Cold Weather Food

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a desert girl through and through. I love the heat and I absolutely cannot stand humidity. Hot and dry, that's how I roll. So when the change of seasons rolls around I lament the onset of cold weather. Despite my dislike of the cold, I do love cold weather foods! I'm starting to bust out my arsenal of soups. Here's what I made for dinner tonight...

Orange Carrot Ginger Soup

8-10 large carrots, medium dice

1/2 onion, medium dice

1 1/2 quarts orange juice (no pulp is preferable)

2 TBS fresh grated ginger (may substitute 2 tsp dry ground)

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

1. In a large pot, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat. Add the carrots and onions and cook until carrots are slightly tender, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

2. Add orange juice, and boil until carrots are soft.

3. Puree in a blender or food processor.

4. Add ginger, salt, and pepper, and return to stove to keep warm until service

*NOTE*

If you are using fresh ginger, it is important to add it as the last step in your cooking process. Ginger has a tendency to turn bitter as it cooks.

Enjoy everyone! Happy fall cooking!

The Purpose of this Blog

I was discussing blogging with some friends of mine recently. One friend was interested to find out that I do indeed have a blog. She wanted to know more about it. I was about to tell her about my blog until another friend of mine interjected and said, "Oh, it's just about food."

JUST about food? JUST about food?! I was a little bit peeved by that statement. I asked him, "Well, what else would I blog about?" He replied with, "Ummmm....your life?" First of all, food is my life. Second of all, I don't blog just to record what I do. This isn't meant to be some digital archive of my life. Besides, I feel like there are plenty of whiny college students out there that blog about their lives (not to knock anyone else's blog. There are many that I very much enjoy reading). But I want to accomplish something with this blog. So I feel like maybe I should share with you my purpose in blogging.

I was raised in a family where food was more than just something you put in your body so you wouldn't keel over and die. My parents are incredibly passionate about health, so I was taught from a very young age to be conscious of the food I put in my body. Not just any old food would keep me operating at an optimum level. Even when I was a baby, I didn't eat baby food out of a jar. Oh no. My mom would take the time to cook food until it was soft, and she would puree it for me. Even from the beginning of my life I was eating real food. Also, my family has kept a rather large garden every summer since the time I was six years old. I worked a lot of long hours in that garden during my growing up years, and was so lucky to reap the benefits around harvest time. I've had the privilege of enjoying fresh fruits and vegetables as the majority of my diet.

Those factors have influenced my philosophy about food greatly. However, I think the largest contributor to my appreciation for food has got to be my mother. First of all, she is a wonderful cook. But more important than that is the fact that she never let me be picky. If I didn't want to try something that was on my plate, that was just too bad. If I left the table without finishing something, it would end up on my plate at the next meal. Also, because of my mother's abilities, I was able to experience a wide variety of flavors during my young life, which did a lot in refining my palate.

This is going to sound totally cliche, but I have a lot of fond memories of sitting down to eat a home cooked meal with my family. In fact, if I think about some of my best childhood memories, most of them involve people gathering together to eat. Think about it. Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, Easter dinner, birthday dinners, lunch dates with your mom, dinner and a movie with your girlfriends...food!

I guess what I'm trying to say is food brings people together in a way that not many things can. And sure, I guess people can be brought together by a box of pizza. But to me, that's not all that special. As much as I enjoy the creativity and the skill it takes to execute a meal with flair and culinary perfection, where I find the most satisfaction is in the happiness I can bring to others with the food I make. Few things are as precious to me as the way a person's eyes will close as they savor a bite of something I've made. Then they smile, open their eyes, and with a twinkle in them, say to me, "Jana. This is amazing." When I spend six hours making you a birthday cake, what I'm really trying to say to you is, "Hey! I think you are so awesome that I didn't just want to buy you any old generic birthday cake. I wanted to put my heart and soul into it and make it something special. Because to me, you are worth those six hours and so much more. You are worth my time and effort."

To me, food is an expression of everything good in life- energy, passion, creativity, and love. I want to share those ideals with as many people as I can. If I can do that by posting recipes, and helping people feel the joy that I feel when I make something delicious and share it with others, why wouldn't I do that?

