Yam Fries

My friend Jill is a fantastic cook! She made these for me and they were off the hook! The best part is that yams are super healthy for you. Go figure--super healthy and delicious!

This recipe is for 1 medium to large yam. Multiply the recipe as needed.

Ingredients
1 medium/large yam, cut into wedges (about 1/4 inch thick)
1 minced garlic clove
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
Coconut oil




I will usually cut one yam half. Then cut that half into 2 halves. Then cut 1 of those halves into halves again. (1 yam can be cut into 8 large wedges this way).

Spread the cut yams on a baking sheet.

Lightly coat the yams with coconut oil. If you don't have coconut oil, any other vegetable oil will do.
The key word is lightly coat. You just need a little oil to make the rosemary and garlic stick. I have overdone it with the coconut oil before, and it just gets the yams all soggy.











Mix the herbs and the garlic together and massage them into the cut yams.


















Bake at 425 to 450 until tender and desired crispiness, approximately 15-20 minutes.

Serve with Aioli, homemade ketchup or Moroccan ketchup!

Spicy Red Curry with Baked Tofu

Thai's make the best curry! Although I will always like Indian or Japanese curry, Thai curry is just damn tasty! When I was backpacking in Thailand, I could never get enough of Red Curry with a bowl of rice. Simple and delicious!

This dish works well with beef, but I have also made it with chicken or vegetables. This variant uses baked tofu, which lends it a delicious chewy texture!

As with all Thai curries, I like to start out by adding the curry paste to only a small amount of coconut milk to develop a deep flavor. I then cook the meat (or tofu in this case) in this small amount of coconut milk before adding additional coconut milk and other vegetables.

Ingredients
Vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon
2 teaspoons red curry paste, or to taste
2 Shallots, sliced
1 can unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon paprika
1 recipe for baked tofu, cut into cubes
1/2 cup rich dark chicken stock, or vegetable stock
2 tablespoons fish sauce (use soy sauce if you want it vegetarian)
2 tablespoons sugar
3 kaffir lime leaves, cut into fine slivers
2 cups canned bamboo shoots
1/2 red bell pepper, julienned
20 fresh basil leaves (Thai or Italian)
8 fresh cilantro springs (for garnish)

Apply an even coat of vegetable oil in a wok. Heat over medium heat until the oil is hot, but not smoking. Add curry paste and stir it into the hot oil for 30 seconds to a minute, or until it incorporates into the oil. Add shallots and stir fry for 1 minute, until fragrant.

Add 1/2 cup of coconut milk and stir for 2 minutes, making sure the coconut milk does not come to a boil.

















Add the cumin, coriander and paprika and stir to dissolve the spices and incorporate.
















Add the beef, chicken or tofu and gently stir fry for 1 minute.




















Add the remaining 1 cup of coconut milk, chicken or vegetable stock, fish sauce, sugar, lime leaves and bamboo shoots. Bring to a gentle boil and cook, uncovered, for 10-15 minutes.

Add the red bell pepper and the basil and remove from heat.

Garnish with cilantro and serve with steamed rice.

Delicious!

Mom's Cheese Cake

This is a family favorite! I love this cheesecake, it has the right balance between sweet, tart and sublime! This is my mom's recipe and it is absolutely fantastic! She makes it as a sheet cake, so there are plenty of pieces to go around!

I find this cake stands on its own, you really don't need any additional sauces for it. If you want to get fancy, you could put boil a few strips of lemon in syrup or sugary water for a few minutes to give it a bit more zing! Or you could put a few fresh strawberries on the cake. Or make a strawberry rose sauce and drizzle that over the cake. Or fresh blueberries...the possibilities are endless.

The only addition that I made to my mom's recipe is that I added some cardamon to the crust, which gave it a wonderful flavor!

