Simply Sadistic Salsa

I had a chilli and salsa contest at work the other day.  I got a little excited.  I went out and got all the ingredients and chopped and mixed and tasted and blended and adjusted until I was sure I had it just right...

And only one other person showed up for it and she made chilli.

Oh well, this is some awesome salsa and people liked it and it will clear your sinuses right out!  If you don't like to have it painfully hot, scale back the habs and leave out the Puckerbutt sauce.

Ingredients:
7 Roma or other small and largely un-seed-ish tomatoes, diced
6 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2 roughly chopped jalepenos
1 bell pepper, diced (I prefer red, but yellow or orange is fine.  Green will change the flavor)
1 small onion, diced
2 habeneros, minced as finely as you can manage
1 lime, zested and juiced
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon Puckerbutt Voodoo Prince

Directions:
Mix it all in a nonreactive (read: glass or ceramic) bowl and let sit overnight.  The salt will produce the liquid "sauce" from the tomatoes and other vegetables.

P.s.  I'm not kidding about the nonreactive bowl, I'm really not.

Chocolate Cake Roll with Ganache Filling

Cake rolls are one of those things you've probably seen a dozen times and never really considered making because...darn, they look kind of complicated, don't they?

Well, truth be told, the most complicated thing about them is whipping up the eggs and if you have a good mixer that won't even phase you, so pull out your mixer and get ready to roll!

Ingredients:
1/3 cup of flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup of sugar
4 egg whites
1/2 cup of sugar
Powdered sugar (for decoration)
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375.  Line a 15x10x1 inch jelly pan (if you're like me, this is just your really big cookie sheet) with parchment paper, then butter the parchment paper.  Make sure the edges are as pressed down as you can.

Start by separating your eggs.  Whites in one large bowl and yolks in a medium.

Beat yolks and vanilla (start slow, then go to medium speed to prevent splashes) until the color lightens to a pale yellow.  Add the 1/3 cup of sugar and keep beating until you don't hear the sugar until the beaters anymore.

Rinse and dry your beaters.

Beat your egg whites (again slow, then medium) until ripples stay behind the beaters when you move them around the bowl for a moment before desolving back in (the mix will be white and foamy)  Add in the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and keep beating until the white foam starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl and touching the surface and pulling away (being VERY CAREFUL not to touch a moving beater) leaves a stiff upright peak.

Fold in the yolk mixture.  Sift the flour mixture on top (you can skip sifting, but I don't recommend it due to cocoa powder's tendancy to clump) and fold in as well.

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan (you will have to move it around with a rubber spatula to get it into corners) and bake for 12-15 minutes or until you can gently poke the middle and have it bounce back.

MEANWHILE: place chocolate chips and heavy cream in a bowl and microwave 1 minute.  Stir vigorously.  It will form a smooth chocolatey paste.

Take your cake out, use the parchment paper to lift it out of the pan, and set it on an even counter. Spread the chocolate paste over it evenly.  Roll up from one short end (DO NOT LET IT COOL!  It will begin to harden into a shape and break when you try to roll it), stopping with the seam down.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cut off the ends if you want to make it more attractive to look at.  Store at room temperature.

Pan-seared Orange Roughy

White fish is the easiest fish to cook.  I hate cooking fish (read: touching fish) and I find most of the white fishes easy to deal with.

In case you're wondering, white fish would include: orange roughy, cod, tilapia, and flounder.  They're categorized in my mind both by their pale white flesh and their extremely neutral flavor.  Anything goes with them, and for the most part people who don't care for strong fish flavors will be able to enjoy them.

So grab your skillet and get ready to sear!

Ingredients:
2 orange roughy fillets (you can substitute another white fish, but make sure the fillets are no more than an inch thick)
Approximately 1 teaspoon olive oil
Your favorite fish seasoning (I used Japanese 7 Spice from The Spice House, but salt and pepper or Old Bay are just as good)

Directions:
 Dab a paper towel in the olive oil and wipe the surface of your nonstick skillet down with the olive oil.  You don't want a lot of oil in the pan, just enough so that if you turn the pan towards the light there's a little greasy sheen.

