Slap a baby!

Ok, so this blog is not about some baby back ribs or some baby spinach that I slapped with some kind of oil.  I’m calling this my dessert blog, desserts so good that I have the need to slap a baby, just to hear someone cry over how good they were.

I know I haven’t written in my blog for a while, but it does not mean that I have been out of the kitchen.  I have recently been very interested  in cook, recipe books especially Bourdain’s books, and i’m half way through “A Cooks Tour” which has caused various emotional ups and downs. He (Anthony Bourdain) reminds us, the reason he got into cooking, apart from the money (which he needed to indulge in his habits) was his first taste of France, the memories of french food from his childhood, his gung ho attitude in tasting his first oyster freshly grabed from the sea.  So he travels back to France a much older and cynical bastard trying to bring back the magic.  Coming to the conclusion  that it is not the food he misses, it’s his dad.  This basically reminds me of my gramps.  He was somewhat how Bourdain describes his dad, a sometimes mysterious man to me, never cruel, always ready to teach me something , anything.  Found pleasure in the small things and always receiving with a smile.  To be honest it hurts just writting about him, because I miss him and I can still smell his smell.  I sometimes wish he would have had the chance to show off to the world.  Bourdain should have tasted some of his stuff, he was a cooks cook, a self taught chef, who’s ordinary life wasn’t affected (to my knowledge) by his kitchen life.  He told me many stories, and here is a kitchen story I would like to share with you.  

It was a saturday rush , orders coming in way faster than going out, do you get the mood, hectic, unfinished plates getting cold because the damned fry cook is busy scratching his balls. So, the old man (my gramps) is in the zone, cooking up his Cuban cuisine and he asks one of his line cooks for a sautee pan and he comes back with a sauce pan, now, the old man was frustrated (it wasn’t the first time it happened), the cook was not dumb, he just couldn’t remember the names,.  Gramps came up with a system to help him remember, this system was based on kitchen behavior, if you read any of Bourdain’s stuff you know what i’m talking about.  Just like that the sautee pan became “la pinga” (the penis), in my best behavioral language for my blog.  The sauce pan became “la tota” (the vagina) and his favorite strainer “la teta” (the breast).  On a good day you’d probably hear:  I want to fry an egg on my pinga (penis) and clean la tota (the vagina) because I want to fill her up later and for God’s sake put la teta (the breast) in her place because she’s getting in my way. jajajaja.

  So, let’s get to the food my kitchen’s been putting out, just let me clean my pinga. Ja!

I’ll start with my flan (spanish custard)

I’m back! and more passionate than ever.

 

Finally! I am able to sit down, relax and share some of my memories and thoughts of my cooking adventures. I think I haven’t updated my blog a little over a month, so I don’t really know where to start.

 Let’s begin December 20, 2009 my six year anniversary with my girlfriend, which has just recently giving me the honor of becoming my wife (but that’s another story) anyways, here we go.

I had to focus and attack. She (the brand new wife) was making a pretty big deal of the coming day, and I guess you could see it that way, you know it is six years of our life together, sharing the good, the bad, and the sometimes hairpulling horrific days, when you just have to take a deep breath and say: WUSSA. I,m pretty sure she goes through the same with my crap sometimes, even though I doubt it, because i’m just so easy to get along with. jara jaja.  Back to the subject. I wanted to concentrate all my creative juices into a great meal, a perfect mood an atmosphere of love, if you will, to try and show how much I do love her even if sometimes it’s hard for me to express it through words.  I placed tea candles all around my apartment, and bought all kinds of flowers (don’t ask which, because all I know is that the were yellow , white and green). Then I started her of with a strawberry daiquiri, followed by my famous (in my head) yeast bread.  Let me give you a play by play of the bread, I think I went way overboard , because I shaped it like a saint valentine’s heart ( I know kind of cheesy) topped it with some tomato sauce that spelled, I LOVE YOU ! jajaja (i’m getting a what a dumb dumb felling) and put rosemary on top of the sauce, so you could see the words when the bread cooked to a golden brown. I made a garlic butter, and a from scratch tomato sauce which I copied of Chef Novelli from Chef Academy (Bravo Tv, mondays 11:00 PM).  The main course for her were, Shrimp in a tomato, herb sauce on a bed of angel hair pasta.  For me de vegg, an eggplant parmesan.  To tell you the truth we both were stuffed, but you know I made some dessert.  Now a few years ago I went on a business trip to Madrid Spain, and somehow ended up in a place called Ronda, which is a small town with an amazing history.  To my amazement, this was a very popular vacationing spot to Ernest Hemingway. This is a whole other blog, of what this man awoke in my brain, so let’s just say I got very giddy when I saw Calle Ernest Hemingway (Ernest Hemingway Street), and on this street was an amazing cafe, something like the cafe in Van Gogh’s painting. I sat down and had a sangria, and later that night I ordered a creme brulee.  It has been my mission to recreate that amazing dish, and somewhat years later in my apartment  celebrating a six year anniversary I still haven’t succeded, jaja but hey I came kind of close. I topped my creme brulle with some mint and chocolate, I found it to be very good but nothing like Hemingway’s Ronda Brulee.  When I made this brulee I did not have a torch so I had to broil the sugar on top in my oven.  I think i’ll sign out now, but expect lots more, I have become a cooking madman, and these hollidays brought all kinds of new tools to experiment with, a torch, a food processor even a mandolin, so I will keep you updated.

