Honey-Lime Salmon over Quinoa {and dolphin watching!}

Pin It Now! What a beautiful Sunday!  One of the benefits of living right on the coast is the opportunity to watch stunning sunsets on the beach.  Hubby and I took a walk to the Ellwood Bluffs/Coronado Butterfly Preserve to catch the sunset, and we were definitely in for a treat...  dolphins!  While we took in the sunset from the bluffs, dozens of dolphins played in the waves below.  It was really an amazing sight. 

Another benefit to living on the coast is fresh seafood.  We have a great fish market in the Harbor, with a selection of lots of local seafood as well as some flown in from around the nation. We chose a beautiful wild salmon from Washington.  (ALWAYS buy wild when possible.)

Santa Barbara Fish Market 

We love salmon in our house.  My usual standby is to drizzle it with olive oil, squeeze a bunch of lemons over it, scatter garlic slices on it and toss it in the oven.  Nothin' wrong with that, but it was time to switch it up.  So this time I went with a glaze of lime and honey, and it turned out great!  Hubby loved it (yay!) and even had seconds.

Another switch-up to our usual salmon dinner was with quinoa (pronounced keen-wah).  I've been meaning to give this a try for quite some time and I'm really not sure why I didn't do it sooner.  We loved it!  Quinoa is one of those superfoods you've been hearing about.  Each serving is loaded with protein, fiber, folate, magnesium (great for people like me who get migraines), iron AND all eight amino acids!  It's no wonder the Incas called quinoa "the mother of all grains."  And if you're not sold yet, it cooks in 15 minutes with zero supervision.  That scores high, in my humble opinion.  Quinoa is like a blank canvas; you can do anything with it.  We'll definitely be enjoying quinoa quite frequently.  Give it a try!

Honey-Lime Salmon
Juice of three limes
3-4 tablespoons honey
Salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a small bowl, whisk together lime juice, honey, salt & pepper.  Place salmon in baking dish and pour half of the glaze over it, letting it rest for five minutes before baking.  Bake until cooked to desired doneness.  Serve over a bed of quinoa, drizzling the rest of the glaze over the filets immediately prior to serving.

Garlic & Shallot Quinoa
1 c uncooked quinoa
2 c water or chicken broth
1 small shallott, thinly sliced
2 medium garlic cloves, minced

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook 15-20 minutes until liquid is absorbed. 

We enjoyed our salmon and quinoa with steamed broccoli and corn.  Enjoy!

One Year Anniversary Prosecco Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Filling

Pin It Now! As you know, I love cupcakes.  They are my favorite treat to make for all occasions and somehow they just make an ordinary day seem special.

One year ago today, I became a Mrs.  And at our wedding we had the same kind of cupcakes that Mr. M. used when he proposed to me.  It seems only fitting to make cupcakes to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary, right?  But they had to be extra-special....  so bring on the bubbly!

Prosecco is basically Italy's answer to champagne.  It's slightly sweet with that beautiful champagne-y tang, and of course, the signature bubbles.  The cake recipe I found at Sprinkle Bakes, and to switch things up a bit I filled them with a simple chocolate ganache (1 pt cream to 2 pt chocolate.  Melt chocolate, simmer cream, combine. Cool.  Done!)  Since our wedding was accented with deep purple and lavender I used food coloring gels to tint the frosting a lovely, romantic lavender.

Prosecco Cupcakes

Note: make sure you allow the Prosecco plenty of time to come to room temperature, especially for the frosting. 

Forgive the short blog post, but I'm ready to go celebrate with my handsome hubby over some Prosecco and cupcakes...  cheers!  :)

Prosecco Cupcakes

from Sprinkle Bakes
(Makes one dozen cupcakes)
1/2 c unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 c granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 c AP flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c sour cream
1/2 c Prosecco or champagne

Prosecco Buttercream Frosting

1 c Prosecco
2 tbsp reduced Prosecco (instructions below)
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
Powdered sugar, sifted

For the cupcakes...
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a muffin tin with baking cups.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy.  Add in sugar and mix well.  Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition.  Mix in vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.  In a small bowl, combine sour cream and Prosecco.  Set aside.

