Ginger Lime couscous with Red beans and Tandoori Roasted Eggplant

This recipe morphed from leftovers. It was originally ginger lime couscous with red beans.  But got revamped the next day with the addition of vinegar cucumbers and roasted tandoori eggplant. This is a simple dish but takes many steps, all of which are also simple.

Ingredients.

o    1 ½ cups couscous

o    Chicken stock,

o    Lime juice,

o    Lime zest,

o    Fresh ginger,

o    Red kidney beans,

o    Eggplant,

o    1 half cucumber,

o    2 oz feta cheese

o    Red wine vinegar,

o    Salt.

o    Pepper,

o    Olive oil,

o    Tandoori seasoning

Preheat oven to 400º

Cucumbers in red wine vinegar.

Using about half of a cucumber, peel the cucumber partially or fully, which ever you like. I like the stripes of peeling every other “space”, as it were. Slice into thin, small pieces. Place into a small dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, splash on a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar and allow to sit in the fridge for at least 30 mins

Eggplant

Drizzle sheet pan with olive oil, sprinkle salt, pepper and tandoori seasoning onto the oil.

Slice eggplant lengthwise into about inch thick slices. Place two slices of eggplant on the pan, then repeat the drizzling and sprinkling. Turn to coat.  Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes, turning half way through. The eggplant should caramelize and become quite tender. When it’s done, set it aside.

Couscous-

Measure out the amount of couscous you wish to prepare, pour it into a bowl large enough to accommodate the volume doubling. Then in a saucepan, bring to a boil the liquid of choice in the correct amount corresponding with the volume of couscous. I used chicken stock and lime juice in this recipe. Mean while zest the lime into the couscous and add a few slices of peeled fresh ginger root. Once the liquid has come to a boil remove from heat and poor over the couscous. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes. Once all of the liquid is absorbed fluff with a fork. Then add in the red kidney beans.

When the eggplant is cool enough to touch chop into bite size piece and add to the couscous.

Right before serving, drain the excess liquid from the cucumbers and add to the couscous as well. Gently combine everything with a fork. The couscous should not be clumpy. You are looking for an over all light fluffy texture but the couscous will stick to the bits of eggplant.

Fresh Cherry Tart

This was not as lovely as I wanted. I had such high hopes for this endeavor.The crust wasn’t as tasty as I had wanted. I shouldn’t have been lazy and used a box of gingersnaps. The crème wasn’t as firm as I expected it to be and the flavor of the cherries, not as present


So, now that I have told you everything I disliked about this let me tell you why I made it. I had a bag of cherries and a have habit of making things with fruit rather than just eating the fruit by it self. My mind filled with possibilities. I could make a cake layer with crème and fruit, roll out some puff pastry or even better yet filo and make some sort of Danish, I settled on making a cherry tart. I chose to add orange zest to the pastry crème (from the pate a chou post), use a ginger snap crust and top it with the aforementioned fresh cherries.


All the various components can be prepared ahead and assembled the day of, which I would recommend. It looks best the day of.


First- you have to make the Pastry Cream first. It needs to chill over night


Pastry Crème.


o 2 Cups Whole milk


o ½ half vanilla bean


o 6 Eggs Yolks


o 1 Tablespoon butter- good quality


o ½ Cup flour


o 1 Cup Sugar


o Zest of one orange


Begin by putting the milk and vanilla bean in a pan and put it on medium heat.


In a heavy pan whisk together everything else. Paying close attention to not burn the milk, bring it to a boil. Then temper into the egg mixture. Over medium heat brings this to a boil, stirring constantly. For the last few minutes I used a whisk but the rest of the time I used a silicone spatula. After it had thickened, pass the crème through a sieve into a bowl and chill.













Crust- can be made ahead as well.


o 8 ox of ginger snaps.


o 8 tablespoons of butter, soft


o 1 tablespoon of molasses


o 2tabelspoons ground flax seed


o ¾ cup pecans.


Put all ingredients into a food processor and process until it’s a consistency you like. I process mine until its quite finely ground and has the consistency of damp sand. Turn the mixture into a tart pan and spread evenly. Then using the bottom of a cup, press it all down and into the corners. Place in freezer or fringe to chill for 30 minutes.






