Hail Ceasar

The only reason for the title of this post is a put a crown on my pie. Pecan pie is no where closely related to anything from the Roman Empire. But hey, if it has a crown, it might as well be of Ceasar.

This Maple Butter Pecan Pie is so rich and delicious, it is guaranteed to convert any anti-pecan pie into a huge fan. It doesn't only taste good, it's also a beauty that will surely impress. You will need a small leaf cookie cutter for the decoration.


For the crust, please click here for a recipe. Half the recipe fora single 9-inch crust. Blind bake the crust and save any scrap for the decoration.

To blind bake a crust, transfer the crust onto a 9-inch pie dish. Trim the crust to the rim of the pie plate, leaving no excess. Crimp the edge using a folk. Line the pie dish with foil and chill for an hour. Preheat oven to 400. Fill foil-lined crust with beans, rice or pie weight. Blind bake the crust for 18-20 minutes or until set. Remove beans or rice. Return the crust to oven and bake another 5 minutes. You can reuse the beans or rice for baking but probably not for cooking.

For the filling:
8 oz. pecan halves, toasted
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/2 tsp. salt
4 eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1/2 stick butter, melted

Preheat oven to 325.

Heat brown sugar, maple syrup, corn syrup, and salt in a saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves. In a bowl, whisk eggs and vanilla together. Pour into the egg a little of the hot sugar mixture while whisking to temper the eggs. Slowly whisk in the rest of the sugar mixture and melted butter.

Spread pecan into the cooled blind-baked crust. Pour in the Maple Butter filling.

Spread out the reserved scrap from the pie crust. Cut out little leaves with a cookie cutter. Score the leaves to make veins. Brush the edge of the pie crust with some water or a beaten egg. Place leaves around the edge, brush them with some egg. Bake the pie for 35-45 minutes or until the center is set. Serve at room temperature

A taste of Italy

Tiramisu is one of those things that if you are in Italy, you have to get a slice to make your Italian experience complete. It is right up there with the Vatican city and Venice, in my opinion. Here in the United States, tiramisu is readily available in most Italian restaurants. It has quickly become a favorite among American foodies. I would even go so far to judge the quality of an Italian restaurant based on their tiramisu.

You can find hundreds of different recipes out there for this Italian treat. I have used this one recipe for a few years. Through trials and errors, I am proud to say that this is the closest to a real slice of Italian tiramisu that I've tasted. Instead of lady fingers, I use a few layers of sponge cake. Lady fingers are essentially little sponge cakes, sometime coated in sugar. By making my own sponge cake, I can have a lot more control over the sweetness of the cake. Make it too sweet and you won't be able to make it pass two bites.

Note: I prefer sponge cake over angle food cake. They are pretty much siblings in the cake family, very similar. But for this recipe, sponge cake works much better. Angle food cake makes of egg white without the yolk. The beaten egg white is very glossy, making it a little more difficult to soak with coffee. Sponge cake works like.... a sponge.

Sponge cake

4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tbsp. cold water
1 Cup cake flour
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Brush three 8-inch pans with butter and dust with flour.
Beat egg yolks and sugar together until very light. Add water. Sift together flour and baking powder. Add to batter. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into batter. Pour batter into prepared pans.
Bake for 20 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean. Let cool for a few minutes before taking them out of the pans.

Coffee soak

2 cups coffee
2 Tbsp. Kahlua or rum

Combine and set aside

Mascapone cream

3 tub of mascapone cheese (8 oz each)
3/4 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar

Beat all ingredients together until light. Mascapone is an Italian cream cheese that is a lot lighter than regular creme cheese. It gives tiramisus their distinct creamy flavor.

Soak the sponge cake one layer at a time in the coffee soak. Be careful not to soak too long or your cake layer will disintegrate in the liquid. It takes some practice. A brush will help getting the liquid soaked into the cake.

After soaking a layer of cake, spread some of the mascapone creme on top and sprinkle cocoa powder onto the creme layer. Repeat with the other two layers and make sure to cover the side of the cake with mascapone creme as well. Chill before serving.


This dessert is such an explosion of flavor. The sweet creamy cream is met with the bitter cocoa and nutty coffee flavor, while the liqueur adds a warm note to a well chilled cake. It is simply decadence at the same time add so much charm to your party.

Brown Gravy

This thick and dark gravy full of flavor and body can be used for any beef dish, from Beef Wellington to Prime Rib. It really adds the extra boost to an already-perfectly moist and tender slice of meat.

Brown Gravy

In a sauce pan, saute:
1 shallots, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced.

After the shallots and garlic are soft, about 5 minute, add:
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. all purpose flour

Stir together until the mixture turns brown. Then add:
1/3 cup marsala or red wine

Wait till most of the liquid has evaporated, add:
1.5 cups beef broth

Bring to a boil and simmer until thickens, stir frequently.

A meal fit for a Duke/Duchess

Need ideas to wow your guests this holiday coming up? Or you simply want to treat your significant other to a fancy homemade meal? Beef Wellington is one of my favorite things to make. It is amazingly simple for such wonderful presentation. You sometimes see Beef Wellington as one huge pastry-covered tenderloin. I actually prefer to make this dish as individual bundles of goodness. They are full of flavor and each is a work of art.

One of the crucial component to Beef Wellington is Puff Pastry. Feel free to use store-bought one. But if you are up for a challenge, make your own!! Puff pastry is a work of art within itself. I feel like it deserves a whole different post. Click here to find it.

Another important thing about Beef Wellington before we begin is since puff pastry is such a big part of this dish, everything needs to be cooled/chilled to keep the butter layers in the puff pastry from melting. If the butter melts, you end up with a none-puff pastry and it won't brown either. So make sure to cool everything before assembling our bundles of joy. I also try to assemble these the night before so they can chill in the fridge over night. But if you don't have time, half an hour in the freezer will be just fine.

