Chocolate Covered Monday

Valentines Day. A time for wasting money and the advertisement of childlike love... I mean really? Look, I'm Italian and as far as I'm concerned - Valentines Day is just a reason to allow myself to spend extra money at the store so that I can make some tasty treats. Russel Stover can shove it. I usually try to eat healthy meals, but I allow for exception on "special occasions." Another thing - I'm a Procido, which by nature means that I do things in excess. Speaking of health, dark chocolate is way more tantalizing and beneficial for the soul and body than milk chocolate. I much prefer using high quality bittersweet and semisweet chocolate than some gnarly milk chocolate hershey's chips. Chocolate covered strawberries are a must, then I made some dark chocolate ganache truffles rolled in nuts, toasted coconut, or dusted with cocoa powder. For dinner I made a delicious white wine sauce for a big pot of whole wheat linguine with shrimp. Roasted asparagus are what I call a fancy veg, but I'll eat those every night of the week! Yum. Yum. Yum.

For the chocolate truffles, making the ganache center is really easy! Chop 10 ounces of bittersweet chocolate with a chefs knife. (Chop chocolate from a bar or baker's chocolate. Chocolate chips have stabilizers that help them keep their shape, so the bar chocolate melts better). In a small saucepan heat 3/4 cup heavy cream on medium heat until small bubbles are rising around the edge of the pan. Add about 1/4 of the chopped chocolate. Stir until smooth and velvety and then combine the remaining chocolate with the cream/chocolate mixture. This is a simple way of tempering the chocolate - which is just a fancy way of not getting the chocolate above a certain temperature so that it stays glossy when it hardens later. Using a whisk, beat the ganache until all of the chocolate shavings have melted and you have a smooth and thick chocolate sauce. Add 2 tblsp. room temperature butter cut into pieces. Continue to whisk the mixture until it is combined. Line a square or rectangle dish with plastic saran wrap, using a large piece that extend at least 1 foot over the dish. Pour the ganache into the dish and smooth it out with a rubber spatula. Take the excess saran wrap and fold it over the ganache, pressing it directly over the surface. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes or allow the ganache to cool at room temperature for several hours. 

Dark Chocolate Truffles

Using two teaspoons scoop small mounds of the ganache onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate until the mounds are hardened. Using your hands, roll the ganache mounds into round balls - truffles! Refrigerate while you melt some chocolate. I usually melt a couple of more bars of chocolate in the microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until melted. Prepare a tray with chopped nuts, toasted coconut, and cocoa powder - or any other topping you like. Set up a station so that you can take a ganache ball, dip it in chocolate, roll it in a topping, and drop it off to cool. Use two forks for the dipping process so that the ganache center is only covered in chocolate - but not dripping. Play with it! This is not rocket science. But it is chocolate excellence :)

Now that we have fancy chocolate for sharing, delicious dinner is a must. I was quite surprised and delighted to find some large shrimp in the freezer section at the store. They were gulf shrimp - about 12 count to a pound! I defrosted, peeled, and deveined them (important!). White wine sauce is one of my favorite pasta sauces to eat with seafood. I don't make it that often because it's expensive and it has butter in it - which is delicious, but not healthy! To make the sauce melt 2 tblsp. butter and 2 tblsp. olive oil in a pan. Add 2 chopped shallots and 2 cloves of garlic, chopped, and saute about 3-4 minutes. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper and add to the pan. Cook until pink and remove the shrimp. To the pan add 1/2 cup good white wine (I used a white burgundy from France)... by the way you should be drinking whatever you are cooking with at the present moment. Also, add the juice of one lemon and plenty of salt and pepper. Allow this to simmer for a few minutes, add half a pound of freshly cooked whole wheat linguine, the shrimp, a handful of fresh parsley and a sprinkle of pecorino cheese. Heaven!

For some greens, I made a yummy salad with half spring mix and half baby spinach, fresh blueberries, crumbled feta, toasted pecans, avocado sprinkled with salt and pepper, dried cranberries, a few parsley leaves and a champagne vinaigrette. We barely had room for this! The pasta was soooo good.

