Breakfast Pizza

Breakfast Pizza
Originally uploaded by elfed.

Bacon, egg and tomato pizza using the olive oil dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

Preheat the oven as high as it will go. Use a baking stone if you can, I used a pizza tin.

Fry 1lb bacon (I used Nueske's) till crisp, drain and crumble.

Whisk together three eggs with 1/2 cup of ricotta and 1/2 cup grated parm.

Slice a large handful of cherry tomatoes.

Roll out your dough and place it on the peel or in the tin. Pour the egg mixture onto the dough and spread it around evenly. Scatter the bacon and tomatoes over the egg mixture. Salt and pepper. Top with mozzarella cheese and bake at 500 till browned.

Thomas Kellers Coffee and Donuts

Thomas Kellers Coffee and Donuts
Originally uploaded by elfed.

Best donut ever.....

This was fun, and fun to eat! There were extra donuts, which the kids loved. No extra semi-freddo though!

This was from the French Laundry Cookbook again. Buy it. Really. It looks intimidating, but it's very easy to follow. Truly. A two year old could do it...

well....with help.....

New Years Eve 2007

Butter-Poached Maine Lobster with Leeks, Pommes Maxim, and a Red Beet Essence
Originally uploaded by elfed.

Yes, I spent my New Years Eve cooking crap I cannot eat. I just don't like lobster, but the boys do, so this one was for them.

Butter-Poached Maine Lobster with Leeks, Pommes Maxim, and a Red Beet Essence from Thomas Keller's French Laundry cookbook. And a much better blogger than I am has already run down the steps to this one, so go read the French Laundry At Home.

The Tru Dinner

Comments will be added later, but I wanted to at least get these out as it's been months since the dinner actually happened!

We wanted to do a full dinner from Tru using recipes from Rick Tramonto's book, Tru: A Cookbook from the Legendary Chicago Restaurant. The menu for the evening was:

Prosciutto di Parma with Tricolor Melon and Mascarpone

Caramel Taffy Apple Foie Gras with Lavender Salad
and Green Apple Chips

Salad of Baby Vegetables and Greens

Arctic Char Poached in Duck Fat with Spinach Almond Puree

Heirloom Tomato Water

Duet of Venison with Rutabaga Mash

Chocolate Malted Semifreddo with Chocolate-Bergamot Paint

We had my cousin Patrick and his family over and my brother Dan with his family made it for dessert and leftovers. Del had already eaten their foie gras and fish portions by then! The prosciutto dish tasted nice but was messy and hard to eat, everything else was wonderful, especially the fish and the foie. Prep was not too bad, I started a week or so early and had time to throw things together or heat them up in the kitchen between courses. We did wine pairings as suggested in the book. I'll add more comments and sources to specific dishes later, but here are the photos:

The above are prep shots, the one to the right shows the venison bones ready to roast for stock.



the foie!!!!!


Arctic Char poached in duck fat. This was absolutely amazing! We got the fish online from Gortons Seafood, which was really reasonably priced.




The duet of Venison.









The dessert....chocolate malted semi-freddo with chocolate bergamot paint. This recipe made a ton of leftover semi-freddo which was marvelous. It really tasted much better than the photo looks!





more to come..............

Tilapia with curried veg

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Originally uploaded by elfed.

Long beans, eggplant and scallions sauteed with coconut milk and curry paste. Served with pan fried tilapia.

Lamb chops

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Originally uploaded by elfed.

Lamb chops marinated in rosemary and garlic, served with a port wine/fig reduction flavored with chipotle and espresso