Oh no, I'm becoming a cookie monster!

The night before the child-killing test on the Russian Revolution, what was I doing?

I know I should say studying, but I could only study for so long, and even though I was leaving for Iran in 48 hours and was planning on making shortbread to take with me, I couldn't help but find a cookie to use up the super-ripe bananas in the fruit bowl and some of the eggs. Of course, muffins probably would have been more effective, but I remembered the time I made muffins that SHOULD have been cookies and unable to find my recipe, I decided to look online for a banana cookie recipe. I found one at Bakingsheet (now Baking Bites). Though the recipe was terrific unaltered, I woke up early the next morning and changed them up a bit and they seemed even more banana-y when I took out the chocolate and added some chopped nuts. Oh, and to answer the rhetorical question simply: baking cookies.

Out of fear of overbaking these, I keep undercooking them and they turn into mush. But the one cookie sheet that I managed to leave in the oven long enough turned out deliciously crispy cookies that were browned and nice and soft on the inside. I'm still struggling with that balance of baking time - though I will admit the other batches were definitely undercooked.

Now, three weeks later, I had to make another batch. And they disappeared (and its dark out and I'm too lazy to take a picture - what's wrong with me?) before I got a new, better picture.

Banana Oatmeal Bread Cookies
adapted from Bakingsheet
makes a few dozen

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour (or all purpose)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 small/medium banana (about 1/4 cup), mashed
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350F and line two baking sheets with a Silpat or parchment paper.

In a small bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg and banana, and then vanilla extract. Either on slow speed or by hand, gradually stir in the flour mixture. Stir in the oats, chocolate chips, and pecans.

Drop by tablespoonfulls 2 inches apart on baking sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes.

Delayed Vegan Valentine

A month or two ago one of my friends decided she was going to be vegan after reading a book about something. She never said what the book was. This was not too long before valentine's day, and since I usually take the treats I make to lunch with me, I felt bad if I took treats I couldn't share with everyone at the table (since they all eat nuts, I don't worry about those like I did in the past when I ate lunch with a nutty anti-nut friend).
I checked out Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World from the library last year because with a title that cute how could I resist? However, being anti-margarine and shortening, as well as an omnivore, I never did anything but flip through it. But I'd tabbed pages that lacked offenders and wanted to try them. But then I returned the book. So when my friend mentioned being vegan, I figured it would be a nice surprise. So I checked out the book again, picked out my recipe for an icing (Super Natural Agave Icing), and bought everything for either vanilla or chocolate cupcakes. Then I reread the recipe: soy milk powder. And I began a three-week quest for the stuff short of ordering ten pounds of it from the internet. I only needed 1 1/2 cups. So then I gave up, but the plain soymilk was still sitting in the basement fridge. In the past I've enjoyed soymilk in my cereal, but that's because vanilla soymilk is sweet and I didn't want to open the soymilk until I knew I could finish it. Unfortunately, it's almost March 11th, the date on the package.

So it was time to make the cupcakes, and the chocolate ganache to match.

(Coincidentally, I also started reading Vegan Virgin Valentine - or more accurately, listening to, on my iPod today. The character's name is Valentine though.)

Golden Vanilla Cupcakes
adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero
makes 12-15 cupcakes
My dad said these seemed like corn muffins to him. They weren't patient enough to wait for them to cool or for me to ice them this morning. When I had one, I pinpointed the flavor. It was a mild flavor from the soy milk.


1 cup soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract (or more vanilla)

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line muffin pan with liners.

Whisk the soymilk and vinegar together in a measuring cup and set aside a few minutes to curdle.

Whisk together the soymilk mixture, oil, sugar, and vanilla extract and other extracts in a large bowl. Sift in the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and mix until no large lumps remain.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 way full and bake for 20 to 22 minutes or until done. Transfer to cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting.

