Pumpkin Muffins

So I know I made these in the completely wrong season, but I had a huge can of pumpkin puree in the fridge, because I had to feed a couple spoonfuls of it to Henry to end his bout of constipation. I was originally saving the can for pumpkin pie time in a couple of months, but since it was open and I didn’t want to waste it, I thought I’d make some muffins.

I found this recipe from my new favorite site, Recipe Zaar. It’s pretty simple, that’s why I think these turned out so well - there were no fancy ingredients or methods involved, just plain old pumpkin muffins.

A lot of people don’t line their tins with anything, because the cups are usually reserved for cupcakes, but I like to line them anyway. I’d love to use parchment paper to create the cups, like the muffins I’ve seen at Starbucks.

Ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg - all my favorite spices in one.

Overall, they turned out great. They were moist and bounced back and they baked through really well too. I will probably try this recipe out with whole wheat flour, less sugar and maybe some walnuts next time.

Lazy Sunday Baking: Chocolate Cake

My Sunday was spent as Sundays always should be: doing a whole lotta nothing, a little bit of baking and a good amount of relaxing with Henry, the little heartbeat at my feet. From what I can tell, he’s recovering well from his luxating patella surgery. He takes antibiotic twice a day, and pain medication once a day. He’s eating well and can move around on his bandaged legs. On Thursday, he has an appointment back at the vet to remove his bandages. I’m a bit terrified about that, because of the staples in his legs. I’d rather they just leave the bandages on until he fully recovers, but I know that’s not possible.

I was asked to bake a cake for an office birthday and if you know me, you know that I can never turn down an offer to bake. It took a long time for me to decide on one I liked. Once again, the recipe came from RecipeZaar. I looked at one of my favorite sites, Epicurious first, but they really had nothing I was looking for. The recipes I’ve found there have been disappointing me lately. The recipe, Amazing Solan Family Chocolate Cake, was just what I was looking for. This recipe was particularly unique because it is a Swedish cake recipe that contains no milk or eggs and is low-fat. The recipe did have a warning on it to make bundt pan extra greasy, as it was a sticky cake, and even though I did make sure it was well greased, it was such a delicate cake that a part of it became a bit crumbled.

I put some glaze on top of it and this is how it turned out…

I might garnish it with some strawberries before I take it in. Although I would have liked it to look better, I have a feeling the taste will make up for the looks. This is definitely a recipe I would make again, I’m sure the cake tastes amazing on its own, without the glaze.

Edible Gardening

My spinach and tomato plants from almost a month ago have blossomed and grown more than I ever expected them to. I hope to plant more, as this was just a test run to make sure I’m not a plant-killer. I absolutely love the idea of being able to grow my own fruits and vegetables to eat. I’d churn my own butter if I could and sew my own clothes and spin yarn out of alpaca fur. Maybe I was Amish in another life, I’m not sure. I could watch For Richer or Poorer any day of the week.

Oat Flour Apple Walnut Muffins

I had a very tiring and depressing weekend of sorts, with going to the vet and finding out Henry needs surgery very soon and just trying to deal with this perpetual God forsaken heat in Los Angeles. I thought I’d bake, to calm down my nerves and also so that if someone asked me what I did on the weekend, I can say, “I baked!” Instead of, I took my dog that I love more than life itself to the vet, only to find out he needs surgery on both his knees. Before I had gone to Montreal, I bought some oat flour because I had kept hearing good things about it.

Oat flour is basically what you think it is: flour made from ground oats. It doesn’t have any gluten in it, which makes it hard for the dough to hold together well or rise. I had read to not use it alone, but to combine it with other types of flour because of its drawbacks, but considering what I made came out tasting pretty good, using it alone can be done.

I searched high and low for oat flour recipes online and was more or less disappointed with what I found. I knew I wanted to make muffins, but didn’t know what kind. All the recipes I found called for dates or raisins, and I wanted to use apples or banana, so this was quite disheartening. Plus, they were all for only 1/2 dozen muffins. So I decided to create my own recipe and I was pretty happy with my results.

I used a Ginger Gold apple, which is known to be good for pies, sauces and baking.

I also used Arrowhead Mills Organic Oat Flour. It can be mixed with regular white flour, however if you’re following a gluten-free diet, you can mix it with buckwheat flour.

Walnuts, cinnamon and cloves complemented the apple, and a couple tablespoons of molasses and honey gave it a boost of color and sweetness.

