We've Moved

In more ways than one! First, I've graduated from Caltech and have now moved on to my postdoc at Harvard in Cambridge, MA. Chris has gotten a job at Dow in Marlborough, MA and will be starting in April after he finishes up at Caltech. Finally, we'll be moving our blog over to a tumblr website: lepetitchefblog.tumblr.com. Be sure to check there for new posts soon!

An Unexpected Favorite

If you had told me last week that the Raspberry Charlotte Russe would be the first dessert gone at our lab holiday party, I would have laughed at you.  It's a very simple dessert, consisting of a raspberry Bavarian cream surrounded by Ladyfingers.  My recipe was adapted from "The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts."  The Charlotte Russe in general is a versatile dessert that can be prepared with various fruit flavored, vanilla, or chocolate Bavarian creams; in fact, my recipe for Bavarian cream simply says "flavor as desired."  I prepared my own fresh Ladyfingers in a continuous strip and in a round disc shape to easily line my cake ring.  You could use pre-made Ladyfingers instead though if you prefer.  Just line a springform pan or a cake ring (on a baking sheet) first with parchment paper and then with the Ladyfingers; I first placed my strips of the biscuits around the edge of my ring and subsequently pressed the round into the base of the mold.  The Bavarian cream was the poured into the prepared pan and either refrigerated for several hours or frozen until you wish to serve it (up to a week!).  To finish the dessert, Chantilly cream was piped in rosettes inside the edge formed by the ladyfingers.  The final presentation detail I added was a pretty holiday ribbon around the dessert.

 

My Favorite Dessert...EVER

My favorite dessert is this perfect little pastry called Napoleon.  It sometimes goes by other names, such as mille-feuille, meaning "thousand leaf."  While the name of the Napoleon is not believed to be related to the famous emperor of the same name, this is definitely the king of pastries to me.  It consists of three layers of puff pastry alternating with two layers of either creme patissiere or the lighter creme legere.  The top puff pastry layer is usually glazed with a white icing, piped with chocolate stripes, and combed (see photos below).  

Last night we had our annual lab holiday party and I prepared the desserts.  I originally planned on 8 different desserts (more posts to follow!), but had a little extra time (!) for once in my life.  So, I decided to make a Napoleon!  Because of the last minute nature of the dessert (not recommended), I used frozen puff pastry.  I assure you though, it would be better with freshly prepared puff pastry.  The recipe I followed is from the book "The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts."  Anyway, I rolled the sheet of puff pastry to a thickness of about 1/8" and placed it on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  After pricking the entire surface of the pastry with a fork, I then covered the puff pastry sheet with another piece of parchment and another baking sheet to hold it down.  Bake it for 15 minutes at 350 °F, remove the top baking sheet and parchment, brush with light corn syrup, and return to the oven for 10 minutes.  The tricky part is that upon removing the pastry from the oven, it's essential that you cut it in to the three equally sized pastry layers immediately.  If it cools, it will break when you try to cut it.  I used a template to get the three pieces of equal size and used a pizza wheel to cut the pastry quickly and evenly.  Worked like a charm.  I let the three sheets of puff pastry cool while I prepared my filling.

I prefer the creme legere in my Napoleons because it has a wonderfully light fluffy texture.  It's not much different from the more common creme patissiere; in fact you make it from creme patissiere by folding in some whipped cream.  To be honest, I wasn't thrilled with the ratios I used for my creme legere.  The next time I do this, I will add more whipped cream and maybe even a touch more sugar.  I will also omit the rum.

Before assembling, I glazed one of my puff pastry sheets with a royal icing, piped chocolate stripes lengthwise along the pastry, and then ran the edge of my thinnest spatula through the stripes in an alternating pattern to get the desired effect.  This is the classic napoleon glaze, but feel free to get creative!  Finally, the cream and pastry was layered to give the final product.  If you make a Napoleon, keep in mind that it doesn't keep well for long periods.  In fact, it should really be eaten within 8 hours of preparation.  Otherwise, the pastry becomes soggy and the pastry begins to compress a bit.  It definitely tastes best fresh. 