Beginning and ending with the flour mixture, alternately add it and the sour cream/Prosecco mixtures to the butter, sugar and egg mixture.  Batter will be somewhat thick.  Fill cupcake liners with just under 1/4 c of batter.  Bake for 17-22 minutes, until cake tester or toothpick comes out clean.  Allow to cool completely.  To fill with ganache, fill a pastry bag fitted with Wilton tip 230.  Carefully insert the tip into the top of the cupcake and gently squeeze until ganache is just barely oozing out the top of the cake.

For the reduced Prosecco...
Pour one cup Prosecco into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Allow to simmer approx 20 minutes, until reduced to 2 tbsp.  Set aside to cool.

For the frosting...
Cream butter until light and fluffy.  Add in sifted powdered sugar, 1/2 c at a time, until a stiff frosting forms (stiffer than your desired consistency).  Add in one cup of Prosecco and the 2 tbsp reduced Prosecco and carefully mix until thoroughly incorporated.  If frosting is too thin, add in more sifted powdered sugar.  Too thick, add in more Prosecco one tbsp at a time.  Use gel food coloring to add color, if desired.  Top with sparkling sugar or any other decor you like.  Enjoy!!

New Year's Eve Peanut Butter Cookies

Pin It Now! Happy New Year!  2011 was full of so many blessings and new experiences.  I am excited to see what 2012 brings!  I think I'll usher in the new year with something yummy... because, why not??

These are not your average ho-hum peanut butter cookies.  You see, these are more than peanut butter cookies.  They are soft, chewy peanut butter cookies drizzled with Ghirardelli chocolate.  Ohhhhh yes.  I'd love to meet the genius who first thought to pair chocolate and peanut butter.  That person deserves the first Nobel prize in deliciousness.

This recipe is so simple, yet so good, and I guarantee you have all the ingredients on hand at any given time.  And hey, if you don't feel like messing around with melting chocolate and drizzling (but who wouldn't?!) toss in a cup of chocolate chips and call it a day!  And of course make sure you sample them right out of the oven when they're all melty ooey gooey...  mmmmmm....

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 3/4 c AP flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp.
3/4 c peanut butter
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 c Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat mat.  Melt the chocolate chips over a double boiler and set aside to cool.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.  Meanwhile, beat butter until light and fluffy.  Add in peanut butter and beat until creamy.  Beat in sugars, egg and vanilla until fully blended.  Add flour mixture and slowly mix until fully incorporated.  Dough will be somewhat crumbly.

Form about 1 tablespoon of dough into a ball for each cookie.  Place a sheet of wax paper over cookies and lightly flatten with your hands.  (Alternately, you can also go the traditional route and flatten with the tines of a fork.)  Bake cookies for 9 minutes, or until just very lightly brown on the edges.  Cool for one minute on baking sheet, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.  Drizzle with chocolate once completely cooled.

Our White Christmas in Santa Fe and Dad's Fried Green Tomatoes

Pin It Now! We're back!  I hope your Christmas was joyful and happy.  We spent ours with my family in Santa Fe, New Mexico and had a gorgeous white Christmas.  I have a major fixation with snowmen and on Christmas day we spent a good hour (two?!) making my very first snowman in the back yard.  Aint he cute?!

Mom and I got to spend lots of time together in the kitchen, our favorite, and even tried our hand at making a wreath.  A restaurant in Albuquerque had their wreaths hung flat on the ceilings and it was so pretty!  So we took inspiration from that and hung ours from the dining room chandelier.  Here's the finished product:



Not bad for first timers, eh??



The logs across the ceiling are "vigas," and are very common in Southwestern architecture.
Grandpa C. built the house with his own hands, lifting each end of every (very heavy!) viga himself!

 Now on to the recipe for today...  My dad had told me some time back that he was enjoying green tomatoes from their garden.  Up until about a year ago I wouldn't touch tomatoes of any kind or color with a ten foot pole.  I was always that pain in the neck girl that told the server "I'm allergic" to keep them from tainting my salads with the wretched things.  I'm not sure what prompted my venturing out, but I started giving them a try, and now I don't mind them.  In fact, I kinda like them.  So when Dad mentioned fried green tomatoes, I was intrigued.  The green fruit has a tart, slightly citrus-like flavor.  Dad topped his with creamy goat cheese - yum!

Green tomato tip: Allow them to sit for a day or so to develop a slight "blush." 
Makes for sweeter flavor.

