Stretching

This year at Cookbook Club, I decided I would try new things that I have thought were too difficult in the past. In part, I was motivated by this post at Chocolate and Zucchini, "A Bucket List for Cooks."

Here, you can see I conquered, No. 33 "Make your own crust for a tart, quiche, or pie." I made a crust for this tart (Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners) and a quiche (Mastering the Art of French Cooking). This is "Joanne's New and Improved Blueberry Tart," about 1/4 of the blueberries are cooked down to goo and fresh berries are stirred into it. I love it so much more than regular fruit pie. (I hate the goo for some reason.) Oh wait, I also did an onion tart (even more tart-y than this one, which I find very pie-ish) for Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food.

I did the quiche twice because the dude and I got confused about which week it was. We ate a lot of very rich quiche those two weeks. So I feel pretty confident about my pie crust.

I also decided I should try working with filo dough. Everyone says it is so difficult that I just never have. I decided to make tiropita when we did Greek Revival: Cooking for Life. If you know spanikopita, tiropita is spanikopita without the spinach. (Yes, plain cheese!) I made little triangles. Of pure cheesy deliciousness! And also, working with filo isn't on the cook's bucket list because it's not that hard.

I have also checked off "Make caramel." I made it for Caramelized Banana Rum Ice Cream (from The Everything Ice Cream, Gelato, and Frozen Desserts Cookbook). Yes you caramelize the bananas, and you stick toffee chunks in it, but the ice cream is caramel flavored.

I think "Make a laminated dough" may be next. The dude and I were awfully fond of Danish danishes.