Almond Tarts

Just made some awesome almond tarts. Took awhile but it was all worth it. The burns on my upper mouth is the proof of how good it was.

For this recipe, I took some almonds and toasted them on a pan on low heat. They came out softer so it was easier for me chop them up. I had already made the crust the night before because I used some to make quiche under my little brother's orders. The crust recipe comes from my little brother's My First Cook Book.

Simple Pastry dough

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 stick of butter
2 tbsp sugar (for sweet tarts/optional)
3 tbsp cold water
a pinch of salt

Take your room temperature butter and just roughly cut it into cubes. Throw in the flour and salt. Using your fingers, rub the flour and butter together with your fingertips until they look like breadcrumbs. Add sugar. Add the water a little at a time until you have a soft ball of dough that leaves the sides of the bowl clean. This shouldn't take that long to make. In fact, keep in mind that you want balls of butter wrapped in flour because you want a flaky crust. Put this dough in the fridge for a good hour or so but you can also just use it at that moment. If not, wrap in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until needed. .

Almond tart filling

5 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp fine salt
2 cups chopped toasted almonds
2 tbsp bourbon/whiskey
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 eggs, lightly beaten


Melt the butter and add the sugar, corn syrup and salt on medium heat. Constantly stir for about 2 minutes or until the sugar is melted. Let it cool for about 3 minutes and add the nuts. Once cool, add the whiskey, vanilla and eggs and mix until fully incorporated.

Preheat your oven at 350* F.

Once you have your dough and the mixture ready, take the dough and on a well floured surface flatten it out and form some circles. I used the mouth of a glass. Anyways, the size of the cut outs of your dough will depend on how big your tart tins are. As for my tarts, I'm using mini cupcake tins. Place the dough in the pan and fill it with your filling.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the filling has set. Enjoy...

Spongecake

First time I made this cake it came out so good. The second time, it was even better. Spongecake seems to mean exactly what it's called. The batter itself was very springy and sponge like and so is the finished product. Anyways, I have to add, the first time I made this recipe, I really wanted to make a twinkie replica and I came pretty close if I hadn't underestimated my oven (the cakes were a little crunchy on the corners, almost burnt). As for the filling, it came close if I had just kept mixing in the little sugar that I did put into the marshmallow fluff. Because I didn't you could taste the fine granules of the sugar I put in. Plus, I probably should have used confectioners sugar and not home-made fine sugar.

Spongecake

6 small eggs separated
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup cold water
1 cup cake flour
1 tsp baking powder

Mix the egg yolks and sugar until fluffy. Add water and vanilla and mix for a couple of seconds. Take the cake flour and baking powder and sift thouroughly. Afterwards, add flour mixture to egg yolk mixture and mix well. With a clean whip, beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the flour-yolk mixture. Make sure you don't over mix it and instead fold it because it can cause the batter to deflate which won't make a very springy cake.

Pot Roast

We went to Costco and tried some really good pot roast. The biggest problem was that it was so expensive. $4.99 a pound. Even with a $2.50 discount from a $10.00 package wasn't enough to make me buy it. But with that price, I was determined to make some from scratch.

Pot Roast

3 lbs of Boneless Beef Chuck Roast
5 medium sized red potatoes cut in quarters
2 medium sized carrots
1/4 of an onion thinly sliced
8 cloves of garlic
2 cups of low sodium chicken stock
1 twig of fresh rosemary
Olive oil
Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste

Take your Chuck roast and wash it, sprinkle in a little bit of salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. In a pan lightly coat it with olive oil and pan fry your hunk of meat until a dark golden crust is apparent. Cook both side.

While cooking, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Take a pan and line it with foil, place 3 whole bay leaves and put the meat on top. Take three cloves of garlic, lightly crush it and put it in between the crevices of the meat, you can also cut into the meat to stuff in the garlic.

