Baked Herbed Blintz

I tried a blintz recipe few days ago and somehow managed to turn it into a crepe: I poured all the batter into one big frying pan - the crepe was too thick to be folded into envelope. This time I used a 8.5" pan and was patient enough to divide the batter into 4 portions. Instead of frying the blintz again, I baked them until the top was nicely browned.

We were both very happy with this. There's so much possibilities with the filling, and sauce to serve. I may make it a sweet blintz next.

Ingredients:
(serve 2)

Filling

For some reason I roasted two bell peppers for no reason a few days ago, not to mention the left over Ricotta. This cut down the preparation time considerably. I prepared the filling the night before knowing that Adrian was leaving home early the next morning. It always helps to have plan.

• Red and yellow bell pepper
  
• 1 clove garlic, minced
  
• Homemade ricotta cheese
• Parmesan cheese, grated

1. Rub bell pepper with olive oil and sea salt. Bake at 180C until bell peppers collapsed. Peel the skin, remove seeds and juices. Sliced into wedges. Take just enough of what you need and chopped into cubes.
2. Mix roasted bell peppers with the rest of the ingredients. Taste and adjust with sea salt if necessary.
3. Cover and store in refrigerator until ready for use.

Crepes

The crepe batter too was prepared the night before. It's quick an easy. Besides basil and parsley, coriander and tarragon would be a good mix too. You may want to add the chopped herbs just before frying: some of the basil leaves were browned the next morning.

• 1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup miso soup
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 tablespoon pure sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh parsley and basil, chopped

Whisk the ingredients together to mix. Taste and adjust with sea salt if necessary.

The Assembly

Here's another ingredient good to have handy: pesto. Alternately a herby tomato sauce may do the trick.

• Parmesan cheese, grated
• Rocket pesto
  

1. Preheat oven to 200C.
2. Brush a 8.5" skillet with just enough butter to coat the pan. When the pan is well heated, remove from heat and pour about half of 1/4 cup of batter into pan. Tilt and swirl the pan to coat the bottom with a thin even layer of batter. Return to heat.
3. Fry the bottom till browned and the top set. Remove to a plate with cooked site up. Repeat to make 4 more crepes.
4. Lightly coat a baking tray with butter. Take 3 - 4 spoonful of ricotta filling and place it to the center of each crepes. Fold the edges into the middle to make blintzes. Place blintzes seam site down, in one layer, onto the prepared tray. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and bake for 20 minutes.
5. Drizzle with pesto and garnish with basil leaves to serve.
   

Barley Grilled Vegetable Salad with Avocado Dressing

Finally the long awaited house-warming/ Christmas party at Sandra and Nico's was here. It was aptly themed "Bring your own food". Clever hosts. I thought I would bring some dessert but Francois said he was bringing something sweet. Gate also mentioned raspberry crumble. What a bummer. What can I bring that I could prepare in advance, ok to be served not warm?

I thought about making a fruit salad with maple-spiced nuts. Then I remembered there was a pack of barley that I cooked and freeze in the freezer a while back. Maybe I should make a big bowl of something like the Barley Pilaf, which I did and made a few changes to make the preparation easier. I remembered a avocado dressing that I made before, which Adrian liked and decided to use that as a dressing for the grilled vegetables. I added hard-boiled eggs for that extra protein for the vegetarian Yogis and Yoginis. There's also the roasted cashew for the texture and goat cheese for the distinctive taste.

The dressing ingredients would most likely make more than what you need. We used the extra as nacho dipping; worked as guacamole. For some reason, besides Adrian, I knew Sandra would approve the dish. She did. I was pleasantly surprised that everyone else did too! I don't get to cook for many people all the time. Sometimes I think Adrian may be just acting out to keep me in the kitchen. It's good to know others enjoyed my cooking too.

Ingredients:

For the dressing:
(you may not need all of this)

• 2 avocados
• 2 cups coriander leaves
  
• 2 cloves garlic
• juice of 2 limes
• 1 cup yogurt
• 1 cup sour cream
• sea salt to taste

1. Blend all the ingredients together to a smooth consistency. Set aside in the refrigerator.
   

For the barley:

• 2 Cups cooked barley
• 1 onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

1. Saute onion with a generous pinch of sea salt until translucent. Add garlic, fry until fragrant. Stir in cooked barley. Toss to coat. Set aside.

For the tomatoes:

• 10 Cherry tomatoes, halved
  
• 4 TB extra virgin olive oil
• 2 TB Balsamic Vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon each of cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, chili flakes and ground coriander
• Natural cane sugar

1. Preheat oven at 200C.
2. Whisk together olive oil, vinegar and spices. Toss in tomatoes to coat.
3. Arrange tomatoes on baking pan with cut sides up. Sprinkle sugar over tomatoes.
4. Bake until tomatoes are shrunken, about 20 minutes.

