November is definitely my month to give thanks. Not because it’s Thanksgiving time and not because this is the month of my parent’s birthday (yeah, both) and if they were not here I would not be in this world either. No, I could but I don’t want to go that far. I would love to be more optimistic in my life but I’m not, I’m not the kind of person who gives thanks just for being born.

I have needs, as everybody does. I’m not happy when I don’t get other people’s attention. I’m not happy when I don’t fulfill my tasks on time, when I don’t conquer my goals, when I don’t see I’m growing as a person and when I’m not doing something I really, really like. So, after at all, I’m just a normal person.

But last November, I started doing something that is filling my heart with joy; a year ago, I started Give Me Flour. And to all of you, dear readers, who had stopped by and encouraged me in one way or another, a big “THANK YOU”.

All I want now is to celebrate, slowly, in small little bites. The perfect recipe for that? Chocolate Friands, the little but “satisfyingly extra rich and moist” mini-chocolate cakes from Tartine, the book.  Actually, we were lucky enough to visit the bakery during our time in San Francisco last summer and try these temptations in their place of origin. How was it? Take a look, the pics are right here! But first, let’s start with the recipe.

Even though I typed here the full recipe, I halved it for my first try and used smaller little molds I brought from Brazil. So, I ended up with the same number of mini-cakes, 24 in total, and they were as just as moist as the original. How I love when I come across a good and well balanced recipe!!!

I did some modifications, however. The first was the baking time; 15 minutes were not enough as the center was still unbaked when I checked. But I know that’s totally an oven matter.  Just be aware of that, you may want to keep your eyes open when baking it.

Second, I don’t know if I told you already but I’m totally “superstitious” when making cake batters. In the original recipe you are supposed to add dry ingredients to the chocolate mix and then the eggs. But for me the flour has to be the very last item, I’m not a natural cake maker and if there is still something to add after the flour, no matter what I do and how I do, I always end over mixing the batter.   So, I mixed eggs first and finished with the rest.

Kitchen notes: You can use a pastry bag or a tiny ice cream scoop for filling the molds. The originals are also baked and served on 1 ½ –by ½ inch glassine cups. Very sweet!

Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line up 24 mini-muffin-cup-paper liners on a baking sheet , or butter and flour 24 mini-muffins tin wells, knocking out the excess of flour.

To make the batter, place chocolate in a large mixing bowl. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat until very hot. Pour the butter over the chocolate and whisk or stir until smooth. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt and mix well. Add the flour, mixture to the chocolate mixture in 3 batches, whisking well after each addition. Add 2 of the eggs and whisk until combined, and then add the remaining two eggs and whisk just until incorporate. Be careful not to over mix the batter.

Transfer the batter to a liquid measuring cup for pouring, and fill the cups three-fourths full. Bake until the cakes just start to crack on top, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool for ten minutes on a wire rack, and then unmold them if you have baked them in the muffin tin and let cool completely. If you have baked them the paper cups, just let them cool in the cups.

To make the ganache, place the chocolate in a small heatproof bowl. Bring the cream to just under a boil in a small saucepan. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let seat for a minute or two. Stir gently with a rubber spatula until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

Make sure the friands are cool before dipping them into the ganache. Holding, the friand by its side, dip the top into the ganache and them shake gently to let the excess run of the side. Return the friand to the rack and let the ganache set up in a cool place for about 1 hour.

Serve the friands within a day of making or store them in a airtight container (to avoid condensation) in the refrigerator for up to five days.

Today is my dad’s birthday! I miss him a lot! He is one of the only persons that can fight with me for the last piece of pork blood sausage on the plate.  Ok, now I’m missing this kind of sausage too! Anyway, this is a topic for another moment.

My dad, well, I can’t think about my dad without thinking about food. Our relationship happened pretty much around the table. The time we had to talk was almost exclusively the time we had to eat. But don’t take me wrong, I spent more time with him than you are thinking. The time to eat in Brazil is different, we can seat at the table with no time to get off, we can eat slowly while we talk, laugh, discuss, argument and even cry. Even nowadays, every time I get to visit my parents home I meet my dad around a portion of something, usually some pork related food. And this was the way I got from him a very peculiar taste, a taste for things like chicken livers and feet or pork feet and “knees”.

And, if there is one thing that makes me look like him, besides the eyes, is the way we eat; if there is still food on the table, we keep eating, slowly and steadily.

Surprisingly, I didn’t get many chances to cook for him in my life. Maybe, unconsciously, I’m always waiting for my dad to present me something new instead of me preparing something for us. Maybe, unconsciously, I know he will always get home with something tasty.

But today is his birthday and it’s my time to call it back: a French onion soup to tell my dad hi is special to me. I know an onion soup is everything but innovative. But it’s something I can say I really know how to do, something that would make my dad proud.

