Chef In Attendance

It isn’t always about the food.

Chef Cheryl — Tue, 01 May 2012 00:30:28 +0000

This coming Sunday, the youngest of our two children turns 21. A milestone. Already, in her short life she has passed by both her dad and I having traveled to Europe, gone to college, traveled extensively within the United States, amassed a crazy amount of volunteer and service hours, something she has a real passion for. All this before the age of 21. Amazing. This upcoming birthday really has me reflecting on just how quickly life passes us by. It seems like ages ago that I crossed that threshold into adulthood and did so with far less life experience or panache than either of my children had amassed by that age. I didn’t get the benefit of college until much later in life. Our son flourished there and has never turned back, working and living on his own. Learning some lessons the hard way, others with ease. Now, here I stand, looking further back than ahead. My epiphany’s in life came at a much later age. At almost 54, I am, at last, happy with myself. I look at both my children and think how oh so proud my father would’ve been had he lived to see them become who they are. In each of my kids I can see the better traits of their father as well as the faults of their mother. I silently thank God a hundred times a day that they’ve made good choices, that they are healthy, that they care deeply about the things in life that matter. That they are grounded. It’s been a constant conversation between me and Spirit; each morning, every night, and all through out the day, keep them safe, guide them. He hears me, I know but it does nothing to ease my fear. I will keep that prayer loop going for them to my last breath.

A Tale of Two Scones

Chef Cheryl — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 03:39:43 +0000

It might seem like an odd or unnecessary step, but if you’re looking for that perfect scone the key is to keep everything very cold, including the mixing bowl and paddle. For these scones I wanted to try something different, making my own substitute for buttermilk. Following The Martha’s formula, I took 1 Tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and added enough milk to make one cup. I repeated the process again using plain yogurt. I wanted to see how different the taste would be and if I would like it any better than my normal scone recipe which calls for 2/3′s of a cup of buttermilk.

The scones made with the yogurt actually came together quite nicely and patted cleanly into a nice round. The scones made with the skim milk were sticker and required a floured surface before I even turned them out. After they’re patted and cut, I place them on parchment lined cookie sheets and place them back in the fridge for an additional 30 minutes. Don’t skip this step! The picture below explains why.

The cold butter releases steam as it begins to melt, thus giving you the flaky, tender layers so desirable in a scone or biscuit.

The scones were both delicious but curiously enough my husband (official taste tester), thought the one made with the skim milk was sweeter and proclaimed it his favorite. Both had the same amount of sugar, a scant 1/4 cup. It was the tang of the yogurt that I liked the best and that made the yogurt scones seem less sweet. A fact that taste tester #3, Hannah’s friend Jaimie, agreed with. As always, if you’d like the recipe, drop me an e-mail at ckloscak@sbcglobal.net or see all the photos at Chef In Attendance on facebook. Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with some traditional Irish scones. They’re a real treat!

French Onion Soup

Chef Cheryl — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:10:21 +0000

Every once in a while I read or see a recipe that just puts me back in my place. Yesterday was one of those moments. I was relaxing on a cold Cleveland Saturday night and watching tv when I came across Jacques Pepin preparing French Onion Soup. Now I make a mean French Onion. In fact, it’s probably the one soup that my customers ask for the most. I sweat my onions and fortify my beef stock with either wine or beer, what ever I’m in the mood for. I get great results all in under 30 minutes. Perfect when you’ve got 4 more courses to serve. Then Jacques comes along. Who better to teach you how to make French Onion soup than a Frenchman. He takes a completely different approach, cooking the onions all the way down, low and slow, caramelizing them to draw out their sweetness. Then, he used chicken stock only. He grates his Gruyere cheese and layers it with toast in between spoonfuls of the soup, then he bakes it all until it’s bubbling, molten goodness. The result was nothing shy of spectacular. To see the process from start to finish, give us a thumbs up like on facebook and become a fan. As always, if you’d like the recipe, shoot me an e-mail at ckloscak@sbcglobal.net

Now taking Orders!

Chef Cheryl — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:45:25 +0000

We’re now taking orders for Valentines Day! Each box is 4 oz.

Chocolate Covered Bacon ~ $4.00 a box

Chocolate Covered Caramel w/Sea Salt ~ $4.00 a box

Chocolate Bacon Truffles ~ $8.00 a box

Regular Chocolate Truffles ~ $4.00 a box

Chef In Attendance Now Accepts All Major Credit Cards!

Chocolate Bacon Bon Bons!

Chef Cheryl — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:45:00 +0000

My facebook friends saw this coming. When Cleveland writer and major foodie, Michael Ruhlman wrote a post featuring Chocolate Bacon Truffles, well I just had to try them. I tweeked his recipe a little bit and rather than using brandy, I used Grand Marnier (an orange liquor w/brandy in it) Well, the results were nothing shy of AMAZING!! They do take time but if you’d like to try my version, send me an e-mail or give us a shout out on facebook at Chef In Attendance. You can find the original version at www.ruhlman.com I’ll let the picture speak for it’s self! See the step by step on facebook.

