Chocolate Hearts - Simple Saturday

Here are the quickest little candy hearts you could ever make. They're kicky little Valentine candies for topping a cupcake, a cookie, adding to a cheese platter or giving to your sweetie any day.

And they're easy enough for the kids to have fun making them with you.

RECIPE: Chocolate Hearts Plus

4 oz. Dark Chocolate (or white chocolate)

*Optional toppings: Minced Candied Ginger, Minced Dried Cherries, Sea Salt, Chopped nuts, Sesame seeds, Pom Arils*

Carefully melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a double boiler. Drop a teaspoon full of the melted chocolate into one little circle, or two joining circles on a parchment lined tray. Using a toothpick, drag a line from above the chocolate circle, through the middle and extend it out the bottom, creating a heart shape with a tail.

As the two divided sides slowly rejoin, sprinkle just a few tiny minced pieces of candied ginger, dried cherries, walnuts, sea salt or Pom Arils on the surface of each heart you make. Place the tray in the refrigerator for a few minutes to help it set. When firm, carefully peel the hearts off the parchment paper.
For more romantic foods see my post with bedside aphrodisiacs here!

Yu Sheng - Good Luck Food for Chinese New Year

Yu Sheng (Fish Salad) for Chinese New Year

Before you double check to see what blog you landed on - Yes, it's me talking about Chinese food. This is Yu Sheng - a special fish salad with many colorful mostly raw ingredients that is served during the Chinese New Year celebrations in Singapore. It's not just any salad, it comes with a whole tradition of fun that includes everyone tossing the salad into the air and yelling Lo Hei (Mix it Up) for good luck. Throughout China, lucky foods are served all during the two weeks of the Chinese New Year celebration. The Chinese use words that sound alike, but have different meanings (homonyms) as symbols for the dishes and ingredients they use to express their wishes for good luck, long life, abundant living, happiness and fortune. For example, the word for fish also sounds like the word for prosperity. Their food serves as an offering to bring ancestors and family members closer and in hopes of bonding worlds past with worlds in the present. Many of the dishes are named with words that include blessings and wishes for a good life. While setting up Yu Sheng there is a specialized shout for each ingredient as it's presented that is also symbolic of their blessings.

I am always trying to expand not only my own palate and cooking experiences, but also to bring you along on the adventure. This past week marked the beginning of the Chinese New Year. My "Let's Lunch" pals (see us each month on twitter using #LetsLunch for searching) are posting LUCKY FOODS today to launch the Year of The Rabbit. I chose Yu Sheng and made a rabbit from mashed yams.

How fun is this? You get to shout at the table, throw your food and eat healthy all at the same time!You should have seen my husband, son and friends when I encouraged them to literally throw the food into the air because the higher it goes, the more abundant and long wealthy, healthy life you will have, according to teachings.
I've had a blast reading and listening to stories and traditions from this area of the world. I'm also very excited that one of our founding virtual lunch pals, Cheryl Tan, has a new book out this week, A Tiger In The Kitchen- A Memoir of Food and Family. Cheryl spent a year in her homeland with family members teaching and telling her stories and recipes from her heritage. I hope my rendition of YuSheng is respectful of the tradition, and introduces it to others in a fun way.
Many of the foods I used in my Yu Sheng are supposed to be symbols of good luck:
Pomelo is the most ancient of grapefruits and it's huge, and sweeter than other types. It's symbolic of prosperity because the word for pomelo in Chinese sounds like "to have".

Tangerines are good luck because the Chinese word sounds like luck and wealth.

Noodles are symbolic of long life and the raw salmon is a symbol of new beginnings.Carrots are like gold.The mushrooms are a symbol of good health and long life in Chinese art.
The Rabbit - a symbol of mercy and elegance.I gathered all my ingredients together, one by one, including pickled red ginger from the Chinese market, and Daikon that I shredded the same as the carrots and cucumbers on a mandoline.
For many years, all over China, small red envelopes are given out on many occasions to children, friends and family members. Often the red envelopes are filled with money as a symbol of contributing and beginning ones abundant wealth. For this Yu Sheng, I filled the envelopes with chopped peanuts and black sesame seeds (of course, another good luck food) for each person to open and sprinkle on their salads once we had plated them for eating.I used the rind from the Pommelo, which is very thick, to make candied citrus peels.
A Yu Sheng often has little won ton crackers, but I used Shrimp Chips from the Chinese Market to add a nice crunch.Because most of the ingredients are raw, the only recipe I created was the Pomelo Honey Vinaigrette we sprinkled on the salad before each of us ate two helpings. It's salad, so why not and besides - just more good luck for us, right?

