Raspberry Panzanella

First of all I want to credit Adrian for making the raspberry jam. He volunteered to help. "Is it really that easy to make jam?" Well, see for yourself.

This recipe took me by surprise. It's hassle free and yet unbelievably flavorful. Besides it 's also pretty on the plate. Adrian was already asking for a remake while his plate was still half-full. This recipe has so much potential - you can make it with other berries, different fruits, nuts, etc. I happened to have some leftover fruit salad from the day before - mango, papaya, grapes in a lemony sweet dressing -. I also added some date honey to sweeten up the plate. Hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

Ingredients:
(serve 2)

• Frozen raspberry
• Pure coconut syrup
• 4 slices Day-old bread, sliced into 1" cubes
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup Natural cane sugar
• pinch of salt
  
• Pecan nuts, chopped
• Fruit Salad
  
• Sour cream (lemon juice + Cream)
• Poppy seeds
• Date honey
  

1. Heat and bring raspberry and coconut syrup to boiling. Turn it down to medium low and let it simmer. Stirring occasionally. Taste and adjust with more sugar or raspberry. Heat till the juices reduced to jam consistency. Let it cool.
2. Preheat oven at 150C. Melt butter, sugar and salt in a pan until the sugar caramelized. Remove from heat and toss in bread cubes. Toss to coat evenly.
3. Repeat step 2 with chopped pecan nuts.
   
4. Pour bread cubes and pecan nuts to a large baking pan in one even layer. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, tossing every 5 minutes, until golden all over. Remove and let cool to crisp up.
   
5. Place toasted bread cubes and nuts in a big bowl and mix in raspberry jam. Serve on individual serving bowl. Serve with a scoop of sour cream and fruit salad. Sprinkle with poppy seeds. Drizzle with date honey.
   

Beet and Orange Soup

This is a twist of a traditional Ukranian soup - borscht - which is also popular in many Eastern and Central European countries. You can read up here for some interesting variations and way of preparing borscht in different countries. Traditionalists may frown at me given borscht is usually served during winter. At this time of the year in Bangkok, not only there is no rain, but I'd be lucky if I manged to take a 5 minutes walk without having to sweat like a pig. I digress.

There are many beetroot soup recipes out there. The recipe that I followed suggests serving the soup with sour cream and chopped chives. Another recipe uses frozen yogurt and chive. I thought the latter sounded cool but I liked the idea of sour cream. So I froze up sour cream and chives instead of yogurt.

So this must have been the 3rd attempt to force-feed Adrian with beetroot. The soup has a beautiful intense ruby-red color. How can anyone not fall in love with it? I'm not sure if Adrian approved of the soup. He was more curious about the ice-cream looking thing than the obvious presence of beetroots. At least he didn't complain. Actually he did better: he finished the his serving of the soup.

Ingredients:

• 3 small beetroots, washed
• 1/2 medium red onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 teaspoon rosemary, chopped
• sea salt and ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
  
• Juice of 1 orange
• 2 cups miso soup
  
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 1/2 cup sour cream (lemon juice + cream)
  
• Chives, chopped

1. Mix sour cream with chopped spring onions. Spoon the mixture over ice-cube tray. Freeze till needed.
   
2. Bring a pot of water and beetroots to boil for about 60 minutes; until beetroots are fork tender. Remove and let cool. Peel off the skin and chop roughly.
   
3. Saute onion with a generous pinch of sea salt. Add garlic, rosemary and black pepper. Continue to saute for another 10 minutes over low heat.
4. Pour in balsamic vinegar, orange juice, miso soup, orange zest and chopped beetroots. Let it simmer for 10 minutes.
   
5. Process with a blender till smooth and creamy. Separate into two serving bowls. Serve with frozen sour cream.
   

Sour Cream Pancake with Raspberry Jam and Balsamic Reduction

You don't see much use of fresh blueberry in this blog because they are too expensive. I always comforted myself that frozen blueberries made just as good ingredient as the fresh ones. Until yesterday.

Few days ago I bought four packets of fresh blueberries because they were on sales - 99THB per packet for what normally would have cost close to 300THB. What a bargain. So I thought I would use the fresh blueberry to make come French toast (that I didn't blog) and feel rich about it. Once again, it showed fresh is better. The frozen blueberries shrink or shrivel, leaving skin once burst under heating, not a pleasant texture to chew on. With the fresh ones though, it felt more alive and real. I wish the fresh blueberries are on sales more often.

This morning pancake however has nothing to do with cooking blueberries. It's raspberry jam that I made few days ago for another French toast that I, again, didn't blog about. I learned to add bits of butter to the jam for a more developed taste. Try it! This pancake is soft and fluffy with just a hint of lemon, not unlike the Lemony Ricotta Pancake, with minimal adaptation.

Ingredients:
(makes 2 8" pancake)

Sour cream pancake:

• 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup almond meal
• 1 tablespoon natural cane sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• zest of one lemon, grated
  
• 1 cup sour cream (lemon juice + cream)
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil

To serve:

• Homemade raspberry jam
• Balsamic reduction (black pepper, lemon juice and salt to season to taste)
  
• Fresh Blueberries

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl.
2. Mix sour cream, beaten egg and coconut oil in a separate bowl.
3. Fold sour cream mixture over dry mixture. Gently fold to combine.
4. Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil over medium heat. Drop half the batter into the pan. Cook until the bottom is set and the top begins to form bubbles.
5. Flip and cook until it's nicely browned.
6. Repeat with the other half batter.
7. Top one pancake with generous amount of raspberry jam. Sandwich with the other pancake. Throw in some fresh blueberries and drizzle with balsamic reduction to serve.
   

