Vijay's birthday cake

An explosion of chocolate an peanut butter...just what Vijay requested!

Basically a sour cream chocolate cake with a hidden layer of chopped up peanut butter cups. A frosting of chocolate and peanut butter and sprinkled with honey roasted peanuts. The birthday boy was very happy.

Spicy Quinoa with Sweet Potatoes and Avocado

This dish may not look pretty but it was pretty darn tasty. It was made up while at the grocery store with my only criteria being that it had to include quinoa, avocado and pine nuts.

I sauteed a shallot, 2 cloves of garlic and cooked them until soft and fragrant. I added a diced sweet potato (one large one, about 1 lb). Then added some cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper (I didn't measure I just started throwing things in because I was hungry and really, what could go wrong??). I added a splash of veggie broth, covered the pan and cooked until the sweet potatoes were soft but not falling apart.

In a separate pan I toasted 1 cup of quinoa until it was lightly brown and smelled nutty (in my limited quinoa experience this toasting step makes a BIG difference). Add 2 cups of broth (veggie or chicken) and cook until all the liquid is absorbed and then tun off heat and cover. Then I added 2 cups of cooked quinoa to the sweet potato and tested for seasoning (add S&P at this stage if needed).

Stir in a very generous handful of cilantro and garnish with diced avocado and toasted pine nuts. Just ridiculously tasty and comes together in 15-20 minutes.

Chewy Chocolate Chips Cookies

I love America's Test Kitchen. I have a not so secret crush on Mr Grouchypants Chris Kimball. This recipe comes from the ATK Family Baking book. The chewy factor comes from the use of melted butter, lots of brown sugar and an extra egg yolk. I have made these a million times and I thought I should finally post the recipe for anyone who hasn't tried them.

Ingredients:

2 c plus 2 Tbs AP flour
1 c packed brown sugar (I used dark brown)
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks butter (melted)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Beat sugars and melted butter together for 3-4 minutes
2. Add eggs and vanilla
3. In a seperate bowl sift all other dry ingredients
4. Add flour mixture and beat only until combined (30 seconds)
5. Add chocolate chips and stir in completely

6. Roll 2 Tbs balls and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone sheet
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes until still soft on the inside (do not overbake!)
8. After they have been removed from the oven, let the cookies sit on the baking tray to finish cooking for 10 minutes.



Try to only eat 3 while they are still warm from the oven. Otherwise you will get a tummy ache...not that I would know.

Carrot and Ginger Soup

It was rainy and nasty outside so I decided to make some hot soup for Kiran and I. I had half a fennel bulb, half an onion, some garlic, ginger and carrots on hand so that's what got turned into a fragrant and silky soup. I was suprised how quick, tasty and healthy it was.

Ingredients: (Makes 2-4 servings depending on how many miles you have run that morning)

1/2 medium fennel bulb (reserve a few fronds for serving)
1/2 walla walla sweet onion
4-5 large carrots
3 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp crushed ginger
1-2 tsp cumin (to taste)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp chili powder
3/4 tsp brown sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive Oil
Greek Yogurt for serving
Method:

Saute sliced onion and fennel in Olive Oil with garlic and ginger. When softened add chopped carrots, cumin, cinnamon, chili powder and brown sugar and cook until spices are fragrant. Add enough vegetable stock to cover and simmer until the carrots are very tender. Blend with trusty immersion blender until smooth. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Serve with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt (or creme fraiche if you're fancy) on top and some fennel fronds. Also serve with a crusty baguette smothered in real butter for added yum factor.

Fennel, Tomato and Basil Soup

I decided to conduct a soup experiment tonight. That is, use the enormous fennel bulb I got in my hippie box and make it into something edible, soup-esque and hopefully tasty. Mum bought me an immersion blender a few months a go and it was actually taken out of the box tonight. As usual the recipe is pretty fluid (add whatever you think will be tasty) but here is the basic idea:

Slice a fennel bulb, a large onion, and 2 cloves of garlic. Saute in olive oil until soft and starting to brown (the caramelized bits are the TASTY bits :). Season with salt and pepper before adding 2 cups of good vegetable stock and a can of crushed tomatoes. At this stage I added some chili flakes but these can be omitted for the non spice obsessed among us.

Simmer for 10 minutes before adding 2 tablespoons of fresh basil. Now comes the fun part: Stick the blender in amongst the fun and make some seriously tasty soup. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.

