Shrimp Avocado Salad

Dieting or mostly thinking that I should really go on a diet, has been a constant since I was a teenager. I cannot say that I've tried all the diets I know of (I do not count those I tried and could not go past the second or third day), but I've tried Weight Watchers and Atkins with some success. I managed to follow Somersize for a couple of months, the Schwarzbein Principle and the South Beach sound like too much work. On the positive side, all diets have some dishes that are so good that you keep making them even after you ditched the diet.

For Weight Watchers it was the applesauce and fat-free cottage cheese sprinkled with cinnamon. I still love it and make it often. Basically you add 1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce (if you make your own using sweet apples, you can still call it unsweetened even if it tastes sweet), 1/3 cup fat-free cottage cheese, mix the whole think, sprinkle with cinnamon et voilá! A tasty low-cal desert.

Today's salad is one that I concotted when I did my stint into Atkins. True you loose weight fast on that diet, but I'm a carb girl and living without bread, and muffins, and bagels, was not fun. I tried the low-carb flours which are basically a mixture of soy flour and some gluten but it was not the same thing. So another diet went by the wayside and, as expected, when I went back to my old stapples I put back all the weight I had lost, plus some. Well, that's life I guess!

But this salad is delicious, great to take to work and I make it time and again. It is very satisfying. With a piece of fruit you have a good and healthy lunch.


For this salad I usually purchase one of those packaged 250 gr. rings of shrimp. They are very flavourful, you only need to shell the tails, and they are usually cheap. I get several boxes when they are on sale, for about $2.99 or $3.99 per package. Considering that our cafeteria charges $5.75 for a platter with about the same portion of food, this is a good price indeed.

Shrimp Avocado Salad

1 shrimp ring (about 250 gr. / 10 oz.)
1 avocado
6 brazil nuts, cut up
1 tablespoon vinaigrette (recipe follows)

Peel and dice the avocado, put the shrimp on top and the cut up brazil nuts. The nuts give this salad a crunch that I do very much love. Add the vinaigrette, mix lightly and cover. I add the vinaigrette right in the morning when I make the salad. There is no green to wilt and the flavours have time to meld.

Vinaigrette

1/3 cup roasted garlic olive oil
1/2 cup cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons mixed dried herbs or 2 tablespoons finelly chopped fresh herbs

Mix all the ingredients in a jar. Give it a shake before using.

I usually use dry oregano and thyme or fresh lemon thyme and basil. These are my favourite herb combinations.

23/5 Meme

I was tagged by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen for the 23/5 Meme. The way it works is you go to your 23rd post, find the 5th sentence, and then ponder a little and write about it on your blog.

My 23rd post was the recipe Gnocchi with Red Pepper Sauce, one of my favourites, and the 5th sentence read:

It is an easy recipe to make, very filling and the intense flavour of the red pepper in the sauce is just scrumptious.

I absolutely stand by what I wrote in that post. It is even better if you make the gnocchi from scratch, which I did not do at that time. Actually, I'm getting somewhat lazy when it comes to gnocchi. I can find wonderful fresh gnocchi in a small Italian shop close to where I work and it is very easy for me to just go and buy them instead of going through the trouble of making them.

Maybe one of these days I'll make gnocchi from scratch again.

Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake

I've had this post semi-prepared for such a long while and I think it is about time I finish it and publish it. Yesterday I finally ate the last slice of this cake, which I've kept in the freezer, wrapped individually in parchment paper and then aluminum foil. Still full of flavour and moist like it was when I baked it, maybe by the end of July.

From a recipe by Nigella Lawson in How to be a Domestic Goddess, this wonderful cake was published by Angela, of A Spoonful of Sugar, in her entry of May 1st, 2004. The picture looked so scrumptious and I happen to love just about everything with cornmeal in it so I knew I had to try the cake. I was not disappointed. I warn you that it is very easy to overeat, so be prepared to either share it with friends or freeze it. Fortunately, it freezes very well, as I was able to prove yesterday. The recipe makes a fairly large cake and even if I gave half to a friend, I still managed to freeze seven good-sized portions.

In the picture above I ate it while warm, "a la mode", meaning with vanilla ice-cream. It was good but I actually prefer it on its own.

Toaster Oat Bread

Today I tried one of Kelli's bread recipes. This is a quick bread, full of fiber and it tastes delicious. I followed Kelli's recipe almost to the letter. The only difference is the buttermilk I used, because I had it, instead of milk and lemon juice.

This bread is dense and very flavourful. I calculated 16 slices and it does give me 104 cals., 5gr. of protein, 1 gr, of fat, and 3 gr. fibre per slice. Kelli says that its flavour is enhanced by toasting. I've already ate almost half of it and I did not toast it. It is delicious with butter and jam. Now I have to try the toasting.

WCB # 13 - Ms. Beije does not like the camera

Ms. Beije having trouble with the flash from the camera. I tried to take another photo, but she decided to beat a hasty retreat. She really has little patience for my photography efforts.

Hurricane Katrina Fundraiser: Pistachio Fruit Delight

I'm not very familiar with Southern food, except maybe having heard of Southern Fried Chicken and Blackened Fried Fish. The cuisine of Louisianna seems to include a lot of hot food, which I shy away from. However, I wanted very much to contribute to Amy's event in any way I could.

Browsing my recipe box, I found this recipe that I had copied from one of those church fundraiser cookbooks. The little blurb said that this was a Southern recipe although it did not specify where from. This is a typical 70's recipe all made out of canned ingredients but it is one of my favourites. This is one instance in which I don't care if the ingredients are not "natural." It has to be "good for you," because it is just plain good.

Please join Amy's Hurricane Katrina Fundraiser and/or click the Red Cross banner above to donate. Thank you.



Pistachio Fruit Delight

1 package Jello instant pudding, pistachio flavour
1 cup milk
1 19 oz can crushed pineapple in juice, drained
2 cups miniature marshmallows
1 large container of Cool Whip

Mix the pudding and milk and let thicken. Add the drained crushed pineapple, marshmallows, and Cool Whip. Mix until well blended.

Transfer into a large glass bowl to serve, or divide into individual containers. Makes 13 1/2 cup portions.

Blog Day 2005

I just found out today that August 31st is Blog Day. The brainchild of Nir Ofir of Sparkarmada the idea that August 31st should be Blog Day was born out of the fact that "3108" looks similar to "blog". Today we are asked to link to five blogs that are distinctly different from our own, in the interest of promoting traffic.

Foto Ben
Foto Ben is the blog of Benjamim Fonseca e Silva, a young professional photographer in Lisbon, Portugal. He started his blog in April 2005 and publishes a photo a day. His photos are very artistic and a pleasure to look at. He shows us aspects of Lisbon and its inhabitants that I had not seen before.

Vitriolica Webb's ite
Vit'n'Madge is a graphics artist. A Brit married to a Portuguese she lives in a small town south of Lisbon. Fluent in both the spoken and written language of her adopted country, Vit draws and rambles about the idiosyncrasies of life in Portugal and of the Portuguese people. Winner of "Big Blogger 2005" this blog is one of my daily musts.

One Whole Clove
Let me introduce to you Lou Plant, fellow Ottawan. Lou started her food blog this month but she writes like a pro and her pictures are excellent. Definitely worth a visit.

Enon Hall:
In 1999 William Hathaway Chapman bought sight-unseen the ancestral home of the Virginia Hathaways, which had been in his family from 1762 until 1939. The restoration of the house and grounds has been a labour of love for Bill and his family. Although not a real blog, the journal feature which Bill updates regularly, makes it look like one. I highly recommend that you peruse the weekly account of this historically faithful restoration. It has plenty of photos and is a pleasure to read.

We are also asked to include this code in our post so everyone can be updated by visiting this link in technorati, BlogDay2005. So here it is.

WCB # 12 - Ms. Beije

Good morning everybody. My name is Ms. Beije and my human pet finally got around taking one decent picture of me. Now I don't necessarily have the patience to pose for her and to do it on her own time, but you know how finicky humans can be so I humoured her. Besides she is been sick the poor dear (big feline sigh here).

