Tomato Shallot Bruschetta -Samuel

I love all vinaigrettes. I love making them, experimenting with them, and eating them with a nice, freshly baked baguette. So of course I'm always looking for new ways to use them, and as I saw the bright red cherry tomatoes and hint of green basil in my fridge, my mind immediately turned to a fresh bruschetta.

Bruschetta, the ultimate and iconic Italian appetizer. It's funny because what they serve in restaurants nowadays isn't authentic Italian bruschetta. The classic bruschetta is very simply bread rubbed with garlic and olive oil, but I would guess that few of us have the incredibly high-quality olive oils that can star as the main component in our bruschetta.

So here's an easy, tomato shallot bruschetta that can be made within 10 minutes. We're busy college students, after all.

Tomato Shallot Bruschetta
# of servings: 8 
Cost: $2
Time spent: 10 minutes
Ingredients:

• 8 slices of french bread (refer to previous posts for recipe)
• 5 large, fresh basil leaves
• 2 cloves shallots
• 1 clove garlic
• 20 cherry tomatoes
• 1.5 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 4.5 tbsp olive oil
• Pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Directions:
1. Rub some olive oil on your french bread and either toast, roast, or fry your bread to get a golden color on your bread as well as a crunch.

2.  Finely mince your garlic and shallots and add to a mixing bowl along with your balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

3. Roll up basil leaves and chop through basil finely; never chop the same section twice or it'll bleed.

4. Slice tomatoes into about 4 sections of equal width, and add to the mixture.

5. Stir in Parmesan cheese and pepper to taste.

6. Plate and enjoy

Classic Gougères - Laura

Classic Gougères

Gougères! This is a great, light appetizer that comes together pretty quickly if you work efficiently. I love making things that are very easy to customize, and these are perfect for just that! 

Gougères

Difficulty: Easy-Medium

Servings: ±6-8 gougères (I usually make this many, but you can double the recipe easily)

Time: ~ 1 hour

Ingredients: 

2.5 T butter

0.5 cups water 

0.5 cups all-purpose flour

2 eggs

0.5 cups sharp cheddar (or gruyere cheese), shredded or grated

a pinch of table salt

pepper (about 0.5-0.75 tsp) 

sea salt or kosher salt 

extra cheddar for topping 

Optional: 

Large shrimp, cleaned and deveined (as many as the amount of gougères you're making)

honey mustard 

fresh Italian parsley for garnish 

shrimp marinade (I'll include the recipe for mine below) 

egg yolk 

Notes:

Using a sharp cheese is a must, as this is the only way that the taste of the cheese will cut through the pastry. Gruyere is a great cheese for this recipe, but sharp cheddar works well also. 

Process:

1. In a medium pan, combine butter and water at medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and turn off heat.  

** the next two steps should be done relatively quickly 

2. Add in flour to the boiling mixture and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until the flour absorbs the moisture. Try to stir apart any lumps that form. 

3. Move to a medium bowl and add in eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously. Once the eggs are fully incorporated, stir in cheese, pepper (use at least 0.5 tsp, but not too much more unless you really, really like pepper), and a pinch of table salt. It should look like this: 

4.  Preheat the oven to 375° F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

5. Spoon the mixture into a pastry/piping bag and pipe onto parchment lined baking sheet (Ziploc works fine too!). I like putting an egg yolk at the center, it really adds a great contrast to the sharp cheese.  

My grandparents like the yolk fully cooked, so I put it in right after I piped the mixture onto the baking sheet. If you like running yolks like I do, pipe half the gougère mixture, bake for about 15-17 minutes of the time, and then add the yolk in and top with the other half of the mixture. This way, you'll get a beautiful runny yolk as you cut into it!:)

6. Sprinkle individually with sea salt or kosher salt (important!). I also topped mine with some more sharp cheddar. 

7. Put the gougères in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, or until they brown. These are very volatile little cheese puffs, so be careful to watch for when they brown since the baking time also varies with the size of the gougères. 
  
8. I decided to top my gougères with marinated shrimp. Before I started, I marinated raw shrimp in a simple mixture of lemon juice, soy sauce, sesame oil, minced garlic, minced ginger, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Make sure to not marinate it for too long; I kept mine for about 10 minutes. Spray a pan with cooking spray and cook the shrimp until done.

9. Take out the gougères once they brown and serve immediately. They're the best when they're warm and straight out of the oven! I topped these with shrimp, a bit of honey mustard, and garnished with chopped fresh parsley. 

Almond Biscotti - Laura

Almond Biscotti

Ahh, I finally had time to make something!:)  This Italian cookie is one of my mom's favorite desserts, and I thought I'd take the time to make some for her since today is her birthday.  Even though they are very crunchy cookies when eaten alone, biscotti melt beautifully in a cup of hot coffee, tea, cocoa, and anything else you can think of.  I hope you guys enjoy this if you ever decide to make some! 

Random fun fact: biscotto is the singular form of biscotti:) 

Almond Biscotti 

Difficulty: Easy-Medium

Servings: ±14 biscotti

Time: ~ 1 hour and 30 minutes

Ingredients: 

2.25 cups all-purpose flour

0.75 cups sugar (either brown or white; I used half white, half light brown)

0.5 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

~1 T vanilla extract (almond extract works too if you want a stronger almond flavor)

3 eggs

1 cup sliced almonds (blanched and not blanched both work) 

extra flour for hands and kneading surface

Optional:

dash of nutmeg to taste 

dash of cinnamon to taste

extra white sugar and cinnamon for cinnamon sugar 

Notes:

This recipe is really fun to customize, so do with it as you wish!  Fresh sweetened cranberries, craisins, orange zest, and lemon zest are all fun things that can be added to this recipe to give it a different kick.  Biscotti are also frequently made with cornmeal, so next time I'll update this post with cornmeal biscotti! 

Process: 

1. Lightly mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, and baking powder in a large bowl.

2. Add three eggs, vanilla or almond extract (or both!), and cinnamon and nutmeg (if using). 

3. Mix until the ingredients form a wet dough.  Initially, the mixture seems very dry and crumbly, but continue mixing and it should start to form a dough.  Add almonds.

4. Preheat the oven to 325° F and lightly grease a baking sheet or spray with Pam.

5. After adding the almonds and preheating the oven, lightly flour your hands and briefly knead the dough inside the bowl. Transfer to a floured surface and continue to knead, just for a couple minutes. You can choose not to knead the mixture and to continue to mix with a spatula, but the warmth in your hands really helps the dough form well.

6. Make sure to not overwork the dough.  It should look like this:

6. Divide the dough into two portions and form into two long strips.  Transfer to your lightly greased baking sheet.  I topped mine with a simple cinnamon sugar mixture (about 2 tsp white sugar and a generous dash of cinnamon; mix in your hand and sprinkle to taste) and more almonds. 

7. Bake at 325° F for about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. 

 8. After cooling, cut biscotti diagonally with a serrated knife and place back on baking sheet. Decrease the oven temperature to 300° F and place the baking sheet back into the oven. 

9. Bake for 10 minutes, flip biscotti, and bake for another 10 minutes until they are just beginning to brown.

10. I drizzled mine with an easy dark chocolate sauce, but you can also dip them in chocolate or leave them as they are:) 

Chocolate Sauce: 

0.5 cups Hershey's Special Dark chocolate chips

~ 3 T coffee creamer 

You can just melt the chocolate like usual, but I always add in some coffee creamer and stir as I melt mine.  The fat in the creamer keeps the chocolate from overheating and gives the sauce a lovely consistency. 

Serve with a good cup of coffee or whatever you like!:)

Garlic Watercress Pesto -Samuel

There's about 98123 different ways of making pesto, and each of them have different occasions in which their strengths are underscored. The word pesto essentially means to pound or crush, although we in our contemporary age most commonly process the ingredients in a rotational motion rather than crush them in pestle and mortar.

Traditional (classic is possibly more apt) pesto's main ingredients are basil, garlic, olive oil, and pine nuts, and they are blended with Parmesan cheese when the pesto is ready to serve. The classic combination never really goes wrong, but you'll notice in this recipe that I used a few different ingredients and proportions to make this pesto work. 

Why? One, pine nut prices are incredibly steep, and as college students I'd say most of us are pretty broke. Instead of PINING for those nuts, I substituted them with other nuts. Two, I love garlic, and both roasted and raw have their place. Three, I discovered a fairly awesome vegetable called watercress.

What's watercress? It's a rather leafy vegetable with a slight peppery flavor, and it's also known for being incredibly nutritious. It's similar to arugula, but there's no CRESSTION that it deserves a place of its own.

This is such a simple recipe that anyone could make it at home (with a food processor or pestle and mortar. Might be hard otherwise).

Garlic Watercress Pesto (Difficulty: Easy)
Servings: about 2 cups of pesto
Time spent: 10 minutes
Cost: ~$5
Ingredients:

• 2 cups packed watercress (if you don't want to do watercress, just replace with basil)
• 2 cups packed basil leaves
• 6 cloves raw or roasted garlic, raw for lighter pesto, roast for richer
• 1/2 cup nuts, I used a 3:1 ratio of cashews to Brazil
• 1 cup quality extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

When serving:

• 1 cup Parmesan cheese or to taste
• salt and pepper to taste, minimal since Parmesan is salty and watercress is peppery

Directions:
1. Place watercress, basil, garlic, and nuts in the food processor. It'll look like it's super stuffed but when we process it, it'll reduce to less than a quarter of its original volume. Pulse them a few times.

2. Your mixture should look like this (picture below). You can see that it looks pretty chunky and dry. Just drizzle in your olive oil and lemon juice while mixing and you'll see it change texture and smooth out.

3. Your final mixture should look like this. A lot of people like oilier pesto and you can choose to do that too, but I rather like a pesto I can smear onto a nice baguette without getting oil all over my fingers.

Yum, watercress pesto! Make sure to mix in your grated Parmesan cheese when you're ready to serve, or put a layer of oil on top and then freeze it. Feel free to pair up with bread, pasta, sauces, whatever suits your fancy. :)

No Knead Raisin Walnut Artisan Bread - Monica

Okay guys, get ready for this recipe, because it is my *favorite* bread recipe of all time. One, it is my favorite kind of bread for its nuttiness and slightly fruity flavor, second, it has an awesome crust, and third, because it isn't physically tiring to prepare compared to other yeast breads.

If you haven't heard of no knead breads before, it is basically bread made in a way which doesn't require much kneading and instead uses  a long rising time to form the gluten in the bread. It needs only a small amount of yeast and is usually a wet dough that makes bread which has a lot of irregular holes in it (like the artisan breads you see in the supermarket). The crispy crust (techniques explained below) will make you want to eat this bread all day long with some jam or butter or cheese, or if you're nice, share it with your friends.

No-Knead Raisin Walnut Artisan Bread  - Monica

Makes One Loaf

Difficulty: Medium

Time: 12-18 hours waiting time, ~2 hours prepping and baking time

Ingredients:

• 3 cups bread flour (or all purpose)
• 1 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1/2 tsp instant or active dry yeast (I use instant yeast)
• Pinch of fresh ground pepper
• 1 1/2 cup water
• Wheat bran or additional flour for dusting.

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt, cinnamon, raisins, walnuts, yeast, and pepper.
2. Add water and mix until you have a wet sticky dough.

3. Cover the bowl with a wet towel or plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature until surface is dotted with bubbles, about 12-18 hours.

• I personally think a longer time produces more irregular holes in the bread, so I tend to let the dough sit at around 5pm and then resume making the bread the morning of the next day.

4. Scrape dough out of bowl in one peace, lifting edges of dough towards the center.
• Use a "fold" technique in which you fold the dough towards the center like an envelope and repeat a couple times.

5. Gently place dough on floured surface seam side down.
6. Dust the top with flour, cover, and let rise for 1 to 2 hours until doubled. When poked with a finger, it should hold in the impression.
7. Preheat oven at 475 F with two racks. One in the middle, and one on the lower half. On the lower rack, put a baking pan on it.
• Why so hot? It's so that we can mimic the heat in those legit firewood ovens you might see in bakeries. It also helps make a good crust.

8. Before putting the dough in the oven, put a cup of water on the hot baking pan to make steam inside the oven for a good crust.
• This step is crucial because the steam in the oven makes a huge difference to the crust. Make sure to add enough water so that it does not all evaporate and burn. (Another technique to make a good crust is to use a covered dutch oven or cast iron pot to hold the dough, but I have never tried this)

9. Put the dough in the oven and bake bread for 30-40 min.
10. Take the bread out. The bread should sound hollow when you tap it.
11. Cool thoroughly to ensure that moisture stays within the bread before slicing it.
• This bread only keeps for a few days without going dry/stale. If you are not going to eat it within two days, I recommend slicing it and freezing it rather than putting the bread in the refrigerator because the texture and moisture in the bread will keep better. Simply take a slice out from your freezer and toast it when you are ready to eat.

Deviled Eggs -Samuel

I'm not sure why anyone would name a food something satanic. I'm almost afraid to make them based on biblical reasons alone. But they're great starters and superb party food if you're in charge of appetizers at a potluck.

Here's how I like my Deviled Eggs:

Deviled Eggs (Difficulty: Medium)

Makes: 8

Cost: $1

Time spent: ~25 minutes

Ingredients:

-8 eggs

-3 slices of bacon

-1 small shallot

-1/3 cup mayonnaise See our Mayonnaise Recipe here

-1 tbsp olive oil
-Few sprigs chives

-Few pinches cayenne

1. Put eggs in pot and fill the pot with cold water up to about an inch above the eggs. Bring water up to boil as quickly as you can, and when it reaches a rolling boil, take it off the heat and let sit for ~12 minutes. What you're looking for is medium cooked eggs, in other words, semi-firm yolk.

2. Put a frying pan on medium-high heat. Slice your bacon thinly, about a quarter inch apart, and fry until crispy (don't add oil to pan). Also mince your shallots at this time, but keep them raw.

3. Now, peel your eggs and slice them in half. Take only 5 of their yolks (set aside the 3, we're not going to use them), and put them in a bowl, along with the mayonnaise, olive oil, crispy bacon, and shallots. Mix them together, and you should get something like this:

4. If you've followed our recipe for mayonnaise, there won't be any need to season and there'll be plenty of citrus kick from the lemons and limes. Now put the mixture into a piping bag (you can use a ziploc if you'd like), and push into the eggs.

5. Add chives (ours are from our home garden =D), and sprinkle a bit of cayenne for some spicy kick. A lot of people choose paprika, but this is a very light deviled egg with a citrus zing, so adding that smoked flavor imbalances the dish. 

Voilà! Serve these at room temperature, and you're all done. Don't these DEVILed eggs look ANGELic? :)

Citrus Mayonnaise -Samuel

Mayonnaise. I used to hate it. In trying to be health-conscious, I avoided mayonnaise like the plague after hearing all the rotten gossip about the health detriments of mayonnaise ("No, I did NOT ask for mayonnaise in my sandwich"). But one day I succumbed to its creamy, delicious goodness, and I guess I'm on a one-way trip down mayonnaise lane.

So why does mayonnaise warrant its own recipe? For one, it's incredibly versatile. Use it to make some deviled eggs,  sauces in place of sour cream or crème fraîche with some tweaking, or a simple but glorious ham and cheese sandwich. Second, basic recipes such as these lets the reader innovate and think for themselves, which I find to be important.

Why make mayonnaise yourself? Well, after making this recipe yourself, you just can't go back to store-bought. Supermarket mayonnaise tastes like water and lacks depth and flavor. A pity, that, but thankfully mayonnaise is very easy to make and anyone could make it on their own.

Every mayonnaise recipe basically involves an emulsion of egg yolk and oil, an acid, and any other flavors of your choosing. Here's my rendition of mayonnaise:

Citrus Mayonnaise (Difficulty: Easy-Medium)
Makes: 2 cups
Cost: $1-2, 
Time spent: 10 minutes

Food processor not necessary but recommended. I tried it by hand once and it's doable but tiring.

Ingredients: 
-4 egg yolks
~1 tsp Dijon mustard or horseradish (optional)
~1.5 cup oil (a flavorless or mildly flavored olive oil works. DEFINITELY not EVOO)
-Juice of half a lemon
-Juice of half a lime
-Pinch of salt and ground pepper

1. Get your 4 egg yolks and put them in the food processor. Pulse them a few times until they're nice and creamy.
2. Add the dijon mustard/horseradish, if you like a bit of kick and mustard flavor and pulse a few times again.
3. Now add the oil VERY, VERY SLOWLY. If you add it too fast, the oil and eggs will not combine properly and you'll end up with a really watery mayonnaise. Just trickle it into your food processor for the first minute or two when it looks like it's thickening a bit (it'll start to cling to the sides), and then you can add the oil a little quicker. I usually start out with the groundnut oil first.
4. You'll see it visibly thicken, and when it's at the point where you think it's thick enough, add the juice of the lemon, lime, and add the salt and pepper. It should come out to look something like this:

5. You'll notice that it's still a tiny bit runny. That's normal. Leave it to set and amalgamate the flavors in the fridge, and when it's cooled down, you'll notice it will have gotten a lot thicker and has a beautiful color and shine:

You're finished making mayonnaise! Feel free to use this light mayonnaise as a base in any variety of dishes that you wish, or spread it on a baguette from this recipe: Classic French Baguette. Happy mayo-making!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake - Monica

Hey guys! I'm really excited about this food blog  because it’s a really good opportunity for us to help each other learn to cook and bake for fellowship. Now that summer is coming to an end, I hope that we can all make what we have left of our breaks somewhat productive, even if it's just trying out a new recipe, reading a book, or learning a new skill.

This is a recipe for a cake I made for Zsarynne's birthday this past week (I was trying to appeal to her tropical fruit likings). The cake is buttery and fruity; it kind of tastes like a fruit tart pastry in cake form. It's also a nice cake to give as a gift to someone else because the cake itself looks really pretty when presented :)

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

(Difficulty Medium)

Makes one 9 inch cake, Total Time spent: ~1.5 hours

Ingredients:

Topping:

• 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) (55 grams) unsalted butter, cut in small pieces

• 3/4 cup (160 grams) light brown sugar

• 1 can sliced pineapples (reserve the juice)

Cake Batter:

• 1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• 2 large eggs (at room temperature), separate the whites and yolks

• 1/2 cup (120 ml) milk (I used half milk, half pineapple juice)

• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

 Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C).

2. Spray oil or butter a 9 inch (23 cm) round cake pan with three inch (7.5 cm) sides. (Don't use a spring form cake pan because the caramel will leak out the bottom of the pan, use a regular cake pan)

3. Topping: Place butter and brown sugar in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Continue cooking, without stirring, until bubbles just start to appear around the outside edges (the sugar starts to caramelize). Remove from heat and pour into the oiled cake pan. Arrange pineapple slices on top of the sugar mixture.





4. Cake Batter: In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
5. In a second bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
6. Beat in vanilla extract, than add egg yolks in one at a time, beating after each addition.
7. Add the flour mixture little by little, alternately with the milk.
8. In a third bowl, beat egg whites until whites hold a firm peak. To help the egg whites get light and fluffy, you can add a 1/4 tsp of cream of tartar or vinegar to it (the chemical reaction helps it fluff up). Make sure your bowl has no trace of oil left it in or else the whites will have a hard time fluffing up.
9. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites into the cake batter with a spatula in two additions. Be very gentle! We want to minimize how much we deflate the egg whites.
10. Pour batter into the cake pan over the pineapples/sugar mixture and smooth the top.

11. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 - 55 min. until the cake has browned (a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake will come out clean).

12. Remove from oven and let it cool for about 10 min.
13. (This is the fun part) Run a knife around the edge of the pan and flip the cake upside down (hence the name of the cake) onto a serving plate. 
14. Voila! Cake is ready to share and eat :)