A bit late on this post but it can work for next Valentine's! but it also works for a birthday, anniversary or any special moment that you want to spend with your love.
A nice romantic dinner is sometimes much nicer than a gift bought in 5 minutes at the store!
The ingredients for the nice dinner:
Love
Time (about 4h to make all that)
Flowers (should be his gift to you)
Champagne (if there isn't you can't call this a celebration)
Decoration (little red hearts made of sugar laid on the table, rose petals, whatever you like)
Don't forget to make everything red (need some food coloring) and shape everything as a heart (need a few heart shapes cake pans or cookie cutters )
Now each dish separately (starting with desserts because that's always the best in a meal):
Mini apple pies (shaped as heart) + heart chocolate chip muffins sagged in the middle with red whipped cream in the middle decorated with banana and strawberry.
3. Strawberries + whipped cream (also dyed in red)
4. As main course, a salted cake: potatoes, zucchinis and decorated with red peppers of course. Shaped as a heart!
5. The easiest to make, the appetizers: tomatoes, salad, mini-peppers, anchovies, smoked salmon, shrimps, caviar and tarama with toasted bread cut as hearts of course!
Top all this with a nice romantic atmosphere, soft music, candles and many many kisses to make it an evening to remember!!
This dessert has three parts: the choux pastry, the chocolate sauce and the whipped cream.
Time it takes:
For the choux: 20 min to prepare
25-30 min in the oven
For the chocolate sauce: 10 min
For the whipped cream: 5 min
Material:
2 pots
1 wooden spoon
electric whisk
parchment paper
cookie sheet
Ingredients (for 24 profiteroles, count 3 profiteroles per person)
For the choux:
250g water
1 tbsp sugar
100g butter
150g flour
4 eggs
pinch of salt
For the chocolate sauce:
100g dark chocolate
50g milk
100g liquid cream
For the whipped cream:
200g cream (make sure it's nice and cold)
4 tbsp powder sugar
In addition (optional):
a few strawberries
a banana
some almonds
cinnamon
Recipe:
Prepare the choux:
Start by turning on your oven to 210
In a pot, put the water, the salt, the sugar and the butter cut in pieces and let it boil while stirring.
Take the pot off of the heat and pour the flour in (all of it at a time). Mix with a wooden spoon.
Put the pot back on the heat and keep on mixing with the wooden spoon until you obtain an homogeneous ball of batter that should absolutely not stick to the pot.
Take the pot off the heat and add one egg.
Mix well until you obtain an homogeneous batter.
Add the second egg and mix again to get an homogeneous batter.
Repeat for the third and fourth egg. Note that it is extremely important to make sure that the batter is very homogeneous and the egg well mixed before incorporating another egg.
Put some parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Take two spoons to make little piles of batter on the cookie sheet. These will rise so make sure to leave enough space in between the piles.
Put the sheet in the oven and let it cook for 15min at 210, then lower the heat to 180 and let it cook for another 10-15min. The choux are ready when they're puffed and nicely golden. To make sure they rise, put a knife in the crack of the oven door so that it doesn't close fully.
Once the choux are done, let them cool down on the sheet.
Note that the choux are much better fresh and don't keep very well ... at most one day!
Prepare the whipped cream:
Pour the cream in a bowl. Use the electric whisk to whip it. To make sure you have a good solid and very light whip cream, make sure to also make circular movements with the whisk.
When the cream starts rising add the powder sugar.
Keep whisking until you get a nice puffy whipped cream.
Prepare the chocolate sauce:
In a pot, pour the milk, the cream and the chocolate cut in pieces.
Heat it up on the stove at medium heat. Do NOT let it boil or it will be ruined.
Keep on stirring the sauce gently to obtain a nice glossy homogeneous sauce.
Note that if you don't want to do that, you can also replace the chocolate sauce with nutella!
Assemble the profiteroles:
Cut the choux in half.
Stuff them with whipped cream and put them on a plate.
This is my first personal creation!! I wanted a really nice birthday cake for my husband. So I made this and I think the result was quite fantastic!
Time it takes:
Total time to make : 5-6h
Waiting time : 4h
Preparation time : 2h
Ingredients:
For the crust:
200g (0.5lbs) speculoos (or ginger biscuits)
100g (0.25lbs) butter
For the banana mousse:
4 bananas
300g (0.65lbs) liquid cream
1 gelatine sheet (2g/0.07oz)
For the chocolate mousse:
250g (0.55lbs) dark chocolate
600g (1.3lbs) liquid cream
2 gelatine sheets (4g/0.15oz)
Ustensils:
a tall cake pan (or an entremet ring)
parchment paper
electric whisk
3 big bowls
2 small pots
1 small bowl
1 grinder
Step 1: The crust ( time to prepare 15min, waiting time 1h)
Grind the speculoos in powder.
