Taste Test and Giveaway -- Alouette

Recently, I was contacted by the nice people who represent Alouette to ask if I’d like to review their products for the blog. Now that I can eat soft cheeses again (and I love brie), of course I said yes!

The first product I tried was the Crème de Brie. I was intrigued because, like many of you--and you know you’re one of them--I’ve never really been sure what to do with the rind on brie. Eat it? Don’t eat it? Generally, it’s a game-day call for me. Is the rind delicate and taste okay? If so, I’ll eat it. If not, I leave it on the plate like the privileged first-worlder I am. The Crème de Brie solves this quandary!

And the Crème de Brie is just as creamy as my favorite triple cream brie, St. Andre. The flavor is incredibly delicate. So delicate that you need to be careful what you pair it with. I’d suggest a slice of apple, a water cracker such as Carr’s, or a thin slice of a French baguette (fresh, not toasted).

For my second taste test, I tried the “award-winning” Baby Brie. Alouette suggests that you let the Baby Brie warm to room temperature before serving, but even so, it’s a significant bit toothier than the Crème de Brie. It’ll stand up to toasted breads but also to baking recipes. So with the remaining portion of the brie, I made a pizza. Though inspired by a recent visit to Amerigo (which includes mushrooms on their brie pizza), I opted to use this brie pizza recipe that included potatoes and apples. Yes, brie AND potatoes on a pizza--because I have given up on ever being my pre-pregnancy size again.

My pizza didn’t look quite as lovely as the pizza on the 30-Minute Dinner Party site for a couple of reasons:

1) I used my Microplane box grater’s slicer for the potatoes and apples which yielded a thicker slice than I would have gotten from my food processor (along with the anxiety of adding a thumb tip to the mix) and

2) I underestimated the coverage I needed.

Regardless, this was one heckuva pizza. The Baby Brie melts nicely and its rich flavor stood up well to 450 degree heat and a lot of rosemary and salt.

But don’t just take my word for it. Try it yourself! Or any of the Alouette products. Leave a comment for an entry (one per person, please) to win two certificates for a free Alouette product redeemable at your local grocery. I will mail the coupons to the lucky winner, so the contest is open to anyone with a U.S. address. Enter your comment before 7pm CDT next Wednesday, June 16 and I will announce the winner on Thursday. Good luck!

ps--and sorry for the earworm to those of you who took French classes. I've been singing it in my head for weeks now.

The perfect sandwich

Silke's baguette

Fresh mozzarella (and fresh basil) from Lazzarolli's

The season's earliest tomatoes from the farmers' market

A little olive oil and sea salt

Yum.

Strawberry Bread

I’m not one to waste fresh Tennessee strawberries on something that requires them to be consumed any way but raw and mostly naked, but I got a couple of quarts that were good but not great. So I thought, “Why not try something baked?” with these berries. I wasn’t feeling ambitious enough for a cake (mmm…strawberry cake…) so I remembered getting an email with a recipe for strawberry bread in it. Couldn’t find the email, so I just poked around the internet a bit and (once again) came up with my own from the best of other recipes. Because I had a lot of strawberries to use and I really wanted a strong strawberry flavor.

Strawberry Bread
Yields 2 9 x 5 inch loaves

2 cups fresh strawberries sliced
2 cups pureed strawberries
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cups vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Grease and flour two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans.

Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in large bowl and blend well with a fork. Place strawberries in a medium size bowl and blend in oil, eggs and vanilla. Add the strawberry mixture to the flour mixture, blending until dry ingredients are just moistened. Divide batter equally into pans and bake for one hour or until done (insert a toothpick; if it comes out clean, it‘s done). Let cool in pans for about 10 minutes and remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Well? This bread is MOIST. Probably too moist. And not quite strawberry-y enough for me. I suppose I should have made strawberry cake to achieve that level of strawberryness. But the bread is good. I’m thinking though that instead of pureed strawberries, a strawberry jam might be better. About 8 ounces instead of 16 (and increase the oil if the batter’s not loose enough). However, strawberry season is just about over here, so I suppose I’ll have to wait until next year to try it out. I'm also thinking some lemon in here somewhere would brighten it and add a nice tang. Hrm.

