Sauteed Vanilla Scented Apricots

Elise and I recently traded vanilla beans for some fresh apricots. Staring at the perfectly ripe, sun-like globes of sweet juicy goodness, I knew I had to combine them with some of the vanilla beans.

Even as I opened the apricots, their pits falling out effortlessly, their overpowering scent took over the kitchen and began to strongarm the vanilla for aromatic dominance. I realized that a simple saute would be the best way to incorporate the two dueling flavors.

The finished bring orange apricots, flecked with black pinpricks of vanilla, and shimmering with glazed sugar it's quite a dessert to present to your friends. Perfect on it's own or over waffles or ice cream, or maybe even a pie or tart filling, it's a heady and comforting dessert for summer.

Sauteed Vanilla Scented Apricots
What You'll Need...
6 apricots
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 or 2 vanilla beans (I used Madagascar variety beans)
1 1/2 tablespoons of butter

What You'll Do...
1) Wash the apricots. Remove the stones from the apricots, and cut into quarters.

2) Warm a saute or fry pan over medium heat and melt the butter. Split a vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds. Throw the apricots, brown sugar, vanilla seeds and pod into the butter and stir. It will create a lot of juice the longer you saute.

3) Warm over medium-low heat for about 8-12 minutes or until you have them at a firmness you prefer. I like mine halfway firm, Rob let his share go a while longer till it was more of a sauce.

Note: These are the vanilla beans I used to make the vanilla sugar, afterward, I washed them off and let them dry overnight. I then chopped them up for some vanilla chips if I want to add vanilla bean flavor to some milk or cream for baking later.

Vanilla Pear Sorbet & The Austrailian Hook-Up

This is an aromatic and simple sorbet that's perfect for spring. It's like a vanilla scented Eau de vie, but in a tasty frozen treat form. Pears and vanilla are a perfect pairing that'll help finish any meal.

It's not always cupcakes here at Vanilla Garlic. Just most of the time.

Vanilla Pear Sorbet
Makes 4-6 servings

What You'll Need...
6 Anjou Pears
1 vanilla bean (preferably Bourbon)
3 1/2 cups of sugar or vanilla sugar
1/2 extra cup of sugar or vanilla sugar
5 strips of lemon zest
6 cups of water

What You'll Do...
1) Use a vegetable peeler to strip 5 strips of zest off of a lemon. Cut open the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds. Place the vanilla pod and seeds, lemon zest strips, sugar/vanilla sugar, and water in a pot. Let it come to a boil so that all the sugar has dissolved, reduce heat to medium.

2) Peel the pears, and cut off a small portion of the bottom so they can stand up straight (for easy cutting later). Place in the water for about 10 minutes.

3) Cut the "meat" off of the pears and discard the cores and stems. Puree with 2 cups of the poaching liquid and 1/2 cup of sugar/vanilla sugar. Let cool in the fridge. Place in your ice cream maker and proceed via the manufacturer's directions.

Note: I highly suggest saving the rest of the poaching liquid, filtering the solids out, and adding and dissolving an equal part of sugar to make a rockin' simple syrup for cocktails later! Pair this with some Absolut Pear and ice and you are so made.
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Minh, my cupcake sister from Australia , sent me over a huge cache of Tim-Tam's (a popular cookie brand from down under), which are so insane shibby-good. They're basically two cookies with a chocolate filling, covered in chocolate. Then they come in a variety of flavors; raspberry & chocolate and the caramel ones are my faves.

Also, she sent over little caramel filled koala bears. Is it wrong I love to devour their little heads with so much joy?

Thanks a ton, Minh! Be sure to check out her blog and her variety of creative cupcakes!

How To Make Vanilla Sugar and Vanilla Extract

Vanilla sugar and extract are astounding recipes, mainly because that they're remarkably easy and only require patience to receive phenomenal results. Good vanilla products have that rummy-sweet, reminiscent scent taking you back to mom's kitchen for fresh cookies or your favorite bakery when growing up. Thus, why not develop some of your own to ensure that those aromatic feelings never fade?

Vanilla sugar can be used in cakes, jams, cocktails and pretty much anything else that you want to add a bit of vanilla essence too. Vanilla extract is used in cooking and baking to impart a more potent vanilla flavor. Both also make for fantastic gifts.

For Vanilla Sugar: Split a vanilla bean down the middle, but not from end to end so that it stays intact but open. Scrape out some of the seeds and mash them up into the sugar with your fingers. Place the seeds and the pod in a jar and cover it with granulated sugar; avoid using baker's sugar as it tends to clump up. Use more beans for bigger jars (my jar was larger than a gallon). Let it sit for two weeks. Afterward you can remove the vanilla beans and set them aside in another jar for future use.

For Vanilla Extract: Split a vanilla bean down the middle, but not from end to end so that it stays intact but open. Place it in the plain vodka. Let it sit for a few days to get vanilla vodka (yum!). Let it sit for about 6 weeks for extract. You may want to filter some of the floaty bits out, but it's your call.

It takes time, but good food requires time. When it's done you'll have so much extract you will never need to buy the stuff again. Ever. Feel free to use the beans inside if you need to, just wash them off well before they go back in. If the supply runs low, top it off with some more vodka (Thanks Heidi, for the topping off advice!)

