But first, I want you to say..."I... love... crepes."

My latest school assignment was to make stuffed crepes at home.  I have made stuffed crepes before and there is even a blog post about my crepesidillas I made back in March.  This time I wanted to do a savory stuffed crepe and a dessert crepe.  I had seen a picture a while back of a red velvet crepe cake and I knew that I wanted to attempt this myself.  I am in love with red velvet cake so any chance I have to make it makes me happy. 

Since I knew it was going to take a while to put together, I started with dessert.  First I whipped up a marscapone filling.  This was super easy and had good flavor but I wish I would have sweetened it more because it definately needed some extra sugar.

Marscapone filling
1 vanilla bean
16 oz mascarpone cheese, softened
2 Tbs powdered sugar
4 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract.

First, scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean.

Then add all the ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer and blend until combined.

It ends up being a really thick creamy filling with all the lovely little flecks of vanilla bean.  I left this sit until I was done with the crepes so it was a bit easier to spread withour tearing the crepes.

Then I got to work on the crepes.   These ended up being a huge pain to make.  They were a bit too cake like and very easily fell apart when I tried to flip them.  I ended up with half of them in the trash and only half made it to the cake.  I will definately work on a new crepe batter for next time because this one, although cake-like in texture didn't have much flavor.

Red velvet crepes
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 Tbs cocoa powder
3 Tbs sugar
2 cups buttermilk
1 1/4 cup whole milk
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract ( I also added a little almond extract for additional flavor)
1 Tbs red gel food coloring
2 Tbs melted unsalted butter
cooking oil for pan

Sift together the dry ingredients.

Then whisk together the wet ingredients.

Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet until batter is smooth and no lumps remain.  I made my crepes in an 8" skillet and sprayed it with non-stick cooking spray before each crepe.  I used a large portion scoop to put my batter in the pan and swirled it around until the bottom of the pan is fully coated.

Cook until the top of the crepe goes from glossy and wet to matte and dry.

Then comes the hardest part, run a spatula around the edges and carefully flip the crepe over.  Cook for another 30 seconds on the other side and remove from the pan to a rack to cool.

Once they were cooled I started stacking them for the cake.  Place a crepe on your serving plate and spread a little of the filling on top.

Continue stacking and frosting until all the crepes are gone.

Once all the crepes are stacked I put a thicker layer of filling on top and around the sides to cover up the uneven edges.  I topped the cake with some raspberries and dusted it with cocoa powder.

After dinner we cut into the cake and the beauty of it almost outweighed the lack of sweetness.

I will definately try this concept again but I will for sure change up the ingredients to get a much sweeter dessert next time.

After I had my crepe cake done I started on dinner.  I had found a recipe for mushroom stuffed sun dried tomato crepes that I was going to try.  I made the crepe batter earlier in the day because the recipe said it should sit in the fridge for at least an hour before cooking.

Sun Dried Tomato Crepes
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
3 Tbs melted butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes

Combine all the ingredients in a blender and pulse for 10 seconds.  Place the batter in the fridge for at least an hour or up to 48 hours. 

I follow the same procedure for cooking these crepes as I did with the red velvet ones.  Spray the pan, add the batter and swirl around until the pan is coated.  When the batter looks matte and dry on top flip it over and cook another 30 seconds or so.

These crepes were much easier to flip as they were much different in consistancy.  When they were done I removed them to a rack to cool and started on the filling. 

Mushroom crepe filling
1 cup diced onions
3 Tbs butter
two 1 oz packages dried mushrooms, reconstituted and chopped ( I used chanterelles and porchinis)
1/3 - 1/2 pound sliced cremini mushrooms
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded italian cheese blend
2 Tbs chopped chives
1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Jason went hunting yesterday and came home with some phesant that he wanted to eat for dinner so I decided to add that to my crepe filling.  I poached the phesant breast in butter and chicken broth.

Then I sweat the onion in a large pan with 1 Tbs of the butter.

Once that was done I chopped and sliced my mushrooms

I added the mushrooms and the rest of the butter, salt and pepper and cooked them until they were soft.  Then I added the phesant that I shredded up, and the milk.  Reduce this by half and add the cheese until melted.

I had preheated my oven to 350 and sprayed a glass baking dish with non-stick spray. I took each crepe and sprinkled it with a little more of the italian cheese blend.

And then I added about 1/3 cup of the filling.

Roll them up like a enchilada and place them all in the baking dish.

Sprinkle the crepes with the parmesan cheese and chives and bake for about 15 minutes.

These crepes were very good but they could have used some sort of cream sauce on top to pull it all together.