Scones!

It was a challenge for me to figure out what to bake for the Sweet Relief bake sale. 1) I'm not much of a baker and 2) I wanted to do something vegan. And finding something that was portable, packageable and non-perishable that was not a cookie or cupcake was difficult. Also, I didn't want to deal with an egg replacer.

So I finally settled on scones. Next challenge? Vegan "butter." I was surprised to see that nearly every margarine available contains whey (a dairy product). What's the point? Seemed my only option was Earth Balance and while it's fine, measuring 3/4 of a cup is kind of a pain since it's not in sticks. Luckily, I remembered Crisco makes sticks and they're over in the baking aisle. Whaddya know...vegan. So, along with my organic sugar (organic sugar is not processed with bone char like most refined white sugar), and soy milk, I was ready to bake! Well, almost. I needed to settle on a recipe. I ended up looking at about 15 different recipes and took the best from all. Because that's what I do (or don't); I don't follow recipes. Anyhoo...

Cranberry Orange Scones


3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar (plus about 1/2 tsbp)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon orange zest (~the amount from a standard size orange; more is better)
1/2 cup slightly reconstituted dried cranberries
3/4 cup vegan butter (I used Crisco sticks), cut into chunks
1/4 cup fresh orange juice (the juice of a standard size orange is about 1/4 cup; if you have more, just reduce the amount of milk so that the total liquid is one cup)
3/4 cup vegan milk (I used Silk Vanilla Light soy milk)
Dash of vanilla

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat. Cover the cranberries in water to soak while you prepare the dough.

Sift your flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda together in a large bowl. Add the "butter" and mix together between your fingertips or cut with two knives until the mixture resembles coarse meal (or you can dump everything in your food processor, hit pulse a couple of times and you're done). Drain the water from the cranberries and mix in the orange zest and cranberries with a fork. Combine the orange juice, "milk, " and vanilla and slowly pour it into the mixture, tossing with a fork until moist clumps form.

Form a ball in the bowl and turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it briefly to mix the dough well (add more flour if it's too sticky). Form the dough into a ball and pat down into a circle about 3/4 inch thick. Use a large a knife to cut into 8 equal wedges. Place the scones as far apart as possible on the lined baking sheet (for crispy sides). Bake for 25 minutes or until the tops of the scones are golden brown. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the tops with sugar. Let the scones sit on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes and then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

For lemon poppyseed scones, substitute "lemon" for "orange" above (you may need extra lemon juice or lemon extract, which I think would be a wonderful idea but I really LOVE lemon flavor) and replace cranberries with 1 tablespoon of poppyseeds.

So how are they? Well, they're a tad dry and not sweet enough...which means they're perfect (I was reminded of why I'm not a huge fan of scones; they're never sweet--you know, because they're really just flavored biscuits). The taste is really good and Mr. Eats liked them a lot. The Crisco helps get a nice crunch on the crust, I think. All in all, I think they're a huge success. So much so that I just pulled a muscle patting myself on the back.

Two and a half dozen of these little guys will be for sale (for a small price!) tomorrow between 1:30 and 4 at 1100 Forrest Avenue (The Green Wagon) in Nashville. Come on out and buy some and support the Second Harvest Food Bank!

Sweet Relief

The Great Flood is still a topic of conversation for most people. It's become its own measure of time When did we see them last? Well, it was before the flood. And any time you see someone you haven't seen since well, before the flood, you ask how they fared.

Most people I know are fortunate and sustained little or no damage, but there are still a lot of people who need help and will need help for a long time. So more fun fundraisers!

Lindsay over at Love and Olive Oil sent out a tweet  about interest in a bake sale. A bunch of us signed on right away. She worked hard putting it together--got us this sweet poster and even a place to hold the sale! So won't you come out and buy some sweets this Saturday to help out the Second Harvest Food Bank? Some of Nashville's best amateur bakers will be there! I've decided my entry will be vegan, too. Scones! Check out the Sweet Relief post at Love and Olive Oil for more details.