Brie Crescents

I love brie en croute... Absolutely .... truly... adore it. But who has time to cart around an entire huge round of brie in bread? Not me... and it's soooo yummy when it's hot... My classic favorite is to take just a wedge of brie - $3.99 or less at Trader Joes... cut off the rind and spread Raspberry jam on top and then surround it with a tube of crescent rolls... Then, you give it a little egg wash and sprinkle sliced almonds on top... you can also add a few almonds to the middle with the cheese and jam. YUMMY!!!

I have been known to even just pick up a little package of melba toasts, top with a dab of brie and a dab of jam and pop them in the microwave for 7 seconds until melty to get the same sensation as the baked brie.

The pictures are of my latest idea... the actual crescent rolls as individual brie en croute... So I made half with brie and raspberry jam, sprinkling some almonds on top. I made sure to get the brie completely down the dough triangle and then put jam on top of the cheese before rolling up. Bake per the instructions on the container and *poof* Fantastic!!!

The other ones... inspired by a Giada episode that featured brie and nutella pannini... was simply brie with sugar free chocolate chips. OMG it was fabulous...!

I'm going to do orange marmalade, brie and dark chocolate soon... I might even skip the brie in a few because it sounds yummy.

The brie was all melty and good... the chocolate ones seemed to lose their cheese into the dough, perhaps because there was not enough of a moist part to it? I don't know... what I do know is that I will be experimenting every time i can get my hands on some brie and dough... LOL

Pie...

As one of our favorite bloggers has posted today... over on Cakespy....

PIE!!!

Here is my list of what I've tried or haven't tried.... Italics indicate tried pies... hmm... that almost rhymes... LOL

Acorn Pie
Avocado Pie
Bean Pie
Butter Tart Pie
Cactus Pie
Chess Pie
Derby Pie
Funny Cake Pie
Grapefruit Pie
Grasshopper Pie
Green Tomato Pie (Sweet)
Gooseberry Pie
Grape Pie
Hoosier Pie
Marionberry Pie
Millionaire Pie
Mincemeat Pie
Mock Apple Pie
Nesselrode Pie
Osgood Pie
Ozark Pie
Ricotta Pie
Sawdust Pie
Shoofly Pie
Sweet Pickle Pie
Treacle Cornflake Pie
Vinegar Pie
Watergate Pie
Whortleberry Pie
Zwieback Pie

Looks like I've got some catching up to do... ;o)

Elvis French Toast

I have no idea if anyone else has ever made this recipe...but I like to look at it as my own creation. I'm writing a story and decided to make a character be pregnant with crazy cravings. And ... she was craving bacon. With anything. I'd seen some other posts on tastespotting about elvis sandwiches and things like that so here is my Elvis French Toast recipe.


2 slices bread
1/2 banana - sliced
2 TBSP Peanut Butter
3 slices bacon - cooked as crispy as you want it
Honey
1 egg
2 TBSP Milk


Spread approximately 1 TBSP peanut butter on each slice of bread.

Press banana slices into 1 side and drizzle with Honey. Lay the bacon on the opposite piece of bread. Press together.

Beat the egg with milk in shallow dish and dip the 'sandwich' in it, getting egg on both sides before putting it on a skillet- heated with butter.

Fry like French toast. Butter the top after you've flipped it. Repeat as needed.



I did choose to drizzle it with a little bit of sugar free maple syrup. (The honey I used was imitation so was also very low carb...)

It was so good. Try it... you just might like it.

It's that time again...

Top Chef season 5 is done and in the books...

I'm not sure how I really feel about the choice that they made. I really wasn't at all that impressed with Hosea's cooking.

yes it was far better than mine probably would be in a competition of this nature but at the same time I wouldn't be all that intrigued to visit his restaurant.

I think that it was rather lame that the sous chefs were basically the runners up in the last three seasons - sorta... Casey and Richard finished 3rd in their respective seasons actually... although I don't think that anyone would dispute that Richard was by far the more talented chef over Lisa last season... he just couldn't muster up the final charge with everything else on his mind at that point.

I choose to call it the car curse. Because Carla also was swept away with that same issue.

Would it have been different if they had done the right thing and named Jeff the winner of the previous challenge, awarding him the car and then getting rid of both Stephan and Fabio before the end? Quite possibly yes. Because maybe Casey isn't with Carla... or maybe someone else picks the piece of Kings Cake that Hosea got....

After all, it was a distinct possibility. They all agreed that the three strongest dishes were Carla, Jeff and Hosea... but couldn't quite bring themselves to award Jeff the first place finish necessary in order to keep all three of them.

Previous seasons... when it has been a more Celebrity chef that was the sous chef, they did not do anything more than what was asked. If a flavor profile or a possible dish pairing was run by them, their job was to weigh in their possible opinion but it was not for them to make other suggestions. The few seasons that the sous chefs were not celebrities... well, lets just say that the sous chefs didn't do anything to reign in a potential disaster by being a voice of reason. Stephan and Dave for Tiffany in season one?

And at the same time... like last season, it would have been far better for Carla to be without sous chef on the final day. She would have stuck with her plan... and made what she knew had gotten her to the final. And Casey would have been impressed...

Anyway... that's my opinion.


