I don’t think people realize the sacrifices I make for this blog.

See these cupcakes? These deep dark chocolatey cakes with far too much cream cheese goodness on top ? I had to eat three before I found my money shot cupcake, the one that looked nice enough to be photographed.

Three!

Still slighty warmish, I choked them down with my afternoon coffee and then had to nibble on one more to get the right half-eaten, but still able to see what it is photograph.

This is what I’m talking about. Huge. Sacrifices.

But that’s what I’m here for. That’s what I signed up to do…to make and test and eat again (and again if I must) in order to post the best recipe possible for whatever that’s tickled my fancy at that moment.

And right now, after telling a friend of mine that chocolate is not that big of a deal to me, and that, you know, I could take it or leave it, I’ve caught myself sneaking into the kitchen at night and breaking off yet another square of the superdark chocolate Lindt bar with fleur de sel, while continuing to tell myself that I Do Not Have a Problem.

For proof that I’m Not Addicted to Chocolate, look at this recipe for a moment. Please note that I’ve not even put in chocolate chips, which some people like to do. Besides, the cupcakes themselves are really quite chocolatey on their own. But I might try to add a few chips later. Next time.

Now, if I may just take a left turn for a moment and have a word about the name of these little cakes. Black bottom. The same as my favorite white on the top, dark brown-bottomed French pottery, cul noir. That can’t be a coincidence, now can it?

I mean, what are the odds that there would be a delicious chocolate cake and a hard-to-find type of 18^th and 19^th century ceramique with the same name? I feel kismet hitting me hard on the head, and there’s really only one thing to do.

Put all of those little black bottom gateaux on one of my 100-year-old cul noir plates…and eat all of them until they’re gone. Then go look for my stretch pants.

Black Bottom Cupcakes (Cul Noir Gateaux)

Makes 2 dozen

• 1 ¾ cup/220 grams of flour
• 1 cup/86 grams of cocoa powder (I like Van Houten because it’s super rich and dark)
• 1 ½ teaspoons of baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 ½ cup/35 cl of buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons of brewed strong coffee or espresso
• 1 ½ sticks/170 grams of butter, at room temperature
• ⅔ cup/133 grams of sugar
• ⅔ cup/147 grams of brown sugar or cassonade sugar
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla, divided
• 2 eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons/75 grams of sugar
• 11 ounces/300 grams of Philadelphia cream cheese, softened

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F/175°C and line 2 one-dozen cupcake pans with liners.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk or sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set this aside.

3. Measure out your buttermilk and add the brewed coffee to this. Set this aside, too. You’ll get to this in just a couple of minutes.

4. Cream the butter with the sugars until light and fluffy. Pour in 1 teaspoon of the vanilla and mix this in, too.

5. Keep the mixer running on low speed and add the eggs one at a time, beating about a minute or so after each egg. This’ll help make your cakes light and fluffy, so don’t rush this step.

6. Now add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture in thirds, starting with the buttermilk and ending with the flour. As you do this, just mix each round until blended — this is where you don’t want to overmix or you’ll end up with tough cupcakes — I like to use my long-handled wooden spoon to get anything that’s stuck to the bottom of the bowl stir it in. Set this aside while you make your cream cheese middle filling.

7. Put the egg yolk, sugar, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla in your mixer bowl and blend. Add your cream cheese and mix this on low speed just until it comes together.

8. Fill your cupcake liners slightly less than two-thirds full with the chocolate batter, then top with a heaping tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture (you may want to use a knife to swirl this around or push it into the cake batter just a little). Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the cupcakes begin to crack a little bit. Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes or so before you take them out and put them on a rack. Although these are better the next day, I’ve never waited that long to eat them. Once they’ve cooled to room temperature (after an hour or so), I’m usually brewing coffee and snacking on one…or ahem…three.

]]> http://cowgirlchef.com/2012/05/13/black-bottom-cupcakes-cul-noir-gateaux/feed/ 3 http://cowgirlchef.com/2012/05/09/i-found-a-boo-boo/ http://cowgirlchef.com/2012/05/09/i-found-a-boo-boo/#comments Wed, 09 May 2012 20:31:31 +0000 Cowgirl Chef http://cowgirlchef.com/?p=7684

I am a mad, crazy do-it-again and again recipe tester. As anyone should be who decides to write a cookbook. As much as I love surprises, I don’t want a surprise when I follow a recipe, line-by-line and letter by letter, and it turns out differently than it should.

