apricot, cranberry, almond scones with lemon glaze

scones....i love them....i am not sure tilly ever had a scone .....they were not in our family food repertoire....i don't think i ever tried one until i tasted one of karen's at breakfast one day...(karen is irish and scones are definitely in her repertoire) ..i traveled to Ireland with karen maybe 15 years ago and ordered scones there...WOW...do they do scones!!!!!   have you ever had a scone at one of the large national coffee shop chains in the US?  they are disappointing  to say the least....they aren't buttery or rich and they are tooooo sweet...i stopped bothering.  (they do have wonderful scones at balthazar in new york city!!! ) ina garten makes lovely scones but somehow they did not say EASY to me...until one day i saw tyler florence make these  ......... seriously i did not believe my eves.....how could they be that easy...i had envisioned rolling and cutting dough with biscuit cutters and lots of other complicated steps....these are ridiculously easy.....the basic recipe is tyler florence's that i have made countless times with fresh blueberries and they are wonderful...  combing through my new cookbook stack (thanks santa), i got some inspiration from  deb perelman's smitten kitchen cook book ....she specifically mentions experimenting with scones......so i took a tried and true recipe and messed with it....i used what i had...these were awesome!

i ate one before i took this picture!

recipe after the jump

death by chocolate pumpkin chocolate cheesecake

death by chocolate pumpkin cheesecake for thanksgiving dessert

This is from the Death by Chocolate cook book by Marcel Desaulneire.  He used to have a TV show...years ago....  My extended family moved to Williamsburg, Virginia about 15 years ago.  When I visited we always stopped for an awesome meal at Marcel's restaurant the Trellis. (sadly closed a few years ago) It was there that I bought the autographed copy of the cookbook.  Whenever I need something special that will wow the audience I pull something out of this book.   This is a double decker chocolate and pumpkin cheesecake. You make each cheesecake separately…the chocolate one is made in a spring form pan and it has the crust.  The pumpkin cheesecake…is baked in a regular cake pan without a crust then you put it on top.....and yes it is all topped off with chocolate ganache....wonderfully delicious and covers all cracked cheesecake issues....add the extra cookie crumbs on the sides to guild the lily...this is decadent and special...there are a lot of steps....none of them hard.

 recipe after the jump

nywff part 1 no knead bread and pizza dough from jim lahey

saturday morning i got up at 5 am....jumped in the car and headed to new york city to meet 3 friends and spend a wonderful day cooking and eating at the new york wine and food festival.  this year they held master classes for the first time....and...we managed to get tickets to a bread and pasta master class with jim lahey and mark ladner... it was held at the international culinary center on broadway.  i have seen the no knead bread recipe before....mark bittman wrote it up in the ny times...brit sent it to me last year....but every time i looked at it i thought...it can not possibly work.....it has to stick to the pot...it can not come out like bakery bread...well i saw jim lahey in person explain the fermentation process...he recommended to touch the dough as little as possible...i watched wide eyed as the dough slid out of the bowl like the sci fi movie the blob...and i can tell you it works like a charm....all it takes is time. 

ok, so i got up late on sunday morning...went to williams & sonoma bought a pizza stone and a peel...i stocked up on flour and set to work on the plan.  i found jim's pizza dough recipe in a recent bon appetit magazine on line and compared it back to the bread recipe.....same ingredients..so....i am thinking make a big batch of the pizza dough...split it after raising...because really, hubby and i can not eat 6 pizzas!  so here we go! recipe after the jump

braised glazed pork shoulder and fresh corn salad from 2 mark's

mark vetri's roast pork photo from bon appetit september 2012

mark bittman's tomato basil corn salad

summer is almost gone.....usually i am packing for a  two week vacation  this time of year, but this year we went in july instead.  being in new england in september is a great opportunity to take advantage of all that is ripe off the vine....tomatoes, corn....a fun time to try new recipes.  mark bittman's what to eat right now column last week titled "shuck and awe" inspired me to do something different with my favorite vegetable....not that steaming and serving with butter and kosher salt isn't fantastic ...it totally is..but.... well why not combine it with other flavors?  the tomato and basil salad with corn is a wonderful dish.  i have made it twice in 7 days! beyond wonderful.  this is a new favorite!  for saturday late lunch i decided to try mark vetri's (september bon appetit) slow roasted glazed pork shoulder.  it is definitely a weekend project because it requires some time...not so much work at all ....just time. (and surprisingly few ingredients.....  this recipe is so delicious.....aromatic....so comforting!  i can not think of enough adjectives....( and really i don't get italian from this flavor at all....just wonderfully subtle roasted pork and the cider vinegar glaze with brown sugar is the perfect note!  prepared to be licking your sticky fingers!  actually bailey had a rough day at home smelling the fantastic aroma of the pork roasting for 5 hours while we sat on the beach! go to the link for the salad...i steamed my corn first but mr. bittman went for raw....
recipe after the jump

eating around the gas lamps in San Diego

woo hoo look what they have in cali!

recently i traveled with my husband to san diego...he for work...me using airline miles...to work from the hotel room and try and have a little fun in the evening.  the weather never got out of the 60's...so much for relaxing by the pool on the weekend....only thing left to do when we both finished a long day of working was to poke around and find something decent to eat.....we stayed in the gas lamp district so plenty of tourist traps to pick from...but also some lovely, friendly people and really good food choices too.....(many of the friendly people i met were transplants from florida that were also freezing in the 60 degree weather......)

Dinner at the Merk Bistro the hostess was so friendly and genuine she talked us into eating there...and the food was so yummy we came back the next nite!
pictures and reviews after the jump

buttermilk bananna muffins from william sonoma

crunchy warm muffins for a cold april day

its a chilly april morning...happens to be april fools day....and the furnace decided to take a rest....it's a new furnace... i throw on an extra sweater, turn on the oven and look around for something to bake.......i have an unopened quart of buttermilk and a bowl of brown bananas .......so i start hunting for a quick recipe for some hearty muffins to use up what i have.  nothing turned up in the cook books so i did a quick search on google and found this William Sonoma recipe.  this recipe looked good but the reviews made it sound like they were a bit savory and not sweet enough so i decided to add a crumble topping.....they came out so good.....delicious.....the furnace guy showed up...fixed the furnace and i sent him out the door with a bag of warm muffins........

recipe after the jump:

baked challah french toast

ok you are thinking Another French Toast recipe????? well, all i have to say to that is this one is perfection.  brit and i keep tinkering with the recipes...using stuff we have in the pantry...this one was fast, not messy...super delicious and great as left overs right out of fridge.  challah bread from nyc, zested mandarin orange....and crunchy crumb topping...warm maple syrup..ahhhhhhh

best french toast bake ever....not super sweet just good

recipe after the jump