use real butter

Today was mildy productive. First the rain was crazy, then mellow, then crazy, then mellow, then I saw a sucker hole in the sky while I was checking the status of my mint* (see followup below), then crazy again. Drip drip, patter patter from out the front door:

I just spent an hour looking through 20+ recipes for chocolate mousse. I’m not going to make a molded mousse, but it will be presented more or less in plated fashion. I think the CIA’s tome (The New Professional Chef) has a good standard mousse. Classic mousse. None of this shortcut crap with gelatin (blegh!), or pudding (gasp!).

I haven’t done serious baking in a while. I guess mousse isn’t serious baking, it’s more like beating the hell out of eggs. But flan, baklava, soufflé, pastry cream puffs – that’s a good bit of hands on baking! Fun fun fun.

For dinner tonight, I made pasta. It’s a recipe from Jeremy’s parents. Simple to make: pesto, chicken, garlic, roasted bell peppers, sundried tomatoes, pine nuts and some lemon basil rotini. Oh, and sprinkled liberally with freshly grated parmesan: