The King of Cakes for Mardi Gras

I have to admit I have never been that interested in Mardi Gras.  It has always seemed like a made up excuse to drink way too much and behave badly.  Imagine my surprised when 18 pages into this month’s Saveur magazine I learned that Mardi Gras is really a celebration of of the Epiphany (the wise men’s discovery of Jesus).    Of course the article really didn’t expound on what the Epiphany has to do with consuming vast amount of Hurricanes and yelling for beads on Bourbon Street, so we will have to make our own speculations how we got from a pinnacle Christian event to the modern day Mardi Gras celebration.

Anyway, the article got me thinking about King Cake, the popular custom of baking a cake in honor of the three wise men.  This cake is traditionally a sweetened yeast bread (similar to a danish) stuffed with cream cheese and a tiny plastic baby then sprinkled with garishly colored cinnamon and sugar or drizzled with icinng.  The bright colors are not just because they match LSU and Tulane colors but rather that to represent justice (purple), faith (green) and power (gold).

For the past 2 years a dear sweet co-worker of mine has ordered a King Cake and had it shipped to our office to celebrate Mardi Gras.  It is such a sweet gesture, but truthfully the cake from the mail order company is not very good.  It taste a lot like the cellophane-wrapped sticky buns you get in a vending machine and convenience stores.  

I got to thinking there has got to be an easy short cut route for making a King Cake when you don’t live near the bakeries that make them fresh.  I came up with the below semi-homemade recipe.  It is not only simple it tastes really good.    So the only thing you may need to order in advance is the little plastic baby that is typically inserted in a King Cake (lucky recipient of the baby in their piece of cake wins the honor of providing the King Cake at next’s event).  

I started my recipe with three cans of 8 count uncooked cinnamon rolls.  The beauty of using these prefab cinnamon rolls is they are tasty, super easy and that each can comes with a little icing cup.  Three cans = three icing cups, which happens to be the exact number of colors of icing you need for King Cake.  I used gel food coloring get the really vibrant Mardi Gras colors.  The only other thing you need to add is the cream cheese filling.  I made the whole cake start to finish in under 45 minutes and that was with a toddler trying to “help” me cook.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

King Cake

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes

• 3 cans of uncooked cinnamon rolls
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 (8 oz) packaging of cream cheese, room temperature
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• a dash of vanilla
• gel food coloring

Preheat oven to 400°.

Place cream cheese in a bowl.  Add sugar and a dash of vanilla.  Use a hand mixer to cream together the mixture and set aside until ready to add to cake.

Pop open the cinnamon rolls and set icing cups aside.  Use and rolling pin to roll each cinnamon roll out into an oval shape and about 1/4 inch thick.

Place two of the ovals over lapping end to end.  Brush the dough with the beaten egg where they over lap and roll again until 1/8 of an inch thick.

Place the pieces in an over lapping circle.  Brush the places where they overlap with egg and press together.

Spoon the cream cheese mixture in a ring around the center.  Fold the end of the dough back over the cream cheese.  Brush the place where dough over laps with egg and press together.

Bake for 25-27 minutes.  Check the cake after 15 minutes if it is starting to get to brown, loosely lay a piece of tinfoil over the cake and continue backing.

While cake is baking mix gel food coloring into icing cups to achieve desired color saturation level.

After baking, cool the cake completed.  Drizzle with alternating colors of icing and serve. (You may need to microwave the icing a few seconds to get it to drizzle.)

Dinner from Disney

Just returned from taking Logan on his first Disney trip - an auspicious occasion in the Reed household! We went with 6 other families so between us we had nine kids ages six and down for a week in Disney. Oh boy!

While I was in Disney I had the opportunity to eat all kinds of park food. Some meals were definitely better than others. One meal I particularly enjoyed was dinner at T Rex in Downtown Disney.

The wait was kind of long (even with reservations) but the food was good and dining experience was excellent. The restaurant was decorated like Jurassic Park and there are regular “meteor showers” every 20 or 30 minutes. (Logan loved the light show!) For dinner I got the Omnivore Salad with shrimp - rosemary infused shrimp on top of a salad with strawberries, dried cranberries, goat cheese and maple pecans then topped with a balsamic reduction dressing.

The salad was so good and better yet, it was something I could easily recreate and enjoy when ever I liked at home. I liked adding shrimp to the top. Seafood, in addition to being so tasty, is also good for you. It is a great source of lean healthy protein and vitamin D. It is also a natural source of Omega 3 fatty acids. Shrimp really are a tasty, bite-sized, little super food.


