What do you do when you have lots of apples and don’t know what to do with them? You either eat them as snack, or you fix lots of desserts with them;-))
Well since i had some phillo dough left in my fridge, i thought to fix some chocolate and apples purses. The great part about fixing this recipe is that it is fast, really easy to make, unexpensive and can make a great dessert, or a yummy snack.
Ingredients for 20 small ones:
Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!
Do you have days when life is so crazy that dinner time arrives, and there is nothing on the table. Last night was this kind of night. I had nothing planned to make. Nothing really in the fridge and yet we needed to eat dinner. So what do you do?? Well, you either order out ( something that we do not do), or find things to use in the fridge. And this is what I did. I searched, found gorgonzola cheese and lettuce. I did not even have a pie crust so I actually made it from scratch, but you certainly can make your own.
Ingredients for 1 quiche for 6-8 people:
Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!
What to do when you have 10 people staying at your house and very litle time to fix dinner???? One would probably call pick up….
Me … I am picking up steaks, salads and potatoes.
Tonite, I wanted to roast my potatoes, but since this process can be quite long, I chose a quicker way:
Ingredients for 10 :
Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!
How was your Memorial Week-end? fun??? I sure hope so… I had fun myself. We did not go out of town because we had family duty in town, but I will say that i was happy to just hang out and enjoy the tranquility of my backyard. I usually cook out on Memorial Monday, but since I am to depart soon for France for a wedding, I had much to do with packing and all the business that needs to be taken care of before. And instead of a large cook-out with friends, we decided to have a limited cook-out. On the menu, hot-dogs, assorted chips, baked beans and broccoli salad. Yum:-) What did you guys have???
Well for dessert, we did not have ice-cream, or cookies, or pie… we had White Chocolate Mousse with Assorted Summer Fruit. Much easier, and much lighter than any of the one mentioned above to make. As I was browsing through my cookbook to find a fun dessert with fruits, I came across a recipe in the Ghiradelli Chocolate Cookbook, entitled White Chocolate Mousse that inspired my mousse today. It is very similar from the original recipe except that I used cream and orange blossom extract instead of water and Grand Marnier mentioned in the recipe.
First you want to make the chocolate stars.
Ingredients: 3 oz of bittersweet chocolate chips, 3 oz of heavy cream.
Warm up the heavy cream in the microwave for 1 minute, and pour it on the chocolate. Stir quickly so that the chocolate will “melt” and you will have a “paste” free of lumps. With a spoon, fill up the openings of the star mold. Place the tray into the freezer to chill the stars.
Ingredients for 6 large / 12 small mousse: 8 oz of white chocolate chips ( guiradhelli), 1/4 cup of heavy cream for melting the chocolate, 1 tbsp of orange blossom extract, 1 1/4 cups of heavy cream, 2 large egg whites, assorted summer fruits of your choice.
Place the 1/4 cup of heavy cream in a small bowl and heat it up in the microwave for 1 minute. When it is hot, empty it on the white chocolate and stir rapidly. Add 1 tbsp of orange blossom extract and stir well. Set aside to let the mixture cool.
In a mixer, place the 1 1/4 cup of heavy cream and beat it up to make whipped cream. When the cream is making hard peaks, stop beating the cream and place it in a bowl. Set aside.
Clean up the mixer and add the 2 egg whites, whip them at high-speed so that they will make “meringue”, and will make soft peaks.
Fold the whipped cream into the cool chocolate mixture, then fold the beaten egg whites into the chocolate/ whipped cream mixture. Divide the mousse into 6 large glasses or 12 small glasses. Place them in the fridge to chill. Let them chill for at least an hour. Before serving, place a few assorted fruits on top of each mousse. Remove the stars from the star mold, make a small cut in each of them. And place the stars on the rim of each glass.
Et voila!!!
Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!
Corn is so cheap right now that it would be a folly not to buy it. And yes, you guessed it I bought 10 ears of corn so now I need to find creative ways to eat all this yummy corn. Tonite I wanted to use the corn as a side and decided to use what i had on hand to make a corn salsa. You may eat this salsa as a side, or as an appetizer.
Ingredients for 4-6: 3 ears of corn, 1 cup of diced red and orange peppers, 2 tbsp of olive oil, 4 tbsp. of white vinegar, 1/4 tsp of salt, 1/8 tsp of pepper, 1 tbsp of fresh and chopped cilantro, 1/4 cup of white onion chopped very thinly, and optional hot sauce.
Place the corn in the large round mold and cook them for 5 minutes. With a knife, remove the kernels off the cobb. Add the diced onion, the diced red pepper, the cilantro and all the other ingredients. Add a few drop of the hot sauce if you wish to spice it up. Et voila!!!
Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!
Do you feel at loss at times when looking at the array of products in the grocery store???? I was in the grocery store the other day picking up some light soy sauce and as I was searching for it, I could help noticing all the other stuff in that area: Mirin, tamari, oyster sauce, fish sauce. What do you do with all those things???? I need to educate myself, is what came to me. So next time I go to a bookstore, i will have a to buy a cookbook on Asian Cuisine. I guess I could have left those items on the shelf until I knew how to use them, but woman of curiosity that I am, I had to take them home and tried them.