Rich Chocolate Ganache Recipe
adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World
Note: It makes more than enough for 12 cupcakes, so I made truffles, like suggested in the book, with the leftovers. It suggested using a chocolate with up to a 60% cacao content, but the lowest vegan chocolate I had was 70%, and I wasn't about to compromise the vegan value of the cupcakes after getting this far. And one of my friends said she likes the ganache topping better than a buttercream anyway, so I guess it was worth it.

1/4 cup soymilk
4 ounces semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

In a small saucepan bring soymilk to a simmer. Remove from heat and add chocolate and syrup. Stir until smooth and set aside until ready to use.

A Cake for A Potluck with Paella

As I mentioned last night, Dad was making paella for the potluck at our house. Mom contributed with tuna empanadas, and I was in charge of dessert. While the main course was a mish-mash of paella, kuku-ye lubiya (a Persian-style frittata with green beans), breaded shrimp with veggies, salad, and two different mast-e khiar (cucumber yogurt). I focused my dessert though to follow through with a theme started by the paella.
I have a recipe for a bizcocho de naranja in a magazine I picked up in Barcelona last year, but I used a different one that I made before and had notes on it so I knew that it would turn out tasty. I didn't want to risk a bad cake without time to try to save it.

Last time I used orange juice from a bottle since we already had it in the house, and this time I freshly squeezed it. Also, instead of following the recipe, I used Brown Cow cream top yogurt to make the cake, and since it was a new container and I didn't stir it up, most of the yogurt used was the cream top, which probably contributed to some of the richness, but the original recipe called for low-fat yogurt. I also probably need to find a better garnish because raspberries are not super tasty (and outrageously priced) this time of year. It just looks so boring without it, but tastes fine.


Bizcocho de Naranja (orange yogurt cake)
adapted from Cooking Light, July 2005
Serves 12 (or so)

1 cup freshly-squeezed orange juice
a large pinch crushed saffron threads
2 cups (9 1/2 ounces; 275 g) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1/4 cup plain yogurt
6 tablespoons good-quality olive oil

3 Tablespoons orange marmalade
1 Tablespoon Grand Marnier or other orange-flavored liqueur

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan with at least 1 1/2 inch sides.

Bring juice to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat; stir in saffron. Let stand 10 minutes, or while you are doing other steps.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt with a whisk in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl (or bowl of a mixer), beat sugar, egg, and egg white at medium speed until thickened, about 5 minutes. Add yogurt, beating well. Gradually add oil and the juice mixture, beating until well blended. Add half of flour mixture; beat just until blended. Add remaining flour and beat until just blended.

Spoon batter into prepared 9-inch cake pan. Bake for about 40 minutes or until a wodden pic inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove and cool completely on wire rack.

Place cake on serving platter. Combine marmalade and liqueur in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer stirring constantly. Remove from heat and spread mixture evenly over top of the cake, allowing to drip over sides. (If you like lots of glaze or don't like the look of the chunks, you can either double or strain it because this doesn't make a whole lot of glaze, its a very thin layer.)

Spanish inspired cookies that ring Iran

Tonight we're having a potluck, a themeless one because of technical difficulties that prevented us from contacting our family soon enough to insist upon a theme. But Dad's making paella, so I decided to make the bizcocho de naranja that I made a year or so ago when Dad made paella.
To go along with it as well, I figured I should make something else, just in case. So I flipped through The New Spanish Table by Anya von Bremzen and the very last recipe is for Chocolate-Dipped Almond-Stuffed Figs. That definitely caught my eye and I added it to the grocery list. But the dried figs were too expensive and too small at the first store and had too many preservatives in them at the second store. After I made my cake, I remembered having seen a recipe for a pistachio shortbread that I had all the ingredients for, so I measured out my pistachios just to make sure, and then decided to make it. The smell was familiar - like Iranian treats, so the cookies work perfectly for tonight whether I pretend I'm going with the Spanish theme or appealing to my family's preferences.

The scent of saffron and the presence of pistachios placed into something Scottish. It's a multi-ethnic cookie!

