Vodka

I will admit, we did have frozen pasta. BUT WAIT! It was sweet potato gnocchi from Trader Joe's! Since it was frozen, I thought I could at least make a fresh sauce.

Servings: 6

Active time: 15 minutes

Inactive time: 30 minutes


1/2 cup vodka

1/2 cup light cream

2 beef tomatoes 

1 tablespoon tomato paste

3 cloves garlic

1 shallot

1/2 teaspoon fresh sage

1/2 teaspoon fresh majoram

1 ounce fresh mozzarella 

1. Chop garlic and shallot in processor.

2. Sauté garlic and shallot then add cubed tomatoes. 

3. Once tomatoes have cooked, poor mixture in blender with other ingredients.  

Mandarin Mojito

This is seriously the best skill ever. I looked at a couple of recipes for tonight, but either didn't read the preparation all the way through, so I didn't have the equipment or just didn't have the ingredients. So I improvised.

Servings: 3

Active time: 30 minutes

Inactive time: 1 h 20 mins.

3 tilapia filets

2 cups Smirnoff's Mojito mix
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons rum
1/2 tablespoon orange zest
6 ounces mandarin oranges
1 1/2 tablespoons mint sauce
1 teaspoon ginger

1. Whisk all marinade ingredients in a bowl, poke holes in fish with fork and place all in a gallon size plastic bag.
2. Shake bag and marinade tilapia for at least an hour.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place each fillet on a separate piece of parchment paper with some sauce.
4. Fold parchment over horizontally on sides match and roll up sides to close.
5. Bake on cookie sheet for 20 minutes.

And they all come together

Recently, I've been reading The Map Thief and been falling in love with maps. My dad collects maps, so I've always been interested, but my interest might be growing. Of course, this set off a new idea for my third anthology: food and maps. Initially, this research idea didn't pan out, and it's still tricky. However, I have found one amazing example of a food map. And it's perfect.

What do you think if when you think of France? Any of you should go for "food and wine."

Carte Gastronomique de la France is a 1809 map showing regional foods and wines.

Shrimp Kebabs

Again: An Italian chef's main ingredients include pasta, white wine, rosemary, oregano, Parmesan and tomatoes. The pastry chef works with almond, cream, blood orange and lemon. Therefore, as the base for the marinade, I used white white, oregano, rosemary and orange juice. I gave it a nice kick with: ginger preserves.
This constituted the marinade for shrimp kebabs

pinch oregano
pinch rosemary
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon ginger preserves
12 raw shrimp

skewers

1 cup pilaf
2 cups chicken broth

1/2 green beans
balsamic

1. Mix marinade ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
2. Poke two holes in each shrimp, place in dish and pour in marinade.
3. Marinade for 30 minutes.
4. While shrimp marinates, cook pilaf and beans.
5. Skewer 4 shrimp each on 3 skewers and grill until shrimp are pink.