(no subject)

[noahgibbs]

For the record: another damn fine weekend.

Had a good fancy dinner with friends on Friday, a wedding present for a Happy Couple of acquaintances.

Saw Circus Contraption on Saturday, which was morbidly beautiful, and had crepes three (!) times that day. I was the one cooking them only one of those times. Combination to recommend: blackberry and apricot. Nifty crepe condiment: very spicy plum chutney. Now I just have to find a use for a lot more spicy plum chutney :-)

I made dinner for a different pair of married friends on Sunday evening. I did something relatively complicated, at least for me. Always good. I made marinated chicken breasts, baked brie, this excellent salad with goat cheese and pears and vinaigrette, and then managed to forget about the broccoli and green beans until they were slightly oversteamed and the guests were stuffed with chicken and brie. Ah, well -- I'll call the meal successful in any case. Oh, and pie! I just used a Safeway apple pie, but it was still good. Anyway, yay for weekends where I cook!

I do need to try to be more conversational and pay less attention to cooking and washing stuff and whatnot. I have something like mertuil's hosting problems that way. Of course, if I'd just get around to getting more plates and silverware I could stop having to wash up every time I feed four people :-)

I have a dressy grey sweater I'd forgotten about. It looks very distinguished, which is probably why I forgot about it. I tend to forget that I can look sorta like the less-attractive magazine models. I have a decend build, at least for hanging clothes on. Anyway, I'm surprised at how old the guy in the mirror looks when I'm wearing the sweater. I've just bought more clothes that are similar that way, so we'll see how it all plays out.

Comments

[miss-mimsy.livejournal.com]

We could start a 12-step group.

Hi, My name is Rachel, and I am a compulsive hostess.

God, grant me the serentity to accept the messes I cannot clean
the courage the clean the messes I can
and the wisdom to hire a maid service.

[wuttd.livejournal.com]

Isn't brie some kind of cheez? How do you go about baking it? I'm thinking, cheese in a hot oven would just become melted cheese in a hot oven followed by burnt melted cheese in a hot oven. I remember leaving a tray of InstaReady Lasagne in the oven too long, and when I was finally reminded of it because a wierd smell started coming from the kitchen, I noticed when I open the oven that burnt cheese was no longer liquid looking, rather it was a hard, blackish looking substance coating what was left of the lasagne.

Anyway, enough about my anti-Martha Stewart cooking experiences. Presumably (hopefully), baked brie doesn't look anything like what I found in the oven...

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Brie is indeed a cheese. It's like mozzarella in that it melts quite gracefully, and it usually comes in a low, wide cylinder with white rind all over the outside that you can bake it in. The brie melts at a lower temperature than the rind so you put it in to get nice and warm, pop it out and put it on a plate (it feels quite gooey since the rind is solid but the center is liquid brie) and then eat it, usually with garlic bread. You cut into the circle of cheese-and-white-rind, grab a chunk, and spread it on the bread. Mmm....

More advanced practitioners can cut away the rind so you can get just the brie. I don't bother with that normally since it's all quite edible, and the guests can do that for themselves without too much trouble. The next obvious step beyond that is to serve it with roasted garlic. Mmm....

I'm becoming much more Martha-Stewartly in my old age. Not that I've achieved a vast amount of that but the contrast with me-in-college is striking. At least to me.

[wuttd.livejournal.com]

Dude, that sounds easy enough even for me to do. How do you determine the temperture to set the oven and when the brie is done?

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I use a temperature of around 150. I wouldn't go hotter than 250 or so (maybe lower) to avoid burning the rind, but that's just a guess. You could even use a toaster-oven if you were so inclined.

You can tell it's done by poking it with your finger or a butterknife -- you'll feel it being all sloshy and liquid inside. If you use a low temperature you can give it a nice long time without problems, it'll just stay melted.

A quick google search on "baked brie" also shows a lot of people more industrious than me who do fancy things with it. For instance, you could trim the rind off the top and broil it until it's brown. Or mix it with spices and cream cheese. And I can tell you from experience that it sautees well with portobella mushrooms... Mmm... Tasty goo.

[wuttd.livejournal.com]

Chutney baked brie!

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Mmm... Chutney-baked brie.

They recommend 350 degrees in that recipe, but they also recommend about 15 minutes. I usually went for a less-warm oven for longer than that, so I guess I'm just a brie conservative :-)