Tamarind Curd Tart

Inspired by my mother-in-law's blackberry curd and shortbread bars, and haunted by half a bag of frozen tamarind pulp in my freezer, I made this pie for our housewarming party in June. I used store-bought pie crust, to the horror of my husband, who makes a killer crust using the Cooks Illustrated version with vodka - but if I were to make my own, I'd put powdered star anise in it.

The only question is, where do I get tamarind pulp now that Hi-Lo grocery is closed? The process of making tamarind pulp sounds like no fun. Leads, anyone?

Banana Bread with Chocolate-Cardamom Glaze

I like to play with recipes. I often make big mistakes. Hence, I made the Veggie Planet Banana Cardamom Bread recipe and forgot the cardamom. Desperate for the funky, spicy taste, I put about a teaspoon it into some chocolate glaze. The result? Delicious! This banana bread is much lower-fat than most. If you don't like cardamom, leave it out (on purpose) or use cinnamon- or I am thinking of star anise next time...

The Cake
The Glaze

Crepe Cake

This highly improvised recipe turned out so tasty that we ate it for days. It's exactly what the title suggests- a layer cake, but made with crepes and roasted vegetables. I made a nutmeg-infused bechamel cheese sauce for the top, which added some richness.

I'd seen recipes like this before for dessert crepes, and knowing my sweet tooth, I'll probably try that too. I'm thinking lemon curd and fresh raspberries...

Crepes (makes 7-8):
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
pinch of salt
Blend all ingredients in blender. Ladel and spread spoonfulls into a hot, greased pan. Flip once when solid. I used a double-recipe for the cake above.

Roasted veggie filling:
Chop veggies and toss with olive oil, salt, and dried herbs. We used a zucchini, half a bunch of asparagus, and half an eggplant. I think squash will be great in here in the winter. Roast at 400 for about 30 minutes, until soft. We also sauteed tomatos and fresh basil for another layer to add some tartness.

Bechamel sauce:
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 1/4 cups milk, warmed
salt and pepper
nutmeg (optional)
1/2 cup cheese (or more)

Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour, stirring constantly until the paste cooks. Add the milk, stirring. Bring it to a boil (it will thicken a lot!) Add salt and pepper, then cheese and nutmeg and cook for 2-3 more minutes. Serve immediately.

Tahini Oatmeal Cookies

I recently had the urge to bake and nearly nothing sweet in the house- then I came upon the tahini, otherwise known as sesame butter. Now, a month ago, I would have passed right by in my search for dessert ingredients, back into the dark recesses of the cupboards where we keep the jello, resulting in a much less classy dessert. However, my mother-in-law recently brought tahini-chocolate truffles to our Sephardic Seder- she had taken a class at the wonderful Sofra Bakery and learned how to make them. They're like a more blended version of Reese's peanut butter cups, and they're delicious.

These cookies were best right out of the oven, but they kept fresh and chewy for days. I can't find the original recipe I used, but I tinkered with it so much, it doesn't even matter. I used about a half cup chocolate chips and a handful of raisins, but they'd be delicious with any dried fruit- next time I may try cranberries and orange zest.

They're aaaaaalmost vegan- except for the honey, for vegan sticklers. I haven't tried agave nectar as a substitute, but I'd imagine it would be just fine. If that's what you're into.

1/2 cup Tahini
1/2 cup honey
1 cup flour
1 cup sesame seeds
1 cup rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
chocolate chips, dried fruit, coconut, etc. to taste

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for ten minutes.

Sephardic Passover Feast

After last year's Seder feast, I knew that I had my work cut out for me. Also adding to the cut-out situation? I had just gotten off a plane from Israel- a two-week trip with my 8th grade students- less than 36 hours before. I had been planning to make the same menu, but after two weeks of wonderful Israeli food, it didn't seem quite right. I had collected numerous spices and delicious food memories in Israel, so I did some research and reinvented the seder menu. It ended up being very Sepharic-influenced. Sephardic jews originate from the Iberian peninsula, as opposed to Ashkenazic jews, whose ancestors are from Western and Central Europe. Everything was, and still is (mmm, leftovers...) delicious, but what I'm most proud of is that things went together- there were common threads of spice, color, and origin.

The menu:
Sepharic "Antipasto"
Matza ball soup
Horseradish potatos
Roasted veggies with Yemeni Hawaiig
Druze eggplant-garbanzo stew
Roasted lamb with herbs d'provence
Roasted duck with blood orange sauce (via the in-laws)
Roasted chicken
Haddock with za'atar-tomato relish
Espresso toffee
Lemon-ginger cheesecake
Chocolate covered apricots
Ubiquitous ring-gels
Sholeh zard (Iranian rice pudding)

We started the evening with an "antipasto" of roasted peppers, caramelized onions, hummus, labneh & za'atar, roasted garlic, and assorted olives.


Roasted Red Peppers. I am not a fan of peppers- they're right up there with cilantro and hazelnuts for me- but as my husband put it, color theory overran taste. And everything else was sort of brownish-white on the plate. So, I cut and de-seeded them, then roasted them at 450, 15 minutes on each side with a little vegetable oil. It was a total annoyance to peel off the skins once they cooled, but there were no peppers left at the end of the night, so I suppose they went over well.

