Warm Zucchini Bread

A good friend of mine emailed me on facebook asking if I would bake her a cake. As some of you know baking is a dangerous territory for me, but curiosity got the best of me and I opened the link she had sent me. Joanne wanted me to bake a “Leprechaun Trap Cake” that was layered with at least seven different kinds of food coloring. This looked like something from a candy shop and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I am not Martha Steward and I could never even attempt to try to bake something so extravagant (okay maybe in a different life).

In honor of Joanne, I decided to bake something today. Before I tell you what it is, you’ll be happy to know that I did not use a Jamie Oliver recipe. I stepped out of my comfort zone and explored the wonderful world of www.foodnetwork.com and found an amazing Zucchini Bread recipe that Emeril Lagasse created.

Zucchini and I have never been real friends up until about three years ago and then it was love at first sight. I was living in Italy at the time and during one of my early morning English lesson’s a student told me she was hosting a party and me being a foodie asked her what she was making. In a very detailed description she told me about a zucchini dish she was going to make and when the lesson ended I stopped at a market on my way home and bought all the ingredients and it was amazing and I have been a fan of zucchini ever since.

What is it about zucchini that is so delicious? It is a plain green vegetable that tastes bland but if prepared properly can taste amazing. I have always in the past just grilled zucchini but this week I decided to try something new and as I am writing this I am surrounded by an exotic smell coming from the oven and I just want the cooking time to speed up (just peeked at the timer and five more minutes to go).

I woke up early this morning and had the sudden urge to bake and just like the preview week I was in the kitchen wearing my pajamas cooking away (I was well aware that I was in my pajamas and think that maybe this will become a habit of mine). The recipe was quite easy to follow and I really hope that I didn’t leave out an ingredient. I preheated the oven to about 180 and then shredded an unpeeled zucchini – if Emeril was sitting in my kitchen I would probably ask him why the zucchini needed to be unpeeled but he is the chef and he knows best and I’m just following the recipe.

Ever notice how ingredients always seem to end of everywhere regardless of how neat we try to be. In a bowl I sifted flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt (part of me understands the purpose of sifting but another part of me wonders why bother…at the end of the day it will all be combined). Sifting the dry ingredients was no picnic simply because I don’t own a sifter so I had to use a pasta strainer instead which led to an arm work-out and dry ingredients everywhere. I then took another big bowl and combined brown sugar, an egg and some butter. Touching butter is something that I truly don’t like doing. I find it to be too sticky and oily and getting the grease off my hands is easy.

After I creamed the wet ingredients, I added the dry ingredients and mixed it all together. I then added the shredded zucchini and some walnuts. The recipe calls for pouring the mixture in a pan and baking it for 55 minutes. The bread did indeed bake for about 55 minutes but there wasn’t any pouring because the batter wasn’t liquid but rather nearly a firm ball of dough. I panicked but just for a moment and thought the hell with it and prayed that it would work out for the best.

Ladies and gentlemen this recipe is a winner. It came out great…crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.  The very small downfall is that it’s a bit too sweet for my taste (next time I will use less sugar or cinnamon and yes there will be a next time) but the combination of walnuts on the inside and a slice of butter on top brings it all nicely together. A big hands of applause to Emeril Lagasse.

Spinach & Ricotta Cannelloni

I had quite an interesting cooking experience today, the end result was marvelous but the process was quite frazzling.  Now here I am sitting on the floor thinking to myself how happy I am that it’s over. My theme for this week was Italian, oh boy how I do love pasta. I decided on making a Spinach & Ricotta Cannelloni recipe that I found in my recent Jamie Oliver magazine.

I guess you might be thinking why another Jamie Oliver recipe and the answer is simply because I like his recipes (even though I don’t always understand his choice of ingredients). Whenever I look at recipes I tend to look at the pictures first and the pictures in his magazines are simply divine. They are so vibrant that it would be a sin not to cook them.

After “memorizing” the recipe, I knew I was going to have to personalize it mainly because I am not a big fan of spinach. I can eat spinach but only in small quantities. There is something so wrong about eating it; and I am yet to meet someone who absolutely loves it –loves it in a way that I love strawberries on a hot summer’s day with lots of sugar on it.

