Rasberry Glaze

I am always looking for quick, delicious substitutes for frosting! If I hadn't already mentioned it, I have an innate dislike of creaming butter and sugar. It started when I started baking, around 12 years old as far as I can remember. As the years went on, I just left off the frosting and cooked with oil.. NOw, with French husband who loves pastry & baked goods, kids and party cakes to make, leaving it off just doesn't cut it!

So when I was making a huge heart cake for the end of the school year party I stumbled across a most excellent idea... GLAZE. Thank you Fanny Farmer, my Gramma's and Mum's cookbook standby. Yes, sugar, but no butter. And SO EASY.

Ingredients-
Confectioners powdered sugar (I make sure to have a whole box on hand to adjust viscosity)
hot water or juice or espresso of choice

Basic Method:
Heat the water or juice, take off heat before boiling.
Add in small amounts to however much confectioners sugar you choose. I usually start with about 1 cup for a regular sized cake. Until you reach the consistency you like. I prefer my glaze a bit thicker, but not spreadable, otherwise it al just ... glazes off and gets too thin.

If you get it too thick, add some more warmed water. If it gets too thin, just keep adding sugar!

In this instance I used raspberry juice. Usually I defrost about 1 cup of raspberries. Then smash them through a sieve so all the seeds stay in the sieve.
Heat the juice. Add slowly into the confectioners sugar as described above.

I have used this glaze on a HUGE heart cake, on 36 cupcakes decorated with sprinkles and one fresh raspberry. Usually on chocolate cake, Next time, I'll try and espresso version.... MMMMMmmmm

Pasta Risotto?

Yes, its true. Making pasta as if you were making risotto, but in 20 minutes, and without the cream. Although, it is pretty creamy. This is one of those magical recipes that tasted even better than it sounds. Where the sum of the ingredients is so much more than they are separate. It is , of course, from my favorite scientific cooking mag- Cook's Illustrated. Read on for the perfect spring feast.

3 medium leeks, white and light green parts halved lengthwise, and cut into 1/2 inch (5 cm), slices (about 5 cups); 3 cups dark green arts roughly chopped and put aside

1 pound (450gr) asparagus, tough ends snapped off, chopped coarsely and reserved; spears cut on an angle into 1/2 inch (5 cm) thick pieces

2 cups baby frozen peas, thawed
2 large clove garlic (or more if you love it!), minced
5 cups vegetable broth
1 cup water
2 TBL (soupspoons) chopped fresh mint
2 TBL (soupspoons) chopped fresh chives
1/2 tsp (coffeespoon) lemon zest PLUS 2 TBL juice from 1 lemon
6 TBL olive oil
seasalt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (opt)
1 pound pasta - with a shape- spirals, bows, squiggles, etc. the recipe calls for campanelle
1 ounce grated Parmesan cheese, about 1/2 cup


Place dark green parts of leeks, asparagus tough ends, 1 cup baby peas, 1 minced garlic clove, and water into pot with vegetable broth, bring to a boil on high heat, then turn down and let simmer. Mince herbs and zest lemon into a bowl, mix.
Place sieve over a large bowl/cup and let drain while you prep the veg.
Make sure you have 5 cups, add enough water to get to 5 cups.

Heat 2 TBL olive oil in a dutch oven or large frying pan. Add sliced leeks and a pinch of seasalt. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until they start to brown. Add asparagus tip until crisp, 4-6 minutes, then rest of garlic. Then last cup of peas. Warm through. Place veg mix on a plate.

Wipe out pan. Add 4 TBL olive oil, heat until shimmering. Add in all the pasta, and cook stirring often until all pasta is covered with olive oil and begins to brown. About 5 minutes. Add first cup of broth and stir until absorbed. Add rest of hot broth. Cook, stirring often until liquid is mostly absorbed. About 8 minutes, more if you are using whole wheat or whole spelt pasta.

When pasta is al dente, or cooked as you like it, take it off the heat. Stir in lemon juice, half of herb mixture, Parmesan cheese and veg mixture. Salt & pepper to taste. Serve right away, passing the Parmesan cheese and remaining herb mixture.

