I have been so, so, SO sick ever since I returned from NYC. I caught the nastiest cold I’ve had in a long while. When I’m sick, I hardly eat. Once I start to get my appetite back, the last thing I want to do is cook. In fact, sitting on the couch and watching Star Trek (more on that in a moment) with my husband is about all I’m up to. That means the food I make needs to be easy, fast, light, and healthy.
Enter hasperat. My new favorite sandwich.
The Star Trek fans among you will recognize the dish. Hasperat is a spicy wrap, made with brine, that’s often talked about and enjoyed by inhabitants of the planet Bajor. That’s about all the information given about it. I’m sure you all think I’m crazy right about now. Who makes imaginary food from Sci-Fi television shows?
I guess I do?
I’ve only recently become a Star Trek fan, and ever since my husband and I started watching it, I thought it’d be really fun (if not hopelessly nerdy) to create some alien food. I’ve considered Vulcan Plomeek Soup, Klingon Gagh, and Cardassian Yamok Sauce over asparagus. When my husband came home from the store today with some tortillas, I knew that Bajoran Hasperat was the way to go.
Are you all still there, or have I… uh… alienated you?
Oh boy.
Better get on with the recipe, huh. I promise you’ll like this sandwich regardless of your feelings about space travel, dilithium crystals, warp core breeches, holosuites, phasers, or the Dominion.
Hasperat is supposed to be really spicy and salty. Those of you who don’t like eye-watering food can easily make the mild version of this (I just had it, and it was delicious), but the addition of horseradish flavored hummus, or tabasco sauce, would make a more authentic dish. Well, if a recipe I made up to resemble imaginary food eaten by imaginary aliens on an imaginary planet can be called “authentic”.
Hasperat For Two
2 10″ Wheat Tortillas
1/2 Cup Hummus (Any flavor, plain or horseradish is nice)
1 Small Cucumber, sliced very thin (about 1/2 cup)
1 Carrot, shredded (about 1/3 cup)
1 1/2 Tbs Tamari (or regular soy sauce)
1 1/2 Tbs Rice Vinegar
Black Pepper
2 Small Handfuls Baby Spinach
Hot Chili Sauce/Tabasco, optional
Using a mandoline, or your food processor, or a sharp knife, slice the cucumber very thinly and place in a large bowl. Add the carrot. Add tamari and rice vinegar and toss. Let marinate 5-10 minutes (or longer, if desired).
Warm your tortillas so they’re pliable. You can microwave them for a few seconds with a damp paper towel, heat them in a dry skillet, or (my favorite) hold them directly over the flame of your gas burning stove.
Spread the tortillas with hummus, 3-4 Tbs each, making sure you cover the entire surface. This will help the sandwich stick together. Arrange the cucumber slices in one layer, slightly overlapping. Add carrot, and sprinkle some fresh pepper over the top. Add a layer of baby spinach.
Roll up the wrap, tucking in the ends, and place on a hot grill pan to slightly warm and create pretty grill marks. You can do this in a regular pan if you don’t have a grill pan. Slice and eat immediately.
*Recipe updated - I accidentally left out the sugar and oil
I usually think about making pancakes sometime during the weekend, but I rarely get around to it. I don’t always want to break out my whisk and bowls and create a lot of dishes that I’ll have to clean up later. Last night, I had an idea.What if I made the batter the night before, in my blender? One container for mixing. I could store the blender jar right in the refrigerator over night, and pour my pancakes from the blender directly into the pan the next morning.
Was it as easy as I hoped? Yes. Yes it was.
I used spelt flour, because once I realized it wasn’t scary at all, I figured it’d be perfect for pancakes. And it is. However, feel free to use regular flour for these, they’ll be just as good without the spelt.
Silver Dollar pancakes are the best, in my personal opinion. They’re just like regular pancakes, but they’re small, about three inches in diameter. They’re tiny enough to roll up and eat in one bite. They cook quickly, they’re easy to flip, easy to eat, and very easy on the eyes. If you’ve never made them before, give them a shot; you’ll never go back to big ones again.
Easy Weekend Pancakes Makes about 25 Silver Dollar Pancakes, enough for two people
1 1/2 Cup Soymilk
1 Tbs Sugar
2 Tbs Oil
1 Cup Spelt (or all-purpose*) Flour
1/3 Cup All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp Extract (any flavor, I used orange, but vanilla is a no-brainer)
1-2 Tbs water, to thin batter if needed
*If using only all-purpose flour for this recipe, you may need to add more liquid. Regular flour absorbs more moisture than spelt.
Add soymilk to your blender. Add remaining ingredients except the water and blend for a few seconds until combined. Scrape down any dry flour stuck to the side of the jar and blend again. Place the top on the blender and refrigerate overnight. You can also use the batter immediately.
