A Flurry of Dishes

Days off tend to make me lethargic, but today was an exception. Chalk it up to the culinary wave I've been riding, perhaps. Instead of dilly dallying, I woke up, vacuumed the house (twice in one week??), furminated my bunny (i.e. brushed her to take out all the fur she's been shedding), went grocery shopping for stevia, and then made a whole flurry of dishes.

There were hits, there were misses, and there were what I like to call "works in progress".

Let's start with the hits...

CREAM OF CAULIFLOWER SOUP

I tweaked this recipe just a bit by using fresh ginger instead of powdered, a red onion instead of 2 leeks, no celery, both homemade beef and chicken stock (instead of just chicken stock), and a touch of sour cream and coconut milk to thin the soup out instead of half and half. I love this soup! It's creamy, but not heavy. It's also low on the glycemic index, unlike the carrot and sweet potato soups I've been making. Just one cauliflower yields a lot of soup. I also roasted some cauliflower florets in the oven to add to the soup as a garnish in the end.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cream-of-Cauliflower-Soup-350616



Before putting it in the blender..


PLUM RASPBERRY AND RED WINE COMPOTE

I had some leftover red wine from last night's beef stew, so I found this recipe on epicurious. I prepared it the night ahead, and it was just delicious the next day for dessert. Brad put it over vanilla ice cream while I was happy just eating it plain. For this dessert, it is important to give it time for the flavors to meld; I had a taste yesterday, and it was definitely not as good as it was today.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Plum-Raspberry-and-Red-Wine-Compote-5629

after 24 hours of marinating in the red wine syrup reduction


Brad's half eaten ice cream with fruit


The red wine syrup..


RED WINE BARBECUE SAUCE

Brad requested burgers for dinner, so I made hamburger with a red wine BBQ sauce (yes, I was trying to find a way to get rid of the extra red wine from last night!). It turned out great, and was so easy to make.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Red-Wine-Barbecue-Sauce-109711



Now let's move on to the "works in progress"...

FRIED POLENTA

I had a bunch of leftover polenta from last night, so I wanted to make broiled polenta for lunch. I cut some of the leftovers into slices, coated them with some olive oil, and put it under the broiler and waited.... And waited.... There was no browning whatsover. I took it out, put it in the toaster oven and tried broiling it again. And again, nothing.

Finally, I decided to eat my failed broiling experiment and try frying instead. I heated the oil till it started smoking, dried off one piece of polenta with a paper towel, and then put it in the olive oil. After 4 minutes on each side, I was left with a golden piece of fried goodness. It was heaven. Too bad I only made one piece :P

I tried making this again for Brad for dinner, but it just didn't crisp up like it did earlier. This is definitely a work in progress.

My one perfect piece of fried polenta:


My lunch today: fried polenta with leftover boeuf bourguignon



HAMBURGER WITH AVOCADO, SOUR CREAM, FRIED POLENTA AND RED WINE BBQ SAUCE

This was a "leftovers" meal. The BBQ sauce was the best part!



Finally, we've come to the "disasters" section. There was only one disaster today...

DOUBLE FUDGE BROWNIE (with Stevia)

I have never cooked with Stevia, but I figured I should start because sugar is not good for me and I don't want to get diabetes. I searched online for stevia recipes and found this one. I made some substitutions (butter instead of margarine, half and half instead of skim milk, 1/2 gluten free baking mix and 1/2 regular flour, and pure stevia extract instead of the stevia blend. I guess all of these substitutions was my first mistake. My second mistake was that I didn't measure out the stevia, but added it in little scoops to taste. The problem was, I ended up making it way too sweet! I tried to remedy this by adding more chocolate/butter/half and half. The result was just a mess. It stuck to the cupcake mold, was too moist inside, and was not sweet enough in the end.

On the bright side, I whipped my first egg whites by hand into peaks! Brad helped---it sure takes a lot of beating to make those peaks :P

http://www.cookingwithstevia.com/web/desserts07.shtml

The brownie tops (the rest stuck to the pan)



Coming out of the oven



The mess...



(The disaster didn't stop us from polishing off the whole plate of brownie tops tonight, though.)