Visiting chef from Italy

Master Chef Gianluca Pardini, from Italy, came to the work with the students at College of DuPage for a week.

My class worked with him on a dinner for 100 people. I worked with Chef Pardini on the dessert below. It is a wheat crepe filled with sweetened ricotta cheese topped an orange caramel sauce and garnished with candied julienne orange peel, rosemary, and roasted pine nuts.

Everything was made from scratch. It was delicious!

My plated dessert for the night

 

Chef Pardini and Me

 

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cake

 

 

Deep Dish Caramel Apple Pie

What makes this apple pie memorable it the crust...it is made out of sugar cookie dough.

With a crumb topping, caramel, and a drizzle of icing, this apple pie is a winner!!

 

Savory Prosciutto Palmiers

So easy to make and so delicious to eat!

I made this for Super Bowl Sunday. I wanted an appetizer that was quick to make, warm, and savory for such a cold day, especially living in Chicago. I made two dozen of them and they did not last more than 10 minutes….seriously!

Puff pastry dough is very labor intensive. I’ve made it in the past a couple of times, but for this recipe, I just used a box or pre-made dough I found in my freezer. The rest of the ingredients included: tomato paste, prosciutto, and grated parmesan cheese. For the parmesan cheese, I always buy a block of parm and grate it as needed. It is just better this way… I find that the pre-grated parm you can buy at the store is always a little dry.

An alternative to using tomato paste is to instead use a mixture of a table spoon of honey mixed with ½ cup mustard. Mix it up and try different ingredients. Enjoy!