Tomato Frittata

I searched high and low for some recipes that use a ton of tomatoes. The first thought was tomato sauce. But pasta is out of the question. The boyfriend and I had a big argument about pasta a while back that I decided not to make pasta at home any more. And whenever we have a big argument about insignificant issues, we agreed that one of us should yell "PASTA!" to remind ourselves about the incident.



To my delight, I found the New York Times' Tomato Frittata. It's one of the few frittata recipes I found that do not use any cheese. Follow the link and look at the picture. And now look at mine below. It's pretty close right?.... And delicious!







I skipped the milk, added some fish sauce (I can't cook without it. When I ran out of fish sauce, I even dreamed that I was in an adventure hunt for it.) and used thyme and oregano as herbs.







It was enough as dinner for two with a side salad and breakfast for two. Eggs are just awesome.

Parsley Hummus

The next time you want to spice up your plain hummus without the heat of chilies, try this: add a bunch of parsley. Not only that it's pretty, it tasted fresh and awesome (if you like parsley.)



I blended about 2 cups of chickpeas (soaked overnight and cooked in water for about an hour) with about 1/4 cup of Tahini, 2 cloves of garlic and some salt in a food processor. Then added about 1/2 a bunch of fresh parsley.

Red Quinoa Pudding

I have a friend staying with me for a few nights. She's doing an elimination diet to see if her skin will clear out. She doesn't eat dairy and wheat. I made this quinoa pudding for breakfast rather than my usual oats or yogurt so that she can eat with me.



I don't know why I don't make this more often. I tastes so good and it's good for me. It's probably the highest protein breakfast ever (aside from eggs.) The original version is here.




Ingredients

• 1/3 cup red quinoa or not red


• 1 cup water


• 1 cup soy milk


• A pinch of salt


• 3 tablespoon Agave nectar


• 1 egg


• 1/2 vanilla bean


• 1/2 cup or more blueberries or other fruit

Directions

1. In a small saucepan over medium high heat, boil quinoa with water and salt for about 10 minutes stir occasionally.


2. Reduce the heat to low and add soy milk and scraped vanilla bean. Cook for 10 more minutes. Take care not to let soy milk boil over.


3. In a small bowl, beat Agave nectar with an egg. Slowly add about 1/4 cup of cooking liquid to the egg. Whisk in to temper. Add this back to the saucepan. Stir vigorously for a couple of minutes.


4. Turn the heat off. Serve with fresh berries. Make barely 2 servings.

Coconut Mochi Cake

On my trip to Japan, I couldn't get enough of those mochi which came in all sizes and forms. They could be round with red beans inside or outside. They could come floating in syrup or on shaved ice. They could be cubes or even in animal forms. I was so fascinated by them that I bought a bag of Mochiko (sweet rice flour) which mere mortals use to make mochi. (Super humans pound their own rice in giant mortars.)

Six months went by, with the mission to clean up my pantry, I finally did something with the flour.



I made chewy-sticky and creamy coconut mochi cake, which reminded me very much of one of Thai dessert we only got in the winter fair. The cakes tasted almost the same except that the Thai version was wrapped in pandan leaves and grilled over hot charcoal.



Adapted from Epicurious.com Sweet Rice-Flour and Coconut Cake
Ingredients

• 1 can of 14 oz. coconut milk


• 3 eggs


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1/2 cup Agave nectar


• 1 1/2 cups Mochiko


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• 1/4 teaspoon salt


• 1/2 cup coconut flakes

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


2. Whisk coconut milk, eggs, vanilla extract and agave nectar together.


3. In a separate bowl, combine mochiko, baking powder, salt and coconut.


4. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet. Mix well.


5. Pour into an 8 inch square baking dish and bake for about 40 minutes or until the surface is brown. Let cool completely in the pan before cutting.

Vanilla Yogurt Apple Crisp

My last experiment baking apple with yogurt and vanilla bean worked out so deliciously that I had to re-bake. But with an (failing) attempt to limit my calories intake, I decided to skip the bottom crust, omit eggs in the middle and make the top crust healthier with oatmeal and brown rice flour.



The result, though not as satisfying as the original, was awesomely delicious and caused significantly less guilt. The crisp top was buttery and crunchy which complimented soft custard fillings. I used Golden Delicious this time. The smaller chunks totally disintegrated but the bigger ones are still intact - giving nice meaty texture.



