Rolling a Pumpkin

Last Friday Mark made a pumpkin roll. This is one of his favorite types of cake - he doesn't have many, so it's an honor just to be on the list.
It's filled with low-fat and fat-free cream cheese mixed with sugar and a bit of lemon juice.



On Sunday we made gnocchi again, this time with regular potatoes - and it was just yummy. I don't crave restaurant gnocchi anymore - they were never really good - at least, not as good as one can make at home - now that I know we can make it ourselves.

I was so hungry and impatient to try the sauce, that I completely forgot about taking a picture. So here are the leftovers, ready to be our lunches for the next day.

This time we decided to use the gorgonzola we had, before it gets any greener, for the sauce. But we never have cream or even half and half, and all the recipes for gorgonzola sauce recommend using cream. So how can you make a creamless creamy sauce? Here's the answer:

3/4 cup milk (we only have fat free)
1/4 cup white wine
2 tsp corn starch
gorgonzola (about the size of a small piece of cake), crumbled
salt & crushed peppercorn to taste

mix 3 first ingredients on medium heat, add cheese when liquid is warm, stir till it melts.
It's very yummy, although I'm sure not as rich as sauce with real cream. But I think the cheese is fatty and strongly-flavoured enough to make it a healthy-though-deliciuos choice.

Mexican Pizza

With cornmeal crust, salsa, jalapenos, tomato, olives and corn, this pizza couldn't get more "south of the border".



My favorite topping is the corn kernels - they're so sweet and provide such a complimentary contrast to the spiciness of the salsa and jalapenos.

Mmmm... Homemade Yummies...

Though we still don't have a pasta maker (we got one from a store, but it was defective; then we got another one online, and they sent us the wrong kind) we decided that it shouldn't stop us from having homemade ravioli. So we got won-ton wraps and filled them with ricotta and spinach, and after 3 minutes of cooking we got these yummy creations:



Served with our homemade tomato sauce and a couple of slices of freshly made bread, spread with Gorgonzola, this was a real Sunday night treat.

On Friday Mark made this amazing peanut butter banana bread with a recipe taken from the Vegetarian Times. He, of course, omitted the oil and used more bananas, and the result was so good, even days later (I had a piece yesterday).



In between, we colored eggs for Easter:



That was fun!

Kolach, Ears and Rockin' Rolls!

This past weekend included some new baked items. We started with Kolach, a Bulgarian type of bread that's very rich - the dough is made with eggs and yogurt. It reminded me a lot of Chalah, except it's a bit more sour.



We weren't quite sure what to eat it with. I figured an egg would be good, especially since we had some leftover from glazing the bread.



I spread it with cream cheese and topped with some greens. It was good!

A grad student got married over spring break, and so a couple of other grad students decided to have a little reception for him in the office. Then they decided that there are a couple of other people who got married recently, so they decided to add them to the celebration. One of them is myself. It was a bit weird to be congratulated for something that happened over 6 months ago, but I guess it's my fault for not telling anyone about it when it actually happened.
For the reception I decided to bring Hamantaschen, traditional Purim cookies. After all, Purim is just a few days away! In Hebrew they're called "the ears of Haman". Haman was the evil guy who tried to convince the king of Persia that the Jews are bad. I don't know why they decided to name the cookies after the guy's ears, though. As you can see from the photo, they don't really look like ears. Well, not human ones.



I used this recipe, but filled with raspberry jam because that's what I had. The dough kept opening during baking and I had to reseal them, which was kinda hot on my fingers. But the flavor was good.

And for dessert - buttermilk rolls with some veggie BBQ riblets!



Mmm... Molassessy!

Blueberry Yum-Yum

In addition to the usual stuff that Mark keeps baking again and again (well, mostly because it's so good!), namely pizzas, calzones and muffins, he finally baked something new: a blueberry "any-fruit cake".



When we had it fresh out of the oven, the topping was so crispy, we wanted to finish it all up right then and there, thinking it will get soggy if we wait. But I found that covering it up with a paper towel helps it stay crispy and yummy and we can enjoy it for at least 3 to 4 days.

More Ceramics

Our second ceramics technique was coiling. The instructor wanted us to build something big, so we'll get enough coiling experience, but I'm sure she didn't envision something quite as big as my toucan...



It was intended to be a pitcher, but no one can lift this thing with one hand. I think I will use it as an umbrella holder - it rains a lot here in the desert! We do need to get an umbrella!

Mark wanted to make an eyeball.



Ask anyone who ever tried their hands in coiling and they will tell you - it's hard to bring the clay to go in - but Mark did it. The pupil can be removed and the rest of the eyeball can serve as a pot, but I think we'll just keep it as an eyeball. We'll see ;)

Empanadas

I should first explain that the reason you recently see more of my baking rather than Mark's is not because he's not baking. It's just that he's baking the same things that already got the spot light. On Friday he made a pizza that was just as great as the Christmas pizza, but without any toppings; and on Sunday, he baked a sandwich bread, which this time I ate with goat cheese, marinated artichoke, green olives, a slice of tomato and balsamic vinaigrette - it was delicious!

I've been wanting to make empanadas for quite some time now. I never ate meat empanadas until my friend's ex made them vegetarian style, and it was delicious! (Note for self: need to find synonyms for delicious). So I decided to try and make them. Of course, there's no way to ask my friend's ex for the recipe, so I used this one instead. Needless to say, I used ground meatless, and I also added olives, because I saw them in other recipes.
The dough was hard to work with, but my empanadas turned out pretty good:



Mark didn't like the cloves, so next time I'll omit it, but overall I think it was a success. I would like to try some with corn filling as well sometime.
Though I think I will have to go back to Chile if I want to eat those really good ones - steamed cheese empanadas - I got from the kids who came onto our bus as it was loaded onto a ferry, on the way to Chiloe.