For the vegetables:

• 2 red bell pepper, seeded, cut into wedges
• 2 yellow bell pepper, seeded, cut into wedges
• 2 zucchini, cut into 1" thick coins
  
• 1/2 Cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 Cup Balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

1. Whisk all ingredients together. Toss in vegetables. Bake in oven until tender.
2. Remove from oven. Cut zucchini coins into quarters. Cube vegetables.

To assemble:

• 4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced into coins
• 1 cup cashew nuts, roasted and chopped
• Goat cheese, crumbled
• coriander leaves to garnish
  

1. In a large serving bowl, toss barley with 1/4 of the avocado dressing.
2. Top with grilled vegetables, tomatoes, eggs, cashew nuts and goat cheese. Drizzle more dressing over. Garnish with coriander leaves if you wish.
   

Mexican Grilled Peppers and Corn Salad

I'm improvising the Pinto Beans, Persimmon and Avocado Salad and calling it Mexican because I threw in to it habanero chile and cilantro. You see, they are basically the same except there's no persimmons in this recipe but more hearty with the addition of grilled bell peppers and corn. To the dressing, I added some honey. It did taste more flavorful than without.

If you have a tiny kitchen the size of mine and no grill. This is what you do when the recipe calls for grilling. Just make sure you raise the rack high enough that the vegetables don't touch and burn by the electric hot plate.


Serve it as a side with a Double Decker Quesadilla.

Ingredients:
(makes 2 servings)

For the Salad:

• 1/2 red bell pepper, grilled and diced
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper, grilled and diced
• 1/2 con of fresh corn, grilled, use niblets only
  
• 1 habanero chili, core and seed removed, diced
• 1/2 cup cooked pinto beans
• 1 avocado, peeled and diced
• 4 cherry tomatoes, quartered

For the Dressing:

• 2 TB extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 small clove of garlic minced
• 1/4 medium-size red onion, chopped
  
• 1 TB fresh orange juice
• 2 TB lime juice
• 1 TB organic raw honey
  
• Ground cumin
• Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste
• Cilantro leaves as garnish
  

1. Simply toss all the salad ingredients together with salad dressing.
   

Blossom Your Taste Buds to Vegetarian Wonders

Mia and I had this joke about the overt Anusara expression. So when I half-jokingly requested for a theme for the home-cook dinner at her house, she replied with "Blossom Your Taste Buds to Vegetarian Wonders/ - Anusara Mia". John Friend would have been proud.

Mia and Fredrik make the prefect Swedish couple I know. Everything about them just seem so perfect: the tidy white apartment (less so now that Ludvig is in their life), perfect manner, charming charisma, well dressed.... everything about them is just so..... CLEAN. They are like the couple in 70's Sci-fi movies. Like this (except they have blonde hair):

It was a fun night with great companions (and charming baby) where I gladly played Chef de Cuisine and Mia the Sous Chef, Fredrik the Chef de Plunge, and Adrian the Food de-Vourer. I simply can't bear the sight of the mess I made. God bless the dishwasher.

I didn't take the pictures of the dishes - didn't want to creep them out - hence the use of my old photos. Here's a rundown of our dinner menu:

Couscous and Spinach Pilaf with Labneh and Chili-roasted Tomatoes

Exactly the same recipe as Barley Pilaf with Roasted Vegetable and Deep Fried Goat Cheese. We made these changes:

• Labneh instead of deep fried goat cheese. Mia and Fredrik prepared homemade labneh the night before. It's flavored with minced garlic.
• Zucchini instead of pumpkin.
• Organic wholewheat couscous instead of cooked barley.

Again, this dish takes a while to prepare but works well with planning and it never fails to impress even the carnivores. Despite the rainbow combination of colorful vegetables and herbs, the unassuming, darkly colored, cinnamon-spiced lemony caramelized crispy onions always win. My Swedish friends were talking about making this for their non-vegetarian parents back in Sweden during Christmas.

Veggie Inside-out Lentil Burger

An adaptation of the Veggie Chickpea Burger. The patties are made up of lentils, eggs, onions and homemade breadcrumbs. Use black lentils if you may - they hold up the shape better than red lentils. We (or rather Fredrik) sliced the patties into two halves and used Couscous Pilaf as the filling. If you have extra labneh, spread them generously over the cut side of the patties. Mia liked the idea of turning patty into burger bun and called it the inside out burger.

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

The combination of roasted tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese sends everyone into ecstasy. The oven-toasted tortilla shell (or taco shell) gave it an interesting crunch.

Vegan Coconut Chocolate Pudding

I was talking to Dan (our chef friend) the morning before and he mentioned "no matter what you cook, how good the main course is, dessert ALWAYS wins". Coming from a pro chef with years of experience, he must be right. This is a relatively easy dessert that you can make in advance. The secret is coconut milk. YUM~ I seriously need to work on my measuring skill: there were 3 large servings left at the end of the night. I took home one. It never hurts to have more chocolate.

