Rekindling My Love for Cooking

What would you create with these seemingly random ingredients? 

I felt like I had gotten into a rut. Food wasn't exciting anymore and I felt like I just was barley keeping up with putting food on the table and making sure my husband had his lunch and snacks and breakfast for the day. My baby girl has been going through a sleep regression of sorts and so I haven't been feeling 100% either. 

Enter my very sweet and thoughtful friend. 

She understands me and knows of my real love for cooking. I don't know if she realized I had gotten into a rut or if she just has some intuition that led her to give me a challenge. When I returned home from a weekend trip to the East Coast, I  had several ingredients on my counter with some specific instructions. 

Jen-

- Noting cold

-Both need to be pan cooked, grilled, or oven

#1 One meal consist of: 

• Anise seed/flower buds
• Hershey bar
• tea bag
• cashews

#2:

• 1 bottle saffron
• 1 bag semolina pasta

Both dishes hot cooking

Do not mix recipes together

You may add up to 7 more ingredients

When I first saw these instructions, I had just returned home from traveling alone on the airplane with my 7 month old daughter and was so very tired. But my mind immediately started to conjure up ideas. It really wasn't hard to figure out what I would do. The first recipe screamed dessert to me. Even though I prefer cooking savory dishes, I thought shortbread. Chamomile Shortbread with Chocolate Cashew Topping. This was my first time baking shortbread, but I am happy with how the cookies turned out. They really are lovely, even if I am not a milk chocolate fan. Next time, dark chocolate will be used instead. I loved learning how to infuse butter with tea! I could hardly taste the chamomile tea in the shortbread because I only used one tea bag, so next time I would like to up the amount to maybe 2 or 3 bags. To me, the slight chamomile and anise flavor was very pleasant, and a nice change of pace to plain shortbread.

The second recipe needed to have some seafood in it with a creamy saffron sauce. I came up with Saffron Shrimp Pasta with Creamy Garlic Sauce. I loved the way the saffron bloomed in the cream sauce, and how the sauce delicately coated each noodle. The greens added some nice color and the shrimp was a fun burst of flavor. The fact that I got a new creation out on time for dinner was a feat of its own! 

Chamomile Anise Shortbread with Chocolate Cashew Drizzle*

1 1/2 ounces old fashioned oats

7 1/2 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 cup tapioca flour

2 2/3 ounces powdered sugar

1/2 tsp salt

15 Tbsp unsalted Kerrigold butter

1 Hershey's bar

2 tsp anise seed

2 star anise pods

1/2 cup cashews, chopped fine

1 bag chamomile tea

Over low heat, melt butter until just liquid. Add in the loose tea from the tea bag and two star anise pods. Let simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow tea to steep for 5 more minutes. Using a fine mesh strainer over another small bowl, carefully pour out the butter and press all butter from the tea leaves. There will be some left over in the tea, but that is okay. Set in fridge to harden. 

Preheat oven to 450F degrees. Pulse oats and anise seed in a spice grinder or blender until a fine powder. In a stand mixer, combine the oats, anise, flour, tapioca, sugar, and salt. Add the cold butter to the dry ingredients and mix on low until the dough forms and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 5 minutes. Remove the bottom from a 9" springform pan and set the edge, upside down, onto a baking sheet lined with a baking mat. Press the shortbread dough into the pan evenly. Place a 2" cookie cutter in the center and cut out the center. Place the extracted center along side the springform pan on the baking sheet and replace the cookie cutter back into the center of the springform pan. Open the springform collar, but leave it in place. Bake at 450 for 5 minutes. Turn down the oven to 250F and bake for 10 more minutes until pale golden. Remove from oven, turn off oven and score the dough into 16 wedges and poke a few holes into each piece. Place back into off oven, and prop the oven door open 1" with a wooden spoon. Leave for 1 hour. Gently melt the chocolate bar over a double boiler. Put chocolate into a piping bag. Remove shortbread from oven and place on a cooling rack. Sprinkled the cashews over the shortbread and drizzle chocolate over top. Let cool for 2 hours until room temperature. 

*shortbread recipe adapted from America's Test Kitchen

Saffron Shrimp Pasta with Creamy Garlic Sauce

16 ounces pasta, short tubular kind preferred

14 ounce can coconut milk

12 ounces raw frozen shrimp (medium), thawed, peeled, and deveined

1.5 Tbsp fresh minced garlic

1/4 tsp saffron threads

2 Tbsp coconut oil

1 Tbsp arrowroot powder

1 tsp onion powder

2 handfuls greens, chopped small (spinach, beet greens, etc)

1 tsp sea salt

black pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Drain and set aside in the large pot off the heat. Whisk the saffron, 1 teaspoon onion powder, 1 tsp coarse sea salt, and 1 Tablespoon arrowroot powder into one can of coconut milk. Set aside. Saute 1.5 tablespoons minced garlic and a few grinds of black pepper in 2 Tablespoons coconut oil until fragrant and golden. Turn stove to low and add the milk mixture to the saucepan. Stir constantly over medium low until the mixture comes to a simmer. Cook until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Set aside. In a saucepan, heat some olive oil unitl shimmering. Add the shrimp and cook until pink, approximately 1-2 minutes on each side. Combine the sauce, greens, shrimp, and pasta together and cook over low until the mixture is combined, heated through, and to a good consistency. Serve immediately. 

It has been so much fun to create new dishes and the feeling of coming up with my own creation has revamped my confidence in the kitchen. I do have talent, and even though I am not a "Pinterest Perfection" sort of gal, I make some pretty yummy and (mostly) healthy dishes for my family to enjoy. And my family is everything to me.