Gutsy Cooks week 2

Week two's challenge was Ricotta and Arugula Roulade and Quindim.  They both looked so pretty in the book, I was very excited to try them... until I went grocery shopping.  Ugh!  What an ordeal.  I couldn't find Arugula or desiccated coconut (needed for the Quindim)  But I was quickly saved by Monica at Sweet Bites who told me to use spinach and gave me this link telling me all about desiccated coconut and how to make it at home.  Whew!  Dinner is saved!

I have to admit, I'm not a big coconut fan.  And until recently, I would have totally skipped this recipe.  But, about a year ago I discovered coconut shrimp.  Yummy!  I have found, through trial and error, that I like coconut milk and raw coconut but not toasted coconut.  Huh!  Who knew?!  Anyway, two of my three kids DO like coconut, so I thought I'd give the Quindim a try.  Plus, as a kicker, we're studying geography in school this year.  The Illustrated Kitchen Bible says that "This sweet, creamy and very rich dessert is a popular party dish is Brazil."   So we found Brazil on the map and we'll probably make this again when we study Brazil later in the year.  Anyway... Now on with the show!!

We have a food dehydrator, that we just HAPPEN to have out right now.  So instead of baking my coconut, I dehydrated it.  It made my kitchen smell nice.

I wish I knew how to turn a picture, but I don't so you'll have to twist your neck.  Anyway, this is Life checking things out in the food dehydrator.  She's killing me lately with all her climbing.  Sheesh!

I was  surprised and pleased to see how easy both recipes were to make.
The Roulade crust had several steps.  But all fun cooking things with wisking and boiling and beating egg whites.  The batter looked great.

It baked up really well and was really easy to deal with.  It didn't crack or break into a million pieces.  It turned out so pretty!

I mean really!  Don't you want to eat this?  I would be so excited to serve it to you.  IT'S SO PRETTY!

The Roulade had so much potential with its parmisan cheese and rocotta and spinch.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  But... it's a tad on the bland side.  And it's the constancy of wet bread.  Eww.  It got thumbs down from the fam.  I have some left and plan to add some ham to it tomorrow morning for breakfast and maybe give it a little toasting under the broiler.  I WANT this to work.  It was so easy for the aesthetic result.  I just want my palate to like it too.

So on to the coconut.  So, I was supposed to put the custard in ramekins in a water bath in the oven.  But I have no ramekins.  So I substituted a muffin pan.

It worked very well.  The only problem was that I couldn't really invert it to get them out.  So I let them stay in the pan and cool quite a bit and then put the pan in the fridge before I scooped them out with a spoon.  Which may have been good.  I saw that several other Gutsy Cooks had issue with theirs being runny.  Mine set up beautifully, but, because I scooped them out, they weren't all that presentable.  But I got one that wasn't too bad.

Of course I didn't have good light, but you get the idea.

Jim, who is not a coconut fan either, ate it.  He said he would have liked it better if it was lemon.  The coconut liking kids, gave it a thumbs up and the coconut not liking kid gave it a thumbs down.

So, much culinary adventure here at Jim and Brenda's this week.  I told the kids that maybe next week, we'll work on a rating system.  So watch for stars or forks or something next week so you know how we REALLY feel.