Candy Corn Studded Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Yes. They're as good as they sound.

I recently made the unfortunate discovery that dark chocolate goes really well with candy corn. This is unfortunate because I had both a bag of Ghirardelli chocolate chips and a bag of candy corn in my house at the same time.

I don't anymore.

Anyway, I had a desire for cupcakes recently and decided to bring this combination to life in cupcake form. I used this recipe from Cooking Light and simply added chopped candy corns to the mix. It was so rich and good, they needed no frosting. I just stuck a candy corn kernel in the top of each one for color.



Recipe according to Cooking Light:

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour (about 4 1/2 ounces)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup egg substitute
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup 1% low-fat buttermilk
1 1/4 ounces dark (70 percent cocoa) chocolate, finely chopped
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup, and level with a knife. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir with a whisk.

Place granulated sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well combined (about 3 minutes). Add egg substitute and vanilla, beating well. Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to granulated sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Fold in chocolate. Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups lined with muffin cup liners. Bake at 350° for 18 minutes or until cake springs back when touched lightly in center or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pan; cool completely on a wire rack.

My changes:

Stir 2/3 cup chopped candy corn in along with the dark chocolate pieces.

My mixing method is different, too, since I don't have a mixer. Instead, I stir the butter and sugar together with a spoon, then switch to a whisk for incorporating the eggs. I whisk the bejeezes out of them to compensate for the lack of a mixer.

Palak Paneer (Indian creamed spinach with cheese), approximately

I love Palak Paneer but don't stock the proper spices to make it taste like Indian restaurant food, and curry powder is never even close to good enough. I've tried many recipes and they're either horrible or incredibly labor-intensive and expensive. Last night I made the closest thing I've managed yet, and thought I'd write it down, mostly for my own benefit though you're welcome to try it.

Ingredients:

2 packages frozen spinach, thawed
1 large onion, chopped
4 fat garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp Penzey's Balti seasoning (a type of curry powder, you might try red curry powder instead I suppose)
1/2 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp kosher salt
2/3 cup milk
1 package Baltic-style farmer's cheese (very firm farmer's cheese) or actual Paneer if you can find it, cubed

Saute the onions until soft over medium-high heat in a large skillet. Add the spices and garlic and saute until fragrant. Add the spinach and saute for another 3 or 4 minutes or until it's tender.

Scoop out into a blender and add the milk and the salt. Blend until roughly pureed - you don't want baby-food smooth, you just want it to be very finely minced, maybe the size of couscous.

Return the spinach mixture to the skillet and cook over medium-low heat for 5 or 10 minutes or until it begins to smell good and thickens slightly. Add the cheese and heat through.

If you have paneer, you should fry it in oil until it's golden before you add it, but the farmer's cheese will stick to the pan horribly if you try to fry it so I don't recommend it. You can also use ricotta salata, which is fryable, but very very salty.

Chicken, Mushroom and Parsnip Soup

Cook Light's holiday edition has arrived in my mail and with it a new collection of recipes for my favorite food season. I tried this recipe tonight and it was so easy, tasty, and unique that I will be prepping it many times in the future, I suspect. As always, I didn't quite follow the recipe, so here is my version.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter or Smart Balance or olive oil (I used butter, recipe called for olive oil)
3/4 cup sliced shallots, about 2
3/4 cup sliced parsnips, about three or four
1 turnip about the size of a lemon, diced into 1/2 inch pieces
2 packages presliced white mushrooms, or 1 package mushrooms, sliced
1 minced garlic clove, or a scant teaspoon of minced garlic
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp minced dried porcini mushroom (optional but delicious)
The breast meat from a rotisserie chicken, chopped
Ground pepper to taste
Dash of ground chipotle pepper - if you don't have chipotle, use cayenne, or omit
1/4 tsp thyme leaves
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Melt the butter in a large pot, and sauté the mushrooms, parsnips, turnip and shallots until the mushroom liquid is mostly evaporated.

Add the remaining ingredients, and simmer about 10 minutes or until the turnips and parsnips are tender, stirring frequently.

You may have noticed that I didn't call for much broth. This is because I don't really make soups, as such, but rather make braised dishes. This necessitates more stirring to keep the cooking even, but it produces a more concentrated and delicious broth, and it is much easier to eat. I don't like to drink broth and so if there's too much of it, it just goes to waste. Unless you really love drinking the leftover broth in your soup, I suggest you try making your favorite soup recipes with as little as half the called-for amount of liquid. You may be surprised at how good it is!

