Sunday cooking

The trip to Costco, while miserable, did allow us to cook a little today.

First up were sandwiches we saw on teevee this morning. The recipe is from a show called Everyday Italian with a woman called Giada De Laurentiis. Based on this recipe it appears her starring role is based more on her low-cut top than her ability to actually cook.

The sandwiches were Brie, chocolate, and basil on sourdough panini. You can find the recipe here. Gordon Ramsey has pointed out that when you see a combination of ingredients that seems really unique (I believe he was commenting on prawns with chocolate sauce) that's probably because it simply doesn't work.

This is certainly true of brie, chocolate and basil. It was a fucking trainwreck. Luckily we have enough sourdough, basil and brie leftover (and combined with tomato and maybe a little prosciutto) to make some really good sandwiches.

We also braised a pork shoulder -- I used a bottle of cheap chardonnay, two quartered apples, two quartered onions, and half a sprig of rosemary. It cooked a little fast -- I should have payed a little closer attention to the boil -- but turned out pretty good.

Finally we made a small batch of dark chocolate brownie cookies. We got a few during our Christmas-cookie swap meet. When they came out of the oven, they were really soft, not at all like I remembered, but after 45 min. on the rack, they gained a crispy outside texture that was spectacular. We generally use Scharfenberger chocolate when baking, but we are out of the darker flavors so today we tried Lindt which worked really well. We used a mix of 65%, 75% and 100% Cacao to get the deep dark flavor we both really like. I think most people might find this a little too dark.

I also spent some tire researching ingredients and technique for Macarons, the delightful little french cookies that I am planning to try next weekend.