Roasted Pepper Corn Chowder

I'm realizing that all of my soup pictures look practically the same, but do not be deceived! They actually vary greatly from one another, and I'm especially excited about this one. Now that I've got down the necessary proportions for soup ingredients, I'm starting to feel like I can invent my own renditions of dishes. This one is a little spicy, a little smoky, and thickened by puréed onions, peppers, and corn.

This time I riffed off of this corn chowder on The Pioneer Woman's blog, adjusting for the content of my refrigerator/freezer and for my personal taste preferences. I increased the butter, added garlic, eliminated the bacon, substituted in different roasted peppers, added cumin and red pepper powder, but borrowed the idea of thickening it more with cornmeal.

If you keep a can of corn, a box of chicken broth, and some coconut milk in the cupboard, you could make this any time! Unsweetened coconut milk is becoming my cream/milk of preference for cooking, since before it's opened it's shelf stable (so I can just keep it around all the time, unlike dairy products), and after being opened lasts a while in the fridge. That also makes this a dairy-free recipe if you sub in oil for the butter. I've also started keeping a jar of roasted peppers in the fridge, since they are great in eggs, soup, vegetable dishes, and more (Trader Joe's has a nice jar of roasted red, orange, and yellow peppers). I imagine that it would work well with vegetable stock instead of chicken stock, if you want to go completely veggie.

Roasted Pepper Corn Chowder

3 T butter

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 pieces roasted red, orange, or yellow pepper, diced

8 oz. whole kernel corn (drained if canned)

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp red chili powder

4 C chicken broth

2 C coconut milk

3 T masa or cornmeal

1/4 C water

Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper at each stage of the process.

Melt the butter until slightly browned in a dutch oven pot on the stovetop. Add the diced onion and cook over medium heat until translucent. When the onion starts to brown, turn down the heat a little and add the minced garlic, diced pepper, corn, cumin, and chili powder. Cook, stirring regularly, until the liquid in the mixture has evaporated and the elements become aromatic and a bit browned. Add the broth and coconut milk and heat until boiling, still stirring regularly. Mix the masa or cornmeal in a small bowl with the water, and once the pot is boiling stir in the masa/cornmeal. Turn down the heat, cover the pot, and let cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and use an immersion blender or regular blender to purée until it reaches the desired consistency. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve topped with avocado, or corn chips, or green onions, or bacon, or just plain!

Coconut Milk Ice Cream: Blackberry Lemon

So, the good news is that I've found a great coconut milk-based ice cream recipe that's easy to make, experiment with, and render low-fat. The other good news is that you will want to sit down and eat it all at once, which could make this bad news for some of you.

It all started when I was forwarded this link to the best vegan ice cream recipes out there. I don't normally keep ice cream in the freezer, since I'm lactose intolerant, so this vegan ice cream thing is tempting me into a life of constant freezer goodness.

I first made the Caramel-Cinnamon Ice Cream with Black Gingerbread Chunks in a version that involved homemade spiced marshmallows, fleur de sel caramel sauce, Vietnamese cinnamon, dark chocolate chunks, and toasted pecans. I meant it to be a spicy caramely version of Rocky Road, but I'm really at a loss for what to call it. Whatever it was, it was tasty, and the homemade marshmallows really turned into wonderful chewiness in the frozen dessert.

I successfully substituted so many ingredients from the original recipe that I knew I could mess with it even more. This time I wouldn't make the mistake of adding more than a cup of mix-ins, since that made for super chunky ice cream, but I would replace the caramel sauce with blackberry jam and lemon curd, the cinnamon with a touch of ginger, add a bit of agave to sweeten it, and swirl in a ribbon of berry syrup.

The ice cream itself ended up incredibly creamy; next time I would probably leave out the berry syrup and just add it as a topping, since the water content of the uncooked berries froze very hard - or I would make the syrup break the berries down more before swirling it in to the ice cream. The lemon curd really made this flavor, so don't back away if berries and lemon sound strange to you.

