Tag: cooking

Peanut Butter Oat Bites

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 t vanilla extract
1 T carob powder
2 cups unsweetened peanut butter

Method:

Toast oats in a pan. Powder 1/2 cup of the oats in a food processor.

Toast the shredded coconut in a pan.

Place the peanut butter in a bowl. Stir in the vanilla.

Slowly add the powdered toasted oats and stir to combine. Add the carob powder.

Add the shredded coconut and whole oats. Stir to combine.

Using a tablespoon (or something similar – small ice cream scoop, small melon baller), scoop out some of the mixture. Using your hands, roll it into a ball. Place the balls on a lined cookie sheet and refrigerate for several hours.

These are a little bit like cookie dough — not as sweet since there’s no sugar added. You can add a tablespoon or two of honey if you prefer a sweeter treat.

Beware: an un-monitored tiny person may imitate the rolling process when eating these. They’re a little crumbly and make a huge mess.

Pad Thai Recipe

The Pad Thai recipe that I’ve developed isn’t authentic, but it is a tasty version that avoids fish sauce, pickled radish, and dried shrimp (all of which are not generally stocked in our house).

Ingredients:
Sauce:
1/3 cup tamarind paste
1/3 cup vegetable stock
1/3 cup tamari sauce
1/4 cup palm sugar

Veggies:
Shredded carrots
Shredded radish
Diced onion
Thinly sliced red peppers

Protein:
Tofu (frozen and thawed, pressed to drain)
Shrimp
Eggs

Other:
Rice noodles
Chopped peanuts
Bean sprouts
Lime
Sesame oil

Method:
Soak rice noodles in cold water while preparing the rest of the dish.

Combine the sauce ingredients in a pot and simmer over low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

Put a little sesame oil in a pan. Add the tofu & cook until crispy. Remove from pan.

Put a little sesame oil in a pan. Add the onion & saute until soft. Remove from pan.

Put a little sesame oil in a pan and cook the shrimp. Remove from pan & wipe out pan.

Slice lime into very thin circles.

Scramble the egg.

Make sure the rice noodles are soft – you should be able to wrap them around your finger without breaking.

Heat the pan over medium heat. Put a quarter of the sauce into the pan, stir in a quarter of the rice noodles to coat with the sauce. Cook for two or three minutes. The noodles should be *almost* completely cooked.

Stir in protein and cook for another minute. Remove from heat and add in veggies. Serve topped with peanuts, bean sprouts, and thinly sliced lime. Drizzle a little extra sauce over the dish.

Put another quarter of the sauce into the pan & repeat.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Dip

We picked up a piece of peanut butter pie on our way back from New York this weekend. It was incredible — tangy, sweet, and peanut buttery. I found a recipe that sounds similar (ours had a chocolate cookie crust) on Epicurious. I can see making it again – and topping it with curled dark chocolate shavings.

We didn’t want Anya eating too much of it though. It was late, and even a little bit of sugar means half an hour of running in circles. She was still hungry, though … so I made a carob peanut butter dip for her that was pretty close to this pie. I took two tablespoons of plain Greek yogurt, added a tablespoon of real peanut butter (no additives, no sweeteners), and then added carob powder until it was sweet and chocolaty enough. Mixed it all together with a fork (it would be interesting to make more of it and whip it to achieve the same consistency as the pie). Served with sliced apples, it’s a quick not-too-sugary snack.

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Mmmmm!

Fish Tacos with Flour Tortillas

More than a decade ago, when my company had an office out in Thousand Oaks, I traveled to LA fairly regularly. We got a “travel day”, so Friday was a free day in LA. Then my whole group would usually stay the weekend and fly out Sunday night. One of the things I loved to do on Friday or Saturday was drive down the coast and get fish tacos. We’ve gotten a few decent fish tacos in Cleveland, but nothing close to what I remember from the West Coast.

A few weeks ago, I decided to try making some at home. They turned out really well. The ocean perch was a really small filet that needed to be skinned first … which was a LOT of  work. The next time, I used a tilapia which came in a larger filet but didn’t require any prep work. The smaller pieces of fish gave us a crunchier taco, but I think I’d get the larger pieces and slice them.

Flour Tortillas:

  • 4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons liquid vegetable oil
  • 1-1/2 cups
  • Zest of one or two limes

Mix all of the dry ingredients (not the lime zest) in a bowl. Measure water in a measuring cup, add in the oil and zest, and mix well to break up the zest. Pour the water into the dry ingredients and mix to combine into a dough. Knead the dough for a few minutes. Cover with clingfilm and let set for at least an hour.

Grab a ball of dough and roll it with a pin — we roll them quite thick (1/8″ to 1/3″) and have something more like a flatbread than a traditional tortilla. I cook them on an electric griddle/grill at 350 degrees F for about three minutes, flip and cook for another two or three minutes (timing is going to depend on how thickly the tortillas are rolled).

Fish:

  • 1 lb of light white fish (we’ve had ocean perch and tilapia)
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • Juice and zest of one lime
  • 1 teaspoon ancho chili powder

Mix the oil, lime juice, zest, and ancho powder. Place fish in a low baking dish, pour marinade over fish, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for twenty minutes. For grilled fish tacos, grill or saute the fish at this point.