I want people to be able to have the same kinds of experiences with food that I was so blessed to have in my childhood. But so few people know how to cook. How are they supposed to find that joy that I found when each member of their family shuffles off to their corner of the house with a piece of frozen lasagna that says, "Our family isn't important enough for me to make time for family dinner." That's bogus. Other people say, "I just don't know how to cook." Also bogus. Learn. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to teach people a skill that was central in making my childhood great. Something that has shaped who I am today. That's why I blog about food. Because food is about so much more than sustenance. It's about joy.

Molto bene!

As a culinary fanatic the question I get the most is "What is your favorite thing to cook?" I hate that question. I seriously cannot answer it. The sheer joy I find in cooking cannot, CANNOT be delegated to one item alone. So I usually tell people, "I can't pick a favorite. Wanna know my specialty though? It's Italian."

I have been so fortunate to have interned and worked in an Italian restaurant in Albuquerque. It's called Vivace (if you ever visit Albuquerque, check it out! It's great. Tell them Jana sent you). Because of my three years of experience there, I have grown to love Italian food and Italian food philosophy so much more. And I feel like I'm quite proficient in the cuisine as well!

Anyway, the point of this post. My lovely stake relief society sisters started up a monthly cooking class and I signed up to teach today's class. I love opportunities to share my passion with others. Especially because I feel like cooking is a dying art. So few families sit down to a home cooked meal anymore, and many people lack the skills in a kitchen that I always assumed were common knowledge. I feel so blessed to have grown up in a home with a mother who is a fabulous cook, and one who taught me a love of good food as a child. Anyway, I wanted to find something simple, delicious, and quick to teach these sisters. As college students, we don't have time to spend all day making dinner (unless you are me, in which case I MAKE time). So I decided to teach them a few simple pasta sauces, and one really simple pasta dish.

Alfredo Sauce

1 pint heavy cream

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Black pepper

Chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Heat heavy cream over medium-low heat. Add butter and whisk gently to melt. Sprinkle in cheese and stir to incorporate. Season with pepper. Toss gently with hot pasta. Garnish with fresh parsley.

*NOTE* If you would like a lower fat version of this recipe, here are some ideas. Instead of using heavy cream, you can use milk. However, you will have to find a way to thicken your sauce. You can accomplish this by mixing equal parts butter and flour in your saucepan before you add milk. Cook the butter and flour mixture (called a roux) for about 2 minutes so the flour taste cooks out. Add your milk and whisk the snot out of it. Then proceed with the recipe as above.

Quick Marinara Sauce

Most old world Italian sauce recipes that you find require at least a day to produce. The sauces require such long hours of simmering --that's why they have such phenomenal flavor! This recipe (courtesy of Cook's Illustrated) is the best way to get the flavor of hours of cooking in 30 minutes or less!

2 TBS unsalted butter *See note

1/2 an onion, grated *See note again!

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp salt

2 medium garlic cloves, minced

1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes

1/4 tsp sugar *see note once again! Sorry, I like notes!

2 TBS coarsely chopped basil leaves

1 TBS extra virgin olive oil

Heat butter in a saucepan over medium heat until melted. Add onion, oregano, and salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is evaporated and onion is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes and sugar; increase heat to high and bring to a simmer. Lower heat to medium low and simmer until thickened slightly, about 10 minutes. Off heat, stir in basil and oil; season with salt and pepper. Serve over hot pasta.

*NOTES, Notes, Notes!* If you would rather substitute olive oil for butter, feel free. The reason this recipe calls for butter is because butter naturally caramelizes as it cooks which deepens the flavor of the sauce. For this reason, the recipe also calls for grated onion. When onions are grated, the surface area is increased, so they caramelize faster. I prefer to just finely mince my onions (I have terrible luck with box graters. I always end up with grated knuckles). About the sugar. Don't add it if you don't wanna! If you like your sauce with a little more sweetness, the sugar is there. If you like it more savory, leave it out.

Pesto alla Genovese

"Alla" means in the style of. This pesto hails from the region of Italy known as Genoa (hence pesto alla Genovese!) The olden day Italians came up with this sauce as a way to ensure that they could have the fresh flavor of basil year round.

