Chili-Grilled Eggplant and Sweet Roasted Pepper Tartlets in Poppy Seed Shells

July 22, 2010 by Monica in Appletizers & Snacks, Baking, Cookbooks, Entertaining, Savory, Tarts, Vegetable

Tom and I love to have dinner parties. Mainly because Tom knows that I like to cook up a storm and then sit back and accept all the praises that our guest will send my our way.

I’m crazy and he loves me – what can I say.

On the last dinner party, we had his best friend and his wife over. We had them numerous times before and they are the type of dinner guest that will pretty much eat anything we put in front of them.

I call it having an adventurous palate.

I love cooking for them.

And the best part? The best friend wife is a vegetarian who lately is venturing into the raw food movement. Which means that she forces me to be an adventurous cook - the best kind if you ask me.

Onion, Fennel, and Orange Upside-Down Shortcake

June 23, 2010 by Monica in Baking, Breakfast, Cookbooks, Main Courses, Savory, Tarts

A while ago during one of my monthly visits to the bookstore to browse the cookbooks that I was told not to buy, I came across Savory Baking. This 168 page book from one of America’s top pastry chefs, Mary Cech is filled with recipes that focus entirely on savory baking.

The book has a clean, crisp layout and while you do need to have some knowledge of “baking/Cooking” Cech takes the time to explain how to bake successfully and her writing is easy and friendly giving you the necessary push to try her recipes even if they seem a bit complicated.

What really made me buy this book was the unique way she pairs the usual baking recipes like eclairs, tarts even shortbread with the savory ingredients. Enticing a baker/cook like me to dive in and try them out. And let me tell you I have already done 3 of the 75 mouth-watering recipes and so far, all of them have been a major hit around these parts.

One of the ones that truly blew everyone away was the Onion, Fennel and Orange Upside-Down Shortcake. This shortcake topped with caramelized onions, roasted red peppers cooked in an amazing reduction of dry sherry and balsamic vinegar is a delight. And the shortcake infused with orange zest is a combination that may sound a bit odd at first – until you take the first bite and realized that being daring and bold in the kitchen is what cooking is all about.

TWD: Toasted-Coconut Custard Tart

March 02, 2010 by Monica in Baking, Baking Club, Desserts, TWD, Tarts

I have joined another baking group. Because my life apparently is NOT complete, unless I'm baking (and cooking) 24/7.

This time is from Dorie Greenspan book, "Baking from my home to yours". I had this book for a while in my cookbook library and have not even realized it was there! This pretty much tells you how big my cookbook library is. So while I was cleaning up some the other day, I came across it and figure, there must be someone cooking from this book.

And sure enough, I found Tuesday with Dorie, a group of 200+ members baking their way thru the latest book.

This weeks choice came from Beryl of Cinemon Girl with the Toasted-Coconut Custard Tart. (page 344-345)

I been baking this tart since Saturday, I finished it today. Can you tell I'm busy?

First up was baking the Pâte Sablée (Sweet Tart Doug) and let me tell you I was afraid of this, I love to bake cakes, but tarts, pies and anything that has to do with dough just scares me, I never been good at, thus I have avoided them like the plague. But, joining a baking club was to try new things and I was not going to back down, so I forged ahead.

The ingredients are pretty straight forward:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon of very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk, broken up with a fork
1 tablespoon lemon zest

In a food processor pulse the flour, sugar, salt and zest to break it up. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in. Stir in the yolk a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses - about 10 seconds each - until the dough forms clumps and curds. Stop, turn the dough into a work surface and knead it just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escape mixing.

Butter a 9-inch fluted pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. A great tip that Dorie gives you is to save a bit of dough in order to utilized as a "patch-up" if the tart if broken during the cooking period which I think is very clever. After you covered the baking pan, the tart goes into the freezer for about 30 minutes (or longer). This freezing helps you with the baking: (no need to weight down the tart in the oven, because you froze the dough ahead of time).

I actually baked mine on Sunday. Took it out of the freezer, covered with foil (shinny side down) and into the oven it went at 375 degrees F for about 30 minutes. It came out nice and golden. I place it in a cooling rack and after an hour, I wrapped it and place in the refrigerator. I then did a happy dance around the kitchen, my first tart and it went without any incidents!

After all that partying, I needed a break, so I decided to finish the custard and topping on Monday night.

And here we are on Tuesday and today I completed the tart. Unlike Beryl, I did not replace the whole milk that the recipe called for (she used 1% milk) I also used Cacique Rum (Venezuela run) and used a bit of lime zest when cooking the custard (about 1 tablespoon) everything else is the same. You can find the recipe for the custard and the whipped cream topping in her blog.