Puff Pastry

I did some puff pastry experiments this week. I had used one sheet for a pot pie earlier, and had one more sheet left. I was dying to make "turnovers" of some sort. I had some of yesterday's beet salad left over, so I stuffed it into the dough, along with some spinach and a bit of chili flakes to make a Spicy Spinach, Beet & Goat Cheese Turnover. I think anything stuffed in a puff pastry shell is delicious. This was was especially delicious with the warm soft cheese. Yum!

Day 2 with puff pastry began with the fact that yesterday's turnovers looked a lot like Indian Samosas. So I started out with the idea in my head that I was going to make samosas. This is what I ended up making:


I figured it was easier to make a "log" than trying to fill tiny triangles. It still tasted like a samosa though.

Puff Pastry Samosas Squares

2 small potatoes, medium dice
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
handful of peas
salt, chili powder, cumin, coriander powder
1 Sheet puff pastry, thawed

Saute onions until soft and golden
Add potatoes, carrots, peas. Cover and let it steam until potatoes are cooked
Add spices
Lay your puff pastry sheet on baking sheet and fill half of it with potato mixture
Fold sheet over and crimp edges
Bake at 375 for about 20 mins, or until golden brown. Flip over if necessary.
Cut into 8 pieces, and enjoy.

Bon Apetit.

Goat cheese & Beets - A match made in foodie heaven

How could I have never tried this before? The creamy tangy goat cheese is the perfect complement to beets. This quick salad can accompany anything.

Beet Salad

1 can diced beets
goat cheese
salt, pepper, oregano
olive oil

Toss everything
Serve!

Stir fried rice with ginger chicken

You know what leftover rice is best for? Fried rice. Especially if its been in the refrigerator, and its nice and cold. I had plenty of fresh vegetables so it was perfect.

Vegetable Fried Rice

You can pretty much use whatever vegetable you have for this. I used onions, garlic, red cabbage, mushrooms, celery, carrots and eggs. I sliced and julienned on my handy-dandy mandoline.


This thing is great. Love it! Its my Super Man-doline. Did I mention how much I love it? It is extremely sharp though - took a chunk off my fiance's thumb a few weeks ago. With great power comes great responsibility. I should stop, I'm just mixing up super heroes now...


So back to the rice. The key to good fried rice is to saute all your vegetables separately. do the onions, take em out. Saute the cabbage, take it out. Then the mushrooms, take them out. You get the idea. Add soy sauce to each item individually. Be sparse, you can always add more later. Lastly fried up the rice and add all the vegetables in and mix. Can't go wrong.

Dinner Part II - Ginger Chicken


So what does one eat with fried rice? Ginger chicken of course! For this, I threw 2 chicken breasts in the crockpot and just rummaged in the cabinet to figure out what else should go in here. Here's a list of what ended up in the pot:

Chicken
Soy sauce
Giant piece of Ginger
Garlic
Thai fish sauce
Sambal (red chili paste)
Honey
A bit of water, just so it didn't burn.

5 hourse on medium - and voila!

Bon Apetit.

Mushroom & Shrimp Masala

This was part of one of my quickie meals. It took a whole of 15 mins to whip this up. Mostly 'cause I still have some masala (spice blend) my mom froze for me on her last trip. Its basically a blend of roasted onions, coconut, tomatoes and a whole bunch of other Indian spices. I honestly have no idea what all goes into this. What I do know is that its delicious. I'll be sure to find out on her next trip, and post it up here. You can just add a heaping spoonful of this to anything and it will taste like it took hours to make. My "things" of choice were mushrooms and shrimp. Just saute a sliced onion, then saute the mushrooms. Add the masala + water. Drop in the shrimp, bring to boil. Done deal.

Baked meatballs

So much for my vegetarian stint!

I caved. I just like meat too much. I did however switch to organic, hormone & antibiotic free, grass fed meat. So that's my compromise. If I want to eat meat, I pay for the "good-for-you" kind. Much better than giving it up all together.

Oh magical tasty pig, how I missed thee! I got some ground pork and decided to make some meatballs. My usual method of meatballs is to form, boil and saute. Alton Brown convinced me to bake them. Although mine didn't brown too well (mostly cause I was impatient), they were very moist and juicy. Very tasty. I don't think I'll ever go back to my boil & saute method.

I made some pasta in tomato and ricotta sauce to go with the meatballs. And garlic bread, of course.

Baked Meatballs

1/2 lb ground pork
1 egg
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
salt, pepper, itallian spices, chili flakes, garlic powder

Mix. Form. Bake at 375 for about 45 mins.
Flip over half way through.



Tomato Ricotta Sauce

1 onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, smashed
3 cups crushed tomatoes
3 whole (canned) tomatoes, smashed
1 cup ricotta
salt, pepper, itallian spices, chili flakes, garlic powder

Saute onions and garlic.
Add the tomatoes and spices. Simmer.
Add the ricotta and simmer some more. Add water as necessary to get the right consistency.

Once sauce is ready add the meatballs and pasta of choice.
Enjoy with some crusty garlicy bread.

Bon Apetit

Blue Pizza

We've been surrounded by cheese ever since we moved to Wisconsin. All kinds of local cheeses and fun flavors. Bacon, horseradish, pesto, sundried tomatoes, chocolate fudge!?! The grocery stores here dedicate entire aisles (yes, plural) - to cheese. I've managed to try a few varieties in the past few months, and have so many more to go.

