Cookie Loves Eating

Naan & Love

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:39:00 +0000

A long time ago, while chowing down at an Indian restaurant with Colin, he looked at me from behind a delighted mouthful of naan and curry, and said: “Kim, if ever learn how to make naan, I will just have to throw a ring at you on the spot!!” Ever since then, I’ve teased him about it, and friends who’ve heard the story have threatened to send me recipes from across the globe. And still, I kept that dish in my back pocket, as we spun our way through many years of loving, living, laughing, cooking, and eating.

Well, last week, he proposed to me with a naan recipe and promise to always be my constant in our ever-growing, ever-changing world… and I said YES!!! I laughed and cried at the sweet perfection of this foodie proposal. :-)

So, this week, I figured he’d finally earned that home-made naan by putting a ring on it, and I set about to research how to make this delicious bread.

There were SOO many different variations out there! Yeast vs baking soda. Yogurt or milk? Pan or oven? I searched and searched, poring over pictures of the resulting naan from these blogs to try to determine if the recipe would give me that wonderfully chewy soft texture, or if I’d end up with a mere pita-bread like imposter.

Finally, I found Journey Kitchen’s recipe, and the pictures of the beautiful naan she made really drew me in. Gorgeous! This was the one that would be worthy of my first naan attempt in a lifetime of feeding Colin delicious things!

As I worked my way through the recipe, I couldn’t help but connect the process to what it takes to make a loving relationship work and last. I took that initial leap of faith in picking the right recipe (based on looks and a little gut feeling. heehee!). But then patience, a little sweat, and persistence to keep working and learning through the small failures eventually lead me to the glorious victory of delicious crispy outside with beautiful bubbles, tender-chewy on the inside naan! I couldn’t be happier to be able to present him with this small token of my love, made by my own hands.

A few key things I learned:

Don’t try to form a well in a pile of flour on the counter. It will explode your flour mountain and spill everywhere!
Do not skimp on the kneading post rising! I forgot to re-knead and my first naan was a sad, flat, thick pancake disk.
Thinly rolled out dough + HOT pan = Awesome Bubbles in your naan!
Mix in some fennel seeds for a nice flavor POP!
It really wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. :-)

On to the recipe now. Thanks Journey Kitchen!

Servings: Served about 10 people

Ingredients:

4 cups bread flour
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 tsp dry active yeast
4 Tbsp ghee/clarified butter
10 Tbsp plain yogurt (I used greek yogurt)
1 cup lukewarm water
2 Tbsp fennel seeds (optional)

Steps:

1. Mix lukewarm water, yeast, and sugar in a small bowl. Leave it for about 15 minutes or until you see air bubbles at the top.

2. Mix the flour & salt in a large bowl. Add the yeast/water, ghee, yogurt and start mixing and kneading! It’s going to be VERY sticky at first, but keep going and eventually you will end up with a lovely ball of dough like this.

(Feel free to give it a lil hug)

3. Set the dough aside, covered with a towel in a warm/dry place and let it rise for about 1.5 hours.

4. Once the dough has risen, take it out and knead it another 5 minutes or so.

5. Cut off a large chunk and knead some more. Then cut it up into pieces about the size of a lemon and roll each one into a ball.

6. Heat up a heavy bottom pan to high and add butter in the pan.

7. Roll out the naan into whatever shape you like, just make sure it’s pretty thin.

8. Place the naan in the hot pan and put the lid on top. Cook about 2 minutes until you see bubbles coming up. Give a cheer when you see your first one!!
Then flip it over and cook another 2-3 minutes until you have a nce toasty char.

9. Place in a basket and brush with ghee. Serve immediately, or heat up again when you are ready.

Enjoy!

Liebster Blog Award

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:58:00 +0000

Got a nice lil surprise in my inbox the other day, Meg of Revamped Home Goods gave me the Liebster Blog Award!

I had no idea what it was until I clicked through to her post, but turns out the Liebster recognizes up & coming bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. How cool! My first blog award even has a heart in it to go with the “Cookie Loves” theme! :-) Thanks, Meg!

In accepting this award, I agree to:

Thank the person that gave me the award and link back to their blog
Copy and paste the award to my blog
Reveal the 5 blogs I have chosen to award and let them know by commenting on their blog
Pay it forward by awarding it to bloggers I would like to hono

So, here goes my pay-it-forward…Check out these super cool blogs I’ve been following:

Little Chef Mia – cutie foodie

Foodie On a Diet – healthy recipes

Adam & Monika – food, health& fitness, cute baby!

Oh the Adventure – dreamy inspiration

Aimless In Front of the Fridge – veggie recipes

Enjoy!

Homemade Fresh Butter

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 02:48:00 +0000

Check out this awesome, super eco-friendly method for making fresh butter in just…10 MINUTES!!!

I saw the original video on The Art of Doing Stuff and was amazed, so I had to try it for myself! Of course, I wanted to add my own spin on it, so I decided to try to make butter by the power of booty shaking!!!

Check out the hilarity of my “scientific” experiment below:

Try it out for yourself, if you are looking for a new way to get a quick and fun workout in, and ALSO end up with something other than a pool of sweat at the end!

Cadillac Culinary Challenge + Artizone

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 05:18:00 +0000

I’ve recently started feature blogging over at Artizone’s blog about recipes and local Dallas artisan/culinary events. Check out my first post about the Cadillac Culinary Challenge HERE!

Cookie On the Road Series: Simplified Vietnamese Hot & Sour Shrimp Soup

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:48:00 +0000

I’m currently travelling every week for work and the constant eating out is killing me! This week I came armed with a few supplies and the determination to cook some Healthy, Hot & Delicious meals while on the road! Follow along if you dare brave this unknown world…

First, you will need your culinary weapons of choice. For me, that’s my beloved knife and some chopsticks!

Hi-YAH!

Next,I will say that I am lucky enough to be staying at a hotel with a kitchenette stocked well with utensils, plates, and pans. That definitely makes things easier! If you only have a microwave, you’ll have to stay tuned for something simpler than this recipe.

If you’ve ever had Vietnamese Hot & Sour Soup, this is a quick and dirty version done in about 15 min. They KEY ingredients in my mind are the fresh shrimp to make a sweet broth, and the rice paddy herb for that unique citrusy bite.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb shell on shrimp
2 tomatoes
3 stems Bac Ha (Vietnamese taro stem)
1 bunch Ngo Om (Rice Paddy Herb)
1 inch ginger
1 tsp cayenne
3 TB soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
A few dashes of fresh cracked pepper
Thai basil

Steps:

1. Heat up a pot of water to boiling

2. Peel the shrimp and save the shells

3. Slice the bac ha, chop up the tomatoes, slice up the ginger

4. Once the water gets to boiling, throw in the shells

5. Once the water comes back to boiling, scoop out the shells. Add the ginger, bac ha, tomatoes and bring to boil again. Let it cook on medium high about 5 min

6. Add sugar, cayenne, pepper and shrimp. Let it cook about 5 min and then taste. Add soy sauce, cayenne to taste.

7. Throw in the Ngo Om/Rice Paddy Herb at the very end. Serve with some fresh basil torn on top.

Baked Eggplant Rolls Stuffed with Sausage & Veggies

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:44:00 +0000

Need a delicious, healthy new way to cook eggplant? This one’s a guaranteed crowd-pleaser and flexible enough to work with whatever you’ve got in the fridge.

Basic breakdown:

1. Make the meat & veggie sauce
2. Roast the eggplant slices
3. Roll the meat & veggie sauce in the eggplant slices
4. Coat everything in more sauce & bake til bubbly!

You can push and pull the recipe around to make it more decadent or more healthy. This base recipe can serve as a great way to get more veggies into your diet while not giving up any taste factor!

So, let’s get to it!

First, brown the meat in large sauce pan.

While the meat is browning, slice the eggplant and roast it.

Once the meat is browned, drain out the excess oil. Add the onion and garlic.

And wine…

Add the veggies! I used Kale, zucchini, corn. Feel free to use whatever you’ve got in the fridge.

Cook it all down. MMMMmmm!

Ok. Now get ready to ROLL.

Place some of the sauce in a slice of eggplant, roll it up, and place it in a baking dish.

Line em up!

Cover it all in sauce and slices of fresh mozzarella. Top off with a dusting of breadcrumbs.

Pop it in the oven til you get some nice crispy edges. I may have over cooked it some, but it is all good.

Let it rest 5 min before scooping it out and serving up that goodness!

Top with some basil and serve with a salad (maybe Kale salad!)