Holla for Challah!

I've been waiting to use that title line since I decided to bake these Challah rolls.  Last weekend, I had a significant bread victory when I prepared some brioche sticky buns using a recipe from a fantastic bed and breakfast in Cambria, CA, called Olallieberry Inn.  When Marjorie, one of the innkeepers, prepared these sticky buns for breakfast one day, I thought I was going to die.  So I bought her cookbook and tried them at home.  I had some yeast leftover and a little more bread-making confidence after making the sticky buns, so I decided to try Challah bread.  

I've had this book on my shelf for a while that I found somewhat intimidating.  It's called Baking Artisan Bread by Ciril Hitz and is a very thorough and detailed description of the bread baking process and several different bread formulas (French, Brioche, Croissant, Challah, Bagel, Pizza, etc.).  After reading through all the formulas, I noticed that the Challah bread looked like a good place to start.  I could do it all in one day (not over two days), I had all my ingredients, and it seemed very straightforward.

I began with a sponge starter: a mixture of some of the flour, all the yeast, and most of the warm water.  Once that was ready (after about 30 minutes), I prepared the dough using more flour and water, plus oil, honey, eggs, salt, and sugar.  All the mixing and kneading could be done with my KitchenAid mixer equipped with the dough hook.  I can't tell you my delight when I was able to form a true gluten pane with my dough!  Just like the pictures in the book!  After a rise, division of dough into six 100g parts, a quick 20 minute resting period, and shaping my rolls, I had an assortment of Challah knots.

Following a 1 hour secondary rise, egg wash, and sprinkling of poppy seeds, they were ready to go into the oven.  After 25 minutes, I ate one almost immediately after I pulled the tray from the oven.  We had the rest for dinner with our beef stew.  I'm seriously contemplating making these for Thanksgiving...

Rockin' Drum Set Cake

Not everyone can actually say with seriousness that they have a cool boss. We can. Just last week, our boss turned 40 and we seized the opportunity to celebrate the occasion/embarrass him. I took on the responsibility of baking a cake suitable for the event. Our boss loves chemistry like nothing else, but this seemed too easy and obvious a choice for the cake. Instead I focused on one of his hobbies: drumming.

With the help of Chris, we designed and built a platform (using a sheet of plywood, 1/2" dowels, 1/4" dowels, and small wood discs) to hole several cake drums and fondant cymbals in a configuration including 5 drums (two toms, big tom, snare, and bass) and a "cushioned" stool. For the most part, the small drums for the various platforms were pretty straightforward; what was challenging was the bass drum. Cake typically hates to be turned on its side. It settles, crumbles, falls over, and never looks the way you want it in the end. I took a page from the Hometown Homage cake and constructed the bass drum of rice krispie treats. When covered in buttercream and fondant, it looks just like a cake but has better structural integrity. The other challenge for this cake were the cymbals. For these, I used fondant treated with a little gumtex (to firm it up more and help it dry out) and templated them with teacup saucers. I punched little holes in their centers and suspended them on top of the 1/4" dowels.

Overall, I was very very pleased with the outcome and I think the boss was pretty excited about it too. The only drawback to this design is that there isn't really enough cake to serve a large group. To make up for that, I prepared about 70 cupcakes in three different varieties.

Baby Oblad's Cake

We had a great day yesterday as we celebrated the upcoming arrival of Baby Oblad. Our friends Stephanie and Paul are expecting their first little boy this August and we couldn't be more excited for them. We had a lovely potluck-style luncheon in Victory Park; of course, my contribution was the cake. I chose to do a blue, white, and green striped fondant 12 in. round cake (white cake with vanilla buttercream) with a dome of white roses on top. To make the cake glisten, I brushed each fondant stripe and the top of the cake with some watered-down piping gel and then sprinkled on some sanding sugar. (It made the fondant more edible as well.) This might be the most technically perfect cake I've ever made; I credit the homemade buttercream for that. As with the banana pecan cupcakes, I made a vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream for the filling and as a coating under the fondant. The consistency of the homemade buttercream made a world of difference and gave me a super smooth coating under the fondant. The taste was superior as well. I would considering foregoing the fondant all together for a smaller cake and just using the buttercream; that's how smooth this stuff looks!

