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Whoah, sorry I haven't posted in FOREVER! The end of the fellowship is nigh and life has been super non-stop. But that doesn't mean I haven't been cooking! I won't put everything down here but some of the highlights include: white wine & wild wineberry sorbet, blueberry muffin ice cream, and flan de coco!!

This weekend Rose and I will attempt to make homemade mozzerella! (we tried a few weeks ago...word of advice, lemon juice does not work as a substitute to citric acid when making mozz! you can use the juice if making farmers cheese but not here....its not pretty)

I hope to start posting more regularly again! Sorry for being MIA for a while!

Bananas Foster Ice Cream

Bananas foster has always been one of my favorite desserts ever and so it was only a matter of time before I combined it with my all-time favorite! The first time I made actual bananas foster involved a tortilla chip...none of that this time :)

For this ice cream, I basically made the standard french vanilla ice cream and mixed it with with bananas foster! I took three ripe bananas, mashed them, and mixed them with 4 Tbsp brown sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp nutmeg. Usually with this recipe, I slice the bananas in half and cook them, but I figured the mashed would work well with the ice cream. I melted two Tbsp butter and cooked the banana mush for about 5 minutes over medium heat. I then mixed the bananas and custard, cooled, and froze. A minute before the ice cream was finished churning I added a cup of walnuts.

This ice cream is really beyond words. I was going to add some rum to make it more like real bananas foster (which you then light on fire, hence the tortilla chip (?)...long story) but didn't have any on hand and it still turned out incredibly well!!

I'm sorry for the lack of posts over the past few months. DC has been keeping me super busy and I haven't had as much time to cook as much as I'd like. There will be another break for a week or two, since I am visiting Rose in Costa Rica!!! :D BUT this summer I promise there will be so much cooking, baking, and ice cream making!!

-e

Penang Tofu Curry

At trainings for the Hunger Center, they always provide the most delicious meals. My all-time favorite was always the penang tofu curry from Thai Chili (in Gallery Place, I believe). Before this, I always ordered pad Thai from Thai restaurants, but now that has definitely changed. I have always wanted to reproduce this meal at home and tonight I finally did! (Thanks to all the help of Noopur, my co-chef)

We froze the tofu overnight and let it thaw out during the day. This makes the tofu drier and tough, so it sucks in more of the sauce. We then pan fried it before tossing it into the curry.

This is so freaking delicious and really really simple. Make immediately! :)

Penang Tofu Curry
Ingredients

• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup finely chopped shallots
• 2 tablespoons finely grated peeled ginger
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup organic peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon hot chili paste (such as sambal oelek)*
• 1 cup water
• 1 13 1/2-to 14-ounce can organic light coconut milk
• 3 kaffir lime leaves or 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice and 1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lime peel
• 1 tablespoon (firmly packed) golden brown sugar
• 2 14-ounce packages organic firm tofu, drained, cut into 1-inch cubes 1 1/2 cups 1/4- to 1/3-inch-thick slices peeled carrots (about 3 medium)
• 1 1/2 cups 1/4- to 1/3-inch-thick slices peeled carrots (about 3 medium)
• 1 large red bell pepper, cut into 3/4-inch pieces

Preparation

Heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots, ginger, and garlic; cook until shallots are tender, about 6 minutes. Add peanut butter, turmeric, cumin, and chili paste; stir until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in 1 cup water, then coconut milk, lime leaves, and brown sugar; bring to simmer. Season sauce with salt. Add tofu, carrots, and bell pepper; simmer over medium heat until carrots are tender, adjusting heat to medium-low if beginning to boil and occasionally stirring gently, about 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt.

Irish Carbomb Cupcakes

This weekend I visited my lovely friends down at St. Mary's, and Saturday was dedicated to baking!! We made chocolate banana bunnie cupcakes, peanut, ginger, & sesame cookies, and irish carbomb cucpakes!!

I was on team cupcake, so I focused mostly on the irish carbomb cupcakes. We tried to make them vegan so half the house could eat them, but there really was no way. The amount of butter and irish cream in these thing...wow.

The recipe is from the website below. They used just chocolate and cream in their ganache, but since we didn't have heavy cream we decided to use half irish cream & half soy milk. What a good decision. We also used plain yogurt instead of sour cream, which is both tastier (in my opinion) and healthier.

The cake batter is baked with guiness beer, filled with chocolate and irish cream ganache, and topped with irish cream icing. It is needless to say, they were beyond incredible!!

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/01/car-bomb-cupcakes/

You need to make these ASAP, but don't eat too many or your body will just stop working. Plus, any baked goods in the future will fail to be as good as these. Awesome.

