USVI-On-Line

Thanks, I'm not much of a baker, but I do wish I had someone in my circle who liked to bake cakes!

I do bake at Christmas though... Your Christmas pudding sounds really interesting. Where did that recipe come from ?

Maryanne, I found the recipe for the black cake online, of course now I can't remember which website I pulled it from! I'll check the printed copy and see if I can find the link so you can see the recipe.

Here is a dish I made the other night that was fast and tasty. Pan seared chicken thighs with beer and grainy mustard sauce:


<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/5155644055/" title="pan seared chicken thighs with beer and grainy mustard sauce by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4130/515 ... 5257f5.jpg" width="500" height="358" alt="pan seared chicken thighs with beer and grainy mustard sauce"></a>


The recipe:

http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/pan- ... sauce.aspx

Served with this gorgonzola-hazelnut stuffed pear on arugula with pancetta crisps:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/5155650159/" title="gorgonzola and hazelnut stuffed pears with pancetta chips and mache by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/515 ... 50677b.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="gorgonzola and hazelnut stuffed pears with pancetta chips and mache"></a>

Thanks so much for taking the time to look for that.

Those peaches...look wonderful !

Do you crisp the pancetta by just putting it on a baking sheet at high heat?

Here is the black cake recipe I am using. I read about how long to soak the fruits on a different site:

http://www.foodgeeks.com/recipes/20506

And yes, the pancetta was cooked at 400 until crispy.

Thank you !

I googled the pear recipe and made it for dinner last night. It was realllllly good.

I have been a lurker on the FPF for a while. And all I have to say is to Liamsaunt, can I come for dinner, leftovers are fine.
I found this website with alot of yummy recipes and more. I was watching The Green Planet Network on the best cheesiest dishes and they featured a french onion soup dumpling(yum)from Stanton Social Restaurant in NYC. Check it out.
habeasbrulee.com
Happy Holidays to All, Laura

Wow I have not posted on this thread in a long time! What's everyone been cooking? Here is a picture of the dessert I made for New Year's Eve, croquembouche. I don't think I will ever make this again...too much work and I don't even like desserts!


<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/5314472486/" title="croquembouche 2 by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5048/531 ... 63efeb.jpg" width="333" height="500" alt="croquembouche 2"></a>

liamsaunt,
I just lurk on this thread but I sure have missed the posts here the past couple of months. Hopefully others will be willing to share again soon. Love your posts here by the way.
AH

Wow Liamsaunt- gorgeous looking plates and that dessert! Wow.

I love to cook but I'm a cook, not a chef. My food tastes good but the presentation could use work.

I was thrilled when my husband recently stopped by my aunt and uncle's house. They gave him a box of photos from my grandmother's house. Tucked in between was my grandmother's HANDWRITTEN RECIPE BOOK! I was so excited. For Christmas I made my grandmother's pressed Velvet Cookies-those cookies marked the holiday season for me as a child and I also made her Italian Mock Rum Cake which uses Stella D'Oro anisette cookies, chocolate and vanilla puddings and rum extract. Her manicotti recipe is also in the mix which I plan on making soon. I am very excited by this find and so many recipes that were part of my childhood are all there, written in her hand.

It's so nice to see a few posts on this thread! I'm a longtime lurker,too. Can't cook worth a hoot,but I LOVE recipe books and reading about others who can. Liamsaunt-- that dessert looks fabulous!(and complicated...) LauraD-- that soup sounds sooo yummy. I never thought of a French Onion with dumpling. And Greenskeeper-- WOW! I'd love to find my grandmother's handwritten recipes! Have you tried making anything of hers yet? Sadly,my grandmothers recipes are lost to me and sometimes I think of some of the things she made so wonderfully and know I'll never taste that again. (she was a GREAT cook, why couldn't I have inherited that talent from her?) WISH I could contribute something in here besides drooling over everyone's recipes!

Paula, I'm with you. I look at this thread and I am in awe of the talent!! It is definitely a talent I wish I had!! Thanks guys for taking the time to share this thread...it's impressive

Yesterday I finally made my mini rum cakes! They are chocolate coconut with an amazing chocolate glaze someone here on the forum posted a while back (I haven't seen her on the forum since!)

I learned a lot on this first attempt and you KNOW I'll be perfecting these for next Christmas! (presents!)


Do you think I put too much batter in the pans?


Rum cake tops! I think I'll try to make something like rum cake moon pies out of them!


They don't look too bad all trimmed up!


Back into the pans to soak in the chocolate glaze! YUM!


They don't look too bad in the end!

Greenskeeper, that is so cool about your grandmother's recipe book! I would love to have the family recipes someday. Right now my Mom has them all.

I am a "writer" in my cookbooks. I always mark the recipes I have made and write in any changes I made or ideas to make it better next time.

Margo those rum cakes look awesome! Remember my Jamaican black cake? I never did the final steaming--it is still macerating in rum in the back of the fridge! I have heard you can keep those cakes for years, so I might just wait until next Christmas to finally finish it!

liamsaunt wrote: Remember my Jamaican black cake? I never did the final steaming--it is still macerating in rum in the back of the fridge! I have heard you can keep those cakes for years, so I might just wait until next Christmas to finally finish it!

OMG! You'll have to send me a piece of it! Why didn't you serve it at Christmas?