Fresh Red Currant Scones (with recipe)

Sophie loves red currants. Apparently when she was young there was a giant currant bush near her house and she used to nosh on them until her tongue went numb from the tartness. So when her mom found gorgeous fresh currants at a famers market she got them for Sophie. Unfortunately, Sophie's tolerance for tart isn't what it was and she couldn't eat them raw.

What to do with fresh berries? Muffins or scones. She had some blueberries that were going to turn and I wanted to make them into muffins, so I figured currant scones. I based my recipe off the strawberry and chocolate scone recipe from Alice's Tea Cup, but with the fresh currants instead of strawberries (obviously) and no chocolate. They were excellent! The sweet(ish) scone dough contrasted nicely with the tart currants (which were not overly tart since they were slightly over ripe and slightly baked from the oven).

White Chocolate, Blackberry and Lime Eton Mess

As I understand it, Eton mess was first served at Eton and was a messy dessert of strawberries (or bananas) and cream (or possibly ice cream). Later they started adding meringue to the dessert and thus the dessert we know today--meringue, strawberries, and lightly whipped cream--was born.

I love traditional Eton mess with strawberries, but I decided that after our dinner of onion tart and filet mignon I couldn't just serve plain old strawberries and cream. I decided to substitute blackberries for the strawberries. That's not really much of a change so I figured I'd add some white chocolate (it's so good with blackberries) to the whipped cream. But white chocolate crème d'or, no matter how delicious, mixed with blackberries is no longer Eton mess. So I whipped up some cream with a bit of lime juice and zest (both pretty and delicious) and folded the meringue pieces into that.

Savory Onion Tart, the remake

Remember this? I first made this in culinary school and loved it so much I made it at home a couple times. One of those times happened to be for Sophie. That may have been a mistake. Ever since, she's been asking (nagging...begging...) me to make it again. If you don't remember it, basically it's a flakey, tender, buttery tart crust topped with sauteed onions, heirloom tomatoes, walnuts, and stilton.

Sophie's Mushroom Ragu

I have never used The Joy of Cooking and I don't think I've ever eaten anything someone else has made out of it. Until yesterday. And now I realize I've been missing out on something. This mushroom ragu--ragu or ragout refers to a main course stew, in case you were curious--was delicious! I'm not sure exactly what the recipe called for; Sophie--the same Sophie who recently made me that delicious lemon pasta with caviar--said she's changed it a bit over the years, but I assume she's captured the spirit of it since she did have the cookbook open to the very stained page with the recipe on it.

Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Buttercream~with recipe

My friend Sophie's birthday was a few days before I went to visit her so I had to make her a (belated) birthday cake. I knew I wanted to make chocolate cake (because who doesn't love chocolate birthday cake?) but I was torn between coconut buttercream (since it was such a hit with the coconut macaroons) and peanut butter buttercream. I thought the coconut and chocolate would be nice, sort of mounds bar like. But of course chocolate and peanut butter is a classic combination. I was leaning towards coconut, but I figured I'd let the birthday girl decide. I'm glad I did and I'm glad she chose peanut butter. It was delicious! The peanut butter buttercream was perfect. The taste was sweet and rich and perfectly peanutty--it reminded me of the peanut butter nougat I made in class and for my final exam. The texture was surprisingly fluffy for something made primarily of butter and peanut butter.

The buttercream recipe is:

Sophie's Famous Lemon Pasta with Caviar

Alright, maybe it's not famous. But it should be. Whenever I have dinner a my friend Sophie's house, I request this dish. Happily for me, I'm staying with her for the next three weeks, so I bet I can convince her to make it again before I leave.

This dish is actually quite simple and perhaps I should start making it for myself, but I think half the fun of it is that it's something I only get on special occasions with Sophie (of course the other half is that it's caviar on pasta!)

Eating Out

Sorry I've been offline. I've been on vacation with limited Internet access. In the spirit of being on holiday I've been eating out. A lot. At some very nice restaurants.

It's been strange being back in NYC as a tourist, but nice because I've never had an excuse to eat at Bar Boulud, Jean-Georges' Nougatine, and Cafe Fiorello over the course of only two days--lunch, lunch, dinner. (The excuse was actually my mom's birthday, but if we'd been living in the City we certainly would have had at least one of the meals at home.)