Was anyone else as excited as I was to make this French onion soup? I have a paralegal in my office (Codename: Chanclas) who adores French onion soup so much that when our firm has a luncheon at a high-end steakhouse, all she talks about is the French onion soup. Now, I’m not that crazed to forgo steak in favor of soup, but I do appreciate a soup this warming and delicious, especially when the temperature outside is hovering on the low end of the thermometer.

I was also excited for this recipe because I bought a huge block of Gruyere from Costco and planned on being heavy-handed with shredding. I just love the oozing, melted, bubbling cheese as the soup comes out of the oven. I also used slices of the last mini-brioche loaf for the toasted “crouton” to float on top.

I will say that I’m glad I caramelized the onions the night before I assembled the soup because it took over an hour and a half for the onions to get this color. (I apologize for the dim photo, as it was taken at night with artificial light.) Had I waited to caramelize the onions the same day I wanted to serve the soup, I would’ve been nowhere near as excited about the soup as I am now.

To see how other bloggers fared with this cheese-topped onion soup, check out French Fridays with Dorie where we make recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours.

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie: BwJ assignment was chocolate truffle tartlets. Having made several quiches and tartlets for French Fridays with Dorie, I knew better than to make this entire dessert at once. To spare my sanity, I made the chocolate tart shell on one day and saved the filling for the next. I even used my own homemade cardamom-pecan biscotti I made weeks before to crumble in the filling. As for the baking itself, I had to leave my tartlets in the oven a bit longer than the recommended time in order to get that dry, crinkly looked.

In the end, the tartlet tasted like a delicious cake-like brownie but with a chewy cookie consistency. Does that make sense? I expected the tartlet to be rather dense, but it was surprisingly light, airy, and creamy. Though I’m not a huge chocolate fan, I did enjoy this tartlet. Good thing I only made two, or I’d have some serious sugar problems!

Overall, these tartlets were pretty easy to put together. So, I upped the ante by making Dorie’s suggestion of crispy cocoa cookies as an added flourish. However, I’m not sure I rolled out the chocolate cookie dough thin enough because these cookies weren’t super crispy like I’d thought. They more “mildly snappish” cookies. They were tasty nonetheless.

To see how other bloggers fared with Julia Child’s chocolate truffle tartlets, check out the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. Or, head over to this week’s hosts, spike.does.stuff, Good Eats ‘n Sweet Treats, or cookbookhabit to get the recipe.

As part of our Christmas party each year, my law firm has a holiday grab bag event where everyone lists three gifts they’d like to receive. The lists are collected, put in a bag, and then everyone pulls another person’s list and selects one item from that list to give them. For instance, my three “wishes” were 1) a two-year subscription to Cooking Light magazine; 2) a Williams-Sonoma mandoline and chip tray; or 3) a gift certificate to Macy’s. One of the paralegals (Codename: Chanclas) pulled my name and chose to give me the Cooking Light subscription. I think this was the best choice because I literally get a gift each month for the next two years!

Anyway, this chicken & rice with mushrooms recipe was featured in the January issue of Cooking Light. What made this dish extremely tasty was the intense flavor of the reconstituted porcini mushrooms themselves, with their soaking liquid being used to cook and infuse the brown rice with the same mushroom-y flavor. The green peas also added a nice pop of color and texture against the hearty brown rice and tender chicken. Overall, this was a filling and delicious main course!

If you’d like to try this recipe, it can be found here or below.

INGREDIENTS
2 c. boiling water
1/4 c. dried porcini mushrooms (about 1/4 ounce)
2 tbsp. olive oil, divided
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces (I used breasts)
1 tsp. sweet paprika
3/4 tsp. salt, divided
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper, divided
3/4 c. chopped onion
8 oz. cremini mushrooms, sliced (I used button mushrooms)
3/4 c. uncooked brown basmati rice
2 c. frozen green peas, thawed
1 tbsp. chopped fresh thyme

PREPARATION
1. Combine 2 cups boiling water and porcini mushrooms; let stand for 20 minutes. Drain through a sieve over a bowl, reserving soaking liquid. Finely chop mushrooms.
2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to pan; swirl to coat. Sprinkle chicken evenly with paprika, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Add chicken mixture to pan; sauté for 5 minutes or until chicken is browned, stirring occasionally. Remove chicken from pan.
3. Return pan to medium-high heat. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add onion and cremini mushrooms; sprinkle with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper; sauté 4 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Stir in reserved porcini liquid, chopped porcini, and rice; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer gently for 35 minutes. Stir in the reserved chicken, peas, and thyme. Cover and cook 10 minutes or until rice is tender and chicken is done.

