An easy appetizer or addition to a light meal, classic pizza dough is rolled very thin, seasoned with very fresh herbs, sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil – deliciously summer.
A few of you may know Margaret of Away to Garden. Away to Garden is a lovely site about … gardening. Last summer she kicked off a food blogging event called Food Fest, along with Deb Puchalla. I enjoyed reading about it during the duration, unfortunately, I was only able to participate once with some outstanding corncakes. Great news, the event is back and this time there is a new crew along with MargarChez Us › Add New Post — WordPresset: Matt of Matt Bites, Diane & Todd of White on Rice Couple and Jaden of the Steamy Kitchen.
The first week of Food Fest is all about herbs. I keep a couple big pots on our deck, immediately by the kitchen door, these pots are full of: chives, verbena, basil, rosemary, mint, spearmint, chocolate mint, lemon thyme and French Thyme. I use them on a daily basis. I try to only grow the herbs I use, you will hardly find many dried ones in our house. I love the way they make the kitchen smell as well as how they make our food taste. This week was all about cleaning out our fridge/freezer and what I found was a tub of pizza dough in the freezer. After thawing it out, rolling it very thin, coating with some coarse cornmeal, I covered the top with lots shallots, thyme, and rosemary, finishing with a drizzle of good olive oil and sprinkle of sea salt. It baked up golden and fragrant and was a wonderful addition to a bowl full of the “perfect” scrambled eggs with chives and white truffle oil.
Recipe: Herbed Flat Bread
1 serving pizza dough
coarse cornmeal
handful fresh herbs, minced
2 shallots, sliced thinly
olive oil, drizzle
sea salt, sprinkle
Heat oven to 425. Roll out pizza dough, very thinly, on a table sprinkled with cornmeal. Carefully move rolled out pizza dough to a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Sprinkle shallots, herbs and sea salt over the top, drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes until golden and crisp. Serve. Eat.
Pureed boysenberries are sweetened with a verbena simple syrup and turned into a summer fresh sorbet.
I went back and forth on whether I should be making a creamy custard based ice cream or a light and fruity sorbet for National Ice Cream month as well as for the very fun event over at Savor The Thyme, Scotty Snacks and the Tangled Noodle. After a berry picking excursion it was obvious…..
This sorbet is outstanding and incredibly simple. The berries were naturally sweetened by the sun and they did not even need that much sugar. I had an abundance of verbena in the garden so I decided to make a little verbena infused simple syrup to replace the sugar I would normally add. The sorbet is refreshing, light and tastes just like it was picked from the vine – kid friendly, too!
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Recipe: Boysenberry Sorbet
4 cups of fresh boysenberries
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
handful of verbena
In a small saucepan dissolve the sugar in the water over a low heat. Add the verbena, bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and let sit overnight in the fridge. While the simple syrup is cooling, process the boysenberries in the food processor until smooth. Put into an air tight container and let sit in the fridge overnight as well. The next day mix the two together and then process in your ice cream maker, according to the instructions. Freeze at least 4 hours before serving. Serve. Eat.
In case you have been living under a frying pan for the past few months and are not familiar with Julie and Julia, it is the newest foodie movie coming out on August 7th. It is the story of Julia Child and Julie Powell and how their lives intertwined 41 years apart from each other. It is a movie, based on a book, which was based on a food blog. I am sure this will be a must see within the entire food blog community!
We were overjoyed when Kristen Tarnol, part of the marketing team over at Columbia Pictures contacted us to be one of their featured Food Blogs on the Food Blogs of the Day (thanks,Joy) segment of the Julie and Julia site. This was an honor, after all we would not only be in spirit with one of the best, Julia Child, but also in the company of some of the brightest raw food talent out there.
Julia Child holds a special place in our hearts. There are many reasons for us to love her: she grew up in San Francisco, which is our home; she lived in Cambridge, Mass, which is where Lenny grew up, well Somerville is right next door to Cambridge; she did not begin her cooking career until she was in her 40′s, I did not start this cooking site until I was in my 40s; she was a spy with the OSS, I have always had this secret desire to be an agent with 007; she lived in Paris, we dream about the day when we will have an apartment there and split our time between two countries; and she did not believe in “diets”, she ate it all, we both feel one should not diet but instead enjoy all food, whether it is cream, butter, red wine or cocktails before dinner! Julia, brought French cooking to all American homes, during the era we were growing up. We both remember watching her in awe as she flipped omelets in the air to introducing her chickens before roasting them; she was fun, messy and “real”. Julia was definitely a breath of fresh air for the cooking community. Years after the French Chef she stared with Jacque Pepin in Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, which was equally as entertaining!