Oat Flour Apple Walnut Muffins

2/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons vinegar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons molasses
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups oat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground clove

1. Combine wet ingredients (milk, vinegar, oil, honey molasses) along with salt and mix until smooth.

2. Add oat flour, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves to wet ingredients. Stir until smooth.

3. Fold in apples and walnuts.

3. Oil muffin cups and divide batter evenly among them. At this point, deciding how much to fill each one is up to you, as oat flour does not rise like normal flour does.

4. Bake at 400° for about 16 minutes, or until lightly browned.

5. Turn over muffin cups on counter or in a towel until muffins dislodge from cups. Dust lightly with confectioner’s sugar and serve!

Yields: 12 muffins

Montreal: Version Restaurant

Old Montreal, otherwise known as Vieux Montreal to locals and the French, is a charming little area of the city that carries with it quite a European flare. The cobble stone streets, boutique shops and location next to the St. Lawrence River make it a premiere attraction for any sightseer visiting Montreal. On Rue St. Paul Est sits Version Restaurant and Boutique, a restaurant tucked away from all the hustle and bustle of the main street, where except for the fabulous restaurant, Jardin Nelson, a decent meal is hard to find.

Version Restaurant is the epitome of minimalistic modern style. Their dishes they serve their food in is a testament to that. With white ceramic, geometrically shaped oblong plates, your dining experience will be enhanced by more than just the food. I didn’t know this at the time, but Version Restaurant is also a boutique, where you can buy pretty much everything, from the silverware to the tables, chairs and trinkets.

On that particular night, it was hot so everyone including us decided to sit outside. We ordered sangria first, which our server told us was ‘homemade.’ Alcohol is usually not a part of my food pyramid. I don’t actively seek it out and when I do, it must be a drink in where I can only taste a hint of alcohol. This is why sangria is one of my favorites. It’s just like fruit juice with a hint of wine.

Let me tell you, this sangria is one of the best I’ve had in my life. The little fruit shish kabobs on top were delicious as well. If we had known they were $12 a glass, we probably wouldn’t have ordered them. But were on vacation, in Montreal, so we let it slide.

After drinks, we had a light dinner consisting of a vegetarian tapas platter, with four dishes that looked more like art than food. Unfortunately, their website doesn’t have all their dishes listed and that sangria probably impaired my memory to remember what they were. We also had a really great mixed green salad and my favorite: a cheese, grape and almond platter. In my opinion, there is no better dinner then some cheese, grapes and dry cracked bread. A bit of sangria doesn’t hurt either.

We rarely order dessert, but we thought we would anyway. When you’re on vacation, you’re allowed to do certain things you wouldn’t normally do without feeling guilty, like spending more money than usual while shopping and eating ridiculously overpriced meals. Dessert was eaten without much guilt - what a concept! Of course, I never really feel guilty about eating perhaps my favorite dessert, creme bruleé, probably because I rarely eat it.

Version had the queen of creme bruleés, a dish divided into four kinds of the decadent dish, including a maple version and three others that I again, can’t remember and they don’t have listed anywhere on their site. Take my word for it, it was delish.

By the time we had finished eating, it was almost completely dark. When I looked around, I noticed that there were people there who had been enjoying their meals earlier than us. Version Restaurant has the kind of atmosphere that makes it hard for you to get up and leave. You just want to stay there and pretend that you were served amazing meals with amazing drinks at home. Next time you’re in Vieux Montreal and you’re looking for a place to eat, don’t go for the obvious. Take some left and right turns, because the best treasures are the ones that are hidden, like Version Restaurant.

Version Restaurant
295, East St-Paul St.
Montreal, Canada
H2Y 1H1
(514) 871-9135

Montreal: Nocochi

On the corner of Rue Sherbrooke and Mackay in Montreal, sits a quaint patiserrie and cafe called Nocochi. Nocochi, owned by Shahnaz Bagherzadeh is known for it’s homemade Persian-influenced pastries. In fact, “Nocochi,”(Nokhodchi) means “chickpea” in Persian.

Whenever we travel, we always look for tea houses. When we were in Rome, we fell in love with oh-so-calming, but expensive Babington’s Tea Shop at the Piazza di Spagna and in New York, we finally sought out the coveted Teany cafe, co-owned by one of my favorite people on Earth, Moby, and his now ex-girlfriend Kelly Tisdale. I believe Moby gave ownership of the entire cafe to Tisdale recently.

In this case, we were just looking for a great place to eat on our walk back to our hotel, when we came upon Nocochi. The minute we walked in, I absolutely fell in love. The bite-sized Persian pastries, with their unique flavors and textures brought memories back. Though they haven’t lately, my parents always used to buy the packaged versions of many of the pastries that were behind the glass.