RECIPE: Pomelo Honey Vinaigrette

Juice from one Pomelo Grapefruit
1 tsp. honey
3 tsp. rice vinegar
1/4 cup sesame oil
salt/pepper

In a small bowl, whisk together the grapefruit juice, honey, vinegar and a pinch of salt and pepper. Gradually add the oil in a slow stream and whisk vigorously until a thicker dressing is achieved. Add more oil if needed or desired for taste. Can be refrigerated for a couple days.

FOR MANY MORE LUCKY FOODS: visit these fun and talented Let's Lunch pals:

A Tiger In The Kitchen
Hot Curries and Cold Beer
Free Range Cookies
Can It You Nit

Pinto Beans & Fried Corn Bread - Southern Family Cooking

Beans, beans, good for the heart - the more you eat the more you....wish you had corn bread, too.

Southern Pinto Beans & Fried Corn Bread

Okay, I figured I may as well just go there if I'm going to post a recipe for Southern Pinto Beans. If you've ever read my blog before you probably know by now, I grew up in the South (United States). It's a detail that, for years as a young actress in Hollywood, I tried to obliterate. I am told the only remnants of my "southern accent" show up when I've had quite a bit of wine, singing a song, saying the word- "poem", or I've talked to my mom on the phone for even a minute.It has been my profound awakening to come full circle and discover the most beautiful, successful and meaningful life is when I embrace my authentic and truthful self. Now, before I lose all foodie pals, cynics and recipe lovers - I'm almost through with the prophesying. This blog, for me, is becoming a place where my comedy background, insatiable curiosity, teaching, sometimes cloying way of being so earnest, sarcasm, appreciation for the planet/farmers/real food, and my thankfulness for my mom, my family, religion and my past is merging. I love it. I'm done.

Now - Beans and Cornbread!

This very simple recipe is from my mom, from her mom, and probably her mom before that. In the "dirt-street" neighborhood of my childhood there was a pot of these Pinto beans on the stove every week. My mom tells of growing up during the depression days with these for dinner almost every night (along with Turnip Greens). That kind of recipe testing is hard to come by, right?

Following the beans is a recipe for home-made fried cornbread for sopping-up the pot-liquor; thick pork & bean, salty/sweet gravy that is left over when the meaty, toothsome beans are long gone.
RECIPE: PINTO BEANS

Dried Pinto Beans (about 3 cups make enough for 4-6 servings)
Water
Pork Fat Back or Pork Belly
salt/pepper

Many people soak their dried beans in water overnight (it is said to help decrease the gas forming sugars), but my grandmother's recipe evidently did NOT soak the beans (haha, which explains a lot; sorry, went there again.)PREP: Run water over the beans to wash thoroughly and remove any dirt/ floating beans or flecks of debris before starting to cook.

1) Fill a large pot with enough water to be about 5-6 inches above the amount of beans you are using.

2) Add the fat-back to the water, bring to a boil and continue to boil for about 15 minutes.

3) THEN, add the beans, add a little salt, bring the water back to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and let cook for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Be sure to check the water level and add water only after the beans have soaked up a great deal of the liquid. The water should stay a few inches above the beans.

4) Stir now and then to make sure cooking is even. Taste to adjust the seasoning. Eventually, the water will be gravy-like. These are even better the next day after melding the flavors in the refrigerator overnight.
What is a pot of beans without corn bread?
When I went on a quest to discover and uncover my family's great traditional and secret recipe for amazing fried corn bread, I was confounded to find it came from a box of cornbread mix. Are you kidding me? For a few minutes I refused to believe my mom- it wasn't what I wanted to hear. I wanted to believe my maternal grandmother (who could make poinsettia bloom in the dead-end heat of August on her screened-in porch) would have scooped her own cornmeal. I imagined her maybe even grinding it herself from the dried Indian Summer corn that she grew in her garden out back, then mixing it with her bare hands. My mom, patiently, stayed with this story of "Barton's Cornmeal and now they use Martha Whites" which just frustrated me because it wasn't "corn meal" it was a prepared mix. Thinking over this was enlightening to me - my mom was a wife of the 50's, the very generation that got sold the idea of corporate fast, processed means convenience, why spend time in the kitchen, "almost homemade is good enough" message from "Made in America". Her first meal after a recently prescribed Colonoscopy was a giant ARBY's "looks like" roast beef sandwich on white bread because she loves them. I get it. I used to eat a Hardee's Husky Burger almost every day after school. It took years to develop a taste for beef that didn't have blood-sugar spikes built right in.
By the way, the corn bread mix isn't even all that processed and you still have to add your own buttermilk, eggs, onion, spices, etc.. if you want to make it truly to your tastes. So, why am I ranting? Because it's symbolic to where it all started.

