Here’s a healthy alternative for dessert: Vanilla Yoghurt with Strawberries and Blueberries.

Take fresh or frozen blueberries and strawberries and preparely them separately into a compote. This doesn’t need cooking. Just soak your fruits in some good white wine or cheap champagne, a little sugar (or Splenda), lemon juice and leave it in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours.

Alternately put in vanilla yoghurt, strawberry compote, yoghurt and the blueberry compote for an easy and visually appealing dessert.

American Heart Association Low-Fat and Luscious Desserts: Cakes, Cookies, Pies and Other Temptations

I’ve been cooking a lot of heavy dishes the past few days.  ‘Tis the season for all those rich recipes to come out and Osso Buco served over plain-boiled polenta sounds perfect for another cold, snowy day in Colorado….

Yesterday morning, Spouse and I went up to Denver and drove through the beautiful and cold fog in Monument and Larkspur.  I can say “beautiful” cause I wasn’t doing the driving.  It was another story when we got to the city.  Driving in this weather means freezing slush and mud on the road that all stick to the whole car, including your windshield…ugh!

We were supposed to stop for lunch at our favorite Italian restaurant in Denver, Cucina Colore but changed our mind at the last minute.  I still had Italian on my mind today and dug into my freezer…guess what I found…beef shanks!

Well, okay, it’s not veal shanks like what all Osso Buco recipes call for….but I like beef shanks better than veal shanks anyway.  It’s more robust in flavor and robust is perfect for the season.

Osso Buco

1.5 lbs. beef/veal shanks

1/4 c. flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp.  ground black pepper

olive oil/Olivio margarine

1 small carrot, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 bay leaf

1-14 oz. can diced tomatoes

1/2 c. water

1/4 to 1/2 c. white wine

2 garlic cloves, small bunch parsley, zest of 1 lemon – chopped together

Procedure:

Season the shanks with salt and pepper.  Heat oil and margarine in heavy skillet over medium-high heat.  Dredege shanks with flour and brown in the oil.  Add celery, onion, carrots, white wine and allow to boil for a couple of minutes.  Then throw in the tomatoes, bay leaf and water and simmer for an hour and a half over low heat.

Transfer shanks to a separate bowl.  This is the time to adjust seasonings and the thickness of the sauce (boil longer without the lid). Put in the chopped garlic, parsley and lemon zest and boil for another 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook about 1.5 cup polenta in 2 cups rapidly boiling, salted water.  I used instant polenta to save on time.  Lower the heat to medium and cook 5 minutes or until you get the consistency you prefer. Finish it off with a handfull of parmesan cheese and a dab of butter.

Ladle a few spoons of the polenta onto a plate, a beef shank on top, with some of the osso buco sauce and serve hot.

Rao’s Cookbook: Over 100 Years of Italian Home Cooking

Lovely weather we’re having in Colorado…light snow and single-digit cold since yesterday and into the middle of next week!  Perfect night for a bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup.

My recipe is based on Jeff Smith’s Chicken and Noodles from “The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American” cookbook.  It’s a lovely, comforting soup with thyme and sage.  Like a lot of old-fashioned, good recipes, this one will take a lot of time to prepapre and cook.  If you have the energy, make a double batch of noodles and keep it in the freezer.  It will take almost as much time to make half a batch or double the batch.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Noodles:

2 c. all-purpose flour

3 eggs

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. water

Place the flour in a bowl and add salt and eggs.  Work the eggs into the flour with your fingers. Stir with a wooden spoon until the dough starts to come together. Add the water and start kneading. This will be sticky but be patient and just keep your hands and board well-floured.  Knead until the dough is smooth.  Put back in your bowl, cover and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into 2 equal balls.  Roll each out to about 12 inches.  These noodles become thick and robust when cooked so roll it as thin as you can.  Dust with flour all throughout the rolling process.  Don’t worry if the dough is still sticky at this point, just use some amount of flour for dusting.  Leave on the counter to dry for half an hour.  Turn it once to dry both sides.

Roll the dough like a jelly roll and cut to make strips of about a quarter inch in width.  Unroll strips and allow to dry for about an hour. Use half of the noodles for this recipe and the other half can be stored in a plastic bag in the freezer.

Stock

3 pcs. skinless chicken thighs (white meat is fine, but dark meat has more flavor)

1 small chopped onion

2 chopped celery stalks

2 small carrots, chopped

1/4 tsp. sage

1/4 tsp. thyme

1 bay leaf

3-5 peppercorns

1/2 tsp. salt

chopped parsley

Boil all ingredients in a stockpot with 2 quarts of water.  Bring down to a simmer.  After 30 minutes, remove chicken and shred meat.  Put back bones into stock.  Simmer for another 30 minutes.  Strain all vegetables from stock and add enough water to make about 2 quarts.  Bring this to a boil and add noodles.  Cook for about 12 minutes.  Adjust seasonings, add chopped parsley and bring to one last boil.

