Croissants (really, I made croissants) + other croissant-ish things

Oh, hi! Yep, we're still here, I promise. Just busy. Work is nuts, the kiddo is rounding the corner on her first birthday (!!), and cooking at this stage is....funny. It's not over, not by any means: if you open my fridge, you'll see a rather sundry assortment of edibles, including a stuffing that I made because I had the ingredients, some leftover vegetarian chili from an epic batch that fed our family plus three friends who just had babies (!), a few stray hunks of cheese, some concord grapes that I scored at Whole Foods after the local season was over, sue me, plus a little container of my pear sauce mixed with yogurt, for the babe. As they do.

So yes, we're cooking. (Okay: I'm cooking.) Sometimes I'm just cooking down some pears with cinnamon and pureeing them, but Adi goes to town on my chicken wings like the best of them. Watching her take to food, specifically things I make but really any food, has been one of the best things about this year. (Also: kid is ticklish like you wouldn't believe. It's the best thing ever.)

But sometimes, I get an odd hankering for fussing in the kitchen over something fancier and more involve. 1% of those times, I actually go ahead and make it. So it was two weeks ago: I wanted croissants on Friday, and by Sunday brunch, we were eating hot, buttery, flaky croissants that I MADE MYSELF.

This is my third attempt to make croissants. The first two times, I followed Chad Robertson's recipe. His croissants are my gold standard: I literally cried tears of happiness the first time I bit into a Tartine Bakery croissant. But those recipes, what is the deal with their editors? The instructions are unclear and often misleading. In the case of the croissants, their flavor was fantastic but they didn't proof enough pre-baking, and they ended up denser than they should be.

This third time, I went down a different road, entrusting my pounds of butter in the capable hands of François Payard, at whose now-closed Payard Bistro I had one of my first truly excellent meals in New York. His croissant recipe took me across the finish line.

This isn't a shortcut croissant recipe. It's slightly condensed (e.g. two folds at once means less waiting time), but it's also just straightforward and well-written. The dough isn't a hundred parts - no poolish/sourdough/dough here. Just one big mess that becomes two big pans with rows and rows of beautiful croissants.

Most of them were plain, the better to cradle some butter and jam at brunch time. But I set aside a couple pieces of dough to recreate this seasonal pastry from Dolcezza, because croissant dough + pureed squash + seeds + cheese is a winner.

For those of you reading this and rolling your eyes: I'll post something less fussy next time, I promise.

For now, it's off to Barcelona, where I plan to eat all of the things and drink mostly vermouth. CANNOT WAIT.

François Payard's Croissants
Adapted, just barely, from this recipe

Ingredients
1 tablespoon yeast
1⁄2 cup (120 grams) milk
1⁄3 cup (67 grams) sugar
1 1⁄2 cups plus
3 sticks + 2 tablespoons (374 grams) unsalted butter, barely softened; plus 3 tablespoons melted and cooled
1 tablespoon powdered milk
1 tablespoon kosher salt
4 cups flour

Put yeast into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Add 1/2 cup warm water, stir to combine, and let sit for 5-10 minutes, until starting to foam. Add milk, sugar, the 3 tablespoons of melted butter, powdered milk, and salt. Stir to combine. Add flour; mix on low speed until mostly incorporated. Raise speed to medium and mix until a stiff dough forms, about 5 minutes. Transfer dough to work surface and form into a thick square. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate 2 hours.

Place remaining butter on a sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper; cover with another sheet. Using a rolling pin, pound and shape butter into a 6-inch square that's 1/2-inch thick. Set aside.

Remove dough from refrigerator. Use rolling pin to roll dough into a 16-inch square on a lightly floured work surface. Unwrap butter square, and place butter square on dough square rotated 45 degrees, so its corners line up with the middle point of each side of dough square (the butter should look like a diamond on top of the dough square).

Fold dough corners over butter so they meet in the center. Roll dough into a 12″ x 9″ rectangle, and then tri-fold dough like a letter. Roll the dough into a 12″ x 9″ rectangle again, and repeat folding. Wrap in plastic wrap; chill for 30 minutes. Repeat rolling and folding dough described above (roll and fold twice each); then chill for 1 hour.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Roll dough into a 20″ x 14″ sheet, 1/4-inch thick; halve lengthwise. Cut each half into about 9 triangles, about 3 1/2 inches wide at their base. Roll each triangle from the wide base to the narrow tip, forming a tight roll. Transfer each croissant onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving at least 1 inch between croissants. Let croissants sit until doubled in size, about 2 1/2–3 hours.

