Artichoke Hearts with Mushroom and Peas in a Lemon Sauce

Artichokes have always struck me as kind of mysterious. I 'd never eaten or cooked one and had no idea how to attack a whole artichoke. Even reading the recipe freaked me out a little: "Now, from the top, and in a circular motion, cut out the hairy choke". Hairy choke? That sounds terrifying. Fortunately Niki kept a cool head and all went smoothly. Yum.
We used fresh whole artichokes but this version of the recipe uses frozen artichoke hearts to save time.

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

I'm proud of these babies. Jen, Omer, and Niki have all approved these muffins which makes me so happy/relieved because this summer has been one of baking failures. Cooking successes, but baking failures. Here's the recipe.

I took SmittenKitchen's advice and topped the muffins with a lot of brown sugar (and cinnamon, of course) and this made the tops crunchy and delicious. Other alterations to the recipe: I threw in some walnuts, doubled the amount of cinnamon, and substituted heavy cream with 1 tbs lemon for the yogurt. This makes me seem somewhat competent, but I honestly panicked when I realized that I didn't have yogurt. But the internet is a wonderful thing and after some intense googling I discovered the substitute. I've already devoured three. Whole wheat is good for you, right? ;)

Omer took some photos too, so you may see some better gratuitous food porn shots up here soon.

Spicy Shrimp & Spring Rolls

I went home one weekend and was excited to have a stove again. I was going to make some pork picadillo that sounded pretty delicious. (Recipe here.) I didn't, however, because my mom wanted me to use the leftover shrimp she had.

So I began peeling and deveining a pound of irregularly sized shrimp. This takes forever, everyone. Once done, I tossed the shrimp in some olive oil, paprika, cayenne pepper, and garlic and threw them in the pan.

They tasted pretty good, actually. I made a lame attempt at garnishing the plate of just shrimp.

Just when I was about to make an accompanying salad, my brother walks in and announces he has a sore throat and won't be able to eat. Darn it--the only willing meat-eater around!

My mom makes me feel better by whipping out everything needed to make fresh spring rolls. You usually put plain, unboiled shrimp in them. But we could use the spicy shrimp. Why not!

Here you can see the heap of lettuce and fresh herbs (mint, sawtooth herb, some other things I do not know the name of). My mom is also slicing up some cucumber unto her plate, which already contains the wet rice paper and herbs. We happened to have some unripe mango lying around, so we decided to add it in.

Here is a step-by-step layering of the ingredients.

I couldn't take a picture of myself rolling them up. That's too many hands that I don't have. So here's an action shot of my mom:

And this is her finished product, with the shrimp all lined up inside the roll. And some obligatory fish sauce with chili. Almost every Vietnamese dish needs fish sauce!

Sorry about taking up so much room on the blog, but I love pictures of food! Does anyone know how to hide part of the entry under a cut?

Anyway...these were pretty good. I prefer my spring rolls with plain shrimp, though. That way the sauce and all the herbs get to contribute their own delicious flavors. Oh well! At least we did something with all that shrimp.

Triple (Sorta) Chocolate (Sorta) Delight (Sorta)

Shilpa and I made these (sorta) delectable concoctions, but they didn't turn out quite as expected...mostly because Shilpa and I (read: Neena) cut a few corners during the baking/making process.

For 21 cookies, we used 5 oz. (rather than the 8 called for) of unsweetened (rather than semi-sweet) chocolate. We also forgot to use 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips and overestimated the amount of sugar to compensate.

They look cupcake-y (and well, turd-y) and tasted chocolate-y but not sweet. The texture is ok. Like many fine wines and cheeses, they've gotten better with time...as I adjusted...to the taste.

Here's the recipe. For you to never ever replicate.

Sushi? Kimbap? Not really.

So it wasn't an authentic anything (hell, we didn't even use sushi rice, we used arborio) but it was delicious. And surprisingly quick. Cooking the rice was the most time consuming part. Niki is vegetarian so we put in egg, cucumber, and carrot. Next time I want avocado.

Small Batch: Chocolate Chip (cinnamon?) Cookies

I got a craving for chocolate chip cookies this afternoon. I didn't want to make a lot so I googled "small batch chocolate chip cookies" and this recipe made 10 cookies:
2 T plus 2 t butter room temp
2 T brown sugar

2 T granulated sugar

2 T egg, well beaten
1/4 t vanilla
1/4 cup plus 2 T flour
scant 1/4 t baking soda
1/8 t salt
1/3 cup chocolate chips (not enough in my opinion...throw in a handful more)
Optional: 1 teaspoon cinnamon. I absolutely cannot resist adding cinnamon when baking.

Cream the butter and sugars, mix in the eggs and vanilla, stir in the dry ingredients, then the chips. Bake at 375 for 8-11 minutes.

I am no baking expert (that's you, Ames) and in my hurry I forgot the baking soda! Explains why the cookies are kind of flat. Somehow they're still good: crispy around the edges and soft and chewy in the middle. My only complaint is that they're a little too sweet- try this using less sugar.
Mmm. With a glass of milk.

Naan Revisited

Liz and I went to visit Shilpa! And she made us naan! I would say that I helped, but that would be a lie: after pinching off a piece of dough to roll out, I promptly dropped it on the floor.

This time, Shilpa experimented with thyme, garlic powder and dill, and the results were delicious. I especially liked the flavor of the dill with the naan. I will be making my own this week, I hope.