Pomegranate Molasses Butter Cake

First, pomegranate molasses is readily available. You can do this. Second, this butter cake is absolutely delicious. I don’t have the words… I discovered pomegranate molasses some time ago. I shop at a local Jons International Marketplace and they have not one but several brands…

Cakes, Fruit, Middle Eastern, Vegetarian

March 30, 2018

One a penny, two a penny: Hot Cross Buns

Happy spring! Who doesn’t love warm-from-the-oven rolls on a pretty spring day? Make them hot cross buns warm from the oven and slathered with cardamom-scented frosting and you are sure to swoon. Some food historians tell us that the first hot cross buns were…

Breads, Vegetarian

March 24, 2018

Eat Your Greens: Provencal Greens Soup

I was recently at a restaurant in downtown Santa Ana where I foolishly let myself be talked into ordering the house’s kale salad. I’m usually a hard sell when it comes to kale, but I liked the young waitress’ enthusiasm as she assured me that no one had ever disliked the salad–even kale haters. You can guess how that turned out. <sigh> I’m ever the outlier.

I struggle to eat healthy leafy greens–particularly the dark and the bitter ones, but, in January, Neurology Magazine published a piece that caught my attention. The magazine cited a study that found that people who eat one serving of leafy greens each day (1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw) experience significantly slower cognitive decline as they age, picking up as much as an eleven year advantage over their peers who don’t eat greens.

There is a lot of other positive news out there about green leafy vegetables, too. A 2016 study in Australia showed that leafy greens promote digestive health. Other studies credit green leafy vegetables with improving the body’s ability to burn fat, improving cardiovascular health, regulating glucose, lowering cholesterol and triglycerides, lowering blood pressure and on and on. They even supply your body with a natural sunscreen.

Here is a great (and easy!) Provencal Greens soup recipe that will make eating your greens a piece of cake.

This recipe is adapted from one in Martha Rose Shulman’s cookbook, The Very Best of Recipes for Health. The book was published in 2010 but you can still get it on Amazon here. Schulman is a former NY Times food writer and the author of more than twenty-five books. She also has written for Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, Fine Cooking and Saveur. Preeminent food writer M.F.K. Fisher said of her, “Martha Rose Shulman has an innate sense for flavoring and timing. She knows how much to put in anything she does, and this ranges from cinnamon to common sense, all of it mixed up with human understanding of love and all that business.”

So…on this chilly late-March day, I’ve decided to use a bit of that common sense Fisher praises and put an array of dark leafy greens into the regular rotation of dishes on my table. Well…maybe not kale.

Provencal Greens Soup

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Ingredients

2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
2 spring onions with medium to large bulbs or 2 leeks (sliced)
4 garlic cloves (sliced)
Kosher salt
6 cups chopped greens (leaves only)--I used baby spinach but you could use chard or beet greens or a combination of greens
6 cups of vegetable broth or water
Black pepper to taste
2 large eggs
4 thick slices of bread ( rubbed with a cut clove of garlic, toasted and cut into large cubes)
Grated Parmesan for serving

Instructions

Heat olive oil in a large soup pot and sauté the sliced onions (or leeks) for about five minutes until they soften. Stir the minced garlic and about 1/2 t. salt to the onions and cook until the garlic is fragrant (about 1 minute). Stir the greens into your pot and let them begin to wilt. Add 6 cups of vegetable broth to the pot and bring to a low boil. Reduce the heat, partially cover the pot and simmer your soup for 15-20 minutes. When your soup is ready, the greens will be tender and the broth will be sweet tasting. Add pepper and additional salt to taste.
Break two eggs into a bowl and beat them. Whisk a ladle of hot (not boiling) broth (from the soup pot) into the eggs and whisk to temper your eggs. Remove the soup pot from the heat and whisk the tempered eggs into the soup. Return the soup to the heat (don't boil) and stir. The strings of egg in your soup will look a bit like an egg drop soup.
Serve with croutons and a generous sprinkling of Parmesan.

Nutrition

Calories

1491 cal

Fat

59 g

Carbs

166 g

Protein

48 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

https://bluecayenne.com/eat-your-greens-provencal-greens-soup

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Soups, Vegetables, Vegetarian

March 20, 2018

Baked Beans with Sweet Potatoes and Chipotles

You know how it is when you just plain crave baked beans. This rich baked beans recipe will satisfy your cravings and throws in healthy sweet potatoes to boot. And, then there is the complex smoky flavor of chipotle peppers. What’s not to love…

Beans, Vegetables, Vegetarian

March 16, 2018

Neil’s Romaine Salad with Vinaigrette–garlicky, tangy and homemade

At dinnertime, my mother always placed a bottle of salad dressing on our kitchen table next to a bowl of pale iceberg lettuce pieces. Always Wish Bone. Always Italian. I’m an unrepentant foodie. I love food. Cooking is a delight for me. I love…

Salad Dressings, Salads, Vegetarian

March 14, 2018

Happy Pi(e) Day

Today is Pi Day. (Today also is Einstein’s birthday, if you have forgotten.) So, of course, there was no question what type of recipe should be featured on Blue Cayenne. Pie. Make that a delicious peach pie.

