Lavender Crème Brûlée

Our friend E loves food. She just doesn't know it. When we first met her, she claimed to be "allergic" to almost everything. Sugar. Gluten. Shellfish. Meat. The fact was, she had never really experienced good cooking. When she decided she didn't like something, she pronounced herself "allergic" and didn't eat it again.

Until she met us and we cooked for her. Once. Twice. A few more times. We showed her some easy things she could make on her own and bought her a couple of ingredients so she'd try to. This past weekend, we had her and her new beau S over for dinner, and she came straight into the kitchen to watch, ask, and learn. It was awesome. We are both teachers in real life, after all.

E watched intently as we prepped the beautiful Porterhouses we had bought at Bogner's, our favorite butcher shop. We did two preparations (not just for variety, but for the sake of learning!) - one marinated then grilled, and the other grilled then basted in garlic and rosemary butter. We showed her how to make our pan-fried camembert appetizer, this time with panko rather than plain breadcrumbs. For side dishes, we had Chris's famous potato pave (Amy's favorite) ready to go, but asked E to re-create the first recipe we ever taught her, green beans blistered in ghee with mint. It was quite the feast, and we glanced at each other, satisfied and happy, as we saw E's plate utterly cleared except for a nearly-gnawed-clean T-bone.

That brings us to dessert, which we had to prep ahead of time because of its nature. However, we chose it because it is made with one of E's favorite things, lavender. Dried lavender (remember to use only culinary lavender) infuses this velvety classic custard with an intriguing scent and subtle flavor. Wouldn't this be a lovely little Valentine's Day dessert? E, this one's for you.

Lavender Crème Brûlée

Ingredients:

Cook's note: keep your egg whites in the fridge for omelets the next morning, or to make 2 batches of meringue cookies.

2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 teaspoons dried culinary lavender blossoms

6 large egg yolks

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup demerara sugar (for topping

Preheat oven to 300 F. In a medium saucepan, combine the cream and lavender blossoms. Place over medium heat until small bubbles form around the edges of the pan. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Strain through a sieve and discard the lavender. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks until pale in color. Whisk in the granulated sugar until dissolved, then very slowly whisk in the lavender-flavored cream. Divide the mixture into ramekins and place ramekins in a baking dish. Pour warm water into the baking dish to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins, then place baking dish in the oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until firm. Remove from baking dish and allow to chill at least 2 hours. When ready to serve, sprinkle demerara sugar over the top of each custard. Caramelize the sugar until dark golden brown using a handheld blowtorch held 3-4 inches from each dish, or by placing the dishes under a preheated broiler. Allow to chill a few minutes again before serving.

Lavender and Blood Orange Olive Oil Shortbreads

Amy writes: It was April vacation - a week off from school and the weather was gorgeous. I had bought some blood oranges recently and this one never got eaten. It was sitting there staring at me, begging to be used in a recipe. Then I remembered a blood orange-infused olive oil I purchased at Boston Olive Oil Company. I started to think about cookies. I love shortbread, and shortbread cookies are so nice and light that they are perfect for the sunny springtime weather we were experiencing. I used a Bon Appetit recipe I found online here for the basis of this one, changing the flavorings and disregarding the chocolate.

The dough was extremely crumbly, I have to admit. In fact, I couldn't use about half of it because it just fell apart on me. But that was okay, since there are only two people in our household and we don't need to be eating full batches of cookies. If you can figure out how to prevent the extreme crumbliness, I'd appreciate any suggestions!

Still, both of us loved the scent of blood orange and lavender that filled the house as the shortbreads baked. The cookies were so wonderful, though! They were crisp yet light as air, and definitely full of flavor. The olive oil lightened them up, but they still had a hint of butteriness. The blood orange and lavender complemented one another nicely. Each bite tasted of spring, and they paired nicely with a glass of orange pekoe iced tea.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons blood orange-infused olive oil

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon orange oil

2 teaspoons dried lavender flowers

zest of 1 blood orange

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, confectioners sugar, cornstarch and salt. In a separate bowl, beat butter until creamy. While continuing to mix, slowly pour olive oil into butter until fully incorporated. Stir in sugar, vanilla extract, orange oil, lavender and zest to butter mixture. Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture, stirring together until just blended. Form dough into a ball and divide in half. Roll each half into a 6'' log, wrap logs in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Preheat oven to 325. Unwrap dough logs and cut each log into 1/3''-inch thick rounds. Place rounds about 1/2'' apart on baking sheets. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire sheets and allow to cool.

Holy Smoke(r)!

We are known for celebrating things late. We once enjoyed a rockin' "Seis de Mayo" with tequila and hot wings at Hooters (no comment...) with one of Chris's friends. It was the best Cinco de Mayo I never had. This year, we're having a Fifth of July cookout with our neighbors D and J. It started with good intentions...a new smoker, some marinated chicken, you know, normal plans...until we realized (around 4 p.m. on the 4th of July) the smoker needed to be cured before we could cook with it. Which takes 3 hours on top of the 4 hours needed for smoking the actual dinner. Which meant dinner would be around midnight, and D and J have jobs that, unfortunately, make them not free all summer long (unlike us).

And so today, being a brand new day, brought similar plans (and the wonderful scent!) of applewood smoked jerk chicken along with a couple of intriguing side dishes, in our one-day-late-celebration of our nation's Independence Day.

First, the chicken. We marinated several chicken pieces in a store-bought jerk seasoning. We set up the smoker with applewood chips and allowed the chicken to smoke for four hours. Without even lifting the lid (which was a huge temptation to resist, btw!)!!!

Second, the rice. We almost always make our rice (except our risotto) in a rice cooker because it comes out perfectly cooked and fluffy, the way rice should be. Tonight, we used basmati rice, but instead of plain old water, we substituted coconut water for a little bit of cool tropical flavor.

Finally, to round out the meal, Chris chopped up a whole pineapple and tossed it with fresh lavender and some vanilla sugar for a tasty side dish.

So,tonight's meal is: Applewood-Smoked Jerk Chicken with Coconut Rice and Pineapple-Lavender Salad. It may not be as patriotic as burgers and dogs, but it works for us.

Now, we don't really have any "recipes," for this meal, but to recap: we used Walkerswood Jerk Seasoning to marinate the chicken, substituted coconut water for water to cook our rice, and tossed chopped pineapple with some lavender and sugar infused with vanilla bean. D did a fabulous job grilling up corn on the cob too. If you have specific questions, don't hesitate to email us! And Happy 5th of July!!!