Cook's Book

Mango Paradise

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Wed, 30 May 2012 01:43:00 +0000

Picture yourself in a tropical paradise lounging in the sunshine beside crystal blue water. The light salt water breeze brushes gently through your hair, as you drink out of a coconut, your feet buried in the warm white sand. Peaceful and serene; there is not a sound but the waves drifting over the shore, and maybe some steel drums playing in the distance. Welcome to Marishky—your island escape.

Dinner is now being served, courtesy of chefs Marisa, Alisha, and Kym. Because it is mango season, we have a special menu in store for you that will feature the delicious tropic fruit as the theme ingredient. Your first course: Mango shrimp ceviche served over plantain and chorizo mofongo, with a mango ginger puree. Highlighting island flavors of seafood, lime, mango and plantains, the light starter simply speaks of a sunny beach; for even if you are not in a tropical paradise, you will certainly feel like it.

As teased a few weeks ago, the Five Star Makeover Group’s theme for April/May was a Top Chef-style “Restaurant Wars” challenge. Unlike in past months where bloggers in the group work individually on creating interesting and gourmet dishes based on one specific food or cooking style, this time we worked together in groups to design our own unique “restaurants” and menus focusing on a chosen featured ingredient. And so Marishky, a mash up of efforts put in by myself and talented food bloggers Alisha of The Ardent Epicure and Kym of Free Spirit Eater, was born.

For our mango paradise-themed menu, each of us was responsible for a different course. As you can see, I made the appetizer. Mango itself has a very tropical essence, but I wanted my entire dish to evoke a sense of exotic lands and warm weather. Ceviche and mofongo are both Latin preparations that originate on islands—perfect!

Along with adding diced mangos to the citrus-marinated shrimp ceviche, I tossed it with a sweet and smooth mango ginger puree that I made from a cooked mixture of fresh mango, lime juice, grated ginger and sugar. I also served some of the puree on the side to eat with the mofongo. I learned how to make mofongo last year from a Dominican chef whose restaurant I was profiling; this was the perfect occasion to try it out for myself. Mofongo is a mash of fried green plantains, squished together into a delicious mess with garlic, butter and traditionally, pork cracklings; I added chopped cooked chorizo sausage to mine instead. The plantain chip on top is a just a fun garnish for a nice little crunch.

Check out Alisha's post for her delectable (vegetarian) entree:
Crispy Polenta and Black Bean Cakes with Herb Flower and Pineapple Mint Pesto and Coconut Crusted Mango Fries

Check out Kym's post for her lovely dessert:
Mango Chai & Pomegranate Chive Gelees w/ Honey Poached Radish on Raspberry Quinoa Cakes

Mango Shrimp Ceviche
Over Mofongo with Mango Ginger Puree
Print

Mango Ginger Puree
Yield: 1 cup
- 2 mangoes, diced
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup lime juice (2 limes)
1) Add the mango, sugar, ginger and salt to a small saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mango begins to break down, about 5 minutes. Add the lime juice and cook stirring occasionally, until it is slightly reduced, about 15 minutes.
2) Puree the mixture in a food processor until smooth. Set aside ½ of the puree for the ceviche and reserve the rest for serving.

Mango Shrimp Ceviche
Yield: 6-8 appetizer servings
- ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 1 pound small shrimp (or medium, chopped), cleaned
- ½ medium onion, diced
- ½ cup peeled, diced cucumber
- ½ cup peeled, diced jicama
- 1 mango, diced
- 1 tablespoon hot sauce
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- ½ cup mango ginger puree
- 1/3 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1) Bring 1 quart of salted water to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons of lime juice. Add the shrimp, cover and let the water return to a boil. Immediately remove from the heat, set the lid askew and pour off all the liquid. Replace the cover and let the shrimp steam off the heat for 10 minutes. Transfer the shrimp to a large bowl; cool completely. Toss the shrimp with the remaining ½ cup lime juice; cover and refrigerate for about an hour.
2) Add the diced onion, cucumber, jicama and mango to the bowl with the shrimp. In a small bowl, whisk together the hot sauce, olive oil, and ketchup; pour over the shrimp. Add the mango ginger puree; toss to coat. Add the cilantro. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. Cover and refrigerate if not serving immediately.

Mofongo
Yield: 5 appetizer servings
- 4 ounces chorizo sausage, casings removed, finely diced
- 2 unripe plantains (green or just yellow), sliced into rounds
- ¾ cup vegetable oil
- 6 tablespoons butter, softened
- 1 clove garlic, finely minced
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
1) Heat a small skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chorizo and cook until slightly crispy, about 3 minutes.
2) Heat the vegetable oil in a deep skillet, deep-fryer or wok over medium-high heat. Fry the plantains in the oil until soft; remove and drain on a paper towel.
3) Mash the plantains while still warm. Add the softened butter, garlic, salt and pepper, and continue to mash until smooth.

To serve: Mold the mofongo in a small cup or ramekin and release onto a plate. Spoon the mango shrimp ceviche over the mofongo. Serve the remaining mango ginger puree on the side. Garnish with a plantain chip, if desired.

Dining in New Orleans

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Mon, 14 May 2012 03:32:00 +0000

I knew I loved New Orleans long before I ever got there. Before I ever strolled the colorful streets of the French Quarter, before I ever caught a set of Mardi Gras beads, and before I ever tasted a muffuletta sandwich, I had fallen in love with just the idea of it. Intrigued by the culture, spirit, and especially the food that the city is known for, New Orleans had long been on the top of my mental checklist of places to go.

Mardi Gras float and beads at Mardi Gras World, a mardi gras museum within one
of the warehouses where they make mardi gras floats.

I recently visited The Big Easy for the first time, and already I can’t wait to go back. It is everything you’ve heard about; from the mayhem of Bourbon Street to the cool, charming, jazz-filled streets that lay just beyond it, there is truly no place like it.

Bourbon Street

A quiet side street in the French Quarter

With an unwavering party spirit that’s always in full effect, New Orleans is a world full of character, deeply steeped in history and tradition. Beneath every iron laced balcony of the French Quarter and every bead-draped lamppost and stoplight, there is a story to be told. Near the famous Jackson Square, music echoes, psychics read tarot cards and street performers perform. If you’re lucky, you may even catch one of the many spontaneous parades that break out in celebration of marriages or debutantes.

Beads on a Royal Street streetlight, a wedding parade, & Jackson Square.

Nothing speaks louder of New Orleans culture than its spicy, Cajun and Creole-influenced cuisine, heavy in fresh-from-the bayou seafood. I used to imagine what it would be like to eat authentic dishes like crawfish etoufee and gumbo right in the unique city where they were born. Then, one day I blinked my eyes, and there I was with a warm beignet in my hand and powdered sugar all over my shirt. It was certainly a culinary daydream fulfilled.

You will notice there are a few must-tastes that I did not taste (i.e. catfish po’ boy). In four days, I may not have been able to eat everything, but I damn well tried. Here is my food-filled adventure in pictures. As they say in NOLA, laissez le bon temps roulette or let the good times roll…

First stop, Port of Call. New Orleans has a great way of leaving an impression on everyone who visits. When I told people that I was going, the typical response from those who had already been was a gush of excitement and a list of places to visit. Port of Call was one of many recommended spots; it came with acclaim from my cousin as one of the best burgers she had ever tasted and a baked potato that she “still dreams about.”

When we arrived in New Orleans it was pouring out. We took a taxi right to Port of Call to get out of the rain, fill our bellies and cross the first “must visit” off of the list. After wiping the rain from my glasses, I found myself standing in what felt like a cool, old pirate ship with Christmas lights strung around the bar.

True, a burger and baked potato are not very New Orleans-y, but at Port of Call they are freakin’ good. The menu is small, offering not much more than their handmade burgers, steaks and drinks. And yes, the baked potatoes are awesome. The enormous spuds overflow with fluffy potatoes and a heaping dollop of sour cream, bacon and chives at your request. And I can’t forget the Monsoon, their signature drink fit for pirate—with lots of rum.

Desire Bistro & Oyster Bar

Inside of the Royal Sonesta Hotel, Desire Bistro & Oyster Bar’s prime Bourbon Street corner location is one of the most well-known and photographed places in NOLA. For my first night dining in The Big Easy, Desire was a great place to start. The casual restaurant is known for their raw bar and has a menu with just about every classic New Orleans dish you would want to taste, and they do it well. I ordered the shrimp remoulade and hush puppies for an appetizer and the jambalaya for my entrée.

Jambalaya, Hush Puppies, & Shrimp Remoulade at Desire

For dessert, we went to the historical Napoleon House. According to Napoleonhouse.com, the building that houses the small bar was first occupied by Nicholas Girod, the mayor of New Orleans from 1812-1815. The mayor “offered his residence to Napoleon in 1821 as a refuge during his exile. Napoleon never made it, but the name stuck.” Here, set to a soundtrack of classical tunes, you can enjoy what many artists and writers considered a getaway for much of the twentieth century. They offer a full menu, but if you go there for nothing more than a cup of coffee, the antique atmosphere is so worth the visit.

Court of the Two Sisters

Hidden behind many of the building in New Orleans, there are beautiful courtyards. The Court of theTwo Sisters has one of the most romantic of them all. Unfortunately, it was raining so I did not get to eat in the courtyard (another reason to go back), but the inside is also very elegant. We had the jazz brunch there, which is offered throughout the week. As you help yourself to the plentiful buffet of Louisiana standard breakfast and lunch fare, it’s pleasant to hear the upright base thumping and the clarinet wail. My plate was piled absurdly high with an irrational mix of food, so I’ll spare you that picture. Among the good eats were etoufee, turtle soup, and crawfish.

