Remembering our Fs: Frittata!

We made a pledge in the beginning to make F foods and this is our first frittata! It has eggs, ricotta, mint, garlic, and I added some mushrooms just for texture. I used this guy.

To be honest I think he could have benefited from some Parmesan, but who knows. Also better cold strangely.



-Amanda

Rose Water Madeleines FTW

I did two batches of these so far. Batch 2 was more successful, but I'm holding out for something better. These are from Nigella's How to Be a Domestic Goddess, and I think to be a domestic goddess, one needs to learn how to not overbake his/her madeleines.

The picture she has is so powdery and angelic, she also called them rosebud madeleines. Maybe that has something to do with it.



It's a vase, get it?

And, obviously. Maybe it might improve the way I look at these buds? (I think I just triple entendre-ed myself.)
-Amanda

A Moveable Muffin Part 1

Muffin went for a walk this morning! Almost got hit by a car but successfully dogdged the oncoming traffic.


I think it was the sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice that did it.

I also interchanged greek yogurt for the milk and only 1 tablespoon of oil in this . recipe/

And I added cherries too. These have honey and are a bit kiddish in the bran muffin taste department so this is good for them.



-Amanda

The Manouche is in the Oven!

Manouche manouche manouche manouche


For a Lebanese breakfast pizza, it sure makes my articulators happy.

I wanted to try the 'new' place a block away from my house, so I went with my mom, our friend Richard, and Amanda and her daddy. It was a sort of a goodbye dinner, before I went back up for summer school. I could not settle on a single item, then Amanda pointed to the Manouche, which had a little note next to it: "Brain Booster!"

We laughed.

Then I ordered it.

And was not at all disappointed :)

Theirs was greener though, so I wonder if I did something wrong. I definitely strayed from the recipe.



I like manouche a LOT MORE with yogurt and tomato on top. Moisture is key.



linkity link
-Anna

Salad in the Grass

I wish these, the fruit, had grill marks.

This called for peaches, but some of my peaches are mushy so I used cheap mangoes from Jons.

Anna introduced me to Jons. It's a lovely adventure. They have rosewater and halvah and cheap mangoes and cheap lavash and cheap tahini.
Magic, except their spinach isn't bomb, but that's okay.

I roughly copied this except: mango instead of some of the peach and spinach instead of lettuce.

Good flavor party in your mouth. Be reserved with your feta use.
I think it's the grass.

-Amanda

Too Much Good Stuff

These muffins right here, what do you suppose they're made of? Flour, butter, sugar, maybe? With a few poppyseeds mixed in?

Nnnope!

Spoiler alert: recipe

If you want the story to unravel before your eyes, read on.

So once upon a time, there was a girl. She used to eat lots of poppyseed cakes as a child, because her daddy bought them at the Stolichnaya on Fairfax and Santa Monica. So she went to Berkeley Bowl and saw heaps of her favorite little seed, scooped them up into a hefty plastic bag, and tucked them away into her shopping cart. They sat in her cabinet, nestled between a bag of walnut pieces her grandma sent her, and a half-eaten emergency bag of chocolate chips.

Then one day everything changed. She came home after a month away (at her real home) and this bag of poppyseed went squish squish when she went digging through her cabinets. MUFFINSSSS.

Actually that was a lie. This girl just wanted lemon bars. But she ran out of powdered sugar. Fortunately, she later realized that she could make powdered sugar with her new mortar and pestle when (not really) making lemon glaze.

The poppyseed lemon muffins were a suggested link on the website with the lemon bar recipe. But it was not a satisfying recipe, so the girl scoured the web for something butterfree (shoutout to pokemon. not really. shoutout to buttersafe.com. so much funny!). THEN SHE FOUND a recipe. That she could use.

This story has lots of wholes in it and is not very professional.

Same with these muffins:

I used somewhere between 3/4c and 1c honey, 1/3c olive oil, 1-1/4c nonfat milk, 3 eggs, 2-1/4c whole wheat flour, 3-1/2 tsp baking powder, a tsp of sea salt, zest from one lemon, and a heaping 1/4c of poppy seeds.

I mixed the flour, baking powder, and salt, and then poured in a whisked mixture of honey, olive oil, milk, zest, and egg. It took a while to integrate the honey well, but it was worth it. It's all just preparation for the day you'll need to whip cream by hand.

