Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Catch Up: French Fridays: Chicken AND Pumpkin Flans. It's the Two-fer.


In an effort to stay ahead..ah, enough with the excuses. Here are Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux (the Lazy Ones Among Us) and Pumpkin Gorgonzola Flans, both from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. I have to keep this short and sweet in order to catch up.
The chicken? Good roast chicken. Acutally, GREAT roast chicken, the best roasted chicken I've had, maybe ever, but I think that honor is because the chicken was just processed by the folks at Red Dirt Ranch here in NC. The freshest, juiciest, nicest...everything.

Here's the thing with the recipe. I used a dutch oven, but that didn't really give me enough space for the veg to go in...next time, this is going into a roasting pan...But the veg that did get nicely roasted here...that was really good..

The flans? I loved them, but G wouldn't try them...nor would B--she doesn't like gorgonzola. Their loss. These are rich and smooth. The blue cheese is a great touch and the pecans (I prefer to walnuts) are great for texture...I didn't have great ramekins--not the right size, I'd say...I'd love these in my creme brulee dishes--very shallow with a good ratio of nutty cheese topping to pumpkin flan...And they are gorgeous...

Both recipes very simple. I'm having roast chicken (from Red Dirt) again because it tasted that good...
This week is a good one to try the cake AND the potatoes...oooh, in fact, maybe the potatoes will go nicely with the roast chicken tonight...even though there's  no one here to eat dinner with me tonight. Doesn't mean I won't cook!

Side note: I made stock with the chicken bones right in the dutch oven I used to roast the chicken. Best. Stock. Ever..Brown and rich. Now that? That I would do again.
Side SIDE note: So I made the chicken  in a shallow roasting pan? Let's just admit Dorie got it right. It did splatter everywhere. Note to self: Trust the Dorie.

Need to see other results? Check out French Fridays with Dorie.


5 comments:

Beth said...

Brilliant idea for the stock. Both your dishes look great. I too loved them both. Thanks for the post..B

celia said...

Barb, I loved your blog all along, but I really REALLY love it now that you're cooking from Dorie's french cookbook. And I think you're right - a roast is only as good as the bird you begin with!

My Chutney Garden said...

Going to try both of these today Barb.

NoPotCooking said...

Looks absolutely delicious!

Ulrike, Dubai said...

Oh, Barb, these are just so timely. I have just come back from Paris and it was freezing cold and we stuffed our faces with gorgeous stews and pot-cooked dishes. I'll give it a few more weeks and hopefully Dubai's weather will have caught up and we can start eating hearty food here as well!