Heart Shaped Ravioli with a Simply Delicious Sauce

I made this for Evan and I’s 2nd Anniversary in December! It’s a great special occasion dinner recipe and is sure to please! Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone!

Prep: 1 hr

Cook: 30 min

Makes: 12 Ravioli

Ingredients:

Meat or cheese mixture of your choice, meat should be pre-cooked. I used bison.

Dough:

• 1.5 C. All purpose Flour
• 3 Eggs
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 TBS Olive Oil

Sauce:

• 2 Cups Chopped tomatoes with juice.
• 1 TBS Olive oil
• 1 TBS Garlic, minced
• 2 TBS Fresh Basil, chopped
• 2 TBS Shallots, minced
• Mushrooms, 1/2 Cup, sliced

Directions:

Dough

In an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine flour and salt. Add eggs 1 at a time and continue to mix. Drizzle in oil and continue to incorporate all the flour until it forms a ball. Sprinkle some flour on work surface, knead the dough until elastic and smooth. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for about 30 minutes to allow the gluten to relax.

Cut the ball of dough in half, cover and reserve the dough you are not immediately using to prevent it from drying out. Dust the counter and dough with flour. Form the dough into a rectangle and roll it through the pasta machine, 2 or 3 times, at its widest setting. Guide the sheet of dough with the palm of your hand as it emerges from the rollers. *Reduce the setting and crank the dough through again, 2 or 3 times. Continue until the machine is at its narrowest setting. The dough should be paper-thin, about 1/8-inch thick.

Dust the counter and dough with flour, lay out the long sheet of pasta. Use a heart cookie cutter (small) to cut the hearts.

Place a tsp of your meat/cheese mixture of choice on one heart and seal with another heart on top. Seal edges with fork or pastry sealer. Use

Boil in large pot of salted water for about 7 min. Strain.

Sauce:

• In a large braiser or skillet, heat oil, add shallots and garlic, cook for 1 min until fragrant.
• Add tomatoes and mushrooms, simmer for 20 min.
• Garnish with basil

Enjoy!

Marx Foods Fire and Ice Contest : Chile, Yuzu, and Jasmine Tea Granita

This granita is a flavorful multi-dimensional creation that starts off cool and tart and builds with a fiery heat from the Thai and tepin chilies. It’s a short lived heat that surprisingly keeps you coming back for more. It’s sure to take your taste buds on a roller-coaster!  I’m submitting this to the Fire and Ice Contest held by Marx Foods. I will post the link where you can vote for my creation as soon as it goes live. I appreciate the support as always! To read more about the contest click here. VOTE HERE NOW 🙂

Serves : 2

Prep: 10 min

Set Time: 3 hrs

Ingredients:

• 1/4 C. Yuzu Juice
• 1/4 C. Water
• 1/4 C. Jasmine Tea
• 1/4 C. Agave Nectar
• 1 Thai chile, ground
• 2 Tepin chiles, ground
• 2 Cherries, pitted

Instructions:

1. In a mortar and pestle, grind chilies, seeds and all.
2. In a small/medium pot combine all ingredients and heat to a simmer for 10 min.
3. Strain liquid, removing chilies and cherries. Reserve liquid and cherries.
4. Place liquid in a shallow container and freeze for 3 hrs.
5. Slice cherries and reserve.
6. Once liquid is frozen, churn up with two forks and serve, garnishing with the soaked sliced cherries.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer:  I did not receive any compensation from Marx Food for this post.  All opinions are my own.

Cucumber Yuzu and Lavender Granita

This is the perfect little frozen treat to make at home. It’s so refreshing and so simple to make.

Serves: 6

Prep Time: 20 min

Set Time: about 2-3 hours or so, or until mostly frozen.

Ingredients:

• 3 large organic cucumbers peeled and chopped into chunks
• 1 C. White sugar ( I would like to try this with agave nectar next time).
• 3/4 C. Water
• 1/4 C. Yuzu Juice
• Fresh basil
• Sea Salt (if desired).
• 2 sprigs of fresh lavender

Instructions:

1. Juice cucumbers if you have a juicer, if not blend in a blender and strain through a mesh strainer or cheese cloth, reserve juice.
2. Heat water and yuzu juice to a boil, adding lavender sprigs. Stir in sugar and create a simple syrupy substance, once sugar is melted take off heat and let cool. Remove lavender sprigs and discard.
3. Combine juice and syrup in a shallow plastic plan.
4. Freeze until mostly frozen, scrape icy mixture with a fork to “fluff” up.
5. Serve with a basil and salt garnish.

Enjoy and cheers!

