I've written before about my Mother's love for creme brulee. She is crazy about this delicious dessert. So the last few dinner's we had together, before Wee Bear and I left for Scottsdale, I made her creme brulee. She was in heaven with delight, in fact one night she devoured TWO!!
Of course who wouldn't likes this? We all rejoice at the fun in cracking the sugar on top and the caramel is the quintessential
trademark of smooth, creamy, vanilla custard, foiled by the
ever-so-slightly bitter burnt sugar.
I still remember the first time I made these remarkable cookies. I was in my late 20's. My father had taken the Summer to go to Montana and find where he was born. He had given us a address to write letters to him, so, I not only wrote letters, I sent him cookies. This cookie was the one he talked about the most. He described his first bite like this, " ahhhh, this is nice- then, without warning his entire mouth was on fire!" However, he couldn't stop, he told me, "these cookies are addictive"!
A gingerbread house is only as good as it's glue. If you want an A+ on your gingerbread house, you need the best gingerbread house
icing. When planning your gingerbread house, the icing is the most
important part. Gingerbread houses are a great way to set the scene for
the holidays and WOW visitors to your home, whether it be Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas!
Penuche was a popular frosting when I was growing up. So last week end when my Grandchildren and I made a "Spiced Pumpkin Pecan Quick Bread" I thought the perfect frosting for it would be one of my old favorites, Penuche frosting. My Mom made a version of this recipe, however, I have changed it up, making it richer for "Julia and Emma's Spiced Pumpkin Pecan Quick bread"!
I have told you many times how I shop at the Seattle Public Market, well friends, there is this fabulous cheese maker.............Beechers. Beecher's is a local favorite cheese, restaurant and snack shop! Beechers started as a idea right here in our Seattle Public Market in 2002, by Kurt Beecher. Beecher's opened it's doors in November of 2003 Beecher's has two cheese making locations now, Seattle and the Flatiron District in New York.
The truffle is well-loved in our family and gets
featured quite often, when any one of us can get our hands on them. My daughter-in-law, Amy and son Dustin were able to purchase a black truffle at the Seattle Public market last week and oh boy, did we have a feast!! Dustin shaved the fresh truffle over his perfectly grilled steaks and I created a new risotto using shitake mushrooms, shallots and leeks. Making mushrooms and truffle the hero of your dish means big
bang for your buck because they were made to ooze flavor, and are best
friends with good old staples such as pasta, risotto and ciabatta. And
also, risotto is made for feeding people you love, and that’s just
what we needed when we had a merry rabble of family round
for dinner and a Seahawks game on Sunday afternoon.
Last week we had friends fly in from Scottsdale to go with us to Lake Chelan. We had a great time touring wineries, hiking and eating. One night we ate in and watched the Seahawk football game. I made a marinated flank steak, fried rice, and gave Ruth some baby Bok Choy to grill. Oh boy was it good! We didn't have the Miso and improvised, however, I have given you the recipe with the Miso. I had brought some Schilling Monterey chicken seasoning, and we used that to make the butter for the Bok Choy, it was good, but, the Miso is much better. I recreated the dish again with the Miso a day ago. I bought "Brown rice Miso", you can use which ever suits you or you have in your refrigerator. I wrote about each of the Miso's below.
