Olive Oil Almond Cake

Those of you who know me know that I'm always trying something new. The circuit analysis, I found, was not for me. It was taking me twice as long as I had allotted to listen to the lectures, read the text, do the homework, and read all of the wiki posts. So my homework was late, which meant I was going to get a zero for it. More importantly, I apparently didn't understand the material anyway, since when I checked my homework, it was wrong. I have therefore given up on the MITx class. Maybe if they offer one in a subject I am more interested in.

Like cooking.

So now that I have more spare time, I should be cooking, right? 

Nah--I just found something else to fill that time. And it came with a diet. Adventure Boot Camp. Means getting up at 4:45 a.m., doing a grueling workout, and coming home to protein shakes. My kind of fun!

Since I started on Monday, I knew I had to throw the cake together on the weekend if I was going to have any chance at all to eat any of it.

Fortunately, this cake was really easy to throw together. I started off well, taking pictures. Here are the separate bowls of dry ingredients (flour, buckwheat flour, almond flour, and see the little flecks of baking powder that WOULD NOT go away? grrr) and wet ingredients (expensive evoo, eggs, fresh squeezed OJ).

And here are the ingredients mixed together. This is apparently when I stopped taking pictures. We were going to see the Hunger Games, and I had to get this into the oven.

So I have no picture of the finished product. It actually looked very similar to the photograph above. Really really boring looking cake. Plus, mine stuck to the pan, so it came out in two pieces.
In my opinion, it was just as boring tasting as it was looking. It is a very plain cake. I did like the Mascarpone cheese with it--but I'm the only one who likes Mascarpone. I suspect Pete has been eating small slices of the cake with his coffee in the morning because it has been disappearing in a rather slow way. Natalie ate some--her comment was that it tasted like a weird pound cake. I don't think it was as good as a pound cake. I'm not sure what I didn't like about the cake. Maybe the texture. It was kind of sandy. It was a little too sweet.
I won't make it again. Unfortunately, I had to throw over half a cake away this morning. Serves me right to go on a diet the week we are making a cake.

Spicy Black Beans with Chorizo

This was a no-brainer recipe for me. I think my favorite meal in the world is beans and rice. When I was in college, living with college roommates Marlene (100% Japanese) and Elsa (100% Mexican), we always had an olla with frijoles and a rice cooker filled with Japanese sticky rice. Not sticky rice and adzuki beans. Not Mexican rice con frijoles. Japanese sticky rice with pinto beans. I did eat that for most meals of the week, and still could eat it almost every meal. I even order it at restaurants!
When I realized, on Thursday night, that I had forgotten it was Thursday, I previewed the recipe and was very pleased to see that it used canned black beans. I'm sure it would have been better with homemade black beans--but I didn't have any in the house and didn't feel like making them.
So when I got home from work (and my voice lesson) on Friday, I immediately ran into the kitchen to get to work on this incredibly simple recipe. Singing "Pur Dicesti a bocca bella" at the top of my lungs (since I was alone), I threw rice into the rice cooker. I checked the fridge for ingredients (I did not go to the store in advance of this recipe). I had a whole bag of little tiny peppers of some sort that were about 4 days away from needing to go into the trash. Perfect. I chopped them up, and ended up with about a cup of chopped peppers. I found a couple jalapenos (was getting concerned that I would have to use canned chiles like Maria did). I chopped up an onion and some garlic. I threw all of that in the pan and heard the garage door go up. Oh no!!! Pete was home and I had JUST thrown chopped onions into the pan! He would see them!  EEEEEEEEKKKKK. I am just saying that I chopped up two soyrizo sausages faster than any TV chef you have ever seen chopping anything. I got those chopped and into the pan to cover the onions right when Pete walked into the kitchen. Phew! Both Pete and Sam commented about how good it smelled. Phew again!
After the veggies and soyrizo had cooked a bit, I threw in the spices and the black beans. At that point, the garage opened again, and Natalie and Cassandra walked in. They were upset because they thought we had gone to get Mexican food without them--and then happy when they saw that I had made beans and rice. It isn't just me who loves beans and rice.
Only Natalie and I ate our beans and rice with a fried egg. And I sliced up an avocado to put on the top.
Of course, I thought this was delicious. What's not to like? Natalie loved it. Cassandra liked it (too many peppers for her). Pete liked it. Sam loved it. She kept talking about how good it was.
I will definitely make this again. Of course, I make rice and beans all the time.

