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!

                                                                    

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!

New Year's Day Brunch!!

Michael and I started making this food thinking about what we would want to eat New Year’s Eve, but our cooking took a turn towards the rustic and the hangover cure side of things. I truly believe that the hair of the dog and a little bit of eggs will fix whatever it is you are hurting form the night before…or can just make a wonderful start to your New Year. We present to you a fabulous New Year’s Day brunch of horseradish deviled eggs, a smoked gouda and asparagus quiche, along with a wonderful bruschetta!

*A pinch means taking your index finger, middle finger, and your thumb. All three fingers means a pinch.

*These Ingredients make food for 4 people.

Ingredients:

Deviled Eggs:
4 eggs
¼ cup mayonnaise
2 pinches salt
2 teaspoon horseradish
1 slice bacon

Bruschetta:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic
2 large tomatoes
1 lemon
1 pinch salt
½ a baguette

Quiche:
2 slices smoked Gouda
5 eggs
1 teaspoon thyme
1 pinch salt
4 spears of asparagus
Sour cream

To make the deviled eggs, boil water in a sauce pan, one the water reaches a boil, reduce to a simmer and carefully place eggs in boiling water. Boil for 10 minutes. Remove eggs and place in cold water so they aren’t hot when you peel them. Peel the eggs, and slice in half, removing the yolk and placing in a small bowl.

In the bowl mix together the yolks, mayonnaise, salt, and horseradish, using a fork to whip together until there are no lumps yet. If you don’t like the texture and want it to be smoother you can add a little more mayo.

In a small pan cook the bacon until crisp. Pat dry with a paper towel and slice thin strips of bacon to use as a garnish.

Using either a piping bag, or a sandwich bag with the corner tip cut off, pipe the yolk mix back in to your egg, and now garnish with bacon!

To make the bruschetta, start by slicing the demi baguette into ½ inch pieces and toast. Once bread is toasted take your peeled clove of garlic and lightly rub the bread with it.

Dice the two tomatoes, and mix together with the salt, olive oil, and squeeze half of a lemon over and mix together. No spoon the tomato mix on top of the bread. We topped our bruschetta with some red Hawaiian salt for a garnish and because it looks nice, just be sure that it isn’t too salty if you do this.

To make the little quiches preheat your oven to 375 and take out your muffin tin and grease the sides and bottom. Beat together you eggs, salt, and thyme. Chop the asparagus up into small pieces, now cook the asparagus in a small pan until they start to brown a little; reserve the tops of the asparagus as garnish.

Mix the asparagus into the egg mix and then pour into the muffin tin. Next dice up two slices of smoked gouda and place in the middle of the egg mix in the tin. Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes until the egg cooks all the way through and nothing sticks to a tooth pick when you pierce it.

Let cool to room temperature, top with a dollop of sour cream and the asparagus tip!

Now serve up with some mimosas or just a glass of champagne!

Potato and Leek Latkes with Apple Chutney! Yay!

What a glorious time of year this is! Today is the second day of Hanukkah and Michael and I celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas so we get to be super festive the whole month. Every year Hanukkah falls on a different date, because it follows the Jewish calendar. Last year Hanukkah and Christmas overlapped, but this year it falls earlier on in the month.

It is a wonderful thing that Michael can teach me his family traditions, and I can teach him mine, and now we can share both together…and twice the amount of awesome food!!

That being said, we are making potato and leek latkes for the holiday with a sweet apple chutney to accompany it. An interesting fact about why latkes are a holiday staple and are loved in the Jewish community (besides being tasty), is that the oil used to fry the latkes is representative of the oil used to provide light miraculously for eight days!

The glorious thing about this dish, whether you call them latkes or potato pancakes, is that they are marvelous year round and are so unbelievably delicious I am hungry just typing this! So enjoy and happy holidays!

Ingredients:

Latkes: 4 medium sized ones

2 large russet potatoes
1 large leek
1 egg
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup olive oil

Apple Chutney:

3 granny smith apples
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup apple juice
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

We start with making the apple chutney because it is best served at room temperature, so start by peeling and dicing the apple into same sized pieces depending on how large or small you would like your pieces. Melt butter in a sauté pan, and then add apples. Cook until apples soften, then add apple juice and cinnamon and cook until all the liquid is absorbed. Remove from pan, and let sit at room temperature.

To make the latkes, peel the potatoes, and using a cheese grater with the largest size holes grate both of them. Place the shreds of potato into a bowl of water. Now take your leek, cut the end off where it forms a bulb, and then cute where the white starts to turn into green. Next cut in half length wise, take the outer two leaves off, and rinse the stalk under flowing water. Now laying the cut side down, thinly slice the whole leek into small strips.

Take the potato, and place in a strainer and run cold water over until all the foamy starch washes off. Lay a towel out, and place potato on top and ring out as much of the water as you possibly can. Place potatoes back in a large mixing bowl, mix in leeks, salt and the egg (lightly beaten). Be sure to mix thoroughly so all the parts are coated in egg because this is your binder.

In a large sauté pan heat your olive oil until it sizzles when you put a drop of water in it. Take about 3-4 Tablespoons of your latke mix and place in a circle in the pan, using a spatula push down to spread it out evenly. Put as many as you can in the pan, and flips them when one side becomes golden brown. When they are done, they should be golden brown on both sides, take them out and let them sit on a plate with a piece of paper towel on it to absorb excess oil.

When they cool serve with the apple chutney and any other toppings you like! Don’t just make these for the holidays, you can make these year round!

Happy Holidays!