Put more olive oil on the pan where the meat was cooked and place the onions and garlic. Cook until brown and pour in the chicken stock. Once the sauce boils, quickly pour in the rosemary and let it simmer for 2 minutes. Strain the vegetables out and pour the stock mixture in the pan with meat. Place the potatoes and carrots in the pan with the meat. Sprinkle some Italian seasoning on the meat and vegetables as well as additional salt and pepper to taste and let it cook in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Decrease the temperature to 300 degrees and cook for an additional 2 hours or until tender. Make sure you adjust the flavor by adding salt to the meat and to the sauce that the meat is sitting in. Based on the 3 lbs of chuck roast I used around 1 1/2 tbsp of sea salt and it took me about 2 hours and 30 minutes to cook it to the texture I liked.

Chicken Enchiladas

Okay, if you're wondering why the picture of these enchiladas don't seem to be that golden brown, it's because it's not cooked. We ate them so fast that I wasn't able to take decent picture of the enchiladas. I didn't want to display the savageness we probably committed on this dish. But anyways, the first time I tried chicken enchiladas there were the most amazing thing I had ever eaten. Back then I didn't bother to cook it myself so I had to wait for my mom's patient's mother to make them before I could eat them. My mom's coworker had the recipe and had the courtesy to give it to us. The first time I made it, I made a good 3 batches and froze them so I could cook them anytime I felt like eating some. Oh, also, I use the La Victoria green enchilada sauce but you can use the red ones if you want. However, if you follow this recipe down to the brand of the sauce, considering it's a big contributing factor to taste, you might be hooked more than you probaly are if you've eaten enchiladas before.

Chicken Enchiladas

4 boneless chicken breast
12-14 corn tortillas
1 (28 ounce) can of enchilada sauce
1 pound of grated colby jack cheese (an entire sealed pack from food 4 less)
salt and pepper to taste.
10 stalks of cilantro for flavoring and color

Preaheat your oven at 350 degrees F.

Boil the chicken breasts in water with a little bit of salt and ground pepper. While the chicken is boiling, grate the cheese if it is not grated already, open the can of enchilada sauce and take out the tortillas from the fridge. It might be good to do this as a team effort considering it's a very quick meal. Usually my brothers grate the cheese and the other brother opens the can. Wash your cilantro as well and roughly chop it. Set cilantro aside.

When you see that the chicken is cooked, let cool and shred. Add a little bit of the enchilada sauce, some salt and pepper as well as a handful of cilantro (but not all, because the rest is meant to garnish the top of the enchilada). Just to make sure this recipe doesn't get too confusing, a small amount the sauce goes to the chicken mixture (about 1/4 of a cup), about half of the container is meant for the tortillas to be dipped in and the rest is to top the entire pan.

Using a shallow pan, heat the tortillas and dip them into the sauce. One of my biggest tip is to pack in about 2 heaping spoons of the chicken filling and a handful of cheese. Tightly seal it without breaking and place in the pan. Once the pan is filled, top with cheese, a little bit of the sauce and some of the chopped cilantro.


It's the same cheese if you're wondering, it's the light that's making this thing look so different.


Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown. If you decide to freeze it, make sure it thaws before you cook but if you don't have time for that, cover the enchiladas with foil and cook in the oven. If you stick a fork in there and its still cold, keep it in the oven a little longer. Enjoy.

Brownies

OMG, I just made the awesomest brownies. It was sooo good I burned my tongue eating it and I did not care. Too good to spit out.

Brownies

1 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
6 small eggs or 4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line the container you will use with parchment or grease it.
Combine the melted butter, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl. I have chickens that produce my eggs so I always have them at hand.


They're pretty small in comparison to eggs from the store so I end up using 6 for this recipe but if you have regular eggs, use 4. Anyways, beat in the eggs, one at a time and mix well until well blended. Take the flour and sift it along with the cocoa power and salt. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture until blended.


Now what makes these brownies so amazing is that the central layer of the brownies consist of gooey chocolate chips. In order to do this, take your batter, spread a small amount on the pan. This will consist of your thin layer of chocolate. Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the first layer of batter. Add another layer on top and cover the morsels. It was a little bit trickly because I used parchment paper but I did not want the brownies to stick to the pan. Not to mention I was too lazy to whip out some butter to grease the pan with(hehehe).


