Tag Archives: entertaining

Mar5

Simple Chocolate Cake with Strawberries, Whipped Cream, and Chocolate Drizzle

Posted on March 5, 2014 by athaidek

The ultimate simple dessert. Not every occasion calls for a triple decker German chocolate cake or rich decadent Paula Deen-esque work of sweet buttah. No, today we’re celebrating simplicity. A flick of your magic cooking wand and a swish of the spatula, and bibidi-bobodi-boo, a one layer chocolate cake.

I made this for a special dinner with my cousins and aunt and uncle, and let’s be real, the dessert I brought was a reflection of how I felt at the time. I had buttermilk on hand and could have made the amazing buttermilk skillet cake that you saw a few months ago with the praline topping. But I felt that kind of happiness that required no cherry on top to commemorate a celebration. I wanted to look at vibrant natural colors (enter: sliced strawberries), hang out with my cousin (assembling the cake at the dinner), and feel satisfied not stuffed after the meal (one layer not two layer cake). Made a good choice!

Here we have a half recipe of Ina Garten’s Beatty’s Chocolate Cake topped with my favorite whipped cream concoction, sliced strawberries, and my fave chocolate ganache. I am a total fanatic for chocolate cakes with coffee in them as it always adds richness without too much sweet.

Ok so the strategy for simple dinner-at-family’s-house cake goes as follows…start with your simple chocolate cake. Use half of Ina’s, like me, or just make a devil’s food cake from a box and it’ll get all fancy with the toppings! The timing is favorable. You have time to clean up all that chocolate mess, lick the spoon and wait for the cake to come out until you prep the toppings. If I were you, I’d just go ahead and get the ganache out of the way, sometimes it can be messy.

So let’s melt some chocolate drizzle. Chop up 4 oz whatever bar chocolate you’ve got on hand (I had some bittersweet chips and a dark chocolate bar) and place in a heatproof bowl. Meanwhile warm 1/2 cup heavy cream in a sauce pan until bubbles start to form all around the edges (the cream is simmering) and pour half of it over the chopped chocolate. Let the chocolate melt for about 30 seconds then start to stir together. After it’s partly smooth add in the rest of the cream and stir until smooth. Set aside to cool and transfer to a small container.

Is your cake sitting invitingly on your counter now? Time to assemble the rest and get ready to go. Whip up some of your favorite whipped cream and slice up the strawberries. Store each separately in containers. Flip your cake (fingers crossed, seamlessly) onto a plate and cover with aluminum foil. At your friend’s house, store the whipped cream in the fridge and let your cake continue to cool. You don’t want to top the cake with the whipped cream and have it melt! When dessert time rolls around, ask your cousin to help you assemble, topping it with as much whipped cream, strawberries and ganache drizzle as you like. There’s no way to have too much or too little of either. Well, there’s always a way to have too little chocolate.

Can’t wait to try this with raspberries and maybe slivered almonds. It’d also be great to add a little kahlua to the whipped cream or dark rum! Bon appetit, chocolatiers. Tell me how it goes!

Dec1

Thanksgiving Deep-dish Apple Pie

Posted on December 1, 2013 by athaidek

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Give thanks with a grateful heart,

Give thanks to the Holy One!

As we gave thanks this year, we also celebrated the birthday of my beautiful and joyous grandmother, Winnie. To accompany the roast beast (turkey), taters, squash salad (amazing), dressing, green beans, and cranberry sauce, we topped off the meal with a birthday-candle-lit deep dish apple pie from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. We usually have pumpkin or pecan pie, but new visitors called for new traditions.

My family hosted this year and we were blessed with the presence of one of my closest friend’s family. The chaos that ensued this year was all the product of a failed oven installation! But in our usual fashion, we made it work, and being together made it totally worth the whole mess. Without a proper oven, we had to roast our turkey at our neighbor’s house in their new oven and shuffle back and forth to get dinner on the table!!

As you’ll see from these pictures, the substitute oven laughed in our faces and effused a beautiful smoky essence throughout our neighbor’s entire house. I believe this was God’s way of telling us we don’t spend enough time with our favorite neighbors anymore, because it encouraged us to stay our welcome longer and catch up with each other.

This deep-dish pie is absolutely incredible. Deb is right, it’s best made the night before, so all the flavors have time to meld and marry. I have never made an apple pie before, so I wanted to make sure I found a recipe that wasn’t too soupy but one that had enough liquid to cook the apples. Found it! We served 9 generously with this pie, and had 2 large pieces left over. As can be expected, the pie crust was an ordeal, as all pie crusts are in my opinion. I would suggest making your pie crust two days before eating the pie, then baking it one day before you want to eat it! Here’s a snapshot of another family baking adventure!

Mom’s an expert peeler, so I take over the slicing. I sliced them exxttraa thin. Two pounds of Golden Delicious, and three pounds of Gala and Fiji apples

Smoothing the apples, layer by layer

See, we managed to get all that crust in a springform pan!

Sistah sistah

Well, the pie starts to bake and the kitchen fills with smoke a la neighbors house. So our first instinct is to open the windows and use a fan to blow the cold air out? Suggestion: don’t try that, the logic doesn’t work out…

SMOKY

My sister made elegant leaves out of leftover pie crust to place on top of the streusel..brilliant!

In the end, it all works out because everyone loves pie 🙂

Eat this with a cup of hot coffee mixed with Kahlua and whipped cream!! Happy Thanksgiving ❤

Nov22

Lena Kaligaris-Bombolito, otherwise known as Greek-Italian Pasta.

Posted on November 22, 2013 by athaidek

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The odd title of today’s post references a few things. First of all, yes, the name Lena Kaligaris sounds familiar because it is none other than Alexis Bledel’s character in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, the movie. Meek and Greek, Lena is a beautiful Greek-American teen who ventures to Greece one summer. The Bombolito part just sounded really Italian to me. Hence, Greek-Italian food, leading to the most delicious lamb bolognese!!!!!

Okay secondly, I wanted to reference a multicultural name similar to an establishment in California I remembered from last summer. There was this place called Shanghai Kelly’s which apparently has nothing to do with two cultures but a wildly fierce Irishman. Here’s an interesting story I just found… I thought it sounded cool so I tried to recreate the name 🙂

Please make this lamb bolognese for your guests. Adrianna says this feeds four, and I must say this feeds four people of moderate hunger. I would double the recipe if you were having hungrier friends around. I’m working on prep these days so I’m not making such a mess in the kitchen, and I think it’s working out well. The first thing is, chop up your carrots and onions first. Most of the bolognese recipes I have made before include celery, so I added a stalk and a half of celery and the mire poix was solid. Plus it just looks pretty right? I had no shallots on hand so used 1/2 of a very large onion.

I often freeze tomato paste if I dont use a can. This causes a tiny problem for measuring, but the good thing is, you can add less or more as you cook depending on how thick you like sauces.

What do you mean you don’t eat no meat? Oh, es okay, I make lamb.