This recipe is super flexible. Sub in a homemade pasta sauce to ensure it is gluten free. Sub a meat substitute to to make it vegetarian friendly.

Check below for the full recipe. Let me know what you guys think about this new format. Figured it would make it easier to print out the recipe this way!

Ingredients:

1 large or 2 medium eggplants
3-4 leaves of kale
1 cob of corn
1 zucchini
1 medium yellow or white onion
1 bunch parsley
2 cans of your favorite pasta sauce (I used Newman’s Own Cabernet Marinara Sauce)
1 cup red wine (cabernet is great!)
1/2 lb hot Italian sausage (I used chicken sausage)
1/2 lb sweet Italian sausage (I used pork sausage)
1 ball of fresh mozzarella
1 TB bread crumbs
Bunch fresh basil

Steps:

1. Heat the oven to 350.

2. Heat up a large sauce pan to medium high. Remove the sausage from the casing and toss it in the pan to brown it, breaking it up into chunks.

3. While the sausage is browning, slice the eggplant lengthwise into thin strips. Place them on a cookie sheet lined with foil & sprayed with olive oil. Place the cookie sheet into oven and bake for about 15 minutes until brownish on the edges.

4. Dice the onion and zucchini. Slice up the kale. Cut the corn off the cob. Chop up the parsley.

5. Back to the pan! Pour out the excess oil and place the meat on a plate on the side. Add the onion into the pan and sautee til translucent (2 mins). Add the zucchini, kale, and corn. Sautee for 1 minute. Add the meat back to the pan.

6. Pour one can of pasta sauce into the pan and stir to combine. As the sauce starts bubbling, add the cup of wine and stir it in. Continue cooking at medium low for 15-20 min. Taste and adjust the seasonings. I like to add some ground black pepper!

7. Now it’s ROLL TIME! Spoon some sauce into the bottom of a baking pan. Take a slice of eggplant and put a spoonful of meat sauce in the middle. Roll it up and place it in the pan. Continue with the rest of the eggplant.

8. Pour sauce over everything. Slice up the the mozzarella and place on top. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top and pop the whole thing in the oven for 20 minutes.

9. It’s ready when the top is just getting a lil browned on the edges. Remove from oven and let rest 5 minutes before serving.

Massaged Kale Summer Salad w/ Newman’s Own Italian Dressing

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 05:18:00 +0000

What do you do when you are hungry and it’s too dang hot out to cook? You make a BIG BAD SALAD! This salad is a Kale salad full of vitamins, flavor, and texture.

Through Foodbuzz Tastemaker program, Newman’s Own sent me lots of goodies recently to do a lil video recipe blog that reflected their fun & irreverant style. So this recipe is inspired by one of their yummy salad dressings.

Did you know Newman’s Own donates all their profits to charity? I had no idea! Pretty freaking cool. Good food & good deeds always go well together!

Anyway, check the video below for some costumed salad making. I’m not sure what bacon ties & devil horns have to do with anything in the meal, but It felt like the fitting outfit for how sizzling HOT it has been here in Dallas!

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 head of kale or 1 bag of prewashed & chopped kale
1/2 cup Newman’s Own Italian Family Recipe dressing
1 cob fresh corn
1 cucumber
1 pint blueberries
4-5 clementines
1/4 cup slivered raw almonds (whole almonds chopped is ok too)

Steps:

1. Slice up the kale into thin ribbons. If using whole kale, cut out the main stem.

2. Add dressing to the kale in a large bowl and massage for 1 minute. Set aside and let it take a nap.

3. Cut the corn off the cob.

4. Slice the cucumber into thin 1/2 circles.

5. Section the clementines (cutting them into pieces w/ no skin or peel)

6. Toss everything but almonds into kale bowl.

7. Dry roast the almonds in a small non-stick pan for about 2 minutes or until the almond smell becomes pronounced and the almonds turn golden brownish.

8. Immediately add the hot almonds to the salad. It may sizzle! woo! Toss it all together and dig in!

(Special thanks to Colin & Mark for shooting & video editing help!)

Texas Oven Brisket with Maple Bourbon BBQ Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 14:10:00 +0000

Texas BBQ is all about big meat + cooking technique + good sauce. Last week I saw a big ol brisket on sale and decided to try my hand and making brisket for the first time even though I don’t have smoker or grill. Little did I know I had unknowingly stepped into a religious debate of what is The Right Way to cook brisket!

I started with advice from a friend of mine, whose dad has lots of experience with a smoker and learned about a technique of tightly wrapping up the meat for last few hours of cooking to let it “humidify”. More reading led me to learn this was called the “Texas Crutch” to ensure a juicy brisket. Then I read on about how much fat to trim, whether to cook fat up or down, what temperature to cook at, if marinating is needed… so many different things I didn’t know about!!

I was nearly caught in analysis paralysis when it was nearly time to get that baby in the oven, so I just went with my gut on all the different techniques I read:

Trim the brisket to 1/4-1/8 inch fat
Make a dry rub
Cook it at 250 degrees about 7 hrs or around 180 internal temp
Wrap it up in heavy duty foil and cook another 3-4 hours at 225 or the temp reaches at least 190 degrees
Remove from heat and store in an insulated container (cooler) until ready to serve
Make a badass SAUCE to go with it
Slice across the grain until it starts falling apart in juicy yummy tender brisketty goodness

So, that’s what I did and it turned out sooo delicious! I learned a lot from this site: http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/beef/texas_brisket.html. Especially, the part about the “conversion temperature” where the collagen in the meat starts breaking down to bring the tenderness to the brisket.

Follow along below for the rub I threw together from whatever I had in the pantry, followed by a ridiculously tasty sauce based on this: http://blog.lesnoiracochon.com/2009/01/24/maple-bourbon-bbq-sauce.aspx

You’ll be sure to turn out a crowd pleasing meal for your guests that takes little effort but lots of patience.

Ingredients:

8-10 lb brisket
2 onions
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp garlic salt
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp garlic powder
3 tsp paprika
2 tsp cayenne
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground black pepper

Sauce Ingredients:

2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cayenne
1/2 cup white vinegar
2/3 cup bourbon
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup maple syrup
3 TB tomato paste
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Steps:

1. Heat the oven to 250.

2. Trim the meat down to 1/4 – 1/8 inch fat on the top of the brisket.

Check out all that fat I cut off!!! ewwww…

2. Then mix together your dry rub.

3. Drizzle some olive oil on the brisket and rub it in all over. Then rub the dry rub all over the meat.

4. Slice some onion rounds and place them in the bottom of a roasting pan

5. Place the brisket on top of the onions and place in the oven.

6. Go live your life!

7. Come back in 6-7 hours and check the temp with a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat. It’s ready if it’s around 180.

8. Grab a large sheet of heavy duty foil, or just double over regular foil. Take the brisket out of the pan and place it on the foil. Wrap that baby up nice and tight.

9. Lower the oven to 225 and place the foil wrapped meat on a pan and back in the oven for another 2-4 hours, at least until the meat internal temp hits 190.

10. Pour the drippings from the original roasting pan into a pot to be used for the bbq sauce.

11. Check the meat in a few hours and move it, still foiled up and place it in an empty cooler lined with towels until ready to eat. The meat will stay nice and hot for several hours in a basic cooler.

12. Make the bbq sauce! Put all the sauce ingredients in the pan that held the roast pan drippings and heat up to medium stirring slowly. Feel free to adjust the seasonings a bit. Add a lil more spice or vinegar as you like it! Should be ready in about 10 min of cooking & stirring.

13. When you are ready to eat, pull that brisket out and carefully unwrap it and watch your guests start drooling.

14. Make sure you cut across the grain and server up some mouthwateringly juicy, tender bbq brisket! All without a smoker too!

So, don’t let a lack of equipment or experience keep you from making a stellar Texas style brisket in your humble little oven.

Enjoy!

Seafood, Chicken & Chorizo Paella

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 04:10:00 +0000

The very first time I had paella was in Biarritz, France, a tiny coastal town on the border with Spain, that I visited as a student for an art festival with my professor and a few other students. My innocent palate was enchanted by this dish that was teaming with so many ingredients to discover with each bite – succulent mussels, richly flavored rice, bright bursting peas! I had never had anything like it before and was quickly smitten.

When I came back to Spain years later, and Valencia was on our itinerary, I knew I HAD to take my friends for some paella b/c Valencia is the birthplace of the dish. We wandered down to the beach where there was a strip of restaurants that have been around for centuries and dove into gigantic pans of paella. The best part was scraping the charred bottom of the pan to release the crunchy rice crust that forms at the bottom of the dish! This part is called the soccarat and is essential in a good paella.