They did a chef search in Seattle for the next season. I think they should film a season here or hold a finale here. I'd love to be able to go to an event for them. There are so many different things about this region that are appealing - fresh seafood... birthplace of starbucks... one of the oldest farmers markets... Yes we do have Whole Foods but how impressive would it be if they were all allowed their 1/2 hour of shopping through Pike place market? Especially for Restaurant wars... LOL Flowers and silk tie dyed scarves for table clothes... artwork for the walls. WOW!

For the Love of Chocolate....

It's that time again.... Daring Bakers!!!

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

In trying to stay true to my Low Carb dieting... Trust me... I over did it plenty when making my valentines day treats. There's something addictive about those ickle little cupcakikins... ;o)

So for my challenge, I was pleased to find that this recipe was easily adaptable into something that would fit within my plan... here is my adapted recipe - my changes are off to the side....

Chocolate Valentino

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

16 ounces of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped ( 16 oz Hershey's sugar free chocolate chips)

½ cup Plus 2 TBSP of unsalted butter

5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.

2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.

4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).

5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}

8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F

9. Bake for 25 minutes until the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.

10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

The second part of this challenge was to make ice cream. I was excited to attempt this as I do not have an ice cream maker. So above, is the cream mixture before going into the freezer and below is a picture I took of it mid freezing. I'm not sure if it took so long to freeze because I used Agave Nectar as my sweetner or if it was my idiotic freezer, but it certainly took a few hours... I'd do it again though and stop before total frozen... milkshake texture would have been nice. How awesome would that be to make homemade milkshakes and never have to turn on the blender?

Again... the recipe, my changes are off to the side....


Wendy's Ice Cream Recipe
Vanilla Philadelphia Style

Recipe Preparation Time: 5 minutes

2 cups of half and half

1 cup heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar (1/3 cup Agave Nectar - mine was vanilla flavored)

Dash of salt

1 tablespoon of vanilla

Mix all ingredients together (we do this in a plastic pitcher and mix with an emulsifier hand blender-whisking works too).Refrigerate for 30 minutes or longer Mix in your ice cream maker as directed.

Without ice cream maker, put your bowl in freezer and stir it every 45 minutes until ice cream has been formed.



And then the cake was done....

For serving, I decided to serve it with Raspberry sauce... the chocolate even though sugar free was bound to be a bit much for me.

All I did was take a few frozen cubes of raspberry puree... crushed and frozen last summer at the height of their season... yummo! And drizzled them with a little agave nectar for sweetness and let them thaw out completely. This plating was the one I did when I was too anxious to wait any longer.

One of my friends sent me the placemat for a Valentine's present... Thanks Sweetie!!! I love them.

The cake is ready for it's close up... See - the ice cream wasn't quite frozen enough to not be a pool of cream... still very yummy though.

Then, I did a plating the following day... when the ice cream was able to hold the shape of the scoop...

It was fun... I've had my eye on a flourless cake for a while. Can't wait til next month!! ooh, which is tomorrow already. LOL

Valentines Day Treats

Ah yes... February is such a short short month!!! It made me realize I hadn't shared my desserts that I took to work yet. By popular request, I had to make these sweet little cupcake bites ~ Bakerella ROCKS! ~ I have become like the most popular person at work when it comes to party day because I make these little guys. (Of course it helps that I found the sweetest little teeny tiny heart sprinkles. They were perfect on the little guys...)

I used Chocolate cake with deep fudge icing and Cherry Chip Cake with Cream Cheese Icing. The chocolate ones... well, some of them were in a 'peanut butter' candy melt cup and topped with 1/2 of a cherry jelly belly. I also used cotton candy and bubble gum jelly bellies for a fun themed color scheme. The cherry chip ones were mostly topped in white and in red or purple cups.

Here's the assembled tray. I realized afterwards that the only ones that were dipped in a colored top were the chocolate ones. But that's okay because the few that were white topped were showing the flavor underneath.

And then for comparison, I made 6 cupcakes of each flavor and decorated them in a similar styling to the mini ones. With bigger heart sprinkles and a whole jelly bean on top. These were frosted with a Whipped Cream Icing - it's pretty good... Betty Crocker does lovely things with frosting. LOL

I had to show off my cupcake stand... one of the girls at work got it for me at Christmas in our secret santa gift exchange and this was the first chance I had to use it. I somehow missed taking pictures of them but I also did up a couple boxes of pillsbury valentines cookies and rolled the edges of about a dozen in the mini heart sprinkles before baking and then frosted the rest with the left over frosting and decorated with cinnamon hearts and sprinkles...

my most favorite salad ever...

Okay... so maybe not my favorite salad ever...

Just at least my favorite since I started trying to be low carb.

Isn't it gorgeous?

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So... it's a steak salad...




Start in your pan with some diced celery and sliced onion... browning to caramelize them, add a little butter towards the end before you put in enough sliced steak for your serving...
Brown to your preferred doneness level...

this is about 2 cups of shredded lettuce... I love using the Fresh Express Shredds... it makes salad making go much quicker.

Put the celery, onions and steak on the lettuce.

Sprinkle with bleu cheese crumbles

And the final topping... which doubles as your dressing is the horseradish sauce.

Horseradish sauce:

1/4 C Sour Cream

2-3 tsp Horseradish - to taste

Black Pepper

Lemon or Lime Juice

Stir Horseradish and pepper into sour cream and add the juice of your choice until it thins out to your desired texture. It keeps in the fridge fairly well and is easily thinned again if it thickens.