Blueberry Limoncello Cake with a Limoncello Glaze

Doesn't the name alone sounds good already? I was immediately drawn to this Blueberry Limoncello Cake when I first saw the name popped up during my search for summer deserts that uses limoncello. I was recently introdued to limoncello and successfully made a bottle of it for the first time. I didn't want to drink all of it but wanted to use some of it in baking, so here I go...making this yummy cake which was easy to bake. I will share the recipe for limoncello in another post. There are many limoncello recipes floating on the Internet if you'd like to make it or you may purchase is as well.

Here is the recipe from About.com.

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 55 minutes

Ingredients:
* 3 cups flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups fresh blueberries
* 1-1/2 cups butter, room temperature
* 2 cups sugar
* 3 eggs, room temperature
* 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon limoncello, divided
* 2 tablespoons lemon zest, divided
* 2 cups powdered sugar

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease 9x13 cake pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt with a wire whisk. Set aside.

Place blueberries in a small bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of dry ingredients. Toss gently and set aside. (This is done so blueberries don't sink to bottom of cake.)

In an another bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Add 1 tablespoon limoncello.

Add the dry mixture and combine completely.

Fold in 1 tablespoon zest and blueberries.

Carefully add batter to prepared pan.

Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Cool pan on rack for 15 minutes before adding glaze.

Cool completely before serving.

Glaze:

With a wire whisk, stir together powdered sugar, 1/4 cup limoncello and 1 tablespoon lemon zest. Drizzle over cake, then spread for even consistency.

ENJOY!!!

Tiramisu

Coffee lover? Got a sweet tooth? Then you will LOVE this classic Italian desert! Tiramisu, (in Italian: Tiramisù), literally means "pick me up". It is a layered desert consists of ladyfingers dipped in strong coffee typically Espresso, layered with a whipped mixture of egg yolks and mascarpone, flavored with liquor, and some cocoa sprinkled between layers. I have made this desert several times using different recipes and my favorite is the one I found on Alessi brand ladyfinger cookies package. It is in a green package. I kept this recipe but sometimes use any brand lady fingers which works just fine. I haven't tried making my own lady fingers. I have been told that they are easy to make. One day, I will try that and will also try making a Tiramisu flavored cake or even a cheesecake.

HERE IS THE RECIPE:

Ingredients:

For making Zabaglione Cream:
5 Large egg yolks
1/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Marsala wine (sweet)
2 TBS Sugar


1 cup Whipping cream, chilled
2 TBS Sugar

1 lb Mascarpone cheese

2 cups freshly brewed espresso or 2 cups strong coffee
1/2 cup Brandy or Marsala
1 TBS Vanilla
2 packages Alessi Savoiardi cookies, or any other ladyfinger cookies (I used about 24 fingers)
2 TBS cocoa powder
Chocolate shavings to garnish (optional)


Directions:
Making Zabaglione Cream: In the top part of a double boiler or a heat proof bowl ( I used my glass bowl), beat eggs and sugar together until the mixture is pale yellow in color.

In the bottom part of the double boiler or a sauce pan, bring water to a boil then reduce heat to simmer.

Place egg yolk mixture over water and gradually add Marsala, beating continuously.

Scrape bottom and sides occasionally and cook 6 to 10 minutes or until soft mounds can be formed.This is your Zabaglione.

Transfer to bowl (if you didn't use a bowl already), cover and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Whip cream with 2 TBS sugar until soft peaks form.

Fold whipped cream in Mascarpone and Zabaglione until well blended. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour.


















In a separate bowl, mix espresso, 2 TBS sugar, Brandy and vanilla. Carefully and quickly dip the lady fingers in the coffee mixture one at a time so they are well saturated but not falling apart. Arrange cookies on the bottom of a 9" by 13" pan (or a spring form pan.)

Note: Some just brush the cookies with coffee mixture using a pastry brush or even sppon the coffee carefully over. Try it one cookie and see what works for you. The goal here is to get the coffee flavor into the cookies without them falling apart.


Spoon 1/2 cheese mixture over cookies and sprinkle with 1 TBS cocoa.

















Repeat one more time ending with cocoa. Cover and refrigerate at least 5 hours or overnight so that cookies can soften as they absorb moisture. (Very important part for all the flavors to marry)



















Garnish and serve.

Chicken Pesto Florentine

I came across this wonderful pasta recipe from Simply Recipe when I was searching for recipes that would help me use up the basil that I have in my garden. This recipe calls for fresh pesto and many other ingredients that I love. I followed the recipe and everyone at the dinner table was very happy with this dish. I like creamy pastas but I LOVE this one for the fact that it is not too creamy that it makes you feel guilty after eating, and it also has veggies that I like. I will make this again and again!!


Chicken Florentine Pesto Pasta Recipe


Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Yield: Serves 6-8.

