Dulce de Leche

Today my daughter came to me at lunch and said she wanted to make something. Something liiiiiike...fried chicken.

Um. No? When I eat fried chicken, you can be pretty damn sure it's not from my kitchen. All I can think of is the mess. Plus why should I make fried chicken when I can eat it at Price's Chicken Coop here in Charlotte, the best fried chicken I ever had?

So she started listing other possibilities and she got to dulce de leche--milk caramel--which is so popular in Latin America AND in South Florida...We've had it spread on things, in things. We've eaten alfajores (say alfa-hore-ace), buttery cookies sandwiching dulce de leche and sometimes dipped in chocolate... Bingo. Both of us had seen Alton Brown make it, so we got to work, and it couldn't have been easier:

4 cups Lakeview Farms whole milk (the stuff that comes to my door in glass bottles)..(okay, you can use milk local to YOUR area)
12 ounces (about 1 1/2 cups) sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise.

That's it. Get to simmer, add sugar, stir til dissolved, add baking soda, stir more. Here's what it looks like at first. None too pretty:

Take bean out after about 45 min., and continue to reduce

until you have about 1 cup of golden, thick homemade dulce de leche. (Click on link for Alton's detailed instructions.)

Eat with spoon.

French Fridays with Dorie: Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup.

And so it begins. I think (I hope) I can do better with French Fridays than I did with Tuesdays with Dorie--baking was always a bigger challenge, but this? This is dinner.

The minute I read the recipe, I knew I that it would be a hit. It has all the flavors I love: coconut, curry(an option I took), shredded chicken and rice noodles. Total comfort.

It. Was. So. Easy. Add spices, garlic, onion--and all the except (almost except) the chicken. When that comes to a boil, reduce to simmer, poach chicken. When it's done, take chicken out, shred it, add it back in, stir in cilantro, serve with bean sprouts, basil, mint...We finished it all.

This is going into rotation. Permanently.

I have to give a shout out to Viva Paper Towels: when no chic little muslin bag was available for my spices, I wrapped them up in a square of Viva. Stayed whole.

Today I MAY play catch up and make the mustard tart with leeks and carrots... because it looks FABULOUS.

Go to French Fridays with Dorie to check out links to other bloggers' results...and Buy The Book!

Minneapolis in Food By Way of Food Photos

I spent a fabulous weekend with my mom and my sister in Minneapolis. My mom graduated from high school there in '53, and Pat and I accompanied her back for a trip as a way to celebrate the 75th birthday she had this year.

Of course, I was responsible for food planning. With the able (VERY able) help of my online (and now offline!!) friend, Amy Rea, we hit some great spots.

We were hungry when we got in, so we had our first bowl of wild rice and turkey soup at Keys Cafe. Cool, retro spot in Foshay Tower. It may look thick--too thick?--but it was incredible.

Walking on the street later that day, I came upon a nice farmers' market where they were also selling bouquets of flowers mixed with kale roses...cool in a foodie kind of way.

That evening we strolled to Joe's Garage for a restaurant week dinner: $15 for three courses. My first course was this oyster slider. Pretty much perfect. (I also had beef short ribs with mashed potatoes. Also incredible...just not so pretty in a picture.)

I liked this view of the basilica from the rooftop at Joe's:

Friday morning, after a nice breakfast at the Westin (oh, yum, the poached eggs with salsa...very nice)

 and some touring, we headed to St. Paul and the St. Paul Grill at the St. Paul Hotel.

Pat had one of the best burgers I can imagine, the Kobe burger with cheddar and bacon (it was the daily special burger). Oh, and did I mention? Hand cut fries, the only fries worth indulging in EVER. (Really. Is it so hard to make real fries? What is up with frozen fries, people?)

 I had one of the grill's signature dishes, chicken pot pie. Comfort food at its finest...

The next morning started with a visit to the fabulous Mill City Farmers' Market down by the Guthrie. We saw beautiful tomatoes...

Lovely sunflowers...

Colorful carrots...

We ate Indian Spiced donuts from the Chef Shack....

The sunshine made the carrots glow...

A few hours later we headed to lunch at Sea Change, where we had one of the best meals I've enjoyed in a LONG time. Everything was spot on...
Mom had the crab cake....

Pat had the shrimp and grits with a poached egg...

Amy and I both chose the Jidori egg coddled with (in?) truffle cream and served with toasted brioche so we could get every drop of that rich cream. My mouth waters just recalling how good this was...

 
We shared this yuzu tart for dessert...but it came with sweet graham thins, the tart, a goat cheese cheese cake garnished with a lime curd chip (cool) AND incredible cherry jam/compote/jam...Please, Sea Change, may I have some more??? Oh, and see the green dust on the side of the plate. Lime zest. I WILL figure out how they did that...

Mom chose the ginger ice cream sandwich that came with a gorgeous (looks AND taste) glass of prickly pear soda....

Two drinks stand out for me...

The serrano margarita at the bar at BANK, the restaurant at the downtown Westin. This is one well-made drink...packs a punch with heat and flavor. I really wanted a second and I would head to BANK just to have that drink again...

And the cardamom and rosewater mojito I had at Spoonriver with my Sunday brunch...(I could have used more cardamom flavor, but it was tasty...)

Of course we did other things in Minneapolis...great city, great people and, for this weekend in October, great weather...We visited my mom's alma mater, Academy of Holy Angels, we saw St. Paul and the Minnesota History Center (the 150 Great Things About Minnesota is excellent), we had a coffee on Grand Avenue, we saw Minnehaha Falls, we drove along the Mississippi, we saw a Louise Erdrich Play, Master Butcher's Singing Club, at the Guthrie, we rode the light rail, we walked along the Mississippi and over the Stone Arch Bridge, we saw some of the Mill City Museum, we marveled at the mill ruins in Mill Ruins Park, my mom even got to mass at the same church (new church, rebuilt post fire) she used to attend at times, St. Olaf's.

