Italian Creamed Corn

Think Polenta...

Ingredients:

1 bag frozen corn (or 2 cans, or 3-4 cups fresh)

1/2 cup milk (or heavy cream)

1 tablespoon butter

3 garlic cloves chopped/diced finely

S&P
2 roma tomatoes in slices

about 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

handful fresh cut basil leaves

1/8 cup Grated romano
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Directions:

In a sauce pan, melt butter and let garlic brown and sizzle on low heat.

Thaw corn (or drain it)

Blend until creamy with the milk in a food processor or blender.

Add tomatoes to garlic and butter. Add some fresh ground pepper.
Let the tomatoes soak up the flavors.

Add the blended corn. Stir ingredients.

Let mixture simmer on low heat. Add salt to taste.

Add parmesan cheese, stir continuously as the liquid reduces.

Before serving top with fresh basil and romano, stir just slightly.

Enjoy.

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FoOd ArRaNGeD bY CoLoR

Citrus juice

On weekends, in front of the Raleigh Flea Market Mall on 1924 Capital Blvd in Raleigh, NC, there are two fruit and vegetable stands run by Hispanics. Not only can you find fresh and local fruits and vegetables, but also Mexican produce in abundance such as jicama, racimo, nopals, and catus fruits. It is also an excellent place to get key lemons (the "citrus lemon") , plump limes and juice oranges. These citrus fruits are usually 6 for $1 which means I usually come away with a tri-colored mix of 18 peices of fruit.

Aside from being asthetically pleasing arranged quaintly in a bowl, they are extremely good for you.

We often hear about oranges, but limes and lemons? Apparently, in addition to the proverbial Vitamin C, they have cleansing agents, digestive aids, and will solve all of life's problems...

At any rate, they tasted good simply like this;

Ingredients:
1 medium juice orange

1 key lemon

1 lime
2 spoonfulls of sugar or Splenda

crushed ice

water

Directions:

Slice fruit in halves.

Use a juicer like this one (if you don't have an electric one). The seeds and pulp stay on top, the
juice doesn't spill and you can easily pour it into you glass.

The lime I used yeilded as much or more juice as/than the orange.

Add some crushed ice, sugar or Splenda, and cold water.

Enjoy!!

Quiche de ce jour-ci

Ingredients:

Pie/quiche crust
vegetable oil
1/2 bunch of celery...about five stalks with greens chopped
3 eggs
1 cup milk
4 strips of bacon
2 roma tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
salt & pepper
gouda and chedder cheese grated
Pimenton (smokey)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350
Put a bit of oil in the pie pan, place pie crust in pie pan and pre-cook crust.

In a blender, blend celery, eggs, and milk.

Cut bacon in to small pieces. Cook bacon in a frying pan.

Slice roma tomatoes in rounds then quarters. Add to bacon when it is about 1/2 cooked.
Add some salt and pepper.
Dice or crush the garlic and add to fry pan.

Check the crust. Let it pre-cook until the dough is a bit firm but not browning.

Let the bacon tomato mixture cook well together.

Remove crust.

Grate the cheeses until you have about a cup.

Pour the celery-milk-egg mixture in to the crust.

Add the bacon and tomatoes.

Top with cheese and pimenton.

Bake until firm and brown.

Enjoy!

Much more than a Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

Carton of creamy mushroom soup (like this) or you can use 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 8oz package of mushrooms (I used button, but portabello could be nice), sliced

2-3 tablespoons butter
1/2 roasted read bell pepper, chopped
2.5 oz chopped hard salami
3 tablespoons white wine
1-2 cloves garlic crushed or diced
black pepper



Directions:

-In a sauce pan, pour the base soup (or make it if from a can)
-In a frying pan, melt butter and steam mushrooms in it at med heat until they become soft.
-Add black pepper, diced red roasted pepper, garlic and white wine. Allow the liquid from the mushrooms and the butter to reduced together with the wine. The mushrooms will reabsorb it.
- Add the hard salami, let the mixture cook together for a few minutes on low heat, meanwhile heat up the base soup.
- Add the contents of the frying pan to the sauce pan of base soup. Stir ingredients together.

-Serve with sourdough toast and goat cheese.

Ok, so she's not singing about mushrooms

Tortilla Soup and culinary diaspora

Watch Tortilla Soup : )

In this recipe I tried to implement the "Mexican spice trinity". Chef Zarela Martinez explains the interplay with fruit and spice as a Mediterranean influence. Mexican candy demonstrates this well with such examples as chili dusted mango lollipops. This theme of sweet and savory is a common thread between Morocco and Mexico (think beef tajines with prunes or chicken with cured lemons). The "Mexican spice trinity" has similar elements as "ras al hanout", a Moroccan spice mixture. The cuisine of the Moors brought by Spaniards to the New World? Culinary diaspora at its finest.

Ingredients:

1 bag vegetable stir fry or vegetable assortment
1 cup milk
1/2 cup green scallions chopped
1/2 cup fresh cilantro chopped
juice and pulp from 1/2 of a fresh lime
Black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cube of beef bouillon
"Mexican spice trinity"; teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, cloves and cumin
1 small to medium steak
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
1/4 cup plain yogurt or sour cream
Fresh corn tortillas (when they're fresh they have a warm floral scent)
Sweet red bell pepper

Directions:
If you haven't cooked your steak you may do so now. I like to use my toaster oven.