Fish Breading:

  • Combine zest of one or two limes with bread crumbs in a bowl (add some of the chili powder if you want a spicier completed dish)
  • Combine all purpose flour, salt, and pepper in a second bowl
  • Combine two eggs and a little milk in a third bowl

To bread fish, dip it in the egg mixture, then dredge in flour. Shake off, dip in egg mixture again, then dip in bread crumbs. Pan fry in a good bit of oil, place on paper towels to absorb some of the oil.

 

To serve, take a warm tortilla / flat bread. Place fish onto tortilla and top with broccoli slaw, shredded cabbage, or mixed greens with diced tomatoes and onions. My broccoli and cabbage slaws are usually Mark Bittman’s spicy slaw sauce which has no mayo. Sometimes, though, I’ll do a creamy sauce of Greek yogurt, lime juice, and celery seed.

Homemade Marshmallow!!!

We made homemade marshmallow using Alton Brown’s recipe (with hazelnut extract instead of vanilla). We built a fire pit out in our woods, and I wanted to make smores.

It got surprisingly thick while whipping it – I was worried that it would get too hard, and I may have stopped whipping it a little too soon.

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The end result, though, was spectacular. For future reference … they melt really quickly over the fire when they’re still fresh. Supposedly if you let them dry for a few days, they toast up better.

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We have a HUGE tray of marshmallows – supposedly they freeze well … so I used maybe 1/10th of them & froze the rest. This might be a lifetime supply … but I’m kind of looking forward to hot cocoa this winter with hazelnut marshmallows!

Anya’s 3rd Birthday Cake!

I have no idea what made me decide to make my first ever angel food cake for Anya’s birthday — so many things that could have gone wrong with such a delicate cake. But eh, what’s life without some risk (well, and I could always make a quick carob “wacky” cake).

Whipped the egg whites and castor sugar – along with some hazelnut extract

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And then very gently folded in the flour mixture — I used a silicon spatula, and I was rather surprised how fluffy the batter was after adding the flour. I was really worried that it would deflate. The batter is incredibly sweet — it’s basically sugar suspended in whipped egg white and enough flour to keep it together. Uncooked, it tastes a little like spun sugar.

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Then I very carefully scooped it into a bundt pan (yeah, wrong kind of pan … but I didn’t have time to get the proper pan posted to me after I realized it wasn’t something you could just buy anywhere). Very gently placed the pan in the oven, and left the vicinity for an hour.

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Voila! We got an angel food cake! It is a super sweet cake, but it went very well with the lemon curd (which also used all of those egg yolks left over after making the cake!).

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And it was very tasty!

Monsters!

We finally made the apple monsters. I wanted to make these for Halloween (figured it would be a nice ‘treat’ without being a sugar overload). It’s just an apple cut in thirds with an extra little bit cut out. Smeared peanut butter in the cut, then set a piece of sliced strawberry in there. Dabbed a little bit of peanut butter above the ‘mouth’ and then set a carob chip onto each of the dabs. Voila, a cute little apple monster. Or for a nut-free version, check here.

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Anya’s 2nd Birthday Cake

This year, I made a parsnip cake for Anya’s birthday tea.

  • 175g butter , plus extra for greasing
  • 250g demerara sugar
  • 100ml maple syrup
  • 3 large eggs
  • 250g self-raising flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp mixed spice
  • 250g parsnips , peeled and grated
  • 1 medium eating apple , peeled, cored and grated
  • 50g pecans , roughly chopped
  • zest and juice 1 small orange
  • icing sugar , to serve
  1. Heat oven to 180 C.
  2. Grease 8″ round cake pans and line the bases with baking parchment.
  3. Melt butter, sugar and maple syrup in a pan over gentle heat, then cool slightly.
  4. Whisk the eggs into this mixture, then stir in the flour, baking powder and mixed spice, followed by the grated parsnip, apple, chopped pecans, orange zest and juice.
  5. Divide between the cake pans. Bake for 25-30 mins until a toothpick inserted into the thickest part comes out clean.
  6. Allow pans to cool on a wire rack for ten minutes.
  7. Turn cakes out of pans and set on wire rack until completely cooled.

This cake is topped with mascarpone (250g tub) mixed with a little maple syrup (3 tbsp).

 

Tofu Bánh Mì Chay Recipe

Ingredients:

One 14-ounce package extra-firm tofu
1.5 cups of shredded carrots
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons palm sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
Sriracha sauce
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1.5 teaspoons black pepper
Fresh baguettes (
English cucumber, shredded

Method:

1. At least one day before you plan to make the sandwiches, cut the tofu into slices and pat dry. Freeze the tofu overnight, then thaw it in the refrigerator. Once it has thawed, squeeze it dry again.

2. Combine the carrot, 2 tablespoons of the vinegar, 1 tablespoon of the sugar, and a large pinch of salt in a medium bowl; cover and refrigerate while you prepare the other ingredients.

3. Whisk together the oil and a few drops of Sriracha (personal taste how much) in a small bowl.

4. Put 1 tablespoon of palm sugar and 1 tablespoon water in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Cook, shaking and swirling the pan occasionally (but not stirring), until the sugar is mostly melted and golden brown. Slowly drizzle in the soy sauce, then add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the thawed tofu and the black pepper and cook, turning the tofu occasionally, until it has absorbed most of the sauce, about 15 minutes.

5. Split the baguette horizontally with a bread knife.Spread the Sirachah mixture on the bottom half of the baguette, and top with the tofu mixture, the carrot mixture, and the cucumber.