And of course, don't forget... Alpine and Pepper could tell something exciting was happening because I put a scarf on pepper, which she loved! I've never seen a dog with so much sass before as this little girl...

Cornflower Blue

In an effort to practice a semi complete product that will resemble the wedding cake that I am planning on making for the Burton-Perkins wedding, I had fun with some buttercream and cake... and lots of filling!

So this cake is a white wedding cake recipe with lemon and almond extracts. Very simple and light - thanks to the 8 egg whites that I whipped into fluffy perfection and delicately folded into the dense cake batter. Being a Procido, I couldn't just stop there. No. I made a dark chocolate mousse using 50%, 70% lindt chocolate bars and some bittersweet baking chocolate. In addition I also made a tart and sweet raspberry filling. The cake layers were alternating with these fillings and then slathered in the oh so delicious buttercream frosting. I am working with cornflower blue as a wedding color for my friend Laura, so the main cake icing was dyed using the gel Wilton dye. After the fact I realized that the dye continues to impart color over a few hours, so next time I will have to use less dye in order to achieve the lightness that I prefer in this icing color. I attempted a design using royal icing in white. This design was obviously intended for fondant and I know this because it was really bulky on the cake. I have pretty steady hands and I wasn't able to uniformly pipe this design just due to its nature. Oh well, I'll try fondant next! A work in progress for sure...

Quack, Quack, Multitask!

Few things are better than turning a simple ingredient into several flavorful dishes, all with their own flare. Thanks to Ina Garten, I know how to make perfectly roasted chicken breast. It's quite simple, actually. Buying the poultry as split chicken breasts with the bone in and skin on allow the chicken to roast with plenty of flavor and it shreds beautifully afterwards. All you have to do is brush the chicken breasts with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, roast in a 375 degree oven for about an hour. Easy! With this yummy chicken I made chicken pot pie, home made birthday dinner for Alpine and Pepper, and white bean chicken chili. Other uses for this chicken include a plethora of soups, for use in salads, or as the star of yummy sandwiches.

Ok... yes, you heard me right - I made my dogs their own home cooked birthday dinner. They turned two this weekend and I just couldn't help it! I was roasting all of this chicken and they were prancing around with their snouts in the air just searching for the crisp scent of roasted chicken, ears a- flapping! I boiled some jasmine rice with water, peas, and chopped carrots (which I already had out because of the chicken pot pie). I mixed this rice meal with a little shredded chicken and they ate it extremely fast and loved it!

Full bowls to empty bowls in record timing!

Chicken pot pie is something rather decadent and rich, usually. I tried to change that up a little and use a healthy serving of chicken stock with a touch of fat free half and half at the end for creaminess (rather than a whole quart of it). Also, for the pastry I made a whole wheat crust to pierce with your fork as you dig into the individual pie! If you are into this type of thing, give this a try

Chicken Pot Pie

4 split chicken breasts

2 cups peas

2 cups chopped carrots

2 cups onion

5 cups reduced sodium chicken stock

2 chicken bouillon cubes

1/4 cup fat free half and half

1/2 stick butter

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

Place chicken on a sheet pan, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast in a 375 degree oven for about an hour, or until cooked. Allow it to cool. Remove the skin and bones from the chicken and shred the meat, set aside. Heat the chicken stock and bouillon in a saucepan. In a soup pot, melt the butter and add the onion. Sauté until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the flour and stir constantly for about 2 minutes. Add the chicken stock and stir until thickened. Add the peas, carrots, and half and half. To this add about 1 tsp salt and 2 tsp pepper. Stir until combined and taste for spice. A little handful of freshly chopped parsley really helps here. Serve 2 ladels full of the pot pie mixture into individual ramekins. If you desire, make a pie crust and top each one!

Top with pastry, brush with egg wash, and place a slit in the top.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 1 hour.

