Super Easy Pasta Recipe

I can't stress enough when I say that there is beauty in simplicity. This can be applied so well with food. My example for you is one of my favorite ways to eat pasta. 


You will need:
-Angel Hair Pasta           - Salt/Pepper
- Lemon Juice                 - Raw Garlic
- Butter                           


-When I cook pasta like this, I add hot water to a pot so it doesn't take as long to boil. (All of the ingredient amounts are subjective to your taste)
- Cook the pasta as instructed on the box, or until al dente.****
- Place some butter in a serving bowl, along with a spritz of lemon and garlic (freshly grated or jarred kind is up to you). 
- Drain off the pasta and add as much as you like to the serving bowl. Toss in the butter, lemon juice and garlic. 
- Season with salt and pepper to taste. (Lemon juice is great in pasta because it gives the taste buds the illusion of salt, so watch how much salt you add!!)
-Optional, zest the lemon for extra added flavor. 


There is no need to overwhelm your pasta in a heavy cream or tomato sauce. 


***Cooks note: Al Dente is a point where pasta is cooked and still has a little bite to it. Most certainly not soggy!
Enjoy my recipe!!

Whipped Cream Recipe A.K.A Creme Chantilly

Welcome to my second recipe installment!! I feel that this recipe is so useful in any kitchen and is incredibly easy to make. This is a recipe for sweetened whipped cream also known as “Crème Chantilly”. It’s best to use this whipped cream as soon as possible and doesn’t really keep well in the fridge, but nevertheless, it is fantastic tasting! You will need:

This recipe yields 2-2 & ½ pints of whipped cream

-Standing mixer with whisk attachment/hand mixer & bowl/or whisk & bowl

- 1 pint of Heavy Whipping Cream

- 3 oz. Powdered Sugar (This recipe helps if you have a scale. I have a digital one I bought online for around $25.00 on Amazon.)

- 2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract ( Home made if you have it)

Directions:

·         When making whipped cream all elements must be chilled. So chill the bowl, whisk attachment/ hand mixer attachments etc. in your fridge for 20 minutes.

·         Be sure your heavy cream is also chilled.

·         Measure out the powdered sugar and sift to remove any lumps.

·         Put together your mixer elements and pour the chilled whipping cream into the chilled bowl. Whisk until slightly thickened.

·         Once the cream is slightly thickened, add in the sugar in small increments until it’s all incorporated.

·         Continue to whip until cream looks fluffy and slightly glossy, but don’t over mix! You don’t want butter lol.

·         Measure out your vanilla extract and add to the whipped cream. Be sure to add it when the mixer is off, you wouldn’t want to splash yourself HEHE! ****

·         Do a taste test to see if the sweetness it to your liking.

·         Use immediately! Great on top of cakes/pies, inside Charlottes, and simply splendid as a topper for hot chocolate.

·         Powdered sugar is used here instead of granulated sugar because it’s not grainy. A bonus to using powdered sugar is that the cornstarch in powdered sugar helps stabilize the cream and keeps its volume longer.

****Cook’s note: It is best to measure out the vanilla extract at the last minute because vanilla extract is infamous for evaporating. (Refer to Vanilla Blog for more info) Home made extract has alcohol in it which will begin to evaporate at room temperature. Also, adding it in last minute won’t make it evaporate versus adding it in the beginning.  

I hope you enjoy this simple and tasty recipe! Feel free to ask any questions! Rock on ya'll!  

Cooking Methods

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people mixing up cooking terms. An example would be “This is a deep fried item” when it was really pan fried. So this blog will clear up any confusion so you the reader will know which terms to use at what time. Each cooking method is different and used for different foods and if used incorrectly, it can ruin a meal. So I will list a cooking method and explain it briefly:

-          Broiling: This method uses a heat source that is above the food. In a restaurant you can find a piece of equipment called a “Salamander” that does just that. You can have a flame or an electric heating element and this is used to brown foods, great for melting cheese on soups.

-          Grilling: This one is pretty obvious. A heat source is underneath the food and can be done by gas, charcoal, wood or briquettes (They are like charcoal but made from a special material, you can use these over and over again). The food that is cooked on a grill should have distinct cross hatch marks.

-          Roasting/Baking: These two methods are the same! Baking is more often used when making sweets or sweet items and roasting is for more savory items. They are most often times interchangeable but I feel that baking is used for sweets and roasted for savory. Be careful when roasting because there is “Carry Over Cooking (see Chef’s note at the bottom)” that you need to account for in cooking time. Food can be cooked in an oven with heating elements or use hot air in a form of convection.

-          Sauteing: This method is used for quick cooking items or slightly cooking an item, say to warm it through. A small amount of fat is used to protect the surface of the pan and then it is warmed to the desired temperature. The food is placed in the hot pan and cooked to desired doneness.  

-          Pan Frying: Very similar to sautéing but more fat is used and the cooking time is a bit longer. This technique is often used to brown items such as pork chops and latkes. Drain the excess fat from the food with a few paper towels.

