Tempeh and Strawberry Salad with Watermelon Dressing

I thought this was incredible when I read the ingredients list. The only thing I have problem with is the use of Strawberry Basil Balsamic Vinegar. Does it mean the balsamic vinegar comes with such flavor? If it did, I have no doubt I won't find it here. Perhaps I can concoct my own version of this intriguing balsamic vinegar. Besides, I'm seriously eager to cook with the basil that Josh gave us. He planted a bunch of them and gave me a pot that comes with Lemon Basil, Italian Basil, and Sweet Basil.

I like the idea that I can sniff around the stalks and leaves to identify which species is the one I need. How organic!

Strawberry Basil Balsamic Marinade

• 1/2 cup Olive oil
• 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
  
• Fresh strawberries, halved
  
• Basil leaves
• Salt and pepper

Blend everything together and season with salt and pepper if necessary. Set aside.

• 6 Tablespoons Strawberry basil balsamic marinade
• Organic black bean tempeh

1. Pour 2 tablespoons of the balsamic marinade to a baking pan. Place tempeh over the pan in one single layer. Pour the rest of the balsamic marinade over. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
2. Remove tempeh from the fridge. Melt just enough butter to coat skillet over medium heat. Place tempeh on heated skillet. Pour the marinade over. Cook tempeh on each side until cooked through. Cut into serving size.
   

Watermelon Dressing

• watermelon, chopped and pureed
  
• 3 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon Strawberry Basil Balsamic Marinade
• 2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard

Whisk one cup of watermelon puree with the rest of the ingredients.

To Assemble

• Salad greens
• Cooked Asparagus
• Fresh Strawberries, halved
• Onion, thinly sliced
  

Divide and place salad greens onto individual serving plates. Top it with tempeh. Add a thin slice of onion. Layer with asparagus and strawberry. Drizzle watermelon puree over to serve. Sprinkle with a handful of pine nuts if you wish.

Strawberry Mango Coconut Tart

It's George's 25th birthday today (7th May). He has organized and invited us to his birthday party tonight at Mae Kai Dee's Thai Vegetarian Restaurant. I don't know how you feel about it but to me, "part" and "vegetarian" somehow don't click.

Anyway I thought I would be nice and make him a cake of his choice. We went from "something chocolatety with peanut butter" to "monster cookies", and finally settled at Mango Pie. I would have flinched at it because of the pastry but I felt motivated by the pate brisee that I made for this quiche, and immediately said YES to George.

A quick search on internet turned out a whole lot of mango tart recipes but non of pies. "What's the difference between tart and pie?" I could see the "there-she-go-again" look on Adrian's face. He seems to think I'm capable of asking him questions that he has problem answering, which is a rare phenomenon. He told me tarts are small, and asked if I were a tart or pie. I turned to Google. According to Urban Dictionary "tart" also refers to nubile young temptress, who dresses teasingly and provocatively. I'm so tart.

Anyway I decided to make an open-face tart. I managed to pull together ideas from a few different recipe posts to come up with this tart with mango coconut custard filling, topped with fresh strawberries, instead of tart with custard topped with mangoes. How's that?

Sweet Short Crust Pastry

With the success from the last pate brisee, I set out to make this sweet short crust with just the right joyous confidence. I wonder why couldn't I do this before?

• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup icing sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 125g cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 2 small egg yolks

1. Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Process cold butter with dry ingredients until butter cubes are well coated. Stir in egg yolk and blend gently to combine well. Roll the dough out onto a floured surface, and shape it into a disk. Coat disk lightly with flour. Wrap it in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or overnight.
2. When ready, take the dough disk out and let sit at room temperature for 10 - 15 minutes. At the mean time, place aluminum foil tightly over a 9" pie dish. Place dough in the center of prepared pie dish and roll it out to line the dish. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat oven at 180C. Remove from the fridge and cover with another layer of aluminum foil. Place on top either uncooked rice, beans or weight. Blind bake the pastry dough for about 15 minutes. Remove the weight and top layer of aluminum foil. Bake for another 8 - 10 minutes, until the base is golden brown. You may want to check on it from time to time so the edges do not burn. If it does, wrap the edges with aluminum foil and continue to bake until the base is golden brown. Let cool when done.
   

