Chef Foundation

Archive for November, 2011

Asparagus roll ups can be made in many different ways. You can roll the asparagus spears up in sliced beef or ham, in white bread, in phyllo dough, in slices of Parmesan cheese or in puff pastry. All of them are equally good, yet give a different flavor. For a spring party when asparagus is abundant, you can make several different kinds if you wish.

This elegant appetizer is equally at home at a bridge game, a socialite luncheon or at a backyard barbecue. Be sure to make enough for everyone. Asparagus roll ups can be enjoyed as is or you can serve them with a dip, depending on the recipe you choose.

Display your asparagus roll ups on a rectangular platter. You can stack them up like logs if you have a lot or you can lay them out, alternating the tips or how far over they go on the platter. Play with the placement a bit, if you need to decide what works best for your table.

How to Choose Asparagus

Since asparagus is in season but once a year, some of us do not get much practice in choosing the best bunch. Look at the stalks. They should be firm and without blemishes. Look at the tips of the spears. They should be tightly closed. Tips that are opening will be tough. Some people like thin spears and others like fat ones. This is entirely a matter of preference. Thin spears tend to have a young, grassy taste while thicker ones are a bit more succulent.

Imported asparagus may be available in your market all year long, or you may only see it from March through June. This tasty vegetable is often the first real green taste of spring that many of us remember, so go all out, and enjoy it!

Recipe for Asparagus Roll Ups

This elegant snack fits in on any occasion. Do not be afraid to experiment!

What You Need
2 sheets puff pastry, defrosted 2 ounces soft herbed cheese of your choice 12 spears of asparagus, trimmed

How to Make It

Heat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Trim the woody ends off of your asparagus.

Unroll your puff pastry and spread a good coating of the soft cheese on one side of each sheet. Cut each sheet into 6 strips, measuring approximately 1 inch by 9 inches.

Lay an asparagus spear at one end of a pastry strip on an angle. Roll the spear up so the dough wraps in a diagonal pattern. When you are done, it should look like a spiral. Let the asparagus stick out a little on each end of the pastry. Repeat with all the asparagus spears.

Place your wrapped asparagus on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put into the oven, let them bake until the pastry is golden brown, and puffed. This takes around 15 minutes. Serve these appetizers warm or at room temperature.

Make as many as you need by simply increasing the amount of asparagus and puff pastry.

Just because you are on a low carb diet doesn’t mean that you cannot enjoy sweets or desserts after your meals. There are many low carb dessert recipes that you can follow that are low in carbs and very enjoyable to eat.

Just try a low carb dessert recipe below:

Coconut-Chocolate Fudge

Serves: 18 squares

CarbsPerServing: 4.5

Prep Time:less than 10 min.

Effort: Easy

Ingredients:

2 c. Splenda 3 tbs SF cocoa 1/2 c. butter 1/4 c.heavy cream or 1/2n1/2 1/4 c. water 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 c. SF peanut butter 2-3 c. SF coconut

How to Prepare:

Mix Splenda, cocoa, butter, cream & water in sauce pan. Stirring constantly bring to rolling boil for 1 min. Remove from heat. add peanut butter & vanilla until melted. Stir in enough coconut until most of chocolate mixture is absorbed. Spread into PAM sprayed pan. Chill 2-3 hours.

Good Fudgie Chocolate Candy

Serves: 25 pieces, 9

CarbsPerServing: 5 grams/piece

Prep Time:10-15 mins

Effort: Easy

Ingredients:

20 pkts “Splenda” 1 pkg “cook to serve” sugar-free chocolate pudding 1 oz butter or margarine 1 can evaporated milk 1 pkg {8 ozs} unsweetened baking chocolate, any brand

How to Prepare:

Melt baking chocolate in Microwave {about 7 mins @ 40% power} in medium sized bowl. Combine other ingredients in saucepan and cook according to pudding directions. Pour cooked pudding into melted chocolate, mix thoroughly, then pour into glass pie plate. Refrigerate. Gets really firm. Makes good dark chocolate candy!

Low Carb Chocolate Treats

Serves: 24,10

CarbsPerServing: .33 grams of carbs each

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Effort: Easy

Ingredients:

1 8oz pkg cream cheese softened large box sugar free jello 1 oz square unsweetened chocolate 1 tbsp heavy cream 1 pkg splenda 1 tbsp butter

How to Prepare:

Mix first two ingredients together in a mixer…Mix well. Form into 24 balls. chill for 1/2 hour. Melt together chocolate, cream, butter and splenda. Dip cream cheese balls in chocolate.Refrigerate for another 20 minutes.

Those are just a few low carb dessert recipe examples that you can try. For more information on low carb diets, just visit our site below.

Cassava is one of the abundant root crops in the Philippines and you can use it for a wide variety of cooking. But of the many cassava recipes available, cassava bibingka (or cassava cake) is the all-time favorite at home. I got this recipe from my Grandma and it has never failed me yet. A friend even told me I can make it into a business because it really tastes great. But I haven’t gotten that far yet. I only prepare it during birthdays at home or any other gatherings because you won’t have to spend too much to prepare this delicious recipe.

My husband may be a little biased but he says it’s like the one you can buy from Goldilocks (a famous cake store and food chain in the country). Maybe, but I won’t brag about it. Just try it yourself and see if you will agree. You can also add condensed milk on top to make it even more delightful.