Recently, I purchased a paella pan as I was reminiscing about all the good times I’ve had around the dish. This weekend, I decided to give that pan it’s first spin around the block and made some paella with chicken, chorizo, mussels, shrimp, and calamari. The pan performed beautifully, giving us a fantastic crispy soccarat! I also enjoyed cooking the whole shrimp with their heads on!

(Check out my awesome new basil plant in the background! I’m naming him Barry the Basil Plant!)

I based the following recipe off of Alton Brown’s, but with several adjustments.

Ingredients:

5-6 chicken drumsticks or thighs, skin on
1/2 lb chorizo
1/2 lb shrimp (head and shell on!!)
1/2 lb mussels
1/2 lb bag of mixed frozen seafood (calamari, scallops, octopus) (Do not NEED this, but I saw a bag for $3 and it was actually surprisingly fresh and very high quality seafood!)
3 cups arborio or japanese rice (should be a short round ish grain)
3 medium tomatoes
1 red bell pepper
1 red onion
4 cloves garlic
Smoked paprika
1/4 tsp saffron threads
Salt, pepper
Olive oil
1 cup frozen green peas
Bunch parsley

Steps:

1. Heat up 10 cups of water to boiling.

2. Rub about 1 tsp salt & 1 tsp paprika on the chicken and set aside about 10 min.

3. Devein the shrimp and then place them in a bowl and add about 2 TB olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp paprika. Leave to marinate.

4. By now the water is boiling, toss in the mussels and frozen seafood and cook about 7 minutes. Place a colander over another pot and drain the seafood out while reserving the broth. Keep the broth in a pot on the stove with a lid on to keep it warm.

5. Dice the bell pepper and onion. Mince the garlic. Chop the parsley.

6. Slice the tomatoes in 1/2. Using a grater with wide holes, grate the tomatoes into a bowl, forming a tomato puree.

7. Mix together the rice, saffron threads, 1 tsp paprika, and 1 tsp of salt. Set aside.

8. Take you paella pan ( or the largest, shallowest pan you have) and add a few swirls of olive oil and heat to high.

9. Cook the chicken about 5 min per side to get a nice brown on the meat. Move to the outside of the pan when you are done.

10. Add chorizo to the pan and brown it. (I had ground chorizo, but sausage style is great too)

11. Add garlic, onion, tomato, bell pepper, 1 tsp of paprika and sautee to combine. Cook about 7-10 minutes until the onions start softening. Turn the pan periodically to ensure even cooking.

12. Pour in the tomato and continue cooking until you have it cooked down to a paste. This is the sofrito that imparts the flavor to your paella!

13. Heat up your seafood broth.

14. Add the seafood mix (no mussels or shrimp) into the pan and stir to distribute 1 min.

15. Now add the rice/saffron/salt/paprika to the center of the pan and stir to cook about 1-2 min.

16. Rearrange the chicken on top of the rice like spokes on a wheel.

17. Pour the HOT seafood broth into the pan. From this point on you will NOT stir the rice! This allows the soccarat to form. Let it cook 8-9 minutes.

18. The rice has soaked up all of the broth. Add another 4 cups of hot broth and turn the heat to medium.

19. In a separate pan, sautee your shrimp about 3 min per side until they are pink. Do not over cook!

20. Arrange the mussels and shrimp nestled into the rice. Add another cup of broth. Pour the green peas on top.

21. Get foil and cover the pan. Turn the heat up to high and cook for 2 minutes. You should start smelling the toasty smell of the rice getting caramelized at the bottom. Don’t let it get too burnt!

22. Unveil your paella and scatter some chopped parsley on top.

Zucchini Ribbon Salad with Toasted Almonds

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 04:59:00 +0000

(photo by Mei Chun Jau)

This is a delightfully fast, tasty, and very healthy salad that offers an alternative way to prepare fresh zucchini.

Did you know zucchini is loaded up with lots of vitamins and nutrients like 35% of your Vitamin C requirement, and lots of potassium? (source) Better to take advantage of all that goodness in it’s full form when eating the zukes raw! Then add almonds on top and you have a very well balanced dish that brings carbs, protein, vitamins and summer fresh flavor to the table.

I found this recipe in Bon Appetit magazine and have fallen in love with the freshness and texture offered up by this dish. Great way to plow through your summer squash harvest!

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

1/4 cup almonds – I like the sliced for the nice thin crunch!
2-3 large zucchinis/yellow squash
1 garlic clove
1 lemon
2 TB olive oil
Parmesan or other salty, hard cheese

Steps:

Heat up a pan to medium and toss the almonds in to dry roast. Keep stirring so they don’t burn (too much). It’s done when you get that nice toasty almond smell coming off the pan! (Maybe 5-7 min) Remove from heat and set aside.
Using a veggie peeler, shave off ribbons of the squash into a bowl. Stop when you get too close to the core of the squash and it gets hard to get nice long pretty strips. (Save the cores to be sauteed later!)
Mince or press the garlic. Zest the lemon.
Whisk together garlic, zest & juice of 1 lemon, and salt/pepper to taste to make dressing.
Toss the zucchini & dressing. Add almonds and shave some parmesan on top. Toss again just before serving (leaving the almonds on top for a pretty picture )

Blackberry Semifreddo with Warm Blueberry Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 06:56:00 +0000

Semifreddo has always been one of those fancy sounding desserts that I, as a girl who will almost always choose a steak over something sweet, figured was just another way for gourmet chefs to slap a sexy-sounding label on something overworked, overcomplicated, and not so different from good ol ice cream.

However, as I was hunting around for a dessert for a big dinner party, semifreddos popped up as just what I needed because:

a. It can be made ahead of time and served with little last minute effort
b. It sounded cool and refreshing for a mid-summer dinner

Well, let me tell you, now that I’ve tasted the fruit of knowledge of the semifreddo, there is NO going back! Eating this dessert is like putting lightly frozen, fluffy, creamy blackberry clouds in your mouthy. Each gentle bite leaves a cool kiss of fruit & cream on your tongue. I swear. It is THAT good. MMMM!!!!!!

AND…it was very easy to make for someone like me who HATES baking b/c of the precision required. I started with a recipe that was scary b/c it required candy thermometers and scary measuring equipment like that. But after making two batches of the stuff, I can tell you that is pretty forgiving and friendly! I messed up a few things, didnt’ have a working candy thermometor and was still able to turn out a delicious tasting dessert!

So here goes the recipe. As I mentioned last time, be warned that you may find yourself licking the mixing bowls clean before the concoction can even make it into the freezer!

Ingredients:

Semifreddo

2 cup heavy whipping cream
3 large eggs, 2 egg yolks
1/3 cup fine sugar
1 pint blackberries (or whatever berries you like!)
1 tsp vanilla
1 lemon

Steps:

1. Get out a bread loaf pan and line it with plastic wrap. Put a rubberband around the top if you want to hold it in place better.

(I used sliced almonds here, but I’d probably not do that next time, as I felt the almond flavor interfered with the fruitiness of the semifreddo. Of course it did not keep me from eating a ton of this dessert! You may want to line with fruit instead)

2. Heat up a pot of 1-2 inches water to boiling.

3. Crack the 3 eggs and 2 egg yolks into a glass bowl. Add sugar and vanilla and whip slightly while waiting for water to boil.

4. Also while waiting for water to boil, throw the blackberries into a blender and puree them. Add a squeeze of lemon at the end. Set aside.

5. Once the water is boiling, place your egg bowl on top of the water, and keep whisking until you see the mixture get foamy and thicker. This should take about 5 min. Whisk continuously. If you have a working candy thermometer, feel free to use it and get your mixture up to 160 degrees F.

(The candy thermometor in this pic is just for show. It definitely did NOT work and did not help me figure out when the stuff was ready!!)

6. Remove from heat and place in a standing mixer. Mix on medium until you start getting soft peaks. It should like kind like this:

Pour into a bowl and then gently fold in the blackberry puree. Be careful not to overmix. Just till you’ve got some pretty marbling.

7. Clean out your mixing bowl and wipe it dry (to help with the whipping!). Add your heavy cream and let ‘er rip until you get some slightly harder than soft peaks. (I also made the mistake of walking away for too long and came back to a bowl of completely whipped cream, and this STILL worked fine!)

8. Fold together the whipped cream and egg/blackberry/sugar mixture.

9. Stick your finger in the bowl and taste the clouds! OMG.

10. Try to stop yourself from getting a spoon and eating the whole thing.

11. Pour the mixture into your bread loaf pan lined with plastic wrap. Cover the top with plastic wrap, and then a layer of foil. Put the whole thing in the freezer overnight.

