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Summer is here in its fruitful abundance and I am thouroughly taking advantage of stone fruit season right now. Plums have been my drug of choice lately, but when I got a King Arthur Flour email with a new recipe for cherry clafouti...well, let's just say there was no arm twisting involved. I first learned of clafoutis from Tartelette, but my favorite recipe comes from the Joy of Baking. Part of the allure of this dish is how delightfully simple it is, just ripe cherries baked in an a firm, eggy custard. Of course, leave it to me to make it complicated.

I made several alterations to the KAF recipe. The biggest one, in my opinion, is that I do not pit the cherries. I actually have a cherry pitter and kind of enjoy the task, but even better I delight in the almondy essense that comes out during baking. It makes eating slightly complicated, but not more than eating bone-in fish.

I wanted to make three slight variations, so I doubled the amount of cherries and made 1.5 of the recipe. It came out like this:

 

Ingredients

6 small-medium eggs (farm fresh, and thus smaller than grocery store eggs)

1.5 cups lukewarm milk

3 T unsalted melted butter

1.5 t vanilla extract

1/2 t almond extract

1 1/4 t salt

1 cup sugar (oops, this should have been 3/4 cup)

3/4 cup almond flour

1/2 cup KAF all-purpose flour

 

For chocolate variation:

1 T dutch process cocoa 

1/4 c milk chocolate chips

 

Variation One

Follow KAF instructions, except as noted above (cherry pits, almond flour mixed in)

 

Variation Two

Same as above, but I carmelized the cherries ahead of time. To do this, melt one tablespoon butter in a skillet or large saucepan and toss cherries in over low-medium heat. Stir frequently as the juices come out of the cherries. When carmelized, pour into bottom of baking pan.

 

Variation Three

What goes really, really well with cherries? Chocolate! It seems like kind of a bastardization, but I decided to venture out. I added 1 T cocoa powder to the last 1/3 of batter, and then poured it over the cherries. I also sprinkled a handful of milk chocolate chips over the whole thing so there would be little globs of chocolate in the mix.

 

The batter looks like something unfit for polite society, so instead I'll show you the clip I attached to the bag of chocolate chips. This little guy and a set of his friends came in a recent care package from my sister.

 

The Verdict? TBC....after breakfast!

 

PUBLISH OR PERISH: I have to applaud Sarah at Chef In The Sticks who has held down PoP summer while Cathy and I flagged a little. She's got a write-up on Asheville this week that I am looking forwards to reading (I wonder if she visited the cheesecake place that uses real cheeses like cheddar in their pies...eating there was a disturbing moment in my life). Cathy told me she was working on something this afternoon, but so far nothing new at CiaoCatherine. I'm already 30 minutes into Tuesday, so we'll see if she has a rabbit in her hat at some point. EDIT: Cathy pointed me to her review of Jimmy Gnecco's The Heart published on VenusZine. Pssh, like being published on a real media outlet is any excuse for missing PoP!

What's In The Fridge:

• cream
• milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 sweet onion ("strawberry onion")
• nutmeg

Supplies from the Outside World:

• pie crust
• bag of frozen spinach
• 1/2 lb of baby bella mushrooms, sliced
• very sharp white cheddar (cabot)

 

Quich is such an easy food. Pie crust + filling + custard. Stick in the oven until it bubbles and looks amazing. I've made many quiches, but I generally search until I find a recipe that matches the ingredients I wish to use. In my kitchen sink cooking I've been trying to go a little bit more freestyle, so I went looking for the best way to design my own quiche. I found the perfect inspiration at NPR where chef Michael Ruhlman talks about throwing away the recipe and learning the ratio. It's very thrilling to cook by intuition, and the results were superb. I had Leo, Heather, Erik and Catherine over the day after and we greedily ate the whole thing far faster than we should have. I've got a second pie crust with no purpose in life, and I'll likely use up some more spare eggs by making this again. I almost always use bacon in quiche, but I skipped it for economies sakes, and I barely even missed it.

This post is part of PUBLISH OR PERISH. Amazingly, it's on time. Cathy said she'd set a timer on her post, but I only see the one from yesterday. Sarah doesn't seem to have hers up yet, but I'm not going to give her a hard time because I forgot to say happy birthday over the weekend. My only excuse is that Marina had me pinned down watching Supermarket Sweep episodes on YouTube, and I was too traumatized to be useful after that.

I missed PUBLISH OR PERISH, but Cathy has been good about harassing me, and Sarah (virtuous as ever) actually posted on time.  However, instead of cooking anything on Monday I undertook another task. A task so herculean that it precluded eating anything. I cleaned out the fridge. It had been a year and things had started creeping into the crevices. Once I'd finished tossing out the rotting produce, assessed the condiments and bleached everything I got inspired to make meals out of what remained in my shiny new fridge. I picked through a bag of spinach and sorted out the leaves that had gotten slimy and gross smelling. Half went in a bowl, and the rest went in a green bag with some paper towel to keep it fresh. I always have a love/hate relationship with salad recipes; I'm interested in new, tasy combinations, but ultimately if you overplan a salad you'll end up with too many spare ingredients. I like the basic combination of: (1) a type of green, (2) a cheese, (3) crispy things and (4) sweet, fruity things. Classic topping for this is a truly good balsamic vinegar and olive oil, plus a dash of salt and pepper. Tune in later for more Kitchen Sink recipes...