My candlelit dinner

The I Love You bread

The flowers

Enyoying our life together

Her shrimp

My eggplant

The Creme Brulles

Mental food

I was thinking how important food is.  I mean, not in the obvious way, that is essential for life, morelike the importance of our family history, memories, the places we travel.  Anytime I remember some part of my childhood is mostly triggered by some food, like the other day.  I have been trying to make “Congri”, which is black beans and rice cooked in a pot.  While the rice cooks, it absorbs the taste and color of the beans.  So, it reminds me of the Christmases when I was a boy, when the family would get together for Christmas Eve dinner and my grandma would make this amazing “Congri”, or the best black beans ever.  I saw it as our family tradition, my grandpa would make this “to die for” Christmas Feast and grandma would make the rice and beans.  I know there must be so many families with secret recepies or some kind of baked goody, that without it, the celebration wasn’t complete.  For me, it was the black beans (go figure!).  Needless to say, my “Congri” would never compare to hers.  I don’t know maybe it’s just me, but to me, food is part of who I am, you know?  Writing this right now is bringing up so many stories.  Here is one for you:  What is the weirdest meal you ever had?  Mine, was a breakfast some twenty years ago; well, not so much as weird as unusual.  I woke up early in the morning, (I must have been ten or eleven years old) to find my mom had left a nanny to look after me and my sisters.  She was this big, African-American woman built like a tank.  They called her “La socia” (“The partner”).  Why?  I still have no idea, but she had the eyes (I think it was the way she looked at me) of someone trying to let me know she would never hurt a fly, but she surely wasn’t scared to swat it.  Anyways, she made this heaping bowl of mashed potatoes, with a side of puffed-up, busted open hot dogs, with a glass (of course, it’s breakfast) of orange juice to wash it down.  All I remember is looking at my sisters and trying not to laugh.  Sadly, I can’t recall if I ate my plate, so I can tell you what I thought about her breakfast ensemble.  Well, you know I was young and used to my eggs and bacon, but with time, trust me, I ate a whole lot of unusual crap for breakfast, like pizza, chicken and steak, and of course, all cold.

I want to travel so many places.  Sadly, time and money are an issue, but when I have gotten in an airplane, food is something that sticks out.  I can still taste the Creme Brulee, served up in a little spanish town named Ronda, that caused an orgasmic reaction (like, “When Harry met Sally”) in me [just kidding], or the worst ever plate of rice and beans (yeah! me and the rice and beans) that I have ever tasted in a cafeteria in Orlando.  One of my goals is to travel to India and see how much yogurt and curry/spices a man can take.  I would love to taste their black beans, ja! 

How about writing me some anectdotes, stories or just the food that a family reunion isn’t complete without (please, no bundt cakes!).  So write!  Maybe we can swap stories, remembered by each others stuff.

A burger made of what?

veggie burger

 

I have been looking for a long time, a good recipe to make a veggie patie, and I came across this recipe posted by allrecipes.com. It’s a burger made of black beans, yep black beans.  You just take some canned beans, clean them and them mash them up in a bowl until you create a paste, put in some veggies, some spices and bread crumbs to give some consistency. I baked it for about 20 min. (10 on each side) and served it with some of my home made bread, and some grated munster and cheddar cheese.

The outcome.  The spices were too strong.  I put some cumin in it, and some chili powder, and found that the taste was way too overwhelming.  The veggies didin’t taste right, next time I think i’ll sautee them before hand.  Thank god for the bread, because if I wasn’t starving when I made it, or if the bread wasn’t great, the pattie would have ended up in the trash(and I hate to throw away food), anyways i’ll try the burger again , next time I think i’ll grill it.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Yep, it’s that time of year again, I know my mom probably hates it, but to us it’s a great day.  You know for me, it’s really hard sometimes to express myself to other people, it’s a lot easier to write my thoughts than to say them.  So mom if you’re reading this, I love you! I know I don’t say it enough, and what better day than your birthday to try and thank you for being the one constant thing in my life, I know I can always count on you, and that is very comforting in my sometimes very unsure life. So momma happy birthday I hope you enjoyed it.