This pasta was the main dish of another “all-Dorie” meal I served this month, and it received rave reviews. However, out of February’s four dishes, I was most worried about this one because it involved two ingredients I’d never cooked with before: mussels and chorizo.

My plan was to buy the mussels the morning of the dinner, as suggested by the seafood guy at Fox & Obel. But, I knew I wouldn’t have time to make an extra trip during that already busy morning. So, the evening before, I bought a pound of Prince Edward Island (Anne of Green Gables!) mussels, a bag of ice, and immediately took a cab home to put the mussels on ice and directly into the refrigerator. I crossed my fingers that they would still be alive the next day.

I also couldn’t tell which kind of chorizo I was supposed to buy. Dorie made it sound like the Spanish sausage-encased version, but I know the Mexican women in my office always talk about Mexican chorizo which is the crumbly-version. After making two calls to my secretary and discussing the dish with the charcutier in Fox & Obel, I settled on the Spanish chorizo and hoped it wasn’t too “heat-spicy” for my rather weak tolerance to anything insanely hot.

I was also concerned about when to add the specific ingredients to the sauce. The seafood guy said not to drop the mussels into the sauce until I was ready to serve the pasta. Plus, the charcutier said not to let the chorizo sit too long in the sauce or else orange oil from the chorizo would pool on top of the sauce. Gross. Despite my trepidation, it all worked out because the final sauce result was amazingly delicious and not oily! The Spanish chorizo was flavored nicely, the PEI mussels opened beautifully, and the thyme in the sauce was reminiscent of an aromatic pizza sauce, which I think is a bonus! Although I served the sauce on pasta, I can definitely see myself making this as a sauce for bread dipping.

To see how other bloggers fared with broth-braised potatoes, check out French Fridays with Dorie where we make recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours.

These little strawberry fudge hearts were my Valentine’s Day present to my nieces (Codenames: Chunklet and Bacon Monster)! Just melt a bag of white chocolate chips in a double boiler, and then mix in a can of strawberry frosting. Pour the mixture into a pan lined with plastic wrap, top with candy sprinkles, and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Once set, you can pull the whole block of fudge out by the plastic wrap and then cut into shapes. Simple!

I’m also linking this post to the “Sweet Love” link-up at Vardhini’s Kitchen!

After the great week I had blog-wise, I wanted to celebrate with a special breakfast this weekend. Enter Nigella Lawson’s oeuf en cocotte, or baked egg. Nigella’s version involves an organic egg baked in a buttered ramekin with cream for 15 minutes in a water bath. The decadence comes from a few droplets of white truffle oil (Nigella’s recommendation), but I used black truffle oil instead. I also added chopped organic thyme and rosemary during the last five minutes of baking and used one piece of multigrain toast for delicious and healthy “spoons” to scoop out the velvety, aromatic egg. This recipe can be found in Nigella Express.

You can still post for February’s Forever Nigella until the 28th. The format each month is “choose-your-own” recipe. See the (very few) rules for participating at the official Forever Nigella page at Sarah’s Maison Cupcake, who is also February’s host!

For this week’s ffwD assignment, Dorie made several suggestions of which I eschewed. First was using challah or brioche. Well, the brioche I made last month was eaten pretty quickly, so I opted to use one of the mini white loaves I made for the TwD/BwJ assignment instead.

Dorie also recommended following French pastry chef Pierre Herme’s interpretation of smearing bitter orange marmalade on the bread. Um, no thank you. I’ve never understood the chocolate-citrus fruit combination. But, to each their own. Instead, I used raspberry jam as a berry foundation for the warmed Nutella drizzle and chopped hazelnuts. I even went so far and made traditional “all-Nutella” slices as well.