I then mixed in poppy seeds, and poured the batter into (lined) cupcake and muffin tins. I baked at a preheated 400F oven, for approximately 20 minutes. Probably a little less. Toothpicks come out clean, it's nice. Voila

(see I know French too)

The most important point here is that poppy seeds are a Miracle! No they are not from papaver somniferum, which oozes when you slit it during growth, and morphines your soul. But Morpheus didn't forget about us normal-poppy eaters. He made sure that if you combine honey and poppy seed, you grow strong and mentally sound. If you're sleepy, you just eat some ground up poppy seed and away you go. Honestly, any problems you have, poppy seeds will fix them.

-Anna

Deadly Decadence

I made this for father's day. I didn't let it bake long enough/cool long enough or both so it was like lava when we cut into it.

So be careful. I didn't make the compote since it's not blood orange season and it seemed silly. Grand marnier though takes the cake. I mean it.


Oh and I used nonfat greek yogurt for the sour cream.
La recette, ça c'est ici. J'ai besoin de pratiquer mon français avant que je partie. Je ne sais pas si j'ai oublié toute ma grammaire.

Bien. Ecoutez.
-Amanda

Entering Cupcake Territory

These are snickerdoodle cupcakes. They're better than snickerdoodles, but they could have been moister and the frosting could have been fluffier. Still, this was easier than the other recipes I found.

I made these a while ago, this guy is stale. He got thrown a way right after this picture was taken. From glory to garbage.


Oh and I added nutmeg, just a tad.

I love melted butter. So here you go.

-Amanda

Blinchiki

Splash together some whole wheat flour, buttermilk, egg, olive oil, sugar, salt. Fry them up, little by litle--you have yourself nice, firm little blini. Then throw some fresh dark cherries in a saucepan with some water, cinnamon, golden brown sugar, and cornstarch--and simmer til thick and deep red. Drench a stack of a few blini with the syrup, then top with dark chocolate shavings. You've got yourself an Annariginal!



If you lay down some peanut butter first (chunky, always chunky), you get a nice oozing look to the dish.




This is what happens when Amanda's got me craving cherries.

I like that the chocolate shavings melt a bit. It gives it just the right amount of cohesion as a quick and appealing dish.


-Anna

When someone offers you wheat cookies at a party, you say yes

Here's the recipe, folks. So, I used less sugar (as usual), and no almond extract. The only one I have, I bought at some thai store on santa monica blvd, and it does not taste great. I imagine they'd be great with some though--Amanda, get on that!

They were pretty light, definitely not the typical chocolate chip cookie. People gobbled them up, but I don't think I liked them enough to make them again. Depends what you're after!

-Anna

Ay Conchitas Coloradas

As Amanda mentioned earlier..

We made conchitas!


Not only did we make them, we hand-carved them. As a kid, I was always drawn to the bright pink conchas in the Mexican dessert racks in grocery stores. I'd always scrape of the topping little by little, and bunch together little bits of its crumbliness to get it to my mouth. I'd usually skip the bread part--it was just dry and greasy (both at once!), and lacking in flavor.

These babies, however, were all ABOUT the bready part. Partially because the topping looked like poo.. We made a batch with margarine topping, and a batch with butter topping. I actually preferred the margarine variety, though I'm usually a butter person.

Here we GOO!


clabber clabber clabber. made the dough nice and apple vinegar-y :)


soft shaggy dough


nice inflated yeasty dough


pressing on the yummy tops


drawn-on concha shell pattern, plus a swirly shell


ooey gooey flexy flooey!


im making these again some day, i know it

-anna

Cheesecake for the Boys

Oh those Italians!

Letting me make a plump and juicy cheesecake, crustless, ricotta-full.

They do know the way to so many hearts.

So this was my first cheesecake! It didn't fall, which I was not happy about, but apparently this isn't a huge issue for most people who consume your cheesecake, so no need to fret.

I don't think I've ever zested so much in my life. But I loved every minute of it. 3 whole lemons. 2 big ole oranges.



Here's the recipe.

I used less sugar, and it was definitely still very sweet on the tooth.

So rich yet fresh. Mmm. Oh!! And I used low fat ricotta. Still rich enough to only be able to take a forkful, wait a while, take another, share some with your host's roommates, bring some home, have him bring some home, have him drop it on the way home, have him cut off the part that touched the floor and eat the rest, too many commas, not enough grammar.

