Recipe: Chunky Marinara Sauce

I had a few errands to run today, along with a test to study for, and some other little projects to work on, so I wanted to make something simple for dinner; preferably, something that was made entirely with ingredients already in my pantry, fridge, and freezer. A package of frozen veal and beef, leftover from my spaghetti and mozzarella-stuffed meatballs recipe, along with a bag of fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley and plenty of cans of tomatoes helped me decide to make spaghetti and meatballs with a chunky marinara sauce. Now, the meatball recipe I've already shared (though, for tonight's dinner, I chose not to stuff them with mozzarella), but the marinara was just something quick and easy that I threw together in about 20 minutes. A lot of the ingredient amounts are really just approximations—the basic ingredients you need are onion, tomato, garlic, and herbs (particularly oregano), but the herbs should be measured to taste.

Serves: 4
Prep. time: 5-10 minutes
Cooking time: 15-20 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 1-2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, or enough to lightly coat the bottom of a pan
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1, 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 1, 15 oz. can tomato sauce
• Approx. 1 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 tsp. sugar
• Approx. 1 tsp. dried oregano
• Dried Italian seasoning and basil, to taste
• Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until fragrant and slightly tender, but not burnt (about 5 minutes). Add in the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, sugar, dried herbs and spices, and salt and pepper. Stir to combine, and let cook over medium heat for 15-20 minutes to allow the flavors to blend. Stir occasionally to keep the sauce from burning or sticking to the sides. Once cooked through and flavorful, serve. 

*If you like a smooth marinara, put the warm sauce in a food processor or use a stick/immersion blender to blend to a smooth consistency. 

The crushed red pepper flakes in this sauce kick it up a notch, and the flavors of the onion and garlic add a little tang and bite to the sauce. Despite being from a can, the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce have a fresh taste that's brought out by the addition of herbs, salt, and pepper. This sauce is great over just about any kind of pasta, but it could also be used for a meatball sub or used as a dipping sauce for fried mozzarella or fried eggplant.

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words

So, as you can tell, I haven't been cooking anything new this week, but that doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. In an effort to clear out the fridge and freezer a bit, I've been pulling out older recipes that call for ingredients I already have (thus, avoiding trips to the grocery store for new supplies). So far, I've tried out my onion soup recipe again, as well as my bruschetta chicken, and updated the photos for each of those (because those were originally photographed with my old camera). *02/05/12: Just updated the "Cowboy Caviar" (veggie salsa) pic.

Check out the old vs. new images...what an improvement!

Bruschetta Chicken

Before

After

Onion Soup

Before

After

Before (not bad, but the lighting sucks)

After (look at all those veggies!)

I've got a few free nights in this upcoming week, so be on the lookout for at least one or two new recipe posts, and hopefully a Technique Tuesday post.

Salt Your Pasta Water

Dinner was casual tonight, i.e. my dad's out of town in State College, PA for the evening and my mom and I agreed to each do our own thing for dinner. My go-to easy dinner is pasta with a little butter, olive oil, garlic, and cheese, and tonight wasn't an exception (though I added a side salad to get some healthy greens in my body). Cooking pasta is pretty basic—boil water, add pasta and cook, drain, and serve—but many people forget one key thing: salting the pasta water.

Now, any of you who cook pasta often will likely have heard or seen in recipes that you should salt your pasta water and some of you may be wondering why...is it for flavor? Does it help the water boil faster? Does it keep pasta from sticking? Pasta, particularly dried and out-of-a-box pasta, has very little flavor, and it takes a sauce or some sort of light seasoning to kick it up a notch. Adding salt to water adds flavor to the pasta. That rumor that salt raises the temperature and makes the water "boil better" or boil at a "higher heat" is false. In fact, the salt in the water only raises the temperature by about 1*F or maybe 2*F, which is insignificant. As for salt helping to keep it from sticking, it doesn't. Olive oil can be added to the water to help prevent sticking, but I don't recommend doing this, because the oil prevents sauces from sticking well to pasta after it's been drained—you should stir pasta when it's first put in the boiling water to help evenly distribute starches from the pasta and keep the pasta from sticking.

Now, there are varying ideas about how much salt should be used in pasta water. Some people claim the water should be salted enough so that it tastes like the sea (that's really salty, but you'll be draining all of the water anyway, so not that much is actually absorbed by the pasta), while others say to add just a pinch of salt. I add a small handful (see picture) when I'm cooking a portion for myself or two people, and a larger handful with larger batches of pasta. From what I've read and seen, a tablespoon or two of salt per 4 or 5 quarts of water seems to be the general consensus on the salt-to-water ratio. You don't need to use any special kind of salt—your average table salt (we have a big container of Morton's brand that we use) works just fine, and it's a lot less expensive than using nice sea salt or a fancy salt grinder (though any salt will work). Add the salt to the water right as it's coming to a boil and add the pasta shortly after that, that way, the pasta can absorb a bit of it before the salt dissolves completely in the water.

Small amount of salt for a single serving of pasta (should have taken my claddagh ring off...got salt underneath it :P)

Salt in the bottom of the pot (I added it before boiling so you could see it)

So, next time you make pasta, try adding some salt to the water right before you toss in your pasta and see if it gives the pasta a little more flavor.

Recipe: Crab Rangoon

My mom's been craving Chinese food lately, so deciding on tonight's dinner of beef with broccoli and snow peas was very easy. I'd yet to try out my deep fryer, so I decided this meal would pair up perfectly with fried crab rangoon, those deliciously golden-brown wonton pockets filled with cream cheese, flaky crab meat, and green onion. They're easy to make, and any excess filling can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days. Now, it's important to understand that I used a deep fryer to make these. You can fry foods without a fryer, typically by heating oil in a pot on the stove while carefully monitoring the temperature (I've done it before—it's a little terrifying and you have to be incredibly careful), and you can also do no-fry methods by utilizing some sort of fat (butter, cooking spray, etc.) and an oven. But for this recipe, I'm using a deep fryer, so keep that in mind (maybe one of my Technique Tuesday posts in the future will explain how to fry foods without a fryer...).

Serves: Many
Prep. time: 10-15 minutes
Cooking time: Approx. 5 minutes (or until golden brown)
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Deep fryer

Ingredients

• 1 package wonton wrappers
• 1, 8 oz. package Philadelphia cream cheese (I used the version with 1/3 less fat)
• 1-2 cups canned crab meat, drained and flaked/small pieces (I found this chilled at the fresh seafood counter at my local grocery store)
• Approx. 1/4 cup green onions, finely diced/chopped
• Approx. 1/4 tsp. grated ginger root
• A pinch of sugar
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Small bowl of water (for sealing the wontons)
• Vegetable oil or other frying-safe oil (canola, safflower, peanut)

Be sure to taste the mixture to see if you have the right balance of ingredients. If you like a crabby wonton, add more crab meat, and if you like to taste more of the cream cheese, then add less crab meat. Add more or less ginger as desired.