Ingredients:

1 cup grated fresh cassava 1/2 cup scraped buko (young coconut) 2 eggs 3 tbsp melted shortening 4 tablespoons grated cheese 3/4 cup sugar 3/4 cup coconut milk 1 tbsp butter

Cooking Procedure:

Beat eggs and add sugar, melted shortening and coconut milk. Mix with cassava and young coconut. Add 2 tablespoons grated cheese and mix well. Line a round pan with banana leaves and pour in mixture. Bake in the oven with moderate heat and brush with butter when almost done. Sprinkle the remaining cheese and a little sugar on top. Continue baking until golden brown Set aside to cool before serving.

Easy party appetizers are the order of the day if you are entertaining friends and family and sometimes the easier the appetizers are, the better, especially if you have a lot of holiday appetizers to make. If you are stuck for inspiration, what about making a tomato appetizer recipe? There are plenty to choose from.

Simple Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes are very tasty and this is a versatile dish. For this, you will need cherry tomatoes because they are easier to eat than bigger tomatoes. If you are serving stuffed tomatoes at the table you could use big ones but, for easy finger food, it is best to use cherry tomatoes.

Slice off the tomato tops and hollow them out. You can stuff tomatoes with anything you like. Cottage cheese mixed with lemon juice and capers is good or you can try cream cheese mashed with pineapple and herbs or a tapenade or even some guacamole. Serve the stuffed cherry tomatoes with the lids on or off. You might need to secure them with toothpicks, depending how much filling you use.

Tasty Tomato Canapes

Tomatoes are nice for making canapes. Spread some cream cheese over toast or crackers and top with a slice of tomato. Sprinkle chopped basil and black pepper on top and serve.

You can use mozzarella instead of the cream cheese if you prefer. You can also make bruschetta by finely chopping tomatoes, combining them with garlic, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, and spreading this mixture over bread. Broil the bread and serve these canapes warm.

How to Make Caponata

This authentic Italian appetizer recipe contains bell peppers, eggplant, capers, pine nuts, olives, and lots more, in addition to chopped tomatoes. Caponata is a classic Italian dish, which is served either as an appetizer or alongside a fish dish.

There are different caponata variations. In Sicily, swordfish, lobster and asparagus is added to caponata and in Palermo octopus is a popular ingredient. The following recipe is for a basic caponata, although you could add some cooked seafood to it if you wish. Serve bread on the side for soaking up the juices.

What you will need:

4 peeled, chopped tomatoes 1/2 cup olive oil 2 tablespoons white sugar 2 tablespoons capers 3 chopped onions 2 lbs peeled, chopped eggplant 1/2 teaspoon oregano 1/2 cup red wine vinegar 3 chopped green bell peppers 1 teaspoon crushed pine nuts 2 cups halved, pitted green olives 1/4 cup water Salt and black pepper, to tasteHow to make it:

Heat the oil in a skillet, then saute the eggplant for ten minutes. Add the bell pepper, onion, olives, and tomatoes and cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Take the mixture off the heat.

Mix the water, sugar, and vinegar and pour this into the skillet. Add the pine nuts, oregano, and capers and let the mixture cool to room temperature. This is where you can stir in some cooked, chopped seafood if you wish. Transfer the caponata into a container, then cover it and chill it for twelve hours. Season to taste and serve.

Give this garlic soup to a family member or friend when they are sick or just to warm their heart.

The properties contained in these tiny little bulbs of garlic are the greatest for lowering cholesterol and increasing immunities.

Note : If you are taking a blood thinning medication, I would suggest not including the garlic in your recipe because it also effectively thins the blood. This includes the “one a day” preventative medications.

You can store this soup in the freezer, for future use. If that is what you are going to do, please note that the noodles will absorb even more water after they have been cooked. What are you going to do? Simply add more water and a little more spices and you are ready for your soup to make you better!

What you will need:

I use a wok to make my soups as they are bigger and give me more freedom to work.

2 or 3 Bulbs of Garlic

Dill

Parsley

Jalape

If you are a diabetic and are curious about experimenting with desserts, then I encourage you to consult your doctor first. Your doctor will have the information that you are looking for and will help to guide you on the right path. After you do this, your doctor may even refer you to a nutritionist.

This is what I ended up doing and it worked out great. I know it costs a lot of money, but I can put a price on how much it helped me. My nutritionist explained all kinds of things that I was unsure of and helped me to develop a meal plan.

Anyways, once I was educated about the foods and such that my doctor advised me to have, it was much easier to compile recipes. Note that the “diabetic dessert recipes” that I have now are not what most people would actually call a dessert, but they serve as something new and great to me.

My doctor had told me that it was okay to have apples, so what I did was to start brainstorming healthy ways I could prepare an apple and what I could pair it with to create an easy diabetic dessert. So I found a product called cool whip, most of you have probably heard of cool whip, and decided to use it for my recipe. Cool whip had a very low amount of carbohydrates and sugars. It is also available in a sugar free version.

The best way that I could think of to prepare the apple for the easy dessert recipe was to bake it. This makes the apple tender and warm and ready to eat in no time. Then all I did was add a little cool whip for a creamy taste, and my easy diabetic dessert was complete. I know its not much, but it tastes great