Bison Bolognese

Pasta is my favorite thing to eat. Period. Here at the Smith household, we eat a pasta dish once or twice a week. And none of that "whole wheat" grainy pasta crapola. We have real, carb-filled pasta goodness. The trick is to vary the sauces from week to week so we don't feel like we're eating the same thing each week. This week, I was in the mood for Bolognese sauce. If you're not sure what it is, basically it's an amazingly delicious meat sauce with wine and cream. How can you go wrong with vino and cream? But, it can clog those arteries... so, I thought I would go for a healthier version of this classic dish by using a very lean (and tasty) meat - Bison!

Bison Bolognese

2 slices raw bacon

1 yellow onion

2 carrots

2 cloves garlic

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1 sprig fresh rosemary (1 tsp. dried)

1 lb. ground bison meat

1 cup pureed sweet potatoes (optional)

1 cup dry red wine

1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes

1.5 cups chopped fresh tomato

salt & pepper to taste

1/2 cup half & half

First, get your ingredients prepped: chop the rosemary, chop the garlic, and... dice the onion.

Grate the carrots.

Chop the bacon.

Heat a large thick-bottomed sauce pot over medium high heat. Put the bacon in, and render it away!

Next, add the olive oil, onions, carrots, rosemary, and garlic. Saute until the onions become transparent.

Now, add the bison meat and saute until browned.

Now you're ready for some booze! Add the red wine and canned tomatoes. Reduce to low, cover, and allow to simmer for 40-50 minutes. Once the sauce has reduced and it smells amazing (it will... I promise), taste it. Add salt and pepper as you like it, and dump those yummy fresh tomatoes in there. Here is where one would add the sweet potato puree. If you don't have any sweet potatoes, don't worry. It just adds creaminess and body to the sauce.

Let the sauce cool in the pot for 10-15 minutes (stick your finger in there and if it's still hot... wait a bit longer for the next step). Pour 1/2 cup of half & half in your pot and stir it up.

Now, try it. YUM. If it's not the best pasta sauce you've ever had...add more half & half. Haha. But, it should be pretty amazing as it is.

Just add pasta, grated parmesan, and fresh basil and you've got a delicious (and not QUITE as bad for you) meal fit for any pasta lover!

Enjoy!

~ Mari

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

So, sweet potatoes are delicious and nutritious. They are also one of my favorite foods. Also, who doesn't like French fries? So, I consulted someone that I seldom consult: Paula Deen. Nothing wrong with Paula, but I would never have dreamed that she would have a healthy sweet potato fries recipe. Surprise! She did. So, I tweaked it a bit... and here's what I made!

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

3 large sweet potatoes

extra virgin olive oil

salt

black pepper

sugar

cinnamon

allspice

paprika

onion powder

First, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Then peel the sweet potatoes. Next, use a mandolin (or cut them by hand like moi...hehe) to cut the potatoes into French fry shapes (potato sticks). Place the sticks into a large bowl and drizzle olive oil over them. Toss the sticks to coat them with the oil.

Sprinkle the potatoes with 2-3 Tbsp. of salt, 2 Tbsp. sugar, and enough of the other spices to coat the fries. Don't overdo it, but make sure that the spices are on there enough that you can see it.

Spread the potato sticks onto a sheet pan (make sure that they aren't overlapping too much so that they cook evenly). Stick them in the oven and allow them to cook for about 25-30 minutes. You'll know when they're done if the edges are a little crispy and caramelized. Granted, these aren't going to be super crispy fries, but they taste DELICIOUS and are much better for you that fried fries.

Let the fries cool for 5-10 minutes. They are good to go now, but what are french fries without ketchup? And since tomato ketchup would not be the greatest with sweet potatoes, I made a maple butter sauce. All I did for the sauce was mix a little whipped butter with pure maple syrup.

And voila! They're done! Ryan and I ate them with homemade bison burgers. Yummers.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

~ Mari

It's Creamy, It's Tasty, and It Looks Good in Stripes

In honor of July 4th, we at the Rel Maples Culinary Institute of Culinary Arts decided to salute our nation in the form of... ice cream. We made quite a few different flavors (pecan praline, mint chocolate chip, hazelnut coffee chocolate chunk, vanilla bean, sweet cream, brandied cherry, blueberry swirl, and fresh lemon sorbet), but we had a patriotic idea... why not stripe the cherry, vanilla, and blueberry swirl for a red, white, and blue treat? And that is exactly what we did. Here's a little overview from start to stripes...

