Cookies Choco-Nana Truffles

Ugh... Annoying never-ending rain... What a perfect drag to make Halloween night just a little more trick than treat. Good thing there will be lots of candy (and by candy I mean food, drinks, parties, fun) at the end of it all to compensate for all the effort.

So before venturing out into the night to join the zombies & vampires, I will be staring at these truffles during the day. I made them a while ago, back when the sun was still around. I remember trying to hurry up to take the pictures as the heat would have made these yummies melt. Oh... how I miss summer...

Don't get me wrong though, I'm all reminiscing about the weather by looking at these pics, but the truffles were very good too! LOL! Very easy to make. Fancy-looking and delicious. What else can you ask for?

Cookies ChocoNana Truffles
Makes about more than a dozen to two, depending on the size of your truffles

• 6 chocolate chip cookies (Chips Ahoy type)
• 1/2 banana, mashed
• 1/2 C chocolate chips
• 1/4 C Nutella
• chopped nuts, coconut flakes, cocoa powder

Mash the cookies in a ziploc bag with a rolling pin. Add the mix into the mashed banana. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave for about 2 minutes on medium low power. Then mix it well into the banana cookie mix along with the Nutella.

Cover and refrigerate to harden a bit before forming into balls and rolling them in your favorite toppings.

The texture gets better the next day. But if you have as much patience as me when it comes to food, you will never find out!!!! Enjoy!!!!

Happy Halloween!!!!

Oh boy...

So, I was immediately M.I.A again after the first disappearance due to our Europe trip back in the summer. But this time, it wasn't such a pleasant one... My laptop went into a coma after an attack of trojans, malwares & who-knows-what, even though the only porn I ever went to look at, was the ones on Tastespotting & Foodgawker... I was lucky enough to get tremendous help from a couple of friend, who backed up everything I had, then proceeded to wipe out the whole thing & gave my precious a new life. Cheers!!!!

It took a while, but Tramie's Kitchen is back!!!! Technically, the kitchen never shut down, but that's just too many details... I'm just excited to be back and share my yakking & goodies. Yay!!!!

Tomorrow is Halloween, and it would only be appropriate for me to post something that has to do with it, right? So here is my share of ghouly, gross & weird-looing cupcakes for this wonderful day.

All cupcakes are chocolate, and frosted with cream cheese base frostings that come in various flavors:

Jack, from Nightmare Before Christmas, is covered in Lemon cream cheese frosting and melted dark chocolate.

Owl, is frosted with Dark Chocolate cream cheese and Peanut Butter cream cheese, decorated with mini Oreos, yellow Cry Baby candies, and split Toasted Marshmallow Jelly Beans.

Pumpkin, is frosted with Peanut Butter crweam cheese, Green Tea cream cheese, melted Dark Chocolate. The spaced-out looking spider is made out of fondant, cut Red Licorice Wheels and White Chocolate pellets.

Pumkin is made of fondant, and the basket is Green Tea cream cheese frosting.

Mummy: Lemon Cream cheese Frosting with eyes made from yellow colored White chocolate pellets.

And the obvious Eyeball of Lemon cream cheese & veins of Peanut Butter cream cheese frosting. Topped with an eye of Green Apple Gummy Ring and a Dark Chocolate pellet.

So what are you serving for your Halloween party?

Homemade limoncello

Exactly 3 months ago, on April 19th, I had a very lemony day. One of the lemony things I made that day, was limoncello which was going to take 2-4 months to "mature".

Russian Prince, meet lemons. Lemons, meet your Prince.

So now is the time... And let me tell you, if you have access to a lot of lemons, and you like limoncello, DO IT! I actually prefer the home-made one to the store-bought Limoncello brand due to the sweetness, as I find the store-bought way too sweet. The smell is the same although the color of the home-made one is darker.

Left: store-bought. Right: home-made

The whole process is very easy, just tedious since zesting the lemons really means only zest, no white pith because that's what turns the taste bitter and would spoil the limoncello. The recipe that I settled on, is from Epicurious, calls for:

• 15 lemons
• 2 bottles (750 ml) 100-proof vodka
• 4 cups sugar
• 5 cups water

But as I didn't want to waste a bottle of vodka in case it turns out bad, I halved the recipe and used:

• 7 big lemons, with thick skin
  
• more or less 800 ml vodka ( I had about 3/4 of a 1.14l bottle)
• 2 cups sugar
• 2.5 cups water

Wash the lemons with hot water, use a potato brush if you have (It's best to use organic lemons so there won't be wax and pesticides) Dry them.

