Macaron Obsession

Simple almond macarons with home made lemon curd filling.



I never knew how easy lemon curd is to make! Some recipes call for butter, but really, why do you need butter? Save a few calories here, so you can eat that creamy mac and cheese later.

Simply mix in a small saucepan on low heat 1/4 cup sugar with the juice and zest of 3-4 lemons. When the sugar is melted, temper in 3 egg yolks (and you will use the whites for your macarons which is perfect!), and stir slowly until mixture thickens. Remove from heat and let cool, voila! Recipe courtesy of UseRealButter.com

French Macarons with Rasberry Jam

Despite the gloomy, rainy weather and my all day headache, one thing has managed to make me happy - I made macarons! In my months of research, this seems to be an intimidating recipe for a lot of cooks and bakers. The recipe looks simple enough and has very few ingredients, but for a perfectionist like myself, the idea of not being able to whip up the egg whites to a satiny finish, or pipe perfectly round circles, or a list of other potential problems is enough reason to make one hesitate until exactly the right moment to attempt them. But today I was ready. I used Martha Stewart's recipe because 1) Reviews made the success rate sound high and 2) the measurements were in ounces, not grams like 99% of the macaron recipes out there.

I bought my almond meal at Trader Joe's and the almonds are ground with the skins on, which creates a flecked cookie, which is fine by me. My pastry bag/tip setup was not ideal (no round tip, argh!!) so my first batch came out very lumpy. (The photo above is my second try.) I slightly undercooked the cookies to prevent them from browning and discoloring, but either way they still tasted deliciously sweet, like I remember from my first macaron in Tokyo. Yes, the Japanese love their French sweets, and food, and just about everything else.

Lacking ingredients to create proper buttercream or chocolate filling, I opted for a simple spread of raspberry jam. Though I could just eat them as is, and I did eat quite a few in celebration of creating a successful macaron - phew! Now to study some more colors/flavor combinations for next time.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Hope everyone's new year is off to a good start! If good is busy, then mine has been good, since I have a few dishes and photos waiting to be posted. Starting off with one of my all-time favorite dishes from Italy, if not the whole world, is spaghetti carbonara. This is one dish I've made so many times and tried so many variations, from Giada's to Lidia's, that I've come up with my own recipe.

4 oz. prosciutto or pancetta or just regular old bacon if neither is available, cut into strips.

8 oz. spaghetti (or any pasta, but I like the classic shape)

2-3 whole eggs (sometimes I just use egg yolks but then you have leftover egg whites, arg!)

1 medium yellow or white onion, diced fine

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

Chicken stock (optional)

1 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese

Fresh ground black pepper

Olive Oil

Carbonara is such a simple recipe - what makes it better is the order you prepare the ingredients. One thing I usually stay away from is adding cream, it's not necessary nor the traditional way you would find it in a Italy. The creaminess will come from the eggs and the cheese, who needs cream?

Set a large pot filled with enough water for the pasta to boil.

In a large non-stick pan, heat about two teaspoons of olive oil (if you're using fatty pancetta or bacon, you don't even need oil). Add your sliced/diced meat and cook on medium-high until it's nice and brown.

Next add the garlic and onion and continue to sauté until the onions are translucent and the garlic is slightly browned. To add even more flavor, you can add about half a cup of chicken stock, and scrape the bottom of the pan to remove the browned bits. Turn heat to low and reduce the stock by half. You want it to look like a light sauce, not a lot of liquid.

Add pasta to boiling water and cook according to box directions.

In a little bowl, whisk the eggs, add the grated parmesan cheese and black pepper to your taste preference.

Once pasta is cooked, drain (reserving half a cup of pasta water to thin out sauce if it's too thick). Add pasta to frying pan and turn off heat. Finally, pour in egg/cheese mixture and quickly stir into pasta. This is supposed to cook the eggs. If you are worried about salmonella, you could use pasteurized eggs or those eggs in a container, but I like my eggs in their natural form and couldn't live without a runny egg yolk, so I take the risk, and haven't gotten sick yet! If you feel the sauce is too sticky, add a little pasta water, but it usually doesn't need any.

Plate, and sprinkle some more parmesan cheese and black pepper on top, pour yourself a glass of red wine and enjoy!

New Year's Resolutions

Calissons

I'm not making any of those unrealistic, unattainable resolutions like, lose 20 pounds, not worry so much, be nicer - come on! Some recipes I want to try this year: (if I can photograph and post about every one, that will be one resolution down!)

1) Calissons - I love almonds in desserts and these Marzipan like sweets look way more appetizing because they're not trying to be fruits. Their perfect texture and shape make me starry eyed. First, I need to get some almond meal and orange flower water.

Christian Louboutin and Lauduree's Macarons

2) They come in every color and flavor under the rainbow. How could you not love them? Often, they're mistaken for macaroons, the coconut confections that are nothing like them. Also made with almonds, almond flour to be exact and eggs white. The recipe is more about perfecting a technique than anything else, but it will be so worth it if I am able to make them.

Cheese Souffle

3) Cheese and eggs! What more is there to say?

I just realized these are all French recipes, but where better to start than with the classics? If you have any recipes to recommend, feel free to share! What do you want to make this year?

*Photos are borrowed from other sites, reachable by the link below each photo.

Green Tea Matcha Cookies

Healthy or moldy cookies? Neither, actually. Well, they are yummy shortbread cookies with matcha green tea powder, supposedly one of the healthiest types of green tea. The antioxidant yada yada properties are higher than in other teas because this comes in powder form and you basically eat the leaves as well. But there's also a stick of butter in the recipe, so you make the call. I love baking cookies that come out perfectly round though - it makes me think I'm a skilled baker. This cookie recipe comes from the late Amai Tea & Bake House in Grammercy.

Fresh Cranberry Sauce

I'll keep this short and sweet. A bag of cranberries, 2 cups of sugar, 1 cinnamon stick, zest of orange/tangerine/lemon and its juices. Cook until it boils and simmer about 10 minutes, cool. Enjoy! Happy Holidays!

Red Velvet Redux

My first attempt at red velvet cupcakes was a little disappointing. I used a recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcake book, and maybe it was the wrong type of oil, or the amount, but they came out too oily, the oil going through the paper cups. Eck. A lot of red velvet recipes I've come upon use oil, and I'm not sure why. I know the vinegar and cocoa powder are important for contributing to their famous hue, but not the oil. Anyway, I found a recipe that uses butter here. I only had half a bottle of red food coloring, instead of the two bottles it calls for but they still came out nice. It was a much lighter cupcake and not oily. To give credit to Martha, I topped it with her cream cheese frosting which is very easy and tasty (I mean, butter + cream cheese + sugar, yeah it's gotta taste good). For next time, I want to try for a denser cake.