Fruit Tart

Happy 4th of July!!!

This time around last year, I made my (White Blue and) Red Velvet cake. Because it's 4th of July, I thought it would look really festive to have another red, white, & blue dessert. The Farmer's Market is in abundance of fresh fruits (especially berries), and so I was inspired to make this beautiful and delicious dessert. I think I may have started a new tradition - makin red, white and blue desserts for the 4th of July......

I've always been so intimidated by making Fruit tart. But I so love eating it. I found this recipe at Joy of Baking. It looks like a complicated yet elegant dessert. But it only looks harder that it really is. There are a lot of steps into making a fruit tart, but it isn't complicated at all. I think the hardest part, however, is making the dough. Maybe its because I don't have a nice granite countertop to roll the dough on (I still have the tile countertop, that I'm hoping to eventually replace or upgrade to). Or maybe its because my rolling pin wasn't long enough. Whatever the reason, I had to sort of improvise because the dough came out too soft (maybe it was too warm in the house? Oh well). What's great about this dessert is that you can use any of your favorite fruits and design it any way you like.

This tart came out so good. Hubby thinks we may not have to buy the tart at the bakery anymore. We'll see.

Tonight, we're doing a tailgate to watch the fireworks. Everyone is bringing something to munch on. We're ordering pizza and also bringing my Brown Sugar cupcakes, and of course this Fruit tart.

Crust

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1) Measure out flour and salt. Set aside. Beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add egg, beating just until incorporated. Add flour mixture all at once and mix just until it forms a ball. Flatten the dough into a disk. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes or until firm.

2) On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a circle large enough so that it sticks out about 1 inch of your tart pan. Once the desired size has been reached, lightly roll dough around rolling pin and unroll on top of tart pan. Press the dough on the bottom and sides of the pan. Roll the rolling pin across the top of the pan to trim off the excess dough from the pan.

3) Prick the bottom of the dough a couple of times to help prevent the dough from puffing. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 deg F.

4) Once chilled, line the dough with wax or parchment paper. Fill the pan with pie weights, rice or beans. Bake for 20-25 minutes until crust is dry and lightly golden brown. Remove weights and cool completely while making the pastry cream.

Pastry cream

1 1/4 cup milk

1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

3 egg yolks

1/4 cup sugar

1/8 cup all purpose flour

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

1) In a stainless steel bowl, mix sugar and egg yolks with a wooden spoon. Sift flour and cornstarch together and add to egg mixture. Mix until it becomes a smooth paste. Set aside.

2) In a saucepan, combine milk and vanilla bean. Cook on medium heat just until it begins to boil. Remove from heat and remove vanilla bean. Slowly whisk milk mixture into egg mixture (If some of the eggs curdle, pour through a strainer). Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla bean and add the seeds into the egg mixture.

3) Return mixture back on medium eat and heat just until boiling, making sure to whisk constantly to prevent burning. When it begins to boil, turn off the heat and whisk for another minute until it becomes very thick.

4) Place custard in a clean bowl. Place a sheet of plastic wrap on the surface of the custard and refrigerate until cool.

To assemble the tart

crust

pastry cream

2-3 cups of fruits (various berries, kiwi, peaches, mango, etc)

1/2 cup apricot glaze (apricot jam or preserves, heated until it becomes liquid)

1) Brush a thin layer of apricot glaze on the bottom and sides of the crust to prevent it from getting soggy. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes until it dries.

2) Spread pastry cream about 2/3 of the way of the crust. Arrange fruits on top of the cream.

3) Brush more apricot glaze on top of the fruits. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Brown Sugar cupcake

I love buying my favorite, Brown Sugar Cinnamon cupcake, from my favorite cupcake store, Yummy Cupcakes. So I was really excited to find this recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Tiny Tyrant's Kitchen. I've bookmarked this recipe for a while now and I wanted to give it a try, in the thoughts of hopefully making it for our 4th of July Tailgate this coming weekend. I guess this was my trial run. I topped this cupcake with the Brown Sugar Cream Cheese frosting from her Red Velvet cupcake recipe. I modified the frosting by adding cinnamon, though I know she also has a Cinnamon Cream cheese frosting.

