Flour-less chocolate espresso cake

Not much to say other than
it's SO hard not to eat the whole cake!

Ingredients:
1 lb. semisweet chocolate (coarsely chopped)
1 lb. unsalted butter (diced)
1 cup freshly brewed espresso
1 cup brown sugar
8 eggs (beaten to blend)

Procedure:
1. Line bottom of a 9 inch diameter cake pan with 2 inch high sides 
    with parchment. Place all chocolate in large bowl.

2. Bring butter, espresso and sugar to boil in medium saucepan, 
    stirring to dissolve sugar.

3. Add chocolate; whisk until smooth and cool slightly.


4. Whip eggs till blended. Stir eggs into chocolate mixture until blended.
     (Do not whip)

5. Pour batter into prepared pans. Place cake pan in roasting pan.
    Pour enough hot water into roasting pan to come halfway
    up sides of cake pan.

6. Bake until center of cake is set and tester inserted into center 
    comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 45 minutes

7. Remove pans from water and chill cake overnight.


8. Cut around pan sides to loosen cake. Using oven mitts as aid, 
     hold pan bottom over low heat for 15 seconds, warming slightly 
     to release cake. Place platter over pan. Hold pan and platter 
     together tightly and invert. Lift off cake pan; peel off parchment 
     and dust top of each cake with cocoa powder. 

9. Cut cake into ten slices and garnish with fresh raspberries 
    and raspberry sauce.(raspberry sauce can be made by 
    simmering raspberries in a little butter or more easily 
    by microwaving raspberry jam/jelly)

Zestfully,  Let's Cultivate Food

Corporate Catering MENUS

Company catering menus  & prices can be viewed on the main website
www.LetsCultivateFood.com  under the  "Lettuce cater your company lunch" tab.

All company catering orders include:
Disposable plates, silverware wrapped in napkins,
any needed warming chaffing ware & little signage of the food items.
(Table clothes can be provided upon request.)


local DELIVERY is FREE

(gratuity is not included)

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the tastiest of them all..!?!

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the tastiest of them all..

Have you ever wanted to try a taste test to truly see either
which brand or type is better OR to see what your palate
is telling you?  Believe it or not- a large portion of our eating
is done with our other senses.  Our scent as we tend to smell
the food and of course visually with our eyes.
Not always, but more often than not- our palate tells
us something that we might of thought differently.

In our household- we make it a fun mini event by choosing an item
and then getting several of them made by popular brands.

This time around it happened to be dark chocolate.
The brands chosen were:
Hershey, Ghiradelli, Lindt, Godiva, Dove and a random gourmet brand.

2 were waaaay too sweet, 1 was hard to finish... chocolate=hard to finish?
What planet are we on right?   2 were just shy from winning 1st place.
There was a clear winner that was rich, creamy, intense but not
overwhelming intense and just... really good.

hmmm.  are you wondering who won!?
You should take my taste testing class coming up and you'll be able
to taste test over a dozen different things to see which brand is
better according to your taste buds!  cheeses, beverages, yogurts,
different brands of many different things.

​
which will your palate choose, Let's Cultivate Food

We're ROOTING for you!

cut 2 inches,  place in 1 inch of water,  1 week to soil

Let's Cultivate Food is 'ROOTING' for you!
Did you know that you can take any vegetable and chop 
the root end portion - 2-3 inches of it, 
soak the cut portion in a bowl or container of water 
and it will start to grow again..?  
Typically you will see some new growth as early as 4-5 days. 
(some veggies will take a tad bit longer)  
If you have outdoor space or a pot with soil indoors... 
you can move your new veggie plant within 7-10 days.   
'Lettuce Turnip the Beet!' ...........Oh KALE yeah!  

Bacon wrapped beef lemongrass lollipops!

What's that movie where they say that things are always better on a stick?
I certainly agree but let's use something that will give us a little flavor
rather than a wooden stick. Lemongrass in this case.
I tend to joke and say that lemongrass is organic fruit loops
during my cooking classes. If you've never had anything with lemongrass-
you don't know what you're missing!

For these bacon wrapped beef lemongrass lollipops- you will need:

lemongrass stalks (usually comes 3 to a bunch) you can cut each stalk  to about 

3 inches getting 3 to a stalk.  So approximately 9 lollipops for  3 stalks.  

For the beef, I used flank steak (about 1 pound) and sliced it into thin slices.

I then marinaded the flank beef slices in:

5 TBSP of soy sauce

1 heaping TBSP of hot pepper paste

1 teaspoon of a sugar (or your choice of sweetener) 

(a grated apple or pear is good too!)

2 TBSP of sesame oil

mix with the flank steak and let it sit for a minimum of 20 minutes.

