Tofu Farro Salad

Tofu Farro Salad

This original recipe was conceived when I didn't have dinner made ahead of time and a bunch of leftover material. I feel like this was fate like when H.B. Reese thought of combining peanut butter and chocolate. The recipe comes togather in minutes and does not require and heating elements. There are two key ingredients I want to highlight: farro and smoked tofu.

Farro is a special ancient type of wheat that is eaten like rice. It is far more nutritious than rice and comparable to quinoa in nutrition.

 Farro is very easy to cook. Soak it over night and boil it in water like pasta. Drain out the water and you have cooked farro.

I know a lot of you don't like tofu because it is "flavorless" unless you doctor it up. If you buy smoked tofu, all the doctoring is done for you and most of the moisture has already been smoked out so no pressing is necessary. I usually buy this brand of smoked tofu from Harris Teeter:

Picture Source: http://www.primetimeparenting.com/nasoya/

This recipe yields two full meal servings (no sides needed)

1. Start by cooking 0.5 cups of farro. There are many different types of farro which each have their own cooking times. You can even use a different type of grain if you have leftover of something else.

2. Prepare your sauce by combining until smooth:

• 0.33 cups of non-fat Greek yogurt
• 2 teaspoons of tahini (sesame seed butter) or another type of nut butter
• 1-2 teaspoons of pre-crushed garlic 
• 2 tablespoons of dijion mustard
• 1 teaspoon of anchovy paste (optional) 
• 0.25 cups of balsamic vinegar
• Salt and pepper to taste

3. Prepare your other ingredients which includes:

• 2 cups of cherry tomatoes which you then have
• Half a large cucumber cut into cubes
• 8 ounces of smoked tofu cubed
• 3.5 ounces of arugula or another type of dark leafy green such as spinach

4.  Add all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix.

And you are done.

Korean Cups

Korean Cups

I got another original recipe for you. Think of the Korean Stir Fry recipe, except instead of noodles, use wonton wrappers. Believe it or not, wonton wrappers are pretty light. Each wrapper is only 20 calories. You can use them for a lot of things. Just yesterday, I made some pizza poppers that had some pizza sauce, shredded cheese, turkey pepperoni, and Gorgonzola Cheese (trust me on the cheese people). They were just like pizza bagel bites, but much healthier since I used a less heavy wonton wrapper, light cheese, and lower calorie turkey pepperoni. The Gorgonzola does not help making it healthy, but you only need a little to get the flavor. 

 

Picture source: Nasoya

Ingredients per person (if main entree) or three people (if appetizer)

• 1 piece of chicken (thigh or small breast)
• 1 large egg
• 3-4 cups of shredded brassica (cabbage, kale, broccoli) and or carrot
• Flavorless oil (grapeseed, canola, etc.)
• Gochujang paste
• Miso paste 
• Crushed garlic
• Soy sauce
• Rice vinegar
• Mirin
• Soy sauce
• 5 square wonton wrappers
• Non-stick spray

Procedure

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2.  Cut up some raw chicken into bite size pieces. I bought bone in chicken thighs with the skins and took the skin, fat, and bones off. You can save a lot of money if you trim the chicken on your own instead of buying boneless skinless chicken.

3. Heat up a pan with a little bit of oil and brown the chicken.

4. While the chicken is browning, you can make the sauce. I would recommend 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of Gochujang and miso paste each depending on your taste. Also add in 1 teaspoon of crushed garlic.

Add in about 0.25 to 0.33 cups of rice vinegar. Combine with a fork or a mini food processor.

5. Once the chicken is browned, add in your brassica and sauce.

6. After about 5 minutes, add splashes of the mirin and soy sauce. At this time you may also beat an egg. I would use the same container that you mixed the sauce in so you can pick up some of that flavor in the eggs. Don't let it go to waste. Keep stirring until the vegetables have substantially shrunk.

Also prepare a standard size muffin tin that will hold and give shape to the Korean cups while they cook by spraying the cups you are going to use with non stick spray and line those cups with wonton wrappers. I forgot to take a picture of the lined muffin tin, but here is one I found on the internet.


Picture Source: https://aprettypenne.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/quick-and-easy-wonton-appetizers/

7. By this time, the chicken mixture should be done. Divide the mixture among the wontons. Pour in some egg into each. If you fill  the cup completely with egg, it will resemble a quiche once baked. In this case you might want to use more eggs.

8. Bake for about 15 minutes by which time the wrappers appear to be golden and the egg cooked.

Feel free to mix up the recipe. Add in bamboo shoots, water chestnuts (thanks for the suggest TD), you name it.

Samoas Cake

Samoas Cake

This samoas cake is one of my creations that uses Momofuku Milk Bar's "Naked Layer Cake" technique. I have shown you one of the official Milk Bar cakes in this blog post. I showed teasers of the samoas cake, but here is how you do it for real. I served this particular cake for Thanksgiving. As I said before, break up the creation of this cake across multiple days to make it more manageable. Doing it all at once will stress you out and make baking less fun. Baking is suppose to be fun. I also am wondering if any of you notice that I used a filter on the above and the last few photos?

Coconut Frosting

Find the original recipe here: http://www.chocolatemoosey.com/2012/04/25/award-winning-chocolate-coconut-cupcakes/

1a. Leave 1.5 sticks of butter (salted or unsalted) out to bring it to room temperature.
1b. In a small pot or sauce pan, whisk together 0.75 cups of coconut milk and 1 tablespoon of all purpose flour.

1c. Bring the coconut milk to a boil using medium heat and continue whisking for about 5 minutes when the mixture should thicken. Take the milk off the heat and let it cool down to room temperature.

1d. Put the room temperature butter and 170 grams of granulated sugar in a stand mixture.  Using the paddle attachment, mix on high until the mixture gets pale and fluffy, about five minutes.

1e. Add in the milk mixture and 1/4 of a teaspoon of coconut extract and continue mixing on high until you get whip cream consistency.

1f. Put the frosting in another container so you will be ready to go on the day you assemble the cake. I put it in a piping bag.

Crack – Coconut Filling

This recipe gives you the coconut spread that is put on German Chocolate Cakes, but with a Milk Bar twist. The addition of milk and corn powder makes it similar to Crack Pie Filling. Get the original recipe here:  http://milkbarstore.com/main/menu/recipes-and-how-tos/#crack%20-%20coconut%20filling

2a. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2b. Prepare the ingredients. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine:

• 75 grams of granulated sugar 
• 45 grams of brown sugar 
• 5 grams of milk powder
• 6 grams of corn powder
• 0.5 teaspoons of salt

In a small bowl or cup combine  40 grams of heavy cream and 0.25 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

In a small bowl, have two egg yolks ready.

In the container you hope to store the mixture in, put 100 grams of sweetened coconut.

With the paddle attachment, mix on low to combine the dry ingredients. The below pic shows all the ingredients

2c. Melt half a stick of unsalted butter and pour it into the dry ingredients. Mix on low for about a minute which should moisten all the ingredients.

2d. Add in 40 grams of  heavy cream and 0.25 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Mix on low until all of the white from the cream fully disappears into the mixture.

2e. Add in the two egg yolks and mix on low until it combines. Just like the crack pie, you want to be careful not to over mix the mixture and add too much air into it.

2f. In a small baking pan lined with plastic wrap, scrap the mixture into the pan and bake for 8-10 minutes. In the end, the mixture should be set on the edges, but still loose in the center.

2g. Scrap the cooked mixture into the coconut and combine.

