Leche me have some more!

It’s been almost two weeks since my last post; I’m so sorry about that. There has been a lot of work that I had to catch up on, but now I have a bit of room to breathe, so here’s the next post! Today’s recipe is Tres Leches Cake! Tres Leches means “Three Milks” in Spanish, earning its name because it contains whole milk, heavy cream, and condensed milk. I love this dessert; it’s light yet rich, and it is oh so sweet~!  It isn’t a difficult recipe to make, and it does require some refrigerator time, so make it an hour before your guests come over and then surprise them with this beautiful milky cake!

Ingredients:

·      1–¼ cups cake flour (if you do not have/can’t find cake flour, you can use all-purpose flour, but the texture won’t be as fluffy and light, but it isn’t too much of a difference, so don’t worry about it!)

·      1 tsp baking powder

·      1/8 tsp salt

·      1/3 cup canola/vegetable oil

·      1 cup sugar + 1 cup sugar (for meringue)

·      1 tsp vanilla extract

·      5 large eggs

·      1–¼ cups whole milk

·      1 cup sweetened condensed milk

·      1 cup heavy cream

·      4 eggs whites (for meringue)

·      Powdered sugar (it’ll be dusted over the top of the meringue, so roughly 1 tbsp)

Preheat the oven to 325ºF and grease a 13x9x2-inch cake pan. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt in a small mixing bowl, and set aside (we’ll add this later to the wet ingredients). Combine the oil, 1 cup sugar, and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl, and whisk the eggs in one at a time. Stir in ½ cup of the whole milk and gently fold in the flour mixture until just combined. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for about 30 minutes or until it feels firm and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool down to room temperature. Pierce the cake with a fork 30 to 40 times. Whisk together the remaining ¾ cup whole milk, the heavy cream, and the condensed milk, and pour it slowly over the cake. Refrigerate for at least an hour. This refrigeration gives the dry sponge-like cake to absorb a lot of the milks to give it a rich, sweet flavor. Once the cake is done in the fridge, beat the egg whites on high speed in a large bowl until soft peaks form. While whisking, slowly add the sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Spread the meringue over the top of the cake, sprinkle the top with a bit of powdered sugar, and broil for 1 to 2 minutes until the meringue is golden brown. And you are all done~!

This is a wonderful dessert to accompany any yummy dinner, and I strongly recommend giving it a try! And as always, have fun in the kitchen!

Which Came First: The Chicken or the Don?

The chicken comes first in two ways; it came into being way before the don (“bowl” in Japanese) and chicken also comes first in this recipe: “Oyako Don” (which literally translates into “Chicken-and-Egg Bowl”). This recipe contains a chicken cutlet with cooked egg and onions over a bowl of rice, and it is super yummy!

Ingredients

·      Four bowls of rice

·      4-5 pieces of chicken breast

·      7-8 large chicken eggs + 1-2 beaten eggs for breading chicken

·      2 large yellow onions

·      ½ - 3/4 cup chicken broth

·      1-2 cups of panko/regular bread crumbs

·      1-2 cups of all-purpose flour

·      3-4 tbsp canola/vegetable oil

Cook the rice and keep hot. Cut the chicken breasts into 1-inch thick pieces. Place the flour, 1-2 beaten eggs, and panko/bread crumbs into their own individual plates, take each chicken strip and cover it with flour, then egg, then panko/bread crumbs, and place the breaded chicken strips on a clean plate. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat and fry up the chicken strips until crispy and golden brown. In the same frying pan, cook the onions until halfway cooked through, then add the chicken broth and cook all the way through. Once most/all of the chicken broth has been cooked off, put the onions onto a separate plate. Whisk the 7-8 eggs. Return ¼ on the onions to the pan, place 1.4 of the chicken cutlet pieces on top of the onions, pour about ¼ of the beaten eggs on top and around the chicken, and cook until the egg is fully cooked. Slide the chicken, onion, and egg combo onto a bowl of rice, and you’re all done!

This recipe doesn’t take too long, but it’s certainly worth the time to make! I hope you enjoy~ Have fun cooking!

Light Citrusy vs. Supreme Savory Scallops

Time for fall break! I drove five hours on Friday to visit my boyfriend in Rochester, so I am definitely tired. I miss home-cooking lots, so at some point I’m going to go home and make some delicious food, like this recipe for example! I felt like making something with scallops for my family’s dinner one night, so I decided to make two different types: scallops with lemon and lime juice, and scallops with butter and soy sauce. Both are amazingly delicious in their own ways, so make both if you have the time and ingredients, but you can also choose to only make one. It’s completely up to you; I recommend both of them!

Ingredients

·      8 dry scallops per recipe (pat them dry and leave them in paper towels to get rid of any extra moisture)

·      1 lemon

·      1 lime

·      4 tbsp unsalted butter (for soy sauce scallops)

·      2 tbsp unsalted butter (for citrus scallops)

·      1.5 tbsp soy sauce

·      Anything else you would like on the side that will soak up leftover sauce (spaghetti, vegetables, etc.)

