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I love markets.

I love taking my big canvas bag out and perusing the different stands, buying up cheap, fresh produce and meat and fish (and containers of thirty eggs). The Canadian calls it “Emily versus the market.”

Every week, I go to the market near my house. I have to walk about ten minutes to get there, and it’s a nice walk, right across the Champs de Mars. Sometimes, I go twice a week. Whenever I invite the Canadian, he grumbles and stands aloft. He doesn’t help me pick anything. He says he “doesn’t do well at markets.” I tell him that this is ludicrous. He likes food. He should like looking at food. He says he likes looking, but he wants to be able to pay for everything all at once. I tell him I’ll pay. He says if I pay, he doesn’t want to pick things, because he feels bad about me paying for food that he wants. I say, then he should give me money. He says, “then why don’t I give you money, you go, and I’ll stay here and wait for you. Bring me a present.”

I go to the market alone a lot.

On Thursday night, I made Jaden’s Tropical Salmon (coming tomorrow to a blog near you) for me and the Canadian. The Canadian did the dishes (he lost a bet and has to do the dishes for a week. It’s nice.) Then we packed up and went out to the airport for seven hours.
Why, you ask? The Canadian Sister is here visiting us from Barrie, Ontario! She’s never been to France before. She was arriving at six in the morning, and since it takes an hour to get to the airport and the RER doesn’t start running until 5:30, we left the night before. We set up camp in the arrivals terminal, I raided the vending machine for snacks, and we waited.

When she finally got here, she came with me to the market. She didn’t want to sleep, she said. She wanted to get over her jet lag right away.

I like her.

The Canadian gave us money and took a nap.

The Canadian Sister is much better at the market than the Canadian. Maybe it’s a girl thing. She helped me pick produce, made faces with me at the cheval (horse) in the butcher’s case, got made fun of for speaking English with me. (”Américaines? Canadiennes? Allemandes? Anglaises?”), and she picked the steaks we had for dinner.

I never appreciated steak when my mother made it. We had it about once a week, but it was as normal to me as chicken. Now that I know how much it costs, steak dinners are few and far between. But the Canadian Sister likes steak, and I like the Canadian Sister, so we got three entrecôtes.

I’m always afraid of undercooking steak (yeah… that last post pertains to steak as well), so I got myself a recipe. The steaks were incredible. I served them with the Mushroom Hash from the Wednesday Chef, and the meal was delicious. And no, I didn’t undercook them… they were perfectly medium-rare. Even though I did almost set the kitchen on fire (something on the bottom of the pan caught on fire, and for some reason I was perfectly calm as the bottom of the frying pan erupted into flames, and I just sort of held it aloft until it settled down. I imagine this is what Giada di Laurentiis must do if this ever happens to her. Or someone on severe anti-anxiety medication. It is very anti-me.)

The Canadian Sister is sleeping now, and the leftover steak is sitting in the fridge. I think I may go snack on it while I wait for her to wake up.

Belgian Steak (adapted from Everybody Eats Well in Belgium by Ruth Van Waerebeek)

4 sirloin steaks
3 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper
red wine
good mustard

Bring the steaks to room temperature. Heat the butter over medium heat until melted, then turn the temperature up to high and add the steaks. Cook for one minute on each side, and then add salt and pepper and turn the temperature down to medium. Cook the steaks until done, turning every so often. For medium rare, about six minutes in total. Remove the steaks and allow to sit for several minutes to redistribute the juices. Meanwhile, add about a tablespoon of mustard to the pan and deglaze with a cup of red wine. Stir to combine and serve on the side.

I have a habit of undercooking baked goods. OK, scratch that. I have a habit of undercooking everything. I’ve undercooked steak. I’ve undercooked ahi tuna. That takes a lot of skill and dexterity.

I guess I’ve just always been fairly convinced that there is nothing worse than something that is burned or overcooked. A gray steak has absolutely no appeal, no matter how succulent the filet cut was to begin with. The actual application of heat is everything, and I’d rather pull out a quickbread that’s a little doughy in the center than one with a crumb like styrofoam and a crust like cardboard.

But not this time. No, sir. I just tried the Pumpkin Pound Cake over from Desert Culinary. (Sidebar: I love this blog. I just discovered it a while back, and I feel like I’ve been missing out. I’ve already made two recipes from it–the other will be up here soon–and I can’t wait to make more!)

The cake came out perfectly. After about thirty minutes, the house smelled just like pumpkin, and I desperately wanted to peek, but I just sat at my computer reading my other food blogs and waiting. And waiting. Until the dreaded fifty minutes were up and I peeked. I checked with a toothpick. And then, something unheard of. Without cutting into the cake, I put it back in the oven.