Lasagna Noodles: Also Just Suggestions

As I've mentioned before, lasagna is delicious. It's also pretty healthy, if you use the reduced fat cheeses, and can be made more healthy by adding veggies like spinach to the fillings, and by substituting other things for the woeful noodles.

Yes, the noodles are a problem. Nothing ruins your wholesome cheesy protein-and-calcium-packed dinner like a big ol' wad of refined flour! Here's some great alternatives to those loathsome noodles:

1. Whole wheat noodles: Duh. This is a great time to use whole wheat, though, because the flavorful fillings blend well with any unpleasant aftertaste of the whole wheat, and the chewier texture works well for the noodles' role as a structural element. This is the amateur solution, though.
2. Tofu noodles: CRAZINESS! But it works. It's highly labor-intensive, but produces a fairly tasty and noodly lasagna, with all the health benefits of soy.
3. Eggplant slices: My exciting new discovery! Like eggplant Parmesan, except without the deep-friend crust. Delicious, fresh-tasting and affordable, as well as lower in calories than any other option, enabling you to have MORE of it!
4. Whatever else you can think of: Seriously, go buck wild. Lasagna is peasant food, which means there's no sense standing on ceremony: If it slices, it goes. Try slices of tomatoes or zucchini, or if you want to get really crazy, prosciutto or pepperoni!

If you're curious about the tofu noodles, here's a recipe:

1 block extra-firm tofu

Slice the tofu very thinly, about 1/8 inch each. Using a hollow-edge santoku knife helps make it easier to work with the slices, without tearing them. Lay them on an oiled baking sheet, and bake at 300 for about 15 minutes or until they are "al dente" the way a lasagna noodle should be. Then use them exactly like a noodle. This makes enough for three layers; if you like a many-layered lasagna, use two blocks of tofu.

Incidentally, pre-baking tofu is a good idea in a lot of situations, producing a more toothsome, chewy texture.

And here's how to use eggplant slices:

1 large eggplant
Salt

Peel the eggplant, and slice lengthwise (NOT crosswise, the slices go to long way) into 1/4 inch slices. Lay the slices out and sprinkle liberally with salt. Turn over and sprinkle the other side. Then stack them up in a colander and let sit for a while. An hour is plenty of time.

This process pulls the bitter juices out of the eggplant. After they have sat, remove the slices and rinse off the bitter juices in the sink. (You probably could also do this by soaking them in salted water, I just haven't tried it yet.)

Brush the slices with olive oil, and roast in the oven at 400 for 10 minutes, or until tender and golden at the edges. If you leave off the olive oil, they might be tough, so be warned.

Now you can use them like a normal noodle. Yay!

As far as the rest of the recipe goes? It's not exactly rocket surgery. Lasagna has four elements: Soft cheese filling, tomato sauce, shreded cheese, and "noodles" (whatever layerable thing you are using, noodle or no).

My soft cheese filling is usually three cups of ricotta, 2 eggs, some parmesan cheese, and a teaspoon of oregano. You could also use parsley and/or basil, and you can add garlic if you like. An easy addition is to thaw a package of frozen chopping spinach, squeeze out the water, and toss the leaves into the filling.

Then I use plain mozzarella for the shredded cheese layers, but also sometimes I use Sargento's reduced fat Italian cheese blend, which is quite good. Their Pizza Cheese and Italian Herd And Cheese Bistro Blends are good, too.

For tomato sauce, well... You'll laugh, but I find that the cheaper tomato sauce that comes in a can is better than the glass jarred sauces, with the exception of the very expensive ones Emeril makes. I suspect that the ordinary jarred sauce is damaged by the exposure to light, and Emeril's probably is, too, but the original recipe is so much superior that it's still good despite this. I wish they sold tomato sauce in dark glass!

Well, there you have it: Lasagna.

If you want to try something more special, here's my favorite "alternate lasagna" recipe: Creamy Spinach Lasagna with whole wheat noodles, by Cooking Light.

To make that recipe, you will want to add parmesan or romano cheese to the creamy filling, as well as some finely chopped onion and minced garlic, and some of your favorite herbs, such as basil. Otherwise, the filling is bland. With those additions, though, this is a luxuriously silky lasagna that is great for company, because it uses "normal" whole wheat noodles, and in such a way that the whole wheat flavor is actually a part of the recipe, not an unfortunate side effect.

