Recipe: Couscous with chickpeas and fresh vegetables

Now that my summer classes are over, I have a lot of free time on my hands. This can only mean one thing as far as I'm concerned...more time to cook for myself! I decided to put my box of whole wheat couscous to work. The original recipe calls for cucumber, but mine went bad so I just omitted it. I'll still include it in the recipe, though, since I'm sure it's good with the addition.

Ingredients:
1 cup water
1 cup uncooked couscous
1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained
2 roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced
1/4 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
garlic powder to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Bring water to boil in a medium saucepan. Stir in couscous, and remove from heat. Cover, and let stand about 5 minutes, until liquid has been absorbed. Fluff with a fork.
2. In a large bowl, mix couscous and garbanzo beans. Toss in tomatoes and cucumbers. Stir olive oil and vinegar into the mixture. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper

My New Favorite Gadget

This is a bench scraper. I was first introduced to this amazing tool by Carole Walter during her baking class. She used it for everything.

Bench scrapers can be used in the following ways:
1. level off dry goods when measuring them

2. making slits in dough

3. transferring delicate dough/flipping said dough over

4. cleaning the flour off your workspace during and after kneading dough

Bench scrapers are fantastic tools and far from expensive-I bought a large one for myself for $7.

Off topic, but I recognize that I should have preceeded my last post with an explanation for my hiatus. Well, here are the reasons:
1. grad school sucks. no, really. I have no life now because of my classes. I'm registering for my summer and fall classes soon, so I'm hoping for an easier schedule before I lose my life to student teaching.

2. work. I'm still working twenty hours a week at my retail job, which sucks away my free time during the weekend.

3. vacation. I just got home about a week ago from a ten day trip to Israel. It was amazing and I cannot wait to go back.

An Homage to my Vacation

Exactly a week ago, I returned from a trip to Israel. It was absolutely incredible-an experience I will never forget. In honor of the ten days I spent there, I will share my ten reasons why I love not only Israeli food, but middle eastern food in general.

1. chickpeas
Or for that matter, food made from chickpeas-hummus and falafel, to be exact. I still dream about my first Israeli falafel. It was perfect...crispy, but still moist on the inside and seasoned to perfection.

2. the spices
As a vegetarian, it is all too easy to fall into a routine of bland, unseasoned vegetables. That is not a problem with middle eastern food. The food is spiced to perfection, in that it doesn't sacrifice flavor in the process.

3. legumes
Vegetarians sometimes claim it's hard to find good sources of protein. That is not a problem in this area. Quite honestly, I've never seen so many different uses of legumes outside of Indian food.

4. iced coffee
Some may not consider this a food, but they have clearly never tried Israeli iced coffee. It is nothing like the American version, where it is brewed, cooled, and served on ice. Israeli iced coffee tastes almost like a milkshake.

5. Bamba
Popular Israeli snack food. It was first described to me as cheetos with peanut butter in the middle. There is one flavor that tastes like that, but there are a wide variety of flavors to choose from, ranging from chocolate bamba to barbeque bamba.

6. the tomatoes
I don't know why, but the tomatoes I ate in Israel were almost in a world of their own. They tasted as if they were picked the morning before I ate them.

7. pop rock chocolate
self-explanatory.

8. mango sauce
I discovered this on one of our last days in a shwarma restaurant outside of tel aviv. Everyone had their own way of describing how it tasted, but we all loved it.

9. Bagels
Let me tell you something about Israeli bagels: they are amazing. You can buy them off a food cart, where you are also given a small cup of spices to dip the bread in. It is absolutely amazing.

10. hummus
I ate it so often it deserves to be mentioned twice.

A Weekend Well Spent

This past weekend I had the honor of taking a two day baking class with renowned cookbook author, Carole Walter. It was an amazing experience that I will remember forever.

The first thing you should know about Carole is that she does not let her age get the better of her. She rolls in on her electric scooter, props herself up on the counter, and commands the class. She reminded me of Julia Child's personality a bit in that she is outspoken and strong-willed. The look she gave me when I said that I don't own an electric mixer will always be burned in the back of my mind

Our first day was spent focusing on dough. We learned two doughs that served as the base for the recipes we covered: sweet dough and croissant dough. The great thing about these doughs is that you can make them ahead of time and freeze them so you can always have them on hand. In the interest of time, Carole demonstrated the croissant dough, and we all made our own sweet dough. We also shaped several croissants, some of which we ate that afternoon. The others were consumed at the beginning of day two.

Things were much more intense on day two. We were put in teams of three and given a specific coffeecake recipe. My team was assigned an apricot braid, which we got a lot of compliments on by the teaching team. As people finished their assigned recipe, we all filled and shaped pain au chocolats.