Crawfish, crayfish, crawdaddies, mud bugs, whatever you call them, there’s a whole lot of work involved to get to a tiny piece of meat, but it’s all part of the New Orleans experience...and it's good!

Bananas Foster & Bloody Mary at Brennan's

Brennan’s is a celebrated New Orleans institution. It is also the place where the first bloody Mary was ever made and bananas foster was invented. It’s a pretty formal restaurant with great service. I was excited to go there and taste the “originals” that it is known for, and am happy that I finally got the chance to. The bloody Mary is exceptional. The bananas foster is prepared as it always has been, tableside with an impressive flambé flare-up at the end.

Beignets at Café du Monde

If I could fly to New Orleans every night and get a beignet or two (or three) at Café du Monde, I would. Beignets are like big fluffy doughnuts or zeppoles, only better and with about an inch of powdered sugar on top. The famous coffee house sells no other food but beignets. They are open for 24 hours and business is always booming. The only thing better than having beignets at Café du Monde, is having beignets with a cup of their famous chicory-roasted coffee or “café au lait.”

Red Beans & Rice

Red beans and rice is an icon of Louisiana Creole food. The hearty rice dish is traditionally made on Mondays with the leftovers from Sunday dinner and often includes andouille sausage and tasso ham. It originated as the perfect “set it and forget it” one-pot recipe that could simmer all day on Monday washdays. Though it is largely made in Louisiana homes, many restaurants also offer it as a special.

August is one of star Louisina chef John Besh’s several restaurants and is considered one of the best formal dining restaurants in New Orleans. The cuisine is contemporary French with a New Orleans twist that utilizes local ingredients. It was too dark to take good pictures, so I’ll just tell you what I ate. The amuse bouche was a savory truffle zabaglione served inside of an egg shell and topped with caviar. For my first course, I got an awesomely smooth shrimp bisque. My entrée was the Sugar and Spice Duckling with grits, roasted foie gras and local strawberries. And for dessert, the Napoleon of Noutgatine with layers of crispy chocolate brittle, topped with salted toffee ice cream. I think my favorite part of the meal was the plate of sweets that came with the check including handmade pralines, chocolate and jelly candies. I enjoyed it all with a champagne cocktail. So fancy! I’m a lucky girl.

King cakes at the French Market

King Cake is most prevalent around Mardi Gras, but you can find it any time. The customary round braided brioche bread is covered in glaze and decorated in green, purple, and gold sugar sprinkles to represent faith (green), justice (purple) and power (gold). Inside of every King Cake is a plastic baby. The baby represents Jesus, and anyone who gets the baby in their slice of cake is supposed to have good luck and buy the King Cake the next year.

Last year, I made my own king cake for Mardi Gras. Click here for the post and recipe. If you read the post you can get an idea of all that NOLA daydreaming I was talking about before. I wasn’t kidding.

Pecan pralines are a classic New Orleans confection. A bit creamy and a bit crunchy, they taste just like little morsels of pecan pie to me. So good!

Bananas Foster French toast & my dad & I with snowballs at Stanley.

Stanley is located right in Jackson Square and is known for their breakfast. I got the bananas foster French toast and it was amazing. With all the classic elements of Bananas Foster including the rum sauce and a scoop of ice cream, how could it not be? Next door is a little walk-in shop that sells homemade gelato and snowballs. Crushed ice with flavored syrup, snowballs are like the NOLA version of snow cones. Nice and refreshing on a hot Louisiana day.

Muffuletta at Central Grocery

The muffuletta is a signature New Orleans sandwich named after the bread on which it is made. The massive Sicilian sandwich is constructed of various Italian meats, cheeses, and most importantly, marinated olive salad, all of which lay on an 10-inch loaf of soft, round, sesame muffuletta bread. It is so big, that you can order it in halves or quarters. Many eateries sell muffulettas, but I went right to the source for mine: Central Grocery, the old Italian deli where it originated. People come from far and wide to get a taste of this sandwich; you will meet them as you wait on the at least 30 minute muffuletta line. Trust me, you won’t regret it. Again, when I said I used to daydream of eating in New Orleans, this is the stuff that I was talking about.

Gumbo & crawfish with goat cheese crepes at Muriel's

Located in Jackson Square, Muriel’s is another excellent restaurant in the French Quarter with great old-fashioned charm. Something that often comes with old-fashioned charm is ghosts, and New Orleans apparently has a lot of them. If you go to Muriel’s and see a table set for what appears to be no one, it is actually for their resident ghost, Mr. Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan, who is the primary spirit of several said to make their presence known quite often in the restaurant.

Homemade Flour Tortillas for Cinco de Mayo

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sat, 05 May 2012 04:28:00 +0000

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

To celebrate, I wanted to share with you a recent video I made for grandmaskitchen.com on how to make homemade flour tortillas. Towards the end of the video, I also demonstrate how to use the tortillas to make vegetable quesadillas.

Prepared from a short list of common ingredients (flour, shortening, salt and water), you won't believe how easy tortillas are to make from scratch—and they’re cheap, too! You don't need to use a tortilla press or any fancy equipment, just your hands, a rolling pin, and a cast iron skillet. If you want to reduce prep time even further, simply add all of the ingredients to a food processor and whirl away. After rolling the dough into flat discs, the best part is watching it squirm and bubble in the hot skillet as it dries out, instantly morphing, Hulk-style, into a bona fide tortilla.

There are so many uses for homemade flour tortillas. In addition to quesadillas, they are the base of many of our favorite handheld Mexican foods like burritos, tacos, fajitas, and enchiladas. Granted, flour tortillas are a little more Tex-Mex than Mexican. Corn tortillas are what you will commonly find in traditional dishes such as Mexico City street tacos, and are considered more authentic to Mexican cuisine. Corn tortillas are also a bit healthier, but it’s Cinco de Mayo and we’re celebrating.

If you come here often, you know that Mexican food is one of my favorites. Here are a few more recipes that are perfect for Cinco de Mayo:

Mexican Meatball Soup
Pico de Gallo & Guacamole
Margarita Sorbet
Tequila-Flamed Mangoes

We All Scream For Ice Cream

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Thu, 03 May 2012 04:19:00 +0000

Cook’s Book is featured on the blog, Rhapsody à la crème. Visit to read the interview and to see some more fun pictures!

The author of the blog, Tricia, is one of my old friends from high school. She’s a talented fashion illustrator who blogs about clothes, trends, the fashion world and other fashionable things like her cool designer internships, food, and me! Ok, whatever. But you have to admit, I can still vogue and work it with a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth lol.

That’s cotton candy ice cream, by the way, with rainbow sprinkles and as per Tricia’s request, a few gummy bears on top. Who am I to argue with gummy bears?

The photos were taken at Five Pennies Creamery in Rockville Centre, a cute old-fashioned ice cream parlor that makes a variety of delicious homemade frozen treats every day. Last summer, I wrote about my particular obsession with their peanut butter ice cream and how it inspired me to make my own.

Upcoming "Restaurant Wars" Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Wed, 02 May 2012 02:50:00 +0000

For the months of April and May, The Five Star Makeover cooking group, hosted by Lazaro Cook's and Five Star Foodie, is going to be doing an exciting Top Chef-style “Restaurant Wars” challenge. Unlike in past months where members of the group work individually on creating interesting and gourmet dishes based on one specific food or cooking style, this time we are working together in random groups of three to design our own unique “restaurants” and menus focusing on a chosen featured ingredient. It is not a competition, just a fun project to see what happens when groups of creative culinary minds get together.

I am working with Kym from Free Spirit Eater and Alisha from The Ardent Epicure, and we have come up with a really great concept. Let’s just say, the mangoes are ripe for the picking at Marishsky (Ma-Rish-Kai--a mesh of all of our names), a tropical paradise where the ladies are lovely and the food is delicious. For our menu, I’ll be making the appetizer, Alisha is making the entrée, and Kym is making the dessert.

Visit during the week of May 28th to check out our restaurant and final menu!

Cooking with Michael Symon

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:33:00 +0000

In the foreword of Michael Symon's Book, Live to Cook, Bobby Flay writes, “Michael Symon is cooking…that means the aroma of sizzling pork is in the air!”

Last week, I had the opportunity to spend an evening cooking and dining with celebrity chef Michael Symon, and as nothing less would be expected from a chef with the words “Got Pork” tattooed over his heart on a banner carried by two piggy angels, the scent of sizzling pork goodness laid gloriously in the air that night. The star Cleveland chef and restaurateur, Iron Chef and co-host of daytime food talk show, “The Chew,” was cooking juicy breaded bone-in pork chop Milanese, and that was just one of the delicious dishes that he made.

A friend of pork is a friend of mine. And clearly, Chef Symon and I are BFFs now.

The intimate event was hosted by Bounty paper towels for a select group of bloggers, media, and two lucky Facebook fans, who won an expense paid trip to New York City to meet Michael simply for “liking” the brand’s page (not a bad idea if you’re interested in similar perks in the future!). The “Bring it! Dinner,” as it was called, took place a few stories up in a bright orange open kitchen in a Manhattan loft, where Chef Symon led an engaging interactive cooking demo, with a full dinner following. The most fun for me was getting to tie on an apron and participate in making zucchini fritters or keftedes with feta and dill. Standing in a room full of cooks learning from an accomplished chef made me feel as if I was in culinary school again—a feeling that I very often miss.

In the beginning of the evening, Chef Symon noted that he does not endorse too many products, but joined with Bounty because it is something that he uses in both his personal and professional kitchens every day; not just for cleaning up, but as a tool. When making the fritters, we grated the zucchini right onto a sheet of paper towel and then used it as a makeshift sieve to squeeze as much of the moisture out as possible. Zucchini contains a lot of moisture; making sure that it is fairly dry is important when making fritters, because the less flour that needs to be added to the batter, the better it ultimately tastes.

