I have to say I have never used a Julia Child recipe until tonight. We were craving something easy & French and I stumbled upon this recipe by the master herself.
Served it with a simple watercress salad with Tartelette's vinaigrette recipe. Wonderful!
Susan over at Food Blogga is hosting a Christmas Cookies extravaganza. I had to bring some cookies to our annual cookie exchange party and figured I would kill two birds with one stone so to say. I normally bake up a storm during the holidays but time has just slipped away and this year, this will probably be it! Do enjoy!
I made some of our favorites around here, the traditional French Macarons. I decided to use Helen's recipe minus the peanuts. I did tweak it a bit, see my version here. I normally use a much more complex recipe and I have to say, I really liked how this one turned out. (mums, the word) I may be switching!
I filled them with a traditional Italian buttercream - one filling was a very dark chocolate and the other was flavored with crushed candy canes.
Okay, I said we were back and I was ready to tackle the kitchen by my apron strings; but, then I got ubber busy with company, work, life! I finally had time to make a meal and boy did it feel good! Did not have much around the house as the other task I need to do is some "real" grocery shopping; but, I did not have shallots, garlic, broccoli, applewood bacon, Roquefort and pasta. So, I caramelized the shallots and garlic, added the bacon and broccoli. Then tossed it all together with the Roquefort and pasta. Pop open a nice red wine and Voila, dinner was served! Dessert was some French Vanilla Ice Cream (ashamed to say, not homemade this time around) topped off with some of our new favorite ice cream sauce .... Salted Caramel, recipe courtesy of Helen over at Tartelette .
