Pesto Aioli

Sauce
Pesto Aioli

I made a pesto aioli for the burgers which I would like to quickly share. It is actually tasty on paninis, hoagies and traditional burgers.

This recipe is enough to use on about 9 burgers.

1 Tbs pesto
3 cloves minced garlic
2 tbs Mayonnaise
1/2 ts lemon juice
Dash Pepper
Dash Salt
1/2 ts sugar

Mix ingredients together and add to your favorite sandwiches.

The Veggie Burger for the person who doesn't like veggie burgers

Ingredients (9 burgers)
Package with appx 20 button mushrooms
2 tbs flour
1/4 cup of rolled oats
1/2 ts paprika
1 ts garlic powder
1 ts cumin
1 1/2 ts salt
1 ts pepper
150 g cream cheese
70 g white cheddar cheese (shredded)
2 Eggs

Oil for pan frying

Directions
Wash the mushrooms and then separate them into two halves. With one half pulverize in a blender or (if you need to take out some aggression) with a hammer. If you use the hammer method make sure to put the mushrooms in a freezer bag first. With the second half use a kitchen knife and cut the mushrooms into 3 mm diameter pieces. So, the second half should still be small pieces, but not pulverized. These larger pieces will offer some texture to the burger. Remember the mushrooms are the "meat" of this burger.

Once the mushrooms are prepared you can add the rest of the ingredients to form a batter.

It will honestly not be the prettiest batter:













This is OK. Remember real hamburgers can be messy before they are cooked.

Once the batter is mixed place a heaping tablespoon onto a liberally greased frying pan. Once the batter has been placed into the pan, pat it down a little to form a "patty".

Wait for the bottom to before golden brown and then flip to cook the other side.

I normally cook 2 at a time.

This was one of my burgers which had just been added and patted down:











.



Here it is again after being flipped:














Once both sides are golden/ dark brown, you are ready to eat.

Here is my finished product. I used a fresh baked flat bread (cut into rounds) for my buns, but you can use a traditional burger bun if you prefer.

Kim's Caprese Salad

A Caprese Salad is definitely a nice simple refreshing dish. Traditionally it is a mixture of tomato and mozzarella cheese which is drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

The salad here has a couple of slight modifications which were thought of by my friend Kim. Thus, this posting and recipe would not be possible without her ideas.

This salad has the extra inclusion of basil and avocado to give the salad some more freshness, color and body. The avocado works as a very good intermediary between the cheese and tomato.

The salad is also unique in that it offers the diner a little individual serving.

This recipe will make about 12 individual servings

Ingredients
4 Tomatoes
12 basil leaves
1 avocado sliced into 12 pieces
12 mozzarella slices (make sure to use fresh mozzarella and not the reduced moisture stuff)
Dash sugar
Dash salt

Directions
Preparing the tomatoes
Slice the top of the tomato just barely removing the stem on the top. Next, use a teaspoon and remove all of the watery seeds and membranes. Basically you want to remove the inside areas that are translucent and thus will be left only with the red outer flesh. Lastly, cut the tomato into quarters.

Repeat this for each tomato.

Layering the salad
Layer the ingredients in the following order (from bottom to top): basil, avocado, mozzarella, tomato.

Then place each completed "stack" into a pyrex dish. Place them side by side, in rows.

Here is mine:












Prior to serving.
Drizzle some olive oil and balsamic over the salad to your liking. Remember 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. Also top with just a dash or salt and sugar.

Pho

Serves 2

Ingredients Broth
1 Lt beef stock
1 Sliced Mushroom
1 Tbs of sliced onion
1 Tbs chopped scallion
1 Slice pork belly
1 Ts ginger
1 Bay leaf
Pinch cinnamon
Pinch pepper

Noodle
Appx 70 g cooked Rice Noodle

Protein
1 Chicken Breast

Condiments
Sprouts
Sliced fresh Jalapenos
Lime quarters
Chopped Scallions
Flat Leaf Parsley
Chopped Ginger

Directions

Broth
Place ingredients in a medium pot on medium heat and let simmer for 15 minutes. Before adding noodles and chicken, remove bay leaf, chili, and pork belly. These things can be disposed of.

Here is my broth:












Add noodles to broth. Make sure they are cooked before adding.

Lastly, sear your chicken breast. It does not need to be cooked through. Cut it into 1 cm squared pieces and place the chicken in the broth. Give the chicken about 10 minutes in the broth to cook through. Once the chicken is cooked through, you are ready to eat!

Serve the broth, noodles and chicken in a large bowl with your condiments:

Mine were

• Sprouts
• Sliced fresh Jalapenos
• Lime quarters
• Chopped Scallions
• Flat Leaf Parsley
• Chopped Ginger
• Onion slices
  

Add these condiments to your Pho to preferred amounts.

