Lemon & Raspberry Mini-Tarts

I am a dirty rotten cheater for posting this. Lemon curd from a jar? Pssshaw, clearly I am a terrible mad scientist. Go ahead and tell me how bad I am for posting this. What's that you say? Sorry, I can't understand you, because you just stuffed five of these delicious little tarts I made into your mouth. Why don't I get you a coffee to wash those down with, and then we can sit down and I'll tell you how to make them.

Preheat oven to 425.

You will need a mini muffin tin, as well as:

-1 ready-made pie crust (box usually contains 2 crusts for the top & bottom of the pie)
-1 jar lemon curd
-24 delicious raspberries.

Using a cookie cutter slightly bigger than the muffin holes in your mini muffin tin, cut out 24 circles.  Press pie crust circles into muffin tin, and bake for 10 minutes or until done (golden).

When cool, spoon in lemon curd, and top each mini-tart with a raspberry.

See what I mean? Too easy to post. But aren't they pretty?

Panettone French Toast

Mmmm....I always loved Panettone as a kid. We ate it at breakfast, toasted with cream cheese on top. I remember one Christmas I gave a box to my teacher and she said "Is this from your Italian grandma?" I made sure to tell her it was actually my grandpa who is Italian.

I didn't know until I bought this particular loaf at a small shop here in Madrid that they also eat it in Perú. It's exactly the same, except that it's spelled "Panetón" and it's normally eaten dipped in hot chocolate.

This was an eye-opening and amazing discovery, but with it came an even more delicious discovery: Panetón makes excellent French Toast.

-6 thick slices of Panettone (or Panetón, depending on where you buy it from)
-3 eggs
-3/4 cup milk
-Cinnamon
-Butter
-Pinch salt

Beat eggs, milk, cinnamon and salt in a wide, shallow bowl. Melt butter in a frying pan. Let the Panettone slices soak in the egg mixture longer than you normally would for french toast, especially if the slices are very thick. You don't want them dry inside, or do you? It's best to let some slices soak while others are cooking, first coating on both sides and then flipping them as you flip the slices in the pan.
Cook until golden brown on each side, and then serve with maple syrup (hard to find here...boo!) and strawberries.

Pomegranate White Chocolate Oatmeal

Before the start of winter break, I decided to make some pretty, Christmas-y-looking pomegranate white chocolate cookies for my co-workers (eeew...i hate using that word. makes me sound so grown up). Everyone loved them and I ended up having a whole pomegranate left over, as well as a whole bar of white chocolate.

I'm living in Spain right now and haven't yet figured out where to find chocolate or white chocolate chips, so I always end up buying a chocolate bar and smashing it up. Is this how cavemen made chocolate chip cookies? I hope so.


The cookie recipe is great and all, but it's been done, and that's not what MadSpatch is about. MadSpatch is about eating pomegranates and white chocolate for breakfast! This one's for all you oatmeal lovers, because the more oatmeal I eat, the more fun things I find to do with it. See my previous Baked Oatmeal post for more fun with oats.

-1 cup oats
-1 1/2 cup water
-1 1/4 cup milk
-At least 1/3 cup pomegranate seeds
-1/4 cup white chocolate chips, or a smashed-up white chocolate bar if you're me
-Pinch salt

Bring water to a boil, add oats and salt. Turn down the heat and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the milk and cook for another 5. I haven't tried this, but I've heard great things about microwaving oatmeal with just milk (no water). I prefer to just use milk but I include the water in this recipe because milk tends to burn the pot.

Remove oatmeal from heat and stir in white chocolate until melted. Serve topped with pomegranate seeds and shaved white chocolate if you have a bar.

Mango Bread Pudding

A delicious pudding recipe featuring one of my all-time favorite fruits courtesy of my good friend the Internet! I've always loved bread puddings and couldn't wait to try this one when I found the recipe. Just don't ask me to explain why it took me over 2 years after I wrote it down to get around to making it....
The recipe calls for white sandwich bread....YAWN. I used sourdough because that's what I had, but I think it would be delicious with a crunchy, earthy whole grain bread. It's quite mangoey as-is, but I still don't think adding another mango would hurt anyone, except maybe the mango.

-6 slices your favorite sandwich bread, torn into little pieces
-2 mangoes, peeled, seeded, and diced. My favorite way to do this: cut the 'meat' off the seed vertically in 2 sections, cutting as close to the seed as possible. then slice a tic-tac-toe pattern into the meat, push it out from the skin side, and cut off the little cubes. Then remove the skin from the remaining seed section, cut off the meat and dice.
-1/4 cup sugar
-3 eggs, lightly beaten
-2 cups milk
-1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
-1 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
2 Tbsp. butter

Preheat oven to 300 and grease a 9x11 baking dish. Toss the bread and mango together and place in the dish. Wisk together sugar, eggs, vanilla, and cardamom. Pour over bread & mango. Cube butter and sprinkle cubes over the top of the mixture. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until it starts to look like bread pudding (puffy & golden on top)

Pictured with chocolate sauce and sliced blood oranges.

