Cookies. Two Batches of Them.

So apparently I was planning to put these cookies, baked and eaten weeks ago, onto the blog. I forgot until I found their pictures on my Photobucket account again.

Both of these recipes come from the same book, Green & Black's Organic Ultimate Chocolate Recipes: The New Collection. Green & Black's Organic is a fantastic chocolate company that offers fair-trade, organic chocolate bars and products. The recipe book was given to me by a friend, and since then, I've been trying a recipe or two here and there.

A few weeks ago my coworkers were planning an event, and I offered to bake for it. I brought two recipes: a new one I had never tried, and then one I've been trying and trying to get to work the way it does in the book. I'll introduce them both.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe calls for muscovado sugar, which I certain do not have, so I substituted brown sugar. Otherwise, it's exactly the recipe offered in the book.



This recipe is supposed to make 16 cookies. It so doesn't. I can't recall the exact amount but I think it was like, 12, maybe.

They were, however, quite good! I thought the oats would make them taste like weird quasi-oatmeal cookies, but instead the cookies were quite chewy, while the chocolate chips were still very gooey. Furthermore, they stayed this way for quite some time; I forgot about the cookie leftovers I had after the event for over a week, and after that time, they were not stale. So I recommend you seal them in tubberware for long-term storage, since that seemed to work.

So yeah, I'm giving them 8/10 for being tasty, just wish the recipe made as many as it said.

Truly Gooey Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies

I've struggled with this recipe before, so I tried following it EXACTLY this time around...



Yeah, that title is such a lie.

These cookies are not "truly gooey". They are more like brownie-cookie hybrids. The cookie itself is very brittle, and so full of chunks that it's more like a pile of hazelnuts and chips barely held together by chocolate. This probably because the "dough" is basically just chocolate, and so while cooking it just spreads out ridiculously in the oven.

Adding more flour did not help, the last time I tried it. Perhaps you need to add more than I did. They are pretty tasty, don't get me wrong. The taste is fine, but the texture is not what it's supposed to be, and there's a bit too much filling (two types of chocolate chips AND hazelnuts). I much prefer the chocolate chip cookies, above.

It's possible baking these for a shorter amount of time may help, I have no idea. Giving them a 6.5/10 for being okay-tasting, but the wrong texture and all brittle. ALso this didn't make 16 either.

So that's about all I have. Short post, kind of too unfocused to go on and on. Next time: more food and probably more silliness.

Tschuess.

Red Quinoa with Mushrooms and Kale

So I've been having nasty insomnia lately, and right now am all happy to finally have talked with people who are up when I am (most of my friends are East Coast), and also possibly wired up from stress. This means, of course, I should write a blog post, right?

Red Quinoa with Mushrooms and Kale

Once again, my boyfriend linked a post that led me to this one. It has everything that drives me nuts about food blogs: long story, moaning about food, and too many pictures. But I love quinoa, and mushrooms, and kale, so I had to try it out.

I used regular quinoa since I do not have red, along with a chopped portobella cap instead of shiitake. I used this No-Chicken broth by Imagine instead of chicken stock because it's a fantastic substitute. I also added a tomato because I need to use them up, and once again pearl onions instead of diced because I have still failed to buy real onions. Followed the same instructions on that blog post though (basically sautee onions in butter, then add quinoa to toast, then add broth and simmer. Then sautee other vegetables, then add kale until wilted).

This is sounding like those annoying comments on recipes that go "LOL it was great I substituted the apples in the pie for blueberries and used cake batter instead of a crust!" Sorry about that.



So enough babbling, here's the food. I added goat cheese after this photo (SERIOUSLY what was I doing).

Overall? This was quite good. The kale was cooked properly unlike the last recipe I had, leaving it quite crunchy while still having a great colour and flavour. Portobella mushrooms worked well here. Once again, though, be careful about tomatoes adding a lot of extra liquid; you may want to consider draining some of the liquid before combining the vegetables to the quinoa if you use them. Otherwise, it shouldn't be a huge problem as mushrooms and kale shouldn't release too much moisture.

Goat cheese was a good addition, but if you're vegan and want to add an extra bit of flavour, I'd recommend dried cranberries. Moosewood has a recipe involving kale and cranberries, and it is EXCELLENT. I imagine cranberries would do well in this recipe as well.

I will note, however, that overall this was more filling than expected. I only ate half of it in one sitting even after halving the recipe. This is probably because 1 cup of dried quinoa makes FOUR cups of cooked quinoa, and two cups of quinoa is apparently just too much for my stomach.

This reminds me: I have a nice, simple lentil/rice recipe I should share sometime.

So basically? This recipe was good, filling, but I'm not sure on its own, without my additions, it would have been amazing. So it's getting a 7.5/10. I like being able to give recipes good ratings; world, MAKE DELICIOUS FOOD.