Cheesecake! Blueberries next time. And chocolate chips. Mmmmm!

-Anna

Something Green!

This is easy. I used peach instead of mango since it was cheaper it was still yummy. Also I used a red onion. I don't know if that means anything. Here's the recipe.



And I am so clever.

-Amanda

I Thought I Didn't Take Pictures, But I Did

These are Nigella's blueberry muffins. They're from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I'm too lazy to write the recipe, but basically they're her blueberry muffins except I added grated orange and ground cardamom.

There's melted butter too.


And there we go. Heehee.

I'm clever.

-Amanda

If I Only Had a Food Processor...

So this is the closest I've gotten to the types of good bran muffins you find in coffee shops and bakeries and such. You know..the chewy, honeyed kind that's a deep chestnut color and filled with plump raisins. I got it from here, it's sounds kind of authoritative and revered, no?

Except, the part about food processing the raisins was not possible for me. Our blender is from the 70s and most of the knobs don't work anymore. Hopefully we'll get a replacement soon, but who knows.

I added some cherries and raspberries to some of them to get my fruit quotient up. I think next time I would just use cherries and not raspberries. Otherwise I only tweaked a few things: used 1/2 cup of apple sauce in place of the oil and added only a tablespoon or so of canola oil and for the buttermilk/yogurt part I used 1/2 cup of non-fat greek yogurt.

Instead, I squished the hot water-plumped raisin with a potato masher. It did a decent job, but, I would have hoped for better. Next time, I think it would be fun to soak the whole raisins in some sort of liqueur for five minutes before mixing them in, maybe kirsch?


Good with this?
-Amanda

Wonderbread

I woke up and my mom wanted something with banana. I remembered my roommate making some banana bread that I had thought was funky upon first bite. It tasted yogurty. 10 seconds later, I had wanted to find the recipe. So I looked up banana yogurt breads--they existed! Of course, now that I'm back in Berkeley, I asked my roommate about that banana bread, and she claims that it had zero yogurt. None.

Point is, it turned out we only had one banana left, but I still wanted yogurty bread. Since I got a good grip on zesting, I went for an all-out lemon yogurt loaf. I pumped it full of blueberries, soaked in a tangy glaze, and had myself the tastiest, moistest yogurty loaf of my life.



I found this zesty lemon bread recipe and modified.

Differences:
I used a LOT less sugar. And it was still too sweet.
I used low fat yogurt.
I used more lemon juice, and less powdered sugar, for the glaze. The cake soaked it up nicely, but you had to be very careful slicing/lifting. Maybe you didn't have to be, but I was. This loaf was precious to me.
I used blueberries, of course. There are few bloods more tantalizing than that of the blueberry.

Spongy and glorious.



Please make this and feed it to anyone who needs a smile. I'd recommend making a couple loaves at once--I was sad that I only got a slice and a half.
-Anna

Forgotten Pizza

We made this a while ago, hopefully Anna will post the quinoa cakes since I didn't get any shots of them. This pizza has a harrowing past. First it was supposed to be grounded by some whole wheat pita bread.
Unfortunately the pita bread had mold on it. We went to Trader Joes though and per Anna's suggestion got whole wheat lavash instead. It turned out a lot better than I think the pita would have--so thin and crispy.

Also originally this was going to be based on a healthy living sort of Martha Stewart recipe of asiago cheese, ricotta, red onion, and mushrooms, a top some sort of whole wheat flat bread. Instead we decided to use leftover spanakopiropita (we've been wrong all this time apparently, spanakopita is just spinach and no feta; however this had ricotta and not feta, so I'm not 100% sure, but anyway) filling. We still grated some of the asiago cheese on top and put a few sliced mushrooms too.



So good. I really want to make this again. Maybe this on a warm summer night?

-Amanda

Cherry Tart Will Get You a Ride

I made this tart for my mom's friend birthday. I also made same friend that whipped cream cake for her birthday. But this tart was for birthday dinner at her house.

I am cherry pitter supreme now. Forget buying a pitter or using that silly paper clip contraption. I timed my speed with songs on Itunes and you don't even want to guess how many cherries I was able to pit over the length of Suga Suga by Baby Bash.

Otherwise this tart didn't take much skills. The dipshit who honked at me and gave me a condescending shake of the head this morning probably could have made if he has a cherry pitter.

