Fresh Mint Chocolate Truffle Tart

I love chocolate mint combinations and this did not fail. However I will note that this chocolate mint combo is not similar to an Andes mint or a girl scout cookie. This is fresh mint...it's like if you were to purchase some mint and smell it, that's the mint taste in this dessert because its fresh mint and not mint extract. That being mentioned, this would also be wonderful using the extract versus the fresh mint if you prefer. (Wow I just used the word 9 times is 4 sentences-yikes)

This tart was fairly quick and easy, I made the dough in a food processor, though you don't have to. Instead of chopping up chocolate bars, I used chocolate chips. Please give this a try!



Fresh Mint Chocolate Truffle Tart (from William Sonoma)

1 rolled-out rectangle of basic tart dough (from here)
1 1⁄2 cups heavy cream
8 to 10 fresh mint sprigs (about 40 leaves), plus sprigs for garnish
12 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped into small slivers, or use chocolate chips
2 Tbs. light corn syrup
Confectioners’ sugar or unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting

Fold the dough rectangle in half and carefully transfer to a 9" tart pan, preferably with a removable bottom. Unfold and ease the rectangle into the pan, without stretching it, and pat it firmly into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Trim off any excess dough by gently running a rolling pin across the top of the pan. Press the dough into the sides to extend it slightly above the rim to offset any shrinkage during baking.

Refrigerate or freeze the tart shell until firm, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, position a rack in the lower third of an oven and preheat to 375°F.

Line the pastry shell with aluminum foil or parchment paper and fill with pie weights or raw short-grain rice. Bake for 20 minutes, then lift an edge of the foil. If the dough looks wet, continue to bake, checking every 5 minutes, until the dough is pale gold, for a total baking time of 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the weights and foil. Continue to bake until the shell is golden, 7 to 10 minutes more. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, warm the cream until small bubbles appear on the surface. Remove from the heat and add the mint sprigs. Let stand for 20 to 30 minutes.

Put the chocolate in the top of a double boiler, set over but not touching barely simmering water and melt, stirring occasionally. Pour the cream through a fine-mesh sieve into the melted chocolate, discarding the mint sprigs. Add the corn syrup and stir until smooth. Pour the filling into the tart shell.

Refrigerate until well chilled, about 1 hour. If using a tart pan with a removable bottom, let the sides fall away, then slide the tart onto a serving plate. Let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving to take the chill off. Just before serving, lay strips of waxed paper over the top of the tart and dust lightly with confectioners sugar. Carefully remove the strips and garnish with fresh mint sprigs.

Enjoy!

Grilling "How-To": Smoked Baby Back Ribs

My husband I both love the smoky taste barbecuing lends to foods. However, we've never tried to smoke something. We have a gas grill, and I have heard that you could do it, though I wasn't sure. I know that with charcoal grill you could, and if you had a designated smoker, it was obviously possible.

With a little help from a friend, I felt confident giving it a try. In order to smoke something, you have to use indirect heat/cooking method. With a gas grill, you have control over which burners/zones to use and how hot you want to make them, or whether you just want to keep them off.

Our grill has four burners, and I don't think it matters how many yours has, as long as you keep it even, half is designated to use as the direct heat, half designated as indirect heating.

Supplies Needed:

Wood Chips/Chunks (I used mesquite, experiment with other types of woods for different flavors)
Disposable cake or lasagna pan. Just make sure sure it fits in and on half of the grill.
Aluminum Foil
Roaster Pan
rack to fit inside roaster pan
Rack of Baby Back Ribs (recommended prep here)

Method: Soak the wood chips/chunks in water for about one hour, this is very important for a longer cooking methods like this. Once that is complete, scoop the wood out and place in disposable pan and cover disposable pan with foil. Poke generous size holes in the foil to allow all of that smoke to escape.



In the roaster pan, place an inch or two of water. Remove a good length of foil from the dispenser and ball it up, these acts as supports for the rack that fits inside roaster pan so the ribs do not sit in the cooking liquid.



Place the prepared ribs on the rack, that is sitting on the foil supports, that sit in the cooking liquid.

