Inspried by Costco......

My husband and I found out our Costco card had expired when, back in February, we were checking out and the gal behind the register said out card had been ‘dead’ since October! Because we were only buying like $17.00 worth of goods, she allowed us to make our purchase, then took my husbands card and sent us on our way. Times being what they are, we didn’t renew our cards then and still haven’t to this day. I have to say, I’ve missed Costco. Now, we’ve never walked out with a full cart (although I’ve always half envied/half wondered about the people who do) – heck – we’ve walked out with a $6+change double bag of yakisoba noodles! I don’t know anyone who walks out of Costco with just a bag of yakisoba and a receipt for under 10 bucks! Anyway….as I said, I’ve been missing Costco a lot lately but am in no way prepared to pony up 50 smacks to go walk through the door let alone make a purchase! But….I had a way in anyway.

Back in February, checker-girl never asked if I had a card! So, yesterday, my husband and I walked right through the front door, I flashed my expired card and we browsed those lovely isles till our heart’s content! We had a little lunch consisting of a wonderful multigrain tortilla chip dipped in my favorite mango-peach salsa, a single, perfect, cheese-stuffed tortellini, a ¼ ‘sandwich’ of thin-sliced ham on an awesome whole wheat ‘bunbread’ thingy and a tiny paper cup of a chocolaty, coffee frappy concoction. Let me tell you, if you abstain from Costco for months at a time, this kind of outing can be a real treat! We walked out of the store empty-handed, of course, but I did take one thing with me……a love for their tortellini.Now, one doesn’t just go home and make tortellini from scratch when they’ve never made it before…but they do, apparently, dive into scratch ravioli ‘cause that’s just what I did! Well…..I had played a few games of backgammon first , but then the urge was just to strong and I HAD to do it!

We’re totally into trying to really utilize the food and ingredients we have on-hand at home and I knew I could probably eek out some tastily-stuffed pasta pillows. This was my first-ever attempt at any kind of pasta and I have to say, it was fun, pretty gosh-darn easy. My daughter came downstairs just as I’d finished them and I said, “I made ravioli!” . She stared at them and said, “You just like…made’em?!”, like I’d just gotten a wild hair to whip them up outta thin air to which I replied, “Yup!”, it was so fun! Although more practice wouldn’t kill me, for my first try, these were awesomely good! My husband and daughter cleaned their plates (we had fresh-caught salmon too…thanks, Kelly!) and that’s always a sure sign of success! So without further delay….here’s my virgin pasta pictorial!


On VERY clean counters (thanks Hubs!), you mound 2 cups of all-purpose flour with 2 teaspoons salt and make a well in the middle - just like you always see them do on TV.
You add three egg yolks and one whole egg. Next, you begin mixing it all by hand, adding between 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water till it comes together in a nice yet rather ugly mass - then you knead it to be a bit smoother, 'cuz it's kinda lumpish. Also, I don't know if the rulle of pastry applies here - you know the one about too much handling make a tough dough? But just in case, I didn't handle mine very much. I'd have taken a pic but my hands were waaaay coated!

Once you have a pretty good looking ball, cut it in half. One half will become the bottom of the ravs and the other, the top!

You want to roll out the dough as thinly as possible. A challange without a pasta machine - but this was a nice 1/8th inch roll-out if not less. I got it thiiiiin.....

Then I used my small-sized scoop and plopped out my filling. I had about a half a large container of ricotta left from a prior use, then addded a handful of shredded cheddar, about 1/3 cup parm, some fresh chopped thyme and chives, some dried basil and oregano, a tiny bit of salt, some pepper, three cloves of pressed garlic and a dash or two of cayenne. This was all by the seat of my pants - you can fill'em with whatever you like!

Then I rolled out the other piece of dough, trying to get it pretty close in size and shape as the firt piece. I used a pastry brush to paint all around each filling mound, then laid the second piece of dough atop the filling-plopped dough.

I pressed around each mound - *note: make sure you don't seal a pocket of air in with the cheese mound. If you do, go back and poke a hole in the dough by the filling and 'squeeze' out the air and press/seal the hole.

