I had the good fortune a few weeks back to meet Sally Sampson, a woman I’ve admired for some time. Sally has worked for years as a cookbook writer, and as such, brought a number of my favorite cookbooks to market. Some of my most worn volumes were written by Sally, including Todd English’s The Olives Table, The Olives Dessert Table, and the first book of his I ever owned, The Figs Table. Sally is also the author of my most used cookbook (if its physical disrepair is any indication), the terrific Party Nuts!, from which we’ve pulled many recipes for the nut mixes we give friends and family in our annual holiday gift baskets.
Snacks
Sarabeth’s Chocolate Chubbies
Every night before dinner we pause for a moment and take turns giving “gratitudes” for things we are grateful for each day, it is our non-denominational spin on a meal-time prayer. A few weeks ago my gratitude went something like this….
“I am grateful that Sarabeth Levine decided to name our dessert treat tonight Chocolate Chubbies, because their name will give me pause each time I am fighting my crack addict urge to eat six of these at a sitting. Were it not for their name, I’ve no doubt that I’d eat enough of these in short order to soon be looking like the Hindenburg.”
Thank you Sarabeth.
Carrot Cake
Those of you who have been with us for a while know that we make a pretty big deal about birthday cakes here. I try hard to make good on birthday cake wishes, regardless of how challenging or esoteric they may be. So….when my birthday rolled around recently, my wife promised to do the same, and bake me the cake of my choice…what she ended up doing was to bake me the cake of my dreams.
Yeah, this one’s a keeper!
"Baked" Brownies
There are days when I feel that I am just seconds away from renaming this blog “Oui, Chef – The Chronicle of Teaching My Kids How to Fuel Their Chocolate Addictions”, what with all the attention we’ve given brownies, bouchons, cakes, meringues, ice creams, cupcakes, sauces, and cookies that feature the freakin’ stuff.
In our never ending quest to discover the ultimate brownie (see Ad Hoc, and Killer KA), and with the help of a tip from one of our readers, Lauren, we’re here today to talk about these most fabulous “Baked” Brownies. Here, “Baked” is not a reference as to how the brownies are cooked, but rather the name of the world renowned bakery in Brooklyn that gave birth to these lovelies. After Lauren had tried the Ad Hoc brownies that we posted, and given them high marks, she asked if I had ever tried the “Baked” brownies, and was kind enough to forward a link to a story about them.
Buche de Noel
I don’t have a lot of time today, but did want to wish everyone out there a joyous holiday season! As another year wraps to a close, we at Oui, Chef are grateful for the friends we’ve made here, and look forward to cooking more great food with you in the new year.
This buche de noel is one that Boris and I whipped up over the past few days, and will be enjoyed after our Christmas Eve dinner tonight. It is a combination of a few different recipes we found, inspiring a whole new holiday treat. It has a chocolate genoise cake layer, a filling of white chocolate mousse, and a coffee buttercream frosting….a few meringue mushrooms for decoration and you have a festive dessert worthy of any holiday table. This is not a difficult cake to make, but it does take some time. It would be a great holiday school vacation week project to tackle with your kids…serve it at your New Year’s party and thrill the crowd!
Wishing you all holidays full of love, laughter and lots of DELICIOUS food! Thank you so much for being such an important part of our little blog, we’ll see you next year!
Cheers – Steve and the Mrs., Grid, Boris, Arthas, Peyton and Muppet
Chocolate Tofu Pudding!
No…… your eyes are not deceiving you, the title of this post is “Chocolate Tofu Pudding”.
Yes…..you are visiting “Oui, Chef”, the VERY last place where you would expect to see tofu at all, let alone in a dessert!
For those of you who’s jaws have dropped to the floor, we’ll pause here a moment for you to pull yourself together.
Feeling better now? OK, let’s proceed.
Lisa’s "To Die For" Apple Pie
I’m not much of a Facebook guy. Any of you who have been to my Oui, Chef Facebook Fan Page, can undoubtably attest to that fact…..sorry. I set up the page on a friend’s recommendation because “everyone” has one, so I should have one too. Problem is….I can’t figure out what the #$%& to do with it, so all it really contains are re-postings from my blog….ugh. To the 310 of you who have become my fans (Thanks!), please accept my apolgies for there not being anything more compelling on the fan page than what you find here. If any of you have any recommendations as to what I should do on my fan page, please let me know….I’m all ears. Perhaps one day I’ll figure it out on my own, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.
I’m really no better with my personal Facebook page, in fact, I’m starting to think that I just don’t get the whole Facebook thing. All my “friends” find on my page are linked posts from this blog….I”M SO BORING. I mean, I’ve enjoyed reconnecting with old acquaintences from high school and college, but after a brief “hey nice to see you’re still alive”, and a “so what are you doing to keep yourself busy these days?”, I quickly run out of things to say. It’s not that I don’t care. Well, that’s what I keep telling myself anyway.
Savory Buckwheat Crêpes – Galettes de Sarrasin
While traveling to Paris this past Summer, our young Muppet fell in love. Awww…I can hear you all sighing at the news…..how sweet.
Yeah, the poor little thing fell fast and hard, and I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that her Mom and I were a bit concerned, it all happened so quickly. One day she’s a sweet and innocent 5th grader on her first trip to Europe, the next she’s on her knees begging that we take her back to the little restaurant on the Ile St-Louis where she lost her heart to a……..savory crêpe. Zut alors!
That’s right, it wasn’t a handsome young frenchman that stole young Muppet’s heart (though Pierre Hermè came close), it was a delicate egg and bacon (oeuf-lardon) galette that brought her to her knees. She was, in fact, so smitten with the thing that we returned to the scene of her infatuation (the charming “Au Lys D’Argent” at 90 Rue St-Louis-en-I’lle) two more times during our time in Paris…..such are the demands of a girl in love in the “City of Light”.
Cranberry Bread Pudding with Pumpkin Creme Anglaise
This is a dish I made recently sans kid-lets, though they did do their all for the team by helping to devour this treat in record time. The recipe came about as a submittal to a Food52 contest for a "Best Non-Pie Thanksgiving Dessert", and as someone who comes from a family where there were never any non-pie desserts at Thanksgiving (not even a jello-mold thank you very much), I had to come up with one from scratch to enter into the contest.
Monkey Bread
This is one of those dishes that should come with a warning label.
You know, something written in neon ink, and including words like…..”not to be made or consumed without proper adult supervision“…and….”the manufacturer shall not be held liable for any physical or emotional damages incurred as a result of the chaos typically associated with the consumption of this product“.
I am not kidding.
The sharks will start circling about half-way through baking, when the aroma of this lovely will have finally found its way to each corner of your home. The real fun starts though with the onset of the feeding frenzy which is guaranteed to commence as soon as the bugger is cool enough to touch. You’ve undoubtably seen it before, the gruesome footage they show over and over again during “Shark Week”, of sharks in such a tizzy over a bucketful of chum, that they actually start eating EACH OTHER in their frothy confusion.
You’ve been warned.