Family and Good Food

Food is a wonderful thing.  It's something that brings us together as friends and family.  Yesterday I gathered with my cousins for a nice family dinner.  The lasts two times we've done family dinner, they've done the cooking.  This time I figured since I was all settled in my home, I'd do the cooking.  I might have gotten a little ambitious with my meal because I didn't have much prep time between church and dinner time.  That is the reason there aren't any finished product pictures.  I did manage to snap some in progress photos, so you'll just have to imagine what the finished products looked like.  


The main course was a pork tenderloin that I seasoned with salt, pepper, shallots, garlic, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary, and fresh oregano.  I then wrapped the tenderloin in pancetta, which is similar to bacon, but not smoked.  All of the herbs on the tenderloin gave it a great flavor.  

I also made an apple compote that consisted of apple cider, orange zest, cinnamon and cloves.  I wish that I had take the time to thicken the sauce a little bit more, but the flavor of it went great with the pork.  

I made two side dishes to go with the pork: mashed potatoes (with some potatoes from my dad's garden) and some super tasty honey lemon glazed carrots.  I used baby carrots and cut off the tops.  I steamed the carrots in a little water with honey, lemon zest, a little butter and salt.  I brought them to a boil, with the pan slightly covered, and cooked them until I could pierce them with a fork.  Once they were fork tender, I removed the lid and continued to allow them to boil until all the liquid evaporated off and the carrots started to caramelize.  This was a simple and easy dish with great flavor. 

The meal was finished of with a FABULOUS dessert made by my cousin Brian's wife, Anne.  She made a trifle/parfait with Oreos, brownies, chocolate pudding and whipped cream.  Super yummy!!!  Anne is an AMAZING chef!  She's just started her own fantastic blog, check out her excellent recipes.  


More cooking to come!  Happy Cooking and Enjoy a meal your loved ones!

The Adventures in the Kitchen Continue.....

The adventures in the kitchen continue....I've officially moved to Utah and I'm all unpacked and settled.  What better way to start off this new experience in Utah than with an experience in the kitchen.  I have two cousins that also live here in Utah.  They had a family dinner planned for Sunday and I was invited to attend.  I offered to bring a dessert to contribute.  I wanted to do something new, but not too complicated.  It had been a long week and weekend of moving and unpacking, so I was pretty beat.  The request was for something with chocolate, so I decided to try something called a chocolate pot de crème.  A pot de crème is a loose French custard.  Traditionally, it is baked in the oven in a  water bath, but the recipe that I used didn't call for that.  The recipe was very simple.  It's basically like a chocolate pudding, but with a richer flavor.  You take sugar, cream, and semi-sweet chocolate and bring them to a boil.  

Then you add the hot cream and chocolate mixture slowly to some beaten egg yolks and a little vanilla extract.  Once that is all mixed together you pour it into ramekins, cover and chill for a few hours.  I chilled mine overnight and they were fine.  I decided to top it with a little unsweetened whipped cream and some semi-sweet chocolate shavings.

It was the perfect size dessert with a wonderful rich chocolatey flavoring.  I'd like to try it some time the traditional way with a hot water bath just to see if there is a difference in taste or texture.  The pots de crèmes seemed to be liked and enjoyed by all.  This was a nice way to start the new experiences here in Utah.  More to come!  Happy Cooking!  

Farewell Oregon, Hello Utah!

For the past seven months, I've been living in Oregon with my parents trying to figure out what I wanted to do next with my life.  I'm really excited for the next step in my life.  I've decided to go back to school to study Culinary Arts.  My mom wanted us to have a little farewell dinner party for some of our friends here, but there just wasn't enough time.  One of our friends from California was visiting this weekend, so I decided I would make us a nice dinner and that could serve as my farewell dinner.  


I wanted to do something kind of simple since most of my cooking tools were going to be packed.  I decided to give my new dutch oven a test run and make a pot roast.  I've done a pot roast before, many times in fact, but I usually do it in a crock pot.  I started out with sautéing some onions, fresh garlic, carrots, celery, and mushrooms in the pot with some olive oil.  I removed the vegetables and then browned the roast.  I placed the vegetables and roast back in the pot and then poured in some beef broth and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme.  With the cover on the pot, I placed it in a 300º oven for 3-4 hours until fork tender.  The key to a great pot roast is cooking it low and slow.  

