Tahini Salad Dressing

This is the my favorite salad dressing recipe EVER!

I buy tahini at North Park Produce down the street from my house.

Tahini, or sesame seed paste is also used in making hummus,

so having a jar around is always a good idea :)

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. tahini

Juice of 1 lemon

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 Tbsp. soy sauce

1/2 Tbsp. oil

2 Tbsp. water

Salt and Pepper

If I'm taking it to work I will just pour all of the ingredients into a small spill proof container...

Then just shake it up and you can mix it all in the container!

Goes great with a salad topped with cucumbers and sunflower seeds!

Chocolate Orange Cake

I came across this recipe while looking for recipes for my entry for my work's holiday party bakeoff in December.  I ended  up making chocolate bacon mini cupcakes, but this chocolate orange cake stuck in the back of my mind.  Part of the reason I was hesitant to tackle it at first was that is uses an ingredient I had never used before- ground almond meal, and the fact that the measurements for the ingredients were European, so grams and degrees celsius!  In the end I decided to face my fears and attempt this recipe.

I found several versions of this cake, some with chocolate and some just orange and almond. 

http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipe/677/Orange-and-almond_cake

This website featured a recipe for almond orange cake and also had a video showing the process of making the cake.  From this website I learned that, "Flourless Orange and Almond Cake is a classic Passover dessert drawing on the Sephardic traditions of Morocco, the Mediterranean and the Middle East (where citrus was more available)"  Interesting!....

I ended up using the recipe from this website:

http://www.kitchen22.co.uk/2010/03/orange-and-chocolate-cake.html

Ingredients

2 Oranges

6 Eggs

1 tsp. baking powder

50 g. Cocoa Powder

200 g. Ground Almonds

250 g. Caster Sugar

Boil the oranges for 1 hour.

 The almond meal was hard to find!  Henry's had it, but they were all out of it.  After checking Ralph's and Vons I finally found it at Whole Foods.  And it wasn't cheap! About $10 for the package.

This is probably the first time my roommate's kitchen scale has ever been put to use.

Measuring out the "caster sugar" which I learned is just another name for "superfine sugar."

I converted the grams into pounds using a conversion calculator online.

Also an opportunity to bust out my electric mixer! Yay!

So preheat to 170 celsius or as we like to say in America 338 fahrenheit?

and butter a 23 cm (9 inch) pan.  Blend the oranges skin and all!  I used a food processor.

Then mix everything else up, pour into pan and pop into the oven for 50 minutes-1 hour.

It came out super moist and had a strong chocolate orange flavor.

An experiment ending in success!



Carrot Cake

I've probably made about 8 different carrot cake recipes in my life time, and they have all turned out pretty good.  I used to use the website http://allrecipes.com/ to find recipes.  Now I almost exclusively (and obsessively) use http://foodgawker.com/ to find recipes.  Anyways, carrot cake is one of my boyfriend's favorite desserts, so that's why I have made it so many times.  This recipe is a kindof healthier version with some whole wheat flour, applesauce and only 1/4 a cup of oil.  The cream cheese frosting with lemon zest makes it especially delicious.

I got this recipe from: http://www.handletheheat.com/2009/08/healthier-carrot-cupcakes.html

Ingredients
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup natural apple sauce
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cup shredded carrots (2 carrots)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
4 oz. cream cheese
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 tsp. lemon zest

-Preheat oven to 350

-Mix first 6 ingredients (flour-nutmeg)

-Then mix oil, eggs and brown sugar

-Peel and shred the carrots

-Add carrots, applesauce and vanilla to the egg mixture.

-Then add in the dry ingredients and mix until blended.  Last stir in the walnuts. 

-Pour into muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes.

-Let cool and then frost.

-To make frosting use a mixer to blend cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and lemon zest.

-Top with additional walnut pieces.

Ta-DA!

 





Heaven Sent Desserts

Heaven Sent Desserts

http://www.heavensentdesserts.com/

"For the longest time I thought it was some sort of religious bookstore."

If you worship creme brulee or pray to the god of chocolate this place truly is your temple.

Even if you aren't devout chocoholic you can have a religious experience eating the deserts here.

I visited this palace of pasteries, Mecca of mocha etc. last month in honor of my birthday with my friends Belen and Dan

and Aldo and Steve. 

The more people you bring the more desserts you get to sample ;)

They put your order number in a children's book.  I got Squirrel Nutkins.

I ordered the peanut butter and jelly dessert.  And yes it was amazing.

Aldo and Belen got this thingy.  It was a berry compote with merlot. 

Those who were present will remember the disasterous after effects. These included tummy aches and not making complete stops...

Steve's fancy pants mexican mocha

Afterwards we were too full to do anything else.

....And they lived happily ever after

The End

Chocolate Covered Bacon

Two of man's greatest inventions: Bacon and Chocolate.  Put them together and it is a winning combination.

Borrowed the recipe idea from: http://www.culinaryescapade.com/?p=574

First step is to cook the bacon until crispy. 

Then melt some semi-sweet chocolate.  This is where I encountered a problem!  The recipe I was following said to melt the chocolate in a microwave safe dish by cooking for about 2 minutes.  I did that, but didn't really see the chocolate starting to melt so I put it in for another 2 minutes.  When I checked it the chocolate was hard and crumbly and starting to smell a little burned, so I knew something was not right.  I ended up adding in a splash of almond milk that I had on hand to add moisture to the mixture.  This saved the chocolate...kind of.  It came out tasting fine, but the chocolate never really set or hardened completely. 

And now for the secret ingredient!.......

Cayenne Pepper!  The recipe I used was vague on how much to use.  I put about a teaspoon into the chocolate mixture, but in the end didn't really taste much spiciness.

Now dip the bacon into the chocolate. Place chocolate covered bacon on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper for refridgeration.  It should resemble little poops!

Bacon and chocolate together at last!

I know it sounds strange, but you must try the combination of bacon and chocolate at least one time in your life.  I like this recipe because it breaks it down to the essential ingredients. I have also made candied bacon chocolate chip cookies, and bacon chocolate cupcakes.