Pumpkin Flan

There's a delicious recipe for butternut flan in Cookling Light, but it has serious flaws. Butternut squash, though delicious, is annoying to process, and the recipe produces a watery, bland result when followed exactly (reviewers agree).

I have a different version made with canned pumpkin. You might use fresh pumpkin, but I don't, not for pies: Fresh pumpkin is an unpredictable product, sometimes stringy and watery, sometimes picked unripe and allowed to turn orange off the vine, resulting in a flavorless result. But the biggest issue is the irregular moisture content.

Canned pumpkin has a good and predictable flavor, a low moisture content, and is very easy to use. The disadvantage is the slight "canned" flavor, which is not noticable in a highly spiced recipe, but unpleasant (to me) in a recipe where the flavor of the pumpkin is the dominant flavor, like pumpkin soup.

Thus, I use canned for pies and breads/muffins/cookies/etc., and fresh for soups and anytime I intend to use it as cubes instead of puree.

But all this is beside the point. The pumpkin flan is essentially a pumpkin pie, but instead of a crust, it has caramel flan sauce on the bottom! The filling can be made with Splenda (custards are one of the best times to use artificial sweeteners), and with no crust, there's no white flour or butter, so the end result consists mostly of wholesome milk, eggs, and pumpkin.

Filling:

1 can unsweetened plain pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 5-ounce can evaporated milk
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup Splenda or equivalent
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves or allspice
3 eggs
1 egg yolk

Sauce:

1/3 cup sugar (raw sugar is okay)
1 tsp corn syrup (you can leave it out if you don't have any)
3 tbsp water

Coat 6 custard cups (ramekins) with butter or cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 325. Place 6 cups of water on the back burner and let it heat up while you're working.

Make the caramel sauce by putting the ingredients into a small pan, ideally stainless steel or heavy anodized aluminum, and stirring over medium heat until it melts together. Then leave it to boil, NOT stirring, until it turns golden. Then, immediately pour the hot sugar into the ramekins, working quickly because it will harden and become unusable if it cools. Fill the pot with water once you're done, and leave it to soak so it will be easy to clean later.

Combine the filling ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Don't mix air into it - that means be careful if you use a whisk, and don't use an electric mixer or blender. If you have an immersion blender, however, this is a great time to use it, provided you insert the blender carefully and keep it under the surface to avoid whipping air in. The reason to avoid stirring in air is because if you do, the filling will puff up and have an odd texture.

Place the ramekins onto a jelly-roll pan (baking sheet with a lip around the edges, as opposed to the kind that is totally flat) and pour the filling into them. Then place the pan into the oven. THEN, carefully pour the hot water you've been boiling into the pan, so that the ramekins are sitting in the hot water. Depending on the size of your pan, you might have to add more water; you want it to be almost full, such that the ramekins are sitting in water about halfway up their sides.

Bake for 25 minutes, then open the oven. Remove the ramekins carefully, putting them on a cooling rack, and leave the hot water in the oven until it's cooled off and is safe to remove. Don't try to take the whole pan out at once! It will spill and you might burn yourself!



Weird things I did and why:

1. Why some whole eggs and some yolks? An authentic flan is made with all yolks, but that's pretty rich and unhealthy, and then I never know what to do with the whites. But you can make it with 6 yolks instead if you like.

2. Can I make this non-dairy? Yes. Replace the evaporated milk with plain non-dairy liquid creamer, and replace the regular milk with your favorite milk substitute.


3. Why the immersion blender? I love my immersion blender. It is easy to use and easy to clean. It's good for custards because it will blend up the albumen (egg white stringy bits) so the custard has an even texture, without whipping air into it. Just slip the blender in carefully to avoid trapping air, and turn it on, keeping the head underwater. I also use this for mixing cheesecake batter for the same reason. Air bubbles are the enemy of cheesecake.

You can serve the flan by upending it over a plate, but I find that difficult, so I just eat it out of the ramekin. Yum!

Ricotta Cheese

I'm only one-quarter Italian, but it's a very loud, assertive 25% (it also gesticulates wildly when it talks, wears leather pants, grows a tomato plant on its tiny balcony, and stares openly at beautiful women). This vociferous genetic heritage bangs its spoon on the table and demands lasagna.

