Joan's On Third

Peanut Butter filled Chocolate Cupcake

Joan's On Third is a cute and trendy cafe/pastry shop located on 3rd street in West Hollywood. They are famous for their cupcakes, which are displayed on tiered platters like precious pieces of art.

Brad and I were doing some window shopping on 3rd street (there are some great design stores there) and decided to pop in. For lunch we had a spinach and mushroom quiche, salmon cake, and an eggplant relish. The quiche was easily the best one out of the three. For dessert, we got a peanut butter chocolate cupcake--a moist chocolate cupcake with a peanut butter filling. All I can say is that their cupcake fame is well deserved. Delicious.

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

Salmon Cake

Eggplant Relish

"Rachel Ray Inspired" Chicken with Artichoke

The other night I whipped up a quick meal that was inspired by Rachel Ray. The dish was so easy to make and yet had a lot of flavor. It took only about 15 minutes, and Brad loved it!

Ingredients:

1 can of artichoke hearts (about 8), each cut in half

1 red bell pepper

1 handful of parsley

1/2 onion

6 chicken thighs, dusted with flour

1/2 cup dry white wine

salt and pepper to taste

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 cloves garlic

Coat chicken thighs with flour and cook in olive oil over medium high heat in pan with garlic. Add bell pepper, artichoke, onion, parsley and white wine. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Brad's Berry Mango Smoothie

Brad's been experimenting with frozen fruit smoothies. This one is made with frozen berries and frozen mango from Trader Joes. He added a bit of water so that it blended easily. Mix it up in the blender and you have something that tastes just as good as Jamba Juice (but without the added sugar!). You can also use orange juice or any other fruit juice in place of water.

My Secret To Fried Rice

Brad says that my fried rice keeps getting better and better. Here's a picture of a crab fried rice I made the other night.

Ingredients:

1 can of crab meat

1 cup brown rice

1 onion

1 red bell pepper

2 carrots

1/4 lb ground beef

handful parsley

soy sauce

sesame oil

ginger

egg

salt and pepper

stevia (secret ingredient!)

Most Chinese restaurants add MSG and sugar to their fried rice, but a dash of Stevia is so much healthier. Stevia is the "secret" ingredient that really elevates the tastiness of my fried rice (shh, don't tell)!

Rachel Ray's Eggplant "Caviar"

Today's recipe comes again from Rachel Ray's Classic 30 Minute Meals. The seeds of the eggplant look like caviar, so Rachel calls it "poor man's caviar". I thought this dish was pretty good, but it needed a little something else. I decided to kick it up a notch by adding the juice of half a lemon and some mint leaves.

I served the eggplant with carrot sticks instead of a baguette. Unfortunately, the carrot sticks didn't really "pick up" the eggplant like I thought they would, so I just ended up eating the dip by itself. :P

The recipe can be found on page 223.

Ingredients

1 medium, firm eggplant

1 clove garlic

2 pinches ground allspice

coarse salt and pepper to taste

handful of fresh flat leaf parsley leaves

a drizzle of EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

1 whole grain baguette or other long crusty bread, sliced at bread counter

Preheat oven to 500 F

Cut 2 or 3 slits into one side of whole eggplant. Put the eggplant directly on the oven rack in the middle of the oven and roast for 20 minutes. It should look like a flat tire when it comes out. Make sure the slits face up so it doesn't lose liquid.

When the eggplant cools, remove the skin with a knife. Throw away teh skin. Add the cooked eggplant flesh to the food processor and combine with garlic, allspice, salt, pepper, parsley and EVOO. Pulse grind the mixture into a paste. Serve with crust bread rounds.

The eggplant after coming out of the oven

Rachel Ray's Maple-Mustard Pork with Grilled Apples

It's Rachel Ray week! We've got a fantastic recipe here. The original recipe calls for pork chops, which you grill on a grill pan over the stove and then finish in the oven. I made it with pork tenderloin instead, and I baked it at 500 degrees for 20 minutes.

The pork was moist, sweet and savory, and the grilled apples complimented it perfectly. This is a dish I can easily make again and again on a busy week night. It only took 30 minutes. :)

The recipe can be found on page 60 of Rachel Ray's Classic 30 Minute Meals cookbook.

Ingredients

1/2 cup dark amber maple syrup

1/4 cup spicy brown mustard (I used dijon)

1/4 c apple cider

1/4 medium onion, finely chopped

1/2 tsp allspice

1 tsp ground cumin

8 center-cut boneless pork loin chops (1/2 to 3/4 inch thick)

EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

Grill seasoning blend such as Montreal Seasoning by McCormick OR salt and pepper to taste

3 Golden Delicious apples, sliced across into 1/2 inch rounds, with core and peel intact

The juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 tsp freshly grated or ground nutmeg

Preheat a grill or griddle pan over medium heat. Also preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the maple syrup, mustard, cider, onion, allspice and cumin in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook for 7-10 minutes so the sauce thickens.

Coat the chops with evoo and grill seasoning/salt and pepper. Cook on the grill pan for 3 minutes on each side. Then baste the chops with your sauce and cook 2-3 minutes more. Transfer to a baking sheet and baste again with sauce. Finish cooking in the oven for 10-12 minutes.