We've used fresh spinach in this recipe, but you could easily use frozen. Just defrost and drain.


Ingredients

12-16 ounces dried short pasta (bowties, penne, gemelli, etc)
4 chicken breast cutlets (1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds total)
Salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 yellow or white onion, chopped, about 1 cup
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup white wine or stock
8-16 ounces of fresh spinach*, washed, long stems removed and chopped
Black pepper
1/4 cup cream
1/4 cup (or more) pesto, see here for recipe

*To wash spinach, fill up a clean sink basin with cold water and let the spinach soak in the water. Move it around a bit to loosen any dirt. Fresh spinach is usually pretty dirty, so you may need to do a couple of soakings. Remove the spinach and shake off excess water. Lay the spinach leaves down on a clean towel and pat dry.


Directions:

Bring a large pot of salted water (add enough salt so that the water tastes salty) to a boil. Add the dried pasta and cook until al dente.















While preparing the pasta, cook the chicken. Sprinkle the chicken breasts with salt, heat the olive oil in a sauté pan and brown the chicken breasts on both sides over medium-high heat. They don't need to be cooked all the way through, just browned. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.











Add the chopped onion to the pan and sauté 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally. While the onions cook, slice the chicken into strips. Put any pieces that are cooked all the way through in one pile, and put the ones that still need a little cooking in another pile.








When the onions are just beginning to brown, add the garlic and cook another minute. Add the white wine or stock and boil vigorously until the liquid is reduced by half.











Add the spinach and the undercooked pieces of chicken to the pan. Using tongs, turn them over to coat them with the juices in the pan. Continue to cook, turning and stirring often, until the spinach is wilted and the chicken cooked through, about 2 minutes.
Turn off the heat and add some black pepper, the pile of cooked chicken pieces and the pesto. Stir to combine. Drain the pasta put it in a large bowl. Add the cream to the saute pan and stir well to combine. Add the contents of the pan to the bowl with the pasta and mix well. Serve at once.

Fresh Basil Pesto...Straight from my garden :)

Oh what a delicious way to use up all the basil I have in my garden! I am so delightful that I found this fantastic pesto recipe from Simply Recipe. I used some of this pesto in
my chicken pesto florentine and my family quickly ate the rest as an appetizer with some bread while I was making the pasta dish. I did add a little more olive oil than what the recipe called for but I am sure it is fine the way it is too. Pine nuts are expensive and I have heard that using macadamia nuts instead is also delicious. I am not sure how much money you will save though. This little one cup of pesto can get pricy especially if you have to buy everything, but I was able to use my basil from the garden. I made sure the olive oil and the parmesan were also good quality. next time I will try it with Romano cheese to see which one I prefer. This recipe requires a food processor but there are recipes that do not. I will never buy pesto again!!!

Fresh Basil Pesto

Yield: Makes 1 cup.

Ingredients

2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts
3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Equipment needed: A food processor

Directions:

Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. (If you are using walnuts instead of pine nuts and they are not already chopped, pulse them a few times first, before adding the basil.) Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.

Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Serve with pasta, or over baked potatoes, or spread over toasted baguette slices.

Easy Chicken Marsala

I like chicken, I like mushrooms and I LOVE this easy yummy chicken Marsala! I am not sure what the best thing is to serve this with but usually, I serve it with some angel hair pasta or sometimes mash potatoes. I have not tried making this in a larger quantity but I would like to try soon. There are many recipes floating on the Internet for this dish and I use this recipe from Allrecipes and it was awesome. The recipe did not say whether to use sweet Marsala or the dry but I used the sweet one. Also, I butterflied the chicken breast, put them in between two sheets of clear wrap and pounded them to 1/4 inch thick before cutting them a little bit smaller. It was such a quick and easy delicious recipe with simple ingredients. I am keeping this recipe!!Would you like to try it too?

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour for coating
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - pounded 1/4 inch thick
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup sliced mushrooms (I used 8oz pre sliced baby Bella mushrooms)
1/2 cup Marsala wine
1/4 cup cooking sherry

Directions:

In a shallow dish or bowl, mix together the flour, salt, pepper and oregano. Coat chicken pieces in flour mixture.
In a large skillet, melt butter in oil over medium heat. Place chicken in the pan, and lightly brown. Turn over chicken pieces, and add mushrooms. Pour in wine and sherry. Cover skillet; simmer chicken 10 minutes, turning once, until no longer pink and juices run clear.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving: Calories: 448 | Total Fat: 26.6g | Cholesterol: 99mg

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo: The Daring Cooks’ May 2011 Challenge

Our May hostess, Denise of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need from creole spices, homemade stock and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

I am so glad that this month challenge is GUMBO because I love LOVE soups and stews, and gumbo is one of my top favorites. I like seafood gumbo as well but I think I make a better chicken gumbo than seafood so this is what I often make, especially in the cold months. Sometimes I make a huge pot to eat some and freeze some.