You may not see them as more than something to dry your hands with, but paper towels are very handy kitchen tools. Absorbent towels are always an effective way to drain oil from fried items. They are also a great way to keep certain foods fresh and eliminate waste. Have you ever noticed that fresh herbs are often sold in amounts way larger than what you need for one recipe? Wrap them in lightly dampened paper towels and refrigerate to help them to stay fresher longer. The same thing goes for salad greens (lay the towel on top of loose greens like spinach or mesclun).

While frying pork chops at the front of the bright orange kitchen, Chef Symon answered questions and discussed his approach to food and cooking. “Local is my first goal,” said the chef, who builds relationships with farmers and suggests that the number one products to buy organic are milk, eggs, butter and cheese. His recipes are made up of short ingredient lists to highlight the natural quality and freshness of the food itself. Salt, pepper and a squeeze of fresh lemon are mainly all that’s ever needed to season or enhance.

As often reflected on his menus, Chef Symon’s also got some good culinary genes. With a Greek and Sicilian background, he first discovered his love of food and cooking in his mother’s kitchen, making dishes like baklava and lasagna. Even as a celebrity chef and restaurateur with several restaurants, Mom’s lasagna still remains at the top of his list. “Food that brings me back to my childhood is always my favorite food,” said Symon.

Crispy Gnocchi with Morel mushrooms and Spring Peas. The lightly toasted, fluffy ricotta gnocchi were the hands down favorite at my end of the table.

Zucchni Fritters with Feta and Dill. Served with a light Greek yogurt sauce for dipping.

Pork Chop Milanese with Arugula and Tomato Salad

Delicious! It’s not every day an Iron Chef cooks you dinner. The best thing about Chef Symon is that you can tell that he is crazy about what he does. He can’t even hide it if he wanted to; his passion for food bursts out of him like his contagious laughter. In the hour or so that we spent with him, I felt that he was more chef than “celebrity chef.” The entire time he was genuinely smiling, laughing, as he says, “living to cook,” and loving it.

Beet Juice, Beet Juice, Beet Juice!

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:05:00 +0000

While I have been cooking up some good dishes lately, I unfortunately haven’t been able to find the time this month to blog about them. I am taking the time to share with you my creation for this month’s 5 Star Makeover challenge, featuring beets as the star ingredient. It’s funny how a deadline can push you to get things done that you otherwise might write off on your own watch.

Thomas Jefferson has a famous quote that says, “Never put off tomorrow what you can do today.” My mom likes this quote and cites it often; though every time she says it, she says, “Don’t put off today what you can do tomorrow.” It’s funny because, admit it, we are all guilty of putting off tomorrow.

I am most definitely a “do today” kind of girl. In fact, between work and other projects, I am so wrapped up in “doing today” that my blog has admittedly become somewhat of a poster child for my mom’s quote. Plans to blog tomorrow turn into next week, and then next week turns into the next. Although “Cook’s Book” may be on the back burner for now, I still have my eye on it.

My goal is to try to get at least two blog posts up a month…and February is a short month, so give me a break. ;-) Blogging is something that I do for fun; it’s a place for me to document and share my recipes, a comfortable forum to write about what I love, and an outlet for me to participate in cool things like these 5 star challenges and meet others who share a common interest. I don’t ever want it to feel like work; I’m just making sure that it never does.

Anyway, back to beets. I have always liked beets. They sort of lack in the flavor department, but all they need is a little push—which is why I especially enjoy them in salads. I find their unique taste and texture to go really nicely with the sweet tang of a vinaigrette dressing. Check out my beet salad:

That’s not caviar—it’s pearl couscous dyed with beautiful red beet juice! I cooked the couscous with finely chopped roasted beets so that it would absorb the color. After cooking, I tossed the couscous with diced roasted beets and orange vinaigrette. It is served topped with herbed goat cheese (a classic pairing for beets), carrots, fennel, red onion, and cilantro. A gorgeous and healthy side dish!

Hopefully I’ll have some more new posts and recipes up soon. I’ve been building up quite a list, so stay tuned!

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!

Pearl Couscous Beet Salad
Print
Yield: 4-6
- 3 beets, roasted and peeled, divided
- 1 ¼ cup water
- 1 cup pearl/Israeli couscous
- 1 orange, zested and juiced
- 1 tablespoon mustard
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 teaspoon sherry vinegar
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
For garnish:
- Shredded carrot
- Thinly sliced fennel
- Cilantro leaves
- Thinly sliced red onion
- Crumbled goat cheese
1) Finely chop one beet and dice the other two.
2) To prepare the dressing, whisk together the orange juice, orange zest, mustard, honey and sherry vinegar in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3) Add the finely chopped beet and the water to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir the couscous into the boiling water and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover the pan and cook 8-10 minutes. When all of the liquid has evaporated, transfer the couscous to a bowl and toss with a few tablespoons of the dressing. Cool for about 10 minutes.
4) Add the diced beets to the couscous and toss with the rest of the dressing. Serve topped with carrot, fennel, cilantro, red onion and goat cheese.

Meatloaf Meatballs

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:12:00 +0000

Ever since my hands could roll, they’ve been rolling meatballs. They are the first food that I ever learned to make. When I was a little girl, my mom would pull a stool up to the counter and I would help her to roll the meatballs for Sunday dinner’s sauce. One by one, I would follow her lead and try to make them as perfect as I could. As we would line the meatballs up on the counter, she would tell me that I was doing a good job and I would feel proud.

Those are some of my first memories in the kitchen. Perhaps it was then, that a little seed was subconsciously planted inside of me. A teeny tiny little baby speck of a meatball seed that would someday grow into the desire to become a chef and nourish the drive to eventually help me flower into one. You never can tell how these things happen. Maybe it really is because of meatballs.

Meatballs are the theme for the 5 Star Makeover cooking group for this month. The challenge is to create an interesting type of meatball. I went for interesting, yet practical, which seems to be the direction I always tend to lean. Using good old ground beef, I combined two dinner classics, wrapped ‘em up in bacon and stuffed them with cheese to make meatloaf meatballs.

The bacon melts onto the flavorfully seasoned meat, incorporating a delicious saltiness on the outside that only a slice of pork belly can do so well. One thing I particularly enjoy about meatloaf is the ketchup glaze. Half way through cooking, the meatballs are basted with a simple, no-cook ketchup glaze made with maple syrup and Worcestershire sauce.They are coated with another thick layer when they come out of the oven.

These have the portability of a meatball with the flavor of a meatloaf, and they come with a nice surprise inside—a melted hunk of mozzarella. Serve over rice and enjoy! To see all the other meatball creations that the group came up with, click the link below:

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!

Meatloaf Meatballs:

Yield: 10-12 Meatballs

- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small onion, minced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 pounds ground sirloin
- 1 cup panko breadcrumb
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon dry thyme
- 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, divided
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 egg
- ½ cup ketchup
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon hot sauce
- 1 cup mozzarella, cut into cubes
- 5-6 slices of bacon, cut in half
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2) Heat the olive oil in a small sauté pan over medium heat. Sauté the onions until translucent. Add the garlic and cook until just fragrant.
3) In a large bowl, combine the cooked onion and garlic with the meat, breadcrumb, garlic powder, thyme, 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, cumin and the egg. Season the mixture with salt and pepper. Mix until all of the ingredients are well incorporated.
4) To prepare the glaze, mix together the remaining Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, maple syrup and hot sauce in a medium bowl.
5) Form the meat mixture into balls a little larger than the size of golf ball; insert a cube of mozzarella into each, forming the meat completely around the cheese. Wrap each meatball in a slice of bacon and place seam-side down on a broiler pan.
6) Bake the meatballs for 15 minutes, and then baste with half the glaze. Bake 15 minutes more until the meat and bacon are fully cooked. Brush on the remaining glaze and serve immediately.

Tapping into Tapas

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:20:00 +0000

A few years ago, I purchased a tapas cookbook that I found on sale at the book store; it wasn’t a New York Times best seller and it didn’t carry the name of any big time chef or television personality, but it stood out to me (though they tell me I shouldn’t, I can’t help but to judge (actual) books by their covers—especially when there is a pretty picture of food on the cover). Boring story, I know. But as random as it was, that last-minute, cheap impulse buy turned out to be one of my favorite cookbooks and one that I always look to for inspiration.

It is no wonder I am drawn to tapas, the small appetizer and snacks served in the bars of Spain. I am one who would rather get full on tasting a bunch of little things than one big meal any day. I think I could live off of the crostini, marinated vegetables, cheeses, olives, croquettes and other various fried things which tapas menus are made of; in just one or two satisfyingly delectable bites, they are just enough and more than you could ask for all at once.

I was recently flipping through the pages of my trusty cookbook, when a recipe for empandillas caught my eye. Empandillas are a smaller version of the baked or fried turnovers, empanadas. What I enjoyed most about the recipe was that it used frozen puff pastry dough. To make, you simply thaw the dough, roll it out, cut out circles, prepare and add the filling, fold into a crescent and crimp the edges to seal; 15 minutes in the oven, and done. How ridiculously easy is that? I love it. Plus, there’s definitely something therapeutic about folding and crimping those miniature pockets of deliciousness.

You can stuff the empandillas with any creative filling of your choice. My version includes goat cheese, diced prosciutto and caramelized onions. I think I found a new “go-to” recipe and hope that I introduced one for you too. Make frozen puff pastry a freezer staple (always handy to have anyway) and prepare this whenever you need a quick appetizer or snack for guests. I served them on the side with the feast that I cooked up for Christmas. They are best warm and crispy straight from the oven.

