Valentine's Day Strawberry Upside Down Cake

Happy Valentine’s Day!! Tis the season to remind the ones you love why you love them, how you love them, and generally just how lovely they really are. It doesn’t hurt to show that love with a strawberry upside down cake!

Ingredients:

Whip cream:
½ Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup heavy whipping cream

Topping:
2 teaspoons cinnamon
 ½ stick of unsalted butter
½ cup brown sugar
2 cups strawberries

Cake:
Pinch of cinnamon
3 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups sugar
4 eggs room temp
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
¾ cup heavy cream
2 sticks room temp butter

 

 

 

 

 





Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Start by slicing the strawberries and measuring out all of your ingredients.

Make the cake first. In a medium sized bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

In a separate large bowl beat the two sticks of butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then beat in vanilla.

In a small bowl mix together ½ cup water and the cream. Start mixing it all together by beating the flour in thirds, and adding the cream mix in between.  Set the batter aside.

Spray down your loaf cake or butter it in preparation of pouring batter in. To lay down the topping for the cake, melt down ½ stick of butter, ½ a cup of sugar, and the cinnamon until the sugar melts.
Pour at the bottom of the loaf pan. Lay the strawberries down creating two layers if possible to ensure maximum juiciness! Next spoon the batter on top.

Place in oven and bake for 50 minutes, and turn half way through. Check to see if baked through about 40 minutes in.

In the meantime, make your whip cream by beating the remainder of your whipping cream and vanilla extract on high speed until it forms peaks.

Serve warm to the ones you love!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

                                                                    

Valentines Day Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup!

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!  I try to spend every day like it is Valentine’s Day, telling Michael how much I love him, loving my family, my friends, my dogs, and always being kind to others. What are your Valentine’s Day plans this year?

When I think of what makes me happy when it comes to food, it isn’t something incredibly fancy or highly intricate, it is the simple comfort food that melts in your mouth and makes you feel good. We have created an elevated grilled cheese and tomato soup combo for you, a more decadent version of a loved classic. So enjoy our heirloom creamed tomato soup with a Swiss Gruyere Emmentaler grilled cheese sandwich!

*It helps to have a blender, sieve, and food brush handy, and if you cannot find a bag of grated cheese, just buy blocks and grate equal amounts.

Ingredients: serves 4

Soup:

6 large heirloom tomatoes
1 large can whole peeled tomatoes
¼ cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 Yellow onion
1 Tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic
Parmesan rind
3 sprigs fresh thyme
Pinch of salt

Grilled Cheese Sandwich:
Block of soft baby Swiss cheese
Grated bag of Emmentaler and Gruyere cheese (they will be under fondue cheeses)
Sliced sourdough bread
1 Tablespoon melted butter

Start by assembling your mise en place by dicing the onion and garlic and setting aside, and then chopping the heirloom tomatoes and canned tomatoes. In a large sauce pan heat oil, then add onion and garlic and cook about 5 minutes until translucent.

Add tomatoes, then parmesan rind, thyme sprigs. When you add the rind make sure that there is no paper stuck to it. Put to medium heat and let cook 25 minutes. Remove the rind and the thyme.  

In small batches (if it is too large you may burn yourself), puree the tomato soup. Pour the mix into a sieve over a bowl, and using a spoon push through the sieve until you are only left with the fiber and no liquid. Discard of the fiber. Do this until all of the soup has been strained.

Pour the soup back into the sauce pan, turn to medium heat. Add butter, pinch of salt, and cream. Stir. Return to medium low to keep warm.

To make the sandwich melt a Tablespoon of butter in a bowl, then brush both sides of bread with butter, not so much that the bread will be soggy. Heat a pan to medium high heat.

Place first piece of bread in the pan. Let heat for 3 minutes, then add Emmentaler and Gruyere, then Baby Swiss. Let cook for 2 more minutes. Add next slice of bread then flip, cooking the next side for about 3-4 minutes. You just want the bread to brown and crisp, but not burn.