Avoiding a holiday baking breakdown

Chef Cheryl — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:23:14 +0000

Here’s the scene: It’s the holiday’s and you’d love to make some cookies to take to work, or for friends, or for the kids, or the church coffee hour, or to curl up in a chair with and watch The Bells of St. Mary’s for the 100th time, but you’re too put off by the daunting task of making them. Or, worse yet, you start making them only to find out once you’re half way through mixing everything, that you’re missing a key ingredient. Well have I got a plan for you!

Mise en place! You’ve heard me say it before but until you try it, you’ll never know what a time saver this simple step can be. It’s a French culinary term that simply means “to put in place”. In addition to my business, I work an 8 hr, 5 day a week job. The last thing I feel like doing after being at work all day is to come home and bake. And, the last thing I want to do all weekend is to bake. Yet, I do love to bake so how do I solve my dilema? I take a few moments and pre-measure the ingredients for whatever it is I’m wanting to bake. The above picture are the ingredients I’ve assembled (15 minutes from start to finish) for 2 different types of cookies; oatmeal raisin and tollhouse chocolate chips.

The butter needed to be softened which means I’m not going to even begin cooking for a good 60 minutes. So, rather than set the butter out and go on to something else, I took the additional time to pre-measure all of my ingredients. Now, when the butter is soft, all I have to do is dump and mix. Don’t have a dishwasher for bowls? Simplify even more, use paper cups or bowls. Mix the dry ingredients (except the sugars) together and the eggs and vanillia, nuts and chocolate or oatmeal and raisins. Done!

I’m going to mix the dough up tonight and do the baking tomorrow. You can even use a small cookie scoop and line the finished dough up on a parchment lined baking sheet. Freeze the un-cooked dough. Once frozen, pop them into zip top bags and viola! cookies anytime you want them. Better than slice and bake to be sure!

Thanksgiving

Chef Cheryl — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:16:56 +0000

What are you thankful for? Here, at Chef In Attendance, we have many reasons to take a moment and give thanks. It’s been a good year. Joe and I are thankful that Joe and Hannah are well, healthy and working. We are thankful that my mom is home (just yesterday) from 3 and a half weeks of being in the hospital, and thankful that she is healing beautifully. We are thankful for my sister Pam with whom we’ve spent an awful lot of time with in waiting rooms and hospital rooms, sharing our prayers and laughter with. She’s a blessing unto herself, we make a pretty good team. We are thankful for all the wonderful care givers, many whom are working today, who took such great care of mom, first at Fairview Hospital and then at the Greenbriar extended care and nursing facility. We are thankful for our clients, loyal reader’s of this blog and our Facebook friends. You invite us into your home or attend classes in our home and allow us to do what we LOVE to do. We are thankful for our vendors/friends who help us to purchase the best, freshest and most local product we can get. Take time this day and often through out the year to remember and reflect just what it is that you’re the most thankful for. To each of you Joe and I send our thanks and a heart felt wish that your year ahead is one of Joy, Happiness and all Good Things. Stay tuned for some exciting news!!

Pumpkin Soup!

Chef Cheryl — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 11:17:35 +0000

My favorite autumnal lunch!

I love pumpkin! It’s such a versatile vegetable. I wasn’t always a lover of this squash. In fact, I wasn’t a lover of any squash. But, as we age so do our taste buds and as our palates expand, if we’re open to it, we find that those flavors we once shunned can be pretty terrific. Pumpkin and Squash are on that list for me. I love it just diced, sprinkled with olive oil, salt & pepper and roasted in an oven. In fact, that’s just how my soup recipe starts out. Once the pumpkin has been roasted, I scoop the flesh away from the shell. I put it in my food processor along with a saute of mirepoix (25% carrot, 25% celery & 50% onion, all diced). I like to round out the flavor by also peeling, dicing and roasting a butternut squash. Back into the soup pot it goes along with a deep vegetable stock or some homemade chicken stock, enough to reach the consistency you like best, thin or thick. When I’m ready to serve it, I like to top it with a few of the roasted pumpkin seeds. These I do in the oven, salt, pepper, olive oil and a pinch of cayenne for heat. Warning though, if you roast these seeds ahead of time you may find by the time your soup is ready, the seeds are gone. They’re addictive! Here I’ve served my soup with a fresh sirloin burger, topped with some fresh Parmesan cheese. Try this soup for something different. You can even place a spoonful of heavy cream on top for an extra smooth cup. Without the cream this is a great soup for freezing. When the last of the pumpkins have gone and the ground is frozen solid, this is a great winter’s evening treat! Need better instruction or have pumpkins you just don’t know what to do with? Drop me an e-mail at ckloscak@sbcglobal.net, I’ve got tried and true pumpkin recipes that I’m more than happy to share with you.

