GCC: Menu 4 - Wild Mushroom Tartlets

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After last weeks difficulties with the Empanadas, I was a bit worried going in with the Gutsy Cook menu.  First it involved making another dough for the tarts, Hollandaise sauce (A first for me) and my cooking schedule this past weekend sort of exploded all over the place, up till late saturday I was not even sure I was going to be able to make them at all.

But, once I’m committed to something, its hard for me to say no.

So, I started with a bit of research about dough that gets used for the tartles and found that the recipe in the Kitchen Bible is pretty standard to everything that is out there.  In fact it was the same recipe in 5 different cookbooks that I use to cross-reference.

Relief flow through me.  This was going to be a piece of cake.

And it was.

The dough is pretty easy, if you use your handy food processor, which forever and ever will be my go to for making pie crust, tart dough and anything that involves the words “until it resembles coarse bread crumbs”.  Because, I’m sorry, but I don’t think making this by hand I will get to the point of feeling it resemble coarse nothing.

So, into the food processor it went and 3 minutes later it was in the refrigerator taking a chill.  The dough was a complete success, rolling it out and placing in the tart baking shells went smoothly and no swearing was heard from the kitchen.

I was crossing my finger that this was going to be the theme - EASY.

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FFwD: Hachis Parmentier

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Ok guys, we are entering the forth week of cooking from the new book by Dorie Greenspan - “Around my French Table”.  This is my third contribution, since I skipped last weeks choice, the Vietnamese Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup.

But, this week I could not resist, because mashed potatoes and meat, in this case chopped meat - are like a great marriage.  

In France this is the equivalent of the English Shepard pie. “Hachis”, which means a dish in which the ingredients are chopped or minced, come from the same root as the English word “hatchet”.  I did not use a hatchet of course, but I like the mental picture of it.  The rest of the dish is named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French pharmacist, nutritionist, and inventor who, in the late 18th century, was instrumental in the promotion of the potato as an edible crop.

Let’s all stand up right now and thank THAT MAN!

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GCC: Menu 2 - Ricotta and Arugula Roulade and Quindim

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And its week two of the Gutsy Cooks Club.  

Our inaugural week was such a success, not only in participation but the choosen recipes were a total hit with the club.  Most of us are putting them on the repeat list.  I was also happy to see most of us get “gutsy” with the recipes by changing things around and getting creative.

That is the spirit guys!

And here we are in week 2.  These choices were actually ones that got my attention when I first got the book and was browsing through it, because a savory roulade? Really? And if there is anything that I like more is changing sweet staples into a savory spin off.  This was perfect; I have done so many sweet rolls before, so I was looking forward to it.

The best part of it is that my mother’s birthday was Sunday and I cooked a whole lunch for her, and this fit right into the menu nicely.  I was not even trying to make it fit, but this tells you how good this would go with any type of menu.

The roulade was pretty easy to put together, in fact I was so surprise how easy it came together.  And the taste before it went into the oven to cook was good.  So I was all sorts of exited.

This was going to be good, I thought…

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