This recipe called for multi-tasking which I can normally do but multi-taking while cooking is quite a different story. Let’s just say I had “crap” scattered all over the place. I started by cutting up some onions and two cloves of garlic which I put aside for a bit. I was suppose to use fresh spinach leaves but that didn’t happen because I am currently located in Poland and Poland is well know known for cabbage and I still have to find a store that sells all kinds of fresh herbs. I cheated and used a frozen bag of shredded spinach which I dumped into a medium sided pot and seasoned it with salt, pepper and nutmeg. One minute later I removed it from the pot and set it to one side. I then added the chopped onion, garlic, two tins of tomatoes, a bay leave and some lemon zest into the post. The recipe itself stated that we should just season it with some salt and pepper but let me tell you, that is not the case. Seasoning tomato sauce with just salt and pepper in my opinion is simply not enough. Tomatoes tend to have a bitter taste and need to be sweetened with a little something extra. My tomato sauce was seasoned with salt, pepper, sugar, curry and red wine. It was sweet with a bit of a spicy kick. While my tomato sauce was simmering I moved onto the next step and this is where I personalized the recipe. I took out a jar of homemade bolognaise and poured half of the sauce into a small pot (there is nothing wrong with good quality bolognaise) and then added some raw ground beef (some of you might know this as mince) and cooked it for about twenty minutes.

My next step was creating a spinach stuffing which consisted of using the previously cooked spinach, about 250grams of ricotta cheese, some parmesan cheese and one egg. I was suppose to use a piping bag (what the hell is a piping bag?) but I don’t own any of those fancy bags so I simply used a regular freezer Ziploc bag and had one of my roommate spoon the mixture into the bag.  This was my first time stuffing cannelloni tubes and let me tell you it was not an easy job. Never stuff food wearing your pajamas people; I learned the hard way today that it’s not a very smart idea. Please do not judge me for cooking dinner in my pj’s because Sundays are my “don’t care how I look kind of days” and I am allowed to me and do whatever I please.

Now getting back to stuffing the cannelloni, I had somehow managed to splatter

spinach all over my top -guess that happens when one squeezes the mixture to fast. I then took the bolognaise and stuffed the remainder of the cannelloni’s and let me tell you this is where the “fun” really started. I had to cut a small opening in my “piping” bag and a piece of plastic fell into the cannelloni as it was being filled (no I did not remove it because I could not be bothered re-filling the tube and just prayed that no one would come across the plastic) and after I had filled all the tubs, I poured the sauce over and layered some fresh mozzarella cheese on top and into the oven it went for approximately 40 minutes.

While my pasta dish was baking, I started preparing a side order of grilled zucchini which is my favorite vegetable dish thus far and so easy to make. I simply sliced up the zucchini, seasoned with it with salt and pepper, dipped it into an egg and breadcrumb mixture and fried it for six minutes and bam – zucchini is ready. Italians love bread so I decided to make my own garlic bread. As I was chopping up some garlic I accidentally cut my finger…lovely just what I needed, my second disaster but after a quick mini band-aid break I was ready to get back into the ring and finished this meal. When the pasta was ready I quickly put the garlic bread into the oven and five minutes later we were all ready to eat. (a small note here that when I opened the oven door I was greeted by a slap of smoke that went straight to my eyes – disaster number three….)

Dinner however was delicious. The pasta sauce was rich but not in an overwhelming way with a bit of sweetness and spiciness to it. The cannelloni’s were sooo good but I preferred the bolognaise ones rather then the spinach ones. My last disaster of the evening happened when I took my first bite and bit into the plastic that had previously fallen in. Oh well, guess it was just my luck. I really enjoyed my cannelloni experience but I have never cooked something where I had so many bad things happen to me. Dinner was a tasty success and I am going to think of my little disasters as luck for my next upcoming cooking journey.

Crema Fritta

We all love dessert and if you happen to know someone who doesn’t, feel free to introduce them to me so that I can sit them down and tell them what they are missing.  For as long as I can remember my mother has always been an amazing baker. When it comes to cakes that woman knows what she is doing. One of my childhood favorites is something that she calls "alcoholic".  An alcoholic is a rich dark chocolate cake filled with jam in the center and topped with chocolate frosting that consists of sour cream, cocoa, sugar and brandy.  My mouth is watering at the moment and I want that cake!!

I love cooking and I know what my strengths are and making dessert isn’t one of them. I took home -economics in high school and remember my first baking assignment. I had to bake cream puffs and long story short, the cream had no place to go because the puffs wouldn’t rise. I ended up serving the cream next to my flat puffs…the reaction on my teachers face was priceless. When it comes to baking, the experience is always interesting but the outcome usually ends up disastrous. My unfortunate baking is a continuous circle.

