Sheets Culinary Feats

I have been pondering what I wanted to do this week for a blog, and have not had a whole lot of inspiration. I found myself pondering a lot on what cheap meals we could throw together and feed the four adults that are living in the house for not a lot of money. I fell back on a couple of my old family recipes that I grew up with, cheap and easy to prepare. Next week I think I’ll post some of those recipes.

This week however, I wanted to focus on a wonderful set of videos that I found while I was randomly surfing YouTube. I found a wonderful profile of 91 year old Clara, who grew up during the depression.  Watching them she reminds me so much of my own GG (Great Grandma, we could never say it as kids so she became GG), that I couldn’t help but link to her profile.

In the videos she goes over some great recipes that are economical, nutritious, and tasty. Though they may not be gourmet, they certainly work. Not to mention that she has a great personality and discusses some of her memories from childhood, which I really enjoy.

Hope you do as well!

The traditional Yule log was a large log that was burned all night long during the celebration. However sometime during the 18th or 19th century the French created a pastry out of the conecpt and began serving it during Christmas celebrations. It is basically a jelly roll filled with hazelnut mousse and coated in chocolate. Now a days the pastries are done up beautifully to more greatly resemble the log they are name after.

The jelly roll in this recipe is very light and delicate and requires a gentle touch when you are rolling it up. It’s much easier if you use a long piece of parchament paper underneath the log to help you roll it up nice and tight. There’s a lot of steps to this recipe, but it’ll turn out looking gorgeous at the end. I’ve left out the meringue mushrooms, but if you’re interested in putting them on the log, leave a note and I’ll post the recipe.

Yule Log

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

6 eggs, seperated

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon of sugar

1/2 cup all purpose flour, sifted

For the hazelnut mousse:

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

5 ounces hazel nuts, toasted

5 ounces milk chocolate cut into small pieces

1 tablespoon hazelnut oil

For the chocolate frosting:

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut in small pieces

8 ounces unsalted butter, cut in small pieces

1/2 cup powdered sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 strong coffee

1/4 cup sour cream

Method of Preparation:

For the cake:

1. Butter a jelly roll pan, line with parchment paper, butter the paper and sprinkle with flour, tapping to remove excess flour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of the sugar.
3. Meanwhile, place the egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until soft peaks form. Turn the machine up to high, and beat in the remaining 3 tablespoons of sugar, continue to beat until shiny but not stiff.
4. Add the flour to the yolk/sugar mixture and whisk to combine. Add l/4 of the egg whites to the yolk mixture, whisking to lighten the mixture. Then return the yolk mixture to the egg whites, and fold gently.
5. Scrape into the prepared pan and even the top by running a long offset spatula across the surface. Bake until cake is golden brown and springs back when lightly touched, l2 to l5 minutes. Cool on a rack. Set aside.

For Hazelnut mousse:

1. Place cooled hazelnuts on a kitchen towel and rub together to remove skins. Place the skinned hazelnuts in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process for l minute. Add the hazelnut oil through the feeder tube and process until a paste forms.
2. Melt chocolate in a medium bowl placed over simmering water, or melt in a microwave oven. Add the melted chocolate to the hazelnut paste and set aside.
3. Whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Fold in the hazelnut/chocolate mixture. Keep covered in the refrigerator until needed.

For the Chocolate Frosting:

1. Melt the chocolate. In a small pot, heat the coffee and cocoa. Add the sour cream.
2. In the bowl of a mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the chocolate mixture and combine completely. Transfer to a medium bowl and set aside until of spreading consistency.

To Assemble:

1. Trim the edges of the sponge cake. Place the Hazelnut mousse on the cake layer. Spread the mixture evenly over the cake, leaving a l inch space along the long side.
2. Using the parchment paper to aid you, carefully roll up the cake into a thick log, enclosing the mousse. Leave the wrapped, rolled-up cake on the sheet pan and refrigerate until filling is firm, at least 2 hours.
3. Remove pan with cake from refrigerator and place wrapped cake on a firm surface. Carefully unwrap cake. Using a serrated knife, from one end cut a 2-inch piece of cake on the diagonal. Set the cut piece aside.
4. Cut out a piece of cardboard the length and width of the cake. Cover the cardboard with foil and place the cake on it. Spread a little frosting on the bottom of the small cut piece and set on top of the cake roll. Using a small spatula, spread the frosting over the entire cake as well as the small piece atop the cake. With a wooden skewer or the point of a small knife, make furrows to simulate bark along the sides and top of the cake.
5. Arrange Christmas greens and plastic holly around the Yule Log. Sift powdered sugar over the whole thing to simulate snow. Fresh cranberries can be scattered around for added color.

I think the combination of Grilled Cheese and Tomato soup has ingrained itself into the American culture as a comfort food that crosses the traditional borders. Whether you just want to eat your sandwich or dunk it in your soup as you go, few things make us feel better than that.

This isn’t your standard grilled cheese, I won’t be using any velveta or what not, but you could always use that if it makes you feel good. The combination with the ciabatta rolls makes for a delicious taste sensation and it really soaks up the soup when you dip it.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches Serves: 6

Ingredients:

6 ciabatta rolls split in half

Mayonnaise to taste

6 slices of muenster cheese

6 slices of Havarti, I love a nice dill havarti but it can be hard to find.

Method of Preparation:

1. Spread a small amount of mayonnaise on the inside of each of the ciabatta rolls.
2. Place one slice of the muenster and havarti on the rolls and place the tops back on. Heat a skillet over medium high heat and spray it with a non-stick spray.
3. Toast the sandwiches on either side until golden brown and the cheese is wonderfully melted. Serve hot with the tomato soup.

Creamy Tomato soup Serves: 6

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons of butter

2 Tablespoons Olive oil

1 large onion, diced

1 Tablespoon minced garlic

2 Tablespoons flour

3 1/2 pounds ripe tomatoes, chopped

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

1 teaspoon of sugar

3 cups vegetable broth

1/8 teaspoon ground clove

To Taste Salt and Pepper

1/2 cup half and half

Method of Preparation:

1. Melt the butter with the olive oil over low heat in a pot.
2. Add the onion and saute until translucent, add in the garlic. Sprinkle with the flour and cook 3 minutes longer.
3. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, and broth. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook over medium-low heat for 30 minutes. Season with the cloves, salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and cool slightly.
4. Puree with an immersion blender, or in a food processor but that can be a bit more risky. Pour the mixture through a sieve into a separate pot and stir in the half and half.

This is one of my favorite recipes that I’ve been making for years on end. Whenever I bring them to a party they never last longer than 2 hours. And that’s with over 100 made. Gyoza are simple, delicious, and even more amazing when served with soy sauce.

They can be a bit time consuming to make, so I’ve included the special equipment you’ll need as well.

Gyoza

Equipment Needed:
Steamer, I prefer a spagetti pot with the steamer basket insert.
Large skillet
Food Processor
Ravioli Press, again I prefer the fold in half plastic kind but you can also use the square metal kind, they work pretty well actually.
Saute pan
A pair of tongs that won’t tear up your non-stick saute pan if using one

Ingredients:
1 Tbls of vegetable oil, I prefer a canola/peanut blend for this
1 large or 2 small schallots, finely minced
1 piece of fresh ginger about the size of your thumb, peeled, and finely minced
1 lb ground pork
1 small head of green cabbage, approximately 1 lb
1 package won ton wrappers, ~75-100 count
Enough more of the canola/peanut oil to fry the gyoza

Method of preperation:

1. Fill your steamer with water and put it on to start boiling with the lid on.
2. In your skillet add the vegetable oil, and heat it for a few minutes. Once hot add the shallot and ginger and saute for a minute until the schallots beging to become translucent. Then add the pork and cook thoroughly. Set the mixture aside to cool slightly.
3. Cut your cabbage in half and then remove the core from each half. Cut each half into thirds and place the pieces in your food processor. Process the cabbage until it is chopped small, about half the volume it was previously. Add in the pork mixture and process until it forms a paste.
4. This next step works best with two people, one forming gyoza and one cooking them.
5. Using a teaspoon fill each wonton skin in the middle leaving enough room for the edges to fit together. Dip your finger in water and run it around half of the won ton skin and press the gyoza together using the ravioli press.
6. Heating a small amount of oil in the saute pan cook 3 gyoza at a time for approximately 2 minutes on each side till they are nice crispy and brown. Once browned transfer the gyoza to your steamer to finish cooking the skin. This process gives you a gyoza that is crunchy and chewey at the same time and completely cooked all the way through.

