Pepper and Salami Sandwiches and Triple Chocolate Trifle

So this past weekend, I asked Jacob what he wanted for dessert, and he replied, a chocolate trifle, like the one we had at the Valentine's Day party we went to. So going into this weekend, I knew that much. But we had busy days both Saturday and Sunday running errands and doing things around the house, so I knew we needed a quick tasty bite for dinner.

Enter Michael Symon's 5 in 5 cookbook recommended to me by my sister Helen a long time ago.

After perusing through the cookbook for a little while, I happened upon the sandwich section. Something about sandwiches make me really want them when it's warm and sunny out and not when it's cold and rainy. Thankfully, the recipes in this cookbook only take 5 ingredients and (supposedly) 5 minutes to cook anything. It always end up taking longer than 5 minutes for me.

Anyways, I found this one with peppers, salami, and provolone cheese (which I already had some that needed to be eaten up!). It's a super easy recipe, fry salami, cook up peppers in same pan using the salami fat, put chopped salami and peppers back on pan with cheese to melt, assemble sandwich, and consume.

One of the best parts it it only uses one pan.

Cooked and uncooked salami

Jalapenos add a nice heat to the sweet peppers

Melty cheese 

Toasted bread is great for texture (note final product is not the most aesthetically pleasing)

A few things (improvements in my opinion) that I changed for the recipe:

1. I half moon sliced my peppers, not complete moons.
2. I chopped my salami after cooking, he showed this in his photo of the recipe, but never mentioned it as a step.
3. I added mayo to my sandwich and butter to Jacob's since dry bread is too sad and dry. 

The second kitchen adventure this weekend was making a chocolate trifle. I loosely followed the recipe in my King Arthur Flour's Baking Companion cookbook (or is it baking book?) except there's didn't have chocolate in it at all and that's all that Jacob and I wanted. So the final result was a chocolate cake, with chocolate pastry cream and chocolate ganache, whipped cream, and fresh raspberries. 

I found the chocolate cake recipe on King Arthur Flour's website, chocolate pastry cream in King Arthur Flour's cookbook, and my chocolate ganache was just heavy cream and chocolate. Oh and the whipped cream was freshly whipped. 

The trifle was pretty good, I accidentally left the cake in a little too long cause I was making the pastry cream at the same time so the cake is a little tough. Also, maybe next time I would add some type of raspberry jam or sauce as well to have more raspberry taste. The whipped cream offered a nice relief to all of the chocolate. 

Here's the final product of the trifle

So recipe time!

Michael Symon's 5 in 5 Fried Salami with Hot Peppers

Serves: 4

Time: 15 Minutes

Ingredients:

      1 pound thinly sliced salami

      2 red bell peppers, thinly sliced

      1 jalapeno, sliced into thin rings

      Kosher salt

      4 slices Provolone cheese

      1/3 cup torn fresh basil leaves

      4 Kaiser rolls, split and toasted

Steps:

1. Put large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches so as not to crow the pan, add the salami slices and cook until crisp. (I used a 8 inch pan and fit six or seven slices per batch and had my microwave fan on because the pan was smoking). Add the salami slices and cook until crisp, about 1 minute per side (Not sure about the exact time, but I let them get relatively dark since I like crispy over chewy). As the slices are done, remove them to a plate (paper towel if you wanna soak up the grease). 
2. When all the salami is our of the pan, add the bell and jalapeno peppers along with a good pinch of salt and cook until tender, about 2 minutes. Remove the peppers to a plate. 
3. Reduce the heat under the pan to medium-low. Divide the salami into 4 equal piles, placing all of the piles in the pan Top each pile with one-fourth of the bell and jalapeno peppers covered by 1 slice of cheese. Add 2 tablespoons water to the pan, cover with a lid, and allow the cheese to melt for 30 seconds. 
4. Remove the lid and sprinkle each pile with one-fourth basil. Pile into the rolls and serve. 

Martha's Triple Chocolate Raspberry Trifle

The general outline for making the trifle was the following order:

1. Make cake and cool on counter.
2. Make pastry cream and cool in fridge. 
3. Make ganache and cool in fridge. 
4. When ready to eat, whip cream and fold some into the pudding. 
5. Layer ingredients in, I did cake, pudding, ganache, whipped cream, raspberries. 
6. Eat. 

King Arthur Flour Chocolate Cake Recipe

Click here for the Chocolate Cake recipe. Note, I only used the cake recipe from this link. 

King Arthur Flour Chocolate Pastry Cream Recipe

This was a pretty straight forward pastry cream recipe, as with any pastry cream recipe, getting all of your ingredients in order and specifically following the steps are two important points. I used a combo of semisweet chocolate chips, bittersweet baking chocolate bar (snagged from the discount rack a while ago), and milk chocolate chips (I used the least amount of this and this was an unfortunate buy from the discount rack). I also failed to see the tiny asterisk in the recipe and didn't add enough sugar to the pastry cream, since the default amount of sugar is for making a not super sweet cream :( 

Makes: 5 cups

Time: 20 Minutes (not including cooling time)

Ingredients:

      3 cups (24 ounces) whole milk

      1/2 cup (3.5 ounces) sugar* (this is where I should have used 3/4 cup instead)

      1/4 teaspoon salt

      2 teaspoons vanilla extract

      1/4 cup (1.25 ounces) cornstarch

      1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour

      4 large egg yolks

      4 tablespoons (1/2 stick, 2 ounces) butter

      1 cup (8 ounces) heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks

Steps:

1. In a medium-sized saucepan, stir together 2.5 cups of the milk, the sugar, and the salt. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat.
2. Meanwhile, whisk the cornstarch, flour, and egg yolks with the remaining 1/2 cup milk. 
3. Whisk some of the boiling milk mixture with the egg yolks, then pour back into the hot milk mixture and return to heat. 
4. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and boil for 30 seconds. 
5. Remove from heat, strain through a fine sieve, and stir in the butter, vanilla extract, and 1 cup (6 ounces) of chopped chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. 
6. Rub a piece of butter over the surface of the cream (I did Not do this, but just pressed the plastic wrap onto the top of the cream to prevent a skin from forming), top with plastic wrap, then refrigerate until cool. 
7. To complete, fold the cooled cream into the whipped cream.

Chocolate Ganache

I poured 1 cup of heavy cream and brought it to nearly a boil and then dumped in enough chocolate until it looked good. But after Googling it, it is a 1:1 ratio of cream to chocolate. I used semisweet chocolate chips and the rest of the bittersweet chocolate bar. 

Whipped Cream

I poured around 2 cups of heavy cream into a chilled metal bowl and used a hand mixer with chilled mixers until it got a little thicker. I then eyeballed vanilla extract and sugar (probably around 4 tablespoons since Jacob said I never make it sweet enough and overboard is better since it's a dessert). I then whipped it until soft peaks formed and added a cup to the pastry cream and finished whipping the heavy cream until the cream became hard peaks. 

Assembly

I used my clear glass bowl to show off the pretty components, which Jacob heartedly agreed with. I then cut up the cake into bite size pieces and started the laying process. Cake, pastry cream, ganache, whipped cream, raspberries. Repeat until the bowl is full and theoretically all of the components are gone (I had a little extra cake). 

EAT