Anyway, the overall cupcake was delicious. One problem I had was that I didn't know how to decorate. I bought some plastic frosting tips at the supermarket and used a plastic sandwich bag to pipe in the frosting. That was messy. So I decided to use the good 'ol fashion knife to spread the frosting. Another problem I encountered was the fact that the weather was a little warm, which made the frosting a little too soft. So I had to refrigerate the frosting every now and then so that it would firm up. When I tried making this again, I finally bought the right piping bags and frosting tips and it made such a big difference. My cupcakes not only tasted yummy, but it looked so good too!

Cupcake

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened

3/4 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/3 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Frosting

1 stick butter, at room temperature

8 0z package cream cheese, at room temperature

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

pinch of salt

4 cups powdered sugar

2-4 Tbsp. milk

1) Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Line muffin tin with muffin cups.

2) In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking sugar and salt. Set aside. Measure out milk and vanilla extract. Set aside

3) In a large bowl, beat together butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 1-2 minutes. Add eggs and beat well.

4) Add 1/3 of the flour mixture into butter mixture and beat to combine. Alternately add milk then flour mixture and beat well. Pour batter in prepared muffin cups using an ice cream scoop. Bake for 15-18 minutes until golden brown and toothpick test comes out clean. Cool completely.

5) To make the frosting: Whip together butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and salt and continue to mix until well blended. Add powdered sugar a little at a time until well incorporated. If mixture is a little too stiff, add milk, one tablespoon at a time to achieve desired consistency. Spread over cooled cupcakes. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top.

Cilantro Pepita dressing (Mexican Caesar Salad dressing)

After making my Tequila Lime Chicken and adding it to a salad, we used a store-bought Thousand Island dressing, which was all we had in the fridge. It tasted okay. But I thought to myself that a creamy cilantro dressing would go great with this salad. So after searching online for a cilantro dressing, I found this awesome recipe on CDKitchen. It turns out, this was also the recipe for El Torito's Mexican Caesar Salad dressing, which I had when we last visited there with my office. SCORE! That visit to El Torito left me with a very lasting impression. From there, I was inspired to learn how to make my Chile Verde. Now I learned to make their salad dressing.

I had to go to 2 different stores to buy all the ingredients for this dressing. They don't normally sell Pepita (or shelled Pumpkin seeds) at the grocery store, so I went to a local Mediterranean market to buy some. Going to the Mediterranean market is always an adventure for me because I find a lot of unique ingredients not normally found at the regular grocery store.

Anyway, this dressing was delicious! Very flavorful. My next conquest from the El Torito menu will probably be their sweet corn cake. We'll see how that goes. Hubby loved this one and said it was restaurant quality. So this will definitely make it on my regular rotation.

2 medium Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled and seeded

1/3 cup roasted pumpkin seeds

2 garlic cloves, peeled

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cup oil (olive or vegetable)

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

5 Tbsp. Cotija cheese

2 small bunches of cilantro, stemmed

1 1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup water

1) In a blender or food processor, place all the ingredients except cilantro, mayonnaise and water. Blend for 10-15 seconds. Add cilantro a little at a time until blended smooth. Set aside.

2) In a stainless steel bowl, whisk together mayonnaise and water until smooth. Add the cilantro mixture into mayonnaise mixture and mix until well incorporated. Place in an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to use. Dressing will keep for about 3 days. Serve with chopped romaine lettuce, tomatoes, corn, avocado, crushed tortilla chips and crumbled cotija cheese.

Tequila Lime Chicken

I decided that today was the day I'd break my Thai food streak and try something new. I had printed this recipe off the internet and had been saving this for quite some time and decided to do some grilling for dinner tonight.

