Sweet Potato Soup with Coconut Milk & Ginger

I am pretty much positive that Anna Olson is queen of delicious soup! Every soup recipe of hers that I've tried has turned out soooo great. And her recipes are pretty straight forward and use basic, easy to find ingredients. I made this soup forever ago and am finally getting around to posting about it (pretty much the story of my life!).

Sweet Potato Soup with Coconut Milk & Ginger
Recipe from Anna Olson's cookbook Fresh

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp butter


• 1 1/2 cups diced onion


• 6 cups peeled and diced sweet potato


• 3-4 cups chicken stock


• 1 - 398 ml can coconut milk


• 2 tbsp grated fresh ginger


• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice


• salt and pepper to taste


• dash cayenne pepper or hot sauce


• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves (optional)


• 1/2 cup yogurt or sour cream (optional)

Method:

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepot over medium heat and cook the onion for 3-4 minutes to soften, but not brown. Add the sweet potato, 3 cups of the stock, the coconut milk, and the ginger. Simmer for 25 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are tender. Puree the soup with a handheld blender until smooth, adding the remaining stock if too thick, then stir in the lime juice, and strain through a sieve to make it more smooth. Return to the heat and season to taste, including the cayenne or hot sauce, if using.


2. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with cilantro leaves and a swirl of yogurt.

And thats it! Nice and simple so you can make dinner in a snap and then go back to enjoying your long weekend!! I absolutely loved this soup and I hope you do too. Hope you've got lots of exciting (or relaxing) things planned for the weekend. I have a few culinary tasks to accomplish this weekend and hopefully some relaxation time too. :) :)

Happy Cooking my Friends!

The Best Hummus Ever & My New Facebook Fan Page

So as promised, I am going to post the best hummus recipe ever! This post is going to be a short one because I didn't take any photos of this hummus. However, I have an exciting announcement to add to this post, so hopefully it won't be too disappointing. :) First, we'll start with the hummus recipe! The recipe was given to me from a friend and every single time I make the recipe many people bombard me asking for the recipe. My friend found the recipe in her cookbook from Rebar Modern Food, a restaurant in Victoria, British Columbia. I haven't had a chance to go to the restaurant, but I have heard many good things about it. So if you're in the area, it would likely be a great place to try out. Bombay Hummus Adapted from Rebar Modern Food Cookbook Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup oil


• 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced


• 1 19oz can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained


• 1/4 cup cashews, roasted


• juice of 1 lime


• 2 garlic coves


• 1 tsp salt


• 1 tsp cumin


• 1 tsp coriander


• 1/2 tsp cracked pepper


• 1/4 tsp of cayenne (this make it pretty spicy - I usually use about 1/2 that amount)


• pinch turmeric


• pinch cinnamon


• 2 tbsp chopped cilantro (I probably use closer to 1/4 cup because I LOVE cilantro, but go with what you like!!)


• 2 tbsp chopped fresh mint

Method:

1. Gently heat oil and ginger in a small pan. Let the ginger sizzle, but not brown. After 10 minutes, remove from heat and set aside to cool.


2. Combine the ginger, oil, garlic, cashews, cilantro and mint in a food processor. Whirl until moderately smooth. Then add the juice of the lime and whirl until smooth and creamy. This may take a few minutes.


3. Add the rest of the ingredients and whirl until mixture has reached desired smoothness. You may need to add more oil or water to the mixture to get it really smooth. Season to taste if additional seasoning is desired.

Now for my exciting announcement which really isn't all that exciting, but I'm excited about it!! I have a brand new Facebook Fan page for my blog. :) You will receive notifications when I post new recipes on my blog and check out some photos before they're posted to my blog. You can also provide me with suggestions and feedback about my blog and have some say in what I write about! So please check out my fan page here and become a fan!

Happy Cooking my Friends!

Ginger Flank Steak with Wasabi Smashed Potatoes & Sesame-Soy Green Beans and Peppers

Sick of your same-old same-old week night dinner routine? Think you can't whip up a great, new recipe on a weeknight when you're tired after work? Think again!!! Rachael Ray is here to save the day with some more of her "30 Minute Meals". You will be in and out of the kitchen in 30 minutes flat and dining on a great meal that will get you out of your week night dinner rut. I guarantee it!

