Baking Update

Oh, it's woefully overdue, is it not? Many apologies.

My camera battery died.

Then we got mice. I don't want to talk about it. Let's just look at yummy desserts.

Tiger tea cakes with dark chocolate ganache. As you might expect, the ganache really takes things to the next level. I made these in a mini-muffin pan since I don't have specialty French baking pans. (Perhaps I will get some on my trip to France next May! Hell yeah! ... What does it say that I'm more excited about shopping at pastry shops and baking supply stores in Paris than I am about shopping for clothes? Hmmm... how times change.)

I've made a variety of cookies, none of which are particularly photogenic. But these chocolate sables are one of the best things that I've ever tasted. The lemon were good, too.

I've also made an apple cake and an amazing dense chocolate cake. All of these recipes (save the apple cake) are from my new Paris Sweets cookbook. I'd highly recommend it to everyone.

More Macarons

Perhaps I have an addiction to baking, so what? At least it's not crack.

I made two batches of macarons this weekend. I had to use up 6 egg whites leftover from the eclairs last weekend. Obviously.

These are the vanilla with vanilla buttercream.

I also made hazelnut with milk chocolate ganache. Unfortunately, my impatience prevented them from being picturesque (in other words, the ganache ran all over the shells, oops). But they still tasted great.

I ordered a proper macaron cookbook and pastry tips today. I'm so excited to explore more varieties of macarons, and also to have an easier time piping the cookies with a more round and uniform shell. (It's the little things in life....)

(Sorry for the bad picture quality. I'm off to New Orleans in the morning, so I had to snap a picture in the unnatural light. One day, I'll learn how to fix that.)

Pastry Confections

The past two weekends I have foregone the making of tarts in favor of some pastries. Of course, tarts are often considered "pastry," but I mean straight-up, French, requiring-a-pastry-bag, pastries.

First up, my experiment from last weekend, macarons! My favorite French cookie. It wasn't quite as hard as I thought, although perhaps the stars aligned on my first try because they turned out pretty well.

This weekend, I made eclairs. Vanilla and coffee. I thought about chocolate, but that seemed like a little much.

Yep, those black specks are vanilla beans. Yum.

I preferred the vanilla to the coffee. I had to put a lot of powdered sugar in the espresso to make the frosting, and it got a little too sweet. If it's supposed to be coffee, it seems like it should retain a little of the bitterness of coffee.

The ruins of the day. Yep, eleven eggs. (Although I have six egg whites in the fridge. Perhaps more macarons in the future? I think I might try hazelnut next....)

Garden Results

Out of four watermelon vines, I got two watermelons. (This pic is from before I cleaned them.)

They are an heirloom variety called "Moon & Stars." Unfortunately, they didn't develop quite the cool rind that I was promised... just a few yellow spots here and there.

In the end, I'm glad that I tried the variety, but I'm going to go back to a smaller variety next year, probably sugar baby. We just don't eat that much watermelon before it becomes juice in the fridge. Plus, I got more fruit with my vine last year, which was a smaller variety.

Another garden update of a sad nature: the squash vine borers must be really hard up because they've attacked my pumpkin vine, and my really big pumpkin got bored into by the little pests. Blerg.

Baking Compulsion

We had a few people over to share watermelon on Saturday. I told Ben that I wasn't going to cook anything. After all, we had homegrown watermelon. I bought some guacamole (the world's best guacamole from Las Delicias... I'm officially obsessed with it), and we were going to grill some burgers. Simple.

No cooking or baking. No tarts.

But I couldn't help myself.

They were yummy. (Hey, at least I didn't make a tart.)

Kitchen Updates

We got a new faucet! Oh, what fun. If you'd told me 10 years ago that I would be excited one day about new kitchen faucets, I would have told you that my life at 29 would be far too exciting for such simpleton notions. Ah well.

Before:

After:

Better, no?

Oh, and a "during" picture that Ben will likely make me take down soon...

Reagan didn't understand him laying on the floor, and on Reagan's blanket of all things, so he stuck close by and occasionally whined.


And now... An Ode to a Pot

Not just any pot... a Le Creuset Dutch Oven! The 5 1/2 quart, perfectly sized, PURPLE dutch oven. Be still my heart.

I saw the color first on a blog about a week ago. I've always wanted a Le Creuset dutch oven but didn't want to spend the money on it and didn't know what color to get. (Yes, not knowing what color to choose factored into my decision. Frankly, when you're going to spend $200 on a pot, you better have strong feelings about the color.) But then I saw the purple. It was perfect, unexpected, and it matched my kitchen.

Then yesterday, I spotted the color at the Williams-Sonoma outlet. The saleslady came over and asked if I needed some Le Creuset. "Always," I responded. I told her that if I was going to spend the money though, I wanted to just go for it and get the large dutch oven (I didn't see any of that size out). "Oh, we have two," she responded, "in the purple color." My heartbeat quickened. Could it be? The perfect size in the perfect color?

(Yes, I get dramatic about cookware. So what.)

It is not a stretch to say that I stop by the Williams-Sonoma outlet at least twice a month and spend at least five minutes each time fondling the Le Creuset cookware, and NEVER have I seen the large dutch oven.

"They must be discontinuing this color," she responded, acknowledging that it was uncommon for them to have that size.

Discontinuing the color!?!? But it's the perfect color!

I saw the price and gulped, "$240." (Keep in mind that just two weeks ago, I plunked down a similar amount on sale-priced work clothes at Banana Republic without batting an eye.) But for one piece of cookware? "It's 30% off," she offered, "plus, you get an extra 10% off if you are on our email list." (I'm on the email list.)

I spent about two more minutes thinking about it, and then I noticed the name of the color: "Cassis," the little French town where Ben and I spent a couple leisurely days on the Mediterranean coast on our last vacation (yes, sadly, our last true vacation was in 2007). This was a sign. A sign that the universe finally wanted me to own a Le Creuset Dutch Oven.

Yummy stews and soups coming your way, just in time for fall.

Mom's Garden

So what difference does five to ten degrees make?

This. (Or so I tell myself.)

My mom's tomato plants are about eight feet tall we think.

My mom is standing on the deck, which is a couple feet off the ground. The tallest limbs are above her head. Crazy. If the birds weren't feasting on so many of the tomatoes, she would have quite a bit more. One of those tomatoes is the Arkansas Traveler that I started from seed. Mine are about half that size. It's just too hot here! (Or so I tell myself.)

She also has a couple raised beds: one has herbs; the other had two-foot tall bush beans that she just finished tearing out.

Oh, who's this? He's keeping an eye on things from the deck.