Tiramisu

Abominations and experimenting aside, most people agree that I'm a rather good cook. I agree that I am ridiculously vain, and therefore concur.

This right here, though? This is the one thing I go out of my way to brag about. My tiramisu may possibly be the best thing in the history of ever.

Am I able to follow my own recipe to the letter? Of course not. There were factors outside of my control, see.

As I mentioned in the previous post, my sister was in charge of doing the groceries for her own demands. She went to the store quite late last night, and no liquor stores were open at that hour. We don't have any Kahlúa in the house. Today is Sunday. All of these things are bad.
The in-laws have Kahlúa. That's good!
But that would be stealing, and that's bad.
I'm pretty sure we'd pay it back. That's good!
Then I could make my tiramisu, and that's REALLY good, but I'm home without a car and J didn't go borrow the Kahlúa from his folks'. (That's bad)

So we make a non-alcoholic version. That's meh. I had something like a third of a shot of raspberry schnapps, and might as well get rid of it, right?

Okay, then.

2 cups strong coffee (or espresso) (I used the Mexican coffee from earlier today)
2 tbsp. sugar (skipped this, since my coffee had sugar already)
6 tbsp. Kahlúa (... ... ...)

Mix well, set aside to cool.


2 1/2 pkgs lady fingers
3 large eggs, room temperature, separated
1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla*
8 oz. mascarpone cheese
1 oz. Cream cheese

*I've been known to use almond extract, raspberry extract, or 2 tsp Amaretto, instead

In a non-plastic bowl, beat egg whites until hard peaks form. Set aside.

In a non-plastic bowl, beat whipping cream until soft peaks form. Set aside. (Make sure that both the bowl and the mixer attachments are chilled for this. I stuck them in the freezer a few minutes before mixing).

In a separate container, beat egg yolks, sugar & vanilla for about 2-3 minutes until pale-yellow & creamy. Add mascarpone and cream cheese (softened) and mix until well combined, about 3-5 minutes. The addition of cream cheese serves the purpose of giving depth, not flavor or texture. Just go with it.

Gently fold the egg whites into the mascarpone mixture, and once combined, fold about half the whipped cream as well. Put the other half in the fridge for later.

You'll need a pretty big container, or several. Line the bottom with the lady fingers dipped in the coffee mix (don't soak them too long or they'll fall apart, but make sure they ARE properly soaked), layer mascarpone mix on top. Repeat until you run out of room, finishing with a mascarpone layer. Cover and refrigerate for about 2-3 hours. Spread the rest of the whipped cream on top and sprinkle with cocoa powder.



Ack, midnight kitchen lighting won't allow for a good shot.

I don't have cocoa powder, but I do have about 3lbs of Easter chocolate in the fridge......... poor bunny never saw it coming.

Cheesy spinach dip

What's all THIS crap??

This is me reaching fairly randomly into the refrigerator when I realized I had a huge bag of spinach I'd forgotten about, that needed to be used Real Soon. Like, NOW. Told my sister to bring home some chips and I got to work.

WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. I DO NOT GUARANTEE RESULTS, NOR DO I PROMISE GOOD HEALTH

Tablespoon of butter, tablespoon of flour over low heat, cook a few minutes. I added about 1/4 cup of white wine, which in this case turned out to be Riesling, and even I know that's not a good idea. Riesling's too sweet, you want a dry wine, maybe a Chardonnay or a Sauvignon Blanc. It's what I had, and instead of skipping the wine altogether, I went with it. I do what I WANT.
Now, this would have been fine and dandy like so, maybe more wine, but noooooooo. I went a weird direction and added..... MILK. To an acidic wine. I believe in my heart of hearts that I knew somewhere in my subconscious that this was a Really Bad Idea, but, like I said, I do what I WANT. Can you guess what happened? Curdling happened. I almost gave up on it then, but I had faith in this little abomination I was creating and I kept simmering until it became smooth and creamy again. Believe it or not.
I added a bit more milk (probably ended up using about 3/4 of a cup total, give or take).
Then I started throwing stuff in, not all at once, but little by little. CHEESES. Shredded Monterey/Colby blend, bleu cheese crumbles, grated parmesan. Dashes of white pepper, parsley. Stir frequently, and while that's simmering and melting and coming together....

In a large pan heat some olive oil, add super finely chopped onion and garlic and saute over high heat until translucent. I added the huge amounts of spinach and covered, stirring occasionally until wilted. Drained it as best as I could and added it to my cheesy mess up there.
I simmered that for a while until it was nice and thick and cheesy and as scrumptious-looking as you can allow yourself to imagine it to be after you've seen it in its curdled stage. Removed from heat and added a couple of tablespoons of cream cheese, stirred until well incorporated, and voila.


It turned out to be delicious and everybody present loved the hell out of it and now it's completely gone, but that's not the point.

I still don't recommend trying this out for yourself.

(Aside from eating it with chips, I poured some over rice and it was awesome. Maybe making it thicker and baking it inside croissants would be fantastic. I could also see it over seared salmon. But seriously, don't make this at home)

The Carnivore Agenda, Spaghetti edition

Make no mistake: When given the chance, time, ingredients and caffeine, I would much rather cook pretty much everything from scratch. It's hard to tell from nearly every entry here, but I am ALL for spending 8 hours in the kitchen working on two or three dishes.

That is not the case, today.

An 8-item grocery list turned into a full cart, and in the interest of coming up with a quick dinner we decided on Spaghetti, the Faking It version.

1 box spaghetti noodles
1 lb ground beef
1 jar spaghetti sauce of your choice*
Roughly chopped spinach
Chopped parsley
Garlic
Grated ginger
Oregano
Chipotle (powder or en adobo)
White pepper
Bay leaves

The most pain-in-the-ass part of making spaghetti is getting that huge pot of water to BOIL ALREADY. Huge pot of water, some sea salt and a few bay leaves thrown in. While that's taking its sweet time, brown the beef and drain all the fat. Lower heat to a simmer, pour spaghetti sauce in (*I like the mushroom or meat ones). Add spinach, a clove of crushed garlic, some ginger, oregano, as much chipotle as you think you can handle (I add just a dash for flavor, not heat), white pepper, a couple of bay leaves. Simmer that until your water FINALLY BOILS, and leave it on there through the 9-11 minutes it'll take the pasta to cook (watch for the splatters). Just before the pasta is done, add the chopped parsley and another clove of crushed garlic into the sauce.
Drain pasta, remove sauce from heat and stuff your face with awesome.

Now, the garlic toast thing really works better with a baguette or something to that effect, but I don't have that kind of foresight when I do groceries. Soften some butter in the microwave (soften, not melt), add salt to taste, crushed garlic (because there just isn't enough garlic in this post already) and whatever herbs rock your boat. Spread over some bread and put it in the oven at 300F for some 10 minutes or so.

If you're worried about the garlic, that's what wine is for. Tomato dishes = red wine.