FoodMan

Speaking of biscuits, I made the Sour Cream Pecan Biscuits for breakfast a couple of days ago. You'll notice we are not big milk and cereal people in my household, so breakfast breads are a favorite of ours. Dorie thankfully seems to share that passion and has quiet a selection of lovely breakfast treats. These biscuits to say it bluntly are phenomenal! They are absolutly amazing with a fluffy interior, a slightly crusty exterior and the best pecan flavor throughout. I had the last of them last night, that's about 2 days after baking. After a quick trip in the toaster it was still delicious on its own. Peach and pecans are a match made in heaven so it was natural to serve these with good butter and some homemade peach preserves. random thought about biscuits: I always make my biscuits using all butter and sometimes lard. Dorie also likes butter in the biscuits as well. Shortening, IMHO, makes for a nice fluffy biscuit, but it's flavor to me is just bordering on nasty/bland/dead and I can taste it in my mouth long after the biscuit is consumed. I've pretty much phased out using shortning in any form of cooking, I only use it currently to sometimes season my cast iron skillets.

I second that! both dishes are wonderful. Also Pontormo's polpette with zucchini sound great. I so am sorry that I did not get to half the dishes I wanted to get to in Campania this month. A new baby and a three year old are way more work than you would imagine unless you live with them yourself . The Timballo is still on though, that's the least I could do, for Saturday or Sunday. I am also hoping for a couple more dishes before the end of the month.

Sounds like a definite must try experience. Thank you so much for sharing. I cannot wait to give it a try next time we're up there.

Man, I've printed this calzone recipe a couple of years ago if not more and never tried it. Thanks for the reminder.

Chris- I did not have time to bottle this weekend (with a 6 month old bvaby in the house and all). However, there is still activity going on in the airlock, maybe every 2 minutes or so. Keeping that in mind and your last comment, I feel better about letting it sit for a few more days to a week now. BTW, ditto Matt's (nice looking beer too) comments. I am positive I would never have gotten around to starting brewing if it was not for this class.

It's a-coming, don't worry. I have to at least make that.

For a quick Firday dinner I prepared farfalle with tuna sauce based on another Naples at Table recipe. Tuna and pasta combo is probably my wife's favorite weeknight quick pasta dish usually with the addition of some frozen spinach. This one had good quality canned tuna in olive oil (I use Genova), a little garlic, chopped parsley, tomatoes and of course a good pinch of chili flakes. For Saturday, my wife's aunt had stopped by and dropped off two very nice veal chops! So, I scrapped the lemon chicken I had in mind and decided to make something else from Campania with them but I had no idea what. Naples at Table had nothing, so I decided to prepare them simply following the recipe for Pork Chops Benvenetto style with the fennel seeds and a wine pan sauce. It worked perfectly well and cooking the chops in a cast iron skillet sure helped. Our contorno was also from the same book, grilled yellow squash layered with herbs, garlic and olive oil. I cannot believe the Campania month is almost over still with so many things to try.

The breakfast section in this book is quiet outstanding. It was very difficult to pick a breakfast goodie. In the end I settled on the "Great Grains Muffins" on page 9. It was very simple, I had all the ingredients on hand and it uses prunes, I mean "dried plums", another weakness of mine. The muffins were simple, not too sweet and very tasty with a great toothy crumb full of flavor from the cornmeal and oats and of course a lovely chew from the prunes. I used some almonds in them as well. Dorie is right, these are very good with a nice slice of Cheddar.

In Houston we have the fabulouse Central Market, I buy stuff like Proscuitto there as well as 50 or more other cured meats from so many countries. CM puts WF and their meat department (as well as seafood, grocery, bulk items,...) to abig shame. WF is too 1984 for me, too many dumb nensensical controls. I like the whole "standards" thing, but this is just bullcrap IMHO. They told me they do nto carry Serrano and Bayonne ham because of Nitrates. Like someone said, it's all about taste and quality. I could not give a damn if there are Nitrates or not in the ham cured in France or Italy. If it tastes great I will buy it and not blink an eye. Europeans have been curing meat for hundreds of years, I trust them. I am not making a blanket statement here, but a lot of the folks who shop at WF regularly (not ALL, but MANY of the people I know), are just shopping there to feel good about themselves. "Oh, I only shop at WF, they only have the best organic Cheetos". They are the same people who have a lovely peach tree in the backyard, but buy peaches from WF because it is "organic" . For the purposes of this project though, Pontormo, I will ask for more info next time I stop by, if I ever do honestly. edit: speaking of CM, check this out. I wonder if Iberico ham and other Iberian pork products are up to WF standards? ooh they just might have trace nitrates in them

Thanks Anna for all the tips. Makes a lot of sense, I will probably add some of your notes to the recipe especially the "baby-bottom satiny smooth" description . The chewiness BTW is probably due to the fact that this type of bread is all crust and no crumb. So, I would guess that is you use the exact same recipe and make it into a boule shape, it will not be that chewy.

Dorie- Chocolates, caramel and peanuts can never be bad. I hate to sound like Bobby Flay (everything seems to be his favorite flavor/ingredient/cuisine/...), but this has to be one of my favorite flavor combination. Add to that banana and I'm in heaven. I actually have a banana cream pie recipe that does just that, has a chocolate glazed crust on the bottom, then a layer of peanut butter, then banana and banana pastry cream and whipped cream. Some Bourbon fudge tops the whole thing when served! and means that I absolutly have to make those. Your other experiments sound fabulous as well. I just might have to finally buy me a bundt pan.

