5 pro tips when making homemade pasta

Whether you call it pasta or noodles, doing it fresh not only tastes better, but it's healthier for you. Once you know how quick and simple it is to make your own pasta, you’ll be ashamed you ever bought the store-variety. With just four ingredients and 20 minutes, you can whip up a truly home-cooked meal that is sure to impress the guests and show them who the real foodie is.

food adventures in chicago // the girl and the goat

I'm not a restaurant critic, nor do I plan to make many restaurant reviews in the future; nevertheless, today I had to turn my inner fan girl loose. For the past week, we (the fam and I) have been in Chicago. On our trip, we sampled dishes from some of the most highly acclaimed restaurants in the Midwest. We at places like Mon Ami Gabi (My Friend Gabi in French), Deka, and the Tavern (previously called Tavern on the Town, my parents favorite place to socialize and eat when they lived in Chicago). I suppose, all food bloggers like to believe they're qualified to review restaurants; they like to believe they're part of an elitist super-race, one which sports highly discriminating taste buds that can pick apart dishes into their elemental components. I can't speak for my fellow foodies, but I am part of that super-race. Here is my review of my favorite restaurant we ate at in Chicago—The Girl and the Goat. 

mango blueberry sherbert

People all over the world - except Australians and their backwards idiosyncrasies - are on the brink of summer; however they're ill prepared and I'm here to help. My suggestion? Go to Costco, buy a 24 family pack of sunblock, grab 6 industrial sized towels, and some summer fruits - provided that you left Costco otherwise you're gonna have to buy a lot of fruits (which is probably a problem only particular to the first world). After you finally leave Sampleworld with all of your beach day things run home and make this sherbert! It's so good, and surprisingly easy. 

When I was making this recipe I overestimated the capacity of my ice cream maker and when I measured the first batch I realized only an eighth of the mixture could fit in at one time. I practically have a toy ice cream maker. I concluded that the only sane thing to do was to make the sherbert by hand. So, every 30 minutes I took the sherberts out of the freezer and stirred them. That's probably why the blueberry one turned out kind of icy. Nevertheless I loved it even more because I literally made it myself. So the moral of the story is don't get your cooking equipment from Dave & Busters. 

virgin mango bellinis + basil

For the entire week I have procrastinated writing this post because I wondered whether it was really necessary to write down a recipe that has only 3 ingredients, and even less steps (and I was being lazy). Making these bellinis was so easy that I'm pondering whether I should change this blog to an only bellinis blog. I mean, the alliteration is right there. 

Truthfully, if there weren't any laws mandating that children under 21 can't drink, these bellinis would be totally non-virgin. But, laws and regulations and stuff. What can you do.

fried shrimp w/ sweet & spicy blood orange sauce - happy chinese new year!

As many of you know, my mom, a.k.a. Munchy, a.k.a. Momma, a.k.a. Eileen from accounting, is the best chef I know in the entire world. Although my older posts (because they're blurry, dull, poorly written, and structured) do not exemplify the true quality of her cooking, you can click here for more of Munchy's signature dishes. Not only are her favorite recipes delicious, but they're also quick, often times requiring less than 20 minutes to put together. Straight from the cookbook of a working parent, rest assured this recipe is simple, quick, and super delicious, tailored to the busy parent lifestyle. 

So as you might have guessed, yes, I'm disclosing another chowfidential family recipe. This time I'm showing you how to make the most delicate fried shrimp, and a sweet and spicy blood orange dipping/drenching/drinking/socially acceptable to chugging sauce. Traditionally, this recipe doesn't have any blood oranges in it, but I had them and I thought, what the heck. Shrimp look orange (actually they're more like pink, but who cares), citrus and seafood go well together, this could work. Even without the orange, whenever my mom makes this it's instantly gone the second she turns her back. This recipe is a killer for any of you in the market for a delicious party hors d'oeuvre, or if you're looking for something a little more adventurous for Chinese New Year. Nevertheless, you don't really need a special occasion to make this. I don't care if today is a tuesday in the middle of a cloudless day in Kansas, go buy yourself a bag of oranges and a sack of shrimp cause it's fried shrimp w/ sweet & spicy blood orange sauce time. I've got to learn how to shorten my titles. 

5 minute weeknight alfredo sauce!

Not only should everyone have a quick and easy, go-to, weeknight recipe, but it should be something delicious and not something that comes from a can, bag, cup, or liquor store. Don't deny it. It's close to your house and they have occasionally good sales on stale cookies and offbrand colas. But, that is all in the past, today I'm going to show you how to make a weeknight alfredo sauce which has been rumoured to cure everything from marriages to cancer. However, rumours are rumours and if those claims turn out to be false, rest assured you still have a killer sauce that you can drown pasta and rice in for a quick and easy weeknight dinner. 

