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Mango Sticky Rice

This has to be the easiest dessert dish ever. I think I made it a little too sweet, so I would recommend using less sugar, especially because mango is really sweet itself. My version is very quick and very dirty, but it still tasted really good.

Mango sticky rice

Ingredients

• Sticky (glutinous) rice, this is different from jasmine and other types of rice, it should say “glutinous” on the side
• Coconut milk*
• Sugar
• 1 mango

* 1 small can (~150 mL) of coconut milk would do 3-4 small servings, if you want more, use a bigger can

Directions

1. Rinse and soak rice. If you’re in a pinch (ie you’re impatient) you can just rinse it
2. Cook rice. I used a rice cooker, I’m sure there are other ways, but rice cookers make it much easier. I used a 1:2 rice water ratio.
3. Cut up the mango into chunks
4. When the rice is almost done or as soon as the rice cooker goes to “warm” instead of “cook”, mix your coconut milk and sugar. I remember someone telling me almost equal parts, but I found that that makes it way too sweet. I would just keep adding a tablespoon of sugar until it’s as sweet as you want.
5. If you are hard core, you heat up the sweetened coconut milk in a saucepan, but I used the microwave (about 2 minutes on high) to heat it up
6. Add most of the sweetened coconut milk to the rice still in the rice cooker, let it sit there for at least 10 minutes
7. Dish out the rice, add the mango chunks and then pour a little more coconut milk on it if you so desire

Chocolate Marble Cheese Cake

I meant to post this ages ago, it’s just too good (and tasty) not to post at all, even though Mike’s birthday was almost a month ago. His one request for his birthday was that he have a cheese cake. I found this recipe on Epicurious, it was very very easy to make (all in one blender) and tasted amazing. It’s also not quite as bad for you as most cheese cakes are, which is always a plus.

Chocolate Marble Cheesecake

Ingredients

Crust

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tbsp softened butter

Filling

• 15 ounces (1 3/4 cups) part-skim ricotta
• 8 ounces lowfat cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup lowfat sour cream
• 1 large whole egg
• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (or to taste)
• 2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoon amaretto (if desired)
• 3 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon instant-espresso powder
• 3 tablespoon bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions (this was great, I just added everything into the blender)

1. Mix graham cracker crumbs and butter in a bowl and then press down into the bottom of a spring form pan
2. Purée ricotta in a blender until smooth, about 1 minute. 
3. Add cream cheese, sugar, sour cream, egg, egg whites, almond extract, flour and salt; puree until smooth. 
4. Whisk amaretto, 2 tablespoon hot water, cocoa powder and espresso powder in a bowl until well combined.
5. Stir in chocolate chips. 
6. Stir 1 cup plain filling into chocolate mixture. Set aside. 
7. Pour remaining plain filling into prepared pan. 
8. Drizzle chocolate filling in a circular pattern over plain filling. Using a knife, make circular strokes to create swirls in the plain filling. 
9. Bake until cheesecake is firm around the edge and slightly soft in the center, 45 to 55 minutes. Run a knife around inside of pan. Let cool on a rack. Chill 6 hours or overnight before removing sides of pan.

Too much Cake Boss

Mike and I have taken to watching Cake Boss, the new show on TLC about the Italian/Jersey family that owns a bakery. It’s horribly addictive and really entertaining. It’s obviously gotten to me too because besides trying to fake jersey (JOY-zee) accents all of the time, I also attempted making my first “fancy cake”.

I did of course make Mike a cheese cake last week for his birthday but those are relatively uncomplicated because they don’t involve any decorating (at least mine didn’t). Once you had the batter, you were done. This cake was a bit different. I’m not really that much of a baker, but I like a new challenge, so I took on the duty of making Mike’s mom’s birthday cake today.

It was a plain white cake with buttercream icing. It was actually quite simple to make, the only tricky part was cutting the tiny little cake into two slabs. Also, since most of our stuff is in boxes pending the move in two weeks (!!!!), I used the spring form pan I had out for the cheesecake. This turned out to work super well, since it made the cake very easy to get out of the pan.