So you turn in your manuscript and wait for it to come back in the chosen typeface. You proofread and proofread until your eyes are blurry and things no longer make sense. You turn in your marked-up pages and hope hope hope that there are no mistakes.

But dang it, I found one, big as Texas, right there on page 66. Please everyone make a note: the Slice & Bake Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cookies need 1 AND 1/4 cups of flour — not just 1/4 cup as the recipe states. I tell you this because you will want to make these cookies. They are divine and one of my favorite cookies in the book (please don’t tell the others). Best I can figure, the “1″ got lopped off somewhere long the way, because it reads “1/4 cups,” which in itself sounds odd. So please make this adjustment, and please accept my apologies.

I’m so sorry, y’all.

So I had these tomatoes in a bowl…for more than a week. The bowl above, by the way, a recent 1 euro purchase at the Porte de Vanves flea market, my weekend addiction.

They were not Paris-grown or tasty in-season tomatoes. I knew that when I bought them. It is not near tomato season around here. I want to get that right out of the way. But I needed to test a tomato-something and I bought them, and then I was on to something else…and well, there I was, with these so-so looking tomatoes in my bowl getting more wrinkly by the day.

I thought about splitting them open and roasting them, but I was feeling too lazy for that. Instead, I decided to try out a pizza sauce that I’d gotten from the folks at Urban Crust in Dallas a few years back which required no cooking at all. Now the recipe doesn’t call for nearly rotten tomatoes, but I figured these would work just fine.

And oh how they did.

X declared this the best pizza sauce ever, and so did I.

I just peeled these tomatoes and squished them into my bowl, cutting them into chunks if necessary, and added a couple of things, and let this sit out overnight. It looked like a big, watery mess, and I didn’t even taste it. I just covered this up in plastic wrap and put it aside.

The next day, when it was pizza-making time, I peeled back the plastic wrap (the good old American stuff in the yellow box) and noticed that the sauce was no longer watery, but chunky. Hmmm. Then I tasted it. Double hmmm…then WOW.

Tomato fairies! They must’ve known that I was about to leave Paris (and leave before the tomatoes arrive), so they decided to give me a little treat. Somehow, these tomatoes developed a taste that was altogether…summer tomatoey.

I’m sure this’ll be even better when the real ones arrive. To be sure, I’ll be testing this again with Texas tomaotes this summer, between book signings and drinking coffee on the sofa with Mom.

No-Cook Fresh Tomato Sauce

Makes enough for 4 to 5 pizzas

• 2 pounds/1 kilo of fresh tomatoes
• about 6 large basil leaves, chopped
• ½ teaspoon of oregano
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• sea salt and pepper

1. Put a deep saucepan of water onto boil. Make an “X” with your knife on the ends of the tomatoes, so you can have little handles to pull the skin off. When the water boils, place the tomatoes in the water for 30 seconds. Remove, let cool, and peel off the skins.

2. Squish your tomatoes into a large bowl with your hands. You may need to cut away some of the hard white core, depending on the type of tomatoes. Add the basil, oregano, olive oil and a pinch of sea salt and pepper and cover with plastic wrap. Do not refrigerate – keep this at room temperature. Let this sit at least overnight or 24 hours if you can. Taste the sauce before you use it and adjust any seasonings. I love this for pizza, but it would be just as fab tossed with pasta.

Sometimes things turn out even better than you could’ve imagined. This is one of them.

My Twitter #LetsLunch bunch was fun from the start — author and blogger Cheryl Tan (A Tiger in the Kitchen) and I decided to start posting monthly recipes for a transatlantic “lunch” three years ago when we discovered that we had a mutual and very big love for bacon — and its only gotten more so as our little group has grown.

And grown closer, too. Cheryl and the gang collectively decided to surprise me and celebrate the release of my new cookbook with cross-cultural themed lunch. Today, everyone’s posting their interpretation of a dish that’s a culinary combo platter of two different places, which is what I often find myself making in Paris when I’m craving food from home (or now, when I’m in Texas, craving French food…hey, it happens).

In my book, I call this Franco-Texan mashup “Cowgirlified Frenchy.” Like this little cookie. (Or biscuit, depending on where you are.)

I mean, who would’ve thought lime and salt would be so good? Oh, riiiight. The margarita already knew about this…and a long time ago.

Truth is I had the margarita in mind (as I often do) when I made these, and I wasn’t sure how to get the tequila in there. So I just drank shots while I was making them.