MMMMM... it's like eating a creamy veg pasta primavera without the cream, but with the creamy sauce sensation...

Best Black Beans - EVER

I have a history of loving black beans- Cuban style, Mexican style, you name the bean, I love it.
This week I finally decided that it was time really eat Mexican food again, and since I can't buy it in France, I'd have to make it. In the spirit, I decided to use a new recipe to see how it turned out. Rick Bayless' Everyday Mexican, is the MAN. I twisted one of his recipes to suit my ingredients and cooking options. It ROCKED! Even the kids were asking for more. Next time I will double the batch.
I am sure this recipe will work with dried garbanzo beans (chick peas), pinto (burlotti) beans or dried fava beans too.

Oven-Cooked Black Beans

2 1/2 cups (400grams) black beans, soaked overnight or all day, change the water whenever you rememeber.
2 Tbl vegetable oil
1 large white onion, roughly chopped
2 bay (laurier) leaves or dried avocado leaves
2 inch (10 cm) piece dried Kombu seaweed
seasalt

Large Dutch oven (large cocotte)

Soaking and changing the water of the beans helps thier hard cover open and cracrack, getting thenm ready for sprouting. Doing this, and cooking with them with kombu greatly increases thier digestibility. No matter what anyone else says to me, this is years of my personal experience.

Pre-heat oven to 275F/140C

Place Dutch oven on stove on medium heat. Add oil. When hot, add chopped onions. Fry until transparent. Turn off heat.

Place kombu under the onions. Drain and rinse the soaked beans. Place on top of the onions and kombu. Fill with water until water level reachs apprximately 1 inch (5 cm) over the beans. Add the bay(laurier) or avocado leaves.

Place on stove at high heat and bring to a boil.
Cover and turn off heat.
Place in pre-heated oven.
Let slow cook for 2-3 hours. I always go out!

Remove from oven and taste a bean to make sure it is soft. Season with seasalt.
Note: NEVER add the salt before the beans are soft. If you do they will stay hard no matter how long you cook them!

Serve with creme fraiche or sourcream, chopped onions, chopped cilantro (coriander), fresh salsa or just some chopped up tomatoes and cucumbers!
You can have these as a meal, or as a side dish with chicken or pork, if you eat it.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla-Coconut Frosting

This is by far been my best dairy free, sugar free chocolate cake recipe ever. And the frosting! To die for. No more too sweet, to rich buttercream. I knew there had to be a filler, a bit like a flour-milk base is the thickener for soup or salad. Full credit goes to me finally really looking at a book I bought years ago, The Vegan Cupcake, by I.C. Moskowitz & T. H. Romero. Two of the original cupcake heroines, before it became so trendy. I love this book as it still using the basic ingredients you can find at any grocery store.
Makes and Frosts 12 cupcakes.

Simple Chocolate Cupcakes

2/3 cup soy milk
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup agave syrup
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I use de-aromatized Sunflower Oil, or melted coconut oil)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour (I use white spelt, you can use whole spelt)
1/3 cups cocoa powder (unsweetened)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Mix soy milk with Apple cider vinegar in a large bowl and let sit 5 minutes to curdle.
TIP: If you are doubling or tripling the recipe DO NOT increase the vinegar in the same fold. DO NOT exceed 1 tsp vinegar. It works the same and won't make the cakes asidy tasting)

Meanwhile, line muffin tins with cupcake liners.
Pre-heat oven to 325F/160C.

Into milk/vinegar mixture, beat in oil, agave syrup, and vanilla extract.
Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
Mix until smooth.

Fill liners 2/3 full.
Bake 20-22 minutes until a knife or toothpick put in center comes out with a very few crumbs on it. DO NOT over bake or they will be dry. If baking more than 1 tray at a time, be sure to switch the trays top/bottom-bottom/top after 12 minutes.

Let cool FULLY.

