Spiced Pot de Crème

This dessert was quite spectacular. It had to be to follow up a Thanksgiving dinner. There is nothing I hate more than making a dessert that just gets picked at because everyone if full. So I’ve come up with a way counter acting this phenomenon. I try to only make desserts that drive people insane with the desire to consume more dessert. Desserts that generate a deep guttural moan followed up by soul satisfying bliss. Things like banana cream pie that forces you to sit on the couch with it on your lap shoveling directly into your mouth. Or cookies so good guest slip handfuls of them into their coat pockets on the way out door. I’m not sure what gives a dessert this magical power, but over the years I’ve found a few that can really get the job done.

I love Pot de Crème. I like the small individual portions, but more importantly I love the creamy silky texture. I usually make vanilla pot de crème and top it with what ever fruit is in season, but this time I decided to experiment with some spices and see how it turned out. I lucked out this time. They were much better than last summers jasmine tea pot de crème.

1 C heavy cream
11/3C whole milk
6 egg yokes
2/3C sugar
1T vanilla extract or two vanilla beans
1T cinnamon
1tsp ground ginger
1/4tsp ground clove
pinch of salt

Set oven to 325. In a sauce pan heat the cream and milk with the spices. Bring it up to almost a boil then turn it off and let it steep. In a stand mixer whisk the eggs yokes and sugar together on high speed for about 3 minutes until it falls in thick ribbons. Then on low speed slowly add the hot milk and cream. Add the vanilla and salt. Pour the entire mixture through a strainer into a large measuring cup or pitcher. The measuring cup makes it a lot easier to pour the cream into the ramekins. In a roasting pan arrange 8 ovenproof cups or ramekins. Evenly fill each of the cups with the strained cream mixture. Add hot water to the roasting pan coming up about halfway up the cups. Cover the whole pan with aluminum foil and bake it in the oven for 25 minutes. Once the custard is set take them out and cool them in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours.

Sometimes you end up with little bubbles on the surface of the custard so I always like to top them off with a dollop of whip cream before I serve them. This time I happened to find a batch of incredibly dark caramel that Peter had made earlier in the week, so I topped each pot de crème with a thin layer of caramel. I also whipped up a batch of pecan short bread to put on the side.

Thanksgiving warm up

It’s getting to be the time of year when all of our food magazines have turkeys on the cover. I always get so excited with all of the different Thanksgiving vignettes they offer up. Southern, South of the boarder, Armenian, Modernist Loft Thanksgiving… You get the point, but every year when it comes down to the big day everyone wants traditional. So we decided that for this weeks Sunday dinner we would try out some of those alternative Thanksgiving dishes that we’ve been eyeing. The more we talked about the wilder our ideas got. We were headed towards lacquering a turkey with a balsamic glaze, but then we fell under the charms of that dreamy Todd English. We came upon a classic episode of Martha Stewart where she and Todd deboned, stuffed and rolled a turkey. By the time we settled in on a final menu we weren’t able to get to far from traditional, but it will still be great. Here’s what’s on the menu for tonight. Deboned, Stuffed Turkey, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Turkey gravy, Oyster stuffing, Roasted Brussel Sprouts and for dessert Spiced Pot de Crème with Pecan Shortbread. Deboning a Turkey is kind of gory, a little bit scary and entirely satisfying. I stood back and took pictures as Peter methodically cut the carcass away from the flesh of the turkey. Half way through it looked like it might be a mess, but then it laid out in one large piece.
After we deboned the turkey and pounded it out a bit we filled it with a stuffing made with ground turky and pork. Right before it was done we brushed the skin with reduced balsamic vinigar. It gave the turkey a rich glossy skin.

Appetizers, Cocktails and Roller Derby

We had the opportunity to see the final championship of the Rose City Rollers. We were there support one of Nick’s coworkers. I have to say that I was rather skeptical about this roller derby. In my mind I conjured up something between the state fair and American Gladiator. It turned out to be one of the best evenings out we’ve had in a long time. Good clean fun.
Before we headed off to the roller derby everyone stopped by our house for cocktails and appetizers. We made a couple of “easy but goodies” that we think all of you will like. The spread included Roasted Vegetables with White Bean Humus, Prosciutto Wrapped Gorgonzola with Figs and Roasted Tomato Goat Cheese Crustini.

My Roots

When I was five we moved onto Wind hover Farm. It was a beautiful farm where we raised Black Angus. At the height of our production we had about one hundred head of a cattle roaming around our place. It was idyllic, and it was a lot of hard work. As an eight year old spending my Saturdays knee high in cow muck was never very pleasing idea. But growing up with these animals gave me a deep appreciation of what it takes to bring an incredible piece of meat to the table.

This weekend we were all down at the Metolious River and my dad brought down twelve beautiful choice rib eye steaks. He grilled them on the Webber and I prepared the other dishes. At dinner he gave a little tutorial about how to grill a great Rib eye steak. I love those little moments.

The picture above is my dad on the left with my uncle Jim and steaks in the foreground.

Mt. Hood's fall bounty

You know what they say…Crudités, gone tomorrow.

Ok, I know it’s corny. So this Sunday we got invited to our good friends Tucker and Gerald’s house for dinner. We were supposed to bring some nibbly things for before dinner. We were trying to think up what to make. I thought it would be fun to make a little challenge. I’ve noticed that every time I go to the store I end up spending sixty bucks even when I’m just making a simple meal for myself. So the challenge was to create a snack platter for less than $20. I realize that this sounds stupid because you should be able to cook a whole meal for $20, but here’s what we came up with.
We made Hummus, Baba ghanouj, oven toasted pita bread and crudités, which included Snow Peas, Fennel and Belgiun Endive.

Farmers Market Update Oct. 6th

This week you could really feel fall kick in. This morning was damp and light was cool grey. The feeling at the market today was distinctly different. A couple booths were gone and the crowd was a little thinner. But something there was something new….Squash.