Roasted Green Chile and Caramelized Onion Dip

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Alisa

Here in the West Texas/Eastern New Mexico region, we have a summertime tradition. We wait all year for it and when the weekend comes, we can smell it in the air. On every supermarket corner, there they are: green chiles, rotating in a huge, iron roaster over a fire, filling the air with the sweet and savory charred smell of heaven on earth. A couple weekends ago, it was Chile Roasting Day. It only happens for a couple weekends at the end of the summer or the beginning of the fall season, so there’s a sense of urgency to buy as many bags as we can before they’re gone. There’s just one problem: letting them go to waste (they’ll mold within a couple weeks in your fridge) or freezing them, which takes away some of their magic, if you ask me.

So this year, we bought two bags like this:

…and we promised we wouldn’t let them go to waste OR freeze them. Maybe we should store up for winter, but there’s something pretty special about waiting all year for something. Like a summer tomato. It’s worth the wait and any other time of the year, it just isn’t the same. (blog post coming soon…)

So all week, I’m going to be posting green chile recipes! If you happen to live in this region, go stock up because I fear this weekend will be the last. If you don’t live in this region, I’m sorry. It’s really the only thing we have on you because we have to deal with dirt storms for a third of our year and 100 degree heat for another third. Let us revel in this, our only leg up on the competition. (mostly kidding – I’d send you a bag, but I don’t want to freeze them). 🙂

Today your recipe is a roasted green chile dip with caramelized onions. I posted about a caramelized onion dip last summer and I thought it would be the perfect base for adding some green chile magic. So here you go, my friends. Enjoy the first green chile recipe of the best week of the summer.

Roasted Green Chile and Caramelized Onion Dip

makes about two cups

1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 TBS unsalted butter
2 large, yellow onions, sliced thin
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayo
7-10 roasted, mild green chiles, seeded or not, it’s up to you.
1 TBS red wine vinegar
kosher salt to taste – I used about 2 teaspoons

In a large, deep sided skillet, add the oil and butter over medium-medium high heat until the butter starts to bubble. Add the sliced onions and spread out into one layer and let them sizzle for about 5 minutes until they start to color. Stir them around and repeat this process, not stirring too much to let them caramelize. This process takes about 30 minutes and you want to err on the side of too caramelized than not enough. Mine looked like this:

Meanwhile, in a food processor, add the cream cheese, sour cream, mayo and vinegar and a teaspoon of salt. Pulse until blended. When the onions are done, scoop them into the food processor and add the green chiles. I added just three at first, two seeded and peeled, and one whole, minus the stem. It wasn’t enough green chile flavor for me, so I just kept adding them. There are LOTS of amazing flavors in the roasted skins and since you are blending them up, it’s completely recommended to not peel the skins from your chiles when you add them. So! Add a few, pulse, and see how you like it. Add some salt, pulse some more. Add a few more chiles. Really, it’s up to your taste and what you like. We ended up adding 7 green chiles, 3 peeled and seeded and 4 whole (minus stem). It was a perfect heat level for us AND we were using mild chiles, so obviously, with the hot variety, you might want to seed all of them. I bought mild because I wanted LOTS AND LOTS of flavor without killer heat. This is a fun game of taste testing, so have some chips ready. Enjoy!

Baked Chilaquiles – an amazing breakfast on a beach in Mexico or in your own kitchen

