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Monday, March 24, 2008
8:54 AM

Creme Brulee French Toast Recipe

Good morning all. We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. For those of you who were able to join us yesterday, thanks again for coming. It was great to see everyone.

For those of you who asked, here is the recipe for the Creme Brulee French Toast:

Ingredients:
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
An 8- to 9-inch round loaf country-style bread
5 large eggs
1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon Grand Marnier (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preparation:
In a small heavy saucepan melt butter with brown sugar and corn syrup over moderate heat, stirring, until smooth and pour into a 13- by 9- by 2-inch baking dish. Cut six 1-inch thick slices from center portion of bread, reserving ends for another use, and trim crusts. Arrange bread slices in one layer in baking dish, squeezing them slightly to fit.

In a bowl whisk together eggs, half-and-half, vanilla, Grand Marnier, and salt until combined well and pour evenly over bread. Chill bread mixture, covered, at least 8 hours and up to 1 day.

Preheat oven to 350° F. and bring bread to room temperature. Bake bread mixture, uncovered, in middle of oven until puffed and edges are pale golden, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve hot French toast immediately.

I would have posted a picture, but to be honest, this dish isn't the prettiest you will make. It's all about the taste.

Have a good one!

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
9:36 AM

Happy Birthday Connor! (One Day Late)

Yes, yesterday was Connor's Birthday. Number 19.

I remember the day he was born. Barbara had been shooting for the 17th so he would be a St. Patrick's day baby (hence his middle name). Alas, she missed it by only hours and in the wee hours of the 18th Connor was born (after only 1 hour and 17 minutes of labor as I recall - Barbara is an overachiever at everything).

How about a little trip down Connor memory lane . . .

Connor is the one who:

Got ahold of lipstick and smeared it all over the wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom.
Got ahold of vaseline and smeared it all over my pillow (and himself).
Climbed into the toilet in his footie pajamas and stayed long enough for the classic picture to be taken.
Climbed up on the roof of his preschool and left his shoes up there.
Climbed the fence at preschool, running across Pacific Coast Highway.
Decided one morning to go for a bike ride first thing before anyone else was up. He was very safety conscious and made sure the put on his helmet. Problem was that he was completely NAKED otherwise.
Chewed the stitches out of his palm the same day they were put in.
For a while started far too many sentences with "Is it illegal to ____" (fill in the blank).
Can build a computer than can probably run the entire space program for NASA.
Has excellent taste in comedy (namely Eddie Izzard).
Is an overall great guy (notwithstanding all of the foregoing history).

Feel free to add your own memories. There are so many to choose from.

Happy Birthday Connor! Hope you had a great one.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008
2:09 PM

Balsamic Chicken Recipe

Hello everyone. Hope all is well.

We tried a new recipe recently and loved it so much that not only have we already made it twice in 10 days, but felt we had to share. I got it from an episode of Everyday Italian with Giada De Laurentiis (yes, she of the red blender).

Balsamic Chicken
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
5 sprigs of rosemary
5 garlic cloves, halved
10 to 12 chicken drumsticks
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Combine the balsamic, honey, brown sugar, soy sauce, rosemary sprigs, and garlic cloves, in a large, re-sealable plastic bag. Shake and squeeze the contents of the bag to dissolve the honey and the brown sugar. Add the chicken drumsticks to the bag and seal with as little air as possible in the bag. Place in the refrigerator and marinate for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Place the chicken drumsticks on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake until the skin is caramelized and very dark in spots, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the marinade in a small saucepan. Bring the marinade to a boil (in order to kill bacteria). Reduce the heat to simmer and cook over low heat until thick, about 15 minutes. Reserve.

Use a pastry brush to brush some of the cooked marinade on the cooked chicken. Place the chicken on a serving platter. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and the chopped parsley.

Cook's note: I like the rosemary and garlic flavors in the background. Brushing the cooked drumettes with the reduced marinade helps the flavors along. Also, re-moistening helps the parsley and the seeds to adhere.

Sarah's Notes: The first time I made it I followed the recipe, but couldn't really taste the garlic or rosemary. The second time I chopped both the garlic and the rosemary. And I went wild and added about a teaspoon on red pepper flakes. Yum!

I also didn't use the drumettes. I just used chicken pieces. And I didn't bake it in the oven, but grilled. And by the time it was done, it smelled so good that I didn't do the whole sesame seed/parsley thing, though I am sure it would be good. The marinade has to be cooked for a while to reduce; it only thickens when it cools.