Forty one years later, Julie Powell, started a blog, before most of us even really knew what a blog was. She was going to chronicle her journey through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 365 days and 536 recipes later, she had a book published and now a movie!
When we were asked to be featured as one of the food blogs on the movie site, besides saying a big YES, my mind went wild trying to figure out which recipe to make. Would it be the quiche recipe that inspired me to actually make a quiche? Would it be a roasted chicken? Or maybe something more complicated and classically French such as beef bourguignon? Then, we found out that our debut date would be the 28th of July … I knew we would not have enough time to be as elaborate as we had hoped, since we were leaving for a long weekend of camping trip. Now the question was, “what Julia recipe would be appropriate for a camping trip!?! There was only one that came to mind, a classic Creme Brulee. According to Julia, France, Britain and Spain all claim to have invented this dessert, my two cents ….it is a classic Julia recipe.
We take creme brulee on all of our camping trips. We tried to recount this past weekend as to why we do it? We really cannot remember, it is just sort of our thing to do. As well we wondered, did Julia Child go camping and if she did would she take this luscious dessert? I normally use a different recipe but was thrilled to find a Julia Child recipe, it was equally as easy as well as delicious. And yes, it is really easy to take creme brulee on your next camping trip, just follow our steps below!
Recipe: Julia Child’s Creme Brulee
3 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup superfine sugar, I process refined sugar until powdered.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour the cream into a stir in the vanilla bean and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, cover the pan, and let steep for 30 minutes. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar in the mixing bowl until the yolks are thick, pale yellow, and form a fat, slowly dissolving ribbon when dropped from the whisk back into the bowl. Remove the vanilla bean from the hot cream. Temper the yolks, by slowly stirring the warm milk into the yolks, until all the cream has been added and the mixture is well mixed. Skim off any bubbles from the surface of the custard. Arrange ramekins in a baking pan and ladle the custard into each, leaving 1/4 inch at the top for the glaze. Set the baking pan in the oven and pour in enough hot water to come halfway up the ramekins. Bake the custards for 30 – 35 minutes, until the tops are set but the custard in the center is still soft to the touch. Carefully remove the baking pan from the oven, and lift the ramekins from the hot water. Let them cool briefly, and then chill thoroughly in the refrigerator, over night. Sprinkle a tablespoon or so of the powdered sugar over each custard and smooth it gently with the back of a spoon, forming an even layer of sugar that completely covers the surface. Using a cooking torch, melt the sugar until it starts to caramelize. Serve. Eat.
* if you want to take camping, do not do the sugar coating until you are ready to eat them. After baking and chilling, wrap each custard well with foil. Then seal in a zip lock container or bag and put in your cooler. Before eating proceed with the sugar and caramelizing step.
If you cannot wait until August 7th to catch a glimpse of the new movie this trailer will definitely wet your taste buds – Bon Appetite! As well you can follow Julie and Julia on Twitter for more culinary capers.
“Donna Hay is one amazing Australian “home economist”. She started out scoring her first job in the Australian Womens Weeky test kitchen after completing a home economist course. Donna went on to become the food editor at Marie Claire magazine and this was where her fresh take on food styling and simple but stunning recipes really took off. Her styling and fuss free recipes so adored, it wasn’t long before she soon had her own magazine and had published several best selling cookbooks internationally. Some people have referred to her as Downunder’s answer to Martha Stewart, however, Donna doesn’t like to be thought of as a celebrity chef, but just one of the girls who always has time for food and fun in the kitchen.” written by Bron Marshall.
I fell in love with Donna Hay a few years ago after spying her book, Modern Classics. I love the simplicity of your recipes, so fresh and so simple. When I started blogging a couple years ago, I stumbled about a lovely site, Winos and Foodies , I was delighted to learn that Barbara had a Hay Hay its Donna Day (HHDD) food blogging event. I participated whenever I could. Life becomes busy and we reach obstacles that unfortunately prevent us from doing the things we enjoy at times and in 2008, Barbara passed this event over to the talented Bron. Now, I am pleased to say, this baton has been passed down to Chez Us. We hope and strive to do an outstanding job just as Barbara and Bron did, by keeping it “Special Made Simple”. Please read more about the previous event here.
If this sounds like an event you would love to enter please become familiar with the following rules.
