Rebel banana chocolate bread

Long time no post: life goes fast, food disappears even faster, no food - no pictures, blog without pictures is no fun. This cake almost made it to the moment of capture but part of it fell into the glass with milk so I had urgently eat it and drink some of the milk, so what you see on the pic is the part that has survived (not for long time, though, I was truly hungry).

This cake is a product of my mom's receipt and my forced creativity as I discovered I'm almost out of flour when it was too late to suspend the magic of cake preparation. A colleague of mine who had some of the RBCB said "It's almost as good as what my mama makes, and you can't compete with mama" which I consider an evidence for the success of my small spontaneous experiment. So, here's what one needs:

2-3 riped bananas (the blacker they are the better as the riper bananas are the more flavor they give)
2 eggs
1 cup of brown sugar (any will do, actually)
1/2 cup of sunflower oil
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of flour + baking powder (I usually take 1/2 pack per cake)
1/2 cup of cacao
1 cup of almond flour
a pitch of salt, cinnamon, nutmeg
100g of coarsely chopped walnuts or pecan 

Preheat the oven (200C). Sift flours, cacao, salt and spices together, add walnuts. Blend bananas with eggs and sugar, then blend milk with oil so the emulsion is formed, bring all ingredients together, mix well. Line the baking form with some paper or grease it well with some butter (then it might be a good idea to sift it with mixture of flour and cacao before adding dough)/ Pour the dough in the form (I used 10x30 form) and bake 15' at 200C and then reduce the heat to 180 and bake some 45' or till the knife comes out clean. I let the cake to sit in the form overnight, and it was tender and moist and very chocolatey. However one can barely tell that it has bananas in there, so if you want the banana tasting banana bread probably you should take 3 bananas and not add as much cacao.

Sugar terror: peanut butter cheesecake threat

I made this cake for one house-cooling party. We were quite a lot of people, and I was seeking for something rich to bake, so one regular sized cake would satisfy all of us (we were 16 or so). I have found these receipt on joyofbaking.ca, and I loved the idea. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome the peanut butter cheesecake!
It consists of 3 major parts: base, cheese and chocolate. Let's go one by one.

1.5 cups of chocolate biscuits, crumbled
2 tablespoons of sugar
6 tablespoons (85 g) of butter
Turn on the oven at 180C. Mix the cookies crumble with sugar and melted butter, you will get a dough-like substance. Distribute it evenly in your baking form (before that you might cover the form with baking paper or foil or at least some butter, so you could remove the cake afterwards), don't forget to make sides of 2-3 cm. Bake the whole construction for ~10 minutes, till it gets firm. Let it cool down a bit afterwards.

250 g of cream cheese (I used ricotta)
Peanut butter: if you don't want it to be super rich take 120 ml (0.5 cup). Originally it's suggested to take the whole cup, so you decide what suits you more. The difference is the intensity of the peanut taste. For me, half-cup worked perfectly well.
Whipped cream - either whip it yourself from 120 ml of 30% cream of just take the ready one, I'd say ~1 cup volume or simply half of a ballon.
1 cup (115 g) of sugar powder (I took less, it's more a matter of taste)
vanilla extract
This is our bomb! With love and affection mix all these gorgeous ingredients one by one till you get a uniform mass. Pour it all in our cooled crust in the form and send it to the refrigerator for 3-4 hours so it would get harder.

120 g of dark chocolate
rest of the whipped cream (same 120 ml)
1 tablespoon of butter
This is our ganash topping! Melt the chocolate and the butter in a pot (better, place it over a bigger pot with some boiling water) and add the cream. Let it cool down to the room temperature and spread it over the cheese. Decorate with salty peanuts (in my case pistachios made as good) and put it back in the fridge. It's a perfect cake to be prepared in advance and you can guess yourself that one needs just a small piece to satisfy even the most insatiable sweet-tooth!

Ay, wow! hot korean chicken

Winter is the time for eating spicy. Such food warms you up and makes your nose running (which is healthy because all the viruses are eliminated). As my Chinese friend says, it creates the inner fire that keeps us healthy.

This is a slight modification of a Doejibulgogi which means "Spicy stir-fried pork". My modification would be called in some other way because I made it with chicken. Anyhow, this is all vain, what's important is that it's something spicy, delicious and super easy to make. Here's what you need:

Some chicken (I cooked 1 chicken breast), cut in 1 inch cubes
1-2 table spoons of hot pepper paste
1/3 of a chilli pepper
1 onion and 1 clove of garlic
Some green onions
Spices: pepper flakes, back pepper, ginger, soy sauce, brown sugar
Sesame oil and seeds (I used olive oil and no seeds)
Lettuce

Now, it's amazing what will happen: chop finely onion and garlic, cut green onion and pepper in moderate pieces. Put the chicken in a bit of oil and add all vegetables in a frying pan, add hot pepper paste and all spices, mix everything and start frying on strong heat. In ~5 minutes the chicken should be ready! Serve it on lettuce leaves (in Korea they wrap pieces of meat in these leaves and eat) and kimchi and/or rice.

Pumpkin-sun soup

Getting cold? Want to feel real warm in your stomach? Ask me and my Japanese colleague Pumpkin-sun how! :)

This is one of my favorite soups - even its color is life-asserting! Not to mention it is as spicy as one wants and easy to cook (better, if you have a blender). So, you will need

~500 g of pumpkin (a piece a bit larger then a palm of your hand)
Ginger (I use dried powder, fresh ground will do as good, or even better)
1 onion
200 ml of cream
all your favorite spices

Optional: carrots, potatoes, herbs, bullion, garlic, nuts, coconut milk.

