Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I'm posting something after a really long time - blame it on two big events - new job and new house. My new job is located in a very exciting area of SF, especially from a foodie's point of view. I can eat lunch and buy produce at the Ferry Building everyday if I wanted to. What more can a food-lover ask for?

Friends and family have been visiting to see the new house. Recently at one of the parties I baked a cake that is so perfect for fall.

Recipe based on Pumpkin Sheet Cake


Serves around 12

canned pumpkin             1 15oz can
white sugar                     2 cups
vegetable oil                   1 cup
eggs                                4
all-purpose flour              2 cups
baking soda                    2 teaspoons
pumpkin pie spice mix    3 teaspoons
salt                                  1/2 teaspoon

For the frosting:

cream cheese                 8 oz
butter, softened              1/2 cup (1 stick)
vanilla extract                 2 teaspoons

confectioners' sugar       1 & 1/2 cups

milk                                 few tablespoons
pecans                            3/4 cup


Method

1. In a mixing bowl, beat pumpkin, 2 cups white sugar, and oil. Add eggs, and mix well.
2. Mix the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice mix and salt. Add these dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture, and beat until well blended. Pour batter into a greased 15 x 10 inch baking pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes, or until done. Let cool.
4. Beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Gradually add 1 & 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, and mix well. Add milk until frosting reaches desired spreading consistency. Frost cake, and sprinkle with pecans.

Baked Eggplant Chips (Vaangyache Kaap)

Serves 3-4 as an appetizer

regular large eggplant              1

salt                                        1/2 tbsp
powdered black pepper            1 tsp
red chilly powder                     1/4 tsp
amchur (raw mango powder)    1/4 tsp  (You can find this in an Indian grocery store. It adds tartness.)

Method -

1. Cut eggplant into very thin round slices of roughly 3mm width. A mandoline slicer comes in handy for this. For slices that are too big, cut in half.

2. Put all the spices and the salt in a bowl and mix well.

3. Take a large baking tray, cover it with aluminium foil and grease it with oil or spray generously with oil spray.

4. Take half of the eggplant slices on the baking tray. Drizzle oil or oil spray over them. Toss them well with half of the spice mix, making sure you rub both sides of every slice with the spice mix.

5. Then arrange them in a single layer on the tray and once again drizzle with oil or oil spray.

6. Repeat steps 3, 4, 5 for the rest of the eggplant slices.

7. Bake at 350 deg for 15 mins and then broil at 350 deg for 5 mins. Watch them frequently as they can get burnt easily. You may have to adjust the oven times according to the thickness of the slices.

The slices may look burnt when done but taste great and crispy! The thicker slices will most probably remain soft. I combined them with some crispy slices and put them in a sandwich - tasted pretty good.

We had the eggplant chips with a very simple and quick dip. For the dip, take a half cup of low fat ricotta cheese and add 2 tbsp of mayonnaise to it. Mix well to make the ricotta a bit more creamy and less grainy. 

Other creamy dips would also go very well with the chips, such as a greek yogurt-garlic dip.

Nigella's Coffee Ice cream - Recipe Review

Last year I had the opportunity to meet Nigella Lawson at a book signing for her book 'Nigellissima'. In an interview before the signing she mentioned that her coffee ice cream recipe from the book is one of her favorite recipes. What's good enough for Nigella is good enough for me, so I tried it and it turned out to be fabulous! It was hard to believe it was made without an ice cream maker and yet tasted exactly like great ice cream.

Apparently it is the alcohol that keeps the ice cream from become icy.
I followed the recipe from the book, which is slightly different from the recipe from her blog, though I don't know if that matters.

For the instant espresso powder I used Medaglia D'oro brand. Next time I would reduce its amount from 2 tbsp to 1.5 tbsp as I thought the ice cream was a tad stronger than I'd like.
I think it would be ok to use instant coffee too, though in that case you might need more of it.

For the coffee liqueur I used Kahlua and it seemed to have worked well.
I also thought the ice cream was a bit too creamy. I don't know if half-n-half can do the job of heavy cream in the recipe. I might try out a 60-40 mix of heavy cream and half-n-half next time.

I served the ice cream with a stick of chocolate wafer. Next time I'm planning to add some kind of nuts such as walnuts or chocolate-covered almonds to the ice cream before freezing it. Or even choc brownie pieces. The possibilities are endless!

