Monday, May 14, 2007

Quelle Semaine! / What a Week!



What a week! I had a series of unsuccessful culinary concoctions in a single week.
For a post, I would rather share a cute little story with you than my shameful kitchen missteps but I had nowhere else to turn.

Sunday: I wanted to make a new recipe of pistachio macaroons that has been marinating in my head for weeks now. The result: The macaroons turned out looking like…nothing! I was so desappointed, I overcooked the second batch in purpose.

Monday: I don’t remember what I made for dinner but like my mother says: “if you don’t remember it then it wasn’t memorable”.

Tuesday:
I was thrilled at the idea of trying my first homemade mascarpone cheese. Followed the recipe and waited 24 hours before the draining process. 24 hours later: ended up with a sour heavy cream but no mascarpone cheese. Not even a curd on top. Apparently, I shouldn’t have used Low-fat buttermilk.

Wednesday: I am stubborn. My first attempt, and if you would ask me my last one on making Thai Red Curry Chicken. I didn’t expect the curry paste to be that hot. So, being out of coconut milk I used brown sugar instead, to balance the taste. Too much brown sugar. God! The worst idea I have ever had. Our dinner: a salad, some Pilaf Rice and an awful chicken drained from the curry.

Thursday: Tried to play it safe by making chicken noodle soup. Nothing special. Had a small bowl of it just because we were hungry. The soup spent more time in the fridge than at the table. What is wrong with me? Not even chicken noodle soup?

Friday: Seeing the Rhubarb fever all over the blogs convinced me to try this celery-like fruit. I Made mini-cakes rhubarb with ginger, cinnamon and almonds. Run all excited over the oven to find out that my mini-cakes were not that “mini” anymore. There was more batter on the baking sheet than in the cake molds. Ate some of it anyway for the rhubarb that I found a little sour for my taste. Will give it another try.

And believe me, these are only the headlines. I spared you some details that would ruin my reputation if I have decided to air them. In fact, the only high notes of the week were some delicious marinated feta, some cute little hamburgers buns for mother’s day picnic, my all time favorite crepes and these insanely good chocolate pots. Seriously, they were a real treat, the perfect combination of what I look for in a chocolate dessert: light, creamy, not too sweet and not too chocolaty. See from distance, it doesn’t seem like a very elaborate recipe but believe me, despite my disappointing week I still know a good dessert when I have one, especially if it involves chocolate. I might say that this is by far my favorite chocolate dessert ever, and I can’t wait to make it again so that every week will be a memorable week.



The Best Chocolate Pots

Recipe:
- 3.5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
- 4.80 ounces heavy cream
- 2 tbsp coffee
- 5 ounces Greek style yogurt
- 1 vanilla sugar package
- A dash of cinnamon
- Grated semi-sweet chocolate
- Candied orange rinds

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl with 3 tbsp of cream. Place it over a pan of simmering water and let it melt. Remove from the heat and beat in the coffee, the remaining cream, the cinnamon and half the yogurt. Whisk until well blended and smooth. Put in coffee cups or ramekins. Mix the remaining yogurt with the vanilla sugar. Spoon the yogurt vanilla mixture on top, sprinkle with some grated chocolate and decorate with candied orange. Chill for at least 1hour.



Les meilleurs pots de chocolat

In francais please:
- 100g de chocolat noir 60%
- 142ml de ceme liquide
- 2 c.s de café noir
- 150g de yaourt grec
- 1 sachet de sucre vanille
- Une pincee de canelle
- Du chocolat rape
- Des pelures d’oranges confites pour decorer

Mettre le chocolat et 3 c.s de crème dans un bol et mettre sur une casserole de bain marie. Laisser le chocolat fondre. Incorporer Hors du feu le café, le reste de crème, la canelle et la moitie du yaourt. Battre a l’aide d’un fouet jusqu’a obtention d’un mélange homogene et soyeux. Mettre dans des tasses a café ou des ramequins. Melanger le sucre vanille avec le yaourt restant. Verser une c.c de yaourt vanille sur chaque tasse, saupoudrer de chocolat rape et decorer avec les oranges confites. Mettre au frais au moins une heure avant de servir.




28 comments:

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Some days/weeks are diamonds, some days/weeks are coal... Best to know what you're dealing with and move along.
The chocolate pots look and sound fantastic, really liked "light, creamy, not too sweet and not too chocolaty" - that's what does it for me! and then the greek yogurt! I'm all over that as I just bought some to make some more homemade!

Jenny said...

I don't think I've ever seen buttermilk that wasn't low-fat!
But I hear ya, sister, I hear ya! Some weeks are just meant for take out and a housekeeping service.

Lucy said...

Delicious little chocolate pots.

I had a weekend just like that recently. Nothing, but nothing would work out the way I had intended it to. At least there was chocolate to soothe your woes!

