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Coffee-Glazed Molasses Bars

Coffee-Glazed Molasses Bars

  This is a delightful little snacking cake. It’s got all the flavors—molasses, allspice, cinnamon, ginger. Oh. espresso. It’s got espresso flavor, too. It is just the kind of flavor bomb you need to jolt you out of your late afternoon funk…or your just-outta-bed bleariness. …

A Really Good Mushroom Soup. Really!

A Really Good Mushroom Soup. Really!

This is the “little black dress” of mushroom soups. It’s basic. It’s elegant. It never disappoints. This recipe is from Deborah Madison’s cookbook Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen. You can order the book through your local bookstore or on Amazon here. It is a great…

Tangerine Trees, Marmalade Skies and a Truly Delicious Broccoli Forest Loaf

Tangerine Trees, Marmalade Skies and a Truly Delicious Broccoli Forest Loaf

Hetty McKinnon’s recipes usually delight my senses. This one caught my attention with it’s fanciful name. In fact, for some reason, this reminds me of the colorful imagery in the first stanza of  McCartney’s and Lennon’s Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. You remember those imaginative words. 

“Picture yourself in a boat on a river

With tangerine trees and marmalade skies

Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly

A girl with kaleidoscope eyes”

 

Surely, a proper broccoli forest would have fit right in among those tangerine trees and marmalade skies! 

So, here we are with colorful mind pictures and a very tasty recipe. 

This recipe is from Hetty McKinnon’s cookbook Tenderheart. You can order the cookbook through your local bookstore or buy on Amazon here.  The recipe also appears on the Epicurious site here.

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

Broccoli Forest Loaf

May 18, 2024
Ingredients
  • 1 small head of broccoli (trimmed and cut into large florets)
  • 1 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
  • 1 t. baking powder
  • 1/2 t. baking soda
  • 1/2 t. ground turmeric
  • 1/2 t. chile powder
  • 1 T. sugar
  • 1 1/2 C. grated cheddar (I used sharp white)
  • 1 bunch chives (chopped)
  • 1/3 C. chopped black olives
  • 1/2 C. extra-virgin olive oil
  • 3/4 C. sour cream
  • 1 large egg
Directions
  • Step 1 Parboil broccoli florets until they are crisp-tender (about 2-3 minutes). Remove from boiling water and immerse in ice water until the broccoli is totally cool. Drain and let the broccoli dry. Set aside.
  • Step 2 Prepare an 8 inch by 4 inch loaf pan by spraying it with cooking spray and then lining the pan with parchment. Let the parchment hang over the sides of the pan–giving you “handles” to remove the loaf from the pan after it is baked.
  • Step 3 Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, turmeric, chile powder and sugar together in a large bowl. Fold in cheddar, chives and chopped olives.  Set aside.
  • Step 4 In another bowl, whisk olive oil, sour cream and egg together until smooth. Fold the dry ingredients into this wet mixture.
  • Step 5 Spoon the thick batter into the prepared pan. Push broccoli florets into the batter. Bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hours.  (My loaf took a bit of extra time. Ovens, of course, may vary.) Your Broccoli Forest Loaf is done when the top is a pretty golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then remove the loaf from the pan (using the parchment handles) and cool on a rack until the loaf is totally cooled.
  • Step 6 Slice and serve.
A different kind of pancake:  Yellow Bean and Spinach Dosas

A different kind of pancake: Yellow Bean and Spinach Dosas

I grew up with the notion that pancakes needed to be sweet. You know, sweetened batters cooked on a grill, slathered with butter and drizzled with a generous glug of maple syrup. (Those were wonderful pancakes.) As my palate has matured and much to my…

Oldies But Goodies: Strawberry Pistachio Cake

Oldies But Goodies: Strawberry Pistachio Cake

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 perfect to celebrate spring and this year’s exceptional strawberry crop. This is a recipe for Strawberry-Pistachio Cake.…

Turkish White Beans

Turkish White Beans

These Turkish White Beans are wonderful—delicious and with a distinct Mediterranean flavor. 

This would be perfect for a plant-based main dish served with crusty bread and a green salad (maybe with feta?) or as part of a mezze assortment of dishes.

This recipe is from Yasmin Khan’s great cookbook, Ripe Figs. You can order her cookbook through your local bookstore or online through Amazon here.  Khan’s cookbook features the recipes of Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. 

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

Turkish White Beans

May 11, 2024
Ingredients
  • 9 ounces dried white beans (soaked overnight)
  • 3 T. extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 T. lemon juice
  • 1 1/2 garlic cloves (crushed)
  • Salt and black pepper
  • Sliced red onion (for garnish)
  • Aleppo pepper or sweet paprika (for garnish)
  • Chopped cilantro leaves (for garnish)
Directions
  • Step 1 Rinse soaked beans and drain. Put beans in a large pot and cover with water. Boil beans for 5 minutes and then lower the temperature to a simmer and cover. Cook beans until tender. This will take somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes depending upon the freshness of your beans. I used Rancho Gordo Marcella beans for this recipe.
  • Step 2 Once beans are tender, drain them and then, while the beans are still hot, add the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, 1 1/2 t. salt and 1/2 t. black pepper. Stir the beans to mix the dressing evenly into the beans and then let the beans sit for about 30 minutes to allow the flavors to marry. Adjust seasonings to your taste.
  • Step 3 Garnish beans with red onion, Aleppo pepper and chopped cilantro. Drizzle with a bit more olive oil to your taste.
Maple-Roasted Carrot Salad

Maple-Roasted Carrot Salad

This is a beauty! Having grown up in a household where a chopped iceberg lettuce salad (with Wishbone Italian dressing) was the only game in town, I have always sought out beauty and variety on the salad plate in my adulthood.  This Ina Garten salad…

Bouchons au Chocolat

Bouchons au Chocolat

I don’t know about you, but corks don’t sound all that appetizing to me. Nevertheless, these chocholaty treats, Bouchons au Chocolat,  are basically called “little corks.”  This Bouchon au Chocolat recipe is from Aleksandra Crapanzano’s wonderful cookbook Gateau: The Suprising Simplicity of French Cakes. Crapanzano…

Oldies But Goodies: Italian Chickpeas With Pesto

Oldies But Goodies: Italian Chickpeas With Pesto

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 perfect to celebrate spring. It’s a recipe for Italian Chickpeas With Pesto.

You don’t want to miss this great recipe…again.

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.

It’s all in the sauce: Indian Butter Chickpeas

It’s all in the sauce: Indian Butter Chickpeas

Having enjoyed perhaps more than my fair share of wonderful Indian butter masala (makhani) recipes, I’m a tough critic of “butter” recipes. From the original Moti Mahal restaurant in Old Delhi (which claims to have invented the dish)  to the scruffy airport restaurant in Bagdogra,…