Vegetable pot pie

I have to admit, I did not know much about pot pies, and they didn't seem too interesting to me, until I had my friend's delicious pot pie that blew my mind away. They are simple, delicious and easy to make, and what can top a great buttery, flakey crust? This particular recipe probably doesn't count as pot pie, necessarily, but was delicious nevertheless. Next time, I would probably add more ingredients to the filling. The filling was rather dry, here.

Ingredients:

Pie crust
2 cups of an assortment of root vegetables- I used carrots, beets and sweet potato
1 Onion
2 cloves, garlic
tarragon

1. To make the pie crust, I followed Martha Stewart's pie crust recipe. 
2. Cut up the vegetables into 1 inch pieces. Cut the onion sideways to give long pieces. Cut up the garlic.
3. Season the vegetables with the tarragon, garlic, and salt and pepper.
4. Roast the vegetables for 30-45 minutes until vegetables are soft at 400 F.
5. Bake the pie crust for 20 minutes until brown.

6. Place roasted vegetables on pie crust and bake for 35 minutes at 385 F.

Egg-less chocolate hazelnut cake with LAYERS!

 Mapcap Cupcake 's amazing blog and this particular recipe got me into food blogs, in a big way, as I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog. I had been looking for a vegan (read egg-less) cake recipe for a while. I simply converted the vegan recipe to vegetarian by using buttermilk. I tried out this particular one, and I don't think I have had such delicious cake- with or without egg. This one is a keeper. I've made the cake at least three times before, and I have to say, it still hasn't lost any of its glory.

Ingredients:

Hazelnut Cake 

1 cup buttermilk
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup hazelnut flour
2 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour two 6-inch pans, and line bottoms with parchment paper. In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients together and combine. Add buttermilk with remaining wet ingredients and then add the dry ingredients to we ingredients. Bake for around 22 minutes. 

For the praline:

1 cup hazelnuts, skinned and toasted.
2/3 cups sugar

Line a baking sheet with parchment and lightly grease. Place sugar in a skillet and heat for around 10-20 minutes until the sugar stars to melt. After 20 minutes, if sugar has not melted, stir lightly.  Return to low heat and stir in the hazelnuts, making sure that the nuts are thoroughly coated. Pour mixture on parchment paper and let cool. Once cooled(it should be brittle) chop into small pieces, using a food processor. 

Hazelnut Buttercream:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup praline
1 cup milk powder

Using a mixer, blend sugar and butter. Add milk powder and water and combine. Add in the praline bits.

Ganache Glaze:

4oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp maple syrup

Heat the heavy cream, butter and the maple syrup(maple syrup can also be skipped) until the mixture starts to boil. Remove from heat and add in the chocolate chips. Mix thoroughly. 

To assemble the cake, carefully split the cake horizontally into 2 layers. Add the buttercream on the first layer and then place the second layer on top it. Glaze the cake the chocolate ganace, and decorate with more of the hazelnut buttercream, if desired. 

Hiatus, part two; and some pictures

Once again, for the second time this year, I've been away from from this blog for longer than 2 months. That doesn't make for a very good blogger, I suspect. I am still having trouble getting into the rhythm of blogging, and being comfortable enough to share it all so openly on a public platform. I suspect that is also my issue with writing. I can feel that there is a lot in me I want to express, but I sometimes struggle with how best to do it, or get bogged down while beginning to do it. I am going to try to make this blog a more personal blog from now on- with writing vignettes and other random postings about things I find interesting. It is after all about expressing myself- not to show anyone else, but see what I can do and achieve with this space, at least for myself.

I struggle with being organized and disciplined. Therefore, it is hardly surprising to me, that I cannot remember some of these recipes. Most are simple enough that a picture can inspire me enough to recreate, I hope. Here is a photolog of my food adventures only through pictures in the last couple months.


Tomato pesto goat cheese pizza

Beignets

Pasta with a tomato corn salsa

Spaghetti with pecan-pistachio pesto and tomato confit

Pesto is a fun way to add variety and color to pasta. You can get creative with it by changing up the greens, the nuts, make it spicy, make it colorful and even add texture. It's hard to mess up, and you can be done in less than half and hour. What's not to love?

Since I almost always stick to the usual basil-pine nut routine, I wanted to add some crunch and flavor to it by way of the pesto and the pistachio. I also thought the tomato confit would be a nice elegant touch.

Ingredients:


Tomato confit
cherry tomatoes- whole or halved
1 tbsp olive oil
some salt

Spaghetti
Cooked wheat spaghetti
1/2 cup pistachios
1/2 cup pecans
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup basil leaves
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
salt

Directions:

1. For the tomato confit, preheat the oven to 320 F. Toss the tomatoes in olive oil and salt and leave them to bake for around 40-45 minutes, checking to see if they're done.

