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