Enjoy with crusty bread for dunking....mmmmgh!

Ginger cookies

My favorite Ironman has a penchant for gingersnaps so I thought I would bake him these. My aim was to get a chewy cookie with a crackly crust.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 C. flour
2 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
3/4 C. butter (1.5 sticks)
1 C packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 C molasses

1/4 C + 1 tsp cinnamon granulated sugar for rolling

Method:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the first 6 dry ingredients together with the room temp butter. Mix until in all resembles brown sugar, then mix in the brown sugar. Blend in the egg and molasses until thoroughly combined.
Roll into Tablespoon balls and coat in granulated sugar.
Place on parchment lined cookie sheet, 2 inches apart.
Bake 10 minutes. This will give a soft inside. Cook an extra minute for a crispy cookie.

Satay rice nodles

So my hippie box got delivered this morning and it was very colourful. I thought a veggie noodle satay would be an appropriate venue to showcase these colours. The satay sauce is really easy to make. The key is to not overcook the rice noodles. they DO NOT cook up like wheat noodles. They require only 2-3 minutes of cooking before turning rapidly into mush.

Satay Sauce:

* Soy sauce
* Crunch peanut butter
* Garlic
* Ginger
* Chilli flakes
* Rice wine vinegar
* Honey

Serve with chopped cilantro and crushed peanuts. OMG Yum!!!

Spicy Potato and Zucchini Tacos

Signing up for a CSA box will make you cook and sometimes the results are suprisingly awesome :) I am getting my next delivery of organic produce in 3 days and I still had to get rid of a bunch of potatos and zucchini. So I thought I would make some vegetarian tacos for my wonderful friend Dottie and I. I don't have a recipe here because I just threw stuff into the potato mixture until it was delicious. It started with onions and lots of garlic sauteing in olive oil. Then I added cubed potatos, cumin, coriander, chilli powder, oregano, salt and pepper. When the potatos are half cooked I added the diced zucchini. Cook until soft and your mouth is watering. Serve with warm corn tortillas and the usual suspects: fresh cilantro, queso fresco (or feta in a pinch), avocado and tomato slices. The avocado and tomatoes are so good this time of year that this makes a perfectly simple and seasonal dinner. Perfect to plan a trip to India over...

Shortcakes

Even though it was a cold and rainy 4th of July I thought it would be fun and appropriate to make strawberry shortcakes for Independence day. This is a foolproof recipe and doesn't require any technical equipment.

Ingredients:

3 cups all purpose flour
3 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Method:

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Toss with a fork to combine. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or a fork (or fingers if you have cold fingers like me) until the largest pieces of butter are the size of peas. Combine the cream and vanilla in a liquid measure. Make a well in the center of the flour and and pour the cream mixture into the well. Mix with a fork until the dough is evenly moistened and just combined; it should look shaggy and still feel a little dry. Gently knead by hand five or six times to create a loose ball.

Turn the dough out onto a piece of parchment paper and pat it into an 8-inch square, 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Cover with plastic and chill for 20 minutes in the refrigerator. Heat the oven to 425ºF. Remove the dough from refrigerator. Cut the dough into 9 even squares and spread them about 2 inches apart from each other on the baking sheet. Pain with thin layr of cream. Bake until the biscuits are medium golden brown, 16 to 20 minutes.

Makes 9 biscuits.
Serve shortcakes filled with macerated strawberries and vanilla whipped cream. We had some left over biscuits. As these weren't too sweet they might be great the next day with eggs for breakfast or with a good fruit preserve for afternoon tea.

Mum's Broccoli-Hazelnut soup

Having your mum cook for you NEVER gets old. No matter how much I love to cook, nothing beats my mum's cooking. She also happens to be the most creative cook I know. This soup is a great example. We had a a tonne of broccoli and some left over toasted hazelnuts. Voila! Tasty, healthy goodness. I love you mum.

Ingredients:
* 2 heads of broccoli broken into florets
* 1 Tbsp flour
* 3 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
* 1 large Spanish onion, chopped
* 4 cloves of garlic (or more to taste)
* 1 cup 1% milk
* Salt and pepper to taste
* 1/2 tsp garam masala
* 1/2 tsp chilli powder
* Pinch nutmeg
* 2-3 Tbsp ground toasted hazelnuts (We had raw hazelnuts in the shell which we toasted in a 350F oven for 15-20 minutes until aromatic. We then ground them in the blender)

Method:
1. Saute onion and garlic in vegetable oil until transparent
2. Add flour and stir until flour loses its raw flavor
3. Add broccoli and 2-3 cups of water
4. Boil or pressure cook until very soft
5. Blend broccoli mixture with hazelnuts
6. Return to pot and add milk and spices
7. Warm soup and add salt and pepper to taste.