Vanilla-Coconut Frosting

This frosting is not quite as fluffy as a real buttercream, it has a creamy, custard like consistency. Make sure you cool the milk/flour mixture FULLY to ROOM TEMPERATURE, not cold refridgerator temperature, before you add the coconut oil, or you'll get... soup. If the mixture is cold from the fridge, it won't blend into the coconut oil properly and will look a bit curdled. Although it won't be curdled and tastes fine, and you will have a few small lumps of pure coconut oil in there. It happened to me today, and I could not get them out. I sent them onto my daughter's Pony Club anyway! Covered with a few sprinkles...

2 TbL white flour
1/2 cup soy milk
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup margarine or butter or coconut oil (the margarine or butter makes it creamy-er, I usede all coconut oil)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup superfine sugar or castor sugar

In a small saucepan over medium heat, whisk together flour and soy milk. Stir constantly until it starts to thicken, about 3-4 minutes. If you under cook or your frosting will taste like raw flour. Remove from heat and let cool 2 minutes.

Transfer to a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap so the custard doesn't get that skim on top. Let cool FULLY, at room temperature. Do not refridgerate. It will take time. Therefore, I did this before I started making my cupcakes!

With a mixer, as coconut oil is pretty hard, cream together coconut oil, margarine/butter, vanilla and sugar. Watch out! When you taste this mixture it becomes addictive!

Then beat in the COLD custard. Beat with electraic mixer for 4-6 minutes. It should get lighter in color and have a very creamy texture, similar to very thick whipped cream.

Frost on cooled cupcakes and decorate as you love!
Enjoy!

Quinoa - The Super Grain

I have been eating quinoa, much to my joy, for around 15 years. One New Year's Eve we were celebrating with dinner at a friend's house in Amsterdam, they served "quinoa-the super grain" and ever since, those 4 words will forever be linked.

It is indeed a Super Grain. Higher in protein that other grains. No gluten. Delicious, Fast cooking. Can't beat that right? It even looks 'out of this world" as it looks like lots of little Saturn's... planets with rings! Well, so how can you cook and use it?

Cooking Basic Quinoa

1 cup quinoa, white or red
1.5 cups water
seasalt

Place quinoa in a seive. Rinse long a well under cold water, swishing the grains around until the water runs clear. Quinoa can have a powder on it that tastes bitter and is acid causing. Nowadays I find the quinoa to be "cleaner" that 10 years ago, so I don't have to rinse it as long.

Place in a medium sized pot. Add water. Ratio is always the same so you can use any sized "cup" you have handy.
1cup quinoa : 1.5 cups water.

Add 1 tsp of seasalt.

If you have time, let soak as long as possible. If I remember I put this together at lunch or afternoon snack time when I am serving it at dinner, it can even soak overnight or all day. So you could prepare it before you leave for work and cook it when you get home (it only takes 15 minutes to cook!). And if you don't have time to soak, don't, just cook it. Flexible right?

Cooking: Bring to a boil on a large burned, high heat, uncovered. Once boiling, place on smallest burner, on low heat, covered. Let simmer for 15 minutes.

Turn off heat. Let stand for a few minutes. Take off cover. Serve.

Serve with what?!
Any dish you would serve with rice- chili, curry, lentils, stews, etc.
Serve with sauteed spnch or swiss chard.
Serve mixed up or topped with with feta, tomato, avocado.
Just eat alone with olive oil and/or soy sauce, and a green salad.
With Olive Oil, seasalt and broccoli! (That makes a gret breakfast too!)
For a sweet feast, mix it up with some coconut oil/butter and/ or mash a banana into...

It really is that flexible, that magical, that easy....
Quinoa- The Vertible Super Grain!


This one's for you Sharon and Corbin! Happy New Year!

Stir Fried Kale!

A meal of wild salmon and stir fried kale has to be one of my all time favorites. Cooking that meal always reminds of golden days in Golden, CO cooking with my brother Jeff.

Since I moved to France, kale has been pretty hard to come by. I found some for the second time in 3 years, of course the local organic farmer's market. Even they didn't have a name for it! Inspired, I will offer you my favorite cooking method.