Melt the butter in the microwave
Add the butter to the speculoos powder. Mix it well, until you get a more aggregated batter.
Put this at the bottom of your cake pan and with your finger spread it well until you get a very uniform "cookie"
Put this in the freezer for 1h.
Step 2: The banana mousse (time to prepare 30min, waiting time 1h)
Put the gelatine sheet in a bowl of cold water for it to soften
In a small pan, cut the bananas in small chunk and cook them until you get a good banana juice. Remove from the heat. (If you do have a grinder, forget this step and just grind the banana so that you don't have anymore chunks at all.)
Boil 100g (0.25lbs) of liquid cream. Once it boils, add the gelatine (which you will have to dry out a bit beforehand using a paper towel) and stir well for the gelatine to melt.
Add the cream to the banana juice and mix it well (if you have some banana chunks remaining it's ok, but they should be very small chunks)
Pour this in a big bowl .
In a big bowl, whip the cream into a chantilly cream (just put the cream in the bowl, and whip it with the electric whisk until you get a chantilly)
Add the chantilly gently to the banana juice (still warm but not hot). This should make a mousse.
Take the crust out of the freezer.
Cut a banana in small slices.
Lay some slices vertically around the cake pan.
Pour the mousse in the cake pan, on top of the crust.
Spread evenly.
Put in the freezer for another hour.
Step 3: The chocolate mousse (time to prepare 30min, waiting time 1h)
Put the gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water
Cut the chocolate in small chunks and put them in a big bowl
Boil 150g of liquid cream. Add the gelatine once it boils (again dry it out with a paper towel beforehand), and stir well for the gelatine to melt.
Add
the cream to the chocolate and stir gently until the chocolate is completely melted and you end up with a very glossy chocolate liquid.
In
a big bowl, whip the rest of the cream into a chantilly cream.
Add the chantilly gently to the chocolate (still warm but not hot). This should make a mousse.
Take the crust and banana mousse out of the freezer.
Pour the chocolate mousse in the cake pan, on top of the banana mousse.
Spread evenly using a brush.
Decorate with whatever you want.
Put in the freezer for another hour.
Note:As you might have guessed this is a frozen cake and you can keep it for a good week in the freezer. However take it out of the freezer a good 45min before eating it!
The other day I had with my mother one of these conversations that make you think more deeply than you would expect... It was about gay marriage.
My mother is from a catholic background, with religious ideas, but the wonderful thing about her is that she is very open minded and will never reject an argument just "because it's wrong and the bible says so". What I also love is that she makes me question my opinions and makes me argument them, and I thought I was going to lay them out here, so that maybe people like my mom who at first would immediately reject gay marriage, can read and think and maybe change their mind.
I don't even remember how we got onto this subject but I stated I was pro gay marriage (fyi, I am completely straight, married etc... so "normal"). Her gut instincts was to tell me "oh really... I have nothing against gays but marriage,... that's a stretch". She indeed never ever had problems with gays but somehow gay marriage sounded wrong to her (probably from the religious conditioning).
So I asked her this simple question: "Why?". Her answer "Hmm... I don't know... " And I think this is a pretty standard answer. People are against gay marriage because they've been fed the idea for years that it's not "natural" or the bible (or whatever religious book) says it's wrong and so instinctively they are against gay marriage, but they never really pondered the question. Well I have, and here, I will once more. Please if you do find that my arguments are wrong and/or not legit, do write (politely) to me, I am always happy to hear others' opinions.
Here are the arguments we went through, plus a few others, as to why gay marriage shouldn't be allowed, as well as the counter arguments for them:
Homosexuality is unnatural (and by extension so is gay marriage):
Let's define the word "natural": adjective - which is present in nature without the intervention of an external factor.
Now I am sure, some will tell me, yes but homosexuality is not present naturally, it's a twist of the mind... This argument would be sound if homosexuality was not a common trait found in animals. Yes, animals (of any species) can be gays (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals), and obviously this does not come from a devious mind or human society... So... sorry to disappoint, but homosexuality IS a naturally occurring phenomenon and so should NOT be treated as a disease or a twist of the mind. The same way that people are naturally white, black or mocha, people are naturally straight or gay or both!
Homosexuality is a sin:
I will only say that it depends on what you personally consider a sin. Unfortunately if you are very religious there is not much I can say to convince you otherwise because "it is stated in the Bible". But in reality the concept of "sin" strongly depends on your religion.