So even though I had no idea how I was going to use those things, I decided to take them home. Once home, I tried them one by one. That’s when I thought that a few of them together would probably taste great. And they did. YUM!!!!
Ingredients for 4-6 people: 2 tbsp of toasted sesame seed oil, 2 scallions cleaned and diced thinly, 1 red bell pepper cleaned and sliced in small short strips, 1 bock choy chopped small as well, 1 cup of tiny carrots, 1 cup of broccoli florets, 1 box of shitake mushrroms cleaned and sliced thinly, 12 scallops (3 scallops per person), salt and pepper, 4 tbsp of tamari, 4 tbsp of mirim, 4 tbsp of water, 1/2 tsp of grated fresh ginger.
Place the carrots in the round mold, cover the mold with the octogonal silpat and cook for 3 minutes. Set them aside for later use. Wash off the scallops and dry them up with a paper towel. Set them aside. In a large saute pan, warm up 1 tbsp of sesame oil. When the oil is sizzling and hot, drop the scallops and saute them for a short minute on each side just enough so that they will become a light golden color. Remove them from the saute pan, and place them onto a warm plate and cover them with aluminium foil to keep them warm. Add the other tablespoon of sesame oil in the pan and heat it up. When it is warm and sizzling again, add all the vegetables including the carrots. Saute the vegetables for a few minutes. Add the mirin, the tamari, the ginger, and the 4 tbsp of water and bring to boil. When it has come to boil, cook for about 5 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked to your liking. Add the scallops and cook them for a few extra minutes. Et voila!!!
If you wish NOT to saute the vegetables. You may place all the vegetables in the round mold and cook them for 3 minutes. Then you can place the vegetables in the saute pan, add the tamari, the ginger, water and the mirim and bring it to boil.
To serve, spoon the vegetables on each plate and top the vegetables with the scallops.
You may also add some rice to that meal.
You may cook the rice according to directions, or cook in much faster in the round mold.
Ingredients for the rice for 4 people: 1 cup of texmati ( or American Basmati Rice), 2 cups of water, 1/8 tsp of salt.
Place the 1 cup of rice with the water and the salt in the round mold. Cover the round mold with the octogonal silpat and cook for 12-13 minutes. C’est tout!
Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!
When I go home in France, there are two things that I have to eat within days that I arrive. A real French croissant, an Opera and either an eclair or a religieuse. Why because they taste like nothing else you can find around here. The only place that I was able to eat true French pastry was in Las Vegas at the Patisserie of Jean-Philippe inside Aria and the Bellagio.
But in Spartanburg, Sc, there is nothing like this. So if the craving strikes, and the time is there I can spend time in my kitchen fixing those delightful desserts.
This week-end the time was not right, but as I had committed to help with an event, here I was making eclairs.
Do you wish to learn to make some??? Call me to find out when my next cooking class on French Eclairs will be at 864-494-4494 or check my website for the cooking classes schedule.
For the time being, I will offer you a recipe of the Chocolate Painted Eclairs with the French Vanilla Cream that I use is from the Demarle Cookbook called Les Classiques de la Patisserie.
Ingredients for about 20+ eclairs and about 40 mini eclairs:
For the choux pastry: 5 cl milk, 5 cl water, 1/8 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of sugar, 3 1/2 Tbsp of butter, 1/2 cup of flour, 2 large eggs.
In the saucepan, heat up the milk, salt, and sugar. Add the butter cut up in pieces. When the butter has completely melted, bring the mixture to boil. Remove the pan from the stove and add the flour by stirring very well. Place the pan back on the stove ( it must be turned off, but will still be warm), and stir and stir with a heat-resistant spatula until the dough starts becoming a ball and will no longer stick to the rims of the pan. Remove the pan from the stove and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg. Place the dough in a pastry bag, with the large circular opening make long sticks of about 5 inches or 2 inches for small ones on a large silpat that you would have previously lay on a large perforated sheet. Sprinkle the eclairs with some confectioner’s sugar and cook them in a warm oven at 350 for 15 minutes for the small ones or about 25 minutes for the large ones. The dough should become brown and dry on all sides. If the dough is a little bit soft, continue cooking the eclairs for 1-3 more minutes. Take them out to cool.
Meanwhile, prepare the vanilla cream: 50 cl of milk, 4 oz of sugar, 4 egg yloks, 1 1/2 oz of corn starch, 1 tbsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of heavy cream.
In a mixer, place the egg yolks and the sugar, beat the mixture until it doubles in volume and become a pale yellow. Add the warm milk ( that you would have previously brought to boil, or heat up in the microwave), and the cornstarch and stir. Empty the mixture into a medium saucepan. Place the saucepan on the stove over medium heat and stir. The cream will get thicker. Be careful not to burn the cream by stirring constantly until the cream gets thick. Set aside to cool.