Here is my finished Pho:

Fresh Cheese Ravioli

Makes 20 Raviolis

Ingredients
Pasta
3 Cups flour
3 Eggs
2 glugs of Olive Oil
1 ts Salt
3 tbs Water

Filling
200 g Ricotta Cheese
1/2 Egg
2 Roasted Red Peppers
20 Spinach leaves

Directions

Creating the Pasta
Mix ingredients in a bowl. Once the mixture begins to form a dough, knead the mixture on a flower surface. You want a thicker dough that is only slightly sticky.

Here is my ball of pasta dough:













Making the filling:

Coat the spinach with a little olive oil and broil it on a baking sheet in the oven. Once it cooks down by half, cut the spinach into small bits (a few millimeters squared)

Here is my spinach for the filling:













Cut the red pepper into similar sized pieces:














Lastly, mix the pepper and spinach with ricotta and 1/2 egg. Your filling is now ready.

Forming the Ravioli
Take your pasta dough and roll it out on a flat, floured surface. Roll the dough out until it is 2 to 3 mm thick. It is important the the dough is thin and it its important that the dough has an even thickness throughout. If you have a small workspace you may need to separate your dough into a few pieces and carry out the forming process a few separate times.

Here is my dough rolled out. I separated my dough into 4 pieces.













Place some dollops (3/4 tbs) of filling onto the dough. These dollops should be placed about 4 inches in from the top edge and 3 inches apart. I could fit 3 onto my dough.














Next, fold the dough over itself leaving dough on top and bottom of the filling. Lastly, use a cup with an appx 2 inch diameter to cut out your ravioli.














Your ravioli should now be cut out and ready to boil.

Here are mine:















Tomato sauce

Ingredients
9 Tomatoes
2 Tsp Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp Apple vinegar
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp Garlic Powder
dash Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
1/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tsp tomato paste

Directions: First, cut tomatoes into small pieces (1/2 cm by 1/2 cm) and seed them. Next, place olive oil in a frying pan and let it heat up. Once the pan is hot, add the tomatoes and let them sautee. Add the spices, lemon juice, vinegar and water and allow the tomatoes to become tender. The consistancy should be almost that of a tomato sauce, but that tomatoes should still retain some of their form.

The Perfect Panini

Ingredients (Per Sandwich)
Fresh Panini Bread
Fresh Mozzarella slices (2 to 3 slices per sandwich)
Fresh Turkey (2 to 3 slices per sandwich)
Greens
1 tbs Chopped Roasted Red Pepper (I recommend chopping the pepper because otherwise it tends to not stay in/ on the sandwich)
A smearing of Franco American Dressing

(Note: make sure you choose a good quality Mozzarella, not a low fat or moisture variety)









Directions
Load up the sandwich in the following order:








To finish up, if you desire, you can put the sandwich in a sandwich press or under the broiler to make it toasty.

Panini Bread

Makes 5 pieces of Sandwich bread.

Ingredients
Pizza Dough Recipe x 1.5

Directions
After the dough has risen, on a floured surface, separate the dough into 5 separate balls. Shape each ball into a "brick" 1.5 inches wide, 4 inches long and 3/4 inches tall. Then, place the shaped dough onto a greased and inverted baking sheet.

Once all of the dough balls have been shaped, place the inverted pan on the bottom of your oven at 350 degrees F.

Allow to cook for about 17 minutes. You may want to flip the rolls at some point to allow each side to brown.

Allow to cool before eating.

Fresh Deli Turkey

Ingredients
1 lb Turkey Breast
Franco American Dressing (Double the recipe posted earlier with the addition of 1 ts extra mayonnaise and 1 ts thyme)
1 Liter of oil for cooking
4 sheets of Aluminum foil (appx 1 foot squared)

Before beginning this recipe begin heating a pot of oil on high.

Liberally coat the turkey with the dressing. Then, tightly wrap it with the 4 layers of foil. I recommend curling the turkey breast into itself, then placing the turkey at one end of your foil, rolling it into a tube and then lastly rolling in the left and right openings.

Your final product will look like this:








Next, place the entire foil package into the pot of oil and cover with a lid. Because the Turkey is sealed in the foil, it is not actually coming into contact with the oil. Thus, the turkey is not technically frying.

After 13 minutes, remove the turkey package from the oil. Allow to cool and then unwrap the turkey.

When the Turkey is at room temperature, you can slice it. Make sure to slice against the grain.

Spinach Rounds with Fresh Yogurt

This Recipe was inspired by the Namli restaurant in Istanbul. It will make 6 spinach rounds.

