A little bite of heaven

I was looking for a quick dessert to whip together, using what I had on hand, to take to a friend's house for dinner the other night. I decided to put my strawberries to use and make the wonderful cheesecake stuffed strawberries that have popped up all over the blogging world the past couple of years. I opted, however, to make it a little more adult and fun!

Amaretto Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 T Amaretto

1 pint of strawberries

Remove greens from strawberries and cut the tops so the strawberry lies flat. Then cut an X in the pointed end of the berry - not all the way to the bottom/top, but just enough that you can fill it with the cream cheese.

Whip together the cream cheese, sugar and Amaretto until smooth. Place in a piping bag or zip top bag, cutting the tip. Fill the strawberries with the wonderful mixture and sprinkle with some mini chocolate chips.

The leftover filling is wonderful with graham crackers!

If you've got blueberries to use...

Give these a shot.

I made these a few weeks ago because I was in the mood to bake but didn't want to hassle with individual cookies or anything time consuming. I kind of pieced this recipe together but the end result was wonderful and I will most certainly make this again. Although next time I would double the crust recipe and use a smaller pan - 8x8 square - instead of a small oblong pan.

We'll call these Blueberry Cookie Bars

For the Crust

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour and 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Cut in 1 1/2 sticks butter that's room temperature and has been cut in to pieces. Press firmly in to a sprayed pan to form a crust. Bake at 350 until lightly browned - about 15 minutes if you're using a 13x9 pan. I used the next size down and it took about 10 minutes. But again, next time I'd double this and use an 8x8.

For the Blueberry Mixture

I used about 2 cups of blueberries, mostly fresh and a handful of frozen to make up the difference. Add in 1/2 cup sugar and 3 T cornstarch. Place all of this in a saucepan and simmer until the blueberries break up and the mixture forms a nice thick jelly mixture. Pour this mixture on top of the crust and bake for another 20 or so minutes until the mixture sets up.

Let cool, and enjoy!

Bistec de Palomilla yFufu

Translation: Palomilla Teak and Mashed Plantains

When the hubs and I went to Florida last year for our cruise, we spent one night in Miami and sought out some Cuban food for dinner. We ended up at what was probably a chain Cuban food place in the downtown area, but we didn't care, it was so good!

It is there we found a love of Cuban food.

And so for Christmas, the hubs got me a wonderful Cuban Cookbook to enjoy.

We finally made our first meal out of there the other weekend. It could not have been any better - loaded with garlic, flavor, richness - it was wonderful! We did make some alterations to the plantain recipe, because it does call for a 1/2 pound pork meat with fat, and since we were already eating steak with the meal, we did not need more meat for the meal.

Really, how we made the plantains were wonderful, so I'm going to post the recipe from the cookbook here for you to try, but I'll also make my notes below for how we made it.

Fufu - Mashed Plantains

3 Large Plantains

4 cups chicken stock

1/2 pound pork meat with fat

water

3 cloves garlic, mashed

1/3 cup chopped green onion

salt and pepper to taste

fresh lemon juice

1. cut ends off the plantains and discard. slice each in to 2 inch pieces and score the skin with a knife along one edge. do not peel, place in a 3 quart saucepan and add the stock. bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover and simmer until tender. * note - wash the plantians before you boil them.

2. for the meat, you need pork with plenty of fat - either well marbled or with a fat layer or both. slice in to small pieces- 2 inches square. Place in a 3 qt. saucepan and add water to just barely cover. Bring to a oil, reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, until all of the water has boiled away. Keep an eye on it! there should be some rendered liquid fat in the bottom of the pan. you may need to add some oil if your pork is lean.

3. fry the pork pieces in the rendered fat until just browned but not crispy. meat should be tender and stringy. remove the meat. use a meat mallet to mash and otherwise pulverize the meat in to small shreds.

4. saute garlic and onion in the rendered fat at a medium temperature for 3-5 minutes. return meat to the pan.

MY NOTES: While the plantains were simmering, I sauteed the onions and garlic in about a T of melted bacon grease (yes I keep a jar in the fridge). That gave the meal the nice pork flavor with out adding the meat itself. I would do that again!

