Zucchini Carrot Cakes

Italian Saussage Eggplant Sauce with Spaghetti Squash

This is a nice low carb way to have your spaghetti fix.  I'm training now to lose some weight and get fit and trying to lay off the carbs.  Obviously wine doesn't count.  This is a nice hearty meal that satisfies without the guilt.

Start with a medium high pan and today some fennel seed optimization you can smell them. 

Add a pound of ground turkey and half a diced onion and a couple cloves of minced garlic, red pepper flake,  s&p and Italian seasoning.

Saute' and drain the grease.  Add a large can of diced tomatoes and a good amount of fresh chopped tomatoes if you have them.

Peel a small eggplant and dice it.  Add to sauce and check your seasoning.  Simmer for at least 40 minutes but longer if you can.

Spaghetti squash. .. cut in half,  clean out the guts,  place cut side down in a casserole dish and microwave for 10-15 mins until outside gives a little when you push on it.  With two forks,  shed immediately and lay the portion you won't be using out on a sheet pan to cool.

Serve the sauce over squash, add a little grated parmesan,  basil and enjoy!

It's cappuccino time!

One of my favorite things on my weekend is a big cappuccino made with almond milk in my special cup!

Fondue!

For Valentine's Day I decided to make my sweetheart a special fondue dinner.  I usually do a cheese and chocolate fondue.  I also do the oil fondue often, but this time I wanted to switch it up a little and do a broth based fondue.

The broth consisted of sauteed shallots and mirepoix, a sachet, red wine and beef stock.  I simmered it for about an hour to let the flavors meld.  I removed the sachet and transferred it to the fondue pot.  I served it with par cooked vegetables and New York strip.  It was really a nice change to have the court bouillon instead of oil.  Much healthier too!

Dipping sauces I made were:

Sun dried tomato and sweet pepper

Creamy Monterrey, fresh herbs, and saffron

Spicy Asian miso ketchup

Blue cheese and bacon chive

Caper mustard aioli

Hoisin

Lamb chops!

Dessert

Rob's ribeye

Now that's a knife!

Intermezo

Prickly pear sorbet

Cornbread at Cholla

Cholla steak house for Rob's birthday.

Amuse buche
Bite of filet with horseradish cream and dandelion.

Lamb Chops with Roasted Tomatillo Chutney

I kept staring at the tomatillos in the grocery store.  Hmmm, what could I do with those?  I also wanted to grill some lamb chops because it was such a beautiful day.  I needed to be outside a little.  I ended up making a great chutney with mushrooms, garlic and white wine.  It went nicely with the lamb.  A grilled zucchini finished it off.

First remove the husks from the tomatillos and wash with soap and water.  Clean and half and onion then slice long ways like you will be dicing it later.  Grill all until there is a good char on it.  This picture shows the tomatillo about half done. 

Quarter the tomatillo.  Dice the onion and mince a few cloves of garlic.   Slice some crimini mushrooms.  Saute the onion, garlic, mushroom, and tomatillos in olive oil for a few minutes.  Season with salt, pepper, and red pepper flake.  Then add some white wine and agave nectar and simmer to au sec. 

Season chops with olive oil, salt, pepper and your favorite seasoning.  I used tomato and basil Mrs. Dash.  Cook chops on grill while chutney is reducing.  When chops are done and resting, grill a half of a zucchini that is covered with olive oil and seasoning.

Serve the lamb chop with the zucchini half and warm chutney.  Pinot Noir pairs well with the lamb and the chutney.  Great dish with minimal fuss!

Meyer Lemon Granita

I made some granita because I had a bunch of Meyer lemons at the house.  I first made some lemoncello with the zest, sugar and vodka.  I'll let that sit for a month or so in a jar before I strain it and re bottle it.

Then I'm stuck with a bunch of naked lemons, so I juiced them and added sugar and water in a pot and boiled it for about 15mins.  I poured it in a big ceramic dish and let it cool before putting it in the freezer.

In a couple hours you start scraping the freezing mixture with a fork to shred it.  Do that a few more times at 30 min intervals and you have granita!

Serve with some lemon cookies as desert or a smaller portion as an intermezzo at your next dinner.

Turkey Empanada with Roasted Pricilla Pepper

I'm taking a little trip through my Culinaria Spain book.  It's a wonderful book that details all the regions in Spain.  It explores their culture, landscape and how it has influenced their traditional culinary specialties.

