Sunday Reading

These are some adorable and very photogenic chicks!

Una ricetta buona et facile.

Some curiosities from Provence.

Gearing up for zucchini season. This is one of my favorite ways to use them up.

Beautiful inspiration.

The fortified medieval town of Sighişoara was one of the highlights of our trip to Transylvania.

Unreasonable amounts of everything, and pea soup

When one of your (half-)brothers is a restaurateur, paying him a visit means consuming quite a bit of good food. When one of your (half-)brothers is a restaurateur with many reasons to celebrate—a new house, a new restaurant in the works, and an upcoming wedding, for example—paying him a visit means consuming completely unreasonable amounts of fantastic and fantastically rich food all over the

Dinner Party!

When our kids were younger, we were always having dinner parties. It seemed like the easiest -- read the only -- way to get together with our friends, who also had little ones who prevented Saturday evenings at home from being relaxing occasions.

Since the girls became teenagers, I have gotten out of the dinner party habit. Saturday evening at home with a take-out pizza, a glass of wine, and a DVD, book, or my computer sounds just heavenly after a long week at work.

But last weekend was un pont -- a long weekend, and a four-day one at that. So I finally got it together enough to have a real dinner party: three other couples, new recipes, plenty of champagne to celebrate Obama's victory -- the whole nine yards.

As a bonus, I picked up a few new ideas along the way.

The dish in the top photo is a fairly simple rice, corn and black bean salad with a mild homemade salsa. I got the recipe -- and the presentation idea -- from here:

I had bought this book for myself about a year ago, and yet had never gotten around to using it.

I like Deseine's idea of presenting a salad in mugs, mainly because the ingredients don't have to be arranged as artfully as in the now omnipresent verrines. And the visual effect was still much nicer and less picnic-like than just plopping a big salad bowl in the middle of the table.

For the main dish, I also tried a new recipe from this book:

Crumbles are oh-so-fashionable in France; I often wonder if there are now more French recipes for crumbles than British ones.

The recipe I started with was called "Crumble Nordique," which consisted primarily of seasoned salmon over a bed of onions, with a savoury crumble topping.

I decided to go green with a bed of onions and zucchini, and at one point early on in the preparation, the dish looked like this:


Of course, later it got crumbled and baked. But by that time, I was having such a good time I forgot the camera for the rest of the evening!

A Virtual Hug from Hawaii

Hawaii is such a peaceful and relaxing place to be, I wish I could send the delicious breezes, soft air and the sound of the waves to everyone reading this post. But most of all, I wish I could send the gift of health to Barbara of the blog Winos and Foodies. Barbara is battling cancer and food bloggers around the world are sending her their best wishes, prayers, and tantalizing recipes to cheer her on and speed her recovery.

Because I am away from home, coming up with a new recipe would be a challenge, so I am sending a collection of links to past recipes that are fresh, healthy and Asian inspired:

Tofu & Celery Salad

Asian Slaw Dressing

Vietnamese Summer Rolls

Shrimp & Mango Kebabs

To see more posts dedicated to Barbara, head to Bron Marshall's blog. A big thanks to Bron and Ilva of Lucullian Delights for organizing this effort.

Oils

Oils, oils, oils!

Nut oil, hazelnut oil, sunflower oil, pumpkin oil, raisin seed oiland many more types of oils, made out of the first cold pressing: simply the best. We tasted several of them - and would have liked to buy one of each.

Many of the oils produced by James have the European Organic Label.

These are the oils used by A World in a PAN.

Second Chance to Win Morimoto

Looks like my quiz has really stumped you! No one got all the answers right, and only one person was even close.

But I really do want to give away copies of Morimoto The New Art of Japanese Cooking. So I'm giving the answers to two of the questions and here is a huge hint. Most of the answers can be found in an article in a food and wine magazine. And yes, it is available online. Got that? Anyone who has already entered a first time, may enter again.

Like before only one entry per person, so choose carefully! Remember, you MUST include your email to win and your mailing address must be in the United States--sorry but this is because I'm paying for shipping. Also, you will not be eligible if you have already won a book this year on Cooking with Amy. Just choose your answers and post them in the comments section. The first four people to correctly answer all the questions will win a copy of the book. (I'm going to give the last copy to the person who got all but one right) Good luck!
Note: Gather readers must go to www.cookingwithamy.com if they wish to enter, comments left at Gather will NOT be eligible to win.

CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED! THANKS!
1. According to Morimoto, in order for there to be creativity in the kitchen the chef must be_____ and _____
A. Relaxed and have fun
B. Focused and pay attention to detail

2. Which of the following is NOT featured in Morimoto The New Art of Japanese Cooking?
A. Frozen lettuce
B. Chocolate covered asparagus
C. Squid strawberry candy
D. Tofu souffle

3. In a magazine article Morimoto said "I keep cooked rice in my freezer and microwave it when I need it." To which Rachael Ray responded:
A. Wow, that just changed my life. I'm going to go home and start freezing my rice.
B. We have that in common, I do the same thing all the time!

4. Where can you find an instructional sushi video featuring Morimoto?
A. StarChefs
B. Epicurious
C. Culinary Institute of America

5. Morimoto once said "Sake makes everything more _____"
A. Tender
B. Sweet
C. Juicy

6. Who said "Morimoto is a rock star"
A. Mario Batali
B. Anthony Bourdain
C. Ferran Adria

7. According to Morimoto "For appetizers I top toast with fresh sardines and panko and bake it until the topping is crispy"
True
False

FOOD

Crème de Menthe Brownies

I have been thinking about these brownies for ten years. Ten. That's since high school. I mean, I realize my dad teases me by saying that I've never forgotten a meal (which is true) but ten years is a long time to pine after brownies. My friend J's mom made them for me when I single-handedly got him into college. Okay, so in truth one component of his college application was a recommendation from a peer, which I wrote. And he got in. Thus, I got him in. Seems logical. And so I received a platter of these brownies. They are wonderful.

J was in town the other week, and we met for lunch. I probably hadn't seen him for three years or so (I think we compromised on that number in the end). I asked him if he remembered these brownies, and not only did he remember them, he had the recipe. And he gave it to me, and now I'm giving it to you. They're actually quite beautiful, with that ribbon of green crème de menth running between the cakey base and the chocolate topping. These brownies got my friend into college. Imagine what they'll do for your holiday cookie platter.

Crème de Menthe Brownies
From J's Wonderful Mom. We're lucky I have such great friends.

For the brownie layer:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup flour
1 16-oz can of Hershey's chocolate syrup (I could only find a large can, so I weighed out 16 ozs)

For the Mint Layer:
1/2 cup room temperature butter
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons crème de menthe

For the Top Chocolate Layer:
6 oz chocolate chips
6 tablespoons butter (J's mom uses 8 ozs chocolate and 8 tablespoons butter, but I forgot to increase)

For the brownies:
Preheat the oven to 350 F, and grease a 9x13" baking pan. Set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter together, then add the vanilla. Add the beaten eggs, 1 cup of flour, and the chocolate syrup. Mix the batter well, and spread into the prepared pan. Bake for around 30 minutes, but check early. Allow the batter to cool completely while you make the next layers.

For the Mint Layer:
Mix the butter with the powdered sugar and the crème de menthe. Spread it over the cooled brownie layer.

For the Top Chocolate Layer:
Melt the chocolate chips together with the butter, either in the microwave or in a double boiler on the stove. Pour the chocolate layer over the crème de menthe layer. Transfer the baking pan into the freezer or refrigerator and allow to cool before you cut and serve.