The decor of Nocochi is very modern and simple. White tables and chairs that have IKEA written all over them sit on a white tiled floor across the cafe. Prints mounted on the wall feature closeup versions of their pastries along with vases, that are also filled with whimsical colored sweets. Two section of seating area feature a white quilted couch with single color pillows lined against them. The window panes feature Iranian inspired tea sets and tea cups for passerbys to admire as they make their way down Mackay.

Nocochi’s love of coffee brand Illy is evident, from the beverages they serve to the mugs they serve them in. Either way, I didn’t care. I wasn’t there to drink coffee. Tea is what I’m always after.

The sales associates/baristas wear black with muted baby blue aprons. All of them speak English, and quite well.

We were feeling a bit hungry, so we decided to order some food. In addition to selling pastries and serving tea, Nocochi is a full service cafe with a great selection of food. I ordered a tuna melt and Keeg ordered a mushroom pizza.

As Keeg says, it was absolutely del-eesh-oos! The tuna melt was on pita type bread, which I love and the mushroom pizza had the perfect sauce to bread to mushroom ratio. We had apple juice with our meals and we thought we were really full, until we realized that we wanted tea. What else is new?

The afternoon tea menu at Nocochi is available from 2:30 to 6 p.m., while breakfast is available 8 to 11:30 a.m. I got the chai spice tea with cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and vanilla bean. Keeg got Earl Grey Cremé with bergamot, cornflower and vanilla.

The tea was brought out loose in individual tea pots and let me tell you, it was so good. It had started raining that day while we were walking and by the time we had gotten to Nocochi, we were pretty drenched. The tea (and the lunch) made everything better. After one cup, we switched tea pots and the Earl Grey Cremé was just as good as the Chai Spice.

While we were there, the patiserrie received shipments with Vivel written on the boxes and Farsi written underneath. I was so intrigued, that when I got home, I did a bit of research and found out that Vivel is the company that Bagherzadeh owns which makes the pastries and supplies them to her boutiques, with Nocochi being the only one in the Western hemisphere. They have 4 stores in the United Arab Emirates and also franchise stores in Dammam and Khobar Saudi Arabia.

Nocochi is unique in that it is the only store I believe that operates under a different name than Vivel and has Swiss chef Jean-Daniel, who brings with him 25 years of experience in the hotel and restaurant industry.

Nocochi Cafe Patisserie
2156 Mackay Street
Corner of Sherbrooke and Mackay
(514) 989-7514

A Day at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market

Next to swap meets, attending farmer’s markets is one of my favorite ways of spending time. To me, there’s nothing more exciting than picking your own fresh and organic vegetables and fruits that were grown nearby. It’s nice seeing the faces of the people who plant, maintain and harvest crop that I later eat. Nothing is better than getting food from a farmer’s market, except baking and cooking with it. Now that takes the cake, no pun intended.

I work literally steps away from the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market that takes place every Wednesday morning and afternoon on 2nd Street. There were times when I used to go every single week, but I hadn’t been in a while, so when this Wednesday rolled around, I was really excited.

In addition to picking up fresh produce, you also learn what fruit and vegetables come into season at which time during the year. If you chat up the sellers, you can even learn some recipes or two. It’s a great way to spend at least some of your morning and definitely gives me a break from office life.

Carrots are definitely available year round, however they grow best when planted in early Spring. They are one of my favorite vegetable, although I will be the first to admit that I don’t eat them enough. Holtville, which is located in California’s Imperial Valley touts itself as the “Carrot Capitol of the World.” They even have an entire festival devoted to the vegetable.

Oh peaches. What can I say about that hasn’t been already said? You’re lovely and I think you know it. You’re a food fit for the Gods. Are you feeling tired and listless on an unbearable hot Summer day? Just take a bite out of a ripe, juicy peach. You’ll instantly feel better. I swear. At this point you might be thinking, those aren’t peaches, they’re nectarines! Not so fast. Nectarines are actually smooth, fuzzless peaches, for your information.

I tasted a couple samples that happened to come from Regier Family Farms. As God is my witness right now, they were perhaps, the BEST fruit I have ever tasted in my life. I mean at that moment, candy did not exist for me, because I was in love with nature’s candy: peaches from Regier Family Farms. I ran out of cash when I came upon them, but when I go back again, rest assured I will be stocking up. My mouth is totally watering just thinking about them.