Mango Coconut Custard

I made lemon curd before, and it wasn't that difficult. Looking at the recipe instruction, there's little room for damage. It's true but not. It all went very well with me proclaiming it's going to be great "if the crust turns out fine". Little did I know..... I must have messed up the ingredients proportion somehow - the mixture wasn't thickening into the consistency I needed, even after a good 10 minutes of stirring (that's 5 minutes longer than required). This morning, I took it out from the fridge and sure enough, it's too liquidy to fill the tart. So I reheat the custard, and added to it another tablespoon of corn flour and egg yolk. After yet another 10 minutes (it felt longer) of constant stirring, it finally thickened up.

The recipe below is the improvised version.

• 2 ripe mangoes, flesh only
• juice of 2 small limes
• 1 Tablespoon sugar

• 1 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 1/4 cup sugar

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup corn flour
• 3 small egg yolks

1. To make mango puree, put mangoes, juice of lime and 1 tablespoon sugar in a blender and process until smooth. Taste and adjust with lime juice or sugar. This makes approximately 2 cups of mango puree.
2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together 1/4 cup sugar and corn flour. Stir in just enough coconut milk to blend. Fold in egg yolks.
3. In a sauce pan, warm coconut milk, 1/4cup sugar and 2 cups mango puree. Do not boil.
   
4. Pour 1/3 of mango mixture into the corn flour mix. Repeat twice more until mango mix and flour mix are well combine. Return the mixture into sauce pan and heat it for another 10 minutes, stirring constantly. The mixture will thicken.
5. Cover it with clingfilm and keep in refrigerator for an hour or overnight.

To Assemble

• Fresh strawberries, halved
• Almond slivers, lightly toasted
  
• 9" Sweet short crust
  
• Mango Coconut Custard

Pour custard over baked and cooled crust. Top it with fresh strawberries. Sprinkle with almond slivers. The tart may be chilled for a few hours before serving although it's best to serve immediately because the custard may make the crust soggy.

Two-way Cantaloupe

Nook Thanyaporn brought a cantaloupe to me. It's fresh from her friend's farm in Chiangmai. As much as I could see and smell, it's a very nice looking and sweet smelling cantaloupe. Why didn't she want it? "I only eat cantaloupe with Parma ham." Ah huh.... Lucky me she didn't think of making her own parma ham salad because it was a real good cantaloupe.

Cantaloupe with Feta Salad

Adrian first thought it was weird: it's a mix of cantaloupe, strawberries and pomegranate, but not like the fruit salad that he was expecting. I told him to think about the Bulgarian Salad he so liked at Crepe & Cos. "Now that makes sense". And it started to grow on him since.

Ingredients:

• cantaloupe, chopped
• strawberries, chopped
• Pomegranate seeds
• Feta cheese, crumbled
• Red onion, chopped
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste

Toss everything together and chill 30 minutes before serving.

Broiled Cantaloupe with Mint Honey Glaze
I'm not sure if Adrian approved of this. I liked it quite a bit, especially the sweet juice collected at the pit. the soft tenderness also reminded me of a delicious winter melon soup that my grandmother used to make.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cantaloupe, seeds and pits removed
  
• mint leaves, chopped
• 1 teaspoon Honey

Turn the oven to highest (broil). Mix honey and mint leaves together. Drizzle over cantaloupe. Put to top rack and broil for 2 minutes, or until the glaze run.

Chocolate Meringue Strawberry Mascarpone

We have kind of fallen into big-lunch-no-dinner trend these days. Or, to be more precise, it's fruit salad or dessert in place of dinner meal. Since I am still in the meringue-chase, it only seems natural to make one more. Although this recipe resembles this previous Chocolate Meringue Cake post. I just had to make it because it looks so beautiful on this website. Instead of using whipped cream as filling, I mixed in with homemade mascarpone, which Adrian has fallen in love with.

This was actually the second time I made this cake. I wasn't happy with my previous attitude - I was being paranoid (I still don't know what to expect from meringue) and impatient. Hence I didn't blog about it. But it tasted so delicious that it deserves a space in my blog.

Adrian liked it even more the second time. He enjoyed the brownie-like chocolate cake layer, and the not-over-the-top sweet mascarpone filling. I just really like how I had the chocolate drizzled around it, and that it looked very beautiful.

