Sirloin Steak with Red Wine Sauce

MMMM…Love those grill marks!
I couldn’t wait to use my new cast iron grill. So I found this simple recipe for steak with red wine sauce. The grill came preseasoned, heated evenly, and made great grill marks. The steaks came out just the right amount of pink and the red wine sauce didn’t hurt [...]

Rosé Wine Apricot Clafoutis

Inspired by my favorite celebrity chef Mark Bittman’s recent New York Time’s video on clafoutis. I decided to create my own version of this easy French dessert. I had a lot of left over dried apricots thanks to a Costco impulse buy and decided to reconstitute these super sweet fruits with a little rosé [...]

Gadget: Zyliss Ice Cream Scoop

$10
This was an impulse buy and well worth it too. It makes perfect scoops of ice cream and cuts through hard ice cream without a program. Plus it gives me an excuse to buy ice cream, gotta use the new kitchen gadget!

No more bent spoons from ice cream!

Cherry Wine Syrup over Ice Cream

At one point I made the mistake of opening a fruit wine with only two people around to help drink it. The sweetness got overwhelming and both of us gave up after two glasses. To be honest it really drank more like a liquor. Since then a good portion of the remnants has [...]

Les Trois Petits Cochons’ (The Three Little Pigs) Mousse Truffee

“Les Trois Petits Cochons’ signature mousse. This luxurious mousse features the gem of French cuisine – black truffle. Flavored with Pineau des Charentes and sherry, this mousse has an unbelievably silky texture and is perfect for the most elegant occasions. A real crowd-pleaser.”

With this much French in the title it’s gotta be good. I [...]

Chestnut Souffle

To be honest, I am amazed how well this turned out. I just happened to have a couple of packages of whole chestnuts that needed to be used. Unfortunately, the internet and my cookbooks did not have much to offer by way of any recipes calling for whole chestnuts. Most recipes require chestnut paste. So [...]

Birthday Dinner

One of the best parts of having birthdays at this age is having the ability to give yourself little indulges. For me this year, it was a pair of gold shoes even Dorothy I think would envy (ruby slippers….whatever!) and some good food. I bought myself two tasty cheeses I had been hankering for, [...]

New Year’s Eve Pig Roast

This New Year’s Eve my good friend Peishan had the fantastic idea of throwing a Potluck Roasted Pig Party featuring a whole roasted pig from Lalich Delicatessan. The pig came stretched out spread eagle. We added some Asian pears to garnish. I came in a little later with meat cleaver and chef’s knife [...]