Apple Pecan Quinoa Muffins

Ugh. Quinoa? Quinoa MUFFINS? Sounds gross. But Trang at work said that these are delicious. I will try before I totally slam them. Link to recipe: http://lemonsandanchovies.com/2012/08/apple-pecan-quinoa-muffins/#.UOJrl3fVqWE

Apple-Pecan Quinoa Muffins

Author: Lemons & Anchovies

Serves: Makes 12 muffins

 

Forget greasy muffins. These muffins are packed with apples and pecans and healthy, too.

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat flour (or your flour of choice)
• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• ½ cup lightly-packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• ⅔ cup milk (I used nonfat)
• 1 cup chopped apples (about ½ large)
• ½ cup chopped pecans (I used candied pecans for more flavor)

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a 12-muffin tin (or use cupcake liners; I used a ⅓ cup muffin tin) and set aside.
2. Whisk together the flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking soda in a large bowl then stir in the cooked quinoa.
3. In a separate bowl combine the oil, milk and egg then stir into the dry ingredients.
4. Fold in the apples and pecans and spoon the batter into the muffin tin.
5. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack before serving.

Notes

Substituting the apples and pecans for other fruit and nuts, as well as substituting the whole wheat flour for gluten-free flour, this would make a good base for other flavor combinations.

Strawberry Trifle Cake

Colleague at work gave me this recipe - said it was an extremely simple layer cake recipe (all it is, is assembling). Something I could do with my 2 year old toddler!

> Original recipe makes 1 trifle Change Servings Makes  servings US

> Metric Adjust Recipe (Help)

> 

> 1 (5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

> 

> 3 cups cold milk

> 

> 1 (9 inch) angel food cake, cut in cubes

> 

> 4 bananas, sliced

> 

> 1 (16 ounce) package frozen strawberries, thawed

> 

> 1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

> 

> Check All Add to Shopping List .Directions

> 1.Prepare pudding with milk according to package directions. In a

> trifle bowl or other glass serving dish, layer half the cake pieces,

> half the pudding, half the bananas, half the strawberries and half the

> whipped topping. Repeat layers. Cover and chill in refrigerator 4

> hours before serving.

Almond Roca Cream wine

 A recent trip to the Costco in Bellingham resulted in this little find. $4.97 for a bottle of Almond Roca Cream. When I picked it up, I thought, "Oh, this is like Irish Cream! This will be a fantastic addition to a nice cup of coffee or tea. And at $5, what a STEAL!". When I was checking out, I finally noticed it went through as a wine. WTF?! cream and wine? That sounds gross. No wonder it was on clearance. I was really hesitant about trying this. The hubby opened it and we drank it out of a couple of wine glasses. The verdict? Not baaaaad... in fact, it could still go into a tea or coffee and it was just like Irish cream. Whoever is in their marketing department should be fired though. If they hadn't put "cream" and "wine" on the bottle, I'm sure they would have sold a lot more and wouldn't sadly be on clearance at a Costco. It's got quite the alcohol content (14%) and a nice creamy toffee scent to it. Alone it's drinkable although I think paired with a good coffee or Trader Joe's vanilla cinammon tea and you've got a sure winner.

Seriously. When you say "Almond, Chocolate and  Toffee cream", you just want to guzzle it and whip it up in some frosting and have it on cupcakes. But throw "wine" in there and you think of curdling and want to barf. Thank God for bad marketing people otherwise it would have been priced higher and I never would have bought it. This bottle will be finished for sure and totally worth $5.

Raspberry souffles

Voila! Raspberry souffles!

So from my previous post, I had embarked on a quest to make homemade mayonnaise. That uses a lot of egg yolks which leaves you with lots of leftover egg whites! What to make? A quick search on google resulted in: Angel food cake (Nica and Ariana don't eat cake fast enough in this house); pavlovas (already made those a few weeks ago and still have some left);  creme brulee (too much dairy); and souffles. Hmmm. Souffles. Further googling (yes, I just verbed that) demonstrated that I could make a sweet souffle. How delicious did that sound?! The first recipe I came across was a strawberry souffle but strawberries aren't in season and I didn't have any in my house. But further searching landed me on this recipe: Raspberry souffles. I had frozen raspberries to use up in the freezer.

I chose this recipe to follow since it had the world "fool" in it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/foolproofhotraspberr_12919

Can't go wrong if fools can make it, right?

Ingredients

• 250g/9oz raspberries
• 4 eggs, whites only
• 100g/4oz caster sugar
• juice of half a lemon
• ½ tsp cornflour, lightly dissolved in a few spoonfuls of water

Preparation method

1. First, evenly butter and sugar ovenproof moulds for the souffles and place in the freezer.
   
2. For the coulis, add half of the sugar to the raspberries. Place in a hot pan and cook quickly for 2-3 minutes with a good squeeze of lemon juice.
   