Here's my take on this super easy, fabulously adaptable recipe:

Blackberry Lemon Coconut Ice Cream

1 C light coconut milk

2 C lactose-free, vanilla soy, or coconut creamer

1/4 C no sugar added seedless blackberry jam (strain to remove seeds)

1/4 C lemon curd (I love TJ's)

3 T agave syrup

1/4 tsp ground ginger

pinch salt

2 T corn starch

2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the coconut milk and creamer in a medium sauce pan, along with the jam, lemon curd, agave, ginger, salt, and corn starch. Whisk vigorously to combine and beat out any lumps. Turn on the heat to medium, and whisk occasionally until it just comes up to a boil and has thickened significantly. Cool completely and add the vanilla. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator. Before churning the ice cream, prepare any add-ins (berry syrup, chocolate chunks, etc.). Once the ice cream base is chilled, churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions (mine took 20 minutes total), adding any add-in in the last 5 minutes of churning. Transfer to an air-tight container, and freeze solidly for at least 4 hours before serving.

Blackberry Syrup

1/3 C water

3 T agave syrup

1/4 tsp lemon zest

12 oz. blackberries

Combine ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat, and simmer for 8 minutes. Watch to make sure it doesn't boil over, stirring from time to time. After the 8 minutes, remove from heat. Optional: add up to 2 tsp liquor (brandy, framboise, etc.) and another 12 oz. of berries to add texture to the syrup. Let cool before mixing into the ice cream, or serve warm/room temperature as a topping on the finished ice cream.

How to adapt this recipe:

• Replace the liquid sweeteners (jam, lemon curd, agave) with up to a total of 1 C of another liquid sweetener (the caramel Rocky Road version had 1 C of fleur de sel caramel sauce from Trader Joe's).
• Replace the ground spice (ginger) with up to 1 tsp of another ground spice (the original had 1 tsp of cinnamon). Take care to not overwhelm the flavor you're trying to achieve - start with 1/4 tsp, taste, add more if you prefer.
• Add up to 1 C of chunky/chewy add-ins: marshmallows, chocolate chunks, nuts, berries, cookies, cake crumbs, etc. Adding more than 1 C will mean you are chewing your ice cream rather than licking it.

Lemon Olive Oil Cupcakes

Being outside of the U.S. for more than a month now has brought up a number of food cravings for me; I expected to miss authentic Asian food, and while I am in Israel, pork, but lately the American blogs I've been reading have been featuring gorgeous cupcakes that I can't get out of my mind. I find myself desiring a cute, fluffy, frosting-laden cupcake.

Fortunately, there is something I can do about this - especially since I usually prefer my own cupcakes to anything from a professional bakery. Sometimes I think it's good to know how to cook for the sake of knowing how to satisfy one's food cravings in one's own kitchen, but on the other hand I think that the more foods I try, the more cravings I develop. At least the two go hand in hand! This time a longing for cupcakes coincided with a craving for lemon-flavored dessert, and I am completely pleased with the result.

Some of you will be glad to know that this is a vegan cake recipe; others of you will be dubious, but if you've tried this red velvet cake recipe you'll know that vegan baking can make a successful cake. In fact, I find this recipe formula to be much more consistent in providing good texture than almost any scratch cake recipe I've tried, and it is easy! Because the only somewhat perishable item in the recipe is soy milk (well, and the lemons too, but I keep lemon zest and juice in the freezer all the time), you can easily make these out of the normal contents of your kitchen.

And is it horrible that I think that one of the great benefits of vegan baking is the fact that you can eat as much of the batter as you want without worrying about raw eggs? Because I guarantee that you will want to have more than one lick of this batter.

The olive oil is not a strong flavor, but it is a nice compliment to the lemon (much more than it is to chocolate in my opinion!).

Your cupcakes will look much cuter than mine since I had to make do without a proper cupcake pan; some of mine ended up more deformed than others, but they were still much enjoyed. Like I've said before, every recipe I've tried in Israel has had to be adapted, but the changes always add character, and sometimes even improve the result.