If you want to make your soup more nutritious add 1-2 potatoes and a carrot. In fact, it doesn't affect taste too much. Use of coconut milk will make the taste more intriguing and allow for more spices - an option for the ones who freeze badly :) Herbs are good, boil them in your bullion but then filter it in order not to spoil the perfect orangitivity of your soup.

So, let the feast begin. First, peel the pumpkin. If it's too difficult bake the pumpkin for few minutes in the oven, it will soften. Cut the onion. In the pot, warm up olive oil with some cinnamon, then fry onions, garlic and carrots (if you want them in your soup) till they soften a bit, add potatoes (again, in case you want them. If not - just skip this step) and ~1 l of boiling water (or bullion), boil everything for 5 minutes and add pumpkin. Boil again, till the pumpkin gets soft (another 3-5 minutes). Now, fish out all the vegetables (keep the bullion!) and blend them with love and passion. Bring the orange awesomeness back to the bullion, add cream (or coconut milk), ginger (I put ~2 tablespoons of powder), cayenne pepper, a bit of salt (and whatever you consider appropriate, spice-wise), let it boil all together for couple of minutes - and enjoy!!!

Today there's no picture because when I made this soup the previous time it was over too fast. But theoretically you can serve it with sliced almonds or slightly roasted cedar nuts and parsley.

An idea for a late quasi-dinner

Some people have an idea of not eating much or tough after 6 pm. But, following the Russian piece of wisdom, the hunger is not an aunt or a random woman - there's an ambiguity in the original saying (meaning, you actually cannot get rid of it), so weak in body but strong in spirit, we have to indulge our stomachs after the sun sets. Especially justified in autumn and winter when the organism spends so much effort on keeping the blood above solidification point. To remind one how does the summer tastes here is an idea: some black bread, cheese (goat cheese in my case), a fig and a bit of red wine.

Taǧin a-la Robuchon

Taǧin is a traditional North-African dish named after a special pot where it is cooked (wiki). The idea is in a long simmering of water that makes the meat, vegetables seasonings and spices melting in one's mouth.

An adapted receipt from a french chef Robuchon includes, also, rice and is cooked in a usual pot. Adaptation is quite serious, but the result is still delicious. The proportions are given for ~6 portions. So, you will need:

600 g of lamb flesh
100 g of raisins
100 g of dry apricots
100 g of prunes (dried black plums)
lemon juice
1 tablespoonful of honey
salt, pepper, cinnamon, saffron, ginger, turmeric, cumin, paprika, pepper (whichever you have!)
250 g of rice (I think in my case it was more, I didn't measure it)
~500 ml of chicken bullion (I took beef bullion)
2 onions
1 section of garlic
butter and oil
mint

Start heating the oven (180 C). Cut dried fruits (except raisins) and keep them in some hot water with lemon. Meanwhile, take a big pot that can fit the oven (watch out for handles) and melt some butter in it. Fry 1 onion, add wet dried fruits, fry them around a bit. Add honey and spices, fry a bit. Add rice and bullion, close all this happiness with a lit and put it in the oven at 180 C for 30-45 minutes (depends on the oven), the point is to get rice ready. This rice part is kind of a fraud but it balances everything here (and reminds that this is just an abominable Western-world adaptation). Originally meat and seasonings are supposed to be cooked together in a tajine, but we don't have a tajine, this is why the meat is cooked separately and we have to add bullion in the pot. Check the rice from time to time and add more water, if necessary.

Take a big pan. Melt some butter and add some oil and cinnamon, cut and fry the second onion. Add a section of garlic (don't clean or cut it, it will go away at some point). Cut meat, fry it shortly, remove the garlic, add some water, salt, spices and let it stew till it gets soft enough (my source skipped the stewing step, but I think it's absolutely necessary, because the idea of tajine is to make the meat as tender and moist as possible).
When everything is ready, put some rice on a plate, treat it with the sauce from the meat, add meat, serve with fresh mint.

If you don't give a shit about Robuchon but want to make a tajine closer to the original, then you need a bit less effort and a bit more time. Take a big pan (a lit of an appropriate size required), and prepare the dried fruits, add meat there (not necessarily lamb, chicken and turkey will do perfectly as well), add all the spices, some water and leave it to stew on a small fire with a lit closed for 2-3 hours. Then add the rice and a bit more water and let it stew for another 30 minutes. Then  - enjoy!

Carrot cake or my happy autumn

The good thing about autumn is orange. This is why one of the straightforward ways to celebrate autumn (yes, it's followed by the winter but it's not a reason not to celebrate) is a carrot cake! Easy, tasty and odorous.

2 cups of flour + baking powder
~1 cup of sugar (depends on how sweet you want your cake to be. I put slightly less and everyone's happy)
4 eggs
100 g of walnuts (I broke them in pieces and fried a bit with some cinnamon)
1 cup of sunflower oil
350 g of ground carrots
cinnamon, ginger, a bit of salt, 
a spoon of cointreau or orange peel
(whatever you think fits with carrots)
250 g of mascarpone 
(well, any other cream cheese can do, too)
50 g of sugar powder 
(or even more, if you don't like your icing sour)
peel and juice of a lime

Start to heat the oven at 180 C. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and spices. Mix eggs with sugar (better, with a mixer), add the oil to the mixture. Add the flour blend little by little, add carrots and nuts, mix again. Bake for 40 minutes (till the dry toothpick) at 180 C. Wait till it cools down. Mix mascarpone with sugar powder and peel and lime juice, distribute it over the cake and enjoy!