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Alisa

I remember this one year, my friend Cali, actually paid me to go to Acapulco, Mexico and shoot her wedding. We had moments like this:
It was also the hottest I’ve ever been in my life, so I went ahead and cashed her check. 🙂 However, there were extremely enjoyable moments, and one of them was having chilaquiles for breakfast, along with various fresh-squeezed juices. I had never had chilaquiles before (pronounced: chee-lay-quee-les) and it was a bit of a revelation. Tortilla chips softened with a rich tomato or chili or black bean sauce, mixed with tender bits of chicken and plenty of cheese. This is actually a pretty typical breakfast for Mexico. That may be ignorant of me to say, as I’m sure they have cereal, too, but when we got to go back with Cali and Alex to visit Alex’s home in Mexico City a few years later, (um, yeah, we’re lucky to know them) it was pretty common to see things we’d associate with dinner, served for breakfast. Like enchiladas or tostadas. Not everything had to have an egg on it like we feel compelled to do, here. Case in point: our version of chilaquiles sure enough had eggs on it. However, it’s a delicious addition! Matt made us this breakfast and I shot the picture, so once again, this is a true Family Meal kinda post. We all contribute in different ways throughout the week and I’m always so happy when he has a plan for Saturday breakfast!

Baked Chilaquiles*
serves 6

10 oz thick tortilla chips
1 – 28 oz can whole tomatoes, drained
3 serrano peppers, seeded and roasted
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small white onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
Salt to taste,about 1/2 teaspoon
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
5 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup shredded cheese, such as Monterey Jack or Mexican Chihuahua cheese

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Scoop tortilla chips into 13 x 9-inch baking dish.

In the oven, place seeded serrano peppers, cut-side down on a baking sheet and roast until blistered. We did this under the broiler. Take out and let cool.
Coarsely puree tomatoes and serrano peppers in a food processor or blender. Heat oil in large saucepan; add onion and sauté until golden, about 7 minutes. Stir in garlic, cook 1 minute, then stir in broth, tomato puree and salt. Heat to boil. Stir in cilantro. Set mixture aside. In a separate pan, heat 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat and scramble the eggs and a half teaspoon of salt till they’re almost done. Remove from heat. Pour the sauce over the chips; coating them evenly with the sauce. Layer the almost-done scrambled eggs on top of the sauce. Sprinkle with cheese and bake until lightly browned on top and bubbling, about 15 minutes.

Garnish with extra cilantro and a few extra chips on the side.

*adapted from Rick Bayless’ recipe, Chipotle-Baked Tortilla Casserole

Hot Chicken!

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Alisa

Guest Post from The Bread Man, today:

When we went to Nashville to visit my family this summer I knew I had to try some hot chicken. I asked my brother and my cousin if they had been to Prince’s, and both replied that they would like to, but hadn’t found anyone willing to visit that part of town with them. Problem solved. We took my grandparents’ Buick to a little strip mall in east Nashville, and after a quick trip to the ATM (Prince’s is cash only) we ordered a bunch of chicken in heat levels ranging from mild to extra hot. We waited for our order for something close to an hour, with the kitchen constantly calling out orders. The room was always crowded, even on a weeknight, but I think I only saw one table where people were eating – everyone seems to order carry out. You can call ahead, but I got nothing but a busy signal whenever I tried.

When we got home everyone dug in. The chicken isn’t saucy like Buffalo chicken, the heat comes from a mix of oil and spices (notably cayenne) that is brushed on the chicken after frying. The bread each piece was packed with had soaked up the excess oil, making the chicken a relatively clean meal. Bread is a good idea too – or potato salad, or anything else you can find to tame the heat! I love it when I get something with just the right amount of heat – it builds until it seems too much, but a couple of minutes later I’m reaching for another piece. The crust on Prince’s chicken is super crunchy despite the oil, the chicken was juicy, and the spice is great – garlicky with a hint of sweetness. The “hot” chicken was about perfect for me, but even the medium is respectably hot. The mild was tame enough that my notoriously heat-averse grandfather enjoyed it. The extra hot? Too much for me. I know a couple of people that would probably enjoy it, but I couldn’t handle more than a couple of bites.

I loved making hot chicken at home. The oil and spice mix is a great technique – we made some cayenne-free pieces for Olive and the flavor of the brown sugar and garlic stands out so much more when brushed on after frying than it does when the spice is in the flour. Even if you aren’t making hot chicken, this trick is worth stealing. I encourage you though to be brave and mix entire tablespoons of cayenne into the oil – when do you ever get to put even a single tablespoon of cayenne in anything?. Get a jar of pickles, a side of potato salad, a stack of soft white bread, and find that sweet spot.