Directions
In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese, crab meat, green onions, ginger, sugar, and salt and pepper, then stir vigorously to combine. Lay out the desired amount (meaning, however many you plan to eat) of wonton wrappers on an ungreased baking sheet. Put a small spoonful of the cream cheese and crab mixture in the middle of each wonton wrapper. Dip your fingers in the water and run them along the edges of the wonton wrappers. Fold over each wrapper from one corner to the other, forming a triangle, and press the edges together to seal. Fry in hot oil until golden brown (I used a Breville deep fryer with vegetable oil, and I fried them at about 330*F). Once done, remove and place on a plate covered in a few layers of paper towels to soak up any excess oil. Plate and serve.

These little Chinese restaurant appetizers fry up golden-brown and bubbly and they're perfect as a party snack or an appetizer. If you want to make them a little fancier, replace the crab meat with lobster, or change how you fold the wontons to create a different presentation.

Recipe: Seared Chicken and Angel Hair Pasta in a Lemon-Pistachio Cream Sauce

My mom and I spent most of the morning and early afternoon in our pantry, sifting through piles of candies and granola bars, rearranging and fitting new appliances (like my pasta maker and her rice steamer) onto shelves, and organizing just about everything else. Being surrounded by food of course got me thinking about what to make for dinner...we have tons of cans of tomatoes, some nice marinades, and an assortment of pastas, but I was at a loss when it came to deciding what to make. My mom kept pushing lemon-flavored dishes at me—"How about chicken in a nice lemon sauce?...didn't you make something with lemon once? Some sort of sauce? Maybe we could have something like chicken piccata." I sat down at the counter, idly flipping through a Betty Crocker best chicken recipes cookbook while she searched for a dinner recipe she could make for an event she's hosting this Sunday, and I came across a recipe for chicken with pistachios and lemon wedges. I loved the idea of combining salty pistachios (we have two huge bags of them in the pantry) with tart lemon, and I knew I could create my own unique dish to utilize these ingredients. I blended together toasted pistachios, parsley, garlic, and some seasonings to create the flavoring for my cream sauce and used leftover half-and-half to create the sauce base, then tossed the finished sauce with angel hair pasta. Chicken seasoned with dried lemon peel, salt, and pepper, cooked in butter, olive oil, and lemon juice completed the dish. This dish is very easy to make and the ingredients work so well together.

Serves: 4
Prep. time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Food processor

Ingredients

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded to approx. 1/2 inch thickness, cut in half
• 8-12 oz. angel hair pasta, or other long, thin pasta
• Approx. 1 pint half-and-half or heavy cream (I only had about a 1/2 pint of half-and-half, which was not quite enough)
• Cornstarch-and-water mixture, as needed (to thicken the sauce, if necessary)
• 1/3 cup shelled pistachios, toasted*
• 1 garlic clove
• 2-4 tbsp. Italian flat-leaf parsley (I had about 1/4 of a bunch of parsley left and just threw in all the leaves from that)
• Approx. 1 tbsp. fresh lemon zest
• Approx. 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Dried lemon peel, to taste
• Butter, as needed
• Olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of a pan)

*To toast the pistachios, preheat the oven to 350*F. Make sure the shells are removed, then place them on a small baking sheet and heat in the oven for 5-10 minutes, until lightly fragrant and lightly golden-brown.

Directions

In a medium pot, bring lightly salted water to a boil, then add the pasta and cook according to package instructions (about 4-7 minutes). Once done, drain the pasta and return it to the pot, then add a little butter to it to keep it from sticking. In the meantime, heat 1 tbsp. butter, 1 tbsp. lemon juice, and a little olive oil in a medium pan over medium heat. Add the chicken, seasoned with salt, pepper, and dried lemon peel (and lemon pepper if you happen to have it), to the pan, and cook until it's no longer pink in the middle (about 10-15 minutes). Once you get the chicken in the pan, combine the pistachios, garlic, parsley, 1 tbsp. lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and pepper in the food processor and pulse to blend, doing so until the pistachios are broken into small pieces (don't pulverize them though!). In a large pan, add 1-2 tbsp. butter and melt over medium heat. Add the pistachio mixture to the pan and cook for a few minutes until lightly fragrant. Slowly pour in the half-and-half, stirring constantly as you add it to the pan. Stir around the mixture and add a little more butter if desired, allowing the ingredients to blend. Continue to cook over medium heat, reducing the heat when the chicken gets close to being done. If the sauce seems thin, add a little cornstarch-and-water mix to the sauce (to be honest, I added a little too much, which made the sauce a little too thick, so only add a little at a time and allow it a few minutes to work before you add more if needed). Toss the cooked pasta with the finished sauce and top with chicken and some coarsely chopped pistachios.

The salty, nutty pistachios blend perfectly with the lemon flavors from both zest and juice, and they add a beautiful pop of green to the dish. Simple seasoning, with a splash of lemon, boosts the flavor of the chicken and completes the dish. 

The Progression of a Baked Alaska (and a recipe of sorts)

I spent this past weekend in Maryland, visiting my cousin, Katie, and her fiance, Chase, and we spent much of our time eating, roaming around town, and gaming (as in countless hours of video games). I only just got back this afternoon, and though I did make dinner (seared tuna and udon noodles), the thought of making a "Technique Tuesday" while doing so never crossed my mind, so you'll just have to tune in for a new one next Tuesday.

What I want to share in this post is far more entertaining and fun than any techniques or tips I could share with you. In this post, I share the most epic dessert adventure ever partaken by myself or my cousin: the creation of a Baked Alaska, done in what I'll call, for lack of a better name, the Katie-and-Sarah Style (which essentially means we made a nontraditional Baked Alaska that involved no baking, a  crème brûlée  torch, and an insane amount of sugar).

The Baked Alaska we know and love today traditionally features a layer of sponge cake topped with ice cream, which is then covered in meringue and baked briefly in the oven to firm up the meringue. "Baked ice cream?" you say?—Yes. The meringue essentially acts as insulation, keeping the ice cream cold even though it's being baked in a hot oven. In a popular version of the dessert, often called a Flaming Baked Alaska, the dessert is splashed with a shot of alcohol, then lit on fire, for a bright, fiery presentation. It's a very fun dessert that can easily be changed to suit everyone's taste. In our case, we chose to create a homemade brownie base, topped with Ben&Jerry's cookie dough ice cream, and a traditional meringue. The result: a fantastically fattening, super sweet, absolutely delicious dessert that was as much fun to make as it was to eat.

