Sunday, August 12, 2007

Long time, no blog

Okay okay okay...so it's been a while!

There's been a zillion things I've been meaning to write about, ranging from planting and harvesting the backyard tomatoes, to dealing with my wife's illness, to fun with my granddaughter, and on to fun things like food and cooking. I've simply not been getting to writing about any of this. Among other things, work has been a complete nightmare in terms of the workload. I think I have pretty good life/work balance, in general, but there have definitely been a few times in the last two months where there has been significant strain on that ratio.

For tonight, I'll just mention a tidbit about food - dessert tonight was yummy. We had a delicious cherry pudding, from a recipe in a recent Food & Wine "Best of the Best" cookbook. The ingredients are nice and brief:
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1.5 lbs cherries
  • 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 0.5 cup superfine sugar
  • A pinch of salt
  • 4 tbsps unsalted butter
  • 4 large eggs, beaten well
The recipe is easy: "Bring the milk to a boil, taking care that it does not boil over. As soon as it starts to fizz up, take it off the heat and leave to cool slightly. Remove the skin. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Butter a deep ovenproof dish liberally and scatter the cherries over the base, making sure they are evenly distributed. Sift the flour with the sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Melt the butter and remove any scum. Make a well in the center of the flour and whisk in the beaten eggs, then, very slowly, the melted butter, followed by the milk, which should still be warm. Whisk thoroughly so that you have a smooth batter and pour over the cherries.

Bake until the batter rises and the top browns, 40-45 minutes. Leave the over door slightly open for the last 5 minutes of cooking, so that the batter doesn't sink the minute you take it out of the heat. Serve straight away, sprinkled with confectioner's sugar if you'd like."

It's worth noting that this recipe is originally from "The Food of France" by Sarah Woodward. It's $29.95 from Kyle Books, and probably worth picking up, since this is just one of the recipes in this book that look to be really yummy.

Enjoy!

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