Ingredients:
(4" x 6" casserole dish)
Chocolate cake layer

• 50g butter
• 1/3 cup cane sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• small pinch of salt
• 1 1/4 Tablespoon cocoa powder
• 45ml milk

1. Preheat oven at 160C. Grease a 4" x 6" casserole pan.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. Set aside.
3. Beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat till fluffy. Add egg yolk and vanilla extract to beat.
4. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture. Fold in milk. Pour and layer over prepared pan. Set aside.
   

Meringue layer

• 1 egg white
• 1/3 cup powdered cane sugar
• 1/4 cup flaked almonds

1. Start beating egg white at low speed until soft peaks form.
   
2. Add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, until hard peaks form.
3. Spoon over chocolate cake layer. Sprinkle with flaked almonds.
4. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the meringue is crispy on the outside.
   

Mascarpone layer

• 1/3 homemade mascarpone
• 100mL fresh cream
• 1 - 2 tablespoons powdered cane sugar
• 100 gram strawberries, chopped, reserve 2 for garnish

1. Pour cream and sugar to a bowl and keep in freezer, together with beater attachments, for 5 minutes.
2. Beat cream to form stiff peaks. Fold in chopped strawberries and mascarpone.

Assembly

• mint leaves
• dark chocolate
• butter
  

1. Melt butter and chocolate together over waterbath (or microwave).
   
2. Slice chocolate meringue into 4 quarters. Place one quarter, chocolate side up, to one serving plate. Pile it up with some mascarpone filling. Sandwich it with another quarter, meringue side up. Top it with a spoonful of mascarpone filling and decorate with fresh strawberry and mint leaves. Repeat with the other quarters.
3. Drizzle with melted chocolate to serve.
   

Chocolate Meringue Cake

When I came back from Chiang Mai, I got nothing but an extra 1 kilogram of raw macadamia nuts. I got it from a health food store called Kasem in Nimmanhaemin. It was only 900THB, almost half the price of what I get here in Bangkok. How can I not buy them? They were also selling two kilograms of walnuts for only 580THB! Curse the two ladies who walked away with two huge bags full of them!

Anyway I have been wanting to do something with the macadamia nuts since. There was this meringue that I loved but didn't blog. I felt I owed it a post - something in me was urging to remake the meringue (gluttonous, perhaps?)

This was a real test to my patience. Firstly, there was some itsy bitsy bits of egg yolk in the egg white that I turned a blind eye to. BIG MISTAKE: it didn't even get into the soft peak stage of whisking. I spent 30 minutes holding the hand-held blender for nothing. Secondly, for whatever stupid reason, I put the meringue straight into the refrigerator right after baking - it shrunk, and became chewy. I threw it away. Sigh......

I was not one to give up easily though. I set out to making it again the next day. I was so paranoid - but it was probably good to be. It finally turned out right. Phew...... I'm glad I did it because it's so delicious! Not just the meringue cake but the strawberry too! I always complain about the local strawberry but this, coming from Royal Thai Project, was as good as the Korean. They are of the right tenderness and sweet tartness. Top grade! AND same price as the other local brand. Why are they not selling this all the time?

Before you set out to making the meringue, take a moment to read this BIGGEST MERINGUE MISTAKES. Good luck.

Chocolate cake layer:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• 114 gram unsalted butter, soften at room temperature
• 1 cup natural cane sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup whole milk

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Lightly grease two 8" cake pan and set them aside.
   
2. In a bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
   
3. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Add egg yolks, one at a time, follow with pure vanilla extract.
4. Using a spatula, alternately add flour and milk in a few addition, beginning and ending with flour. Divide the batter equally to the two prepared pans. Set aside.

Meringue layer:

• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2/3 cup organic white sugar
• Macadamia nuts (optional)
  

1. Beat egg whites until foamy. Add lemon juice and continue to beat until soft peak forms..
2. Gradually add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, and beat until stiff peak forms. Fold in macadamia nuts.
   
3. Divide into two and place on top of the chocolate cake layer in each pans.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
5. Let it cool in the oven for at least 1 hour before removing to room temperature. Remove from pan once completely cool.