I'm so sorry for this post.

It appears I forgot to put two recipes up on this blog, since their pictures are on my photobucket. I will try to do those next. Not tonight, though, this insanity has gone on long enough.

Tschuess.

Stir-Fried Egg and Tomato with Avocado

College instilled one weird OCD exception in me: soup foods are totally okay late at night so long as they are fast noodles. Right now it is Annie Chun's Kimchi soup, which is spicy and tasty.

This has nothing to do with today's food, so let's move on.

Stir-Fried Egg and Tomato with Avocado

Hari found a recipe on this website that disinterested me, as I recall. So then I found this and found it interesting. Today's recipe is based off of this, but not quite the same.

This is mainly because after a "flaming oil" incident when I was 15, I don't like to add oil to a hot pan.



So here we are.

Start off with a bit of oil in a pan. I recommend peanut oil as it's very good with heat. THEN heat it up to about medium, medium-high. At this point, we go back to the recipe's instructions. I used a whole tomato, chopped it up, and then added it to the pan and stirfried it until it was basically what they said.

I then took two eggs, cracked them in a bowl, and beat them well. Then I added a splash of 2% milk (I wouldn't add more than 1/8 cup), and then some goat cheese. beat it all together. I then added them to the pan with the tomatoes still in there, and removed the pan from the heat while stirring the eggs and scraping the bottom and sides.

Then once the cooking was slowed I put them back on the heat and basically just stirred them until they firmed up to a consistency I liked. Remove from heat, put in bowl. Slice up some fresh raw avocado and add it to the top.

It was quite a tasty, nourishing breakfast. Now for a few things.

First off, I DO recommend you listen to that website and remove the tomatoes and rinse the pan, THEN add the eggs. This is not due to taste or cooking, but to remove excess liquid. I had some unsightly liquid in the bottom of my bowl of eggs, and so to remove that, it's best to just separate the cooking processes. If liquid in the bowl doesn't squick you like it does me, then you can keep everything in the same pan.

Goat cheese really didn't add what I wanted to the eggs; you could barely taste it. Feel free to leave it out.

This basic recipe would likely go well with many other vegetables, including spinach, kale, MAYBE broccoli. It's very versatile and there are many options.

Oh and I don't know how adding the sugar works out since I didn't. My guess is it brings out the tomato flavour, I don't know.

Finally, you could probably translate this into a vegan recipe pretty easily by using tofu. I have made a pretty good tofu scramble in the past using a pile of dried herbs and some firm tofu. Perhaps someday I should add it to the blog so I'm not just stealing other people's recipes.

Speaking of this recipe, 8/10. It was good, and has great potential for modification.

Bonus Rating! So I was at the natural grocery again and I saw that they have this, except in a "one packet to try it" size.

For the love of all that is holy, DO NOT FALL FOR THOSE REVIEWS:



This is one packet, which is the equivalent of one serving, in 16oz of coconut milk (which is also gross btw). I needed a blender to stir it. The blender could barely even process it.



"Shake or dog poop, which could it be?"

The consistency was of a paste, and I wanted to chew it before swallowing it. When I could swallow it. I only tried twice. The flavour, oddly enough, was not BAD -- it actually tasted vaguely like the coconut milk it was in, basically. But I knew I wouldn't drink it so I brought it to the sink to pour it out.

IT came out like honey at first, then there was a little pop, and the whole thing slid out leaving barely any trace it was in the glass.

Food shouldn't DO THAT, guys. Please do not buy this. If you're starving and have no choice, use double the liquid it recommends. Garden of Life may like eating paste but it can't be good for you if you're already having food troubles and need to drink this instead.

Also bonus from someone who was pissy that someone dared give such a healthy, hippy product a two-star review:

"Your comment is your own personal opinion." (From here)

Unlike every other comment, which clearly is based in SCIENCE.

On that charming note,

Tschuess.

Mini Peach Tarts

I had a busy day on Sunday baking, churning, and cleaning. Unfortunately, the only thing that really went right was the cleaning. Nonetheless, I present...

Mini Peach Tarts

This is another one that my boyfriend found, and I accepted it whole-heartedly. Peaches are delicious after all, and mini peach pies? Yes, please. I didn't have any graham crackers though, so none of those are in it.



The Pepto-Bismol is actually plum ice cream. It had too much sugar :(

And now for the poor tarts. I want to say they were delicious and the greatest use of my peaches.

But no. Even with a homemade, from-scratch pie crust, no. And I know exactly why.

The recipe calls for WAY too much cinnamon and nutmeg. My two peaches actually made twice the amount of tarts the recipe called for, which means I used half the amount of cinnamon and nutmeg the recipe technically wants, and yet the spices completely overpower the peaches. I can barely even taste them, and when I can, it's not a mind-blowing flavour. It doesn't help that I had to cook them for roughly 30 min to get the pie crust to brown, which may have burned the tips of the peaches.

