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Month: October 2015

  • A Quickie…..Shashuka

    A Quickie…..Shashuka

    I love when I can find something new to do with eggs. Not just something new but something that taste great too. I mentioned in my previous post that I have come into being addicted to Pinterest. Well, while on one of my many visits to Pinterest I came across an Israeli dish named Shashuka. Now I know the name doesn’t do much on giving you a hint of what it’s made from ( well at least not in English) but I promise you it is full of flavor. Even better than the taste is the ease of making this dish. In less than 30 minutes you’ll have something that tastes wonderful and looks just as appealing. It’s something you can do and invite a couple of friends over for brunch. It won’t damage your pocket and everyone will be happy. Canned tomatoes, eggs, some herbs & spices ( I added onions, mushrooms and spinach to my base), feta cheese and some crusty bread. Who wouldn’t be happy with an invite to a meal like that? My version of Shashuka was adapted from Food 52.

    Shashuka

    • 3 tablespoons olive oil
    • 2 large onions caramelized
    • 1 container of baby portabella mushrooms, sliced
    • 2 cups rough chopped fresh spinach
    • 28 ounces canned diced tomatoes
    • 9-10 garlic cloves, chopped small
    • 1 1/2 tablespoons Pilpelchuma, store bought or recipe below
    • 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 1/4 teaspoon cumin
    • 1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped (I used flat leaf parsley because I don’t like cilantro)
    • 4-6 eggs
    • 1/4 cup feta cheese
    • 4-6 warm pitas or grilled crusty bread

     

    Pilpelchuma

    • 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
    • 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
    • 1/2 tablespoon hot paprika
    • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
    • 1 pinch cumin
    • 1 pinch salt
    1. Pilpelchuma: Mix ingredients together to form a paste. This will keep for 3 weeks in the fridge.
    2. Heat the oil in a large skillet or pan with lid over low heat.
    3. Add the caramelized onions, mushroom slices, chopped spinach, chopped garlic, paprika, cumin, & pilpelchuma to the pan and saute for 3-4 minutes until fragrant.
    4. Mix in the canned tomatoes & salt. Cover the pan with lid and simmer for 15 minutes. At this point, you can cool the sauce and store to use another day. Just heat it back up in the same pan and continue from here.
    5. Add and mix in the cilantro leaving a bit out of the pan to garnish with later.
    6. Make pockets in the sauce with a wooden spoon or spatula and very carefully crack the eggs into them. Make sure to space the eggs out. There should be sauce in between each egg for them to cook properly (and prettily).
    7. Immediately cover the pan, turn the heat up a bit to medium and cook without lifting the lid for 4-7 minutes depending on how you like your egg yolks. 4 for runny yolk and 7 for hard cooked yolk..
    8. Eat right away while its piping hot. Sopping up all the sauce with the pita. Enjoy!

    So get out your contact list, invite a few friends over and go forward & make new memories.

     

  • Cookie Swap….YAY!

    Cookie Swap….YAY!

    The Chef In Pearls will be apart of this year’s Cookie Swap …yup me and the mini me will be baking cookies in the name of raising funds and awareness for Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. We want you to keep up with us and the blog as we prepare for the great swap. We’ll be making cookies to share with other bloggers as well as receiving cookies. We’ll share our cookie recipe and those of the ones we receive . We are so excited to become apart of this community and even more excited to be helping with a good cause. So don’t forget to like and share our cookie swap posts. We plan to make wonderful new memories with this new endeavor.

  • A Quickie…..An Open Letter

    A Quickie…..An Open Letter

     

    Dear Pinterest,

    How do I tell you that you have become the devil in my life? I spend so much time pinning things to my boards and creating new boards to pin things to. Hours upon hours. Time that I should be writing new blog posts or creating new recipe ideas. Yet somehow that time spent there helps me to do such things. It’s weird in a twisted kind of way.  Hours pinning and re-pinning somehow helps me find new ideas and different takes on things I want to share with my readers and students.

    I recently came across a pin for a Maple Bar Donut. It immediately took me back to my visit to Miami earlier this year.  I got to visit Mojo Donuts where I sampled a Maple Bacon Bar. I fell in love with that donut. It tasted just like breakfast but in a really good way, sweet and salty. Just Perfect. So I decided to try out this recipe I found on Pinterest. The hardest part of making this donut was making the glaze. So without further ado I present you to the Maple Bacon Bar.

    Easy Maple Bacon Bars

    • 1 8-count can refrigerated biscuit dough (I used Pillsbury Grand Homestyle Buttermilk biscuits)
    • 2 cups canola oil, for frying
    • 1/4 cup butter
    • 1/2 cup brown sugar
    • 3 TBSP milk
    • 1 TBSP corn syrup
    • 2 tsp maple extract
    • 2 cups powdered sugar
    • 4 strips thick cut bacon

    Pour 2 cups of canola oil into a medium sized saucepan and begin heating on medium-low heat.

    Cook bacon strips until crispy. Chop into bite size pieces. Set aside in a bowl (try not eat all the bacon before topping donut)

    Open the biscuit dough and separate. Gently stretch the biscuits into an oblong shape, as opposed to the round shape they come in.

    In a small saucepan, combine butter and brown sugar. Whisk in milk and heat for about 5 minutes on medium heat, stirring often, until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved.

    Remove from heat and add in corn syrup and maple extract. Add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time, whisking until smooth between additions. Add 1-2 tsp more milk if necessary. Glaze will begin to harden if you leave it sitting- which is what you want! Once all powdered sugar is added, keep maple glaze warm on the stove, whisking occasionally.

    Check the temperature of the oil using a meat thermometer- it needs to read 350 degrees F. Increase heat gradually if necessary.

    Once oil is ready, drop bars in 2 at a time. Let cook for about 1-2 minutes, then turn and cook an additional  1-2 minutes on the other side. This process of cooking the doughnuts goes very fast, so have a paper towel covered plate ready to set the bars on when cooked. Bars should be a nice golden brown.

    Let bars cool for a few minutes, then whisk the glaze to make sure it’s smooth enough to dip each bar. Dip the bar, then immediately turn glaze side up on a cooling rack and top with bacon bits.

    Repeat this process until all bars are fried and glazed.

    (recipe adapted from Butter with a side of Bread)

    Please do not hold me accountable for the addiction the will come from the combination of maple flavor and bacon. Just know that you have been fore warned. Go gather your ingredients and go forward and make memories.

    P.S. The entire time I was writing this blog post it kept letting me know I was spelling donut wrong okay fine…doughnut…you happy now spell check?

    P.S.S. I accidently sent out this post in an incomplete state. Please forgive me and I hope you enjoy the completed one better.