Rules of Entry…
Hay Hay it’s Donna Day is open to all food and wine bloggers.
Entries submitted for HHDD must be made specifically for the current round of this event, although photos may be submitted to photo competitions such as “Does My Blog Look Good In This.”
The host will select, make and post an original Donna Hay recipe without any changes. Participants may make that exact same recipe as is, or put their own spin on the recipe by altering the ingredients whilst remaining with the theme. Or if they prefer participants may share a well loved recipe within the same theme.
Entrants must include a link to the host and the facilitator (that’s us – www.chezus.com) in their entry post.
Entries can be made at any time once the event has been announced, but must be posted and emailed to the host by the closing date.
The host then assembles all the entries together into a roundup, from where the participants of the round vote to elect a new host for the following event.
I am going to try to keep this event going on a monthly bases, with an announcement of the theme on the 22nd of the month and the closing date the 15th of the following month. This will give the host a week to post the entries and to let the voting begin before the next theme announcement.
I will be adding a HHDD page to our site this week – which will have more details as well as logos, Twitter, etc…
In the meantime, without further a-do I am pleased to announce the hostess of HHDD # 27, Priya of Akshayapaatram. Priya has chosen Salad as the theme. Donna has many fresh and inviting salads in all of her cookbooks, let your creativity take over! Please visit her to site to obtain any further details. As well remember to submit your entries to Priya, by the 15th of August at akshayapaatram@gmail.com with HHDD #27 in the subject line, in your email to her please include:
The Name & URL of your blog
Your Name
Your Location
Name of your recipe
The URL or the permalink to your entry.
A photo of your recipe if you have. You do not have to re-size it, but it should be less than 1MB.
We cannot wait to see your entries and to keep HHDD going!
Chez Us (particularly Lenny) is hungry for a burger and not an ordinary burger such as this Chipotle Buffalo Burger with Feta Cheese, he needs something more. The search is on for the Ultimate Burger.
Chipotle Buffalo Burger with Feta on a Baguette
Lenny is on a quest and he NEEDS your help!
Do you have the Ultimate Burger? We challenge you to make us drool and want more! Get out there create that burger, snap a photo, write a post about it (be sure to include a link to the ULTIMATE BURGER CONTEST) and send an email with all the mentioned goodies over to the head burger master: hamburger@chezus.com.
We are giving a prize for the Ultimate Burger, it is this great cookbook. “Build a Better Burger“.
If you don’t have a food site or blog, then you can still email us everything minus a link to a site.
We will update this post with the burgers as they come in!
This classic brioche recipe was easier than I ever imagined it would be and it was light, delicate and ultra buttery; simply perfect!
A huge majority of the foodie peeps that we follow on Twitter have all been a Twitter about #BBA. I was not sure what it was but everyone was throwing out terms such as yeast, flours, butter, sponges, rising to the occasion, etc… I knew I had to get in on the action! I finally sent out a loud Tweet, about how I wanted to find out what #BBA was and what was I missing??? Jennifer over at Foodbat was the first to answer my call of distress and she told me to head right over to Pinch My Salt to find out from Nicole about the latest and greatest!
BBA Challenge is a group of crazy home bakers that are trying to work their way through Peter Reinhart‘s book, The Bread Bakers Apprentice. The great thing about this challenge, unlike some of the others I participate in, is that I am not required to make all of the breads, I don’t have to post on a certain day (it will be the same week as everyone), and I am able to go at my pace; the only requirement is that I own the book and I cannot post the recipe (if you want the recipe, this is where you can get the book). The journey will bring us all together to share, cry, learn and enjoy what each other bakes. We had the honor of meeting Peter, a couple months ago and from what I learned, I am sure this challenge will make Peter proud!
I jumped in on week four, which was the Brioche. I was glad to jump in at this time, as I love brioche. I love plain and simple brioche with butter and marmalade or one with dried fruits tucked inside. As well, this classic, makes a wonderful sandwich bread or hamburger and hot-dog buns. I have always wanted to make brioche but was scared, I figured it would be too time consuming and/or too hard. I was partly wrong, it does take some time but overall was very straightforward and easy. Peter’s book offers three versions of the basic brioche recipe: Rich Man’s Brioche, Middle Class Brioche, and Poor Man’s Brioche. The Rich Man’s Brioche calls for the most amount of butter and since I was low on butter, I went with the Middle Class Brioche as it only called for 8 ounces of butter, there is also a recipe for the Poor Man’s Brioche as it calls for less and is probably more healthy!