5. Remove the cooked plantains from the broth, but save the broth and remove the peels

6. Mash the plantains with a hand masher and a little broth, just enough to make it a soft thick paste. Lumps are OK. Add the plantains to the fried pork and onions and stir on low heat. Add salt and pepper to taste and squirt with some lemon juice.

Bistec de Palomilla - Palomilla Steak

4 8oz boneless sirloin steaks sliced thin

olive oil for frying

juice of 1 lime

4 T butter

3 cloves garlic peeled and minced

salt and pepper to taste

1. Pound steak very thin. Heat the oil over high heat in a frying pan and then drop in the steaks. Cook very quickly and heat on each side for 1 minute, less if you like your meat more rare. Remove the steaks and place where you can keep them warm.

2. remove pan from heat and add in the lime juice to deglaze the pan. Add the butter and garlic and return to low heat and cook to heat through. Pour sauce over steaks and season and serve.

Seriously, one of the best dinners in a long time!

Perfect Fall Night Meal

Well, totally forgot to take a picture of this one - oops!

So that just means I get to post about it the night I ate it instead!

Made this meal from Epicurious. It's a make when you get home meal - but I bet you could do it in the crockpot, but really - it was so easy and good the way it was. I didn't alter ANYTHING. Next time we both agreed we'd add more apple and onion though and perhaps use 1 lb. of pork instead of 2, since we're not huge meat eaters. Serve with some wheat egg noodles - DELISH!!

Hmmm in read this now I realized I forgot to put the sugar in - you know what, it was sweet enough as it was with the apple and carrot. I also remember I didn't use 6 T oil. Just 1-2. And I did add in a few dashes of cinnamon and that made for a wonderful flavor. So in retrospect, guess I didn't make this exactly as is... ha!

Rich Autumn Pork Stew with Beer

Epicurious

• 2 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut in 1 1/2-inch bits
• Salt and pepper
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 4 medium carrots, diced
• 2 medium apples, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 tablespoons finely minced garlic
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup diced canned or fresh tomatoes
• 2 cups chicken broth (bouillon)
• 1 bottle (12 ounces) beer
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• Cooked buttered egg noodles
• 
  

1. Season the pork with salt and pepper. Heat 4 tablespoons oil in a heavy casserole over medium-high heat. Brown the pork well in batches. Remove to a bowl.

2. Wipe casserole clean and heat the remaining oil over low heat. Add onions, carrots, and apples. Stir until softened, 10 minutes, adding the garlic in the last 3 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients except noodles. Return pork and any juices to the casserole.

3. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, stirring, until the meat is very tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Discard bay leaf; adjust seasonings. Serve over egg noodles in shallow bowls.

It's big, it's puffy, it's delicious!

So I'm going to post a series of pictures and you need to guess what this is going to become...

Sauteed spinach, vidalia onions, mushrooms

Pancake Batter

Swiss Cheese

Any Thoughts???

The other week I found a recipe for something I've been searching for for a long time. Back in IL there was a restaurant chain - Waker Brothers - that made a puffy pancake with broccoli and cheese. It was one of my favorite things on the menu.

I finally found a recipe for Puff Up Pancake on the Your Home Based Mom Blog. I love her blog. You have to check it out. Well I emailed back and forth with her for a bit about if she'd ever made this recipe savory style. While she hadn't we both agreed it would be something good to try. So I became the guinea pig.

And let me just say this did not disappoint. I will certainly make this again savory style as well as with fresh fruit, even thinking about apples and sausge in the fall.

Puff Up Pancake

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
5 eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour

(to make it more savory, I did half a tsp. of vanilla and half a tsp. of salt, but it could have still used the full tsp. of vanilla)

Melt butter in a 9x13 glass pan in an oven while preheating to 425. Mix eggs, flour and milk with wire wish. Add batter to dish and bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve with fruit, powdered sugar and lemon juice. (that's if you want it with fruit). Bake on a lower rack with nothing above it, it will really puff up and get big.

To make it savory:

Sautee a vadilia onion, a container of sliced mushrooms and then add in a bag of baby spinach leaves. seasn with garlic cloves that have been crushed, salt, pepper, and fresh basil. Press the mixture once cooked between paper towels and weight with a heavy pan. Do this until the moisture is out of the mixture.