Hopefully you will be seeing some more of me from now on. I've been in this family for 10 years now and this is our second house. The renovation is somewhat of a bother but Ana seems to enjoy it so I play along. What the heck, let's keep the peace in the family.

I love to go outside and Ana has some mature trees and wild corners in her property. This is heaven. There are squirrels around that I love to chase, to my utter enjoyment. I think that they like it too, since I'm careful and made a point of never catching one. Wouldn't know what to do with it if I did, they are not that tasty anyway. When we moved in I was able to find some mice but haven't seen one in ages. Ana likes to plant flowers and clear up spaces so the mice population must have moved somewhere else. It's a bother since they were fat and good, but then I'm not getting any younger so I guess what's in the food bowl is it.

Tata and see you next time!

Roasted Zucchini with Feta Cheese

When I was flat on my back, many times I though of all the vegetables I had languishing in my fridge. That Saturday, I had purchased quite a good quantity of beautiful fresh vegetables at the Parkdale Farmer's Market. Little did I know I would not have much time to dedicate to them. Some, sadly, got lost. But since the vegetables had been picked that very morning the day I bought them, some lasted what I consider an unusual long time. Like the zucchini and green onions above.

As soon as I was able to stay on my feet for more than fifteen minutes I decided to try Lex Culinaria's recipe of Feta and Dill Baked Mushrooms. I even had in the fridge 2 punnets (16 oz) of regular button mushrooms, and figured that half her recipe would be enough for one or two complete meals for me. Who was I kidding? I ate the whole hog for supper. But man, are they good mushrooms!

I am not going to reproduce the recipe here since I followed hers not to a capital "T" but at least to a small "t". I did not add dill because I had forgotten to purchase it and I did forget to add the lemon juice, even though I had lemons at home. Only when the mushrooms were half-baked did I come to the desk to check the recipe on the computer and noticed the lemon juice. Honestly, I did not miss it.

Four days later, feeling a little better, I decided to do something with the yellow and green zucchini's I had purchased. They were still firm but I was afraid would not be like that for too long. In the fridge I also had 2 bunches of green onions. The green leaves were going but the white portion was firm and good. Those mushrooms were still fresh in my mind so I decided to use the same recipe for the zucchini and green onions. Again, I did not use either lemon juice or dill. Why mess with perfection? Unfortunately I did have about 1 cup of feta cheese left. For the quantity of vegetables it would have been better to use about one-and-a-half cups of feta. I have added the right amount in the recipe below.

Roasted Zucchini with Green Onions and Feta Cheese

4 medium green zucchini
2 yellow green zucchini
2 bunches green onions
6 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons sea-salt, or more to taste
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups feta cheese, crumbled

Wash and cut zucchinis in the middle and then each piece into four lenghtwise. Clean the green onions and slice into about 1/2-inch slices. Put into a square pan.

In a mortar mash peeled garlic and salt until all the cloves are roughly mashed. Add the olive oil and mix well. Drop the oil mixture over the vegetables and mix well with a wooden spoon until it covers all the vegetables. Por over the crumbled feta cheese.

Put the pan into a 350F oven and bake, uncovered, for about 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Mix the vegetable-cheese mixture once or twice while it is baking.

Enjoy.

Backyard bounty

It is fitting that I should start my blogging activities showing off two beautiful cucumbers I picked from my backyard, some two weeks ago. You cannot get any more local than this.

I had the pleasure to eat my first backyard cucumber just sliced very fine, skin on, and seasoned with nothing but salt. They tasted divine.

The so-called "grape tomatoes" plants grew huge and the wire loops I bought at the store were simply not strong enough. The tomato plants are a mess of long limbs all over each other. I am going to put some stronger stakes in the ground and hope I can tie some of the branches to it. Certainly a learning lesson for next year.

Having said that, the "grape" tomatoes are growing to look more like cherry tomatoes and although both plants have lots they are still green. Hopefully, in a week I will have some grape/cherry tomatoes for my very local organic salad.

