Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Matcha Green Tea Cupcakes with "Sprinkle Shots"

Why is it that when most kids see the color green, even on a CUPCAKE, they want nothing to do with eating it?  I took these beauties to a birthday party and my kids were the only kids who ate them!  It's a good thing when your kids love green :)

These little cakes are DELICIOUS!  I promise you will love them, especially if you are a green tea drinker.  I didn't invent the recipe but I invented the creative sprinkle shot toppings.   Those plastic tubes are mini test tubes left over from a science experiment kit.  We only needed 4 or 5 for the experiment and there were 24 leftover. I didn't want to throw them out so I decided to use them as a decoration.  I was wanting them to look more like a test tube for a birthday party with a "Science Potions" theme.  But a friend at the party said they looked more like a little shot glass.  I agree!

The cupcakes can be expensive, especially if you try to buy your Matcha at the health food store.  My health food store wanted $25 for a 1 ounce container of Eden Organic Matcha powder.  I went to my local Asian store, Dong-A Supermarket, and paid $9 for the Maeda-En brand Matcha from Japan. You will notice if you go to the link for Maeda-En that it will cost $12 if you buy it online!  It's not organic, but it's made in Japan, and that's good enough.

You can go to the Post Punk Kitchen for the recipe and notice that they are decorated with little marzipan flowers there.  Well if you happen to make them with the marzipan flowers please let me know how that goes!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Garden Goodness: We Have Carrots!

Finally the carrots are here!  And we have TONS of them.  It's a good thing, because those are my favorite vegetable to juice so we can finally have some extra savings on our grocery bill.

Here's Anika picking carrots :)  What great memories she will have from working in the garden with her dad.


 These next two photos are just garden eye candy :)



Thursday, February 16, 2012

Red Lentil Coconut Curry


We have an abundance of root vegetables growing in our garden, so I needed to figure out what to do with them.  Well, I have what I call my "Formula 44" which is the same basic recipe for curried anything!  You can curry eggplant, beans, other lentils, or whatever you have on hand.

Don't judge it by the horrible iPhone photo, this is a delicious, quick and easy recipe you can throw together any night of the week that you need to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes!  It will take a good 10 minutes of chopping but then everything just cooks itself in the pan.

Ingredients
1/2 Rapunzel Vegan Broth Cube
2 tbsp water (to go in pan with broth cube)
1 cup diced yellow onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red lentils
1/2 can whole fat coconut milk
2 cups filtered water
1/4 chopped cauliflower
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup medium diced turnips
1/2 cup medium diced parsnips
1 inch piece ginger smashed in a garlic press
1 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt

Saute onion with the broth cube and water over medium heat until translucent.  Add the garlic and continue to saute for one more minute.  Add the lentils, coconut milk, water, and remaining ingredients except salt and pepper. Cover and bring to a boil.   Stir well, reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 30 to 45 minutes until the lentils are cooked through.  Add salt and pepper.

Serve with Brown Basmati Rice!

Friday, February 3, 2012

New Garden Goodness

Not a lot coming out of our backyard garden this year aside from lots of salad greens, radish, and these beautiful kolrabi and turnips!  Kolrabi and turnips can be sauteed in garlic, onions and veg broth and served as a side dish.  They can also be added to Red Lentil Coconut Curry!  

We are still waiting for our carrots to rise from the earth...they are just taking forever to grow this year.  Everything seems to be taking forever.  We planted these back in November!  Grow carrots, GROW!!