Braised Carrots with Leeks

These braised carrots with leeks will surprise you with their savory-ness. At least they surprised me. Their flavor is fresh and reminiscent of vegetables from a Provencal marche.

This is an easy dish that can be made right before serving, or made in advance and served at room temperature the next day.

You can use spring carrots, or if you cannot find them, you can cut regular carrots cut into thinner pieces by quartering the fat ends and cutting the thin ends in half lengthwise.

To clean the leeks, cut off the root ends and the dark green parts, slice the pieces length wise, place them into a bowl of cold water, and swish them around. Drain the leeks and and place them back into cold water. Once the water in the bowl is clean, the leeks are ready.

We had this with a goat cheese, onion, mushroom, and red pepper tart with a filet mignon. It was definitely a luxurious dinner with an amazing combination of flavors.

For another great dish with leeks, check out this Asparagus, Pea, and Leek Stir Fry. For another great carrot dish, check out these Sauteed Carrots.

Braised Carrots with Leeks Recipe

Adapted from Mark Peel's New Classic Family Dinners.

This recipe serves four.

Ingredients

3 T olive oil

1/2 pound of leeks, white and light green part only, cleaned, with the root trimmed off, and cut into thin lengthwise strips

3/4 tsp Kosher salt

1 garlic clove, minced

1 pound peeled carrots, either small spring, or cut as described above. They should be about 4 to 6 inches in length. 

1/2 C water

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

1 T fresh chopped chervil, or 1 tsp dried chervil

2 tsp fresh chopped tarragon

Instructions

1. Heat 2 T of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. 
2. Add the leeks and a bit of the salt and cook over low heat for about 5 minutes. 
3. Add the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. 
4. Add the carrots, water, and the rest of the salt, and bring to a simmer. 
5. Simmer over low heat, covered, for about 15 minutes, until the carrots are fork tender. 
6. Transfer the carrots to a platter and bring the rest of the ingredients to a boil.
7. Add the rest of the oil, the lemon juice, the chervil, and the tarragon to the pan and cook for about a minute. 
8. Spoon the contents of the pan over the carrots.
9. Serve immediately, or tent with foil and serve later at room temperature. 
10. You can also refrigerate overnight and serve the next day. 

Macanese Stir-Fried Chicken | Wok Wednesdays

According to Grace Young, the author of Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge, Macanese food is a fusion of southern Chinese, Portuguese, and Southeast Asian styles, as well as other European and Indian cultures.

This dish is super easy to prepare, even though it calls for 17 (se-ven-teen) ingredients. Not including the rice.

Amazingly, I had most of the ingredients on hand. The only two ingredients that gave me a challenge were Spanish Chorizo and canned coconut milk. Spanish chorizo, which is a cooked and cured meat, is not the same as Mexican chorizo (found everywhere here), which is uncooked. It's sort of less spicy and more smokey than pepperoni, and more spicy than smoked kielbasa. It's the sausage that is usually used in paella.

Seventeen ingredients you say? Try chicken, garlic, cornstarch, two kinds of soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, coconut milk, chicken broth, vinegar, oil, shallots, the chorizo, turmeric, sweet paprika, tomatoes, and salt.

The orange "look" of this dish comes from the turmeric. My only hiccup on pulling this recipe together? The instructions say "sprinkle on the turmeric..." and I took that to mean that I should use my fingers to really "sprinkle" it. Turmeric is also used as a dye, a factoid I did not know. I now have orange fingernails. Oops.

The orange manicure not withstanding, we loved this dish. I texted my son that I was doing a stir fry and "feel free to stop by" and he did. He loved it too and took home all of the leftovers. (He also cracked up watching me take pictures of my bowl prior to dinner. My secret life exposed.)

I am participating in Wok Wednesdays, a group of individuals cooking their way through Grace Young's Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge. We've all agreed not to publish the recipe in order to support book publishing. I encourage you to get the book and try this amazing, amazing dish. I've not been disappointed with any stir fry I have tried from the book. Join the group and wok along!

French 75 Cocktail

This cocktail is rumored to have gotten its name from a 75 mm artillery piece that Allied soldiers used during World War I. It definitely depends upon both the French (Champagne) and British (gin), and packs a decent kick (like the field gun).

According to Wikipedia, the holder of all earthly knowledge (a title I used to own prior to Wikipedia stealing my thunder), this cocktail was invented in 1915 at Harry's New York Bar in Paris.

There are several versions of this cocktail out there. This is my favorite. If you'd like a sweeter version, just drop a sugar cube in the bottom of the glass after assembling the ingredients.

French 75 Cocktail Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 ounces gin

1/2 ounce orange liqueur

Lemon twist

1 1/ 2ounces Champagne or Cava 

Sugar cube (optional)

Instructions

1. Place the gin and orange liqueur into an ice filled shaker and shake for 20 to 30 seconds.
2. Strain the ingredients into a chilled coupe. 
3. Drop a lemon twist into the coupe and top with Champagne or Cava.
4. Drop the sugar cube into the bottom of the coupe. 

