Caramel sauce is something I always have at home, its one of the best (add on's) elements that can turn a simple dessert or ice cream into a heavenly what ever you may want to call it!.
Homemade caramel sauce is perfect for cheese cakes, apple pie, fresh fruits, cake icing and the list is endless. It is very simple to make all you need is some patience...that's all ;)
Ingredients:
Sugar - 1 Cup
Water - 1/4 Cup
Heavy whipping cream - 1/4 Cup
Butter - 2 Tbls
Method:
Add water and sugar in the sauce pan on medium high, let the sugar cook do not stir
Brush off the excess water from the side of the pan , if any and as often as needed.
Once the sugar turns the color to amber, remove it from the heat and add the whipping cream and stir vigorously, Add butter and stir , put it back on the heat for 2/3 minutes. Once it has cool , pour it in a tight container and store it in the fridge
* Please make sure you use a heavy pan for this sauce.
My family, we are big fans of pasta, any kind especially my son. Since I cook pasta at least twice a week, I try to be very creative, and adding veggies is definitely one of them. This recipe is one of my quick and easy...tasty too. I do not use the tomato based sauce very much, most the times I prefer white sauce or just olive oil. When time permits I prefer to make fresh pasta at home, my kids love playing with pasta dough making various shapes and sizes
This recipe that I created and has lasted very long in my home, I was trying to replicate a pasta dish that I had long time ago at a very small restaurant in Dusseldorf , Germany. Whenever I travel I feel very safe eating only sea food and fish meals. The dish was shrimp and garlic and I decided to add spinach and bell pepper for
some extra color too. I loved this dish so much because it had plenty of garlic, what can I say..I love garlic too, and plenty of it as well.
Its a known fact that Pasta originates from Italy, precisely from Sicily dating back to as far as 1154. Typically, pasta is a noodle made from an unleavened dough of a durum wheat flour mixed with water and formed into sheets or various shapes, then cooked and served in any number of dishes. It can be made with flour from other cereal or grains , and eggs may be used instead of water.
Pastas may be divided into two broad categories, dried pasta and fresh pasta.
Both dried and fresh pasta come in a number of shapes and varieties, with 310 specific forms known variably by over 1300 names having been documented.In Italy the names of specific pasta shapes or types often vary with locale. For example the form cavatelli is known by 28 different names depending on region and town.
As a category in Italian cuisine, both fresh and dried pastas are classically used in one of three kinds of prepared dishes. As pasta asciutta (or pastasciutta) cooked pasta is plated and served with a complementary sauce or condiment. A second classification of pasta dishes is pasta in brodo in which the pasta is part of a soup-type dish. A third category is pasta al forno in which the pasta incorporated into a dish that is subsequently baked
Pasta sauces vary in taste, color and texture. When choosing which type of pasta and sauce to serve together, there is a general rule that must be observed. Simple sauces like pesto are ideal for long and thin strands of pasta while tomato sauce combines well with thicker pastas. Thicker and chunkier sauces have the better ability to cling onto the holes and cuts of short, tubular, twisted pastas. The ratio of sauce to pasta varies according to taste and texture, however traditionally the sauce should not be excessive as the pasta itself must still be tasted.
The quantity for the ingredients for this dish are not so precise you can use lesser or more.
Ingredients:
Spaghetti / Fettuccine or any long pasta
Large shrimps - 1 pound
Garlic - 2 big bulbs ( peeled and finely chopped)
Baby Spinach - 2 cups or more
Red Bell pepper - 1 ( Diced )
Olive oil 2 Tbls or more
Method:
Wash , clean the shrimps and keep them in a paper towel to drain
Cook the pasta as per the direction on the box
In a large sauce pan, add olive and keep on medium heat, add the garlic and sautee for a minute, be careful not to burn the garlic.
Add the shrimps and stir, add the bell pepper and saute for a minute or so, add the spinach and mix quickly, add the pasta and let it cook for 2 minutes . Ready to serve....Enjoy your meal!
Carrot cake is one of our family favorite cake, anytime of the year..sometimes with cream cheese icing and sometimes just plain, its just as good. What I like about carrot cake is that it has basic ingredients that most pantries at home would have, you do not have to go out of your way.
As usual, I love to track the origin of most of dishes that includes desserts too. So I found out that ;
"During the medieval period the sweetness were scares and very expensive. Carrot were used to sweet cakes since they contained more sugar than other vegetables besides the sugar beets and they were of course were much easier to come by so they were used to make sweet desserts. The origins of carrot cake are disputed. Recipes for carrot cake occur as early as 1827.The oldest known recipe of carrot cake dates from 1892, in a book of the housekeeping school of Kaiseraugst, Switzerland.
Carrot cake found its way in the United States in the early 1960 probably from Britain during the Second World War II; in the United States Carrot cake became commonly available in restaurants and cafeterias at first as novelty item, but people liked them so much that carrot cake became standard dessert fare.
And there's always other tales to make it more interesting; Another story indicates that following the Second World Warthere was a glut of canned carrots in the United States. A business man named George C. Page hired master bakers to find uses for the cans of carrots. He somehow promoted the idea of carrot cake to help create a demand for the product.
Many carrot cake recipes include optional ingredients, such as kirsch, cinnamon, nuts or raisins . The most common icing on carrot cake is icing sugar and lemon juice or icing sugar and kirsch in Europe and an icing with sugar, butter and cream cheese in the United State.
As the cake is relatively moist, it can be conserved longer than many other types of cakes.
How did carrot cake and cream cheese become a paired item is yet a story to be told......
Well, there are so many recipes and variations of carrot cakes out there. For me personally its not a question of whose's right or wrong its a matter of what your taste buds prefer.
The recipe am sharing here is a combination of 3 very good recipes and I have extracted the best elements from each to make one awesome carrot cake recipe and very easy to make.
Yields 3 8" pans
Ingredients:
4 Cups All Purpose flour
2 Tbls Baking Powder
2 Tabls Baking Soda
2 tspn Cinammon powder
1 1/2 tspn ginger powder
8 Whole Eggs
4 Cups Sugar
4 Cups Carrots
2 Cups + 2/3 canolla oil or veg oil
2 Tbls grated fresh ginger
2 Tbls orange zest
Nuts ( Pecan or walnuts) 1 cup or more
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F and prepare Three 8" pans with parchment paper or grease and flour the pans.
Sift flour, baking powder , baking soda, cinnamon powder and ginger powder all in one big bowl and set it aside.
With Paddle attachment beat in the eggs and combine for about a minute
Add sugar and mix well
Add carrots, beat
Add oil, beat
Add fresh ginger and orange zest continue to mix
Add all the flour at once and beat well ensure all ingredients are well combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake at 350 for 35-40 mins or till well done.
I finished my cake with cream cheese caramel frosting, I will add the link to the recipe here as soon as I have finished editing