Lemon Olive Oil Cupcakes (Vegan)
loosely based on this red velvet cupcake recipe

1 C soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
1 C sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 C olive oil
4 tsp lemon juice
1/2 T lemon zest (zest of one medium lemon)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350° F/180°C.
Add vinegar to soy milk, and set aside to curdle.
Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
Add olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla extract to the curdled soy milk, and whisk together.
Pour liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, and mix until just incorporated.
Fill cupcake liners ¾ full; makes about 12 full-size cupcakes and 45 teeny mini cupcakes.
Bake for 20 minutes for full-size cupcakes, 16 minutes for mini cupcakes, or until a toothpick comes clean.


Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

4 oz cream cheese
4 oz butter (room temperature)
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 T lemon zest (zest of one lemon, with a bit set aside for garnish)
2 1/3 C (300 g) powdered sugar

Cream together cream cheese, butter, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Add the powdered sugar 1/2 C at a time until well incorporated. Beat until fluffy, then top cooled cupcakes.

See the red velvet cupcake recipe for a vegan frosting option (it actually tastes pretty good). I also think this would be excellent with a mascarpone frosting that has lemon zest and a little juice added.

I garnished them with a mixture of lemon zest, granulated sugar, and a dash of salt.

Spiced Pumpkin, Chickpea, & Quinoa Salad

My roommate's going to laugh when she sees this post: every day at home in L.A., she makes some sort of quinoa dish for herself. I, on the other hand, had never made quinoa before in my life, until I got here to Israel. It's not that I avoided making it before; I like it, but just don't usually have time to cook other than special baking projects when I'm at home. When I got here, however, I discovered large bags of red and white quinoa in the cupboard of my rented apartment, and found some extra time on my hands.

Since everyone always expounds upon the great health benefits of quinoa ("keen-wah" would be an accurate pronunciation), and I had some fresh root veggies on hand ready to roast, and Israel always impresses me with its salad selection, and I had the time, I decided to work up a salad loosely based on this smittenkitchen bulgur salad recipe.

I mixed some red and white quinoa together, and I cut up and tossed the veggies and chickpeas with hot pepper oil, salt, and pepper before roasting them. I do highly recommend roasting the veggies since it's so easy and brings out their natural sweetness - which is good for the spices I've added here. Next time I'd like to toast the quinoa as well. I'm not entirely confident that I could reproduce this exact dressing again, but I'd like to give you the tools to make your own version - if I can flavor something to taste, you can too! The general idea is to combine some kind of oil, acidic component, sweetness, and spices.




Here's the way to go about it - you can time it so that the quinoa's soaking and then cooking while you're prepping the veggies, and you'll have time to make the dressing while everything's roasting:

Quinoa preparation:
1 C quinoa (any combination of different quinoa colors is fine, red and white is pretty!)
1/2 tsp salt (optional but recommended)

In a cooking pot, soak the quinoa in 1 1/2 C water for 15 minutes. After it's done soaking, stir the water and grains around with your hand to stir up the part of the outer layer that's supposed to come loose - it will make the quinoa a little bitter if it remains on it. Pour off the top layer of soaking water with any loose outer layers, and then pour the rest into a fine sieve and drain well. Put the quinoa back into the cooking pot, add another 1 1/2 C water with the salt, and bring to a boil on the stove top. Once it's boiling, cover tightly with a lid and turn it down to simmer for 15 minutes. Then remove from heat and let sit covered for another 5 minutes. When you're ready to use it, fluff it with a fork.




Veggie preparation:
1 large can or 2 small cans of chickpeas
1 large onion
approximately 6x5x2" piece of pumpkin, or 1 large sweet potato or other root vegetable
1 large beet
olive oil
hot pepper oil/red pepper flakes/cayenne pepper
salt and pepper

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F/200 degrees C.
• Line two baking pans that have edges with foil.
• Drain chickpeas and toss in a bowl with olive oil (or, if you have it, hot pepper oil; if you don't have it, you may add some red pepper flakes or a dash of cayenne pepper here), salt, and pepper - enough to just coat them. Spread in a single layer on one baking pan.
• Cube up the onion and the pumpkin/sweet potato/root veggie of your choice into pieces that are 1/2" to 1" square. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread on the other baking pan.
• Rinse the whole beet and wrap the whole thing in foil. Scootch some of the other stuff over and place it on one of the baking pans.
• Stick both pans in the oven, setting a timer for 30 minutes. Check after 30 minutes to see how things are doing - my chickpeas were browned by then, so I took them out. The pumpkin and onion took another 15 minutes (for a total of 45 in the oven), and then I left the beet for another 15. The root veggies should be easily pierced with a fork when they're done, and I like the onions to be browned a bit since a raw piece of onion is too strong for me. The finished beet should give when squeezed (I got impatient and took the beet out too early, so mine was a little crunchy). Remove the beet skin once the beet has cooled down a bit and then cube it up.