Have you ever tasted fresh walnuts? I’m not talking about the kind you buy in a bag from the grocery store. I’m talking about the ones above. The ones you get to crack open yourself. They are heavenly. And they make all the difference in a recipe that calls for walnuts. Fresh walnuts are juicy and soft and so much more delightful to eat than regular walnuts. Plus, cracking them is so much fun, especially around the holidays.

Don’t they look beautiful? There’s a Salmonella scare currently going on, and California is one of the 30 states where cases have been reported, but I don’t think buying locally will put you at risk. Plus, I think the number of people affected references tomatoes from other places, not California. Salmonella or not, these look so amazingly good.

Olive you! I never used to like olives when I was younger, but that goes along with most things. I was never a fan of broccoli or spinach. Now I love them. Having olives with some Feta cheese and dry cracked bread sounds so good right now.

Cherries are in season! Although I do love cherries, they’re very iffy for me. They have to be really firm for me to be able to revel in them, like I do peaches.

Have I told you how much I love figs? Oh I love them. I love them fresh and made into jam and with tea. My mom usually makes a huge batch of fig jam (with whole figs intact). I could live off it. I don’t know with what intention I bought these. It’s a bit early for fig season, so I’m hoping these taste good. I looked up some recipes recently and I found some good ones, including one for fig muffins. If I don’t do anything with them, they’re being handed over to my mom for some delicious jam.

I have to say that I love asparagus, even though it makes your pee smell funny. They are so good on their own, with a little lemon sauce or as part of a dish. If there is any vegetable I’d love to grow, it would be asparagus.

This goat milk feta is from the award winning Redwood Hill Farm. Let me just say, that you haven’t tasted cheese until you taste some of the many varieties of goat cheese that Redwood Hill Farm has. In addition to feta, there is fresh chevre, camellia, California crottin and bucheret. If you are a cheese aficionado, this is the place for you. They also have tons of recipes on their site, including one for ‘goat cheese creme brulee. Wow.
If you ever get a chance to attend the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market on 2nd street, you really should.  It will be hard for you walk away without something in hand.

Almost Tortuga Rum Cake

It seems that every Saturday, I develop a greater desire to bake than any other day. This is probably due to the fact that I’ve spent the greater part of the day relaxing, doing nothing and de-stressing. I got around to looking at recipes last night to see what kind of concoction I will make this time around and it occurred to me that I had been thinking of rum cake all week long. I set off to Epicurious to find a recipe, however, my search didn’t yield and desirable results, so I headed off to the next best thing, Google.

I searched for “rum cake” and amidst all the results, I found one from Recipe Zaar entitled “Almost Tortuga Rum Cake.” Oh how the memories came flowing back to me. The first time I ever lay eyes on Tortuga Rum Cake, a food fit for the Gods, was when Nat returned from The Cayman Islands, cake in hand. “This is the best thing you’ll ever taste,” she told me. I had my doubts, as at 16, I didn’t think anything that combined cake and alcohol as ingredients could ever taste good.

Oh was I wrong. I was so wrong. One bite and I was hooked. The cake melted in my mouth, the essence of the rum dancing around on my tongue. It was the best thing I had tasted. After that, me and Nat forgot about rum cake for years, as it was sold exclusively in the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Barbados. We could have it shipped to the U.S., but the cost and the hassle was just a bit too much for two teenagers.

So last Saturday, I had my eyes set upon making this luxurious cake, that is, if I already had all of the ingredients. It was 9 p.m. and I was not about to go down to the super market to buy missing pieces of my rum cake puzzle. Miraculously, I happened to have it all, even the vanilla pudding mix the recipe called for ( I used French vanilla, I don’t think it makes too big a difference, if anything it made it better). The real hunt came for the rum. I need whaler vanille rum, otherwise known as Hawaiian style rum. What I found instead of Bacardi Puerto Rican Rum. I had my doubts, but when I took a whiff, it smelled more or less like Tortuga Rum Cake. Thank God for ingredient substitutes, as the recipe called for cake flour and I only had regular flour. Turns out you can substitute about a quarter of corn starch in with regular flour (for a 2 cup measurement) to make cake flour, which means I used 1/4 cup corn start and 1 3/4 cups flour.

So I set off to make my rum cake. And let me tell you, it might be the creation I am most proud of to date.

Although nothing can ever beat the taste of Tortuga, this almost takes the cake.

Adventures In Middle Eastern Supermarkets: Say What You See

Special deals on ploms and brocully this week. Check back next week, when pares, q-cumbors and onyons go on sale.