Give this recipe a try this week and let me know what you think! If you like it and find these kind of recipes helpful in getting you through the week, let me know and I will definitely post more. :)

Ginger Flank Steak with Wasabi Smashed Potatoes & Sesame Soy Green Beans & Peppers

Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book

Ingredients:

• 3 inches of fresh gingerroot, peeled and grated
• 1/4 cup plus 3 tbsp tamari (aged soy sauce)
• zest and juice of 2 limes
• 5 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp grill seasoning (i.e. montreal steak spice)
• 2 lbs flank steak
• 2 1/2- 3 lbs idaho potatoes (4 large potatoes), peeled and cut into chunks
• salt
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 to 2 tbsp wasabi paste (how hot do ya like it?!)
• 3/4 lb green beans, ends trimmed
• salt
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• 4 scallions, trimmed of root ends
• a handful of fresh cilantro leaves

Method:

1. Preheat a grill pan or indoor/ outdoor grill to high.
2. Combine the ginger, 1/4 cup of the tamari, lime juice, 3 tbsp of the oil, and grill seasoning in a shallow dish. Add the meat to the marinate, turn to coat evenly, and let stand for 10 minutes.
3. While the flank steak marinates, place the potatoes in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a oil, salt the potatoes, and cook until tender, 10-12 minutes. Drain the potatoes and return them to the hot pot. Use a potatoe masher to mash the potatoes with the cream and wasabi to your preferred consistency and heat level. Adust the salt to taste.
4. Remove the steak from the marinade and pat dry. Grill meat for 6-7 minutes on each side, for medium-rare to medium. Let the meat rest for 5 minutes, then thinly slice on an angle against the grain.
5. While potatoes and meat cook, cut the green beans into 2-inch pieces on an angle, and place in a skillet. Add an inch or two of water, salt it, and bring to a boil. Cook the beans for 5 minutes, then drain. Return the skillet to the burner and ad the remaining vegetable oil. Heat the pan over high heat until the oil smokes. Add the beans and bell peppers and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add the remaining tamari and sesame oil, toss, and transfer to a serving dish. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Finely chop the scallions together with cilantro and lime zest.
6. Serve the meat over a mound of smashed potatoes and garnish with a generous sprinkling of chopped scallion-cilantro-lime zest. Serve the sesame-soy green beans and peppers alongside.

Hope you have all had a great weekend and managed to find some time to relax! I ran an 8km race this morning with some of my co-workers. It was a beautiful day and I had a great time running with some awesome people. What did you do this weekend? Whatever you did, hope it was great. :)

Happy Cooking my Friends!

Ginger-Spice Sandwich Cookies with Lemon Cream Filling

I've been having a great weekend! My Dad is here visiting, so we went out for a great dinner last night and spent the day hanging out together. Plus, the weather is nicer than its been in quite some time here, so all in all its been a good weekend! Since I'm feeling pretty joyful, I thought I would share a recipe with you that brought me a lot of joy and satisfaction - ginger-spice sandwich cookies with lemon cream. Mmmmmmm!!! I had never tried sandwich cookies before, but decided plain old cookies weren't really special enough to make for my hubby's Superbowl party last month, so I decided on this recipe from the Best of Fine Cooking Magazine - Tailgating 2010. It was definitely a good call - all of the cookies were devoured during the party and people raved about them! They were so perfect - the right amount of spice in the cookies countered with the sweet lemon cream inside the cookies. Next time I make them I'll be sure to put even more filling in them.


The cookies weren't nearly as much work as I thought they would be which is always a plus. And if you put the filling into a piping bag and pipe the filling onto the cookies, filling them is a breeze - speedy with minimal cleanup. If you make them, put about double the filling you see piped on them in the picture below, and make them the night before that way the cookies can soak up some of the filling making them extra moist and delicious.