The dome of roses on top was inspired by a wedding in which I was a bridesmaid about a month ago. I took home a floral arrangement and after a few days completely took it apart and analyzed its construction. It seemed pretty straightforward: a shallow dish with a wet floral foam taped to the dish with waterproof floral tape. As long as the foam stays wet, the flowers inserted into the foam stay fresh! So I picked up some Oasis foam, a shallow dish, and waterproof tape from the craft store and whipped this little guy up with about 2 dozen white roses. I think the next time I have a party I'll definitely make some nice big dramatic floral arrangements with this technique. It was so easy!

The Most Perfect Cupcake

This is (far and away) the most perfect cupcake I've ever had. It might even be the most perfect thing I've ever baked. Martha would call it "a good thing." It also represents a baking milestone for me.

First off, it's a banana pecan cupcake. By itself, it's just wonderful. The texture really makes the cake. Right out of the oven, I would say they are the perfect breakfast treat. More of a cake though, than a muffin. What takes these to the next level though is the frosting. Caramel buttercream. Fresh, homemade caramel buttercream. With more caramel drizzled on top. The recipes are both from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook and are much better than other cupcake recipes out there. The whole book is full of awesome ideas and well written recipes. Every cupcake I've ever produced from that book has been a home run, slam dunk, and touchdown all in one. You need this book.

Now, the baking milestone: I finally (FINALLY) figured out real, authentic buttercream. Like the kind with a meringue base and everything. Buttercream is always a bit of a disaster for me. Either my meringue fails to thicken and form stiff peaks, or it breaks when I add the butter. You name it, it's gone wrong for me. Martha's trick was essential to my success. I usually have trouble telling when the sugar has dissolved in my egg whites while gently heating them over a simmering pot of water. Because I'm never able to see through the foamy mess of egg whites, I usually heat them too much or don't get the sugar dissolved enough. But Martha suggests rubbing some of the mixture between your fingers until the "grittiness" of the sugar ceases. Once this happened, I heated them for a brief second longer, and pulled them off the simmering pot of water. After beating the egg white/sugar solution, I got the most beautiful, fluffy, stable (!) meringue I've ever produced. I quite literally danced around the kitchen. But, it wasn't done! I slowly added the butter portionwise with mixing. All looked well, but then, it looked like it was breaking! I was pretty heartbroken, but followed Martha and beat it into submission. After a few minutes on high with the Kitchen Aid, I had the most silky, smooth buttercream in history. And it only got better once I added the homemade caramel! I think I'm far less intimidated by this now than I used to be. I think I'll be making my own buttercreams for all my cakes from now on. All thanks to this most perfect little cupcake.

Alligator!!!

For some reason I know an unnaturally large number of people who share February 7 as their birthday. For instance, my grandmother Kiki would have been 100 this year (and she wouldn't have let us forget it either if she had lived so long). In addition to Kiki, my boss' little son turned 7 this year (lucky 7!). As it turned out, our annual Super Bowl party also fell on that day. So my boss' son wouldn't feel like a bunch of old graduate students stole his birthday, we decided to sing to him at half time. I volunteered to make cupcakes and turned out 36 of the little treats. As I planned my treats, I realized that I just didn't want to serve up generic cupcakes but wanted to produce something a little kid would love. After one of my exhaustive google searches, I saw a picture of this alligator cupcake "cake" in which 24 cupcakes were arranged and decorated to look like a fierce(ish) alligator. Such imagination! Unfortunately, the book had been checked out of my local library and I was forced to figure it out from the pictures online.

