Ingredients: rye bread, crackers, cream cheese and toothpicks - not an earthquake resistant structure ;-)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Garlic Chives Pesto
Source: Everyday Mom blog
Difficulty: 1 (out of 5)
Taste: 5 (out of 5)
Ingredients
• 10 (approximately) garlic chives (or garlic scapes), roughly chopped (10 cal)
• 1/4 cup walnuts, lightly roasted (170 cal)
• 1/2 cup olive oil (960 cal)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmigiano cheese (80 cal)
Total: 1 cup of pesto, 4 servings, 1220 calories, 305 cal / serving
Directions
1. In a food processor combine garlic chives and walnuts. Blend until smooth and combined.
2. With the processor still running slowly add the olive oil forming a paste.
3. Scoop pesto into mixing bowl, gently mix in cheese.
4. Serve with your favorite pasta, adding a little pasta water to help coat the pasta, as the pesto is a little thick. Chicken or mushrooms go great with this pesto.
Afterthoughts
• This was my November Secret Recipe Club assignment. My Secret Blog was Everyday Mom, a great site with lots of delicious and simple recipes, that I’ve been following for a while now. And since this month is very busy for me, I chose a really simple recipe, which turned out super-delicious! Thanks, Kim :-).
• The original recipe calls for garlic scapes, the garlic equivalent of green onions. I have only seen those in farmers’ markets during the summer months, and now it’s late autumn. But I recently discovered garlic chives that are sold in our local Asian grocery stores, and I suspect taste quite similar. So that’s what I used.
• I froze half of the pesto and plan to use it as a pizza topping... What will that taste like? That is still a mystery, to keep the future full of good surprises ;-)
Monday, November 7, 2011
Chickpeas Feta Salad and Tahina
GARLICKY ROASTED CHICKPEAS WITH FETA AND MINT
Source: Katherine Martinelli blog
Taste 4 (out of 5)
Difficulty 2 (out of 5)
Ingredients
• 1 15-oz can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained (540 cal)
• 1 tbsp olive oil (120 cal)
• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced (15 cal)
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
• Salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• ¾ cup crumbled Feta (295 cal)
• ½ cup chopped fresh mint
• Lemon wedges
Total: 970 cal, 2 servings, 485 cal / serving
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 375F/190C.
2. Mix together the olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.
3. Put chickpeas into baking dish and toss with olive oil mixture until the chickpeas are well coated with oil. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Put chickpeas in the oven and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, until chickpeas are slightly browned and barely beginning to crisp.
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Transfer to a serving dish and stir in the feta and mint. Season with additional salt and pepper as needed. Serve with lemon wedges.
Afterthoughts
• This is a very simple, filling and healthy dish, a great accompaniment to any Middle Eastern meal.
• If you don’t have fresh mint, use dried.
TAHINA DIP
Source: Katherine Martinelli blog
Taste 4 (out of 5)
Difficulty 1 (out of 5)
Ingredients
• ½ cup tahini (710 cal)
• 4 tbsp lemon juice (15 cal)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (10 cal)
• ½ cup water
• ½ cup chopped parsley
• Salt
Total: ¾ cups, 735 cal
Directions
Mix all the ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Serve at room temperature.
Afterthoughts
Katherine’s original directions have more steps, but I combined them all. Check out her post if you don’t want your tahina to be all green :-)
Friday, October 21, 2011
Molasses Cookies
Source: adapted from Allrecipes
Taste: 4 out of 5
Difficulty: 1 out of 5
Ingredients
• 3/4 cup margarine, melted (1215 cal)
• 1 cup white sugar (780 cal)
• 1 egg (70 cal)
• 1/4 cup molasses (245 cal)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (910 cal)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda mixed with 1 tbsp apple vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoon ground orange zest
• 1/2 cup white sugar (390 cal)
Total: 30 cookies, 3610 cal, 120 cal / cookie
Directions
1. Combine all the ingredients using a mixer. Cover, and chill dough for 1 hour.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Roll dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining white sugar. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until tops are cracked. Cool on wire racks.
