Springtime is strawberry season in San Diego. While just about the rest of the US is waiting until mid-June for these beauties, we get them a full two months before everyone else. Sure you can buy them at your local megamart in Wyoming in the middle of the winter, but the berries we get now are local AND ripe. With such great berries, I really didn’t need to do too much to them to make a fantastic pastry.

I knew I wanted to make something light and not too complicated so I searched the web for various strawberry recipes. I stumbled on a recipe for strawberry shortcake cupcakes over at stickygooeycreamychewy.com last week and new right away that I had to make them.

Strawberry shortcake is the ubiquitous strawberry dessert. Everyone has their own favorite ‘shortcake’; shortcake, angel-food cake, pound cake, and more, but the dessert is very adaptable while still being able to be called strawberry shortcake. While these cupcakes probably stretch those roles to their limits, they still embody everything that is good about the dessert: a cake base, fresh strawberries, and cream.

I don’t believe I made any changes to this recipe other than swapping in whipped cream instead of the strawberry marscapone frosting. I can’t take credit for anything but the execution of this recipe. I’m going to paste the recipe here, but please feel free to check out stickygooeycreamychewy.com for more info about these.

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 dozen vanilla cupcakes (recipe for Magnolia Bakery cupcakes follows)
1 cup Strawberry Gelée (Recipe follows)
Strawberry Mascarpone Frosting (recipe follows)

Directions:

Cut a cut a cone-shaped piece of cake out of the center of each cupcake, taking care not to cut through the bottoms. Slice a 1/4-inch piece from the top of each cone and reserve to place back on the filled cupcakes.
Spoon about a teaspoon of strawberry gelée filling into each cupcake and top with the cone top.
Using a pastry bag or an offset spatula, frost tops of each cupcake with the strawberry mascarpone frosting.

Magnolia Bakery’s Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners; set aside. In a small bowl, combine flours; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth and creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla, and scraping down sides of bowl in between each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat.
Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about three-quarters full. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool in tins for 15 minutes. Remove cupcakes from tins, and cool completely on rack. Once cupcakes have cooled, frost as desired.

Makes about 2 dozen cupcakes.

Strawberry Gelée

Ingredients:

1 cup strawberry puree
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons cold water
1/2 envelope unflavored powdered gelatin
1/2 cup diced, fresh strawberries

Directions:

Heat puree and sugar in a small saucepan just until it begins to bubble, stirring to dissolve sugar. Stir in lemon juice and remove from heat.
Put water in a small bowl and sprinkle gelatin on top. Let sit for 5 minutes.
Add fruit puree mixture to the bowl and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved.
Stir in diced strawberries and chill until set.

It’s been a while. There’s been cooking and eating, just not too many pictures. This tart was finally a worthy choice.

A few weeks back I saw Jacque Pepin on PBS make a tart that his mom used to make. It looked real simple, a food processor crust, a quick pat into a fluted tart pan, some fruits and sugar, and some time in the oven. Jacque has a knack for putting together some real tasty dishes with minimal time and fuss. He made this tart with apples which I tried and liked but I wanted to do something different, hence the blueberries.

This tart is so simple to put together that I even went against my better judgement and skipped the scale and went to volume measurements on this one. Trust me, the proportions aren’t all that strict and you can mess around with the flours, the sugars, and the fats if you’d like without much fuss at all. For my take on Jacque’s recipe, I used a combination of white flour and almond meal to give the crust a nutty kick.

I’m including as close to the original recipe here as I can remember. The crust is a basic sable breton which can easily be manipulated.

Basic Sable Breton
1 heaping cup white flour
6 tablespoons butter cut into chunks
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powerder
+/- 1/2 cup of water

Pre-heat oven to 375F

Throw all the ingredients except the water into a food processor.

Proccess ingredients until you get a coarse meal

Add a small amount of water and pulse.

If the dough did not come together, add a little more water and repeat.

Once you get a crumbly dough, dump into a fluted tart pan.

Press dough into the pan and up the sides making sure it’s mostly even.

Full tart with fruits (apples, berries, pears, etc)

Add a liberal amount of sugar over the top of the fruit.

Bake in 375F oven for about 30 minutes or until the crust is browned and all puffy.

EAT!

Yet another guest post from Hanna, this time with a secret ingredient.

This one’s got a peculiar ingredient, but trust me it works!

Buttered Shrimp
Ingredients:

1lb. fresh shrimp
2 C. 7 Up or Sprite
¼ C.Butter
3 to 4 cloves of minced garlic
5 tbsp. tomato paste
Salt and pepper

A few words before starting:

• Wash but do not peel shrimp.
• Cut off the antennas and the rostrum (the part of the head that is pointy) beforehand.
• Soda gives more flavor than regular sugar.
• Be careful not to overcook the shrimp.

