Sun-dried Tomato & Olive Tapenade| Reflecting Back

Every New Year, rather than making resolutions, I take a moment to reflect on what I’ve done in the past year, and I was flipping through my agenda. In the summer before freshman year, I bought this agenda that I’d intended to use for the school year. It was a fairly plain one, about the size of a novel and covered in camel colored canvas with a little pocket on the front. Little did I know that I would end up using this agenda for the next three years, and how attached to it I would become.Three years later, the pages are covered in my hand writing and random little scribbles, the spine is no longer a spine but rather a mass of tape, and I had doodled on the cover so much that it looked like I had attempted to color the entire thing with my pen. Looking at the ratty old thing I still managed to call an agenda, it amazed me how far I had come in the past three years and how fast that time had passed. I remember as freshman I thought I wouldn’t make the next four years. I’m now a junior in high school, taking my SATs and ACTs and getting ready for college.

Moving along to the food portion of this post, these are sun-dried tomato and Kalamata olive tapenade crostinis. Sun-dried tomatoes are one of my favorite things, and they play a huge part in this tapenade. They’re slightly salty and mostly sour accented with a tinge of sweetness, the olives add a deeper flavor to the mix, and the brie complements it all by adding an earthy but creamy undertone. I really love the complex mix of flavors in this, and this has definitely become one of my favorite snacks to come home to after school. Plus, it’s really quite a simple recipe, and great for parties (you can definitely make this ahead of time, and just make sure you have a loaf of bread nearby!).

Sun-dried Tomato & Kalamata Olive Tapenade

adapted from this blog

NOTE: I actually feel like this tastes the best a day after it’s made, because the garlic’s flavor is absorbed much more into the tapenade.

Ingredients

• 1 loaf bread (I used ciabatta, french bread is great too!)
• Brie Cheese (typically comes in whole wheels, I reccommend one 5 inches or more in diameter)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 oz. Kalamata Olives coarsely chopped
• 7 oz jar of sundried tomatos (note: if you have tomato halves it will be approximately 21 tomato halves, and  be sure to julienne them!)  (Note: if your tomatos are preserved with oil, drain the oil out of them as best you can, and don’t worry about the tapenade being greasy, it will be fine!)

Instructions

1. Slice your bread into 1.5 cm slices.
2. Toasting the bread: preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and toast the bread until the edges start becoming golden, approx. 5-8 minutes.
3. Put the sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and garlic cloves into the food processor. Pulse until coarsely chopped. Be careful not to over pulse the mixture or you might end up with a sort of a paste.
4. To serve place a slice of brie on the bread( the slices of brie should be able to cover the entire piece of bread), add 1/2 tablespoon of tapenade on top, and serve :)

Enjoy!
~Deepshikha

Chocolate Silk Pie

I’ve spent many times in my life sitting down in the dark with my little sister watching movies. Movies fascinate me, with film making stories come to life. I haven’t had time for movies as of late, actually I haven’t had time for anything. However, this weekend, I finally managed to find some time for myself, and sit down to watch The Help. I absolutely loved the movie, it was sweet, had a good amount of laughs in it, along with a good amount of meaning as well. Also, the vintage clothes and the whole setting of the movie was great. One thing that really caught my attention was a chocolate pie that one of the characters, Milly, had made. So, as a result, I decided to make chocolate pie [not the special pie for Hilly(; ].

Chocolate silk pie is a symphony of rich, smooth,  chocolate, with a buttery graham cracker crust to top it all of. I’ve tried this recipe with a traditional pastry pie crust, however  found it to be not as amazing in taste. The filling and the crisp graham cracker crust are a perfect pairing, like peanut butter and jelly. The filling of the pie is perfectly rich,  smooth, and melts in your mouth. It’s absolutely amazing.

French Silk Pie

adapted from Pillsbury

• 1 Crust (crust recipe below) (you can use a store bought one, or a regular pastry pie crust, but believe me it tastes better with a graham cracker crust)
• 5 oz. semi sweet chocolate
• 1 cup room temperature  butter(do not use margarine)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 eggs(pasteurized)

Graham Cracker Crust

from allrecipes

• 1 1/2 cup of graham crackers
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1/3 cup of melted butter

1. Prepare the crust by mixing together the sugar and graham crackers in a small bowl, and then adding the butter in, until the butter is evenly distributed. Dump the whole mixture into a 9 inch pie pan and press into the sides and bottom of the pie pan. Bake at 375 degrees F for 8-9 minutes(time may vary a little depending on your oven). Set aside to cool.

2. Melt the chocolate down using a double boiler, and set aside to cool.

3. Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, and then add the chocolate(which is cool now) and the vanilla extract, until mixed in smoothly.

4. Add one egg in beating until the color lighten and the volume of the mixture increases( about  2 minutes on high speed).

5. repeat step four for the remaining two eggs.

6. pour the mixture into the pie crust(which must be cooled or the mixture will start to melt), and smooth the top over.

7.  Refrigerate for about 2 hours, garnish with whipped cream and whatever else you feel urge to add, and serve :)

Enjoy!

~ Dee :)

Fudge | Summer

It’s really hard to believe that my first year as a freshman is over. It really feels like I was ranting about my fears of high school years just yesterday. I honestly anticipated this year to take forever, just like everything I don’t like seems to take, but really it just rushed right by. I’m surprised that I’m now a sophomore. I can still remember clearly of how I walked into the high school for the first time as a student, and wondering why school decor was always so drab.

And so sophomore year starts…

On a brighter note: I have a quick and simple recipe to share!

It’s fudge.

A fudge shortcut. Its ridiculously easy to make, and you can make it in ten minutes.

Seriously.

Oh and one last little thing: I made a face book page for the blog! Go and check it out and like it!

Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Notorious-Experiments/182235575167065?ref=hnav

and here is the recipe:

Simple Fudge

PS: before you start making this recipe, know that it is very, very sweet. I rarely eat more than one or two pieces in a sitting because it is simply that sweet.

Adapted from Baking Addiction

•  3 cups chocolate chips(semi-sweet or dark chocolate is good, in the pictures above I used dark chocolate)
• 14 oz of sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4 a tsp of salt(fleur de sel is preferable but i have used regular table salt sometimes)
• 1 1/2 a tsp of vanilla
• if you really want to add some sort of nuts or something go ahead!(i recommend about a cup)

1. Line an 8 x 8 pan with aluminum foil
2. Mix together the chocolate, condensed milk, and salt in a medium pan, until the chocolate is completely melted and blended in.
3. Remove from heat and add in the vanilla.
4. working quickly pour the mixture into the lined pan(or else it will cool and harden, and when you’re smoothing the top, it’ll start cracking[it will look like its cracking], and it will look strange)
5. Cool in the refridgerator for at least 45 minutes or until it is completely cold and firm.
6. To cut it: make sure you use a knife with no ridges, or anything on the blade, other wise the edges of the fudge pieces will look strange. You want a knife like this:

Enjoy!

~Dee D.