Ginger Cream Tart

This was the first time I ever made a tart, including the crust from scratch, and although it was a bit time consuming it was completely worth it. It's not the healthiest of desserts but I figure I can treat myself once in a while to something as decadent as this tart. The filling almost tastes like cheesecake but isn't as dense and has a slight hint of ginger. The ginger cream filling sits on top of a crust that tastes like a crumbly shortbread cookie, made using flour, sugar, and butter. Then to top it off, fresh raspberries and itty bitty champagne grapes are placed on top, but blueberries or strawberries would work just as well. The recipe for the ginger cream filling is from epicurious.com but I opted to use a different one for the crust.

I thought it'd be helpful to post some tips for making the crust because it would have been useful knowing what to be cautious of when I had prepared the crust myself.

1. Be sure to wait for the crust to cool completely before attempting to remove the bottom piece of the pan. I tried doing this when the crust was still warm and made huge cracks in it.

2. The tart crust is crumbly, as I had mentioned earlier, so be extra gentle when handling it. I learned the hard way and broke a crust right in half (the cracks in it didn't help).

3. Also, I lined the removable bottom of the tart pan with wax paper (parchment paper works too). It's difficult to remove the bottom piece without the wax paper so I recommend taking this additional step if you're planning on bringing the tart to a get together with friends or something of that sort.

Tart Crust

1 ½ sticks of butter, at room temperature

½ cup sugar

1 ½ cups flour

special equipment: a 10 by 1 inch round tart pan with a removable bottom

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

2. In a bowl cream the butter and sugar together using a fork.

3. In increments of ½ cups, add in the flour and mix. Use your hands if necessary.

4. Transfer dough to a lightly greased tart pan with a removable bottom (lined with wax paper) and distribute evenly.

5. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until a very light golden color.

Ginger Cream Filling

1 ½ teaspoons unflavored gelatin

2 tablespoons milk

½ cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

¼ cup sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

2 cups heavy cream

¾ cup sour cream

1. Sprinkle gelatin over milk in a small bowl and let it sit for 1 minute.

2. Mix the milk, ginger, sugar, salt, and 1 cup of the cream into a saucepan over medium heat. When the sugar melts remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

3. Whisk the sour cream until there are no lumps.

4. Beat the remaining 1 cup of heavy cream until soft peaks form, then fold in the sour cream.

5. Fold in the ginger milk mixture to the whipped cream and combine well.

6. Pour mixture into the crust. Place berries/fruit on top and chill for 8 hours.

Penne with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto

This Penne with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto is one of my favorite pasta dishes and takes minimal time to prepare it which makes it even better.  Goat cheese that will just melt in your mouth is sprinkled over the pasta coated in the sun-dried tomato pesto.  It’s a savory combination of a few ingredients as the creaminess of the cheese complements the acidity and slight sweetness of the sun-dried tomatoes.  You can add chicken breast meat into the dish as I have before but is not necessary by any means and is perfectly fine without any.  Also if you don’t like the strong flavor of garlic, stick to just one clove when preparing the pesto. 

Serves about 4

1 lb. package of penne, cooked

1 8 ounce jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil

A handful of walnuts, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

Olive oil

Crumbled goat cheese

1. In a food processor or blender, add the sun-dried tomatoes including its oil, walnuts, and garlic.

2. Pour in some olive oil and blend.  Add more if the mixture is too dry.

3. In a large bowl mix the pesto with the cooked pasta using a wooden spoon.

4. Sprinkle goat cheese over pasta before serving.

Open Faced Bagel Sandwich

This is a recipe for a simple breakfast sandwich made with scrambled eggs and a bagel.  I put it together on a whim one morning using what I had left over in my fridge, and it really is that easy to assemble as long as you have eggs and some kind of bread.  The mushrooms can be substituted with red bell peppers, or a meat element like bacon or breakfast sausages can easily be added for a delicious breakfast.  The recipe below serves two but if you’re really hungry, you know what to do.

