Lemony ricotta bundt cake

Lemony Ricotta Bundt cake

• 1  stick unsalted butter At room temperature
• 8 oz part skim ricotta cheese
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• dash of orange extract
• dash of vanilla extract
• zest of 1 large, organic, untreated meyer lemon (save rest for glaze)
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds
• 1  cup all-purpose flour
• 1.5 Teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

For The Lemon Glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• juice of half lemon

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour the bundt pan.
2. In a large mixer bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the ricotta cheese and blend well. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each. Add the extracts and lemon zest and mix until fully combined.
3. Add the sliced almonds and gently mix in.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and soda.
5. Add the dry ingredients in several smaller parts, mixing just until incorporated.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spoon as needed.
7. Bake 40-45 minutes, or until the cake tester comes out clean.
8. Let cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
   Cool completely.
9. Whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice until smooth and thick.
10. Drizzle the lemon glaze over the top of the cake.
11. Let the glaze set for 30 minutes and then cut into wedges and serve.

I poured the cake batter into a regular 10 cup bundt form (the amounts are for a 6 cup bundt cake pan), and it came out like a large ring with smaller slices, just right for the afternoon coffee.

BabyCat approves.

Palak without the Paneer

This is a creamed version of spinach, done the Indian way: the palak part of the Indian dish palak (spinach) paneer (soft cheese).  

Palak witout the Paneer

• 2 bags of frozen spinach, thawed, not squeezed
• 1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and grated
• 1 Thai chile diced (optional)
• 1 tablespoon ghee
• 5 to 6 black peppercorns
• 1 cardamom pod
• 2 cloves 
• 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon fenugreek leaves
• pinch of cinnamon 
• 2 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 medium garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 1 cup diced tomatoes, about 1-inch pieces 
• 1/2 teaspoon agave syrup (or sugar)
• 3/4 to 1 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 cup ricotta (optional) 

1. Put the thawed spinach, the ginger and the thai chili in a blender with 1 cup of water, and puree into a smooth puree. Set aside.
2. Roughly crush peppercorns, cardamom and cloves in a mortar and pestle and throw out the cardamom skin. If using a spice grinder, remove the cardamom skin and use only the seeds (save the cardamom skin for chai). Add the turmeric, fenugreek leaves, and cinnamon and stir.
3. Heat a thick-bottomed pan with the heat at medium. Add the spice powder and roast for 1/2 minute to make them fragrant. Add the ghee and wait until it is melted.  Add the chopped onion, and garlic and saute for 3 minutes until translucent. Add the tomatoes and agave, and sauteed for 1-2 minutes.
4. Pour the spinach into the pan. Add salt and 1/2 cup water to adjust consistency. You can add a little bit more if you find the sauce is getting pasty.
5. Once the spinach mixture boils, reduce the heat, and let simmer for about 10 minutes.
6. Add garam masala. After 4 to 5 minutes, pour ricotta.
7. Eat with naan or over rice with a curry, or just as palak.

Curried hummus

Curried hummus

• 2 cups of chickpeas (ca. 1 cup of dried chickpeas cooked in the slow cooker with a bay leaf for 4-5h)
• 3-4 garlic cloves, peeled (or less)
• 2 TB olive oil
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 2 TB maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 TB curry powder
• salt to taste
• Optional: 1/2 tea spoon garam massala, 1/2 ts roasted sesame oil

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Add water if mixture is too thick. Serve.

Stamping tropical tea towels

The tricky question was: how to transfer the design on the linoleum block? I glued the leaves to a piece of paper, and with a tracing pencil traced the leaves’ outline. Then, turned the paper around and traced the outline again, so that some of the original tracing would rub off on the linoleum block.

Hand-stamped tea towels

Turns out it is fairly easy to hand-stamp tea towels (this is a good tutorial, this one, too). I bought some inexpensive flour sack towels on Amazon for $8  and a liquid (Liquitex Professional Fabric Medium) that I mixed with my acrylic colors to create fabric dyes.

It worked best using an inexpensive foam roller that I soaked with paint and then rolled over the stamp.  The towels dried for 48h, and then I ironed them to make the color permanent.

A whiff of summer

The winter was the mildest on record, but the trees took a beating, with high wind storms.



I finally made it to Long Grain in Camden. The Thai beef salad completely wow-ed me. It was quite spicy but with vibrant flavors and the meat so buttery soft it must have been a really good steak.