Move the wood chip filled pan to the grill area and preheat half of the grill to high heat, once the grill is preheated, put the wood chip filled pan on the half of the grill that is preheated over high heat and close the lid of the grill.

Allow the wood chips to start to smoke a little bit, about 5 minutes. Open the grill and place the pan with the rack of ribs on the half of the grill that is not directly heated. Close the grill cover. And leave it closed.



Once the wood chips/chunks have started to fully smoke, turn the heat down to low. You do not want the grills temperature to get too hot. This is supposed to be a longer cooking method, higher temperatures will cook the meat too fast. That will toughen the ribs, rather than leave them tender and juicy.



You can peak in there once or twice if you want, but in general, leave the grill closed. You need to keep all of the flavor inside the grill.

My cooking time was a little more than two hours on the grill. Once your ribs have finished cooking, let them rest for 10 minutes, this help to redistribute some of the juices in the meat, leaving it more juicy.

Slice the ribs, serve on a platter with homemade BBQ sauce and enjoy your feast!



**While cleaning up afterwards, make sure the wood chips/chunks are fully extinguished before moving them to the garbage. I used the chunks and a few hours later, some of them were still smoldering.

Interesting Vanilla Info

So I received this Cooks Illustrated newsletter in my inbox and it had an article about vanilla taste testing. It said that overall real vanilla was preferred for cakes, icecreams, sauces etc., but for cookies artificial vanilla was preferred to the taste testers. The article went on to say that because cookies get hotter during the baking stage than cakes do internally, a lot of the components of real vanilla burn off or cook off because of the high temperatures. Artificial vanilla maintains its qualities at higher temps than real vanilla.

I usually use only Penzeys vanilla in everything, and I read up more on artificial vanilla (I was for a moment thinking I need to pick up some artificial stuff for cookies) and artificial vanilla, or vanillin, is derived from coal tar or a form of petroleum! Ish, I don't want that in my cookies! However, I feel it's six in one hand and a half dozen in the other. If the cookies taste better, why not use it? But fake stuff scares me, I try my hardest to only use the natural version of things. I don't know, it's a tough quandary right?!

To read the original article from Cooks Illustrated, click here.

Mango Salsa

This is a fresh, light way to enjoy fresh Mangoes, I had never used, purchased, or prepared a Mango until now, I never knew what to do with them! It turns out they are easy to use. They need to be ripe though before you use them, the sweetness really optimizes once they do, it's just not there if they are not ripe. The flesh of a ripe mango should give a little when pressed, if it doesn't, park it in a paper bag with an apple for a day or two to help speed it's ripening process.

Why does this happen? Apples and bananas and a few other fruits emit ethylene when they ripen, that ethylene gas converts starches to sugars in unripened fruit. Therefore, chemistry was important right?!

Use a paring knife or a vegetable peeler and peel the skin away. There is a pit in the middle of the mango. Slice the fruit away from the pit as you would a peach or an apple. Slice and dice the fruit and combine with other ingredients.

Mangoes are rich in phytochemicals, antioxidants, and nutrients-so eat up, enjoy!




Nancy's Mango Salsa

4 ripened mangoes, chopped
1 large clove of garlic, chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 fresh jalapenos, seeded and finely diced (or 1 can of diced jalapenos)
1 tsp ground chipolte pepper powder
1/4 tsp cayanne pepper powder
1 small bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped finely
juice of half of a lemon
juice of two limes
2 tsp vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and stir thoroughly. Cover and refridgerate overnight so that the flavors can begin to intermingle.

Serve with tortillas chips and something cold to drink.

8 Layer Taco Dip

This little appetizer was made for a Cinco de Mayo party at work. This was my first try at this and I think it turned out fairly nicely :) The proportions are open for interpretation, if you like less tomatoes, use less, if you want to add chopped jalapenos, add them, this is YOUR dip after all :)

8 Layer Taco Dip

~14 oz can of refried beans (low-fat)
~10 oz low fat sour cream (seasoned with 1-2 Tbsp Taco Seasoning)
2 medium chopped tomatoes
1 1/2 cup shredded cheese (taco blend or cheddar)
2 green onions (chopped)
1/2 cup cilantro (chopped)
1 cup salsa (your preference)
1 1/2 to 2 cups shredded lettuce

Optional add-ins: Ground or Shredded Beef, Shredded Pork, Chicken, Olives, chopped jalapenos (canned or fresh)

Layer the dip in a dish** in the following order: Refried Beans, Seasoned Sour Cream, Salsa, Shredded Lettuce, Shredded Cheese, Diced Tomatoes, Chopped Cilantro, Chopped Green Onions.