I whipped up 24 vanilla cupcakes and then frosted them with the help of my handy pastry bag with green vanilla frosting to look like they were each covered in lizard scales. Next I bought some Keebler chocolate covered grahams and carefully cut them into little isosceles triangles for the ridges on his back. From a box of Runts candy, I fished out all the yellow banana candies to use as claws. Finally, the teeth and eyes were fashioned out of large marshmallows that I either cut to size and shape, or covered in frosting and m&m's. Lastly I arranged them as shown. In all, it took about 2 hours.

To complete the "cake" I made 12 chocolate cupcakes and topped them with vanilla frosting and silver sugar sprinkles. I melted some semisweet chocolate and used my pastry bag to pipe "Happy Birthday Harry" onto a piece of parchment paper. After a few hours in the fridge, it was hard enough to stand up on the chocolate cupcakes as in the picture below. If you do this, just make sure the chocolate is at least 1/4" thick so it doesn't fall apart.

This was my first cake for such a young kid, but it was fun to do something more whimsical than my usual fare.

My First Roast Chicken

Given the variety of interesting things I prepare on a fairly regular basis, it's shocking to me that I had never done something so basic as roasting a chicken. So this is what I did on Friday night. To be honest, it wasn't even my intention to roast a chicken; my original plan was to make some game hens (certainly would have been on the "interesting things" list). But alas, the supermarket only had frozen game hens. So I found the smallest (3.5 lb.) chicken in the place and decided I probably should learn to roast the little guy. When I got my chicken home, I went to my go-to source for learning things about which I have no clue: Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

For those of you who may not know this, I'm generally a squeamish person. In fact, I hate touching raw meat. It's slimy to me. And it makes me queasy. (This is why I'm a chemist, not a doctor.) So challenge number 1 was getting those gizzards out of the chicken. I wish someone had video-taped this for my mom. I couldn't bring myself to reach in and grab them, so I gently used a fork (and was making a "yuck" face the whole time) and pulled them all out. I really had no clue what to do with them, so I just left them on my counter in a bowl. (Someone out there right now is screaming "MAKE A STOCK!") After I got the gizzards out, I was too queasy to go after the neck. So I just left that little guy right where he was.

Challenge number two (after I seasoned it with salt, pepper, butter, and tarragon) was to truss the chicken. Julia Child has a great pictorial guide to trussing your chicken so that he remains nice and compact during cooking. This process required me to touch the chicken though. Not fun. I felt a little bit awful as I strung the twine through the chicken but generally was far less grossed-out when all was said and done. I would even go so far as to say that it looked pretty good when I finished. Tightly tied up and ready for roasting!

Challenge number 3 (and this was the easiest!) was roasting the chicken to perfection. Thanks to the handy dandy meat thermometer that Chris's mom gave us for Christmas, the chicken was cooked through and not the least bit dry. I basted it every 10 minutes or so over the 1 hour 20 minute cooking time. By the end, it was a very nice golden brown color. Right after I took it out of the oven though I had the realization that I had been so focused on my chicken that I absolutely forgot to cook everything else! Luckily mushrooms sautee very quickly and you can steam carrots in the microwave in 4 minutes. Lastly, I used a few tablespoons of the chicken pan juices with 1 cup beef stock and 1 minced shallot to make a quick pan sauce. I can now say that I've successfully roasted a chicken!

Toffee and Truffles

I absolutely love giving away treats and there's no more perfect time of year for wrapping up some homemade goodies than the holiday season. Last year Chris and I gave homemade candy canes and peppermint marshmallows. This year I was inspired by my cousin to try my hand at toffee. I've never been a big toffee fan but last year I was blown away by cousin D's homemade confection. Can you think of a better combination than butter and sugar? If not, toffee is for you.