Summer is here in its fruitful abundance and I am thouroughly taking advantage of stone fruit season right now. Plums have been my drug of choice lately, but when I got a King Arthur Flour email with a new recipe for cherry clafouti...well, let's just say there was no arm twisting involved. I first learned of clafoutis from Tartelette, but my favorite recipe comes from the Joy of Baking. Part of the allure of this dish is how delightfully simple it is, just ripe cherries baked in an a firm, eggy custard. Of course, leave it to me to make it complicated.

I made several alterations to the KAF recipe. The biggest one, in my opinion, is that I do not pit the cherries. I actually have a cherry pitter and kind of enjoy the task, but even better I delight in the almondy essense that comes out during baking. It makes eating slightly complicated, but not more than eating bone-in fish.

I wanted to make three slight variations, so I doubled the amount of cherries and made 1.5 of the recipe. It came out like this:

 

Ingredients

6 small-medium eggs (farm fresh, and thus smaller than grocery store eggs)

1.5 cups lukewarm milk

3 T unsalted melted butter

1.5 t vanilla extract

1/2 t almond extract

1 1/4 t salt

1 cup sugar (oops, this should have been 3/4 cup)

3/4 cup almond flour

1/2 cup KAF all-purpose flour

 

For chocolate variation:

1 T dutch process cocoa 

1/4 c milk chocolate chips

 

Variation One

Follow KAF instructions, except as noted above (cherry pits, almond flour mixed in)

 

Variation Two

Same as above, but I carmelized the cherries ahead of time. To do this, melt one tablespoon butter in a skillet or large saucepan and toss cherries in over low-medium heat. Stir frequently as the juices come out of the cherries. When carmelized, pour into bottom of baking pan.

 

Variation Three

What goes really, really well with cherries? Chocolate! It seems like kind of a bastardization, but I decided to venture out. I added 1 T cocoa powder to the last 1/3 of batter, and then poured it over the cherries. I also sprinkled a handful of milk chocolate chips over the whole thing so there would be little globs of chocolate in the mix.

 

The batter looks like something unfit for polite society, so instead I'll show you the clip I attached to the bag of chocolate chips. This little guy and a set of his friends came in a recent care package from my sister.

 

The Verdict? TBC....after breakfast!

 

PUBLISH OR PERISH: I have to applaud Sarah at Chef In The Sticks who has held down PoP summer while Cathy and I flagged a little. She's got a write-up on Asheville this week that I am looking forwards to reading (I wonder if she visited the cheesecake place that uses real cheeses like cheddar in their pies...eating there was a disturbing moment in my life). Cathy told me she was working on something this afternoon, but so far nothing new at CiaoCatherine. I'm already 30 minutes into Tuesday, so we'll see if she has a rabbit in her hat at some point. EDIT: Cathy pointed me to her review of Jimmy Gnecco's The Heart published on VenusZine. Pssh, like being published on a real media outlet is any excuse for missing PoP!

What's In The Fridge:

• cream
• milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 sweet onion ("strawberry onion")
• nutmeg

Supplies from the Outside World:

• pie crust
• bag of frozen spinach
• 1/2 lb of baby bella mushrooms, sliced
• very sharp white cheddar (cabot)

 

Quich is such an easy food. Pie crust + filling + custard. Stick in the oven until it bubbles and looks amazing. I've made many quiches, but I generally search until I find a recipe that matches the ingredients I wish to use. In my kitchen sink cooking I've been trying to go a little bit more freestyle, so I went looking for the best way to design my own quiche. I found the perfect inspiration at NPR where chef Michael Ruhlman talks about throwing away the recipe and learning the ratio. It's very thrilling to cook by intuition, and the results were superb. I had Leo, Heather, Erik and Catherine over the day after and we greedily ate the whole thing far faster than we should have. I've got a second pie crust with no purpose in life, and I'll likely use up some more spare eggs by making this again. I almost always use bacon in quiche, but I skipped it for economies sakes, and I barely even missed it.

This post is part of PUBLISH OR PERISH. Amazingly, it's on time. Cathy said she'd set a timer on her post, but I only see the one from yesterday. Sarah doesn't seem to have hers up yet, but I'm not going to give her a hard time because I forgot to say happy birthday over the weekend. My only excuse is that Marina had me pinned down watching Supermarket Sweep episodes on YouTube, and I was too traumatized to be useful after that.

I missed PUBLISH OR PERISH, but Cathy has been good about harassing me, and Sarah (virtuous as ever) actually posted on time.  However, instead of cooking anything on Monday I undertook another task. A task so herculean that it precluded eating anything. I cleaned out the fridge. It had been a year and things had started creeping into the crevices. Once I'd finished tossing out the rotting produce, assessed the condiments and bleached everything I got inspired to make meals out of what remained in my shiny new fridge. I picked through a bag of spinach and sorted out the leaves that had gotten slimy and gross smelling. Half went in a bowl, and the rest went in a green bag with some paper towel to keep it fresh. I always have a love/hate relationship with salad recipes; I'm interested in new, tasy combinations, but ultimately if you overplan a salad you'll end up with too many spare ingredients. I like the basic combination of: (1) a type of green, (2) a cheese, (3) crispy things and (4) sweet, fruity things. Classic topping for this is a truly good balsamic vinegar and olive oil, plus a dash of salt and pepper. Tune in later for more Kitchen Sink recipes...