Finally, Dorie wanted us to use fleur de sel to add a bit of saltiness to the sweet hazelnut chocolate and jam. I like the sweet and salty concept but used ground pink Himalayan salt instead. Overall, despite my substitutions, this turned out to be a very tasty afternoon snack!

Just as a reminder, my Facebook page for Yummy Chunklet is up and running. Check it out here! I set it up in honor of being Foodista’s Featured Food Blog of the Day earlier this week on Tuesday, February 7th.

To see how other bloggers fared with Nutella tartine, check out French Fridays with Dorie where we make recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours.

Hooray! This is my first week participating in the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group, who accomplished the phenomenal task of baking their way through Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours cookbook. Now, the TwD group is tackling Baking with Julia, also written by Dorie Greenspan.

Our first assignment was to bake white loaves. This recipe makes two regular-sized bread loaves, but one of my loaf pans didn’t survive the move. So, I made one regular-sized and four mini-loaves.

I was very excited to try my hand at yeast-dough baking in my new place, so I set aside a whole Saturday afternoon to work on the recipe. I took extra care and followed the instructions to a tee, including making sure the room temperature was perfect during the dough’s second rise. Yeah, I went there. And, the precautions paid off because this was my first truly successful attempt at yeast bread where I didn’t feel the need to make excuses for my final product! These loaves were definitely worth the time and effort, which wasn’t as bad as I thought, and they tasted pretty delicious. I’ve used the bread for sandwiches, toast, tartine and even as an onion soup topper!

As an aside, I’d like to do a little plug for my blog because it’s the Featured Food Blog of the Day for Tuesday, February 7th on Foodista.com!

My post on Nigella Lawson’s red pepper hummus will be featured on Foodista’s homepage, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Because of this honor, I set up a Facebook page for Yummy Chunklet here! I would love for everyone to do the Facebook thing and like me, comment on my wall, and drool over my photos! I’ll be doing mini-updates on dishes I’m working on and posting teaser photos of the same. Also, let me know if you have a Facebook page, and I’ll like you as well!

To see how other bloggers fared with Julia Child’s white loaves, check out the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. Or, head over to this week’s hosts, Laurie or Jules, to get the recipe.

Great news! Today, Alisa from Foodista informed me that my blog had been chosen as the Foodista Food Blog of the Day for Tuesday, February 7, 2012! On that day, my post, Nigella’s Red Pepper Hummus, will be featured on the Foodista homepage for 24 hours, and Foodista will be posting shoutouts of my blog on their Facebook and Twitter pages. How exciting is that?

I think this is a sign that I should create a Yummy Chunklet Facebook page. Actually, I’ve been contemplating the idea for awhile ever since I was chosen by Tom Hynes as a featured food blog on PR Newswire’s blog, Beyond PR. So, while the Yummy Chunklet Facebook page is under construction, please make sure to check out Foodista on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 when I’ll be the Foodista Food Blog of the Day! A big thanks to Alisa and everyone at Foodista for this honor!

I made these quiche as part of another make-ahead “All Dorie assignment” dinner I served last week. I know this seems like cheating and that I should be making these recipes one at a time each week. But, my work and social schedules are getting rather hectic now, so in order to actually participate and not skip weeks, I thought it better to get all the recipes done at once. Besides, it gave me a chance to dedicate one whole day to cooking and baking!

With that confession out, I took a page from my previous tart-making experiences and made the tart dough the night before which saved so much time. And, I was less frustrated this time around because I actually had a good amount of marble counter space to successfully roll out the chilled tart dough. No more hand pressing for me!

I stuck with making mini-quiche versions because I refuse to buy one large tart pan when I have six perfectly good small ones. In another bit of defiance, I used regular Gorgonzola instead of hunting for the dolce, which I’m not 100% convinced exists in Chicago since I didn’t see it in my local Trader Joe’s or Fox & Obel. Regardless, these mini quiche were quite tasty, and I can see myself making them again.

To see how other bloggers fared with Dorie’s gorgonzola-apple quiche, check out French Fridays with Dorie where we make recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours.