QUICHE LORRAINE

QUICHE LORRAINE

Another quick and easy French classic.

Ingredients:
  • 1 ready made frozen pie crust ( i use wholly whole­some whole wheat 9″ pie crust avail­able at whole foods) or see Maud’s recipe for a home made pie crust.
  • a slab (approx. 1/3 lb) of salt pork , sliced into 1/3″ x1/3″ sticks. (Alter­na­tively you can use Pancetta, a slab of bacon or ham).
  • 2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
  • 1 cup skim milk
  • 1 cup heavy whip cream
  • salt, pep­per, fresh grated nut­meg, cayenne pep­per, star anise.
  • optional: 3/4 cup grated swiss cheese (use emmen­tal or gruyere)

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CHOCOLATE CAKE EXPRESS

CHOCOLATE CAKE EXPRESS

Tip top choco­late express for those choco­late crav­ings past mid­night. Ready in 20 min­utes top chrono!

Ingre­di­ents:
  • 1 cup 70% cacao choco­late chips
  • 2/3 cup (5 oz) salted butter
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs + 1 egg yolk
Instant Grat­i­fi­ca­tion:

Pre­heat the oven to 360 degrees.

Add the choco­late and but­ter into a ceramic bowl that you will have set inside a larger pot on the stove­top (twice the size of the bowl or so)  filled with about 1 to 2 inches of water. Bring the water to a boil stir­ring the mix­ture until it has melted com­pletely. Make sure the water doesn’t spill over into the ceramic bowl and adjust the heat accord­ingly. (this tech­nic is called “bain-marie”, lit­er­ally Mary’s bath…not sure what they did to Mary then.…). This should take 3 min­utes tops.

Beat the eggs and the sugar together with an elec­tric mixer until the mix­ture has tripled in vol­ume. 2 min­utes tops.
(Alter­na­tively, you can beat the egg whites sep­a­rately until they become firm. This will make the cake much lighter, but will also take much more time. You will need to slowly incor­po­rate the fluffy whites into the chocolate/butter mix­ture, spoon­ing around it again and again.….and again…and I find that for a quick fix after mid­night, this method is a lit­tle overkill. You may pass out before it reaches the oven. We are talk­ing about the I WANT CHOCOLATE NEAAAAOOOOOOW ENVY!!)

Finally spoon in the melted butter/chocolate into the sugar/eggs and stir until the mix­ture is homogeneous.

Pour the final mix into a dish pie. Use a sil­i­cone one or rub some but­ter onto a ceramic dish and sprin­kle with flour. The idea is to avoid the cake stick­ing to the dish… although that may not be a prob­lem if you take the whole dish into bed to devour it like a bar­bar­ian before a good night sleep. Trust me only the god­lier of good­ness of dreams will follow.

Bake in the pre­heated oven for 15–20 min­utes.
Voila, its sup­posed to be crusty out­side and melted inside. Insanely deli­cious. Add some whip cream and vanilla ice cream for total deca­dence at 3 am.
Really good the next day too when you have come off your horse.
Enjoy

JAPANESE CUCUMBER SALAD

JAPANESE CUCUMBER SALAD

This is a deli­cious accom­pa­ni­ment greens to any meal or it also makes for a hyper easy and healthy snack. It’s more fun if you have a spi­ral­izer! It has def­i­nitely become my favorite tool in the kitchen as I spi­ral­ize every­thing that comes in my vicin­ity these days. Watch out!

Ingre­di­ents (4 servings):

  • 1 large eng­lish cucumber
  • 1/4 cup rice vinegar
  • 1 tea­spoon sugar or 1 table­spoon agave sweetener
  • 1/4 tea­spoon salt
  • 2 table­spoons toasted sesame seeds* or goma­sio.

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PICO DE GALLO / SALSA FRESCA

PICO DE GALLO / SALSA FRESCA

This is my lat­est chem­istry project in the kitchen, espe­cially as I love the fla­vor of fresh salsa and cilantro with my tofu tacos.  Although this is a sim­ple recipe where all you have to do is throw it into a bowl and mix, truly excel­lent pico de gallo salsa is all about the scale and pro­por­tion of ingre­di­ents.  After a few iter­a­tions of adjust­ing the tomato count and the size of the chopped ingre­di­ents, this fresh salsa recipe should get you off to a good start where you can alter it  to suit your taste.

Ingre­di­ents
(Yields approx. 5–6 cups)

  • 6 medium-sized roma toma­toes (stems and seeds removed), finely diced
  • 1/2 red onion, finely diced
  • 1 jalapeño chili pep­per (stems, ribs, seeds removed), finely diced
  • 1 ser­ano chili pep­per (stems, ribs, seeds removed), finely diced
  • 1 lime
  • 1/2 cup chopped cilantro herbs (wash and de-stem leaf from stalk)
  • Salt (1 tsp or to taste)
  • Fresh ground pep­per (1 tsp or to taste)
  • Oregano (2 tsp or to taste)
  • Cumin (1 tsp or to taste)

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CHOCOLATE BANANA TOFU MUFFINS

CHOCOLATE BANANA TOFU MUFFINS

This is a great tasty and fill­ing snack that you can take along any­where you go

Ingre­di­ents

  • 1 cup soft silken tofu
  • 1 ripe banana
  • 1/4 cup oil or soften butter
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup or Agave
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup almond flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp bak­ing powder
  • 1 tsp bak­ing soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup or more dark choco­late chunks
  • 1/2 cup walnuts

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PEAR-RICOTTA PIE

PEAR-RICOTTA PIE

Sur­pris­ingly light and very smooth dessert. Since it’s not too sweet, it works well as a snack as well!

Ingre­di­ents

  • 1 pie crust
  • 1 cup  ricotta (fat free works)
  • 1 cup “fro­mage blanc” (the clos­est in the US is “Mediterranean-style cheese yogurt”)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup of sweet­ener (agave, honey, sugar…)
  • 2 tbsp flour (all-purpose or almond)
  • 1/2 cup sliced almonds
  • 2 pears peeled and cut in 1/8th

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WILD SALMON CAKES

WILD SALMON CAKES

Makes 6 small cakes

  • 1 wild Alaskan salmon fil­let (cooked). Alter­na­tively, you can use canned salmon …
  • 2 medium-size eggs
  • 1 car­rot, 1 cel­ery branch, 1 cilantro (or pars­ley) bunch, 1 green onion.  All those finely chopped
  • 1/2 to 1 cup of bread crumbs
  • spices: dash of cayenne pep­per, cumin, tumeric and ground mus­tard …  salt and pep­per to taste

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ROUILLE

ROUILLE

Rouille is a spe­cial sauce from the south of France. It’s basi­cally a spicy may­on­naise, orange in color and deli­cious spread on some gar­lic grated bread. Tra­di­tion­ally it’s the sauce that comes with the bouil­l­abaisse.(check out momo’s quick and easy recipe!) Alter­na­tively I like make a tasty snack by spread­ing some rouille on a grilled toast (pain de sei­gle paysan from the pain quo­ti­dien is great!) that I rub with fresh gar­lic, topped with a few slices of avocados.

Ingre­di­ents

  • 3 gar­lic cloves
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 cup olive oil
  • spices: cayenne pep­per, paprika, piment d’espellette and harissa if you like it xtra spicy (or 1 tea­spoon of dijon mustard)
  • a spoon­full of “mie de pain” funny there is no eng­lish word for that…so basi­cally it’s the part of the bread that is not the crust…

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TUNA TART

TUNA TART

Here’s an quick n easy recipe from the pantry. Tarts and quiches are tra­di­tional to France as a main course. This is my adap­ta­tion of the Quiche Lor­raine into a Quiche Nicoise.

Ingre­di­ents

  • 1 filo dough or alter­na­tively a pie crust . The filo is lighter and more flaky, you can get one ready made from the frozen sec­tion at your gro­cery store. Or make it your­self.
  • 1 big can of tuna in olive oil. (take the ital­ian brands, they tend to be less dry).
  • 1 big yel­low onion
  • dijon mus­tard
  • 1 cup of creme fraiche or heavy whipped cream
  • spices: nut­meg, rose­mary, salt, pepper
  • a few cheey toma­toes for decoration

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