I decided to use a variety of onions for this recipe. Basically I bought all kinds of onions I found at the grocery store but the red ones; yellow, sweet, teardrop-shaped, rounded, white, cipolline, French shallots that, despite their purple-ish color, don’t compromise the tones of my soup. Yeah, I care about the color and for some reason this soup, in my mind will always be brown. But if you want to, don’t hesitate in buying the red onions. The soup will be yours, you can pick the color.

In a large saucepan, sauté bacon in medium high heat until crisp. Add butter and let it melt completely. Add onions, sugar, salt and sauté in medium heat until brown in color and well caramelized. This step may take 30 minutes to an hour and requires some attention.

Add flour and sauté for extra 2 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Add white wine and keep cooking for 3 more minutes. In this stage, the onions may be looking like a thick batter. So, add beef stock slowly, until the “batter” is completely solved and the soup looks homogeneous.

Add bouquet garni, freshly grounded bleck pepper and ajust salt. Continue cooking for about 15 miutes or until soup looks thick and creamy.

Meanwhile, prepare the bread. Cut garlic glove in halves and rub the cut face in each slice of baguette. Set them aside.

To serve you can either use individual oven-proof soup bowls, bread bowls* or one large casserole dish. Heat the oven (broiler) to 350˚ F.  Pour the soup into the dish of your choice, cover with the toast and sprinkle with cheese. Put into the broiler for 5 minutes or until the cheese bubbles and is slightly browned. Serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

*To make bread bowls, buy four small sourdough rouds, Remove the top third of each loaf and scoop out center, leaving 1/2″ all around. Place bread on baking sheet and bake at 350˚F until lightly toasted and it’s ready to be used.

And the last tip: this soup is even better when prepared with homemade beef stock. If you really love the kitchen room, go for it. It’s totally worth the hard work.

Did you ever get that kind of present that makes you feel like crying? So, I got one this week, a cheese. I know, you must be thinking right now “What kind of person wants to cry in front of a cheese??”. Well, it happens that the cheese is a very special one, the legendary Serra da Estrela cheese, made in Portugal and brought here by my cousins Nádia and Alê, two people I really love having around.

The pic is here. As you can see, I had a pretty good week!

But it was busy too; crazy busy and I didn’t have time to think about Halloween until today. And while looking for a recipe for the theme, I had an insight: what could scare people more than candy making on October 31th?

Kidding people, just kidding!! The idea is exactly the opposite here, show anyone can make candies, including me. Really, I’m not a fan of sugar work. I mean, I admire who does but for me it’s more like I’m going to fail anytime I try to melt sugar.
Funny is during our road trip last summer we got to visit the Sweet Palace in Montana, an old fashioned candy store that makes “billions” of different taffy flavors and sells any kind of candy you can possibly imagine.  The experience really triggered my desire of making my own candies; I was just waiting for the opportunity.

So, Halloween would be enough for that but I had another reason I wanted to make this recipe. It happens there is an act going on this month among food blogs, the October Unprocessed. And although I’ve been following the adventures of Tiffany and thinking it’s a brave and very nice initiative, I did not participate or wrote a note to support the case.

Fortunately, there is still time. My contribution is here, for Halloween and for the “unprocessed month”: homemade peanut butter taffies.

The recipe was adapted from the book Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner. The book is for people who is serious about candy making but this recipe in particular is surprisingly easy. I took about 30 minutes plus the cooling time to get a batch of 60 taffies (not counting the one I ate before wrapping!).

Combine corn syrup, molasses, sugar and condensed milk in a saucepan. Cook to 245ºF while stirring constantly. To make the test, drop a small portion of the mixture into a bowl with cold water, the liquid should form a ball that will flatten with resistance.

Remove from heat, stir in the salt, and then add the peanut butter.

Pour onto an oiled marble slab or a greased baking sheet and turn occasionally until cooled to a plastic consistency.

Pull taffy until a bit lighter in color and texture. Pull into a rope with a 1/2” diameter. Cut 1” pieces off the rope. Here it is a good example of “how to do”.

Wrap immediately to maintain shape and to protect from humidity.

Note: A temperature of 245ºF will produce taffy of a relatively firm texture. For a softer result, cook the batch at several degrees lower but not less than 235 ºF (soft ball stage).

Saturday was the last farmer’s market in my town and of course I run there to get some fresh stuff and say good bye to things I will just see again in probably 8, 9 months or so. I felt sad; the mood was totally like a farewell, sellers saying good bye to their loyal customers and the wind always blowing the little empty baskets. Even the tents didn’t have covers, increasing the idea of a rush, of parting, almost like the farmers were saying “It’s your last change, we gotta go”.