Empandillas with Goat Cheese & Prosciutto
Print
Yield: 16-18 empandillas
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ medium onion, thinly sliced
- 8 ounces goat cheese
- 4 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, diced
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1box (2 sheets) prepared frozen puff pastry, thawed
- All-purpose flour, for dusting
- 1 egg, beaten
• Heat the olive oil in a small sauce pan. Add the onion and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until caramelized, about 30-40 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray 3 baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray.
• In a medium bowl, mix together the caramelized onion, goat cheese and prosciutto until well combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out the thawed puff pastry dough. Using a medium-large round cookie cutter or the rim of a glass, cut out circles. Add a teaspoon of goat cheese filling to the center of each circle. Dampen half of the circles with a little bit of water, then fold the dough over the filling to form a crescent; pinch the edges to seal, then press with the tines of a fork to secure. Transfer to the prepared baking sheets.
• Using a sharp knife, make a small slit in the top of each pastry. Brush with the beaten egg to glaze. Bake until risen and golden brown, about 15 minutes. Serve warm.

Soft & Chewy Gingerbread Men

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 06:44:00 +0000

Decked with friendly smiles and swirls of snowy royal icing, gingerbread men are an iconic symbol of the holiday season. The deep molasses flavor of gingerbread is warm and festive in itself, but the spiced aroma of a freshly baked batch, and the familiar sugary designs on the doll-like cookie cutouts are what truly make it feel like Christmas.

Though it always looks so appealing, the problem with gingerbread is that it is often break-your-teeth-status, hard as rocks. I don’t know about you, but when I’m presented with a delicious little man cookie that smells like cinnamon and sugar, I’m tempted to bite the head off of it. And when I can’t? What a tease! A lot of recipes are designed to make the cookies sturdy enough to be used as tree ornaments and decorations, which is perfect if that is what you want to do. However, if eating the cookies is what you’re after, soft & chewy is the way to go.

In search of a cookie that fit the right criteria, I came across this blog featuring the recipe for Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Cookies by Baking/Cook’s Illustrated. With the description of “the perfect man,” I could not resist. As I am often very careful when it comes to baking, I followed the recipe exactly, and the cookies turned out awesome! Just look at them. They’re adorable and best of all, soft and chewy; the texture makes it so easy to savor all the deliciousness that gingerbread has to offer.

I decorated my gingerbread men simply and traditionally with standard royal icing made of confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract, and egg whites. Because of the stigma attached to eating raw egg and getting salmonella, most royal icing recipes these days will call for meringue powder or egg white powder instead—both pricier alternatives that require a trip to a craft or specialty store. I’ve seen so many recipes like this, that I actually questioned myself for wanting to use real egg whites. Listen, people have been making royal icing with egg whites for years. The chance of getting salmonella from pasteurized eggs is already incredibly low; factor in the ratio of sugar to egg whites, and your risk is even lower.

You won’t be able to hang these soft gingerbread cookies on your tree, but they are too good to be used as decorations anyway. For many, the gingerbread man is the personification of sweet holiday memories. Baking them is a fun project to share with the ones you love, and they make thoughtful gifts as well. They are just the kind of cookies that are sure to put a smile on Santa’s face!

A gingerbread man once said, that you can take anything from him, just “not the buttons; not my gumdrop buttons!” Ladies and gentleman, the inspiration to all of my gingerbread aspirations, Gingy! :

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Here is the recipe. It is not mine, just one that I recommend. :-)

Soft & Chewy Gingerbread Cookies
Print
Recipe edited. Obtained from sweetpeaskitchen.com; Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Cookies, Baking Illustrated
Yield: About 20 Cookies
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened slightly
- 3/4 cup molasses
- 2 tablespoons milk
- Royal icing for decorating
• In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, process flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking soda until combined, about 10 seconds. Scatter butter pieces over flour mixture and process until mixture is sandy and resembles very fine meal, about 15 seconds. With food processor running, add molasses and milk; process until dough is evenly moistened and forms a soft mass, about 10 seconds. (This step can also be done in an electric stand mixer; mix the dry ingredients, cut the dough into the flour mixture by hand, and then mix in the wet ingredients).
• Divide dough in half and roll into ¼ inch thickness between two sheets of parchment paper. Place in the freezer for 15 to 20 minutes, until firm.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
• Once the dough is firm, cut out cookies using a gingerbread man cookie cutter. Place on prepared baking sheets spacing cookies 1 inch apart. Bake until centers are just set and dough barely retains imprint when touched very gently with fingertip, 8 to 11 minutes. Gather scraps; repeat rolling, cutting, and baking until all dough is used.
• Cool the cookies on the baking sheets about 2 minutes. Using a wide metal spatula, transfer the cookies to a wire rack and cool to room temperature. Decorate as desired with royal icing.

40 Clove Garlic Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:33:00 +0000

I know what you’re probably thinking. “Forty cloves of garlic? That’s a lot of garlic!”

Yes, forty whole cloves. Seems like a whole lot of bad breath, a whole lot of peeling, and a whole lot of time trying to get the smell off your hands. At least, that was my first reaction. The sound of having so much of this one particularly pungent ingredient could either turn you on or off. At first glance, it seems that forty cloves just might be pushing the limits of aromatic enticement, even for the smelliest of garlic lovers.

Turns out, this dish is not nearly as intense or as in-your-face garlicky as the name might first imply. And that’s a good thing. That’s because after the cloves are evenly browned in the pan, they are braised along with a seared, whole cut up chicken, reducing them to rich, slightly nutty, sweet versions of themselves that melt into a tasty paste, similar to roasted garlic. You can eat the whole cloves and not even get garlic breath.

So did I peel every clove? Psht. No. Why would I do that, when the grocery store sells whole pints of em’ already peeled? Unlike the chopped garlic in the jar, which has a funny, unnatural smell/taste to it, it is still fresh garlic. I don’t care what kind of culinary purist you are, whether or not you sat there and peeled each clove will not be evident, nor will it make a difference in the dish. There is a trick to quickly blanching the garlic in boiling water to make peeling easier (see original recipe link with recipe), but I personally don’t want to do that either. Save some time and use pre-peeled.

Speaking of the original recipe link, I referenced Ina Garten’s well-reviewed Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic recipe for this dish. She’s not my favorite, but her food is good. Plus, it’s always fun to impersonate her while cooking. “Yeess, I’m going to be bringing to this to a faahbulous picnic in the Hamptons. My wonderful husband Jeffrey’s gonna love it.”

I wanted to alter the recipe more, but it seemed so good on its own. I especially love the addition of Cognac. The main difference in my recipe is that I used cloudy apple cider instead of white wine. Not that I have anything against white wine—apple cider was just more convenient at the time and it worked out deliciously. The chicken came out so tender; it was amazing with the rich garlic clove sauce (made by thickening the cooking liquid). It was great the first time with mashed potatoes, and the leftovers with couscous were even better. I bet you Jeffrey loved this one!

40 Clove Garlic Chicken
Derived from Food Network, Ina Garten, “Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic”
Yield: 4 servings
- 40 cloves of garlic, peeled ( I purchased pre-peeled ones from the grocery store)
- 1, 3-4 pound chicken, cut into pieces
- Kosher salt
- Ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons good olive oil
- 3 tablespoons Cognac, divided
- 1 ½ cups cloudy apple cider
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• Clean and thoroughly dry the chicken. Season the pieces liberally with salt and pepper on both sides. Heat the butter and oil in large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Sauté the chicken in batches, skin side down first, until nicely browned on both sides, about 3-5 minutes. If the fat is burning, turn the heat down to medium. Transfer the chicken to a plate and reserve.
• Add the garlic to the pot. Lower the heat and sauté 5-10 minutes, turning often, until evenly browned. Add 2 tablespoons of the Cognac and the apple cider. Bring to a boil, scraping the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Return the chicken to the pot with the juices and sprinkle with the thyme. Cover and simmer on the lowest heat for about 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.
• Remove the chicken to a platter and cover with foil to keep warm. In a small bowl, whisk together ½ cup of the sauce and the flour, then whisk back into the sauce in the pot. Raise the heat; add the remaining cognac and the cream. Boil for 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the garlic over the chicken and serve hot.

Soup's Still On; Mexican Meatball Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Two weeks of soup for you. I guess it’s a testament to just how much of it I’ve been eating. It is that time of year, and I just can’t help myself. Not only have I been making a lot of soup lately, but it seems to be a reoccurring lunch theme as well. A nice cup of soup warms me up, pretty much satisfies my hunger for the rest of the day, and it’s cheap!

I heard Dr. Oz saying on the radio the other day that eating soup is one of the best things for you because it’s loaded with nutrients, is often packed with veggies, and fills you up so that you don’t overeat. And who questions Dr. Oz? Obviously, I don’t think he’s talking about rich creamy soups, but hearty vegetable and squash purees and low-sodium broths are great choices for the above reasons. I’m thinking that there are also bonus points if it’s homemade. If health is what you’re after, there’s no better way to control what you’re eating than by making it yourself.

This week I made Mexican Meatball or Albondigas soup. It was an idea that I came up with for a recipe variation at work, and it sounded so good that I was inspired to make it myself. It is not as traditional as most of the recipes that I found; for example, I left mint out which seems like a key ingredient in some of the more customary versions. But this is mine.

In this recipe, small half beef/half chorizo meatballs swim in a flavorful tomato-based broth with white rice. The soup is spiked with a little lime juice and jalapeno for extra depth and spice, and is seasoned with garlic, paprika, cumin, and fresh cilantro. It is a full meal in itself and is perfect served with tortillas or bread to soak up all the tastiness.

P.S. I hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving! Check out my Thanksgiving sides post from last year with ideas and recipes for dishes such as cranberry relish, buttermilk biscuits, homemade apple sauce, sourdough and chestnut stuffing, and more!