3. Liquidise with a hand blender and pass through a sieve to remove the seeds.
   
4. Place 2 tsp of coulis in the bottom of the souffli dishes and thicken the remaining coulis with the moistened cornflour.
   
5. For the meringue, ensure the whisk and bowl are free from grease by scalding in boiling water.
   
6. Place the egg whites in the bowl and start to whisk.
   

7. 

   mixing the raspberry base and beaten egg whites together

   Gradually add sugar until a smooth soft peak is obtained.
   
8. Add a good squeeze of lemon juice at the end.
   
9. For the souffli, take a third of the meringue and whisk into the thickened coulis.
   
10. Lightly fold in the remaining two thirds. Do this gently so the air is not knocked out of the mix.
    
11. Divide the mix between the dishes.
    
12. Smooth the surface of the souffli and trim edges with your thumb.
    
13. When ready to bake, space out on a tray and bake in a medium to hot oven (180C/350F/Gas 4) for approximately 10-15 minutes depending on the size and dish.
    
14. Dust with icing sugar, place a raspberry on top and serve immediately.
    

The end result were beautiful souffles. I didn't scrape the tops flat so yes, they were lopsided but when they come out all billowy and tall, you want to do a tiny dance (but lightly of course since we're dealing with souffles here).


These were really really sweet so next time I think I'll cut down on the sugar. I froze four of them since it says you can freeze them and then just toss them in the oven to make them lift again so we'll see how that goes tomorrow. The great thing about this is that they're gluten and dairy free so a fantastic dessert for those that have those dietary considerations. I still have more egg whites left so the next adventure will be savoury souffles. Mmmm.

The quest for homemade Mayonnaise

I had a tea date with my friend Carol and I offered to bring the sandwiches. I mulled for days over what kind I would make. I finally decided on cheese and onion; egg salad; smoked salmon with cream cheese; chicken salad and cream cheese and cucumber. Unfortunately, many things worked against me:
1. I didn't have time to prepare the night before
2. Ariana stayed up late so didn't wake up until late so we were 1.5 hours late for our 10:30 date
3. Nica ate all the mayonnaise.

Say what?! ALL the mayonnaise you say? yup. All of it. And it was boxing day so a lot of shops were closed. But have no fear. I had eggs. 5 of them. I had watched loads of youtube videos about making homemade mayonnaise. How hard could it be since I have a fancy new food processor (Merry Christmas to me).

Well, it's hard.

Attempt #1 after watching Gordon Ramsay make it on youtube:
Result: FAIL. I put three egg yolks and a bit of dijon mustard in the food processor. Whirred it for a bit and then added sunflower oil VERRRRRRRRY slowly. The end result was a gross mess. Super runny and it didn't emulsify. Tossed it down the toilet. Figured I must have added the oil too slowly and overwhipped it.

Attempt #2 after watching this guy on youtube:
Result: FAIL again in the food processor. I used up one more egg. Still runny and gross. Tossed it down the toilet.

Attempt #3 after deciding I would hand mix it and use lemon juice instead of mustard to stabilize the yolks initially. I whisked and whisked. The husband at this point had woken up. He tried to give me advice by telling me how it didn't look right and it was too runny and how I should whisk it until it was thicker. Lemme tell you something... NOT helpful! Well, definitely not helpful when I'm down to my last egg, my last bit of sunflower oil and out of time for a lunch date. So I threw it all at him and told him to do it and retreated to my bedroom. Yes, I am that mature. He came in a little while later and you know what? He had beautiful mayonnaise in the bowl. I reluctantly took it and mumbled thanks and went on making my sandwiches (clearly I didn't have any eggs leftover for egg sandwiches so I just used it for the chicken salad instead). The husband tried to tell me that the secret was whisking in the same direction. I thought that was total baloney since it really shouldn't make a difference what direction you whisk it in. Eggs are eggs. At the molecular level it doesn't care which direction it's being beat from.

Successful thick mayonnaise!

So a few days later I found myself needing mayonnaise again. I am lazy enough that I wanted to try an appliance to make this stuff so I didn't have to use my arm muscles whisking. The food processor was getting one last chance. I added two eggs and a splash of lemon juice and dijon mustard and watched the processor go. This time I watched it more closely to see if it was actually mixing everything together. And... it wasn't. I have an 11 cup food processor and the blades weren't reaching the yolk/juice/mustard mixture. It was just splashing it around or just beneath the blade. So I tossed in another yolk to see if the slightly larger volume would help the blades grab it. Nope.

Beater Blade

So I scooped everything out of the food processor and put it into my kitchenaid mixer bowl. Used the wire whisk attachment and turned it on. Still not enough volume for the whisk to grab onto the liquid. So I took it off and whisked it by hand while slowly adding the sunflower oil. Much better. By hand seemed to do the trick. When the volume had increased enough, I thought I'd try the stand mixer again. The whisk attachment seemed kind of useless so I used the flat beater instead. Worked beautifully - I could control the whisking speed and it picked up all the mix. I should note that I don't ever use the Kitchenaid flat beater that comes with the stand mixer. I bought this after market beater blade that has silicone sides that help scrape food along the sides of the bowl for thorough mixing and it is worth every penny I spent on it (~$30).

