cooking log: Basque Gateau, Jerk Pork Loin, Candied Lemons and a Happy New Year

Old Faithful, my 1950's O'Keefe and Merritt

Today was a good day. Brandon and I worked from home, although there was little to do.

Yesterday I got it in my head to make a Basque Gateau, which is just a super-fancy way of saying a Basque cake. I’d never had one before, and when I found the recipe I thought…Oh, something that sounds complicated to make? Count. Me. In. I’m a sucker for complicated. Go figure. And then, when I realized that it wasn’t really all that bad, I decided to make candied lemons to go on top of it. That’s a whole other ball of wax, but they came out fine. Brandon didn’t like them – I’m pretty sure I overheard him compare them to a weird gummy bear. Listen, I tried it. That’s all I can say. Anyway, the cake is really good, easy to make, and you can mix it up with the filling any way you like (I used lemon curd, which is so tempting to eat out of the jar that…I did). Tomorrow I’m making another one with wild blueberry jam. Should be good. The cake itself takes like two pie crusts mashed together with yumminess in between.

So……………then we were on this tear to use the smoker my parent’s bought us for Christmas (who’s an Adult now?), so we bought this enourmous pork loin. E.NOR.MOUS. I’m not kidding, there were all kinds of bad jokes being made at the pork loin’s expense, being that it was huge and, well, huge. Brandon found a jerk pork loin recipe, and as hard as it was to hand off the kitchen, I did it. At first, I didn’t, but then I did so I think that counts the most. He did a great job.

For most of the day, we just hung out, cooked, smoked the loin, did a little bit of checking in on the computer, not-working on the LSU quilt and visiting with friends. For dinner, we had Ed and Natalie, Will July, and Jada and her baby Sofia. It was a good night, and a good entry into 2010.

Happy New Year everybody. Let’s hope it’s a good one.