Fresh Eggs

My neighbor across the street is an elderly man and since I'm always cooking and always have lots of food around, I often send my husband across the street with a plate of whatever I've recently cooked. His son has chickens and almost every week brings me a dozen fresh eggs. Oh my.

Lately, I've had to catch up on using the eggs so I've made Old Fashioned Egg Custard and pie, deviled eggs, egg salad, scrambled eggs on toast....you name it, I'm cooking eggs.

I think I have about three dozen left but I'll keep up, there's no way I'm turning down fresh eggs. And he's getting more chickens this year!

Tonight's dinner: Spinach Fritatta with herbed focaccia. Yum!

Banana Creme Brulee

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A couple of weeks ago, I was hired by a lovely man to chef a surprise birthday dinner for his wife's birthday. We worked together to plan the menu and all the details, and when I arrived, his wife was indeed surprised.

I prepared a four-course meal, including soup, salad, entree, and dessert which was Banana Creme Brulee. I want to share the recipe because it was really unique and very good! When you see the recipe, you'll see why: cream, egg yolks, oh yea, the real thing. But it was good and you certainly don't eat this every day, so if it's your birthday or a special occasion, make it and enjoy the splurge.

It's a typical creme brulee recipe where you cook and mash the bananas, make the cream, and cook it all in a waterbath.

When you're done, let it cool, then sprinkle with sugar and torch the top till browned and you'll have that nice, mandatory crunch when you break into it. This was creamy and delicious. Let me know if any of you make it, I'd love to hear the results! Enjoy!
Here's the recipe:

Banana Creme Brulee
1 tbsp unsalted butter
3 bananas mashed
1 banana to slice on top
6 tbsp white sugar
juice of 1/4 lemon
3 tbsp brandy
3 cups heavy cream
3 tsp pure vanilla extract
8 egg yolks
12 tsp sugar for torching

Preheat oven to 300. Over medium heat in saute pan, melt butter and add 3 mashed banans. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp white sugar. Blend and cook for 5 minutes until bananas are lightly caramelized. Add lemon juice and stir. Raise heat and add brandy and boil for 1 minute, stirring. Remove, and divide among 6 shallow creme brulee dishes.

Place heavy cream in saucepan. Add vanilla and bring just to a boil, then remove from heat. Place egg yolks and 5 tbsp sugar in top of a double boiler. Whisk together, then stir over simmering water until it becomes fairly thick (about 15 minutes). Strain the reserved cream mixture into the eggs, simmering another 10 minutes.

Place creme brulee dishes in shallow baking pan. (You'll probably need to use more than one). Add creme mixture to dishes. Pour hot water up to the halfway mark on the dishes to form waterbath. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove and chill.

When ready to serve, slice banana on top. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp sugar on each. Torch! Enjoy!

Rice Wrapper Spring Rolls

This week, I'm trying to use up food I have in the refrigerator and pantry. As much as I can, I try to use food we have on hand and not go to the grocery or farmer's market and buy more. And I always have a lot of food around since I cook so much for clients and because I always look for new things to cook. Truth be told, we could probably eat for weeks without having to buy more food if we had to. If there was a disaster, we would not go hungry.

Last night, I made rice paper spring rolls using ingredients I had: shrimp, fresh spinach and carrots, green onion and cilantro. And I had two packs of rice wrappers.

These spring rolls are a much healthier version than the fried, doughy kind. The wrappers are made of rice, water and salt and are about 40 calories each. I ate 2 1/2 rolls and was full.




Here's how I did it: First, boil some water and dip each wrapper for only about 15 seconds. Don't let it sit too long in the water or it will be too mushy and will fall apart when you try to work with it. Only do about two at a time.

Then, layer your ingredients and roll it up, folding the sides in then the remainder, like an egg roll or a burrito.

And you're done! The ingredients are up to you. This version was very low calorie. Use fresh vegetables for that nice crunch. I made a dipping sauce, again using what I had on hand by mixing soy sauce, teriyaki, fresh ginger and chili garlic sauce. Delicious!

Happy New Year!

