White Chocolate Mousse with Raspberry Swirls

I hate flying! oh I see the irony in it. How can I be in the AirForce for almost 9 years and can't stand to fly? I think its because I've worked around the flight line for too long and have seen the maintenance on aircrafts.   Any kind of turbulence freaks me out! I just flew from Misawa Japan to Seattle yesterday and was so exhausted from my anxiousness (is that a word?) I couldn't sleep and since I left late afternoon on a Tuesday, I arrived early morning on a Tuesday, basically resetting my whole day again.  Can you say exhausting! But I am excited to see my family for a few days in Portland before flying...EEK again to Maxwell AFB for training.  The only thing I'm worried about is if they will have any place for me to cook something or will i be subjected to chow hall food for the next 2 months ick. 

I made this creamy and delicious or should I say Oishii ;) mousse for the very first Blue Ribbon Challenge over on Ana's. Crunchy Creamy Sweet Blog.  She has begun a new and fun challenge where each month there is a themed dessert and you can add your own twist.  This month was Mousse and I'm bringing to the challenge this yummy white chocolate mousse with raspberry swirls. I love how the tart raspberry swirls complement the sweet white chocolate mousse. I made this right before leaving Japan so my husband could have a little dessert saved in the fridge just for him. 

White Chocolate Mousse with Raspberry Swirls

Adapted from Claire Robinson Food Network 

Yields 4 Servings 

Ingredients 

7 ounces White Chocolate (I used white chocolate chips)

2 Egg Yolks

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1 1/4 Cup Heavy cream

1 Cup Frozen Raspberries thawed

Directions

Using a fine mesh strainer, place over a medium glass bowl. Add the thawed raspberries to the strainer and mash with the back of a large spoon until you get about 1 cup of just raspberry puree.  the seeds should not be able to make it through the mesh screen.  set aside.

In a large glass bowl place in your white chocolate chips or broken chocolate bar and set aside.

Add the egg yolks and sugar into a small bowl and whisk until pale in color. 

In a sauce pan over low heat bring 1/4 cup on the heavy cream to a simmer, and slowly add the cream to the yolk and sugar mixture to temper, keep whisking the yolk mixture while your adding the hot cream. 

Pour the mixture back into the pan and simmer, stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture coats the back of the spoon. (about 5 min)

While the mixture is heating up add the remaining 1 cup of heavy cream to a electric mixer and beat on high until stiff peaks form making your whipped cream.

Pour the hot mixture over the white chocolate and stir until smooth.

Fold in half of your whipped cream into the chocolate mixture to lighten and fold in the remaning whipped cream until combined. 

Using 4 small serving bowls, spoon in about a table spoon of raspberry puree to the bottom of the bowl add a couple large spoon fulls of the white chocolate mousse, add another tablespoon or 2 of the puree to the top of the white chocolate. Spoon in more white chocolate mousse till your almost to the top of the bowl, add another couple of table spoons of raspberry puree and using a skewer make swirl patterns in your mousse. refrigerate for about 1 hour. 

Asparagus & Mushroom Risotto

Well it only took 3 glasses of wine but the risotto is finally done.  pheww but now I am diffidently buzzed and things are looking a little blurry lol.  I love risotto, yes it takes time to cook, but the end result is always worth it.
njdwuegt......This is how I should be typing right now, thank goodness for spell check =)

I'm getting nervous theres only a few days left before I leave for tech school.  I still haven't packed and we are going camping a day before I leave......I'm such a procrastinator.
By the way this risotto is great for any diet! if your dairy free, gluten free, vegan or vegetarian you can't go wrong with simple ingredients like rice, veggies and broth.

Asparagus & Mushroom Risotto
Adapted from Cleangreensimple.com

Yields 4-6 servings

Ingredients
1 White Onion diced
4-6 cloves garlic
About 1 - 1 1/2 cups Asparagus chopped into 1-2 inch pieces. remove the woody part of the stock
1 Cup diced mushrooms, your favorite kind
1 tsp dried Thyme
1 tsp salt
1/2 Cup white wine
1 Cup Brown Basmati rice
32 oz Vegetable Broth
2 cups spinach either chopped or whole
1/4 tsp Onion Powder
2 tsp Lemon Juice


Directions
Heat a large pot or saute pan over medium heat, spray with cooking spray like Pam. Add onions, garlic and asparagus, stir occasionally until soft about 2-3 min.  Add mushrooms, salt, thyme and white wine. stir until soften another 2-3 min.  Add rice and stir till the rice is coated and its starts to make popping sounds. Add broth 1/2 cup at a time, stir well and let the rice soak up the broth before adding more. usually took about 5 minutes each time I add in some broth.
Once your on your last 1/2 cup of broth add the spinach, onion powder and lemon juice stir till spinach is wilted. Add salt and more lemon juice if needed

