Champagne Salad

Don’t know why I have never made Champagne Vinaigrette before, but that is certainly going to change in 2012. Wow, wow what took me so long. I guess I just really didn’t think alcohol….salad……alcohol?…in a salad dressing? So I just never really went down that road. But then of course I realized…….I read that wrong. It wasn’t Champagne……it was champagne vinegar. Uh-oh. Well, guess what?  I had some Champagne on hand and thought it sounded Great! It is not something you can taste (the alcohol), but it is such a vibrant and fresh tasting dressing. Pow! (wonder what the vinegar version tastes like?) And it was a BIG HIT! I made a simple salad of romaine lettuce, cranberries, bleu cheese and candied walnuts and topped it off with this zippy, incredible dressing! Don’t miss out. Save a 1/4 cup of your next bottle of Champagne and treat yourself. Or you can make it with Champagne vinegar and maybe not dance through dinner! But do give it a try with the real deal. I got this recipe from  epicurious.com.

Here’s all you do:

• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons dijon Mustard
• 1/4 cup champagne vinegar (oooops;-)
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 or 3 dashes hot sauce (definitely 3)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Whisk together all the ingredients.  Pour over a lovely salad………then wait for applause! No really!

Bon Appétit

Fancy Bundt tips

I wanted to make something special for the gals and couldn’t decide whether my favorite Almond cake or the Sour Cream Coffee Cake from Lisa Dupar’s were my 2011 favorite cakes. I decided on the bundt just because it would be visually a bit more elegant for the ladies but I think I used the wrong bundt pan and wanted to share. I had, for about a year after buying this fancy bundt pan, not had much success with getting the cakes out of this fancy pan. But with a tiny bit of perseverance, it paid off. Except not exactly for this recipe. It looked lovely, but the cake is so dense and moist that the cake was too big for this pan and didn’t cook as evenly or as effectively. The filling became too thick and hard packed. And this is one DELICIOUS cake, so it’s always safer to find the right pan. Who wants to throw out all that work and good ingredients!

So, a simple plain ol bundt cake pan is the perfect pan for this cake. Although it looked lovely, it was not as smooth. And my tips for getting it to turn out so effortlessly with all those lovely ridges is to oil and flour every single crevice to make sure it lifts right out and keeps that nice design.

Here’s Lisa’s recipe:

Pecan Sour Cream Coffee Cake by Lisa Dupar

2 3/4 cups of sugar

16 Tablespoons unsalted butter

2 eggs

2 cups sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups chopped pecans

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

Powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350˚. In the bowl of a standing kitchen mixer with whip attachment, at medium speed, cream together the sugar and the butter. Slowly add the eggs one at a time, scraping the bottom of the bowl. Add the sour cream and vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry mixture to the egg-sour cream mixture and mix until just combined. In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining 3/4 cup sugar, pecans and cinnamon.

Grease and flour a standard Bundt pan. Alternate pouring in the batter, the cinnamon nut mixture, and then the batter starting and ending with the batter. Bake one hour. (Mine 55 minutes) Turn out onto rack to cool.

When cake is completely cooled, dust with powdered sugar.

Wanted to also thank all of my wonderful customers and guests of 2011 for making it such an amazing and fantastic year! Thanks for all of your support and may your 2012 be magical.

All for now bakers!

Bon Appétit!

Potato Parmesan Pesto Soup

We all know what a soup fan I am and this is one of those soups that is pure comfort. It was so much better than I expected because potato soup …..is well…….some of my old versions anyway tended to get gluey or just way too much potato-y-starchy. This has just the right amount of stock, potato, milk/cream and that dash of pesto sends it to another category. I have finally found my favorite Potato Soup! I got this Potato Parmesan soup recipe from Tasty Kitchen! Thanks ever so much.

Tis the season for warmth and hearty dishes. This dish is a delight on its own but I am thinking some home made rolls would be the perfect match. Stay tuned.

Here’s all you do:

Potato Parmesan Soup with Pesto

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 whole medium shallot, diced
1 whole large garlic clove, minced
5 whole medium potatoes, peeled and cubed (I like tiny bits of skin on, gives nice flecks…..just sayin!)
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
1 cup milk
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pesto

Directions:
In a medium stockpot, drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil and heat to medium. When warm, add shallot and saute until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook for an additional minute. Add potatoes, stock, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Using an immersion blender, puree soup to desired texture. Add milk and bring back to a low boil. (My potatoes took longer than 15 minutes, so it really heated up and hence I didn’t add the milk until I turned off the heat. For other reasons)  Turn off heat and remove bay leaf. Stir in grated Parmesan.  If you use a blender rather than an immersion blender, make sure soup is cool before blending it to prevent a kitchen explosion. Taste soup at this point and add salt and pepper to taste (the soup should be plenty salty from the Parmesan cheese). (Kath here: Since you are only using 1/2 cup cheese I personally found that it definitely needed salt;-))  If you don’t serve immediately, reheat soup before serving.

Place a large dollop (about 1 tablespoon or more) of pesto into each serving bowl and swirl into the soup. Delightful! Really the nice surprise and a change from the usual dollop of sour cream.

Toast to good friends and enjoy the New Year with shared yummy dishes!

Bon Appétit!