Directions:
In a large shallow pan, boil the shrimp in soda. Add a pinch of salt.

Boil until all the soda has evaporated. If the shrimp is done cooking before it is dry, drain some of the liquid. Add butter and garlic. Mix well. Add the tomato paste. End product should only be very slightly sticky from caramelized sugars in the shrimp, soda, and garlic.

Done! You can squeeze some lemon juice if you like.

I saw these little pizzas at a new restaurant opened near my place called Urban Plates. They were small and thin and topped with some interesting ingredients. I just knew I could recreate these at home without much trouble. I used the same dough recipe from my pissaladièr Here’s my take on a few…

Old reliable: sauce and cheese.

Summer Veggie: zucchini, fresh tomato, and mozzarella.

The little stinker: Blue cheese, apricot jam, walnuts, and micro greens.

Pesto Mesto: Cilantro pesto, egg, and micro basil.

Obviously you can top these however you’d like. Since they are so small, you should try all sorts of combinations; if they don’t work, there’s always another one waiting!

Several times each year the Apprentice makes the trip to San Diego to hang out, eat fish tacos, and escape from the New England weather. On this trip back to San Diego, he brought with him stories of his trip to Uganda and a new street food he ate while he was there, the rolex.

The rolex, as you can see, is a rolled up snack much like a burrito that is filled with a mixture of eggs and assorted vegetables. The wrapper is made of a thinly rolled, skillet cooked wheat bread called a chapati. The eggs are mixed with tomatoes, shredded cabbage, salt, and cooked much like an omelette. The whole thing is then flipped over, the bread is put on top to steam a little bit, and then flipped again. At this point, the cooking is completed and the concoction is rolled up, burrito-style, and served immediately. If you want the true street-food experience, the rolex is rolled tightly in newspaper for easy transport.

Rolex
Per Rolex:

1 chapati (I used this recipe. If you don’t want to make your own, flour tortillas are a pretty good substitute.)
2 eggs
3-4 thin slices of tomato
small handful of shredded cabbage
pinch of salt

Preheat large frying pan or skillet over high heat. (I found a 12 inch cast iron pan worked well for making these.)

Break eggs into small bowl. Add cabbage, tomatoes, and salt, and mix with a fork until combined.

Add a small amount of oil to the pan and make sure the pan is coated all over. Pour eggs into pan trying to keep the mixture in a circular shape. In a 12 inch pan, the eggs will not run all the way to the edges of the pan.

Using a large spatula, check the under the edges of the egg to check for doneness. When the eggs are set, flip the entire mixture over. This can be a little difficult with a small spatula so use the biggest one you have. If you’re using a light pan, feel free to try and fling it in the air and attempt to flip them like a pancake. (extra difficult!)

Place chapati over the top of the eggs while they continue to cook for one to two more minutes. Using the spatula on one side and your hand on the other, flip the whole thing onto a plate.

Roll the egg and chapati up, burrito-style, to complete your rolex.

Another blogger and new friend Hanna jumped at the opportunity to guest post for MFG. Hanna is almost local and lives just a few hours outside of San Diego, in Las Vegas. In her first response to me about writing a guest post, Hanna proclaimed she had a, “love affair with food, and I loved writing about it!” Her first post is almost a guerrilla side dish that she whipped up on the road…

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Yogurt Dipping Sauce

Three friends and I left Las Vegas early to go to an archaeological dig in New Mexico. We stopped by Chaco Canyon to camp and see the ancient ruins. We grilled hamburgers for dinner but we also wanted french fries. It’s really tough to make fries on a portable grill in the middle of nowhere, you know. So the idea of roasted sweet potatoes was born. The dipping sauce came later.

Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes, sliced thinly in rounds
2 tbsp. chopped rosemary
1/3 C. olive oil
1 clove of garlic, finely minced
Pepper + salt to taste

Sauce:
1/4 C. plain greek yogurt
4 basil leaves, sliced thinly
1 small clove of garlic, super finely minced
Splash of red wine vinegar or lemon juice + zest
Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
Pepper + salt to taste

Directions:

A few words before starting:

Choose a potato that is uniform along the length. I prefer one that is approximately 2 inches in diameter. It’s just easier to slice them this way.

I like to use garlic infused olive oil. I add the minced garlic into the oil and leave them overnight. This makes it more fragrant and more garlicky, I think.
I prefer to use Voskos Greek Yogurt. This one is creamy and does not have a chalky taste compared to other Greek yogurts I’ve tried.