This year we rang in the new year with friends and family. My son has been here for a nice long visit and it's been great to catch up and spend quality time.

Of course, there has been lots of food around! New Year's Eve I did manage to stay up past midnight, but just barely. New Year's Day we had friends and family over and I cooked the traditional food.....black-eyed peas, collards, pork and sourkraut, ribs, mac and cheese. Dessert was banana pudding and chocolate cream pie.




I did walk my 3 miles this morning, so hopefully 2012 is off to a good start.

I hope everyone has a great year this year...I'm ready to hit the ground running with cooking for existing clients and continuing with new clients. I have several new cookbooks to spend time with this week and am eager to try new recipes and look for great new food finds.

Happy New Year!

Play With Your Food!

Here's a fun idea for your holiday appetizer table. I basically made a cheese ball and shaped it to look like a Christmas tree.

Then I rolled in chopped parsley, and decorated it with toasted pine nuts and chopped dried cranberries. The "star" is grated lemon zest.

Here's my "recipe":

1 8 oz block cream cheese, softened
1 4 oz roll goat cheese
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
salt/pepper to season
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley, toasted pine nuts, chopped dried cranberries, lemon zest

Mix till blended well. Place in refrigerator about 3 hours, till cold enough to shape like Christmas tree.

Chop parsley. Roll tree in parsley till covered. Decorate!

You could also roll into various size balls and shape like snowmen. Have fun!

Broccoli Cheese Soup On A Cold Morning

Yesterday, after my routine 6:30AM walk, I needed to finish the Christmas decorations by getting the outside lights done. It was really cold and by the time I finished most of the lights, I was in the mood to create something warm.

I had this really beautiful head of broccoli from my CSA box, and all the ingredients to make broccoli cheese soup so I got busy.

I poked around the Internet for a recipe and decided to combine ideas I had seen and then just made up my own soup.

Here's how I did it:

The ingredients: 1 head broccoli, 1 1/4 cups shredded cheese, one small onion chopped, about 1/3 stick butter:

You'll also need 3 tbsp flour, about 1 1/2 cups milk, one can chicken broth (plus more in case you need to thin out the soup later), a pinch of fresh nutmeg, and salt and pepper to season.

Start by melting the butter, and cooking the chopped onion in the butter for about 4 minutes, till soft. Then, add the flour and stir till well blended, then cook for about 2 minutes. Add the chicken broth and stir constantly. You'll now have the base of your soup, nice and thick. Add the milk and the chopped broccoli and cook till the broccoli is soft, about 15 minutes.

Add freshly grated nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste.

Now, using your immersion blender that you love so much (yep), blend soup till creamy. Add shredded cheese and let melt while stirring. Done!


So good....and warm.


And most of the lights are done!

Easy, Healthy Dinner

This was dinner last night: salmon along with fresh vegetables I had on hand. My husband's response: "That was very, very, very good." Hmmmm....I'll have to remember that.

This is an easy and healthy meal that you can complete in about 30 minutes. We're all getting busy with the approaching holidays, so it helps to have quick meal ideas on hand.

To begin, pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Roast whatever fresh vegetables you have on hand by drizzling with olive oil and seasoning with salt and pepper. I had potatoes and asparagus and a zucchini.
Start cooking the vegetables in order of how long they'll need to cook; the potatoes needed about 25 minutes, the zucchini and asparagus about 8 minutes. Roasting is my absolute favorite way of cooking and eating fresh vegetables. It just brings out the sweetness of the vegetables and the roasting adds another layer of flavor.
The salmon recipe is super easy and delicious. Here's how I did it:

In a small saucepan, over med heat, combine 1/3 cup brown sugar and juice of one lemon. Bring just to boil, then keep warm.

Season two salmon filets (or however many you need) with salt and pepper. In a medium pan, heat olive oil till hot. Place salmon non-skin side down and sear till slightly browned. To pan, add sauce and about 1/4 cup soy sauce.




Finish cooking salmon in oven for 5-6 minutes, being careful not to over-cook. And voila! Delicious, healthy meal in less than 30 minutes.

Enjoy!