Plain White/Yellow Cake (All Recipes) 

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9×9 inch pan or 8″ spring form pan.
2. In a medium bowl (or blender), cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Buttercream Icing with a Lemony Twist (All Recipes)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 3 drops food coloring, or as needed (optional)

Directions

1. Cream room temperature butter with a wooden spoon until smooth and fluffy. Gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until fully incorporated. Beat in vanilla extract.
2. Pour in milk and beat for an additional 3-4 minutes. Add food coloring, if using, and beat for thirty seconds until smooth or until desired color is reached.

That’s right, I was hardcore enough to make buttercream icing with nothing but a wooden spoon and a bowl. No KitchenAid for me!

Once the cake was cooked, I let it cool down and then released it from the spring form pan (super easy I might add). I waited a bit longer for it to cool. While I was doing this I started mixing up the buttercream icing. When the cake was all cool, I used  a big serrated bread knife to cut the dome off the top of the cake. I then cut it in to two slabs. Two reasonably thin slabs I might add. 

On the bottom slab I put some of the buttercream icing and then added some of my mom’s homemade raspberry jelly. I then carefully put the top slab back on and “dirty iced” it as Buddy (the cake boss) would say. This is just a thin layer of the icing to lock in all of the crumbs. 

Then it was off to the fridge for about an hour (in which time we went and got the card and present). Then I put a nice thick layer of icing on it and decorated it with fresh local raspberries.

I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. No fondant, but we’ll work on that. I guess I’m just not quite a cake boss yet.

Falafel

I’m a huge fan of falafel, but I had never considered trying to make it until Mike suggested the idea. We normally have a can of chickpeas on hand because we like to make our own hummus, so I looked up a basic falafel recipe and came up with this one on All Recipes, called Sean’s Falafel. Of course, I didn’t have all the ingredients it called for on hand, so I listed what I actually used.

Ingredients

• 1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas, drained
• dash of onion powder
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 3 heaping tsp minced garlic
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 dash pepper
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup dry bread crumbs (this was roughly 2 slices of bread)
• oil for frying

Directions

1. In a large bowl mash chickpeas until thick and pasty; don’t use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin. 
2. In a small bowl combine egg, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice, baking powder, and garlic. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form 8 balls and then flatten into patties. I actually made my balls smaller and got 14 in total.
3. Though falafels are usually deep fried, I’ve had bad luck in the past trying to put that much oil in a frying pan, so I pan fried them in some olive oil until they were brown on both sides.

To go with the falafels, Mike chopped up some tomato, cucumber, orange pepper and olives and mixed in some feta. We put this mixture on a toasted greek style pita (the kind with no pocket). It was super tasty and didn’t even take long to prepare.

Birthday breakfast

I promised some food posts and here’s the first one: Mike’s birthday breakfast. Please excuse the photo, I know it’s not very artistic, but it was early in the morning and we were both hungry. So the breakfast consisted of: Eggs benedict (poached eggs with homemade Hollandaise sauce) with smoked salmon and a homemade blueberry scone. As part of his birthday present, I gave him a Pantone mug. Which I put some of his favourite tea in. I’m quite proud because I didn’t ruin the eggs. I’m not a huge egg eater myself, so I had never tried poaching eggs before.

For the few who are wondering, his Pantone is Orange 021C and mine (because I couldn’t resist getting one for myself) is 363C.

Apple muffins

I had the baking bug this morning, so I decided to make some apple muffins to deal with our surplus of apples. I chose the recipe based on how many of the ingredients I actually had laying around. I still made a lot of changes, so here is my modified recipe.

Ingredients (Makes 12)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups chopped apples
• Topping:
  • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 F
2. In medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon
3. In a large bowl, beat together oil, sugar, and eggs until smooth. Mix in vanilla. Stir in apples then gradually blend in the flour mixture.
4. Spoon the batter into a muffin pan
5. In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Cut in butter until the mixture is coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over tops of batter in the muffin pan.
6. Bake for 20 minutes.