Almond Cream Filling:

• 1 cup cream
• 1 Tablespoon organic white sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup almond meal
• 70 gram 90% dark chocolate, grated

1. Mix together cream, sugar, cinnamon powder and vanilla extract. Let it chill, together with beater, for at least 30 minutes.
2. Beat on high until stiff peaks form. Fold in almond meal and chocolate.
   

Assembling the cake:
Place one of the cake layers, meringue side down, on a serving plate. Spread with almond cream. Gently place the second cake layer, cake side down, onto the almond cream. Garnish with fresh strawberries. Place in refrigerator until serving time.

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.
   

Berries Apricot Crisp

We had a very hearty lunch at this organic Thai vegetarian restaurant called Khun Churn at Ekkamai this afternoon. I didn't think we'd have dinner except something small. So I decided to make this Berries Crisp based on the Apple Crisp recipe I liked very much.

I substituted apples with fresh strawberries, frozen raspberries and frozen apricots. Instead of using walnuts for the crispy topping, I used macadamia nuts.

I didn't think much about this knowing that it would not fail. Perhaps that's why when Adrian said "I would wear it as a perfume if they had that", I was pleasantly pleased. He also likes the resemblance of its smell to some berry jam that his mother used to make - anything that stir up good childhood memories must be good, right?

To make two servings, I quartered the amount required in the original recipe. I wanted just enough topping to provide a crispy texture to go with the soft filling. Besides, it's more of a sport eat rather than anything substantial.

Fresh Strawberry with Balsamic Reduction

One of my favorite dinner dessert recipe is non other than the Grilled Peach with Ricotta Cheese and Balsamic Reduction: the taste is exceptional, it looks fancy but takes little time and effort to make. This time, I'm using balsamic reduction on fresh strawberry. With just the right amount of black pepper, this dessert is sweet, peppery, sour and even just a bit salty.

I never knew balsamic vinegar comes from reduced grape juice. Actually, I never gave much thought about how it comes about. Some of the thin balsamic vinegars being sold are actually a mix of conventional white wine vinegar with coloring and flavoring - I can now stop feeling the pinch of having to pay for the good quality stuff.

When you make this, bare in mind you'll need approximately 1 teaspoon of balsamic reduction for each 1/2 pint strawberries, and the balsamic vinegar will reduce by half (or more).

Ingredients:

• 1 C balsamic vinegar
• Fresh strawberries, sliced or whole
• 1 teaspoon natural cane sugar
• Ground black pepper

1. Combine strawberries and sugar in a bowl and toss to coat. Refrigerate for at least an hour.
2. Place the balsamic vinegar in a small sauce pan over medium heat. When the vinegar comes to a boil lower the heat to simmer. Cook for about 30 - 40 minutes until reduced to 1/4 cup. Cool.
3. Divide the strawberries into individual serving bowls when ready to serve. Top each serving with 1 teaspoon of the vinegar and a pinch of ground black pepper.
   

Berry Yogurt Cake with Chocolate Chips

This recipe is an adaptation from here. It has a very posh French name: Gâteau au Yaourt à la Framboise, a.k.a Raspberry Yogurt Cake.

A basic Yogurt Cake is just a very simple, moist and fluffy cake. It lends itself to a great variations such as the one below. You can add citrus juice, zest, or peel for a delicious lemon or orange cake, you can add chocolate chips or nuts to the batter, you can slice the baked cake in two and spread a layer of jam in the middle, you can frost the cake with a chocolate frosting -- whatever strikes your fancy. I decided to throw in some chocolate chips along with mixed berries just because they have been sitting in the far-reached corner of the fridge for quite some time now.

I'm using the almond meal that came from my Homemade Almond Milk. You can either buy from the store or simply grind some.

• 1 C homemade yogurt
• 1 C natural cane sugar
• 1/4 C virgin coconut oil
• 1 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1/4 C almond meal
• 3 eggs
• 1 TB baking powder
• 300 g mixed berries (fresh or frozen): strawberry, blueberry, raspberry
  
• 1/2 C unsweetened chocolate chips (optional)
  

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Copiously grease and flour a 9" springform pan.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine yogurt, oil and sugar with a spatula. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring after each addition.
   
3. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and almond meal. Add flour mixture to the batter in three or four batches, and stir until just combined. Do not over mix.