But you can find the recipe on page 451 of The New Spanish Table, here or here. The latter also has the recipe for chocolate-dipped almond-stuffed figs that I was going to make until I couldn't find figs and had everything to make the shortbread.

Granola Bar Weekend

I'm not sure what possessed me to make granola bars, but I had some sort of urge to make them on Friday night that was unfulfilled. I made corn tortillas, and when I was done with that, I decided to make granola bars. Mom told me she'd be home soon, so I didn't have enough time. And discovered I didn't have quite enough almonds, and despite having other nuts around, I was determined to use almonds.
So on Saturday, after the SAT (how fitting SATurday), I came home and made granola bars. I did have a paper due on Tuesday, but this is me and when the pressure comes pounding, I do something else.

The granola bars I made on Saturday were straight from The Kitchen Sink, though mine didn't come out nearly as photogenic. And I have an inability to cut things. Oh, and I used cherries instead of cranberries.Other than my parents complaining they were too hard (something I like about CRISPY granola bars), they were good. But I noticed the crumbs after eating them were almost always the whole flax seeds.

So on Monday, while my friend was editing my paper for me, I set out to make another batch of granola bars, but this time without coconut (which somehow sneaked its way in) and with ground flaxseeds (which somehow ended up as a mess in the garbage can.) The wheat germ in the container I couldn't get open was rancid, so for some reason I chose to use oat bran instead (these'll definately clean you out) and I added more honey after measuring (so weight is given for it and the tahini with estimates for volume). I personally liked these better, even though the fruit was EXTREMELY chewy and I left them in the oven a little too long because I chose to ignore to timer and continue what I was working on.



Sesame Pistachio Crisp Granola Bars
makes 16 bars, or however many pieces you choose to cut it into

2 1/2 cups (≈265 grams) old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup (≈40 grams) oat bran
1/4 cup (≈20 g) shredded coconut
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1 cup (≈150g) almonds
1/2 cup (≈60 g) pistachios
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt or 1 tsp. of finer grain salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
130 g honey (that's probably around 1/3 to 1/2 cup, I think)
80 g tahini, a ground sesame paste (that's probably around 1/4 to 1/3 cup)
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 325ºF. Line a 8x8 or 9x9 baking sheet with two perpendicular pieces of parchment paper in a cross with overhangs for easier lifting; grease paper.

Mix together oats, oat bran, coconut, sesame seeds, almonds, and pistachios and spread out on a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet. Toast in oven for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine salt, cinnamon, honey, and tahini in a large saucepan. When the oat mixture has about 5 minutes left, heat over medium heat, stirring, until honey and tahini make are warm and thoroughly mixed. Turn heat to low. Stir in oat mixture and dried fruits.

Press into prepared pan and bake in oven for about 30 minutes or until just turning golden. Let cool completely in pan on rack. Cut into desired size pieces.

Lentils and Peppers

My mom's sick, and I wanted a nice, easy, simple dinner that would be hearty without being too heavy since she wasn't very hungry. I also wanted to use the baby peppers in the fridge that were going bad. I had no expectations for the dinner, and even though it took a lot longer to make than I expected (well, not longer, but I thought I'd have time to sit down and do some homework while the lentils were cooking), it turned out nice. And then Mom went to bed. I still have to do my homework though...

Stewed Lentils with Sweet Peppers
serves 2 to 3

2/3 cup dried lentils
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
pinch nutmeg
pinch allspice
pinch crushed red pepper
1/8 teaspoon dried rosemary
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 small tomato, chopped

for pepper topping:
2 bell peppers, cut into thin strips
1/2 white onion, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons olive oil

yogurt, for serving

Bring lentils, spices, and enough water to cover by an inch to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce heat and let simmer, covered, 35 minutes or until tender. Add tomatoes and garlic and cook until most liquid has evaporated.

Meanwhile, coat a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray. Toss peppers and onion slices with oil and bake in a 425ºF oven for 10-15 minutes, stirring once, or until starting to brown at the edges.

