Salam de biscuiti

Salam de biscuiti is a traditional Romanian dessert and translated, it literally means cookie salami, simply because the cookies and cocoa look like a salami, but much sweeter. I have been wanting to make something sweet for a long time, but I stray away from overtly sweet pastries because too much sugar, for me, is not appetizing. So, since I am Romanian, I figured it would be a fun experiment if I could make one of my favorite desserts. I quickly googled the recipe (in Romanian, of course), and thankfully, I am quickly learning how to read better and better in my native language. It was truly a fun recipe to make and very easy. I began to make it at eleven in the evening and I was done within 30 minutes. Plus, this brings back so many memories of my grandmother making it for me the many times she would visit us…

INGREDIENTS:
(all measurements are converted from metric, thus why the exact measurements.)

1.087 cups of plain biscuits (preferably animal crackers since they are naturally sweet)
1.087 cups of organic cane sugar
1 cup of unsalted butter
1/4 cup of cocoa (preferably unsweetened or natural hot chocolate mix)
1/4 and a little bit of toasted walnuts
1.25 cups of whole milk
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract  

PREPARATION:

Crush crackers by hand to obtain small pieces. Add the nuts and mix together.
In a saucepan put 1/4 of milk and sugar and cook until syrup is bound (approximately 1 minute after the syrup begins to foam).
Add butter and stir until melted.
Add cocoa (and coffee if using) dissolved in 1/4 cup of milk. Add the vanilla extract and leave it to a boil.
Set the mix aside. Pour the crackers-walnut mix in a mixing pot. Add the sauce and gradually pour the syrup over crackers, stirring occasionally to see that the biscuits soften a bit.
Roll up tightly to form roll and push from both ends to remove air from the sausage. Closely tied to both ends and give biscuits salami in the refrigerator several hours or overnight. 
Cut biscuits salami slices and serve.

Homemade Hearty Minestrone Soup

I realized that a tremendous amount of time has since passed since my last post, and I offer a thousand apologies for my sporadic posting. In all fairness, I have made simple meals here and there, but with the extraordinary busyness of mid-terms, I just didn’t have the time. I hope that I can make more time to make food, and take pictures, and then post it. I finally had the time this weekend and with the cold weather upon on us now, I seized the moment and made one of my favorite soups: Italian minestrone.

I borrowed the list of ingredients from Giada’s recipe available on the Food Network and swapped the unnecessary amount of work with a slow-cooker. While it did require some additional effort, it surely didn’t compare to laboring in the kitchen for an hour, watching the soup broil and adequately adding ingredients while gauging the process.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 3 ounces thinly sliced pancetta, coarsely chopped (optional)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 russet potato, peeled, cubed
• 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 fresh rosemary sprig (I don’t have this in the nearest supermarket, so I simply added rosemary)
• 1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained, rinsed (I substituted with organic dark red kidney beans)
• 2 (14-ounce) cans chicken broth
• 1 ounce piece Parmesan cheese rind
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves (or bay leaves)

• Salt and pepper

Once you finished washing, dicing, mincing, peeling, and opening the ingredients, add them in the slow cooker and set the lever to LOW for a couple of hours (5-6 should be ample amount of time). Then, you can do your own thing while the ingredients slowly cook. Now, what I particularly enjoy about slow-cookers is not necessarily its convenience, but rather that since it takes a long time for the ingredients to cook, the flavors are mixing so sinuously that the recipe grows in richness, tanginess, and depth. It adds so much flavor to the recipe as they are enveloped in little space. I immediately envision the scene from Ratatouille where tasting certain aromas and flavors unleash a different sensation.

After a couple of hours have passed, remove some of the potatoes, carrots, celery, and beans, and set the aside. Remove the broth and remaining ingredients from the pot and pour them into a blender. Blend until it’s pureed. Then, in a medium-sized pot on low heat, add the puree and let it warm. Afterward, add the beans, potatoes, celery, and carrots you have previously set aside. Stir together until preferred temperature is obtained. If you wish to make the soup more hearty, add some rotini pasta afterwards.