Cookbook Club - Pati's Mexican Table

In an attempt to catch up, I need to go back to August which just seems forever ago.  It's difficult to reconcile writing about the summer while listening to John Denver & The Muppets singing Noel.  But this cookbook needs to be shared.

Tara was excited to cook from this book or rather show us how delicious it is.  I made the green beans with toasted pistachios and a vinegar sauce.  I'm a big fan of having something green at every meal.

This dish is incredible.  Tara made Shredded Pork in Ancho-Orange Sauce and I still think about this dish.   She prepared the guacamole, salsa, queso and limes to eat with the tacos but they were not needed.  The pork had so much flavor in the sauce.

I made the Blissful Corn Torte which was sweeter than I like my corn bread.  Apparently, it's a really good breakfast treat (as written in the book).

Jocelyn baked this great key lime pie and May the Mexican cookies.  The cookies were nice because there wasn't too much sugar but lots of dark chocolate.  Overall, this is a book I'd appreciate investigating further.  We all agreed that the pork won the night.

Cookbook Club - The Gramercy Tavern

I volunteered to host in May because I had been planning my cookbook for months - The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook.  I've written about this restaurant many times and my love for it doesn't wane.  I've been using the book for a few months and it reminds me enough of the restaurant to make me very happy.

Anne brought her adorable little one.  

The recipes in the book are divided by seasons and most of us were very excited to make spring/summer dishes.  May made chilled corn soup.  She used a recipe found online and there were some very important components missing.  She made the broth which was good but this is the danger sometimes of online recipes.

I made chicken with Sugar Snap Peas and Almond Milk.  The dish is supposed to have pickled ramps but I missed that very short season by a few weeks.  It would have added a great sharp flavor to the dish but even without the ramps, I loved it.  The chicken was cooked in a skillet for a few minutes and then baked in the oven.  It was perfect.

Jocelyn made the Baby Artichokes with Summer Beans and Sun Gold Tomatoes and I forgot to take a photo.  It was another dish that took advantage of the season but Jocelyn wasn't able to find fresh artichokes.

My favorite dish was the Heirloom Tomato Tarts made by Megan.  This was the one dish where we all wanted the recipe.  It's perfect.  She didn't have tart pans but rolled out the dough to resemble pizzas.  Megan said the dough was even good on its own.

And another favorite - Anne made Chocolate-Covered Toffee with Pumpkin Seeds and Sea Salt.  I very happily ate the leftovers. 

Some of the recipes were more difficult to follow but I still firmly believe in this book.  I love the photos, the stories and the instructions.

Cookbook Club - Latin American Cuisine

Marissa hosted our April gathering and chose Latin America cuisine because of her own family ties to South America.  She sent us this link to recipes on the Food Network site and told us to choose whatever looked good.  I really wanted to make al pastor tacos but I knew the trip on the metro with the food wouldn't do it a lot of good.

We had an early dinner and it was one of those Saturdays where most of the people could attend.  I'm realizing how difficult that is especially as the summer begins.

I made the Frijoles Borrachos or drunken beans which I loved.  The recipe was not all that great because it did not specify soaking the beans but thankfully I knew enough to do that.  The beans were very easy to make and I loved the addition of bay leaves and beer.  It would be the perfect topping to nachos or burritos.  I think the group was surprised how much they liked them since they don't look all that special.  Now I know what beans at Mexican restaurants can taste like.

Julia made shrimp empanadas and yes, we did laugh at the fact that she made empanadas.  There is a well known restaurant in DC called Julia's Empanadas.  Julia made the beignets at a previous gathering and she is very good at frying which I am not.

Marissa made this dish with potatoes and eggs which I can't remember the name but it's a familiar dish to her from her family. Very tasty.

Anne made Salvadoran pupusas and did an excellent job considering she didn't have the pupusa press.  It's always fun to make recipes that we're not familiar with but it's very frustrating at the same time.

Megan made this delicious ceviche with squid and shrimp.  This was one of the hits of the night.  

The desserts look very white and not too interesting but they were incredible.  Jocelyn made tres leche cake and it was sweet and so good.  May made the passion fruit mousse as it was something she had eaten in London and wanted to try it. 

