It may look like nothing's happening in the kitchen but, au contraire. It's just that I haven't found time to write it all down.
2.13.11: FFwD: Orange-Almond Tart: Just out of the oven. Had a little trouble with the dough. My food processor holds all the ingredients but I don't think it was powerful or big enough for the job. Ended up throwing everything in a bowl and resorting to the pastry blender but, since the butter was already incorporated, that didn't do much good. Plus my egg yolk had hardened up (I made a triple batch of Dorie's Sweet & Spicy nuts to send to my brother for his birthday). I added a little water but then ended up adding a second egg yolk and yet more water to get the dough to stick. It might be our weather, though-- pretty dry around here. The orange slices were very easy to make. It looks very pretty. I'll have to add a comment about how it tastes!
2.6.11: Shaker Lemon Pie. I used the recipe from Tartine. Smitten Kitchen discusses it here. The Tartine dough recipe was pretty easy (3 parts flour, 2 parts butter, 1 part water). I kept everything as cold as possible and the result was a tender, flaky crust. I was able to cut the lemons super thin on my own without the mandoline. I used 4 Meyer lemons but was also using the deep dish pie pan. I let the lemons sit overnight in the sugar. They were the right balance of sweet, bitter and tangy.
2.5.11: FFwD Braised Short Ribs: More on this later.
2.3.11: Kabocha squash gnocchi. Used Tiny Urban Kitchen's recipe (http://www.tinyurbankitchen.com/2010/02/kabocha-squash-gnocchi.html) and did the pan-fried version. It made a ton of gnocchi so there was lots for leftovers. This was very good! I had to add extra flour to get the dough the right consistency but it was easy to roll out and to fry. Need to make sure they are small enough or they won't cook through. Very light (though next time, I think I'll whip the last egg white like I did for the gnocchi parisien). We had them with salt & pepper, eating them like French fries!