Fresh cherries -Just cherries, cut in half and pitted… This is also a do-ahead task.








To Assemble:


Pull the crust from the fridge, Fill it with how ever much of the pastry cream you want, then arrange the cherries on top in a manner that pleases you. At this point you can eat it, chill it, or glaze it. It. If you choose to glaze, see below.






















Glaze-


o 2 tablespoons apricot preserves


o Juice of one orange


o 2 teaspoons honey


o 2 teaspoons corn starch.


Mix it all in a small pan until it thickens. Brush on to tart.

Lemon Loaf with zucchini and blue berries.

Lemon loaf with zucchini and blue berries

I based this recipe from Lemon –Zucchini Loaf with Lemon Glaze from http://nancycreative.com/

Lemon is one of my favorite flavors. I add it to all sorts of things savory and sweet. I also really enjoy adding vegetables to pretty much everything I can manage. So, a recipe that combines those two is a must try.

I am wholly incapable of leaving well enough alone and simply following a recipe the way it is written. I had considered adding mint because that would be spectacular but I didn’t have any. I’ll have to add that next time I make it. I try to limit the number of things I change about a recipe the first time I make it to about 2.  To this recipe I added blueberries, pistachios and a little extra zucchini. The blueberries add a beautiful color and the pistachios add a nice texture on top. This dense, tender quick bread has a nice balance of flavors. The zucchini can still be tasted along with the lemon and blueberry.

Yields one loaf.

§  2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

§  2 teaspoons baking powder

§  1/2 teaspoon salt

§  2 eggs

§  1/2 cup canola oil

§  2/3 cup sugar

§  1/2 cup buttermilk

§  Juice of 1 lemon (or 2 Tablespoons lemon juice)

§  Zest of 1 lemon

§  1 ½ cups grated zucchini

§  1 cup blueberries dusted tossed with 1 tablespoon of flour

§  ½ cup toasted chopped toasted pistachios.

Preheat oven to 35o degrees. Grease and flour pan.

In large bowl, sift the dry ingredients. Set aside.

In medium bowl, beat 2 eggs well, then add canola oil and sugar, and blend well. Then add the buttermilk, lemon juice, and lemon zest and blend everything well. Fold in zucchini and stir until evenly distributed in mixture. Combine the wet to dry and fold in the zucchini.

Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan disperse the flour-coated berries and top with the remaining batter, smooth and top with the pistachios. Then, bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (if your oven tends to run hot, check the loaf after 40 minutes). Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack and cool completely. While loaf is cooling, you can make the glaze.

LEMON GLAZE

§  1 cup powdered sugar

§  Juice of 1 lemon (or 2 Tablespoons lemon juice)

In small bowl, mix powdered sugar and lemon juice until well blended. Drizzle over loaf. 

Spiked Candied Nuts Demonstration

My original thought was to just post a link to an already existing video on how to candy pecans. However, none of the videos I saw seemed suitable. So, as they saying goes “if you want something done right, do it yourself” and do it myself I did. Here is the video I made with the help of my brother. The humor that he and I were recording a cooking video in the same kitchen we used to play cooking show, is not lost on me.

Maple Bacon bourbon bars

Adapted from the ohbiteit.com

The name alone caused me to salivate. I do have weakness for bacon. I saw this recipe on Pintrest a few days ago. I was immediately intrigued. Looking at the recipe though, (posted on ohbiteit.com) I changed a few things. Simple changes. The original recipe only had bourbon in the glaze. So for starters I added some bourbon to the syrup. I also added pecans on top, spiked with bourbon and candied. I added Salt to the dry mix, because it balances flavor, I replaced ½ cup of the maple syrup with sorghum, for depth of flavor and I flamed the honey whisky for the glaze.