It does take some work to make chicken and noodles from scratch but sometimes it just makes a great treat for the family.

The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American

Food allergies are a terrible thing to live with, especially if it’s shrimp and crustaceans you cannot eat anymore!  Does one really have a choice when the last lobster meal I had sent me to the emergency room half dead?  Goodness, but hat meal was worth it….

Spouse loves shrimps.  He has a  nose like an English hound for the best deals on “Eat All You Can Shrimp” promos from here to Iowa.  For Valentine’s Day, I just had to make him a shrimp dish to make up for all the shrimp he cannot have all the rest of the year.

Cook about half a pound of spaghetti noodles according to package directions. Drain and reserve 1 c. of the pasta water.  Meantime, saute about 1.5 tsps. of minced garlic in hot olive oil over medium-high heat just before it turns brown.  

Add as much deveined, shelled shrimps as you want.  Throw in a few capers, about a tablespoonfull.  Keep stirring and throw in some pasta water to build on your sauce.  This should only take a couple of minutes.  Throw in some chopped parsley and Olivio margarine at the last minute.  Season with salt and pepper according to taste.  Squrt with fresh lemon juice before serving.

Some of you might want to add red pepper flakes to this dish, the heat blends nicely.  But please don’t add cheese.  The flavor will overpower the sweetness of the shrimp.

Chez Panisse Pasta, Pizza and Calzone

?

Sop Buntut is one of those favorite Indonesian dishes of mine, which I have never tried to cook before.  Now that I have this blog,  I thought it would be a good idea to to try cooking Indonesian dishes.  I lived for a very short time in Jakarta years ago and experienced real culture shock soon as I stepped out of the plane.  Even if I was in still in Asia, things were so vastly different from the Philippines.  The sights, the smells, the food….ohhh the food.

Several countries, have their own version of an oxtail dish.  Most of them are heavy, rich stews.  I’ve tried the South African Oxtail Potjie which my mother learned from a friend.  The Italians have several versions.  Then of course, there’s the Philippine Kare-kare, another rich stew with vegetables and a ground, toasted rice and peanut sauce.  Sop Buntut is different in many ways, it’s a soup and not a stew for one thing.  And it has aromatic spices like nutmeg and cloves that gives it different layers of flavor.

Years have passed since I last had this dish, years that stretch to more than a decade, truth be told.  The last time I was in Indonesia, the internet had not taken off and I never got myself an Indonesian cookbook, hence the years passed and I never tried cooking anything Indonesian.  I got this recipe off an Indonesian woman’s website and I hope to try the other recipes she has there.  The recipes are in Bahasa Indonesia so I had to wrack my brains to translate the recipe.  For some strange reason, I was still familiar with the Indonesian ingredients and cooking terms.  I think I got it right, the tastes and smells of my dinner brought me back to Jakarta.

Sop Buntut

Start by boiling about 1.3 lbs. cut-up oxtail  with a couple slivers of ginger root, salt and about 5 black peppercorns in enough water to cover the meat.  I pressure cooked my oxtail for about 30 minutes on medium-low heat after the cooker was ready.  Transfer everything to a bowl. At this point, you can refrigerate the meat and broth, then  easily take out the hardened fat that will settle on top.

Using the same pot, saute 2 cloves of crushed garlic in a tablespoon of margarine till almost golden.  Add 1 chopped onion and cook till translucent. Return oxtail and broth to the pan.  Add a teaspoon each of nutmeg and cloves, about a quart of water, quartered red potatoes (leave skin on) and sliced carrots.  Allow to simmer until potatoes are tender.  Throw in some sliced celery with leaves, a diced tomato and chopped green onions and bring it back to a boil.  Adjust seasonings.

Turn off heat immediately so your celery is still crunchy and the tomatoes still discernible.  Serve in bowls and top with crisp-fried onions.

Ayo, makan!

Indonesian Regional Cooking

A stew is always considered comfort food.   It’s best eaten when you’re curled up in your barcalounger on a cold, snowy winter’s night…with a wood fire slowly ablaze in the fireplace.   Darn, weathermen predicted today would only be  cloudy in Colorado!

But it’s still going to be cold tonight…mmm.  But, (“but” can sometimes be good) it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow and a stew can be sexy when you make it with lamb.  Like I need an excuse to make lamb stew!