Ingredients

• 6 Golden Delicious apples - peeled, cored and cut into small chunks


• 1 cup low-fat plain yogurt


• 2 tablespoons instant tapioca


• 1/2 vanilla bean


• 1 cup old fashioned oatmeal


• 1/2 cup brown rice flour


• 1/3 cup light brown sugar


• 1/4 teaspoon salt


• 4 tablespoons chilled butter

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


2. In a large bowl, whisk yogurt, tapioca and scraped seeds from the vanilla bean together. Toss with apples. Pour into 8 inch square baking dish.


3. In a clean bowl, combine oatmeal, rice flour, sugar and salt. Cut butter into cubes and rub into the mixture with finger tips until you get coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over the pan.


4. Bake for 60 to 75 minutes or until the top is light brown. Let cool for at least 1 hour before serving.

Almond Apple Crumble

Golden Delicious are my new favorite baking apples. They are not as tart as Granny Smith so I don't have to use as much sugar. And they bake up soft and fast without too much liquid.

I ran out of oatmeal and couldn't make my usual crisp with oatmeal and nuts. So I came up with this and have already baked it 3 more times within 2 weeks. I love eating the stuff. I heard somewhere that apples are good for you and almonds are some kind of a super food. I hope that's true. Plus this is flour-free, butter-free and with minimal added sugar!



Ingredients

• 5 apples - peeled, cored and sliced


• Juice from half a lemon


• 1 cup almond flour


• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar


• 2 tablespoons almond butter


• 1/4 cup soy milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


2. Toss sliced apples with lemon juice and pile onto an 8x8 inch baking dish.


3. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together. Rub in almond butter by hands until the mixture is crumbly (it looks like dirt at this point.)


4. Sprinkle soy milk over the dough and mix until you get a wet but not soggy dough. Crumble on top of the apples.


5. Bake for 40 minutes.

Tofu Chocolate Pudding

This is possibly the most genius use of tofu ever: New York Times Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding. It's like something you watch on Food Network Iron Chef where they make dessert out of beef or something.



With such few and simple ingredients, it really works. I'm still amazed. The pudding is creamy and delicious. Chocolate totally over powers any hint of soy/tofu.



I did change the recipe a little because I wasn't in a mood for cinnamon. I added a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and about 2 teaspoons of instant espresso. The only thing I would do differently next time (There will definitely be next time!) is to reduce the amount of sugar to maybe less than 1/2 a cup. I would prefer the pudding to be less sweet.

Gluten-Free Disasters

I needed to bake something to bring to a party but I ran out of flour. Out of necessity, I came up with genius moment. I would bake treats with gluten-free flour! So I looked through my brand new cookbook, Gluten-Free Baking Classics, and found a recipe for brownies.



The recipe calls for 2/3 cup of flour mix which is 2 parts rice flour and 1 part starch. Usually, I would just measure out what I need. But I don't know how to measure 2/9 cup of starch... So I came up with another genius idea. I would mix up more flour mix than I need and use the rest for muffins!



The recipe was for chocolate ricotta muffins. I only had cottage cheese. That's an acceptable substitute, right?

As you can tell from the post title, those genius moments weren't so genius after all. The muffins overflowed and made a mess. Both the muffins and brownies came out gritty and weird. I guess my rice flour is not as finely ground as recommended. Or my baking angel was just not with me...

Fig Bran Muffins

Ummm..hmmm.... I made a lot of muffins lately. But since the week leading to the Labor Day when I baked cookies for 3 hours every single night to make party favors for a friend's wedding, I haven't felt a need to bake anything sweet. But I do want convenient snacks/breakfast, so I bake muffins.



These I tried because I saw this recipe here. I was so excited because I have a box of oat bran I want to use. But the recipe doesn't use any bran. And I didn't have dates.

So I made these.



I put all the things healthy I have in my cupboards: oat bran, ground flax seeds, figs, sliced almonds, agave nectar, olive oil. Plus these are gluten free. I used my last cup of almond flour.



I'm not putting the recipe here because they didn't come out super delicious. They tasted "healthy" - kind of gummy I think because my figs were dry and old. The texture of sliced almond and figs don't really go together.

If I have to do this again I'll skip sliced almond and will chop figs into smaller chunks.

Bleberry Muffins/Pudding

They were meant to be muffins - gluten-free even... But I think they came out more like pudding because they were so super moist that I had to eat them with spoon. Good thing I baked them in individual silicone cups.



While browsing for filler books (any books that can make my order over $25 so I get free delivery) I found The Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook" and eventually found the author's blog.

My last few experiments with gluten-free baking turned out not super impressive. I got a hummus for muffins once. The last attempt wasn't so bad but I am still not too crazy about all those starches in the flour mix.