To go with this super easy candy, I prepared an adaptation of the Chocolate Chambord and Macadamia Nut Truffles from the book Bakewise by Shirley Corriher. I received this book last Christmas from my sister and it's one of the best resources I have. It delves into the hows and whys of baking and has a ton of educational information that help you understand why your cake looked awful when you tried to omit one egg. Anyway, I couldn't find Chambord in my local supermarket, so I substituted Kahlua instead. I was tempted to omit the Chambord all together but it very specifically said that if enough "water-type liquid" was not added, the chocolate would seize. The other modification I made was to roll half the truffles in crushed macadamia nuts and the other half in unsweeted cocoa powder. These truffles have something for everyone; the mac nut truffles have a burst of salty followed by the sweet smooth chocolate while the cocoa coated confections have a slightly bitter cocoa taste surrounding the sweet chocolate center.

The finishing touch on this years tasty treats were fantastic treat boxes by Martha Stewart through Michael's craft store. They come with everything from the boxes, to the tissue paper, to the ribbons and labels. I'm just in love with them.

I Declare Holiday Baking Season Open!

It's started! The nonstop month of baking between Thanksgiving and Christmas! I've got recipes lined up for just about every occasion and decided to open the holidays with a favorite recipe of mine. Most people seem to avoid chocolate desserts on Thanksgiving in favor of more standard fall treats; so I decided to go with my favorite Chocolate-Glazed Chocolate Tart from last year's Gourmet magazine (which no longer exists sadly!). The idea is pretty simple - start with a chocolate graham cracker crust, add a chocolate custard of sorts, and top it off with a thin layer of chocolate ganache. In all, it takes less than 2 hours to prepare but tastes like it took a week. It's also a great opportunity to use some of your favorite chocolate; I wholly recommend using a good quality bittersweet chocolate for this since it is the centerpiece of the recipe.

Black and White and Cake All Over

It's been a little while now since I baked like a maniac. Fortunately, one of my labmates again gave me a good excuse to destroy my kitchen. We decided to go with 4 dozen cupcakes and a two-tiered cake to match! I was really conflicted over what kind of cake I wanted to do. For some reason I was just stumped. Then, it came to me. My bedroom curtains were the perfect inspiration! I have an eclectic mix of black and white striped and black and white floral curtains in my bedroom that made for what might be my favorite cake yet. I decided to add to the mix of patterns by stacking a round cake on top of a square one.

On the cupcake side of things, I went with 4 different designs to give everyone a good choice. First off were vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream adorned with pearlized silver sprinkles and gold-dusted white chocolate "J" pieces. Second were (my favorite) red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing adorned with silver sprinkles and gold-dusted dark chocolate finials (generously gold-dusted by E.!). Also with cream cheese icing were a set of carrot cake cupcakes (easy as pie to make!). Finally, I went with a unique caramel cupcake with a caramel buttercream (E. and I ate all the extra out of my bowl!) and spun sugar abstract decorations on top. All this baking taught me one thing: I need to make cupcakes more often. The most difficult thing: keeping Chris away from all the cupcakes for any appreciable amount of time.

I was very pleased with how it all turned out and even more surprised we got everything to the park in one piece! I had good help with the transport. Hopefully there will be more cupcakes in the future.

Stormy Weather Stew

It may not have been what many of you east coasters would call stormy, but it was stormy enough by my Pasadena standards to warrant a good, hot, rustic stew. This is a little late coming, but a few weeks ago, it got cold (for about 2 days) and even rained! When I say cold, I mean it got below 70 (in the 50s at night!) and when I say "rained," it might have drizzled for 20 minutes. That's a big deal here in October! I seized the opportunity though to bust out my first real winter dinner of the year! My favorite nasty weather recipe is none other than my mom's beef stew recipe. I have no idea where it comes from or how old it is, but it does the trick when I feel icky and cold. It takes a little while to braise the meat and get the veggies to the right amount of "mushy," but it's worth the time and little bit of extra effort. In the end, it may not look pretty, but it always hits the spot.