To serve, portion lentils into bowls, top with a dollop of yogurt, and roasted vegetables and enjoy.

Warm Grain Salad for a Cold Night

Usually I don't make recipes that aren't accompanied by photos. I flip through magazines and am attracted by the pictures. I pick up cookbooks with gorgeous covers that are filled with color pictures. In other words, I judge a recipe by its picture.
Which I realize is totally the wrong way to do things. I mean, I can easily think of a handful of dishes that I love that are absolutely hideous and would take an enormous amound of talent to make appear appetizing. (Ghormeh sabzi is one, I mean, its a dark green stew with brown bobs and chunks of meat and kidney beans bobbing around. If anything, its the kidney beans that might save it.) This dish is not one of those. This picture does not do it justice because we were sick and hungry and didn't have the patience for me to try to get a good picture; my goal here was just not blurry.

Oh, wait, I was talking about a cookbook. I picked up A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop, and couldn't put it back down. I mean, who could when there are gorgeous squash blossoms on the cover and a tomato-goat cheese tart on the back. It made me start dreaming of summer.
And yes, there are 8 pages of color inserts, but I kind of ignored them and flipped straight to the back of the book where the winter section is. And I wasn't dissapointed. I immediated ripped up a piece of paper and bookmarked two recipes. I still haven't even flipped through them all yet. The first one, a warm farro salad with roasted mushrroms and sheep's milk cheese, is what the picture above is of. I had the cheese in the fridge, so why not give it a try?
It was good - though not as good as it could have been, though that is all due to my modifications. The mushrooms, tomatoes, and shallots were awesome after roasted in the oven, and the cheese went wonderfully with it. The only problems were that I forgot to buy parsley and couldn't find any arugula and used spinach instead. It was good with spinach, but I think arugula would have been a bit nicer with it.

Since I didn't change anything about it, I'm not sure it would be right to post it here. So if you want to try it, it's on page 360 of the book.

Now I just need to try a few other recipes from it, like the Carribean Black Beans with Sautéed Plantains.

Beans for Dessert

My favorite Chinese pastry is based on something that isn't even Chinese at all. Red bean paste, which fills my favorite pastries in Chinatown, is Japanese. I think. I hope I just didn't misunderstand everything just now, but I'm fairly confident that what I'm saying is correct.

So after spending Friday in Chinatown for my friend's birthday, I bought some azuki beans on the way home with thoughts of making red bean paste filled mochi, since I figured I could use the rice starch I have to make paloodeh, and Iranian frozen dessert. But then I couldn't figure out how to make the super sticky, smooth, and gooey red bean paste since most recipes I found were for a rustic tsubushi-an, or mashed red beans. Which is totally fine with me, because it means I can make one of my favorite ice cream flavors instead: red bean ice cream.

For some reason, before Saturday, it never occured to me to try to make red bean ice cream. I've been keeping my eye out for matcha powder to make green tea ice cream, and was going to make candied red beans as a topping for it...but the thought of making red bean ice cream didn't occur to me. So when I found this recipe, I knew I had to try it.

So, sort-of following a recipe for tsubu-an, I set of on my quest to make the ice cream. And along the way, ate quite a bit of the extra tsubu-an. I've discovered it's quite tasty cold with some warm oven-roasted rutabaga, topped with some spinach, and wrapped in a flour tortilla. It was a very sweet meal, but that's okay with me.

Red Bean Ice Cream
adapted from Closet Cooking

1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar, divided
2 egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup mashed or pureed cooked and sweetened azuki beans (tsubushi-an)or red bean paste
1/2 cup sweeted azuki beans (tsubu-an)*

In a pot, bring milk and all but 2 Tablespoon of the sugar to a simmer.

Meanwhile, whisk together egg yolk and reserved 2T of sugar. Whisk in about 1/4 cup of the hot milk a tablespoon at a time to temper. Whisk the tempered egg yolks into the hot milk in the pot and heat over low heat until thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon or has reached 170F or 77C.

