S'mores Pie

I love s'mores and I have been really wanting to make s'mores ice cream but by the time I got up on this holiday there wasn't enough time to get going on the ice cream and have it ready for dinner. So I browsed for different options around the web.  I found this take on s'mores which uses a graham cracker crust, brownies and toasted marshmallows.  This dessert was incredibly rich and I thought delicious, although, I sort of wish I had it right out of the oven instead of at room temperature.

If you like brownies, you should try this recipe without all the additions because these brownies were fast, one bowl and super easy.

If you make this...consider using regular unsweetened cocoa vs. dutch process (woah, dark chocolate)

If you make this...consider serving it hot!

If you make this...don't leave while the broiler is on and watch those marshmallows like a hawk. Once they start to get brown pull it out.

If you make this...make your own graham cracker crust.

Here's the recipe for when you make this...

Egg Sandwiches made at home are better

Last weekend we wanted to have some breakfast and we really had very little. So I made an egg sandwich with ham, egg, cheese and English muffins. It was fantastic.  Now that I have a favorite sandwich, I made something similar for lunch on Wednesday when I had bookend meetings to the lunch hour.  This time I omitted the cheese and added avocado.  Pure deliciousness.

This is the easiest thing to make and it takes hardly any time at all. By the time your muffin is toasted the egg is done!

Ingredients
1/2 small avocado
1 slice ham off the bone
1 egg
butter
1 whole wheat English muffin

Directions
1. Preheat pan to medium.  Break an egg into a bowl and then slide into the hot pan. Sprinkle with salt & pepper.  Fry the egg a few minutes until the white is opaque and the yellow looks slightly done. Be careful not to break the egg yolk on the transfer.
2. Toast the English muffin in the toaster or on the side of the pan.
3. Add ham to pan and heat til warm
4. Spread butter on the muffin, add ham, egg and avocado
5. Eat immediately and watch out for the egg which will break

Summer Stone Fruit Tart

Joey loves apricots and peaches and plums but is unfortunately allergic to them in their raw state. So, when summer comes around and stone fruit is all the rage, I do everything I can to get some on his plate. Last week, I grilled a peach--it was interesting but I didn't flavor it. Next time I would treat it more like a baked apple.

On Wednesday I worked from home and used that opportunity to  make a stone fruit tart with all the fruit that was a tiny bit overripe and waiting for me to eat.

I started off the morning making a simple quick easy tart dough recipe that I found on Williams Sonoma. I changed it a little so it tasted a little bit like almond--a favorite flavor at our house. This recipe didn't come together as easily as I had hoped and was a real bear to roll out in the evening but the taste was good...so use at your own risk!

For the filling, I reviewed another recipe and used a mixture of plums, apricots and peaches mixed with a bit of sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon juice.  I used the excess juices from the fruit to glaze the tart.  Because the dough was hard to work with the tart definitely dripped all over the pan but it was still really delicious. Still good the second day.

Summer Stone Fruit Tart

Crust adapted from here
1 egg yolk
2-4 T ice water
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 T almond meal
1 1/4 C flour
1/3 C sugar
1/4 t salt
8 T butter cubed and cold

1. In a large bowl mix together all the dry ingredients.  In a small bowl mix together the egg, 2 T water and extracts.
2. Combine together the dry and wet ingredients in the large bowl and then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter to form small pea meal.  IF it seems to dry gradually add a little bit more water at a time.
3. Just as the dough comes together, form into a ball and then flatten inside plastic wrap.  Chill for 3 hours at minimum.

Filling
8-10 small apricots, sliced into wedges
2 peaches, sliced into wedges
1 plum, sliced into wedges
1/4 C sugar (or less)
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t cinnamon
1/4 lemon, juiced
2 T cornstarch

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and lightly toss about 10 minutes before baking.

The Combination
1. Roll out the dough between two sheets of well-flowered parchment into around a 12-inch circle. Place on a rimmed baking sheet and chill for 30 minutes.
2.  Preheat the oven to 325
3. Remove the top sheet of parchment. Mound fruit in the center leaving at least two inches of dough around the sides, avoid adding excess juices
4. Brush the fruit and crust with some of the excess juice
5. Bake 30 minutes, brush with juice, bake 30 more minutes, brush with juice.
6. Let cool 10-15 minutes before even considering cutting into it.  Serve warm or cold, still good the next day!

Classic Yellow Vanilla Birthday Cake with Vanilla Frosting

Yesterday was my niece Alice's 1st birthday.  I offered to make the cake and then through a series of events suddenly had a supreme lack of time and ended up having exactly 3 1/2 hours to make cake for 40 + from scratch.  In case you are wondering this IS possible but it makes for not much time for artistic possibilities. The end results were definitely a little messy at first and then after sitting in a room with the same 40+ people through dinner a little messier still (and a bit melty) but it worked out.  The cake was good but a tiny bit dry if you didn't have much frosting--which if you got a middle piece you didn't because we were a bit low on frosting.

If you make this recipe combination, you should consider making more frosting--maybe two batches for each 1 cake recipe.  If you are making this cake recipe, you should consider separating it into 3 9-inch cake pans and make 3 layers because these layers nearly overflowed.  If you are making cupcakes have another pan ready because this cake recipe makes 24 cupcakes + 16 minis with a little overflow!

I made Smitten Kitchen's Yellow Cake recipe.  The only thing I changed was that I used 1/2 C milk in place of 1/2 C of the buttermilk in the cupcakes because I ran out of buttermilk.  I loved how she noted that the batter would look curdled at one point because it sure did and that's not what you expect of cake batter!  This batter is so thick, much thicker than box mix cake batter.  Again, this made more cake than I expected and I think if you wanted thinner, flatter layers you could easily separate this among three cake pans.  This also made more than 24 cupcakes. This batter continued to overflow in every place even though I didn't feel like I was over-filling anything.  FYI cupcakes take about 20 minutes to bake. Mini cupcakes take about 5-9.