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1/3 cup parmesan cheese

1/2 cup spinach

2 cups basil leaves, loosely packed

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Add garlic, parmesan cheese and pine nuts to a food processor or blender and pulse until a paste forms. Add spinach and basil, pulse to combine. Add lemon juice. With the machine running, add a stream of oil until desired consistency is achieved. Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss with cooked pasta!

*NOTE* Please, use this recipe as a guideline. If you like more garlic, add more garlic. If you don't like cheese, don't use any. Play around with it. Don't be constrained by my recipe. Also, feel free to make substitutions! Try adding walnuts instead of pine nuts. Maybe make a pesto out of cilantro and parsley instead of basil and spinach. Make it your own creation. Experimenting is the best way to learn what flavors blend well together.

Special thanks to my roommates Melissa and Bekah who were my photographers and plated my pastas! You ladies rock!

The Burque Bunch

I am a proud native of the fabulous city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I love everything about that place. The climate, the sunsets, the topography, the things you can do, places you can go....but I think what I miss the most about Albuquerque when I'm up at school is the people! Fortunately for me, this year a lot more people that I know from back home are up here in Utah. That and I've decided to be more proactive about organizing activities between friends. So a few weeks ago I decided to get a group of Albuquerqueans together for an impromptu dinner! Considering I invited people the afternoon before, it was a great turnout. Because I didn't want to spend a fortune on this dinner I assigned a few people to bring some food. I provided the entree, a side, and dessert. One friend brought drinks (actually he brought the ingredients. I made the drinks), another brought rolls, someone brought salad, and one brought mashed potatoes. For my contribution I made three lovely maple glazed pork tenderloins, some oven roasted asparagus, iced chai, and a delicious caramel apple cake.

Dinner was fabulous! I was so glad to share good food with such good company. I missed my friends from back home. I didn't realized how much I missed them until I actually started spending time with them again. Thank goodness I have started spending more time with them. I feel less homesick now that I have little bits of Albuquerque conveniently located in Orem and Provo. :)

Pork tenderloin and roasted asparagus

Our table scape plus Taylor and 90% of Bryce

Caramel Apple cake with green apple rose

Want some recipes? Okay, here you go! :)

Caramel Apple Cake

For the cake:

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup milk

1. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder to one bowl and stir to combine.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs with vanilla and milk.

3. In a third bowl or in a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

4. Beginning with the milk mixture, alternate adding the milk and the flour mixtures to the creamed butter and sugar. Do this in three additions, making sure to scrape the bowl between additions.

For the Caramel

4 TBS unsalted butter

3 cups sugar

5 TBS light corn syrup

1 cup heavy cream

1. Cook the sugar and corn syrup in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is dark amber, 7-10 minutes.

2. Reduce heat to medium. Carefully add cream and butter (it will splatter -- don't freak out!), stirring until combined, about 3 minutes.

Assembly

1. Peel and core 2 granny smith apples

2. Slice the apples into rings, and press into the bottom of a greased 9 inch cake pan, overlapping slightly.

3. Pour half the caramel mixture over the apples.

4. Pour half the cake batter over the caramel.

5. Drizzle the remaining caramel over the cake batter and swirl through with a butter knife.

6. Pour the rest of the cake batter on top.

7. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes to an hour or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean

TO UNMOLD THE CAKE - after the cake has cooled (to allow it to set further), run a clean knife along the edge of the pan. Warm up the bottom of the pan (you can do this on your stove or dip the bottom of your pan in hot water) to soften the caramel. Place a plate on top of the pan and flip over so the cake unmolds onto the plate. Voila! Beautiful caramel apple cake. :)

*NOTE* When I made this cake I doubled the cake batter recipe and had a little too much. However, 1 recipe is not enough, so I would recommend making 1 1/2 the recipe.

Maple Glaze -This is great for pork, chicken, or duck!

*NOTE* I did not include measurements in this recipe simply because I feel it unnecessary. I feel that experimentation in the kitchen is very important and you should make this glaze to suit your tastes. Use this recipe as a guideline and an inspiration -- not as a absolute directive.

Maple syrup

Ginger

Dry mustard (don't use a lot!)

Cayenne pepper (a little goes a long way!)