I picked up some locally made blue cheese this week. I don't have much experience with blue cheeses - its soft and kinda stinky. It also doesn't have much of a shelf life, so I wanted to make sure I use it up soon after I opened it up. Pizza was the first idea that came to mind, although I wasn't sure what flavors would combine well with the strong cheese. Food Network brought me to this interesting recipe. Corn sounded good. Pesto not so much. It still needed a 3rd dimension so I went with caramelized onions with a splash of balsamic vinegar.

Blue Pizza

1 pizza base (store bought, frozen, made-from-scratch - your pick)
2 large onions, sliced in rings
1 can corn
blue cheese, crumbled
red pepper, sliced
salt, pepper, oregano
splash of balsamic vinegar

Pre-heat your oven at 375 degrees
"Roast" your corn in a pan with a bit of olive oil
Start caramelizing the onions. Keep your eyes on this. Very easy to burn. Add some salt to the onions, this will help with the process. Once browned add a splash of the balsamic.
Assemble the pizza with onions on the bottom, corn, peppers and cheese.
Bake and enjoy.

Bon Apetit!

Shrimp & Okra Gumbo

I've made gumbo before. Let me rephrase that. I've made stuff with okra before that I call gumbo. I've never actually eaten or made authentic gumbo though. So I looked up a recipe from Louisiana-man himself, Emeril. I usually don't follow recipes, but I tried to stick to his for the most part (I nixed the sausage).


Mise en place - I rarely do this. I like to chop on the go...


The beginning stages of my roux.



Gumbo on a bed of rice

Savory Zucchini Pancakes

I was 8 years old when I was first introduced to the "tomato omelette". I thought I was in for an eggy concoction that somehow involved tomatoes. I was way off. What it turned out to be was tomatoes and onions in a chickpea flower batter, pan fried like a pancake. No eggs. I found the name to be very deceiving at the time. But now that I think of it, it does look a lot like an omelette, an Indian vegan omelette.

I remembered this the other day as I was scrambling (no pun intended) to figure out what to make for dinner. I found some zucchinis and tomatoes and the rest just came together. Just to make sure there is no ambiguity, I am calling these savory pancakes. I wouldn't want to scar any 8 year olds out there.


Savory Zucchini Pancakes

1 zucchini, julienned (I used my mandolin on a matchstick setting)
1 small onion, diced
1 tomato, diced
garlic, diced or powder
salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, coriander powder
1 tsp baking soda
chickpea flower (also known as besan, widely available in Indian grocery stores)



Mix together the zucchini, onions and tomatoes.
Add in the spices and baking soda. Mix to coat.
Add enough chickpea flower to heavily coat all the veggies.
Add water, little at a time, to make a batter. Should be about pancake-mix consistency.
Ladle in spoonfuls into a hot oiled pan - just like a pancake.
Flip.
Brown.
Serve.

These will go well with a coconut chutney or even ketchup. I made my own hodgepodge sauce to go with it.

Sauce

1/2 tomato
1 clove garlic
1 serano pepper
1/4 yellow pepper
a hand full of bread crumbs (a slice of stale bread will do)
salt, pinch of sugar

Put everything in a blender and blend away.
Serve with your zucchini pancakes.

Bon Apetit!

Mustard & White :: Greens & Beans

I've been trying to eat a lot more vegetables lately. I don't want to go gung-ho and become a vegetarian, but just want to cut down on my meat consumption. I bought mustard greens for the first time, and had no idea what to do with them. All the recipes I found were either side dishes, or braised under and pork butt. I wanted to make a meal out of the mustard. I started pulling things out of the pantry and refrigerator and came up with this.

Mustard green & white beans with cranberries

1 clove garlic, smashed
evoo
1 bunch mustard greens, cleaned and chopped
Chicken stock
1 can of cannellini beans
salt, pepper, chili flakes, cumin, nutmeg
a bunch of cranberries

Heat up oil and add the garlic
Add the greens and let it wilt.
Add a bit of stock to help with the wilting
Dump in the can of beans, after you rinse them, of course.
Season and stir
Add the cranberries and let them soak up some moisture and flavor.
Done

I served my creation over a bed of egg noodle. And topped it off with the sunny side egg. Let the yokes run through the warm greens and noodles. I'm sure this will taste just as good over rice or as is.

Bon Apetit

Chile Rellenos - a la Bobby Flay

In my opinion, Chile Rellenos as stuffed with beef and cheese, then deep fried in lard. Nothing wrong with that. Then I came across Bobby Flay's chile rellenos Throwdown episode on Food Network. The competition were making a vegetarian version stuffed with cactus, mushrooms in a tomato sauce, and not fried! Bobby comes in and whips up an eggplant & manchego beer battered version with a roasted red pepper sauce and a balsamic-honey drizzle. Not only did this sound better, it even looked better than the competition's version. Bobby, however, did lose. I beg to differ. And I'm not even a big fan of Bobby.

I decided to try it out myself. I tried to stick to Bobby Flay's recipe, but made some changes along the way. I switched out the manchego for cheddar. And instead of deep flying it, I dipped it in an egg+beer wash, rolled it in panko and pan fried it in olive oil. I made the sauces exactly according to the recipes though. The whole process was time consuming, but worth it. This might be one of the fanciest looking plates I've ever made. And it tasted the part too.