Mexican Meatball Soup
Print
Yield: 8 servings
Meatballs:
- ½ pound ground beef
- 12 ounces chorizo sausage, removed from casing
- 1 egg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped
Soup:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- ½ cup chopped carrots
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 jalapeno, seeded & minced
- 1/3 cup lime juice (about 3 limes)
- 1, 15 ounce can tomato sauce
- 2 ½ quarts chicken broth
- ½ cup uncooked rice
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped
• In a medium bowl, mix together the ground beef, chorizo, egg, salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder & cilantro until well incorporated. Form into ping pong-sized balls and refrigerate.
• In a large pot, heat the olive oil. Sweat the onions and carrots, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and jalapeno, cooking until fragrant, about 1 minute.
• Add the lime juice, tomato sauce, and chicken broth to the vegetable mixture. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce to a simmer and season the broth with the salt, pepper, paprika and cumin. Add the rice and the meatballs one at a time. Simmer the soup, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes until the rice and the meatballs are cooked through.
• Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Add the cilantro right before serving.

Soup's On

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 01:41:00 +0000

Everyone always asks me, what is your specialty? Or what is your favorite thing to cook? I’ll usually reply with something like, “I enjoy cooking more than baking” or “I just like being in the kitchen.” I don’t give a straight answer because I don’t have one. Mostly, I’ll simply answer, “everything.” But one thing I will say, when it comes to my favorite things to cook, soups are at the top of my list.

Building layers in the pot, starting with the basics and working up to the complexities, stirring it up, tasting, adjusting, making it perfect; it’s so many of the things that I love about cooking, all in one simmering pot of liquid goodness. From elaborate crystal clear consommé, to the most uncomplicated puree soup like this simple potato leek, I enjoy the comfort that soup brings me when I’m making it and when I’m eating it.

Soups are on everyone’s mind at this time of year. There is really nothing quite as cozy on a chilly day than a stick-to-your-ribs potage to warm you from the inside. This is a classically prepared vichyssoise, only not-so-classically, I serve it hot. It’s smooth, flavorful, substantial, and I feel, just a little homier when ladled into a bowl with some steam coming off the top. It’s always a crowd-pleaser as I’m pretty sure that most people can agree that anything potato is amazing.

Garnish this soup with a few snipped chives or make it baked potato-style with sour cream, crumbled bacon, and shredded cheddar on top. Another great thing I love about soup? A pot can make enough for a crowd, plus enough for lunch the next day, and maybe even the day after that. So enjoy it any and all ways, each time you reheat.

P.S. If you'd like, please check out the Media page for my recently published article on “The Healthiest Meal on Long Island.” Thanks. :-)

Potato Leek Soup
Print
Yield: 10 servings
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 large leeks, chopped
- 4 stalks celery, chopped
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 1 ½ pound potatoes, peeled & diced
- 2 ½ quarts chicken broth or stock
- 2 bay leaves
- 12 oz half-and-half
- Snipped chives
- Salt and pepper, to taste
• Heat the oil in a large pot. Sweat the leeks, celery and onion until tender and translucent.
• Add the potatoes, stock and bay leaves. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer until the potatoes begin to fall apart, about 25-30 minutes. Discard the 2 bay leaves.
• Puree the soup until smooth in a blender. Return the soup to the pot and bring back to a simmer. Remove from the heat and finish with the half-and-half. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately topped with snipped chives.

Tailgating with Beer-Braised Sausage

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 03:24:00 +0000

I am not into football. I don’t know how to play, I watch it and I have no idea what is happening. One thing that I do know about football, are game day snacks and foods: wings, pizza, melted cheese, bacon, dips, grilled meats, and lots of beer to wash it all down. Yup, it’s the kind of stuff that makes you feel proud to be an American.

Apparently, it is the beginning of football season, and to celebrate the “kick-off” to another year of hiking, punting and slamming into each other on the field, or whatever it is they do out there, the 5 Star Makeover cooking group is having a virtual tailgate party.

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!

You’ve got to love tailgating. Beer in one hand, Buffalo wing in the other, it’s a time for relaxing, basking in the good vibes of team spirit and getting schwasted in a parking lot. Seeing as I’m not the biggest sports fan, the pre-game tradition is one I’ve never personally took part in, but would never pass up if I got the chance. Who cares about the game? I’ll root for any team you want me to, just pull me up a lawn chair next to your trunk.

If you’re real serious about tailgating, you’ve got to have one of those little mini grills going. For some reason, whenever I think about this my internal smell-o-vision tunes straight to sausage and peppers cooking. While I may have never tailgated myself, I have walked by them you know, and sausage and beer stick out to me as two major players. With this in mind, I came up with the idea to make a beer-braised sausage and onion dish, amped up with apples and thyme. A little fall inspiration in there too!

The beer mellows as it cooks, infusing the sausage, onions and sweet apples with delicious flavor, for a game day meal that really scores. It is simple, comforting, and can be served on a roll for optimal parking lot enjoyment.

Don’t’ forget to check out the other posts from the group by clicking on the link above. I have a feeling you’ll be seeing a lot more than just hamburgers and hot dogs.

Beer-Braised Sausage & Onions with Apple
Print
Yield: 4 servings
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 pound sweet Italian sausage
- 1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
- 3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup beer
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
- Salt and pepper to taste
• Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausages and cook, turning occasionally, until well-browned all over, 8-10 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Slice the sausages in half, if desired.
• Sweat the onion in the pan, add the apple and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts to lightly brown and the apple begins to soften. Add the vinegar and beer, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to deglaze.
• Bring liquid to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Add the sausages back to the pan along with the thyme. Cook until the liquid is slightly reduced, about 25 minutes. To thicken further, whisk a few tablespoons of flour into a few tablespoons of water, and slowly whisk into the liquid until you reach the preferred consistency. Serve on a roll, if desired.

Addicted to Crack...Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:41:00 +0000

My name is Marisa, M-A-R-I-S-A, and I’m addicted to Crack Pie.

I had heard about how great it was; the oddly, but soon-to-be discovered, aptly named confection of David Chang’s famous Momofuku Milk Bar bakery was talked about on the streets and in the media as outrageously delicious and indescribably addicting by all those who’ve gotten a taste. “Just one bite” they all said, one bite is all it takes.

Curiosity lured me in. I had seen Anderson Cooper and Martha Stewart rave about Crack Pie on TV and read articles like love letters, waxing poetic about its irresistible amalgamation of ingredients. But more persuasive than any of these things was learning that to get their fix, Crack Pie fiends are willing to pay the $44 price tag for a pie—almost 100 of which are sold every day, by the way. I didn’t know what was in it or what made it so apparently delicious, but was convinced that it had to be something special.

A block away from where I work, Madison Square Park hosted a really fantastic month long food fair called Madison Square Eats, where a bunch of different vendors gathered to share some of the city’s tastiest offerings. The last day was Friday but over the course of its run, I made my rounds, getting Pretzels from Sigmund Pretzel Shop, pizza at Roberta's, macarons from Macaron Parlour, barbecue pork buns from Fatty Snack, and finally tasting Wafels & Dinges.

Nestled into the tiniest spot of Madison Square Eats I found Momofuku Milk Bar. After looking over the menu of such noted sweets as cereal milk soft serve and compost cookies, I bought my first slice of Crack Pie. It came in a little cardboard box, too small for the average pie slice, branded with it its criminally delectable name and a little TM; yup, it’s trademarked.

I brought it back to my desk thinking like a fool that I could take “just one bite” and bring the rest home. It’s an ordinary, not very attractive-looking triangle of pie with confectioners’ sugar dusted on top. I took that tell-tale bite just to see what all the fuss was about, and mid-chew, just as I began to wrap it up and put it away, it happened. Something came over me; I needed to eat the entire thing right then and no one was going to stop me.

With simple star ingredients like brown sugar, sugar, and butter, inside of a toasted oat crust, Crack Pie is rich like flourless chocolate cake, but without an ounce of chocolate in sight. It is buttery and sugary, and it is addicting. Everything that everyone said about it was true; it seems to have the ability to not only make you want more, but to want to share it with everyone you could. Since my first taste, over the course of two weeks I’ve returned back not once, not twice, but three times to have and share a slice.

The demand for Crack Pie is so high that they ship it across the country. Get your taste today. Or try to make your own with this adapted recipe from the LA Times.

Apple, Bacon, Cheddar, Maple Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:39:00 +0000

When you think about apple pie, what are some of the first things that come to mind? Perhaps it brings out thoughts of waving American flags, fireworks and memories of smiling grandmas in their aprons; or if you’re like me, hungry behemoth visions of nothing but a big fat slice of pie with vanilla ice cream slowly melting over the top—with only one spoon. How dreamy…

I don’t know about you, but one thing is for sure, I’ve always thought of apple pie as a dessert. And up until now, apple pie was only a dessert. But the all-American sweetie pie just got a little savory; with some help from its friends bacon, white cheddar, and maple syrup, it becomes better suited as a meal than an afterthought.

It still looks like an apple pie and features some of the sweetness and classic flavor elements that we all know and love; it’s got cinnamon, spice and everything nice, but it’s also got the smokiness of bacon and the creaminess of cheddar and heavy cream, all wrapped up cozily inside of a pastry crust. Part pie, part quiche without the eggs, it’s perfect for lunch with a salad.

If this doesn’t say fall, I don’t know what does. And who wouldn’t want an excuse to have pie as the main course? I’d never tried or even heard of a savory apple pie before but when I came across this recipe, I knew that all had to change. Just something to keep in mind: this particular pie is still pretty sweet, and one thing I will recommend is to make sure that it is cooled thoroughly before eating so that you end up with a nice slice rather than a sloppy mess.

I love making pies, especially double crusted ones. I find it very relaxing and in the end you have a homey comfort food that clearly shows off in taste and presentation how much love you put into it. My favorite kinds of pies (in order) are pumpkin, blueberry, of course apple, and coconut custard. What are yours?

