Simply Me

To be honest I’ve only had risotto a couple of times in a restaraunt, so I only have a vague idea of how the results taste and feel when they are properly cooked, but this is how I get to what I consider to be a yummy risotto.

1 1/2 handfuls (per person) of a short grain rice  (calrose will work in a pinch though)
white wine
half and half
butter
handful (per person) of baby spinach
tablespoon (per person) minced onion
olive oil
salt
pepper

Boil a pot of water and add spinach.
In a frying pan saute onion and rice  in olive oil on high for about 3 minutes.
ladle some of the spinach cooking water over rice (enough that the rice is soupy but not so much that the rice is floating)
stir until all the liquid is completely absorbed
Keep adding the water and stirring until the rice isn’t crunchy anymore, but not soft.
Remove spinach from water and chop, add to rice along with the sliced mushrooms.
Alternate stirring in ladle fulls the cooking water, half and half and white wine.
The risotto is done when the texture is similar to al dente pasta (soft but with a little bit of texture, not crunchy at all but also not smushy) there should be enough liquid in the rice for it to slide around the pan on its own, but not so thick that it’s a solid sticky mess
season with salt and pepper
finish with a good parmasean.

Enjoy pipping hot.

I’m always on the look out for simple (read easy) recipes that are delicious. Of course for me there are also other deciding factors in whether or not I’ll try a recipe…for one I really really prefer to cook from scratch and 2 I really really don’t like a lot of ingredients, it’s too darn expensive when there’s a lot of ingredients. As part of my economizing this month I’ve decided to try a new approach…focusing on one cuisine in a shopping period. This week is Italian. So I broke out my wiliams sonoma italian essentials cook book and found Pork loin braised in milk. Pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. Here is my adaptation (read non measured thrown together version) of this unkown (in america) classic.

2 lbs of  pork shoulder (tried it with pork loin, but american pork is just to lean and it turns out too dry, but the shoulder is succulent cooked this way)
3 tbsp of butter
2 cups of whole milk
salt
pepper

melt butter
season meat with salt and pepper
with heat on med. high add meat
brown meat on all sides slowly, taking care not to burn the butter
deglaze pan with milk
when the milk begins to boil reduce heat to low and simmer for 1-3 hours (depending on cut of meat) until the meat is fork tender.
remove the meat and boil the sauce for 5 minutes until nut brown and remove from heat.
skim fat from top
Puree with immersion blender (or regular blender) and serve over sliced meat.

Serve with mushroom spinach risotto…mhmmm

I craved duck…for weeks. So I finally convinced my hubby to let me buy some at the store. I read up on cooking duck breast and I prepared it like this:

-1 duck breast

sauce:
-dried cherries
-Southern Comfort
-2 mushrooms
-1/2 tbsp butter
-1/2 tbsp olive oil
-1/3 cup chicken stock
-1/8 cup of apple cider

Preperation:
Soak dried cherries in so. Comfort. Score the duck breast on the skin side every 1/4 inch. Make sure not to cut into the meat. Season with salt and pepper. In a hot (not too hot pan) put the breast skin side down on a medium/low heat. When the meat hits the pan it should sizzle but then the heat should be lowered so it doesn’t burn as the breast should cook skin side down for 5-10 minutes based on the size of your breast. Suatee mushrooms in butter and olive oil deglaze with chicken stock and let simmer until reduced by half. Flip the breast and cook for 2-3 more minutes and place in a 375 degree oven until meat is 140 degrees return to stove top and add sauce to pan. Add cherries and liquid to sauce, and light on fire…come on it’s fun. Continue to cook breast until the meat is 150 then remove from heat and let rest, meat should be about 160. Slice and serve with sauce over the top.

I can’t believe how quickly time flies.  One day I was struggling to figure out how to get my newborn to stop crying for one minute and the next I was planning her 1st birthday.  And now, it’s almost 2 months later and I realized I never put up pictures.  For shame.  I had so much fun planning her party.  As far as themes go I didn’t really push the envelope or get very creative.  I just knew that I was going to throw her a cowgirl party.  We were going to be in the hick town of my childhood to celebrate so it seemed appropriate…and fun.  My inspiration and my main goal revolved around the cake.  Yes of course…FOOD.

