Author Archives: Zoli

Dark chocolate done two, yes, two ways!

15 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in comfort food, dessert, kids, kids lunchbox ideas

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banana bread, brownies

Are you like me? Do you ever wake up somewhat refreshed on a Sunday morning, snuggled under the duvet, thinking about all the things you want/need to get done (such as clean, fix, paint, wash, fold, shop) and then spend like two hours drinking coffee and looking at pinterest on your iphone while your kids play video games?

Well, anyway, that’s what I did this morning. But it was soooo nice. To do… nothing. And then, as there was just the slightest crisp to the air I decided to drink a third cup of coffee and bake. I had two sticks of butter, half a tub of mascarpone, old bananas and a butt-load of dark chocolate.

First up, this recipe for dark chocolate and mascarpone brownies I found on theKitchn. They are good, if a little more like a cake then a brownie. I had no cocoa powder left so I added in extra dark chocolate (4 oz instead of 3 oz), as well as some ground almonds so perhaps that altered the texture. The kids la la loved them! Oh yeah, and I skipped the ganache part. I just can’t put frosting on brownies, even if it’s homemade ganache. It’s like putting frosting on fudge.

While the brownies were baking, I tackled some dark chocolate banana cake. This was the first time I made banana cake without a recipe, so in a way, it’s my own recipe. Also, I had no butter left so I had to improvise. This came out moist, fluffy and purrrfect for an early Autumn day.

Dark chocolate, almond and olive oil banana cake

3/4 cup greek yogurt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3 bananas or 2 large bananas
1 1/2 cups whole wheat or white wheat flour
1/2 cup ground almonds or almond meal
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbs honey
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 to 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
chopped dark chocolate to taste

1. Mix all the wet ingredients together
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together and incorporate. Start with 1 cup of wheat flour and add in the other 1/2 cup if necessary. The batter should be like a cake batter, not thick like a banana bread batter.
3. Pour into a bread tin or a cake tin lined with parchment paper.
3. Bake on the middle oven rack for 40 min to an hour on 325/350 F oven. Prick with a fork and when it comes away dry, it is ready.

banana bread, brownies

Fresh enchilada sauce… Who knew it was this easy?

13 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in quick and awesome, tex mex, the basics, tomato sauce, Vegetarian

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tomatoes for enchilada sauce

Fresh enchilada sauce. Who knew it was this easy?! Well, I did. But only after I read about it on the Mija Chronicles food blog. I make this any and every time I want enchilada sauce. ** Except that I frequently use a can of tomatoes as I don’t always have enough fresh ones to hand.

I recently made fresh tomato sauce with some extremely ripe tomatoes from the farmers market. Phew! No good food gone to waste. But shortly thereafter, what should appear but five more overripe, on-their-way-out, juicy red tomatoes. Am I not eating enough salad? Didn’t I just buy these guys?

Fresh enchilada sauce:

Ripe tomatoes (or a large can of unsalted tomatoes)
3-6 cloves garlic (about 3 cloves for every five tomatoes)
fresh jalapenos–I was out, so used the jar version
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

1. Chop the tomatoes roughly and toss them in the blender. You should peel and deseed them for perfect sauce. ** I HARDLY EVER do this on a week night. I usually chuck it all in, skins and seeds and all.

2. Roughly chop a few cloves of garlic and a deseeded jalapeno. Add as much jalapeno as you like for mild or spicy sauce. If you are unsure, start with less. You can add more spice but you can’t take it away.

3. Add the garlic and jalapeno to the tomatoes in the blender and blitz. You now have a strawberry-colored tomato pulpy mess that smells fantastic.

fresh enchilada sauce

4. Heat up a heavy frying pan with a generous glug of olive oil. When oil is hot pour in the blitzed tomato mix, heat till it’s nice and bubbly and then turn the heat down to simmer and cover. In a sense, you are frying or sautéing the sauce.

5. Cook this until it turns from the pale pink color to a deep red. About 20 min. Add in salt and pepper to taste.

I used mine for some kale and three-cheese enchiladas, which I will post about soon.

enchilada sauce