Daring to do it: Sopa Castellana

Thank you to Begona for this wonderful challenge.  Sorry for the short post which does not do justice to this host or this dish.

Our November Daring Cooks’ hostess was Begoña, who writes the beautiful blog, Las recetas de Marichu y las mías. Begoña is from Spain and didn’t want to go with the more common challenges of paella or gazpacho, she wanted to share with us another very popular recipe from Spain that we don’t see as often called Sopa Castellana which is a delicious bread soup!

Colder days call for soup.  This one fit the bill amazingly.  I made a vegetarian version based on the recipe I found here.
Home-made veggie stock, home-made sourdough bread, add in an egg or two, and an amazing dinner was had by all!



Take a look at what my fellow Daring Cooks created this month.

Daring to do it: Savory Pot Pie

This month's Daring Bakers challenge was nothing new to me, but was so super amazing.  It was the return of a favorite dish which I had sadly not thought of in way too long...

Hannah of Rise and Shine was our October 2013 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she challenged us to bake our own double crusted savory pot pies. Using any from-scratch crust and filling we choose, we were allowed to get completely creative with our recipe, showing off the savory flavors and fillings from our own home or region.

I love pot pie.  I mean, really, I love a flaky pie crust, so how can you go wrong with a dinner stuffing into one, or two, of them?!  I used to make pot pies pretty regularly.  I remember doing it in the apartment where Hubby and I used to live.  I don't remember making one, though, in the last four or so years.  WAY too long! 
I was all set to make my vegetarian for dinner last Friday night.  On Thursday night I set the tofu pressing, I made the triple batch of crust dough, I had it all set up so that when I came home from work I would chop and saute the veggies, make the gravy and bake it all up.  Then life laughed at me.  I had a little knife oops at work (I know, I am in a preschool with one-year olds, how can that be where I oops with a knife?!) and wound up with two stitches in my hand.  And a husband not letting me use a knife for a few days!
But I finally got the pie made, and man was it worth the wait!
Crust bottom, rolled out and ready:

The filling -  onion, carrot, celery, zucchini, broccoli, garlic, tofu and white beans, and the veggie gravy on top:

Into the crust it goes:

(Sorry - I have no idea why these two pictures are oriented strangely!)
Covered and vented:

Baked up golden, crispy and yummy:

Flaky crust, tender filling:

 I loved this challenge.  I am so happy to have pot pies back in my life!  This is definitely going back into the meal plan rotation!
Hannah gave us some amazing recipe options in her challenge.  I am really interesting in the Mediterranean Pizza Pot Pie!!
Thank you, Hannah, for reminding me how amazing pot pies are!  I loved every minute of the challenge.  And, next time, no stitches to hold me back!!
See what my fellow Daring Bakers made this month, and please treat yourself to a pot pie of your own!!

Surprise! Quickbread

I don't know about you, but I don't necessarily put the word "sourdough" and "quick" together.  So when I saw that this month's project for Sourdough Surprises was sourdough quick breads, I giggled at the oxymoron, then drooled over the tasty possibilities. 
And then I waited.  I am not sure what I waited for...  time? inspiration? energy?  Well,  I waited a bit long.  I made my quick bread today.  On posing day.  But it still counts, right?!  I made Cinnamon Sourdough Muffins.  But I made them it as a loaf instead of muffins.  Because I wasn' patient enough to deal with the muffin tins!  (Pretty much the same general reason why I make cookie bars instead of cookies!)
I actually started last night with the starter mixture.  Equal parts starter and flour.  Eve is a pretty wet starter, but even after an overnight, my mixture seemed pretty thick:

Then I added in (most of) the other ingredients - egg, brown sugar (instead of honey), salt, vanilla, oil, cinnamon.  I wasn't so worried about how thick it was anymore!

When these two mixtures were well combined it was time to add the magic - baking soda!  Just look at those bubbles:

Before baking I decided to add a layer of cinnamon sugar to the top of my loaf, because how can more cinnamon hurt a cinnamon bread?

Out of the oven and cooling, this smelled amazing:

Sliced and ready to taste:

Really good.  I kept nibbling at this until I had to leave the house this morning.  Even my four year old, who doesn't love sourdough as much as I do, was asking for seconds.  This was an awesome treat!!
Check out what my fellow sourdough friends made this month, you are sure to find something to tempt your tummy!

Daring to do it: Tres Leches Cake

***Somehow, partway throgh writing this post, I lost the ability to add pictures.  I am going to try to fix this!!***

Is it just me or did this month go by really quickly?  With so much going on I kind of lost track, and didn't realize it was Daring Bakers' reveal day already!  Luckily I remembered with enough time for this month's challenge.

Inma of la Galletika was our Sept. 2013 Daring Bakers’ hostess and WOW did she bring us something decadent and delicious! Pastel de Tres Leches or Three Milk Cake, creamy yet airy, super moist but not soggy.. just plain delish!