Blogging hiatus due to pinched nerve

Two weekends ago I had some "destruction" around my house, in preparation for some more upgrades. It so happens that this beautiful bungalow of mine, having started its life as a summer cottage in 1937, does not have a vapour barrier. The mold problem this house had, when it had aluminun siding, was caused by this lack of a vapour barrier, which allowed the hot humid air to go through the walls, find the aluminum, condense and be trapped there. Over the years, a bad case of mold was the result. When I bought this little gem in 2000, I knew I was in for serious renovation. Getting rid of the aluminum siding was the first step and it got rid of the mold, since the house was able to breath again.

What I'm doing now is strip the outer walls one at a time and putting in new insulation, vapour barrier, sheetrock, etc. Replacing the windows is done at this time too. So the living room was what I worked on this time. My kids helped with the destruction part however, somehow, during the clean-up part (ever noticed that kids disappear for clean-up?) I must have overdone something which resulted in a pinched sciatic nerve. So I've spent about 4 days flat on my back and it took the remaining of the time to very slowly and painfully get back on my feet.

To stand or sit for long periods of time is still both painful and unadvisable and so I have been unable both to cook a lot or to blog about it. I have been trying to keep up with what everybody else posts and to write some comments too, but that's the extent of what I am able to do right now.

Unfortunately I will have to miss many of the events going on. As I get better, hopefully I'll get into the swing of things again. And yes, I'm living in the house as its being renovated. Not always fun!

5 Childhood Food Memories - yet another Meme!

This meme, sent to me by both Tarzile, from Quebec and Elvira of Tasca da Elvira (Elvira's Pub). Tarzile has a beautiful blog that features many French-Canadian recipes. It is definitely worth a visit. Elvira was born in Portugal, raised in France and returned to Portugal to live permanently not long ago. She is a journalist and her beautiful blog, written in French, has wonderful Portuguese recipes and photos of Portugal. Many times I browse Elvira's blog just to look at the pictures and remember.

And memories is what this meme is all about. It asks for five food-related things you miss from your childhood. It did not take me long to compile this list and thinking about each one of them brings back memories of the flavours and smells of my childhood.

^1.

Sweetsop/annona: When I was a little girl in Mozambique, no matter where we moved to there was always one or two of these trees in our backyard. The trees do not grow very tall and some of its branches are low, making it easy for us kids to reach up and pluck this most delicious fruit. They become mushy when ripe and do not travel easy. One day, some seven or eight years ago I found one small basket of sweetsops for sale in one of the Asian markets in our Chinatown. I paid $2.50 for a lonely smallish fruit which was flavourless, a clear sign that it had been picked green and ripened under duress.

^2.

Young coconuts: Are another tropical delicacy I miss very much. Its flesh sweet and soft is eaten with a spoon. I do love coconut and many times, when my supermarket gets a fresh batch I purchase one, open its "eyes" to remove the water and then peel it and keep it in the fridge to much on as a snack. Alas, what I get here is not young, but fully mature fresh coconuts. While researching for photos for this post I found out that Melissa from California does sell a package of 3 young coconuts for $US26.90, not including postage. Mmmm! Pretty steep, and I wonder if it is worth it.

^3.

Whole cashew nuts roasted on an open fire: As I've had opportunity to mention here before, my maternal grandparents had a farm in the north of Mozambique, where I spent many wonderful times. In the farm there were all kinds of tropical fruit trees native to the place (papaya, banana, mango, sweetsop), and some others planted by my grandfather (mostly lemon, orange, and grapefruit). The place also had plenty of huge cashew trees, that must have been almost a hundred years old, or seemed so to me. The cashew-nut, a bean-shaped nut at the end of the fruit, is covered by a thick meaty cover. It was not advisable to try and cut open this cover because the oils would "burn" your skin. These nuts were roasted over coals until blackened at which time they could be opened to retrieve the meat inside. The cashews were unevenly roasted. Some areas were a little burnt some quite pale, but the flavour was incomparable. The commercially available cashews do not even come close.

^4.