Recipe (or something like it)
This is a great sharing dessert, but it can easily be made into single serving portions (for example, one cookie with a scoop of ice cream on top, covered in meringue) and it's so easy to personalize (the baked good can be a cookie, brownie, or cake, and ice cream flavors are endless)—you can make the base of it just the way you want it with whatever flavors you like. The basic instructions for the creation of the base is simply to put the ice cream on top of the baked good—it's that simple. Now, for the meringue—the thing that makes it more than just a really good sundae: you need egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar (it acts as a stabilizer—you can find it in your grocery store's baking and spices/herbs aisle). For every egg white you use, you need 2 tbsp. sugar and 1/8 tsp. cream of tartar. For our dish, which could have served 4-6 people, we used 3 egg whites, 6 tbsp. sugar, and a little less than 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar and it made plenty of meringue to cover the dessert, with some leftover (about 1/2 to 1 cup). You combine all three ingredients for the meringue in a mixing bowl (I highly recommend you use an electric mixer, otherwise you'll be whisking the ingredients forever), and beat at medium low-to-medium speed until the mixture combines, thickens, and forms stiff peaks (meaning, when you pull the whisk out, the mixture it pulls with it stands on end, in peaks). Cover a baking sheet with foil, place the base on the foil, completely coat the base (the ice cream and baked good) with the meringue, then bake it in the oven for 5-10 minutes at about 400*F (be sure to check it frequently to make sure it doesn't burn). We used my crème brûlée torch to make our dessert (and spritzed it with vodka to try to make it flare up), but no matter how you do it, be sure that it cooks thoroughly, because there is raw egg in the meringue, which has the potential to make you ill. Serve the dessert immediately after you remove it from the oven.

So, with that, I'll leave you with a photo journey of the making of our Baked Alaska:

Cutting the ice cream out of the container

Cutting out a brownie in the shape of the ice cream

My attempt at making the meringue pretty

After the first few bites

We kind of devoured it...

All we left were these lonely pieces of brownie and a chunk of cookie dough

Recipe: Peanut Butter Blossoms

At noon today, it was snowing out, but I was packed up and ready to go spend the weekend with my cousin and her fiancé  in Maryland. I crept down the driveway in my car, inched down the slush-and-snow covered hill leading out of my neighborhood, pulled out onto the main road...and then promptly decided that taking a four hour trip in "winter weather advisory" conditions was probably not the best idea. I have high hopes that the roads and weather will be better by tomorrow so I can still go on my trip, but for today, I'm stuck home with the cats (the oldest are napping, while the two little ones are suffering from a particularly bad case of cabin fever), hanging out in my PJs and wondering if there will be any good movies on TV tonight. Frustrated and looking to keep myself busy on such a cold, dreary day, I decided to bake, and for no particular reason, I decided to make peanut butter blossoms. I've never made them before, but they are a classic cookie with a classic flavor combination—peanut butter and chocolate—that I've always enjoyed. My mom absolutely loves these cookies—any time one of her friends has them at a party or she takes home a handful from a luncheon, they're "hers" and I get maybe one for myself, so I'm excited to have a whole batch for the both of us.

Yields: Approx. 48 cookies
Prep. time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 8-10 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Electric mixer with paddle attachment

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar, plus 1/4 cup for rolling on the cookies
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened (I used salted butter, because it's what we had, but unsalted should work too)
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Jif brand)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1&3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 48 Hershey Kisses, unwrapped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375*F. In a bowl, combine the 1/2 cup sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter, and butter and beat at medium speed in an electric mixer (or by hand, if need be) until well-blended and fluffy. Add the egg, salt, and vanilla and continue to beat at medium speed until well-mixed. Add the baking soda and flour and continue to beat until well-blended. The dough will be smooth, soft, and peanut butter-colored. Roll pieces of the cookie dough (approx. 48 total) around in the palms of your hand to form one inch round balls. Roll the balls in the 1/4 cup sugar and place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the dough has start to expand, crack a little bit, and turn ever-so-slightly golden-brown (if you let them cook too much, you will end up flattening out the cookies when you press the Hershey Kisses in them later). Remove from the oven and immediately press one Hershey Kiss into the center of each cookie. Remove from cookie sheets and cool completely on wire racks (the chocolate will get melty all the way through, so be sure you let them cool completely so you don't smear or smush the chocolate when you put the cookies away). Store the cookies in an airtight container.

These cookies are so easy to make and you probably have all of the ingredients at home already. They've got that great classic combination of peanut butter and chocolate, and the texture—chewy-crunchy cookies with crispy sugar granules and smooth chocolate—is delicious. These are perfect with a glass of cold milk or a mug of hot chocolate. 

Recipe: Mezze Penne with a Creamy Spinach-Ricotta Sauce

After a long morning in the bake shop for class, mixing and kneading basic white bread by hand and learning my way around a proofer and a rotating rack oven, I was absolutely exhausted...I got home, ate leftover mac&cheese, and then promptly fell asleep for about three hours. All my grand plans of going to the bank, shopping at Target, packing for my trip this weekend—it was all for naught. I woke up around 6:00, hungry and in no mood to go out, and I wanted to make something quick and easy for dinner. In an effort to clean out the fridge a bit, I decided to use up the baby spinach I used earlier in the week for my rice dish and the ricotta I'd used in my reginette pasta dish and work them into some sort of sauce. To be perfectly honest, I didn't measure anything—I was cooking just for myself, but I ended up with about 1 cup of sauce, which should serve 2-4 (really, it should be enough to serve 4) when mixed in with pasta. If you find you don't have enough, just add more spinach and ricotta, and adjust the seasonings accordingly (really, just add a little more salt and pepper).

Serves: 2-4
Prep. time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Food processor

Ingredients

• Approx. 1 cup baby spinach, packed (push down as many leaves into the cup as you can)
• Approx. 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-5 leaves basil, chiffonade cut (I didn't have fresh, so I added a sprinkling of dried basil)
• Approx. 1/4 cup grated/shredded Parmesan or Pecorino-Romano cheese
• Approx. 2-4 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste (salt is important in this sauce, because it helps elevate the flavors, which will decrease slightly when the sauce is spread throughout the pasta)
• 8-12 oz. mezze penne or other pasta of your choice (this sauce would work with just about any type of pasta)

Directions

In a food processor, combine the spinach, ricotta, garlic, basil, Parmesan/Pecorino-Romano, olive oil, salt and pepper, and pulse to blend. The mixture will blend into a thick, creamy, pale green sauce. In the meantime, bring a medium-to-large pot of lightly salted water to a boil, then add the pasta and cook according to package instructions (about 8-11 minutes). Drain the pasta, return it to the pot, and toss it with the sauce. Serve sprinkled with Parmesan or Pecorino-Romano cheese.

This sauce is incredibly easy to make and takes just a few minutes to blend. It's got a light flavor and creamy texture that makes it perfect on just about any pasta, and it could even work as a spread or dip. This dish in particular would be a more filling meal with the addition of seared or grilled chicken or shrimp (but, since I was solo tonight, I didn't want to bother with a protein). If you want to experiment a bit, try adding a little lemon zest to the sauce to boost the flavor, or add a pinch of dried oregano or other Italian herb.

Flavoring and Infusing Oils

Flavored and infused oils can be used to dress up a simple salad, add a splash of flavor to chicken or fish, or add a little kick to a dish of pasta, and they're quite easy to make and store. Ingredients like fresh herbs, garlic, and lemon zest are popular flavoring choices and lightly flavored oils absorb these flavors very well. There are two main methods for flavoring oils: hot oil infusion and cold oil infusion. Hot oil infusion (the method I prefer) involves heating the oil, adding the flavoring ingredient to the hot oil, and allowing it to steep until the desired flavor is reached. Cold oil infusion takes longer, as the oil and flavoring ingredient mixture must rest for a few weeks for full flavor to be reached.

