Comfort Foods and Indulgences

The sun is rising and turning the sky a beautiful pink hue. No rain today, a small miracle since it has been pouring for at least the last two weeks. Maybe I will get my garden cleaned up for its winter sleep. But maybe I won't. The decks also need some cleaning up. There is always a pull of whether to work inside (laundry) or out, but I think the sunshine will win today since it's a rarity.

My oldest son has joined the speech and debate team this year for his high school. Today is his first tournament and we had to have him at school at 5:45 am, dressed in a suit. This is a child who sleeps until 1 pm on the weekends and lives in athletic wear...but he got up, got dressed and off he went.

Thank goodness we had this coffee cake to comfort us after the early wake-up call. I have to hand it to him for having the courage as a freshman to get up there and debate a difficult subject in front of all kinds of people. And his topic today....GMO's, however, he does not know if he will be put on the pro or con side of the argument. He has done so much research and has had team practice three nights a week for almost two months. Hopefully it all goes well. Fingers and toes crossed. 

I like to wake up early, while the house is really, really quiet and have a little “me” time.  Generally, I make myself a cup of tea, read the NY Times and the LA Times food and life style section (on line), read my emails and check out my favorite blogs.  I love that 1 hour in the a.m. right before all the turmoil and chatter begins.

Yesterday, I was reading Sprinkle Bites and she had posted a recipe for French Toast Muffins.  Before I had finished reading the post, I was on my way into the kitchen to make these for the family for breakfast.  I love, love, love one bowl recipes.  To not have to drag out my mixer and all its parts is truly a wonderful thing.  This is one of those recipes.  Easy, quick, pantry ingredients and scrumptious.

Clafoutis. You've eaten one. You've probably baked one. You've definitely heard of one. But can you define one? What is a clafoutis?

It's not quite a cake or a custard or a flan or a pudding. It has been called lots of names, including "a baked fruit dessert," "a baked custard with fruit," "a crustless pie," "a fruit-fill flan," and my personal favorite, "a sweet frittata." Purists called it a flognarde, but that lacks the panache of clafoutis (pronounced cla- foo-tee).

Clotilde Dusouslier, the charming Parisian food blogger, calls clafoutis "the epitome of the French grandmotherly dessert: unpretentious, easy to make, and blissfully comforting."

Call it what you will, especially if you're high school French is a little rusty. Just be sure to make one.

Brownies are the perfect picnic food. I wanted chocolate, I wanted a brownie, but I wanted something a little different. I thought a cream cheese brownie would be great but didn’t have cream cheese. However, what I did have was some goat cheese. I thought, what the heck…I am going to experiment.

I used the brownie base for David Lebovitz’s (Ready for Dessert) cheesecake brownies, but swapped the cream cheese for goat cheese and added a touch more sugar (to compensate for the tartness in the goat cheese).

I also omitted the chocolate chips from the actual brownie base and instead took a skinny bar of Valrhona and did a rough chop. After swirling in the cheese mixture, I dotted the top of the brownies with the chocolate chunks.