There’s nothing quite so wonderful as a fresh and warm dish of Yakisoba. Where the noodles are fired just right and the vegetables compliment the sauce wonderfully. This recipe will never be as good as the Yakisoba one can get at Oshima’s Ramen, but it’s not bad.

As I haven’t had 20 years of training, I can’t recommend making your own soba noodles, but you can purchase some great noodles at your local Asian market, my favorite place really is H Mart, check them out if you can make it out there.

Also, this recipe calls for pork, but if you prefer you can easily substitute your favorite protein, it works especially well with chicken or marinated tofu.

Yakisoba - Serves 4

Ingredients:

1/3 cup Soy Sauce

1/3 cup rice wine

1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar

12 ounces Soba Noodles

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil. Again I prefer a blend of peanut and canola

1 pound lean pork loin sliced thinly across the grain

1 onion thinly sliced

1 pound napa or savoy cabbage sliced very thin

3 carrots peeled and grated

1 Tablespoon of chopped ginger

2 scallions thinly sliced

Method of Preparation:

1. In a small bowl, mix together: soy sauce, rice wine, and the sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves.
2. Cook the noodles according to the packages instructions. Drain and rinse well under cold water.
3. In a large wok, heat the oil and sear the pork on both sides.
4. Add the onion and cook about 3 minutes.
5. Toss in the cabbage, carrot, and ginger and cook until the carrots are soft about 3-5 minutes.
6. Add in the sauce and heat until steam starts to rise, then cover with the noodles and toss to coat everything with the sauce. Continue to cook the dish in the sauce tossing occasionally until steam starts to rise from the entire dish.
7. Serve in a bowl and garnish with the scallions if desired.

So taking a few requests I’m going to put up some of my favorite Japanese recipes this week.

Few things make me happier than cooking Japanese food. It’s so simple, and elegant, and easy to do, yet still flexible enough to incorporate a limitless combination of flavors and plate designs.

Stay tuned, in the next few weeks I want to start a foray into the art of the bento box and see what I can come up with.

I’m going to keep this a fairly short week, what with the holidays and such time is a valuable commodity.  So with no further ado, here’s this weeks recipes:

Yakisoba

Gyoza

This is a recipe that I developed myself, with a little inspiration from the bread pudding style bread we used to prepare up at the Stanley Hotel. I was trying to come up with a way to serve your traditional dressing with just a little more flare and add a different spin on the taste. The chef’s there never gave me the go ahead, so I made them on my own and they’ve been a hit every since.

Not for the faint of heart, these muffins are very rich, yet utterly delicious. The soft texture of bread pudding brought a bit more solid with the second baking combined with the flavors of stuffing really add to this dish. Hope you all enjoy.

Twice Baked Stuffing Muffins - Makes approximately 36 muffins

Prep time: up to 30 minutes

Cook time: 1-1 1/2 hours

Ingredients:

1 each loaf of white bread, preferably a week old so it is rather dry.

1 package of fresh poultry herbs. Sage, thyme, and rosemary

1 can low sodium chicken broth

1 pint pasteurized egg product

1 pint heavy cream

3 day old croissants

2 teaspoons ground anise

Method of Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. I prefer to cut the crusts off of the white bread before I cube it as we will be drying this out and I think the texture detracts from the final product. Cut the bread into 1/4″ cubes, about the same thickness of the slices. Chop the fresh herbs very finely, be sure to remove the stems from the thyme and the rosemary.
3. In a bowl combine the bread cubes, the fresh herbs and the chicken broth, coat the cubes well. Place on a baking sheet and cook past the normal doneness for dressing. We want the dressing to be very dry so that it will absorb the custard later on. This time will vary depending on how dry the bread is you are using and the moisture in the air. Keep an eye on them and carefully test the cubes with your fingers, when they’re dried out remove from the oven and let them cool.
4. While the dressing is cooling, in a mixer with the whisk attachment combine the egg product and the heavy cream. Beat until it becomes light and airy and roughly doubles in volume.
5. Cut the croissants into 1/4″ cubes. In a fresh bowl combine the stuffing and the croissants. Cover the mixture with the custard and add in the anise. Combine well and allow it to stand until the mixture thickens to a batter like consistency. Again this time will vary, but approximately 20 minutes.
6. I like to use the silicone muffin tins as they are already non-stick and I don’t need to use muffin wrappers or spray the pans heavily. Fill each muffin tin approximately half full with the bread pudding mixture and bake at 350 until the custard sets. Oven results vary. I’ve had the baking time take 30 minutes for the custard to set and up to an hour. So once again keep an eye on the muffins and when they are firm and a delicious looking golden brown pull them from the oven. Feel free to serve them hot or at room temperature with butter, they’re delicious!