The Anytime Omnivore Salad

1 lb medium shrimp, peeled and de-veined
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, finally chopped
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
1 bag salad greens
½ cup strawberries, hulled and quartered
¼ cup dried cranberries
Maple pecans (recipe below)
Balsamic Reduction Dressing (recipe below)

•Preheat oven to 400º.
•Place shrimp into a bowl. Add olive oil, chopped garlic, rosemary and a dash of salt. Toss to coat shrimp.
•Pour shrimp into a large glass baking dish. Bake for about 10 minutes or until shrimp are fully cooked (they will look white opaque).
•Portion salad greens onto serving plates. Top with strawberries and cranberries.
•Add cooked shrimp and maple pecans. Top with Balsamic Reduction Dressing.

Maple Pecans
½ cup pecan halves
¼ cup real maple syrup
½ teaspoon chili powder
salt

•Preheat oven to 400º.
•In a small bowl toss together.
•Cover a baking sheet with tin foil. Spread pecans onto baking sheet. Bake for 6 minutes.


Balsamic Reduction Dressing
1 cup basalmic vinegar
Garlic salt
Fresh cracked black pepper

•Simmer basalmic vinegar in a medium skillet until it thickens to a syrup (about 10 minutes). Remove from heat. Season basalmic reduction with fresh cracked black pepper and a dash of garlic salt. Stir well.

Pass the Pumpkins Please!

I have a confession to make - I really really love Halloween. I love decorating my house and passing out candy to all the little trick-or-treaters. I even dress up to pass out the candy.

This year was extra fun because I had another little person to “decorate” for evening – my 6 month old, Logan. Naturally I decided we needed to coordinate our costumes. Since I had an adorable little devil costume for him I decided to coordinate myself and go as an angel. Fitting, huh?

Since I love this holiday so much I wanted to come up with a fitting dinner for Halloween night. Of course it had to be something simple or something I could make ahead since dinner time comes right about the time trick-or-treaters start making the rounds in my neighborhood. I came up with Pumpkin Soup with Cran-Apple Pistachio Relish. Let me tell you it was delish!

Not sure why I don’t cook with pumpkin more often. It is available anytime of the year in canned form and it is really easy to add to all kinds of dishes. The best part is, unlike any other canned veggies, you can get cans of 100% pure pumpkin (no extra copious amounts of salt added!).

This recipe makes a good amount of soup. I like to refrigerate it and eat it for a week, but if that is more pumpkin soup than you want, try freezing it. Just portion into ziplock bags, push the air out, seal and freeze.

The relish will keep in the fridge for several days, but it won’t freeze well. If you are going to keep the relish in the fridge think about waiting to add the pistachios when you are ready to serve it so they are nice and crunchy. Pistachios will get soft sitting in the fridge soaking up the fruit juices of the relish.

Happy belated Halloween!!

Pumpkin Soup with Cran-Apple Pistachio Relish
Hands on time: 12 minutes Start to finish: 25 minutes Makes: 6 servings (9 cups)

2 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 celery stalks with leaves, diced
¼ teaspoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon curry powder
48 oz container low sodium chicken stock (6 cups)
15 oz can 100% pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons brown sugar
8 oz heavy cream (1 cup)
½ teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:
• Heat a medium soup pot on medium high heat. Add olive oil, butter, onions, celery and garlic salt top pot and sauté for 6-7 minutes or until onions are soft and translucent.
• Add flour, thyme, curry powder top veggies and sauté for 1 minute.
• Add chicken stock, pumpkin puree and brown sugar to the pot. Whisk together and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes to thicken the soup.
• Reduce heat to low. Add heavy cream and nutmeg. Stir to incorporate. Keep warm until ready to serve.
• Ladle soup into bowls and top with Cran-Apple Pistachio Relish.

Cran-Apple Pistachio Relish
½ cup pistachios, rough chopped
½ c dried cranberries, chopped
1 granny smith apple, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tsp chipotle chili powder
2 teaspoons honey
• While soup is simmering chop the pistachios, cranberries and apple. Stir together with lemon juice, chili powder and honey. Set aside until ready to serve.

Hosting the Sip-and-See

This past weekend I co-hosted a baby shower for my good friend Kim. It was what we call in the south a Sip-and-See Shower. That is when you have the shower after the baby is born. You come by to sip some lovely beverages, see the baby and shower the family with love. The added bonus (in my book anyway) is that since the baby is present you usually get out of having to play and sort of shower game.