Afterthoughts
These cookies are very soft and chewy, but it seems I am not a huge fan of molasses. I will try them next time with brown sugar instead :-)
Monday, October 10, 2011
Cheese Bread
Source Kitchen Trial and Error blog
Taste 5 (out of 5)
Difficulty 1 (out of 5)
Ingredients
• 2 eggs (140 cal)
• 3 tbsp canola oil (360 cal)
• 1 cup milk (120 cal)
• 1 tablespoon sugar (45 cal)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (910 cal)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp mustard powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese (660 cal)
Total: 2235 cal, 10 slices, 225 cal / slice
Directions
1. Mix the eggs, the oil, the milk, the sugar and the salt.
2. Add the dry ingredients and mix until there are no lumps.
3. Mix in the shredded cheese.
4. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and pour in the batter.
5. Bake for 45 minutes in an oven preheated to 375F.
6. Serve warm.
Afterthoughts
1. I am not sure whether it’s a crustless quiche, a biscuit or bread, but it’s certainly very tasty, especially warm out of the oven. It’s very easy to finish half the loaf. There is a lot of cheese in this bread, but it does not in the slightest feel greasy or heavy.
2. If you don’t finish the loaf on the first day, seal it in a zip lock bag, store in the fridge and reheat in microwave (but of course chances are you won’t have any leftovers).
3. I greased the loaf pan very thoroughly with shortening, but the bread was all stuck to the pan (I suppose because of the melted cheese) and it was extremely difficult to take the bread out and then to wash the pan. Next time I will definitely use parchment paper, and maybe grease it too.
4. Saving the best for last ;-) : if you have not visited Kate’s blog Kitchen Trial and Error yet, you certainly should. She has lots of great recipes, both sweet and savory, and I’ve been reading and loving it for a long time. And I am not saying that just because my blog is called Cookbook of Trial and Error :-). I think my next trial (and I hope a successful one) from Kate’s blog will be her caramel corn, something I’ve been wanting to make for a year now.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Cheese Cake with Sour Cream
Source: a friend’s mom
Taste 5 out of 5
Difficulty 2 out of 5
Ingredients
For the base
• 130 g animal crackers (520 cal)
• 70 g melted butter (500 cal)
For the cheese layer
• 400 g farmers cheese (310 cal)
• 100 g buttermilk or yogurt (65 cal)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (10 cal)
• 2 eggs (140 cal)
• 2/3 cup sugar (510 cal)
For the top layer
• 300 g sour cream (640 cal)
• 1/3 cup sugar (255 cal)
Total 2950 cal, 12 servings, 245 cal/serving
Directions
1. Crush the animal cracker in a food processor to a powder consistency. Transfer the cracker powder into a clean bowl and mix with the melted butter. Press the resulting mixture into a greased 9 inch cake pan – you don’t need to coat the sides of the pan, only the bottom. You can also use a 5”x7” square Pyrex pan, if you want to make cheese cake squares.
2. In a food processor, mix together all the ingredients for the cheese layer to uniform consistency and pour onto the cracker layer.
3. Bake for 5 minutes in an over preheated to 400F/200C and then for another 15 minutes at 350F/180C.
4. In the meantime mix the sour cream with the sugar. After the cake has been baking for 20 minutes, take it out of the oven; pour the sour cream on top of the cake and bake for another 5 minutes.
5. Let the cake cool at room temperature and then chill in the fridge for another 2 hours before serving.
Afterthoughts
• This is a really delicious light cheese cake. Using quark or farmer’s cheese is a great alternative to cream cheese; it has almost 5 times less calories and is not as heavy and greasy. It also has this nice tanginess to it. If you don’t have quark or farmer’s cheese, no worries, you can use 500 g of Greek yogurt instead of farmer’s cheese and buttermilk.
• The only mistake I’ve made with this cake was the bottom layer, next time I will use cracker crumbs, not powder, and will add less sugar. In my case the base was too soggy.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Chocolate Hazelnut Financiers
Source
Adapted from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme
Taste 4 (out of 5)
Difficulty 2 (out of 5)
Ingredients
- 60 g bittersweet chocolate, chopped (365 cal)
- 2 large eggs (140 cal)
- 75 g sugar (290 cal)
- 60 g finely ground hazelnuts (180 cal)
- 75 g butter or margarine (540 cal)
- 60 g lukewarm water
- 30 g all-purpose flour (110 cal)
Total: 10 financiers, 1625 calories, 160 cal/financier
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 350F/180C and butter and flour 10 financier molds (relatively flat molds with capacity of about 3 tbsp of water).
