Pumpkin Creme Brulee

I bought myself a few pie pumpkins before Thanksgiving, so inspired to make a fresh pumpkin pie, and I just never got around to it.  I actually cooked the pumpkins and scooped out all the meat, put it in the refrigerator and still didn’t make the dang pie. I did the hard part and then never followed through.  So for a week or so I had this fresh pumpkin puree that I knew I had to use up quick and pumpkin pie just never sounded good again.  So one day I made pumpkin pancakes, which were a little more boring than I was anticipating so I haven’t even bothered writing it up, but a few days after that I made pumpkin creme brulee which I thoroughly enjoyed.  They actually tasted more like mini crustless pumpkin pies than they did creme brulee, but were very easy to make.  Actually it may have been easier than making the pie, which is why I was ok with making it, because I didn’t have to make a crust.  I don’t want to hear it about frozen crusts, it’s not the same I’m sorry.

8 oz pumpkin puree, or can pumpkin (not pie filling)
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup packed golden brown sugar
3 large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp salt
1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream
4 tbs golden brown sugar


Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Whisk pumpkin, ¼ cup sugar and ¼ cup brown sugar in a bowl.  Whisk in egg yolks and vanilla, then spices and salt, set aside.  Bring cream just to a boil in a saucepan.  Gradually whisk hot cream into pumpkin mixture.
Divide mixture between 4 ramekins.  Place ramekins in a roasting pan and add enough hot water to pans to come halfway up sides of ramekins.  Bake until custards are just set in center, about 35 minutes for 5x1 inch ramekins or 50 minutes for 3x1 ¼ inch ramekins.

You can make this 2 hours ahead of time and stop here, cover them and keep in refrigerator.   When you are ready to eat, sprinkle 1 tbs brown sugar on each one and melt with a kitchen torch or put in the oven under the broiler until the sugar is a deep amber.

Some people like their creme brulee cold, and if you do, put it back in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes to chill and let the sugar harden, but I like it hot, so I just try to let it sit for a few minutes to allow the sugar to harden and keep it from scalding my tongue because I have a hard time controlling myself.

This was super simple, well if you already had the pumpkin puree or if you used a can, but was very flavorful and had a nice thick and creamy consistency.  I made 4 and we had 2 one night and then the other 2 the next, but you could easily double this recipe for a dinner party and use 1 15-oz can pumpkin puree and I think I would use 5 egg yolks but double everything else.  That would be really easy to throw together without much time or effort, and you could do it ahead of time before you even start cooking so you don’t occupy the oven.

Green Pea Basil Pesto

Pesto is such a nice alternative pasta sauce when you are tired  of tomato based sauces.  I tend to stay away from Alfredo sauce, not only because it's more fattening  but its not really one of my favorites.  This pesto uses green peas to thicken the consistency a little and to add some volume with out spending a fortune on basil, but feel free to leave it out if you are totally anti pea. Just be sure you cut way back on the olive oil and garlic.

1/2 cup fresh basil
3 cloves garlic
1 tbs pine nuts
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup green peas
1 tbs parmesan cheese
salt to taste

In a blender pulse the basil, garlic, and pine nuts until coarsely chopped.  Add  the olive oil and peas and puree into a thick paste. Add  the cheese and salt and pulse to mix.

Yields about 1cup. The entire cup is 590 calories and 58 g fat. I recommend about 1 tbs per serving which would be about 40 calories and 4 g fat.

You could put this on pasta or for a new chicken recipe you could bake some chicken breasts then spoon a little of this on top and trick your family onto thinking you made something totally new that was super complicated, even though it took less than 5 minutes to mix all this in the blender. What you have left over can go right into the freezer in an air tight bag/container. Another cool trick I learned is to spoon the pesto into an ice cube tray and freeze it then once the cubes are frozen pop them out and store  them in a Ziploc bag. Then when you need a couple tbs worth you can get what you need easily and just stir them into your dish.

Lemon Garlic Chicken and Potatoes

After nearly 3 years of trying to sell one of our two houses, we finally sold one, thank goodness! We are moving out next weekend so now starts the packing.  This meal worked out pretty well on a night when I wanted something that didn’t taste like minimal effort but was.  I had a few vegetables to chop and a marinade to make and that was basically it, I just had to let it bake while I sorted through cobweb covered stuff in the back of a closet in a room that I never even go into.  Why oh why do I have so much junk?  What’s weird is about 90% of the extra stuff that we have are books.  Classic literature, the entire set of Harry Potter, How To books on every random thing J ever once had an inclination to try to make himself and never has, and text books like you wouldn’t believe.  Our closet could probably serve as a library for a small University.

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 Yukon gold potatoes
½ lb green beans
1 zucchini
1 yellow squash
¼ cup olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
1 lemon
4 cloves garlic
1 ½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Stir together the oil, lemon juice, minced garlic, salt and pepper in a large bowl.  Slice the squash into strips then toss the green beans and squash in the marinade then remove to a baking dish using tongs.  Chop the potatoes into ½” pieces and stir in the marinade.  Remove and spread on top of the vegetables.  Bake the vegetables for 25 minutes to give the potatoes enough time to cook.  Meanwhile, let the chicken sit in the marinade.
After 25 minutes place the chicken on top of the vegetables and return to the oven for an additional 30-35 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.  Remove from the oven and allow the chicken to rest for 5 minutes before serving to keep it moist and tender.

