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. :)