Happy Bastille Day!

Sometimes Blogger is not my friend. On occasion it won't let me rotate a picture. Other times it won't publish a post when I want to. I queued up a Fourth of July entry for while I was gone, but nothing happened. Sadness. But, when Blogger gives you nothing for Independence day, simply rearrange the colors and celebrate Bastille Day.

So here is a blue, white and red Bastille Day celebration from the garden. Enjoy!

TWD: Brioche Plum Tart

There are days when it is just too hot to bake. This past weekend in San Diego was mighty toasty, so I was a bit worried that this just wasn't going to happen for me. Happily there was a break in the heat wave, because man oh man, was this yummy!

I don't have a large tart pan, and I certainly didn't need 6 servings all to myself. So I broke out the mini tart pans and planned to make two individual tarts. Usually I would make only 1/3 of the dough recipe, but I've learned that one can divide the recipe down to almost nothing, which is very difficult to work with. So I made the complete dough recipe, and would just do enough filling for the minis.

The dough came together easily, and I planned to do the "slap dance" Monday evening and bake it this morning. Although it required a lot of time, the dough really took no effort at all.

I lucked out and got some very yummy, very ripe organic plums from Trader Joes. I thought I had some strawberry jam, but apparently it has been in the fridge too long to use (I'll leave it to you to create the word picture here....). Luckily I had some apricot jam from another Dorie project, and it worked surprisingly well on the plums.

I baked for 15 minutes and then tented the minis and gave them another 7 minutes in the oven. They looked mighty pretty if I do say so myself, and I just couldn't wait to make a cup of tea and have one for breakfast. The other went to a co-worker celebrating her birthday. Elegant baked goods are such a better gift than knickknacks!

These were so good that I may have to do an experiment and see how well the dough does after a whole day in the fridge. Yeah.....that's it..... another batch would be a service to the wider TWD community and would be seen as an effort to expand our culinary knowledge. Yeah.....

Many thanks to Denise at Chez Us for a great pick. This will definitely be put into heavy rotation (but only when it's not 90 degrees in my kitchen!). I can't wait to try other fruit options. YUM!

TWD: Tribute-To-Katharine-Hepburn Brownies

When I was in high school the only Advanced Placement class I took was an English class my senior year. One of our assignments was to write to a famous person and to create a letter that was so good we got a personal response. An impossible task today, I would think. Being the odd child that I was, I picked Katharine Hepburn. I admired her independence and smarts, and one of my favorite movies then was "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (still is).

Sad to say I did not get a personal response from Ms. Hepburn, but did get one from her long time secretary Phyllis Wilbourn. It took a little persuading, but I got credit for the response. I assume it is stashed away in a box somewhere (I tend to hoard paper). I know that the picture I had of Ms. Hepburn on my dorm wall my freshman year (did I mention I was an odd child?) is long gone.

As for these brownies, they were easy enough to put together, but I'm feeling way out of practice. I've been MIA the last week or so - first there was an unexpected health issue (hmmm...are health issues ever "expected?") which happily turned out to be nothing, then there was a much needed mini-vacation over the holiday weekend. Today I had jury duty (not picked, sadness) and I also have a visiting house guest who is sweet, and he keeps me company, but he does snore terribly (he snores enough to make me miss my Dad -- for the first hour.......)

For the life of me I can't get this picture to rotate - ugh!

So although these brownies should have been easy, they were not. They definitely turned out oooey and gooey, not to mention tasty, but very, very messy. I'm so out of touch I forgot to check the P&Qs (I bet there are others who had the same problem). I'll see if I can get the brownies out of the pan (something went wrong there) and into a container without getting covered in chocolate. Or maybe I'll just hoard them too (why stop at paper).

Oh, you're supposed to sift the cocoa into the pan......

Many thanks to Lisa at Surviving Oz for this pick, and also for the beautiful, fantastic new logo for TWD. I absolutely LOVE it! The pictures on her blog are beautiful, and I can tell I'll be digging deep into the archives.

As for me I'll be back into the swing of things soon (I hope!).

TWD: Sadly -- not this week

This cake looks delicious, and I really wanted to give it a try. I was enthusiastic despite my shaky relationship with butter cream. I've yet to master it and the thought of trying again gives me nightmares (I'll temper eggs any day rather than try butter cream frosting).

This week the spirit was willing but the schedule was not. I'll eventually get to it, but this week it just isn't in the cards. I look forward to seeing what everyone else does (I'll probably need to wear a bib while visiting y'alls blogs so I don't drool on myself).

My apologies to Carol at mix mix....stir, stir for not baking along this week. She had quite an adventure with her cake and the results look yummy. I look forward to having my own adventure with this cake soon.

CEiMB: Vegetable and Cheese Strata

First of all, let me thank any of you who cooked along with me this week. I was kind of surprised when my turn to pick came up so quickly. I won't be picking for Tuesdays with Dorie until sometime in 2011 or 2012 by my calculation. I spent a bunch of time looking at all the choices and tried to find something different yet tasty.

While putting this together I thought of those old Night of a Thousand Stars TV shows because this seemed like a Recipe of a Thousand Ingredients. A love all of the ingredients in the strata, which is why I picked it, but sheesh, there were a lot of them once it came time to do the prep.

