Spinach Artichoke Dip with Gorgonzola Cheese

So I must admit, for this f’in awesome hot dip, I got it from the dreaded annoying Rachael Ray. I just can’t stand her raspy voice and the unnecessary abbreviation of EVOO.  How about you just call it olive oil or put a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen, maybe a large label that says Extra Virgin Olive Oil so you don’t have to say it EVERY episode? Just please stop.  Buuuttt, I do like her recipe for spinach artichoke dip with gorgonzola cheese so I made it, and make it often to the point where I don’t need to read the recipe. One time I made it was on my ski trip back in Albany where my old roommates Ant and Kat were on a very strict diet for their CrossFit classes. Let's just say they broke their diet their with this snack as the two of them hovered over the dish feasting on the dip and chips. That’s how good it is. Best served with pita chips but for the poor folk, tortilla chips work fine too.

2 (10oz) boxes chopped frozen spinach OR  one 20oz bag of steam in bag spinach

1 14oz  can of artichoke hearts

3 tablespoons butter

4 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons flour

1 cup of chicken broth (just buy a can)

1 cup milk

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 small container of Gorgonzola crumbles

8oz container shredded  Parmesan-Romano (check near the cheese section)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Defrost spinach 10 minutes on defrost setting in microwave then drain well by wringing out in dish towel. Defrost artichokes as well, 6 minutes on defrost in microwave then wring out and finely chop. Heat a sauce pot with butter over medium to medium-high heat. Add garlic to melted butter and stir 1 to 2 minutes, then sprinkle in flour and combine 1 minute more. Whisk in stock and milk and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Thicken 2 minutes then remove from heat and melt in Gorgonzola. Stir in spinach and artichokes and half the shredded cheese then transfer to a small casserole and top with remaining cheese. Brown and bubble in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Serve with bread sticks, celery hearts and pita crisps for dipping.

Parmesan Pork with Tomatoes and Brown Rice

The East Nashville (aka East Nasty) Tomato Art Fest was this past weekend. Another excuse for me to be eating and drinking at 10am! They have a bunch of contests for tomato apparel and even a red head contest. I picked up a couple of awesome heirloom tomatoes. I mentioned the Ugandan Vanilla ice cream I had, but I saved the other flavor for here: Purple Cherokee Tomato ice cream from Jeni's Ice Cream. Jeni's is a franchise from Columbus OH which just made a shop here in East Nasty. Very cool flavors, I've tried in the past Backyard Mint, Buttermilk Peach, annnnnd Sweet Corn and Black Raspberry! Check out their site: http://www.jenisicecreams.com/.

Anyways, I had these tomatoes I had to use and also had a couple of butterflied pork chops from Publix. This is probably one of the easiest meals ever, and I wish I thought about it in college. The key was finding this flavor packet at Walmart, Kraft Parmesan Seasoning (see pic).

2 boneless butterflied pork chops
1 fist sized heirloom tomato (choose your own color)
1 Kraft parmesan seasoning packet
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 microwave bag of steam-in-bag brown rice
Parmesan cheese for topping

1. In a large skillet, heat oil on medium high heat.
2. Cut the pork chops along the butterfly to make 4 thin chops. Slice the chop widthwise to make short strips of pork. Place pork in a ziploc bag with parmesan ans shake until pork is coated.
3. Place pork in skillet to sear and brown, draining grease when needed.
4. Microwave the rice for a about 2.5 minutes and place in large sealable container (gladware). Slice tomato in small chunks and squeeze tomato chunks over the rice and drop in. Place cooked pork into container and seal. Shake container to mix around tomatoes, rice and pork. Serve and top with parmesan cheese.

Vanilla Lemon Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream

Strolling through the aisles of the Farmer's Market, cartons of fresh blackberries stood out on the tables. Only $5 for probably a half pound of them too! I had saw frosting recipe online for mashing blackberries and extracting the juice to mix into it. So, going along with this "handcakes" thing, (I will now be changing the term cupcake to handcake to make it sound more masculine, and there are because there are so many cupcake stores around her, so when I open up my own place people will come and see what handcakes are) I had some lemons left over from a a weekend of vodka and tonics. I was thinking about using the vanilla beans I got from Home Goods but I was those to be the main flavor of the recipe so I skipped it on this round. Speaking of vanilla, I went to the Tomato Art Fest (see post later of tomato/pork dish) this past weekend and tried Ugandan Vanilla Ice Cream from Jeni's Ice Cream, it had a deeper and more earthy flavor and was really good.


Lemon Cupcakes:
3 cups flour                                                                                      1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt                                                                                      1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar                                                                                    4 large eggs
grated zest of 2 lemons (about 2 Tbsp.)                                2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract                                                                          1 cup milk, I used soy

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. 2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in zest and vanilla. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk and lemon juice, and beating until just combined after each.3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown or toothpick comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes.

Blackberry buttercream frosting:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup blackberry puree (I used a blender and then strained it)
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract                                                                            1/2 Tbsp. lemon zest
pinch of salt                                                                                            5-6 cups confectioner’s sugar

1. With a mixer, cream the butter on medium speed until smooth. Add blackberry puree, vanilla, lemon zest and salt, and mix on medium-low until well-combined. Gradually add in the powdered sugar, beating on low speed until combined. Then beat for 3-5 minutes on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.

Honey Sesame Ginger Soba Noodle Salad

Asian Sensation, not just a nickname of my Korean roommate in college, but also a good word to describe this easy cold salad dish. Soba noodle is an "O'tay" buckwheat noodle that cooks very fast, make sure not to over cook it. I'm hoping you got the O'tay as Buckwheat from the Little Rascals and not think its some part of China. The noodle definitely has a different/denser taste and therefore more filling I think. The flavors of the soy and honey and ginger go great with it. 

