March Shopping ~ Week#4/#3 ~ Cook & Gardner and Chocolate Arts

The Cook and the Gardener, published in 1999. A year of recipes from the French countryside The author spent one year working as a cook in a 17th century chateau in Burgundy, France. There are over 240 recipes arranged by season and a sweet introduction detailing the people who work at the estate, the lush gardens and numerous buildings on the vast acreage.

We start with Spring and a few basics: stock, bouquet garni, doughs, pie crusts, and a simple bread starter. There are short essays on onions, shallots and garlic, along with tips on buying, storing and preparation. The first month of recipes is March with chicken in a pot, potato & watercress salad, a confit of onions & red wine, onion soup and for dessert, a jam crostata.  For April, the offerings include pork rillettes, braised chicken, lettuce watercress soup, potato chervil tart and rhubarb preserves. May dishes tempt with a rabbit terrine, braised lamb, sweet glazed carrots, cool pea & potato salad and oregano breadsticks.

Summer is the next season highlighted ~ basics include pistou, vinaigrette, mayonnaise, green beans, jellies & jams, cassis and canning instructions for tomatoes, peaches and plums. June gives us Cornish hens, sauteed duck, marinated artichoke salad, a pea & relish salad, lavender sorbet and raspberry ice cream. In July, we are given the option of skewered beef, striped bass & fennel, zucchini-lemon soup, baby potatoes in hazelnut oil, sweet pea soup and a currant gooseberry tart. The offerings for August include grilled lamb chops, pork tenderloin with peaches, corn & cilantro salad, a cool tomato& mint soup and plum tartlets.

Autumn basics consist of preserves, stock, persimmons and two recipes for horseradish sauce. For September there is sage roasted beef with horseradish, roast duck, beef soup with orange, mushroom & ricotta salad, peach cream soup and honey-thyme ice cream. October offerings range from pork with apple thyme chutney, cod with bay leaf, pheasant with sorrel, beets with raspberry vinegar and a pear and almond tart. In November, thee is a white sausage with turnips, braised chicken with olives & bay leaves, pumpkin soup, carrot & ginger salad, horseradish mashed potatoes and walnut cake.

For the Winter basics there are tips for storing potatoes and a recipe for creme fraiche.  The month of December delivers oysters, steaks, leg of lamb, warm escarole salad, red cabbage confit, chestnut soup and walnut biscotti, while January offers duck & sausage stew, veal chops, winter leeks, Brussels sprouts with apples, pancetta-rosemary rolls and iced preserved peaches. The last month, February, has rabbit with prunes, chicken, ham hock soup, two salads made with lambs lettuce, a potato gallette,  herb pilaf, spinach soup and a dark chocolate raspberry souffle.

Chocolate Arts, published in 1995. The recipes were collected from painters, performers, musicians, poets and volunteers at the Chocolate Church Arts Center in Bath, Maine. The center opened in 1977 and serves as a workshop and performance space for children. At the start of the book there is a quick bit of information on chocolate ~ types, ways to melt, storing and decorating suggestions. Of course as the title suggests, ALL the recipes contain chocolate!

In Breads & Breakfast, there are scones, waffles, coffee cake and a chocolate gingerbread cake, while Cakes is filled with many yummy treats: black bottom cupcakes, chocolate-cola cake, pound cake, mud cake, chocolate banana cake, rum & chocolate cake, pudding cakes and a chocolate log cake. Candy Confections offers bourbon balls, fudge, turtles, candied orange peel, truffles, cashew clusters and chocolate dipped strawberries leaving Brownies & Bars to amaze with mound bars, chocolate raspberry truffles, mint sticks, old Henry bars, Kahlua brownies (or blondies) and toffee bars (made with brown sugar, oats, corn sugar, chocolate & peanut butter.

For Cookies, there is biscotti, macaroons, meringues, Mandelbrot and chocolate pecan and a few of the dishes in the Miscellaneous chapter include chili with chocolate, mole, fondue and steamed pudding. Some of the Drink recipes are almond mocha, frappes, an ice cream soda and syrup, with Extravaganzas delivers a truffle cake, sacher torte, black forest cherry cake, gateau Dacquoise (an 8 egg cake with almonds) and a chocolate rum cake with butter cream filling.

Frozen Chocolate treats include lady fingers, bombe, Charlottes, sorbets, souffles and mousse,  with similiar offerings in the Mousses, Puddings &  Souffles section, plus pots de creme, creme brulee, zabaglione and bread pudding. We end with Pies, Pastries and Cheesecakes with numerous cheesecake options ( caramel pecan, brownie marble), plus pie (!!) (French silk, creme de menthe and fudge pecan and lastly a black-eyed Susan tart.