Man oh man was this good. It reminds me of the chicken I would order at Baja Fresh or something. You can make this with chicken wings for a nice appetizer or boneless skinless chicken that you can cut up to use in a salad (which is what I made for hubby's lunch for tomorrow as pictured below) or in tacos/fajitas. Either way you make it, it'll definitely be delicious and flavorful.

4-5 lbs. chicken (boneless/skinless or chicken wings)

1/4 cup tequila

1/4 cup lime juice

1/4 cup honey

1 jalapeno pepper (more if you like it spicy)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp. chili powder

2 tsp. ground cumin

1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped

1 tsp. salt

1) Combine all ingredients, except chicken, in a large ziploc freezer bag. Shake to fully incorporate. Add chicken and shake together, making sure to distribute the marinade over the chicken. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

2) Preheat grill to medium heat. While grill heats up, let chicken stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. Grease the grill with cooking spray or oil to prevent from sticking. Place chicken on grill and cook on each side for 5-7 minutes. (note: if chicken is sticking to grill when you turn it the first time, it probably isn't ready, so give another minute or so). Remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Thai Stir Fried Beef in Oyster Sauce

I'm definitely in a Thai food kick. This is recipe #4 from my Thai cookbook. I had bookmarked this recipe last week and decided to make it today for dinner. This recipe was quite simple to make and very flavorful. It calls for different kinds of Asian mushrooms that I've never cooked with before (but loved it in Chinese dishes when we eat out). I love mushrooms so I was excited to find them at my local Filipino store. They only had the straw mushroom, so its all I used in this dish. The meat was a little tougher than I'd like it to be. But all my Asian beef dishes are. I still have to find out what the secret is to making tender beef for making Asian dishes like Beef and Brocolli and this Beef in Oyster Sauce. This dish was otherwise quite good and easy to whip up.

1 lb. beef round steak, cut into strips
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
3 Tbsp. oil
1 Tbsp. chopped garlic
1 Tbsp. chopped ginger
3 cups mixed mushrooms (such as straw, shitaake, or oyster mushrooms)
2 Tbsp. oyster sauce
1/2 tsp. sugar
black pepper to taste
4 spring onions, sliced
1-2 Thai Chili, sliced (optional)


1) In a medium bowl, combine cornstarch and soy sauce and stir until well incorporated. Add beef strips and mix well. Marinate for at least 30 minutes.

2) Heat 1 1/2 Tbsp. oil in a wok or large frying pan on medium-high heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook until it becomes fragrant. Add marinated beef, stirring frequently to separate the pieces. Cook until all sides of beef is browned. Remove from heat.

3) In the same pan, heat the remaining oil. Add mushrooms and cook for about 1 minute. Add oyster sauce, black pepper and sugar and stir until well incorporated. Add cooked beef and spring onions. Cook for another 2-3 minutes. Serve on a platter, topped with Thai chilli, if using.

Spicy Thai Fried Noodles

This is another recipe from my Thai cookbook that looked good. I didn't feel like cooking tonight and this recipe looked pretty simple. It seemed like all I had to do was toss things together. So I wanted to give it a shot.

One thing I learned about Thai cooking is that the food has to be cooked quickly, which means all your ingredients need to be ready to throw in the pan or wok. With this recipe, I thought I could get away with getting the ingredients ready (by cutting, measuring, etc.) during the middle of the cooking process. Well, doing that resulted in my noodles being slightly overcooked and burning at the bottom of the hot wok. So I've learned to make sure I have all the ingredients on hand, ready to cook.

A good thing about this recipe is that its pretty versatile with whatever kind of meat you have. You can use pork, chicken, shrimp, or a combination of all. I happened to only have chicken and shrimp. It came out pretty good, otherwise. But its not the typical Thai flavors I'm accustomed to. So I'm not sure if I'll be making this for my regular rotation. Maybe if I have a taste for it again, I'll make it.