Dressing preparation
(amounts are all roughly estimated, so you will need to adjust to your taste):
1/8 C olive oil
3 T hot pepper oil (may be replaced with red pepper flakes or 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper)
3 T apple cider vinegar (may be replaced with any other vinegar or lemon juice)
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger
salt and pepper to taste (I added a lot more than I first thought was necessary!)

Whisk all the dressing ingredients together until smooth in a large bowl. As each vegetable finishes roasting, toss it with the dressing (chickpeas first, then onions and pumpkin, then beets). Toss together with the quinoa when all veggies are done.



I'm going to serve this on wilted spinach, but it can be eaten plain very well. The spiciness is one of my favorite parts of this dish, but I hope it's not too much for you. Really, this is a spiced salad in more than once sense - piquant with the hot peppers, but spiced with the cinnamon, cloves, ginger, salt, and pepper.

And I guess I should mention that this is a cheap and healthy dish that can be altered to use any grain, vegetables, and seasonings you desire? I found everything I needed in a kitchen whose contents were predetermined by a previous tenant, so I'd love to see what your kitchens might produce!

Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes

Now that my baking mojo is back, I baked the coconut macaroons of my previous post on the same day as these red velvet cupcakes...and a couple batches of Parisian macarons a couple days later, along with chocolate-coated fleur de sel and caramelized white chocolate ganache. Hm, it's been a busy week. Better be careful not to burn out my inner baker again!

So, red velvet. I better choose my words carefully on this topic...I will say that red velvet has always been an enigma to me. What is the cake supposed to taste like? Is it chocolate or not? Why are so many people passionately in love with it?

After trying these cupcakes, I think I have an inkling of an answer to these questions.

I have also always wondered how vegan baking works. I've done my share of experimenting with fruit purée, egg-based egg substitute, and margarine in baking, but was convinced that vegan baking still needed to be further developed...until these cupcakes.

You may think I'm overstating my case here, but try making these cupcakes: they are better than most scratch cake recipes that I've tried making, hands down. Not only that, but they are slightly healthier, and you can serve them to anyone!

Moist, well-textured, not too sweet, and just chocolatey enough (I may have added extra cocoa powder to that end...). TRY IT! YOU WILL LIKE IT!

Much thanks to the Facebook friend who generously posted this recipe, sourced from the Mac & Cheese food blog.

I intend to use this recipe as a base for other cupcake flavors, so I'll be sure to post any successes I have.

Here we go:

Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes
from Mac & Cheese

2 cups soy milk
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 ounces liquid red food coloring OR several shakes of powdered red food coloring
4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°.
Add vinegar to soy milk, and set aside to curdle (so cool!).
Sift flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
Add vegetable oil, food coloring, and vanilla extract to the curdled soy milk, and mix.
Pour liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, and mix.
Fill cupcake liners ¾ full; makes about 22 cupcakes.
Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes clean.

Red velvet cake is normally paired with cream cheese frosting, so you can use my cream cheese frosting recipe or this similar, optionally vegan cream cheese frosting. To use the contents of my fridge, I substituted mascarpone in for the Tofutti, and it was really good. I could taste the margarine in the icing, but I still enjoyed the icing on the cupcake.

(Vegan) Cream Cheese Frosting:

½ C margarine, room temperature
½ C Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, room temperature, or mascarpone cheese
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 C powdered sugar

Cream margarine, cream cheese, and vanilla extract.
Slowly mix the confectioner’s sugar into the creamed sugar, and then beat until smooth and fluffy.
Frost cooled cupcakes. Pipe on with a medium round tip from a pastry bag to get the effect of these photos.

Now you're all set...but are you ready for the rave reviews?