Apple, Bacon, Cheddar, Maple Pie
Adapted from Family Circle, Maple, Apple & Cheddar Pie
Yield: 8 Servings
Print
PIE CRUST
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup butter
- 1/3 cup shortening
- 7-8 tablespoons water
FILLING
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 5 medium McIntosh apples, peeled & thinly sliced
- 1 ½ cups (6 ounces) shredded white cheddar cheese
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 6 slices cooked bacon, chopped
- 3 tablespoons white raisins
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 1 egg, whisked
• In a bowl, stir together flour and salt. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter and shortening until the mixture resemble coarse meal with pea-sized pieces. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon cold water over the mixture and toss with a fork. Repeat, using 1 tablespoon of cold water at a time until all of the dough is moistened. Divide dough in half and form each into a ball. On a lightly floured surface, flatten 1 dough ball and roll into a 12-inch circle; wrap the dough around the rolling pin, and unroll into a 9-inch pie plate; ease the dough into the plate, being careful not to stretch.
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. For the filling, stir together sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt in a bowl. Add apples; toss to coat. Add cheese, 4 tablespoons of the maple syrup, bacon & white raisins & stir to combine. Add the filling to the dough-lined pie plate and drizzle with the cream.
• Roll out the second half of the dough into a 12-inch circle & cut a small hole in the top; lay on top of the filling, trimming off any excess. Fold the top edge of the top crust under the bottom pastry & crimp edges. Brush the top with the egg & cover edge of pie with foil to prevent browning.
• Bake for 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake 20 minutes more until the pastry is golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool and brush with remaining maple syrup. Cool 1 hour or more. Serve slightly warm.

Filling Up on Chocolate and Red Wine

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:17:00 +0000

Transcending the limits of place and time, food can take us anywhere we want to be, all while sitting stationary at one single table. It can be our roundtrip passport to all of the countries and places in the world, or the time machine back to our great-grandmother’s kitchens; and sometimes, food can even be our spaceship, shooting us far beyond the surface of this earth like an express ticket to the heavens. Such is the case with red wine and dark chocolate.

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!

The theme for this month’s Five Star Makeover Cooking Group was “cooking with wine.” As most dishes have a tendency to start, I began thinking along the lines of every fancy sounding French dish I could shake an accent at. Carrying a certain appeal now that the fall season has officially made its grand entrance, wine-based stews like coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon came to mind. Then, one day in the middle of my food blog browsing while I wasn’t even looking for it, inspiration struck; no doubt, it was weird and far outside of the box, but I liked it—a lot.

Props to Koci at the blog, La Kocinera, and her lovely strawberry paté de fruits. I had never heard of the sugar-dusted jellies before seeing them on her blog, but I was instantly drawn to them. The idea of homemade gel candy really spoke to me because it reminded me of something I love to eat very much: chocolate covered raspberry jelly rings.

If you’ve never had them before, think chocolate covered gummy bear. And if you’ve never had a chocolate covered gummy bear, you need to get on that ASAP. We have a slight obsession with jelly rings in my family—like a go through two boxes in two days kind of slight obsession. And they are usually waiting right at the grocery store counter, so there is no avoiding them. Oh well!

As soon as I saw those lovely paté de fruits I pretty much immediately envisioned them being dipped in chocolate. I thought to myself, “I could make my own jelly rings!” Then, I had a gastronomical flashback of eating a Jacques Torres Grand Cru fine red wine and dark chocolate truffle, and suddenly, I remembered the jar full of coarse pink Himalayan sea salt in my cabinet. Can you tell where this is going, yet? Yep, dark chocolate covered red wine and raspberry jelly candies—with sea salt.

They start out like this: Sugar coated gummies

And end up like this:

What I made was not paté de fruits, but something similar: a variation of Lemon Gumdrops as found in The Essential New York Time Cook Book: Classic Recipes for a New Century, by Amanda Hesser. The red wine and dark chocolate combination is so deeply indulgent and the few grains of sea salt on top make it even more so. A tablespoon of seedless raspberry preserves adds a touch of sweetness, but if you prefer a deeper red wine flavor, use two tablespoons of red wine in the gelatin mixture and eliminate the raspberry all together.

The inner gummy texture contrasts with the outer chocolate coating for a fun candy, that is a lot lighter than a truffle would be. Beware, these can be consumed in dangerous amounts—but they are definitively a trip to heaven every single time!

Don't forget to check out all of the other cooking with wine creations done by the group by clicking the 5 Star Makeover link above.

Chocolate Covered Red Wine & Raspberry Jelly Candies:
Print
Yield: about 40 pieces
- 4 packets powdered gelatin
- 1 cup water
- 2 ½ cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon red wine
- 1 tablespoon seedless raspberry preserves
- 10 ounces dark chocolate
- Coarse sea salt
• Butter an 8-inch square baking dish. Dissolve the gelatin in ½ cup water and let stand for 5 minutes.
• Combine 2 cups sugar and the remaining ½ cup water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly and washing down the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water to prevent crystallization. Add the gelatin and continue boiling and stirring until the mixture thickens, about 15 minutes.
• Add the red wine and raspberry preserves and boil for 5 more minutes. Pour the mixture into the prepared dish and let set up for about 1 hour. Once set, run a knife around the rim of the gelatin to help release the entire mold from the dish; place on a cutting board dusted with sugar.
• Put the remaining ½ cup sugar in a shallow bowl. Butter a large chef’s knife and cut the gel into squares; coat the pieces with sugar to prevent them from sticking as you would flour on dough.
• Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pot with only a ½-inch of water (double boiler). Once the water comes up to a boil, remove the pot from the heat and stir the chocolate until smooth.
• Place the gelatin square on a fork and dip into the chocolate until evenly coated; tap the fork to let any excess chocolate fall through. Line the chocolates on a baking sheet and sprinkle each with a few grains of coarse sea salt. Refrigerate to set the chocolate.

Focaccia Bread + Tomato Confit = Love

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:00:00 +0000

The term “confit” usually describes a meat that has been slowly poached and preserved in its own fat. You have probably seen or heard of goose, pork, or the most common, duck confit. When this method is applied to meats, the result is melt-on-the-tongue tenderness. But this word can also be used to describe vegetables that are prepared and stored in oil in a similar way. Tomatoes are a perfect example.

Once quickly blanched and shocked to remove the skin, and the seeds are taken out, the tomatoes are laid out on a tray with seasonings and aromatics such as garlic and herbs, and then doused with olive oil. To balance the bitterness and acidity, a dusting of confectioners’ sugar is powdered over the top. As with meat confit, they are cooked low and slow until tender. The oil, which has been nicely infused from cooking, is then poured over the tomatoes to store under refrigeration, allowing them to marinate and become even better tasting over time.

I once read an article where confiting tomato was described as something like, “cooking the life out of it.” In a way, this is true, and I would never suggest applying this method to garden fresh summer tomatoes. But now that summer is coming to an end, it may just be the best way to make a not-so-great tomato taste amazing. Rather than sucking the being from a tomato, it incorporates new life, bringing flavor to what is otherwise lacking out of season.

Tomato confit (and its oil) can be used in a number of ways, either as the star ingredient or a base for something else. My favorite is baked on top of focaccia bread:

Having only a few basic ingredients and a short list of steps, both focaccia and tomato confit are incredibly simple—in essence. I’m not going to lie, they both take forever to make. Between having a total three hours rising time for the focaccia and the arduous peeling and seeding of the tomatoes for the confit, each requires a whole lot of patience and love. But in the end, I can promise you that your efforts will resonate in the taste.

I usually make this tomato confit focaccia for the holidays when there are already a ton of other things going on in the kitchen. All of the rising and confiting happens in the background between getting a bunch of other things done, and before you know it the bread is coming out of the oven. You can bake it in either a small sheet tray or a round pie pan; I prefer the round shape because you can slice it like a pizza and everyone gets a wedge or two. With all the right elements in place—tomato, garlic, olive oil and delicious bread—the taste is very similar to pizza as well.

You can use the tomato confit as an actual pizza topping, or for a great appetizer or snack, serve as is in a bowl with the oil and spoon it on top of fresh or toasted bread or crostini. As I mentioned earlier, it can also be a used as a base for soups, sauces, or vinaigrettes. To make a vinaigrette, puree about ¼ cup of the tomatoes in a food processor with a splash of sherry vinegar and a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, then add the oil in a slow stream; season with salt and pepper.

Asparagus with tomato confit vinaigrette.

However you choose to enjoy your tomato confit, it is smart to always make a ton in advance, especially since it takes a while to make. It will keep for at least a couple of weeks in the fridge and the flavor will only get better over time—if it even lasts that long. Chances are you will go through this pretty quickly.

Here are the recipes for the confit and the focaccia. The yield for the confit is estimated and as for the focaccia, I apologize that my recipe is all in grams.

Tomato Confit:
Print
Yield: about 2 cups
- 10 plum tomatoes, blanched and shocked
- 4-5 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
- About 1-2 cups olive oil
- Confectioners’ sugar for dusting
- Salt and pepper to taste
• Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Peel, quarter and seed tomatoes and lay them out flat on sheet tray(s). Sprinkle garlic slices and thyme leaves evenly over the tomatoes; season with salt and pepper. Pour the olive oil over the tomatoes until they are all submerged. Dust confectionary sugar over top of the entire tray.
• Place the tray(s) into the oven carefully as not to spill any of the oil. Cook the tomatoes until they appear to be slightly shriveled or dried up, about 1 hour. *Keep an eye on them for the first 15 minutes or so. If the oil appears to be getting too hot, you may need to lower your oven, which will result in increased cooking time.
• Remove from the oven and cool. Spoon tomatoes into an airtight container and cover completely with the olive oil from the pan. Refrigerate. Serve as is with bread/crostini, or bake on top of foccacia bread.