I would like to point out that Hebraism (jewish people) has 613 sins listed and I am pretty sure that according to them, all of us are sinners. If you're interested http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments. As you can see, being superstitious is a sin for example, or here is another one (something that we ALL have done by the way) : "To afflict oneself and cry out before God in times of calamity". So if gays can't get married because being gay is a sin, then the jews could pretend the rest of us can't get married either because crying out before God is also a sin. Clearly, you can't forbid something just because it is considered a sin by a group of people, otherwise you would have to forbid pretty much everything and it would lead to chaos!
Marriage is a sacred pact between a man and a woman:
No, that is the definition of a religious marriage. And if we are talking about religious marriage I have no counter arguments. Yes pretty much every religion regards homosexuality as a sin and so I doubt gays will ever be able to be married religiously...
But now let's consider civil marriage: a pact between two individuals who want to be recognized as a couple by law, and as such, be able to be eligible for certain benefits.
The requirements to perform a civil marriage are:
to be in love,
to live under the same roof,
to support one another through life both materially and morally,
to accept the fact that your eventual children will not turn out the way you want them to be but that whatever decision you take for them will be in their best interest and according to their choice and opinion.
So why is it that gay couples couldn't meet these criteria? No reason at all... they can and they do!
We want to preserve the sanctity of marriage:
Again, the sanctity of religious marriage not civil marriage. See my previous argument.
Allowing gay marriage will give more gay kids:
Again, from
argument 1, homosexuality is a natural process (meaning you have no
control over it), kids of gay couples will not turn out gay, they will
have the exact same chance as anyone else's kid to turn gay or hetero.
Kids need a stable environment to grow in (and allowing gays to marry is an open door to allowing them to adopt):
Ok, by stable you mean man+woman. So what about the kids who see mommy gets beaten up by daddy everyday? Or the kids who wait in the car while mommy meets with someone who's not daddy? Or what about all these kids who are orphans and have to go in foster family? Go talk to a couple of them and they will tell you what foster families are like. Oh sure enough, they're all heterosexual couples but that doesn't mean they're stable. What kids need to grow up, is love... and that can be given by anyone. Don't you think it's better to have a kid raised by two guys (or girls) who love him and cherish him than by a single mom who change boyfriend every month?
Allowing gay marriage will have a bad impact on society:
How so? Gays are already integrated in society, having them married or not is not gonna change anything to the way our society works, it will just give them the same advantages that straight people have.
Now I would like to invite you to ask yourself the following questions:
What does it change for you personally if gays are allowed to marry? Chance is ... absolutely nothing. So why would you be against it?
Do you have a gay friend? Or do you know anyone who is gay? Think about him/her. Do you realize you are directly impacting his/her life? Go and tell to his face that he doesn't have the right to get married because you decided so, I dare you. If you don't dare do it then ask yourself why you don't? Probably because you know that you are out of line... Because as much as gay marriage doesn't change anything for you, it changes the world for him/her.
How would you like it that the government passed a law preventing you from doing something you want (example, go to church, vote, play basketball) just because some people you've never met judge that you shouldn't be allowed to do so? Now I'm sure
you will tell me "it's different". How? How is it different to prevent two people from getting married (an act that has absolutely no consequence on your own life or on society) than from playing basketball (again another act that has absolutely no consequence on your own life or on society)?
Do you think normal that somebody like Kim Kardashian can be married for 3 months and can get married again and again and again, while an old gay couple who have been together for like 20 years can't get married because they're gay? The fact is no law will ever forbid people like Kim Kardashian to get married so why should a law prevent gays to get married?
Do you realize that not allowing gay marriage can ruin two people's lives? Do you want to be the cause of this? For example, what if an American, a US citizen (who should have rights just because of that fact) lives abroad and is gay and while living abroad he meets a guy and they fall in love. Is it right that because they can not be married then he can't move back to the US, his own country, with the love of his life?
And finally my own arguments as to why gay marriage should be allowed:
Gays are humans. Just like blacks. Just like women. They are thus entitled to human rights, just like blacks, just like women, just like ANYONE ELSE. So what gives us the right to deny them these rights? Do you realize that being anti gay marriage is the exact same thing as being anti woman vote or anti black rights? Not so long ago, black people were not considered to have a brain big enough to have their own life, so they were slaves... Not so long ago (1920 in the USA, 1944 in France...), women were not considered smart enough to have the right to vote. For what reasons? None, except the "that's the way it should be". And if now I tell you "women shouldn't vote" you will scream and yell and find this outrageous. So why is it that you accept the "gays shouldn't marry" position? This really is discrimination, nothing more, nothing less.