Plantain Soup

I tore this recipe out of a copy of Latina magazine at the doctor's office about 2 years ago and have just now tried making it. I was so overcome with grief over my entire life spent without this soup that I could barely eat it! Hopefully you're better about keeping the floodgates closed because really, it's delicious!
The article outlined three ways to make it: Traditional, healthy, and fast. I combined healthy and fast (traditional calls for frying the plantains instead of baking them, and fast just means buying pre-packaged soup base veggies and using a food processor instead of a mortar and pestle.

2 large ripe Plantains
1 tsp. vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1 medium rib celery, finely chopped
(again, you can speed up the process if you buy pre-chopped "soup base" veggies. It includes all three of these)
Nonstick cooking spray
6 cups chicken or veggie broth
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 lime cut into wedges

Peel and thinly slice plantains. Place slices in a large bowl of cold, salted water for 30 minutes, then drain and pat dry.
warm vegetable oil and saute the veggies until the onion wilts, about 3 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350, spray a baking sheet and bake plantains about 20 minutes, turning them once halfway through. Mash them into a thick paste with a food processor or mortar and pestle.
In a large pot, heat broth over medium heat. Add the sauteed veggies, then stir in plantain paste gradually. Add salt and pepper and simmer until smooth and creamy.
Serve with a lime wedge and some salsa or hot sauce. The recipe doesn't say this, but I like to warm some flour tortillas for dipping.

Yam Gnocchi with Zang! Sauce

I thought I was the first one ever to think of making orange yam gnocchi, until a quick google image search proved me wrong. But oh well, I was so excited to have thought of it on my own that I couldn't wait to try it! Zang! sauce is made from a few of my most favoritest things (dried cranberries, olive oil, and of course macadamia nuts) and the clever name was conceived by my friend and housemate Aliyah Cline. I made this recipe using guidelines from a regular gnocchi recipe, but even with regular potatoes I found it needs a lot more flour than the recipe says because it always ends up too sticky and hard to deal with. So make sure you have a lot of flour lying around =]

FOR THE GNOCCHI:
2 pounds garnet yams
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups flour (at least)

FOR THE ZANG! SAUCE:
Another 2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1/2 Cup dried cranberries
1/3 Cup macadamia nuts
2 cloves garlic, chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 400. Pierce yam skins and bake for about 45 minutes, depending on size. If you can stick a knife all the way through with no "crunchy" feeling, then they're done. Let them cool completely, then peel the skins off with your hands (they'll come off easily).
Mash together the cooked and peeled yams, salt and olive oil. Add the flour in small amounts and mix it in. This is where it starts to get messy, so I like to take the whole project outside at this point. Once you're able to touch it without it sticking to your hands too much (add flour to your hands periodically to help with this), transfer the dough ball to a cutting board. Hopefully you'll be outside, so keep adding flour until it feels like bread dough.

Chop the dough ball into three equal parts. Roll each section into a 1/2 in. thick rope. `Cut each rope into pieces about 1/2 in. long.

Boil a large pot of water. Roll dough pieces into balls and drop them into the boiling water in batches small enough so that they don't pile on top of each other. Wait for the gnocchi to rise to the top, then let them cook about a minute longer. Remove with a slotted spoon.
Meanwhile, cook the garlic, dice the macadamias, and mix with the rest of the Zang! ingredients. When the gnocchi are done, toss in a bowl with the sauce and serve. Yum!

Baked Oatmeal

Anthony loves baked oatmeal! Do you?

No, not oatmeal cookies, but just as good! This is my friend Jeanne's recipe that I enjoyed for the first time a couple weeks ago. I modified it for the sake of using stuff I already had around the house (Apples and dates instead of pears and apricots). And really, what kind of culinary mad scientist would I be without a little experimentation here and there? My version is also vegan, if that means anything to anyone reading this =P. It was absolutely amazing and would be perfect for a sunday brunch or potluck, because it's good any time of day. I should know since I made mine around ten at night. For comparisons' sake and since I didn't even use eggs in mine, I'll put Jeanne's recipe first, followed by the one I used:

