Lavender Macarons with Honey Dark Chocolate Ganache

These turned out perfectly.  As in, I had not a single issue.  Being that these are macarons we are talking about, I say this with much pleasure and pride.  The first time I made macarons was about year ago and I tried David Lebovitz's safe, trusted and true French chocolate macarons.  I thought those turned out well.  Ohh boy, was I wrong.  They were good, but not compared to these beauties.

As I mentioned in my previous post, it is very important to weigh all of your ingredients when making macarons as the wet to dry ingredient ratio must be perfectly balanced or things could start going tragically awry, i.e. causing the batter to be the incorrect consistency.  Even once you have the right proportions of ingredients, you need to treat them like your favorite child (not like people have them or anything…).  Don't over-beat the egg whites as it could cause the macarons to be all sorts of lumpy, lopsided and misshapen.  But there is a fine line you see because if you don't beat the egg whites enough, the macarons will fail to thrive and there is a good chance you won't get the prized feet.  I am in no way shape or form a master of the macaron, so I recommend you head over to Not So Humble Pie if you have more questions.

I took this picture a few days after I filled the shells because I'm a bad person.  If not a bad person, at least a cookie neglector.  I'm surprised it's not an offense punishable by food blogger law, or if it is and I just don't know it yet, please go easy on me!  I swear, I just got side tracked and I was packing for a trip down to Eugene!

You probably noticed, and if you didn't please make an eye doctors appointment, but the shells are bright purple.  No, there is not that much lavender in them… I just got a little happy with my super fancy, super concentrated food dye.  I was a big girl and bought something other than the squirt bottles you can find at the local Safeway.  Who knew that you only need to use a little bit to achieve the same result as using half a bottle of the supermarket stuff?  Apparently not me…

Now that you're well informed that these are not in fact mutant macarons, they are in my opinion only one notch below Laudree's and 5 notches above the ordinary.  The floral lavender is an unexpected delight to the tongue with the sharp contrast of the extra dark chocolate mellowing everything out.  I would like to note that the chocolate I bought was a smidgen too dark, so I added a little honey to the ganache as I was whipping it up.  Not only do honey and lavender pair wonderfully together, but it made the dark chocolate a little less harsh.

Next time I make these,  I might try a lemon curd filling, lemon, fig, olive oil or vanilla bean filling….hmmmm, suggestions?

Roasted Vegetable Quinoa Salad

I can't believe I'm scything this, but before this recipe I never had cooked quinoa before.  Now, I had eaten plenty of quinoa, but cook it I had not.  What was wrong with me?  Not only is it delicious, but it is easy to make.  You can make your life so much easier by making it in a rice cooker, but I took the hard route and easily made it on the stove top.

I think what I like most about a quinoa salad is that it's so adaptable to what vegetables are in season… or like me, what you happen to have in your pantry.  Summer squashes?  Roast them up and throw them in.  If you're like me, use some peppers, broccoli and onion; essentially the only good produce Trader Joe's had that evening.

Also, I really think you guys deserve something good and healthy after the past few recipes.  Yes, the salted caramel peanut butter brownies are incredibly delicious but won't help you fit into those new skinny jeans hiding in the back of your closet.

Also, happy birthday to Julie McComish and Emily Arntson!!

Salted Caramel Peanut Butter Brownies

Salted Caramel Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies.  Try saying that three times fast!  If you can, I think you've earned your brownie!

Well, I guess it's only appropriate to wish the interwebs a happy Valentine's Day!  I mean, once again I am alone on Valentines Day, but only romantically.  Seriously boys, when I are you going to realize that I can bake?  Yeesh!  However, I am not alone.  I have wonderful friends here in Seattle and family back in Michigan who I know love me and they should know I love them right back.  That, and I just polished off a box of conversation hearts (and a bowl of vegetarian chili and some middle eastern flat bread and… oh, I should probably stop talking now) so I got some loving words from them.