Seen here with a side of corn slaw and sweet pickles. Perfect!

Hot Chicken*

2 – 3.5-4 lb chicken, each cut into 10 pieces (breasts halved)
1 TBS fresh ground black pepper
2 TBS plus 4 tsp kosher salt
4 eggs
2 cups buttermilk or whole milk
2 TBS vinegar-based hot sauce
4 cups AP flour
Vegetable oil (for frying – about 10 cups)
6 TBS cayenne pepper
2 TBS dark brown sugar
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika

Toss chicken with black pepper and 2 TBS salt in a large bowl. Cover and chill for at least 3 hours.

Whisk eggs, buttermilk and hot sauce in a large bowl. Whisk flour and remaining 4 tsp salt in another large bowl.

Fit a Dutch oven with a thermometer; pour in oil to measure 2 inches up the side. Heat over medium-high heat until thermometer registers 325F. Pat chicken dry. Working with 1 piece at a time, dredge in flour mixture, shaking off excess, then dip in buttermilk mixture, letting excess drip back into bowl. Dredge again in flour mixture and place on a baking sheet.

Working in 4 batches and returning oil to 325F between batches, fry chicken, turning occasionally, until skin is deep golden borwn and crisp and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part registers 160F for white meat and 165 for dark, 15-18 minutes. Transfer to a clean wire rack set inside a baking sheet. Let oil cool slightly.

Whisk cayenne, brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder and paprika in a medium bowl; carefully whisk in 1 cup frying oil. Brush fried chicken with spicy oil. Serve with bread and pickles.

*taken from the July issue of Bon Appetit magazine

Homemade Banana Meringue Pudding

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Alisa

I’ve had a long-standing love for banana pudding. Between it and Bananas Foster, I have a hard time choosing my favorite. At one point, it was my favorite dessert on earth. I bounce back and forth, now, between Sticky Toffee Pudding or Bananas Foster. Or anything with lemon. Or chocolate.

My favorite type of banana pudding, however, is the one that has the sweetened condensed milk and sour cream and extra Nilla wafers and all that awesome goodness, but I’m always up for trying a new version. (Matt made this version pictured, by the way). I’ve seen pastry chefs putting meringue on more than just pies for a while. So when we saw a meringue on top of a banana pudding in the latest issue of Bon Appetit, we knew it had to be a winner. And it was! However, I immediately knew a few tweaks I wanted to do to it once we tasted it. First, the base custard just wasn’t banana-y enough. We always keep a few black bananas in our freezer – when you want banana flavor, nothing beats an over-ripe banana. It’s so concentrated that just one will do to amp up the flavor in a vanilla pudding to make it burst with sweet banana flavor. Also, I would use a cooked meringue or a brown sugar meringue instead of the one from this recipe because the meringue wept too much, filling the leftovers up with water. Ick. Cooking your egg whites and sugar before whipping takes care of this problem.

However, for a eat-in-one-sitting recipe, the Bon Appetit version was great (but not banana-y enough, and leftovers got weird). So as long as you have a crowd, this dessert will impress and satisfy! (for the recipe below, I’ve included my favorite meringue and I’ve added a super-ripe banana, pureed into the base).

Banana Meringue Pudding

4 large eggs
⅔ cup sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
4 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 super ripe (black) banana
Pinch of kosher salt

Lightly whisk eggs in a large bowl just to blend. Whisk sugar and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Gradually whisk milk into sugar mixture and heat over medium heat, whisking often, until very warm to the touch. Gradually whisk half of hot milk mixture into eggs, then whisk egg mixture back into milk mixture in saucepan.

Cook, whisking constantly, until thickened and whisk leaves a trail in pudding (it should be the consistency of mayonnaise), about 4 minutes. Remove from heat, add butter, vanilla, a super-duper ripe banana and salt and puree with an immersion blender until butter is melted and mixture is smooth.