Prepare whichever sides you’re going to add with your scallops (cut up the vegetables, boil the pasta one minute less than the package states, cook the rice, etc.). Put a skillet over medium-high heat until it’s hot.

If you’re making the Butter-Soy Sauce Scallops: melt the butter in the skillet and add the scallops. Fry the scallops until they turn opaque about a third of the way up the sides. Flip the scallops over and fry them until the butter turns a dark brown color. Add the soy sauce and let the sauce reduce while flipping the scallops every now and then to coat them evenly.  Remove the scallops from the heat and place them on a plate.

If you’re making the Citrus Scallops: melt the butter in the skillet and add the scallops. Fry the scallops until they turn opaque about a third of the way up the sides. Add the lemon and lime juice, and flip the scallops and fry until the bottoms and tops turn golden brown. Remove the scallops from the heat and place them on a plate.

Whichever sides you’re using with your scallops, place them in the skillet with the extra sauce from cooking the scallops. Stir it around a bit so it will soak up all the additional juices (if cooking vegetables, let it cook on the stove over medium-high heat so the vegetables are soft and cooked through). Transfer to a serving plate, top with a few scallops, and you’re all done! Enjoy~

Savory Prosciutto Spirals~

Halfway through the week! I had no classes today because of a tradition at my college known as Mountain Day. It’s when the president of the college chooses a random day in fall to ring the large bell at the church on campus, signaling no classes for that day. Then our house (dorm) goes apple picking and makes apple pies, and we relax and enjoy the beautiful weather! Haha, it puts me in the mood to give you an apple pie recipe, but I promised to do a savory dish next, so today is Prosciutto Spirals with Balsamic Glaze! This recipe is incredibly straightforward, and the only cooking involved is when you’re boiling down the balsamic vinegar! It should take you less than an hour to make this recipe, but it does require to be refrigerated overnight, so keep this in mind! With that said… Grab all the ingredients, prep, make, and enjoy this lovely treat!

Ingredients

·      ¾ cup balsamic vinegar

·      4 oz cream cheese, softened

·      1 can (about 14.5 oz, but a bit less is fine. The only cans I could find were 14 oz, and that was plenty), drained and coarsely chopped

·      2 tbsp finely chopped red onion

·      2 tbsp finely chopped fresh basil leaves

·      16 slices of prosciutto (about 8 oz)

·      2 cups loosely packed arugula

Pour the balsamic vinegar into a saucepan and simmer over medium-high heat for roughly 9-10 minutes until it’s reduced by about half and thick. Make sure you stir it every now and then so it doesn’t burn on the bottom. Pour the syrupy balsamic glaze into a small bowl and set it aside.

Whisk the cream cheese in a large bowl until smooth, and then add the artichokes, onion, and basil to the large bowl and mix well.

Place a sheet of plastic wrap on a flat counter and lay four strips of prosciutto vertically, slightly overlapping each other, on top of it. Spread about 1/3 cup of the cream cheese filling over the prosciutto, top with about ½ cup of arugula, and starting with the side closest to you, tightly roll the prosciutto jelly-roll style (make sure you peel away the plastic wrap each time you roll it slightly). Wrap the roll up in the plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. Repeat three more times for a total of four rolls.

Remove each roll from the plastic wrap, slice into 8 spirals for a total of 32 spirals, place on a serving platter, drizzle some balsamic glaze, and you are all done!

Bon appetit~!

Tips of the Day!

It’s almost fall break for me! I can’t wait to be able to take a break from working and walk around while the leaves are beginning to change colors. Definitely go outside and enjoy the warm weather a few more times before it really starts to get chilly. I decided that today’s blog post will be a list of small tips when working in the kitchen!

1.     If you’re cooking pasta, cook the pasta for about a minute less than expected (if cooking for 10 minutes, cook for about 9 minutes) if you’re going to continue to cook the pasta with sauce later on. If you’re done cooking the pasta, pour the pasta into a strainer and douse the pasta in cold water so that it’ll stop cooking

2.     Make cute bunny rabbit apples! Wash an apple and slice it into eight even pieces. In the middle of one of the pieces of apple, make a small knife mark and drag the knife lightly from the middle to one corner of the apple. Then put the tip of the knife to the middle again and drag the knife to the corner closest to the last corner you dragged the knife last. In that triangle you just lightly cut on the surface of the apple skin and use the knife to slowly peel the skin off there. Once you’ve done that, you have a simple apple bunny! It should look like this:

 

3.     If your fingers smell strongly of garlic, soak your fingers in lemon juice for a few minutes, then wash your hands. The smell of garlic should more-or-less go away

4.     No matter your temptation to turn up the heat on the stove to speed up the cooking process, you definitely should not. If you’re cooking a custard on the stove, if you turn the heat up too high, the mixture may cook the eggs by scrambling, or you may curdle the milk. This is one example, but there are multiple other instances when this could happen, so if it asks for low heat, be patient and keep it on low heat the whole time

5.     Always thoroughly read recipes through before starting; you may miss the slightest and/or most important detail (ingredients at room temperature, keep on low heat, prep item ahead of time, etc.)

