A Little Bit of Heaven

I have been wanting some good, very French, very Parisian brioche for months!  Months!   Around Christmas, one of my favorite food bloggers, A Hunger Artist, said he had just made brioche on his Facebook page.  I requested, graciously enough it seems, for the recipe and he obliged me.  Last week I made this unbelievably delicious brioche loaf and have been eating it every day for breakfast. It has been my "little bit of heaven" for a week, but, alas, that week is over.

The crab apple jelly that I spread on the brioche was made by me last fall.  I cannot even believe that I've had a beautiful, bountiful crab apple tree for about fifteen years and never thought to make crab apple jelly....  What was I thinking???  I guess it's because by that time of the year, I have so much harvesting, so many canned good to put up, and so little time on my hands (I teach), that my mind couldn't handle one more chore.  How sad!  Because this is one of the best jellies I have ever tasted!  Right up there with this is chokecherry jelly.  Wow!

So I started off the year with a lovely taste in my mouth and now I have two more taste/cooking goals to keep me busy: Charcutepalooza and Michael Ruhlman's Bread Baking Month.  I had been wanting to do a year with both of these favorite foods and now I have my inspiration. I'm a bit behind on the bread baking, and I may not do every loaf because that is a lot of bread for just two people, so to begin I will try either the Classic Rye Bread with Caraway Seeds or the Ciabatta.

I missed the first Charcuterie challenge, duck prosciutto, but my husband made the same recipe last year so we may or may not try that challenge this year.  We started "curing" our Pancetta before Christmas, and just brought it in the other day.  It looks superb and tastes so much better than anything we ever bought in the stores.  I'll try to post how we are now using the pancetta and what we did with the other half of the pork belly. 

Since dinner utilized some of the pancetta and I am completely satiated, I'll wait until another day to describe that fulfilling dinner.