Canelés are a specialty of the Bordeaux region of France. These small pastries are made from eggs, milk, flour, butter, sugar and rum in special molds that make them look like a tall mini bundt cake (but they don’t have a hole in the middle). I first came across them almost two decades ago when I started researching Bordelaise cuisine. For years, I considered making them until finally giving up on the idea – buying a mold for something I’d only make once seemed too wasteful. Still, my curiosity about them stayed.
Then a week ago, I found that Costco was selling these “Made in France” canelés. They were quite expensive, almost $10 for a package of 16 (each weighing a bit over 1 oz), but I had to see what they were like. Unfortunately, they weren’t very good.
The pastries are pretty dense, though I liked their airy, somewhat chewy consistency. They didn’t have much flavor, however. The rum masked whatever else was there, without really adding that much. And while I enjoyed the consistency, they were a bit too dry. All in all, I wouldn’t get them again. Now, if I ever find myself in Bordeaux, I might give a bakery-baked one a try.
In the last few months, I have (mostly) finished cooking “H” cuisines and I’ve been making my way through the I’s. I still have five of these cuisines to go (Indonesian, Iranian, Irish-American, Italian Renaissance and Italian) but I figure this is a good time to announce the many new cuisines I’ve added to my International Food Project:
Haryana: I made pakora, butter chicken and garlic cauliflower
Iceland: baked fish, chicken with saffron and pepper cookies
Imperial China: a chicken wing recipe from the 8th century, braised chicken from the 10th-13th and beef and walnuts from the 18th.
India: chickpea, red bean, and chicken curries plus chicken and tofu tandoori
As much as I love to cook, sometimes I fall off the cooking bandwagon and I then rely on frozen food. I’ll be honest, most frozen entrees suck – so I was pleasantly surprised to find this particular one. It actually tasted like something I’d want to eat. The beef was tender and looked like beef, the noodles were good and the sauce was tasty. The main problem was that the entree wasn’t very big – but maybe I was specially hungry.
I set out to make chicken tetrazzini as part of my exploration into Italian food for my International Food Project. Alas, after doing a bit more research into the dish, I found out that it’s not Italian at all. Rather, it was apparently created by chef Ernest Arbogast at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in honor of Italian soprano Luisa Tetrazzini. I had already bought the ingredients to make it, though, as well as those to make a vegan version for my daughter, so I went along and made it for dinner last night.
The regular chicken tetrazzini I made was good, my husband in particular liked it, but not special enough for me to repeat it – so I’m not going to write down the recipe (to make it, I combined this recipe by Ciao Italia with this one by Giada di Laurentiis). My daughter would like me to make the vegan version again, however, so here is the recipe (yes, this blog is mostly for myself):
Ingredients
8 oz spaghetti
2 Tbsp vegan butter, divided
1 Tbsp olive oil
8 oz cremini or button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
salt & pepper to taste
2 tsp flour
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 1/2 cups unsweetened oat, soy or almond milk
a dash of nutmeg
1/2 tsp white wine or apple cider vinegar
4 oz vegan chick’n strips, cubed
1/2 frozen peas
1/2 cup shredded vegan mozarella
1/4 cup vegan panko breadcrumbs
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F
Cook spaghetti according to package instructions and set aside.
Melt 1 Tbsp vegan butter and olive oil in a medium or large saucepan over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates. Add the onion, garlic and thyme and cook until the onion is soft, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer mixture to a bowl and set aside.
Add remaining tablespoon of vegan butter to the saucepan and melt over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk until you have a thick paste. Whisk in the coconut milk and let cook a few minutes until it thickens, whisking occasionally. Add the non-dairy milk and cook a few more minutes until it thickens. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Stir in the vinegar and turn off heat.
Add reserved spaghetti, mushrooms, chick’n and peas to the sauce. Mix well. Transfer mixture onto an 8″x8″ or similar size oven-safe dish. Top with mozarella and breadcrumbs.
I got EveryPlate last week and I was pretty impressed by the food I got. The recipes were simple, they had few ingredients, but they were very tasty. I was particularly blown away by their spicing of ground beef for “been banh mi”. It was so simple, yet delicious! So here is the recipe:
1 Tbsp oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
10 oz ground beef
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp sugar
4 tsp soy sauce
salt & pepper to taste
Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until soft, 4-5 minutes, stirring. Add the ground beef, garlic and sugar and cook, breaking up the clumps of beef, until it’s browned, 4-5 minutes. Stir in the soy sauce. Turn off heat. Taste and season as needed.