What? You don’t do tequila shots when you bake? Really?

Good thing about these (besides the lime and salt) is the huge amount of butter involved. They are essentially a butter cookie, or what we like to call sablé (sah-bley) in France…because it sounds so much more elegant than shortbread. (How clunky is that word? Short. Bread.) But that’s really what this is but for now I’m calling it a sablé, which means “sandy” in French, because look at these…they are sandy in texture. You can see that.

And when you make them (and trust me, you will), the dough itself will look like a pile of sand as you form your two little slice and bake logs. It will come together. Do not despair. And whatever you do, do not rush the dough-chilling part. Let the dough hang out and come together as one, like you do with pie dough.

While you’re waiting, I know just what you can do.

#Let’sLunch people, please raise your glasses. *clink* Thank you, everyone. What a sweet welcome home.

Here’s what the rest of the #letslunch gang has cooked up:

Cheryl’s Goan Pork Curry Tacos at A Tiger in the Kitchen

Cathy’s Bacon Studded Polenta with Tomato Gravy at ShowFoodChef

Leigh’s Venezuelan-Italian Cachapas con Queso at Leigh Nannini

Karen’s Ukranian-German Cabbage Rolls at GeoFooding

Felicia’s Mexican-Lebanese Hummus at Burnt-Out Baker

Linda’s Edible Salad Totes at Free Range Cookies

Charissa’s Gluten-Free Azuki Bundt Bean Cake at Zest Bakery

Anastasia’s Miso Salmon with Mango Salsa at In Foodie Fashion

Patricia’s Buttery Tofu, Pasta & Peas at The Asian Grandmother’s Cookbook

Patrick’s Kimchi Jigae and British Mash at Patrick G. Lee

Maria’s Spanish Shrimp with Bacon, Cheddar and Chive Grits at Maria’s Good Things

Emma’s Kimchi Bulgogi Nachos at Dreaming of Pots and Pans

Grace’s Taiwanese Fried Chicken at HapaMama

Jill’s Southern Pimento-Stuffed Knishes at Eating My Words

Joe’s Grilled KimCheese Sandwich at Joe Yonan

Linda’s Project Runway Pelau: Rice & Beans Trinidad-Style at Spicebox Travels

Linda’s Sunday Night Jewish-Chinese Brisket at Monday Morning Cooking Club

Lucy’s Coconut Rice Pudding with Mango at A Cook And Her Books

Nancie’s Chili-Cheese Biscuits with Avocado Butter at Nancie McDermott

Rashda’s Mango Cobbler at Hot Curries & Cold Beer

Renee’s Asian-Spiced Quick Pickles at My Kitchen And I

Steff’s Chicken Fried Steak at The Kitchen Trials

Vivian’s Funky Fusion Linguini at Vivian Pei

Salty Lime Sablés (Margarita Cookies)

Makes about 2 dozen

• ¼ cup of sugar
• ¼ cup of brown sugar
• the zest of 2 large limes
• 1 ½ cups/190 grams of flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• ½ teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 stick/125 grams of butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• fleur de sel

1. Put both of your sugars and the lime zest in a small bowl and rub the zest into the sugars until it’s completely incorporated. (This way, the oils rom the lime skin will perfume all of the sugar and give the cookies a deeper limey flavor.)

2. Sift or whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set this aside.

3. In your mixer, beat the butter until it’s light and fluffy; then add the sugars and vanilla and mix well. Add your flour mixture, and combine only until combined. It’ll be crumbly, but don’t worry. It’s supposed to be this way. 

4. Divide the dough in half and shape each piece into a 12-inch/31 cm log — I usually roll mine to to be about 2-inches/5 cm in diameter. Wrap them in plastic wrap and pop in the fridge for an hour, or until firm.

4. To bake the cookies, preheat oven to 375° F/190°C and line the baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice cookies into pieces 1/2-inch/12 mm thick, and put them on the baking sheets, leaving about 1-inch/2.5 cm between each cookie. Lightly dust each cookie with fleur de sel. Bake for about 15 minutes, just until the cookies begin to brown slightly. Let the cookies cool right on the pan, and try to wait until they’re completely cool before eating them. Hahaha. Try. But they are better once they’ve cooled. Or do like I do, and eat them still-warm…and cool.

