Eco-Cooking and First of May Sunday Dessert

In Week 4 A la Carte Kitchen, we sauteed wild mushrooms and used that as a side dish for the Entree Savory Bread Pudding. We ended up with a lot of leftovers...and no one wanted them. So I stuffed them into my tupperware--the mushrooms are delicious, and very expensive. To which Chef told me not to do again, because it's not fair to other people. But no one wanted them! And she has told us repeatedly how she doesn't like to waste food... so I'm now a bit confused.

But I managed to snag a tupper-ful of wild mushrooms. I used half of them to make a wild mushroom pasta, and mom used the other half to make mushroom rice.

They were delicious! It is a shame to waste such precious ingredient.

Yes, and there's that Bible study I mentioned in my earlier blog. I baked the crust, which turned out perfect (flaky yet tender), filled it with vanilla pastry cream (with vanilla beans!), arranged the sliced strawberries on top, and brushed them with apricot preserve.

Decorated with organic whipped cream and toasted pistachios.

My jaw still ached from the wisdom teeth extraction, so I ate a tiny piece of the crust and the cream--they were indeed delicious. Tender enough to cut into with a fork, but sturdy enough to hold the cream, pick it up and eat it too. Hugh and Sophie 'deconstructed' it--as in, ate the berries, then the cream, then the crust separately--and licked the plate clean. Mrs. M and Mrs. S had second helpings. It's kinda funny how Mrs. S, a 90-something-year old lady, has trouble eating a whole PB&J sandwich (she ate half, saying she was too full to finish it) but has no problem downing one-and-a-half servings of strawberry tart...

T-san unfortunately had to leave early, so he missed out on the strawberry tart. But not to worry, he paid us a visit the next day, so I used the remaining shells, the cream cheese mousse (from Advanced Restaurant Dessert I had kept in the freezer) to make a Strawberry Cheese Mousse Tart. I painted the bottom of the crust with white chocolate for a burst of richness to balance the tangy mousse and the fruit.

T-san had come over because he had some extra fish heads from his restaurant...that, and we had a bit of a happening during the Bible study the day before. To sum it up, his wife, S-san started ranting and raving about her current situation with her husband, turning the Bible study into a group marriage counseling. It was good that he came over--we could hear both their stories separately.
What a week!