Berry Clafoutis

The recipes in the New York Times Cooking Pages often have names that tell the main ingredients (e.g. Roasted Salmon with Miso Cream; Uncooked Tomato and Mint Sauce with Poached Eggs). Clafoutis, however, was a mystery to me. Since I have harvested a lot of berries (both blueberries and blackberries) from my yard this summer I was on the lookout for berry recipes so I investigated this Julia Child egg-based dessert. 

This was rather easy to make. The eggs, milk, and 1/3 c. of sugar were blended together. A small amount was put in a pie plate and then heated on the stovetop until it began to harden. I imagine this step wasn't absolutely necessary. Berries and more sugar were added, then the rest of the egg batter. It was all placed in the oven at 350 and baked until ready. Mine took longer than the 50 minutes called for in the recipe. I find this is often the case when I bake. The final touch as a sprinkling of powdered sugar, which really does enhance the flavors.

This was a not-too-sweet treat, with a definite egg-y flavor.

Chicken Salad

A few weeks ago while James was in Brazil (and I was on my own) I thawed, poached, and shredded two chicken breasts. Although I only needed one breast to prepare Chilaquiles, I cooked both simply because they came in a package of two. Once the superfluous breast was shredded I put it in the freezer to use later.

Often in the summer I like to have cool salads for meals, so last week I took the prepared chicken out of the freezer, thawed it and made a chicken salad. I decided not to follow any recipe and let the ingredients I had on had be my guide. 

The chicken was mixed with two dollops of  sour cream, about 1/4 c. chopped red onion, and some salt, pepper, and dried basil. At this point I gave it a taste test and determined that it was a bit "onion forward"  so I found some prepared cranberry sauce in the refrigerator and added about two tablespoons. The sweet/tart flavor softened the harsh onion for a lovely flavor combination. We made sandwiches with the salad and had some roasted potatoes on the side.