Open Faced Bagel Sandwich

1 bagel, cut in half and toasted

3 eggs

1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt

1 cup of mushrooms, chopped

¼ an onion, chopped

Spring baby greens

Parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

1. In a pan over medium heat, pour a tablespoon of olive oil.  Add mushrooms to the pan. 

2. When mushrooms start releasing liquid add onions.  Season using salt and pepper.

3. Meanwhile whisk eggs and yogurt in a separate bowl.

4. Once the mushrooms and onions start browning pour in the egg mixture.

5. Cook the eggs and scramble, until light and fluffy.

6. Divide the scrambled eggs on top of each bagel half and finish by sprinkling some parmesan cheese.

Tomato Garlic Linguine with a Poached Egg

So I woke up this morning not feeling a hundred percent from the festivities last night at a friend’s house warming party, and for some reason I was badly craving something with a poached egg, or even two.  Now if you know me, you know that I absolutely adore eating eggs! I like them fried, scrambled, hard-boiled, medium-boiled, poached, and well, I guess pretty much every way except raw.  I believe eggs shouldn’t be reserved only for breakfast which leads to today’s post. 

I was inspired by a recipe I drooled over the other day for a pesto pasta with a poached egg on top and threw together what I call Tomato Garlic Linguine with a Poached Egg (my apologies for the long name, but it’s worth it!).  The creaminess of the runny yolk over the garlicky noodles tossed with wilted grape tomatoes and olive oil seriously hit the spot and cured my “sickness”.  This was also the first time I ever tried poaching eggs myself and I am happy to say that it was fairly simple to do, so you can probably expect more egg poaching featured on my blog in the days to come!

Tomato Garlic Linguine with a Poached Egg (serves 2-3)

1 pound linguine

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved

2 to 3 cloves of garlic, minced

Eggs

1 to 2 tablespoons vinegar

Olive oil

Red pepper flakes

Dried oregano

Salt and pepper

Pecorino Romano or Parmesan

1. Over medium heat, pour about 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a pan.  Cook the halved tomatoes until slightly wrinkly.

2. Add in the garlic and desired amounts of red pepper flakes and dried oregano.  Season with salt and pepper. 

3. When the pasta is done cooking, transfer from water to the pan.  Mix well with the tomatoes and garlic.

4. Add additional olive oil if the pasta looks dry.  Lower the heat while poaching the eggs.

5. Boil water to a boil, then down to a simmer in a medium pot over medium heat.  Add in vinegar.

6. Crack one egg into a small bowl and gently drop into the water.  Use a slotted wooden spoon to push the whites together to maintain the shape.

7. For runny eggs, remove after about 2 ½ minutes.  Place each egg on a paper towel to remove excess water.

8. Plate the pasta and top each bowl with a poached egg.

9.  Sprinkle some grated cheese over the dish.  

Ricotta Cheese

I never knew how simple making ricotta cheese at home until I stumbled upon this recipe from 101 Cookbooks.  Ricotta cheese is so delicious when fresh and really makes a difference in the taste of homemade lasagna.  Also, mixing some into scrambled eggs gives a nice creamy texture.  Heidi from 101 Cookbooks probably does a better job explaining how to make it but here’s my interpretation of her recipe.  It’s seriously easy to make and definitely worth trying!

Ricotta cheese

1 gallon of whole milk

1 quart of buttermilk

(makes 4 cups)

1. In a medium sized pot over medium heat, pour in the whole milk and buttermilk.

2. As the milk mixture heats up, use a spatula to stir it around to avoid it from scorching.

3. While the milk is heating, fold the cheesecloth a few times until there are six layers.  Line a colander using the cheesecloth and have it ready in the sink.

4. The milk will start to thicken once it gets hot.  Use the spatula to scrape the bottom of the pot occasionally for any stuck curds.

5. The curds and whey will separate after about 15 minutes.  Once you see the curds clumped together in a large white mass remove the pot from the heat. 
6. Using a ladle transfer the curds from the pot to the colander into the cheesecloth. 

7. Gather the corners of the cheesecloth and tie them up.  The cheese needs to drain for about 15 minutes (A good place to tie the cheesecloth to drain is the kitchen faucet).

8. Once it’s done draining, use right away or transfer to an airtight container.

Chicken Pesto Sandwich

My sister Susie and I have been trying out new recipes this summer since we both seem to have a lot of spare time.  We had some spinach walnut pesto left from our pasta lunch last week so we wanted to use the leftovers for this week’s lunch (I’ve added my recipe for the pesto below).  So after doing some thinking last night we decided to put together some chicken pesto sandwiches.  I’ve had a good chicken pesto sandwich from the Zanzibar Café located at my school, which is really good,  so I tried to recreate the similar flavors for today’s lunch.  Assembling the sandwiches was a cinch since the pesto was already made and the fresh ciabatta bread from Bread and Cie the Wuz (aka Susie) and I picked up made a huuuge difference in the overall taste.  If you can get your hands on freshly baked bread for this sandwich (or any sandwich for that matter), do it!

