Cinnamon Raisin French Toast with Orange Butter

This is what we had for breakfast for Father's Day this year. I must say the orange butter makes a nice alternative to the traditional maple syrup. For added sweetness, I dust each piece of french toast with powdered sugar.

Ingredients:

• 3 Oranges, juiced
• 2/3 stick of Butter, softened
  
• 12 slices Cinnamon Raisin Bread
• 4 Eggs
• 3/4 c. Milk
• 1/2 t. Vanilla
• Butter, for cooking
  
• Powdered Sugar for dusting

For the Orange Butter: (can be made the day before)
Place the freshly squeezed orange juice in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and let the juice simmer and reduce until there is only about 2-3 tablespoons of syrup left in the pan. Pour the syrup in to a small bowl and let cool.
When the syrup is cool, place the softened butter in the bowl and mix it in with the syrup using the back of a spoon. Blend well and chill.

For the French Toast:
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and vanilla. Set aside.
Heat a large frying pan to medium-high. Add a tablespoon of butter to the pan. Once melted, dip one slice of bread quickly on each side in the egg mixture and place in the pan. Cook on both sides until crisp and lightly browned. Repeat with remaining bread.

To serve:
Spread each slice with orange butter and dust with powdered sugar. Serve in stacks of 2-3 and top each stack of french toast with a dollop of orange butter.

Braised Lamb Shanks with Mirpoix Gravy and Apple-Pomme Puree

Lamb Shanks are a great hearty fall dish. When it comes to lamb, they are quite a bit cheaper then the rest of the cuts, but require slow cooking for a long period of time to soften them up. When they have been braised long enough, however, they are so tender that the meat will fall right off the bone, so plate carefully!
For the apple-pomme puree, simply add peeled diced apples to the pot along with your potatoes, cook until tender, and puree with a little cream, salt, and butter. Pears would also go really nicely with this dish.

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

• 4 Lamb Shanks, trimmed of excess fat
• 1 T. Canola Oil
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 Carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 Celery Ribs, diced
• 2 Garlic Cloves, minced
• 1 T. Herbs De Provence(if you can't find these, just use thyme)
• 2 T. Tomato Paste
• 2 c. Dry Red Wine(Cabernet Savignion or Merlot are great for this dish)
• 2 c. Chicken Stock
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Cornstarch, to thicken

Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Sprinkle the lamb shanks with salt and pepper. Add the shanks to the pan and brown evenly on all sides. Remove shanks from the pan and place in a crock pot.

In the same pan used to brown the shanks, add the onion, carrot, and celery, adding a little more oil, if needed. Saute the vegetables until they begin to soften, 5-6 minutes. Add the garlic and herbs and saute for another minute. Stir in the tomato paste and saute until the vegetables are well coated.

Place the sauteed vegetables on top of the lamb in the crock pot. Pour the wine and chicken broth over the vegetables and lamb and cover with a lid. Cook on high for about 4 hours.

After the lamb has become tender enough to easily pull from the bone, check the seasonings in the gravy and add more salt and pepper, if necessary. Mix cornstarch in a small amount of water and stir it into the gravy(stir well so there are no lumps!). Let cook for a few more minutes until thickened. Add more cornstarch mixture if needed until desired thickness is achieved.

Serve the shanks with potatoes and gravy.

Braised Lamb Shanks

Coq Au Vin

This will always be one of my most favorite chicken dishes. We served this dish at our wedding and it was perfect! Coq Au Vin is French for 'chicken with wine'. This recipe calls for white wine, but you can use red also. I like to use Chablis when cooking with white wine, and a Cabernet Savignon or Merlot when using red wine.
*For those who are new to cooking with wine, remember: When the wine is cooked, the alcohol is cooked out with it. No need to worry. And for those who are too chicken to go to the liquor store to purchase wine(which I recommend, it's much cheaper there), you can find it as cooking wine with the vinegars in your local grocery store. Just remember: Cooking wine is much more salty than regular wine, so don't add as much salt to the dish!

