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.

Why I Love Farmer's Markets

Union Square Greenmarket - or as I like to call it, heaven.

Not everyone shares my passion for farmer's markets. I am often asked why I would rather take time out of my schedule to go to a farmer's market instead of going to a supermarket at my convenience. well, here are my reasons:

1. Everything sold at farmer's markets are fresh.
The idea of fresh food in our society is now a thing of the past when we step into supermarkets. We live in the age of processed cheese and frozen dinners made up mostly of preservatives. This is not the case at the farmer's market. Not only is everything preservative-free, but all of the produce is in season.

2. It helps the economy of your community
Farmer's markets attracts vendors within the area. This means that whenever you buy your vegetables at a stand from your town's farmer's market, you are directly helping your community's economy. Most farmers that sell their goods at farmer's markets are too small to attract the interest of corporate food producers, so their main source of income is derived from those who purchase their food at farmers markets.

3. The atmosphere
I participate in a weekly yoga class where we are instructed to close our eyes and "find our happy place" towards the end of the class. Some might choose the beach or childhood memory. My mind always takes me to the Union Square Greenmarket. There's nothing that makes me happier than being surrounded by vendors who devote their lives to producing and selling food at these markets. Furthermore, they are knowledgeable in the food they sell and usually are not short of good conversation. I once spent a good half an hour discussing various ways to use sugar pumpkins with a vendor at the greenmarket.

So there you have it. Three reasons why I love farmers markets. If you have another reason, feel free to contribute by leaving a comment!

Holiday Food

I can think of many reasons why the holiday season is fun, but the main reason I enjoy this time of year is giving gifts to my friends and family. I don't take gift-giving lightly. I will do whatever it takes to find the perfect gift for a loved one in my life.

Why do I put myself through this? because there's no satisfaction like seeing the look on a person's face when they unwrap my black and white polka dot wrapping paper to find their favorite gift of the year.

Most of you know that I'm not your typical American consumer, especially when it comes to getting gifts. In fact, I've recently started to give people homemade gifts. I feel like it shows how much you care about someone when you give them something you put time and energy into. Last year I gave everyone jars of homemade hot chocolate mix and cookie mix (they had to add an egg and butter. all the dry ingredients were in the jar).

This year I took things one step further by giving everyone in my family different gifts. I gave my dad a box of homemade key lime truffles. My brother got a box of my famous peanut butter fudge. My mom got a jar full of chocolate-peanut butter covered pretzels (I dipped them in dipping peanut butter, then drizzled milk chocolate on top of them once the peanut butter layer hardened).

I wish I had the foresight to take pictures of these before I gave them to everyone, because they were gone in an instant! However, I have not made my gifts for friends who are being sent packages, yet, so I'll try to take pictures of those before they hit the mail.

To my fellow celebrators of Hannukah, I hope your's was great! my family gave me wonderful gifts-a rolling pin and a certificate for a two-day baking class in March where I will do nothing but bake coffeecakes. I'm pretty excited about this.

Improv Salad

Tonight was one of those nights I experience all too frequently when finals are rapidly approaching. By the time I'm ready to eat dinner, it's much later than I expected. Not wanting to fall victim to fast food and delivery, I often find that it's best to improvise something based on the contents of my fridge. The result of tonight' improv was a spinach salad with pear and warm polenta.

In retrospect, I should've put some goat cheese on it. Regardless, it was delicious.