I started with 1.5 lbs of pre-cut stewing beef and dredged it in a mixture of flour, salt, and pepper. In a small amount of heated oil in a heavy bottomed cast iron enameled Dutch oven (my FAVORITE!), brown all the meat, being careful not to crowd it too much. After all the meat is browned, add 2 32 oz. containers of low sodium beef broth (I use low sodium so that I can control the level of seasoning). Once you add the beef broth, you get to the best part: DEGLAZING! Make sure you get all those brown flavorful bits off your pot and into your broth (wood spoon, please). After you've delgazed, bring to a boil, turn down the heat, and simmer, covered, for about 1 hour. While that's simmering, give 8 carrots and 6 red potatoes (peeled) a rustic chop job and set aside. After the 1 hour, toss in your veggies (and whatever else you want really) and simmer covered for another 45 minutes. If your stew doesn't thicken up enough during the cooking process, you can use Wondra mixed with a little water to thicken the stew after cooking is done. The last thing I add is a little salt, pepper, and gravy master. You can dress this up however you please; it's kinda like a blank canvas in that sense. I serve it steaming hot over egg noodles with fresh sourdough bread and a good red wine.

This is the first real family recipe I've made recently and posted. I'm hoping to get a few more of my mom's favorites up here in the near future.

Hometown Homage

Yesterday another one of our labmates graduated and as is becoming the custom, I made the cake. It's been a little while since I made a big cake (and as such I must have forgotten saying I would never make one during the work week again), so I was itching to do something big and extravagant. Our labmate is moving on to a postdoctoral position in New York and this is where I drew my inspiration. What better way to instill excitement about his upcoming NY adventure than an homage to my own hometown in cake? I went with a 2-tiered blue fondant white cake with vanilla buttercream. The bottom tier was rectangular while the top tier was a small round cake offset from the center of the lower tier. Around each cake I depicted silhouettes of the city in black fondant (tip: buy black fondant, don't dye it yourself!). The lower tier had silhouettes of the city skyline while the upper tier had a Brooklyn bridge silhouette wrapping it. Both cakes had the little yellow "Broadway lights" along their lower border (and great thanks to Chris's little sister for rolling all those for me!). On top of the round cake I thought I would mould a "Big Apple" our of rice cereal treat (great trick for keeping it light) and cover it with fondant. To finish it off, a Broadway street sign, a few subway line signs, and a little "I Heart NY" sign surrounded the big apple. For the first time ever, the cake I served actually looked like the picture I drew. Maybe I'm getting a little better at this or maybe I'm becoming more realistic about what I can accomplish in a week's time in cake (likely the latter).

Portabello Burgers

Hello loyal readers, all 10 of you. Sorry it's been awhile since our last post. We've been busy, but the upshot of that is there's a lot to talk about. Among those things is my first formal food post.

One of the under-appreciated benefits of living in Southern California is the fresh produce available not only in the farmer's markets that are ubiquitous throughout LA's cities and towns, but also the ease of access to that produce in the supermarket. Sure, you can get real organic heirloom tomatoes every Thursday night in South Pasadena, but you can get them all week in Whole Foods, Pavilions, or even Vons. Needless to say, the fact that we can get such vegetables without any special effort got Pam and I thinking less about what to have with chicken, and more about what to have with a produce centerpiece.

This paradigm shift in our dietary planning is much healthier, as well. Sating your hunger with more filling-but-calorically-poor foods like produce, and less from calorie-rich-but-not-filling pre-prepared foods and meats leaves you feeling full, but with fewer calories to burn at the end of the day. So, if you're concerned with caloric accounting, this is probably the easiest way to go quickly from the distinctly American habit of overeating to feeling full but having to worry less about how much you ate that day. If you're grad students like the two of us are, it's certainly the least time-consuming way that we've focused on for living a more healthy lifestyle.