Beef Wellington

4 Fillet Mignons
1 sheet puff pastry (store bought or homemade)
1/2 lb. assorted mushroom, chopped
3 Tbsp. red wine
3 Tbsp. green onion, chopped
1 sprig thyme, chopped

Saute the mushroom in some olive oil. Don't crowd the mushrooms or they won't brown (Yes, I just watched Julie and Julia). Once the mushroom is brown and tender, deglaze with the red wine. When liquid nearly evaporated, add onion and thyme. Set aside to cool completely.

Season your fillet mignons with salt and pepper. Sear both sides of the fillet on high heat. Cool completely.

When you are ready to assemble the beef wellingtons, take out your sheet of puff pastry and roll it out in a flat surface until it's about 1/8 inch thick. Cut the sheet into 4 little squares. Wrap the cool fillet mignons in the puff pastry square. Fold the two opposite corner of the square so that they touch on top of the fillet. Do the same thing with the other corners. Pinch the seams to seal. You can cut out different design from some scrap puff pastry if desired. I like making leaves and pumpkin stems for the fall or holly leaves and berries for Christmas. Be creative!

Chill the Beef Wellington for at least an hour or overnight. When you are ready to bake them, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Brush the beef wellingtons with an egg wash (an egg with a few teaspoons of water) and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.


I also serve this dish with a brown gravy. Click here for the recipe. I do hope you find yourselves pampered like a Duchess/Duke as you enjoy this dish.

Extraordinary Women

This past weekend, I got to spend two days with some extraordinary women as we joined 10,000 other women at the Roanoke Civic Center to worship our God. It was quite a taste of what is to come once all nations and tongues confess that Jesus is Lord.

My friend, Barbara, and I also had the privilege of serving lunch for our group of twenty lovely ladies. We made a three sandwich fillings: Chicken Salad, Greek Salad, and a Shrimp Salsa. We stuffed these in large croissants with a few leaves of lettuce. And lunch was served!

Shrimp Salsa
Makes 2 cups

1/2 cup diced tomatoes
1/2 cup minced red radishes
1/4 cup minced red onion
1/4 cup minced cilantro
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 lb. shrimps, peeled and deveined
Juice of a lime

Combine tomatoes, radishes, onion, cilantro, and garlic in a bowl.
Toss shrimp with oil, salt, and pepper. Saute until cooked through. Chop shrimps into bite-sized pieces and add to the vegetable mixture. Stir in lime juice.

Greek Salad
Makes 2 cups

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
8 oz salami, chopped
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup kalamata olive, pitted and sliced
2 tsp. dried oregano
Minced zest of a lemon
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Juice of a lemon
Black pepper to taste

Combine bell pepper, feta cheese, olives, salami, oregano, and lemon zest in a bowl.
Whisk together oil and lemon juice. Season with black pepper.
Toss the vegetable mixture with the oil and lemon juice until coated.

Chicken Salad
Makes 2 cups

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup white/rice vinegar
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup cooked chicken, cubed
1 cup diced celery
1/2 cup chopped green onion

Combine chicken, celery, and green onion in a bowl.
Stir together mayonnaise, vinegar, and sugar.
Toss the chicken with the mayonnaise mixture. Chill until serve.

These are very easy recipes that can stretch food for a big party. These three recipes feed 20 ladies. And we even got second. You can serve these salad with any kind of bread or even with chips. I hope you will also enjoy making something extraordinary out of the ordinary just like how our God makes us.

McCoskey-Laguarda preview

A few weekends ago my husband and I gotta go see a few friends at a Lake in TN. Our friends' parents were so kind to let us use their amazing lake house for a weekend of reunion with great friends. One of them just got engaged and they were kind enough to let me make their wedding cake.

Sarah and Gonzo (yes, that is his name) wanted to have a 4 tier cake with chocolate drizzled in between each tier with red roses cascading down the side of the cake, very tasteful. I enjoy the color scheme and very much looking forward to making 50+ sugar roses. Hopefully once the wedding is here they will give me permission to write a little blurb about them and their relationship with some picture of the real wedding cake. Their flavors of choice are Grand Marnier and Italian Creme.

Here is a picture of the sample cake that I made for them at the lake house.

A briny hit of the Mediterranean Sea

I made this Greek Shrimp Salad last week for our regular International Wife Group meeting. I thought it was appropriate with the International theme. Unfortunately, I did not get around to taking a picture before everything was gone. And that's how you know that it's good. This salad is loaded with flavor and good for you at the same time, hard to believe, eh?

Clean 1/2 lb. of medium shrimps, season with salt and pepper to taste. Sear them in some olive oil until fully cooked.

For the dressing:
Combine
1/4 cup feta cheese
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp. yellow mustard
2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. oregano

You can put all the above ingredients in a food processor to make a creamy dressing. Or you can just shake it in a bottle and get a nice vinaigrette.

For the salad:
Combine
1 cup diced tomatoes
1/2 cup diced cucumber
1/2 cup diced yellow bell pepper
1/4 cup slivered red onion
1/4 cup halved kalamata olives
1/4 cup feta cheese

Toss the the shrimps and vegetable with the dressing. You can serve over a plate of shredded spinach or lettuce if desire.

You are more than welcome to use store bought vinaigrette in this recipe. I enjoy making my own dressings with fresh ingredients. With mustard, olive oil, and a vinegar of choice, you are free to add any other ingredient you'd like and you've got yourself a custom made dressing for the day. No more multiple bottles of dressing that take up space in the fridge!