The Great Pumpkins

I realized last fall that after five years of dating, and finally being married that Jason and I had never carved pumpkins for Halloween together.  I love Halloween and I have since I was little.  I'm not sure how I gained this love of Halloween because my mom was never a fan of the holiday.  I always had a homemade costume, looking back on it now I'm very glad that I did.  At the time, however, I was very jealous of all the kids that had the store bought costumes while I was wearing a garbage bag shirt, a tin pie plate on my head and green face paint (I was a Grouchketeer, from Sesame Street). 

One of my favorite Halloween memories was of carving pumpkins with my dad.  We would cover the kitchen floor with newspapers and draw our designs on the pumpkins.  Then my dad would bring out his little wooden box filled with wood carving tools and we would get to work on carving out our designs.  We never carved anything elaborate, it was typically just the standard jack-o-lantern, but it was an hour or two of quality time with my dad that I looked forward to every year.

That's why I was so surprised to realize last year that Jason and I had never done this fall task that I had always looked so forward to as a child.  Last year Jason broke out the power tools on his pumpkin and ended up with a pig and I carved a party girl complete with pumpkin gut puke and a lime green wig left over from our wedding photo booth.

This year I decided to go a different route.  To celebrate my new logo I decided on a cupcake theme, and it being Halloween, evil cupcake pumpkin it is.  Jason decided to go a different route too and carved his pumpkin sideways.

Here is my evil cupcake

And here is Jason's sideways pumpkin

Don't they make a cute couple?  My cupcake is supposed to be eating a smaller cupcake but the knife got away from me and it's kind of hard to see what it is.

Egg-celent!

My most recent at home assignment for culinary school was to make eggs benedict and a side, take photos and report back on it for class next Monday.  Of course me being me I couldn't just make a traditional eggs benedict, I had to change it up a bit.  I decided that I would do eggs benedict two ways, savory and dessert. 

For my savory version I decided on crawfish cake eggs benedict with tarragon hollandaise sauce.  Traditional eggs benedict calls for english muffins as a base, but I decided to change it up and make cheddar garlic biscuits instead.

Next I made my crawfish cakes.  This was a basic crab cake recipe that I added a little red pepper and green onion to and replaced the crab with crawfish.

Then I started poaching my eggs while I made the hollandaise sauce.  I just made a traditional hollandaise sauce but I threw in a little chopped tarragon at the end.  My eggs poached for about 4-5 minutes and then I took them out and assembled my eggs benedict.  I sliced the top off a biscuit and added a crawfish cake on top.  I topped that with two poached eggs and some of the hollandaise sauce. 

The overall flavor was pretty good.  I enjoyed the biscuit more than an english muffin because it soaked up some of the sauce.  The crawfish cake was nice and crispy on the outside so that replaced the crunch that the traditional toasted english muffin would have offered.  My eggs may have been a little overdone but I don't like too much yolk so they were perfect for me.  If I had the time I probably would have tried the sauce again.  The flavor was good but it was too thin and ran off onto the plate instead of coating the eggs like it should have.  I think this would hold under heat for a little while but I wouldn't want it to sit too long. 

Because a normal side dish was a little boring for me, and because I have such a soft spot for desserts I decided to do an eggs benedict dessert to complete the assignment.  I love making desserts that look like other things so I spent most of last night contemplating how I could make a dessert look like this traditional breakfast dish.  I started by making some mini tart shells to resemble the english muffin part of the dish.

I wanted something pink to resemble the canadian bacon layer of the traditional dish so I whipped up a raspberry curd to fill the tart shell with.  The trickiest part was coming up with something to represent the egg layer.  I really wanted something that I could stuff so when I broke into the dessert it would have a yellow center just like the poached egg.  I decided on meringues.  I piped them out into an egg shape and baked them.  After they finished the baking and drying process I poked a hole in the side and filled the hollow inside with lemon curd.  This ended up working great because when the meringue shell was broken the lemon curd flowed out with a similar texture of the egg yolks on the traditional dish. 

Finally I was to the hollandaise portion of the dish and I had decided on a lemon pastry cream to take the place of the sauce in my dessert.  I made a traditional pastry cream but replace some lemon zest for the vanilla bean and added in just a little fresh lemon juice at the end.  I also replaced regular sugar with brown sugar.  I don't know if that made much of a difference but I had used the last of my white sugar on my meringues so that's all I had.  I didn't let the pastry cream set up completely in the fridge so it had more of a sauce like consistency. 