This would be an interesting alternative: baking with almond flour.

So I tried this recipe: Cranberry Lemon Muffins. I substituted a cup of frozen wild blueberries for the dry cranberries.



My muffins/pudding sank in the middle and rose over the baking cups making a bit of a mess. But they were the most delicious intentionally gluten-free baked goods I have ever baked. I shall keep this as my go-to pudding recipe.

Coconut Meyer Lemon Muffins

My last two attempts at gluten-free baking didn't come out so successfully. So I did some research (aka googling) and found out that I shouldn't use more than a couple of tablespoons of chickpea flour or other bean flour at a time because it has very distinct flavor. I also found out that in most gluten-free flour mix, people use about a third starch. It's usually a combination of corn starch, potato starch and/or tapioca starch.

Hmmm... I'm not super excited about all these highly processed starches. They can't be good for you. Right?

But I pressed on.

Another important ingredients to gluten-free baking is Xanthan Gum. It's used to replace gluten in wheat which gives that chewy feel in baked goods.

So I bought Xanthan Gum. It cost me a small fortune. But I'm already in too deep. I have to go all the way.



Although they are still dense, these muffins are not so bad. They don't fall apart. They taste good - slightly sweet - with a bit of crunch from coconut flakes - perfect for quick breakfast or afternoon snack.

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup rice flour


• 2/3 cup masa flour


• 2/3 cup potato starch


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 teaspoon Xanthan gum


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes


• 1/3 cup extra light tasting olive oil


• 1/2 cup Agave nectar


• Juice from a Meyer lemon and zest from 2 of them


• 1 cup soy milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin pan.


2. Combine rice flour, masa flour, potato starch, baking soda, salt and coconut flakes in a clean bowl.


3. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, oil, Agave nectar, lemon juice, zest and milk together.


4. Stir the wet ingredients into dry until just combined. Drop by tablespoons into the prepared pan. Bake for about 20 minutes.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

I have come to believe that wheat makes me itchy which I guess not so bad compared to people that have real wheat allergy. I can still eat bread and all the baked goods. I will just have a few rashes and be very itchy. For the times that I don't want to itch, I should try to eat less wheat. So I bought a few kinds of flour to experiment.



I made these chocolate zucchini muffins but with a third rice flour, a third masa flour (that I have left from making tortillas) and a third chick pea flour.

Looked good, yes?

I wouldn't do this again unless I want chocolate flavored hummus. Chick pea flour has such a strong taste and smell that it took over everything else. I should read more about all these flour before experimenting....

Gluten-Free Banana Black Raspberry Muffins

In an unsuccessful attempt to reduce wheat in my diet, I bought rice flour and chick pea flour and made these muffins.



I substituted 1 1/2 cups rice flour and and 1/2 cup chick pea flour for wheat flour in this recipe with 2 very ripe bananas and a cup of frozen black raspberries from Trader Joe's.

The result was very dry muffins that tasted like beans (and banana and raspberry.) I guess you can't have everything. You can't be gluten-free and low fat. Or maybe you can but I still can't figure it out.

Nevertheless, I ate all the muffins in a week - can't let food go to waste.

Quinoa Pudding with Banana

New food. Some grains called Quinoa. It supposedly is very high in protein and fiber. It must be good for me. I must try. The box's instructions suggested using it instead of rice. So I'm making rice pudding - but with Quinoa.

Rice pudding.

With all the eggs and cream, that would defeat the health benefit of any super grains, wouldn't it? I wanted to make something that I can have for breakfast - not for dessert. So I must substitute. I started from this rice pudding recipe from Simple Recipes which already sounded five times healthier than most of the recipes I found on the Internet.

And I got this - my new favourite breakfast:



Ingredients

• 1/3 cup cleaned Quinoa


• 1 cup water


• 1 cup soy milk


• 1 egg


• 3 tablespoons Agave nectar


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


• 1 banana

Directions

1. Boil Quinoa in a cup of water in a saucepan for about 10 minutes or until the grains are almost cooked and water reduces.


2. Reduce heat to low and add soy milk. Cook for about 10 minutes more. Stir occasionally.


3. In a small bowl, beat egg with Agave nectar and vanilla extract and add to the saucepan. Stir vigorously until all the ingredients combined. Cook for a few minutes more.


4. Sprinkle ground cinnamon over the pudding and stir to combined.


5. Cut the banana into small pieces and stir into the pudding. Make 2 - 3 servings.