Squash and Spinach Gratin

Ingredients:
3 pounds fresh spinach, stems discarded, or 3 (10-ounce) packages frozen leaf spinach, thawed3/4 cup finely chopped onion (1 small)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
Rounded 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup heavy cream
3 yellow squash sliced
2 tomatoes
Mozarella Cheese for topping
1 tbls. butter
oil

Directions:
Preheat oven: 400 F.
Saute onions and garlic in oil until onions are translucent.
Place in bowl with spinach.  Mix in nutmeg, salt, pepper and cream.
Grease bottom of a pan (I've used a loaf pan and a springform pan for this).
Cut up half of the butter and place on bottom of pan.
Line with slices of yellow squash.
Layer with spinach mixture and repeat.
On the top layers, place sliced tomatoes, remaining butter and cheese.
Bake for 40 min.

Recipe modified from here.

Apple Pie

Ingredients:
Filling:
6 cored, peeled and diced apples (I used Gala)
1 1/2 tbls. Apple Pie Spice --or-- 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1/4 tbls. allspice, 1/4 tablespoon nutmeg
1/2 c. sugar
1 tbls. melted butter
1/4 c. brown sugar

Crust (makes one layer):
1 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. butter diced finely
1/4 c. ice water

Directions:
Preheat oven: 375 F
Filling:
Mix all the ingredients together, set aside.

Crust:
Double the recipe to make both pie crust layers.
Dice the butter and place in freezer.
Mix salt and flour.
Add diced butter to form crumbles.
Mix in water to make dough.  Don't overwork the dough.
Refrigerate dough for about 2 hours.
Roll out 1/2 the dough (if you doubled the recipe) and place in 9 in. pie pan.
Add filling.
Roll out next layer and cover.
You can make a design on the top layer if you wish.
Bake for about 90 minutes.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bundt Cake

Birthday cake for another friend!
Followed the recipe exactly and it turned out great.

Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake

I have a vegan friend whose birthday was a few weeks ago... so I made a vegan cake.  Didn't get around to making any frosting for it but the cake itself turned out well.  As you can see, everyone dug in before a picture could be taken.  I tweaked the original recipe a little.

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup soft avocado, well mashed, about 1 medium avocado
2 cups brewed coffee
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Use oil to grease a 9 in pan. Set aside.
Sift together all of the dry ingredients except the sugar.  Set aside.
Mix all the wet ingredients together in a bowl, including the mashed avocado.
Add sugar into the wet mix and stir.
Mix the wet with the dry all at once, and mix.
Pour batter pan.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

I powdered the top with confectioner's sugar and cocoa since I didn't have time to make frosting.
Turned out surprisingly soft and moist!

Avocado Salsa

Recipe found here.

Pics of Food

It's been awhile yet again... but I have been cooking since I last posted.  I haven't always been taking pictures of what I've been making nor have I been keeping track of all the recipes, but now that the Holiday season is upon us, I'll try to keep better track.

Vanilla Cupcake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting:

 Hasselbach Potato stuffed with Mozzarella and sauteed tomatoes, green peppers, onions and mushrooms

 

Uttapam (South Asian pancake)

 

Fish Tacos (made by my friend, Young)
The most delicious fish tacos (and admittedly, only fish tacos) I've ever had.  I was extremely skeptical of this before I tried it.

 

Naan

Blackberry Apple Cake

Ingredients:
Granulated sugar for 9inch pan
1 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
6 tblsp. butter + 2 tblsp. cut into pieces
3/4 cup + 2 tblsp. light brown sugar
1/2 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
2 apples
1 cup blackberries
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Directions:
Pre-heat oven 375 F.
Butter 9in pan and dust with granulated sugar
Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in bowl
Whist together melted butter, 3/4 cup brown sugar, milk and eggs in another bowl.
Whisk into flour mixture
Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.  Arrange apple wedges and blackberries over batter.
Gently press into batter
Combine remaining 2 tbls. brown sugar and cinnamon.
Sprinkle over fruit.
Dot with remaining 2 tbls. butter.
Bake for ~50 minutes

Recipe from Martha Stewart

Before dotting with cinnamon/sugar/butter and baking

I didn't have whole milk so I used half and half instead.  Also, still need to go out and buy some all-purpose flour so I ended up using whole wheat again as well.  This turned out better than I thought it would though it's more of an autumn food than a summer food.  One small thing I would change about the recipe is that you should probably cut up the remaining 2 tblsp. of butter into cubes and then keep that frozen.  Then, when the time comes to sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar mixture, you can just mix in the butter with it and THEN sprinkle all of it over the fruit.