Now to host a successful baby shower you need four basic elements: food, pastel-colored punch (beak out the sherbet and the ginger-ale), a few cute baby decorations and adequate seating. As the owner of my own recipe development company, guess which element I usually get assigned – the food. And that is ok. I love to cook (obviously) and I love the chance to try out new and different little appetizers on my friends. However, this shower was a little different from the many showers I hosted in the past, because I recently became a new mom myself. And as it turns out, my 5-month-old doesn’t find the same fascination I do in spending hours in the kitchen. No, my recipes these days need to be more of the 20-minutes-and-done variety. So then the question became how do I come up with a Martha Stewart buffet on a Rachel Ray time schedule. The answer? First, divide and conquer (i.e. divide up the buffet responsibilities among all 3 hostesses). Second, come up with some new quick-time apps.

One of the really great little nibbles I come up with was Southwestern Crab Quiche Bites. These little nearly-homemade quiches are awesome. Quiches by nature transport easily and reheat beautifully. Making them crab quiches just makes them more upscale. The nearly-homemade part comes in when I started with crab cakes, which have seasonings in them meaning you need to add fewer other seasonings to complete the dish.

Southwestern Crab Quiches Bites
Hand one time: 12 minutes - Start to finish time: 25 minutes - Makes: 45 appetizer servings

45 phyllo cups
2 frozen crab cakes (about 3.5 oz each), thawed
4 eggs
½ cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons mild chopped green chilies (canned)
¼ teaspoon chipotle chili powder
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
3-4 oz gruyere cheese

• Preheat oven to 350º.
• Line baking sheet with tin foil. Place phyllo cups on the baking sheet.
• Crumble thawed crab cakes into phyllo cups.
• In a bowl whisk together eggs, cream, chilies, nutmeg and chipotle chili powder. Spoon mixture over the crumbled crab in phyllo cups.
• Top each mini quiche with gruyere cheese.
• Bake 13 minutes.

The First Step to More

They say all big journeys start with a single step. I say if I want to change how Americans look at food the best place to start is with my own family’s dinner plate. Now this is a challenge as my guy is a typical Midwestern-raised, corn-fed man who would happily eat chicken wings, green beans and beer every night of the week So I am constantly sneaking in new items onto the dinner table when my family isn’t looking. I have found that the key to acceptance is usually just naming the dish to be something that sounds familiar.

My favorite new dish that I am sneaking onto the dinner table is couscous. It is ridiculously simple to make and very tasty to eat. Couscous looks kind of like rice but it is actually more like a tiny little pasta. It is perfect for a night when you need side dish in a hurry as it cooks in about 5 minutes. Couscous is traditionally a North African or Middle Eastern dish but don’t let the fact it is from a region whose cuisine you aren’t familiar with deter you from giving couscous a try. The flavor of couscous is really mild so it works well in all kinds of dishes. You can find couscous on the ethnic aisle or near the rice in your grocery store.

Below is a really simple basic couscous recipe. Try it in the place of rice one night and let me know what you think. Just tell your family it is tiny pasta and I bet they will probably like it too.

Couscous

1 cup dry couscous

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups vegetable broth (or chicken broth)

-Put vegetable broth and olive oil into a pot and bring to a boil.

-Pour in 1 cup dry couscous. Stir well.

-Cover pot, turn off heat and let sit for 5-6 minutes.

-When ready to serve, give couscous a quick stir before spooning onto serving dish.

Getting Out of the Rut

Did you know that 1 in 5 Americans have a diet that regularly consists of 10 or less foods total?? Seriously, I read that in Gourmet magazine some time ago. Now why in the world when there are so many delicious foods out there would a person recycle the same chicken dish and the same boxed mac and cheese night after night? Maybe it is just that people get in a rut or they just don’t have time to go look for something new to try.

That is where I come in. I am constantly trying new dishes then coming up with a way to make them simple enough for anyone to prepare. This blog is my way to share. So if you are interested stay tuned and lets try some new foods together.

Loyalty Declines Along with the Economy

If you are like me you are probably getting a little tired of hearing all the economy doom and gloom. However we can't deny the effect the current economic trends are having on food trends, in particular how the average American shops for food. Various surveys and reports have shown there has been a huge shift in how we shop. Brand loyalty is on the decline while deal shopping is all the rage. Coupon usage is way up (so if you happen to be a brand manager issuing those coupons I hope you are keeping a close eye on that redemption budget....the old estimates will not apply!), promotional activity is up and purchases of lower priced private label items is up. What is down? Brand loyalty. According to a survey by Universal McCann only about a third of shoppers are planning to remain brand loyal with about an equal number stating they will only buy a grocery item that is on discount.