Here’s the inspiration photos:

And here’s the cake the I barely managed to finish in time:

This cake was time consuming but fairly easy to make…I’ll admit it I used a box mix.  No shame in it as it turned out great.  It took approximately 3 pillsbury vanilla cake mixes and 1 chocolate.  I didn’t do anything fancy just followed the directions on the back of the box.  However, I did make my own butter cream frosting, marshmallow fondant, lemon filling and cinnamon chocolate fillings…easy as pie…I mean cake.

Here’s the website that taught be how to make the best marshmallow fondant
I used wilton’s butter cream frosting recipe x like 4

I made a
2 layer, vanilla 12 inch cake
2 layer, chocale 9 inch cake
2 layer, vanilla 6 inch cake

For the filling between the vanilla layers I mixed 1 1/2 jars of trader Joe’s lemon curd with 1 batch of buttercream frosting.  I spread the remaining lemon curd directly on the cake before adding the filling to add some moisture (great results)  Make sure that when you spread your fillings on your base cake to leave a 3/4 to 1 inch ring around the outside of the cake, then with a pastry bag with only the coupler (no tip) pipe a line of white butter cream around the rim.  This will keep your slightly yellow or chocolate colored filling from squeezing through and possibly being visible through the fondant…that stuff shows everything.

For the filling between the chocolate layers I mixed 1/2 batch of buttercream frosting with 2 tbsp cocoa powder and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon (these numbers are guesstimates…I just added the two to my buttercream until I was happy with the flavor)  assemble your cakes…frost with buttercream.  Then roll out your fondant (which can be made up to a week in advance) For the cow print (work quickly, and have the black fondant pre dyed)  roll out enough white fondant to cover the tier you’re working on.  Very quicly roll out the black fondant and cut or tear pieces that look like irregular cow spots.  Dab a tiny bit of water on the back of the black and lay it on the white fondant.  when all your black pieces are assembled to your satisfaction roll the fondant with your rolling pin to merge the two colors together for a seamless cowprint…easy.  Gently slide your hands under the fondant and drape over your cake.  Very VERY VERY gently Smooth it over the cake.  If there are any wrinkles just smooth them out like a sheet on a bed…again very gently as too much preasure will leave behind marks and your fingernails can easily scratch and even tear the fondant.  For the “bandana” roll out the pink fondant, smooth the top like before, but when smoothing out the sides start at the “back of the cake and gently smooth the fondant while pulling the excess towards the “front” of the cake.  When you reach the front 1/3 of the cake create two folds that meet and smooth.  Trim the excess and use the remaining pink fondant to cut out two leaf shapes and roll out a 1- 1 1/2 inch ball.  Create a “fold” in the wide ends of the leaf shapes and lay them creased sides touching in front of the folds and place the ball on top of where they meat…and you have a knotted bandanna.  To create the paisley print I piped on white butter cream.  I ran out of time for the third tier, so I just piped on some pink buttercream frosting, but I’m rather glad that I had to stop or the cake might have been too busy.  Some notes…when making a cake that’s this many layers you really should use cake dowels…luckily the cake was assembled only hours before being consumed otherwise it would have been listing terribly…note to self, don’t trust husband to bring the important things…remember to pack them yourself.  All in all my first fondant experience was positive.  The cowprint would have turned out better if I had the black fondant ready to go when I needed it as it was the two were a little dry and didn’t look as polished as could be.  I also would have assemebled the cake the night before.  I was concerned about the moisture level…and what would happen with everything encased in fondant.  It would have been fine.  The top of the cake didn’t get eaten at the party and it was a couple of days before it was cut into…it was still moist and delicious.