Oh, and did I mention this recipe has 50% less heavy cream and 75% less butter than its predecessors. So yeah, it does cure cancer. 

{how to make} quick and easy homemade biscotti w/ cranberries + white chocolate

Homemade biscotti is a completely different experience than the ones that come from the plastic wrapper. Unlike the biscottis that you buy from the tubs at Costco these aren't stale or dry. They're hard and crunchy like they're supposed to be, but because we make them fresh, you can really taste the buttery shortbread-esque crumb that's just so good!

Not only do these biscotti look awesome, but they taste just like you would get them from a really fancy italian restaurant. I'm not even kidding you guys. I was so surprised at how quick, and easy, and awesome these turned out that I made a second batch for the neighbors (a.k.a myself). These are also a wonderful gift for friends and family this holiday season. You know what to do. Press that orange button. 

pesto + manchego + marcona almond

Viewer Discretion Advised. This post is home to 99.9% of the manchego cheese porn on the internet. 

Chow Creations usually strays away from the lewd and cheesy concupiscence that inundates the food blogging universe, after all, we're not a pizza blog, wait, what do you mean the next post is a pizza, what happened to the cookies and cakes, and what type of lunatic creates an entire post for pesto, has this all been one sentence, no we're having a conversation, wait, who are you, who am I, *sings Who Am I from Les Mis for a couple minutes, and we're back. 

easy hot fudge sauce + coconut + sea salt

Remember when you were a kid and you used to brazenly cascade pump after pump of chocolate sauce over your ice cream, beautifully unaware of its affects on your mind and body. Before now, the health conscious population has avoided the indulgent world that I live in. Finally a chocolate sauce that will take away all that worry, and bridge the gap between health and food. That's right this is vegan. Say what?

marrow on toast - rich and unctuous

You know you wish you were here. And if you don't, then you're a party sucker and should rethink your entire life. Marrow on toast is such a classic preparation of this rich and unctuous treat. Not only that but I soak my toast with the rendered marrow fat so we get the maximum amount of beefy fatty goodness. 

skills test - how to fold a chinese dumpling 鍋貼

dos white bread variations - 1st annual cinco de mother's day!

Happy Cinco de Mother's Day! I know, with the debut of Picnic Earth Day in April and now this, I'll be surprised if I remember either of the two next year. Cinco de Mother's Day is basically the day where I show you how to create a Mexican themed Chow Creation that you can give to Momma as a present. This year I'll show you how to make White Sandwich Bread - but with a twist, dos twists. And for those of you who do not speak Spanish "dos" means delicious. 

I made a Cinnamon Raisin Loaf. Cinnamon being a very traditional Mexican spice, and raisins because Momma likes raisins. And Momma gets what she wants. For the second variation I decided to venture a little out of my comfort zone and make a Cheesy Taco Bread. Laced with cheddar cheese, green onions, my special taco seasoning, and topped with crunchy tortilla chips, it was money the minute my three year old nephew suggested it, and it was money when it came out of the oven. So good. 

chocolate cashew butter - this takes more time explaining than making

Those of you who know me, know that I love desserts disguised as breakfast items. Like coffee cakes, muffins, and danishes. But this Chocolate Cashew Butter is the most incognito of them all. This is like the nutella of kidney shaped nuts. You can market nutella all you want with multigrain bread and floating bubbled nutrition facts. But at the end of the day, all it is is eating chocolate for breakfast. Which is precisely why I love this recipe. It taste similar to nutella, except creamier and nuttier but without all the high fructose corn syrup and artificial additives. 

candied lemon slices - more like lemon rings

These days the shelves at the stores are inundated with rows and rows of processed overly sweet crap. You want to be able to feed your family delicious sweets that you know they'll love, but more than that, you know what's in them. That's why these Candied Lemon Slices are exactly what you've been waiting for. Well, they started out as slices but turned into rings. Later I'll show you how you can avoid this. They're naturally sweet, chewy, and you can be sure that they taste like the real deal because they are the real deal. Not only will the kids love these, but you'll love them too because they are just so easy to put together. You literally only need sugar, water, and a couple lemons. Heck, it's even easier than going to the store to buy them. So let's get started. 