Banana muffins (GF)

Yumm.
Banana muffins (GF)

• 1/6 (40ml) cup olive oil
• 1/6 (40ml) maple syrup
• 1/2 TB vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup (30ml) plain Greek yogurt
• 1 large egg
• 1 ripe banana, smashed
• 1/2 cup quinoa flour
• 1/2 cup GF all-purpose flour
• 1 TB golden flax meal (I only had brown flax)
• dash of sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare a baking sheet with silicon molds (they are typically too floppy if not placed on a baking sheet).
2. Mix the wet ingredients with a hand mixer in a bowl: olive oil, maple syrup, egg, Greek yogurt, vanilla extract and banana.
3. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl: flours, flax seed, salt, baking soda and baking powder.
4. Mix both wet and dry ingredients until smooth.
5. Pour about 2 TB of dough into a small mold. The muffins will rise, and if you want ‘flat’ daisies, don’t overfill the pan.
6. Bake for 20-25 min, depending on the size of the molds (longer if you use a single pan). Cool and unmold.
7. Optional: dust with confectioner’s sugar.
8. Eat fresh, they taste best in the first 1-2 days.

Lemon Fennel Celery Salad a la Jamie Oliver

Meyer Lemon, Fennel, Celery and Mint salad

• 1-2 fennel bulbs (greens cut off)
• 1 celery heart
• 1 Meyer lemon (organic)
• pinch of salt
• 1 bunch of mint
• 1 TB olive oil
• 1 TB red wine or white wine vinegar (optional)

Necessary: mandoline or wide-mouthed food processor with a slicing inset.

1. Finely slice the fennel, celery, and Meyer lemon into a bowl.
2. Chop the mint leaves (or add to the food processor)
3. Remove the vegetables, and gently mix by hand. Add a pinch of salt, and the olive oil.
4. Garnish with some mind and fennel prongs. Serve.

Triple Chocolate Cookies

Triple Chocolate Cookies

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) salted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup firmly packed dark or light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In the bowl of an stand electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream the room temperature soft butter and the 2 types of sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and mix together.
4. Add the flour mixture and continue mixing until just combined.
5. Now, add the chocolate chips, and mix until combined.
6. Using a small ice cream scoop, drop the dough two inches apart on sheet pans lined with parchment (makes about 6 cookies per regular sized cookie sheet, and 3 cookie sheets overall plus 3 small cookies).
7. Bake for 15 minutes.
8. Cool the cookies on the cookie sheets (! don’t move them, they will fall apart!). The cookies should be very soft when they are removed from the oven. They will firm up as they cool (10 min).

Overnight tomato sauce

Overnight tomato sauce

• 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 small carrots, peeled and cut into small dice
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and grated (microplane!)
• 1 TB olive oil
• 2 small cans or 1 large can of Redpack diced tomatoes
• 1 large can of Wholefoods fire-roasted tomatoes
• 1/4 cup Trader Joes red pepper spread
• 1 TB chopped, preferably fresh rosemary
• 1 TB dark agave nectar

1. In a large, heavy bottom pot, heat the olive oil and fry the onions first. Once translucent, add the carrots and garlic and fry for just a minute.
2. Blend the 3 cans of tomatoes in a food processor and add to the pot.
3. Stir, and add the red pepper spread, and rosemary.
4. Bring to a bubble, and then reduce the heat and cook for 2h on low heat. A third of the liquid should evaporate for a thick sauce.
5. Add the dark agave nectar at the end. Stir and serve.

Slow cooker version:

1. In a frying pan, heat the olive oil and fry the onions first. Once translucent, add the carrots and garlic and fry for just a minute. Turn off the heat.
2. Blend the 3 cans of tomatoes in a food processor and add to the slow cooker.
3. Add in the red pepper spread, rosemary, and fried onions.
4. Cook on low overnight.
5. Add the dark agave nectar at the end. Stir and serve.

In the land of kimchi

It’s best to watch the video for more instructions.

Easy Kimchi (according to Maangchi):
Cabbage:

• 10 pounds of napa cabbage (adjust the recipe if you use less. I used 7 pounds).
• 1 cup of kosher salt

Cut napa cabbage into bite-size pieces. Wash and soak the cabbage for a few minutes. Then salt the cabbage in a large bowl and let sit for 1.5 hours. Every 30 min gently mix and turn over the cabbage. After 1.5h, rinse the cabbage and drain.


Meanwhile make…
Porridge:

• 3 cup of water
• 1/2 cup of white sweet rice flour
• 1/4 cup of white or coconut sugar

In a pot, hit the water with the rice flour and constantly stir. With in 3-5 min, the porridge will thicken up. Add the sugar, and stir some more for 1min. Take off heat. Let cool to room temperature.

