French Fridays with Dorie: December Round-Up

Since it's January, it does seem like a good time to clear the decks on the December cooking from Around My French Table (did everyone remember that I was in that cooking group--I did). Back in November I decided that I wasn't going to let cooking clubs take over my blog quite as aggressively as they have my life, and thus I would only do monthly roundups of my French Fridays with Dorie cooking. Somehow that seems to have translated into losing most of the pictures, so this round-up will be mostly text-based, an overview for the curious.


There were five recipes for the month, of which I made four. The butter-glazed carrots will have to wait, but not too long, if I know the carrot fiend with whom I live.

Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts, page 18 -- Made 'em last night.

Photo by Matt Korahais

An egg white, a little sugar, some spice (more and bolder next time), some salt, and as some people in the blogosphere say, causing me to giggle hysterically every time--"Walla!" You know how Bush mentioned the internets and now they're called that? Yeah, unfortunately it's like that. Voila!

I covered the bowl, ate one, and then went back and uncovered it for another. This may go badly. Also, note the lovely bowl, courtesy of Stacey.

My Go-to Beef Daube, pages 244 and 245 -- I bought beef for you, Dorie, and I never buy beef. I made stew for you, Dorie, and I love making stew. My version was a bit quick and dirty, but it was eaten. Stew rarely goes astray. I found it a little acidic for my palate, which is odd given that I eat unripe fruit and suck lemons. But there you have it.


Leek and Potato Soup, pages 66 and 67 -- My Christmas weekend dinner, breakfast, lunch, snack... Somehow, Matt never got any, nor any chance to photograph. I had it all. I made the basic recipe, garnished it with parmesan croutons (from SCRATCHbread's country parma loaves). Then I added more potatoes, because it was like a delicious warm milk. I think perhaps a potato weight would have been helpful. But then I've been whining about the fact that this book doesn't have weights in general, so chalk me up for a whiner and move on. The soup was great.

Photo by Matt Korahais.

Speculoos, pages 406 and 407 - Not my favorites, only in that they were like yet unlike the fiercely spiced, barely sweet gingerbread that I crave. No fault of the cookies themselves, which I had great fun shaping in many shapes. I have a great many cookie cutters and they don't get put through their paces enough.

Photo by Matt Korahais.

Looking forward to another month with this book, which is more than the sum of its parts, making these recipes.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Peanuttiest Blondies

I just realized that it's been over a month since I posted anything but cooking club posts. This ends soon. Now that I'm back from the Halloween whirlwing tour-guiding, it's time to tell you about many delicious things I've been cooking, and some ideas and dreams and pursuits I've been pursuing.

For now, though, there's Dorie Greenspan's Peanuttiest Blondies. I didn't have chocolate chips, so my blondies were blonde indeed, and I think they could have used something to offset the richness of the peanut butter and peanuts.

Halloween really was nuts, with 11 tours in two weekends, including one that was three and a half hours long, guest appearances from my aunt Nicki and uncle Joe, from Marie and Jim of Heavenly Cake Place, and from Matt, who checked out the tour for the first time and lent his keen directorial eye and New York loving sensibility to making it even better. My tour was ambushed by zombies not once but twice, the second time in the middle of the afternoon, when the foul fiends crept up behind me and were this close to chewing on my neck. I was heckled, applauded, and exhausted. Peter Stuyvesant, Edgar Allen Poe, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire victims all got their due, McSorley's Old Ale House provided drinks, and I was far too busy walking at night to get half the halloween candy that I wanted. I did, however, get steaming tamales from the Day of the Dead celebration going on at the St. Marks Church, and in the end, I think that's a win.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Crack Blondies

Dorie called these something like Chewy, Chunky Blondies, but that is a serious understatement. These candy bar-like lumps of all-American overkill are unquestionably crack blondies. And to think that until last night blondies were synonymous with lame in my mind. As my sister put it:

           "booooooooooooooooooo,
            blondies.
            yaaaaayyyyyyyy,
            blondie.
            (the band)."

I was in full agreement with this poetic little statement until around 10pm last night. Blondies always just seemed like a poor excuse for brownies, with all the butterfat and none of the joy. A comment on the TWD site the other day helped me begin my mental shift, by pointing out that blondies are just cookies in bar form. Conceiving of my creation as just a differently shaped chocolate chip cookied sorted me right out. Dorie describes these particular blondies as having more fillings than dough. I didn't have most of her suggested fillings (butterscotch chips, coconut) on hand, so I made a quick batch of toffee, and threw that in with chocolate chunks from one of those great big Trader Joes bars and some slivered almonds and Spanish peanuts. (Spanish peanuts, incidentally, are one of my more recent grocery finds. How I lived without them always on hand is hazy now.)

The toffee melted away, leaving the finished bars sticky, chewy, oozy at room temperature, and irresistable frozen. To top off the overkill, we ate them with noyaux ice cream that I made by infusing the cream with crushed cherry and apricot pits. The ice cream was subtle, but we could really taste the noyaux, in an almost citrusy aftertweak that went right up the nose. Lily, my boss at the bakery, thought it tasted something like marzipan.