Gumbo, in my opinion, is not hard to make and one should not be discouraged after seeing the long list of ingredients. However, it does take some patience to make a good roux and some time to chop up the veggies and get the chicken ready etc. There are other options to speed up the process if you choose to. For instance, instead of making homemade chicken broth and shredding your chicken, use boneless skinless chicken breast or store bought rotisserie chicken and box chicken broth. There are also jars of roux you can buy if you do not want to make roux but I enjoy making everything from scratch so I just pick a day that I have time and make this yummy pot of gumbo.

Feel free to tweak the recipe according to your taste. For instance, add more or less veggies or hot sauce or omit anything that you do not have or like. You can make a thicker gumbo if you make more roux by increasing the flour and oil. (Just keep a 1:1 ratio). Add more stock for a thinner gumbo. Some file powder can be sprinkle at the end into the pot or in the bowl before eating.


Okra is optional even though some say it is not gumbo unless okra is in it. (Tip: some say that if you sauté the okra in a little bit of oil before adding into the pot will make it not so slimy. I just add the chopped okra as is.)In my opinion, there are no rules and it’s all about your taste!

So enjoy it how YOU want it!

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, about 3-4 lbs
1 lb smoke sausage
½ Cup All Purpose Flour
½ cup canola oil
1 large onion
3 stalks of celery
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 Cup chopped fresh or frozen okra (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 TBS Worcestershire sauce
1 TBS Tabasco sauce
1 TBS soy sauce
Salt and peeper to taste
Steamed rice to serve with

Rinse and pat dry the chicken. In a large stock pot, place the whole chicken and rub some salt and pepper onto the chicken. Cover the chicken with cold water and boil on low to medium heat till the chicken is tender, for about 1 hour.


Strain the chicken and reserve the stock. Remove skin and bones from the chicken and shred or chop the chicken.


While the chicken is cooking, chop the onion, celery and bell pepper and cut the sausage into ½ inch thick pieces.


Make the roux by heating the oil on medium heat and adding the flour. Stir continuously till the roux is a darker golden brown and not let the flour burn. (This is very important). This will take about 30 min or so. Be careful because it is very hot.


Add the veggies and bay leaf when the roux is ready and cook till they are almost tender, then add the cayenne pepper. Cook a few more minutes.


Add the chicken, sausage, seasonings and the stock. If you are using okra, add okra. Let simmer on low heat till desire thickness or about 20-30 min. Serve over white rice. ENJOY!!!

Tender Braised Oxtail

As Wiki explains, “Oxtail (occasionally spelled ox tail or ox-tail) is the culinary name for the tail of cattle. Formerly, it referred only to the tail of an ox or steer, a castrated male. An oxtail typically weighs 2 to 4 lbs. (1-1.8 kg) and is skinned and cut into short lengths for sale.Oxtail is a bony, gelatinous meat, and is usually slow-cooked, often stewed or braised….”

I personally think that most meat near bones such as wings or ribs and oxtail of course are delicious. There are many people who are not adventurous and won’t try oxtail but I really wish they would because it is TASTY!

However, if you were looking for a quick meal, this is not the one because unless you have a pressure cooker, Oxtail takes about 3-4 hours to prepare and at the end you will get a well deserved delicious dish of tender juicy oxtail in a rich brown gravy. I serve this dish with steamed white rice and my family LOVES it.

I usually purchase Oxtail from Asian or Hispanic grocery stores. I look for big meaty pieces that are not too fatty but you can’t avoid fat or bone if you are going to eat oxtail. I developed this oxtail recipe after trying different recipes and eating oxtail from different restaurants. I used many recipes as my guidance before coming up with the one that is most suitable to my family’s taste and mine.

Here is the recipe I would like to share:

Ingredients:

2-2.5 LB oxtail pieces
1 TBS oil
3 bay leaves
1 large onion, chopped
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
1 TBS soy sauce
Dash cayenne pepper
¾ to 1 Cup water, (depending on how thick or thin you’d want your gravy to be)

Directions:

1. Wash and pat dry the oxtails with paper towels.
2. Season them with salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic pepper, and soy sauce.
3. Heat up the oil in a Dutch oven and when it is hot, add the seasoned oxtails to sear and brown them on all sides for about 5-7 min.
4. When the oxtails are brown, add bay leaves and chopped onions. Mix well and cook for a few minutes.
5. Add the water, cover and cook on low for at least 2 hours or till tender.
6. Serve with rice.

Note: This step is not necessary but if you have time, let the oxtail pot cool in the fridge for several hours till all the fat floats to the top and solidifies. Remove the fat from the top, reheat and serve.