Daring Bakers Challenge: Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

I looooooooooooved this month's Daring Bakers Challenge.  First, it was easy.  Second, it was tasty.  Third, I keep dreaming about eating it again.

The main component of the challenge was to make a Panna Cotta, which is a pudding-like dessert, but easier than pudding because instead of using eggs to thicken the milk it uses gelatin.  You might notice that I've made Panna Cotta here before . . . a Martha Stewart recipe.  But this recipe was so much better.  I'm not sure why but it seemed to have more flavor and richness.  I made a simple vanilla Panna Cotta and garnished it with Blood Orange slices and Blood Orange syrup.  So pretty!  It tasted exactly like a Creamsicle!  A sophisticated one, of course.

The other component of this month's challenge was to make these Florentine cookies.  A simple cookie dough is made out of oatmeal, butter, sugar, and some other ingredients.  Then it is baked and is supposed to get very thin and lacy.  I'm not sure what went wrong but mine stayed kind of thick and crunchy.  I sandwiched them together with dark chocolate.  They were really rich and tasty but I wish they had gotten thinner and crispier.  Guess I have an excuse to try them again, huh?

Thanks to Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen for a fun and tasty challenge.  This is one Daring Bakers challenge that I won't mind duplicating again and again.

Vanilla Panna Cotta
Adapted from Giada de Laurentiis


1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon powdered unflavored gelatin
3 cups whipping cream
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon vanilla

Directions:
1.  Pour the milk into a medium saucepan.  Sprinkle with gelatin and allow to sit for five minutes to soften.
2.  Heat milk and gelatin over medium heat until hot but not boiling (usually I think of it as hot when I start to see steam rising from the milk).  Make sure to whisk a few times while heating.
3.  Add the cream, honey, sugar, and salt.  Heat until honey and sugar is fully dissolved, about five minutes more.  Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes.  Stir in vanilla.
4.  Pour into a large measuring glass or bowl through a fine-meshed sieve to separate any skin or gelatin specks.  Divide among eight ramekins or glasses.
5.  Refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.  Serve with desired garnishes.

Blood Orange Syrup


1 cup blood orange juice
1/2 cup sugar

In a small saucepan combine the juice and sugar.  Over medium heat, bring to a boil.  Turn down heat and simmer until reduced by half.  Cool to room temperature and serve.

Martha Monday: Sauteed Flounder with Lemon

Lyndsey from the Tiny Skillet picked this week's recipe, Sauteed Sole with Lemon.  (You should check out her blog.  She's got GREAT recipes!)  I didn't do the grocery shopping for this week's meals - my husband did.  And he came home with flounder which is also a white, flaky fish so it made a great substitute.

This was a really quick recipe.  Once all the ingredients are chopped and prepped, the cooking time is only about 7 minutes.  It seems like a lot of butter and oil goes into this dish but I found much of it stayed on the serving platter rather than ending up in my belly.  You might even cut the amount of butter and oil by half if you want a healthier dish or if you don't want to waste it.

The verdict?  We liked this a lot.  My seven-year-old gobbled it up and only complained about it after he found out it was fish he'd just eaten.  My fish-hating husband enjoyed it.  I especially liked the tang of the lemon in the sauce.  Very good!  Thanks, Lyndsey, for a great pick!

Martha Monday: Beef Bourguignon

This post is a week late.

Let me explain . . . I planned on making this dish Monday night but ran out of time.  Then Tuesday my husband had shoulder surgery.  No time to make this that day.  Plus no one to really eat it.  Then Wednesday I finally did make it but both my kids developed fevers.  Thursday was a sick, sick, sick day for all of them and then I started to get sick.  Friday, the boys were better but I was dragging.  Plus there were doctors' appointments following up on the surgery.  Saturday and Sunday seemed to fly by.  Maybe it was the windy weather we've been having.  So, here it is.  A whole week later.  And I'm finally blogging about Beef Bourguignon.

