Things have gotten busy in my corner, starting with the launch of a food blog with Orange Coast magazine (covering foodthings in Orange County!). Almost exactly on the blog’s launch date, things at my day job swelled, and I’m working longer hours to meet the writing/editing demands. It’s hairy, to say the least.

I’m not at all complaining, though. Life is full right now. But thankfully, it’s full of very, very awesome things.

All of this means I’ve been coming home later than usual. Instead of cooking, I’d much rather order pizza or some Thai, or (ideally) have someone spoon feed me soup or bread pudding for dinner. I specifically say bread pudding because it’s one of the most ultimate comfort foods, one where you don’t have to expel much effort to eat it. Bread pudding requires little chewing, if any at all. And right off of the spoon, it slithers down the back of your throat in a savory mush that warms your insides in a medicinal sort of way. (I underbake it just to experience this exact sensation every time.) Other mushy foods like mashed potatoes and guacamole tend to stick to the roof of your mouth, but bread pudding seems to know where it’s going right from the get-go.  You spoon it in,  and down it goes without any resistance at all. And it’s got chutzpah: If it could, I bet the it would make it’s own little slurping noises when you swallow it.

I bought Sunday Suppers at Lucques at the Los Angeles Times book fair a few years ago. Chef Suzanne Goin was perched in a booth signing books for a line that was at least 45 minutes long. After she signed mine, I sat on the grass and flipped through it, almost immediately landing on this recipe for caramelized bread pudding with chocolate and cinnamon. With that page alone, Goin made me a fan.

Now, if only someone would make this bread pudding for me before I summon the pizza guy. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

Note: The recipe’s procedure is rewritten to reflect how I prepared the dish. For the original recipe, you can turn to page 353 in Sunday Suppers, or click on this link to the New York Times, where the recipe was published in 2003.

Other changes: I used 8 slices of French bread instead of broiche because the former was selling for cheaper. I cubed the bread into 1-inch cubes, so that the pieces would be bite-sized and a little more mushier than the original recipe. The pudding turned out really well, though if you have a sweet tooth you may want to stick with the brioche. Also, instead of the chopped bittersweet chocolate, I just used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips to save myself a step.

CARAMELIZED CHOCOLATE BREAD PUDDING

Adapted from Sunday Suppers at Lucques by Suzanne Goin and Teri Gelber

Yield: 6 servings

• 5 to 6 1/2-inch-thick slices brioche
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 ounces best quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 4 eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon raw sugar (optional)

PROCEDURE:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a pot, bring some water to a boil. The water will be used later to create a bain marie for the bread pudding. Place a large roasting pan in the oven.
2. Cube bread and place in a greased 10-inch cake pan with 4-inch sides (or the pan of your choosing). In a microwave-safe measuring cup, melt butter. Pour butter over bread cubes and toss to coat. Add chocolate chips and toss to distribute.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, heavy cream, milk, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Pour custard on top of bread, and toss to coat. Make sure you have coated all of the bread cubes.
4. When water comes to a boil, place bread pudding pan inside the roasting pan in oven and pour enough boiling water into roasting pan to come halfway up sides of casserole. Bake until custard is just set, about 40 minutes to 1 hour. Pudding is done when bread in center puffs up and springs to the touch.
OPTIONAL STEP: If you have a kitchen blowtorch, sprinkle the tablespoon of raw sugar over top of pudding, and use torch to lightly caramelize sugar. If you do not have a blowtorch, skip this step (a broiler will curdle custard). Pudding should be served warm. Serve with ice cream!

– Cynthia Furey

There’s this story of a famous journalist who started his career at a daily paper in a town so tiny, that there was no real news to write about. I mean, we’re talking daily AP photos of squirrels on skis and a whole lotta bake sale stories.

But he refused to settle for those ho-hum tales. Instead, this guy would throw a dart at a city map that was hanging on his wall, and wherever the dart landed was where he was going to find his next story. It didn’t matter if the dart pierced the middle of an intersection or the corner of an open corn field. He would find a story.

Using that method, he met all kinds of interesting people, and equally interesting stories ensued. Now, he’s a big-deal reporter in a metropolitan city. Bake sales be damned.

I never learned the name of this guy – and that detail alone makes the tale scream fiction over fact. But real or not, it reminds me to think creatively when developing recipes: Pick an ingredient and develop the flavors around it, just as he picked a place and developed a story around it.

The tale also helps when choosing one recipe over another to try. But instead of using the dart method, I close my eyes and mix up all the cookbooks on my office floor, then point a finger at a page. There. Done.

It was a similar situation when I made this Gorgonzola and leek crème brulee. It was one in a handful of recipes that we testers at Leite’s Culinaria had to choose from in order to fulfill our monthly testing duties. I closed my eyes, and with finger poised at the computer screen, I made a selection.

Only, as luck would have it, my fat, sausage-of-a-finger landed on three recipes instead of one. Of course, I thought. Just when this dart method of choosing was proving to be foolproof, this happens.

But fat finger be damned. I made them all.

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for more)

This recipe isn’t up on Leite’s site just yet, but I will be sure to link to it when it is. In the meantime, I found the recipe on Epicurious’ site, (score!), and it follows below.

