Audrey's Pots De Creme

 Here is the first ingredients blended up & ready for the half n half.

 I divided up the chocolate creme in 8 little dishes.

Here's the final results, ready to eat!  I had a hard time getting a good picture, so sorry about that.  After reading some of the reviews, I was very careful to follow all her directions.  I did substitute the coffee for half n half(8 oz.) as we are not coffee drinkers.  Everything worked out great! I made sure that I blended up the first 4 ingredients real well & then added hot half n half(didn't let it boil) as the blender was blending.  I did let the eggs get to room temp. but I also put them in some warm water to make sure.  I poured the mixture into the little ramekins and then covered them in Saran wrap and put them in the frig.  They set up real well in several hours.  We had them the next day for one of the desserts for my hubbies birthday get together.  We all thought the chocolate creme was very good, especially with the sweetened whipped cream on top.  I didn't add any sugar to the chocolate and we were fine with that.  I will say that this is a very rich dessert and the small amounts were plenty.  I would like to try this recipe again using milk chocolate chips instead, as I think that would taste real good.  Another great recipe!

Rutter's Kitchen- Beef & Bean Burritos

 Here's Ashley & Dana in their new aprons that my Mom gave to all of us for Christmas! We've cooked the meat mixture up & are now fixing our plates.  So easy.  We did follow the recipe & we did use the El Pato brand of mexican tomato sauce that Ree recommended.  It had a little kick to it, but very tasty.  We also fixed the Restaurant style Salsa from the book & some guacamole. 

We really liked the burritos & will add this recipe to our list of cooking again recipes. I froze the leftover meat & plan on fixing the burritos again soon :)

Rutter's Kitchen-Brisket, Potatoes & Carrots

 Here's the brisket almost ready for the oven  This was so easy to fix.

Here is the Tangy Tomato Brisket, Crash Hot Potatoes & Whiskey-Glazed Carrots all plated up.  Such an easy meal & so tasty!  We all really liked all three recipes.  I will definitely fix these again.  We followed the recipes as written and found them easy to understand.  Dana, Ashley and I had fun cooking and we each had a recipe to fix.  I had the brisket, Dana the carrots and Ashley the potatoes.  If you haven't had a chance to fix these yet, you need to try them :)   

New Recipes

This week I will choose the French Onion Soup on page 84 and then both of the panini recipes on pages 53 and 56.  I think I will fix these three things for dinner and then cut the sandwiches up into squares so people can try a little of each.

Jacki”s Pots De Creme

I just made this today for dessert and it was absolutely delicious.  But, I am very glad others made it before me and I learned from their experiences.  I ended up making a whole batch of it so I could follow the recipe exactly even though we certainly don’t need all that chocolate around here because I am the one who will end up eating it.  Audrey texted me and said she had made the recipe but used half and half instead of the coffee.  She also put her eggs in some warm water to make sure they were not in the least bit chilly.  So, after reading Tarin’s review, getting tips from Audrey and reading reviews on the PW website I got to work!  I brought my eggs to room temp and then put them in a bowl of warm water to be extra cautious.  I dumped the bag of Ghirardelli semi sweet chocolate chips in the blender, added the vanilla, pinch of salt and about 2 Tablespoons of sugar to sweeten it up just a bit.  Then I cracked the eggs in and blended it up really well – no pulsing a few times, I just turned it on and let er go.    I didn’t have any half and half so I used 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1/2 cup 1% milk.  I heated it up in the microwave until boiling and then immediately fed it into the blender in a slow stream and blended it all up.  I was a little worried because I used 4 extra large eggs instead of 4 large ones so I didn’t know if that would mess it up but it was firm shortly after putting it in the fridge so all was well.  It is VERY rich so a small serving is all that is needed ~1/2 cup.  I topped it off with some sweetened whipped cream and enjoyed it thoroughly.  I do have to say though I would still worry about the eggs getting cooked enough with just the hot liquid if I was feeding this to small children or pregnant women.  Maybe good to use the Eggland’s Best eggs?  I just used some from Costco.  Or, cook it in the oven for a bit like the Dorie Greenspan recipe.  Anyway,  thanks so much to Tarin and Audrey for venturing before me and reporting back – very helpful.

After setting in the fridge for about 2 1/2 hours

Topped with whipped cream and ready to serve!

Pots de Creme

Okay, remember how I said I was looking for some comfort food? This was not it. In fact I couldn't even get this to become "food" in the first place. I made a half batch because with only my little family I didn't want 10 mason jars of chocolate sitting around for me to eat :)

I followed her ingredients and instructions completely except that I used very hot, very strong hot chocolate instead of coffee. But I have to say that I've made pots de creme before and I was really surprised that she didn't have any cream and/milk or extra sugar and didn't cook it. For several reasons...1) I had a really hard time melting the chocolate with the just really hot chocolate, 2) It wasn't really sweet, 3) Milk is a pretty common base for pudding and pots de creme-pots of cream is the English translation, 4) Pots de creme is traditionally a cooked dessert unlike pudding which is cooked over the stove, 5) There is no earthly way that this recipe would make 10-12 servings unless they were medicine cup sized, and 6) Did anyone notice the picture above step 3? The blender definitely has some sort of milk or cream in it.

