An Adventure in Cooking: French Food

Time for a second round of my adventure in cooking! I've been wanting to read and watch the Count of Monte Cristo for awhile now, so I was pretty happy when my friend chose that as her movie pick for the week! We decided to go with a French food theme. On the menu: Bouillabaisse with French bread and Creme Brulee for dessert!

 Bouillabaisse was the first thing I thought of when I thought French food. I'm not sure why, but it seems very "French" to me. I was a bit nervous making this dish since it called for so much fish and I really didn't want it to come out tasting too fishy. I also had to omit some key ingredients like saffron (yikes too expensive!) and the orange zest (no zester... yet!) so I'm not sure if that would've changed the taste. Everyone seemed to like it though! For me, it was okay but I felt like it needed something else. A dash (ok, maybe a little more than a dash...) of tobasco sauce solved that problem nicely =)

It's not creme brulee without the caramelized sugar on top, but what to do if you don't have a torch? I found this no-torch method online that worked out really well. My only mistake was making the layer way too thick whoops!

When I first heard of creme brulee, something about it just sounded very unappealing to me. So I avoided eating it for the longest time. I finally tried it for the first time about a year or so ago and realized it's actually quite delicious! Not something that I would eat all the time, but as a treat once in awhile it's yummy!

That was my cooking adventure! Both recipes turned out successful enough that my friends have already asked for them to be entered into the regular cooking cycle, so I'm really happy with the results =) I leave you with this quote from the Count of Monte Cristo:

Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.

Happy Saturday all!