Stuffed Piquillo Peppers – Top 5 Recipes from AMFT

 French Fridays with Dorie

I finally got to these Tuna Stuffed Piquillo Peppers! With just under 300 recipes, cooking all of  Around My French Table is no small task. And yet that is exactly what dozens of home-cooks pledged to do back in 2010 swhen they signed up for the online cooking group, “French Friday’s with Dorie.” I doubt any of us had any idea what we were getting ourselves into, or how our blogs and our lives would change as a result.

As we wind down this not-really-all-that-final chapter, each in our own ways, we have been asked to reflect and share our final thoughts as we finish up. Bear with me as this week, specifically, we have been asked to share our “aha! moment” defined here as “your favorite, loved the most, best recipe.” To make this impossible task only a tiny bit easier, we are encouraged to share our top five recipes from the book itself. 

Not surprisingly, this was not a welcome task for most of us Doristas. How do you choose only five? Having to choose at all only underscores the finality of this long-term project.

I had to sit with the book for nearly an hour, making list after list, reviewing techniques and ingredients, before suddenly realizing that my “aha moment” wasn’t any of these recipes at all.

It was an event.

In the late summer of 2013 one very clever Dorista, Susan, discovered that Dorie Greenspan was been slated to be the keynote speaker at Seattle’s annual International Food Blogger Conference. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to see how many of fellow Doristas could make the trek across country to see our maestro (maestro?) in the flesh?  Of course it was a very exciting lure getting to meet Dorie in person and all, but even more so, it would be the very first time many of us would meet the many friends we had already spent several years getting to know through our posts.

It turned out to be something quite astounding.

We showed up to “meet” each other already knowing about each other’s husbands, long time companions, children, and grandchildren. We already knew each other’s favorite vacation spots, food aversions, health issues, proudest work accomplishments, and even the individual senses of humor that individualized each other in our prose. Upon first sight we gibby-gabbed like long lost childhood friends.

And once Dorie acknowledged us from her speaker’s podium we would sit like royalty in the conference sessions. While sitting at that huge round table across these fellow bloggers, these friends, that I had my aha moment: this group, cobbled together through our weekly posts, was very much a real thing and not just a blog thing. Even the members I had not yet met (and probably never would) became just as real to me as those who were sitting right in front of me.

I had been entertaining thoughts of taking a more relaxed approach to my participation when I got home but those thoughts vaporized in the Seattle atmosphere. French Fridays became very much a permanent commitment,  for better or worse, and I was now as much committed to the these bloggers as I was to finishing the book itself. We were like a family.

Aha!

And as it so often is with family, things would not always be perfect. We would squabble. We would get jealous. We could be critical. Some members would form tighter bonds with some more than with others. Others would decide to go their our own way to be true to themselves although they would always be welcomed back at our French tables. Like real families, the French Friday’s family was now a tribe much larger than the sum of its parts — and everyone in Seattle could feel it.

I’m sure it had to have changed a bit  for the many more members who weren’t there in attendance that weekend. Inspired by our meeting so many more members throughout the world (for we are a global group) started setting out to meet the others who lived or travelled near them. So much so that I can’t even keep track anymore of who has met each other.

I don’t think anyone ever expected this to happen when they set out to make gourgeres that very first week in 2011:

Ms. Greenspan would speak of many things from the keynote podium that weekend. Although she shared many lessons learned along her path toward culinary superstardom, one  utterance in particular would resonate so strongly with me it provided another “aha moment” that weekend. She stressed the importance she always placed on “the work”, especially in in those moments when she doubted what it was she was actually doing, or in those times she was anxious over not having having any control over it.

“Just do the work you are going to be proud of and the rest will happen”.

So simple, right?

It iI have tried (not always successfully) to hold onto this maxim ever since I first heard it. I call it “The Dorie Principle” and have come to find that it not only applies to what I try to do here online, but it carries over just as truthfully to every other activity in life.  Most of life is uncontrollable after all, so in truth the only thing we have a choice about is how we feel about our own participation in it.

Just do what makes you proud and the rest will follow.

Which brings me (finally) to this recipe for Tuna Stuffed Piquillo Peppers.  Finally, the Tuna Stuffed Piquillo Peppers that I promised I would finally get to.

These Tuna Stuffed Piquillo Peppers were due to be posted by the group on Friday, September 20th, 2013. It was the very day I arrived in Seattle and met a whole gaggle of Doristas in person.  (Three or more Doristas make a “gaggle”.) I had whipped them up more than two weeks prior (as easy a recipe as you can imagine) but was suffering from an intense writers block brought on in part by the anxiety of the trip.

