Warm White Chocolate Cherry Bread Pudding

This weekend, we were invited to a friends' house warming party, and I thought of making either a desert or quiche since we had two cartons of fresh eggs at home. I learned that the host had several savory appetizers lined up already, so I decided to go with a bread pudding. Bread puddings are one of the simplest deserts one could ever make! I thought of making the bread pudding in cupcake tins, to avoid the slicing/serving for the expected 50 - 60 guests.

It came out quite successful. One of the kind-hearted guests asked me if I was the bread pudding master! What a nice compliment - the best thing one could ever receive =)

This bread pudding is soft and moist, and the cherries cut the sweetness just nicely.

Ingredients:
24 1/2-inch brioche, cut into 1 inch cubes

2 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
1 cups sugar
6 large eggs
1/4 cup Grand Marnier
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cups dried tart cherries

8 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 cup of brown sugar

1/2 stick of butter

Preperations:

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Bring cream, milk, and sugar to simmer in heavy large saucepan, stirring to dissolve sugar. Whisk eggs in large bowl to blend. Gradually whisk hot cream mixture into eggs. Whisk in Grand Marnier and vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg

Butter eight 1 1/4-cup soufflé dishes; arrange on rimmed baking sheet. For alternative, use cupcake baking dish. In another bowl, mix and crumble together brown sugar and butter

Place brioche cubes at the bottom of each dish. Top each with 1 heaping tablespoon of cherries. Sprinkle with white chocolate. Divide custard among dishes, using about 3/4 cup for each. Let stand 30 minutes, pressing down on bread occasionally. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture.

Bake bread puddings until tops are puffed and brown, about 40 - 50 minutes. Remove from oven; cool 10 minutes.

Enjoy and serve warm. Pairs well with a caramel sauce or white chocolate sauce( but I personally am not a fan of caramel and gooey sauces) but this is yummy enough to stand on its own.

Reminiscing Portugal...making Cataplana

Two summers ago, Michele and I took a trip that became our most favorite - a two week adventure in Portugal. Portugal is such a gem - great wines, delicious seafood and pastries, a variety of beautiful beaches ( rocky cliffs and sandy ones), tile-covered houses, and gentle people. We spent most of our time in Lisbon and exploring Algarve and its beaches....and surprisingly, we found our love for Portuguese food, especially Cataplana, which is a savory stew. Of all the different Cataplanas we had, we enjoyed seafood and pork the most.

Me ( extremely tanned) with our very first Cataplana at a restaurant at Portimao

Tapas, Portuguese style, lots of seafood!

One of the posadas we stayed at...

This week, we decided to make amêijoas na cataplana, which is a clam, pork, sausage and bacon stew. Seafood and pork three ways! Making this dish would take us back to our wonderful trip we had in Portugal...the summer where we just went beach hunting, posada hopping, and ate lots of amazing food.

The recipe Michele worked on is inspired by Andrew McMeel's Cataplana, but of course, we made our own slight tweaks and added arborio rice....making a combination of Portuguese seafood and pork stew/ Risotto.....

Ingredients:

1 can (28-ounce) Italian diced tomatoes

tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 (1/4-inch-thick) slices bacon, cut into ¼-inch dice

1 cup chopped yellow onion

1 chopped red bell pepper

1 chopped yellow bell pepper

3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

2 jalapenos, diced

4 ounces andouille sausage cut into ¼-inch

dice 8 ounces pork tenderloin cut into ¼-inch cut

2 teaspoons sweet paprika

1 cup dry white wine

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Italian parsley

3/4 cup of Arborio rice

2 pounds little neck clams, cleaned

ciabatta bread

Preparations:

There's a specific cataplana pot, but since we did not have one, we used a dutch oven instead.

In a dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat until hot enough to sizzle a piece of bacon. Add the bacon and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes, or until lightly browned. Add the onion and red and yellow peppers and sauté, stirring, for 8 minutes, or until the vegetables are wilted and beginning to turn golden. Add the garlic and jalapeno, sauté for 2 - 3 minutes. Stir in the andouille and pork tenderloin and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes, or until lightly browned. Sprinkle with the paprika and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the wine, tomatoes, and parsley and bring to a boil. Add 3/4 cup of arborio rice. Decrease the heat to low and cook, for 30 - 40 minutes, or until liquid is slightly reduced, the sauce becomes thick and the rice is cooked. Spoon half of the sauce into the cataplana; spoon the clams on top. Spoon the remaining sauce on top. Secure the cover in place.