This is a vegan cashew cream that you can use in place of soft cheeses in traditional recipes. To my mind, this doesn’t taste anything like cheese – but I’m not vegan. My vegan daughter loved it, however.
2 cups raw cashews
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp salt
~2 cups water
Directions
Soak cashews in water for about 4 hours. Drain.
Place the cashews, lemon juice, vinegar, nutritional yeast, Dijon mustard, salt and 1 cup water in an electric blender and process until smooth. Add more water as needed to achieve the consistency you want.
I go through periods of not cooking and I’ve noticed that doing meal kits is a good way to get myself started again. But of course, I only do meal kits when I have a discount code and this time, I got one for Dinnerly ($15 off per week for 2 weeks), which brought the price of each meal kit to $8 – probably close to the actual cost of the ingredients. BTW, I have 3 FREE Dinnerly boxes to give away, so if you want one, e-mail me.
All in all, I have been pleasantly surprised by the dinners we’ve gotten. They’ve been simple to prepare, with few ingredients, totally basic fare, but very tasty. They beat getting cheap takeout, both in matter of taste, quality of ingredients and value.
I still have one meal left to cook, but this is what I’ve made so far:
This was such a simple dish, and yet so tasty! The meatballs were delicious and didn’t include any filling. And they went great with orzo. I might have to make this again on my own. I would use just diced tomato instead of cutting whole ones with scissors, though. And a little Parmesan cheese would be nice, but not needed.
To be honest, I didn’t actually make this. My daughter was in a hurry, so I took the ground beef and added a little garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce for extra flavor, and then made the stuffed patties with the Fontina cheese from the box. My daughter ate it with lots of ketchup and was very happy with the burger. She had another one later on.
A vegan dinner from Dinnerly! How cool is that? Well, it had eggs, but I just left them out. This wasn’t really pad thai, however. It came with teriyaki sauce, to which was added 1 Tbsp fresh lime juice, 2 Tbsp sugar and 1/2 Tbsp vinegar. My daughter who usually dislikes teriyaki sauce was quite happy with the end product. I’ll try this hack again for stir fries.
You might wonder why I even order burger from Dinnerly if I then cannibalize them into something else, and the truth is I don’t know – maybe because it’s convenient to simply have the buns and ground beef at the same time. In this case, I didn’t make the onions or garlic ketchup, and I skipped the feta and instead added a slice of whatever cheese I had at home. I also seasoned the potatoes with some oregano to give it some extra flavor.
Gobble is one of the most expensive meal kits out there, but it’s also the best one. The meals are positively delicious, with high quality ingredients and balanced main-side combinations. They also seem to serve the most modern dishes. And while other companies have moved to make their kit preparations quicker, Gobble is still the quickest of them all.
I subscribed to Gobble for a couple of weeks, and got a bunch of vegan meals for my daughter – which she didn’t appreciate nearly enough. The non-vegan ones I got for us, however, rocked.
Seared Flap Steak with Charred Shishito & Mini Sweet Peppers with Romesco Sauce
Rating 8/10
What makes Gobble the best meal kit subscription out there is really their sauces, and this romesco sauce did not disappoint. It was delicious and did a great job of bringing together the steak (which I obviously undercooked) and the salad. This wasn’t a particularly original meal, but it was very solid.
Wagyu Beef Swiss Cheeseburger with Mushrooms & Truffle Aioli
Rating: 10/10
I’ve never had wagyu beef before because, honestly, it’s too expensive. I’ve seen wagyu burgers before, but I always felt that there was no point in getting them as the special characteristics of the meat were likely to not be present when ground. Boy, was I wrong! This burger was absolutely delicious, it had the best beef taste I’ve ever had in a burger.
The mushrooms were also great, which surprised me as there wasn’t any trick to them. I wonder if Gobble could be using better quality mushrooms to the ones I get at the supermarket, and what exactly a better mushroom would be anyway. Of course, it may have been the truffle aioli which really made them shine. Whatever it was, they were great and the whole burger came together wonderfully.
The little salad on the side was also very tasty.
For this meal, I did not follow the actual instructions as they were needlessly complex. I simply cooked the ingredients in the logical sequence.
