Recipes Discovered

Miso Glazed Tilapia with Soba Noodles and Sugar Snap Peas

Seth really liked the miso salmon at the Cheesecake Factory and has been trying to get me to make it for quite awhile now. I don’t enjoy salmon, but we came to a compromise that I would try to make the recipe with a different fish. I used tilapia, because that’s what I had in the freezer.

To make the miso glazed, I combined a couple recipes together and ended up with miso, rice vinegar, brown sugar, and soy sauce. I marinated the fish for about 30 minutes in the mixture before removing it from the marinade baking it for 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven. The Cheesecake Factory serves their salmon with snow peas and white rice, but I opted for sugar snap peas and soba noodles. Soba noodles are made from buckwheat and are popular in Japanese cooking. To make the miso sauce, I combined the remaining marinade with more miso, chicken broth, and sugar in a skillet. Once it was boiling, I added the sugar snap peas, covered the pan, and cooked them about 3 minutes until they were tender. I added the cooked soba noodles to the skillet and mixed to combine everything. I served the noodles topped with the fish.

I thought the soba noodles were amazing. I loved the miso sauce – it was sweet and just a little bit salty. However, the fish was horrible. Not necessarily because of the miso glaze, but because it was so fishy. Tilapia is not supposed to be fishy. I assume the fish came from a bad ‘batch’ or something, but unfortunately, it ruined the dish for me.

Miso Glazed Tilapia with Soba Noodles and Sugar Snap Peas

Coconut Cake with 7-Minute Frosting Recipe

This cake recipe has been haunting me for months. I’ve had the recipe laying, always asking myself will it be worth the effort. I ask this because the cake requires freshly made coconut milk and coconut cream, which requires cracking open a couple of coconuts. The recipe comes from Alton Brown, so it also requires precise measurements, which I’ve always been a bit sloppy with. I was inspired this week though, so being up for the challenge (along with my new digital scale), I bought two coconuts and finally tackled the coconut cake.

I could only find white coconuts at the grocery store when I was there. I have searched the Internet quite a bit, and I’m still not quite sure what the difference is. I know coconuts start off being green and then turn brown when they ripen, but I don’t know where the white fits in. I had Seth hammer a screwdriver through two of the coconut ‘eyes’, drained the water out, and put the coconut in the oven like the recipe suggests. After 15 minutes, the coconut hadn’t cracked at all, so I had Seth beat it with a meat mallet until the coconut cracked in half. I was quite surprised to find a very thin, gel-like layer of coconut inside instead of the thick, white coconut meat. I lived in Hawaii for quite awhile and had never seen a coconut like this one. >> Read more

Butternut Squash Lasagna Recipe

I had planned on making lasagna the other night, but with a large butternut squash sitting on my counter, I decided to deviate from the traditional lasagna and try a recipe that I have been looking at for quite awhile. Instead of the traditional cheese filling and red sauce, this lasagna is filled with a mixture of roasted butternut squash, onions, garlic, and amaretti cookies and covered with a basil cream. Amaretti cookies are simply Italian almond macaroons, so any almond flavored cookie would work. If you can’t find amaretti cookies (I had a hard time), just omit them. They aren’t a dominate flavor, and I don’t think it would change the dish.
To make the filling, I roasted a butternut squash until it was very tender. Roasting the squash makes it really sweet and gives it a nice texture to mash up. I also sauteed onions and garlic to add some more flavor. I put the squash, onions, garlic, and crushed cookies in a large bowl and mashed it all together. I left the filling sort of chunky, but you can make it as smooth or chunky as you like. The filling could even be pureed in a blender for a really smooth texture. >> Read more

Caramel Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe 

I came across this recipe for Caramel Cake some time ago, and have always wanted to try it. The problem was, I didn’t have a candy thermometer, and to make the caramel center, I needed one. Lucky for me, I got one for Christmas, so this cake my it high on my list to make.

The cake itself is a standard yellow cake, baked in two 9-inch cake pans. Once cooled, I started the caramel part of the cream cheese frosting by melting brown sugar and butter in a sauce pan. Once it came to a boil, I whisked in heavy cream and then set it aside while I made the cake’s caramel center. This is where the cake became interesting. Similar to the caramel for the frosting, I melted brown sugar, butter, and evaporated milk in a saucepan and stirred it until the sugar dissolved, about 5 minutes or so. The recipe then states to allow the mixture to boil until it reaches 238 degrees without stirring, which I did. At that point, I transferred the mixture to a mixing bowl and immediately mixed it with a hand mixer for 3 minutes, until it thickened, and then spread it over one of the cake layers. At least I tried. The caramel hardened very quickly and once it was refrigerated for 15 minutes (to cool it), it became very dry. I was unimpressed at that point, so I carefully pulled the caramel off the cake (it came off it one piece), and tried to make the caramel again. This time, I only boiled it until it reached 230 degrees, which is the soft ball stage (238 is hard ball stage). Once it reached 230 degrees, I transferred it to a mixing bowl and beat it for 2 1/2 minutes and then spread it over the cake. The caramel once again became hard, although not nearly as dry as the first time. It’s not really hard caramel either – more like a really dry/hard cake frosting. I figured there wasn’t any point in trying again, so I continued with the recipe by finishing the cream cheese frosting. I mixed butter and cream cheese until it was smooth and then added the cooled caramel mixture that I first made. Once that was mixed in, I added powdered sugar until it was creamy. I spread a thin layer over the caramel layer to keep the top of the cake in place, and then finished icing the rest of the cake. To make it look a little fancier (and since I had a large hunk of dried caramel), I sprinkled some caramel crumbs over the top of the cake.

Since Seth is taking this cake it work tomorrow, I haven’t actually tasted it, but I am pretty unimpressed with the caramel layer. The icing on the other hand is outstanding. If the cake itself turns out to be good, I might just make a double batch of the icing and use that in the center of the cake and skip the caramel layer all together. I’ll have to wait to see what Seth’s co-workers think.

Caramel Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

While unpacking (still), I found an Irish cookbook that I had bought a long time ago. Seth’s family is very Irish, and I’ve always wanted to learn to cook traditional Irish food. I had Seth pick out recipes for a complete meal, and this is what he came up with.

We started with Mushroom Soup, which simply a lot of mushrooms cooked with potatoes, onions, garlic, and some stock. The recipe implies to blend the soup, but it leave it rather chunky, but Seth and I both prefer the soup blended smooth. It developed a very cream texture, similar to cream of mushroom soup. I used portobello, crimini, and white button mushrooms, which gave the soup great flavor. I served the soup with Brown Soda Bread, which is so incredibly easy to make. I mixed whole wheat flour with baking powder and buttermilk (I had to use more buttermilk than the recipe called for) together until a dough forms. I then kneaded the dough for a minute until it was smooth and baked until hollow. The bread was so good! It formed a nice crust on the outside, but was so soft and smooth on the inside. Seth wanted me to make it everyday. >> Read more