Sicilian Orange Scented Olive Oil Cake

Good Morning Folks!
I have not been blogging as much as I would like to recently due to work and now a part-time job I picked up as a wine hostess at a local Virginia vineyard. My passion is still mainly with cooking, but wine is also such an integral part of the meal as well. I may start to reference food-wine pairings as I move along in my wine education, but for now, its all about the food.

This is a recipe dedicated by Saveur that I had made a few weeks back. If you are looking for something rustic with inexpensive ingredients, this is it. The oranges are basically candied as they cook down in the sugar water mixture.

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Orange-Scented-Olive-Oil-Cake


A few tweeks to the recipe:

• be sure to cook the oranges down until the peel can be pierced very easily and is quite soft. you don't want to bite into a hard chunk of orange peel
• I used an extra orange for more flavor. you can also try with blood oranges, as available. I used cara cara oranges which seemed perfect for this cake.
• once the cake is pulled from the oven and has cooled down to warm, wrap loosely with saran wrap and paper towels or aluminum foil. This will ensure your cake stays moist for days.
• you might also want to try this recipe with Meyer lemons, or any other citrus fruit.

Let me know the results!

Happy Cooking!

-Dita

Marinades

Over the years of my freakish experimentation in the kitchen, combined with the advice from some of my cooking friends, I have learned the art to making your own marinades. The key to marinades is simple- a balance and contrast of all flavors.

For marinades, you want to include ingredients that contrast the others and hit each spot on the taste buds. For me, that would be sweet, salty, tart, savory, cleansing and spicy. An example of each in that order: sugar, soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic, ginger, and Thai red pepper. Get it?

As long as you use a balance of each component and taste along the way, you will be amazed by the homemade marinades you can create that will be cheaper, preservative free and much tastier than those store bought sauces. Try out an experimental blend of your own and let me know how it turns out! If you are not feeling creative, here's one to try that is painless and works well as a stir fry sauce-

In a blender, combine

-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 cup soy sauce
-1/2 cup cooking or rice wine
-1/2 cup water
-1 1/2 inch piece of ginger
-4 or 5 cloves of garlic

Liquefy on high speed until all solids are broken down into the liquid and dissolved.
Pour into saucepan and cook down until liquid is reduced and to a thick, desired consistency of sauce. Use sauce on anything-marinade, stir fry veggies, braised tofu, dressing, etc. Enjoy! Write back to me for the results!

Happy Cooking,

-Dita

Roasting Your own Peppers

Roasted Peppers are a great accompaniment to just about anything; salads, sandwiches, pasta, cooked vegetables, or just by themselves with a nice crusty piece of bread for a snack! I want to share with you my easy step by step process to making roasted red peppers that can keep in the fridge for at least a month or two, maybe more.
Now, you can pick virtually any pepper to do this with. Depends on how much heat and/or flavor your looking for. I like to roast my own then keep them in a glass jar with olive oil in the fridge to add to my cooking as needed. To save money, you can use a glass pickle jar that has been rinsed well or you can simply buy a mason or canning jar from most major stores.
You can adjust the amount of peppers to roughly the approximate weight of the ones I use here.

4 red, orange, or yellow sweet peppers
aluminum foil

Preheat your grill to medium-high heat or your oven to 400 degrees. Place peppers on grill, being sure to char all sides of the pepper or place peppers on baking sheet close to oven coils, charring all sides. Complete charring may take about 15-20 mins. Immediately remove pepper and wrap tightly in aluminum foil, allowing the pepper to "sweat" for about 15 mins. Remove foil and hold pepper under running cold water, peeling skin away and remove stem and seeds inside. It is ok if the pepper falls apart. Pat dry and slice pepper peices into strips. Place in Bowl. Add the following:
Salt and pepper to taste
8 basil leaves chiffonade (sliced thinly)
Splash of Red Wine Vinegar
Mix well, then add everything to glass jar. Then, pour in olive oil until it reaches just under the top of the jar. Place cap Tightly and turn to shake.

Its that simple! Your peppers are now ready to enjoy. Let me know if you try this recipe and how it turns out.

