spicy sweet potato and coconut soup

Last week I didn't cook...or at least I don't remember cooking anything. It was one of those weeks.

We had frozen pizza, we went out to eat, we ate at people's houses (by invitation)...

I just wasn't in the mood for it. Does that happen to you? The thought of making a mess in the kitchen (usually something that makes me pretty happy) sounded hugely unappealing. I didn't have anything I really wanted to make. I was completely uninspired. (violins)

This week was looking like it was going to be another one of those weeks. Monday was busy and I didn't get to the store to stock our empty-from-last-week fridge, so we got fried chicken for dinner. Yup. We even did a fried chicken tasting: KFC vs. Popeye's, just because we thought we'd better figure out once and for all where we need to be getting all of our future fried chicken. (In case you're wondering, KFC won for chicken, but Popeye's had the better mashed potatoes. Biscuits were a toss up, but I think it goes to Popeye's as well.)

high-qual iphone pic

 So Monday night, after our fried feast, as I sitting on the couch doing whatever it is that I do on the computer, my husband started this movie. I was all, "what are we watching?" as I looked up from the computer. Then suddenly I became completely engrossed in the movie. I think I even put my computer down. Watched the whole thing.

It was called Forks over Knives. Maybe you've heard of it. It's a documentary about our meat-and-dairy saturated culture and how so many of our health problems can likely be treated by a plant-centered diet.

Okay. Normally I find these things interesting at best, I give them a listen, maybe a smile and a nod, an "I-appreciate-your-point-of-view" eyebrow raise, but inside I know that I couldn't give up juicy hamburgers and milkshakes for quinoa and green beans. I don't like to get too radical or extreme about these things, and I most certainly don't like limitations.



But suddenly veganism had never seemed so appealing. Naturally a movie like that will make meat look horrible, and it did it's job.

After the movie, I asked my husband what he thought about trying a plant-centered diet, just for a week. (Who am I?) He agreed. (What a guy!)

Apparently that was what I needed to be inspired to cook again. I stayed up for another hour or so, researching vegan recipes to make for the week and assembling my grocery list. I was PUMPED.

So we embark on this mini adventure...emphasis on mini. We're doing this for fun/experimentation, to see how we feel and to see how it works for us. We're not going to be strict about it. If some feta finds it's way into my vegetarian sandwich, I'm not going to kick it out. If hub needs an egg for breakfast, I ain't gon stop him. It's the only way I could do something like this anyway. If I were to adopt it as a lifestyle choice, it would be more of a guideline than a rule. I told you how I feel about limitations. Same goes for deprivation. Is that the same thing?

I'm pretty excited about it though. Highlights so far include: some absolutely killer butternut squash fries, marvelous carrot cake oatmeal, and this sweet potato and coconut soup. I just realized those are all orange foods. Weird.

Anyway. This soup is so so good. (I seem to have run out of adjectives at this time. Forgive me.) It's creamy and a little sweet with a nice kick to it from the ginger and red curry paste. I would make it any day, vegan diet or not.

Stay tuned for more vegan-week adventures and a recap. And less-wordy posts.

Spicy Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup 
Recipe lightly adapted from here

Serves 6

1 1/2 pounds orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 2-inch chunks
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 (2 inch) piece fresh ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1 (15 ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk
3 cups vegetable broth
3 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon sea salt (or more, to taste)
Fresh ground pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro 

Heat the oil in a large saucepan or soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and ginger; cook and stir until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the curry paste and heat for 1 minute, then whisk in the coconut milk and vegetable broth. Add the potatoes. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until potatoes are soft, about 20-25 minutes, or longer if necessary. 

Using an immersion blender, blend the soup until smooth. (Or transfer the soup to a normal blender, in batches, then return it to the pot when blended.)

Stir in the lemon juice, salt and pepper. Adjust seasonings to taste. Ladle into bowls and garnish with a drizzle of the sesame oil and some cilantro.

coconut lime cupcakes with basil lime cream cheese frosting

The other day I had a life-altering experience when I randomly decided to stop for a cup of gelato on my way home. I saw this flavor called coconut basil. I tasted it. I got a whole cupful of it.

Those spoonfuls of creamy coconut basil heaven may have been the best ten minutes of my day, but I would never admit that.

For the rest of the afternoon I obsessed over how else I could combine those two flavors. Soup? Rice? Fish? Cupcakes? Cupcakes.

These are the things I think about.

 

 These are fantastically sweet and coconut-y with a hint of lime zing to them. I do wish the flavor of the basil would have come through more in the frosting though. Next time I make these I will be trying other basil-adding methods. But I have to finish these up first.

So now I am single-handedly ridding the world of coconut lime cupcakes with basil lime cream cheese frosting. It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it. And I am winning the battle...these cupcakes don't know what hit them.

Coconut Lime Cupcakes with Basil Lime Cream Cheese Frosting 

Makes 12 cupcakes

Recipe adapted from the Neelys

1 1/4 cups cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 teaspoon coconut extract

2 T. fresh lime juice   

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 T. lime zest

3/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes, ground up in food processor

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners.

Into a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

Using a hand held mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time until just combined. Add vanilla, coconut extract, and lime juice. Add buttermilk and dry ingredients, being careful not to over mix. Mix in the lime zest and shredded coconut.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full with batter. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on wire racks before frosting.

Frosting:

1 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

1/2 stick (4 T.) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 T. fresh lime juice

1 tsp. lime zest

1/4 cup finely chopped basil (I put mine in the food processor)

approx. 4 cups confectioners' sugar

1 cup toasted sweetened coconut flakes, for garnish

Using a hand-held mixer beat cream cheese and butter together until light and smooth. Add vanilla extract, lime juice and zest, and basil and combine. Slowly add the confectioners' sugar 1 cup at a time until thoroughly incorporated and at desired consistency. Add more sugar if desired texture is not reached. Adjust flavors as desired.