Pontormo- That Genovese short essay is mouthwatering to say the least. I am sure like Kevin said, the whole neighborhood envied your family that week. That almost makes me forgive you for the Baba comment! Yeast cakes soaked in rum syrup and eaten with copious amounts of whipped cream are heavenly. And there you go bashing this traditional French...er...I mean Italian dessert. Actually up until reading about them in Naples at Table, I had no idea that those Babas (and Savarins) I've made are actually common in Italy. Now, I'm craving Baba Au Rum, I also want to make that cone shaped ricotta filled pastry (forgot the name) and with the new baby I am not sure I can find time for both....decisions decisions. Someone HAS to redeem the bashed Baba and post a picture of it on this thread though.

Hopefully this recipe will help.

My wife and I really want to give it a try next time we are visiting her sister in SA. Bill, please report back about your experience here.

I'm lazy man, I could've looked back and verified what Bill is talking about. Thanks for the reassurance. The beer has been in the fermentor for 8 days now and the activity is pretty slow. I would say last night it was a few bubbles every 90 seconds or so. Should I bottle this weekend or give it till the end of the month? What do you think?

Oh boy, now I'm more worried about my beer. I used a wheat extract and wit yeast. Fingers crossed...

Too much of anything is bad for us, but please do not equate tobacco with salt. No one had died from second hand high blood pressure or got got an asthma attack if the person next to them was eating a double bacon cheesburger.

scubadoo97- Lovely looking Kibbeh, I am so overdue as well. like Crash, we do not use tomato in ours either. I guess it is more of a Syrian practice. I will make kibbeh and post pictures soon as well. For dried rosebuds, try either online or at your local middle eastern grocery store, I am sure I've seen them at mine here in houston. Maybe I'll include a picture of my grandmother's spice mix (whole spices) and we can have fun dissecting it and figuring out exactly what's in it.

Cool, let us know. And if you can, see if their Falooda is really all that good. The one at Himalaya is lovely BTW based on milk, but he does not make it often.

I did go that same day for lunch Jscarbor. Coincidentally, we wanted Pakistani for lunch (Pakistani = Himalaya, for my regular lunch friend and myself) and a new coworker from Pakistan mentioned Sabri Nahari. So, feeling guilty to pass on Himalya we went to SN instead. We got the buffet and especially enjoyed the dish they are best known for and named after, the Sabri Nahari. It is a thick spicy type of beef stew like pot roast. You scatter jalapenos, ginger and lemon juice on it and eat it with fresh naan. It was very, very good. I also appreciated the good free milk tea (chai). Our Pakistani friend said their Falooda (dessert made with ice cream) is awsome, but at 4.99 it is huge and we were stuffed. So we passed on that. Overall the buffet was ok (the Biryani and Tandoori chicken were hohum, another ground beef dish was way way greasy) but the beef stew excellent. I was also bothered by the absense of regular white basmati rice and any vegetable dish of any sort. For my money the exceptional hospitality and lovely food at Himalaya still rules. jscarbor, have you been any other time? Did you try anything other than the buffet?

Kevin- Of course it's a HUGE loss....we have 5 pages in this thread so far! You are underestimating the "amusement factor" my friend.

Finally got my copy! So, because of Patrick's picture perfect..err...picture of that caramel peanut chocolate cake, I had that combo on my mind. Who doesn't love it, like the Geico geko would say 'It's peanuts and caramel AND chocolates for free'. Well not really free, but you get the idea. I also did not want to bypass all 300 recipes and make that same cake. Then I stumbled on (sorry book is at home and I am not sure of the exact name) the chocolate ganache tart with a layer of caramel peanuts called something like "Crunchy Posh chocolate Tart"! perfect! Since there is no way I can take better pictures than Patrick or make a better looking pastry, I opted for quantity over quality. So, I give you four, count them FOUR non-Flickr pictures of this gloriuosly rich tart instead of just one. It is absolutly awsome but I did like it more slightly chilled rather than at room temperature as recommended by the book. A little cool the tart does not feel as rich and the peanut-caramel layer gets nice and chewy and a little crunchy. Also I rolled the dough instead of pressing it in the pan which in my experience takes longer and is never even. Rolling it was a breeze between two lightly floured wax papers and took no more than 4 or 5 minutes.

My wife cannot eat spicy food, so I never add chili flakes to the food as it cooks. Instead I use a very Batali-like "pinch" and add it to my portion. About the basil, even if the oven is not that extremely hot, adding it while cooking will make it dull and a little bitter. Add it at the end and notice the difference. I even add it at the end when making tomato sauce for the same reason.

Mike- That pizza rustica is gorgeous! Did you serve it on it's own? any tips about the recipe based on your experience? Kevin- Great looking pizza as well. So, how did the pure tomatoes no sauce work on the crust? Also a tip for you, it seems that you baked the basil on top of the pizza (sorry if I am wrong). Always add the basil as soon as the pizza is cooked and out of the oven instead, it will stay nice fresh green and taste much better. This weekend I got pretty busy and only had time for a quick meal from Campania. I made the "Pasta e Lenticci" from Naples at Table. I used the pasta I had on hand, spaghetti, and broke it into pieces. I also made it a little looser than the recipe states. Topped it with some parsley and chili oil. Tasty, healthy and very quick dish.

Where is this place at Jscarbor?