Tres Leches?  Really?  I mean, I have heard of this before, and it always sounded amazing, tempting and decadent, but in my house?  With me being lactose intolerant and Little Girl's milk allergy?  I knew there had to be a way to make this, I just wasn't sure how it would turn out.  Inma was great, and had links to several delicious looking vegan options in her challenge.  I decided to use her recipe for the sponge and play with the milks for the soaking liquid, using a few of the suggested recipes as guides.
In conventional Tres Leches cake, the three milks are sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and heavy cream.  (I know, this is not a cake for the light, low fat crowd!)  None of those would work for me.  But I still wanted three milks.  So I used home-made sweetened condensed coconut milk, vanilla soy milk and chocolate soy milk.  (Ok, so I am sort of cheating by calling it three milks, as two are soy, but...) 
I could write a separate post about making the condensed coconut milk.  It is not hard, but it takes monitoring.  Which is challenging with active kiddos running around.  And friends arriving for a playdate.  So, of course, a bit of a mess was made.

Oops.  Despite the mess, and the loss of a bunch of the coconut milk, I did end up with about 2/3 cup of thick, sweet, non-dairy goodness to use.


Once the sponge cake was made and cooled, and the three milks were combined together it is time to make tres leches magic.  The drenched in the milks and allowed to soak.  Most recipes indicate that this should be a LONG (read, 24 hour) soak.  I didn't have that kind of time.  So it was a five hour soak.

The assembled cake is supposed to be "frosted" with freshly whipped cream.  I made a common vegan alternative - whipped coconut milk.  Of course, I did add cocoa powder to up the chocolate.  And I added chocolate chips in assembly. Because, hey - chocolate chips!

The final cake was kind of magical:

I was worried, especially with the shortened soak time, that the cake would be soggy.  Instead it was creamy, light and smooth.  I was amazed.

The coconut flavor was a bit strong for my girls, but Hubby and I enjoyed it a lot.  I am already thinking of playing with the recipe and making a coconut free version for next weekend...  I would call that a success!

Thank you, Inma, for a wonderful challenge.  One day maybe I will try the "real" tres leches cake to see how this version stacks up, but for now I will be happy to drool over the amazing work of my fellow Daring Bakers!

Daring to do it: Gnocchi

Just a really quick post for this month's Daring Cook's Challenge.  This reveal day happens to fall on Yom Kippur - a fast day in Jewish culture.  So a long food post is not exactly going to help me!

Todd, who is The Daring Kitchen’s AWESOME webmaster and an amazing cook, is our September Daring Cooks’ host! Todd challenged us to make light and fluffy potato Gnocchi and encouraged us to flavor the lil pillows of goodness and go wild with a sauce to top them with!

I love potatoes, I love gnocchi, I really thought I would do a lot of variations of this challenge.  I made gnocchi once this month.  Oops.  But I really liked it, and I want to make it again...!

"Ricing" the baked potatoes:

Mixing up the dough:

Shaping the gnocchi:

Trying to get the shape and lines on there:

Cooked, served with sauteed spinach and onion and lots of cheese:

Thank you,Todd, for a yummy challenge!
Here's what the other Daring Cooks created!

Daring to do it: Indian desserts

I love that over the last month or so I have gotten to learn so much about Indian food.  First with the biryani, and now with desserts!

Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen was our August 2013 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she challenged us to make some amazing regional Indian desserts. The Mawa Cake, the Bolinhas de Coco cookies and the Masala cookies – beautifully spiced and delicious!

I truly like and respect Aparna, and I really wanted to participate in her challenge.  But it was kind of hard this month.  The recipes she provided looked amazing, but they all had ingredients which I either don't or can't keep in the house.  The don'ts were spices, which I know I could have found, but I was afraid they would go to waste.  That can't was the main ingredient in the cake - mawa.  Mawa is, simply put, milk cooked down to its solids.  With my lactose intolerance and Little Girl's milk allergy, milk based foods are a no-go.  But I found a recipe for a vegan version of the mawa cake and decided to give it a go.
The vegan alternative for mawa was vegan cream cheese.  Which I happened to have in the house for Little Girl.

The other key ingredient in this cake is cardamom.  I have used this spice once before, but didn't really appreciate it for what it was.

If you have never used cardamom before, please do yourself a favor and get some.  I toasted the pods before opening them, but that really wasn't necessary.  The smell when the pods were opened and crushed was AMAZING.  Like, I was almost mad at myself for not using real cardamom before.
The finished cake looked and smelled lovely.

As you can see from the slice, my cardamom wasn't very finely crushed, and I think I might have needed to cook the cake a bit longer (the tester came out clean...!), but oh, my, this was amazing.

I am so glad I made this cake.  I am so going to make it again!
Now, the challenge, as Aparna gave to us, was to make the mawa cake and also a cookie or biscuit from the listed recipes.  I only made the cake...  Oh well...  Sorry, Aparna!  But the cake is so worthwhile, and I am so glad you introduced it to us!!
Take a look at what my fellow Daring Bakers did with this awesome challenge.  You won't be disappointed!!

Surprise! Crackers

In the past few days I have been awed by my sourdough starter.  Eve is so cool!  It's a science experiment!  It's a baking toy!  It's alive!!

 

That being said, I totally spaced on the date and thought I had one more day to do the Sourdough Surprises challenge for the month...  Oops!  But there was no way I was sitting this one out.  So I made my crackers today.

Mixing together the dough:

The dough came together beautifully and easily:

Rolled out thin:

Brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with Kosher salt and paprika, and cut to size:

Baked up crisp!  (I love the bubble...)

These are seriously good and seriously easy.  I used the recipe on Auntie Twin's blog, and I think I am going to have to make them again and again...!  Even Big Girl, who doesn't really like strong sourdough flavor, kept sneaking them from the tray.