Gorgeous and Fun

Beet Root Salad with Goat Cheese

A beet root salad with goat cheese is on the menu for the dinner tomorrow. The recipe and the picture is from the book "Tea Party" by Tracy Stern. 

Maybe there is an eternal attraction to tea parties wired into the female genetics but I've never had a tea party and I am likely to never have one. But it was the beautiful sandwiches on the cover of this book that got my attention. There are 20 tea party themes in the book, but really the recipes are good for any time. The recipes are about tea, accompaniments with tea and things in which tea can be an ingredient. There are recipes for  things like tea martinis, black tea brownies, cakes, sandwiches and, of course, teas. And there are decor and music suggestions to boot!

All in all a very fun and handy book.

Chickpea Soup

Hello, hello! I am back. Feeling better, friend's visit is over and yes, I've seen New Moon. A big thank you to the people who stopped by and left me their good wishes. And now my mind is on food, not that I don't think of it otherwise, but with Thanksgiving  coming up this Thursday I have been plotting the concoctions for that day. 

The chickpea soup above, has made it to the list. Doesn't the photograph make you hungry? The recipe for this fall soup is from the book "Sunday Soup" by Betsy Rosbottom. The recipe is titled "About 30 minutes Chickpea and Pasta Soup with Rosemary". Don't recipe books with lovely pictures just make you salivate? I love recipe books with great pictures, the pictures sell me on the recipe. And this book is gorgeous with soup recipe sections for each season.

And speaking of food, I can never resist mentioning Erin's fresh365 blog food blog. I only go when I have just had food, otherwise the pictures on her blog make me hungry and then I can't think of anything but food.

Image above is from the book.

Happy Diwali!

Wishing a Happy Diwali to my family and friends!

In case you are curious what Diwali is, it is a five day festival of lights, sweets, fireworks and gifts celebrated in India. In India, Diwali is celebrated on the scale of Christmas in the West. People light oil lamps and hang beautiful paper lanterns called "Kandils". People meet up with family and friends to celebrate and exchange presents. On one of the days of the festival people pray to the Goddess of wealth and prosperity, Lakshmi. During this festival people buy gold and silver jewelry to welcome prosperity into their homes. Some of the communities celebrate the beginning of their New Year on this Sunday. It is beautiful, colorful and noisy (kids liking to set off noise-making fireworks). To read more about Diwali here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali. And if you google Diwali images, you will see some very beautiful decorations.

For my Diwali celebrations I made chocolate truffles. Here's my recipe. These are hand rolled truffles so you can make them any size you like. I rolled them to a decent size and got about 50 truffles from these proportioned ingredients. Also I mix bittersweet chocolate and milk chocolate, I think this mix makes a delicious truffle.

Ingredients:

28 ounces of chocolate (I had 1.16 of Callebaut milk chocolate and .61 ounces of bittersweet Scharffen Berger)
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp + 2 tsp of orange extract
Shredded coconut, as much as you like (I used about 5 tbsp), optional
Unsweetened cocoa powder to roll the truffle in.

Steps:

1. Shave the chocolate with a grater, or chop it with a knife or a food processor.
2. Boil the cream.
3. Pour the boiling cream over the shaved chocolate, this will melt the chocolate.
4. Mix in the orange extract.
5. Mix in the shredded coconut.
6. Cool in the refrigerator for at least 2 hrs (it should have the texture of soft clay).
7. Now scoop out the chocolate with a spoon or melon baller and roll into balls. Roll each ball in cocoa powder to coat it with cocoa. (Once I roll out the truffles I place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.)
8. Chill in the freezer.

Enjoy! And if you want to have more fun substitute the orange extract with a liqueur.

Chocolate !

 

 

Chocolate and more chocolate!!! If you ever wished there was a real Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, then there is a place that might just be. We (hubby and self) were in New York City over the long weekend. It was fun, the sun actually shined! New England hasn't seen much sun this summer - just about seven days! But I digress.

