Quick Post: Just Desserts

My culinary experimentation and exploration is primarily of the savory variety. I do make profiteroles with chocolate sauce. I do make a citrus pound cake with lemon sauce. And I do make banana bread. But overall, I'm not really much of a baker, which for some reason says to me that I'm not much of a dessert maker. But recently when I just got my KitchenAid stand mixer, I made a chocolate chip cookie batter (much of which was eaten raw), so perhaps that will change.

Probably due to that mini-success, a lot of dessert recipes have been catching my eye. Some require baking, others require freezing, and even some require grilling. Some are better in the winter, while other should probably only be made in the summer. Either way, they all sound tasty.

Jamie Oliver's Lemon, Lime, and Peppermint Sorbet: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/lemon-lime-and-peppermint-sorbet

Lemonade Cookies: http://foodblogga.blogspot.com/2009/09/lemonade-cookies-monsoon-monocookie.html

Grilled Fruit with Lemon Zabaglione: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Grilled-Fruit-with-Lemon-Zabaglione-352991

Hmm....seeing a common theme? I'm a sucker for citrus.

And since it's Peach time in Texas, I've been thinking of making a peach and cherry rustic tart. Sadly (my former baking instructor's heart is breaking as I type this), the likelihood of my making my own dough is...well...none. I still have a pie shell in the freezer (how long do those things last in there? hmm). I'm thinking about just rolling that out and using it. I'll be sure to keep you informed if I attempt ths recipe.

Lastly, I would like to publicly commend my BF on his outstanding custard. The other day I went over to his apartment, and couldn't identify what he was cooking on the stove. He wouldn't tell me. (He joked it was just something he found on his stove and thought he'd see what it tastes like.) When he was done stirring, he poured into three mugs, scraped some nutmeg on top, and put the three mugs in the fridge. After dinner, he handed me one with a spoon - it was fabulous custard. It was absolutely delicious. He is now planning on getting a creme brulee torch. I support that decision.

My Valentine's Party

I'm still eating leftovers from my Valentine's Night Party.

This year, since Valentine's fell on a Saturday (and since a few of my friends were bummed they didn't have dates for the evening), I figured I'd have some of my single girlfriends over and we'd just have a good time on our own. Truth be told, even when I'm in a relationship with someone, this holiday doesn't excite me so much. It just seems a bit silly, but I'll take any excuse to cook for some willing guinea pigs, so I invited them over.



I did what I do when I have people over for food....I made WAY too much. I had two kinds of dip (a salmon dill dip and a spicy spinach dip), two baguettes and four kinds of veggies to do the dipping (snap peas, broccoli, celery, and carrots), spicy cheese straws, lemon cake with blackberry sauce, and strawberries dipped in chocolate. (I think I'm forgetting something too.)



The salmon dip didn't go over so well, but I think that was for two distinct reasons. The first is that I didn't really tell anyone what it was b/c I was so busy welcoming people into the house that I never really went oer what I had laid out for them. The second, I believe, is because even if they had known, the concept of lox isn't one that is too familiar (or appealing) to them. I love lox. Every time I go home to Brooklyn, I MUST have a toasted pumpernickle bagel with tofu scallion spread (oddly creamier than cream cheese, go figure) and lox. Lots of it. Pile it on. In fact, while making my dip, I took out a piece of lox, put it in the cuisinart. The next piece of lox went in my mouth. And so on. There was a point there where I was concerned there might not be enough lox in the actual dip. But as it turned out, I got all of the leftovers, and man they were good!



The spinach dip was a raving success. But the problem is, I can't recreate it. For me, so much of cooking is experimentation. But I was never much of a scientist....I don't keep track of my amounts. I now cannot properly recreate the spinach dip! I made it again for a work potluck this week, but it just didn't have the personality that it did the first time I made it. Part of that might have been that I only had cooked garlic in there when the original had both cooked and raw garlic. As I told some people at work, it didn't matter if the Valentine's night dip was super pungent b/c we were all going home alone to our cats. :-) But the dip also had red pepper flakes....maybe I didn't put enough of them for the redo? Either way, I've realized that my first estimations were a bit off, so this will take a bit of tweaking, but when I rediscover the magic that was the spinach dip, it will be called "Single Girl Spinach Dip."