I followed this recipe too the tee except I used skim milk instead of the heavy cream since it seemed silly to go out and buy heavy cream just for a quarter cup. I upped the butter by a tablespoon just to keep things even.

Also I had to rush out and get the ride that a slice of this tart afforded me, so my mom took the picture with a flash. It makes it a bit gaudier, no?



I sadly didn't get to taste it. But it looked really yummy-I love cherries and almonds. Next time.

Maybe this song?

-Amanda

These Muffins are to Bran, Like Charade is to Hitchcock

So I made these as my muffins of the week. Success? I think yes. But they have no bran, even though I'm branding them as such. Yeah, I did just say that. They have quinoa instead, which is a fluffier substitute for bran...maybe?

They don't give you the weighted down feeling bran does, which maybe or good or bad depending on what you're going for. The berries really make them though--the cherries specifically. I used this recipe , except I
a) skim milk instead of soy, though I'm not opposed
b) Honey for most of the maple syrup since we only had a little bit left
c) Regular whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour, since where are you supposed to find that stuff?
d) I replaced the dried fruit with a heck of a lot of fresh cherries, blueberries, and strawberries.


I realized that I ate the last of these on Saturday morning without taking a picture--that's how good they were I guess. Here's a picture of a hedgehog and tea, which I thinks makes up more than enough for it.


Mornings are best with these and this.

-Amanda

Double the Surface Area

We never blogged these. I don't know why. They were good. Our clabbering was superb, even though Anna said they smelled like apple cider vinegar even after they were baked. My favorite part was the chocolate topping. Usually I just ate the top and threw out the bottom, since the bread part went stale after the day we made them.



So my genius idea was to use the remainders that I hadn't consumed the chocolate topping off of to make conchita bread pudding, conchita chocolate orange bread pudding to be specific.

Mmm, we used this recipe to make the conchitas and I pretty much winged it with the bread pudding. I used an 8 x 8 pan, maybe 10 or so of the conchitas, 2 eggs, some sweetened cocoa powder, some orange zest, a quarter cup melted margarine, 2 cups skim milk, and some raw sugar sprinkled on top.

Bread puddings are pretty flexible, so you never really need a recipe, just stale yeast bread, eggs, and some sort of milk/cream/etc.

The pudding pictures are ugly, so if you make it close your eyes as you eat it.
Rhyme?

Also these are sweet, so here you go.
-Amanda

L@te

There are always those nights. You try to fall asleep at 11. You end up leaving the wide-eyed world with the scent of cookies/cakes wafting through the house, at 4am.

My mom had an appointment with the hospital at 8am, so I decided she deserved a cake to wake up to.

Using this easy recipe, I whipped up a cake that actually rose a bit! I left a netting of flour on the sides of a cake pan, so that the batter can actually climb as it tries to escape my pan, rather than seeping through the (impenetrable) cracks which allow the bottom to fall out. Good thinking. ..

A nice sun in the middle for radiance!

I don't like cake with buttermilk as much. Yogurt is my favorite way. Soon to come: bomb blueberry lemon bread. so bomb. bomb bomb. i like it so much i'm saying the word bomb. over and over.



This recipe was not as fun for me. I was really excited, because I'd been craving pistachios like who knows what (after seeing this pavlova), and I had a nice thick amount of pomegranate molasses sitting around. These cookies were a hit, but not to my ears. I also didn't think they were attractive. So this is their mention. I'm sticking to using pomegranate molasses in savory dishes.

-Anna

The Pits are for People You Don't Like

Cherry Lemon Pine Nut Muffins



These are prettier than they taste. The pine nuts and the cherries are the best part. I would go for orange next time. Maybe it's because I didn't use meyer lemons. Oh well.

I used this recipe, but I popped cherries in them. That's not meant to sound sexual; I don't really know how to rephrase it...

Also I didn't grind up the pine nuts since I don't have a food processor and I was too lazy to dig out the blender.



And right, warn people you do like that there are pits in these. Otherwise you can laugh at the people you don't warn about the pits while listening to this.

-Amanda

The Muffin Cup Conundrum

Wrapper versus naked? Naked is difficult to remove, but paper means a lot of the muffin outer layer is left clinging... I think in the end the extra effort is worth it to get the whole muffin.