Then you want to make a sweet chili glaze.

~ 3 heaping TBSP of apricot jelly

~ 1 teaspoon of hot pepper seeds ( to your liking of spiciness)

~ juice of an orange

~ 1 TBSP of rice vinegar

Turn your oven on now to 400 degrees.

Time to wrap or roll.  Whatever you want to call it is  okay!

Take your slices of beef and wrap around the top half of the lemongrass  'stick'

(about 2 -3 slices of flank steak slices per lollipop)

Then wrap a piece of bacon (thinly cut preferred) around the beef.

Let it bake in the center of your oven for about 15 minutes.

You will see the bacon turn more brown.

After 15 minutes, turn your oven to broil, 

take the sweet chili glaze and brush it on the bacon portion.

Move your pan or sheet (whatever you laid your lollipops on)

to the top shelf right under the broiler.

You want to prop the oven door open at this time...  

you know so the room temperature

air flows through for circulation and doesn't dry out the food. 

Once the bacon browns and almost gets a slight char- they are done.

about 7 minutes after you place it on broil.

​
Just ROLL with it!   Let's Cultivate Food

​

Gluten free pizza bites!

Whether you are on a special diet or you are trying to fit into that
special swim suit or you just feel like eating a little less carbs
and eating healthy veggies...

these gluten free all veggie pizza bites on a bed of
mashed cauliflower and sauteed kale smothered in cheese
will make meat lovers enjoy them too.

Start by chopping the kale into bite sizes...
During our Cooking Classes throughout greater Philadelphia-
people ask me tons and tons of questions and some recent questions
about kale have been if you need to massage the kale prior to cooking.

Hmm... should you 'massage' the kale or not...
why should you and if so- does it make a difference?

As far as this dish-  after you have your Kale ready-
saute with a little olive oil and coarse sea salt for about 4-5 minutes.

For the mashed cauliflower:
you want to cut the cauliflower florets into bite sizes-
simply so it's easier to mash once you boil them in about 1 inch
of salted (1 teaspoon)  of water. (Mash them with a masher
once they have softened in your pot.) (about 10-12 minutes)
(drain the water prior to mashing)
You don't need any extra seasonings due to the boiling in salt water
unless you want to add a little butter or olive oil.

Now for the pizza bites!
Take some Chinese eggplant (because they are long and skinny)
for bite sizes- these work best.
Slice them and saute them on both sides with olive oil.
(about 2 minutes each side)
You can transfer them to the oven right away but I like to take
a short cut and just add a little tomato sauce and shredded
cheese (of your liking) I mixed mozzarella, cheddar and
a little Parmesan cheese right on the eggplant in the saute pan--
I then put the lid on my saute pan so the cheese melts in the heat
from the pan that just sauteed the eggplant slices.

Once the cheese has melted- put your oven onto the broil setting
and place your saute pan on the top rack right under the broiler grates.

When you cheese has slightly browned- they are ready to plate
and eat!  

​
'Lettuce Turnip the Beet,  Let's Cultivate Food

​

Cucumber Kimchi

Oh-ee  "Oh-Eee" which is cucumber in Korean..... kimchi.
Basically it is cucumbers  stuffed with similar ingredients
that go into Kimchi- (the spicy fermented Korean cabbage.)

First, you want to start off with some Kirby cucumbers.
Kirbys are good b/c they are smaller than the regular
long cucumbers and there aren't as many seeds.

After washing them, you want to cut 2 slits almost all the way down 

the cucumber. You want 4 pieces and the cucumber still in tact 

because you will be stuffing the Kirbys. 

--cut all the way down leaving about an inch--- something like this.

You want to take the cucumbers, put them into a large bowl
and add some coarse salt, with a little water-
to soften and more or less infuse the cucumbers a little.

After roughly 20-30 minutes, rinse the salt off with water.

You'll need some cut chives,  hot pepper flakes
(not the seeded type of pepper flakes), shredded carrots,
a tablespoon of fish sauce
or soy sauce and some minced garlic. (2-3 cloves or to your liking)

What's great about certain Asian-style knives is that they are flat

on the bottom end of the knife. You might think.. 

who cares what the bottom looks like?  They are great because 

after you smash garlic cloves with the side of your knife...

you can just mince the garlic with the bottom of your knife.  

Yes, double-duty!

The stuffing of the cucumbers is a simple mixture of shredded carrots 

(pretty much for the color and to add a little natural sweetness), 

the cut chives into about 2 inch pieces,  

1 tablespoon of fish oil 

2-3 minced garlic cloves and 

hot pepper flakes to your liking of spiciness.

​
'Chop it like it's hot',  Let's Cultivate Food

​