Black Beans and Rice

I know I said I'd be back to post about my birthday cupcakes, but I actually have this delicious black bean and rice dish banked, and if I don't post about it now, I know I'll forget and it will never happen. But don't worry! The cupcakes are coming! And you're not losing anything by getting this post first. In fact you're gaining because this dish is delicioussss! And really quick and simple! It's also versatile.
The first thing you need to do is cook up some rice. One cup (dry) to be exact. I didn't take a photo of rice cooking, though, for what I feel are obvious reasons. It's boring. It's self-explanitory.


The real fun starts with what I call the "dressing." In a large bowl you combine olive oil, lime (or lemon) juice, chili powder, ground cumin, turmeric, crushed garlic, salt, pepper and a can of green chilies. We use mild chilies because we don't like spicy food that much, but you can use any kind of green chilies, depending on how spicy you like your food!


Add in some chopped green onions and tomato...


and a can of black beans (rinsed thoroughly first, of course!).


Give it a good stir and wait for your rice to finish.


Then throw your rice in (we like basmati), mix it up well, again, and serve!

It's really that simple. Now, you may be wondering how you serve this dish. Well, as I said, it's versatile! The recipe is originally a wrap filling. Whip up some guacamole and your own tortillas, if you're feeling ambitious, chop up some lettuce and cheese and you've got yourself some delicious and healthy wraps. I've also baked this, with cheese on top! I've also stuffed peppers with it and baked them in the oven! But normally, we just eat it as a side dish with some form of protein (meat for Anders, vegetarian hot dogs for me, usually), and some cooked vegetables! It's really very tasty and when you can use it for so many things, you can't really go wrong! It keeps well in the fridge and makes a great quick snack as leftovers.

Now, before I move on to the recipe, I wanted to give myself a little shameless plug. I'm starting a very long photography project tomorrow, and while I don't know how many people actually read this blog regularly, I thought I'd plug it here, in case anyone who does read it is interested! There's nothing up there, now. My first post will appear at 12AM, eastern time. Thanks!

Recipe
Black Beans and Rice

1 cup dry rice, cooked
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lime (or lemon) juice
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 medium clove garlic, crushed
salt and pepper to taste
1 can (114 ml) (mild) green chilies
1 cup tomato, chopped
6 green onions, diced
1 can (540 ml) black beans, drained and well rinsed

Cook rice and set aside. Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine the remaining ingredients. Add cooked rice and mix well. Serve as a side dish, baked with cheese on top, or stuffed in peppers.

Guten Appetit! Continue reading...

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Muffins

I realise it has almost literally been forever, but I have a few things to post about and the first one is some delicious, healthy muffins!



As usual, this recipe started with the dry ingredients: whole wheat flour, white sugar, brown sugar and some oats.


Next I washed two lovely Ida Red apples.


And skinned and chopped them up.


The wet ingredients: water, oil, eggs and vanilla.


I threw the wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients, and then added the apples and some cinnamon... because I forgot to add it with the dry ingredients.


All mixed up.


I filled a greased muffin tin, and put it in the oven.


They rose quite nicely and smelled amaaaazing while baking.

This is a recipe I sort of made up based on my chocolate chip muffin recipe, but it turned out so well. These are great for breakfast. It's like eating apple cinnamon oatmeal. The only thing I'd like is for them to have less sugar, so the next time I make them I will try them with less. The healthier, the better!

Recipe

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Muffins
1½ cups whole wheat flour
½ cup rolled oats
1/3 cup light-brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup sugar
cinnamon to taste
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk or water
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1½-2 cups chopped apples

×××

Preheat oven to 400°F and grease a muffin pan.
In a large bowl, stir together flour, oats, sugars, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, stir together milk/water, eggs, oil, and vanilla until blended. Make a well in centre of dry ingredients and add wet ingredients, stirring just to combine. Stir in apple.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a muffins pass the toothpick test.
Allow muffins to cool on a wire rack for five minutes before removing from pan to continue cooling.
Serve warm or completely cooled. Muffins can be frozen.

Guten Appetit! Continue reading...

Germany Cupcakes!

