Simple Wontons

Have you ever decided that you were going to stop roaming around the aisles of the grocery store, trying to figure out what you wanted to cook for the upcoming week? That's how things usually go down for me, and once in a while I promise myself that I'll make a list of what I feel like cooking for the next seven days.

Last week was a "list week". The problem is, I had accumulated a nice pile of recipes during that terrifying month when I couldn't cook. Just imagine how crazy I would have become in a supermarket without a list. I'm pretty sure I would have grabbed a little of everything, convinced it would be perfect in such-or-such dish. But I had a list this time around. No way was I going to let myself fall into that trap. Right before hopping over to the store, I surveyed the list of delicious food awaiting me this week. And I counted: one, two, three...nine dishes. Each one would obviously leave enough for the next day, and there are not eighteen meals in one week (well, there's breakfast, but I'm not having stuffed bell peppers at 8 a.m.). I can't blame myself: it's almost Mardi Gras and I'm craving gumbo and jambalaya. I'm also craving a ton of other foods, so I had to make a difficult choice: the gumbo and jambalaya will have to wait. Enter my simple wontons!

Easy to make--although folding them up takes as much time as getting a roux going--and light on ingredients, they're also a lot of fun if you're planning on making them with kids. Considering myself to be a life-long kid, I can admit I had a blast. The process is rewarding, too: you end up with fifteen little wontons that can be steamed whenever you want in the coming days and eaten with soup or salad.

So put that huge list down, and get your wonton groove on.

Simple Wontons

makes 15 

15 wonton wrappers
1/2 pound lean ground pork
1/4 c. scallions
1 TB freshly grated ginger
1 medium carrot, grated
2 TB soy sauce
1 TB rice vinegar
2 TS sriracha
1/2 TS salt
1 TB sesame oil

Mix all ingredients except sesame oil in a medium bowl. Marinate for at least fifteen minutes, and up to an hour.

Heat sesame oil in a pan on medium-high. Add all ingredients and cook until pork has browned and juices have reduced.

Place wonton wrapper on a flat surface, and moisten edges with water. Place 1 TB filling in the center. Fold two opposite edges together to create a triangle. Bring both opposite ends of the triangle together, and fold top end onto the other two (moisten with more water if needed).

To prepare wontons, place in a steamer for 10-15 minutes. Serve over salad, or make a quick soup with broth, soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Serve warm.

Never too late for Pumpkin Desserts

I'm sure a lot of people forget all about pumpkin puree between December and the following October. Why deal with pumpkins and pumpkin pie spice when that's nearly all you've been baking with for the Fall months? I'll admit, it is easy to forget about things like that. You get all caught up in the moment when you start baking Christmas goodies, then Valentine's Day, and then...it's springtime and the warmth of spices doesn't have the same appeal anymore.

Well, I suggest that everyone include pumpkin into their desserts all year long. Seriously, everyone goes on and on about how they want to have a healthier lifestyle in the first months of the year (and then, once the Superbowl comes along, that seems to disappear). Pumpkin is extremely good for you, and can replace a large part of the butter or oil you usually use in muffins. Convinced yet?

Although this isn't healthy per se, I had another chance to delight in my Pumpkin Cheesecake which you can find right here. I had way too much filling last time around, so I baked crust-less cheesecakes and froze them up. Tea with my friend Claire was the perfect opportunity to bring them back out; I quickly baked up some new crusts and put the cheesecakes together. Unfortunately, I sort of forgot that the wetness of the filling is what makes the crust nice and soft--putting them together at the last minute ensured that my crust was everything but soft. OK, maybe a knife was involved to eat these mini-cheesecakes, but it's nothing a few hours in the fridge couldn't have fixed.

And the cute heart shape? Perfect for a Valentine's Day dessert that doesn't involve an overload of chocolate. Unless, of course, you decide to indulge in chocolate as a side dish: my kind of healthy lifestyle.

By the way, you might notice something has changed around here: I added all my post labels on the side for easier access. Happy browsing!

Love Cookies

It's almost Valentine's Day, and specially-themed cakes, cupcakes, and cookies have been popping up everywhere. Although these cookies would be a perfect treat for that special someone, they became Love Cookies for various specific reasons that actually have nothing to do with February 14th.

First of all, they were the first thing I baked, less than 24 hours after getting my casts taken off on Thursday. For now, my left hand looks a little deformed, but the fact that I was so excited about getting back into the kitchen could only mean one thing. I am officially in love with baking. And while some may have a love child--although that's a completely different issue--these are my love cookies. All week long, all I could think about was them. I thought the recipe out in my mind over and over again, hoping the toasted sesame and chestnut combo would turn out to be what I wanted. Infatuated might be a better word than in love, actually, just like I was infatuated with Johnny Depp when I was little. (Please don't tell anyone I recently bought a Pirates of the Caribbean t-shirt.)

Most importantly, I wanted these cookies to be exactly what they turned out to be: sweet and simple. That's what all true love stories are about, aren't they? 