Serve with Tortilla Chips!

**Serving dish can vary, I used a 9" cake pan, you could also use an 8"x8" square baking dish.

Spaghetti and Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs

Spaghetti and Meatballs makes it on to our weekly menu fairly often. Who knew the addition of a little string cheese would make such a tasty difference. Gorgonzola also makes for a delicious stuffing for meatballs, but here I figured Mozzarella was in order!

Spaghetti and Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs (from foodnetwork.com)

Ingredients
Meatballs:
1/4 cup milk
2 slice white bread, cut into cubes
1 pound 80 percent lean ground beef
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 egg
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 sticks mozzarella string cheese, cut into small cubes or 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
Nonstick cooking spray

Sauce:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 medium onion diced
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes (I used San Marzano Tomatoes)
2 tablespoons freshly chopped basil leaves
2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 (16-ounce) box spaghetti

Directions
For Meatballs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl combine the milk and bread. Let the bread absorb the milk. Add remaining meatball ingredients except the cheese. Using your hands, gently combine all the ingredients until they are thoroughly mixed. Take about 3 tablespoons of the meat mixture and roll into a ball and press into a patty. Place a mozzarella cube or 1 tablespoon shredded cheese onto the patty and bring up the sides around the cheese and roll between hands to form a ball. Place onto a nonstick baking sheet or a baking sheet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Repeat process with remaining meat and cheese. Place the meatballs into the oven and cook for 12 minutes. Remove baking sheet from the oven and set aside.

For Sauce:

In a medium pot heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and saute for 3 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes. Gently stir in the meatballs and any pan drippings from baking sheet and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Spaghetti:

Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain and place the pasta on a large serving platter. Place the meatballs over the spaghetti, pour the sauce on top and serve immediately.


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Cream Cheese Brownies

These little bars taste as lovely as they look. I did not have enough unsweetend chocolate on hand, so I successfully swapped 3 Tbsp of cocoa and 1 Tbsp oil, butter, or shortening for every ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate you are substituting. The cream cheese brownies were easy to assemble, I do hope you get a chance to try them!

Cream Cheese Brownies (from Joy of Baking)

Brownie Layer:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped (see note above)
1 1/4 cups granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Cream Cheese Layer:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg

Cream Cheese Brownies: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and place the rack in the center of the oven. Have ready a 9 x 9 inch square baking pan that has been lined with aluminum foil across the bottom and up two opposite sides of the pan.

In a stainless steel (heatproof) bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla extract. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well (with a wooden spoon) after each addition. Stir in the flour and salt and beat, with a wooden spoon, until the batter is smooth and glossy and comes away from the sides of the pan (about one minute). Remove 1/2 cup of the brownie batter and set it aside. Place the remainder of the brownie batter evenly onto the bottom of the prepared pan.

Then, in the bowl of your food processor (or with a hand mixer), process the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar, vanilla, and egg and process just until creamy and smooth. Spread the cream cheese filling evenly over the brownie layer. Spoon small dollops of the reserved brownie batter evenly on top of the cream cheese filling. Then with a table knife or wooden skewer, swirl the two batters without mixing them.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes or until the brownies start to pull away from the sides of the pan and the edges of the brownies are just beginning to brown (for me I think I baked these close to 40 minutes, while upping the oven temperature to 350 degrees for the last few minutes.) Either way keep an eye on your oven and your bars and remove them when they match the description of finished product.

Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Refrigerate the brownies until they are firm enough to cut into squares (at least two hours). Once chilled, remove the brownies from the pan by lifting with the ends of the foil and transfer to a cutting board. It is a good idea to have a damp cloth nearby to wipe your knife between cuts.

These brownies can be stored in the refrigerator for several days.