Food, Photography and Bons Mots

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Mediterranean Greens and Phyllo Pie
October 19, 2024

Mediterranean Greens and Phyllo Pie

Need a delicious way to eat your greens?  This Mediterranean Greens and Phyllo Pie is just what your need. This recipe makes a large pie and, with a little reheating in the oven to crisp the phyllo layers, lasts for days.  This recipe is from…

Appetizer, Main Dishes, Spinach, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Tahini and Honey Banana Bread
October 15, 2024

Tahini and Honey Banana Bread

Bored with all the traditional recipes for banana bread? Here is a unique variation on the traditional banana bread recipe—one replete with optional (and tasty) Middle Eastern vibes.  (If you are a banana bread traditionalist, don’t pass this recipe up because of the perhaps-unfamiliar Middle…

Bananas, Breads, Desserts, Vegetarian
Carrots and Birthdays
October 11, 2024

Carrots and Birthdays

It’s our birthday!

Blue Cayenne is nine years old.

Our first post was on October 6, 2015. Here we are more than six hundred  posts later still cooking and writing and photographing. Who knew? We certainly didn’t. Neither I nor my ever faithful Chief Quality Officer, Sweet Juliet,  expected that we would still be publishing nine years later.

Blue Cayenne is a personal blog—a vanity project in every sense of the word.  We don’t sell products. We don’t sell subscriptions. We just exist for the love of cooking and baking and writing and sharing…and, in the often elusive hope of learning to be a better photographer.

This recipe is from Marcia Clark’s Dinner In One cookbook. You can buy the cookbook through your local bookstore or on Amazon here.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.

Thank you for reading Blue Cayenne. Thank you for your support and encouragement.

Caramelized Carrots With Olives and Crispy Parmesan

October 11, 2024
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Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 pounds carrots (peeled and sliced lengthwise)
  • 1/3 C. green olives (pitted, crushed and chopped)
  • 1 large garlic clove (minced)
  • 1 1/2 T fresh lemon juice
  • 1/8 t. crushed red pepper flakes (or to taste)
  • 6 T. olive oil
  • 1/2 t. kosher salt
  • 3/4 t. cumin seeds
  • 1/2 C. shredded Parmesan cheese
  • 1/4 C. chopped fresh mint or basil (for garnish)
Directions
  • Step 1 Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. and line a baking sheet with parchment.
  • Step 2 Peel and slice carrots.
  • Step 3 Prepare dressing for carrots. Combine olives, garlic, lemon juice, red pepper flakes, and a generous pinch of salt. Whisk, adding 4 T. olive oil. Set aside.
  • Step 4 Place the carrots on the baking sheet you’ve covered with parchment. Toss the carrots with 2 T. extra-virgin olive oil and salt. Arrange carrots in a single layer. Bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees F.
  • Step 5 Remove carrots from the oven and toss with cumin seeds. Sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese over the carrots. Bake for another 15 to 20 minutes. You want the carrots to be tender. The Parmesan will bake to a nice light brown crunchy texture.
  • Step 6 Remove the carrots from the oven. Arrange artfully on a serving dish. Drizzle the olive oil dressing evenly over the carrots while the carrots are still hot. Garnish with chopped mint.
Carrots, Side Dishes, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Rustic Turkish Lentil Soup With Sizzling Mint Butter
September 30, 2024

Rustic Turkish Lentil Soup With Sizzling Mint Butter

  This started out as a recipe post. Sadly, it has become a eulogy to a gifted chef.  Greg Malouf has died.  He and his former wife, food writer Lucy Malouf, did much to introduce the western world to the delights and subtleties of  Middle…

Soups, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Oldies But Goodies: Double Chocolate Banana Muffins
September 15, 2024

Oldies But Goodies: Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.” Today’s Oldie But Goodie recipe is for Double Chocolate Banana Muffins–a perfect breakfast muffin as we slip into Fall. You will find the…

Bananas, Breads, Breakfast Dishes, Vegetarian
Summer’s Kiss: Plum and Rose Pie Bars With Almonds
September 14, 2024

Summer’s Kiss: Plum and Rose Pie Bars With Almonds

As you know if you read this blog, I love plums.

I asked ChatGPT to write a haiku about plums.

Here it is. 

Crimson orbs of joy,
sweet tang dances on my tongue—
summer’s kiss in fruit.

Summer’s kiss. What a beautiful metaphor capturing the delight of biting into a red, juicy, tart plum. Maybe ChatGPT isn’t soulless after all. (OK. I’m just kidding about that last part–the soulless part.) 

