Anise Seed Pound Cake with Balsamic Strawberries

Do you like this loaf pan? You can but it HERE!

Tonight we have been invited to our friends Candace and Andy's "family dinner night", a regular gathering of friends over a home-cooked meal.  I love this kind of party and I wish more people would host these kind of gatherings where everyone brings something to share (food, juicy gossip, off color jokes etc).

Since it is springtime and strawberries are ready for picking here in North Carolina, I thought I would make one of my favorite desserts, anise seed pound cake with strawberries in balsamic vinegar.

This Anise-scented pound cake is amazing with fresh fruit.  The anise seed is toasted in a dry pan over high heat until fragrant, and the hot seeds are added into the batter, releasing their essential oils into the cake as it bakes.  The result is a deliciously fragrant pound cake, reminiscent of good pizelle cookies.  As it bakes, the top of the cake forms a crispy crunchy shell that is so delicious, and is a wonderful contrast to the dense moist cake. YUM.

Mmmmmmm... locally grown organic strawberries!

This cake is great with a scoop of sorbet, but I much prefer fresh fruit tossed with good balsamic vinegar and a tiny bit of brown sugar.   I was fortunate enough to receive a bottle of fig balsamic vinegar for Christmas from my daughter Rachel, and I love to use it on strawberries.  It just makes the strawberries taste 1,000 times more like a strawberry!

Anise Seed Pound Cake with Balsamic Strawberries
Serves 12

2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla
5 eggs, room temperature
1 Tbsp anise seed

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease and flour a bundt or loaf pan.

Cream butter and sugar on high speed until very light and fluffy (about 5 minutes).  Add flour and mix on medium speed until just combined.  Add eggs one at a time mixing thoroughly after each addition.  Add vanilla and mix in.

In a small skillet, heat anise seed over high heat until it become fragrant and just begins to smoke.  Add hot seeds to cake batter and mix in.

Transfer batter to a greased and floured bundt cake or loaf pan.  Bake at 350F for 1 hour and 15 minutes until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Cool on a wrie rack for 15 minutes before removing from pan.

Serve with Balsamic Strawberries.

Balsamic strawberries

2 lb fresh strawberries, hulled and thickly sliced
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar.

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss to combine.  Let berries macerate for 30 minutes before serving.

Strawberries with brown sugar and balsamic vinegar

...And after macerating

Rose Marie

This weekend was Rachel's senior art show at the Corcoran School of Art + Design. We decided to throw her a cocktail party at our cavernous room at the funky Hotel Palomar in DuPont Circle. This was the signature cocktail of the evening.
These are deceivingly strong cocktails and are very easy to drink. Sweet and salty with a pleasing scent of rosemary, we polished off several of them in minutes. But be careful, because it wasn't long before hotel security arrived asking us to keep down the noise!

Rose Marie

1 shot gin
1 shot fresh red grapefruit juice
1 shot rosemary simple syrup

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake with ice. Strain into glasses with a salted rim and filled with crushed ice.

Rosemary simple syrup
4 cups granulated sugar
4 cups water
20 - 30 sprigs fresh rosemary

Combine sugar and water in a large pot and bring to a boil. Add rosemary and cover and reduce heat to medium. Poach rosemary in simmering syrup for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature before pouring syrup through a fine mesh strainer. Discard rosemary. Transfer syrup to a decorative bottle contains one sprig of fresh rosemary. Syrup will keep one month in the refrigerator.

Italian Easter Meat Pie (Pizza Rustica)

Being eastern european, Easter was always a MAJOR holiday when I was growing up.  My mother would always buy us fancy new outfits and we even went to church!  After church we would come home for an Easter egg hunt in the snow (I grew up north of the 45th parallel) followed by a sumptuous feast of ham and deviled eggs and pineapple and asparagus and kolacki stuffed with sweet gooey black poppy seed filling.

These days my parents are gone, but I still like to celebrate Easter in a big way.  Since I now live in North Carolina, Easter is beautiful with flowers and azaleas and warm weather.  Doug and I throw our annual Boozy Easter party on the Saturday before Easter featuring a buffet of traditional Easter foods (which we affectionately call cruci-fixin's), invite all of our friends over for some food fun and frivolity followed by the infamous mini bottle hunt!

