Category: San Luis Obispo

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more fun with bread pudding

Protecting the Ginger Bread is an important task!

My daughter Karen had visited Emeril’s famous place in New Orleans… Delmonicos. For those who don’t know, Delmonico’s has a favored status among those who love culinary history. The Delmonico’s in New York produced a wonderful cookbook that every fine chef wants to own. The cookbook is called ‘the Epicurean.’ Even Emeril has one on display.

While Karen was at Delmonico’s, she tried an interesting twist on an ancient dessert called bread pudding. The difference is that it was made with Gingerbread.

However, I made my Gingerbread bread pudding differently, allowing the gingerbread to only be one of the breads used in the mixture ( the others being: croissants, apple spice muffins and sour dough bread. The technique isn’t really all that unusual if you remember what bread pudding was really all about. Its purpose was to allow the chef to utilize all of the extra unused bread scraps that a kitchen might produce… including but not limited to: cake, muffins, rolls, french loaves and (my favorite) croissants! Besides, for bread pudding, I tend to allow my spices to take control of the gingerbread… so diluting this with other breads only makes sense.

Here is my basic bread pudding recipe.

Gingerbread cubes, sour dough bread, apple cinnamon muffins and of course croissants! Everything is ready to be covered with the very nice custard!

Bon Appetite!

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a turducken for my birthday

What do you want to eat on your birthday?

it only looks like a turkey... it's a TURDUCKEN!

One of the nice traditions we have in making a birthday special is that the person being celebrated is given their choices for the day. This gave me time to pause and think about my own upcoming birthday. I am also painfully aware that I had planned many culinary wonders for the holidays that never were developed and the various ingredients lay in my 3 freezers.

I had planned our version of what Chef Paul Prudhomme made famous… the Turducken.  His recipe  is very nice but I’d leave out the eggplant and remove the skin from the inner birds.  BTW, I am very fond of Louisiana Cooking be it Chef Prudhomme or that of   Chef Emeril John Lagasse  and found autographed cookbooks by both for my daughters Karen & Kristin’s Cookbook collections. I had to insure that I had everything I needed!

For our Turducken: Turkey, Pheasant, Goose and Duck... and I have plenty of Chicken elsewhere!

Most people shy away from this wonderful dish, in part because many find deboning the birds a rather physical task. However, if you take your time and do it the day before… it is rather simple.

Here’s how I debone the turkey!

Each bird should be accompanied by its own stuffing! With so many wonderful stuffings out there, you can choose just the right one for each bird! Chef Prudhomme recommends an Andouille corn bread stuffing which is perfect even if you only make a turkey! Other stuffings that are fun are versions of wild rice, cashew, and mushroom and saffron. There are some fun stuffings for the smaller birds made from ancient grains that don’t over power… but add interest as well.

One thing you might consider is to place strips of bacon between the string lattice you made and the turkey… this is often referred to as ‘banding’ and adds a lot to the experience.

So, now all I have to do is wait to put this all together and celebrate something… oh yeah, my birthday!

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AEB-L Kitchen Knife is tough to beat

Made with AEB-L steel (orginally designed for razors) I was very happy to add this to my set of kitchen knives.

I always browse the internet for kitchen knives because having the right tool for the right job makes everything easier!

There’s a time when all you want is a versatile kitchen knife that is very sharp… I mean very sharp, yet relatively easy to sharpen. A kitchen knife made of  AEB-L steel is very special, but you have to be careful as it is very sharp!

So, here I was on the internet reading about this fellow who started distributing knives as a side venture that eventually made him expand to full time … his wife was a chef and he found the need for the perfect knife somewhat elusive. He worked with a supplier that would make an affordable knife that would meet the needs of the professional… yes, I thought it might meet everyone’s need as well.

CLICK here   to see how much you can get in a kitchen knife for under $70!

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Tiramisu is meant to be shared

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxznvFlInbY[/youtube]

It’s funny how people will always ‘help’ you in making New Year’s Resolutions. Last year, my daughters Kristin and Karen wanted me to make a book of Family and my recipes… I was happy to do so. This year Karen asked me to make one video.

First, unlike other members of my family, I have never made a video … and if this wasn’t challenging enough, I had to hold my iPhone in one hand in order to film the experience! I brought the film into Windows Film Maker and after a few choice words, it was completed.

I was planning to make Tiramisu today and so you are catching me and my surroundings… well, not on our Sunday bests. The film wasn’t scripted… which probably shows and I ended up with a smudge of meringue for the last third of the movie… but it was fun and I ended up crossing one resolution off a rather lengthy list.

Funny, I told Laura I was going to give this away… but the look she gave me said… no.

Bon Appetite!

Tiramisu: STEP-by-STEP Recipe