Candied Butter. nut. squash.

April 17, 2012 //
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Probably my favorite way to eat veggies, and my favorite veggie to eat!

I can easily eat this EASY side dish as a whole meal.

Carmelized Butternut Squash 

  • Cubed butternut squash
  • Olive oil
  • Brown sugar
  • Cinnamon
  • Fresh chopped sage
  • Salt and pepper

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Place cubed squash on a foil-lined baking pan. Drizzle olive oil over squash and toss to fully coat. Sprinkle on remaining ingredients and toss again.

Place pan in oven and cook until carmelized and the squash is tender- or according to your personal preference. I usually  cook mine for 45 + minutes.

They should come out sweet, sticky, ooey gooey and delicious.

Yumminess.

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Categories Vegetables

Pretzel me this.

March 6, 2012 //
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Chocolate covered pretzels. Such a throw back to childhood. There was a deli near my house called The Bagel; my mother and grandmother always took us there for the matzoh ball soup. I always went for the chocolate covered pretzels. Waiting in line at the bakery with my mother, eyes glued to the rows and rows of colorful sticks calling my name; the start of a beautiful relationship- the start of my taste for sweet and salty at the age of 6.

My first year living in LA I was invited to an Oscar Viewing Party, so I decided to make these SUPER easy, time-saving treats to my assigned movie theme of EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CRUNCHY Chocolate Covered Pretzels (I ended up adding coconut flakes to some, so I also covered THE DESCENDANTS’ Hawaiian themed basis). 5 points for Gryffindor!

And while there are unlimited decorating choices for these bad boys, I believe that most of the time simple is much more elegant so I stuck with a milk and white chocolate drizzle.

One bag of pretzel rods will give you about 2 dozen sticks; plenty for a party.

Use wax paper, and instead of trying to awkwardly dip the pretzels into the melted chocolate, I recommend merely using a spoon to drizzle the chocolate over the pretzels as they lay spaced out on the wax paper. Flip them over and drizzle a coat of the base chocolate on the back side as well, then turn the rods back onto the original side. Whatever further drizzle/toppings you add, you only need to put them on this side.

Choose your poison. Here, I used a base of milk chocolate, with a top coat drizzle of white.

Choose your toppings: none, coconut flakes, chopped toasted nuts, mini m&ms, heath pieces, crushed Oreos, sprinkles, mini choc chips, etc.

If short on time, refrigerate the rods until they harden; however, ideally you want to let the chocolate set while at room temperature (should take 2-3 hours). Once hardened, put rods in an air-tight container.

Last, I scraped together all the extra chocolate to form a single (and delicious) chocolate drop- stick in a few pecans, coconut flakes, and voila!- Candy!

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Categories Dessert

Nasu Dengaku

March 6, 2012 //
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Eggplants, when cooked right, are one of the most delicious vegetables on this planet; and while there are many beautiful things you can do with an eggplant, none are more indulgent to the palate than Nasu Dengaku.

Man, those Japanese, they just always seem to do it right… From cars, to finance, sushi, and eggplants.

I digress.

Recipe (Adapted from Momofukufor2’s Miso Glazed Eggplant):

3 Tbs sugar

2 Tbs mirin

1/2 C miso (can use red or white or both)

Sesame oil for brushing

4 japanese eggplants, trimmed and cut lengthwise

Sesame seeds, for garnish

Place the mirin in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer for about 2 minutes to allow some of the alcohol to cook off. Then add the miso and stir until smooth. Stir in the sugar, reduce the heat to very low, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, while you broil the eggplants:

Brush the cut sides of the eggplants with the sesame oil. Place the eggplants cut-side down on a baking sheet and put under the broiler of your oven for about 3 minutes, checking often to make sure that they do not burn. Turn them over, and cook for another 3 minutes or until the tops are a light to medium brown. Do not burn! (If your eggplant still isn’t tender all the way through, turn the broil function to bake at 375˚ for a few more minutes; then proceed with the recipe.)

When the eggplants are tender, brush each one with the miso sauce (don’t overcoat, as the eggplants will become too soggy); and put them back under the broiler until the sauce bubbles up–this should take less than a minute, so watch them closely. Enjoy hot, sprinkled with (optionally toasted) sesame seeds.

*If you score the eggplants, they’ll cook faster and the sauce will flavour even more of the eggplant.

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Categories Vegetables

Ice cream sandwiches

February 27, 2012 //
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Ice. cream. sandwiches.

So simple. So delicious. So indulgent. So easy.

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Needing a dessert for a dinner party I was throwing, but running short on time, I realized I had some frozen cookie dough on hand (always great to have in the freezer for times of crisis- both of the personal and hosting variety). Paired with some creamy vanilla bean ice cream, and rolled in chopped chocolate, I had a hit dessert ready to go with literally zero prep time.

These treats are a great way to impress with a dish that you can do ahead of time, but that’s fun to put together, and brings everyone back to the proverbial ice cream truck of their youth.

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Bake a batch of your favorite cookies- keep in mind, you’ll need 2 cookies per guest, as the sandwiches are rich enough so that one per person will be fine (every time I’ve served this, my guests ended up splitting theirs in half!). You can go All-American and do a classic chocolate chip, but my favorite thing about this recipe is that you can gourmet it up and really get the chance to wow your guests by using a cookie that’s unexpected and different. The sandwiches pictured here use oatmeal cranberry triple-chocolate chip cookies.

*Freeze any leftover dough, as it’s always great to have on hand (point in case why this is such an easy dessert if you’ve already got the frozen dough!).

As the cookies cool, leave the ice cream out to soften (I recommend vanilla, as it will blend beautifully with the flavors of most any cookie, as well as the chopped chocolate).

However, if you’re in the mood to experiment, try basing the cookie on the ice cream, and you can really go wild. Think lavender. Salted caramel. Peanut butter. Sesame.

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Once the cookies are cool (trust me, you don’t want to spread softened ice cream on warm cookies- your sandwiches will merely become two sticky cookies before you can blink), use a spoon or ice cream scoop to place a ball of ice cream between two similar-sized cookies, then press down so that the ice cream bulges out the sides a bit.

Immediately roll the cookie across a pile of chopped chocolate (I’ve used both semi-sweet and milk; go off the kind of dough your using); the chips are a great way to give a finished and professional look to your sandwich, and the more the ice cream sticks out, the easier it will be for the chips themselves to stick.

Have saran wrap at the ready and quickly, but loosely (so as not to smush the look of your sandwich), wrap up your creation and stick it in the very back of the fridge. It should only take a 3-4 hours for your cookie to harden.

Once ready to serve, unwrap and plate!

Et voila!

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Categories Dessert