Now the rest of the party:
the menu: (think cook out/picnic food)
shredded beef sandwiches
(super easy…crock pot, pot roast meat in water over night, shredded and mixed with BBQ sauce, served on
hamburger buns)
Hot dogs (costco)
smores sandwiches (for the kiddos, toasted white bread peanut butter and marshmallow cream that got toasted by a
blowtorch)

Baked beans
salad
pineapple

tortilla chips (costco)
nacho cheese dip (costco)
creamy chili dip (1/3 of a bar of cream cheese to each can of chili, heated up and mixed together VERY VERY GOOD)
Salsa (1 jar of trader joe’s fire roasted salsa mixed with 2 jars of their smokey peach salsa)
Someone donated some potato chips and clam dip (yum)

Lemonade with fresh strawberries and sliced lemon floating in it (we cheated and used country time from costco to save money)
bottled water
Root beer

This week’s photo challange over at http://iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ is smiles…sooo many pictures to choose from, but this is the most recent cheesey smile that I love.  So, may it bring a smile to your face, and some day soon (6 weeks left until my due date) I will actually be able to move and plot and plan an out door photo shoot and supply something a little more interesting.

I went to lunch with my friends Tina & Jaclyn, and since Tina and I are sushi buddies we went to Hiro’s in Petaluma, an amazing sushi restaurant. After lunch we walked across the street and found a little candy shop that had some crazy good caramels. It was there that I was introduced into the wonderful world of salted caramels. In this sad little county in which I live there is no where to get these so I’ve been deprived through 8 months of pregnancy cravings, until today. I spent days googeling looking for a caramel recipe that did not use corn syrup…I found 1, From chez Pim.  I then preceded to walk into my kitchen and sans candy thermometer I made my very first batch of carmels.  OH MY GOD.  I wanted to call everybody I know and exclaim to the world how yummy these were.  I’m beside myself with glee and I can’t stop running to the kitchen to nibble on them.  Enough gushing…and back to the cooking.

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Makes 4 pieces

1 large (sushi grade) scallop sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds
4 tubular shaped pieces of sushi rice
4-1 cm wide strips of nori
dynamite sauce
paprika

Very quickly drop the scallops on a hot non stick pan. Flip immediately and remove just as quickly.  Place the scallops on top of the rice and secure with the stip of nori.  Top with dynamite sauce and dust with paprika.  YUM

this sauce is divine.  I use it for creamy scallop nigiri and BBQ hotate nigiri and I’m planning on using it on grilled albacore.

1/2 cup mayonaise (japanese mayo is best but a delicate flavored one such as from trader joes will work)
*2 tbsp siracha sauce (more or less to taste…so you can controll the spiciness)
1/4 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil

*you can also substitute a combination of franks red hot sauce and sweet chili oil or sauce.

Creamy Scallop Nigiri

OK, so my introduction to the wonderful world of sushi has been slow but wonderful. I asked a waitress at my local sushi restaurant for a recommendation and she suggested the creamy scallop nigiri.  Oh me oh my.  It was love at first bite.  These are the yummiest little tid bits EVER

This is enough for one order (2 pieces) of nigiri, the sauce makes like 3/4 cup (there will be extra)

1 Scallop diced (U-6 to U-8)
1/2 teaspoon sliced green onion
1/2 teaspoon fish roe like capelin roe
enough Dynamite sauce to coat scallop mixture
2- 1 1/4 inch strips of nori
2- 1 1/2 inch balls of sushi rice

Mix scallops, green onion, roe and sauce together and set aside.  Form rice into balls and squish the top and bottom and wrap the nori around the outside and secure the over lap with a little water.  fill the void created by the nori with scallop mixture

I was introduced to the wonder of honey baked hams from the honey baked ham store…however I cannot bring myself to pay for them…they’re pricey. I tried to find out how they made their hams so special…turns out it’s easy…ish. Mix 1 1/2 cup of white sugar with 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 4 tbsp of pumpkin pie spice. rub onto the outside of the ham and then caramalize with a blow torch or under a broiler. When using the broiler remove from heat ever 2-3 minutes to prevent burning. make sure to get the sides browned too. when it is crispy on the outside turn down the heat to 300 degrees and finish warming the honey ham…serve with any drippings on the side. YUM