Crust
2 cups graham crackers, crushed
1 stick melted butter (1/4 lbs or 4 oz)
Cardamon (optional)

Filling
3 eight oz packages of cream cheese, room temperature
5 eggs, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
dash of salt

Topping
1 pint sour cream
5 tablespoons sugar
1 tsp vanilla


Crust
Mix graham crackers and melted butter and press into the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan, making sure to cover the whole pan.

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream Cheese Filling
Remove cream cheese and butter from refrigerator and bring to room temperature.

Once the cream cheese and the butter have come to room temperature, cream with an electric mixer until smooth. I made mine with the Kitchen Aid Electric Mixer, which worked wonderful!

Add eggs, one at a time, making sure to beat the eggs into the batter thoroughly, before adding the next egg. You want to have this mixture be extremely smooth, so I usually let the Kitchen Aid go at it for several minutes.

At first the cream cheese will stick and clump around the mixer. Don't worry about it and let it keep on mixing! You can periodically scrape off some of the cream cheese from the wires and add it back into the mix.


After a while the batter should look something like this. Once it gets to this consistency, add the sugar, vanilla and salt and beat until well blended.
















Assembly
Pour the cream cheese filling onto of the graham cracker crust and spread evenly. Use a gentle hand, because you don't want the spatula to touch the crust, otherwise the graham cracker crust will get into and mix with the filling. You will be putting frosting over this layer, so if some gets mixed up, its not the end of the world (see the bottom right corner to see where I messed up!)









Pop in the oven and bake at 350 for 35 minutes.
Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes.
Increase the oven temperature to 450 and wait till the oven comes up to temperature. 
















Topping
While the oven is heating up to 450, beat sour cream, sugar and vanilla until well blended. Set aside.






















After 5 minutes of cooling, spread the sour cream topping evenly on the top layer of the cake. See, it takes care of that little mess we had at the bottom right corner!

Bake an additional 5 minutes at 450.







The finished product should look relatively smooth:















I usually will let it come down to room temperature and pop it in the fridge to serve cold.

Fish Linguine

Robyn and I were watching Jamie Oliver on TV and he made this dish. Its really simple to prepare and absolutely delicious! You can find his recipe on The Food Network.

The recipe is Sicilian and calls for fresh sardines. Jamie Oliver used red mullet fillets on the show. I made mine with fillets that were on sale at the grocery store.

Ingredients
1 garlic clove, grated
1 bulb fennel, tops removed and reserved, grated
4 anchovies
1/2 red onion
Pinch of salt
2 red mullet fillets, skin on, scaled and bones removed (any white fish fillet will do)
1 lemon, zested
Splash of white wine
Freshly ground black pepper
1 red chile, seeds removed and finely chopped
9 oz dried linguine

Procedure
In a large stockpot, heat olive oil. Add the grated garlic and fennel and stir fry for a few minutes to soften them.















Add the anchovies and red onion. Saute, but do not let the onions brown.
















Add the salt then lay the fish fillets on top, skin side up. Sprinkle with the lemon zest, and pour a little white wine to stop everything from frying, and start stewing.

Add a good bit of olive oil, some pepper and the chile. Turn the heat down. Juice 1/2 the lemon and add to the fish.












Add the fennel tops.















Meanwhile, cook the linguine in boiling salted water until al dante. Drain.

Take a pair of metal thongs and toss the sauce and linguine together, breaking up the fish meat.

Drizzle with olive oil and some fennel tops.

Channa Masala (Chickpea Curry)

Legumes are good for you. There are no two ways about it! This recipe for chickpea curry is healthy, delicious and economic! Legumes in general, chickpeas in particular, store extremely well for long periods of time, extremely high in protein, are relatively cheep, and if done right, absolutely delicious!

When I was growing up, we would have Channa Masala, or Chickpea Curry fairly regularly. I have to say, I wasn't a big fan. The flavor profile was good, but we would use canned chickpeas. They always tasted salted and mushy. I suppose because they were soaking in canned salted water for god knows how many weeks.