I also thought about my Dad, since I picked this recipe thinking it would be good for Father's Day. This is the 5th Father's Day that has come and gone since my Dad died in 2004, and I can't say I miss him any less than I did on the first one. He was one of those quiet guys who everyone considered "just a NICE guy!" I said at his funeral that he'd give you the shirt off his back and then come back the next day saying he just happened to be in the neighborhood with these three other shirts and thought you might like them. Ridiculously smart despite little formal education, he had life smarts galore, and I sure do miss his insights on people and situations. He was almost never wrong when he sized up someone.

His last days made me understand the importance of food in nourishing the body and the soul - both of the person who eats the food AND the person who makes it. One of the very last things my Dad ate was a grits casserole I made for him. I fed it to him the day I brought it over. It was funny, I got talking to my Mom or someone and he'd tap my finger to let me know I was falling down on the job feeding him. He ate it later that week as well, and I can't tell you how special it is to me that I made something he like and it was the last real food he had. I've found a surprising amount of comfort in that these last 5 years.

Happily time does help you remember the good times, not just the bad ones, and between all the parental June holidays we have in my family (both my parent's were born in June - yes, two Gemini parents - I joke that I didn't have 2 parents growing up, I had 4 - plus their anniversary, plus Father's day) plus the photo project I just did for my Mom's 80th party I have a lot floating around in my memory banks. So although this recipe took a lot of prep time, it gave me a chance to do some sorting of those memories, which was nice. In the end, all you have is your memories of the people you love, whether they are in the great beyond or in the next state. That means you can spend time with them whenever you wish. I find that comforting as well.

As for the recipe itself, it came together pretty well. I think I've finally figured out the problem I've been having with cook times in my oven -- the clock in my kitchen is 10 minutes behind the clock in the living room. Since I usually have a sit in the living room after making something, this might explain my temporal confusion.

I made half the recipe, and thought it wasn't bad. It did need a little something, so I spent the day trying to sort out what it was. I figured I might have missed something in the process of dividing everything by two (I know - sad, isn't it?). Finally, I called on my Southern California Culinary roots and came up with the perfect solution.

Everything, especially eggs, taste better with a dollop of sour cream and some avocado. Heaven!

Thanks again for cooking with me, especially since I've been MIA lately. I hope you enjoyed this recipe, and that if you served it for Father's Day that the Dads at the table enjoyed it too.

For the recipe (I've run out of time to post it -- must dash off to work) click here.

TWD: Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise

Sometimes there is such a thing as too small. Especially when it comes to desserts. Sometimes you get to "too small" while trying to avoid "too big." Thus is my story with this fabulous dessert, picked this week by Andrea from Andrea in the Kitchen.

All the parts of the recipe looked doable, but I did not want 12 servings. I sensed before I started that this wasn't something I wanted to transport to work, and I certainly do not need 12 servings all to myself. Using my oh-so-bad math skills, I figured I'd divide by 4. Easy enough for the most part, a little tricky with some ingredients. But rather ridiculous when it came to making the outlines on the parchment paper. The 12x6 dessert calculated into 3 x 1.5 to me, which just seemed too small.


Once I assembled the ingredients for the meringue, it was obvious my outline was quite right. So I improvised (always, always a bad idea!). Still got it all on one pan. Now the question became, how long do I cook this for.


For the last few recipes my bake times have been much longer than suggested. One would think it was the oven, but for everything else it works fine. Oh the dilemma - do I cook it the 3 hours figuring it would all even out? Do I cook it for a shorter time knowing the pieces are smaller? Ugh - I hate this kind of math.

I put it in for 1 hour, turned it and left it in for another hour, turned again and took it out 45 minutes later.

All other parts were easy enough to do. I looked and looked (meaning I went to three stores) to find white chocolate. As it turns out, I found the chocolate I used at an Italian restaurant and deli (go figure!). Another good reason to decrease this recipe since the chocolate was hard to find. I had a bad feeling about my math here, but plunged forward.



Pineapple was fine - it was good to use my pineapple cutting skills learned in culinary classes. However, can you spot the problem on the pineapple's first trip to the oven?


The ganache did not turn out quite right - it was more of a "pour" onto the meringue rather than "spread." If that wasn't enough of a sign, here's another --when your pineapple slices start sliding OFF the dacquoise, then you know something has gone terribly wrong.


I must confess I almost didn't make this dessert. I wasn't sure I would like it. But I thought the challenge might be fun and it was. As my dad used to say "win some, lose some, some you call on account of rain." I think this was a bit of all of those -- I won with the experience, I lost in the presentation, and the rain, well, if you count "raining" pineapple, then I've got all three.

A little housekeeping, part 2

I'm changing names on you, now that you know who I am. The blogger formerly known as Tour Guide Jenn will be masquerading as Jenn H (formerly Tour Guide Jenn) for the next month or so. Since that's a bit cumbersome, I'll be dropping the last part sometime this summer. I just want to make sure when I visit y'all you're not wondering who the heck I am, and how many Jenns are there anyway. I'll keep my little orange flower picture, since I'm a visual learner and perhaps you are too.

Once the official Tour Guide Jenn blog is up and running I'll point you in that direction (but not vice versa). I'm hoping to use it for business and some fun. For instance, in less than two weeks this will be me. And the other blog will be a good place to share the details.


Thanks for visiting and trying to keep track of my identity. I do appreciate it!