Archives for February 2008
Light as a feather…tiramisu
As a young girl, me and my friends would have slumber parties and invariably we’d play Light As A Feather. In case you aren’t familiar, it’s a game where one girl lays down on her back and all the other girls gather around her and together lift her body off the ground, each girl using only one finger on each hand, all the while chanting “light as a feather, stiff as a board”. Of course those words were chanted in a tone meant to conjure the dead from their graves…as dark and dank a voice that a 12 year old girl can produce. We never succeeded in lifting anyone…instead we’d dissolved in giggles and then pull out the Ouija Board. Later, near midnight we’d have a séance and trying to bring Mary Worth back to life. At one point it was believed Paul McCartney was dead (remember “Paul is dead”) and so we tried to talk to his spirit.
All of this was brought to mind with one bite of this tiramisu…all because the phrase “light as a feather” popped instantly to mind the minute it hit my tongue. I love tiramisu but I’ve always had it at restaurants, I’ve never actually made it before. So I did the usual and searched the interwebs, combing through the series of trucks moving through tubes until I found Adam’s delightful recipe at Amateur Gourmet. I like his version because it didn’t involve whipping any egg yolks…I wanted easy. Well this is easy, light, delicious, and tasty. I made several substantial changes to the recipe, mostly to soften the coffee flavor because GH is a bit of a wuss when it comes to coffee flavored desserts. Either way…you’ll agree it’s light as a feather…but not stiff as a board.
Tiramisu
printer-friendly recipe
8 ounces mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon brandy
8 ounces heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup of espresso
1 cup skim milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 packages of Italian style lady fingers
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
6 ounces milk chocolate
Allow the mascarpone to come to room temperature. Beat the brandy and 1/4 cup of sugar into the mascarpone until it is smooth. Set it aside.
Put the cream, 1/3 cup of sugar, and 2 teaspoons vanilla into a bowl and mix with a whisk on high until soft peaks have formed. Set it aside.
Combined the hot espresso and the 2 tablespoons of sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the skim milk and stir. Set aside.
Grate the two types of chocolate using a food processor or a grater. Keep them separate.
Fold the mascarpone and whipped cream into each other (gently).
Dip a ladyfinger into the coffee mixture, count one beat, then turn it over, count another beat, and remove it and place it into a 9″ x 9″ pan. Repeat this until the bottom of the pan is lined with soaked ladyfingers.
Layer on half of the mascarpone/whipped cream combo, smooth it out with an offset spatula. Sprinkle the bittersweet chocolate.
Add another layer of the soaked ladyfingers, the rest of the mascarpone/ whipped cream combo, and finally the grated milk chocolate. Wrap well with saran wrap and refrigerate several hours or even better, overnight. Serves 9 to 12 depending on the size of the serving.
demi-glace debacle…a tale of a broken heart
I got nothing for you…actually nothing but a broken heart and a stock pot of burnt beef demi-glace. Oh yeh, I said burnt, charred beef demi-glace. If you read my post at Accidental Hedonist over the weekend you’ll know that I made an exquisite batch of beef stroganoff from oxtail. After I picked the delectable meat from the bones I dumped them into a pot, covered them with water and let them simmer for about 6 hours. Then I stuck the pot in the garage to cool and chill. Today the stock was no longer liquid, it was gelatinous and jiggly and oh my, I actually became giddy at this point…I had a good pot of beef stock that I could easily transform into beef demi-glace. Demi-glace is just intensely reduce stock and its sole purpose in life is to enrich pan sauces. I have some short-ribs that I’d like to braise and finish off with a rich pan sauce so I thought this was kismet.
I skimmed the fat off the top, reheated the stock, strained it three times, and began to reduce it. At one point it was perfect and then I lost my focus, Alex was running the vacuum in the kitchen and I needed to get out of his way so I ran upstairs to take a shower…15 minutes later I returned to a pan of black, burnt, acrid sludge. How could I be so stupid, so careless? Arrrgh!!! It’s not like it cost me a bunch of money…no, the most expensive part was the glug (actually 3) of brandy that I added near the end. My pain is derived from having something so perfect and rare and then through my own neglect I lost it. Frack!!!
Why the champagne (sparkling wine, of course)? Well, we are in the midst of another friggin blizzard so it’s impossible to acquire any form of alcohol today and cheap sparkling wine was all I had on hand. Obviously sorrows must be drowned. My all-time-favorite sympathetic, broken-heart fix-it food is sparkling wine, potato chips, and caviar with creme fraiche. We have no caviar so I’m making do with sparkling wine, potato chips and Newman-O’s.
What do you eat when you’re heart broken?
Yes we can
What does politics have to do with food? Everything. For instance, our agricultural policy impacts international trade, food and nutrition assistance programs for the poor and elderly, environmental preservation, food safety, and the well-being of rural communities. The Farm Bill includes billions of dollars of subsidies that often go to huge mega-farms, not farmers. Here in Wisconsin we get to vote on Tuesday, if you live elsewhere and haven’t had your primary yet then check out this list to see when it’s your turn.
Vote in your state’s primary election:
- Tuesday, February 19: Hawaii, Wisconsin
- Tuesday, March 4: Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont
- Saturday, March 8: Wyoming
- Tuesday, March 11: Mississippi
- Tuesday, April 22: Pennsylvania
- Saturday, May 3: Guam
- Tuesday, May 6: Indiana, North Carolina
- Tuesday, May 13: West Virginia
- Tuesday, May 20: Kentucky, Oregon
- Tuesday, June 3: Montana, South Dakota
- Saturday, June 7: Puerto Rico
Check out Obama on the issues.
Check out the NY Times Election Guide 2008 for full coverage of the voting and issues.
Check out the Yes We Can video:
Here’s a double chocolate, pecan muffin that screams “yes we can” have chocolate for breakfast. Choose the chocolate for your audience…I made these specifically for Dexter so I used milk chocolate, but semisweet or bittersweet would be even more fabulous. They got rave reviews form everyone and they’re the perfect match for a cup of coffee.
Yes We Can Muffins
printer-friendly recipe
4 ounces milk chocolate
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1 1/4 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter a 12 cup muffin tin or line it with paper muffin cups.
Melt the butter and the chocolate. Add the milk, egg, sugar, and vanilla. Stir to combine. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Fold the liquid and the dry ingredients together, add the pecans and gently, and minimally stir them in. Fill the muffin tin and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes and then remove the muffins from the pan.
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