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!

Spicy garlic shrimp canapes

These little hors d'oeuvres are really quick to make and look really nice.  They are super flavorful and you can add the just the right amount of red pepper to get the level of heat that you like.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb 50-70 ct raw P&D shrimp (peeled and deveined) thawed

3 garlic cloves minced finely

1/2 a large shallot minced finely

1 tsp dry red pepper flake

2 packages of phyllo cups (made especially for hors d'oeuvres) Trader Joe's

1/2 bag of spinach chopped

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

1/3 white wine

1.  In 1 pan heat a generous amount of olive oil and then add the garlic, shallot and red pepper.  Saute a couple mins.

2.  Season shrimp with S&P and add to pan.  Saute a min and stir and cook 1 more min.

3.  Add white wine and lemon juice and a little S&P.  Cook another 2 mins.

4.  Remove from heat and set aside.

5.  In a separate pan saute the chopped spinach for a couple mins. until wilted.

6.  Squeeze all the excess liquid out of spinach and stir into a bowl with the Parmesan.  Mix until combined.

7.  Place a small amount of spinach in each phyllo cup.

8.  Place 1 shrimp on each cup and then spoon a small amount of the pan juice directly onto the shrimp.

Done!



Diver Scallops with Parmesan and Romaine

This is a very simple dish.  It takes about 10 mins. to make.

Ingredients:

U10 Scallops (Diver/Sea Scallops) - 3-4 per person

Hearts of romaine

Grape tomatoes

Shaved Parmesan cheese

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

1.  Lay out 2 layers of paper towels on a plate and put scallops on it.  Blot another layer of paper towel on the top of the scallops.

2. Sprinkle scallops generously on both sides with salt and pepper.

3. Heat a small amount of vegetable oil in a large saute pan.

4. While that is heating, cut the end off the heart of romaine and wash the leaves.

5. Spray or toss leaves with olive oil and salt and pepper.

6.  Cook scallops on med high heat about 4 mins. on each side until nicely browned.  Remove to new paper towels.

7. Arrange romaine leaves on plate and top with halved grape tomatoes and parmesan.  Sprinkle all with S&P.

8. Place scallops on the plate and serve.

Salmon Cake with Spicy Yogurt and Mache'

This dish is really simple and fast, so it is great if you need to make something quickly.  I used canned salmon in this but I think it would be better if you used some leftover salmon that you had cooked  from the day before. 

Ingredients for salmon cakes:

Salmon 8oz or so

2 Tb mayo

1/2 tsp prepared horseradish

1tsp chives

1 Tb lemon juice

1/2 cup finely diced celery

1/2 cup to 1 cup breadcrumbs/panko

Mix all together.

For garnish:

Olive oil and mache' (lamb's lettuce)

Toss mache' with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.

Ingredients for sauce:

1 Tb Plain yogurt

1 Tb Siracha Hot Sauce

Mix together

Heat a little vegetable oil in a large saute pan.  While that is heating up to med high, press the salmon mix into ring molds.

Fry about 6 mins on each side.  Remove cakes onto paper towels to blot oil.

Spoon sauce onto the plate.  Lay cake in the center of sauce and top with dressed mache'.