Taco Pizza

My family has apparently decided that we now have Pizza Mondays. I am getting a bit tired of frozen Home Run Inn pizza and decided to try something new. I am trying not to go to the store that often these days and work with what I have at home. I found a recipe for a pizza dough on Pinterest that turned out really well and it was so easy to make. You can find the recipe here: https://houseofnasheats.com/pizza-dough-recipe/ 

Pizza Dough

• 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F)
•  2 teaspoons sugar
•  2 1/4 teaspoons (1 package) active dry yeast or instant yeast
•  3 1/2 to 4 cups bread flour
•  2 tablespoons olive oil
•  2 teaspoons salt

I used the instant yeast so I just mixed all the wet ingredients, added the sugar, salt and flour and mixed well. Let it rise for about 45 minutes. Then just roll it out into whatever shape you like and add toppings.

I had a taste for a taco pizza so I added marinara sauce, cooked ground beef that I had flavored with taco seasoning and topped with cheese. Bake for about 15 minutes at 375 degrees F. When it was done I added lettuce yellow peppers and green onions. Serve with some sour cream and salsa. Delicious! Enjoy!

Meringues

Meringues 

So I find myself with more free time these days. Abby is growing and is at least a little bit less dependent on me so I figured I'd try this again. Swedish midsummer is this Friday and i wanted to make a Swedish dessert that everyone will enjoy. Something I haven't had in years is marangsviss. It's ice cream, whipped cream, meringues, chocolate sauce and whatever else you may enjoy to be honest. I haven't made meringues since I was in school so I made a test run :) And oh was it gooood.  The recipe is super easy. Only three ingredients: egg whites, sugar and lemon juice.

The recipe said to add egg whites, 1/3 of the sugar and the lemon juice and then whip until white. I whipped until it was a little white and foamy and then I added the rest of the sugar. Then I set the speed to 10 on my kitchen aid and let it go. 

In school they taught us that there should be stiff peaks and this tells you the mixture is ready. This is what mine looked like when I stopped and they turned out great at the end. 

I used a pastry bag to make lil blobs and baked them for roughly 30 minutes in a 200 degree F oven.

They were crispy on the outside and just a tad chewy on the inside. If you want them less chewy, just bake a lil longer. Serve with ice cream, whipped cream, berries, chocolate, whatever you like. Delicious!

I found the recipe here: https://mittkok.expressen.se/recept/klassisk-marang-grundrecept/ 

It's in Swedish so here it is in English.

3 egg whites

1 cup of Sugar

1/2 tsp of lemon juice

Whip the egg whites and 1/3 of the sugar until frothy and white. Add the remaining sugar until the mixture stiffens. Use a pastry bag or a spoon to form the meringues. You can do whatever shape you like. Then bake in the oven at 200 degrees F for about 30 min. At that point they are a bit chewy in the center. If you want the crispier, let bake a bit longer. 

Enjoy!

 

Kristin Cavallari's Leek and Zucchini Quiche

I am so excited about my latest cookbook purchase. I am avoiding dairy these days and try to avoid gluten as much as possible. I pretty much thought that one would be impossible for me since I absolutely LOVE pasta and bread but it's going pretty well. There are so many good recipes out there. Kristin Cavallari's new cookbook: True Roots, have over 100 recipes that are free from gluten, dairy and refined sugar. I have made a couple of recipes that have been very tasty but I wanted to share the Leek and Zucchini quiche I recently made. It was delicious and perfect to make at the beginning of the week and keep for lunch the entire week.  

The recipe called for arrow root powder, which, of course, I forgot to buy, but I substituted it with corn starch. Worked great! I made the crust first since it needs to chill in the fridge. Mix the almond flour, corn starch, eggs, salt, coconut oil (melted) and water together. I ended up using a touch more almond flour than the recipe called for. Not sure if it had something to do with the corn starch. It will be a sticky dough though. I wrapped it in parchment paper and chilled it in the fridge for about an hour. If you skip this step it will be next to impossible to press the dough into the pie pan. After an hour, press dough into 9" pie pan until even. Chill again for another 30 min or so.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and bake the crust for 5 min.

Now it's time for the filling. Start by chopping up the leeks and zucchini. I used dried thyme but if you are using fresh, chop that up as well. Sautee the leeks and thyme for about 5 minutes in the olive oil. Remove from heat. Whisk together the eggs, salt and leek mixture until well combined. The recipe says to add the zucchini to the egg mixture but I added them straight to the pan and then I added the egg mixture on top.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until it is set in the center. Let cool about 10 minutes before serving. I had it with some pepper on the side but anything green will do.

It keeps great in the fridge. I've been eating it cold all week for lunch but it is just as good if you reheat it. Enjoy!

