Category: cooking

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Sea Turtles, matey!

Making a great bisque takes time, patience and quality ingredients
I wanted to make something special for my daughter Kristin. She loves those wonderful bread bowls filled with chowder or bisque. Personally, I prefer a bisque which has a smoother and less ‘extended’ composition. My bisques are basically pureed seafood with cream, brandy and wine,  mirapoix and thickened with rice.

Sauteing the seafood helps to extract the many and wonderful flavors and I use my favorite seasonings along with Thyme and Rosemary. Recipe to follow.

Roger Freberg

PS. I dedicate this to my daughter Kristin and Lane Kiffen the new Head Coach of the Sc Trojans! FIGHT ON!!!!

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baked alaska made easy

Baked Alaska Made easy!

I am always amused at how simple recipes often intimidate… when there really is no reason.

Baked Alaska is a simple cake and ice cream dish with a flare for meringue and sometimes a little showmanship of lighted dark rum! If you look closely in the top right part of the above photo collage, you will see the flames rising from dark rum splashed on top of the meringue.

The brownie cake base was a simple one and I am sure your own nutty and heavily chocolaty version would probably work well. I prefer using a heavy cake as it needs to support the weight of a couple of quarts of ice cream. I used three mixed flavors of ice cream pressed together in a Neapolitan style. The superior meringue was the traditional one we use in all our pies.

the Bombe Alaska Chefs clowning around the merengue prep.
Family Chefs Clowning around while making Meringue

In case you were wondering… it was delicious!

Roger

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cold and new years means it’s time for baked alaska

Baked Alaska "on fire" is Bombe Alaska!
Bombe Alaska or Baked Alaska?

As a child I loved the shear extravagance of a ‘Baked Alaska.’ My grandmother would make this on those very rare occasions when my grandfather would actually allow her to cook… but since she had been a professional chef, I think he thought she had done her bit. However, I was always grateful when we would cook.

So, it’s cold outside and around the country and what do my daughters want on new year’s day? Obviously, they want Baked Alaska. Technically, when you splash a little brandy on it and set it on fire it is referred to as ‘Bombe Alaska.’

The version we are working on is elegant in it’s simplicity … and I confess, we stole the idea from an ex-army wife … who knows how to feed and entertain a lot of folks? Our version has a brownie cake bottom, a mixture of ice creams formed in ribbons on top and all covered with our wonderful meringue! I’ll put up pictures soon.

As most folks know, I am not a five minute chef… but this simple, easy recipe appealed to me… and it reminds me of my youth!

What are you baking for New Years?

Roger

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quiche me once again

it may be cold and wet... but it's time for Crab quiche!
Kristin had made a small request for a crab quiche, which was also her Grandmother Junes favorite as well and it gave me a chance to break in my new 12 inch deep pie plate. Oh yes, slight modifications to the recipe had to be made to accommodate the roughly 50% increase in volume! ( you can’t just add 50% to the recipe — check your results as you go along) And , yes, for quality control I had to ‘taste’ every step along the way!!

Here is the basic recipe for my crab quiche.

Kristin's Lunch of Crab Quiche
Lunch for Kristin

I changed the recipe slightly adding 10 eggs, sherry and Armagnac made an appearance and more ‘goodies’….

Bake something today!

Roger

PS… yep, I had enough leftover for a second 8″ pie!

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quiche me this morning

nothing like a homemade quiche to fill in those empty spots on a cold winter's morn

There was a wonderful French Bakery & Caterer in Santa Barbara who was extraordinary in many ways, but above it all was her wonderful quiche. Charlotte made a variety of quiches which I would purchase in quantity when my journeys would pass her way, often, I would make the trek just for her food!

I particularly enjoyed her simple — but mouth watering — spinach quiche!

Here is my humble salute to her wonderful quiche!

Enjoy each morning,

Roger