In a blender or food processor, blend vegetables, milk, scallions, cilantro and lime until smooth. The milk facilitates the liquification so add more as needed.

In a medium sauce pan, melt butter, add a few twists (from a hand grind) of black pepper, the spices and bouillon. Allow to mix and blend.

Add blender mixture to the sauce pan, and reduce to low heat.

Cut the steak into strips and cut into spoonable pieces.

Chop the clove of garlic and add this along with the steak to the soup.

Add the sour cream or yogurt.

Cut tortillas into strips and rectangles, much like the steak.

Add tortillas to the soup, shortly before serving.

Add red bell pepper for presentation.

Moroccan orange blossom water sweets : ) Happy Eid

So, I found this recipe (the subconscious inspiration) after the fact but these were good anyway. I have three bottles of orange blossom water; one from Kenitra, Morocco, one from Moulay Idriss, Morocco and one I bought in a supermarket in Vermont, imported from Lebanon. So I decided to make something with my fragrant surplus. In Morocco, it can be used as a perfume (sometimes spritzed on you after a meal), drunk mixed with milk as an aperitif before weddings, as well as baked into pastries with almonds, Marzipan, pistachios etc. These can be best described as mini baklavas with a Moroccan twist. Having read a bit about Ramadan pastries such as Turkish güllaç and an Iranian or Afghan version of baklava which contains rose water, I am pleased with my once again simple recipe.

Ingredients

2-3 tablespoons Moroccan orange blossom water
Phyllo dough ( aka "warqa" )
1 bag walnuts
honey
melted butter

Directions:

Blend (or crush) walnuts into a powder.
Place ground nuts into a small plastic bag (ziplock)
Pour orange blossom water onto ground nuts in the bag.
Seal the bag and kneed the orange blossom water into the nuts.
Leave to sit overnight.

Prepare phyllo dough by cutting into about 3 by 5 inch rectangular strips
Melt at least a 1/2 cup of butter.
Take one strip of phyllo dough and brush it with butter.
Take a second strip and superimpose it perpendicularly (to form a cross). Brush with butter.
Repeat
Place a spoonful of the nut mixture in the center.
Put some honey (1/4 teaspoon?) on top.
Fold in the two horizontal parallel edges of the phyllo dough to cover the nut-honey filling .
Fold in the remaining two to seal the pastry pocket. Brush butter as needed.

Bake at 350 until phyllo turns brown

Enjoy

Today's tartelettes

Ingredients:

Phyllo dough

melted butter

Ingredients for sweet potato pie/yam custard (use a pumpkin recipe such as this) I used nutmeg instead of cloves and I added some cinnamon. I replaced pumpkin with yams.

1 fresh peach
Some fresh strawberries

shavings of white chocolate

Fresh mint springs for garnish

Directions:

Make yam pie mixture, use a blender to get the yams pureed and the custard smooth

Prepare your phyllo dough nests:

In a muffin tin or mold, use a butter brush to put some butter in each muffin cup.

Cut the Phyllo dough with kitchen scissors into small rectangles (but bigger than the muffin cups. For the crust of the tartelette, place one phyllo rectangle (the individual sheet, like paper) in the base of the muffin cup. Brush on a bit more butter; repeat 3 times until you have a small nest-like cup of phyllo dough crust ready for filling.

Fill each "nest" with the pie custard.

Slice into slivers a fresh peach and some strawberries.

Place a bit of each fruit on top of the custard.

Put some white chocolate shavings on top.

Bake at 350 until phyllo dough turns brown and yam custard thickens (clean toothpick test)

Garnish with mint

Chicken Dinner

Ingredients:

Chicken breast
Tomatoes in slices
Grated potatoes (uncooked hash browns)
S&P

Sauce

plain yogurt or sour cream
fresh parsley
garlic cloves

Jalepeno Butter

Butter
1 jalepeno

Directions:

Prepare chicken if necessary (rinse, remove excess fat and skin)
Make sauce by blending ingredients in a blender or food processor
Heat oven to 350
Put a layer of grated potatoes in the baking pan you plan to cook the chicken in.
Place chicken on bed of grated potatoes
Place tomato slices on and around the chicken
Pour sauce over top of everything
Melt butter and blend jalepeno into it.
Pour the on the butter
Add S&P
Bake for approx. an hour.

Enjoy : )

Limon y Sal Plantains

Ingredients:

Limes
Salt
Plantains
butter

Directions:

Listen to Limon y Sal by Julieta Venegas

Peel plantains and slice them into oblong rounds (not too thick!)

Let them marinade in fresh squeezed lime juice for at least an hour.

Fry them in butter until they brown and get a bit crisp on the edges

Add a few shakes of salt. Serve.

Tex- Mex Bean Dip & fried corn tortillas

Ingredients:

1 can prepared pinto beans
1 cup salsa
1/4 cup cream cheese
garlic
cumin
smoked grated cheese
1/2 lime squeezed (lime juice)
pimenton

Directions:

Layer salsa, bits or cream cheese and beans in a microwaveable bowl. Add garlic and cumin to flavor beans. Repeat layers

Top layers with the grated cheese, lime juice and pimenton

Microwave until cheese melts.

Serve.

For the corn tortillas, you buy them at a Hispanic store or market.
Cut tortillas into quarters
Heat up some oil and fry them until they turn golden brown. Serve plain or with salt and lime.