Citrus Tian with Kumquat Cranberry Marmalade - Update

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I got a little excited and decided to make a few changes because while I really like orange, I LOVE citrus. I found kumquats while I was at Trader Joe's and decided that I needed to make the marmalade for the recipe from that and then I decided that the whole thing would benefit from the rosy color of cranberries since I still had some in the freezer. As my cousin says Oh, My, Damn! It turned out much better than I expected and using ruby red grapefruit for the orange segment part of the recipe just made the whole thing far more beautiful.

I had to add an update to this because I had my fiance ask after reading this post as to why I had no picture posted of the actual finished product. I had to explain to him that it was because I'd gotten so excited after putting them together and tasting the individual components that I ate the darn thing before I remembered to take pictures of it. My Bad!

Bitter Greens

Last night my mom cooked dinner for the first time since she came down with pneumonia. So, I think sometime in early February. She'd been pretty sick. Apparently she'd had about enough of my cooking and damn it I'm a good cook, but mom is old school. OK, Old School and from North Carolina. In short, Southern cook, that happens to have freaking skinny genes. (Which is just plan not fair!) At 70 something she has a right to be old school, but sometimes cooking for her can be really difficult.

Last night she wanted pork chops and greens and apparently she wanted nothing to do with anything I would choose to fix. She made real old school pork chops, fried in a bit of bacon grease. Now I love pork chops, heck, who am I kidding, I love pork. I won't lie, I was looking forward to having the pork chops. But when I came into the kitchen for some sweet tea I saw the greens. At first I thought she'd stopped at the market on here way home from her volunteer work at the elementary school. (She's just started back)

I was wrong. Very wrong.

This was not collards or chard which are very common at our house if I was not mistaken she's been out in the yard pulling up Chicoria, "dandelion greens!"

Wow we haven't had those in a long time but here they were ready to go. I knew she didn't get these at the market, but she'd been out in the yard. I was a bit concerned cause I knew she was gonna do them just like she does collards or chard but these things are BITTER. So I let her. Being mom she would never give into the fact that I might be right about something. So when it came time for me to put them on my plate I just drizzled them with a bit of olive oil, a dash of wine vinegar and pepper and ate them first.

She took a bite and stopped and I just looked at her. "Ok," she says to me, "I'd forgotten how bitter they could be. How would you do them?"

"Heck mom." I said, "This is when I'd totally do them Old School ya know? I'd saute 'em in a pan with bacon and onion, or garlic and red pepper something to just take that bitter edge off and then sprinkle them with wine vinegar."

"Hmmm," she says, "That might be a pretty good idea, next time you do them."

So next time, I will.

When Things Go Bad

Have you ever had things you cook not turn out the way you want them to, or have you been greatly disappointed by something you cooked. Maybe it didn't taste the way you thought it should or it just flopped. My fiance asked me this last night. And I have to say yup, it's happened to me and it makes me nuts when it does. Maybe that's the control freak perfectionist that comes out every once in a while but it can be frustrating.
I have a wonderful Coq au Vin recipe, love to make it, it never fails. That is until I try to take care of the final steps and then hold it warm in a crock pot. Good idea, bad, bad out come. For me anyhow. All that butter and flour that's supposed to thicken, just turned into a melted mess sitting on top. It still tasted pretty good but I was truly irritated with myself. Then the other night I made Chicken Piccata to go with my risotto and was so NOT happy with it. I thought my chicken was a bit dry, I didn't think it had enough color, my sauce wasn't balanced enough and I REALLY need a fresh jar of capers. Everyone else loved it. Man I'm hard to please.
But things happen, cakes fall, or stick to the pan, or you misread a recipe and you add 2 "quarts" of zucchini instead of 2 "cups" the first time you make that Chocolate Zucchini Cake. Man was that cake green oh, and I was like, 16 or so. What a mess. But, in the end you try again in hopes that you've just made the bast thing ever! So, have you ever had things you cook not turn out the way you want?

Below is the zucchini cake I've been making for the last few years. It's AWESOME!


Chocolate Zucchini Cake

"This is a moist fudgy type cake. Sweet but not extremely sweet and makes good use of zucchini! You can frost it with chocolate frosting or cream cheese icing."
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 cups grated zucchini
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add the eggs and oil, mix well. Fold in the nuts and zucchini until they are evenly distributed. Pour into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool cake completely before frosting with your favorite frosting.

Risotto!!

Awesome! The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

Instead of the pumpkin, I decided to make mushroom. I usually serve this with either seared scallops or shrimp with sinful balsamic butter sauce. But, I had neither of those things, so I did chicken piccata instead. Fabulous! I go to use the last of my Vermintino for the risotto and it was delish!! Thanks Eleanor and Jess this was an awesome challenge! Now to find my cable so I can upload my pic from my camera. OK. Finally got that updated. Here's my yummy pic. This stuff was so good I could hardly stand it.