Maztzah Dal Soup! (Happy (?) Passover!)

Hey friends. Sorry for the slowing of posts recently. My work at the National Family Farm Coalition has been keeping me super busy. Plus, last weekend was my sister's wedding so I was in Baltimore for a bit. (Awesome food-filled weekend, I might add!)

With NFFC, my main responsibility is conducting a survey of farmers throughout the country to help identify barriers to local food marketing, credit & discrimination issues, and mentoring programs. I have conducted almost 50 surveys over the phone and they have been going well. I am almost done with the calls and analysis will soon follow.

I was unfortunately not able to go up to Baltimore for passover seder Wednesday night. I still wanted to honor my people's freedom from enslavement by those Egyptions *shakes fist* While in Tucson, Amy and Ami visited for a weekend and Ami told me of one of the most brilliant creations I have ever heard of. Matzah Dal soup!! It not only is an incredibly clever name, it also sounded like a delicious idea.

So on the first night of passover I decided to make Matzah Dal soup (also as a way to blend both my and Noopur's cultures together since we are roomies!) 

I mixed a recipe for lentil soup from the Moosewood Cookbook and a recipe from Noopur's mom. I won't reproduce the recipe here because I dont know the english name of some of the spices, and since I kind of threw things together. I boiled the lentils, added in onion, garlic, carrots, and spices, and cooked the matzah balls in the whole concoction.

The soup turned out alright. I think next time I'll use veggie stock instead of water as the recipe called for, and stick more closely to the actual indian dal soup recipe. Plus, the matzah balls soaked up tons of the water as it was cooking so I needed to keep adding more water.

Either way, happy passover and easter!!! I hope everyone eats amazing food (which pretty much means no passover food...)

Apple Cinnamon Scones

Tonight, there was another potluck and I decided to make apple cinnamon scones. I had some extra apples on hand from the market and a random desire to make scones, so this recipe seemed like a great idea. I found this recipe off my favorite recipe website ever, allrecipes.com
Apple Cinnamon Scones

Ingredients

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/4 cup white sugar
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup butter, chilled
* 1 apple - peeled, cored and shredded
* 1/2 cup milk
* 2 tablespoons milk
* 2 tablespoons white sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Measure flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt into a large bowl. Cut in butter or margarine until crumbly. Add shredded apple and milk. Stir to form a soft dough.
2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead gently 8 to 10 times. Pat into two 6-inch circles. Place on greased baking sheet. Brush tops with milk, and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Score each into 6 pie-shaped wedges.
3. Bake at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C) for 15 minutes, or until browned and risen. Serve warm with butter.

The scones turned out pretty well. I decreased the milk amount from the recipe and had to add a bit of extra flour to make the dough right. They are a little cakeier than I like my scones and could use a little more apple flavor to them. But overall I think they are pretty tasty. It would be worth playing around with this recipe!

Sweet Potato Ice Cream

Tyler (who is in Nicaragua because he is a jerk) recommended (demanded) that I make sweet potato ice cream (because he is a jerk). So I made this batch of ice cream for Tyler, and I made it even more delicious than I normally would have so he misses out even more while being in another country.

Sweet Potato Ice Cream
1 1/2 C whole milk
2 C heavy whipping cream
3/4 C brown sugar
dash of salt
2 egg yolks
1 tsp cinnamon
dash of nutmet
1 C sweet potato (about 2 medium sized sweets)
t tsp vanilla extract

I started this off like all ice creams, but I decided to use brown sugar instead of white since it goes with sweet potato so well. I put the milk and sugar on low heat until it reached a simmer, tempered in the egg yolks and stirred for about 10 minutes until a custard formed.

While the custard was cooling I baked the potatoes (I will embarrassingly admit that I cooked the potatoes in the microwave since I didn't have over an hour to wait...but it will work all the same for this recipe, even though I rarely trust microwaves). Once fully cooked, peel off the skins (and eat them because they are delicious), and blend the potato flesh in a food processor (or blender, or with a hand masher. Whatever you have on hand). Once fully mashed, mix in slowly with the custard, and stir in the cream and vanilla. Chill for a few hours and churn in an ice cream maker.

This recipe turned out very well! I am glad I used to brown sugar since it gives it a bit of a different taste for ice cream. You will definitely need to mash up/process the sweet potato since it is so fibrous. I had some extra chunks of potato in my ice cream which I am glad about, so don't worry too much if its not mashed completely. This would be great with vegan marshmallows thrown in or pecans, but I had neither on hand. This is a delicious ice cream... and maybe somewhat healthier than normal ice cream since it has super-good-for-you sweet potato in...but I kind of doubt its that healthy once you account for all the cream and sugar :)