My grandmother was the very woman they targeted with the idea that homemade was a waste of your time. In the 1940s, she probably did make everything from scratch. Then she got sold the idea that a large company could do it better than she could, faster, more consistent and that she didn't really need to READ the ingredients because her government already approved those for safe consumption. Then, they made it so cheap we all learned to de-value food for its quality. In school, my home-economics class (ever heard of those?) taught us how to make a "home-made" cake by using a Duncan Hines cake mix. It sounds like I'm an elitist, but I'm not - I'm just...frustrated, so I took it out on a bag of medium grind organic corn meal. I created my own version of my traditional southern fried cornbread with a nod to my memory of a ball of Crisco melting in a cast iron skillet. It tasted like my grandmother's - fantastic, the buttermilk makes it rich and tangy, but the bite is crunchy and nutty. I was really excited. My husband sopped up the pot-liquor while watching the Super Bowl (cue music: My Country Tis of Thee.) My teenage son said, "I kinda don't like the texture...I wish it was more cake like...not so real corn tasting" (cue trumpet: wha wha wha whaaaaaaa.) Life is funny, so you may as well laugh.

**Today's post about a Family Recipe was in celebration of a very talented writer, Cheryl Tan, who has her first food book being released today; A Tiger In The Kitchen. She collected her family recipes and stories and retold them in her incredibly experienced and delightful manner. Read about her here, and take a look at the book on Amazon right here-RECIPE: Fried Corn Bread

1 cup Med. grind Organic Corn Meal
1/2 cup Flour
1 egg
3/4 cup Buttermilk
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 Tbls. minced onion
1 Tbls. minced garlic
1 Tbls. Crisco or "Lard"
salt/pepper to taste

1) Combine all ingredients, except the Crisco, in a bowl, whisk together and leave for a few minutes so the cornmeal will soak up the buttermilk.

2) Melt the Crisco in a skillet (cast iron is preferred) over Med. heat. Drop small ladles of the batter onto the hot oil. When the edges are crisp, flip the cornbread over and continue to cook until browned and crispy on the other side.

3) Remove each piece as it's done and drain on a towel. Serve warm, and can be held in the refrigerator and toasted for later. (Also, very good when crumbled over scrambled eggs, soup or greens.)

Nutella Mousse Stuffed Strawberries - Simple Saturday

One of the best things about living in Southern California is that eating local and seasonal is not that hard. With blue skies and sunny afternoons and some of the best farmers in the country, I can get pretty sweet Strawberries even in February from the Farmer's Market. I'm not saying they are as warm, juicy or dripping in vibrant flavor like they are in June, but they make a great little container for a big squish of Nutella Mousse - and one bite turns into a basket full.

NUTELLA MOUSSE STUFFED STRAWBERRIES

I had some Nutella left over from the huge jar I bought for making the Nutella Crack Pie, and the Joconde Inprime Entremet (using this mousse recipe), and before I just ate it with a spoon, I decided to at least add some fruit to it.

These are so quick and your adult guests, as well as the kids, will love these little pudding-poppers. And, if you don't have the time to make the mousse, go with just the flavored Cream Stuffed Strawberries.

RECIPE: Nutella Mousse

1 envelope of gelatine
3/4 cup milk
1 8oz. cream cheese
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 cup Nutella
2 c. heavy cream

1) In a saucepan, pour in 1/4 cup of cold milk and sprinkle the envelope of gelatine over the cold milk. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes while the gelatine blooms and the mixture gets spongy.

2) Add the remaining 1/2 c. milk to the gelatine mixture and heat on low, stirring to dissolve the gelatine. Hold to the side.

3) In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the Nutella and beat well.

