Showing posts with label The Blooming Platter Cookbook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Blooming Platter Cookbook. Show all posts
Monday, October 7, 2013
ANNIVERSARY DINNER ALA THE BLOOMING PLATTER, & RECIPE FOR LUSCIOUS VEGAN CHINOTTO CAKE
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| Dessert-- Chinotto Cake! UPDATE FOR CANADIANS 2021: Since Nestle took over San Pelligrino in North America some years ago, Chinotto is harder to find in Canada. There are some other brands, however, such as Brio brand, from Ontario, which I understand is a little sweeter than San Pelligrino, and Walmart Canada carries it. amazon.ca carries Niasca Portofino Chinotto at a decent price, but I haven't tried it yet. The San Pelligrino version is still available in the US and Australia, as far as I can tell. amazon.com carries it. amazon.com also sells an organic brand: Galvanina Chinotto, Premium Organic Italian Sparkling Soda; 12 fl oz (12 bottles) There seem to be many places that sell chinotto in Australia (though, not necessarily San Pelligrino). Just Google "buy chinotto australia". ********** |
I was not able to get off island for special ingredients, so I chose the recipes according to what I had in my pantry, garden, refrigerator and freezer.
Orange-Scented Olive, Parsley & Sundried Tomato Tapenade (made with our homegrown Italian parsley) and White Bean "Cheese" (from The Blooming Platter Cookbook)
I had a feeling that the lusty flavors of the tapenade would contrast well with the smooth, mild "cheese", and I was right-- they were wonderful together!
For the Soup course I made the following with our homegrown squash:
Butternut Squash Bisque with Cranberry Gremolata (from The Blooming Platter Cookbook)
For our salad:
I just made a simple green salad with marinated artichokes, avocado slices and grape tomatoes, topped with Dreena Burton's Hummus Dressing, which is deliciously creamy and a favorite of ours.
The Main Event was:
Vegan White Bean and "Chicken" with Caramelized Onions, Golden Raisins and Toasted Pine Nut Ragout (I had to use slivered almonds, as I had no pine nuts, and I used Soy Curls for the "chicken"-- read about Soy Curls here), served with egg-free broad noodles tossed with some of my palm oil-free vegan Buttah. I had a hard time choosing one of Betsy's entree recipes for the main dish, but in the end I chose this easy dish, which is complex in flavor and texture (as are most of Betsy's creations). The caramelized onions and white wine nicely complement the golden raisins and maple syrup. I added some chopped cooked rapini to the noodles-- it added a bitter note to contrast with the slight sweetness of the ragout.
For the Dessert:
Chinotto Cake with Fudgey Chinotto Frosting and Toasted Pecans ala Betsy (recipe below)
The idea for this cake has been percolating in my mind for quite some time now and it seemed like as good a time as any to try it out. I'll explain more about this below (and what the heck Chinotto IS!), but Betsy's Southern-style Vegan Coco-Cola Cake with Fudgy Frosting was the inspiration for this luscious cake. I hope you'll try this recipe, and some of Betsy's delicious creations, very soon!
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See Updates about where to buy Chinotto (or a similar drink) at the top of the page.
I liked Coca-Cola well enough as a teenager, but we never actually had it in our house when I was young. We would drink it at the soda shop in the corner drugstore just a couple of blocks from our apartment in San Francisco (yes, corny but true!), but I haven't had it for years. When I discovered the Italian carbonated drink, Chinotto, a few years ago, I thought, "This is like a grown-up Coke!". It's sweet and it's fizzy and it's brown, but it has a refreshing bitter edge to it. Saveur magazine describes it as "an intriguingly bitter, cola-like Italian soda". The bitter edge comes from the bitter fruit that flavors it-- myrtle-leaved orange tree (Citrus myrtifolia).
(An anecdote: One of the few places in Courtenay, BC, the town where we shop, where you used to be able to buy Chinotto, is a pizza place where we occasionally get a vegan pizza with a whole wheat crust if we're in a hurry. Onc time I asked the teenage counter clerk for a Chinotto along with our order and he asked, with a bit of a grimace,"Are you sure you want that?")
Now, I'm not advocating drinking this as a regular habit! It's still a sweet carbonated drink (no artificial flavors, high-fructose corn syrup or phosphates in it, though-- at least in the San Pelligrino brand [see photo below])! But I enjoy it once in a while as treat, and every time I have it I think, there has to be an interesting way to use it in a recipe. There are Chinotto cocktails on the internet (like this one), but I'm not much of a drinker, so...