To serve, slice sandwiches in half, and serve with small bowl of soup and a kiss!

Parmesan and Beet Love Risotto!

Who cares if Valentine’s day was a week ago! Love is always around you! So surprise someone you love with this gorgeous risotto. It is not only tasty but it is also a very sexy dish. Michael made this for me a few months ago, and we added the touch of the beet hearts. You will be sure to love this parmesan and beet risotto.

xoxo

Ingredients: serves 6-8

2 cups Arborio rice
3 cups vegetable stock
3 cups water
¼ cup parmesan reggiano
2 medium beets
1 Tablespoon olive oil

To start preheat the oven to 450 degrees, and coat you beets in olive oil. Create a pouch out of tinfoil and place your beets in it, and stick in oven for 50 minutes to an hour. Your beets will be done once you can easily pierce them with a fork. Take the beets out, let them cool, and peel the outer rough skin off with your fingers under running water. Slice the beets into ¼” slices. Take about ½ of one beet and dice, set aside. Take the rest of the slices, and cut heart shapes out and set aside to lay on top of risotto.

Grate parmesan and set aside.

In a medium sized pot heat the Tablespoon of oil on medium high heat, add the Arborio rice, and stir, cooking for about 7 minutes. This allows the rice to soak up some of the olive oil flavor, and will allow the rice to cook a little faster. Add all the stock and 2 cups water and cover the pot until the liquid starts boiling. Once it reaches a boil, leave on medium high heat and start stirring frequently until the rice absorbs the liquid. Once it is absorbed, add the remainder of the water in quarter cups allowing the rice to absorb the liquid and repeat. Do this until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked.

**If you need to you can add more liquid. You will know the risotto is done when the rice has a slight al dente feel to it, but is really creamy. It is a frequent mistake to either not cook it enough so it is hard, or overcook and it is mushy.**

Next add the parmesan and diced beets and stir until the cheese has melted and the pink of the beets has colored all of the risotto.

To serve, place a heaping spoonful of risotto onto a plate and lay two hearts over each other! Tada! Now that is true love!!

Valentine's Day Lemon Shortbread Cookie!

Happy Valentine’s Day!! We hope that you enjoy it, and spend it with the people, places, and animals, whatever you love! We are grateful for our parents, our siblings, our friends, neighbors, and our puppies and pet fish! Show the people you love a little appreciation today and whip up a batch of these delicious lemon shortbread cookies. They are so easy to make, and you can make them special by painting your loved ones name on the cookie. We decided to paint initials in a calligraphy style that keeps the look elegant and beautiful as a gift in itself.

* To write the initials you will need a tiny paint brush.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Ingredients: Makes about a dozen

Cookie:

1 cup butter, softened
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup lemon juice

Icing:

1 cup confectioners sugar
2 teaspoons milk
¼ teaspoon almond extract
Yellow food coloring
Blue food coloring

To start preheat your oven to 325 degrees, and let your butter sit out to soften. Cream butter and sugar together until completely combined. Add lemon zest and lemon juice, and mix. Now add flour a little at a time. The dough will seem really dry, but you will dump it out on to a flat surface and knead together by hand, it will meld together really nicely. Dust a rolling pin with flour and roll the dough out to be about a ¼” thick. Using a heart shaped cookie cutter, cut out cookies, lay on a dusted baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown on the edges.

Once baked, pull out and let cool. While cooling, mix together all of the ingredients for the icing, except the blue food coloring. Color with the yellow food coloring until you reach the desired color. Once cookies are cooled, using a small spatula, cover the cookie in the icing. If you want to make the icing dry faster, you can add a teaspoon of cream of tartar into the mix. Let the icing dry completely before you paint names on.

Once the icing dries, place a drop of two of blue food coloring into a small bowl and a drop of water. Using your very small paint brush, dip into the mix and paint the initials of the one you love.

Now eat your cookies or give them out to the one you love!