Summer Recap

Welcome back! I'm just getting back into the swing of things for my last semester of undergraduate classes (!) and planning a lot of great posts. Coming up you'll see a two-week food diary of a busy college student (me), a peak inside my refrigerator, a series on whole grains and more.

But first, I thought I'd share a little bit from my summer, as told by desserts.

Death by Chocolate (layers of whipped cream, chocolate mouse, walnuts, toffee pieces and Kahlua soaked brownies).

Banana cake.

Ombre cake. (Tutorial coming soon!)

Fourth of July cookie cake.

Berry Cobbler.

Chocolate Melting Cake on a cruise.

Dessert salsa in Cozumel.

I'm going to go eat a cookie. Stay tuned for upcoming posts!

Putting the Pea in Pesto

Peas are not meant for pesto. A few weeks ago, craving pesto and finding this recipe for linguine with pea pesto on Smitten Kitchen, I decided to give pea pesto a try. Seems like a great idea, right? An easy way to get your fix of that oh-so-delicious garlicky green stuff, even when basil isn't in season (thankfully, not an issue now that we are only 2 days from the official start of summer!). Alas, I learned that peas are not meant for pesto. Something about their sweet and starchy flavor distracted a little to much from the garlic and parmesan. I advise that you leave your frozen peas for stir fry and save your parmesan and pine nuts for basil.

Photo via Smitten Kitchen

Coffee Ice Cubes

I stumbled upon an absolutely brilliant idea while perusing Cupcakes and Cashmere this morning: coffee ice cubes. Coffee ice cubes. For iced coffee. So that it doesn't get all watery. Looks like I'm going to need a new excuse for drinking my coffee so fast :)

P.S. Coffee bean shaped ice cube trays (they're called Cool Beans...ha!).

Top photo from Kitchen Treaty 

16 Cans of Diced Tomatoes

That's what my roommate and I left Costco with when her mom was in town a few weeks ago. And it was completely intentional. Why, you ask? Because diced tomatoes are an integral part of about 18 out of 20 of my favorite weeknight dinner recipes. And the following recipe (courtesy of my roommate) is my current favorite:

1 can diced tomatoes
1 can beans (black or cannellini are my favorite for this)
2-3 handfuls of roughly chopped kale
Cumin

Combine the above ingredients over medium heat until the kale has wilted. This combo is perfect on it's own, on top of rice or quinoa, or (drained slightly) in a tortilla with cheddar cheese for a vegetarian quesadilla!

Three-Hour Black Beans

What to do with the huge bunch of cilantro I had left over from Chickpea Tacos? So many things come to mind (I'm of the mindset that cilantro makes every dish better). But really, what goes better with cilantro than black beans? That's right, absolutely nothing. Then it occurred to me that I have never once prepared dried black beans. So I decided to give it a try.

I used this recipe for Cuban Black Beans, which was really simple other than requiring enough forethought to soak the beans the night before. But while cooking, a curious situation developed -- I let my gigantic pan of black beans simmer for almost 3 hours, and every time I grabbed a spoonful to check if they were done, I kept tasting blacks beans that were kind of...coarse. And leathery. And then I thought that maybe no matter how long I let the pan sit there those beans probably wouldn't end up being quite as soft as what I'm used to because they haven't been been sitting in a can. Now isn't that just funny? Despite tasting MUCH better than what comes out of a can, the texture may just take some time to get used to. 

Has anyone else found this? I'm still not entirely convinced that homemade black beans are destined to taste so fibrous. It might just require more patience than I have...

Chickpea Tacos

I've never really been a chickpea person - or so I thought. But over the weekend I got the urge to experiment. Going through the archives of Eat, Live, Run (one of my favorite activities) I found a link to this recipe for Chickpea Tacos, and I'm sold.

This was such a quick and easy recipe made with things that I keep stocked in the pantry. I made a few changes to the marinade: 2 T. of canola oil instead of water and fresh garlic and onion instead of powder. Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly, and these delicious chickpeas were gone within 24 hours.

They were great on a whole wheat flour tortilla topped with salsa, thinly sliced cabbage, extra sharp cheddar and loads of fresh cilantro.

Found: The Perfect Naan Recipe

Inspired by lunch at an Indian restaurant over the weekend (and needing something to accompany the leftovers), Sunday night I searched for a quick and easy recipe for Naan.

Most recipes I found included yeast, so I was happy to stumble upon this recipe from The New Vegetarian Epicure. I went with this one in part because I didn't want to make a trip to the grocery store for yeast (which was futile because I ended up running out of plain yogurt), but mostly because I'm pretty sure Anna Thomas has never even thought of a bad recipe.

I was looking for something soft and a little chewy, that would soak up sauce but also be delicious enough to eat alone. This was definitely a winner. Even better, I substituted half of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour, and it was still amazing!

I put the first few in the oven after being browned on the stovetop (as the recipe suggests), and while that definitely gave the bread some great air bubbles, it left them a little bit more dry and crispy than I was hoping for. Going forward, I just browned each piece for about two minutes on each side, and they were done!

I tend to love any recipe that gives you an impressive looking product using only the ingredients I have on hand and minimal effort. This definitely fits the bill, and tasted awesome with my Vegetable Coconut Korma Curry.