Nutmeg

Cinnamon

Cornstarch

Water

1. Bring maple syrup, ginger, dry mustard, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring occasionally.

2. After the mixture has reduced slightly, make a slurry (Add about 1/2 tablespoon of cornstarch to 1 1/2 tablespoons of water and mix) and pour into the sauce, stirring.

3. Allow sauce to return to a boil and let thicken to desired consistency.

4. Serve with pork, chicken, or duck!

Garde Manger

Up until classes start (as well as into the first week, I suppose) THE question is, "Hey what classes are you taking?" My answer? Garde Manger. To which most people respond, "What in the heck is Garde Manger?" Literally translated, Garde Manger means "keeping food fit to eat". Way back when royalty and wealthy people started hiring people to cook for them, all the food that was left over from previous meals was given to the Garde Manger chef to figure out what to do with. So Garde Manger became traditionally associated with things like salads, sandwiches, crudites, hors d'ouvers, etc.

I've enjoyed my class a lot so far. Being that we are only a week into the block, we've worked mostly on salads, salad dressings, sandwiches, fruit platters, and crudites (vegetable platters). But just look at all of the pretty stuff we've created!

"Kolleen's" crudite platter

My sandwich! It has turkey, lettuce, tomato, swiss cheese, paprika and cilantro mayonnaise, avocado, bacon, and a fried egg on grilled wheat bread. It was super delicious...sadly I didn't think about taking a picture until after I had taken a huge bite. So it's less aesthetically pleasing now. :(

Kolleen and Shelby....totally cheese-ballin it

My orange peel rose

Playing Catch-up

Would you like to know something interesting? I'm more busy during the summer than I am at school. Somehow that seems a little backwards to me. This summer I am working two jobs, one at the fabulous restaurant I interned at as a senior in high school, the other as a nanny, which job I have also had since high school. I work roughly 80 hours a week. As a result of my busy work schedule I have been a blog neglecter. Shame on me, I know. Please allow me to redeem myself.

My Momma's Birthday

This year we decided to go cakeless. I wanted to do something a little more simplistic but equally as fun to make and just as delicious. My mom is a fruit fanatic(seriously, open our fridge. There are usually at least 10 different fruits in there), so I thought it might be fun to make some fruit tartlets...which also gave me an excuse to buy some little tart pans, something I have been dying to buy forever, but never had a reason to.

They turned out nicely, no? These tarts are extra special because guess what? They're dairy free! Usually the pastry cream in the center has whole milk and butter. However, my family does not drink milk. I have a lactose sensitivity and the rest of my family just thinks milk is disgusting...which it totally is. It's not even good for you besides! Everyone thinks that you have to drink milk and have other dairy products to get calcium. Um, so wrong. You're body can't even absorb most of the calcium in milk! So why is it advertised so much that we should drink milk? Because the government subsidizes dairy farms, thus they are better off if we Americans drink more milk. And another thing. Did you know, that we are the only species that drinks milk after infancy? On top of that, we are drinking milkfrom an entirely different species! And you wanna know what that milk is designed to do? Take a baby cow and turn it into a 1500 pound behemoth in a matter of 6 months. Wanna drink milk now? It's just fat and cholesterol people. You get more protein from almond or soy milk. Anyway, I digress. Back to my fruit tarts. They're dairy free. I made them with almond milk and soy butter...and they were freakin delicious!

Father's

Day

I always like to make man food on father's day. Some people may think it's weird that as a future chef of the female persuasion I will differentiate between man food and chick food. But I do. Guys don't generally appreciate the aesthetics of a dish as much as a woman. That doesn't mean I won't make the food look good on a plate. It just means I won't take the time to artfully lay down some sauce or construct a pedestal of rice or potatoes atop which to lay my grilled chicken or something. No. Man food doesn't require as much attention to detail. What it does require is a nice juicy steak. Which of course I had. This was Father's day dinner after all. What would it be without steak? Oh, and I paired it with grilled lobster tail, wilted swiss chard, and rosemary roasted potatoes. A little surf n turf for my dear old dad.