Beach Clam Stew: Beaches in Angola and Mozambique, if you lived far away from the main ports, were big expanses of white sand and clear water uncluttered by civilization. On Sundays, we would go to the beach and for lunch we carried a big pot where the cook had put olive oil, lots of chopped onion and garlic and some chopped tomatoes. We also carried some fresh bread and, of course, drinks. Pick the clams was easy. Every wave that splashed on the beach seem to bring tons and we easily picked them up as they tried to bury themselves in the sand. As we picked them, we dropped them in a big pail of salt water. Close to lunch hour a fire was lit using wood foraged from the vicinity and some rocks to support the big pot. After the onions were translucent the clams were taken from the water pail and dropped into the pot just to open. In about 5 to 8 minutes lunch was ready and we all dove in eating the clams with our hands and sopping the bread on the flavourful broth. Divine!

^5.

Chicken Piri-piri at grandma Adelina's: Chicken piri-piri is a typical dish of Africa. It is nothing but a whole cleaned chicken opened in the middle and flattened, seasoned with hot chillies and cooked over the coals. It probably was being cooked this way by the native people's of Africa when the Portuguese navigators dropped in around the 1500's; and it could be that our best contribution was the copious amounts of garlic we added to the basting sauce. At my grandmother's farm, chicken piri-piri was always cooked over the coals outside in the backyard. Grandma's marinade/basting sauce was simple: garlic, salt, lots of piri-piri (African hot peppers) the whole thing mashed in the mortar, then add olive oil and rub the whole bird with it. Put the "butterflied" (split the down the center enough to allow it to lie flat, but without cutting it into two pieces) chiken on a rack over the coals, high enough that it will cook slowly. Keep basting with the marinade, as you turn the chicken. It was to cry over, literally... sometimes the basting sauce had one hot-pepper too many for my taste.

Now, how this meme works:Choose four bloggers to tag (none of whom are obligated to take part):
1. Elizabeth of Blog from our Kitchen
2. Michelle of Oswego Tea
3. Ruth of Once upon a Feast
4. Dawna of Always in the Kitchen

Now, remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog's name in the #5 spot; link to each of the other blogs for the desired effect.
1 - Becks & Posh
2 - Clea Cuisine
3 - Station Gourmande
4 - Tasca da Elvira / Tarzile.com
5 - Pumpkin Pie Bungalow

Grape vines, cucumbers and tomatoes

Here is a glimpse of my very small vegetable garden. In the photo above you can see one of my grape vines. I've planted two, on opposite sides of the deck and last weekend I spent sometime pinning horizontal wires to the deck side. It seems that the vines prefer to expand horizontally. I had assumed the vines would climb the vertical wood banisters but they were instead moving into the deck itself. Hopefully the horizontal wires will keep them in the right path.

This year I did not have the time to propare the plots as necessary so my vegetable garden, besides herbs has two grape tomato plants and one cucumber. I just had to take a picture at the little tomatoes growing. I expect them to redden soon, as they are not supposed to grow big.

Here is the cucumber plant and the little cucumbers growing. Soon I will be able to make myself a salad with produce from my garden.

Granola, finally!

I've been wanting to make my own granola since I saw Michelle's Taste Canada entry featuring maple granola. I do love granola and I find that the purchased variety sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. Too much sugar, too little fruit and even less nuts always leaft me somewhat disenchanted.

I always thought that making granola was difficult. Don't ask me why because just by reading the recipe one can see that it is not, however something always made me uneasy about it...until I read Michelle's recipe and did feel a crave to make my own that I could resist no more. Other of my favourite bloggers have made granola and I've checked Heidi's Honey-toasted fruit muesli, Niki's Granola?, and Tarzile's Granola maison à la noix de coco. In the end, I opted for following Michelle's recipe. All the other recipes looked very good but Michelle's used less ingredients, all of which I happened to have on hand or had a good substitute for.

In my rendition of the recipe I've increased the amount of oats in an effort to reduce the sugar and fat, and then I've doubled the portion of almonds and raisins (to cancel out???), but I love almonds and raisins so much, I have to have lots. I've also used honey since I did not have any maple sugar.

