Mayo Clinic

Lunch time. I'm hungry for a ham salad sandwich but... NO MAYO?!?! I knew I forgot to get something at the grocery store yesterday.

I had heard all the horror stories about making mayo at home, such as people's arms falling off, whisks disappearing into the depths of spacetime from so much centripetal motion... really? Is making mayonnaise really that difficult? It can't be... so I set off on a quest (actually, I just Googled "how to make mayo"). The first search result was an article on About.com. That's a good place to start, but how can I add my own twist? Here it goes:

• 1 egg yolk
• olive oil and/or vegetable oil
• fresh lime juice (or lemon juice. I just like lime better)
• salt
• paprika
• black pepper
• garlic powder

1. Use an electric mixer or hand mixer at a low setting... or use a whisk, if you're a masochist or don't own a mixer. No blenders, no food processors.
2. Beat egg yolk to get the emulsion started. Add a few drops of lime juice and mix.
3. Add a tiny bit of oil and mix.
4. Add another bit of oil and mix.
5. Add another bit of oil... you get the picture. Repeat until the mixture has the consistency of mayo because, after all, that's what we're making. You won't need to use more than a cup of oil. I like it eggy, so I didn't use much oil at all. If you use olive oil, the mixture will be more yellow than mayo. Even vegetable oil won't be as white as commercial mayo, so don't keep adding oil because of the color -- just watch the consistency.
6. When you're done, add a pinch of salt and mix.
7. If you'd like to make it more "fun", add a little more lime juice, season it with your favorite spices (mine were paprika, black pepper and a hint of garlic powder) and blend them in.

As for the ham salad... well, I just chopped some ham slices in my little food processor and mixed it with the mayo. Put it on bread, top it with cheese and enjoy your lunch!

Lime Cream... Brulée?

I just got a bunch of limes today and I was wondering what to make with them... I googled up "lime recipes" and a ton of pie recipes popped up. I'm not feeling pie right now. Maybe I could turn the filling into a pudding, but lime pudding calls for condensed milk, which I don't have. But how do you MAKE condensed milk? With stuff I do have -- and I can use Splenda to boot. After a lot of improvising, this is what I came up with:

• boiling water (boil 3-4 cups to be safe)
• 1 stick of butter
• 2 cups Splenda
• 4 cups powdered milk
• a splash of vanilla or almond extract
• juice of 5-6 fresh limes
• zest of 1 limes

1. Juice the limes ahead of time. I used 4 limes and it didn't turn out as limey as I had hoped.
2. Cut up the stick of butter, put it in a blender with the Splenda, 1 cup boiling water and the extract. Mix well.
3. Mix in the powdered milk one cup at a time. The mixture thickens fast, so you might have to add a little more water. You want the consistency of pudding as the blender is mixing. It sets a little when it's not mixing, so don't wait too long for the next step...
4. ...in fact, just keep the blender on low. Add in the lime zest and lime juice, which may cause the mixture to curdle a little bit. If that happens, turn the mixer on higher. If it still doesn't mix well, stop the blender and mix it with a spoon until it's a little more homogeneous and start the blender again. In the end, it should look like pudding.
5. Put the mixture in a bowl.
6. Now the "brulée" part of the recipe is optional -- I did it just to show off. Turn the oven to broil and put the (oven-safe) bowl in. Keep a close eye on it! It burns fast. When it's a little brown, like crème brulée, pull it out of the oven.
7. Let it cool to room temperature. Cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.
8. Enjoy it!

It probably would've been better with store-bought condensed milk and cream, maybe eggs... Let's just say it's not my greatest recipe, but it's still tasty. I promised myself I'd post even the so-so recipes, and this is the first one of them. How can you make it better?

Daddy Would You Like Some Sausage?

I've been wanting to make sausage at home ever since I started watching Top Chef -- the judges seem to always ask the contestants "did you make your own sausage?" Must be a big deal, right? So I browsed around for recipes and it seems like sausage is basically one thing: meat and spices. That's it?!?! I can handle that! And since I just got home from working out, I might as well make it a lean recipe:

• 1 lb. ground venison
• 1 lb. ground turkey
• 1 tbsp. parsley
• 1 tbsp. oregano
• 1/4 tbsp. salt (I used about 1/2, it turned out a little salty)
• 3/4 tsp. black pepper
• 3/4 tsp. thyme
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves (I used more, but it was a little too much)

1. Put all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix it well to make an even mixture.
2. Form into patties, balls or just brown it like ground beef.
3. If you freeze it, make sure to cook it well after thawing.