Roasted Ratatouille

Ratatouille originated as a vegetable stew from Provence and Nice in France. A "classical" ratatouille has tomato as the main ingredient, with zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, onion, garlic, bay leave, thyme, basil, or mixed green herbs such as herbs de Provence. I opted out eggplant and used the leftover carrot, and red and yellow bell peppers instead.

Roasting really brings out the flavor of the vegetables. You can serve this as a side dish, or main with crusty bread, rice or noodles, or roasted potatoes.

I have adapted this dish based on a book called Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook by Robin Robertson.

Ingredients:
1/2 of each red bell pepper and yellow bell pepper, diced
1/2 large carrot, cut into coin slices
1 small zucchini, cut into coin slices
2 small tomatoes, chopped
1/4 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoon thyme
3 tablespoon basil pesto (homemade or store bought)
2 tablespoon parsley, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Lightly grease baking tray.
   
2. Toss together all the ingredients, except zucchini and tomatoes, together in a medium bowl.

3. Pour over baking tray. Cover and bake for 20 minutes.

4. Remove cover, add zucchini, tomatoes and thyme. Bake uncover for another 20 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.

5. Stir in basil pesto, sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve warm.

Lentil Lasagna

,

The cheese sauce made of milk, cheddar, flour and bay leaves.

Lentil sauce: Green lentils, red/ yellow bell peppers, crushed tomatoes and bay leaves. Press it to the bottom of the pan. It looks quite like bolognese, doesn't it?


I cooked the pasta al dente. You can add one or two spoonful more of water to the lentil sauce if you prefer it to be well cooked and "soft".

This Lentil Lasagna would appease to both vegetarians and meat eaters alike. It owes its rich flavor to the herbs and spices. The green lentils also adds an interesting texture to the sauce. Not only can this dish be frozen and reheated, but also can be prepared a few days in advance.

I ran out of suitable baking dish for lasagna and had to make do with a pie dish. If you were like me, simply break the lasagna sheets into appropriate sizes and pieces to fit the dish.

I adjusted the volume and measurement of the ingredients to suit for two persons. Go here for the original.

Baked Stuffed Bell Peppers

What happens when you take everything that’s fresh and colorful and stuffed to the inside of a bell pepper? This is an amazingly light and flavorful dish – baked bell pepper stuffed with fresh corn, lentils, zucchini, carrots and cilantro. I also added a little coriander and cumin for flavor and some lemon juice to brighten it all up. Finally, this baked dish is complete with breadcrumbs and a dusting of Parmesan cheese. Not only is this a beautiful dish, the vegetables are just cooked; you can taste "fresh".

This recipe is adapted from here. I chose to use lentils instead of black beans for two reasons: 1. I can't find black beans. 2. there are two bags of lentils in my kitchen.

I was going to pair this with a chilled avocado soup. Unfortunately, I used up all the coriander I needed. So I chose to blend the avocado up with coconut milk and agave nectar, and froze it and later left it out in room temperature, for a ice-cream of sort. You can never go wrong with coconut milk - I had to make second servings to satisfy Adrian's needs for satiety.

Ingredients:

2 large bell peppers
1 sweet corn, shucked
1/2 cup cooked lentil
1 small zucchini, diced
1/4 of a red onion, diced

1/2 carrot, diced

juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. sea salt
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C and grease a baking dish. Slice the very top off of your bell peppers, then use a spoon to carefully hollow them out.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the corn, zucchini, lentils, onion, olive oil, lime juice, cilantro, salt and spices until evenly combined. Carefully, spoon them into the bell peppers until over-stuffed. If you have extra filling, place in the dish around the bell peppers.
3. Top each of the bell peppers with breadcrumbs and generous grating of Parmesan cheese. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve with a side of crusty bread, pasta or rice.

I'm flooding Facebook with food pictures, no more

Just this evening, I was experimenting self-concoct recipes with leftover from weeks ago. They turned out to be surprisingly good. As I was proudly chattering about my genius cooking skill to the man whom very existence is the reason I enjoy cooking, this same man whom also acts as my inspiration jabbered with his mouth full "you should keep a blog".

Moment of revelation - he's bored of listening to my kitchen story. Just kidding.

I was hesitant of having a food blog because I get my recipes from other bloggers. But then, they too get their recipes from other bloggers/ cookbooks. I guess it's no secret that most of us cooks are not original anyway.

Also, I have been flooding my Facebook account with food pictures; pity my friends who can only drool and subsequently dream of the foods at night. I shall spare them the pain and move my "food archive" to a proper food blog.