...enter Betsy DiJulio, my friend from afar and fellow vegan blogger/cookbook author. She posted a recipe back in March for a Vegan Coca-Cola Cake with Fudgy Frosting . She's a Southern gal, and it's a Southern cake that I had never tasted. I read the recipe and her description and I thought Chinotto would maybe add an extra edge to this cake.
Betsy's cake is very rich, and I wanted to cut the fat back a bit, so the cake part of his recipe is actually a riff on my Mudpie Cake. Mudpie cake is a deeply chocolate cake. This cake does have cocoa powder in it, as does the frosting, but only a bit. To me, it doesn't taste like chocolate. The flavor is deep and mysterious-- hard to explain-- and we love it! So, the cake recipe is essentially mine, with inspiration from Betsy, but the frosting is her recipe EXCEPT that I substituted Chinotto for the cola.
I hope that you can find some Chinotto, either online or in a deli or Italian grocery store. If you do get your hands on some, I hope you will try this cake and let me know your verdict.
I liked Coca-Cola well enough as a teenager, but we never actually had it in our house when I was young. We would drink it at the soda shop in the corner drugstore just a couple of blocks from our apartment in San Francisco (yes, corny but true!), but I haven't had it for years. When I discovered the Italian carbonated drink, Chinotto, a few years ago, I thought, "This is like a grown-up Coke!". It's sweet and it's fizzy and it's brown, but it has a refreshing bitter edge to it. Saveur magazine describes it as "an intriguingly bitter, cola-like Italian soda". The bitter edge comes from the bitter fruit that flavors it-- myrtle-leaved orange tree (Citrus myrtifolia).
(An anecdote: One of the few places in Courtenay, BC, the town where we shop, where you used to be able to buy Chinotto, is a pizza place where we occasionally get a vegan pizza with a whole wheat crust if we're in a hurry. Onc time I asked the teenage counter clerk for a Chinotto along with our order and he asked, with a bit of a grimace,"Are you sure you want that?")
Now, I'm not advocating drinking this as a regular habit! It's still a sweet carbonated drink (no artificial flavors, high-fructose corn syrup or phosphates in it, though-- at least in the San Pelligrino brand [see photo below])! But I enjoy it once in a while as treat, and every time I have it I think, there has to be an interesting way to use it in a recipe. There are Chinotto cocktails on the internet (like this one), but I'm not much of a drinker, so...
 |
This is the brand I used when we were able to buy it here in Canada, but you can find others-- see the update at the top of this post. |
...enter Betsy DiJulio, my friend from afar and fellow vegan blogger/cookbook author. She posted a recipe back in March for a Vegan Coca-Cola Cake with Fudgy Frosting . She's a Southern gal, and it's a Southern cake that I had never tasted. I read the recipe and her description and I thought Chinotto would maybe add an extra edge to this cake.
Betsy's cake is very rich, and I wanted to cut the fat back a bit, so the cake part of his recipe is actually a riff on my Mudpie Cake. Mudpie cake is a deeply chocolate cake. This cake does have cocoa powder in it, as does the frosting, but only a bit. To me, it doesn't taste like chocolate. The flavor is deep and mysterious-- hard to explain-- and we love it! So, the cake recipe is essentially mine, with inspiration from Betsy, but the frosting is her recipe EXCEPT that I substituted Chinotto for the cola.
I hope that you can find some Chinotto, either online or in a deli or Italian grocery store. If you do get your hands on some, I hope you will try this cake and let me know your verdict.
BRYANNA'S
CHINOTTO CAKE WITH FUDGY CHINOTTO FROSTING AND PECANS
Makes
12, 15 or 18 servings
Many thanks to my friend and fellow Vegan Heritage Press author,
Betsy DiJulio, author of the wonderful book, "TheBlooming Platter Cookbook: A Harvest of Seasonal Vegan Recipes" and
creator of exceptional recipes on her blog, The Blooming Platter, for the
inspiration for this cake and for the frosting recipe, which I made directly
from her recipe, only changing the cola to Chinotto.
NOTE ON COCOA: Dutch-process cocoa powder is made from cocoa (cacao)
beans that have been washed with a potassium solution, to neutralize their
acidity. Natural cocoa powder is made from cocoa beans that are simply roasted,
then pulverized into a fine powder. Aside
from neutralizing the acidity, Dutching cocoa powder makes it darker and can
help mellow the flavor of the beans.
