Ginger Panna Cotta with Cranberry-Blood Orange Sauce

Why have cranberries as your dinner side when you can dress them up a little bit for a fun and spicy dessert? Evaporated milk, lite cream and yogurt lighten up this creamy Italian classic while maintaining the rich flavor that makes panna cotta so irresistible.

For Panna Cotta:
1 1/2 cups evaporated milk
1/2 cup lite cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup lowfat Greek vanilla yogurt
1 teaspoon grated ginger, juice reserved

Mix milk (minus 1 tablespoon that you need to save) and cream in saucepan. Add grated ginger. Bring to simmer. Remove from heat. Cover; let steep (cover) 30 minutes. Strain to remove ginger.

Sprinkle gelatin over ginger juice/reserved tablespoon milk. Let stand until gelatin softens, about 10 minutes. Stir sugar and gelatin mixture into milk mixture. Stir over low heat until sugar and gelatin dissolves. Remove immediately from heat. Whisk in vanilla yogurt. Divide among ramekins. Cover; chill until set. It typically needs at least 5 hours to set.

For Cranberry-Blood Orange Sauce:
12 oz fresh or unthawed frozen cranberries
1 cup honey or light brown sugar
Juice from 2 blood oranges, about 1 cup

Use a peeler to remove 2 large strips (about 4 inches long) from 1 orange. In a saucepan of boiling water blanch zest 1 minute and drain in a colander. Chop zest very finely and transfer to a bowl.

In a saucepan bring to a boil juice and sugar/honey, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add cranberries, return to a boil. Simmer for 10-25 minutes or until cranberries burst. Taste for sweetness, add extra sweetener if needed.

Remove from heat and stir in chopped zest. Refrigerate until serving.

Run small knife around panna cotta. Place bottoms of ramekins in bowl of hot water briefly to loosen them. Place plate atop ramekin. Hold plate and ramekin together and flip gently to removed panna cotta.

Serve with a generous helping of Cranberry-Blood Orange Sauce

Spanish Omelet (based roughly on Ferran Adria's recipe for el Bulli)

Tortilla Espanola is an inexpensive, delicious dinner choice. It can be made ahead of time and refrigerated for up to two days. Served with a side salad, good bread and a bottle of wine, a Tortilla is an easy and impressive option for entertaining. (I originally posted this in November, but took pictures today while preparing them for fund raising lunch #2).


Ingredients:

Potatoes (about 3 large ones or 2 lbs of baby potatoes)
2 Large Onions
1 Dozen Eggs
Oil (olive, canola, vegetable...olive oil gives the best taste but all are fine to use).
Salt & Pepper

Rinse/scrub potatoes and onions clean under running water. I do this BEFORE cutting into them to practice good food safety (this should appeal to my fellow hypochondriacs).

Peel potatoes and cut into small rectangles, about 1/4 inch thick. Peel onion and cut in half, slicing along the layers so that you have long, thin onion strands.


Using a large skillet, heat about 1/3 cup oil over medium-high heat. Add potatoes, using a pancake spatula to prevent any potatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Turn heat down to medium/medium-low and cook for about 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are just about tender. Add onions to pan and cook until they are soft, about 5-8 minutes, turning mixture occasionally to prevent sticking.


Strain onion/potato mixture in colander over clean saute pan (reserving leftover oil).

While potatoes/onions are cooling, crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl, add pepper and salt (I always err on the side of too little, as these can be added to the cooked tortilla). Whisk eggs vigorously for a minute.



When potato/onion mixture is warm but not HOT, add to eggs and stir.

Heat pan with reserved oil over medium-high heat (add more if the pan bottom is not liberally covered). Pour egg/potato/onion mixture into pan, flattening mixture with a spatula. Turn heat down to medium-low. Use spatula to loosen tortilla from pan every couple of minutes until eggs are almost set. They will still look a bit runny on top.



Carefully slide tortilla onto large round serving plate. With oven-mitts (and perhaps the help of a friend), place pan on top of the plated tortilla. Hold both pan and plate on each side and flip upside-down so that the undercooked eggs are now on the bottom of the pan.

Turn heat up to medium and cook for a few more minutes, loosening bottom with spatula, until lightly golden.


Slide onto clean serving plate.

*Vegetables and meat can be added to the tortilla. Mushrooms, bell peppers and chopped cooked Chorizo complement the flavors nicely!

Crema Mexicana

After having a mystery white sauce at Tacos Lupita in Somerville, MA, and being told about crema mexicana by DuoDishes, I decided the two were the same and that I need to make it for a shrimp enchilada dish I am preparing for lunch tomorrow. It seems absurdly easy to make, and I really hope that it turns out.

My great fear is that is that although seems easy, it may actually turn into a fatal compound if the slightest error occurs. (Hi, my name is Caitlin, and I am a hypochondriac. "Hi Caitlin...")

But anyways, I did the deed and will update y'all tomorrow with a photo and description of the finished product. (As of the morning after...much thicker, added some cumin, paprika and chili powder). If you see no updates in the next week, don't make the recipe ; )

Anyways..here goes.