Serves 4, 580 Calories, 23 g fat

Vegetable Risotto

Last night was one of my favorites, vegetable risotto.  Watching Gordon Ramsay yell at people all the time over risotto had me a little intimidated by it initially, but one day I just tried it and it’s really not that hard.  Granted he would probably throw me out of my own kitchen if he saw my risotto but it tastes good to me.  So the way it works is you coat the rice in fat then slowly add hot stock to the rice and that releases the starch.  This creates a rich, thick creamy sauce.  You have to stir the rice constantly so you are kind of stuck in front of the stove for like 20 minutes, but I think it’s completely worth it.  You can use lots of different combinations of vegetables but this time I actually went with what was in season and did a summer squash risotto.

3 tbs butter, divided

1 clove garlic, minced

2 zucchini squash

1 yellow squash

3 cups mushrooms

½ cup peas

1 ½ cup Arborio rice

Dry white wine

Chicken stock

¼ cup parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

You will need a total of 4 ½ to 5 ½ cups of liquid and you can divide that between the wine and stock however you like.  I usually do about 2 cups wine and 3 cups stock.  There are a lot more calories in the wine than the stock so you can cut it back or out if need be.

In a large saucepan melt 1 tbs butter.  Add the mushrooms and cook until browned.  Dice or cut the squash into bite-sized strips and add to the mushrooms.  Season the vegetables with salt and pepper after each addition.  Cook until the squash is crisp tender.  The squash doesn’t take as long to cook as the mushrooms so that’s why you want to start cooking the mushrooms first. Remove from heat and set aside.  The sauce pan that I use is big enough for either the vegetables or the rice so I put the vegetables in a large bowl and use the same pan to cook the rice.

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer in another pot.  Melt 2 tbs butter over medium high heat in your rice sauce pan.  Add the rice and stir to coat well with a wooden spoon.  Cook until the rice is translucent, 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add ½ cup of the chicken stock and stir constantly.  Continue stirring the rice until all of the liquid is gone then add ½ cup wine.  Since the wine is cold or room temperature I add it slowly so it heats up quickly in the pan.  Stir the rice constantly until the liquid is absorbed.  Continue the process with the rest of the chicken stock and wine until the rice is thick and creamy and softened. Once the rice is fully cooked add it to the vegetables, stir in the cheese and peas and additional salt and pepper to taste if necessary. 

Serves 4, 525 calories, 12 g fat

A typical risotto is much creamier than this because you usually add more butter and cheese but this is one of the few times where I actually don’t think all that extra cheese is needed.  The rice makes the dish creamy and a little bit of cheese adds to it and makes it just a little bit richer.  It of course would be nice if it had more cheese, but I actually don’t think it’s necessary.  This also makes a good lunch the next day.

Don’t be intimidated by Chef Ramsay, just try it.

Hatch green chile chicken enchiladas

Being that it’s hatch green chile season I thought I’d try to make enchiladas with a hatch green chile sauce. This is not a meal to make in a hurry.  It wasn’t that difficult and there wasn’t that much going on, but there was enough to do and enough mess being made that I have to take my time or I get rushed and screw things up.  I was not quite as pleased with the enchilada sauce as I was anticipating, but it wasn’t bad at all.  The next day it was actually quite a bit better so it may not be a bad idea to make the sauce the night before and let it sit.

1 ½ lb chicken breast

1 tbs cumin, ground

½ tsp salt

olive oil

16 hatch green chiles

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 roma tomato, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

8 oz sour cream (fat free)

3 oz Manchego cheese, grated

12-16 corn tortillas

Lay the chiles out on a roasting pan and broil until the skin is blackened and bubbling away from the chiles.  Turn the chiles so that they are roasted all the way around.  Remove the chiles to a plastic or paper bag and allow them to steam for 20 minutes.   Open the bag or remove the chiles from the bag until they are cool enough to handle.  Peel off all of the skin, cut off the stem, seed and dice the chiles.

In a large skillet heat 1 turn of olive oil to medium heat.  Season the chicken breasts with cumin and salt and cook them in the skillet.  Once fully cooked remove the chicken and set aside to rest, at least 5 minutes.  The chicken will go into the oven eventually so err on the side of undercooked rather than fully cooked and dried out.  Cook the onion and the garlic in the chicken drippings until tender, not browned.  Add the diced chiles and tomato to the onion and stir.  Season the mixture with salt.  Transfer the salsa to a bowl and add the sour cream. 

Preheat the oven to 350.

To prepare the enchiladas, first slice the chicken thinly.  Warm the tortillas in the microwave for ~15 seconds so they are pliable.  Place a small handful of chicken in the center of a tortilla then a scoop of sauce alongside the chicken.  Roll the tortilla and set in a large baking dish with the seam on the side up against the wall of the dish.  Repeat with the remaining tortillas until all of the chicken and sauce is used up, laying each rolled tortilla sideways with the seam up against the last one in the dish.  Sprinkle the cheese on top of the enchiladas and bake until the cheese is melted and the chicken is reheated, about 10 minutes.  If you don’t put the enchiladas in the oven fairly quickly the tortillas will dry out and crack, no longer looking like pretty little rolls.   

This made 14 enchiladas for me and I had to use 1 large pan and 1 small pan. Serves 7, 417 calories, 16 g fat.

Machego is a Spanish sheep’s milk cheese and has a very distinct taste, kind of sweet and buttery, not real overpowering.  If you can’t find the cheese or are nervous about trying it you can always use Monterey Jack instead.

I was planning on making Spanish rice with this, but we may or may not have eaten a substantial amount of chips and salsa before dinner and decided to skip the rice and basically only ate the enchiladas because they were ready. Sad, I know.  But I do highly recommend the hatch chile salsa roja (or something like that, it's the red hatch green chile salsa) from HEB.  It is very good; I just wish I could figure out a way to eat it without having to eat so many chips.  I have considered a spoon but I just can’t bring myself to do that.