While today is technically V-Day, I celebrated yesterday with the girlfriends.  Christine, Julie, Katrina and I had a girls day extravaganza in honor of the blessed holiday.  It started off with a walk around Green Lake and a picnic in one of the parking lots.  Next we drove on up Aurora to a unique nail salon (appropriately titled Glamour Nails) and had a three hour long manicure.  With our polished fingers and toes we trotted on over to my place where we decorated red velvet cup cakes (check back for that post later) and Julie & Katrina cooked a delicious and light dinner.  To complete the picture, we closed off the evening by watching Twilight.  All in all, it was the perfect day and definitely the perfect Valentine's Day.

However, these brownies are in no way connected to Valentine's Day.  In fact, I made them a few weeks ago for a game night that I had.  It was right after I accepted my new job (of which I just completed my first week today!), most of 'the group' was in town and we pretty much hung out all day.  After playing some 3 on 3 football with 5 people, it was as interesting as it sounds, we didn't want to stop hanging out and decided to have a game night that evening.  Being that I am who I am, I made brownies to make the people happy.  Of course they were, but they were a little rich to be paired with the soft white wines were were drinking.  Don't take this as a bad thing though, they were do delicious and the caramel perfectly melted into the brownies. 

So if you're single today, make a pan and polish the whole thing off without worrying about anyone knowing.  If you're attached, make this for your significant other and chances are, you'll make their day.

Cinnamon Roasted Almonds

I don't know about you, but I was pretty excited when the Packers won the Superbowl last night.  I mean, I guess I didn't really have a preference because the Seahawks didn't make it and the Lions will never make it, I just liked the Packers more than the Steelers.  However, now I am bedridden with some iconic form of the flu and thought "well, if I can't get out of bed, I might as well publish a blog post."  Ta da!

I've actually been doing a lot of cooking and baking recently, so be looking forward to some new recipes.  Right now I am uploading and editing photos from my camera and I forgot exactly how much food I made!  Quinoa salad, brownies, macarons… and the Superbowl food.  Oh dear, the Superbowl food.  As can be expected, I willingly volunteered to cook for the big game and did not take my task lightly.  I had been cooking since last Tuesday (making ahead as much as I could & freezing) and woke up early on Sunday (8am) to finish everything in time.

Now I feel like I'm leaving you all hanging by not posting a recipe from the Superbowl!  Alas, these cinnamon almonds are just as delicious and (hopefully) a little healthier.  When my roommate came home from Christmas break, she had a big bag of the cinnamon roasted almond you find at fairs, outside of Uwajimaya and the like.  I wanted what I couldn't have and instantly started craving almonds.  As luck would have it, I had a pound of almonds in the back of my pantry and about 3 jars of cinnamon - I was prepared.  When cooking these, make sure to stir the almonds regularly.  I found that it gives them the "crunch" that you find with more mass produced cinnamon almonds.

Greek Lentil Burgers

Many of you may not know that I took Modern Greek for two years in college.  That's right, I can totally remember everything.  Well, everything that includes the basic niceties, "I'm sorry," "where is the toilet?," how to order some food and I can probably curse on par with a Grecian sailor.  What can I say, my Greek professor taught me well!  Even though I can't remember the Greek language very well, I do remember how much I love Greek food.  If I pass a γύρο (gyro) stand, it's so hard to resist buying one.  Sometimes, I even wish I could bathe in τζατζίκι (tazatziki) sauce… I have a feeling it would at least be moisturizing!

Well, now that you know some of my intricacies, I should let you know that these lentil burgers probably aren't legitimate Greek fare.  I used the Moosewood Restaurant's Cooking For Health and these were 'inspired' by the taste of the Greek islands.  All is fine with me, because these were pretty dang delicious.  They were meaty, worked well plain or in a salad and stored well seemingly forever (they didn't last long enough my my fridge to validate this claim).  Best part?  These are incredibly budget friendly and fit well into my "eat something for a whole week" plan.

Hearty Lentil Soup

It's even better with Gruyère & Dubliner grilled cheese!  Mmm!