It was a great weekend and a great way to celebrate my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom! Pat, thanks for all the planning.

Stop and Eat Here

Last week, I was backing up my photos, because I love each one of them...okay, not true, but I am not discriminating enough..Anyway, I decided to try one thing..hit delete, and even though it warned me, I said, "Oh, yeah, sure. I know what I am doing....CLICK!"

And then they were gone. You know that sinking feeling you get? Yeah, that one. I  had it. I tried to be cool. But then I gave up cool and went and bought recovery software, ran it...and recovered 70,000 jpeg files.

Seventy. Thousand.

And proceeded to spend the next 20 gazillion days looking at each file. Well, until I realized that I only wanted to recover the large files or I'd be left with such low resolution that it wouldn't matter if I recovered it or not...
Long story short, I saw not only photos I'd lost, but photos I'd forgotten about. Like this one from Rosas Farms. (THE place in Central Florida for grass-fed beef--and more. Just check out the website.)

I love this sign because it just sums up the open door policy I would like to live by every day.

So stop and eat here!

The Garlic Bread Throwdown or The Best Garlic Bread You've Ever Eaten

Whoa. If you want to get a few comments on your facebook posting, claim to be the one to make the best garlic bread ever.

So I did. Make that claim, I mean. I wrote it just after a very simple dinner of pasta and garlic bread. As I enjoyed the slice of garlic bread, I thought to myself, "I make the best garlic bread ever." Then my daughter piped up: "Your garlic bread is the best I've ever tasted." Mr. BabetteFeasts agreed.

So what else would I do but brag on facebook? That brag resulted in requests for the recipe, one challenge (you are on, Jeanne) and one description of another friend's method.

But I have the secret, and I will share it. Make a paste of the garlic and some coarse Kosher salt, then warm butter with that garlic/salt paste in it--let it sit (steeping, I suppose) while you prep anything else (get the bread out, put the pasta in the water, clean up a mess). I think this step takes some of the sharpness from raw garlic out of the equation and it makes ALL the butter flavored with garlic. Then brush that melted garlic butter onto GOOD bread (I got La Brea baguettes warm from the market ovens yesterday). Sprinkle with chopped flat-leaf parsley and some freshly ground black pepper--again, just a bare grinding or two. Wrap in foil, warm in oven. Eat.

Here are my proportions--very garlicky, but...um...it's called garlic bread, helllOOOoooo? Vary proportions as you like. Use good butter, too. I used some fresh from a local dairy during the week, some KerryGold from Ireland for this blog post so I'd have a photo.

Babette's Best Garlic Bread
For 1 12.5 ounce baguette
2 garlic cloves
1/8 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 1/2 to 2 ounces butter, depending on how decadent you are feeling
1 (roughly) 12-ounce baguette
1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf parsley
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat oven to 375ºF. Mince garlic then sprinkle with salt. Use a fork to mash garlic and salt to a paste. Place into microwave-safe bowl and add butter. Heat until just melted, stir, then heat another 20 seconds or so. Stir then let sit at least 3 or 4 minutes.
2. Slice baguette in half lengthwise. Generously brush each cut side  with butter, making sure you "scoop" up chopped garlic each time you dip brush into butter. Sprinkle with parsley and a few grindings of black pepper.
3. Wrap loosely in foil (if it's too tight, the crust doesn't brown as nicely--leave top almost open--the real purpose of the foil here is to keep butter from dripping out in the oven) and heat in oven until hot and crust is nice and crunchy--roughly 8 minutes. Cut into pieces and enjoy.

Then tell me it's the best garlic bread you've ever eaten.

Note: If you are using unsalted butter, you may want to add another pinch of salt to buttered halves before you put the baguette into the oven. Salt according to taste at that point.

End of Summer Tomatoes: The Lunch Edition

I start making lunch:

I finish making lunch:

Any questions?

Peach Passion Play

 It was late in the day when I finally made it to the local farmers' market a few weeks back. The peaches were practically perfect in every way (sorry--just saw the Broadway production of Mary Poppins, which was practically perfect in every way)--I'd already chosen one 3 or 4 lb. bag from one vendor. Then I was almost walking out when I thought: Hey. Let's get another little basket of peaches.

Well, how could I spend a little bit of money on a couple of pounds of peaches when the CASE was only $10. That's right. 23 pounds of peaches for ten bucks. I'm in.

I pulled the DMB (that's death mobile--the van I drive. Don't ask.) around, the farmer loaded the peaches up into the van, and I had to think fast...how was I going to work my way through that many peaches?

This is how:

There was the spur of the moment peach pie when a friend (Hi, Michelle Marie!) came for dinner.

There was the peach/vanilla/rum jam that the lovely Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial coached me through (pectin is...odd. Oh, and not so very easy to find. I'll try Celia's homemade pectin next time). Can we all just agree this jam is a little bit of heaven? It was supposed to be peach vanilla BOURBON jam (no problem with that), but rum was all we had...um...poor us? Nope. Lucky us because rum reeeaaaaallly goes well with peaches and vanilla.

There was peach ice cream AND there was ginger peach sorbet (oh, yum)

There was peach cobbler (meh. I shoulda made peach crisp--who doesn't love the crisp part of a
crisp???)

And of course there were as many juicy, ripe, lovely peaches throughout each day until they were all gone.

Believe it or not, I'm heading out again tomorrow, hoping I find another case. Oh, and all the tomatoes I can fit into the car.

And aren't peaches just the prettiest things to capture in photos? I think so.