Fried Green Tomatoes
2 green tomatoes
1 1/2 c Italian style bread crumbs (or panko)
1 large egg
1/2 c buttermilk
1 c AP flour

Start by setting up your breading station:  Pour the bread crumbs into a shallow pan (pie pans are great for breading stations) and shake lightly to level.  Pour flour into second pie pan, shaking to level.  In a small bowl or shallow pan, beat the egg and buttermilk lightly.

In a non-stick skillet heat about 3 tbsp of olive oil on medium-high flame.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Slice the green tomatoes to desired thickness (1/2" - 3/4" is ideal).  To bread the tomato slices, dip in this order: Egg, flour, egg, bread crumbs.  Carefully lay in the hot oil and brown on both sides.  Meanwhile, line a baking dish with paper towels.  After tomatoes are browned, place in baking dish and bake until tomatoes are tender (time will vary depending on thickness - check them every few minutes.)  Enjoy!



Merry Christmas from the Montalvo Family!



Vanilla Bean Coconut Cupcakes

Pin It Now!

 Happy winter solstice!!  Can you believe that the end of the year is upon us?  I'm a Christmas freak so I'm loving all of the holiday decorations around town.  If I had my way, I'd have an entire room in my house dedicated to year-round Christmas decorations.  Yes, I'm a nut.

We like to do a small potluck and white elephant gift exchange at work, and this year I decided that coconut cupcakes would be a nice winter-y looking dessert to have.  This recipe is originally from Bon Appetit, and while I love the recipe, there are a couple things I would do differently.  First, the cupcakes rise far more than your typical cupcake, so next time I'll fill the cups just under half full (making 24 cupcakes as opposed to the original recipe's suggested 18).  Also, the frosting recipe was only enough to frost 12 cupcakes with a pastry bag, so I'll definitely be doubling. 

The secret to this recipe is the reduced coconut milk.   It keeps the cake soft and makes the icing melt-in-your-mouth silky.  Seriously, I could sit and eat the frosting with a spoon and be perfectly happy.  Maybe with a drizzle of chocolate ganache...  or a sprinkle of cocoa...  ooohh or toasted coconut and shaved dark chocolate...

What were we talking about??

Oh, yes - the cupcakes!

The reduced coconut milk can be made a couple days in advance (so convenient!) and kept in the fridge.  In fact, you could make the whole works in advance and keep the frosted cupcakes in the fridge overnight if needed.  Make sure you bring them to room temperature prior to serving.  Decorate as you see fit - I chose edible glitter to look like snow for my wintery cupcakes.  :)  Enjoy!

Coconut Cupcakes

Source: Bon Appetit

1 1/2 c reduced coconut milk (instructions below)
2 c AP flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 c sugar
3 large eggs
Seeds from 1 split vanilla bean (alternately: 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract)
1 c reduced coconut milk

Coconut Frosting

1 c (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/2 c sifted powdered sugar
1/3 c reduced coconut milk
Seeds from 1 split vanilla bean (or 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract)
1/8 tsp salt
Toasted coconut (optional - garnish)

Directions:

For the reduced coconut milk...

To reduce coconut milk, pour two 13.5 ounce cans of coconut milk into a medium saucepan and heat on medium high heat. Bring to a boil (watch it - it'll boil up) and reduce heat slightly.  Allow to boil 25-30 minutes until reduced and syrup-y.  Cool completely.  (Can be made two days in advance.  Keep chilled.)

For the cupcakes...
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line cupcake tins with baking cups and set aside.  Whisk the dry ingredients in a bowl.  Meanwhile, beat butter with electric mixer until smooth.  Add in sugar and beat until well mixed.  Add 2 eggs, one at a time, and beating well after each addition and occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.  Beat in seeds from vanilla bean and remaining egg.  Add half of flour mixture and beat on low until just combined.  Pour in one cup of reduced coconut milk and blend until just mixed.  Add remaining flour and mix.  Divide the batter among the cups and  bake approx. 20 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes in baking pans and then carefully remove to cool completely.

For the frosting...
Beat butter until smooth using an electric mixer.  Add in sifted powdered sugar, 1/3 cup of reduced coconut milk, seeds from vanilla bean and salt.  Mix all ingredients well until light and fluffy.  Transfer to a pastry bag and decorate as desired.  (Can be made a day in advance.  Keep chilled.  Bring to room temp prior to decorating.)