Vanessa's Bookshelf
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Awesome quinoa cakes! Take the advice of the reviewers on Epicurious: cook the quinoa in stock, double the eggs and add some panko. The cakes will hold together beautifully and crisp up nicely. I didn't follow the directions for rinsing etc. (what is that all about anyway?), and I just mashed the quinoa into a 3" biscuit cutter to make a total of six cakes after starting with 1 cup of uncooked quinoa.
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Mother's Day 2013. Great lemon curd recipe in this one -- much less sugar than you see elsewhere. (Though I bet it would be equally good with somewhat less butter.) Even though there are no egg yolks in the cake recipe, the heavy cream plus the egg whites made for a nice dense "cakey" texture (not light or dry). I made it in three 8" pans and split those (for a total of six layers rather than the four layers in the recipe) and was very satisfied with the results. Doubled the lemon curd (thinking I'd have some left over) and it turned out that I just had enough to go around, though. And I'd also make at least 1.5 and maybe 2x the frosting, next time.
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Used half and half and also half as much sugar in the panna cotta (which was still plenty rich and sweet).
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This totally rocked! I made it with broccoli (because that's the CSA provided).
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I made the peanut sauce yesterday, prepared the veggies today (and added a bit of tofu cooked in scalliion oil). Mmmm Mmmm. I really like this peanut sauce, which is super easy (OK, I did use chunky peanut butter instead of peanuts!) and super tasty. The lemongrass gives it an additional dimension. I always forgot (from one time to the next) what a pain it is to prepare three separate veggies (green beans, sweet potatoes, and cabbage), but it was perfect for the contents of my CSA box (OK, it had cabbage and sweet potatoes, but definitely did NOT have lemongrass!). Does anyone have a CSA that offers lemongrass? If you do, I'd be willing to bet the big bucks that you don't live in South Carolina! But I digress .... still, this is a great main-dish salad.
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I doubled the amount of chickpeas and used only 9 oz of spinach. Also, I used chopped grape tomatoes instead of sun-dried, skipped the cilantro, used lime juice instead of lemon zest, and didn't add any pepper (in deference to the weak palates at the table). But it was still show-stoppingly good. (Also, I served it over rice not sweet potatoes!). We will be making this again.
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I made this with cooked red kidney beans, and it was a winner.
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Wow, wow, and again wow. The salt topping is the coup de grace, but these things really rocked. They are best served warm. (On the other hand, very few of our batch made it to "cool"!)
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Confession: I've never made it with cucumbers (it is winter, after all) but I've used various other veggies (red peppers, carrots, zucchini), and it is one of my favorite slaws!
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The "smashed chickpea salad" is incredibly good. We've made it several times and it is great as part of a light supper.
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I've been eying this since I got the cookbook, but I never seem to have dates. Today I broke down and made this with what I had on hand: raisins instead of dates, pecans instead of almonds, flax seed instead of wheat germ, old-fashioned oats rather than "quick", and lemon extract and powdered lemon peel instead of orange zest and almond extract. (Who knew I was out of so many pantry essentials!) They were really good. They were crumbly, but the 4 tiny ones that actually made it into the fridge to cool did set up very nicely. They were WAAAY tasty and disappeared rapidly! Re-made it this afternoon (after shopping!) due to popular demand. This time I had almond extract, but I kept the other ingredients the same since we'd liked them so much.
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Made with canned artichoke hearts and roasted a few slices of eggplant to use in place of the ham. Delicious!
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Somehow, the dead of winter seems to be avocado season in our grocery stores (something to do with the Super Bowl?). We have avocados coming out of our ears (comes from asking husband to pick up a couple of avocados and having him come home with 10 because "they were such a good buy!"). Really, as much as I love avocados and guacamole, I wasn't sure that a chilled avocado soup was going to be great. But the recipe was very persuasive, so we gave it a shot. VERY GLAD we did! (The same husband had five, yes, "5", bowls of it.) I used three serranos, but the spice level was very mild after the avocados were mixed in. We went a bit low-end on presentation and skipped the crema and salsa to finish, but it was still extremely pretty, and even the avocado-dislking son thought the soup was pretty darn good.
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Wee hee, hoo hooa!!! Is this ever good!! In the middle of an un-South Carolina cold day, this was PERFECT. I made it in a 9-inch square pan, which was almost too small. (Thank goodness I didn't use the deep 8-inch round pan, or I would have had an oven disaster.) But the results - just terrific, and gorgeous.
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Hooray, hooray, this is the best carrot soup ever! Used red miso, and just threw in chopped scallions (didn't pickle them first). Terrific, Even better a couple of days later, but who can wait?!?
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Fresh poblanos, but no corn or beer this time, so I used vermouth in the risotto and added black beans instead of corn. Yea! another winner!
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How perfect when you are feeling like you've just eaten and drunk way too much over these holidays! I made this with broccoli and my prized kecap manis (which is really really special and much better than the homemade ingredient substitution). Virtue and incredible umami taste, all at once!!
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Easy to make, impressive to serve. It also created an impressive dent in my wallet. But I thought it was blah in flavor (though my guests scarfed it right down!).
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This one came out kind of sludgy, but impressively flavored.
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This was good, and it was even better the next day. I had to use a mix of Cubanelles and plain green bell peppers (a tragic lack of decent poblanos!) and canned corn (dang, it IS December!); I'd bet that poblanos and fresh corn would really move it up to the next level. I did have a goodly amount of risotto left over after stuffing. It made a great side dish for the less adventurous at the gathering, but I think this could be made with 2/3 the amount of rice called for.
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Not sure what I did wrong, but these were way too wet to shape into balls and roll in powdered sugar before baking! (I just chilled it until I could get scoops out and plunked those on the baking sheet, and they did turn out to be pretty terrific,) Perhaps it was because I used a mix of chocolate-mint and dark chocolate chips rather than baking chocolate and peppermint extract? Perhaps it was because I couldn't figure out how to interpret the instruction to beat the eggs and sugar "until fluffy and large air bubbles form" (????). Perhaps the recipe is a bit deficient. Any way, definitely worth making, and a special holiday cookie with a surprising minty BANG.
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These cookies are delicious! We only have cinnamon chips in the grocery store locally for just few weeks of the year, so I had to wait (and wait) until I could make these. But they were worth the wait. Even though cinnamon chips, like butterscotch morsels, are surely a triumph of food science and have an incredibly "this is isn't really a food" vibe, they work really well with oats and pumpkin, and the cookies even kind of feel like they might be good for you, with all those oats! I am going to buy some extra cinnamon chips to stash in the freezer so I won't have to wait so long again when the mood strikes again.
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This is a great way to cook pumpkin, with a wonderful garlicky sauce. (Sometimes it seems that a major component of Spanish cooking is a series of techniques for combining garlic and old bread!) The result is a very savory, satisfying vegetable dish suitable for all kinds of fall menus.
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What a great topping - oats. almonds, coconut (I used unsweetened), bound with a honey/butter mixture. Do cover or it will burn. I used HoneyCrisp but I think some other apple might be better suited - the HoneyCrisp really keep their shape and next time I will try for an apple that is a bit "saucier"!
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The Flourless Chocolate Walnut Cookies from Payard are to die for. Gluten free. Full of walnuts. Great way to use up egg whites! Make them smaller than she suggests - half the size or less. Make a half-recipe for a quick dessert solution that NO ONE will turn down.
About Vanessa
- Cookbooks146
- Magazines50
- Blogs3
- Recipes26,246
- Notes81
- CountryUnited States
- Member SinceOctober 19, 2010