I first made this dish about four or five years ago when I was teaching myself to make artisanal bread and I came across it on the King Arthur flour web page...it was a major hit!  It is rich and packed with cheese and cured Italian meats, almost like a calzone, but much more satisfying.  The crust is a simple pizza dough.  I usually make my own, but Trader Joe's makes an excellent pizza dough that works perfectly well and cuts hours off the preparation time.  The pie should be prepared well ahead of time and served at room temperature or just slightly warm.

Traditionally, in Italy this dish is called Pizza Rustica and it is prepared on Good Friday and not consumed until Easter Sunday.  Because it is so indulgent, it certainly brings an end to the austerity of Lent.  I don't really observe lent ( I always say I am giving up lent for lent), but I do love the idea of celebrating springtime with something unabashedly hedonistic, and this fits the bill every year.

Happy Easter!

Easter Meat Pie
serves 8-10

Bread Crust (or purchase pre-made pizza dough)
3/4 cup warm water
1 Tbsp sugar
1 package dry yeast
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
2 cups all purpose flour


In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine water and sugar and stir to dissolve.  Sprinkle yeast over top and allow yeast to "proof" for 15 minutes (it should begin to become foamy, if not your yeast has expired).

Add olive oil and salt to yeast mixture. Add 1 cup of the flour to the yeast mixture and mix on medium speed with the paddle attachment for about 2 minutes.   Add remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time mixing after each addition until a soft ball dough that cleans the sides of the bowl is formed.  Alternatively, hand knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is smooth and elastic.

Turn dough into a clean bowl that has been well oiled with olive oil.  Allow dough to rise until doubled in size (about 1-2 hours depending on the temperature of your kitchen).

While dough is rising prepare filling.

Filling
1 lb ricotta cheese
3 large eggs
1/2 lb shredded mozarella cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 lb. aged fontina, cubed
1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 lb ham, cubed
1/4 lb Genoa salami, cubed
1/4 lb pepperoni, cubed
1/4 lb prosciutto

In a large bowl combine eggs and cheeses, nutmeg and salt and pepper. Mix well.  Stir in ham, salami and pepperoni.  Reserve prosciutto to line pie crust.

Assembly
Preheat oven to 325 F.

Generously butter a 9-inch glass pie pan.

Deflate the dough and divide into two pieces.  Turn each piece of dough out onto a lightly-floured work surface, and using a rolling pin roll both to 16-inch diameter circles.  Place one of the dough circles into the prepared pie pan.

Line the crust in the pan with overlapping slices of prosciutto.

 Place the filling in the prosciutto-lined pie shell.

Cover with the remaining dough circle and roll edges under around the perimeter of the pie to seal the pie.  Cut several steam vents in the top crust.

Bake pie at 325 F for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  Pie should be golden brown when finished.

Remove pie from oven and cool for at least 1-2 hours before removing from pie pan.  For easy serving, invert the pie onto a cutting board and slice through the bottom.  Cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.

Mama Ozzy's Beer-Braised Carnitas

I don't remember when I came up with this recipe.  I think it was after I had the stellar carnitas at one of Durham NC's stellar watering holes, The Federal.

The Federal has an excellent menu featuring incredible garlic fries, amazing duck confit tacos and, of course carnitas.  Carnitas are a slow-braised spiced pork, and every time I go to The Federal, its what I order.  So of course I wanted to try to make them at home.

These are unbelievably easy to prepare if you have a pressure cooker.  The entire time is reduced from 6 hours in a low heat oven, to an hour and a half on the stove.  They are incredibly fragrant and spicy.  I love to cook the pork, rubbed in spices on a bed of onions and braised with beer.

These carnitas are fantastic with soft flour tortillas and some avacado.  I also really love to use the leftover to make huevos rancheros with eggs and some salsa and sour cream.


Mama Ozzy's Beer-Braised Carnitas
serves 12


5 lb boneless pork shoulder

1 Tbsp chili powder
2 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp achiote powder
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

3 medium onions, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch thick discs
3 cups beer

In a small bowl combine all the spices and mix well.  Pat spice rub generously all over pork shoulder.