2. Place the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl, heat on high for 30 second, mix the chocolate with a spoon and repeat about 3 times, until the chocolate is melted. Set aside to cool to room temperature. You can also melt the chocolate in double broiler, but I find the microwave faster.
3. In a mixer fitted with a whisk, whip the eggs and the sugar until slightly fluffy, then add the powdered hazelnuts and continue beating until mixed and pale in color.
4. Add the butter in 4-5 chunks. Keep scraping the sides of the bowl as you are working.
5. Add the water and lastly, the chocolate, and continue beating until the mixture is homogenous.
6. With a rubber spatula gently mix in the flour.
7. Using a small 2-2 1/2 tbsp capacity ice cream scoop, pour the batter into the prepared molds and bake them in the preheated oven for 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into a financier comes out clean and the cookies are slightly springy to touch.
8. Remove the cookies from the oven, let them cool in the molds for about 3 minutes, and then unmold them by inverting them onto the cooling rack. Serve at room temperature.
9. It’s best to serve financiers immediately, because they become a bit sticky when you store them in the refrigerator.
Afterthoughts
1. These cake-like cookies are pretty tasty, soft and somewhat reminiscent of chocolate gateau. But I guess I had super high expectations from a combination of hazelnuts and dark chocolate, so I give in only 4 on taste.
2. I have never eaten “real” financiers, which are supposed to be made with almonds, and not hazelnuts, and without chocolate. And I also tweaked the original recipe quite a bit, so I don’t know if what I got is even called financiers :-).
3. Most recipes call for roasted nuts, with skins removed. And up to this recipe I have followed those instructions. But now I decided that since I love raw plane nuts more than roasted, why not keep them raw and skin-on in baking as well. I have not had the same recipe with roasted nuts, but I suspect I would not have felt the difference. And I saved 20 minutes roasting and cleaning the nuts.
4. Dorie Greenspan’s book says that financiers are called thus, because they were first made at a pastry shop near la Bourse (stock exchange) in Paris, whose main customers were rich financiers. The original financiers were baked in small rectangular molds, and since they were goldish (as they did not have chocolate) they resembled bars of gold.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Naan
Easy and delicious homemade Indian flatbread for the Secret Recipe Club
Source Paulchen’s Foodblog
Taste: 5 (out of 5)
Difficulty: 2 (out of 5)
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting (1820 cal)
- 11/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground fenugreek
- about 11/4 cups water
Total: 1820 cal, 3 naan breads, 605 cal / naan
Instructions
1. Line a baking sheet. Put the flour, salt and yeast into a bowl and add enough water to make a soft, but not sloppy dough. Add the ground seeds, then divide the dough into three pieces and put on the baking sheet. Let rest for 1 hour.
2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and, using a rolling pin, flatten each piece into a circle, 10 inches / 25.5 cm in diameter, and let rest for 5 minutes.
3. Heat a skillet to a medium heat and add a splash of olive oil. Shallow-fry each naan until browned on both sides. After removing naan from the pan, lightly butter it on both sides to keep the surface soft then set aside to cool slightly before serving.
Afterthoughts
- My Secret Recipe Club assignment for September was Paulchen’s Foodblog. It’s a great blog with many delicious recipes, but the part that instantly caught my attention was the Bread Baking Babes tab, under which I found lots of bread recipes. And since I’ve been thinking about making naan for some time now, it was the natural choice.
- This was a very tasty naan and really simple to make. The original recipe suggested using caraway seeds, but I did not have those, so I used fenugreek. I am sure many other spices will work equally well, like curry powder, turmeric, coriander, etc.
- I have made naan before from my beloved 5 minutes a day no knead dough. It tasted great, but that was a very wet dough, so it was a bit difficult to shape. This dough was really pliable and easy to work with.
- We had this naan with a homemade paneer in tomato-yogurt sauce, and a nectarine lassi. Yum!