Ginger-Spice Sandwich Cookies with Lemon Cream

Recipe from the Best of Fine Cooking magazine - Tailgating 2010

Cookie Ingredients:

• 9 oz (2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 6 oz (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus more for rolling
• 1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Lemon Cream Ingredients:

• 4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
• 6 oz (1 1/2 cups) confectioners sugar

Method:

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350F. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, baking soda, and salt.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and both sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the molasses, egg and vanilla and continue to beat until incorporated, about 1 minute. Reduce the speed to low, slowly add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated, about 1 minute. Shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.
4. Put about 1/3 cup granulated sugar in a small bowl. Using your hands, roll about a tsp of dough into 1-inch ball. Roll each ball in sugar and arrange about 2 inches apare on the lined baking sheets. Use the bottom of a gladd to flatten the cookies slightly. Bake one sheet at a time until the cookies feel dry to the touch and are beginning to firm up (they'll still feel soft inside), 12-14 minutes. Cool completely on racks.
5. Make the lemon cream: with a hand mixer, mix the cream cheese and lemon zest in a medium bowl until smooth. Slowly add the confectioners sugar and continue to mix until smooth.
6. Assemble the cookies: pipe filling liberally onto the center of a cookie, top with another cookie, then gently press them. Repeat with the remaining cookies. Store in an airtight container for up to two days.

If you want to serve them up pretty, you can put them on a plate with some candied ginger. It adds a nice touch!

I hope you're having an exciting weekend! Filled with friends, family and fun times. I am heading out of town again for work (leaving tomorrow), out to the middle of no where... so blogging may be somewhat intermittent, so please bear with me. :) Hope you enjoyed this post and are inspired to try out these little bits of heaven!

Happy Baking my Friends!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Carmelized Mango Buttercream

I tend to like to stick to recipes that are pretty easy - not too many steps, not too many ingredients and not too labour intensive. I'm impatient and fairly lazy, so easy recipes are definitely where its at for me. I did make an exception when I bought Bobby Flay's new cookbook "Bobby Flay's Throwdown". This is a cookbook full of labour intensive, all-out recipes! Bobby shares the Throwdown stories and really lets you get to know both himself and the competitors... The cookbook is really well done! And of the few recipes I've tried out of the cookbook, they've all been show stoppers.

When I started making these cupcakes, I didn't really realize how labour intensive they are. They are not a quick easy batch of cupcakes to whip up, but boy are they good! Definitely a great treat to sit down to after all that hard work!!! They're moist with an extra ginger zing added by infusing a simple syrup with fresh ginger. So yummy! The mango buttercream was really interesting. As you can see from the recipe below, they call it buttercream for a reason - it is chock full of butter. Perhaps a bit too buttery for my taste, but pretty neat with the carmelized mango added in. Try out this recipe when you want to pull out all the stops and really impress someone you care about. :)

On to the recipe!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Carmelized Mango Buttercream

Recipe from Bobby Flay's Throwdown

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 3-inch piece fresh ginger, coarsely chopped
• cooking spray
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp fine salt
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 6 tbsp molasses

Carmelized Mango Buttercream Ingredients:

• 2 cups, plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter, slightly softened, but still cool, cut into small pieces
• 2 ripe mangos, coarsely chopped
• 6 large egg yolks
• cooking spray
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup finely diced candied ginger, for garnish

Method:

1. To make the cupcakes, combine the granulated sugar, fresh ginger, and 3/4 cup water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the sugar has melted and the mixture thickens slightly, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let infuse for 30 minutes. Then strain the ginger syrup before using.
2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners and spray the liners with cooking spray.
3. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon and cloves into a medium bowl.
4. Whisk the melted butter, oil, brown sugar, eggs, and molasses together in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients and stir until the batter is smooth.
5. Fill each paper liner with 1/3 cup of the batter, to come about 1/4 inch below the top of the liner. Bake just until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush the tops liberally with the ginger syrup. Let stand in pan for 5 minutes before removing. Let cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.
6. To make frosting, heat the 2 tbsp butter in a large saute pan over high heat. Add the mangos and cook until carmelized and soft (watch them carefully - they will burn easily at this high temperature), about 10 minutes. Transfer to a food processor and process until smooth. Pass the mixture through a medium-mesh strainer into a bowl. Discard the solids.
7. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks on high speed until creamy and pale yellow, about 5 minutes.
8. Spray a heatproof measuring cup with cooking spray. Combine the sugar and corn syrup in saucepan and bring to a full rolling boil over medium-high heat. Cook without stirring until syrup reaches the soft-ball stage, 238F- 242F on a candy thermometer. Immediately pour into measuring cup to halt the cooking.
9. Add a small amount of the syrup to the beaten egg yolks, turn the mixer on to high speed, and beat for about 5 seconds. Continue stopping the mixer, adding syrup and beating in the same manner until all the syrup is incorporated. Beat the mixture until it is completely cool.
10. Add the remaining 2 cups butter, a few pieces at a time, beating until incorporated before adding the next pieces. When all the butter ha been blended in, add the vanilla and mango puree and beat until combined.
11. Frost the top of each cupcake liberally with the buttercream, and garnish with candied ginger.