First you need to obtain some lemons, obviously. Try to pick lemons that are round so all of your slices turn out the same. Although it may seem like common sense, you should also use lemons that have no blemishes or dried parts because remember we'll be eating the rinds as well. Rinse your lemons thoroughly and using a very sharp knife, cut an inch off both ends. 

roasted strawberry tart - featuring cheater's puff pastry

A couple weeks ago I made for ya'll a delicious Mini Blueberry Tart. And that was fun and all but, you really haven't had fun until you've made this tart. And I know you're probably thinking to yourself, what's the difference, this one is just going to be topped with strawberries instead of blueberries. It's okay to be wrong sometimes. Instead of a pate sucree for the tart crust, we're going to be using a puff pastry. But not just any puff pastry dough, our own homemade one. That's right, so if you've been itching to now how those fancy french get their dough to become all flaky and such stick around for the answer.

The donations at the Chow Creations studios have been basically nonexistent this week. Which means a couple things. The first is that I'm broke. And the second means that I'm too broke to buy puff pastry dough, or good puns. Which means I have to make my own, which isn't the easiest thing to do, a close second to performing open-heart surgery on a fly. That's why I've devised this Cheater's Puff Pastry Dough which allows you to make puff pastry in less than 5 minutes. What what.

flat and chewy chocolate chipped cookies

Stop! Slowly read these next sentences with all your might and attention. This...is...the...best...chocolate...chip...cookie...recipe...in...the...world. Got it? Good. Okay, I think we all know that nothing is better than a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. Chewy, chocolatey, and warm. Am I right or am I right. But no one likes those doughy dry mounds of crap people call cookies these days. That's why this week I'm bringing back the good ol' days with America's favorite cookie, The Chocolate Chip. 

Howard Taft. I approve of these cookies. In fact my pockets are full of them.

The best types of chocolate chip cookies are the flat and chewy ones. I even prefer them to be slightly bendable. That's the hallmark for a really good choco-chip. Not too sweet, and dotted with chips of chocolate. This recipe is all that and more. If you follow this recipe to the period, I can guarantee that you will be presented with a batch of the most perfect, classic chocolate chip cookies you have ever tasted and or seen. The ones Ben Franklin, and Howard Taft would be proud of. And you can be sure President Taft had a few cookies in his day.

lime curd - easy peasy lime...wait

What do you do when you're mom's co-worker gives you a bag of limes? You cannot make the proverbial lemonade, but you can make this delicious chow-fection! Perfect for filling pies, or even breakfast with toast, this lime curd sure does it all. Did I mention it was easy too. You don't need any fancy equipment, nor do you need to be a very good chef either. If you can follow directions you can make this crud...I mean curd. You don't know how many times I'm going to make that mistake in this blog. This curd has a pudding-like consistency with a light lime flavor. Absolutely deliciouso. So scroll on down so we can get started!

To begin I'm going to separate two yolks and two eggs into a small bowl. Please do not throw those whites away. Every time you waste your whites a whale from Wisconsin wallows. I'm not sure if that made much sense but the alliteration was very satisfying. The point is you can use those whites for macarons, or even a breakfast omelet. 

sweetened coconut flakes - better than store bought

Now if you've been following me since the last post on how to prepare a coconut, you probably have a container of coconut meat hidden in your fridge so take that out now. To turn this fresh coconut into sweetened coconut that you buy from the store you need to boil a cup of water. Add 16 teaspoons of granulated sugar and mix until dissolved, shut the stove off. While your water was boiling you should've taken your coconut and shredded it on a grater or in a food processor. You want small flakes of coconut, it depends on how merciful you are feeling today. Pack cups of coconut and throw them into the sugar water. You should have 4 cups. Buy more if you don't, and eat the remainder if you have extras. The coconut should absorb all of that liquid. Spread them on a lined cookie sheet until dried. To speed up the process every thirty minutes shuffle the flakes around with a spatula.

skills test - how to prepare a coconut

Now I know what you're thinking. Does this mean I have to get my jackhammer out? No silly let's leave the jackhammers for the roads please. Cracking open a coconut is much easier than you think but i can't blame you, even I was a little intimidated at first. It used to be before when I was at the supermarket, I would always try to avoid the coconuts. I couldn't help but feel their "eyes" staring at me, all of them judging and sizing me up, kind of like high-school. But, today I summed up all my courage and went to pick one up and guess what? I lived to tell the tale. 

In this lesson I'll be showing you how to crack the code on a mature coconut. This variety of coconut is what you would picture hanging from a palm tree, or at least what I picture. These are not to be confused with a young coconut which are white and look like a pentagon. So today's blog post isn't so much a recipe as it is a very helpful skill. On a sidenote, if you're ever stranded on a deserted island you can thank me for saving your life. I kid I kid - but seriously.