We happened to chance upon a restaurant called "Max Brenner - chocolate by the bald man". The allure of chocolate and the name was intriguing enough but we were headed to dinner elswhere. We left room for dessert and found our way back there. It was fantastic (so good that I forgot to take pictures)! It was chocolate heaven. I have blogged about molten chocolate cake before but Brenner's does it in so many different ways. I had the "Ivory Heart" which was molten chocolate with raspberry sauce, vanilla ice cream and more. But molten chocolate is not their only chocolate concoction. They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner and, of course, dessert. There are chocolate treats available at every meal time and in between and that's not counting chocolate beverages. The pictures are from a second trip to another Brenner's location that we happened to find (that is the absolute truth) the next day. And then they sell chocolates to takeaway with you. What more could one ask for? I was lamenting the fact that they don't have any restaurants in New England but then it is probably a good thing for my waist line.

Dessert Recipes again!

 

Can you tell that desserts have been on my mind? Generally I go for chocolate but Panna Cotta is one of my favorites. This Honey and Yogurt Panna Cotta is from Kate Zuckerman's book "The Sweet Life - Desserts from Chanterelle". And yes the Chanterelle in the title is the famous restaurant in New York. Take a look at this book if you feel like treating yourself to gourmet desserts in the comfort of your own home. And don't forget to share the divine creations with someone else!

Picture is from the book.

Dessert Recipes

 

 

Don't these pictures make you drool? You can actually make these desserts by following the recipes in "The Secrets of Baking" By Sherry Yard. The top image is of a Caramel-Black Cherry Gelee. The second image is of a Passion Fruit Pinwheel Roulade with Roasted Pineapple Salad. The recipes in this book are organized around a master recipe, which makes it easier to try different desserts with the same base. And there are tips to help you avoid the pitfalls. Ms. Yard, executive pastry chef at Spago, named the top pastry chef by the James Beard Society, is the perfect guide to making desserts that you think you couldn't make. Feast for the eyes and the tummy!

Pictures are from the book.

Blooming Tea

 

Speaking of tea, today's post is about blooming tea. It is not just fun to drink blooming tea but fun to watch it brew. The tea leaves are hand stitched with edible embellishments like jasmine and chyrsanthemum. Put the tea pod in hot water, watch the leaves and petals unfold. The pod blooms to life like some sort of sea creature!

Image credits: first picture from gentle wood cottage, the second picture from enchanted indigo.

Molten Chocolate Cake

 

 

I first ate this dessert at Finale in Cambridge. And I loved it. The warm gooey center is delicious and you will want more. It is my favorite dessert choice. A few years back when I googled "molten chocolate cake" I couldn't find any recipe, it ended up on searches with half baked cake or under baked cake. Now, the story is completely different. The first picture is from Lucy Zhang's Blog and she shares the recipe that she likes. The second picture is from Steamy Kitchen; this lady, in fact, makes the cake with a Betty Crocker cake mix and uses the microwave. Welcome to chocolate heaven.

Absolutely Unbelievable Food

   

 

I watched Anthony Bourdain's ("No Reservations" is the name of the show) trip to Spain. Watching this trip is like being in culinary heaven. Spain is at the forefront of food innovation; the food the chefs whip up is just unbelievable. The first picture above is a sampling of the kind of food conjured by Albert Adria, a molecular gastronomical genius. This was not a dish shown on this episode (image from Times, UK). I couldn't find any pictures of the "Natura" inspired food that Albert did show. The second picture of the chocolate egg is the masterpice of the chocolate wizard Enric Rovira. Picture found on Mango and Ginger.

Truly unbelievable food, Spain has to be on the list of countries to visit for any foodie.

More gorgeous cakes

 

 

 

More fabulous cakes! These cakes are from "Martha Stewart's wedding cakes" by Martha Stewart and Wendy Kromer. Why was I looking at a book on wedding cakes when I am married? The pictures in this book looked so appealing. Perfect eye candy. The cakes in this book are works of art. Again I would have trouble cutting these cakes up. I am in awe of the craftsmanship. Feast for the eyes and the tummy!