Lamb Stew is one of those dishes my mother made really well.  It was always a treat for the whole family when Australian lamb was on sale somewhere because my mom would definitely make a stew for dinner.  She makes it just like her beef stew.  Mine, though,  is a little different.  Her basic rule of thumb for stew was the mirepoix:  diced onions, carrots and celery.  I added rosemary and a crushed garlic clove to the equation, just because they go so well with lamb.

My stew is simmering away as I type this.  Ohhh…the beautiful, sensual smells of the lamb and the rosemary….mmmmmmm…..I do not need an excuse to make lamb stew.  Definitely not.

Lamb Stew

1.5 lbs. lamb leg sirloin chops, cubed

Mirepoix:  1 small onion, diced; 1 small carrot, diced; 1 celery stalk, diced; 1 clove crushed garlic , and 1/4 tsp. dried rosemary

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

1/4 c. all purpose flour

2 tbsp. Olivio margarine

2 c. water

1/2 tbsp. worcestershire sauce

2 new potatoes, diced

1/2 c. frozen peas

salt and pepper to taste

PROCEDURE:

 Heat 1 tbsp. Olivio margarine in a heavy 6-qt. stockpot over medium heat.  Add salt and pepper to the lamb and dredge in flour.  Shake excess flour off and add to the hot margarine.  Do not overcrowd pan to allow a good browning.  I browned my lamb in two batches. Do this step right and you will be rewarded with a luscious, brown stew.

Set  aside browned lamb in a bowl.  Add another tablespoon of margarine into the hot pot.  Dredege your mirepoix with the remaining flour and brown in the margarine for about 3 minutes.? Add lamb, 2 c. water and worcestershire sauce.  Allow to boil then bring heat down to low and let simmer for 30 minutes.  Add the potatoes and continue to simmer for another half hour or until lamb is fork-tender.  Add the peas, adjust seasonings and cook another 5 minutes.

Serve with crusty bread or homemade biscuits or even hot, steamed rice.  Now pretend it’s snowing outside and enjoy your stew!

?

The Best Recipe- Soups and Stews

These are the two best ice creams I’d recommend to go with pies and pastries – Dreyer’s Vanilla Bean and Haagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche.

It’s actually funny how I’m the one with memories of mother and homemade apple pie.  Anyone would guess I’d have memories of my mother and rice cakes, me being the Asian in the marriage…but my mother made apple pies when we were kids quite a lot.  My best memory is the smell of apples and cinammon filling up the whole house.  I also remember watching her pretty hands holding the two knives and cutting the shortening into the flour.  ”You have to handle it very lightly if you want a flaky crust,” she’d tell about four of  her six daughters standing around her while she moved around her bright and airy, aqua-colored kitchen.

Spouse is the American after all and we’ve all heard the old adage, “as American as apple pie…”  Apparently, his mom liked Cinammon Rolls better and she called it “Rolly Boys” to make the eating all the more fun for the kids.

Filling: 

I start by prepping 3 lbs. of  Granny Smith apples that will go into the pie. Peel, core and slice the apples into a large bowl with 1 c. sugar, 1 tsp. cinammon and a dash of nutmeg.

Cover the bowl and let it sit in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight so the juices run and the apple slices shrink. My eldest sister let me in on this little secret of hers years ago.  There’s a tendency for the top pie crust to set before the apples shrink in the baking process.  Then you’re left with this unsightly cavity between the apples and your top crust.  You also have a better handle of how much cornstarch to add to your filling.  Leaving the apples to soak for a few hours eliminates these  problems.

Crust:

Preheat your oven to 425F.  Place a jellyroll pan in the second to the lowest rack.

3 c. all-purpose flour; 1.5 tsp. salt; 2/3 c. shortening; 1/3 c. unsalted butter; .5tbsps.-1 c. iced water.

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in shortening and butter into the flour with 2 table knives.  A  pastry cutter will not do since it mushes up the shortening more than cutting it into the flour. Continue until you have smaller than pea-size crumbs.

Then add iced water a tablespoon at a time.  I used considerably less for this recipe since I had my dishwasher running and it steamed up the kitchen a bit.  Use the 2 knives or a fork to toss and turn the flour with the water.  The less you handle your dough, the flakier it’s going to be.  

When the dough starts coming together and you only see a few bits of dry flour in the bowl, gather the dough onto a floured board.  Divide in half.

Some people like to chill their dough before rolling.  But if you use iced water and not just cold water, your dough will be fine.