Birthday Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars

I figured I’d celebrate my Birthday today by posting an awesome recipe I have adapted from Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide. I usually never go off a recipe unless I’m baking a dessert or making something someone asked me to make from a recipe they found, I can never stick to them verbatim though I always “throw” something else in 😉 I’m not a huge “cake” fan in fact at our wedding we had cobbler because we don’t favor cake 🙂  I made these last week for one of Evan’s co-workers, Lori, for her birthday (he did help a bit in case anyone was wondering ; ) ) and they were so good. I ate WAY to many, I even found myself eating them for breakfast…! I’m 28 years old today and feel great!!! I’m still wondering where all this time goes though… Life is good!

Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars (adapted from Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide and Elephant Eats)

Prep: 20 min

Cook Time: 20 min

Makes: 40 -45 bars

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 tsp sea salt, and more for end
• 1 1/2 cups corn syrup
• 4 ounces dark chocolate
• 4 eggs
• 1 ounce bourbon
• 1 ounce cup maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups chopped Texas pecans

Instructions:

1. Grease bottom and sides of 15″x10″x1″ baking dish or two smaller pans.
2. In a stand mixer on medium, beat flour, 1/2 C. sugar, butter and salt until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press into the bottom of prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 20 min.
3. Meanwhile, in a three-quart pan, stir corn syrup and chocolate on low until melted. Remove from heat and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.
4. Stir in maple syrup, bourbon, remainder of sugar, eggs and pecans. Pour filling over hot crust and bake at 350 until firm around edges but slightly soft in center, about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with a bit of sea salt.
5. Cool in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.

 Enjoy and Cheers! 

Polish Party Time!

For my Mom’s 56th Birthday I wanted to do something really special. My Mom and I didn’t always get along wonderfully when I was younger and it seems like the older I get the more I really have started to connect with her. I’m sure many of you can relate… 😉 So I had been thinking and thinking about what I could do and it hit me… Over the Christmas break my Mom mentioned to me how her Dad used to cook the best Polish sausage but no one could ever get the recipe right when they tried (he took the recipe to the grave).  So I decide I was going to make polish sausage from scratch, REAL polish sausage! I sought out relatives, Google, books, etc… and went with my gut instinct on the recipe from my research. So for my Mom’s birthday I surprised her with a full blown polish celebration: Sausage, Perogies, Polish Mistakes, and Polkas – the whole nine yards!  The day before the party my Mom and I made the sausage together and I got to hear stories about my Grandpa and her childhood (I never met him since he passed before I was born). It occurred to me at this point that there was a lot of this (stories and memories) missing from our relationship so it was really nice to experience this and hear her accounts. I think my Mom was a little emotional by realizing this as well.

For the festivities we had a handful of friends over and made the perogies, Polish Mistakes, and of course drank FAR TOO much wine and beer! I felt terrible the next morning but very proud that everything turned out amazingly good! There’s just something so gratifying about making/eating 100% homemade unprocessed food (minus those Polish Mistakes haha)!

I’d like to share the Perogie and Polish Mistake recipes with you all. However the sausage will indeed remain a secret between my Mom and I. 🙂 Oh and if you’ve never made sausage from scratch it’s a huge PAIN IN THE ASS, but sooo very good and different from what you get in the stores.

Pierogies

Prep time: 1 hr

Cook Time: 20-45 min depending on fillings (potato takes longer).

Serves: 8

• 5 C. All purpose Flour
• 3 Eggs
• 3/4 tsp Kosher sea salt
• 1 TBS Sour cream
• 1 TBS Oil
• 1 C. Water
• 2 Onions, sliced.
• 2-4 TBS Butter

Instructions:

1. Mix dry ingredients in mixer on low, then add wet, mix on low until dough like consistency. Add more flour or water until it’s right.
2. Divide dough into medium sized balls and roll out through a pasta roller. Cut flattened dough into circles with a cup or cookie cutter. Should be about 4″ in diameter.
3. Fill with your choice of stuffing. We did potato and onion, potato onion and cheese, kraut and bacon, and Ricotta and parsley.
4. Seal pierogies with an egg wash or water. Par boil for 2 min then pan cook in butter with onions until browned.

Polish Mistakes

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: 25 min

Serves: 8-10

Ingredients:

• 1lb Beef, 85/15
• 1lb Country Pan Sausage
• 1/2 Block of Velveeta Cheese (this is about the ONLY thing I would ever put Velveeta in).
• 1 TBS Garlic powder
• 2 TBS Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Loaf of small Party Rye slices

Instructions:

1. Pre-Heat oven to 350 F.
2. Brown meats, add cheese and spices.
3. Mix well and spoon mixture onto little rye slices.
4. Bake for 10-15 min.

These look very strange but trust me they are good!