The recipe starts out with a basic sponge which is incorporated with eggs, flour and very little sugar. After it sits for awhile to allow the gluten to break down, the fun begins. I started with a rather stiff dough but once I started working the room temperature butter in, slices at a time, the dough softened up and became sticky. I was really amazed as when I started the process, I was sure it was not on the right path, I never imagined it would become so pliable. I let my dough sit overnight in the fridge. It did rise somewhat but not a lot, which I was kind of worried about, but it all worked out.
I woke up early in the morning and shaped my dough into cute little balls with the token ball on top. I wished I had the beautiful fluted brioche pans, but they are not part of the budget right now, so I used muffin pans. Muffin pans worked out just fine. After shaping the dough, I let it proof for 2 hours. I probably should have only gone for an hour and a half as the dough did rise a bit too much and my brioche ran together a little, but the dough, that I let rise in a loft pan, looked beautiful – I was so excited! I baked the brioche for about 25 minutes and the entire time, I was reminded me of the French Boulangerie that was below the apartment we rented in Paris, a couple years ago. I always knew when it was 5 am because they would start baking the bread, I loved that smell!
Our brioche came out beautifully, not picture perfect and dainty with fluted edges but still beautiful. It was light, buttery and not too yeasty, really perfect. I served it with deep dark espressos and Chez Pim’s Marmalade, Bouquet des Fleurs, which is bitter and so very fragrant, absolutely delicious! Want to learn about these marmalades, read on….
Pim, over at Chez Pim, makes these outstanding artisan marmalades, here is a bit about them, that I took from her site: “Pim’s artisan marmalades are made from rare, exotic citrus grown sustainably in the hills of Watsonville, California. Each small batch is handmade from a single varietal to preserve its own distinct qualities, adding only minimally refined organic sugar, and using the pectin naturally extracted from citrus – because commercial pectin is only for the timid.”
I have tried making marmalade once, which I admit was good but I loved the texture of Pim’s so much more. She uses these beautiful long strips of citrus and it is cooked just enough, as not to break down the fruit too much. It went perfectly with fresh brioche from the oven. If you would like to try some of Pim’s marmalades, be sure to check out her online store.
If you would like more information on the BBA Challenge besure to check out Nicole’s wonderful site, Pinch My Salt, you will find the BBA Blogroll there as well; there are some GREAT brioche out there! If you are interested in continuing the BBA journey with Chez Us, please sign up for The Daily Dish, our newest (and improved) newsletter, here.
TWD: French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze. Gateau au Yaourt, is the first cake a French child learns to make. The measuring for this cake is all done by using the container that the yogurt comes in, which is approximately 1/2 cup, and in France the yogurt containers are glass and adorable (I have over a dozen that I use for various things from puddings to candle holders).
I was going to sit out this week of Tuesdays With Dorie (TWD) just to give my waistline & thighs a break from all the flour products. Then I heard it was a French Yogurt cake. I have had French Yogurt cakes when in Europe and have always wanted to make one but never have, so here we are another Tuesday and another delightful recipe from Baking From My Home to Yours.
Dorie’s recipe called for the option of using 1/2 cup of ground almonds, which I gladly added. I love the sweetness of almonds as well I thought the nutty texture. I also used an unprocessed sugar, which is a deep brown color, it gave the cake a nice golden color. As well I opted not to use lemon as the recipe said and I used blood orange zest and blood orange marmalade that I had left from when I made it last year. The cake came out delightful. A wonderful afternoon treat especially with a nice espresso!
Thank you Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction for picking out a simple and tasty recipe for this week’s Challenge. Be sure to check out what the other bakers from TWD came up with!
Get ready for your weekly sugar fix as it is Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD) time again. Bridget of The Way the Cookie Crumbles picked one of our favorite desserts – custard. I love making custards. It screams COMFORT food for us. As well it is a dessert that is made with basic staples that one always should have on hand – milk, sugar, eggs and some sort of flavoring.
This particular recipe infuses lemon zest with milk. I did use Meyer Lemon zest and I let it infuse for an hour instead of 30 minutes. As well I used an unrefined sugar which gave it a small bite of a caramel undertone. I did not use the optional extract as I wanted the pureness of the Meyer Lemon to be tasted. The custard is baked in a bain marie, which I am very use to using, the only difference this time, was that Dorie asked us to put a double layer of paper towel in the bottom of the pan. Otherwise, it is a simple and straightforward recipe.
The custard came out creamy, light and very fresh. The perfect spring time dessert.