Canned Chickpeas are convenient, because you don't have to soak them, but you are really paying for that convenience. Dried chickpeas are one of the cheapest foods you can buy, and you can buy in bulk. As they store indefinitely, you just need a jar to store them in and you are golden. Personally, I just keep mine in a big ziplock bag.



For dried chickpeas, soak them in water for an hour or so. They will balloon up in size. Check this out:

The top chickpea is dried out, the bottom one has been soaking in water for an hour. Cool uh?

After you drain the water, you can keep soaked chickpeas in a fridge for a day or so.





This recipe calls for boiling the soaked chickpeas in tea for half and hour. You then reserve some of the tea (it has all the lovely flavor and nutrients of the chickpea) and add that back into the dish. I highly recommend you don't use loose tea leaves, just tea bags. It would be a pain to strain out all the individual tea leaves.


Ingredients
1 cup chickpeas
1 tea bag
6 cups water
2 tablespoons, vegetable oil
2 medium onions, diced (yellow onions preferred, white onions in a pinch)
2 tablespoons minced ginger
2 green chilies, sliced (if you like it spicy, add more!)
2 teaspoons crushed garlic
3 medium tomatoes, diced
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1.5 teaspoons ground cumin
.5 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons minced coriander leaves
1/4 teaspoon Garam Masala
Shredded Ginger (for garnish)



Wash and soak the chickpeas for 1 hour. Drain and discard the liquid. Add chickpeas, tea bag and water to a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook for 30-45 minutes until the chickpeas are tender. Scoop out 1 cup of the tea cooking liquid and set aside. Drain the chickpeas.













Add oil to wok and heat for a few seconds. Add the onion and stir fry until golden. Add ginger and chilies, and continue to stir fry. When their aroma is released, add the garlic last and stir fry for a few seconds.
















Add the tomatoes, coriander, cumin, turmeric and red pepper and stirfry for 5-10 minutes.
















Add the chickpeas, reserved cooking liquid and salt. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until most of the liquid has been absorbed.

Add a pinch of Garam Masala or to taste.

Garnish with Garam Masala, coriander leaves and ginger shreds.

Best with Naan or Paratha!

Pesto Sausage Pizza

If you ever tire of pasta and pesto (who could tire of that??) then try this--it is a delicious use of pesto! (It is also an excellent way to have pizza!)

Pesto
Pizza Dough
Olive Oil
Mushrooms

Cherry Tomatoes
Purple Onion, diced
Sausage
Goat Cheese
Shredded Cheese








Sprinkle and spread corn meal on the pizza stone and distribute it evenly. Place pizza stone in oven, on the middle rack and preheat the oven to 375.

Flour your working service and roller pin. Roll out the pizza dough into a circle. Give the dough a 1/4 turn clockwise every couple of rolls, in order to get a round, even pie.

Sprinkle corn meal on your pizza peel. Gently transfer the rolled pizza dough onto the pizza peel, laying it on the roller for easy transport.

Once on the pizza peel, drizzle a layer of olive oil over the top and spread around with your hands.

Spread the pesto over the dough in a thin layer.

















Add your toppings, making sure to put the cheese on last.

Transfer the pizza from the pizza peel to the pizza stone.

Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes.

Pesto

I love pesto. Pour some over pasta for a quick and delicious meal. Add it as a topping on sliced tomatoes. I like to make a Pesto Pizza.

Ingredients
1 garlic clove, peeled
Salt
1/4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
1 bunch Basil, about 1 lightly packed cup
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Toast the pine nuts in a iron skillet.













In a mortar and pestle, pound the garlic and salt into a paste.
Add pine nuts and continue to pound.
Transfer the garlic, salt and pine nuts to a small glass container in which you will store your pesto.





























Pick the leaves from the basil and add to the mortar. Pound the basil into a paste. Return the pounded pine nuts to the mortar. Pound the leaves and pine nut mixture together. Transfer everything back to your glass container and add olive oil.