Everything was very good and I'd love to do more Latin America cooking with focusing on specific countries.  It's not a cuisine I eat too much of on the East Coast but I miss it.

Cookbook Club - Love for Julia Child

The directive in March was any recipe from Julia Child.  And to wear pearls.

Jocelyn hosted a lunch on our first perfect day of 2014.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day that I can still remember two months later because it was that perfect.

It was a smaller group than usual but it was just a reminder that it doesn't take that much food to make a very good meal.

I made the herb biscuits (below) which were easy and delicious.  The recipe can be found here.  They were flaky and very tasty.  May liked my idea of bringing bread and changed her mind from a shrimp dish to the cheese puffs (above).  An excellent idea as she confirmed that they aren't that difficult to make either.

Jenica made a puree of rice and turnips.  I was a little wary of it but it was a nice mixture.  And it went very well with the chicken and mushroom dish that Jocelyn made.

Anne completely awed us with a chocolate almond cake.  So rich and delicious.  Recipe can be found here.

I left here to go to a birthday party for a very cute 1 year old.   And the day wasn't even close to being done but more on that later.

Cookbook Club - The Book of Tapas

There are a few lessons that I learned about tapas last month.  The first was that they often taste much better than the look.  The second that they can taste better the second day.  And the third is the lack of dessert tapas.

Kate hosted for February and wisely chose tapas.  She searched a few different books including the one by DC chef José Andrés but The Book of Tapas by Simone and Ines Ortega just seemed the most complete.

I loved looking through this book but it was too difficult to choose just one dish.  Many of us started picking multiple dishes also because they were pretty simple.

I promise you that the dishes tasted much better than the looked (see above in lessons learned).

Megan made the Serrano ham with Melon Mousse.  The mousse was more like a soup because the gelatin would not set but the flavors were still delicious.  It was more like a sweet gazpacho with ham.

Marissa made the Patatas Bravas with garlic mayonnaise on the side.  I could eat anything with that garlic mayonnaise.  I was using it as a condiment with all of the dishes.

She also made the Manchego cheese and fried onion.  The recipe calls for Idizabal cheese but she couldn't find any. Thank goodness for Manchego.

Jocelyn made toast with ground beef.  This is so simple but so good.

I made the carrot salad with orange and the lentils with sausage.  I made a really good carrot salad recently from the Rose Bakery cookbook and I wanted to compare it with another.  It called for Orange Blossom water which I could not find and I wonder how that would change the flavor.  It was a sweet dish with the oranges and a little powdered sugar but still nice.  I liked the lentil dish the night of but I loved it the next day.  It's so simple with garlic, onion, bay leaf and chorizo sausage but it has a very nice flavor.

In addition to the fancy drinks, Kate made the chicken brochettes with spices and honey.  This was another good dish.

Tara kept apologizing for this dish because of how it looked but don't let appearances fool you.  This is what fried asparagus with garlic, vinegar and paprika should look like and it tastes as good as it sounds.

Jenica doubled up as well and made fried zucchini which I loved with the garlic mayonnaise and the olive caviar. Delicious brown food could have been the theme of the night.

Julia recognized the need for dessert and made chocolate stuffed beignets from a non-tapas cookbook.  I could eat these everyday.

Consensus was it's a great cookbook and a few folks bought it.  I'm excited to make the lentils again.

Cookbook Club - Pok Pok

January's meeting was fun and crazy but more about what happened before the gathering. Megan was hosting and she decided she wanted to cook Thai food.  It was around that same time that Pok Pok was named one of the best cookbooks of 2013.  She had been to the restaurant in Portland and I had been to the one in Brooklyn so I was excited this was what she wanted to do.

A lot of us looked at the recipes with at least some trepidation as they required visits to Asian markets and a few tools that may not already be in our kitchens.  Originally 7 folks were supposed to come but due to sickness, a death in the family and other engagements, it was only the 4 of us.  It was still one of my favorite nights.

May and I visited H Mart in the suburbs of VA separately but both had similar reactions of trying to find the ingredients without any real help.  May tried to ask at the Help Desk but it was finally a customer who took her around to find certain ingredients.  I now have very very large bottles of black soy sauce and thin soy sauce in my cupboard wondering how it will be possible to ever finish them.