The homemade crust is okay, crispy, not too flavourful but it IS just a crust. The filling? Meh. So meh. Cinnamon and nutmeg are very strong spices, using 1 tsp each of both is so inappropriate. I should have known better.

It MAY be possible to salvage these by significantly lowering the amount of spice (by half at least). It's also possible my peaches just sucked (They were still hard and not ripe/soft after over two weeks of owning them). But honestly I'm so off-put by how it turned out that I don't really want to try it again.

4/10. Sorry peach tarts. Even a sprinkle of salt did nothing.

I MAY be able to manage to wake up in time to make a good breakfast that I could post to here. Until then...

Tschuess.

Kale with Egg and Toast

So I had a meal before this one that I photographed and everything... But I forget what it was like. It was a pasta dish, I know that much. So instead, we'll focus on what I made for breakfast this morning.

Kale with Egg and Toast

So my boyfriend linked me some recipe, I can't remember what. I was pretty "Whatever" about it, but it led me to find this recipe and another one I will try out later. Now, I'm neutral about most lettuces and greens, but I love kale. So a recipe involving mostly it? Yes, please.

I substituted the diced onions for diced pearl onions. Let me tell you, chopping frozen pearl onions in a blender? Way too amusing to watch. They hop around like popcorn before they finally get ground up. Also, I substituted vegetable broth for chicken stock. And I forgot about the lemon juice.



I was so ravenous that I took one rather bad picture before wolfing it down.

And now for the disappointment... It was kind of a bust. There are various reasons for this. First, the kale is too moist and thus this soaked straight into the toasted bread and turned it moist (ick). The kale, after being simmered in an absurd amount of broth (I used a cup less than stated, and still had almost all of the broth left over. Seriously. I poured it back into containers to save because some of that broth cost me $4/container), simply did not have the nice texture and flavour I associate it with. I'm not even sure I simmered it for the whole 30 min, either.

I couldn't even really taste the garlic or onion, not sure what the point of them being there was. I guess MAYBE the lemon juice would have rescued the kale, but why in the world would you simmer it for 30min only to give it a whole different flavour? A light saute or steam would yield a better texture and colour, and then you could just add the lemon juice after. I don't know.

We won't talk about the sad sunny side up eggs. I should have just fried them.

I don't know how this could be salvaged, or even if it's worthwhile. Suffice to say it's being removed from my recipe list, because I Know better ways to use toast, egg, and kale. (and in the case of the egg and toast, AT ONCE).

Overall rating: 4/10.

I made another disappointing recipe for dessert this evening, but that will wait for another time.

Tschuess.

Cardamon Roasted Tomato Pasta

So I'm a pastaholic. I love almost any kind of pasta except for baked dishes and cream-based sauces, but oils, butters, tomato-based... All of the rest of it is fair game. My boyfriend knows this, and he also is desperately frantic to get me to gain weight. It seems to have become his personal mission. This leads us to today's recipe.

Cardamon Roasted Tomato Pasta

I save almost every recipe my boyfriend gives me if it involves pasta, and this was one of TWO roasted tomato recipes he linked me, because I don't know. I substituted the cardamon pods with ground cardamon, the lemon zest with lemon juice, and the chicken stock with vegetable broth.



I took this picture in one try.

Anyway, so beineg a pasta lover, I'm very biased. I wolfed this down pretty contently. I will note, however, that I found the sauce to be quite bland. I think my problem is lemon zest substitutions; one teaspoon of lemon juice apparently calls for two TABLESPOONS of lemon juice. Those lemon zest strips they used are probably easily two teaspoons a piece, which means I should have added, uh, four tablespoons of lemon juice or eight for the original recipe amount. That's quite a bit of lemon juice.

So yeah, I imagine with the right amount of lemon it's quite zesty (hur), but I also found the cardamon to be surprisingly underwhelming. Maybe try more for a stronger flavour.

The tomatoes were great roasted though (I had to roast them for longer than instructed, for what it is worth), nice and juicy.

Also, you know, pasta. I will note that since this is a pretty light sauce, unless you LOVE the taste of gluten-free pasta, this may not work with them. I bet it'd match with buckwheat though.

Overall? 8/10 if the modifications I recommended end up working. I added it to my "Delicious" Bookmarks so hey. SOMETHING went right (the pasta).

Bonus Rating! I had some Rising Moon Organic Feta and Hazelnut Ravioli. I expected amazing because holy shit feta, hazelnuts, and squash? In ravioli?

They were the most underwhelming, unimpressive ravioli I've ever had. No joke. Freakin' Target brand cheese ravioli are tastier. I come from a place with lots of Italians, and I've had top of the line ravioli before. Those were not even CLOSE.

I do not recommend that ravioli, and quite possibly that whole brand. Bleh.