Potatoes and Brownies and Circuit Analysis

I signed up for MIT's free class on circuits and electronics. It was free. And it was from MIT. The prerequisites for the class are AP Physics, Calculus, and Linear Algebra. I have taken all of those classes. Yes, that was 30 years ago, but I took them.
And, because it is in my nature to do my very best against the odds, I have been struggling through the class. I don't understand any of it. I have to listen to lectures 2-3 times, watch all the tutorials over and over, and read the discussion boards to find out why my answers are wrong. Which they almost always are. I just turned in my first homework assignment (today is 3/22--the assignment was due 3/18), and I only got about half of the answers right. I had spent about 6 hours on it. As Sharmyn said, I will be failing this class spectacularly.
But I have become obsessed with it, which means that all of my spare time (ha!) has been consumed with circuit analysis and KVLs and KCLs and node analysis and things of this nature. I have had very little time to cook (or workout or clean or do laundry).
So Monday night, I came home and told the girls we were going to get the potatoes and the brownies done. I put Cassandra on the brownies, blatantly copying Maria. I rubbed the potatoes with salt, shoved them in the oven, and then worked on my circuits (getting all the signs wrong and a lot of the math wrong) while Cassandra made the brownie batter. I paid very little attention to her. She did complain about having the chop the chocolate, exclaimed about the fact that she was using cocoa and chocolate, and commented on the fact that my eggs had green shells. The only thing she had me help with was scraping the batter out of the bowl. I was stunned at how thick and sticky the batter was. I have made a lot of brownies in my life, but none with the kind of black, thick, sticky batter that Kate's Impossibly Fudgy Brownies have. Yum.
The potatoes were finally baked, and I played a game of hot potato scraping the contents out into the bowl, mixing it with butter, dill, salt and pepper, and scooping that mixture back into the potatoes. I forgot the corned beef. Forgot. Really. The recipe didn't say to put the tops back on the potatoes, but I did. Oh, and I sliced up a purple cabbage I had received in my CSA bag and threw that it in the oven too.
We all loved the potatoes. The crispy salty skins were delicious with Habanero Ketchup! We loved the dill flavor. The cabbage was a bit too crispy, but still yummy.
The brownies--what can I say? These were truly delicious brownies. I think I might agree with Claire that they are my favorite brownies ever. After reading Claire's interview, we doubled the cayenne. That meant that the brownies had a spiciness that snuck up on you. The sweet, chocolaty flavor contrasted with the salt and the spice very nicely. And I loved the texture--like thick nutella or chocolate sauce. Yummm. We all loved them. Cassandra took them to school and her friends all loved them too. Except they thought the cayenne should have been left out. I disagree.
I tried to interview Cassandra about the brownies, but she was not an interesting interview subject. "Did you learn anything when you made these?" "No." "Were you surprised by anything?" "No." "Is this your favorite brownie recipe?" "I don't know." I told her that she needed to be more interested when she is interviewed.
Phew. I'm done with this blog post. I can get back to my node analysis.

Irish Soda Bread

Did you know that there is a society for the preservation of Irish Soda Bread? I didn't know that until I read about it in the newspaper. I thought I kept the article, but sadly, I didn't. The society is apparently very upset about the fact that any ingredient other than flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk is going into Irish Soda Bread. Apparently, true Irish Soda Bread does not contain raisins, or nuts, or chocolate chips, or any ingredient other than the original four.
So Julia's recipe for Irish Soda Bread fits within the boundaries of the Society's mission. The only ingredients are flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. I still haven't located my camera--so no pictures. I made this, along with roasted cabbage and potato-leek soup, for an Irish family dinner when my dad and stepmother were in town. I loved how easily the bread came together--although it was REALLY messy! I kept adding flour so I could get it to a consistency that would allow me to "pat the dough into a disk about 6 inches across."
The bread came out beautifully, and was delicious. There was only one very small piece left, which I took to work the next day. Although the recipe says that the bread will "turn as hard as the Blarney Stone," it was really good the next day too!

CTN: Chile Coconut Braised "Beef Short Ribs"--Actually, Seafood

I am so glad I was late with this recipe, because it meant that I could see the comments from Maria and Michelle that this sauce would work with seafood. This gave me all the excuse I needed not to cook with meat. I was very happy about that. After seeing Maria's pictures of meat, I was scared.
Dad and Sharmyn are in town, so even though they had already made this recipe, they got to eat it again--in a very different incarnation. I didn't feel like getting my camera out of the car, so there are no pictures.

I used halibut. When I told the man at the fish market that I was making curry with it, he gave me a really big fat piece, which cut into cubes nicely.

