Tahini Eggplant

This is not a very sweet recipe, but I enjoy it very much for how satiating it is, and its ability to be eaten hot or cold and still taste alright.  The proportions here will yield two to three large servings.  Sometimes, I top this with balsamic vinegar, or sunflower seeds.

Ingredients

♕1 large eggplant
♕At least 0.5 lb / 0.25 kg spinach
♕6 T / 180g tahini
♕1/4 cup / 20g raisins
♕1/2 cup / 50g walnuts
♕Grapeseed oil, for cooking

Procedure

♕Heat up a frying pan to medium heat, with oil
♕Dice the eggplant into 1' by 1' / 2cm by 2cm cubes.
♕Cook eggplant until browned and mostly translucent, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
♕Reduce heat to medium-low and stir in the spinach.
♕When the leaves are almost entirely wilted, take the frying pan off of the heat and stir in walnuts and raisins.
♕Stir in the tahini.
♕Serve.  

Gingerbread Cereal-- Take 2

This is another recipe for a gingerbread flavored cereal, or maybe a granola.  However, unlike the first version, this breakfast will not get very soft in milk.  
Although I use coconut oil, one can easily substitute it with unsalted butter, grapeseed oil, or even vegetable oil.  If you use an unsaturated fat, you do not need to melt it.
The cereal is very crunchy when it is ready, although when it is removed from the oven it looks rather wet.  It is spicy-smelling, and would go great with sliced granny smith apple. 

Ingredients:

♕250g / 3 1/4 cups rolled oats, uncooked
♕90g / 1/3 cup coconut oil
♕100g / 1/3 cup dark molasses
♕20g / 1T clover honey
♕5g / 2t ginger powder
♕5mL / 1t vanilla extract
♕3g / 1t ground cloves
♕1g / 1/2t ground cardamom
♕200g / 1 1/2 cup raisins



Procedure:

♕Preheat oven to 350˚F / 180˚C.
♕Melt coconut oil.
♕Stir in molasses, honey, and spices.
♕Stir mixture into dry oats, and spread oats onto a baking sheet.
♕Bake for 20 minutes, stopping halfway to stir.
♕Let sit in a turned-off oven for 5-10 minutes, then mix in raisins and allow to cool completely.  The oats will get very crunchy after cooling.  If you want large clusters of oats to be present in your cereal, then have the mixture cool in clumps instead of as one layer, and do not mix it often.
♕Let cool completely, then place in a glass jar until ready to serve.

Gingerbread Cereal

This is a quick, simple cereal recipe which yields crunchy crumbs that go well with milk.  Good for days where one will be very active, as it is light on the stomach yet high in kilocalories.  The flavor mimics gingerbread rather successfully.  If you wish to make this cereal truly gingerbread-y, you can mix an icing from 1/4 cup powdered sugar and a few mL water, and drip that over the cereals, but I did not do this.

Ingredients:


♕650g / 0.75lb bread, ideally stale
note: I suggest whole wheat, but plain will do as well.  
♕2T / 30g coconut oil, extra virgin
♕1T / 15mL vanilla extract
note: this vanilla extract doesn't have to be very high quality.
♕4T / 65g molasses
♕4T / 65g honey
♕1t / 3g cinnamon
♕0.5t / 2g cloves
♕1t / 3g ginger powder
♕.5t / 2g cardamom powder (about 10 pods, emptied)
♕1 1/3 cup / 250g raisins
♕3/4 cup / 100g walnuts, roughly chopped

Optional, for icing:

♕1/4 cup / 120g powdered sugar
♕1t / 5mL vanilla extract
note: this should not be imitation vanilla extract, as it will not be exposed to heat.


Procedure:

.
♕Tear the bread into chunks approximately 3cm / 1'' in size, or as large as you want for your cereal to be.  note: the bread does not shrink much in size as you heat it
♕Heat a very large frying pan to medium-high heat, and melt the coconut oil.
♕Add the breadcrumbs, stirring often.  As soon as all the bread has been heated up, about three minutes, reduce heat to medium-low.
♕Stir in vanilla extract, and add in molasses and honey.
♕If you are mixing icing, combine powdered sugar and the optional vanilla extract, and mix well.
♕Heat the breadcrumbs for approximately 15 minutes, until crunchy.
♕Sprinkle spices and mix well.
♕Take off heat, and if adding, drip icing over cereal.  ♕Allow the icing to dry before doing the next step.
♕Stir in raisins and walnuts.
♕Let cool completely, and then place into a large jar to store.

Orange and Walnut Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread cookies are rather simple to make.  This recipe has a subtle nutty aroma, and the sort of orange you select for zesting strongly influences the final result's smell.  If you have no turbinado sugar, you can easily substitute white sugar, but I also recommend adding a couple pinches of shaved dark chocolate to the batter.

Ingredients:

♕1/2 cup / 120g butter, unsalted, at room temperature.
♕190g / 1.5 cup white flour
♕1/4 cup / 55g turbinado sugar
♕10 walnut halves, ground
note: you want the largest pieces no larger than 3mm
♕zest of one small, aromatic orange
♕1 t / 3mL vanilla extract
♕Approximately 30 walnut halves
note: or more, depending on how thin and small you cut your cookies

Procedure:

♕Combine butter, zest, and sugar.
♕Mix in chopped walnuts flour, and vanilla and combine until dough is homogeneous.
♕Roll the dough into a tubelike shape and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
♕Preheat oven to 375˚F / 190˚C.
♕Cut the dough into thin cookie slices.
♕Top each cookie with a walnut half.
♕Bake for 20 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway if you have poor convection.
♕Allow to cool, and serve.