Cover pudding with plastic wrap, pressing directly onto the surface. Chill until cool, about 2 hours.

For the meringue:

3 large egg whites (room temp)
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar

Place the egg whites and cream of tartar in an electric mixer fitted with the whip attachment. Place the brown sugar in a medium, heavy saucepan with high sides (that sugar will boil up and scare the meringue right out of you if you have a small pan), add water to cover, attach a candy thermometer to the pan, and turn the heat on high. When the sugar is at about 240 degrees, start whipping the whites on high speed (they should be foamy and starting to thicken before you add the sugar). When the sugar is at the high soft-ball stage (245 degrees), remove the thermometer from the sugar and, with the mixer still running, carefully avoiding the whip, pour the sugar into the egg whites in a thin stream. When steam starts to come off the whites, add the sugar more quickly. When all sugar has been added, continue whipping until firm but soft peaks form.

For Assembly:

1 box Nilla wafers
3 ripe bananas, sliced

Spread one third of the banana pudding into a casserole dish (9×9 or 9×13 will do fine). Top with a layer of alternating bananas and cookies, then more pudding and repeat until most or all of your ingredients are used up. Top with meringue and torch with a blow torch if that’s how you roll, or under a broiler with a very watchful eye (as in, don’t take your eyes off it).

Blackberry Lime Cinnamon Rolls with Lime Vanilla Bean Icing

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Alisa

Good Sunday morning to you all! This week has been a tough one for me. I got sick on Tuesday and as anyone who has ever been pregnant knows, you can’t take the good meds when you’re sick. So I had the usual, insulting cold in the middle of summer, had two weddings and one family shoot to edit, made a ginormous birthday cake for a friend which took up all of Tuesday AND my wonderful redhead decided to cut her usual nap time in half, so I had only one good hour during the day to get my photo work done (still got the wedding done in my two-week time frame – bragging, I don’t care, gotta throw that out there).

In the midst of my feeling like my head was stuck in a cloud and everything else, I felt it was the right time to make cinnamon rolls. I don’t know – it was just therapeutic. A few weeks ago, Matt made Joy the Baker’s first Baking Bootcamp recipe – a triple berry cinnamon swirl bread – and it was just outstanding. Wonderful recipe and the flavors were so perfect.

The day he made it, I knew I wanted to turn it into cinnamon rolls with some kind of citrus glaze. I finally got around to it and…score. They were so bright and comforting at the same time. I will definitely make these again when I’m not afflicted with Taste Blindness (I’ll expound on that, later). And you should make them, too! They take about an hour less than typical from-scratch cinnamon rolls and can be used with most any fruit – so get creative!

Blackberry Lime Cinnamon Rolls with Lime Vanilla Bean Icing*

For the Dough:
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
3/4 cup whole milk, warmed to a warm lukewarm
1 large egg yolk 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 1/4 cups King Arthur All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon salt a bit of olive oil for greasing the bowl

For the Filling: 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 cups fresh blackberries
Zest from two limes
1 large egg, beaten for egg wash

In a medium bowl stir yeast with sugar. Stir in the lukewarm milk and then add the egg yolk and melted butter. Whisk together until thoroughly combined. Allow mixture to rest for 5 minutes. It should foam and froth. In a large bowl whisk together the flour and salt. Pour the milk mixture over the dry ingredients and start kneading it until it pulls away from the edges of the bowl. Place dough on a lightly floured counter and knead by hand for about 10 minutes more. Dough ball should be smooth and damp, without being too sticky. Shape dough into a ball. Grease a large bowl with olive oil. Place the dough in the bowl and cover. Allow to rest at warm room temperature for about 1 hours, or until doubled in size.

