Pistachio Pesto

Howdy people. I've been cooking a bit in my spare time and played with a recipe for pistachio pesto I found. I took the recipe and tweaked it to my own taste, for example, I added double the cilantro, I roasted an entire head of garlic and added it, I did an extra half cup of pistachios, and I added a bunch of fresh lemon juice, and double the olive oil to compensate for the extra ingredients. I loved it and the fam did to! the nice thing about this kind of stuff is you can make it your own and cater to your tastes. Here's the recipe! 

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups fresh basil
1/2 cup cilantro
1 cup shelled dry roasted pistachio nut
2 -3 cloves garlic
1/4-2/3 cup olive oil or 1/4-2/3 cup pistachio oil
1 teaspoon lemons, zest of or 1 teaspoon lime zest
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese 
Method:-Put all of the ingredients in the food processor or blender and puree until smooth.
REALLY HARD HUH!!

Enjoy! have fun!

Rabbit...Sweetbreads...and calves liver

I'm not gonna post any recipes for this unless anyone wants any in specific. This last week was an interesting one when we started out cooking rabbit. It was really easy to butcher and it looked and tasted just like chicken. Literally. It did have a very slight gamey after taste but over all it was delicious. We served that with a rabbit mustard sauce over fresh pasta. Then we moved on to sweetbreads! which is nothing like it sounds it's the thymus gland in the animal, generally taken from lamb or veal because in older animals they aren't very usable. Here's a picture of them raw.

Looks tasty right? We blanched them real quick to solidify them then peeled off a thin membrane to expose what looked like brains. Then pulled them into small pieces like cauliflower. We tempura battered them and fried them and chowed down...They weren't too bad....it tasted like, and had the consistency of a fried mushroom. Really trippy!  So that was my week, next week we have finals and we get to cook calves liver!! not super excited but i'll cook it and eat it for the experience.

They actually look pretty tasty once they're fried : )

Basic Tart/Quiche Crust

Here is a basic crust that I learned for making quiche and tarts. I tried this with quiche and I think it turned out great! it is super simple and really fast! try it out and let me know how it went. here's a pic of my quiche....Not to bad for my first time : ) but practice makes perfect.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) chilled unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 3 to 4 Tbs. cold water

Method:

In a bowl, stir together the flour and salt. Add the butter and shortening and, using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut them in until the mixture looks like coarse bread crumbs. Sprinkle in the water, 1 Tbs. at a time, stirring gently with a fork after each addition and adding only enough of the water to form a rough dough, when it will squish together without really falling apart it's ready.

Using floured hands, pat the dough into a smooth, flattened disk. Use immediately, or wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 2 days.

Makes enough dough for one 9-inch quiche or tart shell.

Braised Lettuce

This is a recipe that we learned awhile ago, and it's mega bacon amazingness. I'll post the recipe like I learned it but I would like to try to do it with cabbage leafs cause they will hold up better. The lettuce gets fragile after it's blanched. But these are actually delicious when done well. It's all in the seasoning of the stuffing.

Ingredients
8 oz bacon
4-6 pieces of boston lettuce
3 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
3 shallots (finely chopped)
1/4 oz. parsley (finely chopped)
3 oz. butter
1/2 onion diced
1/2 carrot diced
5 oz. bread crumbs
1 egg
1 pt. chicken stock

Method
In a pot of boiling water, quickly dip the lettuce leaves then remove and place in ice water to stop the cooking process, then carefully spread out on a flat surface. For the filling, cook all the bacon until crisp. Take some out and reserve for the braising base. In the same pan, sweat 1/2 of the garlic and 1/2 of the shallots in the bacon fat, then add the bread crumbs. Remove from heat and let cool before adding the egg so it doesn't cook the egg. Place a small amount of filling on top of each leaf of lettuce and roll as tightly as possible. Let stand. In another pan melt some butter and sweat the onion, carrots, reserved bacon, the rest of the garlic and shallots. Form a small mound in the center of the pan and pour the chicken stock around it. place the lettuce wraps on top of the mound and cover. simmer for 5-8 minutes just so the egg in the filling cooks. Remove the lettuce wraps and keep warm. Strain the vegetables and reserve both in a clean pan. Simmer and reduce the stock to form a light sauce. When ready to serve, place a small amount of veggies on a plate with a lettuce wrap on top. Spoon reduced stock over the top and chow down.