True love, in my mind, is embodied by the story of how my French grandfather and grandmother met. It all started with letters sent by my grandmother to bring up the spirits of French troops fighting the colonial wars in Vietnam in the late 1940s, and somehow her letters got in the hands of my grandfather. After writing back and forth, they ended up meeting when he came back on leave and as the French saying goes, "ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants". 

The thought of a lifetime of love starting with a simple letter, in my mind, is as sweet as it gets. I wish I could hear dozens more, but I never got to meet my grandmother, who passed away much too young.

I just like to think that wherever my grandparents both are right now, they would approve of such a cookie as a tribute to them. And wherever you are, go ahead and try these. I can promise they'll bring a nice touch of sweetness to your day!

Sesame-Chestnut Love Cookies

makes approx. 15 small cookies

1/4 c. butter, softened
1 egg yolk
1/2 TS vanilla extract
2 TB brown sugar
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
2 TB toasted sesame seeds
Chestnut cream (crème de marrons)

Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C. In a medium bowl, cream butter, sugar vanilla and egg yolk. Add flour and salt, and mix until combined. Add toasted sesame seeds and mix.

Refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes so it firms up. On a baking sheet, shape dough into small tablespoon-sized balls. Flatten a little with your palm, and press thumb into the center to make an indentation. Fill with chestnut cream.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden. Let cookies cool 5 minutes on baking sheet, and carefully slide onto a rack to cool.

Cookies will keep a few days stored in an airtight container.

Crêpes for Dinner

Today is a holiday in France called "La Chandeleur"--not a holiday where you get off work, unfortunately, but a small holiday nonetheless. For the historical background, it celebrates the day Jesus was presented to the Temple of Jerusalem and the Virgin Mary was purified, or something like that. "Chandeleur" comes from chandelles, or candles, used to represent purification. People would bring candles back from mass and put them on their windowsill. Today, however, people don't really remember February 2nd for its religious meaning, but rather for the crêpes we feast on every year. Apparently, an old superstition said that if you didn't make crêpes on Chandeleur, then the wheat crops would be bad throughout the year to come.

Anyway, whatever the true meaning is, I don't think twice when I get the opportunity to eat sweet crêpes as dinner. Sure, you could have savory ones, but I still like to stick to how things were done when I was young.

Did you ever have "breakfast for dinner" nights at home when you were little? We never officially had those, but we did have crêpe nights. Maman would make classic sweet crepes and I would fill them up with sugar, Nutella or jam. I would roll them up like big cigars and chomp away happily, so glad that I could legitimately satisfy my sweet tooth along with the rest of my family.

Speaking of cigars, I remembered the strangest thing the other day. For a short while, when I was ten or so, I took a liking to chocolate cigarettes. Before any of you scream out in outrage on how bad an influence they are for kids, I'd like to add that I have never taken up smoking since, and certainly don't plan on it. Chocolate cigarettes were, in one word, cool. For me at least: the packs had Anglo-sounding names like "Hillsbury" and portrayed large plantation-like mansions sitting on top of pastel hills. I would sit at my desk and try to look as nonchalant as possible, "smoking" my "cigarette" while I added and multiplied fractions, pretending I was on some kind of literary debate show. I came to realize, however, that the more I puffed on my cigarette, the more the paper surrounding the chocolate became moist and decomposed into my mouth. My sour powder candy-filled "lighter" couldn't do anything to help out, and I gradually quit "smoking".

I guess the same kind of thing happened with rolling my crêpes into cigars. Now, I like them as flat as possible to get as many bites as possible out of them, but at home I still roll them up for the sake of nostalgia. 

 

Fig jam and crêpes, a winning combination

I happily discovered I'm far from being alone in my love of crêpes and their infinite topping possibilities, so my friend Claire invited me over for Chandeleur dinner. Dulce de leche, homemade fig jam, sugar, and chocolate were all in attendance. The recipe for crêpes is simple, and for those watching their weight, nearly fat-free. Basically, that means you can pile up all the toppings you want without feeling guilty in the least.

 

 

Yummy honey from the Vosges mountains

My advice? Go for a simple combination of sugar and melted salted butter on your crêpe. Then you can go ahead and roll it, fold it, or rub it in your face. Either way, it'll be good.

Pâte à crêpes

makes 500g (enough for a dozen crêpes, approximately)

2 eggs
1/3 oz. butter (10g)
3.5 oz. flour (100g)
1/2 scraped vanilla pod
1/2TS fine salt

8.5 oz. (1 cup) milk (25cl)
2TB water

Beat eggs in a small bowl. In a saucepan, melt butter. 

In a large bowl, mix flour, vanilla, eggs and salt. Add milk and water, and mix. Add melted butter and incorporate well.

Let batter rest for at least 2 hours prior to using. Right before making the crêpes, add a scant tablespoon water to the batter.

Heat a non-stick pan or special crêpe skillet over medium-high heat. Moisten a paper towel with a neutral oil, and rub across skillet. Ladle batter into pan, trying to keep it thin. When the bottom side becomes golden, flip over and cook until both sides are similar in color. 

Top it while it's hot!