Saturday, March 20, 2010

Pasta with Japanese Pumpkin, Pine Nuts, and Parmesan

I don't know how something that starts out orange (note the color of the pumpkin on top) can turn so green. Both the garnish and sauce are cooked so it's not the cooking or exposure to air.

I'm not a big fan of pasta, or any kind of noodle for that matter. I could never have been one of those college students who subsisted on things like "Top Ramen." Of course, I'm convinced that ramen is evil. Shawn's one and only MacBook was destroyed when a bowl of ramen lept from his hand and splattered itself on the keyboard. Well, either that or he carelessly held the bowl over the keyboard and dropped it. Either way, you just can't trust noodles!

Despite the fact that I would never leave a noodle alone with my wallet, I did decide to try a pasta dish. My motivation was less a love of noodles than a desire to use some of the kaboucha, or Japanese pumpkin, that I'd cooked up for something other than stuffing it into my greedy maw as delicious chunks of squash heaven. I've eaten plenty of kaboucha, but never used it for much of anything else as I tend to use American pumpkin puree when I cook with pumpkin. It's not as sweet and is more flexible (not to mention cheaper). If you don't have access to kaboucha and want to try this, you can use butternut or acorn squash.

I chose to make a sauce for pasta because I thought that Parmesan cheese and pine nuts would pair well with the pumpkin flavor and I frankly can't think of anything other than pasta that goes well with both of those ingredients. Here is what I came up with:

Japanese Pumpkin Sauce:
  • 1 tbsp. butter
  • 2 small cloves of garlic (or 1 big one)
  • 1/2 large onion (or 1 whole small one) diced
  • 320 grams of Japanese pumpkin (kaboucha) cooked and cubed
  • 1/2 cup low fat milk
  • 1/2 tsp. sage
  • salt and pepper to taste
Heat a heavy bottom saucepan over medium heat. Add butter and when it has completely melted, saute the onions and garlic cloves. Cook until the onions are softened and slightly browned. Remove 6 (smallish) cubes of the pumpkin for garnish and add the rest of the pumpkin to the onions, garlic, and butter. Stir and mash the pumpkin roughly to mix with the onion mixture. Add the sage, salt, and pepper. Stir and cook for about 3 minutes. Add milk, reduce heat to medium-low and cook for about 10 minutes. If it seems too thick, add more milk as needed. When the mixture is cooked, puree it in a small bowl food processor or an immersion blender.

Serve over warm pasta, top with toasted pine nuts, Parmesan, and garnish with reserved pumpkin pieces.

My feeling about this was that it was good and I really liked the flavor, but I wasn't really pleased with the mix of textures. I think the sauce was too thick and could have used some more milk. I also wasn't wild about the mixture of pasta with pumpkin in terms of texture. I was quite pleased, however, with the mixture of Parmesan, pine nuts, sage, and the pumpkin sauce.

I wasn't over the moon about this, but I'm likely to try it again some day with some variations. I think more milk would be a good idea, and it might possibly go well over rice for that matter. If you care about calories, this recipe makes 3 servings and the sauce is about 415 calories for the whole batch.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Blueberry Slushy Dessert

I know, it looks like purple poo. :-p

Note that you'll need a blender to make this.

My husband and I bought an enormous bag of frozen blueberries at Costco and I've been trying to think of ways to use them ever since. It's not that I don't like blueberries, because I like them quite a lot. It's simply that I'm generally not eating the types of things which go well with them like oatmeal. That being said, I did actually stoop to eating oatmeal because I had the blueberries.

Lately, I'd been adding 1 or 2 tablespoons of blueberries to frozen banana drinks to get the nutrition without too much of an imposition on the taste. Again, I like blueberries, but I wanted the banana drink to be banana-flavored.

I had tried to get together a blueberry version of the banana frozen drink I had, and I could never get the balance right. Using milk in particular seemed to add a funny taste and since the blueberries are more watery than bananas, it diluted it too much. After some experimentation, I came up with the following combination which worked well:
  • 1 cup crushed ice
  • 1 cup frozen blueberries (unsweetened - I used Radar Farms)
  • 2-3 packets of Splenda sweetener (or use whatever you like - sugar, honey, etc.)
  • 1 tbsp. powdered milk
  • 4 tbsp. (about 1/4 cup) unsweetened yogurt
  • a squeeze or two of lemon (to taste)
Add everything to your blender and frappe until it is well blended. It'll be thick and you'll have to pause occasionally to scrape down the sides. It should be similar in thickness to gelato.