12. To serve, take the pan out of the freezer about 30 min before serving and let it thaw slightly. Using the edges of plastic wrap hanging over the edge, pull the whole thing out and place onto a serving plate.

Continue to let it thaw untl you can slice it pretty easily. Serve with fresh berries, or a warm blueberry sauce.

Look at that velvety, but light texture!!!

ENJOY!!! This is my new fave dessert and I can’t stop thinking about what other flavors would be great in this medium!!

Oh, and here’s the blueberry sauce recipe. You can make this a few hours before serving and put it in the fridge.Nuke it for a min or two before serving!

Blueberry Sauce

2 pints blueberries
1/3 cup sugar
zest of an orange

Steps:

!. Put blueberries & sugar in a small saucepan and turn the heat to medium

2. Stir intermittently as the mixture comes to boil. Mashup the berries a lil too.

3. Zest one orange into the pot. This REALLY makes the flavors pop!

4. Sauce is ready when it’s pourable but still chunky/syrupy. Serve immediately, or place in fridge til dessert time, and you can nuke it up.

5. Spoon some on the semifreddo and prepare to lift off!!!

A Sultry Italian Summer Meal and Tips for Hosting Large Parties

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 05:20:00 +0000

This past weekend, Colin’s parents came to town and we wanted to make sure to have a nice big dinner with all our friends so they could meet our adopted family here in Dallas. I started scheming the week before about what kind of meal to cook that would be delicious, but not require major slaving over the stove. I knew we’d be busy with work and entertaining and driving around, and a complicated meal, especially in the heat of summer was just not going to cut it.

Some Bon Apetit magazines lying around finally triggered the right inspiration – a sultry Italian summer vacation– all on your plate. What I love about Italian food is that the real stuff, not your run of the mill alfredo or spaghetti, is so much about fresh ingredients coming together for a dance that brings out the best in each ingredient w/out hiding the natural flavors beneath too much extra hooplah.

Summery Italian foods bring to mind lots of fresh squeezed lemon and seafood. The sultry heat of summer comes in when you add a layer of varying textures to the dishes. The juxtaposition of light flavors against creamy texture; crunchy against citrusy, rich against fresh… this texture dimension is like putting a pretty girl in the right dress to turn her into a head-turner. That’s what I was searching for – dishes with va-va-va-VOOM! Sofia Loren languidly resting on a curvy serving platter ready to seduce your palate.

And so, I pulled together this menu for 24 and executed it with some planning and quite a few helping hands, to turn into a lovely evening dinner on the roof for all our guests.

(Conducting a FLAVA SYMPHONY!)

Appetizers:

- Prosciutto, fig jam, cantaloupe, smoked gouda and basil bruschetta (salty, sweet, fresh, crunchy)
- Lemony white bean dip with pita chips (creamy texture + bright lemon flavor)
- Negronis (Alcohol to loosen everyone up)

Mains:
- Slow cooker Italian pork tenderloin with tomato, garlic and oregano (rich flavor, shredded texture)
- Low & Slow roasted salmon with fresh basil pesto (silky texture + strong/bright flavor)

Sides:
- Watermelon, feta, mint salad (fresh to death w/ a touch of salty and the surprise of mint!)
- Zucchini ribbon & roasted almond salad (crunchy fresh veggies + crunchy mellow nuts)
- Garlic lemon sauteed rapini (slightly bitter greens)
- Lemon linguine (Filler upper starch for the carb lovers)

Dessert:
- Blackberry semifreddo with warm blueberry sauce (tart against the fluffiest, lightest creaminess)
- Lots of limoncello! (More Alcohol. Werd.)

Some of my lessons learned on cooking the biggest meal I have ever cooked (so far!):
- Salads are great b/c you can slice/chop ahead and easily delegate to someone to assemble
- Two main dishes makes it easier to prep two things in parallel b/c you can use different appliances in your kitchen, and also allow you to satisfy more diverse palates
- Learn to LOVE your slow cooker!
- Ask your guests to bring ICE if you do not have an industrial strength ice maker
- The hardest part was trying to multitask cook & talk to guests – minimize even MORE of the work you have to do right before dinnertime. Sauteeing the rapini and making the pasta with sauce were the things I did last, and thank goodness I had a sous-chef (Mark!) to help out at the very end.

At the end of the day, there are little things more satisfying that successfully pulling off a good meal to set of a great night with the people you love. Thank you to all my friends who brought dishes & drinks to share, carried tables & chairs, and also helped me dig out of the tornado left in the kitchen!!! You guys are amazing and are such a pleasure to serve!

Lookout for some of the recipes in the following days. First up is a Blackberry Semifreddo which blew my mind with how tasty and easy it was!! Fair warning that you may or may not find yourself face-first inside the bowl. :-)

All photos thanks to Mei Chun of http://jaufoto.com

Chimichurri Sauce on EVERYTHING

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 18:06:00 +0000

I’m obsessed. Gimme more of this bright, slightly tart, garlicy, parsley-y sauce on everything!! On steak? Hell yes! On eggs? Oh mama! Dip my fries in it? GAH! Throw it in a smoothie?

Hmm, that might be over the line, but the more I think about it, it might not be such a bad idea!!

Anyway, obsession aside, you guys should definitely try out this sauce. It’s simple, quick, veggie/vegan/raw food/paleo/healthnut-friendly, and adds this perfect bright counterpoint to richer, heavier entrees like steak.

Ingredients:

1 bunch fresh flat leaf parsley
2 TB fresh oregano leaves
4 cloves garlic
1 small red onion (or 1/2 of a large one)
1/4 cup olive oil
3 TB red wine vinegar
1 tsp red pepper flakes (can exclude if you don’t like spicy)
1/2 tsp salt

Steps:

1. Roughly chop up the parsley. Strip the leaves off the oregano. Mince up the onion. Peel and coarsely chop the garlic.

2. Take out your food processor and let ‘er rip. Have fun adding the parsley, oregano, garlic, and onion to the processor and watch them all get demolished! WHOOO! Process til everything is pretty finely shredded, about 10-15 seconds.

3. Turn the processor on again and add the olive oil, vinegar & red pepper flakes. Consistency should be pretty chunky still. You can add more olive oil if you like a more saucy sauce.

4. Taste the sauce and add salt to taste. I used about 1/2 tsp.

(This is the chunkier texture. Pic at top & bottom is a smoother texture sauce)

5. And it’s ready to put on everything! I definitely recommend it on a steak, seasoned simply with salt/pepper and grilled. Tastes even better the next day. Should keep in your fridge about 5 days.

Healthy Turkey Seekh Kebabs with Cucumber Mint Yogurt Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 24 May 2011 06:20:00 +0000

This dish has become a STAPLE at our house for weeknight meals because:

It’s super healthy (high protein/low fat)
Very tasty
Easy to make in big batches and freeze
Easy for Colin to cook up when I’m not destroying the kitchen with my latest experiments

The original recipe is from Azmina of Lawyer Loves Lunch, and through the many batches I’ve made on weekends before I’m gone for work travel all week, I’ve tweaked and played with some of the seasonings.

It’s a very forgiving recipe that you can stand up to different substitutions of spices. Feel free to experiment if you are running out of cumin (like I did last night). I’d also recommend going with a lighter ground turkey. I’ve used 90/10 and 85/15. I find the 85/15 a bit wetter and harder to form into kebabs w/out adding breadcrumbs, and I’d rather not have to add extra filler.

I also like to serve the kebabs with a cool, refreshing cucumber mint yogurt sauce.

For you workout freaks, this is a GREAT healthy meal with 20 g protein per serving and 9 g fat. (source)

Servings: 4-5 servings of about 4 kebabs each

Ingredients:

1 lb ground turkey (90/10 is best, but others work as well)
1 medium onion (any kind!)
3 cloves garlic
2-3 inch piece of ginger
1 jalepeno (or sub1 tsp red pepper flakes)
4 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne
zest of 1 lemon
A good handful of cilantro (I’ve also subbed green onions and/or basil)

Steps:

1. Prep your ingredients and place in a large mixing bowl:

Finely dice the onion. If you think it might not be fine enough, go ahead and give it another chop. The finer the better so as not to have huge onion chunks in your kebabs.
Mince the garlic and jalepeno
Grate or mince the ginger
Zest the lemon
chop up the cilantro

2. Add the ground turkey and the spices. Mix all together with your hands. Get dirty!

3. Now, time to test your flavor. A quick trick my mom showed me! Grab a ziplock bag or piece of plastic wrap. Grab a lil 1/2 teaspoon or so of the meat mixture and place it inside the bag/wrap up in plastic. Place in the microwave for 10-15 seconds until cooked through. Carefully remove from the plastic and take a taste. Adjust the seasoning to your taste.

