Warm Brie with Peaches & Thyme

A first!  A cooking session.   A good friend wanted to learn how to cook more veggie dishes for his wife.  How fun was this?  We cooked in the afternoon, his wife and our other friends joined us for dinner.

This was the appetizer...

1 Brie cheese, I like the ones in rounds
2 Peaches, cut in slices
1 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
1 Tsp of fresh thyme, plus more for garnish
1 Tbsp of honey, we used a peach flavored
2 Tbsp of balsamic, we used blueberry
1 Tbsp of really good, grassy olive oil

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Place brie on cookie sheet or foil and bake for about 10 min until soft.
3. While brie is baking, place 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a sautee plan over medium heat, ad thyme.  Let pan heat up and thyme flavor the oil.  
4. Add peaches and sautee until caramelized and with some nice brown spots, set pan aside.
5. Take brie out of oven and place on a large plate.
6. Place the honey over the top of warm brie.
7. Arrange peaches around and over the brie
8. Drizzle the balsamic evenly over the peaches and brie.
9. Drizzle olive oil over to finish.
10. Serve immediately.

I had originally planned to use figs or pears but when I was at the grocery store, the aroma of peaches in the produce department was undeniable. Feel free to substitute different produce for the fruit component of this dish.  You can even add some toasted nuts like walnuts or pecan.

Peach Frangipane Tart

It was my friend Carolyn's birthday celebration this weekend!  I asked her if I could bake her a cake and she said she would prefer a peach pie because it was her favorite.  She was also adamant on no gifts so I stole one of her ideas of what she did for me on a past birthday...

First, let's talk about the tart.  So...I wanted to make it a bit more special then just the pie and I've tasted a really great frangipane tart with apricot so thought peaches would work well. Well, I didn't love this tart and the reason is that the peach flavor can't stand up to the creaminess of the almond frangipane.  


What is frangipane you ask?  It's an almond based filling usually made with eggs, sugar, butter, and ground almonds.  You usually see it in tarts, croissant, and other desserts.


Carolyn and party attendees said the tart was good but I am my worst critic and I didn't love this tart.  Again, the peaches kinda blended with the filling and the flavor was one note, where as with apricot, the flavors compliment since the frangipane balances the tartness of the apricots.  So I will have to remake it for Carolyn.

Now for the birthday gift story...one of the best birthday gifts that I received was from Carolyn a couple of year ago.  It was a vegetarian pot pie in a sweet white pie pan.  Carolyn makes one of the best veggie pot pies I've tasted and she gave me this pie along with the pie pan.  I thought what a great idea! The gift of food but also paired with the kitchen dish.  I loved it!  So this was perfect for her birthday since she said no gifts but yes to the peach tart.  


I also made a glaze for this by mixing the peach juices, cinnamon, and powder sugar.  

I'll need to give it a go again and treat her to a new version of this tart.  It's coming Carolyn!

Peach Galette

One of the easiest summer desserts are fruit galettes.  It takes 5-10 mins to prep and about 40 mins to bake (assuming dough is already made).  Yes, I do use store bought pie dough some times.  It makes things easier when I don't have time to roll out my own.  Or I make the dough ahead of time and break out into hockey puck disk and wrap it in plastic and roll out before use.

Here is all you need...

Ingredients

1 package of pre-made pie dough (your own or store bought)

2 peaches thinly sliced

2 tablespoon of cold butter

3 tablespoon of sugar

Pinch of salt

Egg wash (1 egg and some water or milk)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Roll out the pie dough into about 9 to 10 inches, doesn't have to be perfectly round.  

Arrange the peach slices in a spiral, distributed evenly leaving about about 1 1/2 inches of end pie dough open. 

Fold and tuck the open pie dough over, folding in to form a rough circle.

Sprinkle the sugar all over the fruit.

Sprinkle the salt.

Put small pieces of the butter all over the peaches.

Brush the crust with an egg wash, then sprinkle more sugar on top.

Bake for about 30-40 min until crust is golden brown.

Server warm with ice cream.


You can make this with plums, apples, or any seasonal fruit.  I some times like to combine berries with stone fruits.  This particular recipe is great to add some blueberries or blackberries.  Use your favorite fruit combo.

Memorial Weekend of Baking

What a great 3 day weekend it was!  I did a lot of baking!  It was about Chocolate Cherry Cake, Blueberry Almond Scones, Zucchini Bread, and Peach Chocolate Chip Cookies.


Friday night, had girlfriends over for some Margaritas and Mexican food.  Even made corn tortillas from scratch, but this entry is about baking so more on that on a another entry.  I did bake a Chocolate Cherry Bundt Cake for dessert and also made Chocolate Dipped Cherries.  People are always dipping strawberries but I think the cherries actually make a great fruit to dip and decorate with. It is also very delish!  The cake was pretty good but I'm not as fond of the recipe, I think it needs a bit more chocolate so I'll tweak the recipe and post.