-          Deep Frying: This technique is done in a large amount of fat whether it’s peanut oil or lard (yummy) where a food is completely submerged in fat. This technique can be done in a standing deep fryer, built in deep fryer fry or as restaurants call them friolaters. Great for doing a turkey for thanksgiving!!

-          Poaching: This can be a tricky cooking method because the cooking liquid is not boiling or simmering. It’s a very low bubble, the temperature is between 160-180 degrees F. This is can be done in a few different pans including a stock pot. A stock pot and is great for making poached chicken, fish and eggs. If you want a really luxurious meal, poach something in olive oil.

-          Boiling: This cooking method involves submerging a food in a hot boiling liquid such as water or broth. I really hate boiling vegetables so I only blanch the veggies for a few minutes, shock them in ice cold water and then sauté them to retain their nutrients and color. This cooking method is essential for cooking pasta. If anyone says they can’t cook, just teach them how to boil water and you will see a little light bulb go off over their head lol.

-          Steaming: This is a method where a boiling liquid is placed below some kind of perforated pan with a food inside. Great cooking method for vegetables, and who says the liquid had to be water? Stock is fantastic for steaming vegetables, gives them a deeper flavor.

-          Simmering: Similar to boiling but at a slower rate. Bring the cooking liquid to a boil then reduce to a medium or medium high temperature to maintain it’s slower bubble. Great for less tender cuts of meat and this temperature is ideal for making soups.

-          Braising: Braising is a cooking method that combines pan searing and cooking a food in a liquid. The food is cooked at a lower heat so the meat doesn’t become tough. The food item is covered with liquid 1/3 way up and often times the cooking liquid is served as a sauce.

-          Stewing: This cooking method is used for tougher cuts of meat and also uses pan searing. After pan searing an item it is placed in a cooking liquid. The cooking liquid covers the food item completely and is cooked low and slow. Low temperature for a long time. This cooking method can done on the stove and then put in the oven or done just on the stove.   

I hope this clears up any confusion people might have about different cooking methods. It would be very embarrassing for you to tell someone that a food was cooked one way when it was really done in another way. Feel free to ask me any questions!!

---Chef’s note: Carry over cooking occurs when a food item is pulled from the oven and it continues to cook from residual heat. This occurs most often in thick cuts of meat being roasted, so just when your roast reaches a certain minimal internal temperature, it might be too late for it. Pull the meat just before it reaches that core temperature and let it cook just a bit more on your counter, it will stay a lot juicier that way. 

For Those Who Can't Cook...

 I’m sorry but I had to do this! I have to get it out. There’s not a whole lot in the world that I really dislike, but one of them would have to be when I hear that people say they don’t know how to cook. Oh my GOD! I can’t tell you how frustrated that makes me!! It makes me want to go up to those individuals and slap them across the face. If you know how to boil water or how to make ramen noodles in the microwave, you know how to cook! Although microwaves are not prevalent in many commercial kitchens, a lot of people have them in their homes. Believe it or not, microwaving IS considered a way of cooking.

I saw a woman on the cooking network who said she had been married for 27 years, and never cooked a single meal for the entire time she has been married. WHAT KIND OF WIFE IS THAT? That is so selfish and lazy of her to put all of the cooking on her husband. Like she didn’t even cut vegetables for a salad but she would go grocery shopping for the ingredients. If you were single and didn’t cook for yourself, what’s the point of having a kitchen? “OH but I need the sink to wash stuff.” Wash what? You don’t cook!! You won’t need a counter either because all you do it sit on it. GRRRR!!!

   I think that that is a huge turn off if someone never cooks or doesn’t know how to cook. How do those people expect to make a living at home or support themselves if they are single? Take out food gets expensive and microwave dinners are infamous for having tremendous amounts of salt. I think I have a solution for these people. Step into your kitchen and really get to know your appliances. Seriously try this some time and see if you won’t thank me later. Really look at your stove top, does it have gas burners or electric burners? Do you have numbers to measure heat on your stove or do you have words like warm, low, medium or high? All of these details are things you need to pay attention to when you go to cook.

          If you are watching food network and a chef is making pan seared fish, you are going to want to put your heat on medium-medium high, or if you have numbers put it between 6-7. If you want to cook vegetables, you can’t go wrong with a simple sauté. Warm some olive oil in a pan and add in the veggies. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. You don’t want to render out all of the nutrients so simplicity with vegetables is a must. If any of this is sounding like too much to handle, grow some balls and go and get cooking lessons. A lot of times you can get a great deal on a cooking class. Like $99 specials on a 2-3 day cooking class and you are getting the basic stuff. While you are there, they can teach you what utensils are the best to use for certain cooking processes, what are the best ways to cook certain foods and how to get the most flavor out of your ingredients. Everyone has potential in the kitchen, it’s those who don’t treat it like a chore that have fun with it. You don’t need someone to hold your hand to cook, you just need a little self confidence and some basic know how!