4. Take some plates and spray with nonstick spray.Take a large spoon and scoop about 2 teaspoonfuls of meat mixture and use your hands and the spoon to shape into oblong kebab shapes. Place each kebab onto the plate and continue until you run out of meat!

These were made with 85/15 turkey. Kinday mushy but still tasty when cooked.

(

I preferred the texture of these, make with 90/10 turkey. Bit firmer.

5. Now, you can either cook the kebabs right away, or freeze them. If cooking, you can pan fry about 8-10 minutes or broil in the oven at 350 about 8-10 minutes. If freezing, place the plates directly in the freezer for about 20 min or so. Take them out when they have solidified a bit and pop them into ziplock bags for storage.

Serve them up on top of a salad, steamed veggies, or a starch. Don’t forget the cucumber mint yogurt sauce for an extra flavor party in your mouth!

Cucumber Mint Yogurt Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 24 May 2011 06:15:00 +0000

A cool and refreshing sauce that goes GREAT with spicy meats! (Like Turkey Seekh Kebabs!)

Ingredients:

1 cup of plain greek yogurt ( I LOVE Oikos brand!)
1 cucumber
4-5 mint stems
Salt to taste

Steps:

1. Peel the cucumber completely removing all the dark green skin.

2. Using a microplane zester or some other grating device, grate your cucumber into a medium sized bowl.

3. Add the yogurt and chopped up mint leaves into the bowl and stir with a spoon to blend. Taste and add salt as desired.

4. Keep in the fridge until ready to serve.

Asian Style Beer Steamed Crab

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 03 May 2011 05:55:00 +0000

Had some dear friends come by the Cookie Palace this weekend after working hard all weekend being the fabulous Fire ‘n Ice Entertainment at a local electronic music fest, and I wanted to make sure we had a proper Sunday dinner waiting for them. Even though the weather here in Dallas has been all OVER the map, from summer time hot to perfect spring to chilly, rainy, damp….my tastebuds were ready for some warm weather food and I thought I’d try my hand at making some steamed CRAB for dinner!

Having never made crab before, this required some googling. I scanned a few recipes and figured out that I could improvise around the following formula:

1. Get fresh live blue crabs
2. Use beer + aromatics to give flavor to the crabs
3. Season before steaming with salt, pepper & a lil spice if you like
4. Takes about 10 minutes to steam the crab

Pretty simple! I can handle this! But first, where to find fresh crab?? Luckily, the local asian markets yielded some live & kickin blue crabs for only $2.99/lb. Awesome deal! Part of the discount, however, is that you have to use these short tongs to grab the crabs and put them in a brown paper bag for yourself.

My lovely friend and sous-chef Judi came along with me for this adventure as we wrangled the lil guys out of a big plastic tub in front of the fish stall. I swear they give you these short lil tongs on purpose.

There may have been some screaming and shrieking, especially when a giant catfish leapt out of a fish tank and wriggled onto the floor near us. Oops.

But we got the crabs home successfully and dumped them out in the sink to take a look.

OOH la la!

But now…how the heck are we supposed to season them when they are still alive??? Am I supposed to give it a salt scrub while it’s squirming around?Holy crap, it’s like my kitchen is going to be King Spa for crabs!! Asian ladies scrub the crap out of you and then you go steam yourself til you turn red! OMG.

Turns out, a generous sprinkling of salt & pepper is just fine. No need to give the lil buggers a massage. However, we did learn, thanks to this ridiculous video, that you can indeed grab the crabs at the very back if you for some reason do not have tongs. Or, perhaps if you are hardcore like Judi.

See, no sweat for Judi.

I, on the other hand, am not so hardcore and used my extra long tongs to get those babies in the pot. What I DID learn was that if you hold them above the steam for too long, the freak out and EJECT their claws! Causing more screaming and shrieking. By me. Not the crabs.

Anyway, the crab turned out great despite our many mishaps. The flavor here is very delicate, so if you want something stronger you may want to amp up the spice level.

Serves: 12 (at 1 crab per person, served alongside other main dishes. You will need more crab if that is to be the only entree)

Ingredients:

12 live blue crabs

3 bunches scallions/green onions
3 inch piece of ginger
3 stalks lemongrass

1 bunch cilantro

Handful of thai basil

4 bottles of lighter beer – I used New Belgium Brewing Co’s Mothership Wit + Miller light b/c I couldn’t bear to not drink more of the good beer!

3 TB dried minced onion

Olive oil
Salt, Pepper

Cayenne

Steps:

1. Dump your crabbies out in the sink so you can rinse them off and get rid of any dirt left on them.

2. Wash & prep the aromatics:

Take 2 of your scallion bunches and chop off the white ends first, then chop the rest of the stalk into 3rds.
For the last scallion bunch finely chop up the green parts.
Peel and cut the ginger into matchsticks
With 1/2 the cilantro bunch, just cut in half. Then chop up the rest.

Reserve 2-3 stems of basil, and then chop up another 1/4 cup-ish of the basil leaves only

Cut the grassy tops off the lemongrass, then cut the main stem into 3 inch pieces

3. In a large pot with a steamer basket, place the lemongrass stalks in the bottom and pour in the beer. Place the steamer basket in the pot. Heat that baby up until it starts boiling. (If you don’t have a steamer basket, that is ok. The lemongrass stalks can give a lil lift at the bottom of the pot too.)

4. Once the beer is boiling, grab the crabs and quickly place into the pot. If your pot is small, you will want to layer crabs, seasoning & aromatics. Season generously with salt, pepper, and cayenne. I used about 2-3 tsp of each seasoning.

5. Place the large pieces of scallions & cilantro, matchsticked ginger, and whole basil stems on top of the crabs. Add one more dash of salt/pepper/cayenne for good measure. Close the lid and let them steam for about 10 minutes until the crab is a brilliant red-orange.

6. Remove the crabs from the pot and place on a plate. Don’t put the big pieces of the aromatics on the plate, but a few pieces are fine.

7. In a small heavy bottom pot, heat up 3-4 TB olive oil. Add the dried minced onion and stir. Just as it is turning golden yellow to brown (~30 sec), remove from heat and toss in the finely chopped scallion and stir. Pour this mixture all over your crabs on the plate.

8. Garnish the crabs with the finely chopped cilantro & basil. Serve & get ready to dig in with your hands! RAWR!!!

We served the crab with some soy sauce & sesame oil egg noodles, garlic sautéed Chinese broccoli, and Vietnamese caramelized pork with eggs.

Special thanks to Foxie for being my photographer and taking all these great pictures!

*As part of theFoodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received some New Belgium Brewing Company beer to make this tasty dish!

Beef & Pork Cabbage Roll Soup aka Packets of Love!

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 05:17:00 +0000

Work travel has kept me away from my hungry readers for the past few weeks, so I thought I’d start back up with the one recipe from my last Beef Sessions dinner that came to me directly from my mom’s kitchen – Beef & Pork cabbage roll soup.

The special part of this recipe is the simplicity of the seasonings that yield a delicate, but determined flavor, and the care in the packaging and presentation of the cabbage rolls that make me call me them Packets of Love!

Of course, I will admit that ALLL that love is a bit much for a weekday meal, so you can certainly still get all the same flavor in less time by just rolling little meatballs and adding cut up cabbage to the soup.

Another note, this recipe also works well with pork & shrimp for a slightly different soup flavor!

Follow along for light and satisfying meal.

Servings: 4-6

Ingredients:

1/4 lb ground beef
1/4 lb ground pork
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 white onion
2 bunches green onion
1 head of cabbage (regular or napa)
1 inch piece of ginger.
2 carrots
1 container organic, low sodium chicken broth (or home made!)

Steps:

1. Finely dice the white onion & 1 bunch of green onions. Slice the ginger. Slice the carrot into rounds.

You can also make fancy flowers by slicing 4 strips out of the length of the carrot, and then slicing across.

See? Cute!

2. In a large bowl, combine, ground beef & pork, white onion, half the green onion, salt & pepper. Mix thoroughly together with your hands. Set aside.

3. Heat up a a pot 1/3 full with water with a dash of salt.

4. Cut the bottom off the cabbage head and start pulling the leaves off and rinsing. Using a knife, cut out the tough core vein of each leaf.

5. Cut the white ends off of the green onions. Any thicker onions, slice vertically down the middle.

6. Once the water is boiling, add the cabbage & green onions and boil for about 1-2 minutes.

7. Prepare an ice water bath. Once the cabbage is softened, drain in a colandar and immediately dunk the colander in the ice water.