2. For the pesto, grind up the pecan, the pistachios and the basil leaves with the olive oil and process thoroughly. The mixture should be a brownish-green. You can either have it be a smooth mixture, or it can be crunchy depending on your preference.

3. Chop up the onion and garlic and sautee them in an additional tbsp of olive oil. Once the onions have become soft, toss in the pesto, and cook for around 2-3 minutes. Then add the cooked spaghetti to the mixture.

4. Top the spaghetti with the tomato confit and serve. 

Rose hazelnut macarons with chocolate ganache

So if you've been on Foodgawker long enough, you'll know that anyone who maintains a food blog is obsessed with macarons. I don't mean to imply that I consider mine a full fledged professional food blog, but given that all my entries so far are mostly food-related, it's the closest parallel for now. So yes, after months of macaron exposure and overdose, I decided I had best try this monster out. I'd heard horror stories on how difficult they are to make; how you had to be super careful with preparation and execution. I pretty much followed Eat.Live.Travel.Write 's recipe. She does a great job of describing exactly what worked for her, and what didn't. 

To add a bit of a twist, I added some rose essence instead of the regular vanilla, and paired the cookies with some chocolate ganache. I, for one, am totally addicted to macarons- both eating them and making them. Simply thinking of all the combinations and permutations makes me just so happy! 

Ingredients:

French Macarons

115 g hazelnut flour

230 g powdered sugar

144 g egg whites (I used 5 eggs)

72 g sugar

rose essense

1/2 tsp salt

Chocolate ganache

1 cup whipping cream

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Sift the dry ingredients. TWICE.

2. Dump the egg whites and the sugar into the mixer. I followed her instructions exactly. 3 minutes at level 4. 3 minutes at level 6, 3 more minutes at level 8. One minute at level 10. The meringue should be stiff.

3. Add the sifted mixture to the meringue and add in the rose essence.

4. Pipe the mixture into waxed or parchment paper.

5. Bake for 12 minutes at 350 F. I baked my second batch for longer- around 16 minutes. I liked the second batch better.

6. I had to make sure the cookies didn't stick to the pan. Baking them for longer helped. The cookies tasted great, but the shells were not perfect. Not bad for a first attempt though!

7. Heat the whipping cream to a simmer and add the chocolate chips forming a thick mixture.

8. Assemble by piping the ganache on one side of a cookie and attaching the other end to another cookie.

Black bean burger with sweet potato wedges

I've been obsessed with the vegetarian burger for as long as I can remember. I think it's something about being a vegetarian and STILL getting to enjoy the burger. I get so tired of running out of options at places. Besides, vegetarian burgers are genuinely amazing, and shouldn't have to resort to second tier standing. After my standard research on foodgawker, I settled on a delicious looking black bean burger recipe at http://www.keepitsimplefoods.com/vegetarian/spicy-black-bean-burgers/

The process was somewhat time consuming, and I think I made way more than I needed to, but it was fun anyway. I initially found the batter to be too runny. I ended up adding more bread crumbs, and also some flour in the mixture, and that seemed to have solved the problem. The trick was also replacing the egg with the egg replacer. I'm not typically the biggest fan of the egg replacer but it worked rather well here.

And here's the how:

Ingredients:

1 (16 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 yellow bell pepper

1 medium onion

3 cloves garlic

1 Ener G egg replacer

2 tbsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

handful of cilantro

1 cup breakcrumps

hot sauce

2 tbsp olive oil

Burger buns 

Directions:

1. Process the bell pepper, onion and garlic in the food processor. 

2. In a mixing bowl, mash up the black beans and add the bell pepper mixture to the black beans. 

3. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the egg replacer, cumin, onion powder, chili powder and cilantro. Add this to the black bean mixture. 

4. Depending on the consistency of the mixture, add in flour/ bread crumbs. Shape the mixture into burger patties. 
5. Heat oil in a skillet. Place them on the skillet and cook until cooked evenly. 

To accompany the burger, I also made sweet potato fries. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I LOVE sweet potato, and sweet potato fries hardly ever disappoint. I also wanted to try baking them instead of deep frying them, and this recipe at Smittenkitchen was exactly what I craved:

Ingredients:

1 medium sweet potato

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil, or enough to coat all the sweet potato evenly

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 425 F. In a coffee grinder, create a spice mixture from all the spices listed above. 

