Peppermint Bark

So, I know that this is my second chocolate peppermint posting this month, but as soon as December comes around that seems like the perfect combination for all sorts of holiday treats. This particular treat piqued my interest for a very special person’s birthday, my Mom. Of course my Mom lives across country from me so we will have to see how it all turns out shipping chocolate across country, but that’s a different story.


This original recipe was for a layer of white chocolate and crushed peppermint candies, followed by a layer of a stiff dark chocolate peppermint ganache and another layer of white chocolate and crushed peppermint candies. For me, that sounded like an awful lot of white chocolate that I’m not too wild about, so I changed the recipe a little bit. Here’s more or less what it was:

Layer 1-Chocolate

2/3 c dark chocolate-I used Ghirardelli and they now have those little discs that aren’t chocolate chips but are good for melting

15 crushed peppermint candies

-In a double boiler melt the chocolate, stirring until it reaches about 110 F with a candy thermometer. Using an offset spatula spread the chocolate into a 12x9 rectangle on a foil lined sheet pan. This will be a pretty thin layer. Sprinkle a layer of crushed peppermint candies over the chocolate. Place sheet pan in fridge to set up for about 15 minutes or so.

Layer 2-Chocolate peppermint ganache

1 c dark chocolate

3 oz heavy cream

¾ tsp peppermint extract

-Melt chocolate and heavy cream in saucepan or double boiler, gently stirring to combine. It may look like it doesn’t want to mix, but it will. You don’t want to incorporate air by whipping so just stir it gently. When the chocolate is melted, remove from heat and stir in the extract. Spread ganache over first layer of chocolate and put in fridge for about a half hour until set.

Layer 3-White chocolate

7 oz white chocolate

15 crushed peppermint candies

-Melt white chocolate, stirring until it reaches 110F. Spread over the ganache layer being careful to not mix the dark chocolate. Sprinkle with remaining peppermint candies and pop in the fridge until set and then cut into pieces.

And that’s it! It’s so nice and creamy and just looks really fancy. It’s a really delicious holiday treat that is so easy to do.

*For shipping I just layered it with wax paper and popped it in a tin. Since its winter I’m not super worried about melting, but if you pack the box with packing peanuts it helps insulate a bit.

Chocolate Peppermint Meringue Torte

After spending 2 days in the kitchen making a huge Thanksgiving dinner for 5, I'm the crazy person who wants to spend another full morning making a fancy torte. That's just the crazy kind of person I am. I first eyed this torte up when my December Bon Appétit arrived in my mailbox. I knew then that I MUST make this cake. It just looked soooo delicious! Unfortunately, I wasn't sure if my husband would be interested in such a dessert. Luckily, our friends Shawn and Lisa invited us over for dinner so I now had the perfect excuse in the event the cake wasn't received as well as I hoped.


I had nothing to worry about though, because this torte was just sooooooo good...chocolaty and pepperminty and a richness but with a light texture from the meringues. My husband said it was the BEST dessert he’s ever had! It starts out the first layer with a peppermint meringue slathered with chocolate buttercream, topped with a chocolate sponge and then repeated. I sprinkled crushed peppermint candies on top for garnish. I did make a small change to the recipe in the chocolate buttercream by using a different recipe for a French meringue chocolate buttercream. The original recipe called for corn syrup, which I didn't have and don't like to use. The French meringue is kind of the same but you make it by boiling sugar and water until it reaches 250 F. While doing that beat your egg whites to about medium peaks. Then when the syrup hits the right temp you have to very carefully pour it in to the bowl while the mixer is still whipping without spilling it on the bowl or whip (it will harden on there...no fun). You continue beating until the meringue is cooled and then add butter and chocolate if necessary. This just gives such a nice glossy sheen to the buttercream and it just looks beautiful!

This is a labor intensive cake, but totally worth it. I made up a little plan before I got started and decided it was best to get the cake part taken care of first then while that was baking/cooling do the meringues which take 2 hours or so to cook. While the meringues cook you can make the peppermint simple syrup and the buttercream. The meringues will also just cool in the oven, after cooking time just turn it off and prop open the oven. I found this plan to work really well for making and serving all in the same day.

Also, the original recipe called for a rectangular shape, which is fine but I have a torte ring mold. I think it helps give it a cleaner look and hold it together while you are layering.

I totally recommend this recipe but make sure you make it for a special occasion or special person because it is a lot of work but totally worth it!

Julian apple pie

Now that fall is here I can’t help but being excited for all sorts of hearty fill you up foods. I can’t keep my mind off of slow braised dishes, meatloaf, chili, and of course, warm apple pie. I feel that I myself can make a pretty mean apple pie, but in the name of research I decided to head to San Diego’s local apple pie resource, Julian.