It was such a fun time with good friends and good food!!! Time consuming for sure but well worth it!

Brrrr…. It’s Cold! Have Some Chicken Noodle Soup :)

I love chicken noodle soup! Evan and I rarely get sick (knock on wood) so I cannot just wait until one of us gets sick to make it 🙂 It’s good when you’re 100% I promise! Also If you haven’t already…please vote for my last blog of Bacon and Vanilla Fregola Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting that’s in the Marx Foods Dessert Challenge, voting ends today at 12 PST, it’s easy no email or registration needed to vote! Thanks for all of your support. 🙂

Prep Time: 20 min

Cook Time: 2 hrs

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

• 32 oz Chicken Stock (use homemade or something like Kitchen Basics).
• 1 C. Water
• 2 Chicken breasts, raw and cubed into bite sized pieces
• 2 C. Sliced or cubed carrots
• 2 C. Sliced celery
• 1/2 Large sweet yellow onion, diced
• 2 TBS Fresh thyme
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 TBS Zestybeandog Fine Herb Blend
• 1/2 TBS fresh black pepper
• 10 oz Homemade egg noodles

Instructions:

1. Transfer stock to a large pot and turn heat to high, bring to a boil.
2. Add vegetables and spices Set timer and cook for 20 min then reduce to low heat.
3. Add chicken when it has been an hour and fifteen minutes and cover.
4. During the last 20 min add pasta and cook until al dente.
5. Salt to taste. (This will vary depending on your stock you used)

Serve with cornbread, crackers, or toast….maybe even a grilled cheese.

Cheers!

Sausage and Tomato Basil Farfalle Casserole

I love making casseroles early in the day and then popping them in the oven for dinner, there’s just something about not having to cook after a long day of  work or play! It’s even better when you’re lucky and your husband/wife does the dishes afterwards (and no… putting soapy water in the casserole and letting it soak over night does not count as “doing” the dishes) 🙂 This is a delicious meal that will have you coming back for seconds… I promise!

Also as an added bonus, when you subscribe to my blog and comment on my posts you will be entered to win some of this sweet sweet ZestyBeanDog Fine Herb Blend you keep reading about oh so often! I will be doing a special subscriber give-away on the 31st! Good luck!

Prep: 15 min

Cook: 25-35 min

Serves: 3-4

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb Sausage, ground fresh
• 1-2 Shallots, minced
• 2 Cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 C. Sliced baby bella mushrooms
• 1 Can of organic tomatoes, diced (don’t drain the juice).
• 1 Large organic tomato, sliced (discard top and bottom).
• 1 C. Mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 1/4 C. Parmesan Reggiano, grated (You should know by now, THE GOOD STUFF) 🙂
• 1 TBS ZestyBeanDog Fine Herb Blend or your own fine herb blend
• 1 tsp Sea Salt
• 1 tsp Pepper
• 1/4 C. Fresh Basil (half in casserole, 1/2 on top when done as garnish).
• 1/2 TBS. Butter
• 2 C. Farfalle, I prefer whole wheat

Instructions:

1. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil, add Farfalle and cook right before it’s al dente.
2. Melt butter in large skillet on med high, add garlic and shallots and cook for 1 min until fragrant. Add sausage and then brown it.
3. Add Mushrooms and can of tomatoes and mix well, add spices and simmer for 10 min. Turn off heat.
4. Add pasta to sausage mixture and mozzarella cheese and mix well.
5. Transfer mixture to medium casserole, place sliced tomatoes on top and top tomatoes with parmesan cheese, bake at 350 F. for 20 min if baking right away, if reheating from fridge bake for 35 min or until done.
6. Once done, garnish with fresh basil and enjoy!

Cheers!

4 STEP Simple Chicken Thigh and Veggie Soup in the Crock Pot

This is a super easy dish to prepare in the crock pot for busy days! It’s healthy and prepared in four simple steps. Cooking this dish with bone in thighs give it a great flavor and is easier than other methods where you have to cut, cube, brown, pull etc…

Prep: 10 min

Cook Time: 7.5 hrs on LOW

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 4-6 Free-Range chicken thighs, most of fat removed (as much as you can) I just peel it off with my hands and discard.
• 32 oz Kitchen Basics no sodium chicken broth
• 32 oz Kitchen Basics regular beef broth
• 3 Large organic tomatoes, chopped (about 2 cups or 1.5 cans).
• 4 Stalks of celery, sliced (about 1 cup)
• 1 Can of black beans
• 1.5 C. Corn, fresh is best (or one can).
• 2 Limes, juiced
• 1 TBS Sea salt, fresh ground pepper, mexican oregano, and chili powder (1 TBS each of these).
• 1/8 tsp Cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp Cumin powder, freshly ground is always better 🙂
• 2 tsp Garlic powder
• 1 TBS Zestybeandog Fine Herb Blend (Coming soon for purchase).