2. Cut the sweet potatoes lengthwise to make thick wedges. 

3. Toss the wedges in the oil and the spice mixture. Bake for around 20 minutes until the sweet potatoes are golden. Bake for another 15-20 minutes after turning the wedges over. 

Bake sale in San Francisco!

The bake sale in San Francisco was a huge success and we ended up raising over $3000! Thank you to everyone who showed up to support us and Share our Strength. It was also a great opportunity to meet a group of lovely women who organized and ran the event. I had a shift later in the day and got to interact with a couple lovely ladies. Always a pleasure.

While preparing for the bake sale, I wanted to make sure that whatever I made was aesthetically pleasing and appealing to the eye in addition to being tasty and adventurous. My gut feeling was to stay away from traditional baked goods like chocolate chip cookies and brownies, but turns out they are huge sellers at a bake sale! I did however make these delicious spicy chocolate chip cookies from a recipe my sister gave me, and those stood out to me, by far.

For the aesthetically pleasing, I was set on making assorted cupcakes. I had initially wanted to make them all vegan, but I didn't necessarily have the time to figure out the conversion of ingredients. I have an excellent book dedicated to cupcakes and I had tried some of the recipes before so I decided to go with what I knew. In retrospect though, I do think assorted vegan cucpakes may have been more of a crowd pleaser. O well, they did turn out really beautiful in those pretty pink boxes.

Speaking of the pretty pink boxes, a big thank you to Kara's cupcakes in Palo Alto for letting me purchase these boxes for a super low price. You see, I had been roaming all around town looking for the perfect box for my mini-cupcakes. I went to Michaels, William's Sonoma and Sur La Table and while they had some options for regular-sized cupcakes, none of them had mini-cupcake holders. I was ABOUT to leave dejectedly(I figured I'd have to make the boxes myself somehow) when I saw Kara's cupcakes and decided to ask them. They were so gracious and kind, and I ended up buying 10 boxes for 50c each. Not shabby at all, and I'm sure it would have been more expensive had I purchased them at one of the above mentioned stores. Needless to say, I was mighty pleased with the results of that excursion.

I'm not posting all my recipes, but here are my favorites:

Spicy chocolate chip cookies(sister's recipe)

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsweetened Mexican cocoa powder (or substitute by adding 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon to unsweetened cocoa powder)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

6 tablespoons sweet butter, at room temperature

  1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tbsp chocolate chips

  ground black pepper

cayenne/chili powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg white

Directions

1. Mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Mix thoroughly and set aside. Combine the sugars in a small bowl and mix well. 

2. In a medium mixing bowl, using a hand mixer, beat the butter  until creamy. Add the sugar mixture, cinnamon, peppers, and vanilla. Beat on high about 1 minute. Beat in the egg white. Add the flour mixture, beating on the lowest speed, and add in the chocolate chips at the very end. 

3. Form it into a neat log with your hands. Refrigerate for about an hour.

4. Cut the log into quarter-inch discs and place on cookie sheet. Bake for about 13 minutes at 350 F. 

Assorted cupcakes

Mocha Cupcakes (adapted from http://www.lovintheoven.com/2009/04/mocha-cupcakes-with-kahlua-cream-cheese.html)
Ingredients
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup yogurt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 1/2 rounded tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup water
4 tablespoons espresso powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract


Directions
1. Preheat over to 350 degrees F. Insert liners into a cupcake pan.

2. Beat the sugar, butter, and eggs until fluffy and mix in the yogurt. 

3. Mix together the flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt in a separate bowl.

4. Combine the water, coffee and vanilla. Alternate adding the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/sour cream mixture with the coffee mixture and mix thoroughly.

5. Fill the cupcake liners three-quarters full. Bake for 20-25 minutes 

Kahlua Frosting
5 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2.5 tablespoons Kahlua
16 ounces powdered sugar

1. Cream together cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Mix in Kahlua, and powdered sugar. Apply to cupcakes.

Coconut cupcakes (adapted from http://asweetfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/06/coconut-cupcakes.html)
Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup yogurt
1 cup shredded coconut


Cream Cheese Icing
8 ounces cream cheese, cold
4 ounces butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar


1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

2. Beat together the oil, sugar and eggs until thick and smooth. Beat in vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; add to the liquid mixture and beat until smooth. Beat in yogurt and add the coconut. Bake for 22 minutes. 

3. For the icing, beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add the vanilla extract; then confectioners sugar. Beat in some milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, if icing is too thick.

Packaging and pictures!

My favorite part was packaging the goods. I also loved how the assorted cupcakes looked in the pink boxes. I also made vegan banana bread, butterfly lemon cupcakes and mint-basil cupcakes. I'm so glad I was able to partake in the event! What a great baking treat!