Quinoa Porridge

This was when I went back to trying to use up a whole bunch of quinoa. I cooked up a huge batch in my rice cooker and turned some of it into this porridge and ate the rest with chili. :O

Quinoa Porridge

Ingredients:
-1 cup cooked quinoa
-1/2 cup soy milk
-1 tsp honey
-1 tbsp dried cranberries
-1 tbsp nuts (optional)
-dash cinnamon (optional)

Instructions:
1) Pour quinoa, milk and honey into microwave-safe bowl. Heat for 1-2 minutes until warm. Stir until all honey is dissolved and incorporated into your quinoa porridge. Stir in the dried fruit and nuts.
(Fresh apple chunks would be awesome with this)

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Banana Cream Pie

Judy made this some time ago for dessert when I was over, and it was full of all kinds of awesome/surprisingly not too sweet, so we obtained the recipe for her and bam! It’s been recreated but with a ready-made crust! I think it tasted better with the cookie crust that she made, but we were in between finals at the time, so ready-made it was. :O

Banana Cream Pie

Ingredients:
-4 bananas, sliced
-1 box of banana cream pudding mix
-1 3/4 cups heavy cream
-1/4 cup milk
-1 tbsp butter, softened at room temperature
-lemon juice + water
-9″ pie crust
(Whipped Cream)
-heavy cream
-1-2 tbsp sugar
-vanilla extract (optional)
(For the record, 1 cup of heavy cream transmutes into ~2 cups whipped cream…so be careful with that.)

Instructions:
1) Slice bananas, dip in lemon juice and lay out on paper towel. Cover with paper towel.
2) Prepare the crust. Prebake and cool in the refrigerator. Once it’s cooled, take it out and rub softened butter over it (just enough to coat it–this helps the crust to remain crispy). Discard excess butter and leave the crust out (you don’t want the butter to harden).
3) For the filling*, combine heavy cream and milk at a roughly 70:30 ratio (or 3:1–more cream makes it lighter, more milk makes it heavier). Add the banana cream pudding mix and teaspoon of sugar. Mix for 3 minutes with one of them nifty hand mixers. (I’ve never had the luxury of owning one of these, but d-damn, does it make life easier :O ).
4) Once the filling’s done, spread onto pie crust, alternating layers with the sliced bananas.
5) Top with whipped cream if you’d like. This can be achieved by…beating the hell out of some more heavy cream, but make sure you don’t overbeat it, because there’s apparently a very fine line between whipped cream and whipped butter. Go for about 5 minutes (add 1-2 tbsp of sugar if you’d like; you can also throw in some vanilla extract). When there are soft peaks, you’re good to go. Top the pie with whipped cream.
5) Cool to room temperature before slicing and chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight before serving.
6) Enjoy this banana-y goodness. :O

*Using a super cold bowl and super cool beaters makes it fluff up better. Stick those in the freezer for a little while before you do this. It makes life easier. The teaspoon of sugar is optional, but it helps the cream to set better.

Saltibarsciai (Lithuanian Cold Soup)

This is quite likely one of my favorite soups. If it could actually keep well, I’d totally make huge vats of it and store it so I could have it whenever, but…alas, it does not. It’s the perfect summer soup though, and it’s not even that complicated to make! :D This was my first introduction to beets (never had em’ before) and I gotta admit, it was a good first impression. I want this soup right now. ;_;

Saltibarsciai (Lithuanian Cold Soup)

Ingredients:
-beef kielbasa, chopped
-potatoes, chopped
-carrots, chopped
-green onion, chopped
-eggs, hardboiled and chopped
-cucumber, chopped
-scallions, chopped
-cilantro or parsley, chopped
-dill
-16 oz. kefir (or sour cream)
-24 oz. borsch (gold’s)
-1 L seltzer water
-salt, to taste
-pepper, to taste

Instructions:
1) Boil the eggs, carrots and potatoes in a pot. Add the sausage into the pot. After all of these are cooked, set them aside to cool. Chop everything up.
2) Chop up cucumbers and scallions and throw them into a pot. Add cilantro (or parsley), the chopped up sausage and potatoes.
3) Add the kefir, borscht, and seltzer water. Stir, then add a little more kefir. 4) Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with toast!

Here are some of the ingredients that I’d never heard of/used (mostly the latter) before making this:

:]

Lemon Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

Another long-overdue post from uh, back in April. >_>

Trish made me cupcakes for my birthday! :] (The recipe was stolen from here.)

Lemon Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

Ingredients:
(Cupcakes)
-2 1/4 cups cake flour
-1 tbsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 1/4 cups whole milk
-1 1/2 cups sugar
-4 egg whites
-zest from 2 lemons
-1 tsp vanilla
-8 tbsp butter
-1/2 tsp lemon extract
(Frosting)
-4 tbsp butter
-powdered sugar
-strawberry jam (although you could probably use any jam you wanted?)

Instructions:
1) (Cupcakes) Preheat oven to 350. Wash and zest lemon in large bowl with
the sugar. Rub zest with sugar until sugar is moist.
2) Separate egg whites into a small bowl and mix with milk. Add butter to
sugar and lemon zest and beat until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and lemon
juice and keep beating.
3) Sift in 1/3 dry ingredients. Mix. Add half the milk and eggs. Mix again.
Continue alternating dry and wet ingredients until everything’s
incorporated and mixed well.
4) Divide batter into ~24 muffin cups and bake for 18-22 minutes.
5) (Frosting) Beat butter with powdered sugar and jam until fluffy.
6) Spread onto cupcakes and serve!

Summer Salad

I mentioned that I had a whole ton of corn that I’m trying to use up before the end of March…so Igor decided to help me out and made this salad. Super simple, super colorful, awesome to look at and even better to consume. Someday, I’m hoping to pilfer the chili recipe for that chili you see on the other side of the plate, but for now, it’s just the salad! :O I’m calling it summer salad because it looks all summer-y and colorful.

Summer Salad

Ingredients:
-corn
-tomatoes, chop-sliced
-onions, chop-sliced
-cucumbers, chop-sliced
-cilantro
-mayo (or sour cream)

Instructions:
1) I wrote chop-sliced because they’re bigger than chopped pieces but smaller than sliced ones. Some kind of happy medium will do. Do that to the cucumbers, tomatoes and onions and mix it all together with the corn.
2) Add a little bit of mayonnaise or sour cream and mix again. Top with cilantro and serve!