This banana & cappuccino cheese cake is very different, the base layer is a banana cake and the top, coffee cheese cake. Let’s start…
1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed, ripe
1 teaspoons lemon juice
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup softened butter
2 1/8 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sour cream
Preheat oven to 275°F. Grease and flour a half sheet pan, In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, mix the cream, butter and sugar until it becomes light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the flour mix alternately with the sour cream. Stir in the banana mixture. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes or until toothpicks come out clean when inserted. Set aside until it cools down.
4 packages cream cheese
2 cups sour cream
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup of espresso Coffee
Preheat oven to 325°F. Mix the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and coffee in a large bowl until well blended. Add eggs and mix well. Pour the mix on top of the banana cake
Bake for 40 minutes, or until center is almost set. Cool, then refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Decorate with cocoa powder and fresh or dry bananas. Remember you can freeze this cheese cake.
If you want to pre-cut it, cut it frozen…
Chef Natalia Penchaszadeh did a chef demostration at Soulard Market in St Louis, representing the Lucas school house
Here are the recipes!
Citrus Spinach Salad ( 2 servings )
2 lb spinach
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon sour cream
1 tablespoon orange marmalade
¼ cup goat cheese
1 Garlic clove
Salt and pepper
¼ cup chopped Nuts
1 tangerine
1 orange
In a bowl place the mayonnaise, sour cream, orange marmalade, salt and pepper
Peel the orange and tangerine and separate into slices.
Add half of the citrus dressing and mix.
To enhance the flavor of the goat cheese peel and chop a garlic clove, add the garlic to the goat cheese. Add salt (goat cheese often come with salt) and pepper. Mix by hand until the consistency is smooth and frothy
Add the spinach, half of the goat cheese and walnuts. Toss, put the salad into the dishes and decorate with the rest of citrus and goat cheese.
Beef Tenderloin and Chimichurri (6 servings )
2 lb tenderloin
1 red onion
2 table spoon of olive oil.
Remove the fat of the tenderloin (using a knife with flexible tip), separate the fillet Mignon and cut into medallions. In a flat surface sprinkle black pepper and roll the medallions, the pepper will stick to the sides; this will help to enhance the flavor without burning the pepper.
In a hot skillet, add oil, cook the medallions on both sides until golden brown. In the same skillet add the onions. Once cooked add salt and top with the onions and the chimichurri
Chimichurri
1 cup of Olive oil
½ cup of Oregano
2 tablespoons of chopped Garlic
2 Tablespoons of chopped Onions
¼ Cup of Vinegar (very important)
¼ white wine
Combine all ingredients in a jar ( glass one is better)
Set for a week in the refrigerator, and it will be ready.
Creamy Polenta
2 cups Polenta
1 ½ cups milk
½ cup extra milk
1 stick Butter
2 cubes bouillon
2 otz. Fresh arugula
In a saucepan add milk, bullion cubes and half butter stick. Boil.
Sprinkle the polenta and mix until the first bubble appears. Turn off the heat and add extra milk and butter. Stir, add the arugula and serve.
Note: The polenta; (instant polenta) cooks in 2 -3 minutes
(traditional) cooks in 20-25 minutes
Salmon and fresh vegetables. ( 4 servings )
1salmon
2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup flour
1/2 olive oil
1 zucchinis
1 eggplant
1 portobello mushroom
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
1 Red onions
Salt pepper
With a knife with flexible edge, remove the salmon skin. Remember to press the skin rather than meat. Cut into portions. Add salt and pepper.
In a flat surface add flour for breading the fish on both sides; this prevents the fish sticking to the skillet, and help to golden brown faster, remember that fish cook quickly.
In a hot skillet add oil and golden brown fish on both sides.
Cut all vegetables. Put them in a bowl, add salt, pepper and 1 / 4 rate oil. In a hot skillet add the vegetables and brown, keep in mind that eggplants will absorb the oil, so we should cook them separately. The veggies go so well in the grill.
Idea for portobellos: In a bowl add soy sauce and chopped garlic, cover and let rest for one hour, then cook them in the grill for about 4 minutes.
Day one of Greg’s Hunger Challenge..
Food Outreach Executive Director Greg Lukeman started his Hunger Challenge yesterday with the goal of highlighting the difficulties facing Food Outreach clients who may have to rely on Food Stamps to find nutritious meals and ingredients. His budget: only $25.36 for a full seven days of meals.
He, along with Hunger Challenge participants
Food Outreach Board Member Attilio D’Agostino of ALIVE Magazine, Rachel Storch-state rep from the 64th District, and Jeff Smith, state senator from the 4th District, made a trip to the grocery store yesterday morning to buy their goods. Greg hopped on the bus at 9:30am and headed to the nearest ALDI to see what items he could find on such a limited budget.
How did it go? Click here to read Greg’s first blog about Day 1 of his Hunger Challenge.
Cooking and Art at SAINT LOUIS ART MUSEUM by Chef Natalia Penchaszadeh
December 7 Shimmering Sugar Chef Natalia Penchaszadeh is visiting the Museum to assist us in creating edible artworks that dazzle! Enjoy a cup of hot cocoa and some festive music while you nibble on your treats.
Date: Sunday, December 7, 2008 Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm Location: SAINT LOUIS ART MUSEUM Street: One Fine Arts Drive, Forest Park City/Town: Lake Saint Louis, MO It is a free event!
See activity at the museum 2007 by Natalia Penchaszadeh
Gourmet Bellies
Kids and food tips by Natalia Penchaszadeh for parisconchicos
Translation from Spanish: Automn Romer
As a chef, I was always concerned with cooking for adults, knowing their tastes, and perfecting my presentations down to the smallest detail.
With the birth of my daughters I found through moments without words…sometimes after hours of preparation it became food for thought in five seconds.
Oh fine, we substituted my rosemary-stuffed meat with peach sauce for a plate of plain pasta. Little by little I had to adapt to the likes of these little gourmet bellies and even more to their dislikes. Later the experience showed me that, with a little astuteness, we can improve and enrich the meals our children eat.
Here are some of the ideas that resulted from my experiences
~Serve small portions. This will make sure children are not overwhelmed by a mountain of food on their plate and instead fill them with enthusiasm at the idea of finishing their plate and getting to ask for more. If, on the contrary, the child is one who eats too much, the small portion will serve as a means of instilling limits.
~Drink water with meals. If we avoid juice and milk during meals our children will likely eat more.
~Play with your food. As Paul Auster said “If a child isn’t permitted to enter the world of imagination they will never go so far as to assume the world of reality”
~Use the moment. Children return home from school or daycare very hungry. Use this situation and give them something different. Kids don’t wait when they are hungry.
~Don’t buy food you don’t want your child to eat. It seems obvious but it isn’t. Go in your kitchen and see what you find. Surprising isn’t it?
~Invite friends over for meals. It’s magic, your child’s friends have different preferences, use this to motive your child to try something new.
~Eat Out! Yes the child has the chance to choose and see different options.
~ Less sugar. If we are always giving our kids sugar if becomes difficult to appreciate the natural sweetness of fruit. Instead of sugar filled snacks, try keeping fruit slices in your bag.
~ Eat seated at the table. Creating routines helps children and gives them security. Also enjoy the moment, it is a social one. Try to avoid answering phone calls, watching television or reading the newspaper during meals.
~Nursing your child is the best start. Often our culture, our fear, and our insecurity stop us from giving the best gift we can give our children.
~Offer your child fresh food, made in your home. Meals for young children shouldn’t be processes foods. It is very difficult to stop eating these foods once you have started your doctor can help you with the change!
And you…. What you eat?
St. Louis Eats and Drinks With Joe and Ann Pollack
Joe and Ann Pollack, St. Louis’ most experienced food writers, lead a tour of restaurants, wines, shops and other interesting places. Copyright 2008 Joe Pollack and Ann Lemons Pollack
The Fountain On Locust
Attention nostalgic ice cream lovers: We’ve found the best chocolate ice cream to hit St. Louis since the much-mourned Gold Coast Chocolate. At The Fountain on Locust, they bring their ice cream from Wisconsin, and while there are other flavors that are extremely enjoyable, the Zanzibar Chocolate is absolutely killer.