NOTE ON FLOUR: It is important to use cake or pastry to ensure a
tender cake in this recipe. If you have no pastry flour: for white,
use 3 tablespoons cornstarch [can be organic] and add unbleached white flour to
make 1 1/2 cups. For whole wheat, use 2 tablespoons cornstarch with
finely-ground ordinary whole wheat flour to make 1 cup. Process your ordinary whole
wheat flour in a DRY blender until very fine.)
THE
CAKE:
DRY
MIX:
1 1/2 cups white cake or pastry flour,
sifted after measuring
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup light organic unbleached granulated sugar
1/3 cup organic, fair trade unsweetened cocoa powder (I use Cocoa
Camino brand, which is Dutch-processed—see note in recipe intro above)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
WET
MIX:
1 1/4 cups Chinotto (Italian carbonated drink (see text above)
I used to use San Pellegrino brand in cans, before they discontinued it in Canadam but there are other brands (see above)-- pour with the cup angled so that no foam is created)
I used to use San Pellegrino brand in cans, before they discontinued it in Canadam but there are other brands (see above)-- pour with the cup angled so that no foam is created)
3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon plain soy, nut or
hemp milk MIXED WITH 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup oil
5 tablespoons smooth applesauce
FUDGY
CHINOTTO FROSTING WITH TOASTED PECANS ALA BETSY DIJULIO
1 lb organic powdered sugar
1/2 cup vegan butter (try my homemade palm oil-free vegan Buttah)
1/4 cup organic, fair trade unsweetened cocoa powder (I use Cocoa
Camino brand, which is Dutch-processed—see note in recipe intro above)
6 tablespoons Chinotto (Italian carbonated drink (see text above)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup chopped, toasted pecans
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare a 9 x 13" baking pan by greasing with Cake Release/Baker's grease (see my homemade palm oil-free vegan version), or grease the bottom and sides with coconut oil and dust with flour.
Whisk the dry ingredients together well in
a medium bowl. Blend the liquid ingredients in a blender until smooth, then
pour into the dry ingredients and mix BRIEFLY with a whisk (important) until
smooth-- DO NOT beat the batter. The batter will be quite runny. Scrape the batter into prepared pan.
Bake for 50 minutes, or until a cake tester
comes out clean.
Cool the cake in the pan on a cake rack while
you prepare the Frosting.
With the cake just out of the oven, make the icing:
Place the powdered sugar in a medium bowl. In
a 2-quart saucepan, combine the vegan butter, cocoa powder and Chinotto and
bring just to a boil. (You can also do
this in a 2-quart microwave-safe bowl or pitcher in a microwave oven at 100%
power for about 1 minute, or until it just starts to bubble.) Pour the hot liquid over the powdered sugar and
whisk to combine until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and stir to distribute.
Immediately
frost the still-warm cake and distribute the
chopped toasted pecans evenly over the top of the cake. Cool thoroughly before
serving. When cool, cut into 12, 15 or 18 squares and serve. Store leftovers,
covered, in the refrigerator.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
SUPER BOWL DIPS AND DINNER
Our (vegan) friends Mike and Fireweed have joined us for Super Bowl Sunday for the last few years. Mike and DH Brian watch the game, with munchies supplied by me. Fireweed comes a little later and we have a visit together, then the four of us have dinner. I kept it pretty simple this year because Fireweed, DH and I are all trying to eat low fat and moderately. (Mike can eat like there's no tomorrow and not gain an ounce!)
I decided to serve two hearty dips with vegetables and Ryvita crackers, one a recipe from Betsy DiJulio's blog and one my own recipe, with a little tweak inspired also by Betsy. Betsy, author of The Blooming Platter Cookbook, is one of my favorite vegan cookbook authors (see my review here to find out why!).
Betsy's dip is a clever take on the old spinach dip-- Vegan Spinach-Three Bean Dip (fat-free if you use tofu instead of vegan mayonnaise). I loved the idea of sneaking three kinds of beans into a dip! Here's Betsy's recipe, but I changed it a wee bit according to the ingredients I had on hand. I didn't have the dry vegetable soup mix, so I added 2 tablespoons of vegan bouillon powder instead, plus a little dried thyme, basil and oregano. I used my quickly-made silken tofu mayonnaise (with no added fat) because I didn't have any of my usual homemade low-fat mayo on hand. The guys ate about half of it at one sitting!
