Monthly Archives: May 2012

Birthday Carrot Cake

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Last Monday was my hubby’s birthday, and his all-time favorite is carrot cake.  I used this wonderful recipe by browneyedbaker, which is an original Dorie Greenspan recipe with the addition of cloves, nutmeg and allspice.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
(recipe adapted from Dorie Greenspan by browneyedbaker)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground allspice
¾ teaspoon salt
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
½ cup raisins
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup canola oil
4 eggs

Frosting
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
4 ounces (½ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 pound (3¾ cups) powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.  Grease and flour cake pans.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice and salt.  In another bowl, combine the carrots, chopped nuts, coconut and raisins.

Using a mixer, beat the sugar and oil together on medium speed until smooth. Add the eggs one by one, and continue to beat until the batter is smooth. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing only until the dry ingredients disappear. Gently mix in the chunky ingredients. Divide the batter among the pans.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back midway through baking, until a cake tester inserted into the centers comes out clean; the cakes will have just started to come away from the sides of the pans. Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes and unmold them. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up. (The cakes can be wrapped airtight and kept at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to 2 months.)

To make the frosting: Beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until the frosting is velvety smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract until well-combined.

To assemble, stack the layers, spreading a generous amount of frosting between layers and then cover the top and sides. Garnish and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.This cake was delicious!  It was very moist and the spices were just right.  I chose not to add in the coconut and raisins.  A healthy tip: replace at least half of the oil with applesauce!
We all enjoyed eating this cake, and I think the birthday boy was happy!

Until next time,
Muncho Mom

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Herbed Ricotta Souffle

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I saw a picture of this souffle in Whole Living magazine and just knew I had to make it.  Yes, indeed.  Here are the reasons why:

#1 It’s French!  Need I say more?
#2 We love eggs around here.  Hard-boiled, poached, scrambled…anyway you can fix ‘em, we’ll eat ‘em.
#3 I had just picked up some lovely herbs at our local nursery to start our summer herb garden.
#4 It looked incredibly easy!  Too easy, actually.
#5 Friday was National Cheese Souffle Day.  Really!

So here it is…a simple, delicious souffle recipe that you can make in less than 30 minutes!  Hard to beat that, right?

Herbed Ricotta Souffle
(from Whole Living magazine)
Unsalted butter, for coating
All-purpose flour, for dusting
1 1/2 cups part-skim ricotta
4 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons freshly chopped basil
2 tablespoons freshly minced chives
ground black pepper

Heat oven to 375 degrees and position rack in lower third.  Butter a one-quart casserole dish and dust with flour, shaking out excess.  In a bowl, whisk ricotta, yolks, salt and herbs.  Season with pepper.  In a separate bowl, whisk whites until stiff peaks form.  Working in two batches, gently fold whites with a large rubber spatula into ricotta mixture until just combined.  Pour mixture into prepared dish and bake until puffed, golden brown, and firm to the touch, 30-32 minutes.

Per serving: 220 calories; 14 grams fat; 245 mg cholesterol; 6 g carbohydrates; 327 mg sodium; 17 g protein; 0 g fiber.

Please don’t forget to set out your eggs ahead of time like I did!  The egg whites fluff up much better when they are at room temperature.   I sort of forgot this fact.

Since this is a meatless dish, you will definitely want to pair it with something else.  We had it with roasted potatoes and asparagus, and it was nearly gone by the time dinner was over.  My daughter had two huge helpings!  Light and flavorful, it would also be perfect for breakfast or brunch.  Enjoy!

Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Fudgy Cream Cheese Brownies

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It seems I was in the mood for chocolate yesterday.  So, here is a delicious brownie recipe that is better for you than most – it’s from Weight Watchers.  With ribbons of cream cheese swirled throughout, you will find that not only are these brownies scrumptious, but they are also surprisingly simple to make!

Fudgy Cream Cheese Brownies
(from Weight Watchers Magazine All Things Sweet cookbook)
3/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter or reduced-calorie stick margarine, softened
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 8-ounce bar reduced fat cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg white

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat 3/4 cup sugar and butter at medium speed until light and fluffy.  Add egg, 1 egg white, and vanilla and beat well.  Add flour and cocoa and beat well.  Pour batter into a 9-inch square baking pan coated with cooking spray and set aside.

