Brioche

Yes.

Ingredients

• 2tbsp honey
  
• 2.25tsp yeast
  
• 1c whole milk
  
• 4tbsp olive oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2tsp salt
  
• about 4.5c flour, plus or minus.
  
• 2tbsp lavender
  
• Chocolate chips
  
• Glaze:
  
  
  
  • 1 egg yolk
    
  • 1tbsp milk
    
  • 1tbsp sugar
    
  
  

Mix together the dough ingredients (including the lavender) but exclude the chocolate chips. When it's starting to come together, turn it out onto a WELL floured counter and knead for about 5 minutes. Put it back into a bowl and toss together with some olive oil. Cover and set in a warm, humid place to rise (a microwave with a cup of boiling water makes a great rising chamber). Rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Take out the dough and punch down. Divide into twelfths (I cut it in half twice to get fourths, and then divided each of those fourths in three to get twelfths). For each ball of dough, press your thumbs into one side and pull taught the other side (so you get a nice rounded surface), folding the edges into the center. Once one side is nice and taught, take a few chocolate chips (8-12) and put them together on the non-taught side. Pull the dough from the edges of the disc and pinch over the chocolate. The idea is basically to have a nice round ball enclosing a pouch of chocolate chips. The bottom of the dough (the non-taught side) doesn't need to look pretty.

Do this with each ball of dough and set on a baking sheet. Cover with a towel to rise for another 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 while you wait. Also, mix together all the glaze ingredients.

When the final rise is done, brush each bun with the glaze. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until nice and golden brown on top.

Thoughts: Claire was unsure about the olive oil, but I really liked the interesting flavor it imparted. Maybe - MAYBE next time we'll use a neutral oil. The chocolate we used was Guittard, and it was pretty great. Very vanilla-y, which complemented the aromatic qualities of the lavender and olive oil. The original recipe used only 1tsp of yeast and had an initial rise of 12-20 hours. I'll be honest - I think I like my way better. Anyway, these were JUST delicious. They don't require anything else. Just eat them plain. As a note: the recipe says to reheat them you should bake them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Sounds kind of excessive to me, but we might find out.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Dirty Rice

Ingredients

• 2 cups extra long grain rice
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 1.5 cups diced white onion
• 1 cup diced green pepper
• vegetable oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 hot sausage, chopped and quartered
• 1/4 lb ground pork
• 1 bunch green onion, chopped

Cook the rice: rinse rice in cold water several times (about 6) until the water runs completely clear. Place rice in pot and add chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Do NOT stir. You will mess it up.
Meanwhile, saute the garlic, onion, and green pepper in the vegetable oil until soft (15 minutes). Add the salt, pepper, oregano, and cayenne. Mix well.
Add this mixture to the cooked rice. Stir.
Cook the meat together in another pan and then add it into the rice.
Turn heat to low, and cook for another 10 minutes. Eat.

Thoughts: This was pretty delicious. In retrospect, the rice was a little more mushy than I like - we cooked it according to the directions in the recipe, rather than using our own failsafe method, which usually yields less mushy rice. So in the future, we will use that method, and then rather than adding the various ingredients into the rice and stirring over and over again, we're just going to cook the vegetables and meet together, and then put it all in with the rice at the last minute. This will also decrease the mushiness of the rice. I thought that the rice: stuff ratio was a little off. I would have preferred more stuff to rice. Also, this recipe can feed like, 12 people, so we'll also halve the recipe next time we make it.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Dan Dan Mian - Sesame Noodles

Two variations in as many nights.
Ingredients

• 2tbsp dark soy sauce
  
• 2tbsp peanut oil
  
• 3tbsp chopped garlic
  
• 2tbsp chopped ginger
  
• 4tbsp chopped scallions
  
• 2tbsp peanut butter or sesame paste (tahini)
  
• 1tbsp sesame oil
  
• 8oz chicken stock (or veg)
  
• 3/4lb soba noodles
  
• salt and brown sugar or honey to taste
  
• VARIATION: 1tbsp black vinegar
  
• 2tsp sambal olek / chili paste
  

set some water to boil. In a separate pot, add the peanut oil and cook the garlic, ginger, and scallions until aromatic, about a minute. Add all the other ingredients (except for the soba, of course) and let simmer for 5-7 minutes. In the mean time, cook the soba (doesn't take long). Drain the soba and toss together with the sauce. Done!

Thoughts: I did this recipe a day later, but used sesame paste instead of peanut butter. I left out the chicken stock (opting instead for just some water to loosen the sauce) and added some black vinegar. In both instances, we had to sweeten the recipe with a little honey or brown sugar. The original recipe called for caramelizing some pork that you mix in later. This would probably contribute the necessary sweetness just as well, actually, but we're saving the pork for another recipe. All in all, I think that we have the basics of a good recipe here. We just need to tweak it a little to get the flavors right. It shouldn't be TOO sweet, but it needs a LITTLE sweetness. Can't be TOO salty either. I'm not QUITE sure what this recipe needs, but it's pretty good already.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Tiramisu

Pick me up.
Ingredients

• 3 large eggs, separated
  
• 3/4c granulated sugar
  
• big pinch of salt
  
• 3/4lb mascarpone cheese
  
• 20 lady-fingers
  
• a pot of espresso or similarly strong coffee - we used about 4-8oz
  
• 3oz semisweet chocolate, grated coarsely
  
• ~1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
  
• 1 bread pan
  

Separate the eggs so you have three egg whites in one big metal bowl and two egg yolks in another large-ish bowl. You can do whatever you want with the third yolk - we don't need it*. Add the sugar to the yolks and beat until they turn pale and creamy. Now, with a clean, dry whisk, beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until they form stiff peaks. THIS TAKES SOME ARM MUSCLE. Seriously. Throw the mascarpone in with the yolks and beat together. Now FOLD the whites in with the yolk mixture.