The second dip was an old favorite of ours that I've posted on this blog-- Cheddary Spread.-- except that I added a twist from Betsy's book, which she uses in her homemade vegan cheeses-- I added some beer to the recipe! This ingredient is genius! It adds just the right amount of tangy fermented taste, which really adds to the over-all flavor of the spread, or dip. Thank you, Betsy! But, in order to do this and not have it turn out too liquid-y, you have to crumble the silken tofu into a nut bag or a large square of white cotton sheeting-sort of material and twist and squeeze the bag until you have 1/4 cup of liquid from the tofu squeezed out. Then proceed with the recipe, but add 1/4 cup of beer to the mixture. Simple!
For dinner, we had a lovely salad with an avocado dressing that Fireweed brought, and lasagna made with DH's leftover homemade spaghetti sauce (with some red wine and Yves Ground Round hamburger substitute added), Okara/Cashew Ricotta, my vegan Bechamel Sauce, and some Daiya Cheese on top. For dessert we each had an espresso cup of organic drinking chocolate. A great evening with good food and good friends!
Enjoy!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
A RAINBOW OF SEASONAL VEGAN RECIPES-- THE BLOOMING PLATTER COOKBOOK
My copy, with some sticky-notes marking the recipes I want to try next!When my husband said "Oh, wow!" after the first bite of Betsy DiJulio's Panko-Topped Cheesy Zucchini from her book The Blooming Platter Cookbook, I knew this book was a winner! DH is not a great zucchini fan, but I had a small pile of zucchini that needed using and this recipe was intriguing, partly because of its simplicity, and partly because of the interesting homemade cheese that was one of the primary components. It was simple to make (and quick!) and , obviously, delicious. The cheese (and I won't reveal the ingredients, but there's one especially genius addition) was a simple combination of ingredients familiar to most vegans, but its simplicity belied its complexity in the flavor department. We'll enjoy the leftovers on crisp rye crackers. (An aside: DH instructed me to tell Betsy that he hardly ever likes other people's cooking as well as mine, but he loved that dish!)
Panko-Topped Cheesy Zucchini 
I served it with some leftover marinara sauce-- the two of us ate the whole casserole for dinner!While this may be the first recipe I've actually cooked out of Betsy's book, I've been having some great times lately perusing it and picking out recipes to try. Betsy's writing makes one feel that a good friend is writing to one, sharing special recipes and sometimes the stories behind her inspiration. Reading statements such as: "...I have been consumed by what I like to call intense 'investigative' home-cooking and entertaining-- fueled by the advent of the food networks-- ultimately leading to part-time free-lance food writing and a bit of teaching. I remain an 'independent study' student of all things culinary." and "For as long as I can remember, food has been the blaze that marked the path of my life.", as well as her preference for soy milk, make me feel sure that Betsy is a "kindred spirit" (as Anne Shirley of "Green Gables" fame was wont to say). And a bloody good writer, too!
My overall impression after studying the book is that it is the work of a curious, inventive, creative, and discerning cook, whose sometimes rather unusual combinations of fruits, vegetables and herbs, and savory and sweet ingredients in the same recipe, are not only spot-on, but inspire quite a few "why didn't I think of that?" moments. Even without the lovely photos, one would find the recipes colorful and balanced, evidence of Betsy's artistic nature (she is a practicing artist and an art teacher).
Consider Creamy Summer Torta with Figs, with its savory, herbal vegan cheese filling and Balsamic reduction;
or the startling Beet Muhammara (the Turkish spread usually made with red peppers, here replaced by beets, walnuts, garlic, spices and pomegranate molasses); Blackberry and Corn Salad;
Butternut Squash Bisque with Cranberry Gremolata; Curried Red-Lentil "Cheesecake" with Tamarind Sauce, to name but a few on my list of "got to make this" recipes. All I can say is, "Bravo, Betsy!"(Oh, and by the way, there are a fair number of "basic" recipes in the book which you will probably want to use often in your own recipes, too-- White Bean Sausages, at least four homemade vegan cheeses, and Blue Cheese Sauce.)
You're going to find many recipes in The Blooming Platter Cookbook that will surely send you into the kitchen on a colorful culinary adventure-- perhaps not the same recipes that call to me, but, believe me, there's something for everyone in this lovely, delectable, and eminently usable vegan cookbook.
Enjoy!
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