Oh rather, "Stuff I Made Well Before I Was Back on a Plane to China."
Look, it's my first molten chocolate cake. It wasn't as oozy in the middle as I had hoped, but B still declared it to be restaurant-grade. The recipe is not intimidating at all, and you can make it ahead and pop it in for a banging finish to your dinner. (Just upon typing a "banging finish to your dinner", I pictured J-Lo popping out of a cake. Now THAT would out-bang a molten choclate cake any day. But I'm leaving it.)
We had boudin blanc, caramelized apples and onions, and mashed potatoes for Christmas Day. Well, guess who was lying in bed, jet-lagged out of her mind, at 5:30 am the next morning thinking of all of the ways to reinvent the leftovers.
(Side note: I swear, I would have been amazing during the Depression because I have some freak obsession with using things on hand and generally maximizing ingredients. Sometimes this means that I'll buy, like, 7 new ingredients just to make something awesome out of a lonely carrot that didn't make it into the previous day's pot. Which is totally not Depression-style at all. But still, no carrot is left behind! I can feel good about that!)
So there I was, restive and debating between some sort of fried potato-cake or pierogis. Oh course, the pierogi takes it every time. So this has all just been a long way of showing you the homemade pierogis filled with mashed potatoes and boudin blanc and fried with caramelized apples and onions that I made. Boiled and then fried, hey hey they were
good. Thanks for your time.
By the way, there's something satisfying about stuffing a pierogi, ravioli, samosa, or what-have-you. Go on, get your counter all flour-y. Your soul will thank you.
I did not eat one of these, but look how adorable an individually sized buche de noel is!
I did have a (good-sized)
galette des rois individuelle on Wednesday, however. I was going to share it with my deskmate, but she was in a really long meeting and I was weak and, damn, if the whole thing wasn't gone before she returned. Of note is that there is no "prize" in an indiviudally sized galette des roi. Unless I ate it.... hmmm.... Also, sorry Virginie!
And these are some carnitas that B made that were tender-yet-crispy in the best sort of way. We were having a Parisian friend over for dinner, so there was no way I was making anything remotely French. (I am no fool! She is the same friend I witnessed sink into the "smelling-the-poo-poo" face while I was describing Belgian cuisine. We immediately started laughing about this, and she recovered her cute normal face right away. She's just Parisian through and through, that's all. And also, she asked!) We served B's salsa, cabbage slaw, carnitas and corn tortillas (for which we had to make a special run to the left side), and ice cream sandwiches. I think it was a (non-French) success!
These are the deelish tollhouse cookies B and I fatted ourselves on over the holidays. Stuffed with some Haagen-Dazs, they also make a mean ice cream sandwich, fyi.