But again, I remembered there was no reason to suffer. Fall, the season I just called two posts ago the tastiest of all, is here. So, I grabbed my organic tomatoes, some beautiful squashes, a few eggplants and came home thinking what would be the best way to use them. I know it’s a cliché but I decided I wanted to make vegetable lasagna. I thought “ok, it’s time – at least for me – to leave cold salads aside, stop counting calories and eat a good, rich and warm dish to heat me up”.

Actually, this is a pseudo lasagna because it doesn’t have lasagna noodles in it. They are replaced by the thinly sliced and grilled vegetables, everything put together by a rich roasted tomato sauce and generous portions of mozzarella. At the end it’s still looking like a real one, probably the reason why in Brazil we call it lasagna any way. Hope you like!

Of all the recipes of tomato sauce I made during my live, and that is a lot, this one has been my favorite lately. The roasting process deeps the flavor of the tomatoes and gives you a super rich sauce. Besides, it is super simple to prepare.

Pre heat the oven to 375°F. Cut the tomatoes in half, season with garlic, salt, pepper and sugar. Add the olive oil and mix. Arrange tomatoes in a baking pan with cut side facing up. Add the onion and roast for 35 to 45 min. or until tomatoes are soft and the bottom of the pan starts to caramelize.
Let it cool and puree in a blender until desired consistency. I use the whole tomatoes with skin and seeds but you can strain them if you want a thinner sauce.

Makes enough sauce for two lasagnas.

Start preparing the olive oil – the amount of oil can vary depending on the size of the vegetables, so start using ¼ cup and get a little extra on hand.
In a small bowl, place olive oil, garlic, pepper and oregano. Arrange the slices of eggplant and zucchini in a single layer and season them with salt. With the help of a kitchen brush, brush both sides of each slice with seasoned olive oil and grill them on both sides until fully cooked.

I like to grill whenever I can, I just love to flavor of the grill, it is something unparalleled.
If you can’t, in order to prepare the eggplant and zucchini in the oven season them the same way and roast separately (400ºF) until they are cooked.
Assemble the lasagna. Spread a layer of sauce on the bottom of a 6X8in baking dish. Arrange a layer of eggplant, cover with a thin layer of sauce and sprinkle mozzarella on top. Arrange a layer of zucchini, sauce and mozzarella again. Continue the process alternating layers of eggplant with layers of zucchini until all the ingredients are gone, always ending with a layer of sauce. Heat the oven to 375°F and bake it for 20 minutes, sprinkle more mozzarella on top and bake for extra 5 minutes until the cheese is melted. Serve hot.

There are two things I can’t live without: my computer and a good loaf of bread. Three days ago my computer crashed and put me down very badly. He is just a six months old machine that has been used intensively since it came to my hands. I knew he was trying to tell me something, maybe he was tired and needed a break but I didn’t pay attention. So, he decided to rebel.

Fortunately, my husband patiently is borrowing me his PC and I’m able to post again. In fact, despite my entire lament, a bit of time away from the computer has been handy. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining, right? So, I took some time to organize my things and came across a very special book I got as a gift from my English teacher and my best classmates ever, a first edition (1973) of The complete Book of Breads by Bernard Clayton Jr.

As I started to search about Bernard, who died on March 28th of this year at the age of 94, I found out his enthusiasm for making bread leaded him to transform his hobby into a carrier, inspiring a lot of other bread bakers across America. And everyone who embarks “on a quest to explore the intricacies of bread and pastry making” with such passion deserves my respect and admiration. So, this whole thing inspired me to celebrate bread one more time and create this sandwich.

The idea here is to use a raisin and walnut loaf since the roasted garlic and blue cheese filling was thought to pair with the raisins and bring up its sweetness. As an option, you can choose any good artisanal bread with sweet elements in it such cranberries or figs.

The sandwich is quite simple but the spread is a little time consuming. So, you can make it ahead and keep on the fridge. In fact, this is a great “wildcard” to have in your fridge all the time, goes well on top of a steak, to season a potato salad or to improve a pasta dish.

Pre-heat oven at 300˚F. Peel the garlic and place the gloves in a 4 inch round baking dish. Season with salt, black pepper and add thyme.

Cover tight with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Take the dish out of the oven, add the blue cheese, cover and bake for extra 15 minutes or ‘til the garlic is tender.

Discard thyme, strain out the oil – tip: the olive oil will be amazingly flavored and can be used in different preparations; don’t discard it! Smash garlic and cheese into a paste.

Spread the paste in one slice of bread, cover with a handful of mussarela, top with another slice of bread and grill in both sides ’til cheese is melted and bread is crispy and golden brown. Enjoy with a beer!