Happy Cooking,

-D

Fiddlehead Ferns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead_ferns

So....I bought some of these at Flegmans for 9.99 a pound. Wow, that's pricey! Probably because they have a short harvesting period. I made them very simply sauteed in olive oil, salt, pepper, and a couple cloves of garlic minced. I made sure to cook them for about five minutes, because the taste isn't suppose to be good until they are wilted a little.
Finished product? I would say the taste is nice, similar to asparagus. The texture is what threw me off here. Seems there is too much going on with texture because the middle part is feathery and soft, but the surrounding end piece is similiar to a string bean.
I think this vegetable is meant more for nutritional content, since it is a wild food, and the novelty of it. If you want to try, I reccomend buying just a half pound to experiment with. My palate says that these are definately not worth their price, but fun to try!

Happy cooking,

-Dita

Ceviche Results

Well, I followed the recipe loosely and made sure to let the fish sit for at least 5 hours. Some recipes call for at least twelve, but I think that is to allow the flavors to meld. The texture of the fish was unique, not quite mushy, but not flaky. The citrus taste from the lime was pleasant, but I felt I needed a little something else to cut it. Tomatoes, cilantro, hot pepper, and red onion do well to balance the flavor, but I feel it needs something else to calm it.
I recall eating a tuna ceviche at a lounge in DC that used coconut or coconut milk. It seems the creaminess of the coconut rounds out the taste. Any ideas for other, gentler flavors to add to a ceviche?
Well, today is my Monday and I'm off to my fascinating government job! Yay! Until later folks,
Happy Cooking,

-Dita

Making Ceviche on a few Glasses of French Bordeaux...

So...I have been contemplating this blog spot for some time now and finally got up the cahones(I dunno if that's how you spell it, my Spanish is comprised of three years worth in high school) to start an online forum for food fanatics and amateur at home chefs, such as myself. As the title suggests, this is simply my stress reliever. My aim here is to share the passion, intensity, and creative element that I find in cooking with others that are like me, as well as others that enjoy reaping the benefits of our experiments.
Feel free to leave tips, recipes, advice, criticisms and debate. I am open to learning and refining my skill set in the kitchen. I am also incredibly passionate about what I make and the commentary can get pretty heated in here. I therefore as that you give me you unbiased, candid output on any and all posts that I blog. Here's a quip on tonight course and where you might begin to think i'm a bit insane...
I have been known to try any and all exotic cuisine, sans insects. Maybe someday I will be incoherent enough or bribed with money in order to try, but not for now.
So, was feeling the urge for something raw. Sushi comes to mind, but that would include gauging rush hour traffic so that I can avoid it and lots of little pricey peices of raw fish that are coming from god knows where, hopefully not Louisiana. Instead of having to jump through all those obstacles, I opted to brainstorm for a dish I could create at home that was cheaper and close to, if not, raw and high in nutrional content.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. As much of a foodie as I am, I'm afraid to admit that I have never tried: Ceviche. So, I proceeded to the mecca of all foodies supermarkets...a place that rhymes with Flegmans and picked out a nice peice of Corvina fish. After speaking with the fishmonger (google that, its rare you can find one nowadays), I was informed that this was the best fish for ceviche.
Note: I talked about raw food earlier, but this food is in fact, cooked by the acids in the lime and lemon juices that are added.
Onto the recipe, more to follow on how this bad boy turns out...
Cheers!

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/ceviche/

P.S. I scaled this recipe down to half a pound and use a thai red pepper, seeds removed instead of serrano(I love the flavor) and added the cilantro in with the marinade to really infused the flavor. At some point, I would like to try this with shrimp since we all love shrimp, self included.
First things first, lets see if I can eat this and not end up with food posioning.

The crazy part: I also made my own garlic herb butter and olive oil, grilled whole shrimp with head on(better flavor), and sauteed fiddlehead ferns. You can find fiddlehead ferns in some grocer markets now. They seem to be in season for two weeks during the spring season. I will let you know how they turn out.

-Dita