I know. It’s a milestone for me. But when the cake came out ten minutes later, after a total baking time of one hour, I knew it was worth it. The Canadian and I have been snacking on this cake all week, and it is divine. Sweet, but not too sweet, spicy, moist and delicious. And not in the least undercooked.

I made a few changes:

1. As you can tell from the pictures, I skipped the buttermilk glaze. I wasn’t using real buttermilk in the cake anyway (I soured my own milk with lemon), so it didn’t seem worth it. The cake didn’t suffer.

2. I used light brown sugar, because the box was opened. It had started to clump a bit, but try as I might, I couldn’t get some of the smaller clumps to… un-clump. But it actually worked to my advantage: see those little pockets of dark brown sweetness? There were several floating throughout the cake, and they were a welcome surprise. I may have to do it again on purpose next time.

3. I didn’t dry the pumpkin on paper towels first. I’m lazy. It didn’t matter much.

4. I subbed the spices listed for a four spice powder sold here in France made up of cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper and cloves. It’s easy. I’m lazy.

5. I used all all-purpose flour.

Today, I made doughnuts for the first time.

It was a learning experience.

When I lived in Massachusetts, one of our favorite things to do was to run to Smallack farms and get a box of apple cider doughnuts. They were dipped in cinnamon sugar, and they were just about the best things ever. And we didn’t even feel bad about eating them, because we figured that running to the farm and eating a box of doughnuts essentially cancelled each other out.

I wanted to participate in Peabody and Helene’s doughnut challenge, and I got very excited, because there is a market near my house that is only opened on Wednesdays and Sundays, and they sell amazing apple cider. I actually even had a recipe for cider doughnuts from Peabody’s archive that I had been wanting to try for awhile. In my eyes, the planets had aligned, so I got up bright and early on Wednesday, went over to the market, and picked up my ingredients. This is when the learning started.

1. I need to get a one cup measuring cup. Or learn to count. I can’t be sure, but I think I only added two and a half instead of three and a half cups of flour. The dough was more like batter, and I tried so hard to roll it out before I decided that it just wasn’t going to happen.

2. I am not afraid of boiling oil. But I should be. As I was trying to get the temperature right, I ended up scalding the bottom of my pot, making a couple of rejects when the oil wasn’t hot enough, and standing against the wall while the few inches of shortening in the bottom of my dutch oven boiled to five times their original height and threatened to take over my kitchen.

3. The rejects taste awesome.

The Canadian came in to ask me some questions about photoshop, and he took a bunch of the doughnut holes (AKA Tim Bits… Tim Hortons… any Canadians out there? OK. Moving on.) which he enjoyed quite a bit. After awhile, I got a nice rhythm going… but then I was out of dough. So… yeah.

Rejects and Timbits.

Link to Recipe: http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com/2007/10/12/the-joys-of-fried-dough/

I know, it’s Mardi Gras, and I’m supposed to be making pancakes, but the truth is, I just didn’t have time today. However, I will take this opportunity to blog about another recipe that I made recently that also uses up your excess flour, butter and eggs before Lent.

Yes, I finally jumped on the bandwagon and made Peabody’s Snickerdoodle Muffins, also known as, the little muffin that caused a big stir in the food blogging world… and I have to say, I totally understand the hype now! The dough was incredibly easy, made entirely from pantry items (except the sour cream… but how hard is it to get sour cream?) and rolling the dough in sugar before plopping it in the muffins tin made me giddy! Hee hee.

No, but these muffins are incredible. The outside, coated with sugar (I used cassonade, which is like Sugar in the Raw) ends up crunchy and crisp, while the inside of the muffin stays moist, probably due to the sour cream. The Canadian and I were both vying for the last one (he got it while I was at school). I made sixteen, and Britney got one… the rest we hoarded for ourselves.

I didn’t change anything… as always, the recipe is perfect, but if any of the rest of you have been slow like me about getting into the kitchen and making these… well then march yourself right on into the kitchen.

Now!

I’ve been meaning to post about this chicken recipe for awhile. I got it off Luisa’s site: it’s a recipe for spicy roasted chicken thighs. I accidentally forgot to mix the tomato paste in with the rest of the ingredients (I know… I’m insane), so after I had rubbed the chicken with the mix, I just kind of smushed some tomato paste on there as well. It turned out delicious, but as you can see, the color was a little bit different from Luisa’s.

Luisa, by the way, is starting to become my guru without even knowing it. I pretty much put every recipe on her site onto my list of recipes to try… and every time I try one, I end up loving it. Pretty soon, I’m going to have to hit up that famous lemon chicken. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should probably head over there and check out her site for yourself. Sorry for seeming like a stalker, Luisa… I’m going back to the chicken now.