Germany cupcakes... what could that possibly mean?! German doesn't have a word for "cupcake." From what I gather, muffins and cupcakes are called the same thing: der Muffin. I also looked "cupcake" up on the Leo translator. It came up with this: kleiner, muffinähnlicher Kuchen. It means "small cake, similar to a muffin." That's a mouthful. But so are cupcakes... which bring me back to the real point of this post...
I made these cupcakes for one of my German classes. As you may (or may not) know, Germans are not terribly, outwardly patriotic, and they haven't been for some time. But shortly before and after (the first) German unification, there was a tremendous amount of national pride and patriotism. We were discussing this period in one of my classes, and to get a better idea of what we were talking about, we did a pretend, "in-character" Rollenspiel (role play), in a Berlin salon. And what do you do in salons other than talk politics and literature, etc.? Why, you eat small sweets! Now, I'm sure they wouldn't have eaten cupcakes in the salons of Berlin back in the day, but I like cupcakes.
This still doesn't explain why the cupcakes are called Germany cupcakes, but if you continue reading, you will find out soon!

I started with two bowls with ingredients for vanilla cake in one and chocolate in the other.

The cake ingredients at this point are flour, sugar and baking soda, and cocoa for the chocolate cake.

I made the chocolate batter first: to the above mentioned ingredients I added some oil, water (it's supposed to be coffee, but we don't drink it!) and vanilla.


And I whisked it all up!


To the dry vanilla ingredients, I added oil, milk and vanilla.


And whisked it all up!


Next, I split the vanilla batter in two bowls and got out my trusty gel colouring...

Does anyone see where this is going yet?





I dyed one bowl yellow, and one bowl red (well, neon pink...:\)!


I layered the batters in my muffin tin, starting with chocolate.


And ending with yellow.

I realised afterward I should have done it the other way, since the black is actually on top and yellow on the bottom. Whoops!

After baking, they came out with cute little domes!




While they had been baking, I worked on some buttercream, which I also dyed schwarzrotgold (black red gold). I had never piped with more than one colour in the bag, so three was quite an ordeal! I also have a very small piping bag, so for many of the cupcakes, two colours came out fabulously, but the third was kind of lost.

In any event, I thought they looked pretty cute in the end! Which is why I took 23409834 photos...













Of course it rained the day I had to take them to class, and when it rains in Kingston, it rains horizontally. So this is how I ended up getting my hard work to class. In a Rubbermaid dishpan, which I then put in a garbage bag.

The cupcakes were enjoyed by one and all in my class! And what did I think? Well, something happened to my tried and true chocolate cupcakes. I must have messed something up in the ingredients, because they stuck like crazy to the paper. The vanilla turned out very well, considering it's an adaptation of the chocolate recipe (total current number of variations of that recipe: 3)!
But they were tasty and really cute. I just wish I had gotten some extra credit for it! ;]

I really want to post a recipe for this, but unfortunately, I typed it up in Notepad, and printed it to use while baking. Now it's attached to my fridge with a magnet... in Kingston. And I'm in Hamilton. So what I'll do is post the vanilla recipe when I get my hands on it, and if you're looking for the chocolate recipe, you can find it here!

Up next: chicken pot pie and blueberry cheesecake squares. And after that, stay tuned for some Christmas baking, as well as a ridiculously decadent cake which I'm planning to make for my mum's 60th birthday (on the 26th)!

Guten Appetit!

PS - apparently I have three make that FOUR followers! Rock on! Your patronage is much appreciated! :] Continue reading...

Pasta Fresca

Do you love tomatoes? Do you love fresh, local, summer tomatoes that make you want to eat them whole because they're just so darned delicious? Do you like garlic? And basil? Lots of basil? Do you like answering lots of questions about food?!

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you need to make Pasta Fresca. Quickly! Go out and get tomatoes now! They're in season and won't get any better. And you cannot make this dish in the winter, or even when the tomatoes are just out of season. So go!!

I always start by cutting up half a pound of mozzarella cheese into small cubes.

And then I throw it in the fridge until I'm ready to use it.