Julian is a cute little town with orchards and wineries galore as well as many parks and tails for camping and hiking. If there is ever any snow in San Diego County, this is where you will find it. It’s a nice little get away for couples and families. Visiting in the fall can be quite nice especially as it is one of the few places in San Diego that you really get to see trees with leaves that change color as opposed to palm trees. In any event, this is where I wanted to go to taste, ahem, research some apple pies.

First let me start by saying, I have been to Julian once before on a Saturday and planned on getting some pie only to realize that just about any place that advertised pie had a line out the wazoo. We ended up not even getting any pie on that trip, because they do sell out, but we did get some apple cider. Let me say again, apple cider, not apple juice which is VERY different. Apple cider is cloudy and unpasteurized. It’s great cold or hot mulled with or without rum (but let’s be honest…with rum is better).

So, that first trip was not entirely unsuccessful. This trip we were fortunate enough to be able to go on a Thursday day, thus avoiding excessive lines. I had done quite a bit of research on the town and where was the best place to get apple pies, but let’s be honest; even I can only eat so much pie. I decided to go to Mom’s because they offered lunch and pie and I had read that their chicken pot pie was really delicious. I also found the thought of having pie twice in one meal was quite compelling. By the time we got there I couldn’t think of anything but pie. We found a parking spot practically right in front of Mom’s and walked in to see only one couple in line in front of us which was amazing all on its own. The really amazing thing was that once we walked through the door the wonderful scent of comfort flooded my nostrils. The whole place smelled like apple pie, I thought I had died and gone to heaven!

We ended up ordering a ham and cheese sandwich, a chicken pot pie, and two pieces of the apple crumb pie aka Dutch apple with ice cream. All the pies at Mom’s either have the regular double crust or the crumb topping. I believe they make the sandwich rolls there as well. The pot pie had a nice flakey crust and big chunks of chicken and vegetables. It was very good; the only thing missing there was a nice sprinkling of flakey sea salt on the top crust, which I always do when I make it.

Now for the pie…it was wonderful! The crust was nice and flakey. The apples were still a little crisp, just enough so you knew that they were real apples and not canned apple sludge. The crumb topping was good, but in my book needed just a tad more cinnamon and maybe allspice, not a huge deal because the apples had plenty of that flavor. As a whole the pie was really delicious, it wasn’t too sweet, and it really let the apples be the star.

All in all I give this pie and Mom’s 2 thumbs up. Please note however, that I have not tried the other places which also always have long lines. This is just the beginning of my pie research and I intend to find the best apple pie in Julian and then make my own.

Mom's Website

San Diego Restaurant Week

This is one of my favorite times in San Diego, Restaurant Week! For anyone who has never gone, this is the best time to get out and go to some of the really nice restaurants in San Diego without the huge price tag you would normally pay. Twice a year participating restaurants offer 3 course prix fixe menus for $30 or $40 a person. Some restaurants will offer additional options with a slight upcharge. This year they added more restaurants by offering some $20 menus. In my opinion that didn't make too much sense because it added restaurants you can get meals for $20/person normally. I suppose it's because of the economy and people not wanting to spend as much money, but January's Restaurant Week had record numbers.


This year because of my work schedule, I only got to go out one night (sometimes we have been known to go 3 times). We went to Mr. A's which has a beautiful view of downtown, and if you're lucky enough to go during sunset it’s fabulous! Anyway, I ordered for the first course the Lobster Strudel. This was a mixture of lobster and wild mushrooms wrapped in filo dough served on a reduction of lobster stock. I think this dish was served beautifully, but would have benefited greatly by a nice sprinkle of sea salt and fresh cracked pepper (not worth it for the $5 upcharge). It was a little bland and the lobster was slightly overcooked. The reduction also needed salt and pepper. My second course, a seared sea bass and seafood sausage, was slightly redeeming. The sea bass was well seasoned and the fresh corn it was served over was delicious, even though it had red bell pepper brunoise tossed with it. I hate when people mess up fresh natural flavors with red bell pepper just for the sake of color. The seafood sausage also needed salt and pepper. It was served more as a sausage than a quenelle as I had expected. I also expected it to be more of a mouseline (very light and airy) style forcemeat than a straight forcemeat, not a huge deal. There was also some sort of tasteless sauce and a savory whipped cream (served on a hot plate?!?!). I finished up my meal with a little sundae of caramel ice cream (delicious), with a chocolate sauce (delicious), served in a stale waffle bowl.

All this said, the service was wonderful, as was the wine. I know some restaurants pre-prep their dishes for restaurant week so you don't always get the best quality, but I have only had one other similar experience and that one was so bad I don't even want to think about it. I have been to plenty of restaurants during Restaurant Week that had stellar food and service. Market Bar and Restaurant has consistently been my favorite and we don't wait for Restaurant Week to go there because it's sooooo worth it. In my opinion you should never compromise your quality!

Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon

Have you heard that sometimes real estate agents will bake cookies when they have a showing to make the house smell “homey”? Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon is exactly just like that. My whole house smells like heaven! This is really such an easy dish to make that there is no reason why everyone shouldn’t master it. It does require a little bit of prep, but once you get that done you really just sit back for 3 hours and relax. It’s a perfect entertaining meal because it only gets better the longer it sits. You can easily make this a day ahead and just reheat it when you are ready. So so so good!


Tonight I’m just served this dish with the suggested boiled potatoes and no other vegetables. The recipe recommends some sautéed peas if you need additional veg, but I didn’t feel like that tonight. I pretty much just followed the recipe word for word with the exception of blanching the bacon. I have blanched bacon before and found it later had no taste, so I skipped that step. I also couldn’t get my hands on uncut bacon with the rind so I just used regular bacon…the center cut kind is my favorite. An additional step not in the recipe that I think makes a huge difference and distinguishes this recipe as Julia Child’s…I wore my pearl necklace!

Honestly, I can't say enough good things about this meal.  MAKE IT!  It's one of those meals that you just keep picking at saying, oh I'll just have another little chunk of meat, and well, what's a chunk of meat with out a mushroom and so on and so on.  Haha.  My dog was even going crazy from all the good smells!

I aim to post more than just once a week, unfortunately lately that doesn't seem to be happening. I will briefly run down my recent culinary masterpieces.


Labor Day weekend meal- Beer Brats with caramelized onions, baked beans, and potato salad

I must say the baked beans were quite a stretch for me as I carefully opened the can of Bush’s baked beans…haha. In my opinion, why mess with something that is already just so darn good?!

For the brats, I have learned, thanks to my Wisconsin-bred husband that you must be sure to buy the raw brats and not the ones that are already cooked or already have beer in them or whatever else. I simmered them in beer, Bud Light because that’s all I had around, for about 2 hours. While that was going on I sliced up some onions to caramelize and added a little dried thyme and eventually brown sugar. Once the brats were done simmering, I sautéed them up in the remaining fat from the onion pan. The grill is my favorite, but considering where we live there is no grill that is easily accessible.

Potato salad, in particular my Grandma K’s Potato Salad, is a favorite of mine. I remember for my high school graduation party we made it, along with tons of other things, and I honestly ate it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for almost a week. It’s a really good old-fashioned potato salad with hard boiled eggs, mayo and mustard.

This was not a light meal by any means, but we enjoyed it immensely. Brandon even said that the brats were the best he’s ever had! Really it was an all around delicious and hearty meal. 

Fantasy Football Draft day

It can sometimes be difficult to cook for a group of 10 guys without making a big mess. I just played it easy and got some London Broil (that’s what was on sale) browned it up and served it with some tortillas and salsa and that kind of stuff. I was also lucky enough to find some avocados that were ripe the same day I wanted them so I made some guacamole. Since the meat left a lot of grease in the pan I again decided to caramelize some onions. I did basically the same thing as with the brats, except I decided to reduce down some beer with them and then mount in some butter. Let me say, not a bad idea at all! The boys all enjoyed the food, and it was waaay better than just ordering some pizzas.

Wednesday night Stir-fry

Stir-frys are fantastic for quick weeknight meals. Thanks to my new Scanpan wok they are much easier! I slivered up some pork tenderloin, cut fresh corn off the cob, halved some cherry tomatoes, and cleaned some snow peas. Sauté it all up in ginger garlic oil and serve with rice and voila a lovely quick dinner! I didn’t so much do a sauce as zest and juice an orange and do a quick turn of the pan with some soy. Oh and I did use some Chinese 5 Spice on the pork. It’s a really great spice blend with some nice smoky cinnamon, star anise, fennel, cloves and black pepper. I add it to lots of sauces and in many of my dry rubs.

Ginger and/or Garlic oil can be made simply by smashing a whole clove of garlic or thinly slicing the ginger and sautéing it until it becomes golden in your oil. Remove it with a slotted spoon and then sauté in the remaining oil. This imparts the essence of these aromatics without making the dish overwhelming.

Up next in my culinary escapades….NFL Football Kickoff menu…which apparently at this point only has a chocolate cream pie. Isn’t that enough??

What's laying around the house?

Sorry this post has been delayed due to my lazy photographer...haha. I'm just going to post pictures that have not been edited. Please don’t hold that against me. Anyways, it’s still so hot here that I haven’t really been wanting to spend time in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove/oven. Luckily, on Sunday we finally broke down and got one of the last AC units in San Diego county apparently. Now, as long as I make something quick I can run back into the coolness of my room without feeling like I’m going to pass out.

