My Chocolate Birthday Cake

Photography by Angèle van Diessen

My little daughter and I baked this chocolate cake for my birthday last week.  One of the ingredients in the cake is freshly brewed coffee, which actually just enhances the chocolate flavor.  I'm not a huge fan of frosting, so we left the cake without frosting but decorated it with chocolate hazelnut crème de Pirouline.  This cake was so moist and chocolaty!  I still have half a carton of buttermilk so I might just have to bake another chocolate cake this week.  :)

















My new Etsy shop, Receptivity, is now open! www.etsy.com/shop/Receptivity  I'll be adding more listings, so check back often!  : )

Thanksgiving

Photography by Angèle van Diessen

After a long break, during which I delivered one of my most beautiful creations--our second child!--things have settled (or I've gotten used to the chaos) and I'm ready to continue blogging.  This year, we decided to have a quiet Thanksgiving at home.  At the last minute, I thought to take a picture, so I arranged the food and snapped this photo (while my forgotten appetizer was burning in the oven!).

There's always something grand about a whole bird waiting to be carved.  But since a turkey would have been way too much for my small family, I roasted a whole chicken.  Along with that, I made potato salad with real crumbled bacon.  And of course, one of those "We need some veggies.  But hey, it's a holiday so let's mix it with all sorts of goodness!" --green bean casserole. To finish, good ol' homemade pumpkin pie.

My new Etsy shop, Receptivity, is now open! www.etsy.com/shop/Receptivity  I'll be adding more listings, so check back often!  : )

Traditional Trinidadian Food

Photography by Angèle van Diessen

This is comfort food to me - stew chicken and potatoes, macaroni pie and callaloo.  It's a typical Trinidadian dinner, or maybe a Sunday lunch.  For the stew chicken and potatoes, first you season the chicken with salt, ground black pepper, granulated onion, granulated garlic, basil, thyme, and oregano.  In a large pot, you caramelize brown sugar in some oil until it's puffy and just about to burn.  Then, you quickly throw in the seasoned chicken and stir to coat.  Add some chopped onions, garlic, chives, and a whole habanero pepper then cover and braise the meat on low heat.  (Be careful with the habanero!  If it bursts, the entire dish will be very hot.  You can always leave it out, if you'd prefer.)  When the meat is almost done, add the potatoes and cook until done.  The last step is to turn off the heat and stir in some sliced tomatoes.

I find there are two things that ensure the dish does not taste bitter from the browned sugar.  The chicken needs to be salted adequately (Alton Brown gives a quick explanation of how salt affects bitterness.  The most pertinent part is between 0:36 and 2:00 - although I encourage you to watch this entire episode of Good Eats.) and the tomatoes in the end must not be skipped.

The macaroni pie is a baked dish of cooked macaroni, evaporated milk, eggs, and cheddar cheese and it's topped with more cheddar cheese.  I prefer sharp cheddar.

The callaloo is a purée made by simmering chopped spinach, chopped okra, onion, and garlic in coconut milk and water until the okra seeds turn a dark pink.  I like it best when it's seasoned/flavored with salt, black pepper, basil, thyme, oregano, chives and smoked pork hocks.  Just let these simmer along with everything else.  When the mixture has cooked and cooled sufficiently, it's puréed briefly (without the hocks if you used them!) in a blender.  Voila!  You have callaloo...which most often is macaroni pie's other half, but is delicious on all your food.

Note: Macaroni pie and callaloo freeze very well

My new Etsy shop, Receptivity, is now open!  www.etsy.com/shop/Receptivity  I'll be adding more listings, so check back often!  :)

Cheesecake Sweetened with Splenda

Photography by Angèle van Diessen

This Labor Day weekend, my parents, siblings, and an uncle came to visit.  While the men worked outside to remove a dead tree in our front yard (So appreciated!), my mother, sister and I spent time in the kitchen.  Almost everyone in my family loves cheesecake and I had help watching my 2 year old, so I thought I'd make a cheesecake for them to enjoy.  This cheesecake is the one I normally make - with one exception.  Since my mother and uncle are both diabetic, I replaced the sugar with an equal amount of Splenda. 

This is the first time I've used Splenda in my cheesecake and I'm quite pleased with the results.  I'll admit I've avoided using Splenda in my baking since an experience years ago when I used Splenda in my chocolate chip cookies and the texture turned out way off.  My cheesecake doesn't rely on sugar for anything but sweetness, so I was pretty confident the substitute would work and it did!  If you concentrate on it, the sweetness takes a little longer to register on the tongue than when sugar is used, but the actual flavor was barely affected.  My family loved it and I count this one as a success!

(Interesting note: I just learned from my uncle that the Splenda in the individual packets is much sweeter than the granulated Splenda in the box that's used for baking.  Each packet is equivalent to 2 tsp. of sugar, while the granulated Splenda measures cup for cup with sugar.)

My new Etsy shop, Receptivity, is now open! www.etsy.com/shop/Receptivity  I'll be adding more listings, so check back often!  : )

Tomato Garlic Shrimp with Risotto

Photography by Angèle van Diessen

Cooking is one of the things that I simply love to do, and I will take the time to do it.   I love to experiment with new ingredients or methods. 

This dish tastes great and it's quite simple. First, I seasoned the peeled and deveined shrimp with some kosher salt and ground black pepper. Then, I sautéed them in olive and minced garlic. At the very end, I threw in some diced tomato and a few torn basil leaves. I served it atop a risotto with a very mild flavor. It's flavor comes from the chicken broth I used to cook it and a little grated Parmesan cheese. The mild creaminess of the risotto paired with the bold flavors of the shrimp is a great combination!

The key to well-cooked shrimp is high heat for only a couple minutes. Shrimp cooks extremely quickly, and you also have to take into account the fact that it will continue to cook in the residual heat. So, you have to stop cooking the shrimp before they're fully done.

Risotto is not something you can leave to itself. It needs constant stirring to release the starch that will give you the creamy consistency as you gradually add the cooking liquid. It should take somewhere around 20-25 minutes to cook. This is probably the most labor-intensive part of the entire dish, but the creaminess is worth it!

My new Etsy shop, Receptivity, is now open! www.etsy.com/shop/Receptivity  I'll be adding more listings, so check back often!  : )