Saturday, I didn't really bake at all. It was my little bro's birthday and I had planned on baking his birthday cake but the day got the best of me and I didn't have enough time.  We did celebrated it with a theme of BBQ and Bowling.  I bought a Whole Food cake.  I know what kind of baker am I?  It was a good cake though!

Sunday, I made some Blueberry Almond Scone for my friend Samad because he really like almonds.  The texture of the scone came out great but I think it needed a little bit more almonds and almond extract.  I didn't add it to my baking that day but included that in the recipe below.  This recipe is a modified recipe from the Grand Central Baking Book.  I think the dry ratio from this book is really superb but I tweaked the wet ratio and used WW flour.  I used to make scones everyday when I worked at Both Ways Cafe a few years back.

Blueberry Almond Scone
Dry Ingredients & Cold Butter
2.5 cups of Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 cups of Sugar
1 tablespoon of Baking Powder
1 teaspoon of Salt
1/2 cups of cold Unsalted Butter cut in dice size pieces
Wet Ingredients
1 cup of Buttermilk
1 Egg
1 teaspoon of Almond Extract
Other Ingredients
1.5 cups of Blueberries (I like to use frozen berries for scones because it doesn't burst and bleed during the forming stages.)
1 cups of Almonds (I used sliced but you can use chopped or slivered.)
Turbinado Sugar for sprinkling before baking


-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Measure and mix all the dry ingredients, then add cold butter and mix on low until a crumbly mixture.  If you don't have stand mixer, you can use a pastry cutter or use your hands to blend the butter into the dry mixture until crumbly.  Using a wooden spoon or your hands, add the blueberries and almonds, then toss until the crumbly ingredients are mixed with the fruit and nuts. I like to use hands to again, the berries aren't crushed.   It will be a dampish dry mixture.
-Measure and mix the buttermilk, egg, and almond extract.  
-Slowly start pouring a small amount of wet mixture into the dry mixture and just toss and mix with your hands until all the wet mixture is all into the dry mixture.   I say toss because you are trying to balance the wet mixture into the dry mixture evenly.
-Pour the mixture into a lightly floured surface. Using a scraper or your hands, gather the mixture to form a mound about 2 inches think and oval in shape.  Lightly press the sides toward the center until you have a somewhat firmed dough.  Cut into triangles and put on a sheet pan lined with parchment.  
-Brush the scones with a egg wash or some leftover buttermilk.  Sprinkle some turbinado sugar and a little salt (the sweet salty combo is great).
-Bake for about 30 minutes until nicely golden brown.  


Sunday, I also made the Zucchini Bread for my mom.  She has been asking for some for a while now.  This recipe is from the Tartine Bakery cookbook.  This was the first time I used this recipe thus didn't change much. I only substituted olive oil instead of the vegetable oil they listed.  I also doubled the recipe and didn't sprinkle with sugar.

Dry Ingredients
1 3/4 + 2 tablespoons of All Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon of Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon of Baking Powder
1 teaspoon of Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of Salt
Wet Ingredients
 2 Eggs
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of Olive Oil
3/4 cup of Sugar
1/2 cup of Orange Marmalade
Other
2 1/2 cups of Zucchini grated
1 cup of Walnut chopped and lightly toasted
Sugar for topping
-Preheat oven to 350
-Measure and mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.  Now, a lot of recipes call for shifting the dry ingredients, especially for cakes, but I usually just dump it all in a bowl an use a wire wisk to mix it up and fluff it up.  Works for me and much easier.

-Measure and mix all the wet ingredients in a separate larger bowl.

Add zucchini and walnuts to the wet mixture.


-Add the dry mixture into the wet mixture until combined.  Don't over mix or bread will toughen.
-Put into a butter and floured pan or some sprayed pan.
-Bake for about 1 hour until clean tooth pick comes out.

Monday, I made some Peach Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies for my friend Heather who is moving to NYC.  I kept promising her cookies but our timing was never right so tried a new recipe for her.   I see a lot of dried fruit in oatmeal cookies but not combined with chocolate chips.  I love a little fruit with all my desserts. I think it offset the heavy sugar and butter, even if dried fruit.  I like the idea of peaches and cream, so I used dried peaches and white chocolate but also wanted the taste of dark chocolate.  This recipe might seem a bit too much and I should had some restraint but I wanted to put some kind of nuts into so I used almond but now I think about, I think it might be even better with pecans. 

Dry Ingredients
2 1/2 cups of Whole Wheat Flour (For "meaty" cookies, I use wheat flour than all purpose, I just thinks it adds a nice heartiness to the cookie.)
1 teaspoon of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of Salt, more for topping after baking
1 teaspoon of Cinnamon
Wet Ingredients
1/2 cup of Butter (room temperature)
3/4 cups of Sugar
3/4 cups of Brown Sugar (packed)
2 Eggs (room temperature)
1 teaspoon of Vanilla
Other Ingredients
1 cup of dried Peaches chopped
1 cup of White Chocolate Chips
1 cup of Dark Chocolate Chips
1 cup of nuts (Almond or Pecans)
-Preheat oven to 350
-Measure and mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

-Measure and mix the butter and sugars until very light and fluff, preferably in a stand mixer or hand mixer.  Add eggs and vanilla and blend/mix again.

