Lamb and cherry stew

Sunday was our last performance of L'Étoile, and it was a wonderful way to cap off this first summer season. Now that I'm on vacation, I've been playing tourist with Joseph, on visit from Brooklyn, and eating up a storm in restaurants. Tonight, however, I decided to cook.

Lamb stew, with roasted potatoes and zucchini.

Lamb and cherry stew

(serves 4-6)

2 lbs lamb - various cuts, with a few bones for stewing

olive oil

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic

1 8 oz. can tomatoes

2 handfuls fresh sweet red cherries, pitted and halved

2 bay leaves

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tbsp turmeric

1 tsp tsp cumin

1/4 cup red (sweet) vermouth

salt, to taste

Remove as much fat as possible from the lamb and cut the meat into pieces. Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan with lid or Dutch oven; pat the meat dry and sear on high heat for a few minutes. Add the onion cut into thin strips and the minced garlic.

Reduce the heat to a medium. Add the tomatoes and halved cherries. Add the herbs, spices and salt, as well as the vermouth. Once the mixture begins to simmer, reduce the heat further to low. Cover the pan and let the stew cook for 1 hour, until the meat falls away from the bone and be split with a fork. Adjust salt to taste. If you've started your stew early in the day as I did, you can let it sit, then reheat it gently before eating (this is a good way to make sure the flavors settle). Remove the bay leaves before serving.

And for dessert, honey-rosemary crème Saint-Honoré with nectarines and blueberries, almonds, Cointreau and rum sauce. Now we sit, round and tired, digesting while watching Hitchcock's Suspicion.

Rosemary olive oil cake, pastry cream and peaches

Considering this is the second olive oil-based cake I present to you, it's evident that I have a real weakness for them... and that I often don't have butter on hand. (I highly encourage you to try this cake, too.) In this version, I've opted to add whole wheat flour and almond meal to the mix, and to top it all off with bourbon-flavored crème patissière and peaches.

Whole wheat rosemary olive oil cake

(adapted from 101 Cookbooks)

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cups almond meal

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp kosher salt

3 eggs

1 cup olive oil

1 cup milk (preferably whole)

1/4 tsp almond extract

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

Place your rack in the middle of the oven; preheat it to 350ºF. Grease a 9-inch-diameter cake pan or 9x5-inch loaf pan. (I used a glass dish, as no cake pans were to be found.)

Sift the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Some of the whole-wheat flour and almond meal will not go through the sieve; throw them back into the bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and olive oil, along with the almond extract and rosemary. Gently fold the liquid ingredients into the dry ones. Pour into the prepared pan.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until a test toothpick comes out clean. Let cool 5 to 10 minutes before unmoulding.

Meanwhile, make a small batch of pastry cream...

Crème patissière with bourbon

1 cup whole milk

2 eggs

1/3 cup sugar (or 1/2 cup if you have a sweeter tooth than I)

2 tbsp flour

2 tbsp bourbon

Bring the milk to a simmer at medium low heat in a heavy-bottomed pot. Beat the two eggs in a mixing bowl with the sugar and flour. Pour the simmering milk little by little into the egg mixture while continue to whisk (lest the eggs cook in clumps!). Pour the entire mixture back into the pot, add the bourbon and cook to thicken at medium low heat, stirring continuously. Once thickened, let the cream cool and refrigerate.

The cooled crème patissière and peach slices.

Peal and slice three ripe peaches. You can choose to add sugar, but my specimens were plenty sweet on their own (ah! summer! what a season!). Serve the cake at room temperature with the cooled cream. I opted to assemble everything together, spreading the pastry cream over the cake and adding the peach slices to the top.

Having improvised on the bake ware front (and having no serving plate of the appropriate size) , I decided not to unmould my cake.

The cake, refrigerated and covered, will keep about 2 days.