The Fountain on Locust is only a few months old. It’s two blocks east of Compton, in an old Stutz automobile showroom that’s been turned into an Art Deco festival, complete with murals and, naturally, fountain fixtures. It’s the creation of Joy Grdnic Christensen and Argentina-born Natalia Penchaszadeh. Besides the malts, shakes, ice cream sodas, sundaes and cones, there are sandwiches, salads and soups, if your conscience insists on something to prepare your stomach for dessert.The effect is of a sweet shop for adults, with wildly imaginative ice-cream dishes and cocktails existing side-by-side with items as old-fashioned as phosphates, so that grandparents can show the children what we drank when we were young. Ice cream sodas are delicious, too, and are an area to let an imagination run from plain vanilla to the wildest of flavor combinations.
Penchaszadeh’s kitchen shows the same breezy attitude and wide-ranging imagination. A fountain salad is strips of grilled, herbed chicken breast on lettuce, with apples, dried cherries, a little parmesan and a lemon dressing. The mixed salad sandwich brings out a baguette of garlic bread topped with melting mozzarella and a salad over that, more of a knife-and-fork dish than a pick-up-and-eat sandwich, with pieces of lettuce, tomato, green pepper and artichoke hearts in a basil-laced vinaigrette. And a prosperity panino layered hummus (thick enough that it didn’t ooze out in an unseemly manner) with tomato, onion confit, eggplant and zucchini on a crisply grilled bread. Off a menu of evening specials, a mushroom crostini (shown below) took a generous slice of crusty bread that had been grilled and topped it with lots of sauteed mushrooms, a few strips of roasted red pepper and a nice hit of very mild goat cheese.On the soup front, an old favorite from the days when Jimmy Carter was president, peanut soup, is a regular on the menu. The kitchen sprinkles a little pepper on top, to cut the richness, a good idea; without it, the soup is almost sweet. The other soup is totally new to town, we think. Polish dill pickle soup turns out to be a potato soup laced with shreds of the pickle, its tartness a surprise and a pleasure. Both soups are vegetarian, as are three sandwiches, three salads and both hot focaccias.
We’re deeply amused by the World’s Smallest Hot Fudge Sundae, a wee scoop of vanilla (or any flavor you’d like) topped with the house-made hot fudge and served in what can double as a shot glass. It’s a great idea, and darn tasty, too, perfect for one trying to keep sweets under control.Another dessert is a Pineapple Inside-Out Cake. The cake is baked in a large coffee mug, and the dish arrives towering with whipped cream. Then comes ice cream, usually vanilla, but once we wanted chocolate, and that’s how we found the Zanzibar, and another time, the coconut almond joy, which was wonderful. Yes, the ice cream melts to form a sauce for the sponge cake, which includes a pineapple ring as well as a brown sugar-rum sauce on the bottom. Talk about a treasure hunt, going through the layers of that.
We also couldn’t resist what the menu calls a standing banana split. In a tall glass, almost ice cream soda-size, are chocolate and red raspberry ice creams, topped with raspberry sauce and the house hot fudge, plus, of course, banana spears. While the raspberry is nice, it’s the combo of the chocolate and banana that blows us away, especially, the gooey hot fudge.
www.fountainonlocust.com We look forward to trying egg creams, phosphates, and some of the alcoholic ice cream drinks, like a brandy Alexander, which is one of their more traditional offerings. Some non-ice cream cocktails also are available.
We’ve seen all kinds of folks visiting here, from business types having lunch-the finally-burgeoning Grand Center area is enjoying the Fountain-to post-dinner couples to cops and blue-collar types. (We continue to believe that St. Louis policemen, trained at the Crown Candy Kitchen, don’t do doughnuts, they do ice cream.) The younger ones can even be seen tapping their toes to the music, also decidedly retro. Late in the week, it’s open until midnight, a nice idea after the Fox or Powell Hall, and of course, the soon-to-open Kranzberg Arts Center. Be sure and check out the ladies room, which looks to have been lifted bodily from a small-town movie theater, circa 1940. Service can be spotty sometimes, but it’s improving.