Ginger-garlic paste:

• 1 cup of peeled garlic cloves
• 2 TB of fresh ginger
• 1 cup of fish sauce
• 1 medium sized white onion, peeled

Place in food processor and process for 1 min.

Porrigde-Chili paste:

• Mix the cooled porridge with the ginger-garlic paste.
• add 1-2 cups of chili flakes (just 1/2-1 cup if you don’t like it too hot)
• mix it all up.
• Add
  • 2 carrots, thinly sliced
  • 1 cup of daikon, thinly sliced
  • 1 bunch of scallions, sliced on an angle
• Mix the vegetables in the paste.

Make kimchi:

• Prepare a large storage container with a tight fitting lid. You will store the kimchi in the fridge to ferment for a few weeks.
• Put on some rubber gloves.
• In a bowl, mix a portion of salted, drained cabbage with a laddle full of chili paste. Mix up, and place in storage container.
• Mix until all is mixed up and placed in storage container.
• Place in fridge and wait for fermentation. It will start after 2 days, and smell slightly sour.

Coconut waffles (vegan)

It is Friday. A lot went through my mind this week. Is the zika virus really such an explosively spreading threat as it is made out to be? Is it really responsible for the birth defects reported in Brazil? The whole hysteria eerily reminds me of Dan Brown novel “Inferno”.  I read somewhere that scientists try to bio-engineer a male mosquito that, if pairing with a female of the zika carrying mosquito species, the female would lay eggs that don’t develop into mosquitos. Inferno 2, revenge of the humans.

It would be funny if it would not be concerning.

Yesteryday, I read a blog post on the Bloggess, about Dave.  It made me think that I watch too much hulu and surf the internet to keep up with people I often don’t even know.

It is mild outside. Much of our snow has melted. It feels more like March than end of January, and mentally I am steering towards spring and summer, making mental notes about spring fashion and running outdoors again.

This week I experimented with a new recipe, coconut waffles. This is an easy recipe and gives waffles a bit of an exotic edge. Have  a good weekend!

Coconut waffles (vegan)

Makes 4 smaller waffles (1 breakfast for 2 not so hungry people)

• 1/2 cup of allpurpose flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 TB of coconut flour
• 1 TB of raw coconut sugar
• small dash of cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of coconut milk (used the drinkable kind, not the canned)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon for raw grated ginger (optional, but cuts through the sweetness)

1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, and then add the wet ingredients. Combine and mix until the waffle dough is smooth.
2. Preheat waffle iron (depending on the model, a green light goes on). Spray with nonstick canola oil spray (or wipe with some oil).
3. Bake waffles according to the waffle maker's instructions, which usually means putting about 1/4 cup batter on the iron, closing, and waiting for a light to go out. I baked mine longer than the light signal (about 4 min altogether so that they are on the crispy side).
4. Serve to your liking.  I just had them with butter and jam.

Spicy Mung Bean Curry with Potatoes

Spicy Moong Dal with Potatoes (Bangaladumpa Upma Koora)
Makes 2-3 servings

• 1-2 TB of grapeseed oil (or high heat, neutral tasting oil)
• 1 teaspoon of mustard seeds
• 2-3 small dried hot peppers, crushed (Pequin Red Chilis)
• 1/2 cup of moong dal (shelled split mung beans)
• 1 pinch of  asafoetida
• 1 TB of grated fresh  ginger  (I keep my ginger frozen, it last longer)
• 1 larger white onion, peeled and finely diced
• 1 spring of fresh curry leaves
• 1/2 ts of ground tumeric
• salt to taste
• 1/2 cup of tomato paste
• 12 small waxy yellow baby potatoes
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 1 lime

1. Heat the oil in a skillet. Fry the mustard seed, dried red chile peppers in the oil until the seeds begin to splutter.
2. Sprinkle the asafoetida powder over the mixture. Add in the chopped onion and the curry leaves to the mixture and cook until the onion is lightly browned, about 3 minutes.
3. Add the turmeric, ginger and salt, and stir.
4. Add the mung beans/moong dal, 3 cups of water and  the tomato paste. Stir well, until the tomato paste is well distributed. Bring to boil, reduce the heat, cover with a lid and cook for 30min, until the lentils are tender.
5. While the curry is cooking, heat a pot with salted water, add the potatoes, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15-18min.
6. Drain the potatoes, distributed in bowl, and smash with a fork.
7. Add some of the lentil mixture over the potatoes.
8. Squish some fresh lime juice over the lentils, and sprinkle with chopped cilantro.

Christmas by the sea, Take 2

getting the Christmas tree.