This turned put pretty good but I would change a few things in the future.  I should have let the raspberry curd set up overnight because it was a bit too thin but the flavor was good.  I also would have made my meringues much smaller because they kind of overtook the dessert.

Stocking Up

It's been way too long since my last post.  I somehow thought when I stopped working to focus on school I would have all this free time to get work done around the house, get crafty and most of all have time to experiment in the kitchen more.  Boy was I wrong!  Don't get me wrong, I am loving school even more than I thought I would but it has been keeping me super busy.  I have also been lucky enough to have quite a few cake orders in the past month which has kept me in the kitchen caking away most Thursdays and Fridays.  In just over a month in culinary school I have learned so much and I am truly excited to go to school everyday to see what new skills I can pick up.  I also have to admit that the taste tests that come at the end of every class doesn't hurt either!

I started cooking because of my family and family is what keeps me in the kitchen.  Family always comes first for me so when Jason's grandfather passed away I knew being there for him was much more important than being in class that night.  Unfortunately, by missing one class, I missed a big lesson on making stocks.  Normally I could just go in before the next class and make it up, but because you can't just quickly whip up a stock I was able to make one at home and take some photos of the process.  I figured since I was making it and photographing it I might as well blog it to share with all of you. 

Before I started my reading for this rotation I was under the impression that a white stock was chicken or fish and a brown stock was beef or veal.  Actually, a white stock is a light colored stock made with chicken,beef, fish or veal bones simmered in water with vegetables and seasonings.  A brown stock is a rich colored stock made from chicken, beef, veal or game bones and vegetables, all of which are caramelized before they are simmered in water with seasonings.  Since I have made white stock many times I decided to try a brown stock this time.

Brown stock

7 pounds beef bones (I used pork bones and I only had about 5 pounds)

6 oz tomato paste

2 cups chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped carrots

2 cups red wine

20 peppercorns

5 garlic cloves

5 bay leaves

rind from a wedge of Parmesan cheese

1 tsp dried thyme

1 1/2 gallons water

The first step in a brown stock is to roast the bones.  I put mine in a roasting pan at 375 for one hour.  Here's what they look like after an hour in the oven.

While the bones were cooking, I chopped up my mirepoix (the mixture of onions, celery and carrots).

After the first hour I brushed the bones in tomato paste.

And then I added the mirepoix on top of the bones.  I love all the fun color!

Here's what it looked like when everything was finished roasting.

I took the roasting pan out of the oven and deglazed the pan with the red wine to get all the fond (the delicious little browned bits) off the bottom. 

I let this sit for a little bit while I got all my spices together.  The recipe I was basing this off of didn't call for the parmesan rind but I almost always have fresh parmesan at home and I think the rind adds a nice little salty nutty flavor to the stock.

I added the water and the spices to a large stock pot and them transferred the bones, veggies and red wine from the roasting pan into the pot.  I let the stock simmer for four hours and then removed the bones (Gus was very happy when he got a bowl full of bones to eat the next morning) and strained the stock to remove all the solids.

The stock turned out great.  It had a much more rich taste than the white stocks I have made in the past.  It was definitely more work but I think it was worth it in the end.

Once I had the stock made I figured that I would make some soup with some of it and freeze the rest. Since I still have a bunch of beef roasts left in my freezer; beef vegetable soup it is!



Beef Vegetable Soup

Arm Roast (I think mine was about 2.5 pounds)

Butcher's Rub (spice mix from the Tea and Spice Exchange)

7 cups brown stock

28oz can diced tomatoes

1 large red onion chopped

3 carrots chopped

3 celery stalks chopped

1 green pepper chopped

1/4 cup fresh parsley chopped

1 Tbs italian seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

I started by coating the roast in the butcher's rub and cooking it on a rack in my roaster with a little water at 350 for 90 minutes.  I let it cool a bit and then shredded it up and put it back in the roaster (I had removed all the fat from cooking the roast and turned the heat down to 250.

I washed, peeled and chopped up all my veggies.

I then added the tomatoes, broth, seasoning and veggies to the meat in the roaster, gave it a little stir and let it sit and simmer away for a couple of hours.

Once the veggies had cooked down and softened up I decided to make this a beef vegetable dumpling soup by adding in some of my grandma's famous 13 minute dumplings.  I turned the heat up on the roaster so I had a boil going and I mixed up my dumplings

13 Minute Dumplings
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Mix together the dry ingredients.  In a one cup liquid measuring cup whisk one egg and add enough milk to equal one cup.  Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.  Drop into the boiling liquid and cover.  Do not open the lid for 13 minutes or dumplings will end up gummy.

Here's what the final soup looked like.