If you are using a large deep pan, the brownies will take a longer time cook in comparison to if you cooked it with a small shallow pan. The dish I used was a shallow dish therefore it cooked in about 15 minutes. A good way to know is to stick a toothpick in there and when it comes out clean, it's cooked. Another thing I learned though, it seems that when you smell the brownies, if it smells intensely good, that's about the right time it's done. It reminded me of pineapples. When you sniff the fruit and it smells very strongly of pineapple, that's when it's ripe.

By the way, let the brownies cool once it's done and cut into desirable pieces.

Mochi

When I went to Little Tokyo I went to a small store that sold all kinds of mochi. If you don't know what mochi is, it's a sticky rice dessert that is sometimes filled with something and sometimes not. Back then I never thought that you could make your own mochi. Well here it is, I made some mochi filled with peanut butter and I must admit it's one of the best. I also made some with Nutella and that was good. I tried using purple yam but it was too soft to keep it in the sticky rice. By the way, make sure you use the Mochiko brand. It's one that's in the box. Well, you can use another type of brand but it seems you have to mix it with another type of flour. For the sake of this recipe I only used the glutinous rice flour.

Mochi

1 1/2 cup Mochiko flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup water
1 tsp vinegar

3 tbsp cornstarch or potato starch
3 tbsp of confectioners sugar or in my case fine sugar

Mix the 3 tbsp of cornstarch and 3 tbsp of confectioners sugar and set aside. Take the Mochiko flour, sugar, water and vinegar, mix them together in a microwave safe bowl. Cover with a wet paper towel and place in the microwave between 8 to 10 minutes depending on your microwave. After 5 minutes, check the mixture and mix with a spoon to ensure that it cooks evenly. Personally, it took my mixture around 7 minutes and 30 seconds.


Anyways, ofcourse its going to be sticky to handly and that's why you will need a clean surface sprinkled with the cornstarch mixture to work with the mochi. place a small amount that you can handle on your kneading surface and sprinkle more cornstarch mixture. Flatten with a rolling pin or a circular cup and cut out small at least two circular shapes (or whatever shape you want).


Place a small amount of filling on one piece and cover with another. Pinch the edges to close and enjoy.

Gourmet Egg Sandwiches

I have chickens, its not news to a lot of the people who know me considering I tell just about everyone around me. They produce an average of 3 eggs per day. For a family of four who used to have a member that could eat 6 eggs per day, you would think that the average my chickens produce wouldn't be enough. But, instead of propelling my brother to eat eggs everyday and consume all the eggs my chickens produced, it changed his perspective on eggs by valueing them. Plus, I showed him a video of where store bought eggs come from and that really steered him from eating eggs.

This whole delimma doesn't mean we don't eat eggs at all. Instead, my brother eats eggs when there's nothing else to cook or if we want to make something quick and small. Did I mention my chickens produced eggs about half the size of eggs that you would normally find in the store. Now, you might ask what makes this thing so "gourmet" well its the mayonnaise. The mayonnaise is mixed with a very small amount of fresh chives. Yup, I said fresh chives. I don't know how it would taste with dried chives but the fresh ones seem to do the trick.

Egg Sandwich

2 small eggs per person or 1 store bought eggs.
1 pan de sal sliced in half or 2 slices of regular sliced loaf bread
1 slice of cheese per sandwich
1/2 tbsp. mayonnaise
1/2 tbsp. sour cream
1/8 tsp fresh chives
1/8 tsp lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Take the mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon and fresh chives, some salt and pepper and mix together. Beat the eggs with salt and pepper. Cook the egg mixture in a greased pan over the stove. By the way, do not over salt the egg mixture or the mayonnaise mixture, you need salt to taste but becareful when adding as to not kill the recipe. To the cooking egg mixture, you can sprinkle in some grated cheese on it or when cook set aside. Toast the bread in the toaster or on the pan and slather some of the mayonnaise mixture. Put the cheese and top with the cooked egg. Voila, gourmet egg sandwich.