Use a zester or a peeler to zest the rinds. If you get some pith on there, you can remove it with a small pointy knife. Make sure you do so, or the limoncello will be spoiled.

In a big glass jar put in half of the vodka (I didn't have one, so I used an empty 1.14l bottle) Then as you're zesting, just drop strands of the lemon peel inside. Close it up well, then leave it some where cool and dark (I left mine in the closet) for the next 2 months.

After 2 months, it's time to make the syrup. In a sauce pan, cook the sugar and water over medium heat until it thickened slightly (about 5-10 minutes) Cool completely. Take the bottle out (At this point, you will see the color has changed. It's pretty!) to add the syrup & the rest of the vodka.

Close it up again and put it back in that cool & dark place for another month or so. When ready to put to good use, take the bottle (or jar) out, discard the peels, strain the limoncello, and you may put it in the freezer until ready to serve.

Left: store-bought. Right: home-made

Hmmmm..... Oh yeah....

A meaty trip

Hello everyone!

My BF & I were away in Europe (Amsterdam, Venice, Prague, Budapest & Vienna) for 2 weeks, hence the disappearance of posts, but Tramie's Kitchen is back! The cooking and baking has not yet begun since I've only been back for a few days & still nursing vacation withdrawal syndrome, so I bring you pictures of food that we've encountered, eaten, digested and in my case, heart-burn induced.

*Warning: some blurry-ness may occur, as these are vacation pics. LOL!

Over all, although I wouldn't call it a culinary delight, the food was good. Most of the time after a meal, I would have Alka Seltzer in my water as a digestive or chewing Tums like candies. There was a lot of meat: stews, sausages, slow-cooked, jam-packed in soups. And then there were fries and such as well. (We always had to have specific trips to the grocery stores to get vegetables and fruitsfor me, I cannot imagine how my life would be without greens...I seem to run into this problem a lot when I travel, almost everywhere except Vietnam)

So first of all.... WHAT IS THIS????? We kept seeing pictures of it everywhere outside of meat shops in Budapest & Vienna, and it really puzzled us. It looks like a pig with a sheep's wool, it's very odd!!!!

The mystery of the Shpig in Europe...

Venice display a lot of sweets that caught my attention. They were all very big size though, not what I remember of Venice 10 years ago. I wonder if that has anything to do with North America tourists.... Or again, it could just be me who didn't pay attention 10 years ago?

Gelato, one of my main food groups during this trip. I especially loved the yogurt for its perfect amount of tang.

Ginormous pine nuts meringues, almond chocolate bars, huge blocks of black & white chocolate, gigantic rolls of torrone.

Hmmm.. massive chocolate covered torrone rolls... Yummy...

As we moved towards Eastern Europe, the trip got more meaty...

Delicious typical Czech beef stew with barley.

Very filling goulash soup of beef and potatoes

More goulash with bread dumplings and pickled shredded beet

Pasta with speck and balsamic sauce

Sausage at a corner stand, after a Mozart symphony & opera concert. I love the concept: the bread is made like a tube, where the inside is hollow with only the top opened.They fill it with ketchup or mustard, then drop the sausage in. As you eat, nothing falls from the bottom!

. The BEST sour cherry strudel, from a market in Budapest. It was the most perfect slightly chewy bites of plump sweets & sour cherries (chewy due to the oat in the mix, I believe)


The BEST sauerkraut ever, again, from the market


. SCHNITZEL!!!!! (It's always so much fun just to yell it, lol!!!)


One of the best things that I ate, from the Australian stand at the International Film Fest in Vienna: grilled red tuna steak & rice with lots of veggies (as you can see, I forgot to take a picture BEFORE I ate it because I was so excited to plow through it)


Obviously my BF opted for the "alpha male" dish: potatoes & speck with sauerkraut


Sachertorte, tastes good but too dry

There are so many more I would like to post, but I will restrain myself. I saved you the best for last.

When I saw this, I was lost for words. All I could utter was: "Really? REALLY? OH COME ON!!!!" As I proceeded to take a picture while laughing hysterically, a mean-looking man whom I assume was the owner, was standing not so far from me, gave me the dirtiest look I've ever gotten.