The granola was very easy and fast to do. Actually, to my delight, it took longer in the oven that it took to prepare. I guess I can say safely that I'll never have store-bought granola again!

Granola
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup honey
2 cups non-instant large flake oats
1/2 cup almonds, cut up
1/2 cup raisins

In the roasting pan melt the butter and honey. Add the oats and almonds. Mix well and put in a 350F oven for about 10 minutes. Then add raisins and cook another 10 minutes on until the granola showns the shade of blond you are looking for.

Remove the pan from the oven and let the granola cool in the pan. Once cooled, break up the lumps with your hands (they fall apart easily) and store.

Blueberry Smoothie

On Saturday I had an appointment with my hairdresser and that meant go across the river to the small little city of Aylmer, on the Quebec side. On the way, on the Lower Aylmer Road, there are always one or two stalls usually selling one type of fruit or vegetable in season. In June it was the strawberries and now they are offering wild blueberries. Wild blueberries are very small but bursting with concentrated flavour. They are not cheap, but by the time I came back the people were getting ready to leave and I was able to purchase all the berries they have left over for about half-price. I did not have enough money and the seller would rather sell cheaper than take it back.

So now I'm trying to figure out what to do with all the blueberries. Muffins and cake are in order, and even maybe pie. I will also wash some and freeze for later use. Today, my lunch was carrot sticks and almond butter and blueberry smoothie.

For the smoothie I whirled in the blender:
2/3 cup yogurt
1 packet splenda
1/2 cup wild blueberries, picked over and washed

This quantity will make enough to fill my glasses, as you can see in the picture. No leftovers. The book in the background, that I was reading during lunch is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Banana Nut Bread

This recipe for banana bread was given to me by my friend Nancy who got it from her friend Daphne. It is by far my very favourite banana bread. The ratio of bran to flour is quite high and it is the reason why I like it so much. I like to fell the bran when I eat it. I do love both the flavour and the texture of this bread.

It is specially good when the bananas are very ripe, as they impart their full taste and aroma to the bread. I usually roast the walnuts a little to enhance their flavour, prior to adding them to the batter. You can eat it with butter as befits any bread, but I like it as is, with a cup of Earl Grey tea.

Banana Nut Bread

1/4 cup butter
1 large egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup bran
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg and stir in bran. Add mashed bananas, water and vanilla. Stir in nuts. Mix together flour and baking powder and add to previous mixture. Pour into greased loaf pan. Bake in a 350°F oven for about 50 minutes.

My new cookbook

I have added several new cookbooks to my collection. Today I want to mention the one I was anxiously awaiting and which arrived a couple of days ago.

I found out about this cookbook from Jennifer, our gifted chef from Vancouver's "Roast Chicken Reasoning". If you remember, her entry for "Taste Canada" was Gambas al Ajillo, a specialty from Chez Piggy, a Kingston Ontario Restaurant. Jennifer actually worked in the kitchens of this restaurant one summer. I enjoyed very much reading her post and checked this book at Amazon.ca. The more I read the more I felt I had to have the cookbook. I was not disappointed.

Gambas al Ajillo is definitely a dish I want to try. Leafing through the book other dishes begged to be tried, for instance Curried Carrot Soup with Coconut Milk, Cashews & Coriander, Moroccan Chicken Salad with Couscous, Pollo Verde Almendrado, and others.

The book also includes recipes from their bakery Pan Chancho. The bread usually takes three days to prepare. For whole wheat bread, rye bread, multigrain, or even regular white bread on day 1 they prepare the starter, on day 2 the continue the starter and finally on day 3 they bake the bread. I would like, one day, to give this a try. Please don't tell, but I've really never been very successful with the breads I made entirely by hand. No matter what I did to help rise the bread (cover the whole thing with blankets, put inside the microwave, put in the oven with the pilot light on) the truth is, my dough never doubled-up within one hour as most recipes read. That's probably why I was so proud of my recent success with bread-maker-prepared, oven-baked bread. I finally felt like a pro in the bread making department.

I was hoping to try a recipe from the book before posting about it but with time at a premium it was unfortunately not possible. I will have more time during Fall and Winter, once the renovations and the garden do not command so much of my attention.

