Honey Cheesecake

Who invented cheesecake? God bless them, whoever they might be! Pure genius created the simple yet rich (and oh-so-fattening), formula for cheesecake, a classic dessert. This version, the Fiddlehead’s Honey Cheesecake, is—as the name indicates—honey sweetened. That flavor really comes through. Drizzled in a mixed berry sauce, it’s exquisite!

Thorough mixing will be key in your cheesecake endeavors—you don’t want the smooth, creamy texture to be interrupted with lumps! No, ma’am. I mixed on high for ten full minutes. Again, as with the espresso cheesecake, the crust is rounded out using ground almonds. And there’s honey in the base, too.

Crabby Eggs

The Crabby Eggs recipe is a nice, light, simple meal for breakfast or lunch. It's perfect to use up crab leftovers, or just if you’ve got croissants lying around (there are non-crabby alternatives outlined in the book).

Hollandaise sauce seems fancy, but all it is is egg, lemon juice, and a LOT of butter

I’ve never made Hollandaise sauce before. It’s pretty touchy. I read (and suggest you do the same) the page in the cookbook explaining emulsifying mayonnaise. It helps you understand that the egg yolk has a limited ability to absorb fat, and that it’s consequently quite important to the process that you add the fat in just a wee bit at a time. Yes, grasshopper, it takes patience to pull this one off. First, the egg yolks cook just a little bit on a low simmer. My first go around I managed to scramble them, so I was careful to keep the temp low the 2^nd time, and remove it from the heat of the double boiler fairly early. Next add the butter teaspoon by teaspoon, stirring thoroughly between each addition.

Cooking from scratch leaves nothing left to the imagination, and now I can no longer lie to myself about Hollandaise sauce. It’s mostly butter, with a little egg yolk and lemon juice. Oof-da. No wonder it’s good.

Poaching the egg on a low simmer

Poaching eggs is easy once you know a couple of tricks. You want to put your egg in a bowl and slide it into the low simmering water. This is how you avoid making egg drop soup. Four minutes was the perfect cooking time for softly cooked, slightly running yolks.

There’s no bad time for a croissant. Buttery and flaky, they’re good with savory or sweet accompaniments, or just plain. I lightly toasted mine before loading them open face with butter-sautéed crab. The poached egg sits on top and the whole thing is smothered in Hollandaise sauce.

Mm, a delicious bite. That yolk is perfect!

Chocolate Amaretto Cake

This recipe takes the cake (pun intended) for most exciting dessert to put together. It calls for you, as the baker, to fold dry and wet ingredients together WITH YOUR HANDS. That's right—the moist and spongy finished product is a result of you actually rolling up your sleeves and oozing your fingers into the dough. This is going to delight your inner child! The best part is licking your fingers when you're done.

Chocolate Amaretto Cake is novel for its ingredients as well as construction. I've done sour cream and buttermilk before in baking, but I've never heard of putting mayonnaise in my chocolate cake. This recipe has all three. Guess it adds moisture and flavor. I love the almond tones. A touch of almond extract and amaretto adds a nice hint of nuttiness. Of course a sprinkling of sliced almonds atop the chocolate icing is an attractive presentation. Serve with ice and/or whipped creams.

Eggplant Parmigiana

The only eggplant I could find in town was Japanese eggplant. Turned out great!

Let's start with the marinara sauce in the eggplant parmigiana. It's delightful. Has a nice spice to it from the pepper. Quite spicy really. It made me hiccough (I love to spell things the old-fashioned way, none of this ‘hiccup’ business). I do that when I eat spicy things. Does that happen to anyone else? Unless I focus on very regular and mindful breathing, I always hiccough when I eat something spicy. What’s your hiccough cure? I heard holding a pencil in your mouth while drinking water does the trick. What the heck is that?! My old standard is plugging my ears while drinking.

Anyway, back to the marinara. Nothing like some hearty Italian old world red sauce. Your house will smell amazing. Red wine, garlic, rosemary, oh my! This sauce really makes the eggplant dish. Well, that and the cheese. And the eggplant. Ooh, I love eggplant. I caught onto it in college, and fried slices became a favorite snack. The eggplant in this recipe is breaded and fried. Actually it's sliced and sweated first. That’s right. You set the slices out and sprinkle them with salt.

After 30 minutes, or when tiny beads of water form on them, they’re ready to be coated in flour, dropped in egg, and sizzled in oil.

From right to left: coat eggplant in flour, dip in egg, and fry in oil

Layers of fried eggplant, sauce, and cheeses blend into the hot, comforting, and quite delicious vegetarian recipe. Bon appétit!

P.S. It's quite easy to make this ahead. For a Sunday night meal, I chipped away on the prep throughout the weekend. I knew I was going to ski on Sunday, and didn't want to have to spend long daylight hours in the kitchen. I started Friday night slicing and salting/sweating and making the marinara. Saturday morning I fried the slices. Come Sunday all that was left was layering and baking--mercifully so, as it was a blue bird day with temps above 50 degrees!

P.P.S. I didn't take any pictures of the marinara sauce. It's red. You can probably make it out in the photo of the baked dish above. That and a bottle of pinot noir, and the no-knead bread that's changed my life.