4) Add in the gelatine/milk mixture and continue to beat until combined. Pour into a glass dish and allow to chill in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes

5) While the Nutella mixture is chilling, whip the cream in a separate bowl until fluffy. Fold into the chilled Nutella until all streaks are incorporated. Return to the refrigerator and chill until ready to use. To fill the strawberries, first core the strawberries with a small melon baller or with a pairing knife. Fill a star-tipped pastry bag with the Mousse and squeeze to fill up each strawberry. Set the strawberries on a plate that has been sprinkled with cocoa, if you like.You can also do this ahead by a few hours, hold in the fridge and bring out to the oohs and ahhs of your friends and family. Nutella and Strawberries - how can you go wrong?!

Nutella Crack Pie - World Nutella Day

As if Nutella was not addictive enough, I just put it into the recipe for Momofuku's Crack Pie. If you have never eaten "Crack Pie" (the dessert named for the immediate need to continue eating it), you are in for a culinary joy ride.

NUTELLA CRACK PIE

The original recipe is from the whimsical and deliriously talented pastry chef, Christina Tosi at the acclaimed Momofuku in New York. The recipe, printed in the LA Times last year, started an immediate Crack Pie baking fever. So, what better way to celebrate World Nutella Day 2011, than by making a great thing - a great thing with Nutella.Last year, for World Nutella Day, I made 3 cocktails. It was only fitting that I continued the theme of adult Nutella consumption.

However, although the name sounds adult, the entire family can enjoy and fight over this pie (you may want to change the name to "Eat It All Up Nutella Pie" for the kids.) I had such a good time trying different ways to best include Nutella into this recipe. The original pie is dense, sticky and rich, which also describes Nutella right out of the jar.So, some adapting and developing needed to happen to keep the balance while adding the chocolate and "hazelnutty" richness to the filling. The result (after a few tries and bouncing off the wall from all the sugar I consumed developing this) is a doubly-addictive cookie pie full of delightful trouble. I highly recommend making two at a time. :DIf you can't get enough Nutella (join the crowd), check out World Nutella Day on Facebook and Twitter and see what Sara at MsAdventuresInItaly.com and Michelle from BleedingEspresso.com have put together for this year's World Nutella Day.

ALSO: Check out my Peanut Butter Crack Pie with a purpose~

RECIPE: NUTELLA CRACK PIE
(inspired by the recipe by Christina Tosi for Crack Pie)

Oat Cookie Pie Crust:

9 Tbls. butter, room temp
5 1/2 Tbls. Brown Sugar
2 Tbls. sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbls. rolled oats
1/2 cup flour
1/8 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. baking soda
pinch of salt

1) Preheat oven to 350F, line a large baking pan with parchment paper, and spray with nonstick spray.
2) In a mixer, beat together 6 Tbls of the butter, 4 Tbls. of the brown sugar, and 2 Tbls. of sugar until light a fluffy.
3) Add the egg and continue to beat in throughly.
4) Add the oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and beat until well blended.
5) Spread oat mixture out onto a parchment lined baking sheet and cook for 15-18 minutes until done. Remove and cool cookie completely.
6) When the cookie is cool, break into crumbs and add to a large bowl along with 3 Tbls. butter and 1 1/2 Tbls. brown sugar. Rub together with fingertips until crumb mixture is moist enough to hold together in a clump when squeezed in your hand.
7) Spread mixture out into a lined baking tart pan (or two, depending on size) and using fingers press crumbs onto the bottom and sides to form a pie shell (use the flat bottom of a cup or glass to help press in.)
NUTELLA CRACK PIE FILLING:
1 1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup plus 3 Tbls. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup Nutella
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla
8 egg yolks
*powdered sugar for garnish*

1) Preheat oven to 350F. In a mixing bowl, whisk together sugars and salt.

2) Whisk in Nutella, cream and vanilla on low speed

3) Whisk in egg yolks on low speed, to not add too much air, and combine well (this will appear to be very loose).4) Divide filling into pie shells, and bake for 15 minutes, then reduce oven temp. to 325F and continue to cook for about 15-20* minutes until center is not too jiggly.

5) Cool on a rack, then keep in fridge for a couple hours. This is at its best when served chilled.

Happy World Nutella Day and may all your days feel like a celebration :D




* Time may vary according to your oven, the center is loose, but continues to set in the refrigerator as it chills for a couple hours or overnight.