Apple Mango Crisp

Still trying to use up some of the stuff that's just been sitting around the house... This time, apples. But how could I make apple crisp even better? Add mangoes, that's how!

Filling:

• 3 lbs. apples (peeled, cored and cut into large chunks)
• 8 oz. (1/2 bag) frozen mangoes
• juice and zest from 1/2 orange
• juice and zest from 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• pumpkin pie spice to taste
• dash of ground ginger

Topping:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar/Splenda blend
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 2 sticks of unsalted butter

1. Mix filling ingredients in a large bowl. Pour into a 9"x12" baking dish at least 2" deep.
2. Preheat oven to 350.
3. Combine topping ingredients in a bowl and mix carefully using a hand mixer at the slowest speed or a large mixer with a paddle attachment. This can be messy, so be careful. I tried to mix it by hand but it didn't work, so I just used my hand mixer and put my hand in front of it so it wouldn't turn into an oatmeal machine gun.
4. Spread mix evenly over the fruit. Place the baking dish on a parchment-lined pizza pan (to catch any boil-overs). Bake for about 1 hour, checking it every few minutes after the 45-minute mark.
5. Serve warm with vanilla or cinnamon ice cream.

Enjoy!

Cranberry Jam (Reduced Sugar version)

I have three bags of cranberries just sitting in my fridge. I've never done anything with cranberries, so I wanted to try my hand at making cranberry jam. I took a couple of recipes I found on the web and adapted to whatever ingredients I had at hand:

• 12-oz bag of cranberries - thawed, washed and picked through
• 1 cup "sugar equivalent" sweetener (i.e. Splenda)
• 1/2 cup diet ginger ale
• 1/2 cup orange & mango juice
• small jar(s) with lid(s). I used 2 small olive jars, but only completely filled one of them.

1. Mix all ingredients in a medium or large pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, stirring occasionally. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until somewhat thick. Jam will thicken when it cools down.
2. Fill a large stock pot with enough water to cover the jars and lids. Bring to a boil to sterilize the containers.
3. Beat mixture with a whisk until the remaining berries and peels are broken.
4. Remove jars and lids from boiling water. Fill them with jam. Wipe any spills and screw on the lids on tightly, but no need for a Hulk grip on the lids.
5. Let it cool for 12 to 24 hours. Transfer containers to the fridge -- it may be safe to store them in a dry, cool place, but cold jam makes more sense to me :)

Always be creative with the ingredients. Experiment, make the recipe your own. I used orange/mango juice because that's all I had. The original recipe called for water, not diet ginger ale, but that added a little spice to the mix. The sweetener I used was a stevia blend I brought from Brazil. It worked okay, Splenda probably would've worked better.

Garlic Bread Spread

This turned out so good I had to make it two nights in a row!

• 1/2 stick (4 tbsp) butter
• 1 heaping tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp parmesan cheese
• 2 tsp oregano
• salt & pepper to taste
  

1. microwave butter for 90 seconds;
2. mix in all ingredients;
3. return to microwave for 30 seconds;
4. spread over bread with spoon and toast it; or
   
5. refrigerate in small covered container.

You Say Dulce, I Say Doce

One of my favorite Brazilian desserts is Doce de Leite (DOH-see dee LAY-chee). Spanish speakers know it as Dulce de Leche (DOOL-say deh LEH-chay). Americans know it as the caramel-y ice cream flavor introduced by Haagen-Dazs. In fact, I've seen it translated as "caramel". I don't know if I'm being too technical, but it seems to me that caramel is cream-based, whereas the South American counterpart is milk-based -- it's in the name: Leite is Portuguese for "milk", Leche is Spanish.

So I found a recipe that sounds more like the stuff that, as a kid, I often ate as the second half of my meal in many restaurants:

http://www.maria-brazil.org/doce_de_leite.htm

I should try making it one of these days. My stomach is homesick.