8. Now, it’s time to put together the packets of love!!! (or if you want to simplify, just roll some 1 inch meatballs from the meat and slice the cabbage into squares). First, grab 2 pieces of green onion and lay in a cross.

9. Lay a piece of cabbage on top. Scoop 1 TB of the meat mixture into the center of the the cabbage and carefully fold up the edges around the meatball.

10. Tie the onion pieces around the packet like a present and double knot each one. This can prove difficult if you have big fingers, so using a chopstick or toothpick to help tie can help! Set the packets on a plate.

Pretty!

11. In a medium sized pot, heat up the chicken broth to boiling. Add in the cabbage/meat packets and carrot slices/flowers to the soup and reduce the heat to medium low. Let simmer about 5-8 minutes until the meat is cooked. Taste the broth to see if it needs some salt or sugar. I added 1 tsp of sugar to round out the flavors.

12. To serve, scoop about 2 love packets and a few carrots into a small bowl. Ladle in the broth and top with the reserved green onions. Serve with a smile!

Beef Sessions: Journey Through Vietnam – Bo Luc Lac Recipe

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 05:11:00 +0000

For my final Beef Sessions dinner, after starting in Vietnam, heading through Irish-America, with a stop over in Cajun country, and hopping across the Atlantic to visit France, I thought it only appropriate that I take the journey full circle back to Vietnam for a blow out on my motherland’s offerings of beefy deliciousness.

What better way to take this journey than through an interpretation of Bo Bay Mon – 7 courses beef – A special Vietnamese meal where the chef takes diners through seven very different preparations of beef – a bit of a sampler class on Vietnamese beef cuisine.

Using this bovine framework, I put together a meal of some of my favorite high lights of Vietnamese dishes through my Vietnamese-American-International-Food-Lovin’ interpretation. There are only 5 courses with beef, but I figured we’d need some veggies to go with all that meat!

Here’s the menu:

Honey Lime Soy Flank Steak & Mango Spring Rolls
Beef & Pork Cabbage Rolls of Love
Bo Luc Lac - “Shaking” Beef – Seared Tenderloin cubes over fresh tomato & spinach
Bo La Lot – Lemongrass & curry spiced beef wrapped in Betel Leaf
Bo Tai Chanh – Vietnamese Beef “Ceviche”
Green Papaya Salad
Watercress sauteed with garlic & soy sauce

Some dishes are well known dishes that I knew would be crowd pleasers.

(Bo Luc Lac)

Others were my first forays into trying something traditional I hadn’t made before.

(Bo La Lot)

And still other dishes came from the warm memories of my mother’s kitchen – dishes served simply for weekday meals after all the soccer practices, homework, and piano lessons were done.

(Beef & Pork Cabbage Packets of Love Rolls)

My mother, who worked full time and always proclaimed to hate cooking, still managed to ensure that each night our family would sit down together to a delicious home cooked dinner. Those lessons about the importance of sitting down together for a meal have stayed with me from the days I left home to explore the world on my own.

(Bo Tai Chanh)

In college, we gathered around dorm kitchen tables, or sometimes just one pot of rice. In my first working days, I dragged home a second hand dinner table with chairs to my tiny one-bedroom apartment on the third floor, so I could host dinner parties in this new city I was sure would yield me some new friends to invite for dinner. As I’ve gotten older and learned more in the kitchen, my hosting style has grown and morphed along with the set of guests sitting down at my table.

But through it all, the heart of the experience remains the same: Food made with lots of love and shared among warm company. There is nothing more fundamental to the richness of life than this.

Last night, we dined on the roof with a perfect spring breeze as the sun sank low to make way for the twinkling of the city lights to take center stage. Gentle music set the relaxed mood, and I swear I had found a perfect slice of heaven here on earth.

Follow below for the recipe for Bo Luc Lac - “Shaking” Beef! A simple, but very tasty dish. Adapted from Rasa Malaysia’s version by way of Ravenous Couple

Servings: 4-8 depending on if you serve it as the main course or one of many courses.

Ingredients:

2 lbs of beef tenderloin (other tender cuts like sirloin tips could work well too)
4-6 cloves garlic
2 TB sugar
2 TB oyster sauce
1 TB fish sauce
1 tsp dark/sweet/thick soy sauce
1 TB sesame oil
1-2 tomatoes
1/2 bag fresh baby spinach or watercress

Steps:

1. Cut the meat into 1 inch cubes and set aside.

2. Peel & mince the garlic

3. In a bowl, combine the garlic, sugar, oyster sauce, fish sauce, sweet soy sauce, sesame oil. Stir to combine, then pour over the meat cubes and toss to coat. Marinate 45 min – 1.5 hrs. .

4. While waiting, get a serving platter and lay out some spinach or watercress. Slice the tomatoes in half-moons and lay them in a ring around the edge of the plate. Chill covered until ready to cook the meat.

5. Heat up your pan with some oilive oil till it is SMOKIN hot!. Add the meat in batches and allow the meat to sear on one side before flipping over. When a batch is done to about medium to medium-rare,pour the meat directly from the pan onto the platter of tomatoes and greens you already prepared. This allows the juices &heat from the meat to partially wilt the greens for a lovely flavor.

6. Repeat until done with all the meat and serve with rice.

Stay tuned for more recipes from this meal! …

*Note - Over the next few weeks, expect to see a lot of delicious BEEF recipes here at Cookie Loves Eating, sponsored by the Texas Beef Council! There will be 4 sessions total, so get ready to get BEEFY with me!! C

Lemongrass Shrimp Vermicelli Bowls

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:58:00 +0000

Fresh, fresh, and more fresh! Vietnamese vermicelli bowls are layer upon layer of freshness. You start with chewy tender rice noodles, covered over with with crunchy fresh veggies and herbs, and topped off with some tasty seared and salty meat, shrimp or tofu. The finishing touch is always the light bright lime/sugar/fish sauce sauce! The combinations are endless as long as you stick to this formula.

In the following recipe, we’ll work through a version with shrimp marinated in lemongrass. I’ve sauteed the shrimp here for simplicity, but you could also grill it if you have a grill nearby!

Follow along on the road to fresh!

Servings: 2

Ingredients:

12 shrimp
rice vermicelli
4-6 leaves of romaine lettuce
1 cucumber
1 carrot
1/2 block of firm tofu
Vietnamese Nuoc Cham
3 TB minced lemongrass
2 tsp chili sauce
1 tsp salt
Bunch of fresh basil, cilantro

Steps:

1. Peel & devein the shrimp (EZ Peel shrimp make this soooo easy!!!)

2. Marinate the shrimp in the minced lemongrass, chili sauce, salt

3. Boil up the noodles. They are done when you can pinch a noodle in between your index finger & thumb and it breaks easily.

4. Chop up the lettuce. Slice the cucmber into thick matchsticks. Grate the carrots. Slice the tofu.

5. Make the nuoc cham.

6. Drain the noodles when they are done. Make sure to rinse a few times in cold water.

7. Heat up a pan with some olive oil. Once it’s just about smoking, cook the tofu with some garlic salt & pepper until browned on each side. Set aside.

8. Toss in the shrimp and quickly cook for about 5 minutes or so until the shrimp just about lose their translucence.

9. Build your bowls. Place some noodles in the bottom. Top with some lettuce, cucumber, carrot, tofu, shrimp, and fresh herbs. Serve with the nuoc cham.

10. To eat, pour the nuoc cham sauce over the bowl and toss everything together! Devour!

Beef Sessions: Beef Bourguignon – A Texas Sized Taste of France

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 05:05:00 +0000

Beef Bourguignon is one of those dishes I’ve always had a romantic notion about. Thoughts of the hearty stew make me long for rustic loaves of bread served on sunny wooden tables amidst a field of wildflowers. Bench seating where guests have to brush carelessly against their neighbors while rolling up their sleeves to dig in to a steaming bowl. You eat this dish with both hands and in the company of good friends.

This week for my Beef Sessions dinner, I decided to tackle this very French dish and add some Texas twist to it. First, I made enough to feed an army. And, second, I skipped the fussy sauce straining and whipping b/c the Facebook event wouldn’t allow me to set the time correctly and I had guests showing up 1-2 hours early! No problem though, in Texas, you roll with the punches and honestly, the sauce still turned out really great without all the extra fussiness. :-) I found the recipe on Simply Recipes, but tweaked it some to accommodate cooking while entertaining my lovely guests, drinking wine, and managing a handful of volunteer sous-chefs to execute the whole meal. The menu this time, was:

Mini onion quiches
Beef Bourguignon on extra wide egg noodles
Sauteed mustard greens (back by popular demand by my bf)
Lots of french bread
Phyllo dough bites filled with lemon, honey marscapone (So not french, but as I said, I was rolling with the punches!)