While the dough rises, whisk together the butter with sugar and cinnamon for the filling. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9 inch cake pan. Set aside. After the dough has doubled in size, place it on a lightly floured counter and knead twice. Using a rolling pin to roll the dough to a rectangle of about 18×12 inches. Spoon the cinnamon filling over top, spreading evenly, leaving a clean 1-inch border around the edges. Sprinkle the fresh blackberries over the cinnamon filling and grate the lime zest over everything.

(My blackberries were apparently from the Land of Canaan, so I had to cut them up). Start by rolling the longest side of the dough. The roll will be a bit lumpy because of all the berries. Using a sharp knife, cut the log into 1 1/2 inch rolls and place cut-side down. Brush the rolls with the beaten egg. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool for about 30 minutes before icing.

For the Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
juice from one lime
3 tbs heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
a good pinch of kosher salt

Mix everything together in a medium bowl and thin out the icing with more lime juice, or thicken it up with more sugar. Easy as that!

Have a happy rest of your weekend 🙂

*I adapted Joy’s recipe for the Triple Berry Cinnamon Swirl Bread a bit, but you can see her original and wonderful recipe HERE.

Lemon Panna Cotta and Gingerbread with Blueberries and Thyme

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Alisa

When we were in Nashville last week, we had the joy of eating at Catbird Seat – an intimate restaurant with a unique seating that allows its guests to watch the chefs prepare each plate. This restaurant combines the nuttiness of molecular gastronomy and the comfort of Southern cuisine. It’s impressive without being too fussy. The food was amazing and we left very satisfied! We were served things like grilled morel mushrooms stuffed with chicken liver pate (my favorite),

a yeast soup filled with smoked croutons and potatoes (tasted exactly like a loaded baked potato),

and the dish that inspired today’s post: a lemon cornmeal cake with goat’s milk panna cotta and blueberries with thyme and marjoram. Here’s a pic of the dish from the restaurant:

This was one dish that I knew I could conceivably recreate at home without any fancy equipment. Watching them assemble this was mezmerizing and I took a few guesses as to what each component was before the chef handed me the plate. Perks of being able to talk to the chef while they’re plating 🙂 When I got home, I dreamed up my own version. I love lemon and thyme together, so I knew I’d keep that aspect of the dish. Instead of putting lemon in the cake like they did, I infused the panna cotta with lemon and then made a gingerbread for the base because I love the flavors of gingerbread and figured it’d go well with everything. And it did! I happened upon some really great blueberries that actually TASTE like blueberries and the combination of all the flavors is delicate but powerful and the panna cotta is so smooth, it risks falling completely apart if moved too much. I loved how this turned out and it really wasn’t that hard to make the components and assemble. Next time you’re at a restaurant and love a dish – try to recreate it at home! It’s a good way to learn to be creative in the kitchen!

Lemon Panna Cotta with Gingerbread

For the panna cotta (to be done a day ahead)*:

1 cup whole milk, divided
2 tsp. unflavored gelatin
2 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
Zest from two lemons, plus a wedge of the lemon
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or one vanilla bean, scraped)

Pour 1/2 cup milk into a medium bowl; sprinkle gelatin over. Let sit until gelatin softens, about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine cream, sugar, lemon zest and wedge, and remaining 1/2 cup milk in a large saucepan. Scrape vanilla seeds from bean into saucepan; add bean (or add your vanilla bean paste). Bring to a simmer over medium heat, whisking until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat; cover and let steep for 10 minutes.
Bring cream mixture back to a simmer. Add gelatin mixture and stir until dissolved. Strain. Divide among eight 3/4-cup ramekins. Chill uncovered until panna cotta is set, at least 6 hours. *adapted from Bon Appetit

For the gingerbread (to make a thin version like mine):

2¼ cups sifted (9 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon Dutch-processed cocoa
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
¾ cup mild or light molasses
¾ cup (5¼ ounces) sugar
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup milk
1 large egg

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a large, rimmed sheet pan with parchment paper and spray with nonstick spray.

Whisk together the flour, baking, soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice and coca in a medium bowl.