I also used some nice fat shrimp. Not krill shrimp, as depicted here. It is surprisingly difficult to find public domain images of shrimp.

I used the braising technique-- tossed the shrimp and halibut cubes with salt and pepper and sauteed them in some coconut oil. I took the seafood out and threw a chopped shallot, 2 jalapenos (which I think were just really small bell peppers from my CSA bag), 4 cloves of garlic, and a whole mess of grated ginger into the pan, stirring it around until it smelled incredible. I added cumin and garam masala, stirred that until it was fragrant, then stirred in a can of coconut milk, the zest and juice from two limes, and the seafood. I let that cook for a bit longer, until the halibut chunks started to fall apart.

I served this over rice, with sauteed bok choy and delicious fish market sourdough on the side. It was DELICIOUS.

And I'm certain it was very different than the beef recipe.

CTN: Gingery Split-Pea Soup

I honestly can't remember when I made this soup. I think it was on a Saturday. I do remember that I tried to buy the ingredients at the Farmer's Market, but couldn't find carrots or celery at any of the booths. I did buy a ginormous leek, which you can see dominating the picture below. Which is the only picture I took, because I got busy making my Rugelach for Tuesdays with Dorie.

I was trying to cram it all in because Pete and I were leaving for Montana on February 27 to go to Yellowstone. So instead of pictures of the soup, I am including my terrible photos of Yellowstone. Pete took beautiful photos, but I don't have access to his card.

I started the soup by trying to crush the coriander seed with the back of a knife as Melissa suggested. What happened is that the seeds would squish out from underneath the knife and end up all over the floor. From the perspective of somebody very small on the floor, the seeds might have looked like bison on the roadway.

So I had to crush the seeds one by one. That was a huge pain in the butt. It took me about 15 minutes to crush the seeds. The whole time I was thinking that it would only take me about 30 seconds to go get my mortar and pestle. But I was too lazy. I guess I was conserving my energy for cross-country skiing.

I put the coriander into the pan, but didn't turn it on because I didn't want the coriander to burn while I was chopping the huge batch of vegetables. I diced all those carrots, leeks (I used one leek and no onion--which was perfect in my opinion), celery, and garlic. And I grated a pretty large chunk of ginger. When I started heating the coriander, I told the other people in the house to tell me when it was fragrant. It smelled so good. When I added the chopped vegetables, I was told that the house went from smelling good to smelling like onions. I take it that is a bad thing. Sort of like a wolf constructing her den on the south side of a slope. Not a good place to raise puppies.

I threw in the lentils and the huge amount of broth and water (didn't make homemade broth this time), and brought the pan up to the boil. The steam smelled fantastic. Unlike the steam you can see below, which smelled like sulfur.

I thought the soup was delicious. I let it slide down my throat just like the water behind a frozen waterfall. I ate a huge bowl of it. I loved the spicy-citrusy taste of the coriander. Sam, who doesn't like very many things that I make, ate two huge bowls of the soup. I brought a large container of it to Natalie, who was recovering from a pretty nasty bacterial infection, and she loved it too. I would definitely make this soup again--but never with split peas. The red lentils were perfect.

Just like Yellowstone in the winter.

TWD:BWJ--Exploding Rugelach

I made the Rugelach early because I went here:

Terrible picture of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

So I was in sort of a rush. But I was certain these would be delicious. How could they not be with a pound of butter and almost a pound of cream cheese in the dough? The dough came together quickly and rolled out very nicely. Here it is rolled out into its rectangular shape and cut in half.

 I bought homemade apricot and nectarine preserves at the farmer's market rather than using Lekvar. The Lekvar would have made it less sweet, I believe. But the preserves were delicious.

 Here it is with the cinnamon sugar layer.

 I used dried apricots and dried cherries. I bought the apricots at the farmers' market, and they looked just like the apricots my family dried when I was a kid. I kept eating them while I was chopping them. Yumm. I also used a blend of hazelnuts, walnuts and pecans.
The question, after I put the nuts and fruit on top of the dough was--How do I roll this up????

Very carefully. These were FAT rolls! This is also the end of my photos. I got really busy and forgot to take pictures of the sliced rolls or the finished product. Which is probably a good thing because they were a MESS! The dough absolutely could not contain the abundance of delicious fruit and nuts inside.
Even though they were messy, they were absolutely delicious. It is now 8 days after I made them, and they still taste just like they did the day I baked them (I have the packed in wax paper, ziploc bag, and tupperware). If I had room in my bag, I would have taken them to Yellowstone. They would have tasted great with a cup of tea after cross-country skiing.