Spiced Clarified Butter (Ethiopian/French/Indian/Asian/Middle Eastern) January 2, 2007

Ingredients
1 lb. Unsalted Butter
1/2 Medium Red Onion (Coarsely Chopped)
1 Garlic Clove (Minced)
One 3-Inch Piece Ginger (Peeled and Finely Chopped) (I use the fresh ginger in a tube you can find in the produce section of the supermarket, it’s great for this. The fresh basil, cilantro, chili pepper and dill are also in heavy rotation at our house for other recipes. The tubes last for a while and the quality is good)
1 t. Fenugreek Seeds (again, I can’t find this, so I omit it)
1 t. Ground Cumin
1 t. Cardamon Seeds
1 t. Dried Oregano
1/2 t. Ground Turmeric
8 Basil Leaves (again, I use the fresh stuff in the tube for this)

Method
1. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently. As foam rises to the top, skim and discard. Continue cooking, without letting the butter brown, until no more foam appears.
2. Add the onion, garlic, ginger, fenugreek, cumin, cardamon, oregano, turmeric and basil and continue cooking 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Remove from heat and let stand until spices settle. Strain through a fine mesh sieve before using.

Another basic building block for Ethiopian cooking. You can substitute regular butter in most Ethiopian recipes, but this is worth the effort. When you start a recipe with butter that tastes this good, you can’t go wrong. I make a full batch of it for one Ethiopian feast (which will include 3 dishes and injera), and it is pretty much gone when you’re done. But, it will last in the refrigerator a few weeks if you have extra. Recipe from “The Soul of a New Cuisine”.

Sex and the City Cupcakes January 2, 2007

Ingredients
6 T. Unsalted Butter (Cold)
1 C. + 2 T. Sugar
2 Eggs
1 t. Vanilla
2 C. Flour
2 t. Baking Powder
1/2 t. Salt
2/3 C. Buttermilk (If you don’t have buttermilk, and who does really, add 2/3 t. vinegar to 2/3 C. skim milk)

Method
1. Beat butter and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into another bowl. Add slowly, with buttermilk, to wet mix.
2. Fill paper lined tins 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees 20-25 minutes. Cool 5 minutes then remove from pans. Cool completely before frosting.

The cupcakes are SOOOOOOOO good!! We live at altitude (8,700 feet) and I’ve crashed and burned everytime I’ve tried to make cupcakes in the past, but these turned out perfect and tasty. You’re supposed to eat them within 4 hours of baking, but I stored them in a ceramic corning ware dish with a plastic lid and they tasted fresh for 3 days. I believe this recipe is a knockoff of the yummy cupcakes people waited in line for in NYC on Sex and the City. I’d wait in line for these. We made them for Christmas, and they will be a new family tradition. Bryan, who hates all cake and cupcakes, thought these were amazing. They’d be great for birthdays too.

Great Stuff to Make Cooking Easier December 11, 2006

Apple Corer and Slicer (if you make apple pie only once a year or have kids, you need one of these, you press it over the top of the apple and it cores and slices it in one motion. And I think they cost $1)

Garlic Press (if you use garlic in everything like me, it makes mincing effortless. Get a metal one…the plastic ones are crap)

Handheld Immersion Blender (if you like to make soups or sauces, these are great. You can blend everything while it’s still on the stove and not have to take it out, put it in a blender, put it back in the pan, blah blah. They’re cheap, like $20. We got one as a wedding gift that has a whisk attachment which is great for making boxed brownies and cakes, and a small food processor attachment which I use all the time for salad dressings)

Coffee Bean Grinder (if you are a coffee lover like me, this is essential to getting that strong, deep, fresh flavor you can usually only find at the coffee shop. These can also be used to grind spices, although I prefer to use a mortar and pestle)

Microplane (like a mini grater you can use right over the bowl. Great if you like cheese as much as I do, but hate whipping out the box grater for a smidgen of parm on top of your pasta)

Breadmaker (I resisted buying one of these for a very long time. Then I realized you can make pizza dough in them, and since you can’t find it in the grocery stores here, I was in. Once I bought it, I realized I like having it around to make bread too. It’s SO easy! You throw some ingredients in and 3 hours later look like a hero when you produce a loaf of fresh bread. We live at high altitude and making bread by hand never worked out for me. It never ever rose properly. But, for whatever reason (maybe the heat?) it turns out perfect everytime I use the breadmaker. It’s also great when Bryan informs me the morning before that he invited a friend over to watch football and have lunch…and we have no bread to make sandwiches.)

I don’t keep kitchen appliances on my counter–just the coffe maker, grinder and blender (we have coffee and smoothies for breakfast every morning). Everything else is on a shelf in our pantry (laundry room) downstairs. I pull it out as I need it. This way we don’t have 5 zillion appliances cluttering our small kitchen.