Inspired by a sale at Target on organic heavy whipping cream, I decided to make some cream puffs this weekend. Um, yes, it was totally successful unlike my last cream puff blog.
Yum, yum, yum. Touch of Frangelico. The rest? Oky doke. Here’s a quick rundown of how the recipe went…
Flour, butter, water, sugar, salt, eggs - choux pastry.
Sift the flour (about 1 cup), sugar (about a teaspoon?), salt (just a pinch) into a mixing bowl. Heat the stick of butter with about a cup of water in a heavy saucepan until it boils. Remove from heat, add the dry ingredients and mix. Put it back onto the heat and mix until it started forming a ball. At this stage, remove from heat and place into a big mixing bowl (or your Kitchenaid mixer bowl). Beat it up to release the steam then add four eggs one at a time as you whip it into a thick pancake-like mixture. Spoonfuls into the oven at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes then lower to 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes depending on how soft you like them. Brush on an eggwash before the oven for that shiny glossy look.
Heaving whipping cream, sugar, vanilla - whipped cream.
Whip it all together until soft peaks. I like more than just a little vanilla and not as much sugar in this. Put in fridge until ready.
Eggs, sugar, Frangelico, milk, flour and/or cornstarch - custard.
Egg and one egg yolk mixed into the sugar. Heat the milk with a touch of flour (and/or cornstarch) until it’s warmed over - feel free to add other flavors (cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, etc.) that work in here. When the milk is just nearing that boil, grab your whisk and slowly pour it into the egg mixture while you whisk a fine frenzy. This is so it doesn’t turn into scrambled eggs. Put it back into the heavy saucepan onto the heat and mad whisk until you can’t taste a starchy texture anymore. Add the Frangelico towards the end - whisk a bit more. Put it in the fridge until it’s cool.
When you’re ready, add the custard into the whipped cream. Whisk it until it blends together as one. Mix to taste. Cut the cream puff in half when it’s cooled and lather it up with the mixture. Or be fancy and pipe it in. Be even more fancy and dust with powdered sugar. There you go!
A couple of weeks ago, I traded Matt food for knowledge. After a cram session at Salt Lake Roasting Company, we walked over to Everest Tibetan Restaurant for a late dinner. It was good. Don’t get me wrong. But the cheap frugal person that I am, I balked at the $10.99 price for seven pan-fried momos. Momos = just like Chinese bao or a variation of the Japanese nikuman.
And plus, c’mon! Chinese food should not be that expensive (and hey, you can get delicious nikuman at a Japanese 7-Eleven for ~100 yen).
So, just the tiniest bit enraged (and very, very full from the still delicious dinner), I decided to make my own bao-tzi/bao-zi over the weekend.
This year, for Christmas, I had this crazy notion in October (yep, definitely October as I sat on the van floor while we drove South drinking tea in the middle of the night looking for a spot to camp - Dirty Devil adventure) to create special blends of tea for office giving and then some others. But as my mind likes to do, my thoughts rambled on… What if they don’t take caffeine? What if they only like herbal? What if they don’t drink tea at all?
HOT CHOCOLATE! Why not do a custom blended tea in addition to hot chocolate? Well, boy did I ever think I was a creative genius when I thought of hot chocolate on a stick… but no. I googled it and found many, many sites on the topic. Apparently, Oprah named it as one of her favorite things! *If anyone can discover something ingenious, it’s Oprah.
Cinco de Mayo - Booze and chips and desserts. That’s how I like to celebrate. Okay, okay… maybe something more sustainable as well - tacos, taquitos, nachos, anything along that deliciousness. But dessert, that is the most precious…
So, flan and tres leches! Thanks to David Lebovitz, there were recipes in his book, Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, for both desserts that I could utilize.
*Butterscotch Flan (or in the closest online variation I found: Chocolate-Dulce de Leche Flan)
*Victorian Sponge Cake (which I could transform into tres leches)
Occasionally (although it may be weird), I like to go through my favorite food blogs when I eat. I came upon Seasaltwithfood’s blog about spiral potatoes during lunch one day and was inspired for dinner. I had fond memories when I first experienced them in Taipei.
