New Bowls!

I have a fetish.  Well it's really probably maybe more of an obsession than a fetish except that I get such a euphoric thrill with it.

I'm a bowl lover.

I collect them - I keep an assortment all around the apartment - for decoration, to throw things in, to eat from ... any reason I can think of that I might need a bowl is reason enough to buy one when I find one that strokes me just the right way.  Uh, I mean "strikes" me just the right way. 

I found these four today (at IKEA of all places) and love them SO much that I have to share my joy!  I rarely buy matching sets but these are sort of in the same vein as each other, not so much a matchy-matchy set.

I got so excited once I had them home and washed that I had to have SOMETHING in them - so I found some dried mission figs in the cupboard and had myself a little snack in one of my new bowls. 

Lemon Thyme Chicken Salad

Well OK - so I'm not a mayonnaise fan so I had to kinda scale back the whole idea of a chicken salad.

Keeping with my simple-is-better style of late, with just a bit of bistro thrown in, I decided to take up the challenge of creating a flavorful, filling dish with only 4 components.

Chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, thyme, and lemon (I didn't count salt or pepper as they're in nearly everything).

I seared the chicken to build a nice crust, pulled it off the heat to rest and after it cooled enough to touch I sliced it into large bite-sized pieces and tossed it back in the pan with thyme, the tomatoes (sliced) and a splash of lemon juice to finish it off.

Pour out on a plate, add another slice of lemon (and a thyme sprig just in case I needed a little more zip I could add it) and I had my 4 ingredient supper.

Just in time for American Idol ... :)

Comte' grilled cheese

Not much to write about this little treat - it's a grilled cheese sandwich.

Not the grilled cheese you were served as a kid, mind you - this is a hefty, hearty, happening version of the classic.

When cooking simple food, probably the most important part is choosing special ingredients.  A grilled cheese sandwich is basically bread, butter, and cheese - but the end result of my dish was a much improved version:

• The bread - crusty French loaf from a local bakery
  
• The butter - unsalted Plugra
  
• The cheese - comte', an aged French cheese produced only from one particular region, with restrictions on the type of cow, grazing acreage and production (in other words, it's tasty, a bit fussy, and a bit spendy)
  

I sliced the French loaf a little thicker than normal, buttered each side, added just a small amount of fine-ground salt and fresh-ground pepper to each buttered side and placed each slice in the skillet on medium heat.

I charred the pieces for just a few minutes to build up a crust, then turned the heat down to medium low and added the comte', which I had brought to room temperature.  I bought the cheese as a chunk off a wheel and used a mandolin (a Christmas prezzie from a friend!) to slice it uniformly.

When the cheese began showing just a bit of "give", right before the melting point, I flipped one slice of bread and cheese over onto the other and finished off my sandwich, turning it just once to re-heat the opposite side.

JUST a grilled cheese sandwich?  I think not!

Clafouti, or, how I did the fruity tootie

Ok so it's not REALLY a clafouti.

Traditionally, clafouti are chock full of non-pitted cherries.  Not being one to have pit-riddled cherries lying around, I had a couple of cameo apples and a nectarine.  

Clafouti are a French peasant dessert, made with fresh fruit and a custard-ey batter poured over and baked.  They look great when finished (as you can see below) and are TASTY.  A fanciful little tart, they are in fact what the French would consider "po-folks food", at least 100 years ago.  Of course I don't think the French would use "po".

Akin to a cobbler - something we in the South are VERY familiar with - the difference between a clafouti and a cobbler is basically eggs.  The batter is a custard, with four eggs beaten in. 

I peeled and cut the fruit, layered it in the bottom of the buttered pie pan, then poured the flour, egg, sugar and vanilla batter over it and baked for 50 minutes.  Simple and elegant.