I was not going to post this, because it seemed so obvious, maybe a bit too everyday…plus I ended up using the Pecan-Sundried Tomato Pesto that I’d made for the Cornmeal Crêpes a few days before. Then I realized that this is exactly why I do need to post this recipe, because it illustrates how to use what you have in different ways…and it drives home the point to simply use what you have.

I spent lots of time in Florence in the mid-90s, and on one trip, I stayed with the owners of the Centro Liguistico Italiano Dante Alighieri, because I was there for an intensive few weeks to learn Italian. Gabriella and Alberto Materassi lived in the middle of town, in a three-story house, which they filled up with students and a passion for all things Tuscan, including the simple, rustic cuisine.

It was the smallest kitchen I’d ever seen…about half the size of my kitchen in Paris, even. But every night, Gabriella turned out the most incredible three-course meals (pasta, a main dish, and dessert), and she did it quickly, when she’d come home from the school. And effortlessly. I remember she once laughed as she held a stick blender in each hand and called them her two arms.

But these stick blenders were also her magic wands. If one night we had broccoli, the next night, the leftovers would appear as a purée, tossed with pasta, or perhaps as a soup. It was like this with everything. Nothing was wasted. Watching her do this night after night (she tried to shoo me out of the tiny kitchen at first, but when I refused, she gave in and let me stay and help) changed the way I see food.

Everything can be one thing, but making the leftovers into something equally interesting is something else. That’s when the fun begins.

So the other day, after I’d finished baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies, I decided to roast the asparagus that I’d bought a few days before (finally, and for just 3.50 euros!), and figure out what to do with it later. I was low on ideas. I had a half of an avocado and some bread and thought about a tartine…which I may do next time…but when I saw the Pecan Sundried Tomato Pesto staring back at me, I knew I had my solution. Which took me right back to Florence. Pasta. I’d just toss the asparagus with the pesto, and use up the last of the crumbs from the croutons that I’d made from the stale baguette from the week before, and some of the basil chevre that I’d bought from my friend Sandy the cheese man.

Roasted asparagus, homemade pesto, crunchy breadcrumbs, and creamy, fresh chèvre. Leftovers! This is my kind of thrifty.

Clean Out the Fridge Pasta

Makes 2 servings

• 1 pound/500 grams of asparagus, ends trimmed and chopped into 2-inch pieces
• olive oil
• sea salt and pepper
• 1 cup of Pecan and Sundried Tomato Pesto
• 6 ounces/170 grams of whole wheat penne pasta
• about 2 tablespoons of fresh chèvre
• about 3 tablespoons of Crunchy Herby Breadcrumbs

1. Preheat your oven to Broil and line a cookie sheet with foil.

2. Put your asparagus pieces on the cookie sheet. Add a drizzle olive oil, sea salt and pepper, and toss. Cook until the asparagus’ tips begin to brown, about 15 minutes. (Note: You may do this ahead of time and just keep this in the fridge till you’re ready to make the pasta.)

3. Put your pasta water onto boil.

4. Cook your pasta and when it’s ready, be sure to save about 2 cups of the pasta water as you pour the pasta into a colander to drain — you’ll need it to mix the pesto and asparagus with the pasta.

5. Put another tablespoon of olive oil in your big skillet and toss in the asparagus and the Pecan-Sundried Tomato Pesto. Let this warm through, add the pasta, toss, and at the last moment, add the bits of chèvre. Serve in two bowls and top with the crunchy breadcrumbs.

Just when I thought I’d done all that I could with strawberries – sweet things, like ice creams, soups, and granitas to savory salsas and salads – I saw la pizza aux fraises in one of my French food magazines this month.

Strawberry pizza?

Brrrriliant!

I knew I’d love this even before I started tinkering around with the French recipe, then finally putting it aside and defaulting to the sweet dough for my mom’s cinnamon rolls. (Quick mini rant: French food magazines are notoriously lacking in the recipe-testing department. That said, I’m often inspired by a photo, as with this recipe, but I’ve learned that the nuts-and-bolts of these recipes are always wrong…which is really fine because I love figuring things out and piecing together recipes from here and there.)

This is really a very easy sweet yeasted dough — but don’t let that scare you. You can put it together in less than 10 minutes; then it just needs to rest for a couple of hours before you move onto the pizza-making. Slice up some strawberries and you’re nearly finished.

I contemplated all sorts of toppings here…a brulée, a layer of salty caramel, a Nutella something, or a chocolate sauce of some sort…any of which would work just fine. But in the end I decided to go for a simple melted sugar-limey thing, with a surprising (and oh so subtle) red chile kick in the pants.