Place the pan on the range and turn the heat up to medium high.  Let it sit for a minute or two until, when you hold your hand about an inch over the surface, you can feel the heat (very hot)

Pat your fillets dry on a paper towel or kitchen cloth: you don't want any extra moisture from their thawing (As most fish is frozen) or the water it might've been stored in. Immediately lay each fillet in the pan, a little apart (if your pan allows.  Just don't overlap) and sprinkle with seasoning.

Cook for 3 minutes.  Watch the clock.

Flip with a spatula (press the spatula firmly against the bottom of the pan and swiftly move under the fish, then flip)  Sprinkle seasoning again and cook another 4 minutes.  There should be a bit of browning around the edges of the fish.

Fish is done when you can stick a fork in it, twist, and it flakes easily instead of "pulling" (generally speaking, these times are perfect as long as your cuts aren't any bigger than I specified)

Enjoy!

Baked Acorn Squash

Baked acorn squash, at least the way I fix it, is really more of a dessert than anything.  Each squash will yield you two servings as the halves of the squash will become a "bowl" of delightful flavor.

Ingredients:
1 acorn squash, cut in half length wise with the seeds scooped out
4 tablespoons of butter, plus more to coat the pan
4 tablespoons of brown sugar
Mini marshmallows

Directions
Preheat your oven to 425.  While you're waiting on it to warm up, coat a rimmed cookie sheet with butter.  Slice a thin piece off the bottom center of your acorn squash halves so they'll stand up flat when you flip them over

Lay the squash cut side down on the baking pan.  Bake for 20-25 minutes (maybe more, depending on how big your squash is) or until you can easily insert a fork into the flesh when you flip on over.

Turn the squash over (I use tongs, but I've used oven mitts, spatulas, and any number of other things in the past) so the cut side is now up.  In the hollow of the squash, put the butter and the brown sugar and fill the rest of the cavity with marshmallows, mounding it slightly.  Bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until the marshmallows start to brown (or burn, if you like them that way.)

Take them out and put them on plates or in bowls and serve with spoons.  It's best to let them cool for a few minutes before eating as hot marshmallow to the roof of the mouth is extremely painful.

Enjoy!

St. Patrick's Cake (Carolan's Cake)

While the Celebration Cake I made for my husband's birthday is undoubtedly very Irish with a hefty serving of Bailey's, I couldn't help but feel that a green cake with even more Irish cream would be a better St. Patrick's cake.  So I set out to make the best green alcoholic cake I could!

WARNING This cake contains alcohol.  Approximately 1/2 cup of it has NOT been baked out.  Probably not particularly appropriate to share with small children. (Or at least not other people's small children)

Ingredients:
Cake
1 box of Duncan Hines Blue Velvet cake mix

1 box (4 serving) French vanilla instant pudding
4 eggs
1 stick of butter, melted
1 cup of Carolan's Irish Cream (or Bailey's, or whatever you prefer.  I use Carolan's because it's cheaper and tastes the same)
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp yellow food coloring
Frosting
2 sticks of butter, softened (sitting at room temperature for about 4 hours)
1/2 a stick of cream cheese (4 oz) softened
3 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 cup of Carolan's Irish Cream (etc etc, same as above)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.  Butter two 9-inch cake pans (make sure to get the bottom corners or they may refuse to come out.)

In a large bowl, beat together all of the cake batter ingredients.  Add more yellow coloring if needed to get the right shade of green.  The batter will be thicker than most cake batters due to the pudding mix, so don't be alarmed.

Spoon batter into pans, dividing it as equally as you can.  Smooth out as well as you can with a spatula and tap the pans on the counter a few times (knocks out the air bubbles).  Now is the time to redistribute if you notice one pan is much more full than the other.