Preheat oven now to 350 if you’re a fast potato slicer, otherwise, wait till you have 10 -15 minutes left of slicing to preheat. Slice the sweet potatoes in thin rounds. Mince the 2 cloves of garlic; save half for the yogurt sauce. Chop the rosemary.

To a bowl, add olive oil, garlic, rosemary, pepper, and salt. Add the sweet potatoes and toss to coat. Add a little bit more olive oil if the slices look a little dry. Spread them onto a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil in one layer. Roast in the oven for about 20 – 25 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are golden brown and crispy around the edges.

For the sauce:

Slice the basil leaves. In a bowl, mix together the yogurt, garlic, basil, and cayenne.

Add the red wine vinegar. Adjust the taste with salt and pepper.

Eat.

Last week I reached out to all my readers requesting volunteers to guest post on MFG. To my surprise, I got several responses. While she was not the first to respond, Jane was the first to send me a post about these wonderful Ginger Pecan Scones.

Here’s a quick excerpt that Jane sent me:

I just reading your posting requesting for help–I’d love to contriute articles to your site.

I have a food blog that I’ve just started to be more active in: http://butteredup.blogspot.com and I’d love to be more involved in the food blog community. I love desserts in particular, but I also love cooking too.

Ginger Pecan Scones

Most of my first year of university was spent being homesick. My parents were halfway across the world in Shanghai, while I was in Montreal, missing the comfort of home. On weekends, I went to my cousin Sandra’s apartment, desperate for some company. Without realizing it, she helped distract my troubled heart and jerk start the glutton in me.

We studied cookbooks (Donna Hay’s Instant Cook was our favourite) trying to decide on our weekend project. We sampled buttery croissants at Premiere Moisson on Mont-Royal. We trekked through a snow storm just to pick up a 10lb Rockaberry apple pie. I remember losing all sensation in my fingers and toes carrying that damn dessert and then eating two servings even though I’m not fond of pie, but just to make the walk seem worth it. Clearly, we shared a love for food.

There was one thing that Sandra made that was insanely addictive. They were dried cranberry lemon scones. Buttery lumps of dough studded with ruby fruit, speckled with yellow zest. I really couldn’t resist eating only one and I found lots of good reasons to eat a few for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No, I wasn’t eating my feelings of homesickness, though they definitely made the brutal winters more bearable. There was something magical about those scones, how they fall apart in your mouth, in a way that only cream and butter is able to do, and the dried fruit was chewy, inevitably wedging between your teeth.

A few years ago, Sandra moved to Shanghai. We haven’t talked since she moved (she’s difficult to keep in touch with) and I haven’t had those cranberry lemon scones since. I have however, tried other scones. There were cheddar and chive scones to pair with a juicy salad, but they were unremarkable. I’ve sampled Hungarian paprika scones, which is an entirely different animal; yeasty pull-apart breads that stain your fingers a beautiful rust color and pair perfectly with stew.

And there were these ginger and pecan scones. Hoo boy, they are good. So good, I want to rename them Dreamy Scones. They’re light and fluffy, and so crumbly, it will be hard to keep your table crumb-free. Three types of ginger are used here, ground, crystallized and fresh, but don’t shy away from ginger, the butter casts a spell on its heatness, toning it down. The pecans add a nutty crunch to the scones, making it hearty and breakfast worthy.

I promise that just one scone will make your troubles go away.

Ginger Pecan Scones
From Bon Appétit via Epicurious

I don’t buy buttermilk. I don’t want to purchase one ingredient if I’m not going to use it anytime soon. Instead, you can make buttermilk at home. Really, it’s a breeze. For 1 cup of buttermilk, add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar (even rice vinegar works) to 1 cup of milk (I use 2% and it’s fine), allow to sit for 5 minutes before using.

I only have heart shaped cookie cutters which I used to shape my scones, but you can use any round cutter you like, just make sure it’s about 2 inches in diameter.

Makes 12 scones

Ingredients:
3 cups of all-purpose flour
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) chilled unsalted butter
1 1/3 pecan halves, toasted, chopped coarsely
½ cup plus 3 tablespoons of chopped crystallized ginger
1 cup plus 1 ½ tablespoons of buttermilk
1 ½ teaspoons finely grated peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 425°. Line large baking sheet with parchment. Whisk flour, 2/3 cup sugar, baking powder, ground ginger, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and baking soda in large bowl. Add butter; using fingertips, blend butter into flour until coarse meal forms. Toss in pecans and 1/2 cup crystallized ginger.
2. Whisk 1 cup buttermilk, grated ginger, and vanilla in measuring cup. Form well in center of dry ingredients. Add buttermilk; stir with fork until moist clumps form. Transfer to lightly floured surface. Knead just until dough comes together; roll out dough into a 12-inch round (about 1/2 inch thick). Using a round cutter cut out scones and arrange about 1/2 inch apart on baking sheet. Gather and gently reroll scraps. Cut out more scones and arrange on baking sheet.
3. Bake scones until golden and toothpick inserted horizontally into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool scones on wire rack.