Focaccia Bread:
Print
Yield: 1 loaf
Sponge:
- 20 grams yeast
- 75 grams warm water (105-155 degrees Fahrenheit)
- 17 ½ grams sugar
- 112 ½ grams bread flour
• In a small bowl, whisk yeast with the warm water.
• In a stand mixer, mix flour and sugar on low speed until well incorporated. Add the yeast mixture until a pliable but sticky ball forms.
• Put the ball into a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly; let rest for 1 hour in a warm place until it doubles in size.
Bread:
- 200 grams warm water (105-115 degrees Fahrenheit)
- 85 grams olive oil, plus extra for oiling the pan
- 42 ½ grams sugar
- 15 grams salt
- 227 ½ grams bread flour, plus extra if needed
• Oil 1 half sheet pan or a round cake pan.
• In the bowl of the stand mixer, add the warm water to the sponge with olive oil, sugar and salt; mix on low speed, slowly adding the flour in parts. Continue to add more flour if needed, until the dough is smooth and no longer sticks to the bowl.
• On a lightly floured table, roll the dough into a ball; cover with a lightly damp kitchen towel and let rest for 1 hour until doubled in size.
• Once the dough has doubled, slice an “X” into the top and spread it out into the prepared oiled sheet pan, lightly punching down the dough with the tips of your fingers as you go. Add toppings at this stage such as caramelized onions or tomato confit. Tightly wrap the pan with plastic and let rest in a warm place for 1 hour.
• Set the oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the bread dough into the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Brownies Have More Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:34:00 +0000

There’s nothing quite like a homemade brownie to give sight to all that is right in the world. No matter if you prefer them chewy and dense or soft and cakey, the rich chocolate center of a freshly baked brownie can lighten up the worst of days and make the best ones even better.

With the addition of both chocolate and peanut butter chips, this Hershey’s brownie recipe pays delicious homage to the genius flavor combination of the Reese’s peanut butter cup—another simple taste experience that can right all wrongs.

I made them a couple of weeks ago while stuck inside the house during the anticipation of hurricane/tropical storm Irene’s visit. Through all of the news hype and mandatory evacuations happening only a few miles away, I figured everyone could use a brownie.

Full of chocolate goodness and smooth peanut butter surprises on the inside, with a respectable crackle on top, each bite of the cakey brownies instantly deafened the sound of the harsh winds rapping against the windows. And I can tell you that the craving for these perfectly simple dessert bars lingered long after the last crumb was devoured and the storm had washed away.

So whether there is something you want to forget for a few minutes or something that needs celebrating, have a brownie and add peanut butter: it is a recipe for deliciousness that never fails—unless, of course, there is something wrong with your taste buds and/or brain ;-).

Here is a good place to start:

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Brownies
Recipe adapted from Best-Loved Hershey’s ® Recipes, Publications International, Ltd., 2006
Print
Yield: about 36 brownies
- ¾ cup cocoa
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2/3 cup butter, melted and divided
- ½ cup boiling water
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup peanut butter chips
- ½ cup milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan.
• Stir together cocoa and baking soda in a large bowl; stir in 1/3 cup butter. Add water; stir until mixture thickens. Stir in sugar, egg and remaining 1/3 cup butter; stir until smooth. Add flour, vanilla, and salt; blend thoroughly. Stir in chips. Pour into prepared pan.
• Bake 35-40 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Cut into squares.

Olive Oil: The Wonder Fat

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 15:31:00 +0000

Olive oil is a many splendored thing.

Did you know that when taken in the proper dosage, extra virgin olive oil can be as good a dressing for you as it is your salad? Rich in vitamins and antioxidants, its various properties have been found to help prevent a myriad of ailments from hangovers and wrinkles, to heart disease and certain kinds of cancers.

Here is an article I wrote that was recently published in a brand new Long Island health and wellness magazine called Raw Beauty. In it, olive oil expert and author of the book, The Passionate Olive—101 Things to do with Olive Oil, Carole Firenze, and Controller of Veronica Foods Company/Delizia Olive Oil, Leah Bradley, tell us all about how olive oil is made and processed, what exactly the “extra virgin” label means, and various benefits the fat can provide to our bodies, inside and out.

Here is a recipe (if that’s what you want to call it) that just wouldn’t be the same without a healthy dosage of EVOO: marinated feta cheese. It’s a quick and easy appetizer/snack that is especially great to put out for company with assorted olives and crostini. The creamy cubes of feta cheese saturated with bright lemon and smooth extra virgin olive oil flavor are hard to resist.

I’ve never measured ingredients for this, so here is just a basic guideline. I’d say that this is more of a quick, throw-it-together kind of dish more than a follow-a-recipe one, anyway. Adjust as you please!

Marinated Feta Cheese:

- 1, 8 oz block feta cheese, cut into medium-sized chunks

- 1 lemon zested and juiced

- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

- ½ teaspoon dried oregano

- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

• In a small bowl, mix together the lemon zest and juice. Slowly whisk in olive oil to form a basic vinaigrette. Add dried oregano and pepper.

• In a medium bowl, add the feta cheese and toss with the vinaigrette until well-coated. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

Grilled “Ratatouille” Pizza

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 03:40:00 +0000

I’ve had a lot of different food jobs; from my first to my current, normal to abstract, I’ve always worked in the field in some way. From country club server and kitchen extern to restaurant cook, food shopper and beyond, there’s been a little bit of just about everything in my culinary-laced work history.

Perhaps the most desperate and thankfully short-lived job for me was working at a kids’ cooking school. Based out of a multi-colored former KFC kitchen, the small business taught cooking classes for children as young as three years old. It was as impossible as it sounds.

There were step stools in front of the sinks, only plastic knives, and worst of all, a CD of kids’ party music that played songs like “The Name Game” and “Love Shack” on repeat, class after class. As I mixed jugs of Kool-Aid, I could have only hoped for a Chrysler as big as a whale to get me the hell out of there.

I was overqualified and underwhelmed, but it was a job with flexible hours that put a few bucks in my pocket while I was still in school. And it did involve being in a kitchen—somewhat. I worked there for such a short amount of time that I often completely forget about it until something triggers a memory, like whenever I hear “Love Shack,” or whenever I make pizza dough.

It all came back to me while I was working on my pie for this month’s Five Star Makeover pizza theme; I used to make pizza dough mostly every day there, sometimes twice a day, and it was the best part of that job. As one batch got pounded into oblivion at the hands of hyperactive five year olds, another would quietly rise on the counter.

As I molded my pizza dough into a crust on my kitchen counter, I suddenly had a newfound respect for the silence in the room. Then, I went out into the pouring rain and fired up the grill.

You see, it rained almost every day last week, and it rained hard. But I was dead set on my all-grilled pizza concept. Everything would be grilled: the toppings, the dough, everything. Of course, when I actually had time to make the pizza it was pouring. So I slipped on my wellies, threw on my rain coat and hood, and grilled with an umbrella. I’m just that badass, I guess.

Thanks to the movie, we all know that ratatouille is a traditional French vegetable stew. Ignoring the technicalities, I named this “Grilled Ratatouille Pizza” because all of the veggies that I grilled for my pizza are ones that you will commonly find in ratatouille.

Grilled sliced eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, red onion and red bell pepper are layered decoratively on a grilled whole wheat crust over roasted red pepper tomato sauce and melted Asiago cheese. Finished with basil from the garden, every bite of this fresh pizza was worth standing out in the rain for.

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!

Grilled “Ratatouille” Pizza:

Yield: 1 Pie
Print
Red Pepper Tomato Sauce:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil plus about ¼ cup for grilling vegetables
- 2 garlic cloves, sliced thin
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 4 red peppers: 2 roasted whole, peeled and seeded, and 2 fresh cut down on all sides for topping
- 3 large tomatoes, quickly blanched to remove skin, seeded, and roughly chopped
- Handful of fresh basil, divided
Pizza Toppings:
- 2 large zucchini, sliced thin
- 2 large yellow squash, sliced thin
- 1 eggplant, sliced thin
- ½ red onion, peeled and halved
- 1 pound whole wheat pizza dough
- 1 cup shredded Asiago cheese
- Salt and pepper to taste
• For sauce: in a small pot, heat the 2 tablespoons of olive oil over a medium high flame; add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the tomato paste, roasted peppers and tomato and cook until the juices release, about 5 minutes. Add half a handful of torn basil leaves to the mixture and season with salt and pepper. Pulse in a food processor until smooth.
• Heat the grill to medium high and clean well. In a large bowl, toss all of the pizza topping vegetables with ¼ cup olive oil, salt and pepper. Grill all vegetable slices on each side until they are soft and with grill marks; set aside on a tray.
• Pound out and stretch pizza dough to form a fairly thin crust—it does not have to be a circle. Lay the crust on the grill grates and keep a watchful eye. The dough will have a nice char, but you will need to spin it once or twice as not to burn it. When one side looks crispy and well-browned, flip the dough over. Each side takes about 4 minutes.
• On the cooked side of the dough, pour on red pepper tomato sauce and spread out evenly. Sprinkle with a layer of Asiago cheese. Continue to keep an eye on the crust, giving it a slight spin if needed to keep from burning. Turn off the grill and arrange the vegetables on top of the cheese. Garnish with fresh torn basil leaves, slice and serve.

Greek Salad Bites

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:30:00 +0000

My favorite way to eat hummus is straight up as a dip with pita chips. It is so addicting. I usually prefer to make my own as it gives me the freedom to add as much or as little lemon juice or tahini paste as I like. And it’s so easy—with just few quick pulses in the food processor, you’re done.