Leek and Zucchini Quiche

Crust

1 1/4 cup blanched almond flour

1/2 cup arrow root powder

2 eggs

1/2 tsp pink Himalayan salt

1 tbsp coconut oil, melted

2 tbsp water

Filling

1 tsp olive oil

1 large leek, chopped

2 sprigs of thyme (I used dried)

10 eggs

1 zucchini, chopped

1tsp pink Himalayan salt

Here we go again :)

I cannot believe it's been almost two years since I posted. I have to admit I have kind of missed it. Hopefully I can keep going this time. I'll start out with another dish that Axel picked from ur bowl of countries. Of course he picked one I knew pretty much nothing about East Timor. After some serious googling we found one recipe that we could both agree on and that seemed easy enough to make: Batar Da'an. The ingredients were pretty straight forward, corn, dried mung beans, butternut squash, water, onions, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper.

I couldn't find mung bens and figured any bean would do so I went with dried Pinto beans. We soaked the beans over night in cold water and then we boiled them for about 15 minutes. My lil helper diced the veggies.



 We sautéed the onions and garlic in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Then we simply added the rest of the ingredients. The butternut squash, corn, beans and water.

We cooked it for about 15-20 minutes, until the liquid reduced to a minimum. Season with salt and pepper and serve over rice.

I have to say that it tasted better than I thought. Axel did not quite agree s I had lunch for quite a while. I am still happy he is open to trying new foods :) An cooking together is so much fun!

Ingredients:

1lb of corn (fresh or frozen)

1/2 lb dried mung beans

2lbs of squash (or pumpkin or butternut squash) peeled and diced

4 cups of water

2 onions, diced

8 cloves of garlic, minced

3 Tbs olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Recipe found on www.196flavos.com 



Baconfest 2016!

I usually share recipes that I have tried but I have to share this with you. I went to Baconfest earlier this month and it was so much fun, not to mention delicious.

 There are basically between 50 and 60 chefs that cook their best bacon dishes and you have the privilege of walking around, tasting it all. It is delicious but there is no way you can try them all so you have to have a little game plan and be picky. You just can't taste it all ;)

The first thing we tried sounded so good. It was from The Italian Village Restaurant. A beer and bacon pancake topped with applewood smoked bacon beer syrup. The topping was delicious but the pancake itself, not so much.

 We moved on to Mercat a la Planxa. They served Iberico bacon, smoked Calasparra rice, cage-free eggs, and Iberico bacon aioli. You mix all that goodness together and YUM. 

I actually didn't eat this one. I have no idea why. However, Emelie said it was delicious. It was an Old Style cupcake with Koval Whiskey ganache, maple bacon buttercream and candied bacon from ZED451.

This was such a cute display, and also delicious. It's from Creative CONEcepts. I was a bacon flavored breadcone filled with potatoes, peppers, onions, scrambled eggs, bacon with brown bourbon and bacon gravy and, onion and garlic jam.

Next up was a yummy little bite from Kaiser Tiger called The Happy Goucho. It was Argentinian chorizo wrapped in bacon and topped withbacon guacamole and tequila sour cream. :P

Homemade Sin Bakery lived up to it's name with this delicious trio of goodness. Bacon fat gingersnaps, maple bacon scone and peanut butter chocolate caramel bacon fudge. It was all good but that fudge though.....heaven.

The Signature Room at the 95th went all out with a Porklava. It's pretty much what it sounds like, baklava with pork. Strangely enough, it was really good. They totally made it work. It was phyllo dough, pork belly, apple chutney, pistachio, and a bourbon caramel sauce. 

Woodhaven Bar and Kitchen had a taste of home with their Elk of Perfection. Cherrywood bacon infused ground elk wrapped in bacon and jalapeno with truffle and bacon white blanc. Just WOW!

(Pretty sure I captured the exact moment Fred realized he had taken a bite of an incredibly spicy stuffed jalapeno. :))

These are just a few of all he delicious dishes we tried that day. Some disappeared before I could snap a picture ;) But as always, it was a great day and we were all in a bacon coma when it was over. Absolutely worth every penny!

Art Smith's Parmesan and Almond Crusted Chicken with Asparagus and Lemon Sauce

I have had this cookbook forever but as with a lot of my other ones I never cooked any of the recipes. Now that Emelie and Fred are here I figured I'd try and make them something from this book since her dad used to work with him :) It was delicious!

I started by marinating the chicken in kefir (the closest thing to filmjolk I could find). 

While that was marinating I blanched the almonds and asparagus tips in chicken broth and set aside, saving the broth. I then got started on the sauce. 