Monday night we decided pizza sounded good and the great thing about it is normally you have almost all of the ingredients on hand to throw one together. This dinner really showed how you can put together some store-bought ingredients to make something really wonderful, even if it is only “semi-homemade”. So here are 3 tips for a quick and easy pizza night featuring Shrimp, Goat Cheese and Pesto Pizza.


1. I always keep some raw frozen shrimp in my freezer. They take about 5-10 minutes to thaw out under running COLD water and then only another 5 minutes to cook, depending on the cooking technique. Before throwing these on the pizza I went ahead and sautéed the shrimp up in a little garlic, olive oil, and a dash of crushed red pepper flakes.

2. Pizza dough is easy to make! I go through kicks were I will make a bunch of pizza dough and just keep it in the freezer so that when I need it all I have to do is pop it in the fridge to thaw out in the morning. You can use it for pizzas or for flat bread (my favorite is sprinkling sea salt, fresh cracked pepper and fresh thyme). I usually use this recipe from Tyler Florence on Food Network http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/pizza-dough-recipe/index.html. This time, however, I did use store-bought Boboli mini shells, no big deal. You can get them and freeze them or whatever you need. Trader Joe’s also has some really good dough that is already made and just needs to be rolled out.

3. Pesto is also easy to make….only if you have a food processor! Again, I used store bought because I only have a big huge food processor (which I love) but I didn’t feel like using it and then cleaning it. Pesto is another thing that can be made as a large batch and then frozen. While I have not tried it, I know people who make it, then pour it into ice cube trays to freeze and then keep them in a Ziploc in the freezer so you can have it already portioned. Pesto is great to use with a lot of things from pasta to pizza to tossing it in your mashed potatoes or slathering on a steak. I used basil pesto but feel free to use cilantro or anything else.

This pizza is SOO good; I highly recommend you make it. The goat cheese is creamy and tangy and really is just a fantastic partner with the shrimp and pesto. Oh and I almost forgot, I also sliced some Roma tomatoes on top, which look pretty, and get all roasty!

PS- I also used a pizza stone. It definitely gives the crust a nice crispness in addition to providing even cooking. Preheat the stone with the oven otherwise it can break.

Watermelon Feta Salad

I am recently married and for our honeymoon we went on a cruise of the Mediterranean. Cruising is a great way to see a lot of different places in an efficient manner. Unfortunately almost all of the food served on the cruise was incredibly bland, poor cooking technique and so-so presentations....i.e. I was served a supreme of orange that still had seeds in it. Major NO NO. Anyway, probably the best thing I had was a salad of diced watermelon and feta garnished with some chives. At first it can sound a little odd, but trust me it’s worth it!


Fast forward to today...another 95 degree day in sunny San Diego with no air conditioning. We need something that will be refreshing and cool us off so I decided to make this salad. I do not like onions of any form just as themselves. In this raw salad I thought the chives overpowered the melon so as a substitution I used some mint and some lime juice. I did add a little bit of honey as well. I would recommend maybe freezing the watermelon a little bit because the colder it is the better. Adding cucumber would be another refreshing idea. Sooooo good. My picky-ish husband who wouldn’t try it on the honeymoon really enjoyed it tonight!

I also did a quick little shrimp and snow pea sauté. Anyone who knows me knows that my meal just isn’t complete without a little meat (or fish or seafood, whatever). It was a great meal, and didn’t heat the kitchen up too much so that made it even better!

Oh and I remembered to take pictures!

Hello

So, my first posting.  I'm quite sure that many culinary people, after seeing "Julie and Julia" thought why can't I write a blog about my food?  Well, I am one of those people.  It's just a good way to keep track of the foods I make and try to actually keep my recipes together so that I might be able to put together a book or something someday.  I absolutely LOVE food.  I think about it all the time.  I would say I most likely lean towards a Mediteranean-ish cuisine, but then again its so hard to pigeon hole myself like that.  I usually just make whatever I'm craving at the moment. 

Last night I was originally planning on making Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon, inspired by the movie of course, but ran out of time.  (the beach was calling me and I just had to visit!)  Instead I decided to make Tilapia en Papillote, for those who don't know its tilapia steamed in parchemnt on a bed of vegetables.  I pulled out my trusty Flavor Bible and decided to use fennel, leeks, baby zucchini, and cherry tomatoes as my vegetables.  I added a side of jasmine rice pilaf for a starch and it was quite a nice light meal.  The presentation is quite nice and the cherry tomatoes just give a lovely pop of color.  My husband really enjoyed it so it will go into my regular recipe file.  Of course the whole time I had planned on taking a picture to post as well, but when it was done I got to excited and ate it instead.  I will try to remember in the future to take pictures.  Anyway, that was it for yesterday.  Work tonight will keep me from making dinner today but I should come up with something for tomorrow night.