Addicted to cookies

I noticed that most of my blog posts are about sweets. Which is funny because I don’t consider myself inclined to sweet treats more than I do for savory food. Ok, maybe lately I’ve been a little addicted to sugar and I know why (hello adult life). But in general I prefer savory and that’s why I chose to become a chef and not a pastry chef.

For the last two months I’ve been craving cookies all the time. Not chocolate, not even Nutella. Cookies. Also not the healthy type of cookies, chocolate chip ones. I’ve tried many of them: Whole Foods brand, Amazon Fresh brand, Pepperidge Farm’ Sausalito is one of my favorites but I try to avoid ultra-processed foods (even though my all time favorite is Annie’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Bites and Trader Joe’s Way More Chocolate Chips).

I saved half the dough to bake another time. Best. Decision. Ever.

Then I saw Emily Schuman posting on Instagram a recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies and this one had chocolate chip. My heart was racing. Emily always seems to find the best recipes and that’s one of the reasons why she’s the only influencer I follow. She already convinced me to buy a new deodorant and kind often she encourages me to get up and move on (like go on a walk or even tidy up the house).

Turns out the recipe is from another influencer that I follow and admire: Deb Perelman from Smitten Kitchen. Deb is the “mother who loves to cook” that I never had. Growing up my mom used to make amazing food, I really loved everything she did but she never liked the art, she used to say that it wasn’t for her. So my mom never invested time in teaching me how to cook and to learn new recipes, she stuck with the basics she knew: rice, beans, protein and very simple salads (usually lettuce, tomato, onions and carrots).

Going back to my cookie addiction, as you know by now I’m not very into pastry as an art for myself. I admire it so so much but having to follow the exact rules turns me off a little bit. But since I started working in a professional kitchen I noticed that uhmmm yes, I have to follow recipes. In the restaurant I measure everything. Restaurants needs to be consistent and there’s always someone different making the dish so we have to follow a guideline for the flavor. And now I’m becoming a little more comfortable with baking since following directions became part of my routine.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies - influenced by an influencer that got the recipe from another influencer that got the inspiration from a bakery that used to be a hit a few years ago.

Now on my days off I anticipate baking. It has become a project for me. And I noticed that I’m good at it (I just follow instructions duuuh). At this moment instead of buying cookies I’m making them. I don’t have a stand mixer at the moment (RIP my beautiful red Kitchen Aid that my friend found on her building trash) or a food processor (this one broke too). But nothing has stopped me so far (just some laziness to be honest). Thanks to this currently pandemic (coronavirus) I’m looking forward to more baking into my life. And home baked cookies.

Breadcrumbs from leftovers

This last weekend I have attend Zero Waste Food, a conference about how we produce a lot of food and don't consume it, so we need to reimagine and repurpose all these thing that is been wasted.  

I am not a fan of waste in general. In fact I started this blog because this is one of my missions: to inspire people to cook more with minimum waste. You can not imagine the amount of food that goes to trash at homes around the world. We buy, we don't plan and the it goes to landfills. We think that once it goes to the trash, is not our problem anymore. Guess what, it is. Not only because when you throw food away you are expending your money (it's like you're literally throwing your money on the trash can), but it's not sustainable. 

So, yesterday I decided to clean my fridge. Of course I had to throw somethings out, unfortunately. I am not perfect and I wish I was so had everything planned for that food that went to the garbage. But I was also proud of myself. Because I did not threw a lot of things as I used to do. Some of it was already "recycled food" - when I write this I mean: food that was already transformed into another meal and consumed. It was the leftovers and they were really bad, not ok for consume. But on my freezer I found a some bread. I was planning to do croutons for soup, but guess who: spring is here and soup is not on my plans any time soon. But I could do breadcrumbs. The ready to use that I have on my pantry is almost gone and I planned to put this item on my groceries shopping list for next week. Well, now I don't need this item anymore.

Everything start with frozen breads - put them in the oven for about 20 minutes at 350F (180º C)

So today as I used the oven for our breakfast I took this opportunity to start my breadcrumbs. Just throw it on a pan, with parchment paper and let is defrost and also toast a bit. The bread must be really dry, and I wanted it to be a little bit toasted as well. I let it sit for about 20 minutes. Then waited for it to cool down outside the oven and threw it on the food processor with a bit of salt and spring onion. I didn't want to put a lot of flavor here because in the future and I want season it according to my recipe - I can do gremolata, pesto, chicken Milanese (or fish or steak), some gratin... A lot of options, and I can season it as I wish.

Put it on the food processor and let this appliance do its work!

The magic (and satisfaction) of homemade breadcrumbs.

I am so satisfied with the result!

Working the creativity - Spinach Risotto

This week my husband gave me a challenge: to work with what I got in the fridge and not do any grocery shopping. Of course this has a purpose: save money.

What I Ate Today: Spinach Risotto with Italian Sausage and Green Bell Pepper

Whenever he asks me this I feel scared. A lot of questions pop up on my head: will I be able to do breakfast and dinner everyday without going to the deli? There's not enough of this or that, what should I do?

This is where the creativity comer along to help me. Sometimes I just open my fridge and say: "surprise me today". Sometimes I spend my whole day thinking about what I am going to cook for us. I even go to bed thinking about breakfast and dinner. 

Yesterday after coming back from a session of the documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste at the Tribeca Film Festival, I was determined to work with what I had and be creative. I had no meal planning for this, so imagination had no limits for me.  I knew that I had some Italian sausages on the fridge. Two, to be precisely. Two is enough for two people, right? It depends, ok? So, I know that sausages, specially the Italian types, goes well with peppers. And yes, I had one green bell pepper (half of it) hanging on my fridge drawer, just waiting. I also had garlic (always!), onion and white whine. That's it. If you have just plain white rice, you already have dinner at this point. 

But I wanted risotto. I was craving it. Maybe because of the rainy day... I wanted something comfortable. Not pasta this time. Risotto. I had some cheese: a bit of fresh mozzarella, blue cheese, cheddar and this smoked gouda. I had good choices, except the cheddar, this would be a bold move for sure and a risk I wasn't willing to take. I went with the smoked one. Last but not least, I decided to add spinach to the risotto - I had some and didn't want to waste the opportunity of adding some nutritional on my meal. 

Turns out that I didn't think about my wine quantity and ended up putting everything on the sausage. By the time that I was doing the risotto, I asked my self what I was going to do? I didn't want to put lime, because I know the risotto would taste like it, even with the other layers of flavor. So thinking about the acidity, I grabbed my apple vinegar. It worked amazingly. Just like wine, to be honest. 

Tip: to make the pepper sweeter and tender I did let it sit on the fire on my stovetop for a few minutes. Better than stir it for a bunch of time.

And on the top of everything: garlic confit. I did this yesterday morning and wanted to try. So everything was actually a good excuse to put my new garlic confit on top. I know that everything was good because after two spoons my husband said: "I wish I could eat three times this".