I used a pizza cutter to trim the rough edges of the raviolis, then cut them into individual, lovely, little pouches-o-pleasure. Using a small off-set spatula, I lifted each ravioli and dusted their tacky bottoms very lightly with flour so they wouldn't stick to my cooling rack while they dried. Now, I don't know if ravioli really needs to dry like regular pasta noodles (Betty Crocker says to let thin pasta strips dry for two hours), but I decided it couldnt hurt - and it wasn't dinner time anyway. So I let mine sit a total of about 3 hours. When I was ready, I boiled them in salted water for only about 4 minutes (fresh pasta cooks super fast!), till they'd floated for a minute or so. Then I transfered them to a hot skillet that had melted butter, garlic , pepper and parmesean cheese waiting to greet the little fellows and they got a good tossing around before being slid onto a warm platter in the oven. Normally you could serve them right out of the pan, but I boiled my ravs in two batches so as to not over crowd them in the water or the buttery garlic ;-)And here they are! They were so savory and hot and cheesy and yummy! I wish I had cut one in half and shown you the molten insides....but what can I say...they just all went right down my gullet! They were too good! This will NOT be the last time I make these though...I can assure you of that. They're cheap, easy and delicious - it doesn't get much better than that!

The Real Thing....

The last time I posted here, I was tooting the horn of a mock chocolate éclair dessert. And as ‘toot-worthy’ as that dessert is, nothing can beat the above…..real chocolate éclairs – well, these are ‘crème puff’ size, but éclairs all the same. The thing that’s so fun about these tiny, crème puff éclairs is that you just pop’em in your mouth! No multiple bites to allow filling to squirt out, nothing to get on your fingers….just a perfect one-bite ‘pop’ of heaven.

Éclairs are easy-schmeezy, but they’re not really ‘hot weather camping fare’ - that’s what instigated the need for a simple, cool treat that is the mock éclair dessert. But for a deliciously fun and really pretty impressive end to a meal, genuine éclairs/crème puffs are a great way to go. I made crème puffs this past weekend because my mom was coming for a late afternoon dinner and I wanted a fun dessert...something people don’t get to eat every day. And the big plus of making so many little puffs? There were enough left over to take a good 30 or so to a get together later in the evening with some friends.

You begin with a basic Choux (pronounced ‘shoe’) pastry – then, with a simple filling and an easy chocolate glaze, you can whip up a batch of éclairs in no time. Give’m a go...you’ll be so glad you did!

Chocolate Éclairs – Crème Puffs

Choux Pastry:
1 cup water
1 stick butter
1 cup flour
4 eggs – room temp is best

Filling:
1 small box vanilla, fat-free, instant pudding (prepared per package instructions)
1 16 oz container Cool Whip - thawed

Chocolate Glaze:
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 T butter
1 t. light corn syrup
1 t. milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375. To make the pastry, put the water and stick of butter in a saucepan and bring it to a boil, completely melting the butter. Remove pan from heat and add the cup of flour all at once, immediately stirring it with a wooden spoon until it forms into a mass and comes away from the sides of the pan. It’s gonna smell sorta funky – don’t let this put you off. Next, begin adding the eggs – ONE AT A TIME – stirring in each egg thoroughly before adding the next. By the time the last egg has been completely incorporated, the dough will be smooth and satin.

Line a sheet pan (or two depending on their size) with parchment or a silpat as this makes removing the puffs a breeze. To form the puffs/or éclairs, it’s easiest to use a pastry bag or a large Ziploc bag – but you can also use a couple of spoons to form the shapes you want, so don’t sweat it if you don’t have the bags. I used a large Ziploc fitted with a couplar & small round tip – if you don’t have tips, just cut off the corner tip of the bag. For éclairs, you’ll want to make a bigger corner snip, about an inch cut, for crème puffs, a small snip, say a quarter inch cut. Fill your bag about half way with the pastry dough (I used half the dough, then refilled the bag for a second piping), twist off the top of the bag so the dough doesn’t squirt out the top, and begin piping. For éclairs, using medium pressure, pipe out a straight line of dough about 1” wide and 3 to 4 inches long. For puffs, pipe a little ‘blob’ then encircle it atop itself to make a little mountain of dough that is only about the diameter and height of a quarter. The amounts you pipe will seem small on the pans, but believe me, they GROW in the oven – so leave an inch and a half or so between each piped dough shape (if you have no bags to pipe your dough use spoons and simply spoon out the pastry dough into lines or small mounds of the afore mention measurements). Once the pan is filled, place it in the oven to bake: 20-25 mins for the puffs, 30-40 mins for the éclairs. They should be light golden brown on top when they are perfectly done.

While the puffs bake, make the filling and the chocolate glaze. For the filling, make the instant pudding according to package directions and chill it in the fridge. Thoroughly fold in the entire container of Cool Whip just before filling the puffs. For the glaze, combine all glaze ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium low heat, stirring constantly until it’s smooth. Set the glaze aside…do not chill.