The meal was a success, thanks to lots of help from my lovely friends/sous-chefs/photographers. We didn’t have a french countryside to sit in, but we definitely got to rub elbows and dig into this dish with lots of love and laughter!

Servings: 12-14

Ingredients:

16 oz salt pork
8 lbs beef chuck
1 large yellow onion
4-5 carrots
8 cloves garlic
3/4 of a large size bottle of pinot noir or french burgandy wine
1 6 oz can tomato paste (no salt added if possible)
1 cup brandy
26 oz container of low sodium beef stock
1 bunch fresh parsley
4 bay leaves
10 stems fresh thyme
1 tsp ground cloves or 6-8 whole cloves
2 lbs mushrooms – I used baby bella, shiitake, and button mushrooms
15-20 oz pearl onions
Butter
Salt
Sugar

Steps:

1. Pour 1/8 of inch of water in a large saute pan and heat it up.

2. Take the salt pork and slice it into1/4 inch strips. Add to the sautee pan and cook until the water is evaporated.

3. Add 1 TB butter to the pan & continue cooking pork til it gets golden crispy edges. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon and place into a large dutch oven.

4. While the pork is cooking, cut your chuck into 2 inch cubes and build a meat mountain.

5. Once the pork is done. In the same pan, drizzle some olive oil and place the beef in the pan to brown in batches so that the meat is not overcrowded. Brown the meat on all sides and when each batch is done, throw the meat in the dutch oven with the pork. Repeat until all your beef is browned.

6. While browning the meat, chop up the onion, carrots, parsley, garlic, mushrooms. I saved time by buying the pre-slice mushrooms and having my friend play sous-chef and chop for me. :-D

7. Once you are done browning the meat and it’s all in the dutch oven, turn on the heat and add 3/4 of a large bottle of wine and one 26 oz container of beef stock. Add enough wine/stock to cover pretty much all the meat. Add half the parsley, bay leaves, thyme, ground cloves and cover to bring to a simmer.

8. As the dutch oven is coming up to heat, add the onions and half the carrots into the meat browning pan, and stir cook, making sure to grab any of those delicious browned bits stuck to the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes and add garlic and tomato paste. Stir and cook another 2-3 minutes.

9. Add the brandy (1 CUP!) into the pan and stir. Boil down by about half and remember to scrape up any remaining brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Pour everything into the dutch oven and stir to combine.

10. Cook the dutch oven contents at low with the cover on for 1 hour.

11. While you are cooking the meat, boil the pearl onions in a new pot for about 5-7 minutes. Drain and submerge in ice water to cool quickly. Cut off both tips of the onion and slide the outer skin off. Set aside in a bowl.

12. Back in the saute pan, add 1 TB butter and sautee the mushrooms about 5 min, stirring frequently. Add the pearl onions and a sprinkle of salt and cook another minute until the onions get a little bit browned. Remove from heat and set aside.

13. After 1 hour of cooking, check your dutch oven and give it a taste. I added 1 TB of sugar at this point. And then cook another hour until the meat is super tender.

14. About 15 minutes before serving, add the sauteed mushrooms and onions into the dutch oven and let it cook until serving time.

15. At the very end, toss in the rest of the chopped fresh parsley, and serve over some extra wide egg noodles with some crusty french bread!

Beef Sessions #3: Ragin Cajun Edition

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:33:00 +0000

(photo by Andrew Lin)

This week is Mardi Gras, the annual celebration of all that is excessive, indulgent and covered in glitter and feathers! I’ve had the pleasure of going to Mardi Gras twice so far in my life. Once during college with about 20 of my closest friends to stay with one of the guys’ families (Hi Boschs!). My naive eyes had never seen such a party, and our native born hosts showed us how to do Mardi Gras right! From eating Popeye’s while watching the epic parades during the day, to making King Cake, to throwing beads to party people from a balcony on Bourbon St. Those days, pre-Katrina, the French quarter was CRAZY even for my standards. There are many epic tales of that weekend and how I got to know the NOLAPD well, but we’ll save those tales for another day. ;-)

(Quick distract them with the action shot!)(photo by Andrew Lin)

Later on, post-Katrina, I got to return to see the true spirit of New Orleans, that had persisted through the intense recovery after the storm in order to ensure that party would go on! My friend Jay showed me how the people of New Orleans came back out of love for their city, to rebuild this amazing place that has such a palpable soul. We danced in the streets past piles of wreckage and past trees with branches drooping with beads. New Orleans is about defiant survival with a shot of whisky and a splash of jazz.

(Nice work, guys!)

Each time I visit New Orleans, the overriding sensation that follows me home is the down to earth, open-arms welcoming hospitality everyone shows. You aren’t just a passing visitor to the city; the moment you let yourself get swept away in the city’s magic, you become family.

This dinner, I wanted to capture that southern hospitality and spunkiness in a Cajun inspired meal in honor of Mardi Gras and all the great times I’ve had in New Orleans. The menu was:

Jambalaya Bites (recipe coming soon)
Cajun Spiced Tenderloin w/ Bourbon Glaze
Chef DAT’s White Beans
White Cheddar Grits
Sauteed Mustard Greens
Gangsta King Cake

To all my guests, I hope you felt some of that NOLA love in this meal!

(We’ve upgraded to having a tablecloth for our folding tables now. Fancy!)

I found this great recipe for the tenderloin and tweaked it some. Really great flavors. Definitely a sassy tenderloin! A few notes from my first experience cooking a whole tenderloin:

Buying tenderloin untrimmed will save you lots of $$$ and it’s not hard to trim at all. I found this great video to show me how.
I looked EVERYWHERE for cooking twine to tie up the roast, and ended up getting some for free after asking a butcher at my local grocery!
4 steps: Rub, Sear, Roast, Rest. Easy! You can add all sorts of other fancy stuff, but those 4 steps are the core.
Even though it was a decadant meal, tenderloin is actually one of the leanest cuts of beef. Plays well with the marinade & rub method.

Servings: 10-12

Ingredients:

Meat
- 6.5-7 lb untrimmed tenderloin
Marinade
- 3/4 cup worcestershire sauce
- 6 TB molasses
- 6 TB dijon mustard
Rub
- 3 TB cracked black pepper (Try not to get carpal tunnel here)
- 3 TB dry minced garlic
- 3 TB paprika
- 1 TB kosher salt
- 1 TB cayenne
- 1 TB cajun spice mix (no salt, or skip the salt if your cajun mix has salt)
Glaze
- 1 cup bourbon
- 1 cup dijon mustard
- 1 cup light brown sugar

Steps:

1. Trim the tenderloin – Basically, you are going to cut all the excess fat and any “silver skin” – the shiny transluscent stuff on the top of the meat – off of the meat. Then cut that baby in 1/2 so you have two pieces you can cook to different doneness.

2. Mix together the marinade.

3. Place your tenderloin in a large container and pour the marinade on top. Turn to coat. Cover and let marinate for 8 – 24 hrs in the fridge.

4. About 2 hrs before meal time, mix together all the rub ingredients in a bowl.

5. Remove tenderloin from marinade and discard. Dry off the meat with paper towels to remove any excess marinde.

6. Take each 1/2 and tuck the end under so it’s a pretty uniform thickness. Tie with cooking twine at about 2 inch intervals. Cut off any excess twine at the ends.

7. Rub the cajun spice rub all over the tenderloin. Be generous! Let the meat sit for about 20-30 min to come up to room temp.

8. Turn the oven to 450 while you are waiting.

9. Whisk together the glaze and set aside in a bowl.

10. Once tenderloin is warmed up, heat a large pan up to high and add some olive oil. Sear the tenderloin on all 4 sides and place in a rack in a roasting pan. Repeat with the other tenderloin.

11. Place roasting pan in oven and roast for 20 min for rare/30 min for medium rare. Internal temp should be 135 degrees, but I couldn’t find my meat thermometer at the time, so I just guessed.

12. During last 10 min of roasting, baste with the bourbon glaze.

13. Once done, remove from oven and let sit for 10 min to let juices redistribute.

14. Pour theremaining glaze into a pan and reduce down while waiting for meat to rest.

15. Cut the tenderloin into 1.5-2 in slices and place on plate. Serve with the reduced glaze as an awesome sauce!

Guinness Braised Beef Short Ribs

Bun Bo Hue - Spicy Vietnamese Beef & Pork Soup

Citrus Fish Tacos with Cabbage Apple Slaw

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:30:00 +0000

It’s Monday, and if you are like me, you are pushing through the day, getting in that post-weekend workout in to purge yourself of all the gluttony that seems to follow Saturday and Sunday so easily, and then limping home hoping to get to bed early to make up for all those late nights out.