Oils to use for flavoring and infusing
You want to use a lightly flavored oil when making infused oils because any strong flavor already present in the oil will likely overpower the flavoring ingredient that you want to add. I highly recommend using light or extra-light olive oil (extra virgin olive oil is already flavorful in and of itself, so it doesn't absorb and highlight other flavors as well). These lighter olive oils have a delicate flavor, smooth texture, and they work well on pretty much any food.

Flavoring ingredients

• Fresh herbs (basil, rosemary, or a mix of various herbs are popular choices)
• Fresh garlic
• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Fresh or dried peppers
• Lemon, lime, or orange zest
• Ginger
• Lavendar

These are just a few of the more popular flavoring ingredients, and I recommend trying one of these first because they're the easiest to work with. Fresh herbs should be chopped up or crushed/bruised first to make it easier to extract their flavors, and any larger ingredient, like garlic cloves or sun-dried tomatoes, should be finely chopped to help them release their flavors. You can always strain the olive oil once it's finished and add in whole herb leaves or whole chunks of an ingredient if you want to "make it pretty" (flavored oils are great housewarming gifts, by the way), or simply leave the chopped/bruised ingredients in it. Certain ingredients will actually color the oil—fresh basil makes the oil slightly green, sun-dried tomatoes make the oil slightly red—which is perfectly normal, and actually quite nice looking.

Oil-to-Flavoring Ingredient Ratio
There isn't really a precise measurement for oil or flavorings—making flavored oils is all about getting the exact flavor that you want. You need a good handful of any flavoring ingredient to achieve any sort of flavor, but it's up to you to decide how much. For the basil oil pictured in this post, I used one whole package (approx. 2 oz.) fresh basil, cut chiffonade (long, thin strips), in 1 cup of oil, and it created a strong, clean basil flavor that was just right. Measuring the oil is all a matter of how much you want to end up with, but you need to create a balance between the oil and the flavoring. You need to have more oil than flavoring, and I recommend pouring out the amount of oil you want to end up with, and add flavoring as you see fit. You can always add more later to increase the flavor.

Basil Oil (1, approx. 2 oz. package basil, cut chiffonade, and approx. 1 cup light olive oil)

Hot Infusion Method

In a small-to-medium pot, heat the oil over medium heat until it reaches approx. 185*F. Do not turn the heat up too high or let the oil heat up for a long time, because it can burn, which absolutely destroys the flavor. Once the oil is heated through, add your flavoring ingredient, lower the heat, and let the mixture steep for a few minutes (when I tossed the basil in, it sizzled up immediately and sounded like it was frying, but the activity gradually decreased as the mixture cooled—all of this is normal). Turn off the heat and let the mixture continue to steep until the oil has reached room temperature. Pour the oil into a container with a tight-fitting lid, seal it, and let it chill in the refrigerator overnight. Once cooled and rested overnight, taste the oil to see if the desired flavor has been reached. If it's too strong, add a little more oil. If the flavor isn't strong enough, gently rewarm the oil and add more flavoring. The flavors can take a few days to develop (in fact, the flavor will get stronger over the first few days), but this method is the quickest and easiest way to create a delicious flavored oil (my oil was already tasting great the day I made it).

Cold Infusion Method

In a container with a tight-fitting lid, add the flavoring ingredient, then pour the desired amount of oil over top, seal the container, and keep it in the fridge. Let the mixture steep for at least 2 weeks, then strain out the flavoring ingredient. If desired, add fresh pieces of the flavoring ingredient to the oil for a nicer presentation.

*Important note: Flavored oils are a potentially hazardous food, meaning that, if not properly stored or used within a certain amount of time, they have the potential to go rancid and possibly make you sick. Flavored and infused oils should be stored in the fridge (the oil will solidify to a degree when cold, so be sure to set them out and let them rise to room temperature before using). They should be used within 10-14 days of being made. Do not keep them in a metal container, because it can affect their flavor. If you're unsure about how an ingredient with react when it's infused in oil, look it up before using it as a flavoring.

Chocolate Crème Brûlée?...or Really Fancy Chocolate Pudding?...

...fortunately, it turned out to be the former, but it had a brief second life as really fancy chocolate pudding...


After the success of my vanilla crème brûlée, my parents and I decided that the logical next step would be to make a decadent chocolate crème brûlée. I looked up various recipes before ultimately making the dumbest rookie mistake—I simply took my original recipe for the vanilla flavor and added chocolate. Crème brûlée falls into the category of baking rather than cooking, which means measurements matter, and anything you add has a reason for being there and makes something happen. In this case, melting Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips into the heavy cream (which actually would be how you'd make a chocolate crème brûlée), changes the cream and, somehow, combined with the measurements I used for each thing, ended up affecting the consistency of the final product. After baking for the required 30-35 minutes, I pulled the custards out and they were wobbly all over. In fact, they really hadn't solidified at all—the custard had just gotten a bit thicker. That sent me scrambling to find a quick fix and the best thing I could come up with was adding another egg yolk. I think that's what was wrong in the first place—I needed slightly different measurements for everything because of the addition of the chocolate. Well, I dumped the custards out into a bowl, whisked in another egg yolk, poured the mixture back in the ramekins, and baked them for another 20 or 30 minutes, hoping for the best. What I got were four ramekins filled with shiny, slightly thick, nothing-like-custard custards. Frustrated, I shoved them into the fridge to cool and ignored them until after dinner. 


After toiling away at some delicious risotto, I checked on my little failures and, much to my surprise, they'd completely solidified and looked the way crème brûlée should. Even more to my surprise, when I dipped a spoon into one and tasted it, it was fantastic! Ridiculously chocolatey and rich, with that quintessential light, creamy texture that makes a crème brûlée a crème brûlée. So, my wannabe fancy chocolate pudding turned into chocolate rème brûlée after all. Success! 

Recipe: Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Risotto with Seared Chicken

A good risotto is incredibly rich, incredibly creamy, and incredibly delicious. Like warm macaroni-and-cheese and buttery mashed potatoes, risotto is something of a comfort food, albeit a fancy comfort food that takes a lot of time and patience to make. It's up there with homemade pasta and the perfectly poached egg on the list of "things that are (supposedly) hard to make." Truthfully, it's not so much that risotto is hard to make, but that it takes a very long time to make and really requires your constant attention to make sure it cooks through properly—it's so worth making though, because, as I said in the first sentence, a good risotto is rich, creamy, and absolutely delicious. This recipe combines tangy sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil with a healthy handful of grated Parmesan cheese, some white wine, and a little garlic to create a colorful, flavorful dish that's incredibly filling and perfect served with chicken (or shrimp or scallops). Plan on making this on a night when you have time to spare and a big appetite.