Bake for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Leave them in the pans on the stovetop (or countertop) for 10 minutes to cool, then flip out onto a cooling rack if you have one or a dishtowel if you don't.  Let them cool completely (at least an hour)

In a large bowl, beat together butter and cream cheese until thoroughly combined.  Add powdered sugar ON LOW* and blend until thoroughly combined (will be VERY stiff and hard to work with).  Blend in the Irish cream (start slow and then you can speed up) and the vanilla.

Smooth onto the cake with a cake or rubber spatula (I've actually had better luck with the flat side of a butter knife than a rubber spatula, truth be told) and top with green sprinkles.  If you want to get really fancy, take a stencil of a shamrock and hold it over the icing and only use sprinkles in that area for a nice pattern (I was not feeling that fancy)

*Go ahead.  Add it on high, I dare you.  Just don't come crying to me when more of that sugar is on your kitchen walls and you than in the bowl.

Simple (and simply) Strawberry Jam

I adore the taste of fresh strawberries, but due to an allergic husband and my inability to eat them cold I can never get through a very large amount of them before they start molding.

So the cycle usually goes like this: buy a really small amount, eat them all, feel sad about not having bought more, buy a whole bunch, eat a quarter of it, they mold, feel terrible about wasting so many, start again.

This time I was determined to break the streak and do something with all my extra berries.  Jam!  Not much extra in it (no interfering with the flavor!) and just glorious, glorious jam.

Ingredients:
3 pint containers of very very ripe strawberries, washed well.
2 cups of sugar
3 tablespoons of lemon juice (preferably fresh squeezed, but I won't judge)
about 2 tablespoons of lemon zest *

Directions
Cut the tops off your strawberries and quarter them.  Toss them in a large sauce pan with all the other ingredients and cook on high until them mixture comes to a boil, stirring frequently.  Drop down to medium and cook for 1 hour, coming back to stir about every 10-15 minutes (make sure to scrape the sides and the bottom)

Meanwhile, stick a small plate in the freezer.

At the end of the hour, take a potato masher or a blender to the mix and blend most of the lumps out (you can blend as much or as little out, depending on how lumpy you like your jam)

Now take that plate out of the freezer and drop just a little of the jam on it.  Did it set up like jelly immediately or is it still kind of sloshing around?  If it's sloshing, let it simmer another 15 minutes.  If not, can according to a good canning site (like here) or stick it in a glass bowl and let cool before covering and refrigerating for up to 3 weeks.  (Canned jelly can last up to 3 YEARS)

Enjoy!

*My secret lately has been dried lemon peel, which you can find in your spice aisle.  Always on hand and I don't have to worry about grating my fingers.

Speciality item: Madeleines

In this world there is a beautiful cookie.  Really, it's more like a tender little butter cake served warm and sprinkled with a dusting of sugar.

And it is called a madeleine.

Now, these aren't like your basic drop cookies or roll and cuts.  It does take some special equipment, a little patience, and a lot of love.  But I think you'll agree once you've tasted one that the results are entirely worth it.

Our specialty equipment for this item is a madeleine pan.  They're becoming more and more common, so you might even find one at Kmart or Target, but of course the internet always has you covered.  Make sure it has twelve "shells" and if you can, get one with a smooth lip (Some of the older ones have a SHARP down turned edge that will cut you like a knife)

Ingredients
2 eggs, room temperature (I usually set mine out the morning I know I'm going to make them)*
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla, best quality you can get
1 tablespoon lemon or orange zest (whichever you like the taste of better.  Or you can leave this out)
1/2 cup of sugar, plus more for dusting
1/2 cup of flour, plus more to dust the pan
1/4 cup of butter, melted and cooled

Directions
Thoroughly butter your  madeleine pan and dust the shells with flour (Shake out the excess)

Whisk the eggs, salt, vanilla, and zest quickly until they begin to lighten in color.  Still whisking, gradually add in the sugar.

Whisk on high speed until the mixture thickens and looks to be white.  As you move the whisk through the mixture, it will hold the shape of the ripples for just a moment after you move the whisk away.

Using a large spatula, sprinkle the flour a  little at a time on top of the mixture and fold in (for a detailed explanation of how to fold in ingredients, go here to watch a video).  Continue sprinkling on flour and folding in until you have it thoroughly mixed, making sure to scrape the sides and bottoms.

