, pineapple upside-down cake, macarons, and ‘something’ chocolate”. 

After compiling all of their suggestions, I settled on pineapple upside-down cupcakes and macarons filled with chocolate ganache.  The easy cupcakes are here today and the much more complicated and patience-needed macarons will be posted on Tuesday.

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No doubt, you’ve dined in many Italian restaurants or perused enough cookbooks and food magazines to know what to expect when you order or see a recipe for pasta primavera.  A lovely pasta dish filled with fresh seasonal vegetables, primavera means spring in Italian, so freshness is what it’s all about.  But did you know that there was no such thing as pasta primavera on menus and in cookbooks until after 1975?

Although the dish is derived from centuries-old genuine Italian dishes, its name and widespread popularity were created by two culinary icons, Sirio Maccioni, the owner of Le Cirque in New York City, and Craig Claiborne, the legendary New York Times food editor and restaurant critic.

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If you’re feeling that it’s too hot to turn on the stove or even worse, the oven, then it’s time for summer rolls; also known as Vietnamese salad rolls or spring rolls.

Now, due to my lack of time to explain it myself,  (I have the teen class graduation lunch today, hosting not only the students themselves but additionally two guests for each student) I turn to trusty Wikipedia to define spring or summer rolls.

“Vietnamese spring roll  – ingredients include slivers of boiled or fried pork, shrimp, chicken, beef, fresh herbs, lettuce, sometimes fresh garlic chives, rice vermicelli, or bean threads, all wrapped in moistened rice paper, served cold with dipping sauce. The salad roll is easily distinguished from a “minced pork roll” by the fact that it is not fried, the ingredients used are different. Spring roll refers to the freshness of the spring season with all the fresh ingredients, therefore frying would take away that feeling.”

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