Serves: 6
Prep. time: 10-15 minutes
Cooking time: Approx. 45 min.-1 hour (give or take a little time—the rice takes a long time to cook)
Difficulty: Moderate

Ingredients

• Approx. 6-8 cups chicken stock or broth
• 1-3 tbsp. whole butter
• 1-2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup white wine (cooking wine will do)
• 2 cups Arborio rice (this is key—you must use this type of rice)
• 1, 7 oz. jar (about 10 pieces) sun-dried tomatoes, diced (I buy Alessi brand, oil-packed)
• Approx. 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, or to taste
• Approx. 1/4 cup fresh basil, chiffonade
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
• 3 chicken breasts, cut in half and pounded out to about 1/2 inch thickness

Directions
In a medium pot, bring the chicken broth to a simmer (it should bubble slightly around the edges). In a large pot, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat, then add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is slightly soft and translucent (about 5 minutes). Add the rice to the pot with the onion and garlic mixture and stir it around to coat it with the butter and olive oil. Let it cook for 1-2 minutes, until the rice is coated evenly and the pieces look a little white in the middle. Add in the white wine and cook until it's absorbed into the rice and there is little or no wine visible in the pot. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add in a ladle-full of chicken stock, stirring the rice as you pour. Keep stirring and watch as the rice absorbs the stock. When most of the stock is absorbed, add in another ladle-full, stirring as you go, and watching until the stock is absorbed. Repeat this process until the rice is tender and the mixture is creamy (it's really important to taste this as you go so you make sure you get the right texture). If your rice is crunchy, add more hot stock, but be sure that you always add it in small ladle-fulls—the rice needs to absorb the stock before more is added. Towards the end, when you're nearing the end of your pot of stock, the rice should look really creamy and the individual grains should look larger. At this point, feel free to reduce the heat to low and let it cook gently, undisturbed, to let it absorb any excess stock and to thicken a bit more. The result should be tender rice (they may be a little al dente, but this is okay) that is creamy and thick. Once the rice is done, toss in the sun-dried tomatoes, basil, Parmesan cheese, crushed red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper, plus a little butter (about 1 tbsp.), then stir to combine. The tricky part about this is figuring out when to start the chicken, and my timing was a little off when I made this. I'd recommend starting the chicken when you've only got only a few ladle-fulls of stock left—heat a little olive oil and butter in a large pan over medium heat. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and place them in the pan, cooking both sides until the chicken breasts are cooked through.
Plate the chicken atop the rice and garnish with a little fresh basil.

This dish takes time and it's not something you can start and then walk away from—you need to be constantly stirring the rice, adding more stock, and tasting it for texture and doneness the entire time—but the end results are worth the time it takes to make it (and if you're cooking for a smaller crowd like me, you'll have some delicious leftovers). The rice is decadent and creamy, with a rich, full flavor from the chicken stock and Parmesan cheese and brightness from sun-dried tomatoes and basil.

Recipe: Reginette Pasta tossed with Sweet Italian Sausage and Ricotta Cheese

While searching through my Pinterest "Recipes to Try" board and the latest uploads to Tastespotting, I came across this recipe for pasta "rags" with fresh ricotta and basil oil and I was instantly inspired. It offered the chance to use my beloved pasta maker and I loved the components that went into it—homemade flavored oil and fresh ricotta cheese. I opted to buy ricotta from the grocery store rather than make it from scratch, and add sweet Italian sausage to add protein and texture to the dish. Making the basil oil was so easy (and it inspired this week's upcoming "Technique Tuesday" post), but extra virgin olive oil would work just as well in this dish. Opting to cut noodles into the reginette shape (one of the "fun" cutters available on my pasta maker) rather than rough-cut "rags" made the dish a little more elegant. Reginette, a wavy-edged ribbon noodle also called mafaldine, can be tricky to find in your average grocery store, but any similarly long and wide noodle (pappardelle, fettuccine) would work. A variety of other pastas, including medium pasta shells (conchiglie) and rigatoni, could potentially work in this dish, but avoid long, thin noodles (spaghetti, angel hair, linguine).

 
Ingredients

• 8-12 oz. reginette pasta, or other long, wide noodle of your choice
• Approx. 1/2 - 3/4 cup ricotta cheese (enough to coat pasta), seasoned with a little salt and pepper
• Approx. 1 lb. sweet Italian sausage, crumbled (really, you'll be pulling it apart into bite-sized pieces)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Salt and pepper, to taste 
• Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
• Dried herbs (oregano, basil, thyme, and Italian seasoning are the best choices), to taste
• Olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of a pan)
• 5-8 fresh basil leaves, chiffonade cut
• Butter (just a little to toss with the pasta)
• Basil oil (mentioned here) or extra virgin olive oil (to coat the pasta)

Directions
Bring a medium-to-large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to package instructions, until al dente. Drain it, return it to the pot, then toss it with a little butter to keep the noodles from sticking. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the sausage with a little salt, pepper, dried herbs, and crushed red pepper (just a dash of each is fine). In a large pan, heat a little olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add in the crumbled sausage and cook for about 4-5 minutes, then add in the minced garlic, and cook until the sausage is cooked through and lightly golden-brown. When the sausage is done cooking, toss it and a little basil oil or olive oil with the noodles, then spoon the ricotta into the pasta, and gently toss the mixture to combine. The ricotta is soft and easily coats the pasta, forming a sort deconstructed sauce. Toss in the fresh basil and serve.

This dish is simple, quick to make, and quite tasty. The creamy ricotta clings beautifully to the pasta noodles, and the sausage, with just a hint of heat, brighten up the softer flavors in the dish and add a little texture. Fresh basil adds color and a crisp flavor to the creaminess in the dish and make the dish complete.

Recipe: Chicken with Spinach-Parsley Rice and a Lemon Cream Sauce

This dish is bursting with fresh, clean flavors—tart lemon, fresh baby spinach and flat-leaf parsley, creamy fontina cheese, and velvety cream. After days of cold weather, rain, and snow, we finally got a bit of a break today, and this dish, which I'd consider more of a spring or summer meal, was the perfect thing to highlight the little bit of warm weather we got today. Simple white rice gets a kick with the addition of a pesto-like mixture of baby spinach, Italian flat-leaf parsley, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and a handful of fontina cheese, and it pairs nicely with lightly seasoned chicken breasts and a delicate lemon cream sauce. Crisp, clean lemon flavor, from both the juice and zest of the fruit, is the highlighted flavor in the dish and really gives it a great pop of flavor—use the real thing, not the bottled stuff, because it'll taste so much nicer.