Fortunately, the rest of me agrees that lasagna is pretty darn tasty. I have a bunch of recipes (or suggestions ;) ) for lasagna, which I will eventually share, but they all have one important thing in common: RICOTTA.

Educational Aside: Ricotta means "re-cooked" in Italian. It is made by taking the whey that is a byproduct of making other cheese such as mozzarella, and then adding a little more acid and re-heating the whey. This causes a second batch of curds to form, much smaller than the first batch, which are strained out, salted, and enjoyed. It's in the category of cream cheese and cottage cheese, being uncultured and fresh (like some people I know). It contains lots of lactose, unlike cultured cheeses who might have less if the culture has broken the lactose down.

Not all ricottas are the same. There's the fat content:

1. Whole Milk: The richest, creamiest, most authentic cheese, but also a bit of an indulgence, as with all full-fat cheeses. I use this on special occasions.
2. Part-Skim: Slightly higher water content, slightly grainier texture, slighter healthier nutritional profile. I consider it a good compromise.
3. Fat-Free: Has an oddly gelatinous texture, usually because there are various gums added to keep it a cheese - there would otherwise not be enough to it to be anything but liquid whey. I will sometimes mix this into regular ricotta when I am making a recipe that I feel has too much fat already, but I never use it by itself. If, however, you are being really careful about your caloric intake, you can use this anywhere you'd use regular ricotta. Putting it through the food processor, or just stirring it really well, helps with the texture.

Then there's the brands (in reverse order of deliciousness):

1. Store brand: Good enough if you're mixing it with something, like if you're using a recipe that calls for part ricotta and part cottage cheese. Has the grainiest texture, and is the most inclined to separate.
2. Sorrento, Sargento, and Dragone: These are, to my tastes, roughly equivalent. I like Dragone part-skim slightly better, and Sorrento whole milk slightly better, but honestly, if it's in a recipe I can't tell the difference.
3. Biazza: THIS IS THE SHIZNIT. Seriously. I am not even joking. THE SHIZNIT. Go buy it and eat it, straight out of the carton with a spoon, it's that good. It's incredibly creamy, the curds are so tiny that you can't even detect them so there's no graininess, it doesn't separate, and it's totally natural with no gums or lactic acids. It's a bit regional, made in New Jersey, so might not be available everywhere. If that's so, then I feel your pain.

If you've sprung for a good ricotta, here's your ultimate low-carb, high-calcium, high-protein dessert:

Per serving:

1/2 cup ricotta
2 packets or 1 1/2 tbsp sweetener or equivalent
1/2 tsp vanilla, OR 1/4 tsp almond extract

Mix that sucker up in a bowl and eat it. BAM - instant deliciousness. Even my husband can make this. It's a good breakfast food, too. If you want to make it fancy, you can drizzle on a little chocolate or caramel sundae syrup.

Fun with Wheat Berries

I picked up a bag of wheat berries at the store the other day, for no reason other than that they looked cool. I like Grape Nuts Flakes, which are to wheat berries as instant oatmeal is to oat groats, so I thought they'd be tasty.

They were.

The particular brand I got was parboiled, so it only took 15 minutes to cook. I cooked it with a pinch of salt and then added maple syrup and melted Smart Balance, to excellent effect.

Delicious Basic Wheat Berries

1 Serving

1/4 cup wheat berries
2/3 cup water
Pinch salt
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 pat Smart Balance 50/50 Butter Blend (or regular smart balance, or butter)

Boil the berries and the water with the salt for 15 minutes, or until it's al dente - a firm exterior and tender interior. Drain and add the seasonings. Yay wheat berries!

They are also excellent leftovers, warmed in the microwave.

UPDATE October 6, 2010: New wheat berry idea :)

Harvest Wheat Berry Salad

1/2 cup wheat berries
2 cups water
Big pinch of salt
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsp butter or Smart Balance
1 apple, peeled and chopped

Cook the wheat berries for 15 minutes, then drain. Add the butter and syrup and toss until the butter is melted. Then add the cranberries, walnuts and apple.

You can make this with pre-made wheat berries from the recipe above. You can also store this to eat later, but the apples will turn brown if you do, so either toss them with lemon juice first or add them right before serving. Makes a good afternoon snack.