Spicy Lemon Date Dip

My date obsession continues unchecked.  This iteration: a spicy, lemony date dip/spread. 

Dates are simmered with spices (cumin, red pepper flakes, ginger and lemon) until soft and stewy, then served up with toasted pita bread.  Sadly mine did not turn out to be the pretty deep color of Joy the Baker's, it was sort of pallid and reminiscent of refried beans.  It definitely didn't taste like refried beans, though... zesty, sweet, and quite spicy, for sure.  

I like this dip, but it's not my favorite date dish thus far.  My favorite still falls firmly in the salty-cheese stuffed category.

Feta Stuffed Dates

After working with dates for my homemade energy bars, my curiosity was piqued and I wanted to try more date recipes, so I bought another box.  A quick Google search unearthed these feta-stuffed dates with nuts... sounded like a good second date with dates (har har).

Super easy: mix some cream cheese with a bit of feta and parmesan, stuff the mixture into pitted dates, top each with an almond, baste with olive oil and drop them in the oven.  Then, inhale with a glass of wine like Tim and I did.  Or, alternatively, serve them as an appetizer at a party because they look fancy despite their simplicity.

I took these photos before baking them since I was quickly losing the natural light, but they look even more appetizing once baked.

Saag Paneer and Tandoori Spiced Cauliflower

My favorite Indian dishes, hands down, are saag paneer and chana masala.  Unfortunately, our preferred Indian joint here in Jakarta is kinda a pain to get to on the regular, so I don't get my favorites as often as I would like, leaving it up to me to try to recreate them at home.

Step 1: Sag Paneer.  Step 2: Chana masala (coming soon... maybe this recipe?).

 

My first attempt at saag paneer was pretty successful!  Two thumbs up for the recipe, although I wish now that I had made my own paneer (there are instructions in the recipe) rather than using the store-bought kind... the consistency of the cheese wasn't what I was looking for, but I bet homemade would have the creamy goodness I seek.

The only change I made was to splash a few tablespoons of heavy cream into the dish before serving, as it was a little too thick for my taste.  Other than that, pretty straightforward and simple.  And healthy, too... Give it a try!

We paired it with some tandoori-style roasted cauliflower that had a nice flavor, but turned out a bit mushy for my taste.  Maybe a dry spice rub is better for cauliflower than the yogurt-based marinade in this recipe?

Franny's Chocolate Cake with Fluffy Frosting

Back in December, Amy and I had been texting back and forth about chocolate cake recipes.  She wanted to know if I had any favorite and/or family recipes for chocolate cake... the first cake I thought of off the top of my head was this super moist chocolate cake with fluffy, marshmallowy frosting that my great aunt, Franny, used to make for every family birthday party when we were kids.  I thought Amy might like it because of the ethereal, marshmallowy frosting, since she can, on occasion, down an entire bag of marshmallows without blinking.

I got the recipe from the Real Martha and passed it on to Amy, who made it almost immediately (her photo above).  Amy and her family thought it was quite tasty, although they said it was better the second day, strangely enough.

Sadly, my great aunt Franny recently passed away... in her honor, I decided to make her cake to bring to a party we were invited to here in Jakarta last week.  She probably never would have guessed someone would be making her recipe literally acoss the world.  The cake was awesome and won raves at the party; everyone asked for a piece di bungkus (wrapped up) at the end.

Below is the recipe, although a word of warning if you live in a humid climate:  this frosting does not fare well in the heat and humidity.  I didn't know this, so Tim and I took the cake on the road, trying to walk it the 5 blocks from our air-conditioned apartment to the party.  Bad plan... the frosting literally melted off the cake, pulling away from the sides and liquidizing.  Oops!  It still tasted good, but the consistency was a little bit off.

Moist Chocolate Cake

Step 1:  Sift together:

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

½ tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

5 tbsp cocoa  

Step 2: Make 3 holes in the dry ingredients.  In one put 2 tbsp vanilla extract, in the second put 2 tbsp white vinegar and in the third put ¾ cup vegetable oil.