Happy belated Vday

I know I’m a little late, but it took me a while to get around to uploading the picture of the awesome cake Mike got for me on Valentine’s Day. I know you’re probably thinking “Wow, can Dairy Queen not do better than that?” and the answer is “probably”. But Mike was going for a cake wreck, which is turns out is harder to make than just stumble upon. He told the person there to use the grossest colours and not center it properly. I think the two of them must have had fun. It worked out well too, because I love the gooey icing.

Yet Another Chinese New Year Recipe

So this is the last Chinese New Year recipe I’ll be posting for a while, since the New Year was technically yesterday. I love nian gao, especially if it’s reheated in the frying pan (you don’t even need oil). This recipe is a baked version, technically you are supposed to steam it and then fry it, but this way is easier for me since I don’t have a steamer big enough to make it in. This recipe is the same as the one posted here, but it looks nothing like the image they have (I believe they’re showing a picture of a steamed cake, which is sort of funny since the recipe is for baked cake).

Ingredients

• 1 package of rice flour (roughly 2 cups)
• 1/3 cup of vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups of milk
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups of sugar (I used a mix of sugars, but it’s really up to you)
• 1 tbsp of baking soda
• Sesame seeds
• You can also add pitted red dates 

Rice packets

To continue on with the loads of cooking for Chinese New Year, here is Mike’s and my recipe for rice packets.

Ingredients (for 10 small ones)

• 2 cups glutinous rice (sweet rice)
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 dried shiitake mushrooms
• 20 dried (large) banana leaves
• 3 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp hoisin
• 2 tsp rice vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 2 tsp vegetable oil
• 4 ounces (113 grams) boneless, skinless chicken (mixture of light and dark meat), coarsely ground
• 1 Chinese sausage, cut in 1/4 inch rounds
• 2 ounces (56 g) Char Siu, cut in 1/4 inch dice
• 1 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 1/2 cup water or chicken broth

Almost Chinese New Year (dumpling recipe)

As you may or may not know, tomorrow (the 26th) is Chinese New Year. In light of that, Mike and I have been cooking up a storm. Last night we made sticky rice for a small New Years potluck and today we’re going to make rice packets and dumplings. I also need to whip up some sort of 年糕 (nian gao/lin gow) for one of my classes tomorrow.  

Though nian gao and spring rolls are two of the more stereotypical new years food, I don’t have a good recipe for those right now. So instead I’ll share my very own jiao zi (dumplings) recipe.

饺子 (jiao zi)

Ingredients

•  1/2 kg (1 pound) ground meat (this can be any ground meat, my favourite is ground chicken, but I have done it with turkey, pork, tofu, tofu chicken, and tofu beef)
• 2 tbsp soya sauce
• 2 tsp brandy or sherry or rice vinegar
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• 1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 or 3 stalks of spring onion
• 1 1/4 cups of bok choy

Directions

1. Make sure everything is chopped up reasonably finely
2. Mix it all together
3. Put a spoonful into a dumpling wrapper and fold. This part can be a little tricky, but what I do is hold it in my palm, wet the edges just a little with a bit of water, then fold the wrapper and pink it. I then sort of pleat the edges of the wrapper starting at the middle, going to one end and then going back to the middle and pleating the other side. I think this sounds more complicated than it is, but you can take a look at this picture.
4. To cook, heat up a deep (non-stick) frying pan that has a lid 
5. Once it is hot, put in a bit of oil and as many dumplings as can fit without touching each other
6. Fry until they’re just brown on the underside
7. Pour in one cup of water that has had a “generous splash” of rice vinegar mixed in it
8. Put the lid on the pan and cook for roughly 10 minutes. You may want to push them around just a tiny bit while they are cooking just to make sure they are not sticking, but that depends on the stickiness of your frying pan.
9. I like to eat my dumplings with a sauce of equal parts soya sauce and rice vinegar, maybe with a little bit of chili paste mixed in