Beat butter, molasses, sugar, buttermilk, milk , and egg in a large bowl with an electric mixer on low speed. Add the dry ingredients and beat on medium speed until the batter is smooth and thick, about 1 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Do not overmix. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface.

Bake until the top springs back when lightly touched and the edges have pulled away from the pan sides, about 20 minutes. Set the pan on a wire rack and cool for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Gingerbread can be wrapped in plastic, then foil, and refrigerated up to 5 days.

*if you want to make a regular pan of this, simply bake in a 9×13″ pan and bake for 35-40 minutes. Adapted from The New Best Recipe.

Banana Chiffon Cake with Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Icing

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Alisa

I have a wonderful friend named Katrina. She is the mother of two, wild at heart, loves all things done from scratch and enjoys nothing more than giving things away for free that she worked hard to produce and for which she should be charging good money. I try my best to pay her for her amazing pasture-raised, organic eggs, but occasionally she’ll leave a dozen on my porch because “she had too many to use that week.” Look at these beauties!

So a few weeks ago when I was blessed with an extra dozen eggs on my porch, I decided to sacrifice them to the baking gods and make a chiffon cake. NOTHING whips up faster than a fresh, room temp egg white. And when you have fresh eggs (we’re talking hours from the chicken) you do NOT have to keep them in the fridge. And for baked goods, nearly all recipes will call for a room temp egg. I was completely shocked the first time I used Katrina’s eggs when making a chocolate mousse and the egg whites beat into stiff peaks in about a MINUTE. I’m not exaggerating. Amazing. This post is really just me bragging that I have a super cool friend who raises really great chickens who lay really amazing eggs.

For the recipe today, I give you a banana chiffon cake with salted caramel icing. A chiffon cake is kinda like an angel food cake except not so angelic. It uses both the yolks and whipped egg whites AND has oil. But the texture is similar to an angel food cake except this cake is super moist. When I was little, the only cake my grandmother would ever make (to my recollection) was an angel food cake, and I can only imagine that was because it has no added fat. She was missing out 🙂

Banana Chiffon Cake with Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Icing*

For the cake:

10 1/2 oz sugar
5 1/3 oz plain cake flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
7 large eggs; 2 whole, 5 separated, at room temp
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium)

For the icing:

1 recipe salted caramel sauce
1 – 8 oz. package cream cheese at room temp

Adjust the oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Whisk the sugar, flour, baking powder, soda and salt together in a large bowl. Whisk in the 2 whole eggs, 5 egg yolks (reserve the whites), water, oil and extract until the batter is just smooth.

Pour the reserved egg whites into the bowl of a sand mixer; beat at low speed until foamy, about 1 minute. Add the cream of tartar, gradually increase the speed to medium-high, and beat the whites until very thick and stiff, just short of dry (as little as 7 minutes in a stand mixer and as little as 2 minutes if you’re using eggs that are only 5 hours old) 🙂 With a large rubber spatula, fold the banana mush into the batter, then fold the whites into the batter, making sure to not over mix, but being sure you get all the way down to the bottom of the bowl to incorporate whites into all the batter.

Pour the batter into an ungreased large tube pan (9-inch diameter, 16-cup capacity). Rap the pan against the counter a few times to rupture any large air pockets. If using a pan with a removable bottom, grasp both sides with your hands while firmly pressing down on the tube with your thumbs to keep the batter from seeping from the pan during this process. Wipe off any bbatter that may have dripped or splashed onto the inside walls of the pan with a paper towel.

Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 65 to 75 minutes. Immediately turn the cake upside down to cool (I’ll admit, this is scary, but have faith). If the pan does not have prongs around the rim for elevating the cake, invert the pan onto the neck of a wine bottle or funnel. Let the cake cool COMPLETELY before inverting.

To unmold, run a thin knife around the pan between the cake and pan wall. Use a skewer to loosen the cake from the tube. Loosen the cake from the bottom of the pan with a knife and invert it onto a serving pan. Hope for the best. Half of my cake was hollow because I didn’t incorporate the egg whites sufficiently. This is life.