Before I digress much further, this is the philosophical underpinning for some of the dishes we've been experimenting with lately. Specifically, a classic entree that shocks many when they're told how satisfying it is as the centerpiece of any meal: the Portabello Mushroom burger.

The Portabello has all sorts of health benefits of varying veracity that are detailed in other places, but the revelation that appealed to us was that each portabello has about 20 calories in it. 20 calories, and you can feel as full afterward as if you just ate a normal-sized hamburger.

The downside is that the mushroom itself has little to no taste before being cooked, but that's where the fun really starts.

To start with, we prepared a dressing consisting of a 1:1 mixture of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Into this suspension was mixed a combination of crushed fresh rosemary (great to use the rear end of a wooden spoon to crush these in olive oil), and minced garlic, with a little fresh ground pepper and salt for extra seasoning. The flavor of fresh rosemary is subtle relative to its dried counterpart, so feel free to liberally add the herb. Also, a touch of basil similarly crushed gives a savory kick to the dressing if it is desired, but has a tendency to dominate the flavor, so be careful. This dressing was prepared in under 5 minutes, so it's a simple, healthy and fresh addition.

After removing the stipe (a mushroom's stem) to give a flat, patty-like bell, we added our well-mixed dressing by drizzling it from the bowl onto the underside of the mushroom in order to saturate but not overfill the gills. Now we're ready to cook.

We've had a lot of trial and error with the grilling side of things, but have found that the best way to keep the mushroom moist and flavorful without the leathery undercooked texture or the burnt blandness associated with too long on the grill is straightforward. Placing the dressed mushroom top-down on a squared piece of aluminum foil and wrapping gives a neat, grill-ready package for cooking.

Insofar as the grill is concerned, pre-heat to about 500 degrees, then just throw your mushrooms on for about 10 minutes, keeping the temperature in the 400-500 degree range. The foil keeps the mushroom cooking evenly, and prevents burning. Perhaps most conveniently, you don't have to flip the mushroom while it's on the grill, so if you're like me, you can watch TV (sports and other manly things, never the food network) inside, and come back in 10 minutes.

To check if the mushrooms are done, just peel back some of the foil and see if the mushroom gills look softer, in that they have lost their ability to hold their shape. Generally, if the dressing is boiling on top of the mushrooms, you're in good shape, and you can take them of the grill. Once that's done, turn up the heat to high, hopefully over 600 degrees.

At this point, peel off the package and take out the mushrooms. To the extremely hot grill, add these again in order to sear both sides, for about a minute each. Grill the top sides first to get your customary grill marks and then flip, letting the dressing fall out. This will kick up flames, so be careful. Close the grill top to keep the flames down, but after only a minute, take the mushrooms back out.

We recommend serving them with a slice of tomato and a thick slice of mozarella cheese on a bun. Let them sit for about 2 minutes with the cheese on to get an awesome texture contrast of the soft cheese with the crisp and juicy mushrooms and tomatoes. The result is a satisfactory bite with a sour and meaty burst of juicy flavor from the first bite to the last. If you still feel like adding extra seasoning, we haven't found them lacking, but we'd certainly love to hear your suggestions.

This is our first go-to thoroughly vegetarian meal, and has inspired us to look into more. So, as the summer starts to wind down, give it a shot... happy grilling!

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

It was as if Gourmet magazine knew that my little sister had bought me the Cuisinart automatic ice cream maker for my birthday. In this month's issue (August 2009), they had a whole frozen desserts section that I promptly flagged for weekend cooking fun. First on my list was the salted caramel ice cream. One thing that always lacks for me with store bought caramel ice cream is the homemade caramel aftertaste. I don't think I could put words to it, but if you've ever made caramel at home, you know what I mean. And if you haven't made caramel at home, it's about time you did!