Place a layer of onions in the bottom of a pressure cooker.  Place spice-rubbed pork atop the bed of onions.  Add beer slowly to pot, being careful not to wash the spice rub off the pork.

Place a layer of thick-sliced onions in the bottom of the pressure cooker...

Then place the spice-rubbed pork atop the bed of onions.

Pressure cook for 1 1/2 - 2 hours until meat is extremely tender and falls apart with a fork.

Remove pork from pot and allow to cool.  Cook the remaining liquid in the pot over high heat, without a lid, until it is reduced to a thick sauce.  Remove from heat.

With two forks, pull the pork into chunks.  Toss with reduced cooking sauce, adjust to taste with salt.  Serve with warm tortillas, minced cilantro, avacado slices and Cotija cheese.

Grilled Spicy Thai Shrimp with Basil and Thai Peanut Sauce

Since the weather is 80 degrees and sunny today, AND since it's Friday I thought tonight would be a good night to fire up the grill and welcome the warm evening with something spicy and light.

I have a hankering for grilled shrimp.  This is one of my favorite preparations, it is spicy and fragrant and tangy. It's also incredibly easy to throw together if you have a food processor.  Serrano chiles, lemon grass, garlic, ginger and lime are used to marinate the shrimp, then they are skewered and grilled.  Shrimp cook very quickly on the grill so there isn't a lot of waiting time.

I love to serve this with a home made Thai peanut sauce.  Again, this sauce comes together in minutes with a food processor and tastes amazing on everything.

Serve Shrimp with basmati rice (or cooked vermicelli) and blanched brocolli and you will feast like a king!

Grilled Spicy Thai Shrimp with Basil
serves 6-8


2 lbs shrimp, uncooked, peeled, tail on

Marinade
2 serrano chiles, unseeded
2 walnut-sized chunks fresh ginger
3 large cloves garlic
1 stalk lemon grass, tough outer layer rmoved, cut into 2 -inch lengths
grated zest of one lime
juice of one lime
3 tsp sugar
2 Tbsp Thai fish sauce
3 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp vegetable oil

bamboo skewers
water

2-3 scallions chopped
1/2 cup fresh basil chopped
1/4 cup chopped peanuts

combine all ingredients for marinade in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the chopping blade and process until finely minced.  Place shrimp in a large plastic ziploc bag, add  marinade, seal bag and shake to coat.  Place shrimp in refrigerator for 3-4 hours.

Soak bamboo skewers in water for at least one hour.

Skewer shrimp onto skewers and grill until pink and slightly charred.

Garnish with chopped scallions, basil and peanuts.  Serve with Thai peanut sauce.

Thai Peanut Sauce
Makes 1 cup

1 cup salted roast peanuts
2 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp Thai Fish Sauce
1 clove garlic
1 walnut-sized chunk of fresh ginger
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 cup plus 3 Tbsp water

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the chopping blade, add peanuts and sugar. Process until a smooth thick paste is formed (about 1 minute).  Add fish sauce, garlic, ginger and cayenne pepper, process until smooth.  Add water and process until everything is incorporated into a smooth sauce, scraping down sides of work bowl occasionally.

Vegan Nutella Cookies with Sea Salt

Hello from Fall River, MA! I'm your guest blogger and Mama Ozzy's oldest daughter, Emma.

I was going through my pantry the other day when I noticed that I had two unopened jars of Nutella hiding behind the pasta sauce and garbanzo beans. This was obviously a wonderful surprise, because I love Nutella and I couldn't believe that I had not one but two jars stashed away.

Normally I eat Nutella on toast or pancakes or in its purest form - on a spoon - but I wanted to try something special this time around, so I decided to make cookies.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of recipes for cookies with Nutella out there, especially on the World Nutella Day website, but since I had no butter or eggs in my fridge I was at a loss.

After a quick text to Mama Ozzy, I learned that applesauce is a great substitute for eggs and that nut butters are delicious and healthy - well, healthier - substitutes for butter, so I decided to try my hand at vegan cookies.