Spread the icing over the top of the cake and let it drip down the sides.

To make the icing:

After making the salted caramel sauce, leave it in the pan and with a mixer or by hand with a whisk, whip the softened cream cheese until fully incorporated and no tiny lumps remain. Let it come up to room temp and then beat again before pouring over the cake.

*cake recipe adapted from The New Best Recipe cookbook. This book is endlessly tested and will never steer you wrong.

Brown Butter Honey Ice Cream in Milk Toast Bowls

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Alisa

This recipe is insane. What’s more insane than each component is the sum of its parts. Matt saw a recipe for Japanese Brick Toast a few weeks ago and I had seen a similar recipe on Pinterest that looked downright heavenly. He said in Japan they put ice cream with buttery toasted sweet bread as a dessert (…which is doubtful – I’ve seen Japanese people. They don’t look like they eat ice cream in bread bowls). Why has no one thought of doing a bread bowl for ICE CREAM?! It’s genius. The bread soaks up the melted ice cream and you’re left with this spongy cake-like texture when you get to eating the bread part. This dessert demands to be shared. Because if you don’t share it, you’ll feel like a dadgum glutton. I mean, LOOK at that thing!

For the ice cream, we look no further than Jenni’s Splendid Ice Creams. I posted about her Brown Butter Almond Brittle ice cream last year. I’m a broken record when it comes to browned butter. I can’t help it. We began making ice cream out of her book about four years ago and haven’t even wasted our time with a different method. She’s perfected the texture of homemade ice cream, in my opinion. So for this recipe, I used her browned butter ice cream base and added honey and vanilla bean paste. It was perfect in our little ice cream bowl. The bread deserves a post of its own and don’t you worry – we’ll blog about it, soon. Matt loves it too much and loved the process too much to only make it once. He can’t wait to try it, again. For now, enjoy a truly amazing bowl of browned butter ice cream:

Browned Butter and Honey Ice Cream

for the base:
2 cups whole milk
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
1.5 oz (3 tbs) softened cream cheese
1/8 tsp fine sea salt (I use kosher)
3/4 lb unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbs light corn syrup
1 tbs vanilla bean paste

Raw honey to fold into the ice cream

Mix about 2 tbs of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry. Whisk the cream cheese and salt in a large bowl until smooth. Fill a large bowl with ice and water.

Melt the butter over medium heat in a 4 quart saucepan. Bring to a boil and let bubble until the foam starts to subside and the butter is a rich dark brown (not black!). Remove from the heat and let stand until the butter solids settle to the bottom of the pan, about 5 minutes.

Pour the clear butter oil into a storage container (once it solidifies you can use it as you normally would for cooking so it’s not a waste!) As you get closer to the butter solids in the bottom of the pan, use a teaspoon to remove as much liquid butter as you can. You should have about 1 tablespoon of brown butter solids and a little bit of melted fat in the bottom of the pan (it’s impossible to remove all the fat).

Add the remaining milk, cream, sugar, vanilla bean paste and corn syrup to the butter solids, bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry (you’ll need to stir it up again as it will settle and solidify some). Bring the mixture back to a boil over medium high heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula or whisk, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.

Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese mixture until smooth. Pour the mixture into a 1 gallon Ziploc freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes.

Pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister of your ice cream maker and spin until thick and creamy. Pack the ice cream into a storage container, folding in drizzles of raw honey as you go. Press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface of the ice cream (this is important to avoid freezer burn and maintain a good consistency) and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze until firm, at least 4 hours.

Layer ice cream with sliced bananas and serve in boring porcelain bowls, or sweet bread bowls. It’s up to you. 🙂 (recipe for bread bowls coming soon!)