How much fun is an Art Deco ice cream parlor? Plenty, especially if you’re old enough to appreciate the decor and the fact that it also has a liquor license.
The Fountain On Locust
3037 Locust St.
314-535-7800
www.fountainonlocust.com
Lunch until 5 p.m Tues.-Wed., Lunch & Dinner until midnight Thurs.-Sat.
Credit cards: All major
Thank you !!! Joe and Ann Pollack for the review!
Ice cream Martini
First Look - The Fountain on Locust
Could it be this generation’s Crown Candy Kitchen?
By George Mahe
A lot of us have fantasized about opening a restaurant that served only our favorite dishes - a random assortment of foods not bound by any trend, theme or cuisine - but we never had the guts to test such a wacky idea. Joy Grdnic had the same fantasy … and a lot more guts. In a vertiginous frenzy, she transformed the former Stutz auto dealership downtown (remember the Bearcat?) into a caboodle of visual, aural and culinary firsts. How about a “birdseed” salad or one topped with brûléed apple slices? Dill pickle soup? Why not? And then there’s an ice cream soda fountain where you can get “the world’s smallest hot fudge sundae.” And homemade chocolates. And a special tea service and retro alcohol cocktails. Perhaps she assembled this panoply during the months she was perched on a ladder detailing the impressive 360-degree Art Deco “fountain” mural. Another throwback touch: continuous two-minute audio episodes - 400 of them - of “Soap Hospital,” a spillover from Grdnic’s ongoing stint as a radio comedienne. Will all this whimsy be embraced by others? Could it be this generation’s Crown Candy Kitchen? Stay tuned.
3037 Locust, 314-535-7800, fountainonlocust.com. Hours: Tue-Wed 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Thu-Sat 11 a.m.-midnight.
In the city’s Midtown area on Locust Street, a new sign hangs on the old Stutz building. What was a place to buy a car in 1916, is now a place to eat, called “The Fountain On Locust”.
It took Joy Grdnic two years to create the old-fashioned soda fountain she envisioned. She did most of the work with her own hands, including painting the art deco-inspired murals. Chef Natalia Penchaszadeh is in charge of everything edible.
The menu includes wonderful ice cream creations and food. So you can indulge in sweets, the menu includes plenty of light and healthy food choices. You’ll also find some unusual options like peanut soup and pickle soup. Also a hit, as strange as it looks, the flower tea. The flower is immersed in hot water that comes out of a Chinese teapot with an extra long spout.
Joy’s other passion, radio comedy commentary, inspired speakers in a few booths, so customers can listen to “Soap Hospital”. Even the restrooms are something to see! Fortunately for those of us watching our waistline, they serve the world’s smallest hot fudge sundae.
No longer automobile row, this new business owner is hoping Locust in Midtown is now a destination for people in search of good food and ice cream. You’ll find “The Fountain On Locust at 3037 Locust Street. It’s open Tuesday through Saturday. The phone number is 314-535-7800. You can also check out the website, www.fountainonlocust.com.
6 lb (3 Kg) Oranges
1 Gallon(3.8 Lt) Water
8 lb ( 4 Kg) White Sugar
If you like sweet, you will love this Orangettes recipe! Mostly since you can make them with the orange peels that you would otherwise trash. They are so delicate and delicious that you will soon be eating oranges just as an excuse to get enough orange zest to fulfill your Orangettes needs.
Cut the orange in four pieces and with your hands peel it taking the peel from one of the points making sure to take it together with the white part.
Soak the peels in water at room temperature for at least 3 days (in a big container) exchanging the water daily. Cut the orange peel pieces lengthwise, of about a quarter of an inch wide.
Dip the peels in boiling water for 2 minutes (use a drainer or similar tool) and move into cold water. Repeat this process three times.
Make a syrup using 1 Gallon water and 4 lb of sugar
Place in a thick simmering syrup for 4 hours, let them cool down and place in a cardboard box alternating layers of sugar with layers of peels. Keep them in the box for a week (if you can refrain the temptation of eating them earlier), remove the sugar and they are ready to go!