I'll be sure to revisit the extract a few months from now so we can see the results.

Seven Things About Me (Assuming You Care)

So I was tagged for this meme by Minh, so why not? I did one of these a year ago, so we can consider this Part 2. I am not tagging anyone cause I am too lazy to put in the links right now, plus I was writing this at home in bed on a sick day cause I got bored and needed something to do that didn't require much moving.

I am terrified of E.T. That little freak gave me nightmares as a child. When the movie was re-released a few years back, I would change the channel if his commercials came up. I still can't deal with the bastard. The cops should have aimed better when shooting at him, kill Elliot too as he was an E.T. enabler. And that part in the movie where he and Elliot see each other in the field and scream? Holy crap, his scream... E.T.'s horrible, death scrawl scream... *shudder and rock myself in a fetal position*

I laughed during The Exorcist. I kid you not. I was cracking up non-stop, screaming how cool it would be if I could do all the shit that little girl was pulling off. Rotating my head around and speaking in strange tongues in five voices at once = best party tricks ever.

I am a horrible driver. Still no accidents, but Rob, my brother, my parents, and many friends refuse to be in the car when I drive or hold onto the door (seriously, they do). I drive either too slow or fast, am easily distracted, and stop sometimes for no reason.

I have a bad habit of interrupting people. I don't do it on purpose, and I sometimes have to mentally remind myself not to do it. I just have always had a problem of not shutting up. When a thought pops into my head, I have to share, regardless how stupid or pointless the thought may be.

I can't cook rice to save my life. Okay, well let me specify. I can cook rice, and once in a while it comes out fine. Usually however, and only for rice, I forget to set a timer of some reason. It then stops steaming or absorbing water and begins to bakes into a burnt rocky mass of what was once rice. I have thought of shattering the whole mess and taking a stale bread to pudding approach with it, but more often than not the rice goes into the garbage can with a resounding, singular *thud*.

I can play the flute, piccolo, and the bass and alto flutes. I took lessons for about 14 years. I got pretty damn good at it too. It upsets me that once I started college I stopped playing, so maybe I should finally get that F-key fixed on my flute and pick the thing up again.

I hate the word "serendipity". I don't have a real reason for it, except it sounds liked the dumbest word ever.

An Off Day? (Chocolate - Santa Cruz, CA)

I'm not really sure if this is a fair review. You see, this restaurant is known for being so bohemian, anti-establishment chic with great food, but today it seemed lacking. With the graduations going on, every senior is showing about 5 or more visiting relatives or friends around downtown Santa Cruz, so part of the population quintuples over night as thousands of visitors flood the tiny city.

Our reservation was at four o'clock and the place was packed solid. Only two wait staff were on hand, and the kitchen staff wasn't able to keep up. The food lacked any real depth or great flavor, and service was slow, taking 40 minutes for appetizers to arrive. The poor girls were in the weeds, and the stress was on their faces. So I can;t really blame them, but at the same time, shouldn't they be prepared for this event that occurs year after year after year? The hotels certainly know to plan ahead with jacked rates, the restaurants and cafes should know to have some extra help on.

So on to the food. Chocolate is a place that totes its local, organic, cruelty free and creative food. It's known for it's chocolate desserts, of which seem few and too complicated, and only one non-dessert menu item that contains chocolate in the form of a mole' sauce.

My brother ordered a chocolate Italian soda which tasted like a tootsie roll and was yummy. Except they served it using water, not soda water, which kinda is the only ingredient to an Italian soda aside from flavoring.

The mole sauce is quite tasty I must admit. Thick, sweet, and a bit bitter, it paired well with the chicken.

The appetizer, after it finally arrived, was good. It was a cheese and artichoke heart dip thingy. Nothing fantastic, but I'm not complaining. It just didn't possess that seemingly explosive flavor i have come to expect from the Italian cheeses used. Plus, it was served with bread, and while that was fine, we had already gone through many baskets of the stuff and a lot of water before it arrived.

I had a mushroom soup with a Mediterranean salad. The salad was laden with fresh assorted greens, a lemony dressing, pistachios, kalamatas, Parmesan, and artichoke hearts. Totally yummy, exactly what a salad should be. Best part of the meal by far, for it's freshness and flavors. The muted taste of the pistachios was a pleasant change from the everyday nuts you usually find in a salad.

The soup however was miserable little thing that needed to be put out of it's tasteless misery. It was like eating mushrooms in hot water. I know I saw other ingredients, but they just didn't have any fortitude in them to stand out. The chicken soup however, was mighty tasty.

Rob had some Italian portobello mushroom thing with cheese that he deemed eatable, but nothing we haven't made ourselves and wished he had ordered something else.

We didn't have any dessert, as we simply didn't have time as Rob and I had to leave, so I'll leave that to the adventurous eaters out there. Seemed to consist of overbearing truffles and a few gregarious cakes you find at any chocolate store. They did have a peach pie advertised with a picture of Bush called Im-Peach-Ment Pie, which I thought was clever (it is Santa Cruz).

Overall, give it a shot, you might like it. Salads are tops here and the chicken soup is great, so they have a good lunch set for ya'. Like I said, I think I just went on their off day.

Chocolate
1522 Pacific Ave
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
831.427.9900