This recipe made 4 individual servings and also enough pot pie to fill an 8 x 8 pyrex dish that I froze for dinner on the next cold and tired night. On Saturday I wanted something roasted and cheesy all in one. I thought that pizza would do the trick! I made a delicious herbed half whole wheat pizza crust. While the dough was rising, I prepared my toppings:

Fresh chopped bell pepper, roasted bell pepper - which I skewered and charred directly over the gas flame on my stove, fresh greens, cilantro, an assortment of cheeses, caramelized onions, and roasted garlic - chop the top off of the whole bulb and place in a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes, you'll be surprised how earthy and nutty roasting can make the garlic... it's completely transformed. Also, I made a classic béchamel sauce to add an extra creamy element to one pizza. To make the white sauce, heat together an equal portion of melted butter and flour and add milk or fat free half and half until a creamy but thick sauce forms. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and nutmeg and you've got a winner! Yum! Don't be afraid to mix and match toppings - I usually make a pizza, then Vincent makes a pizza and if we have a friend over they make one too! (Relatively small in size). The roasted chicken that is great in everything is also a nice addition to a pizza!

White bean and chicken chili was more of an afterthought when I had 2 extra chicken breasts and Vincent's mom mentioned that a friend made her a batch. I thought - oh, perfect! All I did was sauteed an onion in some olive oil, added a box of store bought chicken stock, a can of white beans, 1 1/2 cups of frozen corn, 2 tsp each of cumin, hot mexican chili powder, oregano, salt, pepper. Then I added the chicken and simmered for about 30 minutes. A little red pepper flakes and hot sauce for an extra kick and you have a nice easy soup!

See how the chicken is a multitasker? It is very helpful to make one ingredient like chicken into multiple dishes because when I cook on the weekends, I save leftovers for work. It also saves money on ingredients because you can stretch the one pack of chicken over several meals, bulking it up in the ones where it really counts! Hopefully you can enjoy some of this yumminess too!

Stir Fried Rice

I love the stir fried rice at RAW sushi bar in Ruston. There is something simple and delicate about it that makes you want to eat the whole plate and nothing else. I've been working on a way to make something similar and I think this time I may have gotten fairly close. Also, Vincent and I love to eat stir fried vegetables with sesame ginger soy marinade on them. So last night for dinner I decided to do a little tango with the two of them, and voila! 

Stir Fried Rice

1 cup Jasmine Rice

1 1/2 cups water

2 scallions

1 egg

sesame oil

butter or earth balance

sesame seeds

Step 1: Combine rice and water in a medium pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes. Take the lid off and allow the rice to cool.

Step 2: Heat a wok over medium high heat. Add 2 Tblsp. butter or earth balance and 1/2 Tbsp. sesame oil. Allow the oil and butter to heat until you smell a strong sesame scent. Add the rice and stir it continuously, using a wooden spoon. This will remove the water from the rice, giving it that perfect "stir fry" texture. Continue to cook the rice and stir frying it for about 5 minutes. Add the chopped scallions and cook for an additional minute.

Step 3: Reduce heat the medium. Make a well in the center of the rice and crack the egg into the well.

Step 4: Using a silicone spatula, scramble the egg with quick cutting motions. Try to avoid bringing the rice into the egg scramble until it is cooked.

Step 5: Incorporate the fried egg into the the rice... making fried rice!

Step 6: The secret. Use a dry skillet and add about 1/4 cup of sesame seeds. Toast these over medium heat until golden and fragrant. Sprinkle them over you rice!!!

Yum! While all of this was going on, I made asian stir fry with shrimp. Here's how it goes...

Choose your favorite vegetables and wash + dice about 3 cups worth. I used snap peas, red bell pepper, carrot, asparagus, baby portobello mushrooms, and broccoli. I always add chopped scallions at the end. Place all of your veggies in a wok and add about 1/2 cup of water. Cook over medium high heat with the lid on for about 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are steamed to tenderness or desired crispness. Make a sauce! Play with it... this isn't science. I used 1/4 cup soy sauce, a little less than 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar, 1/2 lime juiced, 2 tsp sriracha hot sauce, 2 Tblsp brown sugar, 2 tsp honey, 2 cloves garlic, 1 square inch piece of fresh ginger - grated on a microplane, 2 scallions. Whisk it all together and pour it over the steamed vegetables. Kick the heat up to high and allow the vegetables to absorb the sauce for about 3-4 minutes while some of it reduces. In a separate pan cook the shrimp and add them just at the end so that they do not get overcooked. Delicious!!