4. Pour half the batter into the cake pan. Cover evenly with half of the mixed berries and half of the chocolate chips (if using). Pour the other half of the batter, and arrange the other half of the raspberries on top. Sprinkle with the other half of the chocolate chips (if using).

5. Put into the oven to bake, for 50 to 60 minutes, until the top is springy and a cake tester comes out clean.

6. Let rest on the counter for ten minutes, then run a knife around the cake to loosen it, and turn out on a rack to cool completely.

Veggie Smoothies

It began with the extra hydroponic butterhead lettuce: it came with roots and I was happily keeping it alive in a jar of water next to the sink. Few days passed and still no sign of cooking at home. I got nervous and started surfing for inspiration. Not much. Then the conversation with Fredrik about juicer came to mind. Hmm.... so I typed "lettuce smoothie". And what do you know? GREEN SMOOTHIE, anyone?

With Lettuces

Banana, blueberry, golgi berry, yogurt, lettuces and cinnamon powder.

Who would have thought? No sign of green at all =)

It's not that different than our usual morning stable: banana with mixed berries yogurt smoothie. I just threw in another handful of lettuces. I was going to keep in mum but Adrian walked in and I could see the expression on his face. "It's ok. I know what I'm doing" said the cook. You got to give this man a lot of credit for the faith he has on me.

How did it turn out? Well, the tartness of the berries overpowered whatever green taste the lettuces may have. Would I do it again? Only when there's leftover lettuces again.

With Chinese Celery

Same ingredients as Lettuce Smoothie plus raspberry and Homemade Almond Milk in instead of Homemade Yogurt.

Pretty~

This was the result of a big mistake. I was looking for parsley and somehow mistook Chinese celery as the Italian flat-leaved parsley. Although I had a couple celery recipes (cream of celery soup, butternut/ apple soup)that I liked and enjoyed, I don't go around and search for celery recipe as I would with broccoli or eggplant. You know what I mean?

The damage is done and I just got to fix it, don't I? It would be a whole lot easier if I had a juicer. Since I don't just have to make it into smoothie. I found recipes for banana and celery soup, and cantaloupe, celery and blueberry salad. Well, I guess it's I can just throw in to the morning mixed berries smoothis as I did with lettuces.... how convenient.

Pancake: Banana Caramel and Strawberry Balsamic

I have been stoked with pancakes since last week's Banana Pancake with Coconut Syrup Peanut Butter. I have practically been waiting to do another pancake since. Nothing special about this week's pancake but the sauces: Banana Caramel Sauce and Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar. They were good individually, but also superb with mixed. The best part is, they are super easy to make.
I made quite a few changes in the recipe, which I'll show in bracket and italic.

Ingredients
(make 20 10cm pancakes)
4 eggs
2 tbs white sugar
375ml buttermilk or 200ml milk + 175ml Greek yogurt (lemon juice + milk)
50g melted butter (Coconut oil)
1 1/2C self raising flour (whole wheat flour + salt and baking powder)
1/2 tsp cinnamon sugar (cinnamon + sugar)
200g fresh ricotta

Option:
berries
chocolate chips

1. Separate the white and yolk of the eggs. Beat the yolk with sugar until pale and creamy.
   
2. Stir in buttermilk and melted butter to blend (I used coconut oil).
3. Fold in the flour (whole wheat flour + 1 tsp salt + 1 1/2 tsp baking powder), cinnamon and sugar.
   (I prepared this a night ahead and stick the bowl into the fridge for overnight)
4. Stir in ricotta cheese. Whisk the egg white until soft peaks are formed. Carefully fold the egg white into the flour mixture. DO NOT OVER MIX.
5. Melt a tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Scoop 1/2 cup of the mix for one pancake. When the bottom is about to set, (Optional: sprinkle some berries or chocolate chips over the top) flip to fry the other side. You may transfer the pancake to a 100C oven to keep warm while you work on the sauce.

Banana Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
(enough for 2 pancake)
1 Banana, chopped
2 Tablespoon butter
2 Tablespoon brown sugar

1. Melt butter over low heat. Stir in sugar and banana. Stir infrequently until the sugar is melted.
2. Spoon over pancake to serve.

Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar
Ingredients
Strawberry, diced
2 Tablespoon brown sugar (maple syrup)
2 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Toss everything together. Chill in refrigerator until ready to serve.