Try it and let us know if you like it!

Here's a pic from FoodTV (I was going to take one, but again, we just dove in!).

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Tuesday, February 05, 2008
4:32 PM

Frappé

Yes, frappé. My new favorite word. Which came to my attention through the strange juxtaposition of my ongoing FoodTV addiction and a recent interaction with our own blender. Allow me to explain.

Recently I noticed that when Giada makes a vinaigrette, her much fancier looking than mine blender actually looks much simpler. It has just a nice, simple switch in the front for either "low" or "high". (It's amazing the little details that you notice when you have Food Network in HD.)

So there we were last weekend making smoothies (yes, we Californians are super health-conscious) when I took a closer look at our blender. Definitely not just "high" and "low". Our blender has the following options:

Stir
Puree
Cream
Chop
Whip
Mix
Grate
Blend
Shred
Grind
Frappé (yes, the actual blender even has the little accent mark)
Liquefy

12 settings in all. And that doesn't include the ability to just pulse it. Now at first glance you would think that 12 settings MUST be better than just two. But upon further reflection. I think that the blender industry is really just trying to pull a fast one. They are just trying to convince us that more is better, even when more serves no apparent function.

Have you ever had a recipe tell you to Shred something in your blender? But make sure not to Grind it, that would be far too much. What is the difference between Puree and Liquefy (Liquefy sounds very Sci-Fi to me, more like what a ray gun would do)? Stir versus Mix? What does Frappé mean anyway?

Naturally, I googled "frappé" (actually, first I had to google how to get the little accent mark in the word). Definition: (1) liqueur poured over shaved ice; (2) thick milkshake containing ice cream; (3) a frozen dessert with fruit flavoring (especially one containing no milk).

Anyone else as lost as I am? How can one word mean either a milkshake or, alternatively, a dessert that specifically does NOT contain milk? And I note that the word isn't even a verb. Which leaves me rather confused as to why it is on my blender. Naturally, at that point I lost interest and looked no further as to what it means to "frappé" something. But I still love the word and intend to only use that setting from now on.

What I did notice is that apparently I am not the only one asking these hard-hitting questions. I looked at the newer blender that we have and checked its settings. They are identical except "stir" became "beat" (I guess people figure they don't need a blender just to stir things. That's what spoons are for.). Meanwhile "frappé" is gone entirely and there is instead a "mince" setting between "mix" and "grate". Thank God for that! Just in case chopping, grating, shredding or grinding are not quite right for your job, you can now mince. Maybe they just wanted to save the cost of adding the little accent mark. Do you think that the blades now spin slightly slower or faster? Somehow I doubt it. I just don't see a blender having that many degrees of subtlety. High and low are probably just about right.

I fear that I see a new (third) blender in our future. Besides, hers was red.

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Thursday, January 10, 2008
2:43 PM

Welcome Back!!

Good afternoon loyal readers (at least I hope some of you are still out there somewhere!). We hope all is well with everyone.

First, let us apologize for the long gap. It has been almost 18 months since our last posting. No real reason. Just sort of lost the drive to post for a while. But eventually I started to realize that I really missed the mental exercise of writing non-legal stuff on a regular basis. I really enjoyed it and ended up missing it. You can only write so many "strongly worded" (aka nasty) letters without getting jaded. Mark also says that he wants to post, so expect posts from both of us. You will have to see if you can tell the difference in our posting styles.

As you can see from the new website, we are in our new house. The main picture on the new page is taken from the back yard and is the olive tree in the middle of the patio. More pictures will inevitably follow in posts to come. The website just wuoldn't be complete without pictures of backyard wildlife.

Another new feature on the website is the Flickr picture feature (the one above the webcams). I followed a tip from Dana and set up the equivalent of her moblog. So that spot will have various pictures from my cell phone. I will try to take one every day or so to give you something to look at. You can also click on that picture and see past ones that you might have missed.

As of right now, we know that the live webcams are not working. Still working out the kinks. We think one of them was knocked down by the cats too many times as it seems to have died altogether. I'm sure it was just part of the cats' grand scheme to keep us from knowing what trouble they are getting into when we are not home.

That's about it for now. Please note that the new format was something I had to bumble through with my limited knowledge of the html programming language. We are still working out the kinks and hope to get it all refined as we go. So if things look a little funky, bear with us.

Have a great one!

-Sarah and Mark

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