Pour coconut flakes evenly onto a baking sheet. Place in 350-degree oven for 5-7 minutes, stirring often and keeping an eye on them so they do not burn. Remove when golden-brown.

Frost cupcakes and garnish with toasted coconut flakes.

coconut oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

That's a mouthful.  Quite literally. 

These cookies are chewy and decadent and kind of took the place of breakfast and the better part of my lunch today...my sweet tooth controls me.

 Last night I was pretty stressed out and thought I would bake something to calm me down. I just wanted to throw ingredients together and create a spectacular, mind-numbingly delicious, forget-all-your-problems cookie. I grabbed things left and right like a bride at a blowout sale, and...ended up using bread flour instead of all-purpose. 

After deliberating over whether a suuuuper chewy/dense cookie would be quite as satisfying, I decided to chuck my progress and start again (fortunately I had only mixed dry ingredients at that point).

I also used some really brilliant weird methods to make this cookie, which actually didn't end up turning out too bad. I wanted to melt the butter like I do for some of my other chocolate chip recipes, in hopes of adding a caramel-y flavor dimension to the cookie. I also added the chips while the dough was still a tad bit warm, so they melted slightly and were more of chocolate swirlies than chocolate chips. But I liked the swirlies. I really shouldn't use that word when talking about cookies, should I? Noted.
 

Coconut Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups oats

1 cup sweetened coconut

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

approx. 2 cups chocolate chips

Combine flour, oats, coconut, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until it boils and bubbles slightly. Remove from heat and stir in sugars. Stir in vanilla. Stir in eggs, one a time, quickly so as not to cook them. Gradually add dry ingredients to saucepan, mixing to combine. 

If dough is still pretty hot, let it sit a bit before adding your chips. If you don't want your chips to melt at all, let it sit until cooled. After adding chips and stirring gently, put dough in the fridge for 2-3 hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a baking sheet. Use about a 1/4 cup of dough for each cookie. Bake 9-10 minutes.

coconut-almond crusted tilapia

This recipe is so easy it seems like it shouldn't taste so good.
It's like 3 ingredients.

\

 

Then I added a pineapple salsa. Because that pineapple had been loitering on my counter for a few days, looking all pretty and lonely. 

This pineapple salsa is simply made of:

-1 cup of chopped pineapple

-1 chopped kiwi

-1/3 cup chopped tomato

-1-2 chopped green onions

-2-3 T. brown sugar

-a few squeezes of lemon juice

-salt

However.

Were I to make pineapple salsa again (which is quite likely), I would probably do it differently. Since the above recipe was composed solely of what I had in the fridge, it didn't exactly include everything I thought it should, though it was still pretty dern delicious.
But here's what I think would be an even better combination:

-pineapple

-red pepper

-red onion

-jalapeno

-cilantro

-lime juice

-salt

Basically, it's a completely different recipe. The pineapple stays, and so does the salt. I'll let you know if/when I try it.

 Served it over parmesan couscous (thank you, Near East), alongside broiled asparagus.

And of course wine. Obvs.

first post: confessions and cupcakes

Hello.

I'm Esther, I'm 25 years old and obsessed with food.

(Hi, Esther)

Sometimes when I'm gushing about a new restaurant or recipe to a friend or family member, I worry that they're secretly judging me or thinking, "How sad, she really cares about food this much." So I try to hold back, sometimes. But only on the outside. I don't tell them that I find myself planning menus in my head as I go to sleep at night. 

...Okay, well I guess they know now. 

No more secrets.

So here's my food blog. It will be about food. And possibly traveling (but really still food then too).

And now, cupcakes!

Disclaimer: My photography skills/camera are severely impaired. Hope to change this.

This is a banana coconut cupcake with nutella-cream cheese frosting.

 

Sadly this cupcake is no more. It had to be done.

The sacrificial cupcake.

 These are really tasty. You will have eaten one before you even realized it. (case in point: I did not plan to eat that whole sacrificial cupcake. I just planned to do one bite, for the picture.)

Also, you can qualify them as breakfast cupcakes, because of the banana! (Who am I kidding, I qualify all cupcakes as breakfast cupcakes.)

Banana Coconut Cupcakes with Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting
(cupcake recipe adapted from here, where everything looks really super good)

1 1/2 C. A/P flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 C. mashed bananas
1 T. fresh squeezed lemon juice
3/4 stick unsalted butter (6 T.), softened to room temperature

1/2 cup + 2 Tbs. white sugar 

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp coconut extract
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
3/4 C. buttermilk

1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 275.
Prepare a muffin pan with muffin cups.

Optional: In a food processor, grind up coconut into smaller flakes so as not to encounter stringy coconut shreds in cupcake.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Mash bananas and combine with lemon juice in a small bowl.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, coconut extract, and vanilla.  Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk while mixing, until combined.
Add bananas and mix until well blended. Add shredded coconut.
Bake at 275 for 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
After removing from the oven, place cupcakes in freezer for 1/2 hour.

Frosting:
1/2 C. unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
8 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup nutella
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 C. powdered sugar

Cream together butter, cream cheese, nutella, and vanilla. Add powdered sugar. Add more sugar if desired texture is not achieved.

Frost cooled cupcakes.

Sprinkle with toasted coconut.*

*To toast coconut, spread about a cup of it out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and toast it at 300, stirring often, until golden brown and crispy, approximately 6-8 minutes, depending on your desired level of crispness.