Cooking & baking inspiration

I’ve continued to spend time this past week, as I probably do every week, searching for new eats and recipes. Here are a few of my favourites that I plan to test out in the coming months. I’ve also come across some really great, interesting blogs, some of which feature the recipes below. I’m leaving it at four, but honestly the list in this post could go on for pages. If you want to see more of the recipes I discover or plan on trying, you could always follow me on Twitter @60percentbaking!

Grilled potato rounds with pesto and shaved asparagus via Minimally Invasive

Sweet potato and black bean patties via Tasty Yummies

Red flannel hash via Spoon Fork Bacon

Buttered rum cupcakes via Adventures in Cooking

Tikka Masala

Along with developing a new menu to guide our grocery and eating habits, we’ve been search for and testing a few new recipes.

I got this recipe from In the Kitchen with Stefano Faita. After watching him make it on TV, seeing that it looked pretty simple and flexible, I decided to give it a try. I got all the necessary spices at the Bulk Barn and I was pretty much ready to go, as most of the other ingredients are ones I usually have on hand. 

Here’s the recipe as adapted from this one from In the Kitchen:  

Ingredients:

2-3 chicken breasts (boneless)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup whipping cream (35%)**

Basmati rice for serving

Preparation: 

Cut chicken into 1 1/2 inch cubes and season with salt and pepper.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot, add chicken and cook until cooked through, about 5 minutes. Remove from pan.

Clean pan, add more oil. When warm, sweat onion, garlic and ginger for 2 to 3 minutes. Add cumin, turmeric, chili powder and cardamom and let the spices heat while stirring. Add lemon juice and cook for another minute.

Add tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer. Add chicken back to pan. Continue to cook add whipping cream**. Simmer until sauce is thickened.

Serve over rice and garnish with plain yogurt.

** What neglects to be mentioned in the In the Kitchen recipe is that you should not substitute whipping cream for regular coffee cream. The high fat content in whipping cream (or the yogurt if you choose to use that instead of cream) is what keeps it from curdling when added to the warm pan. If whipping cream isn’t an option for you, you can temper your regular cream before adding it to the pan. This is done by adding, in several small additions, teaspoons of the juices from the pan to the cream while stirring vigorously, then adding this to the pan while stirring.  

Overall, I was pretty happy with how this dish turned out. It was hearty, easy to make (once I figured out how to avoid curdling), makes great leftovers for the next day. It’s also very flexible, in terms of spices and flavours, so you can tweak it to taste. This recipe is definitely going to be added as a regular to our menu.

Enjoy!

Lemon cupcakes with vanilla and matcha tea frosting

I’ve made and blogged about lemon cupcakes a few times, like here and here, but I only now realized that I’ve never shared the recipe. I apologize, because I think this recipe is definitely a keeper. The cupcakes are easy to make, moist, and work well with several types of frosting.

Here’s what you’ll need and how to put it all together:

Lemon cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup cream
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
3 oz butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2+ tbs lemon zest

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Combine and whisk together cream, eggs, yolk, vanilla, and lemon.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixer. Beat until well blended.
Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the wet in two parts.
Scoop batter into a muffin tin and bake at 350F for ~15-20 minutes.
The top will start to crackle when it’s done baking. 

For vanilla frosting, you can check out my previous post on chocolate cupcakes here. For matcha tea frosting, check out my post on grapefruit cupcakes here.