Monday, August 15, 2011
Quinoa not so Tabbouleh Salad
Source
An Opera Singer’s Kitchen blog
Taste 5 (out of 5)
Difficulty 1 (out of 5)
Ingredients
- 1 cup quinoa (625 cal)
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 avocado, diced (160 cal)
- 1/2 tomato, diced (10 cal)
- 5 red radishes, diced (5 cal)
- 5 green onions, chopped (5 cal)
- 1/2 cup parsley, chopped
- 1/2 cup yellow pepper, diced (10 cal)
- 1/2 cup English cucumber, diced (10 cal)
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (1 tsp in the original recipe)
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 3 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar (35 cal)
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (240 cal)
Total: 1100 cal, 4 servings, 275 cal / serving
Instructions
1. Wash the 1 cup of quinoa in a colander for several seconds. Add quinoa, 1 1/2 cups of water and salt to a small pot and boil for 15 minutes. You will know it is cooked when it becomes soft and you see little white antennas pop from the grain.
2. Meanwhile, wash all your veggies well and chop and dice them accordingly.
3. Add all the veggies to a medium glass bowl and toss. In a small bowl mix the red wine vinegar, olive oil and all the spices and blend well. Add the vinaigrette to the salad and enjoy.
4. Will keep for 1 day, but best eaten the same day.
Afterthoughts
1. This salad can be served both as a side or all by itself. The ingredients are all healthy and the textures and flavors combine into a delicious, colorful and happy salad.
2. Noell’s blog http://www.singerskitchen.com/ was my August assignment from the Secret Recipe Club. I have visited it many times before and was very happy to finally make one of her recipes. If you have not yet, check out this blog, especially if you’re looking for vegan recipes!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Peach Pie
Source
Adapted from Feast on the Cheap
Taste 5 (out of 5)
Difficulty 2 (out of 5)
Ingredients
For the Pie Crust (1390 cal)
- 1 1/4 cups flour (570 cal)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp sugar (10 cal)
- 1 stick / 8 tbsp unsalted butter, sliced (810 cal)
- 1/4 cup ice water
For the Filling (2110 cal)
- 2 1/2 lbs / 7-8 peaches, peeled and sliced (430 cal)
- 1 cup sugar (775 cal)
- 2 eggs (140 cal)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 5 tbsp flour (275 cal)
- 8 oz sour cream (490 cal)
Total: 1 9-inch pie, 3500 cal, 8 servings, 440 cal/serving
Instructions
For pie crust
1. Arm the food processor with its metal blade and pour in all of the Pie Crust ingredients, except the ice water. Press pulse for about 10 seconds or so, until the dry ingredients appear like coarse meal.
2. Slowly, through the feed tube, drizzle the iced water while simultaneously pressing the pulse button. This step is critical – don’t over mix the dough as it will quickly toughen. You want to “pulse” it just until it holds together.
3. Lay a piece of plastic wrap on the counter and turn the dough out onto it. With very gently pressure, first form the mixture into a ball, then using the flat of your hands press it into a flat disc. Remember, the less you handle and maul the pie dough, the flakier the result.
4. Wrap the plastic around the disc and refrigerate it for one hour. *(You can refrigerate it up to three days before or freeze it for a month.)
5. On a floured counter top roll out the pastry to fit a nine-inch pie plate. You need about a one-inch overhang for crimping/fluting the edges. Transfer the rolled out dough to the pie plate.
For Filling
6. To peel the peaches easily, bring a large pot of water to boil. Drop 2 or 3 peaches at a time into the water and allow to cook for 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to an ice water bath. The peaches are so much easier to peel using this method. Simply prick their boiled skins with a paring knife and the skin just falls away.
7. Blend all of the Filling ingredients together. Transfer to the prepared pie crust and cover with the Lattice Topping ingredients.
8. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, then 350 degrees for 40 minutes until firm and brown. Be certain that the pie really does feel firm to the touch when finished. The flour acts much the way cornstarch or arrowroot does, thickening the sour cream, and the filling should not be runny but has an almost pudding-like consistency.
Afterthoughts
- This is a delicious dessert, so fragrant and rich; the sweetness of the peaches and the tanginess of sour cream combine to create a wonderful aroma.
- I have seen this recipe on Feast on the Cheap a while ago, and had it on my wish list. How happy I was to be assigned this wonderful blog for the Secret Recipe Club and especially during the peach season :-)
- The original recipe has twice more dough for the crust. Half was supposed to be used for a lettice topping. I used only half to save calories and work :-)
- My pie pan is low and the amount of filling was probably 1 1/2 times more than it could hold. I guess the original recipe is meant for a deep pan.
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