I added 2 Tbsp of butter, 4 finely chopped shallots and 4 cups of white wine in a saucepan. I let it reduce to about half and then I added the chicken broth. I brought it to a boil and again reduced it by half. Add 2 Tbsp of lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Slowly add the heavy cream and let it simmer until it is reduced by half. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 250 F. Mix 2 cups of breadcrumbs (you are supposed to use crisp bread that you turn into bread crumbs but I went with regular bread crumbs), 2 cups of Parmesan, 1/4 cup shredded almonds (I actually used hazelnuts and it turned out really good), 4 Tbsp herbs, and salt and pepper to taste. 

Remove the chicken from the kefir, dust with flour, dip in eggs and then dip it into the bread crumb mixture. I had a special lil helper for this part :) 

Then you just sear the chicken for about 2-3 min on each side and finish them in the oven for about 8 minutes. Let the chicken rest for about 5 min before serving. Here you are supposed to add the blanched almonds to the sauce, which I totally forgot but the sauce was still very tasty.  

Parmesan and Almond Crusted Chicken Breast with Asparagus and Lemon Sauce

4 Servings (I doubled the recipe)

4 boneless chicken breasts

1 cup Kefir

2 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup blanched almonds

1 cup bread crumbs

1/4 cup shredded almonds

1 cup Parmesan cheese

2 Tbsp chopped herbs (parsley, tarragon and thyme)

salt and black pepper

1 cup all purpose flour

2 eggs, whisked

4 Tbsp olive oil

Lemon Sauce

1 msk unsalted butter

2 shallots, finely chopped

2 cups of white wine

2 Tbsp lemon juice

salt and black pepper

1 cup heavy cream

Enjoy! 

Pork Chops with Sweet Potato Latkes and Cinnamon-Spiced Apples

This recipe comes from a cookbook by the absolutely amazing Graham Elliott. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few months ago when he was doing a signing at Mariano's. I did not get a picture this time but I did get one of his books signed for Tobias. Last time when we were in Sweden I learned that he was a huge Masterchef fan so I figured he'd appreciate it. 

However, I still have my unsigned copy :) so I wanted to try one of his amazing dishes. I was just a little intimidated buy this recipe but it sounded so good that I had to give it a shot. 

I started out by preparing the brine for the pork chops. I mixed 1 cup of salt, 1/2 cup of sugar, 6 whole black peppercorns, some coriander (the recipe called for whole coriander but I didn't have any), 3 cardamom pods, 2 bay leaves (it called for fresh but I used dried), one tea bag (once again, I didn't have black tea so I used a cardamom, green tea) in my trusted dutch oven. I then added about 8 cups of water and brought it to a simmer. Just until the sugar and salt dissolved. I removed the spices and tea bag and let it cool. After about an hour a poured it over the pork chops, covered it and left it in the fridge until dinner time, about 6 hours or so. At that point I just fried them up in a pan until done.

While the chops were cooking I started the apples. 

I peeled, cored and sliced 2 honeycrisp apples.Then I melted 2 tbsp of butter in a pan and put in a cinnamon stick. When the butter was melted I tossed in the apples. 

I cooked them until they turned a little brown, about 5 minutes. I then added 1/2 cup of beer and 1/2 cup of hard cider and cooked them for another 5 min or so. At that point they should be glazed and most of the liquid should be gone. Season with a little salt and cover to keep warm. 

The latkes really intimidated me because I'm just not good a deep frying stuff and pretty much stay away from recipes that require it. However, this time I went for it. I started out by shredding the sweet potatoes and the onion. I tossed that with some salt, 3 eggs and about 1/4 cup chopped green onions. I sprinkled 3 Tbsp over everything and mixed it well. I then poured about an inch or so of canola oil into a pan. When the thermometer showed 350 I started frying up the mixture that I had shaped into little disks. Actually pretty easy. They're not as pretty as Graham's but it's the taste that matters right? ;) I kept frying them until they turned golden brown, turning once. 

 The end result was absolutely delicious. I went a little over on the pork, it could have been a little juicier. The sides though, oh god. So yummy! Axel loved the pork and ended up eating almost two chops, but he was not convinced about the sides. He tried them both and said they were ok but he preferred the meat. No worries, more potatoes and apples for mommy :)

Pork Chops with Sweet Potato Latkes and Cinnamon-Spiced Apples

Pork Chops

1 cup kosher salt

1/2 cup sugar

6 whole black peppercorns

6 coriander seeds

3 cardamom pods

2 fresh bay leaves

1 black tea bag

4 (10-12-ounce) pork chops

Cinnamon-Spiced Apples

2 Honeycrisp or Jonagold apples

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 Ceylon cinnamon stick

1/2 cup German lager

1/2 cup hard apple cider

Salt

Sweet Potato Latkes

2 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled

1 small onion

2 tsp kosher salt

2 large eggs, whisked

1/4 cup sliced scallions

2 Tbsp all purpose flour

Vegetable oil, for frying

coarse sea salt and coarsely cracked black pepper

Enjoy!