While the chops are in the oven, coat apples with lemon juice and a drizzle of evoo. Season with the grill seasoning or salt/pepper and the nutmeg. Grill apples on the grill pan for about 3 minutes on each side. You will have to do this in batches. You don't want apples too soft; just tender.

Serve apples next to the pork chops.

Rachel Ray's Lamb Chops with Mint-Mustard Dipping Sauce

Friday night, Brad and I were tired from a hard week of work and needed to make a quick but tasty meal. Enter Rachel Ray's lamb chops with mint mustard sauce. This recipe is found on page 181 of her Classic Rachel Ray 30 Minute Meals cookbook.

The lamb chops are cut ahead of time to make cooking quick (only about 3 minutes on each side). The mint mustard sauce is refreshing, sweet and spicy at the same time, and leftovers even doubled as a salad dressing the next day.

The only adjustments I made were using endive leaves instead of radicchio and using smooth dijon mustard instead of grainy mustard. The results were surprisingly tasty for the minimal effort, and would even be impressive for a dinner party.

Here's Rachel's version...

Ingredients:

2 cloves garlic, smashed

2/3 cup EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

12 loin lamb chops, 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick

salt and pepper to taste

3 rounded Tb grainy mustard

2 Tb white wine vinegar

1 Tb honey

1/4 cup mint leaves

4 leaves radicchio lettuce

Preheat broiler to high.

Put garlic in small saucepan with evoo. Cook over low heat for 5 minutes then take out garlic. Put lamb chops on broiler pan and drizzle with 3 tsp of the garlic oil. Brush over lamb. Season with salt and pepper.

Make dipping sauce by putting mustard, vinegar and honey in a food processor or blender. Stream in the rest of the garlic and oil. Add mint and pulse grind.

Broil the lamb chops for 3 minutes on each side (this cooks them to medium). Let them rest for up to 10 minutes. Serve sauce on the side. Garnish with sprigs of mint and serve radicchio leaves alongside the lamb chops.

Mint Mustard Dipping Sauce

Rachel Ray's Cauliflower with Red, Green and Black Confetti

Orange Cauliflower with Red, Green and Black confetti

Rachel Ray has done it again! Why did I ever doubt the Yum-O queen in the first place?

Last night I made this delicious side dish in only 15 minutes. I stuck to Rachel's recipe, but I used organic orange cauliflower instead of the usual white ones you see in the store.

That's right! Orange cauliflower! I got mine at Whole Foods for about $4. They also had a purple variety. They taste the same as regular white cauliflower, from what I can tell.

The dish itself was full of flavor, as I've come to expect with Rachel Ray. The taste of the anchovies definitely came through, but Rachel notes that if you don't like anchovies, you can omit them from the recipe. The combination of salty olives, roasted peppers and fresh green parsley gave the usually "boring" cauliflower a nice kick.

Here's the recipe. It's from her cookbook Classic Rachel Ray 30 minute meals and is on page 199.

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower, separated into bite size florets

2 Tb EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

3-4 large cloves of garlic, chopped

4 anchovy fillets (optional)

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 jar (14 oz) roasted red peppers, drained and diced into small bits

16 oil cured olives, drained and chopped into bits (I used green olives)

1/2 cup fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Fill a pot with 1 inch of water. Bring to a boil and add the cauliflower, cooking for about 6-8 minutes until tender, covered.

Drain the water and put the cauliflower to the side.

Put the pan back on the stove, add EVOO, garlic anchovies and crushed red pepper flakes, and cook on medium heat. Break up anchovies so that they dissolve into the oil. Add roasted peppers, olives and parsley. Add cauliflower and toss. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Voila!

Organic Orange Cauliflower

Confetti in a pan!

The finished dish

Chocolate Dipped Frozen Bananas

"There's always money in the banana stand..." -George from Arrested Development

I love recipes with few ingredients, and this one's just about as simple as it gets. Of course, feel free to embellish it by adding some chopped nuts, candy, sprinkles or toasted coconut.

The recipe is from April's Bon Appetit. It's such a fun little snack that's relatively healthy and so easy to make! I tweaked it just a little by using coconut butter instead of canola oil.

By the way, Artisana coconut butter has become my new best friend. I reach for it whenever I'm craving dessert, and just a spoonful of it always satisfies my sweet tooth. It's different from coconut oil because it has the pulp of the coconut mixed in. I got mine at Whole Foods for about 10 dollars.

Here's the recipe:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chocolate-Dipped-Frozen-Banana-Bites-352009

Ingredients:

• 2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (I used part of a dark chocolate bar)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil (I used raw Artisana coconut butter)
• Assorted toppings for coating bananas (such as crushed chocolate sandwich cookies, toffee bits, chopped Butterfinger candy bars, chopped salted peanuts, or toasted shredded sweetened coconut)
• 3 ripe bananas, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices

Coconut butter supposedly speeds up the metabolism! Who knew?

Dark chocolate bar from Trader Joes