In the morning, place the blender back on the base and add 1-2 Tbs of water, blend to mix. This re-thins the batter that had thickened overnight.
Preheat oven to 200º F, or the lowest setting, and put an oven-safe plate on the middle rack. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat for a few minutes. Pour the batter directly into the center of the UNgreased heated pan. I like silver dollar sized pancakes, 2 1/2 to 3″ in diameter, but you can make any size you want. This batter should create fairly thin pancakes.
After a few minutes of cooking, you’ll see the bubbles form and set on the uncooked side of the pancake. The batter will start to set, and it will change color from white to dull yellow. This is when you should flip. If your pancake isn’t brown by this time, turn your heat up. If it is overly brown, your heat is too high.While cooking the pancakes, place the finished ones directly into the oven on the plate. Stack the pancakes as you go. This will keep the whole stack warm while you’re cooking them.
While the pancakes are cooking, feel free to add blueberries, chocolate chips, or anything else you can imagine. Serve with vegan margarine (Earth Balance) and maple syrup.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the Martha Stewart Show taping went great. It was a lot of fun, and everyone who works on the show was really wonderful and talented. Martha was a lot of fun to work with, and I’m really glad to have had such a wonderful experience at her studio. I’ll post more info and a clip of the segment after it’s aired on Monday, so check back here in a couple of days. In the meantime, I’m going to spend the weekend relaxing and eating more pancakes!
Martha Stewart has invited me to be a guest on her knitwear show on February 25th! I’ll be teaching how to make the decorations for the knit night cupcakes I made back in June.
I’m really excited (and really nervous!) but I’m sure it will be a blast. Don’t forget to tune in to the Martha Stewart Show at 10 am on Monday, February 25th!
I’ve got to get back to preparing for the show. I’m up to my eyebrows in marzipan! I leave for New York tomorrow, so there won’t be any blog updates until late this week. Wish me luck!
My husband and I don’t usually do anything for Valentine’s day, but I hardly need an excuse to whip up something pink and pretty. These little cakes are made up of rich coconut cream and a little fresh blood orange juice. You can dip hot cakes into a blood orange syrup, or reduce the syrup and drizzle it over the cakes for serving. Fresh blood orange segments, supremed, compliment the sweet cakes perfectly. And hey, they’re pretty.
Blood oranges are the perfect fruit for winter desserts. Why use strawberries (or what are labeled strawberries in February in Boston), when you can use fresh, organic, blood oranges which happen to be in season right now? You can use regular oranges for this recipe as well, but blood oranges are just so gosh darn pretty.
The gorgeous color of the segments transfers easily to the syrup–so rich and crisp, a perfect, deep pink that’s perfect for Valentine’s day, don’t you think? The color inside a blood orange ranges from standard orange to dark red, sometimes you can even find both colors within one orange. The color inside is dependent upon light, temperature and variety. They usually look like regular oranges on the outside, but sometimes you can see a red blush creeping over the rind that tips you off.
Mini Coconut Blood Orange Bundt Cakes Makes six mini (1 Cup) bundt cakes (photo)
1 1/2 Cups Flour
3/4 Cups Sugar
2 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/3 Cup Coconut Cream*
2 Tbs Blood Orange Juice (or regular orange)
3/4 Cup Soy Milk
2 Tbs Water
1-2 tsp Vanilla Extract
*In warm weather, refrigerate a can of coconut milk until the cream floats to the top and solidifies. In cold weather, I just take it out of my pantry and it’s ready to go. Here’s a photo.
Preheat oven to 400º F. Grease a mini bundt cake pan.Whisk dry ingredients together. Whisk wet ingredients together in a separate bowl. Gently fold wet ingredients into dry until just combined. Fill each cup with 1/2 Cup of batter. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until lightly browned on top. See below for soaking the cakes in syrup. Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. Let cool under plastic wrap to keep the outsides nice and soft.
So how about that blood orange syrup?
Blood Orange Syrup Makes about 1 Cup
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Water
1/4 Cup Blood Orange Juice, strained
Combine sugar and water boil until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in juice. To make a thicker syrup, boil again until the sugar begins to expand greatly in volume (230º F, thread stage) then remove from heat.
You can re-heat it if needed before decorating the plates or the cakes.
You can soak the cakes in the thin version of the syrup for a moister cake. As soon as the cakes come out of the oven, poke them with a fork and pour 1/2 of the syrup evenly over the tops. Let sit for at least 10 minutes before unmolding. You can then thicken the leftover syrup for decoration.
Using a mandoline, or your food processor, or a sharp knife, slice the cucumber very thinly and place in a large bowl. Add the carrot. Add tamari and rice vinegar and toss. Let marinate 5-10 minutes (or longer, if desired).