8 oz egg noodles

4 Tbsp. oil

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 boneless, skinless chicken, cut into cubes

1 cup shrimp, peeled and deveined

3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

3 Tbsp. fish sauce

2 Tbsp. light brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 fresh red chili, seeded and finely chopped

2/3 cup bean sprouts

4 Tbsp. roasted peanuts, chopped

3 green onions, chopped

3 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

1) Boil a large pan of water. Add noodles, remove from heat and leave for 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2) In a wok or large pan, heat oil. Add garlic and cook for about 30 seconds. Add chicken and cook until lightly brown. Add shrimp and cook for about 2 minutes, until shrimp is pink.

3) Add lemon juice, fish sauce and sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add noodles and stir fry until well combined.

4) Pour beaten eggs over noodles and stir fry until eggs are set. Add chili and bean sprouts. Add a half of the portion of peanuts, green onions and cilantro and stir fry until well incorporated. Set on a serving platter. Top with remaining peanuts, green onions and cilantro and serve immediately.

Chicken Satay with Peanut sauce

Hubby introduced me to Thai food from our now-favorite Thai restaurant, Original Thai BBQ, when we first started dating almost 15 years ago. Not only did I fall in love with him, but I also fell in love with Thai food. Especially Satay. Whenever we order from them, we almost always order the same thing: S1 (BBQ Chicken plate), S8 (Beef or Chicken Satay plate), and Pad Thai or Pad See Ewe. I've learned how to make almost half of these items and so I was happy to find this easy Satay recipe in my Thai cookbook.

I knew I made a huge mistake by not using this awesome cookbook sooner. I've been on a Thai food kick lately since re-discovering this cookbook. And tonight, I was craving Satay. This turned out deliciously and hubby actually compared it to our favorite S8 plate. He says he felt like he was eating an S8 plate.

4 skinless boneless chicken

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 inch piece ginger root, finely grated

2 tsp. fish sauce

2 Tbsp. light soy sauce

1 Tbsp. honey

16 wooden skewers

Peanut sauce (recipe below)

1) Cut chicken into long strips. Place in a large bowl. In a small bowl, combine garlic, ginger, fish sauce, soy sauce and honey until well incorporated. Pour over chicken and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. While marinating, soak skewers in water (this will help so the sticks will not burn on the grill)

2) Thread chicken strips on skewers. Grill for 3 minutes on each side or until golden brown and cooked through. Serve immediately with Peanut sauce.

Peanut sauce

6 Tbsp. crunchy peanut butter

1 fresh thai chili, seeded and finely chopped

juice of 1 lime

1/4 cup coconut milk

salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Adjust taste by adding more salt or lime juice.

Cheeseburger bread

I found this recipe from another blog I visited, Telly's Tasty Tidbits, that I wanted to try out. I made my stuffed burger for lunch yesterday, but I guess I used the wrong hamburger patties so it didn't taste quite as good as I had first made it. To redeem myself to hubby, I wanted to make up for it by trying this recipe.

This came out really good. It reminds me of an empanada with a softer dough. The original recipe called for bacon, but I didn't have it on hand, so it was omitted from this recipe. Hubby and daughter liked it. I'll definitely be making this again as a quick meal.

1 lb pizza dough (which equals to about 2 tubes of refrigerated pizza dough)

3/4 cup ground beef (or ground turkey)

a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 cup chopped tomatoes

2 Tbsp. pickled relish

salt & pepper to taste

1) Preheat oven to 400 deg. F.

2) In a large skillet, cook ground meat with a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce over medium heat until meat is cooked through. Add the tomatoes and continue cooking for about 1 minute. Drain and remove to a large bowl.

3) In the same skillet, add onions and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add to bowl with meat mixture. Add pickled relish, cheese, and salt & pepper to taste. Mix until well incorporated.

4) Roll dough into a large rectangle and cover with meat mixture. Roll dough (starting with the long side) to make a loaf, pinching seams together. Bake, seam-side down, on a baking sheet for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to sit for 10 minutes before slicing.