When I had the immense pleasure to meet the charming cookbook author and brilliant baker Dorie Greenspan at BlogHerFood last October, she asked me to write to her when I prepared something out of her new cookbook, Around My French Table. So last November, we made her fabulous dish Short Ribs in Red Wine and Port Sauce for an important dinner party and I wrote a post and sent her a tweet about it. Being the delightful human being that she is, she took the time to tweet back and leave a comment on my post. A happy day for me indeed.
Well a group of dedicated bloggers, cooks, and avid Dorie fans have created a club called French Fridays with Dorie to build a community of people that cook the recipes from her new book and share their blog posts and stories each Friday. Last Friday, they cooked the short ribs and I had great fun reading many other stories about their results. And I finally joined the club.
But leave it to me to join a club that only has 4 rules and break one of them right from the start. I am supposed to post my story on Friday, that would have been yesterday, March 4. But it was not to be. Fighting a busy schedule and a nasty head cold, I hardly had time to make the bread, let alone write and post about it. So given my daily mantra of “all things are better late than never”, here’s the story about the Savory Cheese and Chive Bread.
Dorie includes the recipe in her appetizers section and suggests chilling a bottle of wine to enjoy it with while the bread is cooling. It’s a simple quick bread, no yeast involved so I was an immediate fan (those of you who read my blog regularly know my almost irrational fear of yeast-based doughs). My one pre-requisite was that I wanted to prepare it without going to the store - I was just too tired. Luckily it’s a very flexible recipe, in fact Dorie gives several suggestions of variations to match your tastes, dinner, or wine selection.
Her recipe calls for whole milk, which I didn’t have so I used lowfat organic lactose free milk. Didn’t seem too drastic of a substitution. I also left the nuts out and instead of just chives, which my herb garden had in only short supply, I used some thyme as well. I also had roasted red peppers in the fridge prepared from inspiration from another Dorie recipe so I chopped up one of those and added it. For the cheese, I used shredded cheddar and some diced grana padano, which is similar to a parmesan. She suggests, gruyere, comte, emmenthal, or cheddar but the first three would have required a trip to the store.
Instead of making one loaf, I used two small disposable paper loaf pans so I could give one of the loaves to my friend for her birthday since I was meeting her for birthday lunch yesterday.
As for the baking, I used convection baking, instead of regular so I cooked them at 325, instead of 350 and for slightly less time because the loaf pans were smaller than she called for.
One rule of the group is that I can’t share the specific recipe - this group’s experience is not meant to substitute for purchasing the book, but rather augment the experience of those cooking from it and to encourage others to buy it. If I didn’t think it was a fabulous book, I wouldn’t be writing this post or have joined the group. If you enjoy cooking for your family, entertaining, or just eating interesting and flavorful food, buy the book. Though it is entitled Around My French Table, it is not filled with unapproachable, complicated gourmet French cuisine. It is a collection of the recipes that Dorie and her friends share when dining around her table in her Paris apartment.
So how was the bread I baked while in a head cold stupor? I under salted it so my flavors were not as intense as I might have liked. I also would have put in more chives, had I had more. But as the bread sat for a few hours, the flavors began to intensify. I served the bread with a steamy bowl of the best cold remedy - homemade chicken soup. For an unusual appetizer or bread course, I highly recommend this recipe. Easy to make, easy to love.
Buy my cookbook now!
Susan in the Boonies
Your bread looks beautiful, and delicious.
Stopping by to visit you from the SITSGirls!
Jaden
Beautiful loaf! I think it would be perfect to pair with a salad for lunch.
omgyummy
Yes - that is a great idea. And it is such a flexible recipe, you could easily alter the ingredients to match the soup you are serving.
Thanks for visiting Jaden.
Sharon Vinick
Can't wait to make it. . . just have to stop working long enough!!!
Teresa
I love that you made one for home and one to share. That's what baking is all about. Your additions sound wonderful!
I also think most of us have broken the Friday posting rule by now!
Mary
This looks great. I love love love your first picture. It makes me want to make the recipe again!
chefpandita
Roasted peppers sound like a nice addition to this bread. I left out the nuts and added some bacon 🙂
omgyummy
Bacon - now that's a swell idea - perhaps even pancetta.
Candy
Welcome to the group! What a gorgeous loaf of bread!
I undersalted mine too and was a bit disappointed that the bread didn't have more flavor.
omgyummy
I agree but will try this again, changing the salt amount, the herb amount, and cheeses. Still love the concept and want this to be a great recipe.
Baby Making Mama
OMG that looks SO GOOD! I'm not much of a cook but I'm trying my hardest to get better this year, I need to bookmark this recipe!
I found ya through SITS 🙂
Julie m.
Mmmm. Just beautiful Beth. This sounds like a fun group! I definitely need to look into her cookbook; it sounds like she has some gorgeous recipes! I hope you're feeling better!
omgyummy
Hi Julie! I think you would enjoy this group and love the cookbook. You would also love Dorie. Hopefully she'll be at BlogHerFood again and perhaps you will get a chance to chat with her. One of my favorite parts of the book are the stories that go with the recipes. I also love how precise her instructions are and her unusual use of ingredients. For sure, her other cookbooks on baking would be favorites on your cookbook shelves, knowing what a great baker you are.
rsmacaalay
Wow this is yummy, this might taste like my Cheesy Zucchini and Roasted Capsicum Muffin post.
omgyummy
Thanks for visiting again - I am trying desperately to catch up on comments and my visits to other sites. Not enough hours in the day, but I will pop by and check out your Cheesy Zucchini Muffins soon! Sounds terrific.
Sunny
Whew... that looks great! Roasted red peppers sound like a great addition!
http://pantrychef.wordpress.com
Serene
If I'm not mistaken, Dorie didn't have anything to do with creating FFwDorie -- it's just fans of hers, and she plays along, because she's just that gracious and funloving. 🙂 Your bread looks OUTSTANDING!
omgyummy
Thanks Serene - I made the correction in my post. Had fun with this week's pasta - making it for breakfast instead of dinner! What a fun group this is!
omgyummy
They were a good addition and they were an effort to "scrounge" as you say on your blog and use up ingredients already in the house. The fact that I made them from a Dorie recipe was even better. Enjoyed my visit to your blog.
sandy corman
I could almost taste that delicious looking bread. Wish we lived closer so that I could come over and take a snip of everything you have been cooking and baking. Whats next on the agenda?
omgyummy
Next, as you now know, was Beggar's Linguine for breakfast! Wish you lived closer too but I guess you'll just have to start cooking again!
Tricia
I think you captured this one best - "easy to make, easy to love" 🙂 I really enjoyed reading about your interactions with Dorie - how fun. Nana and I appreciated how easy this week was...and I needed that. While I was not sporting a head cold (kudos to you for posting at all..) it was busy but I could still muddle through late on Friday night. Next week I think I need to bring my A game....
omgyummy
Thanks for the warm welcome to the group. I'm just catching up on comments so I know you did bring your A game to the next week - your Beggar's Linguine looked great!