Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We decided (gasp!) to out to dinner for Thanksgiving this year. I've been cooking a lot lately and wanted to be waited on for a change. :-). I can't remember the last time we went out for Thanksgiving dinner, although I know we have. We went to a restaurant called Bricks that has been open for many years now. Jordan, Janell (my sister) and I dined on turkey with gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes and green beans. Janell and I had butternut squash soup as a started (quite good) and finished with pumpkin pie. Jordan had short ribs-not much of a turkey guy!
My family is coming up from Southern California for Christmas so I'll be doing plenty of cooking then. Haven't decided whether to have beef or ham or turkey for Christmas. I am leaning toward a New York roast......
I have a large catering job on Friday, December 4th for one of the medical offices here in Reno (their Christmas party for 50+). They have ordered appetizers, turkey AND ham, gravy, mashed potatoes, carrots and two different desserts. Quite the party! This particular doctor is very generous!
The next week I have a catering job for a Ladies Book Club. I made them dinner last year and they asked me to do it again this year. I was asked to cater a dinner party the same night but had to turn it down! Hard to believe I was asked to do two events in one day. (I know, a good problem to have!)
I am working on a new project that involves making filled waffles out of puff pastry-good stuff!
The fillings so far have been Baked Italian Omelette, ham and gruyere with a spot of strawberry jam and of course, chocolate. The filling possibilities are endless! I'll keep you posted.
I made another Rose Frasier cake for a client. Not difficult to do but it has many steps to it. Apparently the women in his office LOVE this cake, lol. I've made it several times for them and it is generally gone before lunch!
You take a sponge cake flavored with rose water (or rose extract), split it in half, fill it with fresh strawberries (notice the decorative placement of halved strawberries around the edges) then fill in the excess space with a pastry cream and a voile!) The blueberries are an added request from my friend.
It's a recipe out of Dorie Greenspan's cookbook, "Baking Chez Moi". I was gifted this book last Christmas by a friend. I must admit, on looking through the cookbook for the first time, I felt like Julie in Julie and Julia, the movie about the woman who took a year and made every recipe in Julia Child's French cookbook, blogging about it the entire year. I wanted to make EVERYTHING in the book! It all looks so yummy. And how can you go wrong with Dorie's recipes?! Needless to say, I have not baked everything but have made quite a few things out of "Baking Chez Moi." I'll keep working ont it-lofty goal that it is.
I am about to begin baking for Christmas, both cookies and candy, both of which I sell during the Holiday season. I make a toffee I call "Simply Crackers Toffee" and currently it is being carried by Wedge Cheese Shop here in Reno. Part of the crunch comes from crackers. I originally used saltines but had many requests asking me to make it gluten free, so came up with a recipe using quinoa crispbreads. Even the people who eat gluten thought it was better with the quinoa! So, now that's all I use for this toffee and people seem to love it! Who'd have thunk?
I finished a new cookbook called "Crepes," which I hope to publish soon on Amazon Kindle. It's at the editors right now. Wish me luck! What do you thing of the cover so far? I think I am going to move the word "crepes" up to the top so it can be better seen. I sent the .pdf to my niece to look at since she's the reason I wrote this in the first place and she loved it. She read it in one sitting, lol. I'll let you know when it's published.
That's all for now-see you soon! Bon Appetit!
