Baby Carrots

Put baby carrots into a pot and cover with water by 1/2" - bring to a boil over high heat, then drop to medium. Simmer until fork tender (3-6 minutes). Drain, return to cooking pot and add a few pats of butter to melt - you can also add fresh parsley or other herbs - toss to combine.

Creme Brulee

1 C Heavy Ceream
2 T Sugar, and
1/3 C Sugar
2 X-large or Jumbo egg yolks
1/2 t vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300 and prepare boiling water.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine cream and 2 T sugar. Cook, stirring occasionally, until small bubbles appear around edges of pan (5-6 minutes.) Set aside.

In a bowl, beat egg yolks and vanilla until smooth and light. Pour hot cream mixture into egg yolk mixture (by tempering - very little at a time to prevent the eggs from scrambling!) Beat CONTINUOUSLY until well blended. Strain mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl. Divide mixture between 4- 4oz ramekins.

Arrange ramekins in a baking pan and place on middle rack of preheated oven. Fill pan with boiling water to halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cover pan loosely with aluminum foil. Bake until custard is just set, about 25 minutes. Chill 2-3 hours.

Sprinkle remaining sugar evenly on top of the cooled custards. Move kitchen torch continuously over the surface of the ramekins in a circular motion until sugar melts and becomes golden brown and bubbly. Serve immediately.

Fresh Pasta

A day of pasta making with Scott and Fred has been planned for this Saturday! I have never made fresh pasta without my mom or grandmother, I know Scott has made it, but not in a while and Fred has never made fresh pasta (but I am counting on him to be the sauce guru!) So I am collecting some web resources here so I am not scrambling for them on Saturday!

Pasta Tips
Well reviewed pasta recipe (but most users have subbed in at least some semolina and/or bread flour and replaced 1 T of H2O with Olive Oil and noted that it must rest before rolling!)
Whole Wheat pasta
Ravioli dough (with pictures!)

Smoked Salmon Ravioli
Mushroom & Spinach Ravioli
Lobster Ravioli with Crabmeat Cream Sauce
Shrimp & Lobster Ravioli
A Whole Blog Dedicated to Lobster Ravioli (for real!)
Roast Butternut Squash Ravioli
Easy Butternut Squash Ravioli


Vodka Sauce

Shiitake, Shrimp and Watercress Udon

I was 100% inspired by laziness - I only wanted to visit one grocery store and decided on the Asian grocery! Usuaully I add Kale to udon to get some green in there (... and I LOVE kale ...), but since it is unavailable in the Asian grocery, I went with the green, peppery thing that IS available - watercress. I had noticed the shiitake mushrooms there when I was last in and had been thinking about them ever since. To be honest, the shrimp were added for color and for protein, but they tasted fantastic in this mix. I really enjoyed this and will make it again. It also proved to me that I CAN be creative with my udon and that I have gained a lot of confidence with both cooking techniques and flavors in Japanese cuisine.

• Udon soup base
• 10 shrimp - cleaned and boiled (I boil them in the udon water before I cook the udon)
• 1/4 to 1/2 a bunch of watercress - trimmed of thicker stems
• 2 scallions - greens sliced thin, whites trimmed but left whole (put the whites in the soup base while heating up - yum!)
• 1/2 lb shiitake mushrooms - remove stems and slice - then brown them in a tiny amount of butter on the stove
• Udon noodles

I take care of all of the chopping first, then set up a pot to boil water for the shrimp and the udon while I start heating the soup base over low/medium heat (just for timings sake - I don't know of a reason you can't bring it to temp quicker!) The shrimp take only a minute or two to cook - when they are opaque and pink, they are done! Cook noodles according to package instructions - I use prepaclaged fresh noodles and they only take a minute - really I am just reheating them. The mushrooms smelled wonderful while I was browning them on the stove - about 5 minutes. To assemble, noodles go into the serving bowl, top with watercress, scallions, mushrooms and shrimp, pour broth over it all and enjoy!

Note - I do make subtle changes to the soup base depending on the ingredients I am adding - I add a bit extra soy sauce and skimp on the sugar when I want it salty and savoury, I make it exactly as written when I want it on the sweeter side.

Udon with Shrimp, Renkon, Wakame, Scallion and Naruto

This is an Udon inspired by what I happened to have in the house. I followed the Udon Soup Base that I always use, but to each bowl after popping in a generous serving of noodles (follow package directions) added in about 5 pieces of prepared Renkon, 3 pieces of sliced naruto, a handful of boiled shrimp (I was going to boil them in the soup base, but the soup base was slow to heat and the water for heating the udon was at a raging boil, so I used that water!), a heaping tsp of dried Wakame and roughly cut scallion greens (the whites were tossed into the soup base while it heated for extra flavor. As always, the Udon is assembled with the noodles at the bottom of the bowl, all of the additions resting on top and then the soup is poured over everything. It tastes as good as it looks and I am not just being an egomaniac. I could eat this every day, but Scott and I have decided that Wednesdays will be Udon night from here on out! And the decent pictures? Scott took them! No more crappy phone pics!

Udon Soup Base

This is more or less the soup I used whenever I make Udon - it is the perfect backdrop to whatever you can dream of adding to your Udon! This is enough soup to feed two people well (and possibly leave lunch for one of them the next day!)

• 4 C dashi
• 2 T soy sauce
• 1 T mirin
• 2 t sugar
• salt to taste

Put the dashi, soy sauce, mirin and sugar into a pot and heat to a simmer - taste and add salt if needed.

Enoki Mushroom Miso Soup

This is a slight variation on standard miso soup - white Enoki mushrooms were used instead of tofu. Everything is the same except I leave out the tofu altogether and I slice the enoki mushrooms into thirds, reserving the caps to add directly to serving bowls and adding the 2/3 that are stem to the broth while it comes up to temperature. I do this with regular miso soup too, but it is worth mentioning again: I chop the scallions and reserve the green portions to add as the soup is finishing, but I toss the whites in the pot while the broth is coming up to temperature - they add flavor and when cooked like this get really sweet and delicious. I can't wait to try this with Shitake mushrooms and other, more flavorful varieties!