Heat oven to 375°. Working with one baking sheet at a time, brush croissants with egg wash; bake until deep golden brown, about 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Mushroom and Kale Breakfast Strata

Turns out, unsettling from the old place was much harder than settling into the new place. Luisa told me that I shouldn’t worry if, for weeks after the move, I still wondered when we’d finally go back home. That’s just what I expected to feel. But those final weeks pre-move were so stressful and sleepless and unsettling that by the time we unpacked everything, the place already had started to feel like ours.

It helps that 24 hours after move-in, we were fully unpacked. That’s my leading lady: she’s extremely efficient, she hates transitions, she wants it donedonedone. So it was.  By Sunday morning, I was back to weighing coffee beans, pouring the slow stream of hot water over my filter, setting my favorite mug on the counter. And exactly one week after that, with both my brother and old friends in town, we managed to host some folks for brunch.

Save for a few old jars and nubbins of past-prime vegetables, the contents of our fridge made the move with us. Among the contents: half a stale baguette, most of a bunch of kale, and the end of a log of goat cheese. This is practically the holy trinity of strata, so strata it was. It's simple, really: stale bread, some sauteed vegetables. A not-very-large quantity of milk, a not-very-small quantity of heavy cream. Layer; bake. Poof: the house smells like home.

And speaking of recipes that bring us home, I need to tell you about a book.

My friend Jess, she of the wonderful blog Sweet Amandine, has written a book (!!) about her brain aneurysm, and also, food. A confusing combination, no? But it works. Oh, does it work.

When Jess was 28, an aneurysm ruptured in her brain. The recovery was slow and uneven. To regain a sense of normalcy - and to fill the long days - Jess started baking. Stir is the story of the recipes that helped her heal.

In college, Jess was the awesome senior who ran the a cappella choir, lurking in my social periphery. We reconnected over our blogs, though - and one day, in Boston for business with a morning to myself, I hopped over to her place for brunch. Jess was one month into motherhood, an impossibly tiny Mia bundled in the stroller she pushed on our walk. We picked up bread from High Rise Bakery - a corn flour loaf, I think - and back home, she cooked me what to this day are the most perfect sunny-side-up eggs I've ever had. While she made the eggs, Jess put me to work grinding beans for my coffee. She's a tea person, but she still managed to have the world's coolest Hario grinder and Chemex carafe. I learned about both from her. I also heard more about why she'd started the blog in the first place.

Jess has quite a story to tell, and she tells it perfectly. (Frankly, she could write about wallpaper, and you'd still want to read more.) She also shares recipes at the end of each chapter, and having tested several of them, I can tell you that they, alone, are worth the price of the book. Apricots with cardamom and pistachios? Yes. My favorite Jess recipe, ever. Folded slow-rise challah? Feathery and brioche-like. You want it. An almond cake requiring one bowl, one pan, and lots of self control? Friday night dinner just got fancy.

Jess is baaacckkk. Go read her book. Make her apricots; serve them for brunch, with this strata, or just eat them straight out of the fridge. Toast your health and hers. Congrats, dear Jess!

Mushroom and Kale Breakfast StrataAdapted, just slightly, from Merrill Stubbs, of Food52

This is almost exactly Merrill's strata formula, minus sausage plus mushrooms. I did reduce the amount of pecorino, since I find it easily overpowers other flavors. I swapped out gruyere in favor of goat cheese, too. Merrill recommends assembling the strata 6 hours before serving, to let the bread fully soak up the liquid. I didn't do this - not everyone plans brunch in advance! - and the strata came out great anyway.

1 tablespoon olive oil 1 tablespoon butter 1 sweet white or yellow onion, diced 8 oz. mixed mushrooms (I used a mix of cremini and shiitake), wiped clean and sliced 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 large bunch kale (I prefer dino, the kind with the bumpy dark green leaves), stems removed, washed, dried, and chopped 6 eggs 1 1/2 cups whole milk 1/4 cup heavy cream 1 tablespoon smooth dijon mustard 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly ground if possible) a few grinds of black pepper 7 cups cubed stale bread 5 oz. goat cheese, crumbled 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese 1/4 cup grated pecorino cheese

Butter a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside. If serving the strata immediately (see headnote), preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat olive oil and butter in a large, shallow sauté pan over medium heat. Add onion, and sauté until soft and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and salt and increase heat to medium-high. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until onions and mushrooms have softened and some have turned golden, 5-7 minutes. Add kale, reduce heat to medium, and cook until kale has wilted, about 3 minutes more. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, mustard, nutmeg, and pepper until fully combined. To assemble the strata, spread half of the cubed bread into the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Top with half the greens, half the egg mixture, and half of each of the cheeses. Repeat with the remaining bread, greens, and egg mixture; sprinkle the remaining half of each of the cheeses over the top of the strata. At this point, either bake the strata immediately, or set in the fridge for up to 6 hours to set.