We’re looking for some help. Anyone want to hop on the Foodgeek staff and write some articles? If you join our team we’ll send you free schwag! Write one article, we’ll hook you up with a MFG hat. Write three, a free MFG re-usable grocery bag. Writer five or more, I’ll send you a t-shirt!

Pretty much anything goes here. We’re geeks that love food and have a soft-spot for pastries. We’ve covered everything from snacks, to dinners, to restaurant reviews, and product reviews. If you’d like to help us out, we’d love to have you. If you’re coming from another blog, we’ll plug your site and link-back to your place for some mutual love.

If you’d like to write for MFG, please contact me at chef (at) myfoodgeek.com.

Broccoli Rabe
Sausage
Pasta
Tomatoes
Garlic
Onions
Wine
Red Pepper

The eater is back for another rare post to celebrate the return of Restaurant Week. More than 160 restaurants, including some of San Diego’s very best, will be participating in the event from January 16-21, serving three-course menus for $20, $30, or $40, depending on the restaurant.

The My Food Geek couple were again lucky enough to be invited for a Restaurant Week preview, and were matched up with Morton’s the Steakhouse located in the Gaslamp District. Although a steakhouse is not the type of restaurant we would normally gravitate towards since our food preferences lean towards small portions that are light on meat, we still do appreciate a good steak once in a while, and Morton’s supposedly serves some of the best available.

There was a bit of a mix-up with our reservation when we arrived, but the staff were very polite, and once it was straightened out, we were seated promptly, offered drinks, and brought a warm loaf of egg onion bread, which was light, fluffy and delicious.

We were feeling a little under-dressed, having both just come in our casual work attire, but that didn’t effect the professional attitude of the army of staff that seem to be working. Our server Mary was very friendly and knowledgeable, and treated us to the full Morton’s presentation of food selection, which I found quite impressive, and included a look at the many prime cuts of meat, as well as an ornery looking ~3 pound lobster. We also heard her interacting with a few other tables near us, skillfully and thoroughly answering their many different questions about the food, including about menu items from many years ago that were no longer offered, but smoothly offering other choices and customizations that would be similar.

The Restaurant Week menu included a choice of two different salads. I ordered the Morton’s salad with anchovies, and the geek got the caesar. I was impressed with the blue cheese dressing on mine, because although I like the flavor of blue cheese, I usually find the dressing too heavy, but this dressing was not heavy at all. The anchovies were optional, but I happen to love them, and these ones were particularly good. I’m a little spoiled on croutons since the geek always makes large, olive oil-fried croutons with his caesar salads, and the caesar came with small, traditional, baked croutons, but they weren’t bad, and the caesar dressing was tasty.

We both order the single cut filet minion with Sauce Béarnaise, since it seemed a shame to come to Morton’s and not get steak. The other two entree options were Chicken Christopher in Garlic Beurre Blanc Sauce or Broiled Salmon Fillet with Chef’s Sauce Beurre Blanc. We also had the choice of any side they offered, which gave many choices. I order the sauteed fresh spinach with mushrooms, and the geek got broccoli with hollandaise sauce.

The filet was truly fantastic, in my opinion. It was the tastiest steak I’ve had the pleasure of eating, and the Béarnaise was a delicious accompaniment to it. My only minor complaint was that it came out closer to medium rare than the rare I asked for. I know they would have happily made me a new one more rare if I had mentioned it, but since both rare and medium rare are tasty preparations to me, and I was enjoying it thoroughly as it was, I opted not to mention this. The sauteed spinach & mushrooms were a little heavy on salt, but still very tasty. The hollandaise sauce that came with the broccoli was quite good, and didn’t seem to be separating at all as it sat, which happens so frequently with that sauce.

We were shown the whole dessert spread before moving on to the dessert course. The choices for Restaurant Week are Double Chocolate Mousse or Crème Brulee, pretty standard fair. I got the Crème Brulee and the geek got the Mousse. The Mousse was rich and heavy, and little leaning towards a rich pudding rather than a standard mousse. The Crème Brulee was very well prepared, and served in a shallow dish, which I strongly prefer, giving a higher Brulee to Crème ratio! I finished up the meal with a nice cup of decaf.

Overall, this was a very good meal, and I would definitely recommend Morton’s to anyone looking for an excellent steakhouse with top-notch service. Restaurant Week gives a great opportunity to try out this high class steakhouse for a discounted price.