Instructions:

1. Cut produce that needs to be cut up and place in crock. Empty (drained) can of beans into crock as well.
2. Skin chicken thighs and place in crock.
3. Add stock to crock.
4. Add spices. Cook for 7.5 hrs on LOW or 4 on high. Chicken should come right off the bone.

Serve with a little Monterrey Jack or cheese of your choice and crackers if desired. Watch for the bone. I serve one thigh for each person with the soup, the meat comes off the bone very easily.  You can remove bone from thighs if desired before serving.

Brooklyn Black Ops Russian Imperial Stout Cheesecake

This cheese cake is sinfully good without the Brooklyn Black Ops Chocolate Sauce, when the two meet it’s ridiculously… dangerously good. Be sure to have some friends around when it’s done or you may just end up eating the whole cheesecake!

I know some of you may be thinking why would she waste a rare delicious beer on cheesecake… okay well it was only 4 oz and I live in Texas it’s already 98 degrees outside- I wanted a pint of Black Ops and I also wanted to try a sauce with it… solution was a win win- I had my pint and made this cheesecake in 98 degree weather. Would you expect anything less from a Food Experiments Pork Experiment 3rd place winner, I think not 🙂

Ingredients

-15-20 graham crackers, crushed
-2 tablespoons butter, melted
-4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
-1 1/2 cups white sugar
-3/4 cup milk
-4 eggs
-1 cup sour cream
-1 tablespoon vanilla extract
-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
-4 oz Brooklyn Black Ops, (good luck finding it, I won this at The Food Experiments : Pork Experiment for third place…3 bottles…) in that case use a stout that you love. Drink the rest of the beer with the cheesecake or dinner.
-1 C. Semi-sweet chocolate chips, get some good ones!

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9 inch springform pan.
2. In a medium bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs with melted butter. Press onto bottom of springform pan.
3. In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Blend in milk, and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour-cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Pour filling into prepared crust.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 5 to 6 hours; this prevents cracking.
5. Melt chocolate in a double boiler and then add the stout and blend until fully mixed. Let cool down for about 20 min.
5. Pour the stout chocolate sauce on top and refrigerate for a few hours before serving.

Enjoy, Cheers!

Venison Sausage Stuffed Empanadas

These are a little time intensive but worth it!  I like that they are baked and not fried and that I used butter rather than lard.  Butter makes a dense dough, lard creates a flaky dough.  There’s just something about lard that makes me uneasy.  I’ll eat it (tortillas) but if I’m cooking… I’d rather cook with butter personally 🙂

Prep: 2 hrs

Cook: 1 hr

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 2 1/4 C. flour
• 1 very cold stick of butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 TBS white vinegar
• 3/4 C. of ice cld water
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 1/2 tsp sea salt, finely ground
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp fresh finely ground pepper

Venison Sausage Mixture:

• 1lb Venison pan sausage (from a hunter friend)
• 1/2 Large yellow onion, diced
• 1 large shallot, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1TBS parsley, dried
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• Sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Dough Instructions:

1. Sift flour with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and garlic powder into a large bowl and blend in butter with your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal with some (roughly pea-size) butter lumps.
2. Beat together egg, water, and vinegar in a small bowl with a fork. Add to flour mixture, stirring with fork until just incorporated. (Mixture will look shaggy.)
3. Turn out mixture onto a lightly floured surface and gather together, then knead gently with heel of your hand, just enough to bring dough together. Roll dough out into a large rectangle on a floured space and cut out 10-15 circles with a large cup or cookie cutter.  (I use a cup that’s about 4″ diameter).
4. Refrigerate floured dough circles for about 30-45 min before filling.

Sausage Instructions:

1. Use fresh pan sausage:  Heat large skillet on medium high and add meat, onions, shallots, and garlic.  Cook thoroughly, 15-20 min.
2. Drain fat/juices
3. Add spice and then salt and pepper to taste.
4. Set aside in bowl

Additional/Optional Ingredients

• Cheese
• Mashed sweet potatoes
• 1 Egg, beaten for wash

To make the empanadas:

1. Take a circle of dough and add a mound of meat mixture to center (add a pinch of cheese if desired) and fold circle in half and seal with a dull fork (pressing down all the way around the dough to make a half circle).
2. Continue until meat or dough is gone.
3. Brush empanadas with egg wash. (Beaten egg)
4. Bake for 25-35 min @ 350 degrees

Serve with Sriracha

I filled some of the empanadas with mashed sweet potatoes, they were good too!

Venison