What? Don’t look at me like that. I’m not judging you over there looking refreshed, organized, and ready to conquer the world! Don’t hate me b/c I’m WINNING at life! (I really couldn’t help myself. The man just says what I”m thinking in the deep dark recesses of my mind.)

Mondays are for recovery in my book. I wake up hoping I remembered to hit the drycleaners to pick up some freshly pressed clothes so I don’t have to whip out the iron. More likely than not, my party girl self had decided to prioritize mimosas at brunch with the ladies, followed by an afternoon nap or some online shopping, before I chugged a redbull and charged out into the night….over getting to the drycleaners on time to pick up my boring “serious working woman” clothes. I say weekends are for shunning responsibility and indulging in pleasure in all it’s forms!

So here I am on a Monday morning when I have to put my “serious working woman” panties on and be a responsible adult again, cursing the party girl that I have to plug in the iron now to make myself look presentable for the rest of the world. UGH!

So…Monday evening I come home and kick off my power pumps, determined to eat something healthy to start my week off right. This recipe hits all the rights notes of being healthy, easy, and nourishing, and is thus a perfect cure for a case of the Recovery Day Mondays. Dig in. Wash it down with a glass of wine with your work shirt all untucked if you need to ease yourself into the week! ;-)

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

6-8 tilapia fillets (Other light white fish should work too)
1/2 head cabbage (I used napa cabbage)
1 apple
1 red onion
1 lemon
1 TB honey
1 TB olive oil (I used a persian lime olive oil that gave it special lime kick)
1 lime
lemon pepper
salt, pepper
cilantro
soft tortillas (I used whole wheat low carb)
Tomatillo avocado sauce

Steps:

1. Heat the oven to 350

2. Dash some olive oil into the bottom of a glass pan. Nonstick spray works fine too.

3. Lay your fillets down in one layer and season with the lemon pepper on both sides of each fillet.

4. Slice some rounds off the lemon and place them all over the fish. Squeeze about 1/2 the lemon all over the fish.

5. Bake in the oven for 20-25 min or until the fish flakes easily.

6. While the fish is baking, finely slice the cabbage, onion, and apple into thin slices. You can also get the tomatillo avocado sauce going at this time.

7. In a small bowl, whisk together the honey, olive oil, juice of 1 lime, and dash of salt/pepper.

8. Place the cabbage, onion, and apple into a large bowl. Cover with the honey/olive oill/lime dressing and toss all to combine and distribute. Taste the slaw and add more lime or salt as needed. It should taste very light and fresh!

9. When you are ready to eat, toast the tortillas on your stove top. Then break up the fish into chunks and place some in the tortilla. Top with slaw & tomatillo avocado sauce or other salsas.

So Fresh!

Tomatillo Avocado Sauce – Cousin to Taco Diner’s Green Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 06:30:00 +0000

Have you been to Taco Diner? They have this awesome green sauce they serve with the neverending bowl of perfectly thin, warm, and crunchy chips that keeps coming to your table. I keep thinking about this sauce b/c it is so light and fresh and I just had no idea what it was made of!

Google research turned up some tomatillo salsas that looked about right. Then I saw this recipe and thought the avocado would add just the right amount of creaminess to the sauce. The end result is so fresh and light! Not quite Taco Diner, but a very nice cousin of the original, and a breeze to throw together. It’s also quite healthy with all those raw ingredients, so you can feel less guilty when you kill an entire bag of tortilla chips eating this sauce. ;-)

Ingredients:

4-6 tomatillos
1 ripe avocado
2 cloves garlic
1 bunch cilantro
1 tsp salt
Dash black pepper
2 red chiles or 1 jalepeno (Add more if you want more heat!)

Steps:

Slice the tomatillos into quarters and scoop out the avocado. Smash and peel the garlic. Very coarsely chop the cilantro. Remove some of the seeds from the chiles.
Put everything except salt into a food processor and hit blend. Once the texture is nice and smooth add some salt and process some more. Taste and add more salt/pepper as needed.
Enjoy! Hopefully with lots of chips, a margarita, and some sunshine!

Friends, Food, Love

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Life moves so quickly sometimes, it's easy to forget to take a little time,

Just enough time, and just enough wine,

To reconnect,

Over good food and plenty of laughter. Life happens in these little moments.

Don’t blink too quick and miss it.

Pics above by my friend Jason, taken of the last Beef Sessions dinner I held.

The menu was:

Guinness-braised beef ribs
Roasted carrots
Green beans sauteed with almonds
Seasoned mashed potatoes (by my friend Flavia!)
Pioneer Woman’s blackberry cobbler & vanilla ice cream

Really looking forward to the next one tmw where I take a Cajun twist on beef recipes! Happy Mardi Gras ya’ll!

Lemongrass Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (cookie) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 05:48:00 +0000

Have some boneless, skinless chicken that needs a good flavor kick in the rear?? Tired of gnawing on blah, boring, bland baked chicken in an effort to stay healthy? Welcome, my friends, to the antitode to your common boring chicken routine!

You may have seen lemongrass in some previous posts, but let’s get to know our lemony friend a little better. Lemongrass is, surprise, a GRASS with an intensely herby, citrusy flavor and scent. It’s used a lot in South East Asian cooking for curries and soups to add a that bright citrus note into very savory dishes.

You can buy it fresh in big bunches like this:

This is great for soups and stews where you keep the stalk whole. But mincing this bad boy down is a PAIN!!! Luckily, someone had the clever idea to sell frozen minced lemongrass and this is an awesome product that makes it a lot easier to cook recipes requiring minced lemongrass!

You can spend hours and the tips of your fingers trying to mince those hard, resistant stalks down to the right fineness, or you can pop one of these guys in the microwave for 10 seconds and scoop out the amount you need!

But do be careful to not be lazy like me and hit the 1 min button and think you will remember to take the container out in time. This is what will happen:

Oops.

Anyway, this little container of magic was shown to me by my mama, so you dont’ have to feel like you are cheating too much if you use it. It’s Cookie Mama approved!

So now that you know a lil bit more about lemongrass, on to the recipe! This is fast, flavorful dish that you can throw together in about 15-20 min after trudging home from work, gym, meetings, whatever. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face b/c it is so easy, healthy and tasty!

Servings: 3-4

Ingredients:

2.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken (I used thighs, but breasts work as well)
4 TB minced lemongrass
1 inch ginger
1 bunch basil leaves
1 medium onion
2 red chilis or 1 TB sambal olek chili sauce
1 tsp brown sugar (white is ok too)
1 tsp kosher salt
1 TB olive oil

I like to serve this with:

1-2 fresh cucumbers
Rice

Steps:

1. Cut up the chicken into 1 inch pieces and place in a medium bowl.

2. Using a mortar & pestal grind together the lemongrass, salt, sugar, chilis. Feel free to cut out the spicy here if you don’t like spicy.

3. Dump this mix on the chicken and mix thoroughly to distribute. Let it marinate while you are prepping the rest of the ingredients.

4. Slice the ginger into matchsticks. Thinly slice the onion. Chop up the basil. Peel & chop the cucumbers if you are using them. Also start the rice cooker or your rice pot at this time.

5. Heat up a wok or non-stick pan to very hot. (Water droplet splashed on the pan should get zapped away instantly!) Add olive oil and it should smoke. Toss in the sliced ginger and stir quickly to cook for about 1 min.

6. Now toss in the chicken about 1 cup at a time so you can ensure you will get a good sear on all the chicken. Let the chicken sit still for about 2 min before you flip and stir a bit to cook. The sugar helps form a nice brown on the edges. Once the first batch is done (about 3-4 min), move the cooked chicken to a plate and continue with more batches until complete.

7. Once you’ve moved the last batch of chicken to the side plate, add a little more oil into the hot pan and add the onions. Stir to cook about 2 min and pick up any bits of chicken stuck in the pan. Then add the chicken back in the pan and cook another 3 min, stirring often. At this point, you may also want to cover the pan with a lid for the end to keep all the heat in. Check a piece of chicken to ensure it’s cooked through.

8. Add the basil at the very end and toss to just cook. Serve with rice and fresh sliced cucumbers. Make sure you get some of the sauce onto the rice!

Love your chicken!

And it will love you back!