Nora B. said...

dear Rose, at least you were brave enough to try new recipes, even if it didn't turn out exactly as you imagined. The choc pots look yummy & I actually have all the ingredients at home, yippeee!

Heather said...

I know what you mean about living up to some sort of a culinary standard these days. Some weeks I end up posting nothing because I am either not making anything exciting or nothing turns out right. However, more often than not I forget to take a picture.

The chocolate pots look delish, what do you have them served in?

Cate said...

I think it's always fun to hear others' missteps in the kitchen -- we all have our bad days ... or weeks. Maybe this week will be better. ;)

Claude-Olivier Marti said...

Et bien il y a des semaines comme ca..mais pour le coup tu te rattrape bien avec cette recette ;-) Bah, ca ira mieux la semaine prochaine ;-)

bonne journée
Claude

veronica said...

superbe recette je la note de suite...impossible de resister devant de telles photos...

Lis said...

Oh how I feel your pain, Rose! I can soooooo relate to weeks like that. But I'm happy your chocolate pots turned out as they look divine!

See this happened for a reason.. to get the bad juju out of your kitchen now, so when you start to make this month's challenge it will go perfectly well! =)
xoxo

Jen said...

Don't worry, we all have those days, weeks even months where culinary disasters abound. But it looks like you broke the spell with these chocolate pots. They truly look delicious.

Cheryl said...

Those mouth watering chocolate pots make up for any culinary disasters you may had.

I once spent hours crying on my patio over a cheesecake gone very bad.

Patricia Scarpin said...

Rose, sometimes it seems that the Universe is trying to pull some tricks on us - I've been there and it ain't pretty! :D

The chocolate pots look delicious, though!

catalyst0527 said...

I have no experience to cook with chorolate. I looks really good and I want to try this someday.

Thank you for your recipe and good picture. :)

LILIBOX said...

un petit dessert au chocolat , cela toujours de tout !
La dernière photo est too craving (c'est cela que l'on dit ?)

LILIBOX said...

il fallait lire "console de tout"
Oups!!

Helene said...

Je suis de l'avis de Lisa: les merdouilles sont derrieres toi et maintenant tout va aller mieux. Quand j'ai trop de casseroles sur le feu, je finis toujours par avoir un desastre!

Kajal@aapplemint said...

haha ...i'm so sorry but u just made the entire week sound so cute ! and what its worth...the entire week against these beautiful chocolate pots....wow !i guess everyone has these days...thats when the take away guy becomes a hot favourite...!

Alhya said...

Merci Rose pour ta demande de participation à l'échange de recette! ça me permet de découvrir ton blog qui est sublime! en revanche, je suis désolée, mais je n'ai absolument pas le temps de participer à l'échange en ce moment. J'espère que tu ne m'en voudras pas, et encore merci d'avoir ainsi pensé à moi!

Freya said...

I have the same thing, at least you're experimenting though. We all have to have disasters to find the gems! The mousse looks delicious!

Gattina Cheung said...

Wow, look at this chocolate pot!!! I probably spent entirely 2 weeks still couldn't make it :) :) And crepes, and cheese, and burger too? Rose, you are fantastic baker! don't worry too much about other kitchen hic-up :)
About that Thai curry, you could replace with regular milk. You won't get that coconut-y aroma, but able to "put off" the "heat" a bit.

Eva said...

Those chocolate pots look amazing! And try this for consolation: Last week, I wanted to make penne with zucchini in a lemon cream sauce - doesn't sound overly fancy, right? However, turns out that it was only palatable with tons of cheese on top...

Anonymous said...

Hi Rose - gorgeous pots de chocolat! I think it's fair to say that everyone out in 'blog-land' has had those types of days and weeks... Now that it's all out of your system, you are good to move on! :)

Peabody said...

I think we all have our hits and misses, no worries.

Anonymous said...

These look so tasty. I'm close to needing a chocolate fix, and these might just do the trick. Gorgeous!

Anonymous said...

Gosh that is some week of culinary adventures! As you can see from my current post, I've had moments like that too. I think we all have!

These pots do look amazing, I totally believe you when you say they are the perfect combination of everything you want from a chocolate dish. I've added this recipe to the must try list, as I so often seem to do on your blog. :)

Ari (Baking and Books)

Warda said...

Thank you all for your nice notes and advices. It is conforting to see that I am not the only one who goes through this kind of days. We food bloggers all have our days where a good delivery pizza would be more than welcome.
Merci a toutes et a tous (Je ne t'ai pas oublie Claude)pour vos gentils messages et vos conseils.

Anonymous said...

i love chocolate! your pots seems sooooooo yummy!
leonine194.cananlblog.com

Warda said...

- Thank you very much Leonine.