We planned a nice celebration what with Sophia turning one. Although not exceptionally girly, I decided that a little tea party was in order to toast her with our family and friends. We sent out proper invitations and planned to serve tea sandwiches, scones and the likes. The day finally came last Saturday. All in all, after recuperating from the exhaustion of prepping and the hard work of celebrating, we’ve got pictures to look back on.
Today is Yom Kippur and tomorrow happens to be my mom’s birthday. I decided to bake a cake as a surprise to augment her already fairly significant dessert table. I know it is going to be a reverse dinner (much more dessert than savory foods) when she announces a menu of strudel, sochinskoe (more on that in a minute), apple cake and another layered vanilla cake. I realized that she is making this delicious break-the-fast meal and yet tomorrow is her birthday and no one really made plans to celebrate. I decided to make a birthday cake fit for a Bubbie: a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and a rich chocolate frosting from here.
Sochinskoe by the way, is another dessert that my mother learned to bake while we were in Baku. It is really a sweet pastry filled with nuts and sugar and vanilla. It is utterly divine and remains one of the two desserts (the other one is her famous strudel) that I have yet to master. After a little bit of googling, I found a comparable recipe and read that it happens to be an Armenian dessert. I shouldn’t be too surprised as there were many Armenians living in Baku in the late 80ies before the Karabakh Conflict. I was there and lived to see too much for a child my age. In any event… it is heavenly and maybe I’ll make it one of these days.
But this post is really about the cake… so here it is in parts and as a finished masterpiece.
I’ve been meaning to go on a healthy kick as of late and my latest trip to the grocery mart started out with the best intentions. I remembered to pick carrots and zucchini for the latest installment of Sophia’s soups and had every intention to pick up fish for our Thursday dinner. The fish counter was uninspired and uninspiring. I pushed ahead to the meat counter being incredibly tired of chicken and fairly lazy to wrestle a roast or complicated stew. When all was said and done, I walked out with some steak tips which were destined for my 20 minute stir fry. Why healthy? Well, we omitted rice and stuck to lots of green and orange veggies.
There is something incredibly inviting about a plate full of greens and ginger, scallion and garlic.
The beef is sliced in one inch chunks approximately (350 grams) and marinated for 15 minutes in 2 tbsp. of soy sauce.
I sear the beef in a hit skillet with peanut oil until almost done. Empty the skillet for these beauties:
After pouring a little water and covering to steam, I uncover and saute the garlic and ginger (incredibly generous portions of each) in a little sesame oil.
Everything is reunited in a pan and a sauce of 2tbsp. of soy sauce, 3 tbsp of hoisin sauce and 1 tbsp of sesame oil, 1 tbsp of potato starch and 2 tbsp of water is poured over. One quick toss, a sprinkling of scallions and shaved carrots and ta-da; Dinner is ready to be served.
Sometimes you just want pizza. No, not the greasy, overly cheesy pizza from some mega-pizza maker (you know who they are). Instead, you crave crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside pizza which fills the house with amazing aromas while it is baking. Come to think of it, perhaps you just want your house filled with the aroma of baking dough and the pizza is a welcome side-effect.
This is exactly what we made (and it couldn’t be easier) this past Saturday. I only wish our basil plant had come up in our garden as we had to resort to store-purchased, hydroponic.
The weeks seem to run by recently and when Friday finally comes around, I want nothing more than an easy fun evening that doesn’t involve a complicated dinner and much clean up. Fish seems to fit these requirements quite well and putting an asian twist on it certainly makes you feel like you’ve instantly travelled to a far away place. So here we have hubby’s Steamed Rockfish. It is actually topped with Ginger and Serrano Pepper and drizzled with sizzling oil and a homemade soy sauce reduction.
I’ve mentioned several times before that both my husband and I like to cook. Before we had Sophia, we would argue about who gets to cook and now we tag-team in cooking and playing with the baby. In any event, when he is left to his own devices, hubby creates beautiful flavors with equally appealing presentations and I feel like I sit down to a gourmet meal. It would be more believable if I didn’t have to share the dining experience with a Cherrio-tossing 9 month old. I’ve decided to develop a series not unlike the Moments series to share the culinary adventures I embark on every week. Today’s is “Shredded Beef” with pasta.
