Jamie Martin – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

11-11: Lobster Thermidor

Jamie Martin Group 11: Fish & Seafood, Section 2: Main Courses April 24, 2024April 21, 2024all-purpose flour, bay leaves, Béchamel sauce, black pepper, boiled, broiled, butter, carrots, cheese, Christmas, coral, dinner, dry mustard, expensive, fairly hard, fish bouillon, fish stock, French, garlic, leeks, lobster, melted, Parmesan, parsley, party food, peppercorns, reduced, roux, salt, seafood, serving shells, shelled, shellfish, sliced, split, strained, the sims, thyme, tomalley, untested, whipping cream, white wine

Still catching up on things I made for holidays past, but at least now I’m up to 2023. 11-11: Lobster Thermidor isn’t just the grand meal we had for Christmas 2023 (XMAS 23), it’s also the final recipe I have for the Fish & Seafood chapter, as well as a famous fancy dish you make in the Sims. I feel like finally making it (and posting about it) is quite the celebration in and of itself.

It’s a very indulgent dish, and took us a while to put together as it became difficult to find whole lobsters for a while, at least out here on the west coast of the US. Once we finally found a frozen cooked pair at Costco, it was game on.

8-35: Flambéed Steak Diane

Jamie Martin Group 08: Beef, Section 2: Main Courses April 23, 2024April 21, 2024beef, black pepper, brandy, butter, chives, chopped, cognac, deglazed, dinner, egg-free, fairly easy, fairly expensive, flambé, hot sauce, lemon juice, lemons, liqueur, parsley, pearl onions, peeled, salt, sautéed, scraped, shallots, sirloin, steak, untested, white onions, Worcestershire sauce

Today I have something “old-school” for you–8-35: Flambéed Steak Diane. This is a dish that’s been around for a while and is considered “retro” today. It is similar to steak au poivre and is another of those “quick pan-fried steak” recipes that use butter and some sort of umami as a sauce.

This is the last entry from the batch of beef-but-not-beef recipes I made to clean out the freezer–I’ve had those posts sitting in my queue for quite a while. I had to space them out because they’re all SO similar. You can scroll back to 8-39: Tournedos with Blue Cheese Sauce and 8-38: Brandy Two-Pepper Beef Steak for the other entries in this recent “mini-series”.

19-4: Exotic Fruits II

Jamie Martin Group 19: Basic Ingredients, Section 4: Cooking School April 22, 2024April 23, 2024cape gooseberries, cooking school, dried fruit, figs, fruit, fruit juice, fruit salad, fruit sauce, guava, ingredients, mixed fruit, papaya, passion fruit, tamarillo, vegan, vegetarian

A month ago or so, I promised you the sequel to 19-3: Exotic Fruits I, and now I present to you that sequel, 19-4: Exotic Fruits II.

Here’s my standard blurb about Cooking School, and how the back of the book features spotlights on basic recipes, ingredients, and techniques as part of a “cooking school”.

Due to the way Simply Delicious writes these, I’ll cover these ingredients the same way I did in Part I after the jump, along with the ingredients on the back of this card. I’ll warn you now–I don’t have a lot of recipes for these so far, so instead, I’ll suggest some recipes where you could maybe use these ingredients as replacements or additions.

14-37: Chocolate Soufflé

Jamie Martin Group 14: Hot Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods April 21, 2024April 21, 2024all-purpose flour, butter, chocolate, dessert, egg whites, egg yolks, eggs, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, favorites, granulated sugar, hot desserts, meringue, milk, paper collar, party food, soufflés, stiff peaks, temper, TGV 2022, Thanksgiving, unsweetened, untested, vanilla extract, vegetarian, whipped, whipping cream

I debated about doing two desserts back-to-back, but I think it makes more sense to just do all the TGV 2022 recipes together and be done with it already. Plus, this one came out really well and I want to tell you about it. So, with that in mind, here is 14-37: Chocolate Soufflé, the Thanksgiving 2022 companion dessert to 16-21: Apple Pie with Crumb Topping.

The blurb here reminds me of one of my favorite tropes: the endangered soufflé, otherwise known as soufflé humor. Whatever happened to that?

16-21: Apple Pie with Crumb Topping

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods April 20, 2024April 21, 2024all-purpose flour, apples, autumn, blender, brown sugar, butter, cut in, dessert, easy, egg-free, fall, filling, food processor, fruit, granulated sugar, grated, hazelnuts, inexpensive, lemon juice, lemon peel, lemons, peeled, pies, raisins, sliced, streusel, tart pan, TGV 2022, Thanksgiving, untested, vegetarian, whole wheat flour, zested

Still working on Thanksgiving 2022 (TGV 2022) entries. I made two desserts that year–one of which was this one, 16-21: Apple Pie with Crumb Topping. Gotta have some type of apple dessert for Thanksgiving. The other was 14-37: Chocolate Soufflé, which I posted right after this one.

FYI, by “crumb topping”, they essentially mean a streusel. Not sure why they didn’t name it that instead, but there you go.

