deensiebat

I feel like people play fast and loose with the terms, but pudding (budino being the Italian version thereof) is stovetop, custards (like pot de creme) are in the oven. Puddings can use either flour/cornstarch or that plus egg yolks to thicken, whereas custards use just eggs because the starches would settle out before it sets in the oven.

I made Mozza's butterscotch budino with caramel sauce, flaky salt and whipped cream. It is insanely good.

Totally. Olives, dairy-free, citrus. I may as well be salad. @keychris Beautiful cake! That would totally make my birthday.

Totally in love with David Leite's Portuguese sweet lemon and olive cookies. Salty-sweet-briny-punchy -- perfect way to wean off the sugary/buttery holiday sweets.

I made this challah, with chunks of bittersweet chocolate and a whole lot of flaky salt. And compared to pan au chocolate or brioche, we can pretend it's healthy. It was amazing melty-warm from the oven, but leftovers made an equally good breakfast.

Oooh those tarts look good. I made a brown butter cake with pears and chocolate, topped with whipped cream. Oh so perfect for the season.

After rediscovering how delicious s'mores can be earlier in the summer, I made the s'more pie from Gourmet. Amazing. The bitterness from broiling the marshmallow nicely offsets the sweetness, and the graham crust and chocolate ganache (or whatever you call a ganache set with an egg) were both tender and delicious.

Made a salad from Bon Appetit of fresh ricotta, grilled kale, and plums. Sprung for the good ricotta, and it was amazing.

Salmon with a sauce of blackberries, creme fraiche, tarragon, wine and lemon zest. Really simple yet crazy good.

Everything looks so good — that seafood! That soup! I made a riff on an Ottolenghi recipe — salad with beets, rhubarb and blue cheese. Great combination. I was going to have it as a first course, but ended up pairing it with a crusty baguette and making it dinner.

Asparagus pizza! Mozzarella, shaved asparagus tossed with olive oil and salt, hazelnuts, and fresh mint after the oven.

Yep. Regular tan sesame seeds would probably be delicious as well, but not as much fun visually. Though my friend did keep joking that "a mouse pooped ALL OVER these cookies!" Or maybe I'm the only one who thinks that's funny...

Chocolate chip cookie rolled in sesame seeds. Fairly standard dough, with just a bit of soy sauce and ginger thrown in.

Trying to come up with Passover desserts, and tried a parsley semifreddo with Manischewitz syrup. Shows promise (though the horseradish was a big mistake).

Lordy Pilori that's a lovely meal. I turned the last of my meyer lemons (hand-picked from my friend's Berkeley backyard) into a meyer lemon focaccia: I used the same template (along with the rosemary) for a concord grape focaccia in the fall. I find the whole salty-sweet interplay pretty addictive.

Ooh I want that brownie sundae. I took inspiration from a recipe on Food52, and riffed some of my standard cake/frosting recipes to make chocolate Thai curry cupcakes for a friend's birthday. Really delicious.

I brought a 'cream' pie to some vegan friends' house - cocoa/almond meal crust, peanut butter/coconut cream layer, then a chocolate/faux cream mousse layer. Topped with salty-sweet candied peanuts.

I realized I never responded to everyone's excellent feedback. Mostly because I freaked out at the last minute at the thought of spending $200+ for dinner, and instead ended up at a more mid-level place, Yandiola in Bilbao. Which still cost about $100, and was just sort of meh. The Sunday lunches at my friends' parents' farms were far better. Lesson learned: go big, or stay home. Ah well. I'll just have to man up on my next trip... And though we didn't dine at Etxebarri, we did stop for a glass of txakoli at the bar after a hike, and they kindly let us peek in their kitchen. Flamey!

Kim, so glad those rice krispies worked out for you! I'll never make them any other way again. And ooh that mousse cake...

A Sephardic-inspired fish with olives, saffron, lemon, and tomato, served over couscous. Warm roasted carrot/chard salad on the side.

Invited to a vegan's house for dinner and asked to bring dessert. Came up with this chocolate peanut butter cream pie. Lightly baked pressed almond meal/cocoa crust, peanut butter + coconut cream layer, chocolate whipped w/faux cream layer, and slightly salty candied peanuts. I think the candied peanuts make it -- they just take a few minutes, but add a nice bit of crunch and make the whole thing seem a bit fancier.

Had a bright and snappy kumquat-pink peppercorn spritzer. Good on its own, better with a shot of gin.

Put up my first batch of a 44 cordial. Went with the basics -- just rum, orange, sugar and coffee beans. And now the waiting....

Miso-creamed kale. Perhaps not the healthiest kale dish out there, but arguably one of the most delicious.

Swedish saffranspannkaka, an oven-baked Swedish pancake. More like a rice pudding enriched with ground almonds (and a whole lot of eggs and cream), topped with whipped cream and blueberry jam.