I walked into Megan's house and my eyes started tearing up.  She had roasted the Thai chili peppers earlier in the day and chopped them up in a food processor.  When she opened the food processor, the red pepper wafted through the entire house and actually gave Megan a bloody nose.  As May's husband said - she had essentially pepper sprayed herself.  We were all still feeling the affect hours later.  But the Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings were so good.  She did such a great job.  But if you do not like spicy, do not even try to eat them.  Here's the recipe online.

She served veggies on the side to counteract some of the heat.

Julia brought the Yam Tuna which is a tuna salad.  It was a very nice mix of flavors and I was surprised how much I like canned tuna. I feel like I developed a bias against it when the dolphins were being killed but I believe that is no longer the case.

I made the Phad Si Ew - or stir fried rice noodles with pork and Chinese broccoli.  I love this dish and ate it almost daily during my time in Thailand.  I was excited to make it but the first batch was a horrible failure.  The book doesn't really explain itself very well when you're dealing with non-fresh noodles.  This was the second batch which was fine.  But it was the third batch that I made the next day which was so so very good.  We all agreed that it is much easier to buy Thai food as it is really difficult to make and it can take a long time to prepare.  It's just really difficult to find good fast Thai in DC which makes me sad.

May was the super star and made a few dishes.

She made Som Tum or papaya salad with sweet pork.  I could eat this every day and it tasted like true Thai style.  Recipe found here but follow the links there for all of the recipes to this one dish.

She also made the Sticky Rice with mango and salty-sweet coconut cream.  Again, I could eat this daily and she did such a great job. And the recipe can be found here.

We had such a great time chatting for hours with Megan and her husband.  We all agreed that this cookbook is not for beginners but it was all delicious food.

Cookbook Club - Bubby's

January was a very cold month and my computer is by a cold window.  Sitting here became my least favorite thing to do but I missed updating.

This happened way back in December but I still remember the variety and amount of food.  Anne had a difficult time trying to figure out the cookbook for her month.  At first it was a cookie exchange but then she wanted to explore one cookbook.  She found Bubby's new book online and I told her that it is a delicious restaurant in NYC known especially for their pancakes.  She was sold on that idea.

Anne made these incredible flowers.  I couldn't believe they were handmade. I have very crafty friends.

This was the largest group of the cookbook club that we've had yet.  This just meant that much more food to eat.  We all stuffed ourselves but the food was so good that we didn't want to stop eating.

Jenica made this Fruity Clafouti which may have been my favorite dish that day.  It's like a giant pancake with fruit and powdered sugar.  It was still warm and pretty perfect.

Anne made the fruit salad and the accompanying poppy seed dressing.  We were kind of surprised that there were onions in the dressing but they were not noticeable.  

Kate made these sour cream pancakes with the fruit compote (below).  The compote had raisins and I still thought it was delicious.  Bubby's pancakes are still that good even made from the cookbook.

My second favorite was this Bacon and Cheese Bread Pudding from Tara that was made with about one pound of butter.  It tasted as good as you think it would taste.

May made the Apple Streusel Coffee Cake which was also delicious.  You're probably seeing the theme here that everything was delicious.

And finally some green vegetables - Jocelyn made the Roasted Asparagus and Leek Frittata. 

I made the Whole Wheat, Spinach and Cheese Scones.  I liked them but they were a little salty.  I also liked cooking with whole wheat flour as I've been using it more in my everyday baking now that it's in my cupboard.  It's a nice change from the usual and I feel little healthier when I use it.

So very much food, right?!  But that's not everything.

Megan made Heuvos Rancheros and stood in the kitchen making each of our eggs.  Again, delicious. We had such a great variety between savory, sweet, and spicy brunch dishes.

And the food looked a lot like it did in the book.  We all came out fans of the book.  We also are learning and bringing lots of tupperware to take home leftovers. 

Today:  Wish your lady friends a Happy Galentine's Day. This is definitely my favorite made up holiday as I think there should be more days to celebrate friendship.