When I returned home from Seattle it didn’t get any easier.  There was pressure to post about the event and to post links and review the event sponsors and the obligations took their toll on my writing psyche.  I just sort of shut down. That type of writing just isn’t the kind of blogging I just was proud of I guess.

And so these fantastic peppers never got their due. Which is ok, because this happened instead:

and also this:

 Tuna Stuffed Piquillo Peppers

You can find the super-easy recipe here.

My top 5 recipes from Around My French Table

The only way I could tackle this impossible task is to break it down by book chapter and choose from each:

Nibbles and Hors d’Oeuvres

Cheez-it-sh Crackers – If you are like me and essentially cook to get attention, then these are the pre-dinner nibbles for you. Until I had made these cheese flavored ‘its’ I had not understood the imperative to make crackers at home. Who does that? But then I boxed these up quite nicely, took them to a dinner party, the watched the hostess take a bite-bite and then put them away in the other room so she could enjoy later them all by herself! (These would be great on a tray with some stuffed piquillo peppers now that I think of it.)

(Appetizer Honorable Mention goes to Mustard Batons. When you have a package of puff pastry in your freezer, the world really can be yours.)

Soups

Chestnut Pear Soup – Having never roasted chestnuts over an open fire, these buggers were a revelation for me. Using them in a soup was something I had never even heard of.  Now it this dish is a regular holiday dinner preparation around here.

(Honorable Mention must go to Cheating On Winter Pea Soup . I loved the memories it brought but I also now must adore it because my photograph of it remains one of my favorites.)

Salads, Starters, and Small Plates

Creamy Mushrooms and Eggs – Its no secret how much I love stuff-on-toast. This dish is the ultimate and never fails to impress when whipped up as a spur-of-the-moment weekend brunch or lunch treat.

(Naturally I must give Honorable Mention to Gerard’s Mustard Tart. So colorful, so easy, so elegant. Even though I was unfamiliar with it at the outset, cooking the dish flooded me with memories so strong my writing about it won a local award. It was also the first post that Dorie herself dropped by to leave a comment. You always remember your first.)

Chicken and Duck

Chicken B’stilla – There were not many dishes in Around My French Table which I had no experiences with whatsoever. This was one of them and it was so SO very good. This dish also had a hand in igniting my “torrid friendship” with Trix, a lapsed Dorista from way back.

(Honorable Mention goes to Chicken Breasts Diable. This by the sheer force of my mother-in-law’s considerable will. It is her number one request when it is my turn to cook dinner for her.  Also I’m a bit of a mustard freak myself so she never has to twist my arm that hard.)

Beef, Veal, Pork and Lamb

Hachis Parmentier – When you are a member of a family where “only the close family” means 12 or more can show up for dinner with only a few hours notice, you must be on the lookout for dishes like this one. (This picture also reminds me just how far my food photography skills have come during this adventure!)

(Boeuf a la ficelle is a beef dinner in its simplest, most pure form. It gets honorable mention for no other reason than that. If you are lucky enough to have any leftovers, the fact that you can make a pretty killer beef salad with them the next day is a plus.)

Fish and Shellfish

Mussels and Chorizo with or without Pasta – Mussels are one of my favorite dishes to order while on vacation in far away lands. It never EVER occurred to me to make them at home. Now they are a favorite. Usually I had been a ‘purist’ and always ordered them mariniere, but after experiencing these moules I am much more adventurous with their preparation.

(Honorable mention to Salmon and Tomatoes en Papillote for no other reason than I think this is the dish I have made more often than any other from the book. In fact, I KNOW it must be as I make this nearly every week for dinner.)

Vegetables and Grain

Cardamom Rice Pilaf – The fact that this is a Dorista favorite is undeniable.  It is for one very good reason. It is simply fantastic.

(Give it up for Go With Everything Celery Root Puree as it gets honorable mention because it really does go with everything. Your company will marvel and will always ask for the recipe. )

Desserts

Obviously it is going to be hard to choose a favorite desert but the Paris-Brest pastry wins out. Until I made this I never knew I could. Cream-filled pastries are the sort of things I assumed you HAD to go out and buy. I believe this was one of my most proud Dorista moments.

Of course no list of favorites, even lists that contain Tuna Stuffed Piquillo Peppers, would be complete without the inclusion of Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake. This one recipe is worth the price of the entire book if for no other reason knowing you will never be at a loss for the most perfect dessert for any occasion. Ever. I implore you to memorize it (or keep a copy in your suitcase as I do) as it is most fun to cook it in other people’s kitchen while they watch.   I have a particular affection for this dessert as it also forced me to learn the foreign language keystrokes on my computer.

I have a few more recipes yet to share in the coming weeks so don’t go away!