6.     Don’t be afraid to taste-test your dishes as you make them, whether it a roux, stew, or even batter. If you taste early on, you’ll be able to avoid serving your dining guests a salt-filled cake

7.     When working with ground meat, do not over-mix or mash it up too much when working with it; that will make the final product very hard and chewy

8.     Remember: fooling around with measurements when cooking is welcome and awesome, but definitely NOT when baking. Baking is a science with chemical bonds and reactions; every measurement must be exact

9.     To get as much juice as possible from a lemon or lime, roll it hard under your palm for a few seconds before juicing

10.  Never be afraid to make mistakes in the kitchen. In order to get all of the delicious recipes you see here today, someone went through a lot of trial and error to get there. Behind every success is a hundred failures, and the more you fail, the more delicious the reward (literally!).

I hope you find these tips useful! Enjoy~ :)

Crownies, Brookies, Your Pick!

… but I definitely think that Brookies sound much better! Hello again, hope you’re enjoying your weekend! I have definitely done quite a few desserts in a row, my apologizes, but I will definitely post a cooking-item next. Today’s recipe is very straight-forward and a yummy combination of two of the best, simple desserts out there, and I’m sure you’ve heard of them before. For those of you who haven’t, brookies are a combination of brownies and cookies to form a delicious duo, and they couldn’t be easier!

IF you already have recipes/dough/mixes for cookies and brownies ready:

You are such a pro. Now the only thing you have to do is preheat the oven to 325ºF, assemble and bake ‘em! To do this, get out a regular-sized muffin tray (should have 12 muffin holes), and fill each section about ¾ full with brownie batter. Take a small ball’s worth of cookie dough in your hands, round it out, and plop it straight in the middle of each muffin. Once each muffin hole has both brownie mix and cookie dough in it, place the tray in the oven for about 12 minutes. This ensures that the cookie dough is fully baked, but the brownies might not be, so if you poke the brownie part with a toothpick and it comes out clean, you’re done! If not, pop the tray back in the oven for an additional 2 minutes, and continue to do this until the toothpick is clean.

IF you would like the recipes for brownies and cookies:

When I want to throw a quick batch of this stuff together, I go for the mixes, and you can definitely find some high-quality ones out there at your local grocery store, but unfortunately, I do not have the recipes for my homemade ones on me in college. If you would really like to create homemade parts for this, check out foodnetwork.com, because their recipes are delicious and fairly accurate!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy~

The Crème of the Crop

Happy weekend! I hope your week went well! Mine was pretty busy like always, but Saturdays are the best because they’re the one-day I get to sleep in with no problems. But I digress; are you ready for another recipe? Today’s recipe is one that I’ve been making for a little over six years now because it is my father’s favorite: crème brulee! This dish is a custard-dessert with a burnt-sugar coating on top, and the contrast between the soft jelly-custard and crusty sugar is impossible to get enough of! The only problem with this recipe is that the burnt sugar requires a blowtorch. I have my own, and it cost between about $20 and $40, but there is another method for creating that surface which uses an automatic lighter, which is much cheaper and easier to get!

Ingredients

·      2 cups of heavy cream (I prefer to use half-and-half or whole milk so that the custard is lighter, but use whichever milk you would like; you should use a milk with a bit of fat in it though)

·      8 large egg yolks or 4 large eggs (I normally use full eggs because I don’t want to deal with leftover egg whites, but if you plan on making meringue or angel food cake or have another use for the whites, go with the egg yolks!)

·      ½ cup granulated sugar

·      ¾ tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 325ºF. Place 6-8 ramekins on a baking tray, and fill the tray halfway with water. Warm the milk to barely a simmer (It should NOT boil). Whisk the eggs and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved. Slowly pour the milk into the egg mixture and whisk to combine. Strain the mixture and stir in the vanilla extract. Fill the ramekins a bit more than ¾ full with the milk-egg mixture and place the tray in the oven carefully to bake for about 30 to 35 minutes. Once you take the tray out and let the custards cool to room temperature, cover each with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. Once the custards have been chilled, cover with one of the following:

Torch It!

If you have a blowtorch, awesome! If not, bring out that automatic lighter and get ready to burn some sugar crystals. Sprinkle a very thin layer of granulated sugar over the custards, ignite your torch, and caramelize the top until the sugar has melted. Continue to do this until you’ve achieved the crispy top you desire.  

This recipe isn’t too complicated and doesn’t take a lot of time, so give it a try when you have a chance! Enjoy this fancy French dessert!