Results-

So over all, I have to admit that I don't like this recipe as much as I thought I would, all tinkering accounted for. Despite having an entire pound of bacon in it, there wasn't much of a bacon presence. I feel as though the batter hides the bacon some how. I like the texture from the spiked candied pecan. I like the smoother taste in the glaze acquired by flaming the whisky but having made it twice in 24 hours I will probably not make them again for a while. I think the next time I do; I'll make the batter more neutral. Perhaps base it with honey and maple, so it allows the bacon to be tasted.  But i did like the hint of depth the 1/2cup of sorghum lent. Maybe they need to be just bacon bourbon bars…or just remove the crust all together and leave it with spiked candied pecans and bacon. Or maybe put the bacon on top with the pecans. See? many ideas and variations to play with. I will be visiting this recipe in again for sure. 

It is a pretty simple recipe as far as ingredient list goes. The technique unique. Essentially, the two cups of syrup are boiled down for about 10-12 minutes, let it cool a bit and dump everything else in. Then you chill it for an hour and then bake for about 20 minutes.

Photo by AJ Dome.

I have to be honest. I made a mistake… A rather big mistake… I forgot to add the egg and I didn’t notice it until it was time to take the bars out of the oven. Which caused the bars to not rise, as they should have, so I can't give a fair review. The lack of egg resulted the bars to turn out really very thin (as shown in the photo gallery) and chewy, making for a poor contrast between that and the bacon. The Pecans added a nice crunchy contrast and the glaze we nice as well. Also, the bacon was not a suitable size for the dessert. Additionally I neglected to refrigerate the batter before baking.

A slice from the first batch on the left and a slice from the second on the right.

Not wanting to be defeated by myself I made a second batch, right away. Implementing the neatly cut bacon, I cut it into lardon before cooking, where as last time I baked first and then chopped it up. But I had to stray further from the original recipe. Real maple syrup is a bit pricey and not wanting to use two more cups I replaced more of it with sorghum. I did remember the egg and I did remember to chill it before baking.

. . . . More results.

The texture was correct in this batch. But the flavor of the batter was significantly stronger. I still feel like the bacon could be more prominent and again my favorite part was pecans and the glaze.

Photo By AJ Dome.

My adjusted recipe:

Maple Bacon Bourbon Bars

1 1/2 cups real maple syrup

1/2 cup sorghum(or molasses or treacle)

1Tablespoon of bourbon

1 stick of butter

1 Egg

1 Tablespoon of Vanilla

1 lb of bacon, cut into small bit and cooked until crisp.

2 Cups of flour

1teaspoon of salt

1teaspoon of baking powder

Candied Pecans:

1 Cup toasted pecans- roughly chopped

2Tablespoons butter

1/2 Cup brown Sugar

1-2 Tablespoons Bourbon

sprinkle of salt

Glaze:

1Cup Powdered sugar

2-3 Tablespoons Honey Whiskey- Flambéed

Sprinkle of salt

dash of Vanilla

Prepare the bacon, drain and set aside.

Prepare a quarter sheet pan with parchment.

In a large, heavy sauce pan cook down the syrup, sorghum and bourbon for about 10 minutes. The goal is to thicken it slightly.

While that is reducing, measure the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl and whisk together.

When the syrup has reduced for 10-12 minutes, pull off the heat and let cool until its warm but not hot. Then Add the stick of butter, allowing it to fully incorporate. Then add the Egg, fully incorporate. Then stir in the dry ingredients a little at a time, to avoid lumps. Add the vanilla. Add Bacon and pour into the prepared pan and chill for an hour in the fridge.

While that is chilling...

Glaze

Flame the honey whiskey for the glaze. Pour that into a mixing bowl, add the salt and powdered sugar and whisk together. Add the vanilla, whisk together. Adjust to the desire consistency with milk or water.... or more whiskey. Set aside.

Spiked Candied Pecans

Prepare a small sheet pan with parchment, set aside. In a medium skillet over medium- high heat, melt butter, add the brown sugar. Stir together and let is bubble for a minute or two. Add the pecan and stir them around to coat evenly. Allow this to cook for about 3-5 minutes. Since this is a small batch, it won't take long. Add in the Honey Whiskey and flambe. Once the flame is gone, pour the nuts onto the prepared sheet pan, spread them out a bit. let cool. When cooled completely, break into small pieces.

Bake the bars at 350º for 18-20 minutes. when they are done, allow cool for a few minutes then, drizzle on half of the glaze, sprinkle on the pecans, then drizzle the remander of the glaze.