We ate well tonight. OK, what’s new right? Well, we ate better than we usually do.

Anyone who knows us knows that the last thing we truly need is another cookbook. But Harald has been jonesing to buy Dorie Greenspan’s new cookbook, Around My French Table, since before Christmas. He didn’t get the book for the holidays. But right before Christmas it was mentioned again in our local paper as one of the 10 best coobooks of 2010. So, when He got a Barnes & Noble gift card this holiday, he resolved to buy the book, which we finally picked up today while running errands. We toyed for a few minutes with buying Lidia Bastianich’s newest cookbook, but once I spent a minute flipping through each of them, it was clear that I wanted Dorie’s first. When we got home, I immediately sat down and started going through page after page of recipes I wanted to try. Not content to make something easier for dinner, I decided I would try a few recipes from this new cookbook, and I have to say I loved every one of them -and they weren’t very complicated or time consuming.

Tonight for dinner we had:

Creamy Cauliflower Soup sans cream (garnished with creme fraiche and black truffle oil)
Pumpkin-Gorganzola Flan (incredibly easy and just as delicious)
Almond Flounder Meuniere with creme fraiche mashed potatoes

Now, it is impossible to find flounder right now. According to my local Byerlys fishmonger, the east coast markets have had a heck of a time the past few weeks getting good flounder. I made do with a substitution of red snapper, but I think it might have been better with small walleye filets or sole (yeah, like I could find that either!). There are numerous other recipes in this cookbook I am anxious to try and I think we’ll get started right away.

For the culinary Francophile’s among us, here is a link to the book if you want to check it out.