 *note* before you add the spinach if your rice still isn't completely soft to your liking either add more broth 1/2 cup at a time or water until the rice is nice and soft. I had to use a lot more broth than the original recipe called for, could be cause I was using brown rice instead of Arborio.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Its that time again for a weekend dessert!  I decided for quick and easy this Sunday. Since we're trying a gluten free experiment right now I searched the great abyss know as the internet and found a great recipe for a cake that required no flour... what could be easier than that. A cake made strictly out of eggs, butter, sugar and chocolate.  I literally whipped up the batter in less than 10 minutes and popped it in the oven.
WARNING!! This cake is very decadent and might leave you in a chocolate comatose state. or A.K.A chocolate wasted! Eat at your own risk.

Well I better start baking and cooking myself into a frenzy this week to prepare the hubby for my departure to paralegal school at Maxwell AFB for the next 7 weeks.  I need to stock up on some homemade hummus and soup for the hubby before I go or he might be living off fried eggs (only thing he cooks) and frozen meals.  poor guy

Flourless Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Realsimple.com 

Yields: 10 servings

Ingredients for the Cake
1 Cup Unsalted Butter or two sticks
1/4 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
8 ounces Bittersweet Dark Chocolate
5 Large Eggs
3/4 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Cocoa Powder
Ingredients for the Whipped Cream
1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1/2 Cup Light Sour Cream
1/4 Cup Powdered Sugar

Directions for the Cake
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Using a 9 inch springfoam pan, spray the bottom and sides of the pan with cooking spray,
 dust with cocoa powder. (to help prevent cake from sticking to the pan)
In a medium saucepan, heat the butter and heavy cream on medium low heat, once the butter is melted add your chocolate and stir until melted and remove from heat.
In a medium size bowl, beat your eggs, sugar and cocoa powder together and whisk in your melted chocolate.
Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 35-40 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 1 hour.
Directions for the Whipped Cream
In a electric mixer beat together the whipping cream, sour cream and powdered sugar until soft peaks form, about 3-5 mintues, dust the cake with powdered sugar and top with whip cream.

Vegetarian Tostadas (+ gluten free)

Wow totally got my mind blown today.  It was my first day at the legal office and wow is all I can say.  Its a completely different world in that career field then on the flight line where I've spent the last 9 years working.  Everyone is so cheerful and happy, officers and enlisted are super nice to each other and they work together on cases and legal documents.  Its a completely different atmosphere from where I use to work to where I'm going to start working, its so opposite.

I think I'm going to enjoy my new career, tho I'm going to have to be on top of my A game when it comes to doing research and drafting memos and sentence structure and grammer and spelling and phewww I need a English class stat!

On a different topic, me and the hubby have decided to start implementing a more gluten free diet to our routine. The hubby came across a book called Wheat Belly and it discusses how eliminating gluten and wheat from your diet can help you physically and mentally. Everything from losing weight to exhaustion and more.  So we decided to give it a try, it might even help me with my skin problems.   But now I can't use my morning star products as often as I use to :(
at least I read that corn is gluten free, so you can never go wrong with mexican/tex mex food like corn tortillas =) thank goodness

Vegetarian Tostadas (+ gluten free) 
By Oishii Treats

Yields 4

Ingredients
4 White or Yellow Corn Tortillas
1 15oz can of Black Beans (drained)
1/4 Cup onions diced
1 clove Garlic minced
1/2 tablespoon Olive Oil
1-3 Chiles in Adobo Sauce (diced)
1 1/2 Cup Spinach (sliced julienne style)
Spinkle of dried basil and garlic sea salt (for black beans)
8 Cherry Tomatoes (halved)
Feta Cheese
Sour Cream
your favorite salsa


Directions
Heat a large saute pan on medium high heat. Saute your onions and garlic in olive oil for 2-3 minutes.
Place your balck beans (BB) in a microwavble safe container and add the sauted onions and garilc to the BB.
Add the diced chiles in adobo sauce to the BB.  Sprinkle in some dried basil and garilc sea salt. Stir and microwave for 2 minutes, using a potato masher mash the warm BB to your desired consistency and return to the microwave for 1 minute.
Meanwhile take a paper towel and using the same saute pan wipe out any excess oil or browning from the onions. Spray with cooking oil and on high heat, toast your tortillas until crsipy anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes.
Assemble your tostadas by placing the beans on top, sprinkle with feta, top with spinach, sliced cherry tomatoes, dollop of sour cream and sprinkle with more feta and salsa

** Update, there is a fun linky event going on called Fabulous Friday where a bunch of great bloggers come together to share their recipe of the week. So I will be sharing my yummy vegetarian tostadas. Come check it out or join in. Also check on Freedom Fridays for another fun blog hop.