Baileys Cheesecake

Once upon a time in a land far, far away……I lived in Sydney, …….Australia (is there any other??) where I discovered this lovely cheesecake. It was so popular I actually sold it to restaurants. It’s been years since I have made this lovely dessert. But the recipe kept jumping out at me when I was moving boxes this week. I had many copies tucked into a cookbook type notebook of mine and every time I turned around lately, there was the typed out recipe. (Yes, Typed out as in non electric, register type keys, align and insert paper and turn knob.) Ok, you get it. On with the story.

Hmmmm ……Didn’t I just put you back into your place? And yet I would find another copy staring me in the face. Hmmm, note from the universe…… this must be the dessert I should make for Christmas this year. And so I dusted off my recipe and set about to make this fabulous, easy and elegant dessert.

Here’s all you do:

CRUST:

1 package of sweet biscuits, graham or oreo cookies. I used 28 oreo cookies

1/2 cup butter + 1 Tablespoon

FILLING:

375 grams of cream cheese (I used two 8 oz packages softened)

3/4 cup sugar (If you like is super sweet, add more)

1 Tablespoon flour

3 eggs

3/4 cup sour cream

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

60 grams dark chocolate

1 Tablespoon instant coffee

1 Tablespoon Tia Maria or Kahlua (I used Baileys, NOT as sugary)

1 Tablespoon water (Don’t add if you are not adding coffee)

1 egg yolk (add lastly and whisk briskly before egg can cook)

CREAM:

1 Tablespoon instant coffee (left plain this time so I didn’t add)

1 teaspoon hot water (don’t add unless adding coffee)

1 cup heavy whipping cream (my personal fav)

1 Tablespoon sugar (2 Tablespoons if using Baileys or less sugary liqueur)

CRUST: Crush biscuits and add melted butter mixing well. Press on base and sides of a 8 inch spring form pan.

FILLING: Beat cream cheese until soft. Combine sugar and flour into cheese and beat well. Beat in eggs, sour cream and lemon juice. Pour half into the crust. Put roughly chopped chocolate, coffee, liqueur, water, and lightly beaten egg yolk into top of a double boiler, keep heat on medium as to not over cook. Stir until chopped chocolate melts and mixture becomes thick. Remove from heat, cool slightly.

Swirl half of chocolate mixture through cheesecake in crust. Top with other half of cheesecake mixture and swirl the rest of chocolate mix on second half. Don’t over swirl. Bake at 325˚ for about one hour. Refrigerate.

CREAM: Dissolve coffee in hot water. Put cream, coffee and sugar in bowl. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Beat until thick and top cheesecake!

Cheesecake

I sometimes sprinkle a little cocoa, finely ground coffee, cinnamon or even nutmeg (depending upon what liqueurs I choose). Dusting it makes such a simple compliment!

Enjoy and definitely put on some Jackie Evancho……perfect for the season.

Bon Appétit!

Zucchini Cake

I was going to make a friend another batch of her favorite brownies for her birthday but something caught my eye in the fridge. I had purchased those zukes for a lovely light stirred up pasta dish. But then I remembered how sneaky putting those vegetables into our desserts make it a less guilty pleasure. So off I set to find a yummy new dessert. AND this was such a moist and pleasant surprise. You can still see the green flecks in my chocolate cake, but most of the cakes I saw online you couldn’t see them.  Maybe I didn’t grate the zucchini enough but it was a humdinger melt in your mouth cake.

Here’s all you do:

Veggie Curry

Nothing says warm me up like a Curry with coconut milk and all the right fillings on a cold and windy rainy night. This is truly a delicious meal even if my photo suggests otherwise! This recipe calls for chicken, chicken broth and fish sauce, of which I omitted and used veggie broth and it still would have fooled the best carnivore. Other than a lot of peeling and chopping, there is nothing to it. Just make sure you have some good curry spices and fresh ginger (of which I probably over indulge in). It’s a crowd pleaser and serves a crowd. Don’t miss out on this one if you are a curry fan. You’ll be adding it to your fav’s in no time. I have made this a few times and the only thing I am going to try in the future is swap the amounts of milk and coconut milk around. Just to see if it’s creamier or more subtle! (1 can coconut milk/to 2 cups regular milk-so I will swap) ;-)

Here’s all you do:

• 1 x 2-1/2 – 3 lb. chicken, cut up or you can buy pre-cut pieces at the store. Or if you prefer, use all breasts or thighs depending on your preference.  You can also include a few sliced up boneless breasts or thighs to add towards the end if you want to increase the protein and have some boneless bites for everyone.  (For a vegetarian version, use 1 or 2 tubs of firm tofu – see notes below)
• 7-8 medium carrots, peeled, trimmed and cut into about 2″ lengths
• 6 small russet potatoes, peeled and cut into about 2″ large pieces, with larger pieces cut in half
• 4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into similar 2″ large pieces
• 1 large onion, cut into wedges
• 3-4″piece of ginger, bruised with the back of your knife
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 x 32 oz. carton, or 4 cups of low-sodium chicken broth, or homemade (Or you can use veggie stock)
• 2 cups organic milk of your preference
• 1 x 13.5 oz. can coconut milk
• 2 – 3 Tbsp. Vietnamese curry powder
• 2 Tbsp. Fish sauce
• 1 Tbsp. kosher salt, more to salt and pepper the chicken pieces
• 1 – 2 tsp. sugar
• Cooked rice noodles or baguette or french bread for serving, actually naan would be great

I have only ever served mine over rice and it was perfect. It keeps well and won’t disappoint.

Bon Appétit!