These are my third batch in my search for the perfect bran muffin. More bran-y than the last. These call for wheat bran--of which I bought a HUGE bag. They're not as sturdy as the first though. But I I got the right portion of fruit finally!

I adapted the recipe from here, except I
a) Zested a huge orange and put that all in: reminds me of fruit cake for some reason.
b) Used a sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice instead of the recommended pinches of cardamom, all spice, and cinnamon.
c)Uped the apple sauce to 1/2 a cup instead of 1/4.
d)Used splenda instead of regular sugar.
e) Added a banana that was going bad.
f) Added maybe 3/4-1 cup of fresh blueberries.
g) Used only maybe 2 teaspoons of oil.
h) Used skim clabbered milk, instead of low-fat buttermilk.
i) Used almond extract instead of vanilla.

I would say more almond extract and maybe to make it sturdier add flax seed?

And I think this is a good song for them in the morning, it especially complements the tartness of the cranberries.
Anna made a few of these in her pixie muffin pan, yummy. They bled and it was beautiful.



Countdown to True Blood?

-Amanda

Boy Bait: Conquering Phyllo

Spinach Dill Pie/Make-shift Spanakopita



I made Martha Stewart's "quick spanakopita" last week. That was quick, and this one may take the same time or longer. This is also Martha Stewart actually. I'm not sure what that says about me that all my spanakopita recipes are coming from her. Anyway, I think I like this recipe better:

a) it uses ricotta instead of feta
b) It takes a shorter time to prepare the filling.
c) It uses cumin!
d) Less oil/butter.
e) I learned you can just spray the phyllo sheets with cooking spray so you don't have to melt better and pat it on with your hands!

Also, I had a lot of filling leftover with this, so Anna and I made a pizza with it, mmm, that will be posted soon. And another thing, Instead of using whole 12 by 17 inch sheets of phyllo, or whatever the dimensions are for a full sheet, I used a pizza slicer and cut them in half. AND instead of putting all eight on the bottom, I think I put three on the bottom and three on the top.

You always want a crunchy top.


Is this too tight for you? That's right, I hope you're reading this foodgawker.

It's the summer; you could listen to this while you eat it outside.

-Amanda

Madeleines in May-Hmm

That was a play on Amanda's title!

check it

We made those! Yeah they were good, yeah we love our dates and our earl greys. Lady grey? No thank you.



I won't lie--I struggled with the use of blender. I forgot to add water, and those blades did not appreciate waltzing with rough little dates. I actually wish I underblended, though, because finding little specks of juicy date really made the madeleine for me, and I wish the madeleine could've made it over and over and over.

We love the grease n flour. Classic.

Also the pelmeni :) Teaching Amanda the difference between pelmeni and pierogi was fun, because, i got hungry but I gave a pretty lumpy explanation. That's ok, our pielmeni were lumpy!



recipe aqui. Minor adjustment: we searched through aisles of beans, parking lots of angry food-shoppers, and mental inventories of frustrated grocers, and no adzuki beans could be found. So we went with the garbanzo. Admittedly, this made our pelmeni a bit drier, but half the work is showing up, right beans?

-Anna

Madeleine Mayhem (in a bad way)

I still don't understand how to make these. Anna rocked them a lot better than I did. I hope she posts the date earl grey ones she made. Those were bomb.

These are ugly and the fact that I made them at night and took pictures of them at night doesn't help either.



In addition to the recipe here, I added a chopped up Easter bunny.

He was one of three. These are the remainders, waiting for their unfortunates fates and maybe listening to this song in the meantime?




Killing Bunnies,
Amanda

I love parchment!

Butter your pan. Cut out parchment for the bottom. Butter again. Dust with flour. Tap out excess.

That is all.



Also make sure your frozen berry mixture isn't too juicy. I felt really proud of myself making this cake you will too.

Copy this recipe and revel in your whipped cream listening to this.



Kay, done!

-Amanda

Brighter Bran

Banana Berry Bran Muffins



So this bran is a little bit lighter, maybe it's because it's oat bran instead of wheat. These are simpler to make than the other bran muffins, a bit less interesting. Again, I should have put more fruit, maybe some spices too.. I wonder what would be good to put in a banana berry bran muffin, ginger? Cardamom? Cinnamon is over-used, nutmeg, allspice, or cloves, would have been too much...Oooh maybe almond extract?

Here's the original recipe. You could nibble listening to this song.



-Amanda