I originally had something like this at DeJohn's in Albany (try their martinis!) one summer outside on their patio. I was low on cash like more of my college life, and this was only like 8 bucks. I read the description and it sounded good, and out came a huge bowl of brownish cold noodles with fresh vegetables mixed throughout. Moving on, I was at Whole Foods for some strange reason and saw soba noodles on the shelf when I remembered the dish at DeJohn's. I bought the rest of the stuff to make it and checked DeJohn's menu to see what it was about again and tried to do a little spin-off of my own. It is a great salad and I brought the rest to work with me since it made so much, almost a whole pot, and the coworkers liked it also.

3 bundles of soba noodles (usually come in bundles of 3)
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
2 Tbsp soy
3 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp chili flakes (optional)
1 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
4 scallions or small red onion, sliced finely
1 small carton of grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1/2 cup carrot, shredded
1 large cucumber, cubed

1. Bring a medium pot of water to boil. Add noodles and simmer for five minutes or until tender. Drain and rinse in cold water.
2. In a bowl, add the remaining ingredients, except for the sesame seeds and scallions. Mix to combine and pour over the noodles. Mix, taste, and adjust to your taste. Sprinkle over most of the sesame seeds and scallions, reserving a little for a garnish, if you like. Mix, garnish, and serve.

Tres Leche Cake (3 Milk Cake for non-believers)

Another dinner, another dessert. This was baked for the mexican dinner. I saw this cake originally in Whole Foods, they sell it by the square in the fancy dessert fridge section. I was intrigued by the half mexican name to this piece of cake sitting in a little puddle of milky substance in a small container. The ones at Whole Foods were just topped with whipped cream and cinnamon or nutmeg. I had bought a carton of strawberries at Publix and needed to use them so I figured I'd slice them up, I got creative with it and placed them in different directions and then another layer on top of that. I sprinkled a little powdered sugar over the final product to get the strawberry syrup . Overall, this dessert kicked ass and was liked by everyone. The creaminess (is that a word?) and the fluffy of the whipped cream with layers of strawberries -- f-ing awesome!!  It is a little different at first when you think about eating a cold soggy cake, but relax and eat it!

for the cake:

1-3/4 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 c sugar

5 large eggs

1-1/2 tsp vanilla

for the glaze:

1 12-oz can evaporated milk

1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

1 c half -and-half

for the topping:

2 c heavy cream

1/4 c powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

strawberries

Preheat the oven to 350°. Lightly grease and flour a 13x9 pan and set aside.Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium mixing bowl and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, if necessary. Add the vanilla and eggs, one at a time, and mix to thoroughly combine. Add the flour mixture to the batter in three batches and mix until just combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cake is lightly golden. Allow the cake to cool and then poke the top of the cake all over with a fork. Whisk together the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and the half-and-half in a medium bowl. Once combined, pour the glaze over the cake. It will seem like a lot of glaze! The cake will not completely soak up the glaze until it has sat overnight. Place the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla into the bowl of a mixer. Beat/whisk together until stiff peaks are formed. Increase mixer to medium speed and whisk until thick. Spread the topping onto the cake. Slice strawberries and layer them across the whipped cream. Allow it to chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

Tex-Mex Baguette

For a "family dinner" this past Sunday, we had a Mexican themed dinner. Jen made carne asade pork tacos, lime quinoa and black bean salad, and a roasted corn and black bean salad. I made these (as I am dubbing them) Tex-Mex Baguettes and a Tres Leches Cake (recipe for the cake to follow). The baguette was very easy to make and took little time.

Either a soft baguette or I used a long thin loaf of French Bread (thanks Publix)
Pico de gallo (either store bought or I made my own, cut up 3 tomatoes, half and onion, cilantro, garlic powder, S&P)
Queso dip
Guacamole ( I used store bought since I hate cutting/scraping avocados)
can of re-fried beans

Preheat oven to 325F. Slice bread diagonally just less than an inch thick. Place bread slices on baking sheet and drizzle a little olive oil across the bread and place in open for about 5-7min or until just toasted. Next, spread the re-fried beans down on the bread (acts as a glue) and then put the Pico on that. Next (if you buy the Wholly Guacamole it comes in a small bag, cut the corner off) and squirt some guacamole across that and finally top it off with a dollop of queso. Put in over for 5-7 minutes until queso is melted nicely. Serve.

Sa-vee-chay? Ceviche!

If you watch Top Chef, or Hell's Kitchen, you often hear the term ceviche ... WTF?! Even this blog doesn't know what that word is and tries to correct it to crevices or cervical ... ???? Again I had a 'family dinner' to go to and always like to try new things so I found a recipe for an easy shrimp ceviche. Ceviche is a technique of 'cooking' a raw food in a citrus base for several hours, cooking is in quotes because you heat the raw food, it's cold. Some people may be turned off from the raw/cooked shrimp and not try but they truly are missing out on this great appetizer served with tortilla chips. Next time I think I'm going to add some jalapenos for a little heat.

1 pound of raw shrimp (medium size)
1 red onion, chopped
2 avocado, cubed
4 lemons
4 limes
3 tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper

Chunk the shrimp into small pieces (about 3-4 chunks per shrimp) and place in large bowl. Juice the lemons and limes over the shrimp (try to make sure most of the shrimp are covered by the juice) and place bowl in fridge for 4 hours stirring the shrimp every hour or so. Add the onion, avocados, tomatoes, cilantro and s&p and stir all to mix up. Place in fridge for another half hour or so to let flavors mix. Place in serving dish and serve with tortilla chips.