Chocolate Zucchini Cake!

Most people's reaction to my saying I was planning on making a chocolate zucchini cake with chocolate ganache and strawberries was "Chocolate and zucchini? Ew!" Naturally, they weren't invited. And naturally, they missed out! Chocolate and zucchini turned out to be a very happy couple, making delectable and succulent, and the chocolate chips added little chocolately explosions in the mouth; warm out of the oven the chocolate chips had lost their shape somewhat, and thus weren't so much distinct vertices of chocolate as extra little kicks of flavor. It was perfect.

Teh interwebs surprisingly have many recipes for chocolate zucchini cake, but I chose one from the Chocolate & Zucchini blog. The first thing I did was to process our handsome zucchini so I had two cups of chopped zucchini. (Ok here's the secret: you can't taste it, obviously, but the zucchini makes the cake super moist and delectable.) Set the zucchini aside, or if you're processing it the day before, put them in the fridge. 

In a medium bowl, mix together 1.5 c flour, 1/2 c cocoa, 1 t baking soda, 1/2 t baking powder, and 1/2 t salt. Then, in the bowl of my new best friend, the Kitchen Aid mixer, cream together 1/2 c butter, 1 c brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp instant coffee, and 3 eggs (I used 1 whole egg and 2 whites). Take the time and mix it well after each addition (cream the butter well before adding the sugar; mix well between adding eggs). All it takes is an extra minute and the mixer does all the work. The batter should be fluffy before the eggs and speckled afterward.

Then you mix wet and dry, and while that's mixing, quickly stir 1/2 c flour and 1 c chocolate chips into the chopped/processed zucchini, and then fold this into the chocolate batter. Doing it this way really highlights just how much moisture the zucchini adds: before, the batter stuck to the paddle like stiff frosting, while afterward it was smooth and more runny. This recipe makes enough for a 10" spring form pan, but you can experiment with other shapes. Since we liked the slightly crusty edges so much, I'm considering doing it as cupcakes next to maximize the amount of edge that each serving has. I'm sure the size of your chopped zucchini pieces matters, but note that you can't really see the zucchini (click the picture to enlarge).

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes, and here you have to use the edges' pulling away, color, and texture as a measure of doneness; a toothpick never quite came out clean but burned chocolate zucchini cake would have been a tragedy, so we played it safe. The cake was a gorgeous dark brown.

When the cake is almost cool, heat half a cup of heavy cream on medium heat until it's just about to boil. Then pour over 4 oz. of really, really amazing darkish chocolate, chopped, and as it melts the chocolate, whisk everything together to form a smooth covering that requires all of your self control to not pour down your throat. I added a tbsp of butter and about 1/2 t instant coffee for added flavor, but there's lots of variation in ganache recipes, so you can't really be wrong. Let it cool until it's at a consistency you think is optimal for spreading, and pour - don't spread - over the cake. Using a spatula makes not-super-smooth lines; we had good luck carefully tilting the cake and the cooling ganache spread itself. I garnished it (very amateurishly; I blame the paring knife) with strawberries, and then we dug in.

A final word of advice: as you can see, it doesn't make a ton of cake. Your best bet is to make extra if you've got many unrelentless chocolaholics around, or you can make it for just me (I won't tell anyone ;)), and then you'll only have to make a single recipe's worth. Store it in the fridge if you've got a fruit fly problem - the last thing you want is rotten strawberries spoiling your beautiful ganache! And please send pictures if anyone makes cupcakes!!!

The Perfect Muffin

Today I reached for the stars and left them in the dust. I've been wanting to do this for so long!

I chose a recipe impulsively from the comments on another recipe website, and it worked out perfectly. I proved that hard work and not taking shortcuts is important for getting where you want in life: lacking orange juice, I squeezed my own from an orange, had a first impromptu solo flight with a super cute mini food processor, poured muffin batter from one paper cup to another, and trashed the kitchen. And then took about fifty pictures, they were that good (the muffins were good; in defense of taking so many pictures, many of the pictures were crap, which explains why I take so many. I'll stop taking so many pictures if someone wants to donate a digital SLR... :P).

It was SO worth it. Even people who ate zucchini loved it. They rose perfectly, were the best possible brown, were moist, delicious...I need to go eat another right now! Here's the recipe:

Zucchini Carrot Spice Muffins

1.5 c flour (I used 1/2 c white, 1 c wheat)
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 egg whites
1/6 c canola oil
1/2 c honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c orange juice
1 c zucchini, grated or finely chopped (yay food processor!!!)
1 c carrot, grated or finely chopped (double yay food processor!!!)