I served the roast with some mashed potatoes.  I used the drippings from the roast to make a gravy by thickening it with a little flour.  I've found the best way to make a flavorful and smooth gravy is reserve a few tablespoons of the drippings and mix it with the flour or cornstarch first and then add that mixture to the rest of your drippings.


For dessert, I had some leftover homemade cream cheese frosting, so I figured the best thing to make would be a cake.  I made a white cake and I added a box of coconut cream pudding and shredded coconut to.  I frosted it with the cream cheese frosting.  I toasted some shredded coconut and sprinkled it on top of the cake for a little garnish.

This was a great, classic, simple meal and a great way to say farewell to Oregon.  My current plan is to maintain my blog while I'm in school.  There should be plenty of new things for me to experiment with and to learn how perfect.  Keep following if you'd like to see me embark on this next great adventure of culinary school.  Happy cooking and there's more fun with food to come!

Good Friends and Good Food

Today's kitchen adventure was quite the experience, not only because I made a couple of new recipes, but also because I was in a kitchen that was not my own.  For the past week, I have been visiting friends in Utah.  I've been staying with my friend Angie and her roommate Sarah.  During my chaotic departure from Oregon, I forgot to grab a little something small as a thank you to them for allowing me to crash at their house for a whole week.  I figured making dinner for them would be a nice way to say thank you and give me a chance to try out some new recipes.  Our dinner tonight consisted of my current favorite meat, pork tenderloin with a cherry sauce, my first attempt at risotto with spinach, mushrooms, and peas and a previously attempted crumble recipe, but with a twist.


I've had risotto a few times and I really enjoy it, but I've always been a little apprehensive to make it.  I watch a lot of cooking shows and cooking competitions and it always appears that risotto causes many of the PROFESSIONAL chefs participating in these competitions many problems.  I decided it was time to toss my fears and apprehensions aside and give it a shot.  I food a really easy recipe from the foodnetwork.com.  I did quite a bit of tweaking to the recipe, but it turned out marvelously.  I started out sautéing some chopped onions and fresh mushrooms in olive oil.  If I had had some fresh garlic, I would have also added that to the mushrooms and onions.  Then I added the arborio rice and then slowly started adding hot chicken broth to the mixture, remembering to continually stir until the liquid was completely absorbed.  Once the consistency of the rice begins to appear creamy and the rice is tender, I added frozen peas and baby spinach.  I continued to stir until the spinach was slightly wilted.  I seasoned throughout the process with salt, pepper and garlic powder and added in some fresh grated parmesan cheese.  The result was a deliciously, cheesy, and creamy risotto.

The pork tenderloin was simply seasoned with thyme, salt, and pepper.  The cherry sauce had cherry jam, red wine vinegar, brown sugar, some cinnamon and allspice.  The vinegar was very present, but overall it was a great accompaniment to the pork.

Dessert was a twist on the pear cranberry gingersnap crumble that I made for my non traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  I looked for fresh cranberries, but they must something that is only sold seasonally, like in October/November/December.  I was trying to think of a good replacement fruit that would still bring the tartness of the cranberry and taste ok with the gingersnaps.  I decided on raspberries.  I loved this recipe with the cranberries, but I think I enjoyed almost as much, if not more, with the raspberries.  The lemon zest and lemon juice that are in it complement the raspberries so nicely.

Stay tuned for more fun experiments in the kitchen.  Happy Cooking! 

Experimenting with Acorn Squash

My dad is a big fan of squash, but my mom and I are not very crazy about it.  I love squash soups, but I don't love it when it's cooked any other way.  I think I've finally figured out why.  I think it's because when you cook squashes they get mushy.  I like cooked vegetables that are still a little crisp and crunchy when they're cooked.  You can't achieve that with a squash.  If a squash is crunchy, then it's still raw which leaves you with a mushy vegetable.  I also feel like if a vegetable is mushy then you might as well puree it and make it completely smooth.  So when my dad asked me if I would cook up some of his remaining acorn squash, I decided I would make a puree.


I found a recipe for a mashed acorn squash with garlic.  You roast the garlic and squash in the oven until extremely tender.  Once cooked you mash the squash and squeeze the garlic in the mash and mix together.  I wanted to get a really smooth texture, like a puree, so I put the garlic squash mash in a food processor and pureed until smooth.  I also threw in some butter, salt, fresh thyme and cracked pepper.  Along with all of those seasonings, the recipe called for a leek and apple mixture to top the squash mash.  We didn't have leeks, so I used one small onion and sautéed it with some butter and a diced apple.  I actually folded it in to the squash puree.  It was super yummy!  I actually really enjoyed it.  The flavor was nice and the crunch and sweetness from the apples was a nice surprise.  