There is nothing worse than making a recipe… then completely forgetting what you did to make it.  All I have is this picture and a few remnants of taste memories in my mind.  Blerg.  I think it is enough to write a recipe on, I mean, lentil soup is lentil soup.  And I remember making it with only ingredients I had on hand, which means this soup is very adaptable.  At the time, I remember only having some onions, so I used onions.  However, if you have celery, carrots or even potatoes, feel free to add those in too!  The possibilities are endless!  Side note: why does lentil soup have to be so ugly and brown?  Is is SO delicious and SO healthy, but it's just so… brown.

This month I have really been trying to keep way under my budget (which isn't that large to begin with) so I started off by going to Whole Foods and completely raiding their dry and bulk food bins.  Five pounds of lentil in a bag bigger than my head?  Check.  Dried black beans, kidney beans and some white beans for good measure?  Check, check, check.  But let's not forget about the brown rice!  Double check on that one.  Oy, where is the check out?  I think you all know where I am going here… I have been making a lot of soups on Sunday and eating them through the week.  It really has been quite nice (until it gets to Friday and I am sick of eating the same thing) and I like being able to have a "home cooked meal" on Wednesday without having to lift anything more than a small saucepan to reheat my soup!

I also need to give some credit where credit is lovingly due, to my sister!  This not grainy and well lit photograph is sponsored by Santa Sister, i.e. my Christmas gift from my sister!  I would like to assume that my family follows my blog in a cult like fashion, and anyone else who does would know that I am frequently at a loss for light.  The shy Seattle sun sets mighty early in the winter (around 3 pm!) and as a result, I do most of my cooking after dark.  The lights of my kitchen or a harsh flash bouncing on every which wall of my apartment do not bode my food well.  So yes, pre-light box, I bitched about lighting a lot.  Now post-light box, I can take pictures any time of the night (I feel like an evil laugh would be appropriate here)!!  So thank you, Caroline, so very very much for giving me a light box for Christmas!  This post is solely dedicated to you!

Roasted Pear Rosemary Upside Down Cake

This cake impresses people.  When I went through the car wash and this cake was riding shotgun, the man taking my money said he'd take the cake in exchange.  Considering that shelling out $10 for just a car wash makes my stomach turn, I would have taken him up on his offer.  As luck would have it, I think he was kidding and I really wanted to savor some of the cake when I got home.

Cut to pre-Christmas.  My friend Ann & I got together to cook some dinner and wish each other a Merry Christmas before I left for Michigan.  That, and I honesty couldn't remember the last time we hung out so saying we were overdue is an understatement.  We made a chicken tajine, sautéed cauliflower and for dessert, you guessed it, this cake.  The rosemary contests nicely with the slightly more blunt flavor of cornmeal; I just couldn't stop thinking about it!  I was able to take a nice big wedge of it home with me and I knew I needed to make it as soon as I got back from Michigan.

If you'd be so kind to press fast-forward on your handy dandy remotes, we'll jump to the last night of 2010.  After working a long shift at work, I rushed home and immediately got to work on baking.  Julie was hosting the New Years Eve party and my sole job was to bring some bubbly and dessert.  Naturally I didn't plan well and left the baking to right before I needed to be at the party.  You really don't want to see me when I'm baking and simultaneously getting gussied up, it doesn't mix well.  My BCBG dress (that I got for $20 on ebay!!) made it out of that battle alive, but don't think that I didn't show up to the party without some rosemary in my hair or butter on my face.  I was in such a rush that I made my date take the bus to the party because I didn't have time to pick him up.  Erm… oops... At least I made one cake too many and was able to take the extra one home with me.  I didn't plan it like that or anything... I don't know what you're suggesting.

But this cake makes everything ok.  All was well when this cake enters the scene.  My only qualm with it, that is completely my fault, is that it doesn't work well with coarse ground cornmeal.  I found that out the hard way.  I realized I only had coarse ground on hand, semi-successfully tried to grind it finer in the blender and made it work as best I could.  I also didn't (but NOW I do!) have a cast-iron skillet so I used a 9-inch cake pan and it worked wonderfully.

This message is for my sister (but you can read it too if you want): Caroline, I wanted to let to know that my next three posts will be using the lightbox you got me for Christmas!  Keep an eye out for it!  Love, Sis