Pain de Mie ( Pumpkin )

My baking seemed to take another halt this week and I was was worried that Stand-mixer Xavi needed its weekly tune-up. The Saleswoman at Macy's had warned me that many people purchase stand-mixers for decoration purpose, but these mixers are like cars and require periodic use. I didn't have any particular recipe in my "project" folder to try out at the moment, so I resorted to the fail-proof pain de mie and saved my dad another trip to the bakery.

Baked Orzo with Fontina

One thing that my mom always nags me about is the fact that I would buy a lot of ingredient for one recipe and fill the fridge with leftovers that I never use again. So for my previous recipe, Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables, I had to buy fontina cheese and smoked mozzarella. I really tried to buy only the amount I need so I would be left with leftovers, however the salesman mistakenly double estimated the amount I needed. Since both cheeses were pretty pricey, I really didn't want them to go to waste. Fortunately after a little search on the internet I was able to find Giada's Baked Orzo recipe that uses both fontina and mozzarella! I had to do a slight modification because the recipe uses fresh mozzarella instead of smoked version.

Financier

I just love the looks of French pastries-madeleines, macarons, eclairs..just to name a few. French pastries are elegant, fancy, and absolutely complicated to make, which is probably why they are so intriguing to me. I love new challenges to find recipes that are "gift-worthy." I love tiny and fancy things as opposed to bulky and plain -- talking purely about aesthetic. The recipe I'm presenting here today is called Financier. Financiers are little French teacakes with an almondy flair. They are mostly baked in small rectangular molds that shaped like bars of gold.