Spinach walnut pesto

2 cups of chopped spinach

A handful of walnuts, chopped

2 cloves of garlic

½ cup of parmesan cheese

olive oil (I just eyeball it as I go)

salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a food processor (or a blender) throw in all of the ingredients. 

2. Pour in some of the olive oil and blend it up.  If the mixture seems too dry add more olive oil and blend.  Remember that you can always add more oil rather than take it away so don’t get too oil happy if you’re not sure how much to use. 

3. Blend the ingredients up until you end up with a thick, bright green goopy goodness. 

Chicken pesto sandwich (serves 2)

2 ciabatta rolls, sliced in half (or any bread of your choice)

2 chicken breasts

2 slices of mozzarella cheese (I actually cut up string cheese because I didn’t have slices)

½ avocado, sliced

Approximately 4 tablespoons of pesto (or however much you want!)

1 tomato, sliced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

olive oil

salt and pepper

1. Start by pouring about 3 to 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan with the heat at medium.  When the oil heats up, place the garlic in the pan and remove once they start browning.

2. You can cut the chicken into strips before cooking or cut after, like I did.  Season the chicken breasts using salt and pepper before placing them in the pan to cook. 

3. When one side of the chicken turns golden brown, flip, and let the other side cook.  Covering the pan using a lid helps the chicken cook faster. 

4. While the chicken is finishing up on the stove, set your oven to broil and toast up the slices of bread with mozzarella on top until the cheese melts.  And for all you garlic lovers, I minced the garlic used for infusing the oil and sprinkled it on top of the cheese.

5. When the bread is done toasting and chicken is no longer pink, begin assembling the sandwiches.  Spread pesto on the slice without the cheese.  Finish by placing some pieces of chicken on each of the bottom slices, then tomatoes, and avocado.      

Quinoa Salad with Spinach, Cucumbers, and Roasted Grape Tomatoes

Today I decided to make some kind of Greek inspired salad using the red quinoa I recently bought from Trader Joe's and so I came up with this: quinoa salad with spinach, cucumbers, roasted grape tomatoes, and feta.  Regular quinoa or even couscous could easily be put in place of the red quinoa (this particular kind was just what I had on hand).  Also, the water can be replaced with vegetable or chicken broth for added flavor.  This simple salad can stand alone as a light meal, or serve it as a side with some grilled chicken marinated in Greek yogurt, lemon juice, and olive oil.  The Wuz and I made some of that chicken to go with the quinoa salad but sadly wasn’t photograph material, although it tasted pretty good.  I’m trying my best to practice taking photographs of food that look appetizing so we’ll see how it goes, but I can’t promise anything extraordinary will come of this!

Just as a side note, prepare the grape tomatoes first and pop them in the oven since it takes about 30 minutes to roast. 

Roasted grape tomatoes

About 1 pint of grape tomatoes

Olive oil

Natural cane sugar (to bring out the natural sweetness of the tomatoes)

Salt and pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

2. Cut the tomatoes in half (the long way) and lay them facing up on a baking sheet.

3. Drizzle some olive oil over the tomatoes, then sprinkle with sugar, salt, and pepper.

4. Roast them in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until shrunken and shriveled.

Quinoa salad with spinach, cucumbers, and roasted grape tomatoes

1 cup of uncooked red quinoa

½ an onion, diced

2 cups of water

A handful of fresh spinach, chopped

1 small cucumber, diced

Feta cheese

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

1. Turn on the stove to medium and using a medium sized pot, pour a tablespoon or two of olive oil when pot is heated.

2. Cook the onions until translucent and tender.  Season with salt and pepper.

3. Pour in the uncooked quinoa along with the water.  Stir, and cover.

4. The quinoa should be done after about 15 minutes, or until you can see the little white curlicues in the middle.  Remove from heat.

5. Mix in the chopped spinach and it should wilt from the heat.  Add the tomatoes.

6. Wait for the quinoa mixture to cool before adding in the cucumbers (unless you don’t mind eating warm cucumbers).

7. Mix in some feta, or sprinkle it on top before serving.