Because sometimes we all need one.

Now, if I were you, I’d top this with a big ol’ spoonful of crème fraiche on top of each slice, or a scoop of Bluebell nilla bean. Because I made this on a Sunday and I didn’t want to walk to the neighborhood rip-off corner store and pay 3 euros for crème fraiche…or worse, go up the street to Haagen-Dazs, where the tiniest of cartons will set you back  7 something euros…I ate mine topless.

Which was just fine, too.

Strawberry Pizza

Makes enough dough for 3 pizzas/and one strawberry pizza

• ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons/200 grams of butter, plus a bit more for buttering the bowl
• ½ cup/12 cl of whole milk
• ½ cup/100 grams of sugar
• 1 packet of yeast
• 3 eggs
• 5 cups/625 grams of flour
• a pinch of sea salt
• ¼ cup of cassonade sugar
• about ¼ teaspoon of lime zest
• a pinch of red pepper flakes
• 1 pound/500 grams of strawberries, hulled and sliced in half
• ¼ cup of pine nuts, toasted
• a few leaves of fresh mint

1. Butter a large bowl and set this aside.

2. Heat the milk, butter, and sugar over low heat, and when the butter melts, remove and let cool slightly. This mixture should be warm to the touch but not too hot. Pour this into your mixer bowl and sprinkle the yeast on top and give it a stir. Let this rest for 10 minutes.

3. Add the eggs and mix well.

4. Now add the flour and salt. If you have a dough hook, now’s the time to put it on and knead the dough until it’s no longer sticky to the touch; it’ll take just a few minutes. Put your ball of dough in the buttered bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and leave it in a warm place for 2 hours, or until it has doubled in size.

5. When you’re ready to make your pizza, preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C. Tear off about 1/3 of the dough and roll it out to about 1/2-inch/1.27 cm thick. Prick the dough all over with a fork and slide it into the oven to bake for 15 minutes or until it begins to brown.

6. Arrange the strawberries all over the top of the baked dough and slide back into the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the strawberries soften.

7. While the strawberries are warming through, melt the cassonade sugar, lime zest, and red pepper flakes in a small saucepan over low heat. When you pull the pizza from the oven, drizzle this all over, add the pine nuts and torn mint leaves and serve.

A few years ago (and boy, does that sound funny), before Yves Camdeborde turned the little crêperie next to Le Comptoir into the wildly successful Basque tapas place, L’Avant Comptoir, I’d stop by when I was in the 6th for one of his fancier, more gourmet-ish crêpes. Because as much as I love a straight-up ham and cheese crêpe, the ones here were bigger and stuffed with all sorts of things that I’d never seen in a crêpe before, like chicken and arugula.

L’Avant Comptoir still makes crêpes, and they’re the walk-around, wrapped in paper kind, which I love, because this allows for window shopping to occur while eating, which is a very un-French thing to do (and probably why I like doing it).

I’ve been on a crêpe-making kick lately, and I wanted to come up with a savory crêpe that was a bit more Cowgirl. So I swapped out some of the flour for cornmeal, which gave the Frenchy flat pancake a very Southern twist, made a pecan pesto, and tossed in some rotisserie chicken and a few bits of mozzarella, too (because I wanted a stringy melty cheese).

Crêpes are super-easy to make and the only trick is to make sure the batter is thin enough to make a thin pancake, otherwise you’ll end up with a thick, American one, and that’s just not going to work when you want to put something in the middle and fold it over. So play around with this batter as you see fit.

You can put whatever you’re in the mood for inside of these…and I wouldn’t limit this to just savory things, either. I caught X stuffing spoonfuls of raspberry jam inside of these and rolling them up, taco-style, and eating them for dessert.

I like to think of these as big French quesadillas. Same idea. Just a lot more butter involved.

Cornmeal Crêpes with Rotisserie Chicken and Pecan and Sundried Tomato Pesto

Makes 10 8-inch crêpes

• ½ cup of cornmeal or polenta
• ¼ cup of flour
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 ¼ cups of milk
• 5 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled
• 2 tablespoons of sunflower or canola oil
• about 7 ounces/200 grams of shredded rotisserie chicken
• 2 tablespoons of Pecan and Sundried Tomato Pesto, recipe follows
• ½ of a ball of mozzerella, torn into small pieces
• two big handfuls of arugula, for serving

1. Make your crêpe batter: Sift the flour, cornmeal, and salt together in a medium bowl. In another bowl, lightly beat the eggs with the milk and add the melted, cooled butter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, dissolving most (but not all – a few are OK) of the lumps, and voila! You’re ready to make crepes.