When the puffs are done baking, remove them to cooling racks until completely cooled. Use a tooth pick or the like to ‘drill’ a little hole in the middle-side of each one – or in the (short) end of each éclair shape (making a hole in each makes it easier to insert a piping tip & squirt in the filling). Fill a pastry or Ziploc bag - fitted with a small round tip - with the filling mixture and insert just the ‘tip of the tip’ into the ‘predrilled’ hole in the puff/éclair and gently squeeze, to fill the puff/éclair with the creamy pudding mixture. This might take a couple of practice ‘fills’ as it’s easy to over fill, causing some the filling to overflow back out of the puff after you remove the tip. If you don’t have tips to fill your puffs/éclairs, you can also slice the top 1/3 of each puff/éclair) and fill each using a bag with no tip or using just a spoon.

Now, it’s time to glaze! If the glaze has been sitting aside for some time, you may need to reheat it or nuke it a bit – it should be runny, not thick and stiff. If you have made puffs and used a piping tip to fill them, here’s the way I like to glaze them. I put the glaze in a very small, rather deep, glass dish – I nuke the glaze till it’s warm and runny, then I take each puff and dip the top of each one in the glaze. I give it a gentle shake to drip once, then set each one back on the cooling rack to dry. If you have made éclairs or have sliced off the tops of your pastries, you’ll want to use a small spoon to top each with the chocolate glaze. Once all the pastries have been glazed, chill them in the fridge until ready to serve. You can make these ahead of time, but don’t make them too far in advance as over time (like over night), they can become a bit soft. They’ll still taste great, but they’ll be softer than you want. Absolutely fresh-made is the best time to eat these...yum!

I know I said these are easy-schmeezy, then what do I do but toss a big, long set of directions at you. But trust me – éclairs and crème puffs are as easy as making, piping & baking the dough. then filling and glazing them. And since you can make the filling and glaze while the pastries bake, it’s all ready in a small amount of time, really. You’re first time might take a little longer….but once you’ve gotten a batch under your belt (literally and figuratively!), you’ll make them again and again!

Mock Chocolate Eclair - Genuine YUM!

I’ve made chocolate éclairs several times. My sister used to make them all the time when we were teens – she had it down to a science. I’ve always loved the light, flaky texture of the pastry, the creaminess of the filling and the hint of chocolate glaze atop each delicate, finger-like dessert. I had a craving for éclairs last week but we were headed out camping for the 4th of July holiday and éclairs wouldn’t have really made the trip well. Luckily, I found this recipe online at allrecipes.com - it’s billed as a Chocolate Éclair Dessert. Now, it doesn’t taste as much like a chocolate éclair as I would’ve hoped…but it does taste like a little piece of heaven! It’s light, has just the right amount of chocolate and it’s SO incredibly fast and easy to make. One note – it does need to sit for a few hours so make it in the morning (or even the night before), stick it in the fridge and serve it proudly later in the evening or the next day for a perfectly delicious treat. This is not a frozen dessert (I don’t care for icebox pie desserts and the like), but it does come out of the fridge so it’s especially perfect for summer time dining and entertaining! Try it soon! You’ll be SO glad you did!

Chocolate Éclair Dessert

Ingredients:
3 sleeves graham crackers
2, 3 oz. packages vanilla or cheesecake flavored instant Jell-O pudding mix
3 cups cold milk
1, 8 oz. tub of thawed whipped topping
1 16 oz. container prepared chocolate frosting

Directions:
Using a hand mixer, mix the cold milk and two pudding mixes in a bowl (I like to pre-chill my bowl) until very well combined. Mixture will not be thick like you might think it would be. Fold in the entire tub of whipped topping and set aside. Line the bottom of a 9x13” pan with a layer of graham crackers. You may need to break a few crackers in half to make them fit but because the pan gets the tiniest bit wider at the top, by the time you get to the top layer, all the grahams will fit really nicely in the pan. Anyhoo…spoon half of the pudding mixture onto the graham cracker layer and carefully spread it evenly to outer edges of the pan. Place a second layer of graham crackers atop the pudding mixture, then spoon the remaining pudding over the second graham layer, again spreading it evenly. Top this pudding layer with one last graham cracker layer. Remove the lid and foil cover from the prepared frosting and microwave the frosting for 1 minute – stirring half way through – so it’s more or less a liquid consistency. Pour the entire container of frosting over the top graham cracker layer, using a knife to make sure the frosting evenly covers the whole surface. Place the lid on the pan – or cover it with foil – and put the whole shebang in the fridge for several hours (like at least 5 or 6) to over night. You can serve this straight from the refrigerator or you can let it sit out for a bit if you prefer it a little more room temp. You’ll find it cuts like butter – and plates beautifully. This is a simple and amazing dessert – ENJOY!!!!