Pour the melted butter around the edges of the bowl and fold in until thoroughly mixed.

Spoon the mixture into the shells.  Leave each shell a little less than full until you've filled the last one, then even them out with the remaining batter.

Bake at 375 for 14-17 minutes, or until they're golden brown and they pop back to form when you poke the middle of a shell.

Loosen the edges of the shells with your fingernails or a knife and lay them curved side up on a plate or towel and sprinkle with sugar while still warm.  Eat right away!
*Room temperature eggs beat up faster.  If your eggs are cold, everything will take a lot longer

Simple dipped truffles

Sometimes you just want a plain truffle.  A little soft center and a bit of crunch on the outside.  Simple enough.  Probably a lot more simple than you ever thought.

Ingredients:
2 bags of chocolate chips in your favorite flavor/variety (I like a mix of bittersweet and semi-sweet ghiradelli, but that's me.  Go with your heart!)
1/2 cup heavy cream, plus about 2 tablespoons
1 silicone chocolate or ice cube mold (like here or here)*

Directions:
In a medium microwavable bowl, blend 1 bag's worth of chips with the heavy cream and microwave for 1 minute on high.  Stir vigorously until the chocolate and cream combine (if you still have lumps of chocolate, microwave for another 30 seconds and stir again).  This is the ganache.

Let the mixture cool, then pour into your mold, just short of the tops (if you overflow, just scrape smooth and back into the bowl)

Stick the mold in the freezer for about 10 minutes or until you can use your thumb to press the ganache molds out without breaking them or smashing the shapes.  Put the finished shapes on a plate or pan and stick them back in the freezer while you finish the other molds.

When you're finished with all your shapes, put the remaining chocolate in another microwavable bowl and heat for 1 minute on high.  Take it out and stir, then heat at 30 second intervals until you have a smooth chocolate paste.

Lay out a layer of WAX paper^.

One at a time, use a fork to dip your frozen molds into the chocolate paste and set them on the wax paper.  Make sure to cover the whole mold and shake off all the extra paste.

Keep the extra molds cool in between dips: if they get too warm they'll melt into the paste.

If the paste starts to get thick, microwave it for 10 seconds and stir.

Let cool and enjoy!


*Silicone is important because of the way it will release your chocolate.  If you get a hard plastic mold, it won't let loose.  So don't go there.  Please.
^Silicone mats are also usable, but parchment paper will stick to your finished chocolates

Small change, big difference

I've made a small change to the Onion Bagels recipe that results in a prettier bagel.

Jelly Glaze (for chicken or fish)

Sometimes you want something a little bit different on your chicken or fish.  Maybe you recently tried a glazed white meat and fell in love with the slightly sweet golden-brown coating.  Maybe you've just seen pictures and you're ready to make the leap.

Either way, you should know it's really very easy!  Most glazes for meat are basically just jelly and something to thin it out.  So here's a very basic recipe you can change around a bit to get a great flavor for you.

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons of sweet jelly (I like Puckerbutt's Lemon Jelly with pepper, but peach, lemon, and other relatively light flavored jellies do just as well)
2 teaspoons of a very light wine (sometimes I substitute sake if I have that instead)

Directions:
Mix your jelly and wine together in a small bowl, stirring until you've knocked out all the big chunks.

Preheat a real or electric grill.  If you have a George Foreman-type grill, no need to grease, but real grills will need a very light coating of vegetable oil to keep the meat from sticking.

Grill your meat until it's about halfway done (about 4 minutes on a regular grill, 2 on an electric for chicken breasts), then brush the jelly mix onto the top, flip, and coat the other side.  Let it grill some more until you have a nice golden color to the glaze, about another 2-3 minutes. (it's the sugar in the jelly that does this, but if you've used a dark jelly it may not be so noticeable)

This recipe makes enough for about 4 chicken breasts or several shrimp kabobs.  Leftover glaze SHOULD NOT be stored as it will have come in contact with the juices of the raw meat.