2. Cook your crêpes: Lightly grease a 10-inch nonstick skillet with 1 tablespoon of canola or sunflower oil poured onto a paper towel and smeared all around the bottom, and turn the heat to medium-high. When the pan’s nice and hot, just pour about 1/4 cup of batter a bit onto the skillet and work quickly to spread the batter around the bottom of the pan by lifting the pan up and tilting it so the batter will evenly distribute in a circle. The crepe should be thin, not thick like an American pancake. If it’s too thick, simply add a bit more milk to thin out the batter.

3. Warm the rotisserie chicken with the Pecan and Sundried Tomato Pesto in a skillet over medium heat. When it’s warmed through, just set this skillet aside.

4. Lightly grease your 10-inch nonstick skillet with another tablespoon of canola or sunflower oil poured onto a paper towel. Turn the heat to medium-high, and warm up one crêpe at a time, putting the darkest side down, and filling half of the crêpe with the still-warm chicken and half of the mozzarella pieces before folding the other side on top and flipping the whole thing over. Serve immediately, opening the top half of the crêpe and stuffing it with a handful of arugula.

Cowgirl Tip: You can make these crepes in advance, and stack them between pieces of waxed paper and keep them in the fridge until you’re ready to eat them. To reheat, simply lightly re-grease a skillet with canola or sunflower oil, and add each crepe to the pan, flipping over after 30 seconds or so. It won’t take long.

Pecan and Sundried Tomato Pesto

Makes about 2 cups

• 100 grams of sundried tomatoes in oil, drained (reserve the oil)
• ½ cup of pecans, toasted
• 1 teaspoon of fresh-squeezed lime juice
• 6 large basil leaves
• 1 tablespoon of capers
• ½ teaspoon of red pepper flakes
• a pinch of sea salt

Put everything in your small food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Add about 1/4 cup of the reserved oil from the sundried tomatoes, or enough to reach the desired consistency — this shouldn’t be too dry. Let this rest at least a half hour before you want to use it. Store the leftovers in an old jam jar in the fridge.

Double-Duty: This pesto would be great smeared on tiny toasts as an appetizer, stirred into pasta, or used instead of mayo or mustard on a sandwich or tartine.

I’m as guilty as anyone, and probably more so than most. I buzz along, testing recipes nearly every day, and things get shoved to the back of the fridge or the bottom of the veggie drawer and I forget about them.

Out of sight and all of that.

I try to do what I can, like making stock out of veggie scraps and chicken bones…likewise, when I see a baguette heading towards the stale side of life, I try to do something with it before it gets rock hard, like make croutons…or sometimes I’ll just whiz the bread into plain breadcrumbs in the food processor and keep them in a bag in the freezer. And you may certainly do that.

But if you completely forget about that scrap of an old baguette that you bought the week before and are about to just toss it into la poubelle, please read on. What can happen to that almost-trash is nothing short of magic. Delicious alchemy.

A little olive oil, salt and pepper, and these little crumbs turn into crunchy bits of deliciousness to be sprinkled on top of salads, soups, pastas, or anything else you can imagine. Crunchy and herby, they are just what so many things need to take them beyond mundane…and into magnificent.

Here’s the recipe. I’m on my way to buy another baguette right now, and I hope I forget about it in a few days so I can make some more.

Crunchy Herby Breadcrumbs

This recipe actually works best and easiest with a baguette that’s about a week old…one far beyond human consumption and probably too hard for the dog to chew on, too.

• 1 baguette so stale it’ll break your teeth
• olive oil
• sea salt and pepper
• chopped fresh herbs, such as thyme, basil, parsley

1. Turn on the faucet. Hold the bread underneath cold running water till you can break it into 2-inch/5 cm pieces, or thereabouts. Toss the pieces into your food processor and pulse until you have lots of lovely, wet crumbs.

2. Pour these breadcrumbs into your skillet and turn the heat to medium-high. Let them cook and dry out, stirring as needed. If you want to make crunchy, savory breadcrumbs, continue on to the next step. If you want plain breadcrumbs, remove these from the heat when they’re dry.