Although I'm not usually one to blab about my kitchen mishaps (I like to pretend I do everything perfectly!), I have to relate to you the excitement surrounding my steaks. I marinated my steaks in thyme oil...mistake. While the flavor was fantastic after pulling the steaks off the grill, I had about five minutes of grill time where I was sure I was going to burst into flames. Because my steaks had so much extra oil on them, the grill flared up...a lot. I literally had 8 inch flames coming off my grill! I was about to panic, sure that my steaks would be completely incinerated. I was pretty ready to throw in the towel on my dinner, storm off and leave everyone hungry. But then an idea struck me. Fire needs oxygen to thrive. So I slammed the lid on my grill and luckily my bonfire burnt out in about a minute, leaving my steaks safe. From this experience I learned to NEVER marinate in oil if you will be grilling. Which when I think about it really should have been something I knew not to do. Anyway.

Amazingly, we managed to have every course be something from off the grill. Our salad was grilled. We even had our dessert grilled! The grilled dessert idea I can't credit to myself, however. When I was working at Vivace the Saturday before Father's Day, I was telling my boss, Joey, about my menu plan for fathers day. Suddenly I realized (out loud), "Crap! I don't have a dessert planned!" Joey looks and me and says, "Well, if you're already firing up the grill, why don't you do dessert on the grill too?" Um, hello! YES! He is such a genius sometimes. I mean, how perfect is it to do each course for a Father's day dinner on the grill? So as per Joey's recommendation I did grilled peaches and plums that I had cut in half and rolled the cut side in cinnamon and sugar.They turned out so beautifully! I served them with a dollop of mascarpone whipped cream and some toasted almonds. This dessert was so perfect for summer and it had everything you could ask for from a dessert. It was sweet but tart, warm from the peaches and plums, cool from the cream, the fruit was soft, the cream was smooth, the almonds were crunchy.....heaven. :)

Last Minute Dinner Plans

Sometime mid June my friend Jake got back from his mission in Chicago. One Monday morning, a few weeks after he came home my mother announces to me, "Hey, I'm inviting Jake over for dinner. So make something special okay?" Um, thanks Mom. I'm glad you gave me so much notice. I was also annoyed because the last time I had interacted with Jake very much at all was during high school...at which point he drove me absolutely crazy. So here I was, 8 hours out from a dinner that was supposed to be wildly impressive, with a guy that I practically couldn't stand, and I had no idea what I was going to do. Luckily I came up with something.

I grilled chicken, sliced it and laid supremes of fresh orange and grapefruit between the slices, served it with rice and a salad of mixed greens and a spring onion flower wrapped in a cucumber slice so it would stand and topped it off with a citrus Dijon dressing. How's that for 8 hours notice? Boo-yah! Oh, and the dinner went great by the way. Jake is now one of my best friends. Funny how that works out. I always say, food brings people together!

Mmmm. BACON! And Cheesecake too!

Is there anything better in the world than bacon? Well, yes there probably is. However, bacon is something pretty tasty. :) I've recently been into wrapping things in bacon. This is the most recent dish I've done:

Bacon wrapped chicken drumsticks with sweet and spicy pineapple dipping sauce. DE-lish!

Also, I recently revamped a cheesecake recipe that I rather love. My baking and pastry textbook from earlier this semester has the most incredible cheesecake recipe in it. I was thinking the other day about some substition suggestions I had seen for desserts to make them less bad for you. I read somewhere that if you substitue ricotta cheese for half the amount of cream cheese in cheesecake, it cuts the calories in half. Sounds pretty great to me! So I tried it.

I just love my adorable mini springform pans! They make the perfect portion size. One quarter of a cheesecake is just enough that your sweet tooth is satisfied, but you don't overindulge. Anyway, with my cheesecakes oven ready I started to guess at what the finished product would be. I was a little worried that the cheesecake wouldn't be quite as smooth due to the ricotta substitution. Also, I used half and half in my recipe instead of cream, so my batter was a little more runny than usual. After coming out of the oven, I let my cheesecakes cool for 2 hours before topping them with a blackberry/blueberry coulis. Then I let them chill overnight and Voila!

I am glad to say these turned out just as smooth and creamy as any cheesecake I have ever had. Plus they have half the calories. Which, as my adorable roommate stipulated means we can eat twice as much! Everyone wins. :)