An Herb Garden Companion

As you may have read previously, Chris and I have been growing some herbs on my balcony in pots for everyday cooking. When Chris' mom was visiting, she taught us how to cut the herbs, dry them, and freeze them for future use. I for one certainly was worried what I would do when she left and we were left to our own devices in caring for our little garden. This was quickly remedied by Chris' mom (and sister!) who sent me (as a birthday gift) this great little guide to growing your own herbs and using them called "Your Backyard Herb Garden". It covers everything from growing your herbs to using them in cooking and crafts. I'm especially interested in the handy chart on pests and molds to watch out for. In short, this is exactly what we needed to keep our little garden thriving and keep cooking with our herbs through the winter season. Thanks for the awesome gift!

Birthday Cake, Anyone?

This Saturday will be my 26th birthday and I'm happy to share it with our great friend, Andy! Some of you may also know that Chris' birthday was just last week. Of course this calls for birthday cake! I put this little guy together over Wednesday and Thursday nights after work. It's a 2 tier, blue and yellow, birthday gift cake with a great big blue fondant bow on top. I added a few little yellow bows on the first tier to jazz it up a bit too.

Chicken with Madeira Cream Sauce

I think this is officially my favorite chicken recipe; and it's easy! It's from Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1" and requires very few ingredients. The chicken is baked in butter in a dutch oven covered with parchment paper. Julia Child says the chicken requires only 6 minutes or so to cook, but I think this was before the time of our oversized American genetically engineered chickens because my thin sliced bread fillets take around 13 minutes to cook at 400 °C in the oven. Once the chicken is done, transfer it to a plate and keep it in a warming oven until the sauce is done. To the juices and butter in the pot add 1/4 cup Madeira wine and 1/4 cup beef broth. Heat these on medium-high heat and reduce to a syrupy consistency. At this point, add 1 cup of heavy cream and heat for a few minutes until the sauce thickens a bit. In the photo, I've spooned some of the sauce over the chicken cutlets and garnished with some parsley.

As a side note, some people are surprised by the use of beef broth in the sauce with a chicken recipe. Julia Child says you can use either but I found the beef stock compliments the Madeira wine better than chicken stock. The sauce can be made separately and served with vegetables as well. I served steamed haricot vert lightly buttered and salted and sauteed quartered mushrooms with green onions, shallots, and garlic. Both these side dishes taste delicious with the Madeira cream sauce. Serve everything with some good French bread, and you're done!

Our First Homegrown Herbs

About 5 weeks ago, Chris and I planted a few herbs on my patio in an attempt to grow some of the food we eat. We planted basil, oregano, mint and rosemary. Last week we used the rosemary in a balsamic rosemary garlic marinade for some portobello mushroom burgers. This week we collected our first samples of the basil, oregano, and mint. Fortunately for us, Chris' mom was here this weekend and gave us some good tips on how to preserve some of the herbs for use in winter. After cutting and washing, you can either freeze the leaves for use later on or you can dry them on a cutting board or hung upside down. Once dried, store in an airtight jar. I think our first use for the oregano and basil will be some homemade pizza, while we might use the mint in some mojitos this weekend. As someone with a thumb that is more black than green I was worried about growing usable quantities of these herbs and spices but found that they're easier to grow than weeds. (It's more likely though that Chris learned a lot about gardening from his mom and has been keeping them all alive.) The biggest bonus of growing your own herbs and spices though has to be that it's much cheaper than buying them in the supermarket, fresh or dried. And they taste better! Anyway, here are some pictures of our first homegrown herbs.

Cakes Galore!

Lately, I've been making a lot of cakes for graduations and just for fun. Here are the three most recent cakes. All of them use a recipe for white cake from "The Joy of Cooking," which is a cake that is both light and strong enough to hold fondant and other heavy decorations. It really has a great taste and texture. For fillings, I use primarily vanilla or chocolate buttercreams (the Wilton recipes). Because these icings use shortening they seem to hold up longer. They taste great too!

This cake was based on "Oh the Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss and was made for my sister's graduation from college. All the letters are made from fondant (painfully cut out with a craft knife!) and the hot air balloon was painted with "paint" made by mixing powdered food colorings with small amounts of clear vanilla extract.

This cake was another graduation cake for a colleague who had just completed his Ph.D. I tried to create (from fondant) elements of his thesis while using the Caltech colors to accent the cake. All the decorations are made from fondant and painted with black food coloring "paint."

I call this my celebration cake. It was made for the same party as the one just above it as a graduation cake for a group of graduates. These decorations had to be prepared several days ahead of time, so I used gum paste instead of fondant. This might be my favorite cake so far.

French Strawberry Tart

I thought it would be best to start things off with a traditional french dessert: the French fruit tart. I put this one together in about 2 hours one evening when Chris' dad came over for dinner (more on the ribs we made that night later!). Anyway, on Thursday nights in South Pasadena there is a phenomenal farmers' market that's really more like a street festival every week than a farmers market. Chris and I always find the most amazing strawberries there and I thought that this traditional tart would be a great way to show them off.

I mixed and matched a few recipes to make this tart. The crust was a shortbread crust taken from "The Art and Soul of Baking." I've been known to read this book in bed as it's so incredibly informative and visually enticing. After baking, the crust was sealed with a thin layer of melted semisweet chocolate to prevent moisture from making it soggy. Next came the creme patisserie. Julia Child says that every good chef should know how to make a good creme patisserie - so I used her recipe from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1." In my opinion, everyone who owns a stove should be required to have this book. (It's another one I read in bed often.) Creme patisserie requires a lot of arm strength to whisk the cream as it thickens, but is very rewarding in the end. The creme patisserie was spread evenly over the tart crust and briefly refrigerated to let it firm up a bit. After a little while, I arranged the sliced strawberries around the top of the creme patisserie and then brushed them with a little bit of heated seedless strawberry jam, so that they just shimmered. If you want, you can use any variety of berries in combination with each other to design an unlimited number of French fruit tarts.

As far as taste is concerned, this is the perfect summer dessert. It's light and refreshing and takes full advantage of the sweetest strawberries around.

Welcome!

Hi everyone and welcome to Le Petit Chef! We have decided to start this blog for several reasons. After our 2008 trip to Paris, I acquired a serious interested in cooking and baking (mostly baking), while Chris has recently discovered his love of grilling. Recently, we've been emailing many photos of our meals and creations to family and friends and thought that this might be a better forum in which to share our culinary adventures. We'll cover everything from food we've made and restaurant outings, to fun kitchen gadgets and cookbooks we get along the way. Since we are primarily chemists by training we'll even give you some kitchen science lessons every now and then. Bon appetit!