The lemon is pretty important so don't skip it. It adds another flavor dimension to this rather than leaving it tasting rather flat (which is a problem with using only blueberry in my experience). It also makes a rather large serving.

by Shari (Orchid64)

"Less Bad" Banana Bread


I thought of several names for this in order to try and shorten the name. One possibility was "healthy" banana bread, but it's got artificial sweetener in it. Another possibility was "low(er) calorie banana bread", but that doesn't really fit either. I don't think any baked good can really be low in calories because flour is rather calorie-dense. I also really wanted to get something in the title about "whole wheat", but gave up because adding that would have made this "Whole Wheat, Low-Fat, Sugar-free, Banana Bread." I settled for "less bad" because it's a completely useless name and I think throwing your hands up in futility should be reflected in the title.

At any rate, I wanted to make a quick bread that wasn't over 200 calories per slice and I found a recipe which looked ripe for modifying. The original recipe is here on myrecipes.com. The original called for flaxseed, which I don't have and is very high in calories. I used an egg to make up for the loss of flax. The original used a half and half white and whole wheat flour mixture which I converted to all whole wheat. I also didn't see the point in using baking soda and used only baking powder. I substituted granular Splenda for the sugar and omitted the nuts because I don't like nuts in quick breads. One of the good things about quick breads is that the ones which use fruit or vegetables in them have enough moisture that you can usually get away with sugar substitutes without a big hit to texture. Finally, I added vanilla and cinnamon to boost the flavors.

Here's the recipe I used:
  • 3 small to medium bananas (mine were on the smaller side)
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup plain (unsweetened) yogurt
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1/4 cup Canola oil
  • 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
  • 3/4 cup granular Splenda (or just use sugar)
  • 1/2-1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
Put the bananas in a small bowl food processor and puree them to goo (or mash them well with a fork). Add the egg, oil, yogurt, and vanilla to the banana and process until well-mixed (or whisk into the mashed banana). Pour the wet ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir in the Splenda, salt, and cinnamon until thoroughly mixed. Sift the whole wheat flour into the bowl then gently push the flour around until most of it is moistened. Withhold the baking powder. You are not mixing it at this stage but just getting the flour to sit and soak up moisture. Allow this mixture to sit for between 15-30 minutes then add the baking powder and stir until it is mixed in. Preheat your oven to 170 degrees C. (340 degrees F., or 350 if your oven doesn't have such increments).

Pour the batter into a greased and floured loaf pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Note that I used a glass baking dish and mine took 55 minutes. Using glass may have made the baking time longer. If you use metal, I'd recommend checking at the 45-minute mark.

This turned out very flavorful and had a good texture, though obviously it wasn't as fine as one would get from white flour. I think I didn't do the best job of mixing in the baking powder for fear of overworking the gluten in the whole wheat flour. Next time, I think I'll be a little bolder about how I mix it. Still, I was very pleased at how this turned out and I'd make it again without modification. That being said, I may have used more baking powder than necessary, but I have a vat of it from Costco and am not exactly in need of conserving it and the flavor didn't affect the banana bread.

This was fine plain, but really shined when toasted (like a normal piece of bread) and spread with butter or margarine.

Note that the entire loaf is about 1500 calories. This is rather substantially less than normal for a quick bread.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Monday, March 8, 2010

Sourdough Chocolate Cake



Why no, it's not supposed to be half frosting. Why do you ask?

As the relatively unappealing image above may demonstrate, this recipe is certainly not one of my resounding successes. That said, it wasn't an appalling failure either; consider it something of a happy medium--a bold recipe that is bravely willing to straddle the line between "meh" and "pants-wettingly-awesome".

Comparing my image above with that displayed on the main recipe's page (source) raises a couple of questions:

1) What went wrong?

... Upon reflection, that's the only question I have. And truth be told, I think I have an answer; unfortunately, there's rather little I can do about it. But far be it from me to deny my readers the experience of reading my prose simply because I couldn't handle a few simple steps. Onward!

