April 11th, 2011

Il Pasticiotto
Torretta's Bakery
Revere, MA

I am still quite obsessed with Torretta's Bakery. Quite convinced that anything and everything created in the shop is going to meet and exceed every expectation of food that I've ever had.

I decide to try the pasticiotto this week. It was delicious, mind you, but a little less glamorous than some of the other pastries. I believe it was cherry in there with the sweet cheese. I also snacked on a slice of the Sicilian pizza. Wow. I really am not one of those pizza-loving folks. I find it heavy and have a general dislike of cooked tomatoes - i.e. tomato sauce. But this squared-sliced, fresh-baked pizza really hit the spot.

Truly, they can't do anything wrong there.

April 9th, 2011

Snap pea, goat cheese and leek shredded pasta

I'm kicking off my spring meals with some green-inspired dishes. Dinner consisted of shredded sprouted-grain lasagna sheets tossed with fresh, steamed snap peas, fresh parsley, sauteed baby bok choy, sauteed shallots and goat cheese.

April 3rd, 2011

Strawberries

Homemade Strawberry Syrup

Homemade Strawberry Syrup

My favorite place for recipes and inspiration these days is thekitchn.com. I've mentioned this a few times before. A couple of weeks ago, they posted a fabulously inspiring recipe on strawberry milk. Apparently, the author had been using store-bought strawberry milk for a recipe and ended up addicted. However, store bought strawberry milk is loaded with unsavory things like corn syrup and artificial flavors. She thought that she could not only make it healthier, but tastier, but making her own strawberry syrup. And why not?

The recipe is pretty much the same steps that you use to make strawberry jam. Strawberries + Water + Sugar + Heat. Except that in the end you separate the syrup from the fruit with a sieve. Which actually gives you syrup for the milk AND preserves to spread on biscuits or to mix into your oatmeal, yogurt or top your blintzes with!

This was use a cup or two of fresh strawberries, but the original post used frozen strawberries successfully.

April 2nd, 2011

Leek Tart

I had intended to create a delicious lunch dish, high in protein and nutritious with greens. However, I made one vital mistake: premade pie crust. I had one of those frozen pillsbury roll-out pie crusts in the fridge, that in my laziness, I decided to use as a base. Holy freaking cow. It has so much fat and so much sodium, you'd think I just decided to eat 3 pounds of salted butter instead.

Healthy tip: Never under any circumstance use Pillsbury Pie Crusts.

The contents were fine. I use all egg whites, sauteed leeks, lots of fresh chopped dill, and give it a dusting of Parmesan. It was really that simple. In any case, it was like buttery insanely good due to the pie crust and I pretty much destroyed my diet eating the whole thing over the course of two days.

April 1st, 2011

Coconut Rice Pudding

I'm mildly obsessed with coconut, and my friends will be the first to tell you this. My friend was joking that if I was on an episode of Hoarders, they'd open my kitchen cabinet and find 2 cases of coconut milk. That I could fund my own coconut milk can drive. Ha...ha..huh.

Well, whatever. I love coconut and I'm not afraid to admit it. You've seen images of the Coconut Cake and Coconut Cream Cupcakes I made last month. Well, I delved into virgin territory last week and made: Coconut Rice Pudding.

There were a lot of recipes to choose from, and I didn't like half of them. I also only had brown rice, which no one seemed to recommend. But that's life and I thought it would be mildly healthier anyway. A loosely based this recipe from the Rice Pudding Recipe featured on the blog Slice of Feist. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong with it. Texturally it worked out well - but spice-wise, it was lack luster. I needed something more. I nearly doubled all of the spices and flavors in the first place. Okay, it was unintentional. I halved the recipe, halved the rice and such, but forgot to half the spices. But even then, it was still sort of flavorless and mild. I wanted more--something. The coconut flavor - I even added coconut extract -- wasn't particularly strong either. Maybe if I'd had raisins, it would have been better or at least added an additional flavor in the mix.

I think that in the future, I will be able to enhance this recipe more to my taste. But in the first go around, it only look cute and was only mildly comforting comfort food.

March 31st, 2011

Making Cocktails

Later in the day I began my quest to make fancy cocktails. With the intention of having a "Floridian Vacation At Home" which involved, turning up the heater, lounging in my bathing suit and listening to Bob Marley with a fruity cocktail in hand, I had originally purchased some Malibu Rum Pre-Mixed Rum Punch in a bag. I was really just drawn in by booze-in-a-bag with a spout. Like box wine. But booze. How could I resist? Well, I certainly would have if someone had told me how gross it was. The punch was grimace-inducing strong with the out of place coconut aftertaste. I know its Malibu, but I just expect it to work. It didn't.

So I was left to my own devices with my fancy Absolut bottle, fresh fruit and herbs. I'd gone a bit crazy and purchased large bunches of mint, basil and dill for my cooking and salads this week. A bit more than necessary. But the mint and basil were perfect for my favorite cocktails! So I muddled up some fresh herbs, limes, berries and mixed them in various ways with (diet!) tonic water and vodka. They were divine. Mmm..

March 31st, 2011

Perfectly poached in water and vinegar

On a roll with my cooking, I was inspired by The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry this week and immediately felt the need to conquer the perfect poached egg. There is a lot to know about poaching an egg that I never dreamed possible. Or rather, cooking eggs in general. The egg has rapidly become the most important part of my cooking and baking over the past few months. You can do everything and anything with it. It's like butter. It's special. The magic ingredient.

So I pulled out The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters and turned to page 142 for her instructions on poaching an egg. Water, vinegar and understanding of when to remove the egg. The thing about the egg is that it continues to cook even after you remove it from the heat. For example, the key to scrambled eggs is to gently and patiently whisk/stir until its nearly opaque, but not cooked through. As in, you wouldn't want to eat it just yet as parts are a bit slippery, but given another couple of minutes, it will be moist, fluffy and perfect. So you take it off, and those last couple of minutes are done away from the heat.

The poached eggs seems to be similar. The fresher the egg, the easier the poaching, the more snug the egg ball. The water is kept at a quiet rolling boil. As it cooks you roll the egg with a slotted spoon to center the yolk, while also preventing it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. By the time the egg whites have all turned opaque, the yolk is still soft and runny - which in my opinion is perfect. The result is a delicious flavorful poached egg - the vinegar drawing out the hint of flavor without being vinegary.