Before long, I also plan to make a trip to Kingston, Ontario.

.

Simple lunch for a very hot day!

Today was unbeliveably hot and muggy. I spent quite some time working in the yard, clearing an area which used to be beside the garage, before I moved it. The work was hard as there were maples that had been allowed to grow somewhat. Taking them out means digging the roots out and it is no small job. Then I leveled it, put garden fabric and then crushed stone. It will be nice when it is ready.

At lunch hour I was too hot and tired to do much. Luckily I had one big vine tomato and some bocconcini. Sprinkle some dried oregano, get some fresh basil leaves from my mini herb garden above, and voilá, that was my lunch! After that I had some Coconut Cream Pie ice cream which in the opinion of yours truly, is out of this world.

SHF # 10 - Bolo de Mel (Honey Cake)

From my mother's recipes I chose Honey Cake, a very typical Portuguese Cake. Thanks to Nic from Bakingsheet to host today's Sugar High Friday event and for having chosen honey as the theme.

The unusual thing in this cake is the use of olive oil as the fat ingredient and this is another of the Portuguese cakes that you will find everywhere. Every region has its own version of the recipe: Bolo de Mel da Madeira (Madeira Honey Cake), Bolo Podre (Rotten Cake or Putrid Cake). There are versions of Rotten Cake in all provinces of Portugal, each one a version specific to that particular province. The base of the recipe remain the same: olive oil, honey, eggs, flour, cinnamon, lemon zest and baking soda. Each area has variations in the spices they add (ground cloves and/or ground anise seed), and the addition of nuts (mostly walnuts and pine nuts) or dried fruits (raisins or citron). This unusual name was given because of the colour of the cake, a light brownish hue, but of course the cake is not rotten, it is very good indeed. My own cake has a deep brown colour due to the large quantity of cinnamon. It actually looks more like milk chocolate cake. The perfume is unmistakable though.

Mom's recipe is simply called Honey Cake but this was not the only recipe of this type (olive oil and honey) she had in the book, each with a different title, and I looked at several before deciding on this one. The other recipes include other spices and/or dried fruits or nuts.

I made 1/2 recipe only. The batter is quite liquidy and I was afraid it would not cook well, or that it would remain gooey inside but, as you can see in the pictures, it came out well, except that it got a little burnt on top, probably because I cooked it in my toaster oven and the top did not have enough clearance from the element. Since I had no indication of oven temperature I started at 350F (180C), but I think that 325F is probably better.

The cake is tender and moist and surprisingly not too sweet. The taste is subdued and I think that the next time I will add a little ground nutmeg or cloves. It needs a little kick.

Bolo de Mel (Honey Cake)

4 eggs
1 cup honey
1 cup olive oil
1 cup milk
Grated rind of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
250 gr. all-purpose flour
200 gr. sugar

Grease a loaf pan with olive oil. Pre-heat oven to 325F (160C).

Mix all the ingredients. This cake should not be mixed for too long. The batter will be fairly liquid and there might be little lumps of flour still floating around by the time you are ready to pour the batter in the pan.

Bake for about one hour on until a tester inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and wait for about 10 minutes before unmolding onto a rack.

You can eat it on its own or with a little cream. I tried mine with a little sweetened yougurt, as you see in the picture above, but actually prefer it on its own.

The new template

TADA!!!!!! Here is the new template. After lots of weed-pulling (trying to save my scalp here!) in frustration I finally got the test blog to work after which it was surprisingly painless to transpose the code from the test blog to this one.

For a first effort, I am very pleased with the end result. Please let me know what you think and how do the colours show in your monitors.

Of course now that I understand a little more of CSS I think that I really would like to have three columns instead of two, and maybe a better design, and so on, and so on. Well, I'm going to take a breather and cook and bake some more before attempting to mess around with my template.

Like a kid caught with his hands in the cookie jar, my modem is behaving beautifully this evening. Tomorrow the ISP technician will be here to look at the "problem modem" and I will be very frustrated if it continues on its best behavious, only to start having problems again as soon as the techncian clears the front door!
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