Roll out your dough and set the bottom piece in a 9.5 inch deep dish pie plate.  Roll the top crust and set aside.  Spoon your apples into the dish arranging them so there are no big gaps.  Leave the juices in the bowl.  For every cup of juice left, add 2 tbsp. cornstarch or flour and mix well.  Pour this over the apples, dot with 2 tbsp. butter and cover with the top crust.

Seal the edges of your pie and crimp with a fork or your fingers. Cut the top of the pie crust with a small cookie or biscuit cutter and pierce a fork throughout the surface of the crust.  Brush with eggwash for color and shine.  Sugar may also be sprinkled for shine and crunch but I prefer mine without.  Before putting the pie into your oven, cover the edges with foil or a crust protector.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until top is turning gold and the juices start bubbling around the sides.  Remove foil/crust protector and continue baking for another 15 minutes.

Cool pie for a couple of hours to allow the pectin in the apples to set.  Serve warm with vanilla bean ice cream – Dreyer’s has a good one – or whipped cream.

Pie in the Sky: Successful Baking at High Altitudes: 100 Cakes, Pies, Cookies, Breads, and Pastries Home-Tested for Baking at Sea Level, 3000, 5000, 7000, and 10,000 Feet (and Anywhere in Between)

My best kitchen gadget is the Adjust-A-Cup Measuring Cup.  This thing is so amazing you’ll wonder why they didn’t come up with the idea sooner.

This is the perfect gadget for accurately measuring messy ingredients like shortening, butter or peanut butter.  With ingredients like these, you are always guessing whether you have an accurate measure because there is always that chance there’s a bubble in the middle of all the goo which you cannot see or do anything about.  Everyone who’s made peanut butter cookies knows what I’m talking about.  So here comes this measuring cup…no more mess, no more guessing. It has a clear plastic sleeve, and the adjustment is done with a flick of the wrist.  After you’ve measured your ingredients, you push the interior canister which acts like a plunger to push your ingredients out.  Cool, huh?

When measuring my butter or shortening, I like “building” up as I measure to avoid  those bubbles.  Say, I need a cup of butter, I start by adjusting the clear plastic to about 1/4 c. and then spoon that much butter in.  Then I’ll raise the outer sleeve and my measurement to 1/2 c. and push down the butter before adding more…and so on and so forth.

I’ve yet to try it using several ingredients at one time the way www.cooking.com said you can in their preview of the product.

Since I got this gadget (half-price from an online store whose name I cannot recall now), my pie crusts have become predictably perfect…if there is such a thing!

For a change, I decided to stray from the usual Apple Pie and made some Apple Dumpings using Rome apples a few weeks ago.  This was my first time to cook with Rome apples and I was pretty impressed with how the apples held up in the baking process.  I love the way it retained it’s shape and didn’t turn mushy like some apples will.  And I loved the way the apple turned a bit translucent after baking.  I really should have taken a photo of the inside of the dumpling to show how lovely the apples turned out.  I’ll do it next time. 

Here’s the recipe:

Crust:  

2 c. flour;  2/3 c. shortening

1 tsp. salt

8-12 tbsps iced water 

Mix flour and salt in a bowl.   Add shortening and cut into the flour with two table knives until you get smaller than pea-sized particles.  A pastry cutter just won’t do IMO.   It mushes up the shortening into the flour too much.  You want the shortening to cut into the flour.

Add iced water a tablespoon at a time using the two knives to mix it lightly into the flour.  The amount of water required for this process depends on a lot of things:  altitude, humidity and the flour you use.  I need more than the usual amount of water because of the dry conditions in Colorado.  What you’re looking for is very little dry flour at the bottom of the bowl and your dough coming lightly together.

Pick up the dough and transfer to a lightly-floured board.   Gather into a ball, handling sparingly to ensure a nice flaky crust.  Divide into four and keep individually wrapped in fridge and start with your apples.

Start pre-heating your oven to 350F.

Apple Stuffing:

4 medium apples, peeled, cored and sliced

 dash of cinammon and nutmeg

1 tbsp. sugar

handful of  raisins (optional)

Mix the ingredients together and set aside. 

Meanwhile, roll out the crusts into 6-inch rounds.  Put the apples in the middle and gather edges to the top to form a pouch.  Pinch to seal.

Set all four dumplings in a baking dish.

The Sauce:

1.5 c. sugar

1.5 c. water

dash of cinammon and nutmeg

couple drops red food coloring

3 tbsps. butter

Boil all ingredients together for about 5 minutes and then pour over the dumplings.  Bake the dumplings for about 45-55 minutes or until golden brown.  Baste the dumplings with the sauce occassionally.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream.

 

The Best Apples to Buy and Grow