Well, let me say two things.  This had great flavor BUT the meat was really dry!  Dry.  Dry.  Dry.  I compared this recipe with my Julia Child one and they are very similar.  Julia has you cook your mushrooms and onions separately but the ingredients were the same, the amounts were the same.

The only difference was in the cut of meat called for.  Julia calls for a chuck roast.  Martha's calls for a rump roast.  Well, instinct told me to stick with the chuck roast but I figured I'd try something different and asked for rump roast at the meat counter.  I could tell as I cut it that it was going to be dry.  There was very little fat marbled through the meat.  And even though the meat got very tender, it was like eating sawdust.  A terrible waste, if you ask me.

We ate it and had it for leftovers but I think, next time, I'll stick to my chuck roast version, thank you very much!

Here's a question for you, though . . . how would you cook a rump roast to keep it from drying out?  Any ideas?  Leave them in the comment section.

Tuscan Potato Soup

Normally I make a Baked Potato Soup stuffed with sour cream, cheese, and bacon but sometimes a girl wants a different kind of potato soup.  This is it!  Tuscan Potato Soup is creamy, cheesy, and meaty but in a totally different way.

I first made this soup in August.  I'm not sure why.  August isn't really a soup kind of time.  But I loved it.  So, I put it in my "Retry" folder because sometimes a recipe is really good the first time but not so great the second.

Yesterday I served this soup for a second time.  It was a perfect day for soup.  Cold.  Rainy.  Windy.  With a little bread or a salad it will really fill you up.  Warm you up.  Make you happy.

Tuscan Potato Soup

Slightly adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

Two heads of garlic

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1 1/2 cups chopped onion

1/8 teaspoon salt

6 cups peeled, cubed yellow-fleshed potatoes

4 cups chicken broth

1 cup half-and-half

2 ounces grated Romano cheese

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Cut off the top third of each head of garlic.  Place each head in the center of a square of foil.  Drizzle each head with 1/2 teaspoon olive oil.  Wrap the foil around the garlic.    Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes.  Let cool.  Squeeze garlic pulp out of heads into a small bowl.

2.  Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a heavy soup pot over medium heat.  Saute onions for 5 minutes.  Add salt, pepper, and potatoes.  Saute for one minute.  Add chicken broth.  Simmer until potatoes are very tender, about 20 minutes.  Add garlic pulp.

3.  Turn off the burner.  Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender.  Once pureed return the creamy soup to the soup pot over low heat.  Stir in Romano cheese and half-and-half.

4.  Serve garnished with Sausage Topping (see below), some pesto ( I have used store-bought and homemade), and more grated Romano cheese.  Serves 4 very hungry people.

Sausage Topping

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 link hot Italian sausage, casing removed

1 ounce finely chopped pancetta

1/8 teaspoon salt

1.  In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium heat.  Saute onions until tender, about 6 minutes.

2.  Add sausage, pancetta, and salt.  Saute until well-browned, about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally to break up sausage.

Martha Monday: Chocolate Cups

Mmmmmmm.  Chocolate!

Monday's challenge should have been easy but it seems that I have the knack for messing things up lately.  The idea hales from the February issue of Living.  Melt semisweet chocolate.  Brush it onto cupcake paper liners.  Refrigerate for 10 minutes.  Brush another layer on.  Refrigerate.  Remove paper.  Fill with desired filling.

So, here we have some chocolate brushed onto cupcake papers.

And here we have broken chocolate.

Yup.  That's right.  My chocolate would not come away from the paper.  I tried sticking them in the freezer.  This didn't help.  In the end, I salvaged what I could from these failures and started anew.  This time I used my silicon cupcake liners.  And . . . they worked!

I filled my chocolate cups with a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream, a handful of raspberries, a dollop of whipped cream, and a fancy chocolate doohickey that I made out of the leftover melted chocolate.  These were really yummy.  And easy.  If you use silicon cups.  Did you hear that?  SILICON CUPS!!!!