My Remembrance....

When a major event takes place I often wonder if posting my take on the issue will matter to a hill of beans. Then I remember……that although I do hope this blog brings at least a little speck of entertainment to a few close family and friends, it’s really an outlet for me to express myself whenever I feel the need, in the manner I choose. So…I wanna talk about Michael Jackson.

I’ve always been a fan. I’ve never been a screaming, crying, wanna be his girlfriend/marry him/fantasize about him fan…but a solid fan all the same. I've loved almost every hit he had and made sure I saw the ‘World Premiere’ of each accompanying video on MTV. I knew he was a ground-breaker, knew he had something that no one else had or could even come close to and I knew that he was far and away the pinacle of talent in many forms.

Like many people, I thought he was super cute when he was young and handsome up through the Thriller era – and for me, still good looking a while after that. I always kinda liked the ‘glove thing’ – if anyone could pull off a style like that, Michael could. I thought his jackets – the red one, the military ones with the gold-fringed shoulder thingies, were cool and even though his pants turned super high-water, he had those awesome glittery socks to make them work! However, also like many people, I didn’t understand the chimp thing, the gradual & continuous skin lightening and the changes in so many facial features. I never ‘bought’ the sleep chamber story, never really believed he tried to buy the Elephant Man’s bones although I guess he coulda and I never, for even one second thought he ever laid even one finger upon a child in an unacceptable manner.

See, it was always clear to me that he was more or less robbed of a childhood – that although he always seemed to project love and happiness, that a part of him was at least a little sad inside because of that fact. So it was also no surprise that he loved to laugh and have fun in more childlike ways than other adults – and certainly no surprise that he wanted to make sure that all children, everywhere, felt love and were taken care of. He was just so very full of love and kindness.

What I’ve never really understood is some people’s intense dislike and/or hate for Michael Jackson. For a man who always showed such vulnerability, how could someone have so much hate toward him? I heard a gal call in on a radio show after he’d died. She said, “I despised the man” with such hate and cruelty in her voice I got scary goosebumps. Hate is such an ugly thing. Why can’t people be more accepting – are they jealous of those who are so successful? Are they so repulsed by an image that they can’t see past it? How can you not give someone their dues for the brass rings they’ve attained? I never cared for James Brown, but I 100% knew and respected that he was the Godfather of Soul! Didn’t really like Chuck Berry but he had a couple of tunes that rocked my socks off! Folks need to get past the hate and see others for who they really are and what they’ve contibuted to all of our lives!

Seeing the live rehersal clips from the day before Michael died….I can’t help but think he woulda totally rocked this ‘comeback’ (I prefer to maybe call it a reappearance – I mean, he never left...he was just inactive, right?)! I thought he sounded awesome, looked good and moved as magically as he always had. I do believe he had such bad insomnia that he felt he really needed drugs to help him sleep (even if he didn’t really need them and had just actually become dependent) and that the shit-for-brain doctors who should've known better than to administer the sort of drugs they did, broke every ethical doctor’s code and should not only lose their licenses but be prosecuted for having done so.

I feel Michael’s death was a stupid, tragic and very preventable loss. I think the admiration the world is expressing toward him in his death would’ve surged just the same as soon as he reemerged on stage in his “This Is It’ tour and all could've been so wonderfully awesome instead of horribly sad.

He impacted my life from age 4 to 44. My daughter doesn’t ‘get him’ or even much like him. My husband, while he doesn’t really care for him, does like some of his music and certainly respects him for who he was and what he did. I can’t beat the way I feel about Michael Jackson into them and I don’t want to (well…I DO want to, but forcing people into a ‘feeling’ is very unsatifying, really). So, I’ll just treasure, remember and miss him on my own.

I thought you were super awesome, Michael. It's stil hard to believe you're really, really gone. Rest In Peace

Better late than never....

So….it’s been a while since my last post. I find myself feeling guilty for it but then that guilt makes me feel as if this blog, that I started for fun, is more of a ‘have to’ rather than a ‘want to’ type of activity. That’s no good! ;-) Then again…sometimes I just forget to post a new or tasty dish and other times I forget that a post doesn't HAVE to be about food at all! It certainly didn’t start out that way! So, over the next few days, I’ll be making several posts…of all kinds. Because this IS fun – and when it comes down to it, that’s the reason for doing just about anything.