Life of the Party- Strawberry Pudding

This dish, is a hit at any party, cook out, or pot luck that I bring it to. It is such a simple and easy dish to prepare, and it will be gone faster than it takes to make it. I got the original recipe from my mother, but tweaked it in my own way, where I swapped out the use of sour cream in my mother's recipe for cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk. In which gives the pudding mix a taste and consistency of cake batter, and who doesn't love the taste of cake batter.

The concept is similar to your normal Banana Pudding, where you layer your cookies, pudding and fruit and repeat. I use the typical Nilla Wafers as the cookies, and I choose to cook my strawberries instead of just cutting up fresh strawberries. Speaking of strawberries you can use fresh or frozen, I normally go with frozen because I do not like to get a pack of berries and there are some bad berries in the pack, I like to use the enter pack for this dish and nothing less. The pudding mix, as I stated earlier I blend cream cheese with the sweetened condensed milk and then blend a pudding of my choice normally vanilla or cheesecake flavor and milk, and it is in my opinion heaven in a bowl. I haven't ventured out to try any other pudding flavors but hey if you want to be adventurous try a different pudding and let me know how it comes out. Once your strawberries are cooked and pudding is set it is time to build, layer the cookies, then pudding, then strawberry and repeat. You should be able to get about two layers, once the pudding is layered top with cool whip or whip cream garnish with some crushed Nilla Wafers and you are all set.

It is such a light and cool dessert, just perfect for the spring and summer. Some people say that Banana Pudding can be addictive, and I believe it is just as addictive just ask my wife. Before I made it she had never even heard of Strawberry Pudding, and now she cannot get enough of it. So go out and give this recipe a try and see how many Strawberry Pudding junkies you can create. Enjoy!!!

Strawberry Pudding

1 large container of Cool Whip

1 box of Nilla Wafers

1 large (8oz) box of Vanilla or Cheesecake Pudding Mix

1 small box of Strawberry Gelatin Mix

1/8 cup of sugar

1 8oz pack of Cream Cheese (room temperature)

1 can of Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 cups of Milk

2 pints of Fresh Strawberries or 2 16 oz packs of Frozen Strawberries

1 13x9 cake pan

1. Slice Strawberries in halves, then place in saucepan with Strawberry Gelatin Mix  and sugar. Allow mix to cook over medium heat and stir constantly until mixture is mixed and strawberries are tender. Set aside
2. While the strawberries are cooking, in a medium mixing bowl combine cream cheese and sweetened condense milk and blend until smooth with little to no lumps. 
3. Next whisk in the Pudding Mix into the Cream Cheese mix until well blended and set it aside. The pudding mix will thicken up once it is set. 
4. Layer in 13x9 cake pan Nilla Wafers, Pudding Mix, Strawberry mix, repeat. Then top with layer of cool whip garnish with crushed Nilla Wafers. 
5. Let sit in refrigerator. Served best while cold. 

Sandwich Saturday: Eggplant Parmesan Burger

Hey Everybody, it's Saturday so that only mean one thing, it is Sandwich Saturday. Saturday's are normally my day to myself: no work and my wife Marcella is at work. So it is just me and Cocoa (our dog) chilling, watching TV, and having no care in the world. The only thing that completes this day, is a sandwich. I literally spend the week leading up to this day coming up with ideas on the type of sandwich to make on Saturday. When the day comes, I'm in the kitchen looking just like Carl Winslow on "Family Matters" when he is making his sandwich.


The sandwich for this week, is an inspiration from my outing last week for Restaurant Week. My wife and I along with some friends went out to Caffe Sienna in Charlotte. I tried eggplant for the first time with their Eggplant Parmesan. I've been interested to try eggplant, due to all of the healthy benefits so with finally trying it, I was very impressed. Eggplant has a very mild taste and it pretty much takes on the flavor of whatever you are cooking it with. So during my brainstorming for this sandwich, I decided I was going to top a burger with Eggplant Parmesan. It was something I had never seen before done with a burger and if I seen this on a menu in a restaurant, I would try it.


 To create this burger, there are three main components that would make this burger reach the level of awesomeness I'm trying to accomplish, these components are: the burger patty, the fried eggplant, and the fried cheese (Oh yeah, I went there with the fried cheese).  You also have to top the burger off with spaghetti/tomato sauce, you can create your own sauce or buy it in store. I purchased my sauce and let the sauce cook with some fresh basil and garlic. I also created a roasted red pepper and garlic aoli to use as a base sauce. You can create a healthier version of this burger by substituting the beef patty with a turkey patty, and opting for a baked eggplant and baked mozzarella stick recipe to replace the fried mozzarella and fried eggplant.