Talented Tailgaters!

Chef Cheryl — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:28:21 +0000

This past summer I had the pleasure of teaching a kids class to two of the cutest kids you’ve ever seen and their dad. When dad told me that the family was having a big get together, we started brainstorming ideas that they could use to feed a crowd. Well, the meal went off without a hitch and everyone was happy. As often happens with my clients, a friendship bloomed an we’ve been in touch several times since July, exchanging recipes and brainstorming for special events. One of those events is chronicled below. So here’s a big shout out and 3 cheers to the Westside Tailgaters 563 and their Kansas State Wildcats ~ may your winning streak continue on the field and at the grill!! You guys rock!

Westside Tailgaters 563 wants to thank Chef Cheryl for our great tailgate recipes. So easy a caveman could do it should be Chef Cheryl’s tag line. The Three Amigos(Adam, Marcus, & Damian “Coach D”), bought groceries night before. We already had done the rosemary potatoes and had some uncooked left over from the previous game. We just added an additional 10 pound bag of the potatoes. We bought 7 1/4 lbs of the flank steak, got the ingredients and mixed and marinated over night. I did score the meat to help the orange juice marinade get further infused into the meat. We sautéed the onions and green peppers the night before, but they were a little on the soft side or a lot on the soft side. People still enjoyed the flavor. My biggest issue was getting people to eat the meat in a pita and with the peppers & onions. The food was so good they would just go after the meat and often did not leave any for others. This is the second week that Chef Cheryl had assisted our tailgate and she again made us look like a geniuses. Constant compliments! Finally, we are not losing all our money. We usually lose money every tailgate and we then get angry with those who don’t contribute the asked donation of $10 for all you can eat and drink…now we not only broke even but even have a little more for seed money to continue one of our favorite past-times! TAILGATING AND CHEERING ON THE STILL UNDEFEATED KANSAS STATE WILDCATS!

That’s Coach D in the white T, front left. : )

Chocolate Mocha Souffle w/Coffee Ice Cream

Chef Cheryl — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 20:40:07 +0000

Today was the last day of a 3 day weekend and here in beautiful NE Ohio, the weather has gone from a stiffling 94 on Saturday, to a balmy 64 on Monday and now, at last I am happy. You can keep your 94 degrees, I am a cool weather girl. If we could stay this way through to the winter months I’d be content. When the temp is in the upper 80′s or beyond, cooking is the last thing I want to do. But today, today was ideal for playing in the kitchen. I started the day with a big pot of homemade chicken barley soup and then, cleared the decks and got busy. First up was coffee ice cream (my hard working hubby’s absolute favorite). A simple process, made simpler by always having my ice cream machine in the freezer and ready to go. This recipe called for steeping a cup and a half of fresh beans in 1.5 cups of milk (I use fat free) 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cup cream.

Temper in two egg yolks place back on the heat and stir until it thickens. From here you simply strain the mixture into a bowl where you have 1 more cup of cream, put some plastic right on top to prevent a skin and chill the whole thing down over an ice bath and then in the fridge. Churn in your ice cream machine, remove to freezer proof container and freeze. The entire process takes less than 20 minutes not including the chill down time. Now even though our chicken barley soup was a humble and simple dinner, I wanted the dessert to be worthy of a 3 day weekend so I went for an equally simple dessert that would still say WOW. I began by melting 4 oz of good dark chocolate and 1.5 oz of unsalted butter into a heat proof bowl over simmering water. Be careful you use a paper town to keep the condensation down or your mixture will sieze up and be useless.

A word here about ingredients. If you are thinking that you can use semi-sweet morsels, margarine and imitation vanillia in this reciepe and get good results, please STOP. There are no substitutes for great ingredients. I only use Madagascar Vanillia that I purchase at UrbanHerbs at the West Side Market. You can order from them on line at www.urbanherbsonline.com or find these products near you. You can expect to pay $8 to $12 a bottle but you will not be disappointed. Real beans are $10 for one in the grocery store but I buy 5 at a time for $1.99/each. You will transform your baking by paying attention to ingredients.

Once the chocoalte and butter have melted I added some instant coffee and vanillia that I had mixed together along with a pinch of kosher salt. While this mixture was cooling, I buttered and sugared 4 ramekins, drawing the butter up the sides with a pastry brush creates lines that the sugar adheres to. This then creates little channels for the souffle to climb up. A great trick I learned from one of my culinary instructors. Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks are then gently folded into the cooled mixture and placed into the ramekins. I only baked 2 of them and wrapped the other two in plastic for a treat tomorrow after a hard days work. Here are the souffles before and after the oven.

The final step was to place two small scoops of the coffee ice cream into the center of the hot souffle. The results are a fabulous, light as air dessert and a part creme anglaise, part ice cream extravaganza! With a minimum amount of time and effort, you too can make this stunning dessert. Send me an e-mail for the complete recipe.