Follow the above recipe to the baking part. When the pancake is puffy and done, remove from oven and turn oven to warm. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup swiss cheese and then gently sprinkle the veggies over the pancake. Top with about 1/2 cup swissh cheese. Return to the oven and let the cheese melt and the veggies warm up.

Slice and serve.

Absolutely a make again, so delicious.

Another foray into figs...

So we enjoyed the figs so much the first time we had them we decided to buy some more. But I had no clue what to do with them.

The other weekend we were kicking around the house and though we'd have figs and some roasted garlic with bread for lunch - so I browsed on the WW site and found this fig recipe - since I had everything in the house we went with it.

It was so tasty and easy and really a nice way to have the figs. Great to put out for a party as well!

Honey and Cheese Stuffed Figs
From Weight Watchers

16 medium fig(s), washed and patted dry, stems removed, each sliced
2/3 oz soft-type goat cheese, such as chevre (about 2 Tbsp)
6 tbsp part-skim ricotta cheese
2 tbsp thyme, fresh, leaves
2 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground, or to taste

Instructions

Place figs on a large serving platter, cut-side up. Combine cheeses and thyme in a small bowl. Spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of cheese mixture over each fig half; drizzle with honey and sprinkle with pepper. Yields 2 fig halves per serving.

First Foray into Figs

I've been tempted to try figs for a while now... there are so many nice recipes out there and they just look so exquisite and fancy.

I finally found some nice ones at the market and picked some up to do an appetizer for us for a Saturday night. The hubs had been out of town for a week so I wanted a nice dinner.

These were really easy and really tasty.

French Bread
Goat Cheese
Figs

Spread goat cheese on the bread and top with a slice of fig and enjoy!

Tasty, Easy and wonderful with the sweet and salty together.

Mom's Orange Chicken

When I was young my mom used to make this reciep all the time - I don't know if it's from an actual recipe - or she made it up.

Either way I make it a lot and it's delicious and easy and a crowd pleaser.

I took this to my Habitat for Humanity Dinner Meeting last night and it was a crowd pleaser.

Orange Chicken

1 package of boneless skinless chicken thighs - about 3 or 4 pounds

1 gallon of orange juice

1 bunch of cilantro

5 cloves of garlic

1 large onion sliced

1 packet of taco seasoning mix

1 small can of mandarin oranges in water or pear juice, drained.

In a crock pot or large dutch oven...

Place the chicken, the OJ, cilantro, garlic, onion and taco seasoning. Let simmer all day until chicken is tender and you can shredd. Shredd the chicken and return to the pot. Then add the minced cilantro leaves and the drained can of mandarin oranges and turn off the heat and let sit for about 15 minutes.

Serve the shredded chicken in tortillas with sour cream, salsa, guac, whatever. You can also serve this over rice too!

When life doesn't give you tomatoes...

Make fruit salsa!

We're really bummed by this tomato thing - but soon ours will be growing in the garden and we'll have tomatoes our the whazoo so it will all be ok. But in the meantime, some sacrifices must be made.

Last night, since we couldn't use fresh tomatoes on our tacos, I made a really speedy fruit salsa to top them with. Let me tell you this with the nice fresh avacado was a perfect mix on the tacos.

Stephany's Speedy Lack-o-Tomato Fruit Salsa
Serves 2

1 nectarine diced
2 canned pineapple rings, diced
1-2 T fresh cilantro
1-2 T fresh green onion diced
1/4 cup canned black beans -drained and rinsed (optional)
1 tsp. lime juice
5 cracks black pepper
pinch of salt
2-3 drops of green pepper sauce

Combine everything and let sit for 10-15 minutes until flavor combines.

Fabulous for tacos!

Ooo La La part deux!

For breakfast this morning I use some strawberries that were in need of being eaten and the remaining 4 crepe wrappers I had left from dinner last week. What a fabulous and easy breakfast!

Stephany's Strawberry Crepes

Clean and thinly slice 1 container of strawberries.

In a skillet melt 1 T of butter on medium heat. Add the berries, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon and 2 T of Maple Syrup. Simmner until the berries are just tender and warm and a thin sauce starts to form.

Place one quarter of the berries in each crepe wrapper. Top with any remaining sauce or berries. Top with whipped cream.