I am simply not meant to bake but that didn’t stop me from trying one more time. I love to challenge myself or try to do it as often as I can and here I am, writing about my baking journey.  In the latest Jamie Oliver magazine they have pages of Italian desserts and having lived in Italy I know how delightful they are. I decided to try making Crema Fritta which is simply deep-fried custard.

To make the custard, you need to boil 500ml of milk. Into the milk you need to place one vanilla pod (yesterday afternoon I quickly popped into a store and bought a vanilla pod. I realized two things; the first is that I wasn’t aware of how expensive a vanilla pod would be and the second is that I’m not sure if it is reusable. Is it reusable?) and one rind of either a lemon or an orange.  Why do cookbooks/magazines use fancy words…a rind really, why not just use the word skin?

While I was waiting for the milk to boil, I moved onto the next step. In a bowl I added 500g of sugar, three egg yolks and 50 grams of cornflower and mixed it together with a wooden spoon. As the milk started boiling, I removed the vanilla pod and rind and slowly added half of the milk into my egg/sugar mixture stirring constantly. I then poured the custard into the pot with the remaining milk, returned it to the stove to cook for a few more minutes. While I was stirring and waiting for the custard to thicken (which took a while, or so it seemed) I gave myself a little speech, you can do this, you can do this. As the custard was thickening I felt so proud of myself. I was actually making custard from scratch and I was kicking-ass, in a good way mind you.

After the custard was made, I poured the mixture onto a baking sheet that I had covered with clingfilm beforehand and then covered the surface with more clingfilm. After it cooled for a while I put it in the fridge for a few hours. Just before taking it out, I took a pot filled it with oil, whisked three eggs whites together and took out some breadcrumbs. Dipped the custard squares in the egg whites, breadcrumbs and fried until golden brown.

These little treats are out-of-this world, crispy on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside. I now honestly understand why people fry dessert. If you love custard then this recipe is a must. I am looking at the plate trying to restrain myself from eating them all in one go. A few hours have passed since I stared writing this post and I'm happy to report that there are no more crema fritta's left. My roommates and I enjoyed the last few outside on our little terrace, surrounded by music, stars and candels.  A fabulous recipe for a fabulous evening.

Roasted Shrimp with Rosemary & Thyme

I came across a wonderful shrimp recipe and just knew that I had to cook it. I realize some of you might be wondering why shrimp, what’s so special about it? In all honesty, I don’t really know. I can’t find the correct wording to describe the texture of shrimp but if you asked me what chips or chicken tasted like I would have no problem giving you a mini description. To me chips are crispy with a hint of salt or any other spice and they are so good that you can’t simply just have one or ten but the whole packet and yes all in one go AND if you’re really feeling brave feel free to lick the packaging as well.

About a week ago I received a recipe for Roasted Shrimp with Rosemary & Thyme emailed to me from finecooking.com.  After reading the recipe and yes also looking at the picture and realizing that I would only need eight simple ingredients I decided that this would be the one.  The recipe called for olive oil which I always have on hand, black ground pepper and salt which is a must in our household, fresh rosemary sprigs, fresh thyme, shrimp and white wine vinegar. I had all of the ingredients at home minus the shrimp and the white wine vinegar which I ended up omitting because I’m not a fan of vinegar. 

The preparation time was approximately five to ten minutes and it was the easiest recipe to make. I first pre-heated the oven to 200‘. I then poured some olive oil into a baking dish, added a few rosemary leaves, thyme, chopped up a few garlic gloves, some pepper and into the oven the baking dish went. This mixture was supposed to cook for roughly 12 minutes.

Six minutes into the cooking time I decided to take a little peek and boy did I freak-out. I had smoke coming from the oven, the rosemary and thyme were black, and although the whole mixture was black nothing seemed burnt (but a brief second I thought I was going to have to start over) and after I showed it to my roommate who said it looked fine, I took a risk added the shrimp and shoved the whole thing back into the oven.  Twelve minutes later I was ready to eat.

It all looked so good; the shrimp was cooked to perfection, the herbs sautéed in olive oil gave the shrimp a pleasant color but (yes, there is a but) the flavor was bland. I was not happy with the taste at all. I think I might know what the problem is; I did not use fresh thyme and maybe didn’t add enough rosemary. If I were to cook this again, I would definitely season it stronger. In all honesty I was disappointed, it all seemed too easy and simple and it didn’t come out as I expected. Not a winner but maybe worth trying again someday.