GORGONZOLA AND LEEK CRÈME BRULEE
Adapted from Epicurious (recipe from “Crème Brulee” by Lou Seibert Pappas)

Yield: 6 servings

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 medium-large leeks (about 12 ounces total), split lengthwise, washed thoroughly, and sliced crosswise
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 5 large egg yolks
• 1 cup heavy (whipping) cream
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 5 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh dill or tarragon, or 3/4 teaspoon dried dill or tarragon
• 3 tablespoons minced Italian parsley
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 24 teaspoons or 6 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

PROCEDURE:

1. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. In a medium saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the leeks and onion, and sauté for 7 to 10 minutes, or until soft.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks until they are a pale yellow. Whisk in the cream and half-and-half. Mix in the leeks, onions, Gorgonzola, dill or tarragon, parsley, salt, and pepper.
3. Place six standard-size flan dishes in a baking pan. Divide the custard mixture among the dishes. Pour warm water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the dishes (to create a bain marie). Bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the center of each custard still jiggles slightly. Remove from the oven and lift the dishes from the hot water. Place the dishes on a baking sheet.
4. Evenly sprinkle 4 teaspoons grated cheese or 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar over each custard. Using a hand-held blowtorch, brown the cheese. Serve hot.

– Cynthia Furey

If ever there was a particular herb or scent to describe my mother, it’s ginger. It’s her go-to remedy for almost all ailments headaches, flu, whatever you got. When I was a kid, with even the slightest sniffle, she was in the kitchen tossing bits of the nubby little root into a stock pot full of water.

When the pot had boiled, her voice bellowed through the walls into the bedroom we shared, through the sheets and used Kleenex I had burrowed under. It was one word, both used as an announcement and a stern command. “Steam!!”

I shuffled from my bed into the kitchen, where my mother stood exactly as I had pictured she would be: Upright, one hand on her hip and the other hand pointing downward at the ginger pot on the floor, in front of the wooden stool my grandfather had made.

I handed her a wad of Kleenex as I positioned myself on the stool, crouched uncomfortably over the pot that was between my knees. My mom hurled a blanket over my head and the pot, sealing me into a little heat pod. Scalding steam rose from the water, stinging my face. I cried out in discomfort.

“You have to do it,” she said, as I whimpered from under the blanket. She firmly believed that the ginger would cure the sniffles. So I sat, breathing in deeply the spicy-sweet aroma, at the same time trying to keep my knees from touching the sides of the pot. After I emerged from the blanket I was a defeated, sweaty mess. But the sniffles? Gone. I was usually back to normal the following day.

We did this ritual every time I got sick – even well into my teens, when I much preferred self-medication to ancient herbal remedies that had been passed down the family tree.

It’s been years since I’ve posed over a pot of boiling ginger, that is, until I made this recipe for ginger crème brulee. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for more)

My boyfriend and I were joining old friends for a New Year’s Eve dinner, and I wanted to bring something to help us recover from 2008. For many people I know, 2008 was a bit of a tough year (confirmed when I received a text message right after midnight that simply stated “Woohoo! Suck it 2008!” instead of the usual “happy new year!”), so I felt we needed some healing from the year’s maladies. Ginger crème brulee was perfect.

One of its main ingredients is whipping cream, which acts as a blank canvas in the recipe. When heated, the ginger is steeped like a tea. (Note: You can actually do this with virtually any spice or herb; it’s how flavored ganaches are made.) I added just a tad more ginger than the recipe called for and when the cream simmered, its familiar aroma wafted through my kitchen. I hovered over the pot and inhaled deeply. There was that same, sunny scent that healed me as a child. I hoped that by eating it, my friends would heal, too.

Ginger and vanilla bean crème brulee

Adapted from Epicurious.com

• Serves 6
• For Custard
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons chopped peeled fresh ginger
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 5 large egg yolks
• For Crème Brûlée
• 12 teaspoons sugar
• Sliced tropical fruit (such as mango, papaya and/or kiwi)

PROCEDURE:

1. To make custard: Preheat oven to 325°F. Place three 4-inch-diameter fluted flan dishes* in each of two 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pans or place six 3/4-cup ramekins in 1 pan. In heavy medium saucepan, mix together cream, sugar and ginger. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean with a paring knife. Add seeds and bean to saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves and mixture comes to simmer. Cover pan, reduce heat to very low and simmer gently for 10 minutes to infuse flavors. Strain into large measuring cup or a small pitcher with a spout.

2. Whisk egg yolks in medium bowl until well blended. Gradually whisk in hot cream mixture just to blend this will temper the eggs). Return custard to measuring cup; divide among dishes. Pour enough hot water into pans to come halfway up sides of dishes. Transfer pans to oven.

3. Bake custards until almost set in center when pans are gently shaken, about 30 minutes for fluted flan dishes and 35 minutes for ramekins. Transfer custards in dishes to work surface to cool 30 minutes. Chill at least 3 hours and up to 2 days.

4. To brulee: Sprinkle 2 teaspoons of sugar evenly over each custard. Working with 1 custard at a time, hold blowtorch** so that flame is 2 inches above surface. Direct flame so that sugar melts and browns, about 2 minutes each custard.

5. Refrigerate until custards are firm again but topping is still brittle, at least 2 hours but no longer than 4 hours so that topping doesn’t soften. Garnish as desired with fruit, whipped cream or powdered sugar.

*Four-inch-diameter fluted clear glass flan dishes are available at cookware stores and many hardware stores. They are about 2/3 inch deep and hold about 1/2 cup liquid.

**Available at some cookware stores.

– Cynthia Furey