Step 3: Pour 2 cups water over top and mix well

Step 4: grease and flour cooking pans (either two 9-inch round cake pans or one 9”x13” rectangle pan)

Step 5: Bake at 350◦F oven, 30 minutes for 9 inch pans or 40 minutes for 9”x13” pan 
                                                                                                                                              

Fluffy White Frosting

1 cup sugar

½ cup water

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp corn syrup

2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

Step 1: Heat first 4 ingredients slowly to boiling and cook without stirring to 212◦F or to soft ball stage. (My candy thermometer is not super reliable, but I looked up other similar recipes and one stated that you should cook it until you saw "thick, clear bubbles.)

Step 2: Pour over beaten egg whites.  Beat with mixer until fluffy, billowy and shiny (about 5 minutes).

2 Cookies, 1 Bowl

I have seen this recipe for two (yep, just two) chocolate chip cookies bopping around the internets and had to give it a try.

It looked perfect for those times that you really, really want a warm, freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie, but you don't want to mix up a whole batch of dough, which you will inevitably end up eating, either raw or baked. 

Pretty awesome.  One bowl, two cookies, five minutes.  Mmm.  My only comment is that it took my cookies a little bit longer to cook than the recipe called for... maybe because they're pretty big or maybe because my oven is crazy.  Either way, be warned.

                                                                                                                                                

Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream

Coffee ice cream has been and always will be my favorite.  This Vietnamese coffee ice cream, made with sweetened condensed milk and very strongly brewed coffee, is extra special. 

I used David Lebovitz's eggless and super easy recipe from The Perfect Scoop.  I used some Trung Nguyen coffee that Tim brought back from Vietnam.  So good.

Salmon with Guava BBQ Sauce

Mmmm... guava BBQ sauce. So good.  Made with my guava jam and caramelized on top of a nice piece of salmon, quite tasty.

I used this recipe, although I added a liberal squirt of Sriracha for extra spice to balance the sweetness in the sauce.  I plopped the salmon atop this bell pepper free mango and cucumber salsa recipe from Simply Recipes, mixed with a can of black beans.  Good stuff.

Guava Jam

Tim and I saw some really pretty pink fruits at the grocery store last weekend... we had no idea what they were and the Indonesian label was not particularly elucidating for me (I only recognized two words- "merah," which means red and "biji," which means seed).  We thought perhaps they were some sort of round papaya, maybe?  We took a chance and bought them.

When I got home I did some googling and realized that we had purchased guavas.  Interesting.  My next question was: what the hell do I do with guavas?  More googling... guava paste!  Apparently guava paste is a big thing in the Caribbean, where its made into empanadas or paired with salty cheese. 

I made the paste based on these recipes I found and it was mostly successful- mine didn't seem to gel as much as it should have (perhaps it needed pectin to do so? maybe more cooking time?).  I tried to mold it in these shallow muffin top pans so that I would end up with little guava paste discs that I could cut into wedges, but ultimately it never hardened and stayed jam-like, so I put it in a jar and popped it in the fridge.

I spread it on crackers and topped it with a tiny square of feta cheese- awesome appetizer.  It also worked quite well on crackers with a smudge of cream cheese as well as on buttered toast.  Mmm.

4 guavas made a lot of jam, so maybe my next step is a recipe with the guava paste... cheesecake? BBQ sauce?  Turnovers or some sort of pastry? Souffle?

Pineapple Upside-down Puffy Pancake

Tim's out of town this week, in Vietnam, no doubt noshing on beefy delicious pho and the crispy, herb-filled banh xeo.  Meanwhile, I'm chilling at home in Jakarta, doing some networking, doing some crafting and tearing it up buying batik at the American Women's Association shopping bazaar like the kept woman I am. 

For dinner tonight I made myself an old favorite with a twist: a puffy pancake (or Dutch Baby, which I find to be a bizarre name) made like a pineapple upside-down cake..   The Real Martha used to make these for us occasionally back in the day, although she typically made hers with apples.

I followed this recipe from the other Martha, but switched it up by using thinly sliced baby pineapple (which Tim and I have taken to buying pre-peeled at the store out of pure laziness) plus some brown sugar in place of the honey and cardamom.  Quite good!   I love how the pancake puffs up so much and is simultaneously custardy and yet still crispy on top.