London Porter Milkshake

Today was American Day at Misawa AFB Japan. Every year the base host a big festival outside the main gate in the local community.  Each squadron has a food booth and prepares and sells popular street food thats well known in the US. Examples: Burgers, Turkey legs, funnel cakes etc.  My shop had their own booth and we were making chicken shiskabobs and deep fried Oreo's with ice cream. American food is very popular in Japan and there were times in the day where our booth would get so busy we couldn't keep up with the demand.

There were also Japanese vendors at the festival who prepare and sell well known Japanese street food as well. Examples: Yakisoba, meat on a stick, chocolate covered bananas, fried squid, custard filled crepes (my fav!)
Me and the hubby walked around with our dog Ardie, who was very popular, he was called Kawaii so many times (meaning cute). We sampled a lot of Japanese food, the hubby got yakisoba and I got potato sticks and chocolate bananas. It was a fun day and a great time with our Japanese friends and neighbors, lots of delicious food, parades and talent shows.

Parade   

  Talent Show

Crepes!











After the festival, we came home to relax and enjoy a beer, expect we had only one beer left. THE HORROR! Instead of splitting it between the two of us, we decided to use in it in our weekend dessert. I've been dying to use a dark porter in a milkshake. The London Porter is one of my favorite beers. Very dark, robust and just to right hint of chocolate. The perfect base for a creamy and delicious milkshake.

London Porter Milkshake
By Oishii Treats
Yields: 2

Ingredients
8 oz London Porter  (or your favorite dark beer/porter)
2 Cups Coffee Ice Cream
2 Cups Chocolate Ice Cream
1 Tablespoon Chocolate syrup
Ready Whip and Chocolate Sprinkles (optional)

Directions
Place all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.

Oreo Cheesecake Cupcake

There was another birthday this Friday, my friend and co worker Mark is turning 31 and I asked what type of cupcake he would like and instantly everyone else piped in with what they wanted...of course lol. Mostly they wanted me to make the cookies and cream cupcake again. But after thoughtful consideration and compromise we agreed on an Oreo Cheesecake Cupcake and Mark was very pleased :)  oh Oreo's you hold a special place in everyone's heart.

Okay I want to share some big news. I've been feeling anxious, nervous and excited to begin my new career path in the military. For the last 9 years I've been a AGE mechanic, basically a grease monkey that works on all support equipment for every type of aircraft. I change tires, oil, engines you name it.
Well a draw back to that line of work comes in the form of chemicals; Jet fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid, grease etc.
For years my skin has been exposed to the corrosive substance and while on a deployment in Iraq last year I started to become allergic to the chemicals. I would break out all over my body, I developed very bad eczema and for the entire 8 months in Iraq I was on a constant diet of steroids and antihistamines to help, but nothing really did.
 It also didn't help that the shop we worked out of didn't have running water, so I wasn't able to wash my hands when they were dirty and working 12-13 hours shifts, 6 days a week I was over exposed on a daily basis. After coming home from Iraq the doctors thought it would be in my best interest to change jobs, the only thing that truly helps me is reducing my exposure in the workplace.  So after 9 years of working my bum off as a mechanic I will be leaving for tech school this month to become a........PARALEGAL! Talk about a total 180 degree change.

Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes
From Martha Stewarts book Cupcakes

Ingredients
30 Whole Oreo's and 12 Chopped Oreo's (I also added some extra crushed mini oreo's in the batter)
2 lbs Cream cheese = 4 (8oz) 1/3 reduced fat cream cheese
1 Cup Sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 Large Eggs (beaten)
1 Cup light Sour Cream
pinch of salt

Directions
Preheat the to 275 degrees
Line a cupcake tin and place a whole Oreo in each cupcake liner.
Beat the cream cheese in a electric mixer on medium high speed until smooth, gradually add your  sugar. Add the vanilla, mix until combined and slowly add the beaten eggs. Add your sour cream and salt beat until combined.  Stir in your crushed oreos. Fill your cupcake liner to almost the top. Bake for 22-25 minutes rotating the pan once half way through.  Cool on a wire rack and place in the fridge for 4 hours to set or over night.
*I had some issues with moisture, if I let the cheesecake cool in the tin it started to sweat and the liners would get very damp. To stop that I immediately would remove the cheesecake from the tins after coming out of the oven and let them cool in their liners on the wire rack and once cooled down I transfered them to the fridge.

*Update, I also linked up with Fabulous Friday too share my Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes and to see what other wonderful bloggers have posted for this fun event. If you want to join check out the site. Fabulous Friday and I also linked up with Freedom Fridays  another fun Friday event.