To accompany our squash puree, I also made a pork tenderloin.  It was nothing special, but the sauce that I made to go with it was fantastic.  It was a mixture of apple juice, honey dijon mustard, some brown sugar and a little maple syrup.  I thickened it up with some corn starch as well.  It had a nice sweetness from the juice, sugar and syrup and probably could have used just a little more sweetness, but also had a nice bite from the mustard.  I liked it a lot and it complimented the other aspects of the meal really nicely.  

I'm not sure what my next kitchen adventure will be, but I will say that I may be attempting ice cream very soon.  I know it's winter and ice cream sounds like a crazy thing to make, but I just got the ice cream attachment for my KitchenAid mixer and I'm kind of dying to try it out.  Stay tuned!


Happy Cooking!

Lemon Meringue Pie

After making the fabulous lemon curd, I had been craving it again.  I decided to attempt my first lemon meringue pie.  I've never really been a huge meringue fan.  I've always felt that it was really sweet, but I figured this would be a good opportunity to use my lovely mixer again.  It turned out ok.  I definitely need to work on perfecting it.  The flavor was great and surprisingly the meringue wasn't very sweet.  

I'm not sure if I over baked it or under baked it, but the meringue separated from the crust after cooling and the filling became watery as it cooled as well.  It looked really nice to start, but now a few days later it's not so pretty.  Is there anyone that is experienced with meringue pies that can give me some pointers on how to keep the meringue from separating from the crust and how to eliminate the excess liquid?  Any tips would be greatly appreciated.  Happy New Year and Happy Cooking!

Fun with new Christmas presents

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas spent with family, friends, and lots of good food.  "Santa" (aka my dad) was very good to me this year (I must have been a very good girl).  He "brought" some fun "toys" that I was able to put to good use yesterday.  One of the new "toys" was a beautiful, red KitchenAid stand mixer.  He also gave me a fun little cookbook for whoopie pies.  For those of you not familiar with what a whoopie pie is, check out this brief history.  It's sort of like an Oreo, but with a cake like cookie and a plethora of mix and match varieties.  


We had been invited to dinner with some friends and I was tasked with bringing a dessert.  I thought what better opportunity to test out the new mixer and to experiment with some of the recipes from the new cookbook.  After much deliberation, I decided to make a lemon flavored whoopie.  This cookbook suggests that you can make the cake/cookie part of the whoopie pie in various sizes, from 1 inch in diameter to as large as a 9 inch cake, so that's exactly what I decided to do...make a mongo size whoopie pie.  Normally you would drop the batter on a parchment lined baking sheet, but I was afraid they would even enough in size to match up, so I just used a 9" round cake pan and split the batter between two pans.  The problem with using a cake pan is that they do not puff up like they normally would.  They do sell 8-9" whoopie pie pans, but I don't think it's worth the investment unless you're making big whoopie pies on a regular basis.  The lemon flavor of the cake was very subtle, but tasty.

The cookbook shared a whoopie pie suggestion for what they called a Lemon Triple Threat which consisted of the lemon whoopie with a lemon curd filling and a lemon mascarpone cheese filling.  I didn't want to overpower with lemon, so I took the lemon curd and paired it with the traditional marshmallow whoopie pie filling.  In my past attempt to make a lemon curd, I did not have much success.  It never really set up and stayed very runny.  This time I used a different recipe and the result was phenomenal.  Making lemon curd is not very difficult or time consuming, but it is very time and heat sensitive.  Due to the time and heat sensitivity, there were no pictures taken of the process only the end result.

 This has got to be one of the best fillings I have ever had.  The flavor was divine!  It would go great in a cupcake, doughnut, or pie shell.  You could probably even add a little heavy cream to make it more mousse/pudding like.  Excellent!


I put a layer of curd on one of the cakes, topped with a thick layer of the marshmallow filling, topped with another layer of curd and then topped off with the other cake.  The end result was very yummy.  Next time I think I would use less of the marshmallow filling, but there was a lot of filling and I didn't want to waste it, so it ALL ended up in the whoopie pie.  

Stay tuned for more cooking adventures!  Wishing everyone a Happy and Safe New Year and Happy Cooking!