One cannot overrate caramelized onions. A few months ago, I was given leftover onions from a staff lunch at school by a colleague who knows that my hesitance to throw food out borders on the obsessive. So, I caramelized four frying pans worth of onions. We served them to guests on pasta, olive bread, omelettes, and anything that wasn't dessert. Although, would they be awful with mascarpone? Caramelizing onions takes about an hour. I throw them in the pan with a little olive oil and a little salt, and stir once in a while over medium heat. When they start to get mushy, after about 45 minutes, I sprinkle balsamic vinegar over the mix and cook, stirring, about 15 more minutes.

I made Quinoa-sweet potato cakes & cumin-orange raita again. They were particularly good- I cooked the quinoa with a cinnamon stick this year.


Horseradish roasted potatoes are a Passover favorite. We had particularly pungent horseradish this year! I chopped and roasted the potatos with olive oil, rosemary, and kosher salt. When they were crusty on the outside and soft on the inside (the magical potato combination), I took them out and added a few tablespoons of horseradish, adding spice and bite.

My favorite place to shop in Israel was the grocery store. I picked up za'atar and a Yemeni spice called Hawaiig. When I googled it for recipes, I got "Did you mean Hawaiian recipes?" Indeed, I did not. So I went rogue and just used it to roast veggies- carrots and parsnips. It was tasty! Here's what's in Hawaiig, or Hawayil:
3 teaspoons black peppercorns
1 1/2 teaspoons of caraway seeds
1/2 teaspoon of saffron threads
1/2 teaspoon of cardamom seeds
1 teaspoon of turmeric

The Druze eggplant stew was an improvisation. One of the best meals we had in Israel was in the Druze village of Ussefiyya. While I couldn't replicate the Druze pita, which is made on a convex black grill about 3 feet across, the stew I could handle. I based the recipe on one for Persian eggplant stew, but left out the chicken, added chick peas, and cooked it for much longer to get rid of that rubbery eggplant texture. It was excellent with a bit of labneh, a thick yogurt, and some people even mixed in the horseradish potatos.


Fish with za'atar tomato relish. I will admit that I based much of the seder meal this year on za'atar, my new obsession and a wonderful blend of the herb hyssop and sesame seeds. I bought some dried and my wonderful friend Reuven picked some fresh for me on a cave hike. The fish recipe was wonderful. I substituted haddock for the expensive, strong-tasting red snapper in the recipe.

I enjoyed za'atar.

I enjoyed za'atar a lot.

Lemon-ginger cheesecake with almond crust. This lovely recipe is from Epicurious, via Smitten Kitchen. I added almond extract to the crust to make it more flavorful. I also added a teaspoon of powdered ginger, and topped it (after baking and cooling) with crystallized ginger. I think it would also be lovely with lavender, and candied lavender or violets on top...


Espresso toffee. I usually make this toffee recipe with lavender. Mom hates lavender and so last year I made with rosemary. Dad hates rosemary. But everyone likes coffee! I let it cook just a few seconds too long and it burned, creating a bitter, dark strip through the layers. It was fantastic! You could also melt chocolate and spread it on top.
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp instant espresso
2 tsp molasses (optional)
Candy thermometer (essential!)

Butter a medium cookie sheet. Bring all ingredients to a boil. Put candy thermometer in and stir constantly 15-20 minutes until candy reaches hard crack stage- 300 F. Watch carefully! At 300 exactly, remove from heat. Pour onto baking sheet and let spread. Let it cool. Let it cool completely in the fridge and then break into pieces and serve. Keeps well in fridge!

Sholeh Zard. This amazing Iranian rice pudding was an lovely, exotic addition to the dessert menu. It took much, much longer than the above linked recipe indicates for the rice to soak up the 8 cups of water- which makes sense, since that's about 6 cups more water than you'd usually use to cook rice. I found saffron a the local Indian market for about six dollars, which is not bad, considering it's generally more expensive than gold. I also used orange blossom water instead of rosewater, which gave it a similarly flowery taste, but a little less soapy. It was a lovely, unusual dessert. The rice cooks down to a pudding-y texture and it's a dramatic yellow, due to the saffron.

Curried Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

There are soups, and then there are meal-soups. This is the latter.

This wonderful, rich soup is the perfect cure for my post-honeymoon blues. We came back from a week in St. Lucia to snow and ice. I'm having a why-am-I-in-New-England moment. It's tropical (like our vacation) and warm (like our vacation) and several of the ingredients were ubiquitous in the frosty, umbrella'd drinks I drank on vacation. It's rich, tangy, and wonderful. I'd imagine it's not bad cold, either.

We pan-fried some tofu chunks with a little salt until they were crunchy, then floated them in the soup.

You can find the original recipe here. Here's our adaptation, with less garlic and a few other tweaks.

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
6 cups good-quality vegetable stock
4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup light sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lime zest
1/4 cup fresh lime juice

1. In a large heavy-bottomed soup pot, heat the oil and saute ginger and garlic for 2 minutes or so, until tender. Add vegetable stock and sweet potato and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer around 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potato is tender.

2. Insert immersion blender or remove soup by ladle and blend in blender until smooth.

3. Add coconut milk, sour cream, lime zest, curry powder, and lime juice and heat thoroughly but do not boil.

Serves 6.

Halloween Baking Extravaganza!

The Twisted Kitchen Presents:

Stabbycakes!

Eyeballs and Gingerbread Skulls!


So delicious, zombies eat them instead of brains!
And they make excellent prosthetic eyewear.