Seriously...

Poached egg & pan-seared asparagus on pâté & toast

I bought a bunch of asparagus a few days ago. Fat, juicy, crunchy looking asparagus. But my cold have drenched me of my desire to cook & bake for the passed few days, so the lovely asparagus have just been laying there, staring at me everytime I opened the fridge.

They would have eventually started talking.

So I started obsessing over the thought of what I was going to make with them. Seriously, it haunted me for 2 days! I really didn't want to turn on the oven to make a quiche or a tart, it's too hot for that. Luckily, my brain still haven't given up on me after the extensive researching & planning for our Eastern Europe trip, I geared towards breakfast for dinner. Not very original, but still better than nothing!

Poached egg & pan-seared asparagus on pâté & toast

• a bunch of asparagus, stemmed, washed & dried
  
• a dash of olive oil
• a couple teaspoon of balsamic vinegar
• sea salt
• an egg
• some pâté (optional)
• a slice of bread
  
• black pepper
  

In a big bowl, marinade the asparagus in the olive oil & balsamic. Sprinkle the salt on top. Let them sit for a few minutes.

Heat a pan over medium high heat. Dump all the asparagus in, including the marinade. Cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until the crunchiness of your choice . (I cooked mine for about 3 minutes because I don't like mushy vegetables)

Remove the cooked asparagus. Pour a few cups of water into the pan, but not to the rim. When the water starts simmering, crack the egg into a ladle, place the ladle into the pan and gently nudge the egg out (Gently so that the egg white doesn't run all over the place)

Mean while, toast your bread and spread some pâté onto it. Place some asparagus on top. At this point, the egg will be cooked, so remove it with a ladle that has holes in it so the water doesn't come with.

Place on top of everything else, crack some black pepper over it, and bite. Make sure you have a napkin ready for the dripping egg yolk.

Oh yeah...

Strawberry mousse cake with chocolate chip cookies bottom

Bleh! I've been nursing a cold for the passed week. You know, the slow torturous one that starts two weeks in advance, with muscle pain and headaches, then "BAM!" just like that, it hits, and you're completely thrown off balance.

Left with no energy & no appetite, I lost the desire to cook. I KNOW! It's soooo wrong!!! Everything tastes mediocre or yucky, so I haven't cooked or baked ANYTHING at all... except for birthday cakes. Ya, this is the third one in 7 days. LOL!!!! It was a friend's birthday dinner yesterday, and so I made what I was told to be his preference, Strawberry Mousse.

I didn't want to turn on the oven, so instead of making a cake base, I made it with crushed chocolate chip cookies & cream cheese. The rest is simply strawberries, cream, a bit of sugar and gelatin.

The base:

• 16 chocolate chip cookies (I used the Compliments ones, but Chips Ahoy or anything similar is fine)
• 1/2 block of cream cheese (4 oz)

Line bottom of a 9-inch spring form pan with
Crush the cookies in a big bowl. Soften cream cheese in the microwave for 1 minute on medium power. Mix cookies & cream cheese together, using your hands to mash them together well. Press in bottom of baking pan. Refrigerate.

The mousse:
(adapted from Joy of Baking Strawberry Charlotte)

• 1 bag 600g frozen strawberries, no sugar added, thawed
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 pouches of Knox gelatin
  
• 250 ml whipping cream

Puree the strawberries in a blender, add the sugar according to your taste. Reseve 1 cup in the fridge.

Sprinkle the gelatin over 1/2 cup of strawberry puree, let sit for a few minutes. Stir and microwave for 15 seconds or until the gelatin has dissolved. Add it to the rest of the puree and mix well.

Beat the cream with a mixer until soft peek form, then fold the puree into it and continue beating until stiff peak. Spread over the cookie base and refrigerate a few hours.

The glaze:

• 1 cup of strawberry puree
• 1.5 Tbsp of Knox gelatin

Sprinkle the gelatin on top of the puree and let it sit for a few minutes. Microwave for 15 seconds or until the gelatin has completely dissolved. Mix well and spread over the top of the mousse.

Decorate to your desire & enjoy! I am off rolling myself in the blankie & fry like an imperial roll... (Oh yeah... I'm s.l.o.w.l.y getting my appetite back)