In the past, I’ve tried store brand hummus and have never really been happy. As with any pre-made product, you always compare it to homemade. Is it really worth buying when you can just as easily make it? Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I recently received a coupon to purchase a Sabra Hummus product. I’m not blowing smoke when I say that this stuff is really good; creamy and with just the right balance of that classic chickpea, garlic and tahini flavor mix, it tastes as close to homemade as I’ve ever tried. If you’re pressed for time or even just feeling a little lazy, it’s worth it.

The Tastemaker Program allows Foodbuzz Featured Publishers to opt-in to try various food and kitchen products to taste, test and review, and with Sabra Hummus there was added incentive. By creating an original recipe with Sabra brand hummus and posting it on my blog, I am entered for a chance to win a free trip to the Foodbuzz Festival in San Francisco this fall and have my recipe featured during their Friday Night Festival Cocktail party.

At the store, there were so many hummus options to choose from, including Sabra’s two new Basil Pesto and Buffalo Style flavors. But to give me more freedom in my creation, I stuck with the classic.

Since I wanted to incorporate my personal favorite way to enjoy the chickpea dip, I built my idea on having a pita chip base smeared with hummus. From there, Greek Salad Bites were born. I topped the hummus/pita chip base with a mini Greek salad with small diced tomatoes, cucumbers, kalamata olives and feta cheese mixed with a basic vinaigrette.

They are simple, familiar, and pretty addicting!

P.S. 100th post! Woo hoo!

Greek Salad Bites:
Print
- 2 medium tomatoes, diced small
- 1 medium cucumber, seeded and diced small
- 8-10 each kalamata olive, pitted and diced small
- ¼ cup crumbled feta cheese
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- Extra virgin olive oil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 bag pita chips (or homemade)
- 1 tub Sabra classic hummus
• In a medium bowl, combine diced tomatoes, cucumber, olives and feta cheese.
• In a separate small bowl, make a vinaigrette by slowly whisking extra virgin olive oil into red wine vinegar. You should only need several tablespoons to create an emulsion and thicken. Add oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Pour vinaigrette over vegetables and cheese; mix until well incorporated.
• Lay out several pita chips at a time and spread about a teaspoon of hummus on each chip. Top with Greek salad mixture and serve.

Lucky Lavender Ice Cream

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 17:10:00 +0000

I like everything about lavender; the color, the smell, the taste; even the word “lavender” itself sounds elegant and poetic. The blue-purple shade of its buds is one I’d choose to paint a room with, and the sweet, clean notes of lavender’s perfume attract me to any soap or candle that holds its scent.

When it comes to the gentle aromatic taste of lavender, the immediate and best idea that comes to my mind is to turn it into ice cream. I tried the fragrant flavor for the first time last year and have been dreaming of making it myself ever since.

Without its pretty flowers lavender resembles rosemary, but all accusations are squashed at the first sniff. To sweeten and flavor the ice cream base, I added simple syrup which I infused with several of the spiky sprigs. For a little extra sugar, I also mixed in a couple of tablespoons of honey.

Now, I wouldn’t say that lavender ice cream is the type you’d eat piled high on a waffle cone three scoops at a time (save that for peanut butter ice cream); it’s more of a light palate cleanser after a heavy meal. The softness of the herb served frozen makes for an after-dinner treat that defines refreshing.

The only thing that is more refreshing than lavender ice cream is to finally say that I got a job. Yep, after over a year of searching and trying, I got my first, “real world” big girl job as Jr. Cooking Editor for a publishing company in NYC. Can I get a “Hell Yeah!”? I start in a week.

While writing this post, I found out that lavender is said to represent luck. Now that I think about it, it was only a day after I purchased my lavender plant at the farmers’ market and planted it that I got the call to interview for the position; coincidence? Maybe not! I knew I liked this stuff…

Lavender Ice Cream:
Print
Yield: About 5 cups
- ½ cup simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar brought to a boil)
- 4 large sprigs fresh lavender
- 1 cup milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- Pinch of salt
- 2 tablespoons honey
• In a small pot, add lavender sprigs to simple syrup and bring to a boil to infuse. After the syrup has come to a boil, turn off the heat and let the lavender continue to steep until the syrup has become detectably fragrant, about 10 -15 minutes. Remove lavender.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the infused simple syrup (cooled) with milk, heavy cream, honey and pinch of salt. Cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours, or overnight.
• Add the mixture to an ice cream machine and prepare according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Short and Sweet: Carrots and Roasted Beet Salad

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 05:47:00 +0000

Long story short, I just got all my wisdom teeth yanked. I’m finally starting to snap out of the very unpleasant anesthetic aftermath and painkiller fog and am slowly but surely picking my butt up off of the floor, where it has been dragging for the past couple of days.

Whether or not you needed to know all that is debatable, but it does explain why I’m keeping this post to the minimum. Plus, I just heart my descriptive words; and here come the analogies…

As I sit here frustrated from a lack of snacks and/or solid foods with a face like Don Vito Corleone and a taste in my mouth like Hannibal Lecter, I’m thinking pleasant thoughts of sunny Sundays at the farmers’ market and technicolor beets.

Drawn to their vivid descriptions, I could already envision their “golden” and “candy striped” presence on my plate before I even cut into them.

[Raw golden and candy stripe beets]

Inspired by a nicely executed, simple dish that I had at a restaurant, I roasted the beets and combined them with shredded carrots for a really light summer salad that I topped with feta cheese, chives, and a light drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and cherry balsamic vinegar.

[The combination of yellow and candy stripe beets make for a beautiful presentation, even though after roasting the candy stripe beets they kind of bleed into no-stripe light pink--still pretty though! For an even more colorful appearance, I would add red beets too.]

Salads like this are the best. Easy peasy. The roasting and peeling are the hardest part when it’s hot out; I roasted these babies in a heat wave (granted, it was in the morning…and in the AC), and it was totally worth it for the tasty results that came at dinner.

Roasted Beet and Carrot Salad:
Print
Yield: about 4 appetizer size salads
- 3 bunches of small-medium-sized beets (in an assortment of colors if desired)
- 2-3 medium-sized peeled carrots, peeled into curly strips with a vegetable peeler
- Feta cheese
- Fresh chives, chopped for garnish
- Good quality extra virgin olive oil
- Good quality balsamic vinegar
- Salt and pepper to taste
• Preheat oven to 425 degree Fahrenheit. Cut the tops off of the beets and lay them out on a foil-lined sheet tray. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, until all are fully coated.
• Depending on the size of the beets, roast for 45 minutes- 1 hour or more, until they are fully cooked. Remove from the sheet tray and place into a bowl covered with plastic wrap for 10-15 minutes to help loosen the skin. Peel the skin off of the beets and slice thin. (This step can be done a day ahead).
• On a small plate, arrange the beets so that they are slightly overlapping each other. Top with carrots strips, feta cheese and chives. Season with salt and pepper and lightly drizzle the top with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Sour Cherry Shortcake, Goat Cheese Cream on Top

noreply@blogger.com (Marisa) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 04:21:00 +0000

Since I have so many great photos, I’m going to do things a little differently with this post. With only a few poetic words, I’m going to tell my story through images--like A Cook’s Book picture book. How artsy of me, I know. A short explanation of the dish follows.

Farmers’ market finds were this month’s theme;

Make whatever you can with whatever you see.

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!

So I started searching for my Five Star Makeover

When I came across beautiful sour cherries, which said to me, “Come over.”

So gorgeous and glossy, they didn’t look real

I wondered: do they make this color in heels?

I grabbed them, paid, and stowed them away

I could hardly wait to get in my kitchen and play.

Then I found goat cheese, but what are those specks?

Fresh ground black pepper and lemon zest flecks!

From one of the smiling vendors all lined in a row,

I bought a cute lemon sour cream pound cake, wrapped with a bow.

When I got home and looked at my loot;

There were berries and cherries and veggies that root.

A huge bunch of carrots, bright orange and fun;

I brought them home to share with my bun.

There were squash and herbs that smelled like perfume

What on earth would I make or do?

I took a moment to sit and smell the flowers

With so many ideas I could sit there for hours.

All of my thoughts went back to those gems,

Those bright red cherries, with their long slender stems.

A cherry shortcake is what I decided,

Where cherry compote, pound cake and goat cheese collided.

A twist on a classic and I liked it a lot;

Sour cherry shortcake, goat cheese cream on top.

The goat cheese cream for this shortcake was really experimental. In the electric mixer, I added sour cream, confectioner’s sugar and butter to the black pepper and lemon goat cheese. My goal was to sweeten the goat cheese without losing its great flavor, while also creating a more stable, whipped consistency. In the end, the cream tasted good but could have been a little thicker.

Now that I think about it, perhaps the goat cheese didn’t need to be sweetened at all. If I had more, it would probably have tasted just as good, if not better, to just whip it smooth and lay it on thick between the layers of pound cake and sour cherry compote.

I’ve provided the recipe for the compote. With a little bit of Grand Manier added at the end, it is delicious. If not used in shortcake, it can also be enjoyed over ice cream or yogurt, and even on savory chicken and pork dishes.

Don't forget, a roundup of all of the 5 Star Makeover cooking group's farmers' market dishes will be posted on Friday, July 29th; click on the blog links beneath the logo at the beginning of this post to check them out.

Sour Cherry Compote:

Yield: 1 cup

- 1 pint sour cherries, stemmed and cleaned over a bowl to catch any juice

- ½ cup sugar

- ½ cup water

- 1 tablespoon cornstarch

- 1 teaspoon Grand Manier or other orange-flavored liquor

• In a medium sauce pot, mix sugar and cornstarch together, then add water and mix until smooth. Add cherries and any juice to the pot and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Boil for 2 minutes then drain cherries in a sieve set over a bowl and set aside.

• Return the juice to the pan and simmer for about 5 minutes until thickened. At the last minute, stir in the Grand Manier. Pour syrup over the cherries and cool.