Beat cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar at high speed until smooth.  Add 1 egg white and beat well.  Dollop cream cheese mixture over chocolate mixture and swirl together using the tip of a knife.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.  Let cool completely on a wire rack.  Cut into squares. Yields 16 brownies.

Nutritional Information: Calories 136; Protein 2.8g; Fat 5.9g; Carb 17g; Fiber 0.1g; Cholesterol 23mg; Iron 0.3mg; Sodium 120mg; Calcium 26mg

These brownies are wonderfully moist and rich.  Oozing with chocolaty goodness, they are so soft they nearly melt in your mouth.  This recipe is definitely a keeper!
Until next time,
Muncho Mom
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Spicy Thai Grilled Chicken Salad

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Here’s another favorite recipe from the cooking class I took many moons ago.  I wish I could remember our instructor’s name, so I could give him proper credit!  Anyways, this is a wonderful springtime salad, bursting with flavor and perfect for eating outside on the patio.
Spicy Thai Grilled Chicken Salad

Chicken
1 1/4 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
2 tablespoons cilantro
1 1/2 tablespoons Asian fish sauce (if you don’t have any, just increase the amount of oil)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 medium clove garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil

Slice chicken into strips.  Place remaining ingredients in food processor and blend until combined.  Combine with chicken and mix well.  Marinate at least 30 minutes (or overnight).  Grill chicken or saute in pan.  Let cool and slice if desired.

Salad
4 cups cut romaine or loose leaf lettuce
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 small cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, and thinly sliced
2 scallions, sliced, or 1 small red onion, sliced lengthwise
1 hot red or green pepper, thinly sliced on the diagonal
3 tablespoons fresh cilantro, leaves cut off the stems

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl for later tossing.
Dressing
1 small clove garlic
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce (again, this can be omitted if you don’t have any)
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons water

To prepare the dressing, mash the garlic with the back of a spoon in some of the sugar until a paste is formed.  Mix with the rest of the dressing ingredients.  Taste and adjust the lime juice or sugar if necessary.  It should be sweet-sour.  Before dressing the salad, remove any large pieces of garlic from the dressing.  Toss the salad with the dressing immediately before serving.  Arrange salad on a platter and top with the chicken.

Fresh and full of flavor, this salad would make the perfect Mother’s Day lunch!

Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Strawberry Ricotta Scones

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I am a scone fanatic, so when I saw this recipe over on Two Peas & Their Pod a while back I just knew I had to try it.  I absolutely LOVE this website…the photography is beautiful and I haven’t seen a recipe yet that I don’t want to try.  Take a look for yourself and  you will see what I mean!

Strawberry Ricotta Scones

(from Two Peas & Their Pod)
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk (I used lowfat)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup ricotta cheese (also lowfat)
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small cubes
1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
milk or heavy cream, for brushing the scones (I used fat-free half-and-half)
turbinado sugar, for sprinkling on the scones

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.   Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat baking mat and set aside.

Whisk together the egg, buttermilk, lemon juice and vanilla in a medium bowl.  Add the ricotta cheese and whisk until combined.  There will still be a few lumps.  Set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the sugar and lemon zest.  Rub together with your fingers until fragrant.  In another large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lemon sugar mixture.  Add the butter pieces to the flour mixture and toss with a fork just until the butter is coated with flour.  Using a pastry cutter, fork, or your hands, cut the butter into the flour until you have a mixture of pea-sized clumps of butter and flour.

Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir with a spatula until just combined. Do not overmix the dough.  Gently fold in the strawberries.  Turn out the dough on a lightly floured surface and gently knead the dough briefly.  If it is too sticky, you can add a little bit of flour as you knead.  Pat the dough down into a disk, about 1/2 inch thick.  Cut the dough into 8 wedges.


Transfer the scones to the prepared baking sheet and brush with milk or heavy cream. Sprinkle scones with turbinado sugar.  Bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until scones are golden brown. Let cool on a wire rack and serve.
The sweet, juicy chunks of strawberry and the lemon zest give these scones a wonderful flavor. Surprisingly, you can’t even taste the ricotta cheese.   These strawberry ricotta scones would be the perfect breakfast for Mother’s Day!

