nutcase

we made a walnut souffle today...

We had another glut of those farm fresh, free range eggs, and a big old net bag of walnuts,in the basement, we collected at that same farm in November.

That is Rolf shelling and then grinding a half pound of walnuts. He is also cursing the plastic nut mill (which I tried to tell him when we bought it, is intended for hard cheese).

A half pound is quite a lot of walnuts, if you have an over eager egg white whipper nipping at your heals (me), and a crappy nut mill.

I am totally pissed that my PERFECT meringue didn't come out well in the photo.

Overexposed again.

there is it in the lower left hand corner, looking all fluffy and perfect in every way, and while I am complaining, the eggs also look ordinary in this photo, when in reality they are beautiful subtle green and blue and browns.
Damn camera!

I finally wised up and headed outside to make some pictures of the finished product. I am serving it with a plum sauce, from a plum tree at the preschool.

I harvested & froze the plums last fall.

The sauce is beautiful, and delicious, so it the souffle, which is really more like a flourless torte, it reminds me in flavor & texture of Mógyórós Torta, the Hungarian hazelnut torte that is also flourless, not gooey like a cheese souffle.

the kitchen scale is Rolf's new toy

You can tell he bought it because it is r e d.

I don't chose red things, at least not tomato red, but there you are.

He has wanted a kitchen scale for years, as they are commonly used in baking in European recipes.

I have rarely had call for one, and had no interest, but today we used it.
I had to take it outside to get a decent picture, normally it lives in the kitchen, naturally!

My pansies, that I use for garnishes are doing GREAT!
Hooray! I hate not having access to a bit of color.

Walnut Souffle, my quick and lazy version, adapted from the Joy of cooking
preheat to 350
8 eggs separated
1/2 pound walnuts, ground into meal (not butter)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice or lemon rind
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 buttered souffle pan

whip the whites into a firm meringue

cream everything else, but the nuts

then fold the nuts into the yolk mix

then fold the fluffy beaten whites into the nut/yolk mix

pour into a well greased souffle pan, and bake for 45 minutes, an a bain marie (if you don't know what that is you have no business baking eggy sweets!)

serve with some kind of fruit sauce or berries.

Makes and obscene amount so make sure you have people to eat it, otherwise you risk eating it with your poodle out of the baking dish.