Photo by fellow wine lover Stephanie A Jones

Yes, Lindsay its true.  Starting on Monday Im going to being sharing my food blogging prowess on another site called Forkful of News  with a handful of other food loving ladies and gentlemen.  You know just in case you werent getting enough of my gluten free, sugar free, low carb ramblings here, now you will know where to find more of them.  

It is run by Lindsay of Wasted and local theater writing fame.  I will be joined by Jacob (who is known as "the chef" around here) among others that Im excited to get to know better or encounter for the first time.  It will be a mostly Madison WI centric blog about mostly healthy but always exciting eating with all seven of us sharing our very different perspectives on food. 

Ill mostly be posting about stuff that doesnt fit in the theme here.  Non-Montignac friendly meals, local restaurant reviews, my adventures in trying to be gluten free in the often clueless Midwest.  It will be a fun change of pace.  So come check it out, meet my fellow bloggers, and see what Im up to over there every Monday.

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Last weekend the fella and I had a couple of friends over for a ridiculous French dinner. Apparently it was such a good meal that we may have tempted them over to what they called our wine and cream diet. If anyone I know could handle the rigorous nature of this diet its them, theyre foodies who dont mind making things from scratch and like to experiment with new things. Hopefully we reeled them in, it would be nice to have some one else to talk about living in a world without bread and as the fella and I have learned this crazy diet does work.

This soup may have blown their minds a tiny bit. Its basically almonds, eggs and heavy cream cooked in a fussy way. It doesnt seem like it could be legal on any diet not even a strange French one. But alas it is and it was pretty tasty. It was tasty even though I screwed it up a little bit.

Having dipped into the cooking wine before dinner—purely for the purposes of testing which one was driest of course—I apparently was unable to read the recipe correctly. Admittedly the original recipe is poorly written so in this case Im not taking all the blame. I missed the tiny side note near chicken stock in the ingredient list that calls for it to be warmed and waiting before starting to cook anything else. Of course, thats pretty important why wouldnt you make “warm the broth” the first step in the recipe? That would be too easy.

Neglecting this step was probably what caused the almond mixture to settle to the bottom of my soup. In my retyping out of the recipe I made the directions more clear so that no one else has to make the same mistake. Not that we noticed, the soup was still lovely the way it was. Very subtle and rich. The cream and nuts made it a heavy soup but the flavors were very soft. It went nicely with the Riesling I served with dinner. The sweet wine makes you salivate slightly and the cream satisfies your open taste buds. It was quite the experience.

Other recipes from the Riesling Feast:
Roasted Cauliflower and Fennel
Saras Braised Leeks
Riesling Chicken
Beet Torte

Soupe Aux Amandes

1 quart chicken or vegetable broth
6 ounces almonds, shelled and peeled
3 hardboiled eggs, yolks only
3 cups heavy cream
2 egg yolks
slivered almonds

In a large sauce pan put the broth over low heat to warm through as you prepare the other ingredients.

Put the almonds and the yolks of the hard boiled eggs in a food processor and process until you have a smooth paste.

In a pot combine the almond mixture and 1 1/2 cups of the cream. Slowly add the heated broth. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes.

In a large pot, not over heat, whisk together the raw egg yolks and the remaining 1 1/2 cups heavy cream. When the almond and cream mixture has cooked pour it slowly into the pot with the egg yolk mixture, and whisk while over medium heat for about 2 minutes. DO NOT BOIL.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve when soup is just heated through. Top with slivered almonds.

Original recipe from The Lutece Cookbook.

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