JEANNE'S
2 cups regular rolled oats
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1/3 cup chopped apricots
1 ½ cups milk
½ cup brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup chopped almonds
1 firm-ripe pear, stemmed, cored and chopped into 1/4"
2 large eggs
3 Tbsp. oil


MINE:
2 Cups Rolled oats
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup chopped pitted dates
1 1/2 cups almond milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/ 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup chopped macadamia nuts
1 apple, cored and chopped into 1/4"
2 flax seed "eggs" (2 Tbsp. flax seeds, crushed in a blender and mixed with 6 Tbsp. water)
3 Tbsp Oil

"Preheat oven to 325. In large bowl, mix oats, baking powder and salt. Stir in almonds, apricots and pears (macadamias, dates, and apples).
In another bowl, whisk together (almond) milk, (flax seed) eggs, brown sugar, oil and cinnamon. Pour over the oat mixture and stir to combine.
Pour mixture into a Pam-ed 8” or 9” square baking pan. Bake until liquid is absorbed and top is light golden, about 45 minutes. Spoon into bowls and serve warm. Serve with the usual choices of sugar, brown sugar, raisins, milk…whatever."

"To prep the night before, mix the oats, baking powder, salt, almonds and apricots in a bowl; cover and let stand at room temperature. In another bowl, combine the milk, eggs, brown sugar, oil and cinnamon; cover and chill. Next morning, mix the two together and stir in pear and bake."

Spicy Persimmon Chutney

While riding my bike, I found a box full of free persimmons in front of someone's house and proceeded to go persimmon crazy for the next 3 weeks or so (yeah, there were that many). Having never really cooked with them before, I saw this as a true mad science opportunity. I thought I would try making a pie or pudding, but my friend suggested I try making chutney and the rest is history. The thing to remember is the four C's: Cardamom, Coriander, Cloves, and Chili Powder. This chutney is good with almost anything! Try it on samosas/Indian food, or with cheese and crackers. I actually really like to put it on pancakes.

-7-10 VERY RIPE fuyu persimmons
-1 3/4 C sugar
-1/2 C water
-2 Tbsp. Chili Powder
-1 1/2 Tbsp. ground Coriander seed
-1 Tbsp. ground Cardamom
-1 tsp. ground cloves

Pull the stems off the persimmons and peel off part of the skin from the opening under the stem. Scrape out all the pulp into a large saucepan and discard the skins. Mix the persimmon pulp, sugar, and water over medium heat. Add the spices and bring to a low boil. Simmer, stirring occasionally until the mixture thickens to a "jammy" consistency (about 15-20 minutes). If you think it's too thick, add more water. Remove from heat and spoon into a large jam jar. It should keep for about a month in the fridge, but I really can't be sure since it never lasts that long =]

PICTURE COMING SOON! JUST HAVE TO GET THE FILM DEVELOPED.

FYI: If you've never eaten or cooked with persimmons before, just know they have to be EXTREMELY ripe, or they'll be grainy, bitter, and all around vile. Try squeezing one gently. If it feels the teensiest bit firm, it's not ready yet. Wait until it's squishy all the way around.

Cous Cous Salad

I have this scrawled into my lab manual as "Yummy Cous Cous Dinner" but the only reason this should ever be a dinner and not a snack or a side dish is if you are either one of my lab rabbits or are on a diet, and we all know dieting is for losers.
This is easy, fast, weird hippy comfort food that I invented one day from random things I found in my cupboard, so don't be afraid to get creative, or should I say "don't be afraid to go all mad science apeshit" with this one.

1 cup Cous Cous
Pinch Salt
1/2 Tbsp. Butter or Buttery Spread or whatever you kids are using these days
1 cup water
Chopped fresh apricots (dried is okay too)
Chopped parsley
Chopped roasted almonds
1 Tbsp. Toasted Sesame Seeds

In a small saucepan, bring water, salt, and butterstuff to a boil.
remove from heat and stir in cous cous.
cover and let stand for 5 minutes.
Uncover and stir in remaining ingredients. I find it's best to enjoy this right out of the pot. It's a good "lazy food"




Oh, and here are some cute onion animal babies I made with my Lox N' Bagel leftover at Café Pannini. Ain't they the darndest? Who needs pets when you've got something this cute, and this EDIBLE? Kind of reminds me of that Shel Silverstein poem about the kid who had the pet hot dog. Or maybe I'm taking this too far.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it goes something like this:
I have a hot dog for a pet
The only kind my folks would let me get
He does smell sort of bad, and yet
he absolutely never gets the sofa wet
We have a butcher for a vet
the strangest vet you ever met
guess we're the weirdest family yet
to have a hot dog for a pet.

Special thanks for this post go to hunger, Shel Silverstein, and the fourth grade.