Well, saying that, how else was I going to try to prove my point, yes you guessed it, let’s cook!

I started of with some incredible appetizers, made with puff pastry sheets, filled with spinach, feta cheese, sun dried tomatoes and some calamata olives. I brushed them with a little bit of water and baked them for about 15 minutes.  They were something else.  Then I made some home made bread, I put in a little bit more sugar than I usually do to the recipe, to try and make them sweeter.  I think they were pretty good. I must try them as burger buns.  The main course was some a spinach and artichoke lasagna for the vegetarian(me) and a meat and seven cheese lasagna for mom and rest of the family.  Hey, hey, don’t judge me, I know I don’t eat animals, but my family loves the stuff, so I cooked it without tasting it.  From what I could see, they seemed to enjoy it, it got great reviews, but i’ll never know for sure.  They even tasted the veggie lasagna, they gave it a thumbs down.  Oh yeah! except my girlfriend, she liked it as did I.

spinack appetizers

awesome bread

veggie lasagna

meat lasagna

Then for a grand finale, I made the chocolate cake to end all chocolate cakes, wuu! I got this recipe of brookstone.com, but I changed the recipe just a little. It was a dark chocolate, chocolate pudding, semi-sweet chocolate cake. Made in a tube pan, and filled in the middle with raspberries, I also added some strawberries. I named it The Bad Boy, the holy grail of chocolate cakes.  For those of you who are addicted to chocolate, like me, you must try this. I don’t have the words to explain, but i’ll try.  The cake was fluffy, very chocolaty, it had an amazing home made frosting, and the raspberries were killers, they gave it a great kick.  

The Bad Boy

Pizza skins?

Me and my girl are obsessed with pizza skins, we used to go almost every Friday to pizzeria Uno to have some. So if you don’t know what a pizza skin is, it’s a deep dish, sauceless pizza with mashed potatoes, yes it sounded kind of nasty to me at first too, but it has become a mission of mine to try and recreate this dish, and I have yet been successful.  Last week I tried again, I made these incredible mashed potatoes using Yukon gold potatoes, I peeled the potato only leaving a little bit of skin, you know, so they look like real mashed potatoes, and mashed them up real good.  I melted a stick of butter in a cup of heavy cream, and poured it on the potatoes, mashed them up a little more but not to much or they get sticky, they were awesome. The crust was the same recipe I used for the greatest pizza ever, then I grated some fresh cheddar and munster cheese.

Pizza skins ?

I know what you’re thinking it looks like the crust is spitting out the mashed potatoes, I don’t know what went wrong, the potatoes were great, the crust great, but together it didn’t work for me, they took on a whole different taste together. My fiancee liked them, but sometimes I think she can even eat rocks.  Who knows, maybe Uno’s pizzeria makes theirs with boxed mashed potatoes and pre made frozen crust, and here I am going through all this trouble. I will keep trying, at least I know I have a girl and a mother in law to whom to give the left overs to.  jaja!

Halloween 2009

I wanted to bake something for halloween, but didn’t know what.  So I searched the internet for some ideas and I came across some curious cookies that looked pretty good, so I made them. The hoot owl cookies, basically sugar cookies filled in the middle with a darker dough made with cocoa powder add some chocolate chips for eyes and a peanut for a beak. All I can say is that they didn’t last for long.

Hallowen night the family came over to the apartment for some trick or treating, and I decided to make some home made pizza. Whoo! now, I love pizza it’s my one only weekend sin.  The crust was made with yeast (wheat), olive oil, brown sugar,salt,water and all purpose flour, it takes about an hour for the dough to rise , but I tell you, well worth the wait. I made it on top of a pizza crisper, (i’m getting hungry just thinking about it) I don’t have a pizza stone, but it was a pretty damn good crust. Topped of with some garlic and herbs tomato sauce, some freshly gratted mozzarella, cheddar and munster chesse, after it finished baking I made some on the spot garlic butter and glazed the hot crust. brrrr! can you smell it.

Halloween hoot owl cookies

world's best pizza

That’s me with the pizza

These are some of my family. from left: my fiancee, my youngest sister, my month old niece, and her proud mom (a slightly younger sister).

Here's my fiancee with our niece, her first halloween. I guess she's like her uncle, hates to put on a costume.