I know that Nutella isn't vegan since it has skim milk in it, so this recipe is more lacto-vegetarian than anything else, but it is also absolutely delicious. The cookies are delicate and chewy on the inside and light and crispy on the outside, and the hint of sea salt makes them dance and sing. If you want to make these cookies truly vegan, they would be amazing with a vegan chocolate hazelnut spread, or any other nut butter.


(Mostly) Vegan Nutella Cookies with Sea Salt
Makes about 2 dozen 3 inch cookies

1 cup Nutella
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine flour and baking soda in a bowl and whisk lightly until combined. In a separate bowl, combine granulated sugar, brown sugar, applesauce, Nutella, and vanilla extract and mix with an electric mixer at low speed until smooth. Add dry ingredients and mix at low speed until combined. The dough should be sticky and easily removed from the bowl. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour and a half.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Roll the dough into tablespoon-sized balls and place on a baking sheet. Sprinkle each cookie with a small pinch of sea salt. Bake for about 10 minutes until cookies are puffed and crinkled. Cookies may appear to be underdone; don't worry, this is normal. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheet for about 5 minutes. Remove from baking sheet and cool on wax paper or a cooling rack for an additional 5 minutes.

Zucchini, Mushroom and Peanut Curry with Spiced Basmati Rice

Welcome Spring!  Yesterday was March 1st and we had an amazingly beautiful day.  Sunny and 80 degrees!  If this is global warming, I like it (for now... wait and see how I feel about it come July!)

Since we have been eating rather heavily this week, Mary (our "adopted" daughter) suggested we have something light for dinner. Since Mary is a vegetarian we decided to not use bacon! Sacrilege I know, but some things are so delicious on their own, they actually don't need bacon (I can't believe I am writing this!).

That's where this simple and quick curry comes in.  Very basic and very light and very, very delicious.  The zucchini retains its crunch and the mushrooms are earthy and meaty, balanced by a very light curry sauce.  Add some peanuts for crunch and you have a party on your plate.

I like to serve this with a simple spiced basmati rice for extra flavor and fragrance.  Don't be intimidated by the spices. Yes they are unusual and can only be found at an Asian market, but they are inexpensive and will keep for a long time in your pantry.  I like to saute green cardamom, black mustard seed and cinnamon stick in butter to infuse the fat with the spice before adding the basmati rice.  The result is an exotically fragrant rice that is delicious on its own and even better with this curry.

This is a very quick dish to prepare.  Emma and Mary shopped at the Asian market while I was at work, and we prepared this meal when I returned home.  I recommend making the spiced basmati rice before starting the curry, that way the entire dish can be prepared in about 25 minutes!

Zucchini, Mushroom and Peanut Curry with Spiced Basmati Rice
Serves 6-8

8 Tbsp butter
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1 lb zucchini, cut into bite-sized chunks
1 lb mushrooms sliced (I used oyster mushrooms and white beech mushrooms)
8 scallions, white and green parts chopped
2 cups bean sprouts
4 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp Thai fish sauce
1 tsp curry powder
1 1/4 cups salted peanuts.

Melt butter over high heat in large skillet.  Add jalapeno, garlic and ginger and saute 1 minute.  Add zucchini and mushrooms and stir fry over high heat until mushrooms sweat and zucchini turns a bright green color (about 5 minutes).  Add scallions and bean sprouts and continue to stir fry for 2 minutes.

In a small bowl combine soy sauce, Thai fish sauce and curry powder.  Pour sauce into pan and stir fry for 2 more minutes.  Add peanuts, stir and serve hot with spiced basmati rice.

Spiced Basmati Rice:
3 Tbsp butter
6 whole green cardamom seeds
1 cinnamon stick broken in half
1 Tbsp black mustard seed
2 cups basmati rice
4 cups water
1/2 tsp salt

Melt butter in a medium saucepan with a lid.  Add spices and saute over medium high heat for 2-3 minutes.  Add rice and toss to coat with butter.  Add water and salt and bring to a boil.  Boil 1 minute uncovered.  Remove from heat and cover with lid and allow to steam for 25 minutes.  Remove cardamom seeds and cinnamon from top of rice, before fluffing with a fork.