Friday, the (unsaid) sanctioned day for plans… I’m proud to announce, my friend Heather and I had some good ones. Staying green, Heather grabbed me from work for some thrifty home-cooked eatin’. Seeing the blog earlier that day, I suggested we make the potatoes. Brilliant (if I do say so myself).
Last week, we had a Thanksgiving potluck at work. No. No. No. This time, we did not get all buzzed after work and go home then pass out. Honest.
From the hat (or leftover from the pieces of paper I shook about in my hand), I pulled the dessert assignment. Pumpkin pie. Done. Except… Heather doesn’t like pumpkin pie so I needed to be creative.
Surfing recipes, I decide to go with the go-to classic American dessert chef… Paula Deen. I wanted pumpkin pie. And to get it in Heather’s mouth, I disguised it with pumpkin cheesecake. Pumpkin pie atop pumpkin cheesecake! Individual servings — created by the use of a cupcake tin.
Thanksgiving potluck… ahh, the ultimate feast of the office luncheons. While scouring the web for something pumpkin to impress my fellow co-workers, I found David Lebovitz’s gallery of goods: his recipe collection.
Amongst a sea of candies and sweets, I found a recipe for homemade ricotta! *Cheese is dairy crack!! I love it. It’s over here at Simply Recipes. Who knew it’d be so simple?! It took maybe 2 active minutes to cook ‘er up after work today. See it manifest through photos…
$0.78 for a five-pound bag of Idaho Russett potatoes. I’d say that’s cause for making some gnocchi! Well, that and my craving after seeing a photo of them in a food magazine…
After work on Thursday, I swung by the market and grabbed a bag of potatoes. I decided to make them over the weekend. The overall process takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. Here’s how it went…
Steamed pork buns! Well… sort of… steamed pork buns filled with barbacoa rather than the traditional char siu pork filling. You know, to utilize all the barbacoa I made from before.
Like with most recipes I use, I scoured the web for several recipes. Then, combining the similarities and modifying with quirks that I find appealing — I come up with a variation. Of course, I never tend to write them down and always just dash ingredients in on the fly.
With much sweet pork comes the question, what do I do with it all?
Well, one night I made a baked polenta, sandwiched in some sweet pork and topped it off with a creamy corn sauce.
So here it is really quickly, broken down:
Creamy Corn Sauce
*bechamel sauce
*corn
*garlic salt
*pepper
Make the bechamel sauce by warming some milk (stick a bay leaf in it for flavor, if you’d like). While the milk is warming, melt butter over a skillet and stir in some flour when melted — uhm… make a roux. For newbies, this mixture forms sort of a paste-like consistency. When the milk is warm (do not boil it), slowly whisk it into the butter-flour paste (or roux). And there you have, the bechamel cream sauce. Finish the corn sauce by adding the other ingredients and heating it for a bit…
Polenta Cakes
*milk
*polenta (or corn grits, as it’s sometimes labeled)
*corn
*tomatoes with chiles (leftover from the sweet pork)
*parmesan
Warm the milk in a heavy sauce pan. When the milk is heated (not boiling), slowly stir in the polenta. Constantly stir this mixture to even it out, as it will thicken quickly. Add corn and tomatoes into the mixture while stirring. When the mixture has stiffened up, sprinkle in the parmesan and give it a last couple of stirs before pouring it into a loaf pan — spray the pan with Pam beforehand to keep the polenta from sticking in the end. Bake the polenta until it’s given a chance to heat thoroughly for about 10 minutes or so, and let it cool. Pop it out of the loaf pan and slice it as you would banana bread.
Assembly
Take a slice of the polenta, top with sweet pork and repeat to desired portion size. Pour creamy corn sauce over the top (add some of that sweet pork glaze, if you’d like) and enjoy! Oh, I also added some potatoes — just cause I had them lying around… That’s what the white circles are in the photo above…
I know, I know… the above instructions are very rough… If you need more specific instructions, just give me a holler. More sweet pork usage to come — stay tuned!