The sauce was served on the side

Serves: 4
Prep. time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking time: Approx. 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Food processor

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts, cut in half, and pounded out to about 1/2-1 inch thickness
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Dried lemon peel, to taste (not necessary, but it's great on the chicken)
• Olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of a pan)
• Butter or margarine (just a pat to add to the pan with the chicken)

For the rice

• Approx. 1 cup long grain white rice (makes about 3 cups cooked)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• Juice from one lemon (about 3 tbsp.)
• 1/2 tsp. lemon zest
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 cup baby spinach (be sure to pack it down to fit in more)
• 1 cup flat-leaf Italian parsley (be sure to pack it down to fit in more)
• Approx. 5 oz. fontina cheese, grated
• Salt and pepper, to taste

For the lemon cream sauce

• 2 tbsp. dry white wine (cooking wine)
• 1/2 - 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup (1/2 pint) heavy cream
• White pepper and salt, to taste (the white pepper will ensure the sauce stays a nice, solid white color)

Directions
Cook the rice according to package instructions (for me, it's cooking rice in 1&3/4 cup salted water with a tbsp. butter)—this should take about 20 minutes. In the meantime, add the ingredients for the rice "pesto" (olive oil, lemon juice and zest, garlic, spinach, and parsley) to a food processor and pulse to blend. After it's well-blended, add the grated cheese and pulse to blend, then set aside. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper (I sprinkled mine with dried lemon peel too) on both sides. In a large pan, heat a little olive oil and butter over medium heat, then add the chicken and cook until done, turning occasionally to evenly brown it. While the chicken is cooking, heat the lemon juice, zest, and white wine for the sauce in a small pot over medium heat. After about 2 minutes over heat, gradually whisk the heavy cream into the mixture (do this very slowly). Season with salt and white pepper and reduce to low heat. The mixture will thicken to a certain degree, but it is naturally a thinner, more delicate sauce. When the rice is done, fluff it gently and pour the spinach and parsley mixture into it, then gently toss the rice to evenly coat it. Serve the rice alongside the chicken and drizzle the sauce over both. A sprinkling of Parmesan cheese works well with the dish.

This dish is full of lemony flavor, which really brightens it up and wakes up your senses. The light sauce adds flavor to the simply-seasoned chicken and it pairs well with the rice. A small baby spinach salad with a light dressing (and oil-and-vinegar dressing would be perfect) would go well with this, along with any sort of white wine.

Recipe: Vanilla Crème Brûlée

One of my many kitchen-oriented Christmas gifts this year was a set of oval ramekins and a crème brûlée
torch from my grandma, and I've been eager to test them out. Vanilla is the classic flavor for crème brûlée and, lucky for me, one of my other gifts was a bottle of Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract from my cousins, so I was all set to make my first set of crème brûlée custards. The process is surprisingly easy and, while having a crème brûlée torch helps, you can caramelize the sugar for that delicious crunchy topping by using the broiler in your oven. These little desserts turned out silky and creamy, with a heavenly vanilla flavor, and perfect, golden-brown sugar tops. 

Serves: 4
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 5-10 minutes, plus 30-35 in the oven
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Oven-safe dishes for the custard (porcelain ramekins are best; they should be about 6-7 oz.), clean kitchen towel, crème brûlée torch or oven broiler

Ingredients 

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 cup sugar 
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (I used Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla extract and highly recommend it)
• Approx. 8-12 tsp. fine raw sugar or granulated sugar for caramelizing on top

Directions
Preheat the oven to 300*F and bring a small pot of water to a boil (I filled an electric tea kettle and boiled water that way). In a medium pot over medium heat, combine the heavy cream and 1/4 cup sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is steaming hot (but not simmering or boiling; about 5 minutes). Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and vanilla until well-blended. Once the cream and sugar mixture is heated through, gradually pour it into the egg yolk and vanilla, stirring or whisking the mixture constantly. Strain the custard mixture through a fine-mesh strainer/sieve, or a strainer lined with cheesecloth (I actually used a loose tea strainer, because I didn't have anything else that would work, and it worked out well). Divide the custard mixture between four ramekins. Line a large, shallow, oven-safe dish with a clean kitchen towel, place the ramekins in the dish, and carefully pour the water you heated up earlier into the pan (avoid splashing the custard) until it comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cover the dish loosely with foil and place in the oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the custard is cooked through and gently wiggles when the ramekins are shaken. Allow the pan to sit out and cool, then remove the ramekins and allow them to cool to room temperature, then place them in the fridge and cool for at least 3 hours. Before serving, sprinkle the tops with 2-3 tsp. sugar and caramelize the topping with a crème brûlée torch or place the ramekins in the oven under the broiler (3-5 inches from the heat source) for 3-5 minutes until the top is golden brown (watch carefully so it doesn't burn). The sugar will harden within seconds and then they're read to serve. 
The custard can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for 2 or 3 days, but always caramelize sugar on top immediately before serving. If you caramelize the sugar and then place the whole thing back in the fridge, the sugar will soften and get slimy, which is no good.

Beautiful golden-brown top

 These dishes of crème brûlée turned out beautifully! The custard was rich, creamy, and oh-so-soft—really and truly heavenly. There's nothing quite like tapping that hardened golden-brown sugar with a spoon and hearing that delicate crack as you break into the silky custard beneath. Crème brûlée is a delicious, elegant dessert, perfect for a dinner party or date night, but as something so easy to make, it works well as a regular weeknight dessert as well. You can easily play around with flavors, making anything from chocolate to mint to raspberry flavored custard—the possibilities are endless!


Update (5/31/12): Tried out lavender crème brûlée the other day and it was absolutely delicious! Here's how to make it (short and sweet version): When you're heating the heavy cream, add 1-2 tbsp. dried lavender to it and let it cook. Once the creme starts to bubble, turn off the heat and let the lavender steep in it for at least an hour. Reheat the creme mixture before adding it to the eggs, then strain the completed mixture to remove the lavender. (The recipe I followed for this version made 8 servings and had you add the vanilla to the heavy cream and whisk the sugar into the egg, which is the opposite of the above recipe, but I think either way would work. If only making 4 servings, 1 tbsp. of dried lavender should be enough).

Lavender, steeping in the heavy cream and vanilla mixture

Recipe: Chicken and Fettuccine in a Garlicky White Wine Sauce

In my last post, I shared my recipe for basic pasta dough and some basic instructions for using a pasta maker, and this post features the recipe I chose to highlight that delicious fresh pasta. Homemade fettuccine pasta form the base for salt-and-pepper-seasoned chicken breasts, sauteed and then cooked in a sauce of white wine, garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil, with just a splash of cream. The sauce is creamy, yet light, and so rich and flavorful, and it clings beautifully to the pasta and chicken. More than likely, you already have all of the ingredients you need at home, and this is a really easy dish to pull together (of course, I made homemade pasta, which made it take a little longer, but regular boxed pasta obviously works just fine).

Serves: 4
Prep. time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: About 20-30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded to about 1/2-inch thickness and cut in half (creating 4 servings)
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus a little more for cooking the chicken
• Butter or margarine, as needed
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp. dried basil
• 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 medium onion (about 3/4 cup), finely chopped
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup dry white wine (cooking wine is fine)
• 1, 14.5 oz. can petite diced tomatoes, drained
• Approx. 1/4 to 1/2 cup heavy cream or half&half, or as needed (I didn't really measure this—I just added a few splashes of half&half to create a thicker, creamier sauce)
• Corn starch, as needed (this must be mixed with a liquid first, then added)
• Approx. 8-12 oz. fettuccine or other long, flat noodle

Directions
In a large skillet, heat a little olive oil (enough to lightly coat the bottom of the pan) over medium heat. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and add to the pan (I also sprinkled a little garlic powder on them for added flavor). Cook until they are almost completely cooked through (about 10-15 minutes), then remove from the pan, place on a plate, and cover with foil to keep them warm.