Let's cut the crap, civil marriage is here to give you benefits (mostly monetary) and to be recognized by law as living together, nothing else. My husband and I got married not because we wanted to be husband and wife, but because it made everything easier. Because we had both very tough jobs and that unless we were married we would not have managed to live together. What made us marry? My husband's ex-boss who told him "Girlfriends come and go. Wives stay." The message is clear, in our society the accepted convention is for a couple to be married. And so we did, after a year and 2 months! We didn't even know our relationship was actually going to work but we knew that if we didn't get married we had no chance, and we wanted to give it a try. And 3 years later we are more in love than ever. So my question is if the law allowed us to get married for the convenience of it, why would that be denied to gays?
On the same line, gay marriage should be legal because in my book, it is a sin to prevent two people in love to be together. Not allowing gay marriage is like saying that you put a value on love. It means that love between a man and a woman is worth more than love between two men or two women, and that is simply, wrong.
Also, marriage is a protection. I knew this guy who had been living with his boyfriend for 15 years. His bf died. The family, who was very anti-gay, refused to even let him attend the funeral and kicked him out of the apartment he had been living in for 15 years (and who was at the name of his bf). The guy ended up alone and dispossessed... How is this right? How is this fair? Gays should be given by law the same protection as anyone else, and if this comes through marriage, the law has no right to deny them.
And my final argument is the following: from the moment that you are a US citizen (or any other country for that matter), you are entitled to the same rights as any other citizen and the law should not differentiate you because of your sexual orientation. If it does, it means that you are thus considered by law, a lesser citizen, and that is constitutionally wrong.
And I will end this with this quote that everyone will recognize:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Having the right to marry is pursuing happiness, don't you think?
I wasn't entirely satisfied with my old meringues recipe... so I decided to improve it a bit.... I am finally happy with the final result and so now it's time to share it with you!
For about 30 small meringues:
Time it takes:
5 min to prepare
1h to cook
Material:
A bowl
An electric whisk
A big spoon
A pastry (icing) bag and nozzle : not mandatory but much nicer if you have one
Parchment paper
A cookie sheet
Ingredients:
2 egg's whites (better if the eggs are at room temperature)
35g (1.3oz) powdered sugar
35g (1.3oz) fine sugar
food coloring (optional of course, but plain white is just so boring...)
Calories: 33kCal/10g (0.35oz)
Recipe:
Beat the egg's whites for about 10 seconds, just the time that they become bubbly.
At that point start adding the fine sugar little by little while still beating the eggs.
While beating, add the food coloring.
Keep on beating and add little by little the powdered sugar.
Keep on beating the whites until they are very homogeneous and firm
Pour the beaten whites in the piping bag.
Use the piping nozzle to make little mounts of beaten whites on the cookie sheet.
Put them in the oven at 100°C (212°C) for 30min and then at 150°C (300°C) for 10min.
Turn off your oven and leave the meringues inside to dry for 20min.
Note: meringues should always be stored in a very dry environment. Do not leave them outside. Instead, always keep them in a sealed jar.
Warning: if you have a fan assisted oven, then leave the meringues at 150°C (300°F) for 30 min with the fan on followed by 10min at 150°C (300°C) with the fan off and the oven in normal mode.
This delicious little dessert takes its name from the desert rose, but instead of crystallized sand it's made of corn flakes and chocolate! A chocolaty pleasure to enjoy at any moment of the day...
For about 15 roses:
Time it takes:
15 min to make
2h in the fridge to cool down
Material:
a small bowl
a glass bowl (or teflon)
a pot (it should be bigger than the glass bowl so that the bowl can float in it)
parchment paper
a big plate
a spoon
Ingredients:
80g (2.8oz) cornflakes
150g (5.3oz)chocolate (I prefer milk chocolate but it also works with dark or white)
5cl (1.7 fl oz) milk
50g butter (better if it's at room temperature)
Calories: 40kCal/10g (0.35oz)
Recipe:
In the glass bowl, throw in the butter, chocolate and milk.
Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie:
Fill the pot to 3/4 with water and heat it up until it boils.
When it boils, remove the pot from the heat and put the glass bowl containing the chocolate/milk/butter in the pot.
Stir constantly while the chocolate/butter melts until you obtain a very homogeneous chocolate sauce.
Add the cornflakes to the chocolate and stir gently (you don't want to break the cornflakes or the roses won't be as nice)
Cover a big plate with parchment paper
Once all the cornflakes are all nicely covered in chocolate, use the spoon to lay little piles of cornflakes on a plate.
Put in the fridge for 2h, time for the roses to solidify.
Enjoy!
Note: These are really good for breakfast, you can actually make them the evening before and then eat them in the morning with a good coffee!! Just for a good day start!
