M. Lucia

I am stuffed just looking at that feast above, the flower buns and meatballs with snow peas look especially good! I am currently cooking a New Orleans inspired stew of light roux, onions, tomatoes, okra, green peppers, and potatoes. Cornbread on the side. I picked up a slice of bourbon cream cake for dessert, but those paczkis I heard about in the radio sounded pretty good. Unfortunately, I won't be able to go to the big Chinese New Year celebration tomorrow but hopefully I'll get to Chinatown on the weekend.

I want to thank everyone for the responses. I may not get to baking again until the weekend and I will let you know how it comes out. However, I did some searching online, and all the recipes I looked at were very similar to the one I used: 1 cup flour, 1 stick butter, 1/4 cup sugar (or double) and baked at 325. The pictures all looked like nice thick crumbly shortbread and didn't mention any spreading. So how come these recipes proliferate and I had such a disaster with mine? I want that thick crumbly (think Walker's) shortbread. Shortbread conspiracy?

^ Ha, ha. Welcome! Today it was a good 'ole New York black and white cookie. I don't normally like these, but it just hit the spot.

http://www.stickytoffeepudding.co.uk/ My version looks more like this: FW Sticky Toffee Pudding or this: Choc. and Zucchini: Sticky Toffee Pudding

I love sticky toffee pudding. I like to make it in individual ramekins. I slice the cakes in half and spoon some sauce into the middle and then top with the remaining sauce. Once you've put the sauce on, return it to the oven so that the sauce soaks into the cake. It looks more like a gewy cake than the separate cake-sauce version you made, Patrick. Turn out the indiviual cakes, letting sauce pool around the bottom, and serve with whipped cream. I will dig up my recipe, but I have also made the version you listed and it is similar. However, I would add that the lesser amount of butter in the cake is fine, I have found the cake is moist because of the dates, and its texture is good for absorbing the syrup. Glad you enjoyed it, beautiful pictures as usual.

Thank you! I will try this.

When the dough cooled it almost leaked butter, so I think the proportions may be off. 2 cups of all purpose flour weighs about 8 1/2 ounces. The dough was lightly chilled when it went into the oven. I agree 300 seems low. I really want to make this work because the dough is so tasty. However, I tasted the thin speciman that resulted and while it still tasted good, it was thin greasy and chewy, not crumbly.

I just had a baking disaster. I was making a recipe from Claudia Fleming: Lemon-Poppyseed Shortbreads. I made the dough as directed, chilled, rolled out and cut into shapes. Everything was great, the dough handled nicely. When they came out of the oven they had spread completely! I had a whole sheet pan of one giant shortbread puddle, with a kind of wrinkly surface! Here are the ingredients: 2 sticks (1/2 lb) butter 3/4 cup powdered sugar 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice, lemon zest pinch salt 2 cups flour 1 1/2 tbl poppy seeds They were baked at 300 degrees for 23-25 mins. I am so disappointed. The dough was really tasty, so what went wrong?

Lovely Susan, I like the flowers and those black placemats. Tonight I had some multigrain crackers topped with fig/ginger spread (a holdiay gift) and feta. A nice salty/sweet/spicy combo. Then it was spinach fettucine with peas and shitakes in a parmesan-butter sauce. Dessert a few of Herme's Chocolate Sparklers.

Seth, isn't the mousse just a revelation? a definite keeper! I made the Chocolate Sparklers today (sorry, no picture capabilities here). This was not a friendly dough to work with. The directions say to stir until the flour is just combined, handling the dough as little as possible. Well, the dough was so dry I thought it wouldn't come together at all. I finally clumped it together to chill, sure I had over-handled it. Then I was worried that it would just crumble apart again when forming the logs, which indeed it did. However, I did manage to form the logs and chilled them. A few of them crumbled when I sliced the dough, but all in all they survived. I was surprised that they baked up nicely and the initial taste test was positive. The crunchy sugar on the sides is nice (I used demerarra). A sophisticated ice box cookie, I think they will go nicely alonside the lemon-poppyseed shortbreads I am making for V-Day. However, I don't think I'd make them again because of my problems with the dough.

^ There's a dish I'd never seen before. Thanks for sharing! Yesterday it was a Veneiro's baba au rhum, picked up after night time ramblings in the mild air.

I am so excited you are blogging! I, too, am trepidatious when it comes to large cuts of meat, so you're not alone. I always love the dishes you make, so I'm looking forward to this.

I was served a chickpea soup/bisque once and I remember it was marvelous. Like a smooth creamy sippable hummus. Yesterday I caramelized a bunch of onions. Then last night after the show, I made buckwheat crepes and filled them with the onions in their sauce with some coach farms goat cheese. Really good.

Gorgeous! I love that everyone is sharing lesser known dishes. I have a friend who loves this dish, along with fateh, but I have never eaten it myself. Thanks for the inspiration!

yesterday it was peanut butter mousse in a chocolate cookie shell and covered in a ganache glaze, like a grown up peanut butter cup, it was soooo good!

Absolutely not, vegetarian meals are something to be celebrated and a good vegetarian meal is better than a paltry meat meal anyday (imo). Though I have eaten tempeh, I have never tried preparing it myself and that sandwich looks yummy.

I love babas too, and you can make them in popover pans of muffin cups. Hmm... perhaps this is my next project...

Pam, I am so glad you discovered tamales, I just have to hold myself back every Christmas. Today it was a sweet cream/oreo concoction from Cold Stone Creamery (who cares if its 10 degrees out)

Richard Donelly's Cardamom Chocolate Bar

I, too, fell in love with the salted caramel macarons. Though I have never tried to make that particular filling. I have made macarons successfully using old egg whites (let sit room temp uncovered 24 hrs) and without the dried whites. As for storage, I know that LaDuree makes the macarons, fills them, and then lets them sit for 2-3 days. I have found that when I make them myslef they are best on the 3rd day, so you can certainly make them that far ahead. However, I wouldn't make the cookies alone ahead of time because I have found that they harden. The exception would be that the cookies alone freeze well and defrost quickly, but I have never tried filling the defrosted cookies and I am not sure how the texture would be.

Happy to see a few vegetarian meals up there. I always prefer my scallops seared, but that picture may have inspired me to change things up. Tonight: Spinach curry (onion, tomato, spinach, curry powder, cumin, etc.) channa dal (the yellow one) handkerchief bread (like really thin lavash) and the last of Herme's chocolate mousse

It's funny because I used the same chocolate (Scharffen Berger bittersweet) when I made the deep chocolate cream and the chocolate taste was too strong for me. So I was worried that would happen again in the mousse but it didn't at all. Anyway, I'll just eat and enjoy. And I have no idea about those hazelnut cookies but my guess would be something going wrong in the initial sugar mixture not reaching the proper temp.

I usually make iced sugar cookies, similar to those gorgeous specimans above. This year I'll be making some heart-shaped lemon-poppyseed shortbreads. (I'm not big on chocolate myself, though I'm sure I will consume some)

Lovely savarin, Seth. And a beautiful Tarte Grenobloise. Well, I made the chocolate mousse last night and had it today. I have to admit I wasn't expecting to like it all that much simply because I am not a huge fan of plain chocolate or choc. mousse. All I can say is: Oh my G-d, it is so good! I kept wondering, how can such simple ingredients come together to make something so great. I loved how light it was.

In my area they sell jugs called "Just Whites." They are good quality but because of the pasteurization they don't really whip (which is what most pasteurized egg products say in tiny print on their labels).