If you’ve forgotten your math, Pi is ∏, the sixteenth letter in the Greek alphabet and a symbol used in mathematics to represent the numerical value of the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter–3.14159 to start with but the number is irrational and has an infinite number of digits.

If you don’t know today is Pi Day, you haven’t been paying attention. Today is Pi Day’s 30th anniversary. All sorts of stuff happens on Pi Day. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology releases its admissions decisions on Pi Day at precisely 9.26, for example. NASA is running a “Pi in the Sky” math challenge. Princeton is hosting its annual Pi Day celebration with pie eating (and throwing) contests and an Albert Einstein look-alike contest. Around the world, some Pi fanatics began their celebration of Pi Day 2018 at 1.59 pm. and 26 seconds on March 14. (3.1415926.) Merchants, anxious to cash in on the day, often offer pizzas or real pies at $3.14 discounts. (Whole Foods is advertising a $3.14 discount this year.) Google is running this special Pi Day graphic today.

Pi also has insinuated itself into our cultural references. Pi was the secret code in Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain. The Springfield graveyard sign on the Simpsons beckoned: “Come for the funeral, stay for the ∏.” Givenchy has a cologne called Pi that it markets as highlighting the sexual appeal of intelligent and visionary men. (Personally, I plan to start hanging out by the men’s cologne section at Nordstrom’s. Who couldn’t use a little help in identifying smart men?)

So, bottom line, you need to eat pie today (and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—Pie is an irrational dessert, after all.)

Here is a recipe for a wonderful peach pie and you don’t have to be a genius to make it. The original recipe ran in the New York Times. Here is the link: Sam Sifton’s Perfect Peach Pie.

Happy Pi(e) Day: Peach Pie

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Ingredients

For the Dough

2 1/2 Cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour
12 T. (169 grams) unsalted butter (cold, cut into 1/2 inch cube)
1 t. kosher salt
Yolk of 1 egg (beaten)
1 t. cider vinegar
1/4 C. water (from 3/4 C. ice water)
White of 1 egg (beaten)
Pinch granulated sugar

For the Filling:

6-7 ripe peaches (sliced--leave on the skins!) (approximately 5 Cups)
2 T lemon juice
1 C. granulated sugar (or 3/4 if you want your pie to be a bit less sweet)
5 T. cornstarch or 1/4 C. all purpose flour (or a combination)
Pinch of ground nutmeg

Instructions

Prepare the pie dough. Pulse the flour, butter and salt in your food processor until the mixture resembles a coarse meal with small pebbles of butter throughout the mixture. Add egg yolk and vinegar to 1/4 cup ice water. Stir and drizzle 4 T. of this mixture over the dough in your processor. Pulse to combine the liquid into the dough and continue pulsing until the dough forms a ball in your processor bowl. (Add more of the egg yolk/water/vinegar liquid if you necessary to get the dough to form into a ball.)
Turn dough onto a lightly-floured surface and form into a ball. Divide the ball into 8 portions. Use the heel of your hand to flatten each portion of dough and to expand the pebbles of butter. Gather the dough back together into a ball. Divide dough in half and flatten each half into a 5-6 inch disc. Wrap the discs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 60 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.
Make the pie filling. Slice peaches but do not peel them. Mash half of the peaches in a bowl and add the cornstarch. Add the mashed peaches to the remaining sliced peaches and add lemon juice and sugar. Gently mix and set aside for a few minutes.
Remove the pastry discs from the refrigerator. On a lightly-floured surface, roll out one disc into a circle and place into a 9-inch pie plate. Pour the peach mixture on top of the dough. Sprinkle with freshly-ground nutmeg. Trim the pie crust to fit the pie dish and wet the edges of the dough with a small amount of water.
Roll out the second disc of pastry into a round. Place the round of pastry onto the top of the pie. Pinch the bottom and the top edges of the pastry dough together. Cut a few slits in the top of the pie to allow steam to escape from the pie as it cooks. Brush the top of the pie with egg whites. Sprinkle top of the pie with granulated sugar.
Bake pie for 15 minutes at 425 degrees F. Reduce heat and continue to bake the pie at 375 degrees F. Bake until the pastry on the pie is a pretty golden brown color and the peach liquid is bubbling. This should take between 45 minutes to an hour.
Remove pie from oven and let it sit on your counter to cool. The peach juices will thicken as the pie cools.