Now is the assembly. Just put 1/3 of the egg mixture into the bottom of the bread pan and spread evenly with a spatula. Put 1/2 the grated chocolate over it. Now, dip the lady fingers one at a time in the coffee and lay them out across the mixture until you've more or less covered the layer. In our bread pan, this takes 10 lady fingers (hence 20 in the ingredients) but depending on the size of pan, you could be looking at more or fewer. Feel free to spoon a little extra coffee over the lady fingers if you think they could use to soak up more, but be careful - if you dip them too long, they start to crumble in your hands right away. Better to play it safe, I would say, and just spoon a little extra on afterward.

After that layer, put 1/2 of what remains of the egg mixture (1/3 of the original amount if you're keeping track of the math here) and spread that evenly across. Add the remaining grated chocolate, another layer of lady fingers, and then the remainder of the egg mixture. Now sprinkle the cocoa powder evenly across the top (I recommend using a fine mesh sieve - put the cocoa in it and then tap the side to release the cocoa pretty evenly - it's just like sifting flour).

Chill for minimum 4 hours before serving. Serves 6.

*I'd consider adding it anyway

Thoughts: This was an amalgam of two recipes, actually - one we found online and one we found in a cookbook kicking around here. The flavor was FANTASTIC, but I'm afraid the texture was a little softer than I had expected. I think that one thing that would help is if the lady-fingers were a little spongier and a little less brittle. When they soaked up the liquid, they were just falling apart. Second of all, the custard (if I may call it that even though it is not, strictly speaking, a custard) was also softer than we had anticipated. This could be related to the egg whites. I think in the future, it would be advisable to use some cream of tartar in the preparation of the egg whites to get some stiffer peaks. This might help thicken up the custard. Second of all, I could use more mascarpone to egg ratio - that, too, might thicken it a little. Also, I would add a bit less sugar to the custard. I thought it bordered on too sweet. I would use just 1/2 cup next time. Personal preference, I guess. Finally, we could kick up the espresso flavor (if we wanted) with a little instant espresso powder. I would go easy on it, but it could potentially improve the flavors. Just an idea. Maybe if I used the espresso powder I would use full sugar just to even it out?

In the end, though, this was delicious and REALLY easy, except for whipping the egg whites. I would DEFINITELY make this again.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Spargel Saison!

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion OR 3 medium shallots OR 1 medium leek (washed well, white and light green parts only, chopped finely)
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• salt
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup dry white wine (we used Vermouth)
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cups chicken broth (or vegetable, if you must)
  
• 2 bunches asparagus, tough ends removed, and cut into 1/2 inch lengths
• 1/2 cup half-and-half
• ground black pepper
• VARIATION: 3 SLICES COOKED BACON
• VARIATION: CRUMBLED GORGONZOLA
  

Combine the onion, oil, and 1/2 tsp salt in a large saucepan. Cover and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until softened, about 8-10 minutes.
Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.
Whisk in the wine and bay leaf. Cook until wine is absorbed, about 1 minute.
Whisking constantly, add the broth.
Bring to a oil over medium-high heat. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the broth is slightly thickened and no longer tastes like flour (5 minutes).
Add the asparagus and continue to simmer, uncovered, until tender, 7-10 minutes.
Remove the bay leaf.
Puree the mixture in batches in a blender until smooth.
Return to saucepan. Stir in the half-and-half and cook over low heat until just hot (don't boil).
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
If using variations, add the chop the cooked bacon slices and stir in. Top with Gorgonzola cheese.
Eat.

Thoughts: Fantastic soup. And easy to make. And if you don't like your soups too healthy, go ahead and add the bacon and Gorgonzola. Let me tell you, it makes it so much better. There should not be any dish without bacon. Let me say that. Dan says that he's not sure that the bacon did much for him. So APPARENTLY bacon isn't for everyone. But without those two variations, the soup is ridiculously healthy. The only questionable thing in there is the half-and-half, and there's only 1/2 cup for the entire recipe. Not too shabby. I would definitely make this again.

Disaster Index: 1/10. Full marks!

Update: We made this recently, but instead of 2 bunches of asparagus we did 1 bunch asparagus and an equal proportion of kale, washed and chopped. It went well - the soup was quite good. If you don't have enough asparagus, kale works very well. Then I decided that I wanted to stir the blue cheese into the soup directly rather than in individual servings, and this was... less successful. Lesson learned. You can season the soup with some dill. See what you think.