Whew!!! What a load of work, but so delicious. Please don't eat the whole batch by yourself... I doubt you will feel very well if you do... and even if you're still able to walk, you probably won't be able to get dressed because your clothes won't fit you any more!

How is that for a weeknight post folks? Hope you enjoyed and it added some sweetness to your week! Woohoo for tomorrow being Friday! Hang in there!

Happy Baking my Friends!

Chocolate Ginger Mousse

Wow! This week flew by... I was working long days and out of town and it seems like I looked up and all of a sudden it was Friday! So I hope you can forgive me for being a really bad blogger this week. I will make it up to you by posting this amazing, unique chocolate ginger mousse recipe. It is beautiful to serve and tastes really decadent with an exotic twist. I hope you enjoy!

Here is a bit of a disclaimer for you though - beware of what fussy husbands might think of this recipe. My husband politely told me "the chocolate part is delicious, but the ginger tastes like chunks of the spatula broke off while you were mixing it"... soooo if your husband is fussy, this is probably not the dessert to make for him! The ginger adds a really unique element to the chocolate mousse but you definitely have to be a ginger fan to enjoy this dessert.

This is not a technically difficult recipe, but it does dirty a lot of dishes... so be prepared. Start with a clean kitchen and an empty dishwasher! Tidy up as you go along or your kitchen will look like a bomb went off in it (think I learned the hard way?)! But - it is worth doing the extra dishes - it is soooo good! Smooth and fluffy with little pieces of candied ginger studded in the rich chocolatey goodness like little treasures waiting to be found! So without further delay, on to the recipe.

Chocolate Ginger Mousse

Recipe from The Guy Can't Cook by Cinda Chavich

Ingredients:

• 10 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 1/4 cup brewed strong coffee or espresso
• 1/3 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1/4 cup finely chopped, crystalize ginger, plus extra for garnish
• 4 large eggs, separated
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brady or rum
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 cup whipping cream plus 1/2 cup for garnish
• fresh mint sprigs

Method:

1. Get out all your mixing bowls - you'll need them.
2. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and, in a small saucepan, combine with the coffee and butter. Melt over low heat (or in the microwave on low), stirring every 10 seconds until smooth. Stir in the minced candied ginger and set aside.
3. In a stainless bowl, whisk the egg yolks with sugar until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Whisk in the brandy. Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (a pan just large enouh to blance the bowl on top is perfect - make sure the bowl isn't touching the water), and whisk until the mixture is thick and hot to the touch. Remove from the heat and whisk in the melted chocolate mixture. Cool to room temperature.
4. In a separate bowl, and using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until stiff peaks form. In a separate bowl, beat the whipping cream until stiff.
5. Now its time to mix and fold. Pile the stiffened egg whites on top of the chocolate mixture and, using a spatula, gently life and fold together until incorporated. Fold the whipped cream into the mousse, using the same technique. Spoon the mousse into 8 wine glasses or small dessert dishes and refrigerate from 6 hours to overnight. Whip the remaining 1/2 cup of whipping cream. To serve, garnish the top of each mousse with a dallop of whipped cream, a sprinkling of chopped ginger and a sprig of mint.
   

Enjoy this recipe! Hope it slightly makes up for me being a bad blogger this week! :) This dessert is yummy and would be well received by any guests! And it is definitely elegant enough to be served at a dinner party. Happy Baking my Friends! More exciting posts to follow this weekend - I promise!