I Try Food From Other Bloggers

I tried another cupcake from Chockylit – the Samoa inspired cupcake. It was to die for, but never again!

I started in the kitchen around 11 a.m. and figured I’d be there at least until 3 p.m. I was there until 6 p.m. Some of this time was used to make Jell-O shots in orange wedges that I saw at NotMartha, but that task was cake, unlike the cupcakes.

I decided to make miniature cupcakes since the calorie count was out of this world for one regular size cupcake. Miniatures also worked well for the weekend cookout. The batter goes farther so more people can partake.

Working in miniature tries my patience. Instead of assembling twelve cupcakes, I had to assemble about fifty cupcakes – in miniature.

The recipe calls for four different components: cake batter, caramel, ganache, and coconut topping. All of the components turned out well, but save time by skipping the caramel.

You’re instructed to cut a cone from the cupcake – again, lots of fun in miniature! – and fill with caramel. By the time you eat the cupcake, the cake has absorbed the caramel. So, the cake is just a little sweeter. No gooey caramel center like I was hoping to bite into.

The coconut topping is similar to icing on a German chocolate cake, and ganache is ganache. Everyone loved the cupcakes, but never made the connection to Samoas® until I told them that the Girl Scout cookie was the inspiration.

The cupcakes were phenomenal; don’t get me wrong. The caramel and coconut topping were so yummy. I had tons left over, but immediately trashed them so as not to keep sticking my finger in the bowls.

The Jell-o® shots were a smashing hit. Every one loved how they could easily get the shot out of the orange wedge by popping the wedge in front of their teeth and chomping down. Apparently Jell-o shots don’t come out of the traditional paper cup too easily.

So, thank you food bloggers for sharing your ideas and experiences. You’re more creative than most cookbooks.

Avocado Shake

An avocado shake may sound gross, even if you like avocados, but it’s not. Trust me. I’m an upstanding and trustworthy individual.

I had never even seen an avocado shake until about two years ago when I was dining at Pho Ba Le, a Vietnamese restaurant on Washington Ave. This section of town, with lines of cars out the cluster of Vietnamese strip malls and the double-parked cars at the Italian Market, is a nightmare to drive in on the weekend. Can you say clusterfuck? Yet, the avocado shake and a stop in the Asian Markets is worth it.

The avocado shake is pale green in color, sweet, nutty, and has just a hint of avocado. The flavor is subtle and addictive. If you were handed the shake and not told what was in it, you would never guess avocado. You'd guess sweet nectar of God.

Pho Ba Le puts tapioca balls in the shake, so as you fiendishly suck up the shake you also get chewy, sweet tapioca pearls. With the addition of tapioca pearls, what I’m drinking is really a Boba, or bubble tea, but skip the tapioca and you have a shake / smoothie / frozen beverage / insert-name-here.

Avocado Shake

2 cups ice
2 peeled and pitted avocado
½ cup condensed sweetened milk

• Blend ingredients in a blender.
• Pour into glass.
• Put mouth to glass edge.
• Tip glass up while holding mouth open.

Philly Italian Market Festival Pictorial

Is that a sausage in your pineapple, or are you just happy to see me?

In the Name of Science

The following stunts were performed by untrained amateurs. Do not attempt at home.

Strange ideas manifest themselves in my head. Sometimes I act upon them. If the following idea enters your head, do not act upon. Seriously.

My neighbors grill all the time and it makes me really hungry. I have a little grill on my back porch. I rarely use it. Last year I was dying to try grilled pizza. I did. It was good. I also wanted to grill all sorts of fruit. I didn’t.

It’s a new year, so I bought a new bag of charcoal a week ago and have been waiting to use it. Somehow the grilling of pizza and fruit came together, seemingly brilliantly, in my head. My idea was to grill a pizza with fruit toppings. This would not be a dessert, but, you know, a pizza!

I soaked strawberries in balsamic vinegar and sugar, and coated pineapple and bananas in a lime and honey mixture. I stuck these on improvised skewers made from chopsticks and grilled them. (I don’t always think things through thoroughly).

I then grilled two small rounds of pizza dough and put a pomegranate glaze on the pizza as a “sauce”. The lesson from last year was that pizza dough cooks quickly over the grill. You must cook one side, then flip to cook the other side. Pizza cooks so quickly that you must pre-cook the toppings and add the toppings and the cheese to the first cooked side as the second side cooks.

I experimented with different cheese toppings on the fruit pizza. I used Brie and cream cheese initially. The Brie melted beautifully. The cream cheese remained in little clumps. The cream cheese was too sweet. I removed the cream cheese from a piece of pizza and added some cheddar, since I had it in the fridge. My conclusion is that the sharper and stronger the cheese the better.

My conclusion overall is that I had a stupid idea.