Prepare the whipping cream by placing the heavy cream into the mixer and beat it until the cream stats forming hard peaks.
If the cream is cold, add the whipping cream a little at a time and mix until it is well incorporated. Fill the pastry bag with the cream.
To fill up the eclairs, either slice a little hole at one of the extremity of the eclair and fill the eclairs with the cream. An easier way to fill up the eclairs would be to slice the eclairs in their length and fill them up with the cream.
To decorate the eclairs, you will need to make “un glacage”. Most recipe book will tell you to use pre-made fondant. But you can make your own.
Chocolate Fondant: 2 cups of confectioner’s sugar, 2 oz of water, 1/3 tbsp of light corn syrup, 1 oz of bittersweet chocolate.
In a small saucepan, combine all the ingredients except the chocolate and stir until the sugar is completely melted. Cook until it reaches about 92 degrees. Remove from the stove , add the chocolate and stir. Let the mixture cools a bit but not too much or the fondant will harden and you will not be able to paint the eclairs.
With a pastry brush, paint the eclairs. Et voila!!! YUMMY!!!!
Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!
The traditional way to cook Mashed Potatoes would be to cook the potatoes in water, but I thought I would use my flexipan instead. It allows me to prepare my meals so much faster.
Ingredients: 2 lbs of red-skinned potatoes well washed and cut in quarters, 2 cups of heavy cream or 2 cups of broth, 3 cloves of garlic pressed, 2 tbsp of parsley chopped, salt and pepper to taste.
In a large round mold, place the potatoes, 2 tbsp of water, 1/4 tsp of salt, the chopped garlic. Place the silpat on top of the round mold and microwave for 10 minutes. Remove the round mold from the microwave. Remove the octogonal silpat off the top and be careful not to burn yourself with the steam! Empty the content in a bowl, and with a potato masher, mash the potatoes. Slowly add the hot liquid ( broth or cream) and whip the potato. Add more salt and pepper until it is to your liking. I usually add 1/8 tsp of salt and 1/16 of pepper. Add the chopped parsley and stir well. Et voila!
Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!
I had a few mangoes left, and I wanted to make sure to use them before they went bad. But what to do?!?! I had made a fruit salad, a sorbet, so the next step was making a cake or a pie. I chose to make a pie since they are somewhat lighter to eat than cake. There are so many mango pie recipes out there that I really did not know which one to use. So this recipe is the amalgam of several recipes. I love tarts but don’t get to fix them often since noone here eats desserts with fruits, I have to wait for dinner parties, or cooking classes to make those recipes. Thanskfully, it was my son’s birthday this week-end so I had a reason to make one;-) There was going to be chocolate cake for them, and mango pie for me and a few other guests!!!!
This recipe is a bit long, since I chose to make the pie dough ( much much worth it), but it is a different pie dough as it includes dry coconut and this makes the pie amazing!
Ingredients for the dough: 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, 125 g of of cold butter, 1/2 cup of dry unsweetened coconut, 1 tbsp of sugar.
In a mixer, place all the ingredients above and mix until the dough sticks together. You may need to add water if needed, but I did not feel it needed it. Place the dough on the roulpat, and roll out the dough to fix the tart tray. You may not be able to lift the dough as it may be too soft, so roll the dough within you roulpat, and place in the fridge for 5 minutes. Take the dough back out the fridge, lift it off the roulpat and place onto the tart tray. Poke the dough with a fork to eliminate any air pocket that may form over the baking. Place a wax paper sheet over it, add dry beans and cook in a warm oven at 375 for 10-15 minutes until the sides of the pie are turning golden. Remove the dry beans and the wax paper and let cool.
Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the pie. You will need: a container of already prepared lemon grass ( in the organic section of your grocery store), 1 1/2 cups of whole milk or skim milk ( if you are cutting down calories). 4 eggs, 1/2 cups of sugar, 6 g of gelatin, 3 to 4 mangoes, brown sugar ( I used turbinado, because it has a great flavor).
In a small saucepan, pour the milk and the content of the lemon grass container. Bring to boil, and remove from the stove. Let the milk mixture cool and infuse for an hour. In a small cup, place the gelatin and pour 2 tbsp of cold water. Let the gelatin absorb the water. Strain the milk from the lemon grass, and bring to boil again. Add the gelatin in the milk and stir to melt the gelatin. In another bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar until the eggs turns whiter and have doubled in volume. Add the warm milk to the egg mixture, and cook at low temperature until it thickens and coat a spoon. Pour the cream onto the tart and let it cool down. Meanwhile, cut the mango in small cubes that you will spread randomly on top of the cream. Before you serve, drizzle 4 tbsp of flavored rum over the pie, and sprinkle the turbinado brown sugar. Caramelize the tart with a torch. You can unmold the pie out of the tart tray, or use a plastic knife to cut slices off the tray. Serve with a side of whipped cream. Enjoy!
Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!
Cecile's Cuisine 