Chocolate Caramel Tart (!?!)

Lottie  + Doof- a Chicago based blogger shred this disgustingly delicious chocolate Caramel Tart- I have to try this! The original recipe came from Claudia Fleming's Marlow and Son recipe but it also appeared in Saveur- whatever, it's delish!

Chocolate Caramel Tart (!?!)

Winter Blues Menu

I try and do a Winter Blues theme either for clients or friends, each year at this time. This year, due to the terrible economy, my husband and I hosted our own Winter Blues Party but expanded the title to Winter Blues, Blown Away. The purpose was to introduce shades of pink/red into the menu and ambience.

Here was our menu:

Blue Hawaiin/Ernest Hemingway Cocktail

Blue Point Oysters

Sushi Tuna on Blue Platter

Olives stuffed with smoked Blue Cheese

Sesame Cones with Red Pepper

Blue Cheese, Walnut and Red Cabbage Empanadas

Salad with Blue Cheese Croutons with a side of

Shrimp Ceviche served in Blue Martini Glass

Cream of Lettuce Soup

(variety of blue colored soup bowls)

Boders Cherry Muffin

Green Beans laced with Black Truffle Oil

Pork Manhattan

Roasted Garlic mashed potato

Blueberry Ice Cream

Blue Cheese Ice Cream

Raspberry Sorbet

When guests arrived they saw blue candlestick lights in the windows and blue flood lights on the house. Once inside, it was a burst of various colors and lights illuminated on the spiral staircase. The dining room was illuminated with black lights, and once it was time to start the dinner the dining room was lit with reds, pinks and yellow lights/votives. Fortunately with several dishwashers, all dishes were loaded and cleaned the next day. It was the glasses......!

Celebrity recipe week

For a twist, I thought I'd make a menu using recipes from celebrities. Last year I did a restaurant week where I made a menu using different recipes. It wasn't an easy thing- so many celebrities had cakes, or cookies.
But I did manage to put one together- take a look~
Hopefully pictures will be attached later.

Gene Autry Texas Chili

Joy Philbins Turkey Tacos

K.D. Langs Indonesian Salad

Lady Bird Johnson’s Famous Lemon Cake

Things we love about Italy

player.vimeo.com/video/70776419"

Figi's Gifts- online food company

This company is located in Marshfield Wisconsin- so, I am partial to anything in Wisconsin.
I had one easy process, a year ago and decided to use them again. here is what happened:

I used this company a year ago to send a gift box. All went well.
This year~
i ordered another to be sent to one of our sons. Two minutes after I got off the phone after placing the order, I realized I provided them with an incomplete address. I called back.
I was told, it wasn't in the system and to wait for a few hours.
i called back at midnight. It still wasn't in the system and was told to wait 24 hours.
i called back 25 hours later. It still wasn't in the system and was told it takes 24-48 hours- REALLY? I had paid up for 2-3 delivery too! I was running out of time- I had 2 days left ( 48 hours) to get the address changed.
I called back the day before it was to be delivered. I was told there was no such order!
I was transferred to someone else who could help.
Then, transferred to another person who could dig deeper. Omg, he found the order and told me I would have to pay more for overnight shipping. I was furious!
In the end, I did not have to pay more and it arrived on time.
Lousy staff at Figi's, unless you talk to Wayne. But who knows how you can find him-
Too many calls to Fig to fix my problem. No one had the right information.
I have to add this to my blog.

Orange Cranberry Loaf

I found this pretty picture and delicious recipe on Ziplist- it's from WhatsfordinnerMom.com

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plain yogurt*
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• zest of one orange - about 1 tablespoon
• juice of an orange*
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar (comes in a 9g packet dr oetker or ruff brand)
• 1/2 cup light tasting olive oil
• 1 cup fresh cranberries and 1/4 for the top
• For the Icing:
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2- 3 tbsp cream or orange juice or milk*

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325, grease the bottom of 8 inch loaf pan and add a piece of parchment, enough so that it sticks out over the sides of the pan.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. In another bowl, combine yogurt, eggs, sugar, orange zest, olive oil, orange juice and vanilla sugar.
3. Add in the 1 cup of cranberries, combine, pour batter into the pan. Add the extra cranberries on top of loaf.
4. Bake for 40 -45 minutes until toothpick comes out clean (may take longer depending on pan or oven). Remove from pan, that is where the parchment comes handy. Spread glaze over the cake, enjoy!
5. *Make sure when you buy yogurt its plain yogurt made with only simple ingredients, like cream, milk and bacterial cultures, anything else is not real yogurt. Homemade is best but not always an option.
6. *If you want a thicker icing use cream, if you want a glaze type icing use orange juice or milk.
7. * If the orange is the size of an average lemon I use all the juice from it, if it is a very large orange then half or 3/4's of it is enough, I would say 3-4 tbsp worth of juice.

Lasagne Stacks

This is such a fun way to make individual lasagne servings-
Here I made 3. I used wonton sheets. And I also  put three of the stack in  an oval au gratin pan. It's really important to make sure all parts of the bottom of your  wonton have some marinara on it, other wise it will stick and make it difficult to remove. That happened to me when I was squeezing the outside ones in and they didn't have marinara on their outside edges. Besides being easy, another good thing is, you can freeze them! See note below.

Directions: 12 wonton sheets
1/2 cup homemade pesto ( it tastes better if you make it yourself. In this recipe I made mine with cilantro and parsley, walnuts and Parmesan cheese)
12 cubes cooked butternut squash, mashed
1 cup marinara
1/4 c shredded mozzarella
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Put a smear of marinara on the bottom of your baking dish. Lay one wonton sheet on top. Top with some pesto and more marinara. Add another wonton sheet, a dab of pesto and some marinara. You can repeat this up to 12 times- I did it four times and probably could have done it two more times with the amount of ingredients I had prepared. On your top layer, add shredded mozzarella cheese.
Cover tightly with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 7-10 minutes. When you remove them from the oven, let it sit for about 5 minutes to set.
***You can freeze these lasagna stacks.  To do this, place a sheet of wax paper on a small rimmed baking sheet. Remove each lasagna stack from the baking dish with a spatula and place on the wax paper. Place in freeze until firm, about one hour.  Place into ziplock bags to freeze, removing as much air as you can or use your vacuum sealer.