I think that this recipe is missing some ingredients and some steps. So just don't try it. Trust me it will not work. FAIL. :(

Below I did post the recipe from Dorie Greenspan (my authority for all things baking), in case you still wanted to try these, I've done this before and know for sure that it works. (Compare it to Ree's version).

Ingredients:

4 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 large egg
5 large egg yolks
Pinch of salt

Directions:

1) Center a rack in the oven, preheated to 300. Line a large roasting pan with a double thickness of paper towels the put 8- 4 ounce ramekins in the pan. Fill a teakettle with water and boil it.

2) Put the chopped chocolate in a 2 qt glass measuring cup. Bring 1/2 cup of the cream to a boil. When the cream is just at a boil, pour it over the chocolate and wait for a minute. Using a rubber spatula and starting in the center of the bowl, gently stir the cream and the chocolate until the ganache is smooth; set aside.

3) Stir the remaining1 cup of cream and the milk together in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.

4) Meanwhile in a large glass bowl, whisk the egg, yolks, sugar, and salt together until pale and slightly thickened. Still whisking, slowly drizzle a little of the hot liquid into the eggs to temper them. Slowly pour in the remaining liquid and then slowly whisk the egg mixture into the ganache, stirring gently to incorporate.

5) With a spoon skim off the foam, then pour mixture into the cups. Pour enough hot water from the teakettle into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the cups. Cover the top of the pan snugly with plastic wrap, poke 2 holes in 2 opposite corners and slide into the oven.

6) Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the the tops darken and they jiggle a little only in the center when tapped.

7) Remove them from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Let them rest in the water bath for 10 minutes, remove the plastic wrap and then move them to the cooling rack. When they're room temp move them to the fridge.

New Recipe!

Okay so we're in definite need of some comfort food over here so let's make:

Pots de Creme, pg 244

Chocolate anyone? :)

Jacki’s Chipotle Steak Salad

I made this tonight for dinner and it was really good but like Leslee said, the salad dressing was REALLY spicy!  I went to the store to buy flank steak but the New York strip steak was on sale for a really good price so I went with that.  After marinating it for about 4 hours (yes, I know it seems just so wrong to marinate a perfectly tasty steak such as a New York strip but I wanted to follow the recipe:) I cooked it under the broiler – so tasty and tender.  The salad dressing was so spicy and I kept adding more mayo to calm it down.  I finally just added some ranch dressing and that helped a lot.  I recommend only using a little of the chipotles with adobo sauce and tasting along the way instead of dumping it all in the blender like I did. Leslee mentioned using a little milk to thin down the dressing which is a good idea.  I didn’t do that and it was a little thick.   I used romaine lettuce along with halved cherry tomatoes and sliced cucumbers – omitted the red onion.  I thought it made a very good main dish salad.

 

Steak Salad

This salad was pretty good but definitley spicy! I marinated the steak for a few hours and it had a good flavor. For the dressing I used plain greek yogurt since I was out of mayo (figured it was healthier anyway!) and added a splash of milk to the blender.  It ended up pretty spicy but just Sean and I ate it so it was okay.  I omitted the onions and added some snap peas to the salad greens.  It was a nice light meal but the steak made it pretty filling.

New Recipes

Hello,

For this week, I thought I would pick the Chipotle Steak Salad (pg 48). It looks like a yummy and more healthy recipe.

We haven't seen too much action on here lately so we just wanted to check to see who still wanted to participate. Comment below if you would still like to be part of the recipe selection! If you would prefer  to just cook along and post when you get a chance, that is fine too.  When we get some feedback we will set up the next rotation.
Thanks!

Jacki’s Beef and Bean Burritos

Ok, these burritos were just plain yummy!  They were very easy to make after the beef and onions were browned – I used ground venison.  I used the Spanish tomato sauce in the ground meat mixture but forgot to drizzle some on top before microwaving.  We will definitely be having these again – so easy and tasty.  Did anyone else have a  chance to make these this past week?

Tangy Tomato Brisket

I made this meal before the holidays and am finally getting around to posting about it! The brisket was delicious! I found a smaller brisket so I cut the recipe in half which worked well for our family. I used the chili sauce option and cooked it in the crockpot on low for most of the day. It came out very tender and delicious. The hot crash potatoes were easy to make and good! When I was making the carrots I didn't really look at the instructions before so I ended up just melting the butter and brown sugar together and adding in the carrots later for the first time.  Ended up very good...like candy:) It made a nice Sunday dinner!

New receipe...SORRY SO LATE!!!

OK,
Beef and Bean Burritos page 66. Yummy!!!

Jacki’s Apple Brown Betty

Oh my goodness, I thought this was delicious and very quick and easy to make.  I cut the recipe in half and tweaked it just a bit.  I used white bread because that is what I had (the hubs doesn’t care for whole wheat) and it turned out fine but I think a dense whole wheat bread like PW recommended would be really good.  I used a little less butter than called for and a little more apple.  I also would have cooked it a bit less with the foil and a bit more with the foil off but all in all I thought it was very good and recommend it.   I whipped my cream a bit more than the recipe said to but it melted down nicely.

New Recipe

Hi ladies!  Sorry this is coming to you all a little late, with the holiday festivities my plate was a little full and I spaced picking a recipe.  Because it's a little late in the week I thought I would pick a quick recipe.  It looks yummy though!

Apple Brown Betty page 250

Enjoy!