Because I love plums so much you can find a number of plum recipes here on Blue Cayenne. Just type plums into the search bar and you will find a collection of plum recipes. Here is a particularly great one,  Ina Garten’s Plum Tart: Plum Tart.

 

This recipe is from Samantha Seneviratne’s cookbook Bake Smart. You can buy this book through your local bookstore or on Amazon here. 

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

 

Plum and Rose Pie Bars With Almonds

September 14, 2024
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Ingredients
  • For the Crust:
  • 14 T. unsalted butter (cold, cut into pieces)
  • 3/4 C. almonds (sliced)
  • 1/2 C. brown sugar (dark)
  • 2 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 t. baking powder
  • 3/4 t. kosher salt
  • 1 large egg
  • For the Jam:
  • 6 small red plums (pitted and chopped)
  • 1/2 C. granulated sugar
  • 1 T. cornstarch
  • 1 1/2 t. fresh lemon juice
  • 2 t. rose water
Directions
  • Step 1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  • Step 2 Prepare a square 8 or 9 inch baking pan by greasing it (or spraying it with cooking spray and lining the pan with parchment paper. Cut the parchment paper larger than the pan and let it hang over two sides of the pan. This will give you handles to use to lift the cake out of the pan when it is baked.
  • Step 3 To prepare the crust, use your food processor to process the almonds and the brown sugar. You want the almonds to be finely ground.
  • Step 4 Add the flour, baking powder and salt to the almond mixture and pulse to combine. Then, add butter chunks and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse to combine. Add the egg and pulse to combine. The mixture you will have made will be crumbly. Press about 2/3 of this mixture into the prepared pan creating an even layer. Put this into the refrigerator while you are preparing the jam.
  • Step 5 When you are ready to proceed, bake the crust for about half an hour until it is golden brown.
  • Step 6 To make the jam, prepare plums and combine them with sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Heat the mixture until it is bubbling and cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes. You want the plum jam to have thickened at bit. Cook longer if you need to to thicken the jam. Once the jam has thickened, remove it from the heat and stir in the fresh lemon juice and rose water. Allow jam to cool a bit.
  • Step 7 Spread the jam (about 1 1/2 C.) over the baked crust. Scatter the remaining crumb mixture over the top of the jam. Bake for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack before removing the bars (using the parchment handles) from the pan and slicing.
Desserts, Plums, Vegetarian
Sweet and Sour Tofu With Corn
September 12, 2024

Sweet and Sour Tofu With Corn

  This Sweet and Sour Tofu With Corn is a wonderful Asian-inspired tofu recipe.  Preparation is pretty fast, too—perfect for a lazy end-of-summer meal. It’s beautiful, too.  Curious about tofu? Tofu was first produced in China more than 2000 years ago, probably as a happy…

Tofu, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Buttermilk Biscuits With Strawberries and Cream
August 28, 2024

Buttermilk Biscuits With Strawberries and Cream

Love biscuits? This crisp-tender sweet biscuit is a perfect base for those oh-so-wonderful end-of-the-season (have I used enough hyphens here?) strawberries in our farmer’s markets right now.   This recipe is from Stella Park’s extraordinary cookbook BraveTart. You can order this great cookbook through your local…

Breads, Desserts, Strawberries, Vegetarian
Oldies But Goodies: Buttermilk Molasses Quick Bread
August 23, 2024

Oldies But Goodies: Buttermilk Molasses Quick Bread

Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.” Today’s Oldie But Goodie recipe is for Buttermilk Molasses Quick Bread, a bread that would be just right as the base for some of those too-hot-to-cook recipes you need right now. You’ll find the recipe here.

Want to dive deeper into our recipe archive? Just click one of the categories at the top of this page or use the category search drop down menu on the right side of this page.

And…here is a link to Blue Cayenne’s main page: Blue Cayenne..If you are in the mood to cook (or eat!), we hope you will take a moment to look at the many excellent recipes we have featured.

 

 

Breads, Oldies But Goodies, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Honey Cake: It’s a Honey of A Cake and Juliet is a Honey of a Pup
August 18, 2024

Honey Cake: It’s a Honey of A Cake and Juliet is a Honey of a Pup

If you read this blog, you’ve met our CQO-OT (Chief Quality Officer and Official Taster), Juliet, many times before. Juliet is a 7-pound rescue Yorkie who brightens everything about our world here at Blue Cayenne. Last week, King Arthur Baking’s Facebook page featured a post…

Cakes, Desserts, Juliet, Vegetarian

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