Cooked through and golden brown

Add the dried herbs (including the bay leaf), onion, garlic, water, and 1/2 cup of olive oil, plus a little butter (just a pat or two) to the pan and cook over medium heat, until the mixture is fragrant and the onions are slightly soft. Add the tomatoes and white wine and stir to combine. Add a splash or two of half&half or heavy cream to the sauce and whisk it into the sauce to help it blend. Because the sauce has so much olive oil, it does not necessarily blend completely, so you may notice that it looks a little "unmixed"—this is alright; just whisk it a bit every so often to help keep it blended. Add in cornstarch (mixed first with a little water or cream) if desired (this helps thicken the sauce a bit). Let the completed sauce cook for a minute, then add the chicken back into to the pan, stir to coat, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cover the pan. Before serving, remove the bay leaf from the sauce (these should not be eaten). In the meantime, bring a medium-to-large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta according to the package instructions. Drain the pasta, return it to the pot, then ladle large spoonfuls of the completed sauce into the pot and toss to combine. Plate the chicken on top of the sauced pasta and serve with an extra spoonful of sauce and a sprinkling of Italian cheese (Pecorino-Romano is perfect!).

The sauce is what makes this dish so good—it's rich, lightly creamy, and so smooth, and it coats the pasta and chicken perfectly. The dried herbs, onion, and wine blend beautifully with the tangy bite of the tomatoes and the garlic, and the olive oil and cream create an amazing texture to the sauce. This was the perfect dish to make with my fresh fettuccine!

Recipe: Basic Pasta Dough

My big gift this Christmas was a beautiful Marcato brand pasta maker, a kitchen gadget I'd been begging my parents for ever since I made fresh pasta during my last Foods 1 class in early December. I'd expected a basic model from our local DeLallo's store, but the model they got me is a stunning little machine, with multiple pasta cutters (including a gadget for making crinkle-edged raviolini), and an incredibly sturdy design. Last night, I convinced my mom to let us put off a dinner of leftovers until tonight and let me make pasta for dinner instead, and I had a blast using the gadget for the first time.

Making pasta from scratch has stereotypically been one of those things that foodies would brag about at a dinner party—a somewhat smug, yet casual comment like "Oh, I made homemade fettucini last week with a tomato-basil cream sauce that was to die for!" slipped into a conversation, meant to make the listener feel in awe that their friend took the time and effort to make something oh-so-complicated and oh-so-fancy. But really, making pasta isn't this big ordeal...you don't even really need a pasta maker if you've got a rolling pin and a good, sharp knife. I think the biggest hang up for people when it comes to making pasta dough is what flour to use and whether to mix it by hand or in a mixer (and how much time it can take). Traditionally, Italian pasta is made with semolina flour, but you can find recipes that call for durum wheat flour, bread flour, or all-purpose flour. Dough can be mixed by hand in the old-fashioned way, or gently mixed with a paddle and then a dough hook in an electric mixture. Basic dough only needs a few ingredients to pull it together, and once you know the basics, you can experiment with flavoring pasta by adding in minced garlic, herbs, or other flavorings. In this post, I'm going to share my recipe for basic pasta dough, as well as my method for using a pasta maker to roll out and cut the dough.

Serves: 4 (making a long noodle—in this case, it's fettuccine)
Prep. time: Approx. 1 hour, 15 minutes
Cooking time: 3-5 minutes
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
Special equipment: Electric mixer with paddle attachment and dough hook attachment (and a pasta maker and two baking sheets for rolling out and laying out the pasta)

*Pasta dough can be mixed by hand, and if you don't have the pasta maker, you can use a rolling pin to flatten the dough to the desired consistency, then cut long strips or whatever other shape you might want, but for this post, I'm sharing the pasta maker method

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 4 tbsp. water
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, plus more if needed
• Flour for dusting

Directions
Put the paddle attachment in the mixer and add the eggs, water, salt, and olive oil. Gently mix on a low setting for about 1 minute, then gradually add in 1 cup of flour and increase the mixing speed slightly so that the mixture blends well. The dough should look and feel wet and somewhat thin once the one cup of flour is incorporated. Switch the paddle attachment out and place the dough hook in the mixer, then gradually add the second cup of flour while on a low-to-medium mixing speed. If the dough looks very dry and floury and doesn't appear to be absorbing the flour well, add in a little more olive oil and mix until it's a light yellowy-beige color and somewhat dry-looking. The dough should feel thick and slightly sticky and it should look fairly dry. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and gently roll it into a ball using a little flour to keep it from sticking to your hands. Tightly wrap the dough in plastic wrap then let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. After resting, the dough can be unwrapped and prepared as desired.

My pasta-making station

Directions for rolling out and cooking pasta

When the dough is done resting, remove it from the plastic wrap and place it on a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into about 4 pieces (you need to use smaller chunks of dough in order for them to fit in the machine and roll out to the right thickness and width). Depending on what type of pasta you want, there are different settings on the pasta maker for rolling out various thicknesses and different cutter attachments to cut different types of pasta. I chose to make fettuccine, so I'll share those instructions here. Set the pasta maker on the 0 setting, sprinkle a little flour in between the rollers, and roll one of the dough balls through on this setting 4 times. Moving up through the numbers (which indicate the width between the rollers, and thus the thickness of the sheet of pasta), work your way up to number 5, making sure to pass the pasta sheet through each number twice. Make sure you sprinkle a little flour between the rollers each time to prevent the dough from sticking. Repeat the process until all of the dough is rolled out. The dough sheets should be lightly floured and laid out on a lightly floured baking sheet (the flour will help keep the sheets from sticking to each other). Roll each sheet through the fettuccine cutter (you'll just pass the sheets through once), sprinkling flour between the rollers. Place finished fettuccine noodles on a lightly floured baking sheet. It's important that the noodles are lightly floured and that you pull them apart if any are stuck, because you don't want them to stick. Cover the sheet of pasta with plastic wrap or a cloth towel to keep the noodles for drying out.

When cooking the noodles, simply fill a medium-to-large pot with unsalted water and bring the water to a boil. Add the noodles and cook for 3-5 minutes, until the noodles are cooked through. The finished noodles will be softer than regular dried pasta from a box and they may feel a little slippery. Once you drain the pasta, you can add a little butter or olive oil to keep them from sticking to each other.

If you have the chance to make fresh pasta, even without the aid of a pasta maker, I highly recommend it! Fresh pasta is so much lighter and softer than dried boxed pasta and it really makes a difference in a meal (really—once you've had fresh pasta, you'll never want to go back to the dried stuff, though, unfortunately, it's not really practical to make fresh pasta all the time, haha).

How to Peel Garlic

I want to share an essential technique that every cook should know: how to peel garlic. Growing up, when my mom made dinner that called for garlic, she either reached for the dried minced garlic in the spice cabinet—crunchy, hard, and musty—or the tangy-smelling wet garlic in a jar in the fridge. Buying fresh garlic wasn't even on her radar, and when I first started cooking, I didn't bother with it either. If a recipe called for a clove of garlic, I knew how to get the equivalent out of the dry or wet garlic we had and I made do. Fortunately, I realized the error of my ways and started using fresh garlic as my involvement with cooking continued. I completely believe that every cook should keep at least one head of garlic in their kitchen or pantry at all times—it's an essential ingredient in many Italian and Asian dishes and it can add a pop of flavor to many meals. Garlic is inexpensive, it's easy to store (I have a little "garlic keeper" dish, but sometimes I just toss the heads in with the onions or the potatoes we keep in a bin in the pantry), and it's really easy to use.