Here's her cake recipe

For the frosting, I looked at 6 different recipes, one used simple syrup and egg whites. In the end though, due to lack of time to try something new, I used The Food Network's simple vanilla frosting. This is pretty much the first time I've successfully made frosting.  You know what the trick is?   Letting the mixer do all the work for ALL the minutes.  This recipe takes like 5 minutes total to make but the key is to actually let it mix for 3 whole minutes. It transforms the butter and sugar! It was amazing. And, shocker of shockers it tasted good too.

Here's the frosting recipe.

I also made this frosting 3 shades of purple and then pink and teal. I used gel food coloring. Gel food coloring is pretty easy to use and it makes these great vibrant colors. With gel food coloring definitely start with a little and add later.  To pipe two different colors of frosting, put one color on one side of the bag and one color on the other side of the bag and it makes a swirl.  To frost your cake in ombre style which we attempted, watch Sweetapolita do it and then try really hard to match it...it helps if it is not 80+ degrees and you have a turntable and maybe you already did a crumb coat. We had neither but it still looked nice until it started melting.  As you can see we topped our cake with pinwheels made by Jenny.

Leek Scapes, not as asdvertised

Have you seen these at the Farmer's market lately? I was drawn to them as I picked up some tomatoes and berries at the Wednesday market in Santa Monica.  These are leek scapes.  They are not unlike garlic scapes in that they taste like leeks but not as strong.  These are the flower stalks that leek plants produce in the spring/early summer before going back to being leeks.

When I got my leek scapes they looked just like this but by the time we ate them on Friday the flower's at the top had bloomed, little bits of very onion-flavored flowers burst out in starbursts.  (where's the picture? I know, sorry). The farmer said I could cook these like I would asparagus. The internet said the same thing.  The farmer told me I can also eat the flowers.

I sauteed a bit of the flowers in some olive oil and then added 1 inch pieces of the scapes. Unfortunately, many of them were really woody and the ones that weren't tasted nothing like asparagus. I added some sugar..and they were okay-slightly sweet but I couldn't eat the whole bunch and  nothing I would pick up again.  Have you tried a vegetable you've never had before lately?

15? Minute Fresh Tomato Sauce

Here in Southern California the first summer heirloom tomatoes are lining the tables at the farmer's market. For me, it's hard to imagine using canned tomatoes for something during tomato season. So to use the freshest ingredients for our homemade pasta, I searched recipes from the internet for pasta sauce I could make from the freshest tomatoes.

I found this sauce to be delicious, it took a bit longer than 15 minutes, but do you know what is a great way to relieve a week of stress? Squeezing the seeds and juice out of warm tomatoes right into the sink with your bare hands.  How rewarding! Joey didn't love the sauce at all--he found it boring, he found it "tomatoey".  Pity. If you don't like tomatoes like my husband, then you should not make this sauce. If you do--try it tonight and use red & yellow tomatoes to make this pretty orange color!

We had this sauce on top of our previously frozen fresh homemade pasta. The pasta comes out of the freezer without defrosting and is ready in 3-4 minutes. It still tastes better than dried pasta but closer to store-bought fresh pasta out of the freezer.


slightly adapted from here.

Ingredients:
2 lbs + tomatoes of any kind
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
5 leaves basil, chopped
2 t olive oil
1 t salt + more to taste 1 t pizza or Italian spices
dash of white balsamic vinegar (optional)
pasta & cheese for serving

1. Boil a large pot of water
2. Score an X on tomato bottoms. Add tomatoes to the water, cook for 2 minutes, remove with a pasta spoon and let sit in a bowl 5 minutes to cool.
3. Peel the tomatoes and discard the peels.  Squeeze the extra juice and seeds into the sink. Really get your hands dirty
4. Toss pulp with salt and spices in a bowl
5. Heat oil in a large saute pan, add garlic and cook for 30 seconds
6. Add the tomatoes and cook 2 minutes. Strain the pulp into a bowl and let the juices boil 2-3 minutes until thickened.
7. Puree the pulp with a hand blender and add it back in
8. Salt to taste, heat till heated through, serve over pasta with a little cheese and basil sprinkled on top

Rainbow Fruit Salad

Sometimes in the winter or even the spring, making a fruit salad proves to be a little harder than the summer. The only thing in season is citrus and supreming citrus to make it look pretty is time consuming.  So when I decided to make fruit salad for a party today, I popped over to the farmer's market and picked up whatever was available. Then Joey donated a mango and some kiwis to my cause and the result was a very rainbow salad--perfect for a gray spring day.

Oh you wanted a picture? Unfortunately I didn't take one and near the end it didn't look so delicious anymore...

Serves 10-12
2 Cara Cara oranges
4-5 small blood oranges
4 tangerines
5 kiwis
1 mango (probably 2 would be better)
1/2 pint small strawberries
1 cherimoya

1. Cut the ends off the citrus and then use a sharp knife to cut the sides off.  Cut the oranges into chunks avoiding the very center tough part. Toss into a bowl.
2. Peel and chop the kiwis
3. Cut the mango on each side of the hard pit in the center. Slice into cubes inside the mango skin and then cut around the edge. Use a really large spoon to scoop out the chunks.
4. Wash and drain the strawberries, cut off the greens and slice in half
5. Cut the cherimoya in half. Cut into chunks without the skin and watch out for the big seeds
6. Toss all the fruit together but add the strawberries and cherimoya on top so they don't get too smooshed. Refrigerate until ready to serve.