Red Rice Revelation

It's cold in Seattle so something warm and comforting for dinner is in order. To me nothing says comfort food more than rice. Something about growing up in an Indian family I suppose! Tonight I made fried rice with eggs, broccoli, bean sprouts, insane amounts of both ginger and cilantro and RED RICE. This stuff is chewy and nutty and adds great texture to vegetarian meals. This was a fantastic quick Monday night dinner.

$4 well spent!

Oh my gosh, Luke, Tony and I had dinner at the happy hour at Ivar's salmon Bar. I was very skeptical because the only other time I had been to Ivar's it was pretty awful and my memories are of fried blah! But tonight we had great food including an amazing beet, arugula and blue cheese salad for 4 dollars! I had the hummus plate with pickled onions and carrots and olives (also $4...wtf?). Luke had the fish and chips and Tony had the oyster shooters and seafood chowder. Plates were clean fairly quickly. Anyway, I'll be going back very soon...

Green beans and coconut curry

This is possibly the best weeknight dinner we have cooked in a while. Vijay is the sambar master so he made a pot of that and I made green bean poriyal (aka green bean curry with coconut). I have no measurements but I'll give a basic breakdown of what to do. Listen up Iacopi:

Put a big splash of any kind of vegetable oil in a high walled pan and throw in a half a palm full of mustard seeds and wait for them to start spluttering. Then throw in a quarter palmful of urad dal, a teaspoon of asafoetida, 2 teaspoons of tumeric and some dried red chillies into the now seasoned oil. Thrown in a few pounds of thin green beans (harico vert if you want to be fancy and french) and a handful of dessicated coconut. At this point I also add a tablespoon or two of my favorite hot curry powder and some extra hot chilli powder to taste (i.e., LOTS). Add a 1/4 cup of water, stir every 5 minutes until cooked (about 20 minutes). Enjoy with sambar made by Vijjy Pijjy and rice. Mango pickle would have been great but we are currently out.

Amy, you should come over and eat this!!!

Birthday Fruit Tart

My staff had this fruit tart made for me this morning instead of birthday cake because they know what a health nut I am :) I love those ladies!!

Veggie Quesadillas

I went to the University Farmers markt this Saturday for a lovely walking lunch which included unpasturized milk fresh from the farm, vegetable quesadillas and a roasted garlic ciabatta. These cheese and vegetable quesadillas on sundried tomato tortillas were especially scrumptious. The University farmers market in Seattle (50th and University Ave) is year round and full of great places for a walking lunch!

Tofu and Broccoli (Spicy!!) Fried Rice

I'll admit it, I am a Martha Rose Schulman groupie. Who the F is that you ask? Well she writes a column in the NY Times and her recipes are always healthy and tasty and often vegetarian (Yay!). I used her Broccoli fried rice recipe as an inspiration for my dinner tonight. I think I may have actually converted my carnivorous brother to tofu by covering it in egg and soy sauce :)

I made this in a large wok which is a bad idea when cooking for one because you cook way too much. Suffice to say that I ate every last bite :)

Basically I stir fried 1/3rd an onion, an insane amount of chopped red chilli, 2 cloves of garlic and an inch of ginger (I made a paste of the garlic and ginger using our mortar and pestle). Then I added broccoli florets, mushrooms and thinly sliced tofu until they were cooked through. I then added left over brown rice and a splash of soy sauce and dark sesame oil. If you have hoisin in the pantry this would be a good time to use it. Unfortunately I'm all out of Hoisin today.

When the rice was moist I made a space in the middle of the rice and cracked an egg in it and stired it around until it was cooked then mixed it through the rest of the rice. I then finished it up with a few grinds of cracked pepper and a handful of scallions.

A one pot (wok) meal - Bliss :)

Butternut squash ravioli

So I know this is a baking blog but I made these butternut squash ravioli today and they are allowed to be included because they are totally bad ass and taste unbelievable!

Filling:

1 medium butternut squash (roasted and mashed)
2 medium yams (sweet potatoes and mashed)
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste

Sage butter sauce:

4 Tbsp butter
6-8 sage leaves
1 Tbspn lemon juice