First things first: The whole bulb of garlic, which usually includes 6-10 cloves, is called a head or bulb of garlic. The pieces that make up this head are the cloves, and they can be small and skinny or fat and wide, and they are covered with an inedible peel/skin.

There are a variety of ways to peel garlic, but the technique I'm sharing is a classic. If you really like kitchen "gadgets" and the like, there are these little rubbery garlic peeler sheets, like this one, that you can buy to peel garlic—you put the clove inside the rubber and roll it back and forth and the rubber helps peel off the skin. They work pretty well, but I kind of think they're a bit silly. For the method I'm sharing, all you need is a cutting board and a wide knife (a chef's knife is best). 

Step 1: Remove the number of cloves you need from the head of garlic and place them on the cutting board. You're only going to peel one at a time (it's easier that way), but I've got two cloves out because I needed them for dinner tonight.

The little porcelain garlic-lookalike dish is what I keep my garlic in at home

Step 2: Place the flat side of your knife on top of the garlic clove (it doesn't really matter if you do it on the flat or the round side of the clove—I do it both ways). Be very careful that you don't let your hand slip and cut yourself! Press the knife down hard and rock it back and forth once or twice on the clove or slam the palm of your hand down onto the flat of the knife and push it down into the clove. You should be able to hear the skin of the clove crinkling as it opens up.

Additional note: After I posted this, my friend Tory commented that she likes to use the bottom of a can or glass to crush the clove, because placing your hand near the knife's edge is a little intimidating (I agree!)—really, you just need a hard, flat surface to push against the clove to get the skin to break. 

Step 3: Pull the peel from the clove. It's not always going to come off in one clean piece, but you should be able to peel it off easily. The clove may remain whole, if you didn't push into it too hard, or it many be a little crushed, but it's fine either way and it's ready to be minced, chopped, crushed, or sliced.

The one drawback to this method is that you can crush the cloves a bit (which doesn't matter if you're chopping up the cloves anyway), so if you have a recipe that calls for whole cloves and you want them to be absolutely perfect, here's a tip: Break apart the garlic head/bulb by firmly pressing down on the tip with the palm of your hand, or carefully dig in and pluck out however many cloves you need. Soak the cloves in room temperature water for a few minutes until the skins can be easily peeled off (they might feel a little slimy, but that's totally normal.).

I hope this post helps you out and encourages you to use fresh garlic (the flavor can't be beat!). Please feel free to comment if you have any questions or you just want to tell me if this post was helpful or not.

Recipe: "Chicken-on-a-Stick" with Fried Rice

As I explained in my last post, my family always celebrates our own Christmas on New Year's Day, sharing a delicious dinner before tearing into presents. For the past few years, we've had this odd tradition of making what my mom calls "chicken-on-a-stick" for dinner on this day. I think it all started because of my brother—though he only lives about an hour away from my parents' house, he doesn't come to visit often, so when he is here, my mom always likes to make whatever meal he asks for, and this "chicken-on-a-stick" dish has always been one of his favorites. It's simply chicken strips marinated in an Asian-style sauce, threaded onto skewers with pieces of green onion then cooked, and we serve it with a simple version of fried rice.

Perhaps the best part of this year's meal was the well-planned gift-opening we did before making everything—my parents wanted us each to open one gift before we started dinner, and they planned it so that my mom opened up a rice cooker and I opened up pristine white plates that I'm able to use for plating for the blog. My brother and dad...well....Adam got new underwear and dad opened a tie or something...but hey, mom and I were certainly excited and the guys opened up some great gifts after dinner. Haha.

 

Serves: 4-6

Prep. time: Approx. 1 hour, 15 min.

Cooking time: Approx. 45 min.

Difficulty: Easy

Special equipment: Wooden skewers

Ingredients

For the fried rice:

• Approx. 3 cups dry white or brown rice (makes 6 cups cooked)
• Approx. 24 cocktail shrimp, tails removed, each cut into 4-5 pieces (you can use any sort of shrimp, so long as they're properly cleaned and cut into bite-size pieces—cocktail shrimp are nice because they're already cooked through, so that saves some time when making the fried rice)
• Approx. 1/2 cup peas
• 1/2 bunch green onions, minced
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 eggs, scrambled
• Sesame oil (enough to coat the bottom of a large pan; you can use any other lightly flavored oil if desired)
• 1-2 tsp. butter
• Soy sauce for flavor (add as much as you want to achieve the desired flavor and brown color in the rice)

For the chicken: 

• 1/2 cup soy sauce (we use low sodium)
• 1/2 cup sake
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1-2 garlic cloves, minced
• 6-8 boneless chicken breasts, sliced into long, thin (about 1-2 inch wide) strips
• 1 & 1/2 bunches green onions, cut into 2 inch long pieces (see the picture below)

*Note: When using green onions, you trim of the little bit of root on the white end and then only use the white and lightest green parts of the stalk—that's where all the flavor is. The green tops don't have much flavor, but you can use some of it for color if desired.

Shrimp, green onion (short pieces for the chicken and minced for the rice), and garlic

The finished skewers

Directions
In a medium bowl, combine the soy sauce, sugar, sake, and minced garlic. Stir together, then add all of the chicken strips to the bowl and stir to coat. Cover the bowl and set it in the fridge, allowing the chicken to marinate for approx. 1 hour. While they're in the fridge, fill a long, shallow dish with water and set the wooden skewers in to soak. Preheat the oven to 400*F. When the chicken is done marinating, take it out and thread 2-3 pieces of chicken onto each skewer, separating them with pieces of green onion. Lay them side by side in ungreased, long, shallow dishes. Bake the chicken for 20-30 minutes, until cooked through. In the meantime, cook the rice according to package instructions (we used a rice steamer and made sticky rice, which worked out really well, but you can cook it any way you like—just be sure to time it so that the rice finishes right before the chicken does). In a large, deep pan or wok, over medium heat, add the sesame oil and butter, then add the egg and cook it, breaking it up into pieces as it cooks (2-4 minutes). Add the minced green onion and garlic and cook until fragrant (about 5 minutes). Add the peas and shrimp and cook for about 10 minutes, until warmed through. Add the rice last—we always set a cup or two aside to serve plain—and gently mix the ingredients into it. Add soy sauce until the desired flavor and color is reached and cook until everything is hot. Serve the rice alongside the chicken.

This dish takes a little time to pull together and you need to be careful with your timing so you don't have one thing finishing way before another. The rice is incredibly simple and you could easily switch out or add in ingredients—carrots, cooked pork or another meat, and/or onion would all be great in this. You can also add more than just soy sauce to the rice—I'm sure there are some great recipes out there for a fried rice sauce, but we like to keep it simple with the soy sauce. The chicken can be grilled or baked, so this dish works any time of year. The rice and chicken both have great flavor from the garlic, soy sauce, and green onion and this meal is great for family dinners or a big party.