While not necessarily my favorite holiday during the year Thanksgiving always holds a special place in my heart. Most of the major holidays deal with food, but none quite so much as Thanksgiving, when we throw our diets out the window and indulge our souls in some good old fashioned comfort food.

The menu I’m proposing this week is certainly not one that I would recommend every week, or even once a month. It is all very fattening and indulgent, but presents the perfect (in my opinion) menu for a delicious Thanksgiving meal. Sure a lot of these ideas are the traditional, and rely heavily on carbs, but they’re my favorites, and even one of my secret appetizers that goes over wonderfully every year. This year I think I’m going to leave out the turkey, everyone has their favorite recipe. But next year I plan on buying a turkey fryer and trying out a few different recipes, so I’ll cover those.

Thanksgiving Menu:

Appetizer: Twice baked Stuffing Muffins

Starches: Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Baked Yams with Marshmallows

Vegetables: Green Bean Casserole

Bison is a wonderful meat, while it can be easy to overcook it and dry it out because it has a much lower fat content than beef. However, it has a lot more natural flavor than beef does, however some folks may not care for the gamier flavor. Because of the lower fat content Bison shouldn’t be prepared more than medium, but of course everyone has their own preferences, but care should be taken when cooking it to medium-well or well done.

If desired you can always substitute beef tenderloin steaks for this recipe.

Bison Steaks, yield 2 servings

Prep time: 5 minutes to mix ingredients, 8 hours to marinate

Cooking time: 6-8 minutes depending on doneness

Ingredients:

2 bison tenderloin steaks, about 6 oz each.

To taste Kosher salt and cracked black pepper.

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil.

3 cloves of garlic finely minced.

Method of Preparation:

1. Coat each steak with kosher salt and cracked black pepper. Place into a resealable plastic bag.
2. Add the olive oil and garlic and coat each steak well. Place in the refrigerator and allow to marinate for at least 8 hours.
3. Preheat your grill to 400 degrees.
4. To get beautiful grill marks you will want to place the steaks on your preheated grill with one tip pointing to the 10 o’clock position, let it sear for at least a minute and a half. In order to decrease the cook time turn the steaks over to the uncooked side leaving them pointed at 10 o’clock. Again let it sear for at least a minute and a half and then turn the steaks to the 2 o’clock position. After another minute and a half turn the steaks back over to the other side left at the 2 o’clock position and you will see the beautiful diamond grill mark paterns on your steak. After these 6 minutes your steak should be about medium rare, if you desire it to be more well done you can leave them longer on each side so that no one side becomes over done.

This recipe for butternut squash is amazingly simple and one of my favorites ever.

Simple Butternut Squash, Yield 2 servings

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 30-45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 medium sized butternut squash

2 Tablespoons butter (not margarine), divided

2 Tablespoons brown sugar, divided

Method of preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash any dirt or grit off of the outside of the butternut squash.
2. Using a heavy and sharp chef’s knife cut the stem end off of the squash. Depending on how much you want to serve you can cut the top off down to the bulb, or leave it intact. There is a fair amount of meat in the top part of the stem, but it may be easier for some to only eat the rounded bulb. Next with the squash standing straight up and down, cut it in half. Be extremely careful as the squash tends to be very tough and it can be easy to lose control of the knife. Then remove any seeds with a large spoon from the inside of the bulb, leaving a rounded indentation.
3. Place one tablespoon of both butter and brown sugar into the indentation of the squash and place on a backing sheet line with foil, cut side up. Bake in the oven until a paring knife goes into the flesh easily.