Another amazing cake

 My co-workers were delighted with this cake!

Coffee and Cream Marbled Coffee Cake – Adapted from Bake Magazine

Makes one nine inch cake

Ingredients

1 ½ c (284 grams) unsalted butter, softened

2 ¼ cups (450 grams) sugar

5 large eggs, room temperature

1 T vanilla extract

3 cups (375 grams) all purpose flour

2 ½ t baking powder

1 t kosher salt

¾ c (180 grams) sour cream

3 ounces (85 grams) bittersweet chocolate, melted

3 T instant espresso powder

Instructions

·         Preheat oven to 350 degrees

·         In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium until fluffy – about three minutes. Stop to scrape the sides.

·         Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg. Beat in vanilla

·         Stop the mixer.

·         In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

·         With mixer on low, add 1/3 of the flour with about half of the sour cream; mix; add 1/3 of the flour; mix; add remaining sour cream; mix; add remaining flour.

·         Divide batter in half (approx. 3 cups or 780 grams)

·         In a small bowl, stir melted chocolate and espresso powder. Add to half the batter.

·         In 9 or 10 cup bundt pan, which you have sprayed with PAM, alternate scooping the vanilla batter with the chocolate batter into the pan. Fill the pan.

·         Using a butter knife, swirl the batters together. Tap the pan.

·         Bake until a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean, about an hour.

·         Cool in pan for 15 minutes on a wire rack.

·         Remove from pan and let cool on rack.

 

Eat Your Books

 As you may know, I have a few cookbooks. I have more than a few. When I get a new book, I mark down (using post it notes) which recipes look interesting. And then I put the book on the shelf and hope I remember what recipes are in there. 

I plan my menus weekly, and go through some of the books searching for the perfect recipe for the week (who is eating dinner at the house and how much time I have to prepare the meal). 

One of my community members, Robin, suggested Eat Your Books.

Here is how EYB describes itself:

Eat Your Books is a website for people who love cookbooks and love to use great recipes. If you have a cookbook collection, you probably get a lot of pleasure from browsing your books - but there are times when you haven't got time to look through them all to find a recipe. Or maybe you feel you're not using them as effectively as you'd like, sticking to familiar recipes or not branching beyond the current favorites.

Eat Your Books can help you find recipes in seconds - we're the only website to have indexed the most popular cookbooks, so you can include them in your online searches.You might also like to use recipes from other sources and with Eat Your Books you can do a single search across ALL your recipes, no matter where they are.  

With Eat Your Books you can create your own personal Bookshelf and you can find recipes across:

• Your cookbooks - tell us which cookbooks you own. If we haven't indexed a favorite book, use the EYB indexing tools and do it yourself.  

• Your food magazines - add that stack of magazines, all the most popular magazines have been indexed.  

• Great food blogs and websites - add Food52, David Lebovitz, Smitten Kitchen, 101 Cookbooks and many more.  

• Your own personal recipe clippings - bring some order to your clippings files by using the EYB indexing tools.  

• Your favorite online recipes - using the EYB Bookmarklet you can add any online recipe to your collection.

Eat Your Books is NOT a recipe site, so you won't find the recipes here, but you will be able to find them and if there is an online version of the recipe there will be a link to it.  

It costs $30 a year to sign up. Once you are a member you select the cookbooks that you own to your bookshelf. I would say 99% of my cookbooks that I own have been indexed, so I don’t need to add anything else. I have a few books that are not indexed (mostly community groups that published cookbooks for fundraising), and I haven’t had the time to volunteer to index them.

Once your books are entered, you can search your recipes (and you can filter for ingredients, and course (Asparagus and side dish); and the titles appear (with the cookbook and page number).

It is life changing, especially if you belong to a CSA and get weekly boxes. You can search for that ingredient and find a recipe in a book that you already own.

I have already searched their list of cookbooks that will be published in 2023. That is very nice.

Let me know what you think.

Instant Pot - No Fry Refried Beans

 

During the summer of 2022, Adam and I went to Cabo, and I ate alot of refried beans. I have been thinking about all the amazing things I had while in Cabo. Tonight, I made a super easy Instant Pot bean recipe that I will be making again and again.

No-Fry Refried Beans from Instant Pot Miracle (with some modifications)

Serves 6-8 adults

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups dried pinto beans

5 cups fat free vegetable broth

4-6 sprigs of fresh cilantro

1/2 t plus 1/4 t cumin

 1 bay leaf

1 T canola oil

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

1 small jalapeno pepper seeds removed (I only used 1/2)

3 garlic cloves minced

salt and pepper

Rinse beans with cold water and remove any shriveled beans or discolored beans. Add beans to Instant Pot. Add broth, cilantro, and 1/2 teaspoon of cumin and 1 bay leaf. Close the lid and select MANUAL and chose HIGH PRESSURE for 40 minutes. When complete, allow a natural release.

