Not-Really Egg Salad

Had a really lovely weekend, and here goes an attempt at an update.... 

I really like the idea of egg salad, but I don't really like hard-boiled eggs. So here is some approximation of egg salad. It's good, I promise!

Cast of characters:
-1 large sweet potato, diced small
-1 tsp. curry powder
-1/2 colored pepper
-1/4 avocado, chopped

-2 T light mayonnaise
-1 T mustard 
-1 T lemon juice
-1/4 avocado 
-1 tsp. caesar salad dressing (I would have used milk otherwise, just to thin it out) 

-buns, lettuce, cheese, mayo

1. Toss diced sweet potato with a bit of olive oil, curry powder, and a bit of black pepper. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until soft.
2. Blend the last 5 ingredients together until smooth.
3. After the sweet potatoes have cooled a bit, mix with diced pepper and avocado.
4. Add dressing and eat on a sandwich (or with a fork)!

Hope you all had fabulous weekends as well!

May Sunshine

I am enjoying warm sunshine, and the impending end of school. I have actually made a couple of things, just not successfully photographed.

-But recently I made this tart. Delicious, but I will try to make thicker pastry cream next time.

-I will be making this cocktail to celebrate the end of school.

-I also plan on eating cake.

Hope you folks in Minnesota don't actually get snow this week!

Oh my oh my April (and Kale Caesar Salad)

As you can tell from my utter lack of posting, this month has been a rough one. Lots of school, and lots of last-minute, sadly thrown together meals. But I am finding my way back to the light, and the end is in sight. So hopefully I will re-appear around these parts....

This is not super exciting if you are not as kale-obsessed (or Caesar-salad obsessed) as I am. But there is a lovely free food magazine around here called Sauce, and they posted a version of this. And it was delicious, so here goes:

-1 bunch kale, rinsed and roughly chopped
-1/2 cup light mayo
-1/4 cup parmesan
-1 tsp. Worcesteshire
-juice from 1/2 a lemon
-3 garlic cloves, chopped
-Anchovy paste (just a tiny bit): or if you have easy access to seaweed, that's what the Sauce magazine recipe actually suggested)

As you can tell, this is not a health food. But the fat might be required to stand up to the raw kale? We made home-made croutons with 1 T olive oil and lots of cracked pepper beforehand (400 degree oven, 25 minutes).

With a little asparagus and a dinner on the back deck, I'm feeling that spring has arrived (sorry Minnesota!)

 

Spring Snow for Gertie

Brownies with a Twist

Sorry for the long delay in posts over here, I have not been particularly inspired recently. It turns out academia and job-searching wears me out. But I made some fairly exciting brownies this week. These has one pretty strange ingredient, but a whole pan disappeared at my work and no one knew. So just try them, you'll like them.

I used a variation on this recipe (varied mostly because I didn't have agave nectar or walnuts), so I ended up with this:

-1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
-4 oz unsweetened chocolate
-1 stick butter
-1/4 cup peanut butter
-1 tsp vanilla
-1/4 cup instant coffee
-4 eggs
-3/4 cup sugar
-1/4 cup maple syrup
-1/2 cup honey

1. Melt butter and chocolate together.
2. In food processor (or with stick blender), blend black beans, a couple of scoops of melted chocolate/butter mixture, and peanut butter until smooth.
3. Add vanilla and instant coffee to remaining chocolate/butter mixture, then blend coffee/chocolate with bean/chocolate mixture.
4. In mixer, whisk together eggs with sugar, maple syrup, and honey.
5. Add most of the egg mixture to the coffee mixture. Pour into greased pan (11X17 would be good, I used a 9 inch round and 8 inch square).
6. Drizzle remaining egg mixture on top, then swirl through dough with toothpick.
7. Bake at 325 for 35-45 minutes, until set.



Sorry for the fairly bad photos, we had already eaten most of them before I thought to take a photo!

Snow Day

Recipe sometime soon, but today St. Louis got quite a bit of snow. Gertie loves it, an there is little I love more than playing in the snow at the park with Robin and the pup. Hope you all are staying warm!

SUPER Granola!

I've made a bunch of different granola recipes over the past few years, but never quite found the perfect one. So, here's a massively hybridized, modified, and super-powered granola recipe that we think is pretty awesome.

I should start by saying that we (ok, I) consume granola in mammoth quantities so this recipe produces a significant pile of cereal. Feel free to halve (or quarter), especially if you aren't the kind of people who buy oats in 25 lb bags and raisins in 5 lb boxes. Who would do that?

Materials:
(measurements are pretty flexible)

• 8 cups rolled oats
• 3/4-1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/3 cup apple juice/cider
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 1 ripe banana
• 3/4 cup total of honey and/or maple syrup
• 1-2 tbs of mollasses

Additions, ~1 cup each. Use your favorites, but these are ours:

• Raw or unsalted dry roasted almonds, coarsely chopped
• Pistachios, coarsely chopped
• Unsalted sunflower seeds
• Raisins
• Dried apricots, chopped
• Currants

Mix the oats and brown sugar, then add in the apple juice and vegetable oil. Mash the banana to a pulp with a fork, then mix that in. Next, mix in the honey/syrup, mollasses, and vanilla. When the oats are well-coated, mix in the nuts (but not the dried fruit).

Spray two rimmed cookie sheets with oil and spread the granola mixture evenly. Bake at 300 degrees for 25 minutes, then remove and stir the granola. Bake for another 20-30 minutes or until browned to your satisfaction. Once the granola cools, it will get more crunchy.

Once it has cooled, mix in the dried fruit. If you want to save some, freeze it in a ziplock bag.

Best with sliced fresh fruit!