I am definitely going to try this again with my kitchenaid in the future and forget about the food processor. That appliance is awesome, but not for mayonnaise.

Garlic Parmesan pull apart bread

I kept seeing all these post about pull apart bread on Pinterest (damn you, Pinterest) so last night I finally gave in and tried one out since I was making chicken soup for dinner. Here is a recipe for Garlic Parmesan pull apart bread:  http://smells-like-home.com/2012/09/garlic-parmesan-pull-apart-bread/

Garlic Parmesan Pull-Apart Bread
source: adapted from Pastry Affair

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 tsp (1 packet) instant yeast
• 1 1/3 cups warm water
• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 tbsp (1/4 cup) salted butter, melted
• 1 tbsp dried parsley flakes or 2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 1/4 tsp Italian seasoning
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

The dough after the first proof

Butter, parsley, seasoning, and mmmm garlic!

1. In the bowl of the stand mixer, stir together the yeast and water. Let the mixture sit for 5 minutes until yeast is somewhat dissolved. Mix in the olive oil, salt, and flour. Using the dough hook, knead the dough for 5 minutes, or until elastic. (Alternatively, you can mix the ingredients in a large bowl then knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is elastic, 7-10 minutes.) Transfer dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap. Allow the dough to rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until it has doubled in size.   

 2. In a small bowl, combine melted butter, parsley, Italian seasoning, and minced garlic. Set aside.

 
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Ready to go in the oven

4. Gently push the air out of the dough. Tear off a golf ball-size piece of dough, roll in the butter mixture, and place in the bottom of a Bundt pan. Repeat this process until you have one layer of dough balls. Sprinkle on 1/3 of the Parmesan cheese. Continue layering the dough balls and cheese until you have 3 layers. (Note: We ended up with only 2 layers but the bread still turned out fine.) Cover the pan with a clean towel or plastic wrap and allow the dough to double in size, 20-30 minutes.

5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until bread is golden brown. Let the pan cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes then invert the pan onto a large serving plate and let the bread fall out of the pan.  Serve hot.

the end result

My notes: Since you have to proof it twice, it actually took a lot longer than I thought it would. But with my Kitchenaid mixer, this recipe was a snap. And fresh out of the oven? Heaven and loveliness. I modified the recipe by putting FOUR (yes, count them FOUR) cloves of garlic because the husband is Romanian and a bigger garlic lover than I (who would have thought it possible, but it is). I also used Trader Joe's romano parmesan instead of fresh because I was too lazy to actually grind it up in the food processor. I'm not sure if I had "Italian seasoning" (it's an Italian spice mix), so for good measure, I threw in a few dashes of Johnny's Garlic spread and seasoning. I use that stuff on EVERYTHING (goes great with roasted potatoes) and available at Costco in of course, Costco-size.

I don't own a bundt pan so I used my tube pan instead. Hopefully I didn't ruin it by spraying Pam all over it. It didn't make three layers of dough, just one and a few balls in the second layer. Still took about 20 minutes to bake.

The end result was a little salty but tasty! It was fun pulling it apart and dipping it into our soup. To store, I put in a plastic bag and knotted the top to seal the air out. Had another piece today and it's still soft and lovely and yes, very garlicky. Will make this again but will consider using another pan instead of the tube pan. Maybe a loaf pan instead?

Chateau Doisy-Vedrines

Mela came back from Bordeau a month ago and of course, she returned with wine. This is a bottle that she shared with me a 2002 Chateau Doisy-Vedrines. When she saw the cork, she said the Grand-Cru stamp meant that it was an excellent vineyard. A quick wiki search returned the following:

"
Grand cru (French for great growth) is a regional wine classification that designates a vineyard known for its favorable reputation in producing wine. Although often used to describe grapes, wine or cognac, the term is not technically a classification of wine quality per se, but is intended to indicate the potential of the vineyard or terroir. It is the highest level of classification of AOC wines from Burgundy or Alsace. The same term is applied to Châteaux in Saint-Émilion, although in that region it has a different meaning and does not represent the top tier of classification. In Burgundy the level immediately below grand cru is known as premier cru, sometimes written as 1er cru.^[6]"

 I don't by any means have a sophisticated enough palate to distinguish what made it a good wine, but it was tasty. Very flavourful and very sweet. Like crazy sweet. Although it smelled like brown sugar, it also had a high alcohol scent and the lines on the glass told me that probably wasn't far from the truth. But it didn't taste like it. The husband said it reminded him of the top of a creme brulee. Mela drank three glasses. It was delicious and I felt honored that she would share it with me. A great wine with an acidic or spicy pairing (I unfortunately only had triple lemon biscuits from TJ's and wasabi seaweed) but it wasn't bad.