Not-Quite Real-time Cordon Bleu blogging by Vivi

Saturday night
I started Lesson #14 Saturday night after finishing dinner and dishes. I couldn't find any candied orange peel (for the orange ice cream) at the store, so I decided to make my own. I hadn't looked very hard -- I remember Blithe making candied citrus peel (was it grapefruit or orange?) in married student housing in St. Anthony Park, back in The Day. I also started the old-fashioned No-Knead Bread, (since my copy of the infamous Artisan Breads in 5 Dollars a Day hasn't come in from the library yet) so I had to get that stirred together 18 hours before second rise.

Sunday morning
This morning I completed the candied orange peel, which then required to air-dry for an hour (end of Joy of Cooking recipe) and then to macerate in Cointreau for another hour (beginning of the Cordon Bleu recipe -- I used my homemade 44 instead of Cointreau). Then I took a break from Cordon Bleu and made Breakfast Burritos for the gang who go out to play soccer at 8:30 a.m. every Sunday (from a recipe in The Week magazine).


Sunday afternoon
Half the afternoon was spent badgering, urr, encouraging Boy-Child to write up his Science Fair project. The other half seemed to go to making the Orange Ice Cream. First the base, which was egg yolks, sugar, and hand-squeezed orange juice (no diary in this ice "cream"). Then the chilling of the base. Then the freezing in the ice cream making machine (which has a place of honor on a drop-down shelf built by the resident Bleus Brother, outside the back door). Then the continued chilling of the thickened ice cream in the freezer.

And then the pureeing of the strawberries for the sauce. I used frozen (the fresh are hit -- bullseye hit -- or miss, these days). The recipe calls for something like 1 cup of confectioner's sugar with the puree, but remembering that Cordon Bleu is often too sweet for my taste, I used perhaps 1/4 of that (after ascertaining that the puree did need some sweetening). And It Was Good.

As early afternoon slid into late afternoon, I baked the No-Knead Bread and started on the main dishes for dinner.


Late afternoon, early evening
I'm still not having much luck with mussels. The Coquilles Saint Jacques Dieppoise was supposed to be mussels, shrimp and scallops -- but I discovered that the stink in the fridge was that every single one of my mussels were dead by the time I went to cook them. I bought them only yesterday, but I guess Fred Meyer is not the place to buy mussels. (Also, they were picked up early in my shopping run, and they may simply have gotten too warm while I finished my purchases. I feel badly for all those wasted little lives.) In the end, the dish was good, but I think it would have been better with the mussels -- the sauce (in Lesson #6) of mussels, shallots, butter, wine and parsley was amazing.

However, the Foie de Veau (or in my case, Pork Loin Chops) was delicious, and quite easy to make (relatively speaking). It is sautéed meat, with a sauce of the drippings in the pan seared with apple cider vinegar and beef broth (supposed to be veal stock, but you take what you can get). On the side, roasted potatoes and apples. Really really good potatoes and apples, and the meat was delicious, too. I fried up one slice of calf's liver, to try. We all dutifully tasted it (including, surprisingly Girl-Child, who hated it, but at least she tried), and gratefully returned to the pork. The sauce was perfect with the dark flavor of the liver, but you have to really like liver (which I don't).

The Porc au Vinaigre et aux Deux Pommes gets very high marks from the whole household, on a par with our very favorites, the Truite Amandine and the Fish Cassoulet.

Sunday night
We finished off with the ice cream, in its pool of strawberry sauce. It didn't entirely freeze hard, but even in softserve format it worked particularly well. I do not as a rule care for fruit ice creams, yet I went back for seconds, and even for thirds, and now am doubting I will ever fit into a nice dress for Daughter-of-The-Bride's wedding in only 2.5 months.

We think this dessert would be especially good in deep summer, when it's very hot outside -- on one of those days when we take hours to drift through dinner, and drink a whole pitcher of Sangria between us.