It also gives recipes to those traditional foods from each region.  The book is enormous so I'm sure it will keep me busy for a while.

This was the first time I made a large empanada.  I decided to do it with turkey instead of the traditional pork.  The recipe I was referencing said to bake this at 355 degrees.  It turned out to be too low and I had to cook it longer to get it golden brown.  The result...the dough was too hard and the inside dried out a little.  I would try 375 degrees in the future.  Also, having tried the large size now, I would probably do single serving size empanadas instead. 

I started with diced mushrooms, celery, onions and garlic.  First, brown the ground turkey with s&p, and lots of sweet paprika.  Remove when browned and add the diced veggies and sauteed with s&p, paprika, and when softened add a little white wine.  Reduce wine to au sec and then add some chicken stock and the ground turkey back to the pan.

Roast a Priscilla pepper and a tomato over open flame until blackened.  Place the pepper in a plastic bag and sweat for a couple minutes.  Remove from bag and peel skin off with your fingers.  De seed, and dice pepper, then dice tomato.  Add to turkey mixture.

Saute until moisture is mostly absorbed.  While that is cooking, make a simple dough with 4.5 cups of flour, 2 Tbs of olive oil, 2 Tbs white wine, a little warm water, a pinch of salt and sugar, and knead until it comes together.

Roll out half the dough to a size large enough to cover your pan.

Lay in your greased pan and fill with your cooled down turkey mixture.

Roll out the other half of the dough and lay over the top of your pan.  Pinch the sides together and roll over.

Roll out extra dough scraps and make a nice design on the top.  Brush with egg yolk and bake at 375 for about 30 minutes.

Remove from oven when golden brown.

The filling was tasty, but if I were to try this again I would definitely add tomato paste the the turkey mixture.  I didn't have any at the time but the traditional recipe calls for it.  It would really help to have that to moisten the mixture and give it more of a sauce.  Overall this was a fun and I'm going to make them again today but try some variations on them.  This time I'm also going to make them individual size pockets instead. 

Cosmopolitan with Finger Limes

One of my favorite drinks is a Cosmopolitan.  I usually make it with orange flavored vodka which gives it more aromatic qualities.  I made this one with the Australian Finger Limes I ordered in the mail from Stanley Farms.  The cool thing about finger limes is that the flesh inside looks like caviar size pearls.  The aroma is like lime but has a strange floral aspect.  Once in a while you can get purplish colored fruit and the inside pearls will be pink.

Some chefs are using these pearls on top of oysters, sushi, in drinks and desserts.

I used them to rim the Cosmo glass and also used the juice in the drink.  It made for a really nice variation.

Christmas Cookies!!!!

Apparently I was in the mood to make Christmas cookie this year. I've either been posessed by the Christmas spirit or I was avoiding my "from scratch gingerbread house" that remains unfinished. 

The first ones I did were what I call Peppermint Paddy Cookies.  It's a really soft chocolate cookie topped with peppermint icing and crushed starlight mints.  I also added a little red sugar on top.

The batter for these are really sticky and it is difficult to get the right size and get it off the spoon.  Good news is they turn out so soft and moist.

  Then I make a basic frosting with butter, milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar and flavor it with a little peppermint extract.

Sprinkle with crushed starlight mints and red sugar and you're done!



Then I did some lemon coconut squares.

When they are a few minutes from being done pull them out and lay the sliced almonds on them in a flower pattern and put a large chocolate chip in the middle.  Warning!  This part does take some time.  Put back in the oven and finish baking.  When you take them out and are completely cooled, cut them into squares.

Then I did the Christmas Krispies.

These are just rice krispy treats but I color the marshmallow green and insted of rice krispies I use corn flakes.  Top with red hots or tic tacs and you've got Christmas Krispies!  They need time to set.  They tend to be a little more moist than the rice ones.

Then....Robert begged for sugar cookies, so...

Make the dough, and refridgerate at least an hour or two before you try to roll out the dough.

Cut your shapes and bake on a cookie sheet and let cool.

Make all the frosting colors you will need while the dough chills.  This is where I go ahead and put what I will need into piping bags too.

Decorate with the frosting and I added silver balls on the presents.

All done!!!  No sweat.  That only took 20 some hrs!  You can find great containers for xmas cookies at the dollar stores.  I found cute ones especially made for cookies and candies with xmas decorations on them.  Pack them all up in the containers with tissue papper/plastic wrap and give them to all your friends and family!

Merry Christmas Everyone!