In the meantime, slice ciabatta bread and toast it in the oven at 350 degrees for 5 minutes.
Place the cataplana over medium heat and cook for 10 minutes, or until the clams have opened. Bring the cataplana to the table and, using oven mitts, carefully remove the cover. Discard any clams that failed to open. Spoon the clams, risotto and rich sauce into warmed shallow bowls and serve at once with toasted ciabatta bread.

With the jalapenos cooked in the stew, this dish is really spicy... its delicious because you can taste all the layers of sausage, bacon, bell peppers, and clams.... all so yummy with a depths of savory!

birthday and cake, and carbonara

This is a first - got a lovely carrot cake for my birthday! loved it. I love, love carrot cake and it's so nice to have this instead of a heavy chocolate buttercream cake....( I feel less guilty while turning almost 30)

And believe it or not, we finished this entire cake by ourselves in 3 days

The day after my birthday, Michele made a yummy carbonara...

simply e delizioso

Italian german hamburger

We have been doing quite a bit of jogging/running these couple of weeks, and especially dedicate a pretty good hour and half of jogging on Saturdays. Strangely, exercise makes me crave for more protein and meat. Luckily, I get pampered when Michele heads up the kitchen over the weekend to make some creative meals. Michele really likes a juicy, tender, spicy burger on crunchy ciabatta bread. Since we had sukiyaki last night and I had enough red meat for the weekend, Michele went with a combination of veal and pork for burger patties.

It was funny that when we arrived to Central Market, Michele told me that they were playing Italian pop songs. Next thing we knew, we saw these red and green tags placed everywhere in the grocery store, with Italy sprawled across them....so I guess it was an Italian themed weekend for the store to promote Italian produce.

Ingredients

For the cherry tomato relish:

one box of cherry tomatoes

1 chopped garlic

1 chopped jalapeno

For the burger patties:

2-3 garlics, finely chopped

half pound of ground veal

half pound of ground pork

a splash of lager beer

1/4 pound of procsiutto

3/4 cup of Asiago Cheese , dice

salt and freshly ground pepper

Homemade pizza

mmmm, PIZZAAAAAAA....but not completely homemade. Yes, we cheated. But who wouldn't, if you can buy 2 dollar pizza dough at Whole Foods? It just makes everything so much easier=)

The ingredients we used in our homemade pizza were:

- cherry tomatoes, slightly marinated in olive oil, salt and pepper

- mozzarella cheese

- fresh basil leaves

- prosciutto

and that's IT!

AND, I was most ecstatic to use my favorite Homer Simpson pizza cutter. There's a speaker built inside the cutter, and every time the cutter hits a surface, Homer speaks: ( and boy does Homer's voice make everyone smile)

"When the moon lites your eyes like a big pizza pie, that's amore..."
The most beautiful word in the English language, PIZZA".
"PIZZA, If it tastes good, it must be good for you!"

" Pizza meets the requirements of the 5 food groups. It even counts as a pie!"

Oh Homer, we love you.

It's another one...Squid and zucchini pasta

It's funny how we make our favorite dishes over and over again.

This past weekend, Michele made squid and zucchini pasta. I love how the zucchini breaks down and is infused into the pasta. Just splendid!

Here's a previous post for the recipe, Seafood Zucchini pasta.

comfort pasta after a week of vacation

After traveling in Puerto Rico for 7 days... after days of mofongos, plantains, rice and beans, we really missed some home cooked pasta. The day we landed in Houston airport, we drove straight to Central Market, and bought some groceries to cook pasta for dinner.
We went with sausage arrabiata, using Serrano chilies and really cooked down the cherry tomatoes. We put the sausage in too soon, which resulted in a dryness. Nonetheless, the aromatics of the tomatoes along with the fennel from the sausage and a nice chili kick really satisfied our pasta crave!

Ingredients:
Olive Oil
Ziti pasta
garlic
cherry tomatoes
Serrano chili
Italian sausage, out of casing

chopped chilies


Use olive oil to saute garlic and chilies. Add sausage, and then incorporate cherry tomatoes. Turn down to low heat for the tomatoes to completely break down. To avoid dryness of the sausage, I would recommend to add the sausage after the tomatoes are cooked down.

In a pot of salted boiling water, cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and incorporate half of the sausage and tomato sauce into the pot. Toss and then fold in remaining of the sauce, mix well.

And there you have it - a simple, delightful, satisfying pasta dish.