Boom.

Thank you to my friend Nancy for introducing me to the French 75. 

75% Whole Wheat Bread | Another Saturday Bread

This 75% Whole Wheat Bread is the third loaf I have tried from Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza.

Blueberry Hand Pies

The dough for these blueberry hand pies is sort of a cross between puff pastry and pie crust. It involves using a dough with pea sized chunks of butter along with the folding technique to create layers. The dough is very dry and requires some patience to bring together, but the result is a flaky pastry that is still sturdy enough to support a handheld pie. The pastry crust is sugarless, and could easily be used for savory treats. I'm thinking cheeses, meats, tapenades, tomatoes....

My sister and I used to sometimes describe certain foods as "poppable," or if it is really good, "soooo poppable." What does that mean? I guess the best way to capture it is to say that it is portable and slips into your mouth without any hassle. Oh, and delicious. It has to fit all of the categories to be poppable.

A slice a pie that you have to eat with a fork? It may be delicious, but it is not poppable.

A little mini hand held pie? Poppable. So neat and tasty.

For another great hand held poppable pie, check out these summer berry turnovers.

Blueberry Hand Pie Recipe

Adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

For the Pastry:

8 1/2 ounces unbleached all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

8 ounces of cold unsalted butter, very coarsely grated into pea sized pieces and placed in the freezer for about 30 minutes

4 ounces sour cream

A few sprinkles of water if necessary

For the filling:

8 ounces of blueberries

1 3/4 ounces sugar

1 T Instant Clear Jel, flour, or cornstarch

2 tsp lemon juice

To finish:

One egg, beaten

Sparkling sugar

Directions

1. Whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together. Add in the butter pieces and lightly toss with your hands to coat the butter.
2. Add the sour cream and stir until you have a dry dough. 
3. Place the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead lightly to bring it together. If it does not come together at all, add a couple of sprinkles of water. The dough should be dry.
4. Roll the dough into a 8 by 10 inch rectangle. Fold it like an envelope, in threes. Repeat once. Wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes and up to one day.
5. While the dough is resting, make the filling by placing all of the filling ingredients into a saucepan and cooking over low heat for about five minutes. Cool.
6. Roll the dough out into a 14 inch by 14 inch square. Cut into 16 pieces with a pizza cutter or a 3 1/2 inch square cookie/biscuit cutter. 
7. Place 8 of the pieces onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.
8. Brush the edges with the beaten egg.
9. Spoon the fruit evenly onto each of the eight pieces.
10. Using a small cookie cutter, cut a piece out of each of the remaining dough pieces. If you don't have a tiny cookie cutter, just slit the top crust with a sharp knife. 
11. Place the pieces on top of the filled pastry pieces, and seal with a fork or a pie crust crimper.
12. Place the cutout onto the top (where it used to be before you cut it out) and brush the pies with the rest of the egg wash. Sprinkle with sanding sugar. 
13. Bake for 20 minutes, until golden, and cool for at least 20 minutes. 
14. Enjoy!

I am participating in the Avid Baker's Challenge. We are baking goodies from King Arthur Flour all year. To join or see others' results with this recipe, head on over to the Avid Baker's Challenge webpage. 

Dark Chocolate Soup with Cinnamon-Toasted Pound Cake Crouton

This dark chocolate soup is rich, thick, and so creamy. Think rich dark chocolate, caramel, and a hint of espresso. It is served hot and topped with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream (that gets all melty right away) and cinnamon toasted pound cake croutons.

You can cut the croutons into any shape you prefer, including squares. I thought these tiny stars were pretty cute. You can make them with either homemade or store bought pound cake. I was thinking that angel food cake croutons might be good too.

The original recipe here serves eight. The recipe can be cut down with success, but be careful making the caramel in small quantities because it can easily burn.

Apricot Braided Loaf

This month the #twelveloaves group is baking bread using stone fruit.

You should know, this is the second loaf of bread I made for this post. You don't want to know about the first one. Let's just say, the dough is the blob taking over my trash can. I wish "someone" would take the trash out so I would quit being reminded of the legendary fruit filled loaf debacle. Something about the recipe being for two loaves but not mentioning it.... something about the apricot filling being super runny and flowing all over the dough... something about... well... never mind. I was distracted.

So where did I turn in a pinch? Why King Arthur Flour, of course.

I was a little concerned about this bread for awhile too. It's unusually humid here right now, and the dough was super sticky.. but as you can see, the dough behaved and produced an amazingly delicious loaf. The one thing I might do differently next time? I'd probably add more apricots. I was pretty conservative after my fruit filled loaf debacle (which, mind you, I'm not talking about) but I'm pretty sure more apricot slices would work well here.

Enriched dough.... cream cheese... apricot jam... fresh apricots... breakfast deliciousness.