The Yum Yum Factor

In today's admission of food snobbery,  I had convinced myself that I hated the idea of a make ahead breakfast casserole type dish. Monkey bread could go take a hike and if you thought I was going to eat soggy white bread french toast in a casserole dish, you had another thing coming but when it was time to whip up a few brunch dishes at the request of a friend's husband that I could drop off the night before, it kept creeping into my brain. I made a frittata, which is always good the next day but everything I thought I wanted to make that would be more on the sweet side of things worked best made on the day. I was pretty sure my friend would love a french toast bake though and since it was her birthday brunch, not mine, I set out to make one that would make me happy as well. I used croissants in place of bread and, trust me, this is the one time that those doughy, bread like grocery store croissants work better than a really well made, flaky croissant, so get those. They...

Nothing is sexier than creme brulee. It's rich. It's thick. It's just sweet enough. It has a crust that only shatters when you tap it with a spoon to reveal the treasure that lays beneath it. Unfortunately, it is also a bit of an ordeal to make at home but not if you have a pressure cooker. Creme brulee in my Instant Pot is a revelation. Long gone are the days of tempering the custard, trying my best not to curdle it but straining it before adding it to the ramekins just in case there were little bits of scrambled egg in there. Bye bye water bath that I always slosh all over the damned place when I am trying to get the cumbersome pan in and out of a hot oven. No more heating up the house for an hour which ensured that this was NOT a dessert I often made in the summertime.  The most exciting thing about making our favourite dessert in the Instant Pot is that I if I don't want to have six pots of fatty goodness teasing me from the fridge, I can whip up a si...

Sometimes I don't want to make six servings of creme brulee because, frankly, I don't want to find myself eating the three leftover ramekins the next day when I am home alone and they are in the fridge, singing their siren song. I have often dreamt of being able to make just one or two perfect little creme brulees so that the kid could could have one after dinner and then another for breakfast because all children benefit from a breakfast of leftover pie, cake or custard from time to time. There is no way I was going to preheat the oven, get a water bath together and go through all those hoops just to make one little ramekin but that was before my Instant Pot. With a pressure cooker, making one serving suddenly became not only possible but necessary! The Kid and I did a day of taste testing until we decided that this version is the one we liked the best. Two eggs made it too rich and dense, if that is at all possible and we both agreed that this version r...

A while back I was given a few bars of Green and Black's Maya Gold organic dark chocolate  to use in my Mexican Compost Bars   and I was left with just a little bit of chocolate at the end of it all. It sat in my cupboard, sad and lonely with the knowledge that it was destined for bigger things than being shoved down my throat at 1am in the throes of a late night sugar attack. That is what Trader Joe's Spekulas Cookie Butter and a tea spoon is for. Maya Gold is a really fragrant, spiced dark chocolate, full of orange, nutmeg, cinnamon with a bit of vanilla and I had just enough to make a tiny batch of ganache and that is how this recipe for Creme Brulee with Ganache came about. It is a much more honourable fate for this majestic chocolate, right? You can cook this without the pressure cooker in a water bath in a 300F oven for 40-45 minutes if you like but using a pressure cooker is quicker and more efficient Creme Brulee with Ganache makes 6 ramekins 3...

Did you know that Kyoto is a sister city to Boston? They became sister cities back in 1959 and, in fact, their gift of the Japan House to the Boston Children's Museum is thought to be the most expensive gift ever given to an American community from a foreign sister city. The two cities collaborate on various events throughout the year and are very tight.

Today was The Kid's 14th birthday. If you are a mom with older kids, you understand how surreal this new era is and if you are a mom with little kids, you have no idea, but your time will come.  My adorable, chubby little baby now towers over me, wears his father's shoes on his hairy hobbit feet, has to shave his dirty stache and his mile long legs are covered with black man hair. He is still young enough to tell me he loves in his best Issac Hayes' voice every day but old enough that he has a job and does his own laundry.

We are not birthday cake people at all. For my birthday, I usually have a lemon tart or a pie - this year, Jen, at Piccante Dolce made me a delectable lemon meringue pie which was THE highlight of my birthday dinner. Last year the kid requested a chocolate wafer/whipped cream cake that my good friend, Kate, makes and this year he asked for creme brulee. The problem is that I couldn't find my creme brulee recipe anywhere. I read a hundred others and couldn't find anything that sounded right and I was about to have a breakdown when I thought "Look to Ina. If anyone knows a really fattening, terrible for you but delicious, decadent dessert it would probably be her. I took down my Barefoot in Paris book and there it was. The perfect creme brulee with just a couple of small changes and now I don't care if I ever find my old recipe because this one is absolutely perfect. Creme Brulee adapted from Barefoot in Paris 1 large egg 4 large eggs yolks 1/2 cup sugar p...