-Add dry mixture into the wet mixture until well combined, again with stand or hand mixer.
-Add other ingredients, one at a time to the mixture and hand mix until combined. 

-Spoon a little bigger than a golf size of the mixture onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  Put into the freezer until cold, about 5 min.

-Bake 13 minutes and golden brown.

This is a long entry and it was a long weekend. Hope you enjoyed the entry as much as I did.  A happy weekend in that I got to do so much of what I love to do.  Now I've got to balance with some more running this week to off set all the eating I did!

Craft Los Angeles

Friday Night Dinner

Craft is the main restaurant of Tom Colicchio. The head judge on Top Chef. The hot bald chef!

I didn't have any real idea on what kind of food Craft was about. I don't know why but I thought it was going to be Italian. I learned actually he has more French cooking roots and Craft displayed that.

The most memoriable thing of the night was that it was the first time I had truffles. Not just a truffle oil infused dish, no I actual truffle slices on a dish. Wow!

They served all the dishes family style. I'm not used to seeing fancy places serve this way. The other nice thing they did was serve us complimentary little things inbetween the courses we ordered. It was a nice unexpected surprise. Here are what we ate....

Amuse Buoche

Prawns on Cracker

(Sorry...no pic )

I don't like prawns. The texture and fishy smell usually creeps me out. They brought out this small plate with 2 water crackers topped with 3 chunks prawn slices that was tossed in some oil, seasoning and chives. Soung is veggie too so she wasn't going to eat it. I wasn't going to eat it but we didn't want to be rude so I said I would take a bite. Wow...it didn't taste like any prawns I've had before. No fishiness at all. Light, savory, crisp. Yum.

First Course

Heirloom Tomato Salad

Sweet as honey yellow, red, and pink heirloom tomatoes. The plate was dressed in a small pool of green olive oil and aged balsamic, where the thinly sliced tomatoes were laid, it was topped with little bit of salt and microgreens. I would have to say this was my favorite dish of the night hands down. The simpliest ways are the best ways to prepare highest quality ingredients.

Wild Arugula & Parmesan

Nice slight bitter greens with aged parm cheese.

Main Course

Roasted Halibut

This fish was the most decadent white steak of fish I had seen, it had this nice seared golden crust. The sauce was roasted red pepper sauce with golden raisins in this buttery sauce. It was amazing subtle flavors, but the fish was slightly over cooked and not as moist as I had hope.

Ricotta Cavatelli & Black Truffle Pasta

Homemade pasta filled with ricotta, light buttery sauce, and topped with shaved black truffles. Prior to this I think the only truffle item I've had was the truffle fries at Baguette box.

Sides

Potato Gratin

Wow...best gratin I've had. Perfectly thinly sliced potatos, cooked just right to a velvethy texture in a rich cream sauce that was so good. It had a nice baked golden crust at the top. This was my 2nd favorite dish of the night. I've tried to make this dish but yet to make this right. Maybe I'll have to get his cookbook for this.

Assorted Wild Mushrooms

This was okay...different mushrooms sauteed in some herbs and some kind of fat. I like my mushrooms carmalized and moist, this was again a little dry.

Roasted Asparagus

I didn't have any of this, Soung said it was good but not the best.

Palate Cleanser

Stawberry something rose water something "gelayeee". In another word..fancy jello. :) It was good, beautiful.

Dessert

Peach Crisp with Peach Ice Cream

Good seasonal peach with lot of crunchy oat buttery topping. We ordered a side of peach ice

cream which I'm sure was freshly made had nice chunks of peaches. The only thing is it had more topping than peaches and I like lot of fruit in my crips or cobblers.

Beignets

Light as air dough fried and covered in sugar/cinnamon, served with a salty chocolate sauce and citrusy honey.

After we ate our dessert, they gave us a small plate of lavendar shortbread, chocolate bark or toffee, and dice size brownies. I hate it when anyone puts lavendar in food. It tastes like soap in my mouth. I was relunctant to try this one but I have to say, it was the first time the lavendar didn't over powered the food. It was very subtle.

After the check, they gave us a take home gift of pecan biscotti. They just had really nice touches, services was superb, and beautiful ambience at the restaurnt. We had some leftover dessert that they boxed up. They don't just bring the leftovers boxed to your table, no they give you a number like a coat check. When you are ready to leave, you take the number to the front and they give you the leftover in a bag. How classy is that. I know I can't eat like this all the time but boy it was memorable. We need one in Seattle. I'm going to write him a letter.

The one thing I felt good about is that I think I could make all the dessert and sweets we had. They were simple things but refined. I'm more about rustic than refine thus prob want to do it my way. I read that the pastry chef Shannon Swindle actually has type I diabetes. Interesting...I can't wait to become a pastry chef!