Pour beans into colander set over a large bowl to catch the bean liquid. Discard cilantro and bay leaf.

Pour 1 1/2 c of bean liquid into a measuring cup.

Press sauté on the pot. When hot add oil. Then add onion, jalapeño and garlic and cook for 3 minutes. Stirring occasionally. Press cancel and add cumin. Add bean liquid.

In a blender pour the contents of the pot and blend VERY quickly as to NOT make it smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Things we use to reduce our waste

 We use alot of stuff and throw away alot.

I have previously commented on our composting, which we still do. That has reduced our waste in our trashcan. 

Since we take our lunches to school and work, we use these in lunch boxes. At the end of the day, we put them in the dishwasher. It has reduced our plasticware waste.

For years, I didn't use the plastic produce bags. I never liked them. One use bags, and I didn't have a reuse at home. Now I use reusable produce bags like these.

We use cloth napkins instead of paper napkins, and that has really changed our waste!

We use a low waste store, Cleanland or Fulfilled Goods. Due to allergies, we can't use any shampoo or detergent, but they have low scent pods that we love. Adam uses the bar shampoo. I highly recommend a visit there.

Start the new year off right with trying to reduce your household waste.

My First Ukranian Recipe

 I pre-ordered Budmo, during the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and had been waiting for the release. My first recipe, Bell Peppers, was a big hit.

Serves Six

Ingredients

3/4 cup rice (white regular)

salt and pepper

6 medium orange peppers

2 T Canola Oil

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1 large carrot, grated

1 T tomato paste

2 cups canned diced tomatoes

2 cups vegetable stock

1 T cream

1 pound of Morningstar Grillers 

1 bay leaf

In a small saucepan, combine rice with enough water to cover it by two inches, and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil over medium high heat and cook for 10 minutes. Drain rice and let cool.

Cut off the stems of each pepper and remove the seeds.

In a large sauté pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and carrot and cook for 9 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and cook for 1 minute. Add canned tomatoes and stock. Stir, turn up heat to medium high. bring to simmer and then stir in the cream. Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.

In a bowl, mix together the grillers (frozen) and cooked rice. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff the peppers with the rice mixture. Stand the peppers in a pot large enough to hold them but not so they crush each other. Then pour tomatoes sauce around the peppers. Insert bay leaf into sauce. Put pot on medium high heat and when the sauce boils turn down to low and cover. Heat for 40 minutes.

Put each pepper on a plate and serve with sauce. Make sure bay leaf is put into the compost bin and not on a plate.

Israel - Hadassah Hospital

Hadassah Hospital Medical Clown. I was so happy to meet one!

A model room for the new renovation. We got to meet with the architect!

Below are the Chagal Windows

 

Israel Part 4 - Food and Friends

So nice to travel with friends. We had a very nice dinner at the David Citadel Hotel

Leslie (to the right) is the reason I was able to go to Hadassah Convention in Israel! Thank you Leslie!!!

My first Israeli breakfast. So many salads and cheeses and fruits. Too bad things were not well labeled for those of us that have food allergies. I was able to maneuver around, but I would have liked to have tried more food. If in doubt, I didn't eat it.

My first Israeli Krembo in Israel! It is a chocolate covered marshmallow treat on top of a little round wafer cookie. It is delicious.

Another Israeli Breakfast. Eggs and cucumbers and melon. DELICIOUS

Israeli desserts. The Krembo and the chocolate ball. Again, delicious.

Lunch at the Israel Museum. Not sure what the dish is called but it was a roasted chicken with roasted vegetables with middle eastern herbs. Again. Delicious.

Flat bread with three different types of dipping sauce. Delicious.

Could have been at Piccolino

Fast Food - Israeli Falafel in pita. YUM.

I don't know what this was except heavenly. I think it was smoked potatoes with an herb aioli sauce. I have no idea how to make this at home.

Hummus with plenty of vegetables.

Took a cooking class in Jerusalem.

This is chicken with red onions.

Our class made pita!!!!!

Pita Making

Our food!

On the bottom is a roasted slice of eggplant, topped with Tehina. Then ground beef and caramelized onions.

Makluba! Rice with roasted vegetables and on top there are caramelized onions and chicken.

Makluba!

Israeli dates in the shuk. They were huge. They were delicious.

Shuk Dragon Fruit

Etrog Man - Juice

Just look

120 kinds of Halavah in one stall of the shuk

Pomegranate

Rugelach from Marzipan Bakery in the Shuk

NUTS at the shuk

Cooking class video