For us, summer screams light, fragrant flavors and aromas. Stews and dishes that require a long cooking time are long gone and we rely heavily on light meals such as this one that hubby whipped up in 15 minutes while I kept him company over a glass of wine and Sophia played in the kitchen. Those by the way (lingering over a glass of wine while watching Sophia play and hubby cook) are my dream moments that have crept up more often recently. And I’ll gladly take them as I cannot attain uninterrupted nighttime sleep.
Anyway, back to the dinner: 16-20 ct pink shrimp (my preferred type and size to maximize flavor and minimize risk of overcooking), a bit of basil, a small clove of garlic, Angel hair pasta and olive oil are all you need. You also need 1 pan and 1 pot. Bring a pot full of water to boil. Sear the shrimp off ~2 minutes a side and set aside. Once you have finished cooking the shrimp, throw in the pasta. It will cook for TWO minutes. Drizzle yet more olive oil into the pan where you cooked the shrimp, turn the heat down to the lowest level and grate the clove of garlic. The point is not to cook the garlic, but to have it perfume the olive oil. After 30 seconds, put the now drained pasta into the pan with the olive oil and garlic, mix well, add the shrimp, basil and serve.
Fresh, healthy, low-carb and high in protein seems to be the mantra for those who are looking to maintain or better yet shed some unwanted pounds. I’ve long held on to this wonderful easy summer salad that packs a delicious flavor punch and is also a very fast meal. 1 can of tuna packed in oil, 1 can (15 oz) of cannellini beans, 1/4 of a medium sized red onion (diced) and a 1/3 cup of italian parsley (chopped). Drain the tuna and reserve the oilive oil in a separate bowl. Rinse the beans and add to the tuna. Add chopped parsley and diced onion. Drizzle some red-wine vinegar into the reserved olive oil, whisk to emulsify and pour of the salad. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy! As a rule of thumb, a balanced dressing should have 3x the olive oil as it does acid (vinegar).
There is nothing quite like the aroma of herbs in the kitche. Even little Sophia has taken an interest to smelling everything. Basil just happens to have the strongest, most fragrant aroma and there is nothing quite like pasta with pesto in the summertime. I can’t take credit for the meal, nor can I spell out the recipe as hubby cooked it. It is not too difficult, but really good pesto takes finesse and he’s got it. It was perfectly balanced and the pasta al dente. Cue a simple Italian seaside setting, bright sunshine, a cool breeze, a glass of white wine and we’d have what I would call La Dolce Vita.
Well… at least it is a feast fit for the princess of our household. Farmer’s markets are bountiful this time of year and after visiting one in Saturday’s heat, I had enough produce to conjure up the Plat du Jour.
Sophia’s lunch was: Pattypan and Potato Sautee with Russian-Style Turkey Cutlets. It was a rather easy meal to prepare and took all of 30-45 minutes with minimal cleanup prep and cleanup. Those are the types of meals I like best, always have and especially now that time is gold platinum.
I’d like to say that I plan my menu meticulously and make long grocery mart lists, but in reality, I like to buy what is best that day and develop the menu as I make my way along the market. I saw these amazing pattypans and thought that it would be a crime not to get them. Usually, I make a delicious curried pattypan soup, but since I am not sure Sophia will appreciate curry as much as we do, I decided to make the sautee.
The ingredients: onion, pattypan, potatoes, olive oil and salt (very little). Then, as I wandered through the store admiring all the primal cuts of meat, I decided that little Sophia would probably not be ready to tuck into lamb chops especially since we have yet to spy a tooth in that mouth! I settled on a pound of lean ground turkey. The cutlets, which my mother is famous for, I needed an egg yolk, 1/3 lb turkey meat, 1/8th onion finely diced.
Mixed together and seared five minutes a side, they’re easy.
Truth be told that I ate them so much as a child that I develoepd a dislike for them; Too much of a good thing is never a good thing. This was the first time I’ve ever made them and they were good.
My husband was quick to point out that were not as good as my mom’s and that’s fine by me. I can’t expect to achieve her perfection in one try.