Sourdough Chocolate Cake
(Approrpiated from King Arthur Flour's blog)

Ingredients
Cake
1c Active sourdough starter
1c Milk
2c Flour
1.5c Sugar
1c Vegetable oil
2tsp Vanilla
1tsp Salt
1.5tsp Baking soda
3/4c Cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
2 Eggs

Icing*
6c Powdered sugar
1/2c Butter, softened (1 stick)
1/2c Plain yogurt
1/2c Peanut butter
1tbsp Hot water

Garnish
1/3c Chocolate chips
1tbsp Milk
1tbsp Corn syrup

* You'll notice that I changed the type of icing used from coffee (original) to peanut butter (mine). This is not entirely due to flavor preferences; I also couldn't find any espresso powder at the store, so came up with an alternative on the fly.

Preheat oven to 350F

Procedure

In order to prepare properly, I activated my starter the previous evening (in accordance with standard sourdough preparation: remove from fridge, add 1/2c warm water and 1c flour, let sit for a while) and then added the milk and flour the following morning. I then proceeded to let it sit on the counter until I was ready to deal with it. Contrary to the main page's instructions, mine didn't appear to rise over the course of the day, but such things are really hard to measure anyway.

While the dough is resting/rising(ish), beat the sugar, oil, vanilla, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl until well-blended. Add the eggs individually, allowing each to fully incorporate before adding the next.

Once the mixture is ... mixed, and the dough has risen (ish), add the chocolate mixture to the dough and stir to incorporate. This will require a great deal of patience, as a relatively thick dough doesn't like dissolving into a liquid (more on this later). Pour the mixture into a greased 9x13 pan and bake for about 40 minutes.

As the cake cools, you may prep the icing. Add the butter, peanut butter, water, and yogurt to a small saucepan and melt over medium heat, stirring frequently. (Note that if you stop stirring for too long, the peanut butter will probably scorch on the bottom of the pan.) After the mixture starts to boil, pour it over the powdered sugar and stir until thoroughly blended. Pour the resulting goo over the cooling cake.

The final garnish is optional, but helps add a bit of character to the cake's appearance. Simply melt the chocolate chips, corn syrup, and milk in a small bowl (the microwave works well for this, just go slowly) and then drizzle it over the top of the frosting.

Yeah, I'm horrible at the garnish part.

Lessons Learned
As I noted above, I encountered some trouble with the process of mixing the dough with the chocolate batter--notably, that they don't want to mix. They hate mixing. The sourdough has no trouble breaking up into smaller chunks and vanishing into a puddle of brown, but they're still there, waiting, like little chewy time bombs planning to wreak havoc on the texture of this cake. And that's precisely what happened to me: since you typically don't want to overmix gluteny goods, I erred on the side of caution and left some small fragments of dough scattered throughout my batter. These fragments, upon encountering the warm oven environment, transform into indigestible lumps of textural devastation in an otherwise mediocre cake. The best comparison I can come up with is akin to baked wafers (another disaster I've encountered first-hand, mind you): they're chewy and don't break down in the mouth, leaving you dissatisfied and curious as to what's going wrong.

The only other major problem I had was due entirely to my own modifications: as stated, I couldn't get espresso powder at the store, and settled on peanut butter as a substitution. However, I failed to take into consideration the fact that coffee (bitter) and a ton of sugar (sweet) mixes with yogurt (sour) to make something relatively balanced in the original recipe. My own version, peanut butter (sweet), sugar (sweet), and yogurt (sour), however, is extremely sweet (unsurprisingly), and completely overwhelms the cake itself. If I were to try the same substitution again, I would make a cream cheese based frosting rather than the powdered sugar type, as that would rebalance the flavors and allow the cake to shine through.

A final note: the cake's texture wasn't exactly cake-like (sourdough clumps aside); it was closer to a brownie. I suspect that in part this is because my sourdough yeast may not be active enough to provide the rise I need, but some further experimentation is needed to reach any real conclusion there. All in all, this was an interesting recipe, but not one I plan to attempt again; I'm content to make my cakes with chemical leaveners and leave the yeast to the goods they do best.