Ingredients:

2 cups cream, try to find one that is pasteurized but not ultra, super or overly pasteurized.
1/4 cup buttermilk
Dash salt

Bring cream to room temperature, or heat in small saucepan. DO NOT heat over 100 degrees Farenheit. This apparently is very bad. So don't do it!

Stir in buttermilk and a dash of salt.

Keep covered in warm (80-90) location. For example, southern California or Florida. If that is not possible, an oven's pilot light is supposed to be a good place. I have mine above my cable box (it always is warm to the touch). Leave overnight (6-8 hours). It should appear thickened after this time.

Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving. It stays good about 7 days in the fridge.

You can spice it up by adding (after the overnight period) cilantro, cumin, paprika, chili, chipotles in adobo sauce...you name it!

Beef Bourguignon

Ingredients:

3 lbs beef chuck
Optional 1/2 cup brandy
Optional 2 strips bacon, diced
1/2 cup flour
1 bottle full-bodied dry red wine (Bordeaux, Cabernet, Zinfandel)
2 celery ribs
2 large carrots, or about 12 baby carrots
2 onions
1 head garlic
12 oz baby bella (crimini) mushrooms
1 pound pearl (boiling) onions
1 tablespoon tomato paste, or 1 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1-2 cups beef stock, optional
Salt
Pepper
Rosemary
Thyme
Parsley
2 pounds baby potatoes

Before you begin cooking, wash the onions, carrots and celery. Cut celery and carrots into 1/4 inch thick pieces, dice the 2 regular onions and mince the garlic. Set aside.

Mix flour with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in Ziploc bag.

Cut chuck into 1/2 inch thick square chunks and coat with flour mixture.

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in pan over medium-high heat, being careful not to burn the butter. Add meat pieces in 2 batches and brown well on all sides. (If you cannot brown every side, it is not the end of the world, it'll do). Remove meat and put in bowl.

Add brandy to and let simmer about 5 minutes to deglaze the pan, scraping up any beef or bacon fat left in pan. Pour over beef chunks.

In large stew pot, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat and add the bacon and cook for 2 minutes. Add the prepared vegetables to the pan and saute about 5-7 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook one more minute. If using canned diced tomatoes, add to pan after vegetables have been cooking for 5 minutes and let simmer for 10 minutes.

Add meat and juices to pan. Add 1 teaspoon parsley, 1/2 teaspoon rosemary and 1 teaspoon thyme. Liberally add freshly ground pepper. Pour bottle of wine over everything. Turn heat to medium until stew begins to simmer. When first bubbles appear, turn heat down to medium low to maintain a simmer but avoid boiling. This level of heat will dissolve tough collagenous tissue but reserve natural meat juices. Cook at a simmer for about 3 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. If stew looks dry, add beef stock as needed.

Cut ends off of pearl onions. Cook for 1-2 minutes in boiling water. Strain and run cold water over onions. Let cook, then peel. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in saute pan and cook onions over medium-high heat until onions are golden. Add to stew.

Wash mushrooms, cut off stems and slice thinly. Melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium-high heat and saute mushrooms about 8 minutes or until liquid has evaporated. Add mushrooms to stew.

Cook stew additional 30 minutes at simmer.

While stew is simmering, boil large pot of salted water and cook potatoes until tender or a knife can easily pierce them. Rinse with cold water and remove peel and cut potatoes in half.

Place potatoes on large plate and top with beef stew.

Lemon Panna Cotta with Berry Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup whole milk
1 cup whipping cream (this can be reduced to 1/2 cup, if so, increase whole milk to 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (I sometimes use 1 t vanilla extract if I don't have vanilla beans on hand)
5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup sugar (sometimes I use a bit less if my topping is sweet)
1 cup crème fraîche*(A cheaper option is 1/2 sour cream & 1/2 plain yogurt)
2 tablespoons lemon zest
3 c frozen berries (about 12 ounces), thawed, drained, juices reserved
3 tablespoons sugar

Mix milk and cream in saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Bring to simmer. Remove from heat. Cover; let steep (cover) 30 minutes. Remove vanilla bean.

Pour lemon juice into small bowl; sprinkle gelatin over. Let stand until gelatin softens, about 10 minutes. Stir sugar and gelatin mixture into milk mixture. Stir over low heat until sugar and gelatin dissolves. Remove immediately from heat. Whisk in crème fraîche mixture and lemon peel. Divide among ramekins. Cover; chill until set. It typically needs at least 5 hours to set.

Puree berries (reserving a few for garnish) and all reserved juices and sugar in blender. Strain mixture into medium bowl, pressing to get out all of the juices . Discard solids in strainer. Stir remaining berries into sauce. The sauce can be made ahead of time and refrigerated until serving time.

Run small knife around panna cotta. Place bottoms of ramekins in bowl of hot water briefly to loosen them. Place plate atop ramekin. Hold plate and ramekin together and flip gently to removed panna cotta. Serve with sauce.

Makes 6 large servings.