Banana Coffee Almond Shake

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Alisa

Coffee, frozen banana, toasted almonds, milk and a squeeze of chocolate sauce. How can you go wrong with that?! This is an extremely simple, delicious and relatively low sugar pick-me-up for your hot summer afternoon! I saw a recipe similar on Serious Eats and had to try my own version! The only sweetness comes from the banana and a tablespoon of honey – not too shabby for something that seems pretty indulgent! It was absolutely perfect for that mid-afternoon I-gotta-have-something-sweet attack that happens to me every day. Enjoy and change up the ingredients as you like!

Banana Coffee Almond Shake
makes one large or two small servings

1/2 cup strong brewed coffee, room temp
1/4 cup milk (any kind of milk will work)
1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds
1 frozen banana
1 TBS honey, agave nectar, whatever you like best
5 large ice cubes (about a cup of crushed ice)

In a blender, add the coffee, milk, almonds and banana and blend for about 30 seconds. Then add the ice and blend for 30 seconds to a minute more. Drizzle with chocolate sauce (or not – it’s up to you, but I had some in my pantry and, well, it was awesome) and serve!

Vegetable Puff Pastry Pizza

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Alisa

This was lunch for me and Olive, today. I LOVED it. We had a random selection of leftover veg in the fridge and my mind always goes the leftover route of omelet or fritatta, but not today. We had puff pastry in the fridge and a tiny bit of leftover Romesco sauce and so I knew I had a pizza in there, somewhere. The flavors were amazing and the whole thing took 20 minutes to make (minus the time it took to let the puff pastry thaw out.) Super winner in my book.

Olive took two bites of one tiny square and declared herself done, not hungry, anymore. Okay! I have to roll with things like that. Inside my head, I think, “What could I offer her that I know she’d eat? Crackers? Pasta? Something without kale and asparagus on it?” But no. I can not get into that habit or I’ll have the toughest time getting out of it. In the last few months, I’ve seen Olive eat potatoes of all colors (those purple things on the pizza are potatoes), tomatoes, asparagus, kale, carrots and cheese. So in my head, I knew that this wasn’t a challenging meal for her. She’s had a tough week with food, though, and I knew before I even made it that it would probably tank. I asked her later how she liked lunch and she said, “It was good! I tried two bites!” So there you go. To her it wasn’t a failure. To me it was because she didn’t inhale it like she would’ve a pizza with just pepperoni and cheese. Quantity doesn’t always mean quality. I have to remember that exposure and consistency are the major keys to training up good eaters. Mere exposure is helpful because then you don’t have the kid that cries at the sight of vegetables on their plate and familiarity breeds comfort, eventually. Eventually. Eventually is the result of patience and to be honest, it’s not my strongest attribute. But I’m learning and I’m trying and I will tell myself on days when my little half-pint only eats four bites all day that she will be okay. She’ll learn. Eventually.

Here’s the pizza raw so you can see better what I found in my fridge to add: kale rubbed with a bit of olive oil, leftover roasted root vegetables, leftover grilled asparagus and half a tomato. The sauce was our leftover Romesco sauce and I put all this on top of one sheet of frozen puff pastry. Puff pastry is flawless. Super fancy-seeming lunch in 20 minutes. I’ll take it!

Vegetable Puff Pastry Pizza
serves two as a main or 4 as an appetizer

One sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
2 TBS tomato sauce or Romesco sauce
Any toppings you like. I used:
1/2 cup chopped kale
1/2 cup chopped (already cooked) asparagus
Half a tomato, cut into wedges
1/2 cup (already roasted) potatoes and carrots
1/2 cup shredded Italian blend cheese

On a rimmed baking sheet, spray with oil and lay out your puff pastry to thaw. When thawed enough to unfold, spread it out and roll it out bigger on each side to be about 1″ longer all the way around. Spread your sauce and then sprinkle the cheese to cover it well. Arrange your vegetables and coat the kale in a little bit of olive oil and rub it into the leaves to soften them up. Bake in a 400F oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

The Family Meal

we eat together

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Banana Coffee Almond Shake

Vegetable Puff Pastry Pizza

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