Chocolatey Banana Bread

Banana bread is a very convenient way to use up blackened bananas.  This recipe for banana bread contains a high amount of whole grains, with chocolatey undertones and chopped nuts for complexity.  It is a good bread for breakfast, with a dough that is not too moist or too dense, thanks to the combined efforts of the baking soda and sour cream.

Ingredients:

♕1 cup / 120g whole wheat flour
♕.5 cup / 50g rye flour
♕.5 cup / 65g white flour
♕2 t / 9g baking soda
♕2 T / 11g cacao powder
♕3 T / 25g dark chocolate, chopped and/or shaved
♕1 cup / 200g turbinado sugar
♕.75 cup / 180mL milk
♕1 tsp / 5mL vanilla extract
♕.25 cup / 55g coconut oil
♕3 very ripe bananas
♕2 eggs
♕4T / 58g sour cream
♕10 hazelnuts

Procedure:

♕Preheat oven to 375˚F /
♕Sift together flours, cacao powder, shaved chocolate, and baking soda.  Add sugar and stir.
♕Mash bananas into a paste in a separate bowl.
♕Melt coconut oil and stir into bananas.
♕To banana mixture, incorporate milk, vanilla extract, eggs, and sour cream.  Stir until
homogeneous.
♕Chop hazelnuts roughly.
note: a mortar and pestle is ideal for this.  Shoot for chunks the size of pebbles.
♕Once the oven is ready, quickly divide mixture into two standard (8' by 3' / 21cm by 8cm) pans.
♕Top with hazelnuts, and bake for 45 minutes.

Healthy Chocolate Covered Fruit

In Russia, it is rather common to serve tea with small candies.  A popular sort of small candy is chocolate-covered dried fruit, stuffed with a nut.  This recipe recreates these candies, but while it is very tasty, it is also very ugly.  Do not let the appearance discourage you!
This procedure can be used as a guide for lots of different fruit and nut combinations.  My very favorite is prunes with toasted almonds.
The chocolate sauce can of course be substituted with simple melted chocolate.  The charm of the coconut-oil based coating is that it smells very strongly of coconut, and you control the amount and type of sugar as well as cacao powder.  If you do choose to use melted chocolate instead, know that the layer of chocolate on each fruit will be much thicker.
In such a simple recipe, quality must be high.  Use good chocolate, aromatic coconut oil, soft dry fruit, and toasted nuts for candies worth serving with tea.

Ingredients:

♕18 dried apricots, whole
♕18 walnut halves
♕3T / 50g extra virgin coconut oil
♕3T / 25g cacao powder
♕2T / 25g sugar

Procedure:

♕Melt the oil and sugar.  Stir in the cacao powder, making sure to avoid clumps.
♕In each apricot, make a long slice, so that the apricot becomes a pocket.
♕Place one nut in each apricot.
♕Dip apricots in to the chocolate mixture, and place on a piece of parchment paper.
♕Move to a cold place.
♕At this point, the chocolate coating will be rather thin on the fruit.  If you wish to make it thicker, allow coating to dry and quickly redip the candies.
♕Allow the coating to harden completely, and serve.

Yeast-Risen Rhubarb, Blackberry, and Ginger Dessert Bread

As spring comes around, it is difficult to think of anything but yeast-risen rhubarb, blackberry, and ginger dessert breads.

The yeast really makes this recipe's dough a hybrid of bread and dessert, with a texture which allows it to be pulled apart instead of crumbling.  The ginger adds a somber note to its smell.
This recipe is great to be served alongside breakfast.  With enough sugar to be sweet, but enough berries, whole wheat, ginger, and savory aspects to its taste to be satisfying.  The current baking time yields a cake with a cracked, smooth crust and a moist, poundcake-like inside.
To get a drier, more bread-like dough, you could try baking it either for an additional ten minutes, or at a higher temperature (425˚F / 220 ˚C), keeping a cover on top of the dough as is bakes for 30 minutes and removing it in the last 10 minutes.
If you wish, you could cut this bread into slices and make it act as a fancy sandwich.  Spreading it with mascarpone and adding strawberries is very good indeed.

Serving suggestion.

Ingredients:

♕1.5 cup / 240g white flour
♕1cup / 170g whole wheat flour
♕1 cup / 410g turbinado sugar
♕1/3 cup / 80mL almond oil or butter
♕2.5 cup / 300g rhubarb, cut into pieces and washed
♕1/2c / 70g blackberries
♕3T / 7g grated ginger
♕2 eggs
♕3/4 cup / 240mL milk
♕2 heaping t / 10g active dry yeast
♕handful strawberries or blackberries (optional)

Procedure

♕Heat the milk until it is warm to the touch, as close as possible to (but not over) 37˚C / 98˚F
note: in the microwave on high power it is reached in 50seconds, be sure to stir before using thermometer
♕Mix sugar, white flour, milk and yeast, and let sit for 1-2 hours in a place as close as possible to 37˚C
♕Mix in the eggs and additional almond oil.
♕Sift in the extra flour, then add the berries, ginger and rhubarb
♕Pour dough into a greased baking pan and let sit for half an hour in a warm environment
♕If so desired, after the half hour, line the pan's edges with sliced strawberries or blackberries
note: I forgot to do this.
♕Bake at 350˚F/180˚C for 40 minutes.
♕Let sit in the turned-off oven for 7 minutes if you are not satisfied with the brownness of the crust on the bread.
♕Remove from oven and let cool under a cotton cloth until warm.
♕Serve with milk.