Ingredients:

• 1 c. Flour
• 1 t. Pepper
• 1 t. Salt
• 2 T. Olive Oil
  
• 8 bone-in Chicken Thighs, skinned
• 2 c. Mushrooms, quartered
• 2 c. Baby carrots
• 1 large Onion, sliced along the grain
• 1 1/2 T. Fresh Thyme, chopped
• 2 T. Tomato Paste
• 2 t. Minced Garlic
• 1 c. White or Red Wine
• 3 c. Chicken Broth
• 2 T. Butter
  

Combine the flour, pepper, and salt in a large bowl. Add the skinless chicken thighs and coat each one in the flour mixture. Set aside.
In a large, deep sided frying pan, heat the olive oil to medium-high.
Add the dredged chicken thighs to the hot oil.
Brown the chicken thighs evenly on both sides.
Remove the chicken from the pan(but leave the pan on the heat) and place on a plate. Set aside.
Add the mushrooms, carrots, and onion to the hot pan and saute for 2 minutes.
* Try to use fresh thyme with this dish, if it is available. Fresh herbs make such a difference!
Add the chopped thyme to the vegetables and saute for 30 seconds.
Add the tomato paste and the minced garlic to the vegetables.
Toss the vegetables until they are all well coated with the tomato paste.
Add the wine and the chicken broth to the pan.
Place the browned chicken thighs back in the pan, under the liquid. Try and spoon the vegetables over the chicken, so that the chicken is completely submerged in liquid.
Cover the pan with a lid and let simmer for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally so that the chicken does not stick to the bottom of the pan. Add salt and pepper to taste.
The chicken is done when the sauce is reduced so that it thickly coats the back of a spoon and the chicken is tender. Add the butter to the sauce and stir until blended. Serve with mashed potatoes to use up all the yummy sauce.

Creme Brulee

One of my favorite desserts of all time(I think I say that about every dessert I post) is Creme Brulee. It is surprisingly easy to make, the real trick with this dish being that it needs to be closely watched and not overcooked. If the custard is cooked too long it will curdle and separate. Not yummy. So watch it carefully!
I spent many baking sessions perfecting the ratio of cream to eggs and I think that this is the perfect balance. Not to egg-y and just thick enough. Let me know what you think if you try this recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups Heavy cream
• 1 ½ cups Half & half
• ½ teaspoon Vanilla
• ¼ cups Sugar
• 6 Egg yolks
• Superfine sugar

1. Preheat oven to 300º.
2. In a large small saucepan, combine the heavy cream and half & half. Bring just to a boil and remove from heat. Stir in the vanilla and set aside.
3. In a medium sized bowl, combine the egg yolks and the sugar. Whisk until smooth and pale yellow. About 2-3 minutes. Quickly stir the cream mixture into the egg mixture one cup at a time. * Adding all the cream at once will cause the egg yolks to cook and curdle*.
4. Place 6 ramekins inside of a large baking dish. Pour egg/cream mixture into each ramekin so that mixture is evenly divided among them. Place the baking dish in the preheated oven, keeping the oven rack pulled out about 1/3 of the way. Pour boiling hot water into the baking dish until it reaches about 2/3 of the way up the sides of the ramekins. *This is what is called baking in a hot water bath. Cooking the cream brulee in a hot water bath will allow the custard to fully cook, but not curdle*. Slowly slide the rack back into the oven.
5. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the cream brulee is set, but not firm (will jiggle slightly when lightly shaken). Remove from water bath and let cool for 10 – 15 minutes. Move to the refrigerator and let cool for a further hour and a half to two hours.
6. Just before service, remove cream brulee from the refrigerator. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon+ of superfine sugar on top of each custard, making sure that all surfaces are coated. With a brulee torch (a small torch designed specifically for the caramelization of sugar) caramelize the sugar on each custard. The surface of each custard should be a dark golden color with a glasslike texture.

Serves 6




*Note - If you do not have a small torch, you can caramalize your sugar under an oven broiler. Watch it VERY closely if you try it this way.

*Also, cream brulee is just as good hot, if you don't want to wait for it to cool!