Lemony Ricotta Pancake with Balsamic Fig Jam

I used to do all the cooking by myself. Sometimes I thought it would be nice if Adrian could help me instead of just sitting in front of the computer, then I rationalized I wouldn't have liked it because I would be very bossy about how things should be done - MY WAY -. Ever since he cooked for my birthday, he found new meaning in cooking: there's something satisfying about making your own foods that he enjoys. It, too, surprises me how much I enjoy having my husband, with me, in the kitchen. I am working to suppress my bossiness and express my dominating nature in the least oblivious way possible. It has worked for two months so far.

This was another lazy morning. We woke up rehearsing the languages that we each learning: he spoke to me in Mandarin, I replied in Japanese. It's one of the exercises we vouched to keep in order to develop our brain map. Adrian's Mandarin lesson has covered the verbs for "eat" and "drink", plus a bonus "hungry" from me, and that took us from bed to kitchen.

We had a bit of ricotta left from yesterday's French toast, and there's a jar of self-raising Farina flour that came from a absentminded mistake while I was making pizza dough: it's Farina flour with baking powder and salt. So I decided to make do with the two ingredients: Ricotta Pancake.

I can tell I'm becoming more intuitive with my cooking: I don't have to be looking at recipe as much as I used to; I'm able to concoct dishes based on what I cooked before. This Balsamic Fig Jam, for instance, is a spin-off of Balsamic reduction that I have tried a few times with different fruits and really like.

The jam turned out to be extraordinary, - not your ordinary pancake jam - especially so with sour cream. The pancake too was excellent. I was going to announce the best pancake I've made but Adrian said he got instant ecstasy from the sourdough pancake. It's a close call. This pancake was soft and fluffy while the sourdough pancake was tangy and had a cake-like texture. If I may give them attributes: this one was happy and bouncy; the sourdough pancake was mature and acquired. I found myself nodding my head to a symphony of happy tunes in my head with the fluffy Ricotta pancake.

Note: There was only 1/2 cup ricotta left and so I made up the 1 cup volume with sour cream. Adrian thought fresh strawberries would go very well with the fig jam; you can use other berries or non at all.

Ingredients:(makes two 8" pancakes)

Balsamic Fig Jam:

• Dried figs, chopped
• natural brown sugar
• balsamic vinegar
• ground black pepper
• fresh lemon juice
• sea salt to taste

1. In a saucepan, heat and cook dried figs with just enough boiling water until soft and thick.
   
2. Start adding sugar and balsamic vinegar, one tablespoon at a time, to desired taste.
3. Add a generous pinch of black pepper.
4. Adjust taste with lemon juice and salt. More balsamic or sugar if needed.
5. Set aside or chill in refrigerator until ready to serve.
   

Dry Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup Farina flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 TB natural brown sugar
• Zest of one lemon

Wet Ingredients:

• Homemade ricotta cheese + sour cream - 1 cup
• 1 egg (lightly beaten)
• 2 TB virgin coconut oil
• Pure vanilla extract

Optional:

• Fresh strawberries, sliced
• Sour cream to serve

1. Combine all the dry ingredients, except lemon zest, in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.
2. Whisk together wet ingredients in a separate mixing bowl.
3. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture. Add lemon zest and strawberries.
4. Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil over medium heat. Drop half the batter into the pan. Cook until the bottom is set and the top begins to form bubbles.
5. Flip and cook for another 5 minutes or until it's nicely browned.
6. Repeat with the other half batter.
7. Serve with Balsamic fig jam and sour cream.
   

Smoked Salmon Frittata

Ingredients:
(serves 6)

• 6 large eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
  
• 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 pound smoked salmon, torn into pieces
• 1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese
• 5 green onion, chopped
• 2 TB fresh dill
  
• 1 TB butter
• Dill sprigs and sour cream to serve (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
   
2. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, salt, and Tabasco sauce. Blend in flour to combine. Stir in salmon pieces, cheese, onion, and dill.
3. In a ovenproof skillet, melt the butter. Pour in egg mixture. Allow the bottom to set and transfer to oven to bake for 20 minutes or until the top browned.
4. Cut into wedges, serve with dill sprigs and sour cream.
   

Banana Pancake with Sour Cream and Strawberry Jam

So I have this extra batter from the deadly Banana Pancake with Coconut Syrup Peanut Butter. Although the coconut syrup peanut butter was a real kick, my experimental nature doesn't allow me to settle for just one topping. This morning, I chose to add to one of the banana pancakes a Sour Cream with Strawberry Jam topping. And just in case I regretted it, the other pancake was served with the same Coconut Syrup Peanut Butter. I even preached Adrian on the beauty of sharing (he got the PB topping). But oh boy! Just as soon as I tasted my plate with the strawberry jam, I unconsciously moved my pancake away from his cutlery.

I put to the pancake sliced fresh strawberry and chocolate chips. Instead of using walnuts, I used chopped pecan that I roasted before hand. Now, what topping should I make for the one last batter I have?

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of sour cream (lemon juice + cream)
2 tablespoon of home made strawberry jam

I whipped up the strawberry jam over the weekend. I still insist that home made is much much much better than commercial's. The only disadvantage is it get moldy very easily. But hey! That's what real food is all about, isn't it?