My honorary aunt and dear friend recently gave me a copy of Enlightened Chocolate by Camilla V. Saulsbury. It’s a collection of ‘healthy’(-ish) chocolate recipes. My concept of healthy-ish cooking is to bake infrequently and give away most of my cookies, not fret over ingredients, but some of the recipes here actually look pretty tasty.

These scones are just wonderful. Dave has slowly introduced me to enjoying baked goods made with whole wheat flour over the past few years – he started by sneaking a little bit into his breads, and then increasing the percentage slowly over time. It’s pretty amazing, but now I love that touch of whole wheat flour flavor mixed with the ginger in this recipe. Next time I might even go so far as to make it with half whole wheat flour, half cake flour! (”I’ve really learned how to manipulate your brain,” says he.)

I added extra chocolate and extra ginger, messed with the flour percentages, and used whole milk instead of fat-free. I also like cutting smaller scones, because they’re so much easier to share. And oh, they’re absolutely perfect with a big mug of genma chai for breakfast in the morning.

Archives
2008: Quick-Pickled Cucumbers with Chili Bean Sauce
2007: Chicken and Rice, Curry Banana, Roots and Rhizomes Stew
2006: Aztec Marshmallows

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Going through older post drafts, I’m always a bit startled when I come across a photo that I actually really like! It always seems to me that surely I must have posted all the good photos already, and only left the dregs as drafts. But apparently not.

Salad may not seem that exciting, but for me it’s revolutionary. In fact, so are blood oranges – I can’t stand regular oranges, but blood oranges taste just different enough. The redder they are, the better they taste. I can’t tell if that’s a real difference, or if I just like that the reddest ones look less like oranges. We made this during the height of Dave’s obsession with stovetop approximated sous vide cooking, and my obsession with finding salads I actually enjoy eating.

I think what won me over was the realization that salads could include fruit and spices and artistry, and not just a bunch of leaves on a plate. Who knew?

Enjoy!

Archives
2008: Cocoa Nib Flans with Raw Sugar Sauce
2007: Stewed Garlicky Black Bean Spare Ribs

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These truffles were inspired by Goat Lady Dairy, which I encountered at the farmers market in Greensboro, North Carolina last winter. Her chevre truffles were a blended ganache, about 60% chocolate to 40% chevre, with a bit of vanilla and salt as well – and they were fantastic! Of course, I had to come back home to NYC eventually, so I had to figure out how to make my own replacement instead of just relying on Goat Lady Dairy for my fix.

The Greensboro farmers market was just amazing. It turns out that Goat Lady Dairy does an occasional restaurant sort of like ours (sigh), excepts theirs takes place in their barn. I also met Ross Flynn of Cane Creek Farm, who chatted with me about tasty cow hearts, Ossabaw pigs (apparently more like historical Iberico than the Iberico available today!), and other meaty topics along those lines.

After getting home and going through some experimentation, I came to the conclusion that I liked simple salted chocolate-dipped chevre even better than blended chevre truffles. They look nicer to me, and I love the texture contrast as you bite through the chocolate shell and and the cold, creamy chevre bursts out into your mouth.

I’m a bit fussy, and I only like very mild cheeses. I always buy my chevre at the Union Square or Grand Army Plaza greenmarkets from Lynnhaven Farm, which has the mildest, sweetest, creamiest chevre around. It has just the right level of tanginess for my taste, and it works perfectly in these truffles.

I’ve also included cheat to get you out of having to temper the chocolate. It turns out that if you melt a bit of neutral oil in with your chocolate, it will help stabilize the crystal structure and keep your chocolate from blooming or otherwise appearing to be out of temper. It’s a great trick for dipping things in chocolate when you just don’t have the time or inclination to go through the whole process of actually tempering the chocolate properly. Seems too easy to work, but it does.

Archives
2008: Home-Cured Salmon with Black Pepper and Coriander
2007: Forbidden Rice with Persimmon and Coconut
2006: Truffled Gruyere Risotto

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