Cheesy Cauliflower Soup

This is the other half of my favorite meal from Zupas.

• ·         1 medium Cauliflower- chopped into small pieces
• ·         1 can chicken broth
• ·         1 cup water
• ·         1 cup cream
• ·         8 oz grated sharp white cheddar cheese
• ·         Salt and pepper, 1 tsp. each
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne
• 1/4 tsp .paprika

Place the cauliflower, broth and water in a pot. Add salt and pepper. Simmer with the lid off until the cauliflower is soft. Then blend with the liquid until smooth. Return the cauliflower mixture to the pot and slowly add in the grated cheese and cream, stirring often. Add cayenne and paprika.

Alternatives: Cheesy Cauliflower Mash

Boil cauliflower in salted water till soft. Drain, Blend with ½ cup cream and ½ stick of butter till smooth. Place in a baking dish and top with cheese and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Picky kids option: You can also add some peeled golden potatoes in with the cauliflower. This helps hide the flavor of the cauliflower so kids think it is just mashed potatoes.

Cinnamon Sugar Almonds

These make a great snack or a great salad topping.

·         1 cup raw almonds

·         1 egg white

·         1 tsp. cinnamon

·         1/3 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Beat the egg white in a bowl for 15 seconds. Then add in the other ingredients and mix.

Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil (do not skip this step, this stuff sticks) and spray it with pan spray. Smooth out the almond mixture on it.

Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes- ***stirring every 5 minutes***. If you don’t stir the bottom layer will burn. Take them out when they have started to brown and most of the moisture is gone. Let cool for at least an hour then you can crumble them apart and keep for snacking.

As you can see, I forgot to stir once or twice and they almost burnt. Luckily all I had to do was throw out a few overly dark almonds. Most of them were fine. 

Nuts About Berries Salad

Out here in Utah (as well as Arizona and Nevada) there is a great restaurant called Café Zupas. If you have heard of Panera it is similar to that only better.  Zupas sells soups, salads, paninis, and a variety of desserts. Each meal comes with a chunk of French bread and a chocolate dipped strawberry. I always get the try 2 combo where you can choose 2 of the three (soup, salad, & panini) and get the half size of each. My favorite salad is the Nuts About Berries. It has romaine lettuce, berries, cinnamon almonds and a poppy seed dressing. I usually pair it with the Wisconsin Cauliflower soup.

Here is my version of the Nuts about berries salad. Look for my recipe for the cauliflower soup next week.

·         1 bag of your favorite salad (romaine or spinach are my favorite)

·         1 cup of your favorite fruits- cut into bite-size pieces if necessary (grapes, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries…)

·         ½ cup diced cinnamon sugar almonds (recipe will follow in next post)

·         Poppyseed Dressing

o   1/3 cup Apple Cider Vinegar

o   ¼ cup olive oil

o   2 Tbs. sugar

o   1 Tbs brown mustard

o   1 tsp poppy seeds

§  Blend all ingredients together in a blender for 30 seconds

Mix together all the ingredients in a large bowl and enjoy.

For this version I used grapes and dried cranberries as my fruit.

Alternative: This dressing goes really well on a salad of spinach, mandarin orange slices, avocado, bacon and sliced red onion too. 

Pad Thai

I love Pad Thai. It is one of my favorite dishes to get at almost any restaurant. I recently got it at this little restaurant Rice and Noodles at 3315 Court Street in Pasco. The owner treats you like family and the food is delicious. This is my attempt to recreate restaurant quality Pad Thai at home. You can use any kind of thin sliced meat or even shrimp or more veggies to make this. I found all the ingredients for a pretty reasonable price at my local Asian Market. Beware though, as you simmer the sauce, it smells really powerful and not necessarily pleasant. But, by the end, everything comes together to taste fabulous.

Sauce:

• ·         1 cup tamarind paste
• ·         1 cup palm sugar
• ·         3 tbs fish sauce
• ·         3 tbs shrimp paste

Simmer ingredients together on medium-low in a pot for 1 hour, stirring often.

• ·         ½ carton mushrooms- sliced thinly into matchstick sized pieces
• ·         ½ onion diced into small pieces
• ·         White parts of 1 bunch of green onions dices into small pieces

Sauté these ingredients in a large pan or wok over medium heat with 1 Tbs oil till starting to brown. Remove from the pan and reserve. Add 1 more TBS oil to the pan.

• ·         2 large chicken breasts sliced thinly across the grain
• ·         2 TBS corn starch
• ·         2 TBS soy sauce

Mix these ingredients together in a bowl then put in the pan over medium heat until the meat starts to brown. Add back in the cooked veggies.   