17-8: Tasty Dinner Rolls

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods March 6, 2024March 4, 2024all-purpose flour, baked goods, bread lame, butter, dinner, dough, egg-free, fairly easy, inexpensive, kneaded, milk, new book, proofed, rolls, salt, side dish, slashed, TGV 2022, Thanksgiving, untested, vegetarian, white bread, whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, yeast

So, it’s probably weird to write about what you made for Thanksgiving when it’s March. It’s probably even weirder to write about what you made for Thanksgiving 2022 in March 2024. But, here we are, and here’s 17-8: Tasty Dinner Rolls. Which I made for Thanksgiving…in 2022 (TGV 2022).

It’s taking me a minute to catch up on some of these, what can I say.

There’s not much more to say about rolls than what they said above. Trust me, I wrote this a few times and then realized each version was essentially a rehash of what they already wrote. Since I’m not trying to hit a word count for a school report here, let’s move on.

8-39: Tournedos with Blue Cheese Sauce

Jamie Martin Group 08: Beef, Section 2: Main Courses March 5, 2024March 4, 2024beef, beef bouillon, beef tenderloin, black pepper, blue cheese, butter, cheese, cheese sauce, cream sauce, crème fraîche, deglazed, dinner, egg-free, expensive, fairly easy, Gorgonzola, reduced, salt, seared, sherry, sour cream, soy sauce, steak, toothpicks, tournedos, trimmed, untested

Back again with another beef-but-not-beef recipe for you–today’s is yet another one that’s been sitting in my queue for quite a while, 8-39: Tournedos with Blue Cheese Sauce. This one is pretty indulgent, whether you use “real” ingredients or not. With the price of everything these days, save this one for a special occasion.

Tournedos are slices taken from the smaller end of a tenderloin (essentially a filet mignon) and are typically paired with something fatty/rich (like bacon, foie gras, cream sauce) due to their leanness.

19-3: Exotic Fruits I

Jamie Martin Group 19: Basic Ingredients, Section 4: Cooking School March 4, 2024March 4, 2024carambola, cooking school, dried fruit, fruit, fruit juice, fruit salad, fruit sauce, garnish, ingredients, kiwis, mango juice, mangoes, mixed fruit, star fruit, vegan, vegetarian

In today’s edition of “The Way Things Used To Be”, we’re going to see yet another example of how globalization over the last 30ish years has changed everything, including the availability of produce. 19-3: Exotic Fruits I (and its soon-to-be-sequel, 19-4: Exotic Fruits II) highlights three fruits that seemed “exotic” back in the late 1980s-early 1990s: kiwi, carambola (“star fruit”), and mango.

Out of the three, I’d maybe consider carambola as the most “exotic”–kiwi and mango were already pretty popular by the 1990s (the heyday of brands like Nantucket Nectars and Snapple). Plus, which of the three do you think you’d have the hardest time locating in a grocery store these days? I mean, you’d find all of them, but you might have to go to like, two stores? When this was written, it’d have been much harder (especially based on where you lived).

13-4: Zucchini and Tomato Casserole

Jamie Martin Group 13: Vegetarian Dishes, Section 2: Main Courses March 3, 2024March 4, 2024basil, black pepper, blanched, butter, casserole, chopped, crushed tomatoes, diced, dinner, dried herbs, easy, egg-free, garlic, gluten-free, ham, herbs and spices, inexpensive, layers, lunch, new book, olive oil, peeled, salt, sautéed, side dish, sliced, summer, thyme, tomatoes, twice-baked, untested, vegetables, vegetarian, yellow onions, zucchini

It’s been a wet and windy winter here in California, and I’m looking forward to the spring so I can start working in my garden again. In Summer 2022, I grew zucchini and tomatoes, partially in hopes of being able to use them to cover some of the recipes in this book that featured those types of veggies. One of those recipes is this one, 13-4: Zucchini and Tomato Casserole.

I was also able to use some of the fresh herbs from my garden for this recipe as well. If you like these types of recipes (and if you have a garden), 4-1: Eggplant, Tomato, and Onion Bake, 13-10: Zucchini Piccata, and 13-3: Vegetable Deep Dish Pie might be worth checking out.

16-32: Glazed Fresh Fruit Cake

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods February 21, 2024February 19, 2024almond paste, almonds, blackberries, blueberries, cakes, chilled, dairy-free, dessert, eggs, fairly hard, fairly inexpensive, flavorings, fruit, fruit salad, garnish, gelatin, gift ideas, glazed, gluten-free, granulated sugar, grapes, grated, mandarin oranges, nuts, party food, springform pan, strawberries, summer, untested

I grew up in Southern California, and lived there up until about 10 years ago. At one of my last jobs before I left, I was often gifted with a Porto’s Bakery fruit tart, which was (and I’m sure still is) delectable. 16-32: Glazed Fresh Fruit Cake reminds me of those fruit tarts, and makes me excited for warmer weather days ahead (check with me again about that when we’re in the middle of summer).

Glazed fruit tarts aren’t unique to just Porto’s or Simply Delicious, and there’s even different options for glazing your fruit tarts, depending on what you’re going for.

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