There’s a reason that I couldn’t find a non-dessert fruit pizza when I googled it. This was too sweet and would have evoked a gag reflex if I weren’t a freak. Oh yeah, I ate it!

I was imagining crackers, fruit, and cheese, but in the form of pizza. Not so. Stick to crackers and cheese or a savory pizza with pineapple.

Let’s just say that I have an excellent imagination. Commit me now!

Papaya Salsa

What to do with half a papaya and left over BBQ tempeh?

Living by myself, I truly make some weird combos with leftovers. I’ll throw anything over pasta or put it in a wrap. I don’t have anyone’s taste buds to consider so all is fair game. I would be embarrassed to admit most of the combos I make when no one is around, but the one I made the other day can come out of the closet.

The vegetarian platter at La Cena in Downingtown, PA inspired me when looking into the fridge. La Cena is a great restaurant that serves Latin American food. The only problem is that I can eat only one dish and the restaurant is about an hour away in a podunk town. If cruising through Downingtown, La Cena is the place to stop. You can stop at Victory Brewing Company if you must, but don't eat there. Bring the beer to La Cena; it's BYOB.

Their vegetarian platter is a HUGE bowl of rice and beans topped with cheese, lots of lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, and plantains. Very simple, but sooo good. I like the “salad” and salsa on top of the rice. I don’t know why I’ve never really eaten a salad on rice elsewhere. Great idea!

I turned the leftover papaya into salsa. I topped a bowl of rice with the leftover BBQ tempeh, lettuce, and the papaya salsa. It was very good. The juice from the salsa and the BBQ sauce flavors the rice. I like to think of my creation as a Caribbean interpretation of La Cena’s vegetarian platter.

Papaya Salsa
enough for one person or two small eaters

2-3 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon honey
⅓ cup papaya, diced
1 plum tomato, diced
1 tablespoon sweet onion, finely chopped
2-3 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
hot pepper to taste, finely chopped
pinch of salt

• Combine lime juice and honey. Briefly heating this mixture in the microwave for 10-15 seconds will help incorporate the honey.
• Add the rest of the ingredients and mix.
  
• Refrigerate until ready to use.

Ice Cream Hoarding

You know what goes really well with those papaya-coconut cupcakes?

Green Tea ice cream!

I picked up 5 pints this weekend from Trader Joes. No, I’m not a pig. I’m just hoarding.

I once read that if you like something at Trader Joes, you better stock up on it because it may disappear.

Pishaw! That won’t happen to me.

Then, it did!

A few weeks after posting about my addiction to Lucky Country Aussie Red Licorice, it went missing from the shelves and still has not appeared.

The ready to eat udon noodles and frozen gorgonzola and pear pizza have been missing since winter, the bite size cheesecakes (great for parties) make an appearance about twice a year, the gummi candies and frozen vegetarian bean burritos have been missing for a few months, and the Kashi cereal I get was gone last week.

Gelato Classico’s Green Tea flavored gelato is my favorite. They also make a ginger flavored gelato that’s neck and neck in the favorite race. These two can go missing for months before I see it again. I hadn’t seen either flavor in a few months and was afraid it wasn’t coming back, so I grabbed all that was left when it appeared this weekend.

Hopefully, with a little control, those pints will get me most of the way through summer.

Papaya-Coconut Cupcakes with Ginger-Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

Speaking of exotic flavors, I finally got around to making one of the scrumptious sounding and looking cupcakes at Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit, a blog devoted to the cupcake. If you haven’t been to the site, do go. I put it on my blogroll a few months ago.

Her cupcake darlings are creative and inspiring. They're not your standard flavors offered at bakeries. Here’s a sampling of the unusual-for-cupcake flavors: tarragon, basil, fennel, chili, tea, eggnog, persimmon, and lychee.

Some of the cupcakes are complex and amazing. I’m eyeing a cupcake inspired by the Samoas® Girl Scout cookie for an upcoming eating event – my second favorite Girl Scout cookie after Thin Mints.

I’m a sucker for pictures, and her pictures are gorgeous. I know my cupcakes will never look that good due to my chronic impatience and lack of a pastry bag, yet I still am not afraid to dive in and try to recreate the beauty.

The cupcakes all look good, but I decided to try the papaya-coconut cupcakes with ginger-lime cream cheese frosting.

I had everything already in the kitchen, expect for a papaya. The recipe calls for six ounces of papaya, but I don’t have a scale. I just threw some in; I’m not sure how much.

I substituted reduced-fat coconut milk and reduced-fat cream cheese because it was on hand. I would not recommend reduced-fat cream cheese if you were taking these to an event, only because the resulting icing is softer. If it’s warm outside, the icing could be a melting mess.

The result was very good. The cake was more like a fruit quick bread. The icing was my favorite part – tangy lime with spicy ginger. I put the full tablespoon of ginger in, but for my taste I could have put more in.

If only I had the time and metabolism to make and eat every one of her cupcakes!