Homemade Oreo's (gone wrong)

So...I wanted to make Oreo's today because I had a bunch of frosting leftover from valentines. Everything started out okay but the cookies stayed really fat, so I just frosted them instead : ) that's the gone wrong part hehehe : ) this is pretty much what I've eaten all day....I had milk too...but here's the recipe in case anyone wants to have a fatty day like I did.

1 boxed devils food cake mix.
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil

Mix, form into balls and bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Frost or make into Oreo's
that's it : )

My frosting job is horrible don't judge me!

Hollandaise

I think that one of my favorite things on this earth is a good hollandaise sauce. I first fell in love while eating it on top of eggs benni cooked in the middle of the grand canyon. Two of my favorite things combined, Eating and Rafting!! It was pretty much destiny. However, that hollandaise was made from a packet, which sparked my interest, how DO you make hollandaise from scratch? My answer didn't really come until I started school and one day my chef demo'd white asparagus with hollandaise! At last! So here it is folks and I gotta say it is easy but it takes some practice to get consistently good at it. So practice every once in a while, but not too much because it is about 90% butter : )

Ingredients
3 egg yolks
8 oz. clarified butter(if you don't want to clarify butter, using whole melted butter works fine too)
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2 sprigs of thyme
6 black peppercorns crushed
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white wine (optional)

Method
There's a few different ways to cook the hollandaise. I use a double boiler because I have one at home. At school we use a metal bowl held over a small pot of boiling water. Use your imagination. Some chefs can do it over direct heat but I'm not that skilled or cool enough to do that yet. So I stick to what I know. First, combine water, wine, thyme, and peppercorns in a small pot and simmer until there's only a little liquid left. You're basically wanting to flavor the liquid with the thyme and pepper. Put yolks in a bowl and whisk till airy then add water and lemon juice, and whisk until frothy. Place bowl or pan over boiling water and whisk quickly, remove the pan every so often so the eggs don't curdle. Whisk until the yolks and liquid begin to thicken slightly. Then start adding the butter slowly, a little at a time. ONLY add more butter after the previous addition is properly incorporated. When all the butter is in, the sauce should be thick and creamy. If it looks like it's separated or is chunky, then it probably broke and it's ruined (there's a possibility to save it but just don't break it in the first place. If you really wanna know how to fix it after it breaks, just ask) but add some salt and pepper to taste and you're done!! Enjoy!

Homemade Mac N' Cheese

We all love a tasty macaroni and cheese! We learned a basic cream sauce in school and I adapted it to mac n cheese and it worked great! (For those who know what a bechamel sauce is, it's that with cheese). Here it goes.


Ingredients:
3 cups milk
1/4 onion- for the onion use the cloves as nails and stick the bay leaf to the onion
3 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups favorite cheese (I like it super cheesy!! You can use a little less if you want)
1 lb. macaroni
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. flour
Bouquet garni- bay leaf, thyme,celery, parsley stems, in leek leafs or put everything in cheese cloth and tie shut.
Method:
Start by making a roux with the butter and flour. Melt butter in a small pan, add flour, mix and cook for thirty seconds to a minute. Next cook macaroni in boiling salted water. Remove both from heat and reserve. Place milk and the onion studded with the clove and bay leaf in a sauce pan and place over medium heat. Stir and heat slowly to prevent scorching. When milk comes to a boil, add bouquet garni and nutmeg. Cook for a few minutes being careful not to let the milk burn. Whisk in the now cooled roux little by little until desired thickness (don't add too much roux. The sauce will thicken slowly.) Remove onion, and bouquet garni, and add cheese. Stir until melted and creamy. Pour on top of cooked macaroni and stir, making sure that it's nice and gooey. Enjoy!

Crepes

These are easy and super tasty! I did them with blackberries (cause they were cheap at the time). I did some fresh whip cream and it really hit the spot. 

Stuff You'll Need

1 Cup All-Purpose Flour 

3 Eggs Lightly Beaten

11/4 Cup Milk

1 Tbsp. Sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla

4 Tbsp. Butter (melted)

Pinch o'salt

How to

Mix flour,salt and sugar. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, milk,and vanilla and butter. Then whisk egg mixture into dry ingredients don't stress the batter will be thin. Heat a fry pan to medium heat and melt a little butter (but not much) in the pan and ladle in a small amount of batter and swirl pan to spread the batter evenly. You don't want the pan too hot or the batter won't spread let cook for about 30 seconds then gently flip and cook for another 10-20 seconds or until done to your liking. Fill with your favorite sweet stuff and dig in! Here's a pic of how mine turned out. : )