After giving up on cooking for a while, I’ve gone back to making meal kit meals – they work particularly well when it’s just my husband and I for dinner.
HelloFresh has changed from last year, and their meals are now simpler and quicker to cook. They still range from pretty good to very good, though they are not nearly as tasty as the Gobble meals I’ve cooked lately. They’re far cheaper, however. Currently, if you use my referral link, you can save $40 off your first box, though there may be better deals out there.
These are the last six dishes I made from HelloFresh.
I forgot to skip this week and got HelloFresh’ default meals. I wouldn’t have selected this one, as I try to avoid pork as much as possible, but it was pretty good. The pork was tender and the cinnamon-smoked paprika spicing was very tasting. It really didn’t need the cherry sauce, but this one was very nice as well. In general, I’ve really enjoyed the jam-based sauces that I’ve gotten in meal kits. Still, the meat didn’t have as much flavor as I would have liked.
I enjoyed the mashed potatoes, which really go very well with green onions. I don’t like carrots, but my husband was very happy with the slaw – he had my portion as breakfast the next day.
All in all, this wasn’t my favorite meal but it was a nice alternative. As usual, it was a perfectly sized meal.
Cherry Sauce Recipe
For two people, multiply as necessary, substitute with another flavor jam if as per your liking.
1/4 cup cherry jam
1 tsp white vinegar
1/4 tsp cinnamon paprika spice*
1 Tbsp butter
salt & pepper to taste
In a small microwavable bowl, mix together the jam, vinegar and spice. Microwave for 40 seconds. Add the butter and mix until melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
* 1 part ground cloves, 8 parts onion powder, 8 parts ground cinnamon, 6 parts smoked paprika, 16 parts mustard powder, 24 parts sweet paprika, 24 parts white granulated sugar”.
I might have liked this burger more if I hadn’t overcooked it – and if I hadn’t recently had an amazing waygu burger from Gobble. As it was, I found it OK. The pepper was a bit too spicy for me, though I used plain ketchup. My husband had his with the spicy ketchup (which is really just ketchup mixed with hot sauce) and far more peppers, and he still didn’t think it was spicy at all, so YMMV.
The potatoes, mixed with a sweet & smokey BBQ spice, were very good, though. I’ll have to make them again for my vegan daughter. I found the recipe online
This dish was a big disappointment. It was relatively complex and I had great expectations, but they weren’t met. Basically the whole thing was bland, all the flavors blended into one another and didn’t excite the palate anywhere.
It’s a pity, because this could have been really good. Maybe some dried fruit in the rice would have helped or a harissa sauce instead of the lemon garlic sauce. Actually, having fresh garden instead of garlic powder might have made the sauce more exciting.
This was another meal with a delicious jam sauce. It’s a simple enough recipe that it should be quite easy to make at home.
The greens came with a simple lemon juice dressing, so I decided to use my own instead. The potatoes were OK, but they were just plain. HelloFresh does much better when it adds spice to its potatoes.
Still, it was a pretty good meal.
Balsamic Fig Sauce
2 tsp oil
1 shallot, chopped
1 tsp fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
5 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp jam
1 tsp chicken stock concentrate
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp butter
salt & pepper to taste.
Heat oil in a small saute pan. Add shallot and rosemary leaves. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the balsamic vinegar and the jam. Simmer for one minute, until syrupy. Add the stock concentrate and water. Cook until thick, about 2-3 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in the butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
This is yet another simple dish of a plain chicken breast spruced up with a cream sauce. Fortunately, this chive sauce is very good so it does the job well.
I liked the side dishes quite a bit, but my husband didn’t like the texture of the lemon rice, probably because I had overcooked it. Still, I’d get this again.
Chive Cream Sauce
This is enough for two people. Serve over chicken or fish.
2 tsp chicken stock concentrate
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup water
a squeeze of lemon juice
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 oz chopped chives
salt & pepper to taste
Heat small pan over medium-high heat. Add the stock concentrate, mustard, water and lemon juice. Stir and let simmer for 1-2 minutes. Turn off heat.
Stir in the sour cream and chives. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
The filling for these tostadas was actually very good and both my husband and I really enjoyed them, but I overcooked the tortillas, thus making them too tough and difficult to handle it. It would have been better if the tortillas had been soft.
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