Eggplant Parmesan Burger

1 Medium Eggplant
1 Block of Mozzarella Cheese
2 Eggs
2 Tbsp of water
1 cup of All Purpose Flour
1/2 Tbsp Italian Seasoning
1/2 Tbsp Garlic Salt
1 cup of Italian Breadcrumbs
1/2 cup of Parmesan Cheese
1/2 cup of Tomato/Spaghetti Sauce (Homemade or Pre-made)
Vegetable Oil

Directions:

1) Preheat Oil in a deep-fryer to 350 degrees
2) Slice the top of the eggplant, to remove the leaf top of the eggplant and cut off the bottom around       1/4" from the bottom. Then slice 1/4" slices of the eggplant.
3) Spread the eggplant slices on a cookie sheet, then sprinkle salt on all eggplant slices and let sit for       15-30 minutes to allow the bitter liquid in the eggplant drain out of the slices.
4) While the eggplants are draining set up your dredging station by placing the Flour, Italian                      Seasoning, and Garlic Salt in a container and mix until blended. Combine Eggs and water in a                container and mix. In another container, combine Breadcrumbs and Parmesan Cheese.
5) Slice Block of Mozzarella in half then cut 1/4" slices from the halves of Mozzarella.
6) Place slice of Mozzarella into flour and coat with flour shake of excess, dip in egg mixture shake off     excess, then coat with bread crumb mix and shake off excess. Repeat with each slice of cheese. Set       aside slices.
7) Take slices of eggplant and rinse off salt.
8) Take eggplant and go through the same dredging process that was completed as the mozzarella              cheese, and set pieces aside.
9) Heat oil in a deep fryer.
10) Warm up tomato sauce in a small saucepan
11) Once oil is hot, drop egg plant slices into oil for about 1-2 minutes per side, remove from oil and          set aside on paper towels.
12) Drop Cheese Slices into oil for about 10-25 seconds and remove once, slice starts to expand and set aside on plate with paper towels.

Burger Patty (optional you can use your own burger recipe if you choose)

1 lb of Ground Lean Beef 80/20
1/4 cup of Mayonnaise
1/4 cup of Italian Bread Crumbs
1/2 packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix
4 Ciabatta Rolls
Directions:

1) Combine All Burger Ingredients in a large bowl.
2) Mix until all is blended.
3) Form (4) 1/4 lb patties
4) Cook in grill pan or grill until preferred temperature.

Burger Assembly

1) Slice Rolls, add any condiments that you prefer on the bottom roll, if you choose.
2) Place patty onto bottom roll
3) Place Eggplant slice on patty
4) Place Cheese Slice on Eggplant Slice
5) Top with Tomato/Spaghetti Sauce
6) Top with top bun

Almost as Good As Shark Week

Its that time of the year again, and  no it isn't Shark Week. It is time for Charlotte's Restaurant Week, or formally known as the "Queen's Feast". If by any chance you don't get out much or you have been living under a rock for the past, I don't know 5-7 years allow me to explain.

Restaurant Week, is a time frame of about a week, obviously, where many restaurants in the city, mainly 3-5 star restaurants gives us common folks a chance to sample some of their menu's best entrees in a 3 course meal at a reasonable price of $30 per person.  This is an awesome deal, in my opinion, especially if you are taking that someone special out to eat and you want to take them to one of these places but you still want to take it easy on your pockets. Two 3-course meals for $60 at a fancy-schmancy restaurant, you can't beat that with a stick, especially if you stick to beverage of choice being water, tap, none of that sparkling crap they try to stick you with.

Other than the deal that you are getting with participating in Restaurant Week, you have the opportunity to venture out and expand your taste buds. If you are the person that orders chicken finger baskets at every restaurant that you to, stay your childish ass home.  This is for those who watches Food Network and the Travel Channel with your mouth watering as you watch TV show host such as Adam Richman or Guy Fieri try some of the most insane culinary creations you could imagine. Have you have ever wanted to try fries cooked in duck fat in a pountine with shredded duck meat or Lamb-Mushroom Ragout? If you haven't you are probably opening up another window and Googling this right now and your mouth has probably dropped and drooling has now started now, then this is what us Foodies  live for. Really, just take this opportunity to really treat your taste buds to something different, you may never know what you will like.

To all of you who o not live in or near Charlotte don't worry, man major cities offer their own Restaurant Week. All you have to do is Google "Restaurant Week" and whatever major city you are near and plan your next culinary adventure. Before you go out, definitely go to the Restaurant Week's website and peruse through the the number of restaurants that are participating and look over the menu to see what menu speaks to you, the link below will take you to the Charlotte Restaurant Week Website. I'm definitely looking forward to holding a long and slow conversation with the menu of Caffe Siena tonight.

Charlotte Restaurant Week