Remove from heat and whisk in cream and pureed azuki beans. Let cool and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, 4 hours or overnight.

Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Add whole azuki beans in last few minutes of churning.


*If you want my versian of tsubu-an, which isn't perfect, but works. It came out undercooked a bit while cooked right in other places. Soak beans overnight and then, in a pot combine 1 1/2 cups azuki beans, a heaping half cup of sugar, and water to come about 1 inch above the beans. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat. Simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until super tender. Add more water as needed.

Will You Be My Valentine?

So Valentine's Day.

It's not exactly my idea of a great holiday. Except for the whole excuse to give people chocolatey treats and not look like the crazy person you are. (What? Is it not normal to give people oatmeal raisin cookies, pumpkin bites, or blondies just because you feel like it?)

So now the sob story. Actually, it's too embarassing and emotionally charged for me so I'll spare you. It boils down to I didn't make it to the store on Tuesday and was distressed. Wednesday was math team (I did pretty well, but got home too late to do anything), and slept in on Thursday. So I wore green and black and said Happy Valentine's Day only in response to the handful of people who said it to me first.

So after school Thursday, a few of my friends came over and while they were playing DDR (okay, just Kate at the time), I whipped up a batch of these heart shaped goodies. Or squares, if you feel like being boring. We (okay, Kate supervised after failing to assemble a parchment triangle, which I also can't figure out) decorated them with a white chocolate drizzle, which made them pretty and festive.


Chocolate & Peanut Butter Crispy Hearts
makes 16 square bars in a 9x9 pan

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup chocolate chips
3 cups crispy rice cereal
white chocolate, melted to drizzle (optional)

In a saucepan stir peanut butter, honey, and chocolate chips together over medium heat until melted and well blended, about five minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in cereal.
Press into a greased 9x9 pan pan, or into a shape on a greased baking sheet if cutting into shapes with cookie cutters. Let cool 1 hour and then cut into desired shape and drizzle with white chocolate, if using.

Bananas, Bread, and Boredom

Okay, that's a lie. It wasn't boredom. It was more like it was Thursday evening and I didn't want to do my homework. I wanted to make butterscotch blondies. But I didn't want them to be dark again. And then I remembered the apricot blondies in the current F&W magazine. But that still had the light brown sugar issue. And then the whole fact that we don't have any dried apricots, and I didn't really want to use dried cranberries.

So I was in the kitchen waiting for Mom with the car to go buy some brown sugar since it was kind of slimy out. Okay, slushy. And the temperature had dropped a few degrees, so it was starting to get icy and I didn't want to fall in the dark, despite my obnoxious colored clothing that makes me easy to see. And there was the end of some stale whole wheat bread and overripe bananas on the counter. So...

I guess it makes sense where I'm going from there. I wanted to use up the bread. It became tiny little cubes, magically. And then two of the gigantic aromatic bananas turned into a olfactory pleasing puree with some milk, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a single egg for good measure. I wasn't trying to make anything fancy. No water bath or precooked custard for me. This would just be baked soggy bread.

I poured the banana puree over the bread, stirred the gooey mess, and put it in the fridge. Until breakfast today, when it turned out to be a lot richer than I expected. And quite sweet. All it was missing was a nice sauce, some creamy ice cream, or a dollop of whipped cream. Maybe next time.

Banana Bread Pudding
makes 3 8-ounce portions or 6 4-ounce

4 ounces stale bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 large ripe bananas (or about 1 cup pureed)
2/3 cup milk
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons sugar (or less, depending on how sweet you like it)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch salt


Place cubed bread in a medium bowl. In a blender or food processor, blend together bananas, milk, egg, vanilla, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

Pour banana mixture over bread and stir to coat. Let stand 1 hour or refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 3 to 6 small ramekins (4 to 8 ounce). Divide bread mixture evenly. Bake until browned on top and bubbly, about 20 minutes for 4-ounce puddings. Cool for about 5 minutes, and serve in ramekins or run a knife along edge and invert onto a plate.