One thing to note: The ice cream took an awfully long time to freeze. I made it in the morning and served it at night, but it was far from set. But after a couple of days it set beautifully and the picture above was taken at that time.

Breakfast Casserole with Sausage and Roasted Red Pepper

Dishes like casseroles and lasagna - as you can figure from my recent posts - are my newfound favorite type of recipe. They are pretty easy to make, especially for large groups and require little active time.

Recently I made a cauliflower and penne casserole with white sauce (bechamel) the night before we were heading out of town. Worked out perfectly to finish off some leftover cauliflower that would have gotten really sad sitting in the fridge for a few more days.

Here's the recipe for the breakfast casserole. I'm looking forward to making this for a larger group by doubling all quantities. If you try that, remember to use a larger baking tray!

Serves 4

sausage                       3/4 lb (I used Isernio's Italian chicken sausage)

bread                           4 slices of regular pre-sliced bread

milk                             1.5 cups

eggs                             4

grated cheddar cheese  3/4 cup

roasted red pepper        1/2 pepper

Seasoning -

dijon mustard               1 tsp

salt                              1 tsp

ground black pepper      1 tsp

Method -

1. Make bite-sized pieces of the bread.
    Dice the roasted red pepper.

2. Cook sausage in a pan with a little bit of oil while breaking it up into pieces until brown and thoroughly cooked.

3. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add all other ingredients to the bowl and mix well.

4. Pour everything into an 8x8 baking pan. Bake at 350 deg F for 25 to 40 mins or until set.

If desired, top with some more cheddar cheese and bake for a few mins until cheese melts.

Take out when it is still moist and juicy.

If using french/ italian loaf bread, soak the bread in the milk mixture for 30 mins before baking.

Butternut Squash & Kale Lasagna

There was this butternut squash lasagna that I wanted to try for a long time and this Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect occasion to try that out.

An 8x8 baking tray is prefect for the recipe below. When making lasagna, it is really important that the entire tray is full otherwise the sauce will drain away.

Recipe adapted from this one.

I got a whole butternut squash and prepared it from scratch. Half of it sufficed for this recipe (for 4 people).

Serves 4

half of a medium-sized butternut squash
large kale leaves (little less than half of a typical bunch)  3-4
2% reduced fat milk                                                     3 cups
all-purpose flour                                                           4 tbsp
finely chopped garlic                                                    2 large cloves
no-boil lasagna noodles                                                6
shredded Italian cheese                                               1 cup
unsalted butter                                                            4 tbsp
powdered black pepper
salt
sugar


Method -
1. Cut the butternut squash in half and peel one half with vertical strokes using a knife or a peeler. Cut it in small flat-ish pieces since we have to stuff them in between 2 layers.

2. Put aluminium foil on a baking tray, and toss the squash pieces on it with salt, pepper and vegetable oil.
I saved some squash seeds and roasted them along with the squash. They were toasty and crunchy - a nice garnish for the lasagna.
Roast at 400 deg F for about 25-30 mins or until it is soft, tossing the squash once after 15 mins.

3. Wash the kale leaves, remove the thick veins and chop them. Then sprinkle salt over the chopped leaves and massage them vigorously by taking a fistful in your hand at a time and releasing. This "tames" the kale and makes it more manageable as well as palatable.

4. Mix the roasted squash and the kale well.

5. Heat the milk in a pot. In a different pot, add the 2 tbsp butter on medium heat. Once it is mostly melted, add the chopped garlic and saute for 1-2 mins.

6. Then add the 2 tbsp of all-purpose flour to the melted butter, saute for 2 mins. Now add the hot milk gradually, keep your heat a bit higher than medium and keep stirring until the mixture thickens a bit.

7. Now add 3/4 tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp powdered black pepper (adjust amounts to your taste). Also add 1/4 cup cheese and stir well. Turn off heat.

8. Preheat oven to 375 deg F. Grease the baking dish. Pour roughly 1/4th of the white sauce on to the baking dish.

9. Place 2 lasagna noodles over it and half of the squash-kale mixture over the noodles. Pour another 1/4th of the sauce, sprinkle 1/4th cup cheese.