After a lunch break, we tasted all of the coffecakes we made-swedish tea ring, apricot braid, cheese kuchen, crumb buns, babka, pain au chocolat, brioche, and croissants.

I'm definitely looking forward to having company soon so I can bake these for people!

Recipe: Sun-dried Tomato and Basil Hummus

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack!

After a month long hiatus, which was spent being ridiculously stressed out over school and three part-time jobs, I have finally found the time to cook something that didn't include sugar and flour as ingredients.

I had some friends over last night for a movie night and decided that I wanted to serve something different than popcorn. I had already made mint chocolate cookies, so I wanted something more on the savory side.

That something turned out to be hummus.

picture to come soon-I promise!

Ingredients:
2 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, drained
1/4 cup shredded fresh basil

Directions:
in a blender, combine garlic, salt, tahini, and lemon juice
add chickpeas and olive oil and blend until smooth, scraping the sides of the blender occasionally.
add sundried tomatoes and basil, blend until fully mixed
refrigerate for at least an hour before serving

Recipe: Whole Wheat Strawberry Banana Muffins

Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to snap a picture of these before my coworkers ate them all. I plan to make them again in the future, so next time I'll try to take a picture!

My inspiration to bake these was pretty simple: I had an excess of strawberries and bananas in my kitchen! I also still have a lot of whole wheat flour left over from my thanksgiving pumpkin dinner rolls.

The original recipe called for frozen strawberries, but I opted to use fresh strawberries, instead.

ingredients:
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 bananas, mashed
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup sliced strawberries

directions:
1.Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 16 regular muffin cups, or line with paper liners.
2.In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, applesauce, oil, brown sugar, vanilla and bananas. Combine the flour, baking soda and cinnamon; Stir into the banana mixture until moistened. Stir in the strawberries until evenly distributed. Spoon batter into muffin cups until completely filled.
3.Bake for 20-30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops of the muffins spring back when pressed lightly. Cool before removing from the muffin tins.

Recipe and Reflections

This is probably old news to my friends beyond the world of blogging, but my father passed away four weeks ago. It was very sudden and took us all by surprise. Though his memorial service happened in late December, we just had his burial service a little less than a week ago, on what would have been his 65th birthday. In early December I had asked him what cake he wanted me to bake for his birthday, and he had requested a coconut cake (my dad was a coconut fiend). We planned to have lunch at my aunt's house after the burial, so I decided to bake the cake to bring to lunch.




this was definitely one of the hardest recipes I've attempted-even harder than cheesecake. However, the end result was delicious.

ingredients:

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup canned sweetened cream of coconut (such as Coco Lépez)*
4 large eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
4 cups sweetened shredded coconut

2 (8-ounce) packages Philadelphia-brand cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup canned sweetened cream of coconut (such as Coco López)*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter and sweetened cream of coconut in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla extract. On low speed, beat in dry ingredients and then buttermilk, each just until blended.

Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites with pinch of salt in another large bowl until stiff but not dry. Fold beaten egg whites into batter.

Divide cake batter between prepared pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on rack 10 minutes. Run small sharp knife around pan sides to loosen cakes. Turn cakes out onto racks and cool completely.

Place 1 cake layer on cake plate. Spread 1 cup Cream Cheese Frosting over cake layer. Sprinkle 1 cup sweetened shredded coconut over. Top with second cake layer. Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake. Sprinkle remaining coconut over cake, gently pressing into sides to adhere.

for frosting:

Beat cream cheese in medium bowl until fluffy. Add butter and beat to blend. Add sugar, sweetened cream of coconut and vanilla extract and beat until well blended.

A Brief Hiatus from Healthy Food

I know I fail at updating as regularly as I planned to. I don't have any new healthy recipes to share, so instead I'm bringing you a recipe that isn't healthy, but tastes amazing. It's for a cake!

A friend commissioned me to bake a birthday cake for her earlier this month, and of course I was happy to oblige! The recipe was originally for cupcakes, but I converted it into a layer cake.


The cake of birthday goodness

Port Wine and Cherry Cake with Marscapone Frosting
ingredients:
1.5 cups port wine
1.5 cups cherry pie filling
2 sticks butter
6 T + 1.5 cups sugar
2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

16 oz. marscapone
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup confectioners sugar
cherries

directions:
simmer port and cherries in saucepan for 10 minutes. Remove 1/4 cup of liquid and set aside.
Add butter, 6T sugar, chocolate, and cocoa to saucepan and whisk until melted. set aside and let cool.
in a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and remaining sugar. set aside.
in a large bowl, whisk eggs and sour cream. add port mixture and mix briefly. add flour mixture and mix briefly. pour into two greased cake pans. bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Allow to cool in cake pan before transferring to wire rack.

Beat marscapone, heavy cream, and confectioners sugar until a stiff peak form.
spoon remaining port mixture on each cake layer before frosting.