Bananas Foster

This is a showy dessert. Thankfully it is super simple, and super bad for you, but why not indulge every now and again. I was invited to a girls night and thought this would knock them off of their collective feet.

Yes, that is fire you see coming from the pan, who doesn't enjoy dessert and a show? I do recommend using long matches to ignite the alcohol as not to singe your brows and or face.

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar

4 bananas
1/4 cup rum

1 long match

vanilla ice cream

Melt the butter over medium heat, once melted add the brown sugar. You want to stir this until the sugar is melted into the butter. Add your sliced bananas and heat on both sides. When the sugar, butter, banana mix is bubbling get ready. TAKE THE PAN OFF THE HEAT then add the rum. Quickly stir to heat the rum then ignite the rum with a long match. If you have a gas stove some may say you can use the flame of the gas to light it, I wouldn't but do what you wish. Serve the bananas over vanilla ice cream. In this picture we gilded the lilly with whipped cream, totally over the top and yet quite enjoyable.

Mustard & Dill Salmon

Here at the abode we are trying to be more diet friendly. Though we are all big fans of fried with gravy it just isn't kind to the waist-line. This dinner took about 35 minutes to prepare from start to finish. I served it with couscous to have a starch, I do love a rounded meal.

INGREDIENTS

Spice Rub:
1 teaspoon each dried mustard, dill
1/2 teaspoon salt & black pepper
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme

4 6 oz salmon fillets
2 teaspoons honey
8 cups spinach leaves
1 clove minced garlic (I use my microplane to grate the garlic right into the pan, be sure to have your spinach ready to go in or you will burn your garlic and have to start over)

1/2 cup red wine (Something you would drink, not cheap "cooking wine")

1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard

I began by making the spice rub, drizzling honey on the salmon and sprinkling the rub on the fish, reserving about 1/2 of the rub. I added olive oil to a large pan, grated in the garlic and quickly added the spinach. I filled the pan, let it cook down and filled the pan again to be sure to have enough. Spinach cooks down a lot so it is better to aire on the side of too much than too little. I also didn't salt it. I was worried as it cooked down it would be too salty. I suppose a small sprinkle would have been okay.

I took the spinach out of the pan and set it aside to stay warm. I heated some oil and browned the salmon. Once browned on both sides I put it in a 300 degree oven to cook through, you want it at 130 degrees. While I waited for the salmon to cook I added the wine, Dijon mustard and left over spice rub to the pan and reduced it to make a nice sauce.

To plate I made a pile of spinach which I laid the salmon on. I drizzled the red wine sauce over the fish and placed a rounded scoop of couscous on the side. Enjoy!

Moules Ravigote

The man of the house made a delicious dinner Saturday night which consisted of mussels and shrimp. Super simple idea, good ingredients, good flavors and you get a great meal. He also thought the 3 of us needed 2 pounds of mussels, silly man, that was way too much. What to do with left over mussels, toss them right, they can't last that long, or can they?

We picked out the left over mussels and saved them in the fridge. I happened across a recipe in Julia and Jacques Cooking At Home Cookbook. I admit it, I love cookbooks and read them like regular books. This wasn't a difficult recipe by any means, but it was time consuming. Thankfully I am a chopper and tend to dice things into little bits, so this recipe really worked well with my knife skills. It is hard to tell in the photo, but there are a bunch of mussels, nestled in their shells, covered in the ravigote. I served a simple salad of romaine, tomatoes, and shaved Parmesan with a faux Caesar dressing along with the mussels, it was a nice light dinner. It would have been even better enjoyed on the deck in June with a nice white wine. If you want to just cook the mussels and make the ravigote sauce you can do that too.

INGREDIENTS

For the ravigote sauce:

1 1/2 Tbs minced shallots or scallions

1 1/2 Tbs Dijon mustard

2 hard boiled eggs, finely chopped

2 Tbs chopped gherkin pickles

1 Tbs capers

1 Tbs chopped parsley

2 Tbs Chives (I didn't have any)

1 Tbs white wine vinegar (I used red wine vinegar)

2 tsp lemon juice

4 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp Tabasco

1-2 cloves minced garlic

Mince, chop, and dice all of the above items that need chopping. Then add the wet ingredients. Spoon the sauce over the mussels and enjoy.

Blueberry Shite with Hard Sauce

Don't let the name fool you, this dessert is a family favorite; and in my family we drop the "e" in shite. This recipe came from my grandmother. Rumors had circulated about her not giving out recipes in their entirety as to be the only one that could make it just right. After the experience I had this morning trying to put this "shite" together I feel I can attest to the fact she may have left some important details out of many a recipe. Here is the exact recipe I had to follow.



For the dough & crumb top:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
3/4 cup crisco shortening
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon


For the filling:
1 pint blueberries
1/3 cup sugar
tapioca
cinnamon


Mix. (Ingreased dish @3500 for 35 min.) Pat crust on bottom & sides, add blueberries and crumbs on top.


You may be thinking to yourself, but Michelle, my oven doesn't go up to 3500! I know, mine doesn't either. Needless to say, this recipe needed a little help in the specifics department.

Here is what I actually did.

For the bottom crust and the crumb topping:

(Using a pastry blender mix the following)
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup crisco shortening
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Add in 2 egg yolks, this will be a "sandy" mixture, and quite dry. I reserved about 1.5 cups of this mix for the topping. I pressed the remaining mix into an ungreased 9"x 13" glass pan. Atop the crust I added about 2 quarts of frozen blueberries that I mixed with 2/3 cup sugar, a rounded tablespoon of tapioca and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Sprinkle the top with the reserved crumb topping. This did take much longer to bake than it said on the card, about an hour to be exact. I wanted the top and bottom crust to be brown and it took some time to get there.

For the hard sauce, I am sure some of you will freak out about this. If you have a bun in the oven or have health issues you may want to forgo the raw egg in this topping. The eggs do give the sauce a richness and a lightness, but how bad can butter and sugar be without some eggs?

Hard Sauce
1 stick soft butter
2 cups powdered sugar

Once this is blended add in 2 eggs beaten with 2 teaspoons of vanilla. I used the KitchenAid for this, and I got a nice light and fluffy mix. Refridgerate this sauce until you are ready to serve. You should also note this really isn't a sauce at all. It is a topping of sorts. It is "hard" as the name implys.

For service cut a piece of the blueberry shite, best when warm and top with hard sauce, I promise this is a great dessert, just not a well written recipe. Enjoy