Until next  time,
Muncho Mom

Mini Chocolate Chip Muffins

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Things have been busy lately, so I was thrilled to have some down time in the kitchen today to bake something fun.  It had to be something I didn’t need to run out to the store and buy extra ingredients for, because I really hadn’t planned ahead.  I wanted to try out a recipe from a new cookbook my sister gave me by Gale Gand.  It’s called Chocolate & Vanilla.  For those of you who haven’t heard of her, Gale Gand is the executive pastry chef of the acclaimed restaurant Tru in Chicago (on my list of to-do’s if we ever make it to Chicago).  She is also the host of Sweet Dreams, which was the Food Network’s first daily show devoted entirely to baking.  Besides being full of wonderfully indulgent recipes, the cookbook also offers lots of helpful tips when baking with chocolate or vanilla.  It did not take long for me to find the perfect recipe!

Mini Chocolate Chip Muffins
1 cup chunky peanut butter (I used regular)
1 large egg
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup whole milk (I used skim)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Line 2 mini muffin tins with paper liners or spray with nonstick cooking spray.

With a stand mixer or handheld beater, mix the peanut butter, egg, and granulated and brown sugars until smooth.  Add the milk in thirds, mixing well after each addition.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add the dry ingredients to the peanut butter mixture.  Combine on low speed just until the flour streaks disappear.  Stir in the chocolate chips.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling them three quarters of the way to the top.  Bake the muffins for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the muffins have puffed and are firm on top.  Remove from the oven and let cool in the tins.

I don’t know if there was a difference in my mini muffin tins, but this recipe actually made 48 mini muffins, not the 2 dozen that it specified.  Perhaps my mini muffin molds are smaller.  At any rate, I was totally happy about that because I threw the extra 2 dozen in the freezer for later!
In the meantime, my children nearly devoured the remaining 2 dozen when they got home from school.  They absolutely loved them.  I can think of no other muffins I have made that received such rave reviews!  I think it was definitely in the peanut butter.  The addition of this ingredient made the muffins smooth and rich, and they just popped right out of the pans (I did not use paper liners but opted to spray the pans instead).  Actually, once snack time was over I caught both of my children in the act of sneaking back into the kitchen to grab another muffin.  I think that’s a sure sign that this recipe is worth repeating!

Until next time,
Muncho Mom

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Grandma’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

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Last week we were gifted with some fresh rhubarb, and all I could think about was a strawberry-rhubarb pie.  I looked through my extensive collection of cookbooks and surprisingly could not find a single recipe!  There was rhubarb cobbler and rhubarb pie, but no strawberry-rhubarb pie.  So, after a quick search on the internet – somehow it saddens me that it is easier to find the recipe you are looking for online than in a cookbook – I found this recipe on the Food Network Website.  It’s from the winner of the Food Network Challenge Great American Pie Cook-Off!

Grandma’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie
(Recipe courtesy of Valerie Enters, Sanford, Florida)
2 1/2 cups chopped red rhubarb, fresh
2 1/2 cups de-stemmed, washed and cut strawberries (in larger pieces)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons minute tapioca
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter, cubed small
1 egg white beaten with 1 teaspoon water
pastry for 2 9-inch pie crusts (your favorite recipe or store-bought; Valerie’s pie crust recipe is here)

Mix the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, tapioca, flour, zest and juice of lemon, cinnamon, and vanilla.  Mix well in a large bowl and pour out into crust.  Dot the top of the filling with the butter.  Brush edges of pie crust with egg white wash.  Roll out the other piece of dough and place over filling.  Crimp to seal edges.  Brush with egg white wash.  Collar with foil and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.  Decrease temperature to 375 degrees and bake for an additional 45 to 50 minutes, or until the filling starts bubbling.  Let cool before serving.

This pie is perfect…not overly sweet, yet not too tart.  The filling is juicy and flavorful, making it a delicious springtime dessert!

Until next time,
Muncho Mom

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