3. Drizzle a little olive oil into your skillet, and stir the crumbs around so they all get a little bit of the oil. Lightly sprinkle with salt, pepper, and cook for another 5 minutes or so, or until the breadcrumbs are crunchy. Toss with the fresh herbs. Use right away or save ‘em in a plastic bag in your freezer.

It’s here…spring!…the cookbook!…and  very soon, I’ll be on the road, kicking off the Cowgirl Chef Summer of 2012 World Tour. (Do y’all think I need to get t-shirts?)

I’ll be cruising around Texas and New Mexico (so far), promoting the book, signing the book, talking about the book, and of course…cooking from the book. Whew.

It’s a good thing I’ve been doing this all-about-me blog for the last few years, right?

I’m leaving Paris in less than two weeks and I’m thrilled to be headed home…and overwhelmed…and scared…and so damn excited I can hardly stand it. I’m all of those things, and all at once, every single day.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, this book is something that I’m so grateful for and it simply wouldn’t be without all of the support I’ve had since I started this silly old Cowgirl Chef thing. Even though my names’s on the cover, this feels in many ways like one big worldwide collaboration. I’ve had testers, editors, friends, and family on both sides of the pond sending love, comments, and encouragement throughout the process which began about this time last year. So thank you, everyone.

I really hope you’ll like the book, and that you’ll love the recipes as much as I do.I’ll be letting you know where I’ll be in this space, but please check the calendar tab above to see the latest additions to the schedule. I’m plugging in new events and book signings every day.

And just hoping the coffee doesn’t run out…à bientôt!

I love cornbread. I’m crazy about biscuits. And I adore scones, which is a nothing but fancified biscuit, made with cream instead of milk (or buttermilk), and butter instead of the stuff in the blue can, which my mother still swears by.

The other weekend, I was in the mood for pinto beans but settling on black beans instead, and I wanted cornbread, but I wanted to do something different with it. Then it hit me. Why not mash them all up together and make a cornbread biscuit scone, which I’m just going to call “cornbread scone” to make it easier to remember.

I don’t know why I’ve not thought of this before.

Genius. If I do say so myself.

Some scone people like to cut out their scones with cutesy scalloped-edge cutters or just the plain old biscuit ones, but I am not one of them. I am from the make-a-big-dough-circle-and-slice-triangles school of scones. They are easier this way. Faster. And as anyone who knows me knows, I am both.

Cooking, people! I’m talking about cooking. Please.

To jazz things up a bit, I also added some green chiles (canned, sadly, but I’ll be in New Mexico soon enough to make up for this culinary misstep) along with some cheddar, but you don’t have to if you’d rather just plain ones, because they are anything but. They are a hybrid that works as either, or both. I slathered mine with honey just like I do with cornbread…and biscuits…and very often, scones, too.

Great with beans, pinto or otherwise, or with soup, as I plan to do this week. They’ll split in half and toast up just fine, just like the biscuits that Mom always sent me home with. I always liked her biscuits split, toasted, and buttered and honeyed up the next day even better than I did on the first round. I don’t really know why, but maybe it had something to do with taking a little bit of Mom home with me…and that alone was what made them more special.

Cornbread Scones

Makes 8

• 1 ½ cups of corn meal
• 1 cup/125 grams of flour
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• ½ teaspoon of sea salt
• 4 tablespoons of very cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• ⅓ cup/80 ml of cream
• ½ cup/50 grams of shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 ounces/55 grams of chopped green chiles (I used canned but please use fresh roasted Hatch chiles if you can get your hands on some)

1. Preheat your oven to 425°F/220°C and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. Toss the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl in your food processor, and pulse a time or two to combine.

3. Add your cold butter cubes and pulse three or four times to cut in the butter (or if you’re doing this by hand with a pastry cutter, like my mom prefers, work quickly so the butter doesn’t warm up). Be careful not to overdo here; mix just until the butter’s the size of pebbles.

4. Pour in the beaten eggs, cream, cheese, and green chiles, and pulse a few more times or mix quickly by hand just until the dough’s moistened — it’ll still be crumbly, which is what you want. Turn it out on a lightly floured surface and form a round disc about 1 1/2 inches/3.8 cm thick. Slice into 8 triangles and place on the parchment paper, leaving about 2 inches/5 cm in between each scone. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until browned on top and on the bottom. Serve warm (I like mine with salty butter), at room temperature, or sliced and toasted as leftovers.