I loved this chicken. I served it with spiced couscous and extra gravy from the pan. The Canadian, however, was a little skeptical. Sure, he said it was good and finished what was on his plate, but it’s the first time in the history of mankind that he didn’t ask for seconds. Oh well… that just meant that I got to have the leftovers with salad the next day… and take a picture, which I forgot to do the day before. Maybe it’s just a girl recipe…

Wow… this Magazine Monday thing is not off to a good start for me. It’s because of midterms, but I know that’s no excuse… I’ve been pretty lazy with the book reviews too. Oh well… hopefully I can get back on track soon.

Anyway, two days late, my first Magazine Monday, which is really a blog (I told myself I could use blog recipes as well, because I have just as many recipes to try from y’all as I do from magazines.)

This one comes from Stephen Cooks, one of my favorite sites for food porn. I made these Espresso “Mayan” Cookies last week… but I think I did something wrong. The flavor was delicious, don’t get me wrong, but the texture left something to be desired, and mine didn’t look like Stephen’s. I tried some the next day, and they had softened a bit, which I liked. This one’s going to need a little bit of tinkering, because I loved the flavors… maybe I’ll try for something that rises a little bit more…

At any rate, the newspaper staff loved them, and when the Planet staff is happy, I’m happy.

I stumbled across The Wednesday Chef very recently, and I immediately became obsessed with Luisa’s recipes. She gets them from the New York and LA Times’ food sections, which appear on Wednesdays. I love that she even posts recipes that didn’t work out… sometimes I feel as though my fellow food bloggers prepare perfect and effortless food every day, but Luisa reminds me (not often, mind you) that not every recipe turns out exactly the way you planned.
Yesterday, I decided, like her, to try my hand at one of the recipes piling up in my recipe box, and what I tried were these: le Pain Quotidien’s Belgian Brownies. The recipe was perfect as-is, so I won’t post it here, but it’s over at her site if you want to copy it so get over there and copy it. Now. I brought a box of them in to the newspaper office while we did layout yesterday afternoon. There are none left. I only got half of one, but what I got was tender and delicious. The chocolate power is intense, and seeing as these cakes are near flourless, they are very light and moist.

On top of everything, the recipe was ridiculously easy. It’s going into my top five for desserts… I think I’ll get to taste a whole Belgian Brownie yet.

After the success of the Blueberry Hill Cupcakes this weekend (pictures coming soon to a blog near you), I decided this morning that I wanted to bake something else. Something with strawberries in it, to use up the pint in my kitchen. A strawberry cupcake, of sorts.

But as I looked through my list of recipes to try, (10 pages, people… singles spaced. Dear Lord, it’s an illness.) I realized that I had no such cupcake or even a similar muffin on my list! Disgruntled, I sauntered over to Peabody’s place and found a recipe for red, white, and blue muffins. Except that I knew that raspberries and blueberries were getting to be outrageously expensive (in France we don’t have California to keep us in fruit all year.) I growled audibly, muttered something nasty under my breath that had something to do with the Common Market, and kept going. And I found this: yeah, it wasn’t strawberries, but it was a muffin, and it was even on my list of things to try! Check and check. Off I went to the market to pick up the ingredients.

I have a little secret for you, reader: in France, they don’t use brown sugar. Or molasses. Or if they do, it must be only sold at some specialty shop far, far away from where I live. But I was going to make these muffins. So I grabbed a box of cassonade, which is really more like Sugar in the Raw than brown sugar, and marched home. Upon opening the box, I was greeted with that familiar brown-sugary smell, so it couldn’t be all bad. I mixed together the ingredients and noticed the severe peach to batter ratio. I double checked the recipe, but I had done everything right, and I trust Peabody, so I filled my little ramekins (muffin tins are another thing that are hard to find here. I line up aluminum ramekins on a baking sheet. Makes them easier to force out of their little hole when they’re being a little bit bitchy, though.)

20 minutes later, I had this. I think I underdid them a little bit (my ramekins are bigger than standard), but I don’t care if they kind of fall apart on you. They’re moist and chock full of peaches, and they do taste like brown sugar (yay cassonade!) Looks like the blueberry cupcakes have a contender for this evening, when I’ve invited people over to partake in the baking goodness…

As something a little different this week, my shout out isn’t to another blog, but to another foodie, my friend Joanna, and the cheese which she thoughtfully gave me for Christmas.

As she put it, only I could understand this gift. She brought over a selection of four cheeses: a gorgonzola, a grada padano, a parmigiano reggiano, and a monte veronese.

How great is it to have friends who get you?