Ingredients:
As much kale as you can stuff into a paper veggie bag! It cooks down.
Sesame oil
Soy sauce
fresh ginger root
french tumeric (cucurma) root
garlic (optional)
1 medium onion. chopped small (optional)
water

De-stalk kale. I turn the laves over one at at time, and from the back side, cut down both sides of the stalk. You can do this step the night, morning or afternoon before to save time during that high demand dinner hour.

Heat a large frying pan, with high sides if possible, over medium high heat. Add 2-3 Tbl of sesame oil. Right into the sesame oil, add onion if using. Then grate a 1 inch (4cm) piece of ginger root, or more if you love it, and around the half that amount of the tumeric/cucurma root, as much garlic as you like, if using (I don't). Let simmer of a few minutes until it just starts to turn color.

Add all the kale, pack it into the pan. Let it fry a little and try to turn the pieces around moving bottom to top, etc. This can be a messy step. Don't be too picky about it. Add about 1/4 cup of water. Cover for 4-5 minutes. Check now and then, and stir. You will see that the kale starts to change color and gets really bright green.

Add 3-4Tbl of soy sauce. Less if you have a serving for 1. Let simmer, cover off, stirring for a few minutes. Taste. Add more soy sauce of necessary.

Serve as a bed for salmon, cod....
Even my kids loved it ... Well OK, one of them did...

Let's Talk About OILS & FATS.

In almost all my recipes, especially the baked ones, you will find that I almost exclusively use COCONUT OIL. For me, it is a magic fat. It bring the fullness of butter with a slight hint of nuttiness, sometimes making the end recipe even better than the butter version!. But why did I start using it? Which one to buy? How do you substitute it for butter?

Besides remembering all the whoo-haa around movie popcorn made in coconut oil when I was a kid, I was more recently introduced to coconut oil by The Cleansing Diva. Oh yes, she is that, and oh so much more. On my first cleanse in some years, she sorted me out about coconut oil. Not only is it NOT bad for your heart, it actually assists your body in pushes out the "bad" fats, the ones that "make you fat." So we were sauting in it and putting it in soup and smoothies. Finally, off the cleanse (Yes!) I could bake with it!

Coconut Oil is a saturated fat, so it is solid at room temperature. What got a bad rap those years ago was processed, hydrogenated coconut oil. "Hydrogenation" is the process that turns vegetable oil into a solid at room temperature. Whenever any kind of processing has taken place with a fat, it alters the molecular structure of that fat. As such it makes it near impossible for your body to process this odd molecular element. Thus you have the problem with all the negative publicity around "transfats." They are an unnatural molecular structure and , in thier case, seriously compromises the body's functioning. So, when eaten, the body covers this odd structure in fat and stores it on your body somewhere... hips, belly, thighs, love handles... you get the picture.

Seek out UNREFINED coconut oil. It is in its natural state, hard at room temperature, and a bit tropical smelling. Coconut oil is rich in lauric acid whic also facilitates brain function and boost the immune system. It is this component that makes it different than other saturated fats. They are not all created equal.

Yo can substitute coconut oil for butter or vegetable or olive oil in any recipe. Just use 25% less as it has less water so is more concentrated. Also, you will have to melt it to use it. As it states in all the recipes here.

I haven't seen many pre made baked good using coconut oil .. YET. I imagine they will come, if we are willing to pay for them. It is highly stable. All my cupcakes, muffins, etc can last a whole week... when I hide them! When you are buying pre-made baked goods- READ TEH LABEL. Transfats are not labelled as "transfats." They are labelled as "hydrogenated vegetable oil," "rapeseed" or "canola" oil or "margarine". IF I buy a pre-made baked good, I look for butter.

Love Your Body*Know Your Mind!
Healthyfully Indulge.... everyday!


By the way, if you want to check out The Cleansing Diva, you can find her at
www.purelyhealthyme.com
For other internal and external uses of coconut oil look at
http://www.naturalnews.com/coconut_oil.html