Pink soup? Nope. It's the base for the brandied cherry ice cream - the "red" portion of our patriotic dessert. Chef Hallman says that you always make the base the day before and let it chill overnight. That makes for the creamiest ice cream the next day. So, for the base, we used half heavy cream and half milk. Then we added sugar, salt, and glucose syrup. To achieve the brandied cherry flavor, we added crushed maraschino cherries and a splash of cherry-flavored brandy. Yum! This one will be for adults only... haha. Then we just let it simmer on the stove for a few minutes until it thickened.


The next thing we needed to do was make it red. This was not an easy task. I'm not sure if you've ever tried to make really red icing using food coloring, but it takes almost an entire bottle of the stuff. And, even after we did that, it was a bright fuschia.... NOT patriotic red. But, we hoped it would darken as it chilled...



Here is the blueberry swirl ice cream (the "blue" portion) after it chilled and turned in an ice cream maker for about 15 minutes. When it stops spinning... it's done! After this stage, then you swirl in the blueberry mixture by hand.

And... voila! You have a tri-color dessert of patriotic proportions! And there I am.... in the freezer... posing with our masterpiece. So what if the red is actually pink, the white is actually off-white, and the "stripes" are more like wavy lines? We did it! I think people will get the idea. And if they don't .... they are lame.

My, Oh My, Sweet Potato Pie

How thrilled were we to be making pie in Bakery Skills? Quite. We were to make two flaky pie crusts, one graham cracker crust, one sweet potato pie, and one key lime pie.

Have you ever tried to make flaky pie crust from scratch? It is not an easy feat. It's quite hard to keep it from being too crumbly... which causes it to fall apart while trying to put it in the pie pan (not that that happened to me...). I definitely over-mixed my shortening into the flour. If you mix it slightly you'll get a flaky crust and if you mix it as much as I did, you get a mealy crust. A mealy crust might be desirable for a custard, but not so much for a sweet potato pie.

The pie filling came out quite well, though. Lots of brown sugar and evaporated milk (makes a more rich pie than whole milk). Yum. Mine might have gotten a little overcooked, but nothing too bad. You want the middle to be very jiggly when it comes out of the oven. Mine was only slightly jiggly. Fail. :)

The key lime pie came out pretty good... looking, that is. We didn't get to try either pie in class, but I got to taste the sweet potato pie today in Culinary Cafe. It was divine. I always thought pumpkin pie was the perfect fall pie... I was wrong. Sweet potato pie is amazing (especially with REAL whipped cream).

So, I am quite excited about the upcoming weeks. I have to make a ginerbread house or a specialty bread for the final baking project. I'll definitely put some pictures up of that. I'm also choosing my classes for next semester. Ace of Cakes... here I come (I'm taking cake decorating)!

Off to watch the most important election.... ever. I hope I won't have to stay up too late, considering I have to be in class at 8:00 am tomorrow. ;)

Carb-tastic!

Today was a day o' carbs (not that I'm complaining...). My group was assigned Tuscan Roasted Potatoes, Glazed Sweet Potatoes, Polenta, and Rice Pilaf. It was quite hectic at times, but (as you can see in the photo), we pulled through and came out with some very tasty, starchy foods.


We did make a few mistakes, though...

1. We over-boiled the Russet potatoes before roasting them, so they kinda fell apart in the oven. That's what happens when you are trying to worry about the three other dishes you are working on.
2. Before making the sweet potato dish, we had to bake them. I completely forgot to poke holes in the little devils and they exploded in the oven. Not very pretty. That didn't affect the taste or what the finished product looked like, but we sure felt stupid.
3. The rice pilaf actually went pretty well. We almost burned it, but ALMOST doesn't count.
4. Ahhhh the polenta... polenta, in case you didn't know, is basically yellow grits. You can serve it like grits, or you can spread it in a sheet pan, chill it, cut it into shapes, and grill/saute it. We wanted to do the latter. So, we made the polenta, added some reconstituted sundried tomatoes, rosemary, and garlic, and spread it into the sheet pan. Our sheet pan, however, was too large. So, when we pulled our polenta out of the fridge, we noticed it was about as even as the Smoky Mountains. Drat. We also ran out of time, so I cut them into uneven squares... not the most attractive polenta shape out there, I might add. But, they tasted great and had the right consistency. If only they weren't square...

So, all-in-all it was a sucessful day. We made the four dishes we were assigned, they tasted delicious, and we got to eat LOTS of carbs at the end of class. What could be better?