Next, I roughly cut up tomatoes, about 4 cups.

Okay, so you don't need this many tomatoes to get four cups.

And then I throw a whole bunch of garlic and basil into the blender with some olive oil.


The tomatoes go in the blender next, and I add salt and pepper to taste.


Vrrrroooooommmmm!!


The sauce goes into a microwave safe bowl until it's ready to be used.


The last thing to happen is to cook pasta. Okay, I also chiffonade some basil and chop up an extra tomato for garnish.

When the past is done (and just done, overcooked pasta is the worst), I mix the pasta, cheese and sauce together in layers.


And finally, top it off with some tomatoes and basil!


This pasta dish is a delicious dining experience. It's nice a light dinner on those hot August nights, and it's simple and so quick! If you have any respect for the combination of tomato, basil and garlic at all, you'll go out and get the ingredients and make it right away!

Recipe

Pasta Fresca
from Moosewood Cooks at Home

4 cups + 1 cup chopped, ripe tomatoes, de-seeded
10-15 fresh basil leaves
2 medium to large garlic cloves, pressed
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 pound fusilli pasta

½ pound fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into small cubes (store in fridge until needed)
grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese (optional)

×××

Roughly cut up and de-seed the tomatoes. Put the basil, garlic, olive oil and 4 cups of tomatoes into a blender and puree. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour into a microwave-safe bowl and set aside until ready to use. Cook the pasta to al dente and drain, but do not rinse. Heat the sauce in the microwave for about 30 second, until just slightly warmer than room temperature. Pour a third of the pasta, sauce and cheese into a serving bowl and mix gently. Repeat until all the pasta, sauce and cheese is used up.
Serve with remaining cup of chopped tomato and chiffonade basil.

Guten Appetit! Continue reading...

Lemon Cake with Lemon Glaze

Remember how I said my chocolate cake recipe was versatile? I wasn't lying. Because this lemon cake recipe is a wild adaptation of that recipe. Well, maybe it's not wild, but it is an adaptation.

The first time I tried it I really neglected the wet to dry ratio and ended up with a lemon-flavoured pancake. A lemon-flavoured pancake that was not fully baked. And that explains why there aren't a lot of photos. I completely switched up the method when I made it the second time and didn't take photos the second time around.

The recipe starts with fresh lemons. Mmm.


I started by grating the zest off the lemons, and then juicing them. I think I used two lemon, but I squeezed them really well with the mighty juicer we have. It may take more if you're not using such a mighty juicer.

Then, I mixed together the dry ingredients, which consisted of flour, baking powder and soda, and sugar. To that, I added oil, lemon zest and vanilla.


I left the lemon juice out still, because it makes the baking soda react, and I didn't want that to happen until just before the batter hit the pan.


And then I poured it into my greased and floured pan.


After being in the oven for longer than I had planned (because I used an 8 inch pan, rather than a 9 inch pan like I was supposed to), the cake looked and smelled deliiiish.


Once it had cooled, a poured a simple lemon glaze over it.


And once that had set, I added a few curled pieces of zest to decorate.


I enjoyed this cake with my parents after we ate a delicious dinner of Pasta Fresca (coming soon to a blog near you).


Oh my gosh. This cake was so moist and perfectly lemony. It wasn't too sweet, and it was lovely and light. We loved it. It really was perfect. And delicious. And I want more, now that I've written this little devotional.

Recipe

Lemon Cake with Lemon Glaze

2-2 ½ cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ - ¾ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

×××

Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9-inch round or 8-inch square cake pan, and dust lightly with flour. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar into a bowl. Add the oil, lemon zest and vanilla and mix the batter with a fork or small whisk. When the batter is smooth, add the lemon juice and stir quickly. The batter will foam slightly where the baking soda and the lemon juice are reacting. Stir just until the lemon juice is evenly distributed throughout the batter. Pour the batter into the cake pan, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool before glazing or frosting.

Lemon Glaze

2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice, fresh
1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)

×××

Sift the sugar into a bowl. Add the lemon juice (and zest, if using) and whisk until smooth. Pour over cooled cake.

Guten Appetit! Continue reading...