Bake strata for 35-45 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the middle is set (check with a toothpick). Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Barley Porridge with Orange and Black Sesame

This was the big weekend, the one where home changed locations.

I keep trying to remember the day we moved out of our first apartment in this city, into a slightly larger, slightly quieter one four doors up the block. I can picture the movers -- one in particular, who carried a very tall bookshelf on his back around three flights of curved stairs like it was a pocketbook. I remember our first night in the new place, marveling at how much of a difference four doors west could make for the noise level. Everything was so...quiet. But before I picture all of this, my mind skips two steps backward, to the day I moved us into that first apartment, on the corner of a quiet street and a busy one. The apartment with the big bay window, the Formica counters, the incredibly-hip and not-totally-practical lofted bedroom, the wall I insisted on painting pink. Move-in day was just me - D was still in Michigan - and a pile of cheap furniture I'd found on Craigslist. One of the two front doors was stuck shut, so I spent the bulk of the day jamming the legs of various tables in the small front opening, then around and around that three-flight twisted staircase.

That was eight years ago. Since then, we've accumulated five more bottles of bitters (current favorites: Fee Brothers black walnut; Jack Rudy aromatic), and a pantry full of last year's preserves threatening to take away my canner for the season if I don't use them up soon. And of course, now we've got our daughter, too. She comes with her own accumulation: books and toys and tall stacks of hand-me-downs that could last beyond her first birthday. There certainly was more to pack and move this time around, which caused several nights of sleeplessness, 24 hours of mild turmoil, and lingering fatigue. But even more daunting than the actual move is the prospect of trying to hold onto memories from three homes. I don't want to lose any of it.

Our kitchen has been dark for much of the past month, save for a couple meals over father's day and a last-hoorah birthday dinner for our friend Jana. But before we shut down operations entirely, I cooked a batch of porridge from Ottolenghi's newest book, Plenty More, for breakfasts.

In a week full of transitions, that porridge was the perfect thing. Comforting and familiar, like a good bowl of oatmeal. Fresh and intriguing, from fragrant marinated orange segments and a pile of sugary, crunchy sesame seeds. The new and the old, together. That is how we will proceed.

Barley Porridge with Orange and Black Sesame Adapted from Ottolenghi's new cookbook, Plenty More Serves 4

I find constant inspiration from Ottolenghi's recipes - his celebration of vegetables, his bold embrace of meatless feasts. That said, his recipes are extraordinarily fussy, and -- at least for me -- not always in ways that improve the result. I've simplified his instructions liberally, so that something as homey as porridge can stay that way. If you want to make the original, get the cookbook. It's worth it.

For the porridge:
1 tablespoon mixed black and white sesame seeds
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon muscovado sugar, divided
125 grams (scant cup) whole or pearled barley, covered with cold water and soaked overnight
750 ml (3 cups plus 2 tablespoons) whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of 1/2 a lemon Zest of an orange
Salt
20g tahini

For the orange topping:
1 orange
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/4 teaspoon orange blossom water

Prepare orange topping: Peel off a strip of orange rind and add to a small saucepan. Next, supreme the orange, transferring both the segments and the resulting juice drippings into a bowl as you work. Set aside.

Add sugar and water to the pan with the strip of zest. Bring to a boil, stirring regularly, and cook until sugar has dissolved, about 3 minutes. Set aside to cool; then add orange blossom water and reserved orange segments and juice.

Make porridge: Drain and rinse the barley. Tip it into a medium saucepan with the remaining 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar, milk, citrus zest, and a three-finger pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to medium-low and simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally, until the barley is cooked but still has some bite: if it's becomes very thick, add a little water towards the end.

Make sesame topping: Toast sesame seeds by shaking them around in a small, dry pan over medium heat until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Combine seeds and 1 teaspoon of muscovado sugar in a mortar, and crush lightly. Set aside.

Serve: Stir vanilla into porridge, then leave to cool for five minutes. Divide between four bowls. Dribble a teaspoon of tahini over each portion, spoon the orange segments and syrup, and sprinkle with sesame topping.