Lemon Filled Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

This is my new favorite cupcake. Hands down. The light vanilla cupcake is such a delicious backdrop for the sunny lemon flavor of the lemon curd. The whipped lemon-cream cheese frosting is so tasty that you could eat it with a spoon (not that I did that or anything!). This recipe is deceptively simple. It doesn't take incredible baking skill; you just need some simple techniques. You can play around with fillings and frostings (my husband has requested strawberry filling with fudge frosting for next week's dessert) and make it your own.
Below is a shot of the cupcakes right after I filled them with lemon curd. YUM.

Cupcake Ingredients:

1/2 cup lemon curd (you can buy this or make it yourself...this is one of the few ingredients I tend to buy rather than make)

1 stick of softened butter

2 tsp. vanilla

3 jumbo eggs

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 cup vitamin D milk

Frosting Ingredients:
8oz. softened cream cheese

1 1/2 sticks butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1/3 cup lemon curd

1 tbsp. lemon juice

zest of 1/2 lemon

Cupcake Assembly:

Cream the butter and sugar over medium high speed until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix. Add the vanilla and continue mixing. Add the flour, baking powder and salt then mix on low to combine (don't over-beat or your cupcakes will be too dense). Fill silicone cups or a cupcake tin 3/4 full and bake at 325 for about 12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely. Use a paring knife to cut a circle from the middle of each cupcake (about 1/2 inch down). Pop out the center and fill each cupcake with lemon curd (a piping bag is great, but a spoon works too!).

Frosting Assembly:
Whip butter and cream cheese. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix on medium until light and fluffy. Put the frosting in a piping bag and use a large star tip. Frost each cupcake in a circle, starting at at the outside and working your way inward. Chill for 30 minutes to allow the frosting to set before serving.

Simply Sauteed Spinach

My husband has never been a fan of spinach until I prepared it in my absolute favorite way for him as a side dish to accompany risotto. In my humble opinion, fresh spinach is the only way to go. Lightly sauteed with a quick dressing of lemon juice and oil, this recipe will convince even the most dedicated spinach-haters to eat every last bite! Just a word of advice before you read the recipe: use more spinach than you think you will need. It wilts into much smaller portions!

Serves 2

Ingredients:
4 large handfuls of fresh baby spinach (about 3 cups or so)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 lemon wedge
Kosher salt
black pepper
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 small pinch of nutmeg (optional)

Assembly:
Saute garlic and spinach in olive oil over medium heat until spinach wilts (you will need to toss the mixture so that the garlic does not burn). Squeeze lemon wedge over spinach and add salt/pepper to taste. Add nutmeg and toss.

Alternative preparation:
If you're not really fond of a strong garlic flavor, you can slice the garlic and saute it, then remove it from the pan before adding the spinach. This way your spinach will have a wonderful hint of garlic without you biting into any small pieces.

Technique Tuesday: Citrus Tips

I absolutely love cooking with citrus! I make a lot of different marinades and dressings using citrus juice and zest; they can breathe new life into almost any food! Using orange, lemon, lime, and even grapefruit adds so much to a dish. Bright and clean, the flavor of citrus perks up all sorts of salads, sandwiches and entrees. They can be used in a variety of different ways and are relatively inexpensive to purchase (and very easily attainable too!). Below are some quick little tips on making the most out of your citrus in the kitchen.
1. Don't forget to zest!
The zest of citrus fruit is jam-packed with flavor. Make sure to buy a grater or hydroplane (you can get these very inexpensively at a hardware store) and add some zest to anything calling for citrus juice to add extra zing to your recipe. Make sure, however, that you are not zesting past the peel. The white layer under the peel is pretty bitter, so keep this in mind when zesting.

2. Juicing 101
For a citrus fruit that is underripe, you can pop it in the microwave for 10 seconds. You can also roll it around on the counter, breaking up the membranes inside. If juicing by hand, squeeze the fruit upside down to ensure that you aren't getting any errant seeds in your bowl. If you don't have a manual or electric juicer, try biting down on the fruit (this works best for small citrus like limes) to squeeze out the maximum amount of juice (just make sure you're catching seeds).

3. Marinades
The acid in citrus makes it a great candidate for marinades. You want to make sure, however, that you are not marinating proteins in citrus-based marinades for too long, because the protein will begin to 'cook' in the citrus if left for a long time. Particularly great with fish (I love lemon, garlic and oil), citrus-based marinades are a wonderful flavor boosting time saver!

4. Vinaigrettes
I love making vinaigrettes; they're healthy, light and delicious! They pair well with salads and vegetables and can be used as a quick marinade for proteins too. Just swap out the vinegar for some citrus juice and you will have a sure winner.

5. Choosing your citrus
Lime flavor pairs really well with Mexican and Asian foods. Used quite a bit in Thai dishes, limes add freshness and a sweet-sour flavor that is unparalleled. I loved using lime juice in combination with chipotle in adobo for a delicious chicken marinade. Grapefruit is a fun flavor that is often underestimated; try it in a salad dressing and you will be pleasantly suprised by the flavor profile it imparts. Lemons are great for marinating fish and other proteins. I add lemon juice to my shish-kebab marinade and use it for a glaze used on cornish game hens.

Easy marinade for tilapia:
juice and zest of one lemon
salt
black pepper
1 clove of finely minced garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
splash of white wine

You can make a lemon compound butter by combining room temperature butter with lemon zest and juice to add to the cooked fish before serving. Incredible!