Ingredients
1 Pound Fresh, Washed Spinach Leaves
1 Glug olive oil
1 Tbs Lemon Juice
1 Ts Garlic Powder
1/2 Ts Hot sauce
Dash Salt
Yogurt for Topping

Directions
Take the Spinach leaves and toss them with just a little olive oil (1 ts).














Take the olive oil coated spinach and spread it on a baking sheet.











Then, place it in the broiler on high. Every 2 minutes or so toss the spinach so that each leaf receives some direct heat. After the spinach has wilted by more than half, remove it from the oven. Let the spinach cool to room temperature and then mix it with the lemon juice, hot sauce, garlic and salt. At this point, I used a pair of scissors and cut down the sides of my leaves because some of the stems were long, but this is not a necessary step.

Lastly roll the spinach into 6 1.5 inch diameter boules and top with just a dollop of yogurt.

Baked Apple Fritters

Makes about ten fritters

3 apples peeled, sliced, and pureed in blender
1.5 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 ts baking powder
1 egg
35 g butter softened

Mix all ingredients together in a mixing bowl. You will have a relatively loose batter.













Preheat oven to 400 Degrees F. Spoon 1 tbs size amounts of batter evenly throughout a greased baking sheet.














Cook for about 10 minutes until the fritters retain their shape. You may want to finish them off with a quick broil on the top and bottom of the fritters to make them a little crispier.

Tarte Flambee

Creates 1 Tarte Flambee for 1 to 2 people

Ingredients
1 2.5 Inch diameter ball pizza dough (see earlier post for pizza dough recipe)
2 tbsp cream cheese, labne or creme faiche
1 small onion sliced
2/3 cup cheese (Mozzarella or Gruyere)
4 Slices bacon cut into little lardons (if you can get real lardons, use them)
1 ts butter

Directions

Place dough on a floured surface and roll to about 7" in diameter












It will be a rather thin dough.












Once the the dough is rolled out, spread a teaspoon of softened (but not melted) butter on the top.












Then, after spreading the butter, fold the entire dough into a quarter size. (As shown below)








Complete this step of folding 4 to 5 times, but only add the butter the first time around. This will create a crust that will be flakier that pizza for the Tarte flambee as the butter will steam when the dough is baked creating fine layers in the crust.

Next, roll the dough back out to about 7" inches in diameter and bake on a greased baking sheet on the bottom rung of the oven at 450 degrees F until the bottom of the dough begins to brown. The top does not need to brown.














Remove the dough from the oven and spread 2 tbs of labne, cream cheese, or creme fraiche on the top of the dough.













Also add your bacon. (before I added my bacon I tossed it in this bowl with a little bit of sugar)













And add your caramelized onions (mine were browned and then simmered off with about 1/4 cup of water and a ts of balsamic vinegar before being put on the Tarte Flambee. This makes them softer and more flavorful)













Lastly, add your cheese over the top.













The Tarte then goes into the top rack of the oven at 450 degrees until the cheese is melted and brown. It will probable take about 7 minutes. You may prefer to turn the broiler on at the very end.


Once you remove the Tarte Flambee from the oven, you are ready to eat!

Franco American Salad Dressing

Serves 2 to 3 People

Ingredients in Dressing

3 tb Olive Oil
1 tb Lemon Juice
1 tb Apple Vinegar
1/4 ts Mustard
1 ts Soy Sauce
1 ts Sugar
1/2 ts Garlic Powder
Dash Pepper
1 tb Mayonnaise

Mix ingredients in a salad bowl until emulsified. The consistency will still be rather thin. This is not a creamy dressing.

Add 2 to 3 dinner portions (dinner bowls) of lettuce, veggies, etc. into the salad bowl and toss with the dressing.

This dressing can also be stored for a long time in the fridge if you want to make it ahead of time. Just give the dressing a quick stir or shake before using.

Bananas Foster French Toast

Ingredients
Sauce

• 100 g butter
• 3 Bananas
• 1/4 Cup Sugar
• 1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 to 2 shots vodka

French Toast

10 to 12 Slices of bread, preferrably stale and about 3/4 inch thick

Batter ingredients:

• 5 Eggs
• Splash of milk
• Few Tbsp of confectioners sugar
• tsp of Cinnamon

Directions
Sauce
Peel the bananas and slice them into 1/4 inch coins. Then, place them aside.













Melt the butter on a high temp in a medium sauce pot.













When the butter is melted and bubbling, add the bananas and let them cook down.














Add the sugars, vodka and lemon. When the sugar is dissolved and the bananas are totally soft, you are ready to serve.














French Toast














Soak each slice of bread in the batter for 60 seconds on each side. Pan fry in a greased skillet until brown on each side. Once out of the skillet, top liberally with your sauce.