Pumpkin Bars with White Chocolate Chunks

Even though "fall" isn't really a thing here in Jakarta, I am still craving fall foods... pumpkin, kale, apples, cranberries, etc.  Sadly, only some of those things are available here (haven't seen kale or cranberries yet, but I am hoping some pop up in the grocery store soon!).  Luckily, pumpkins are available, both fresh (in the form of kabocha squash) and in canned form.  

Needing a dessert for a BBQ we were invited to, I made these pumpkin bars with white chocolate chunks using the canned pumpkin I bought (although I switched out the white sugar for brown).  Quite easy to make, quite tasty, and quite a big hit at the BBQ, but texturally they didn't turn out quite as I had hoped they would.  They were billed as blondies, which in my mind indicates that they should be dense and brownie-like, but these were much cakier than expected.  Not sure how to fix that, but also not sure it needs fixing, as these were pretty popular as is. 

Maple Glazed Baked Apple Doughnuts

Recently I bought a big bag of apples from Malang (a city located at the foot of Mt. Bromo in East Java) and was looking for something to do with them.  I saw these tasty looking baked apple doughnuts with maple glaze on the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day website and thought I would give them a try (although I made a mini version).

While they were not particularly difficult to make, I can't say they tasted much like doughnuts.  Tim and I decided they were more of a sweet apple biscuit.  Honestly, I think unless it's fried, it's not really a doughnut.  Oh well.  Tim's colleagues at the office ate them up anyway.

Peruvian Style Rotisserie Chicken

To take full advantage of the versatility of my new grill, I bought an electric rotisserie attachment for it.  Luckily, I had thought ahead and installed an outlet right next to the gas supply line where the grill sits.  The cord was *just* long enough to reach.

My first experiment with the rotisserie arm was Peruvian Chicken (in honor of all the joints near the Irving St house that serve this tasty and very tender grilled chicken).  I followed this basic recipe and bumped it up a few notches with additions such as onion powder and smoked paprika rather than the standard variety.

Chicken marinating for 6+ hours in the fridge

Messy transition from marinating bag to skewer

More or less in the right place

I trussed the chicken once it was in place to help it rotate better and placed a pan underneath to catch the drippings

Excess marinade used for basting

Couple of hours later...

De-skewering time

Fully roasted bird

The product was tasty.  But too wet for my taste.  I would prefer a crispy skin.  Thinking that the basting may have kept it from crisping up.  Will try again and report...

Smoked Brisket - Aaron Franklin Style

Anthony Bourdain went to Austin, TX a couple of weeks ago as part of his final season of No Reservations.  He spent time with a guy by the name of Aaron Franklin, the chef/owner of Franklin Barbecue.  Tony declared Aaron's Texas-style brisket to be the best he'd ever tasted.

So, I decided to replicate Aaron's masterpiece - Butcher Paper Brisket.  This entailed not only finding everything I could about how he works his magic online and scouring the web for tips from every other BBQ source out there, but also investing in a new gas grill and learning how to turn it into a smoker.

New grill waiting assembly

Several hours (and drinks) later...

Sweet new natural gas supplied Weber

9 lbs USDA choice brisket from Iowa Meat Farms

Kosher salt and pepper rub

Brisket wrapped in foil and kept overnight in fridge

Acadian Oak smoking chips

Making wood chip packets for the smoker

10 am - brisket and wood chip packet in place

1 pm - wood chip packets replaced every 1-2 hours

Watermelon Cucumber Basil Salad courtesy of Martha Stewart

Jicama Slaw courtesy of Bobby Flay

Aaron Franklin's Espresso BBQ Sauce (modified with two Starbucks instant medium roast packets, chipotle pepper, brown sugar and less ketchup)

8 pm - Slicing up the brisket

Ming's stacked brisket sandwich

Ming enjoying a fully loaded sandwich

Very good.  But, did not have enough time to let it rest properly (they all recommend resting for 2+ hours) since I had dinner guests who were rather hungry.  Next time would start earlier and let it enjoy the full resting period.