10. Repeat #9

11. Top with the remaining 2 noodles, remaining white sauce and 1/4th cup cheese.

12. Cover with aluminium foil, make several slits for the steam to escape and bake at 375 deg F for 10-15 mins.

13. Then remove foil, top with pecans, walnuts and/or toasted squash seeds. Broil in the oven for 5-7 mins or until brown spots appear on the lasagna. Serve hot.

Update [Oct 2016]:
I made this last night with sweet potato and it turned out great! I did not notice any difference in the taste. Also sweet potato is a lot easier than butternut squash to peel and prep!

Black Bean 'n Corn Salad

I'm always amazed when something very tasty is also equally healthy. It's like a dream come true for me. And this, my friends, is one of those things.

Black beans are one of the healthiest things you can eat. I was trying to find a good recipe with black beans that is easy enough and tasty enough that I can include it in my weeknight meal rotation. I stumbled upon this and fell in love immediately. Apart from being tasty and healthy it looks like a carnival in a bowl!

Purple onion is perfect for this salad as it adds to the color, although any onion will do. I use purple onion only when it is to be eaten raw. Cooking it makes it a weird grey-green color.

Here's my version of the recipe... only slightly modified.
Recipe based on this one.

Serves 4 as a side. Though S and I devour the whole thing as a main.

You will need -

1 14-ounce can of black beans
2 cups frozen corn kernels
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced (optional)
1/2 cup cilantro leaves, chopped (optional)

For the dressing -
juice of 1 lime or lemon
1 tbsp hot sauce such as tabasco
1/2 tsp or less of the following - red chilly powder, salt and pepper

Method -

1. Drain the can of black beans. I like the sludge at the bottom of the can. It keeps the salad moist.
2. Be sure to modify the spice level to your taste. Mix everything in a large bowl.

That's it. That's the recipe. I recently made this by doubling all the quantities and took it to a potluck. At first people were wary of it because it looked too healthy, but once they tried it they totally loved it.

Hummus, Chicken and Paneer Skewers & Shahi Tukra

I made a middle-eastern lunch today for some friends. This is what the menu looked like:

Pita bread and homemade hummus for the appetizer, accompanied by a shiraz.

Chicken hariyali kabab and vegetarian kabab skewers, cucumber raita and saffron rice.

And my favorite shahi tukra for dessert. Love it!

Some changes I made to the recipes...

Hummus:

Followed Ina Garten's recipe linked above for the most part.

Out of sheer laziness, I did not roast the sesame seeds for the tahini. Nor did I make the tahini beforehand. I just added everything together in the blender and the result was great. Though the amount of lemon juice in the recipe would make it too sour IMHO so I reduced it. I substituted the hot sauce with red chilly flakes and garnished with red chilly flakes and a splash of olive oil.

I'd make hummus at home again. It is easy to make and cheaper than store-bought hummus.

Kababs:

I always found making chicken kababs for a party daunting, mainly because the chicken can get really dry in the oven in the process of reheating to serve them warm or trying to char them a bit for that great flavor. But a friend recently enlightened me on the magic of brining chicken. And boy, have I become a fan!
I thought kababs are a great candidate for brining to work its magic. So I tried that today and the result was fabulous. Brining gives you a lot more margin for error, so that 5 more minutes in the oven to reheat the kababs won't dry them out. They stay nice 'n juicy. One drawback is that they released a LOT of water which I had to throw out twice.

To brine the chicken, add 1/4 cup salt and  a tbsp of sugar to 5 cups of water and stir until it is dissolved completely. Then place the whole chicken breasts in the water so that they are fully submerged and refrigerate them for an hour. If needed, increase the amount of water and salt while maintaining their ratio until the chicken is submerged.
After that I followed the ecurry recipe linked above. The recipe is great. Such a nice change from the usual tandoori kabab.

The ideal time for cooking these kababs in the oven would be:

400 deg F for 15 mins, flip them over halfway. Then broil for 7-8 mins at 500 deg F.

Shahi Tukra:

Do not try to make this healthy by using whole wheat bread. It tastes much better with white bread.

Anyway, I didn't have ghee so I just spread butter on both sides of the slices and roasted them in a pan. Then mixed sweetened condensed milk with 2% milk, heated it until it reduced a bit, added saffron and cardamom and poured on top of the browned slices of bread. Turned out to be pretty good. Next time I'll try using unsweetened evaporated milk because I'd like a thicker sauce and want to be able to control the sweetness.