This recipe starts out with a simple dry caramel. Most caramel you make begins with a sugar/water solution and gradually boils off the water. This takes quite a bit longer than just dumping a cup of sugar in your pan and heating it up - as in a dry caramel. I had never done this dry caramel before but I think I've been converted. Just watch the heat so it doesn't cook too quickly. Once you hit that deep amber color, you can start adding the cream. The recipe says this splatters, and it's correct. Add the cream slowly so that you don't hurt yourself or your stove. From there onward, it's a standard ice cream recipe with a cooked custard base combined with the caramel sauce.

The end result of this was beyond my expectations. Hands down this was the creamiest ice cream I've ever had. Even after 2 days in the freezer, it still has a texture that can only be compared to silk. As far as taste goes, it's distinctly homemade, very rich, and very sweet. The added sea salt really enhances the sweetness of the caramel. I'm usually one to dress up my ice cream with toppings or whipped cream, but this one must stand alone. It needs no help at all.

The Other Half

Ever since Le Petit Chef got started, Pam's been insisting I find something to post about. I've got a few ideas, but as a first step, I'll just say a couple things about how I got into actually enjoying the art (and science!!) of food preparation. I remember when I first started grad school, a coworker asked if I liked cooking. I said 'god no,' and he was shocked. His reply was something along the lines of 'how can you be a good chemist and not cook!' Through watching Pam and trying a couple of things myself, I've certainly discovered that organic chemists (at least) have a natural inclination, if not an outright affinity for the culinary arts.

Pam has already shown a penchant for things in the kitchen. In fact, I'm not allowed to do anything in the kitchen except prepare things for the grill. Needless to say, the stovetop and oven are not my forte. I won't go so far as to suggest that the grill (or if we want to be pretentious about it, the grille) is my forte, but I am learning. If you, our reader(s), start early on enough, you can learn with me that grilling is much more than 1/4" patties of low grade beef turned twice and served over cheese between buns. In fact, grilling goes much deeper than that, as I have recently discovered, to facilitate the preparation of almost any food.

So, as we proceed, I will do my best to chronicle my hopefully educational, sometimes comical, inevitably disastrous and ideally edible (if not downright delicious) experiments for you. Best-case scenario, Pam and I become a wildly successful Michelin-rated two-person operation. Worst-case scenario, you learn a thing or two that inspires you to fire up your cheap propane gas grill or Webber kettle and give some pork rubs or vegetable marinades a shot, and eat more happily and healthily.

In either case, I hope it's a fun ride. Bon apetit!

As American as Apple Pie

I don't think it gets more American than apple pie, so that was my choice for a 4th of July treat. Chris and I spent an awesome weekend out in Malibu on the beach with our west coast family and friends. As usual in Malibu, there was no shortage of good food! My contribution was this apple pie, which I adapted from "The Joy of Cooking." I cook the filling, first cooking the apples in butter for several minutes covered before adding sugar, a healthy dose of cinnamon, and a bit of nutmeg. After cooling the filling, I spooned it into my pie crust with the accumulated juices and syrup. For the top of the crust, I used aspic cutters to cut stars out and used the little star pieces to further decorate the top before placing it on top of my pie. After an egg wash, I sprinkled a little bit of coarse sugar on top to lightly caramelize the pie crust upon baking. In all, if you cheat a little (like I did here) and use a pre-made pie crust, you can make this pie in less than 2 hours, before cooling.

One Word: KitchenAid!

Or is it two words? Who cares! Thanks to my awesome (and baking enabling) parents, I welcomed my first KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer this week! KitchenAid has a great deal where you can buy a refurbished model for about half the MSRP through their website. I chose the 5 qt. Artisan stand mixer in "Ice" and couldn't be happier with it. It comes at a great time where I'm pretty sure that one more batch of icing would have burned out the motor on my small hand mixer. I'm most excited about beating perfect egg whites with it and not having to stand there holding the mixer while trying to slowly add sugar and such! That may not sound super exciting to all of you, but it's thrilling to me! I feel much more legitimate now as far as baking goes, that's for sure.

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!