• ·         1 package of thick rice noodles prepared according to directions on the box and drained

Then add in the cooked noodles and sauce and stir quickly to mix everything together.  

• ·         3 eggs

Push all the mixture in the pan to the side and crack in the three eggs. Let them start to cook then place the pasta mixture over the top. After about a minute, start stirring. Until the egg is just cooked.

·         Green parts of the bunch of green onions diced into small pieces

·         1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
·         1 cup of chopped bean sprouts

Add in these final ingredients and stir until everything is warm through. 

Serve and top with the following.

• ·         ½ cup of crushed salted peanuts
• ·         1 lime cut into wedges

Orange Dream Cheescake

While watching a cooking show with my mom the other day, someone was making cheesecake and of course, we started craving cheesecake. The problem, my mom isn't a huge fan of graham cracker. Since her birthday was coming up, I wanted to make her something delicious.  We found this recipe from another food blog. It is an orange and vanilla cheesecake with a sugar cone crust. That’s right, sugar cones instead of graham crackers. It turned out really delicious and rich. We had to share with others or we could never have eaten it all.

Crust:

1 Twelve-count box of sugar cones

1/3 cup of brown sugar

1 stick (1/2 cup) of melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Crush the sugar cones in a food processor until it is coarse but small pieces. Add in the butter and brown sugar and mix together. Press the mixture into a 10” spring form pan on the bottom and a little up the side. Bake for 12 minutes and let cool.

Filling:

3 pounds Cream Cheese (6, 8oz packages, room temperature)

1 Cup Sugar

2 Tblsp Cornstarch

1 Tblsp plus 1/2 tsp Water

2 tsp Vanilla

Zest of 2 Medium Oranges

Juice of one of the Oranges

2 tsp Orange Extract

4 Eggs

Mix the cream cheese in you stand mixer on low for 10-15 minutes, frequently scraping the sides. Slowly add in the sugar.

In  a separate bowl, mix together everything else except the eggs. Slowly add this mixture into the cream cheese on low speed. Then drop in the eggs one at a time. Mix just until combined to keep it from getting too dense. Now, take half the batter and add some orange food coloring to it and just mix it in. Drop in dollops of the mixture in alternating colors onto the prebaked crust. Once all the batter of both colors in, swirl once or twice with a table knife. Bake at 350 for one hour. There will still  be a little jiggle in the center. Cool for 1 hour.

Sour cream topping:

8 oz Sour Cream

2 Tblsp Sugar

1/4 tsp Vanilla

1 Tblsp Water

Mix together with a fork and spread on the top of the cooled cheesecake. Serve and enjoy.

The topping can help hide any cracked that may have formed.

You can make other flavors by substituting orange zest and juice for other citrus fruits.

The crust can be used to replace the graham cracker crust for any of your favorite cheesecakes.

For some other tips, check out the original post.

http://pastryjane.com/2012/05/20/creamsicle-cheesecake-with-a-sugar-cone-crust/

Lavender Lemonade

Lavender Lemonade:

After having this Lemonade at Frost Me Sweet I just had to make some on my own. Check out my post about Frost me Sweet’s other foods earlier this week. I made this for proposing my thesis project and I credit the delicious lemonade for part of the reason it went as smoothly as it did. 

¼ cup lavender blossoms (food grade)

1 cup sugar

8 lemons

Water & Ice

Start by making a simple syrup. Put the lavender blossoms, sugar and 1-2 cups of water in a small pot and bring it to a boil, stirring often. Once the sugar is dissolved, lower the heat and let the lavender steep for 10 minutes. Then turn off the heat and chill the lavender simple syrup for at least half an hour. Squeeze the lemon juice into the mixture. Then strain the blossoms and seeds out and pour the liquid into a pitcher. Add more water (to taste) and a little ice.  If you like sweeter lemonade use more sugar for  the simple syrup. If you like tarter lemonade you can add more lemons and water or use less sugar.

The best way to find food grade lavender is to grow it yourself. Many stores offer lavender plants during the spring planting season. Once the plant has bloomed and the buds have started to dry out you can start to harvest. Snip just below the first set of leaves and set the stems to dry for a few days. Then pick the dried buds off the stems and catch them in a bag or jar. If this doesn't work for you though, you can find some lavender online for purchase. Just be careful you get food grade lavender. Lavender for perfumes and scents has often been treated with chemical you don’t want to ingest. Also, there are many varieties of lavender and each one tastes a little different so experiment a little and find your favorite.


Alternatives: Replace lavender with mint, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, or your favorite herb.