Pretzel Cake

To replicate the samoas cookie, I felt the cake need to be especially crunchy and to offset the sweetness, a little on the salty side. I found this recipe to be perfect: http://milkbarstore.com/main/menu/recipes-and-how-tos/#pretzel%20cake

3a. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prep your ingredients which includes,

In the stand mixture bowl add in:

• 1 stick of room temperature unsalted butter
• 250 grams of granulated white sugar
• 1 tablespoon of molasses

3 eggs in a small bowl or cup

0.33 cups of buttermilk and 0.5 cups of neutral oil in a liquid measuring cup

In a bowl (not the stand mixer bowl) mix together:

• 92 grams of cake flour
• 1.25 teaspoons of baking powder
• 0.5 teaspoons of baking soda,
• 3.25 teaspoons of salt
• 150 grams of pretzels that have been ground in a food processor. (The recipe said 3 cups, but after doing some conversions, 150 grams is a more precious number. Also the first time I made this recipe I used simple pretzels. The second time I used Trader Joe's Pumpernickel pretzels. Big mistake. Choose a simple pretzel, maybe butter pretzels.)

3b. With the paddle attachment, mix the contents of the stand mixer on medium high for 2-3 minutes until the butter and sugars are creamed together.

3c. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs, then mix on medium high for 2-3 minutes until combined.

3d. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Put the mixer on low and pour in the buttermilk oil mix. Increase the mixer speed to medium high and mix for 6 minutes. By 6 minutes the mixture should have doubled in size and become whitish. This step is very important. It is hard to over mix at this stage, but it is easy to under mix.

3e. Scrape the sides of the bowl. While the mixer is on low, pour in the dry ingredients. Turn off the mixer as soon as everything is combined, about 1 minute. You can mix by hand after the mixer did its thing to get some dry bits combined. It is very easy to over mix at this stage.

3f. Grease a quarter sheet pan with Pam and line it with parchment paper. I used a silpat pad on the bottom and found it difficult to get the cake out. Parchment paper works better. Smooth the top of the pan.

3g. Bake for about 35 minutes. The cake should no longer be jiggly in the center and the edge should feel springy when you poke the side. Wrap with plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge or freezer.

 Assembly

4a. Bring all your ingredients except the cake to room temperature. The cake can be cold.

4b. Using a 6 inch cake ring, cut out two pieces of cake. one complete circle near a corner (1) and another piece that is the most complete circle you can cut as possible (2). You will form a third layer with the leftover scraps (3).

4c. Clean the cake ring, put it on the bottom of a cake pan lined with wax paper. Line the inside of the ring with acetate paper/ transparency paper that is about 4 inches tall and 20 inches long. I cut an 8.5" by 11" transparency paper in half on the long dimension and taped the short dimension together to get me the right shape.

4d. Stuff the bottom layer with cake scrapes, then dab a lot of vanilla milk (milk or non-dairy milk + vanilla extract) until the layer is drenched.

4e. Spread an even layer of 1/3 of the coconut frosting.

4f. Spread an even layer of about 1/2 of the crack coconut filling.

4g. Crumble about 1/3 of a box of samoas (or knock offs) on top.

4h. Repeat step 4d with the almost perfect cake round. Fill in any gaps with the rest of the scraps.

4i. Repeat steps 4e-4g

4j. Place the perfect round on top and line it with the rest of the coconut frosting and decorate it with the rest of the samoas.

4k. Cover the cake with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 12 hours.

4i. Unwrap the plastic wrap, slide off the cake ring, and peel off the transparency paper. Make chocolate ganache and caramel. I forgot to take pictures throughout the chocolate and caramel making process, but here is a good link for chocolate ganache http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chocolate-ganache-recipe.html
and caramel http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/homemade-salted-caramel-recipe/. Let them cool down before handling.

Drizzle them over the top of the cake for over the top cake. You can use the left over for caramel apples. Store the ganache in a metal container and reheat over some steaming water. Store the caramel in a container that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Caramel apples will be a future blog post.

Freeze the cake for about an hour then wrap it with plastic wrap and put the cake back in the freezer. Let the cake defrost for about three hours in the fridge before serving.

Let them eat cake.

The next two blog posts will be healthy, I promise!