Blue Cayenne

Do you love pistachios?

Do you love a decadent cake?

If you’ve answered “yes” to both of these questions, this is the cake for you. 

Plus, if you love food trivia, here is a bit of pistachio trivia to regale your friends when you serve them a slice of this delicious cake. Pistachios are fruits. (Who knew?) They are a “drupe”–a member of the same fruit family as raspberries, peaches and olives.

This recipe is from the cookbook Skinny Taste Simple and is available online on The Splendid Table site (Flourless Pistachio Cake). You can buy the cookbook through your local bookstore or online from Amazon here.

Here is the recipe for the cake as I prepared it in my kitchen. It is special enough to be served to guests. (It would be great served with a scoop of quality French vanilla ice cream!) At the same time, it is simple enough to serve as a snack or even a breakfast pastry. Personally,  I can attest to this after numerous taste testings of this cake! It just keeps drawing you back to the kitchen for one (or two or three) more bite.

I pretty much adore lentils–especially the delicate earthy-flavored red/orange ones. 

I can’t remember where I had my first taste of lentils. I’m sure it was after I was an adult. I’m thinking it was probably in India when our guide, Krishan, took us into his home to share a meal.  There, I remember marveling at his wife’s seemingly-never ending collection of jars filled with colorful pulses (lentils, beans and peas) displayed on her counter. Later, I remember seeing women sitting on the roadside in the Indian countryside deftly maneuvering  large round wicker baskets so as to  toss freshly-grown lentils into the air to winnow out the stones.   

Lentil dishes abound there and have for centuries. Food historians believe they were one of the world’s earliest domesticated crops.

The little disk-shaped legumes didn’t become popular here until World War II when they were an economic and high-protein meat substitute. Today, most American lentil production is centered in the Pacific Northwest. 

Lentils are very good for you, with some calling them “the world’s oldest health food.” A half cup of lentils packs 12 grams of protein and 9 grams of fiber into a scant 140 calories!

This Red Lentil and Butternut Squash Soup With Coconut Milk is a Melissa Clark recipe from her great cookbook, Dinner–Changing the Game. The cookbook is available through your local bookstore or on Amazon here.

This soup is delicious, non-dairy and full of heathy ingredients. In Clark’s version, you can add optional fresh baby spinach to ramp its healthy credentials. 

Here is the soup as I prepared (and enjoyed) it in my kitchen.  (You can find a number of other great lentil recipes on Blue Cayenne. Just type “lentils” into the search box on this page.)

I’ve finally found it.

I’ve been on a life-long quest to find restaurant-quality red and green chile sauces for tacos, enchiladas and all manner of Mexican food delights.

Like so many things in life, this recipe discovery came unexpectedly while I was chasing another recipe (for tamales).

As you know if you read Blue Cayenne, my friend Sarah and I have been partying with our own two-person tamaladas for several years. A class at our local Costa Mesa Sur La Table gave us the self-confidence to believe we could actually succeed as tamaleras. But, alas, while the tamale was a success the sauce was a challenge.

For this season’s tamalada, I picked up a little book titled Tamales 101 by Alice Guadalupe Tapp. (This book is available at your local bookstore or on Amazon here.) The book is full of interesting variations on tamales from traditional green chile and cheese ones to grilled jalapeno corundas made with a spicy jalapeno and tomato masa and no filling at all.

Tucked into the beginning of the little book there is a section on sauces and that is where I found these two wonderful sauces: Salsa Verde Sauce and Red Pork Chile Sauce (with no pork in the ingredients). They are thick and flavorful and perfect to sauce your next Mexican dishes.

Here is the recipe for the Salsa Verde as I prepared it in my kitchen. The recipe is easy. The magic in this sauce seems to be getting the right proportions of ingredients. I will post the red sauce recipe in another post.