Now that I have set up Cook from Scratch, I'm rather eager to post something. Should I start with the dinner that result from leftovers? What about the many pretty food pictures from before? Do I cook them again so I can blog about it? Can I just post all the past recipes so my blog looks active? Hmmm..... One step at a time, Shiang Ying, one step at a time.....

So, here's what transpired from the leftovers I found in the refrigerator:

Fresh Tomatoes and Zucchini Gratin that I adapted from Pinch My Salt . The recipe calls for yellow squash and Tabasco green sauce, which I didn't have on hand. I used yellow and red bell peppers, and smoked Tabasco instead. The original recipe swears by the MUST of Tabasco green though. The "gratin" turned out just fine with a flavourful taste. Looking at this picture, I should definitely put more effort in presentation.


Ingredients:
1 zucchini, sliced into coins
Half a yellow bell peppers, sliced
Half a red bell pepper, sliced
1 large tomato, cut into wedges
1/2 Cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tablespoon of fresh basil, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. In a large bowl, combine the first 4 ingredients together.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together basil, garlic, salt and extra virgin olive oil.
4. Toss the olive oil dressing into the large bowl.
5. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until zucchinis are soft.


Baked Smoked Salmon Cream Cheese with Pesto Quinoa that I dreamt up in my head. I made quite a bit of basil pesto two weeks ago. Some of it went to a Stuffed Portobello Mushroom with Camembert and Cranberries, and some was made into a pesto quinoa crust for a Baked Smoked Salmon. This Pesto Quinoa was leftover from the latter. Also, I've been very into baking bagel lately. Among the bagel spreads that I made is smoked salmon cream cheese. Hence another leftover.


Ingredient:
2 Cup Pesto Quinoa (frozen)
1.5 Cup salmon cream cheese
1.5 Cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tablespoon parsley, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Press quinoa into the bottom of a baking dish to form a crust base.
3. Mix parsley and salmon cream cheese together. Pour over quinoa crust.
4. Sprinkle Parmesan over top.
5. Bake until browned.

I totally made this dish up. I willl post the recipes for pesto quinoa and salmon cream cheese from my previous cooking soon. Also, most of the steps I took tonight are spontaneous and not to scale. I shall be more precise in the future with proper measurement. (Note to self: Blogging takes a lot of works)

Last but not least, the true star of the night:

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding
It's an open secret that I have a super-sweet tooth. I never feel bad indulging in sweets. I'm a strong advocate of moderate eating with a balance diet of everything good (for health) in life :) Besides, knowing the good quality ingredients I used in this no-no for Atkin's makes my sweet tooth tinkles with joy. This decadent dessert is so easy to make it would seem silly to buy from outside. Following is the original recipe, I've made a few changes to my own preference.

Peanut Butter Pudding:

1/2 cup sugar
5 teaspoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups whole milk
1/2 cup creamy (smooth) natural peanut butter (made with only peanuts and salt) (Note: I used crunchy peanut butter simply because I like it.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (Note: I use only pure vanilla although it's more expensive but, you know....)

Dark Chocolate Pudding:
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons natural unsweetened cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
2 cups whole milk
4 ounces good-quality dark chocolate, chopped (Note: I always choose 85% Lindt when it come to baking)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:
1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
chocolate shavings or curls, or cocoa (Note: I opted for ground cinnamon)

Directions
Make the peanut butter pudding:

Place the first 3 ingredients in a large saucepan and whisk them to blend. Whisk in the milk and bring it to a boil over medium heat. Boil until thick, whisking constantly, about 30 seconds. Whisk in the peanut butter, then boil until thick again, whisking constantly, about 1 minute longer. Turn off the heat and whisk in the vanilla, then divide among 6 glasses. Chill, uncovered, while you make the chocolate pudding.

Make the chocolate pudding:

Whisk the first 4 ingredients in heavy large saucepan. Gradually whisk in the milk, then whisk over medium heat until mixture comes to boil. Boil until thick, whisking constantly, about 30 seconds. Add the chopped chocolate and continue boiling until the chocolate melts and the pudding is thick again, whisking often, 1 to 2 minutes longer. Turn off the heat and whisk in the vanilla. Cool the pudding 5 minutes, then spoon it atop the peanut butter pudding in the glasses, dividing equally (about 1/3 cup each). Chill puddings uncovered until cold, at least 2 hours.

When you’re ready to serve, whip the cream with the powdered sugar into soft peaks. Spoon whipped cream on top of the puddings and garnish with shaved chocolate or cocoa.

Makes 6 servings.

Note: I never knew whipping cream takes THAT long to whip into peaks, even with blender. It helps to keep the cream REAL chilled before whisking. I had to stop and put it to freezer before I whisk it again, at high speed. I always have frozen raspberry in hand. It goes very well with the pudding. I'm also a big fan of ground cinnamon. I add it to almost everything sweet.