Mix wet and dry well individually, then mix together just to moisten. Fold in orange juice and veggies only until combined. Bake at 370 for 15-20 minutes until beautiful brown and a tester comes out clean.

That's my batter at the last step; the puddles on the right are the freshly squeezed orange juice. I'm taking this success as a sign it's gonna be a great fall!

Bruschetta & Roasted Zucchini (& Heavy Pasta Estate)

Lesson learned: bell pepper has a nasty way of taking over everything. And unless you're prepared to use too much oil and salt, let the zucchini stay out of pasta. Actually, I think tonight taught me that I should stop trying to put things in pasta besides spices. (I was pretty disappointed with the pasta, so someone please come eat the leftovers for me! If you want to know what I did, leave a comment.) At least I can make food look dang good!

The proper way to prepare zucchini (imho) is as follows: wash zucchini, slice 1/4 slices, place in bowl big enough you can comfortably stir them, with olive oil, salt, and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Put on greased cookie sheet and roast at 450-475 for 10-15 minutes (but watch them in case your oven is different). Devour.

The tomatoes in the photo are the only decent store-bought tomatoes around. They come from Arizona but somehow taste exactly like they're freshly picked from the backyard. They're absolutely mind-blowing. So was the bruschetta I made with them, superfruity olive oil, fresh garlic, and the basil my plant donated:

(I dried out my leftover Italian bread with the zucchini I roasted, it got reaaally dry. The tomatoes softened it up perfectly however, and it was interesting rubbing the garlic cloves (I cut them in half first to use the inside of the cloves) on the very dry bread because the bread was so hard it was like rubbing garlic on a cheese grater. Now I know the best way to make really legit garlic bread!

Bruschetta recipe:
Slice bread, put plain bread on ungreased cookie sheet and bake/roast at 450ish for 10-15ish minutes. When cool enough to touch, paint with superfruity olive oil with a pastry brush (or your fingers). I put the olive oil in a small dish to make it more accessible and to avoid having to pour it (because I would accidentally pour too much). Then scrap bread to taste with the cut side of a (crushed) garlic clove, and top with tomato basil mixture. (Tomato basil mixture = roughly chopped tomatoes, torn fresh basil leaves, s&p&olive oil to taste, refridgerated for a while to marry flavors (I actually used the the freezer to cool it faster). Keep away from you roommates unless you want it all gone very quickly!

Holiday Pasta Estate

It's all about being colorful. (Studies have shown that food that is colorful and messy tastes better.)

Pasta Estate

Saute garlic in olive oil until fragarant; don't let it brown. Add chopped zucchini (half half-moons), yellow and red bell peppers (you could use green, but that wouldn't be adding new colors now, would it?!), and broccoli. The veggies should be cut up pretty small and should all be roughly the same size. It's a good idea to add the zucchini first and the others 3-5 minutes later since the zucchini might take longer to cook. Add water to keep things from burning, and whatever spices you like (we used basil, oregano, and black pepper). After the veggies are deemed to be done, toss them with your freshly cooked pasta, a chopped tomato, a splash of olive oil, and a very generous drizzle of red wine. Sprinkle with Romano cheese.

P.S. Tonight I cooked some dried black beans, this time not soaking them for 30 hours in a hot apartment.... Stay tuned for what they become!

the cuties after being soaked, before being cooked

Humble Pie

For some, the mediocrity of Friday Night Experiments would be enough to call off Saturday Afternoon Experiments, but life lived with that mindset isn't very interesting. For instance, making BIG mistakes teaches us things, like how nice nonstick cookie sheets are!

Recipe for humble pie: Great aspirations. Three zucchini sliced very, very thin. Put the slices in a bowl with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, then bake at 450 for half an hour. Have fun scrubbing the carbon-covered cookie sheets!

Once again I am reminded that it is a gift when an idea or recipe comes out the way I want it to, not something to be taken for granted. The first big lesson of this was the three attempts at making kiwi gelato (I have since given up). The Poet Mraz reminds us all how blessed we are to even have food; the ThankfulFor blog reminds us how blessed we are to hear. Not to pretend like I own a soapbox, but I think that agriculture should be an integral part of everyone's formal education; I think gratitude should have a much larger role in our lives.

Question for readers: how does one fix tasteless hummus? Is the tahini really that necessary?