Category: Food

Last Call for Blueberries

Slim Pickings

Literally, that’s what we found after embarking on our much-anticipated annual blueberry picking adventure. We’re spoiled with riches of wild raspberries all across our county, but blueberries? Those round, sweet gems are a bit harder to come by, and even the farms were sorely lacking this year. After being turned away due to poor picking conditions once already, we were determined not to go home empty handed yet again.

Arriving near the tail-end of their growing season, it’s reasonable to expect a less than bountiful harvest, but this was downright pitiful. Shriveled, grey berries remained where they once blossomed and were forgotten, while others had over-ripened to the point of bursting, like weak balloons filled with shaving cream. Regardless, with a bit of careful, diligent plucking, there were still enough berries to fill a small bucket, and satisfy the peckish picker, of course.


The effort, though more demanding than usual, was rewarded by modest heap of fresh, juicy blueberries, far more flavorful than anything store bought. After hungrily wolfing down about half of our plunder whole and plain, I was itching to make more of this seasonal treasure. Colorful filling to sandwich cookies started the wheels in motion, but I wanted more; something seriously blueberry-filled, rich and ripe.

Cake, the universal party centerpiece, fit the bill with ease. More of a simple tea cake or even breakfast treat, white whole wheat flour contributes a more hearty texture, without any overbearing wheat flavor. Touches of lemon brighten up the soft and tender bundt, although orange could also be a delightful accent instead. Though it may sound unremarkable on paper, trust me, the cut slices are anything but ordinary.

Marbled in striking blue and golden tones, this easy yet stunning dessert is like summer condensed into cake form. Now that the days have begun to cool off considerably, a warm oven is a welcome thing again, and there’s never been a better time to bake with blueberries. Handpicked berries or not, this is one recipe that’s sure to make repeat appearances in kitchen, many times over.

Yield: Makes 12 - 14 Servings

Marbled Blueberry Bundt Cake

Marbled Blueberry Bundt Cake

Marbled in striking blue and golden tones, this easy yet stunning dessert is like summer condensed into cake form.

Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 35 minutes

Ingredients

Bundt Cake:

  • 3 Cups White Whole Wheat Flour
  • 2 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
  • 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
  • 1 1/2 Cups Granulated Sugar
  • 2/3 Cup Olive Oil
  • 1 Cup Plain, Unsweetened Vegan Yogurt
  • 1 Cup Plain Non-Dairy Milk
  • 2 Teaspoons Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
  • 1 1/2 Cups Blueberries, Divided
  • 1 Teaspoon Fresh Lemon Juice
  • 1 Teaspoon Lemon Zest

Lemon Syrup:

  • 3 Tablespoons Fresh Lemon Juice
  • 1 Cup Granulated Sugar

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and lightly grease and flour a 10-cup capacity bundt pan. Set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and sugar. Separately, mix the olive oil, “yogurt,” non-dairy milk, vinegar, and vanilla to combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry, and with a wide spatula, fold the two together just until you achieve a fairly smooth batter. A few lumps are just fine; be careful not to over-mix. Divide the batter equally into two parts, pouring half off into a separate bowl.
  3. Turning your attention now to the blueberries, toss 1 cup of them into your blender or food processor, along with the lemon juice. Thoroughly puree, until smooth but still with their naturally rough, slightly seedy texture intact. Add the blended berries into one of the bowls of batter, along with the remaining 1/2 cup of whole blueberries, and stir well to fully incorporate.
  4. With a clean spatula, mix the lemon zest into the other bowl of batter until distributed throughout.
  5. Lay down a thin layer of the blueberry batter in small dollops along the bottom of your prepared bundt pan. Top that with a ribbon of the lemon batter; it’s fine if it doesn’t entirely cover, but do your best to keep them neat and even. Repeat as many times as possible, until you run out of batter. Take a spatula and swirl it through the whole assemblage ONLY ONCE to create a neat but discernible swirl throughout the cake.
  6. Move the whole bundt into the center of your oven, and bake for 60 – 70 minutes, until a wooden dowel inserted into the center of the cake pulls out clean. Let cool completely in the pan, and then turn out on a wire rack.
  7. To finish the cake off, a thin glaze of lemon syrup is a nice touch to keep everything moist. Simply place both the lemon juice and sugar in a small sauce pan, and stir to combine. Heat over medium heat until the sugar has fully dissolved. Brush the syrup evenly over the whole bundt- Chances are you won’t need it all. (Save the extra for sweetening tea!)
  8. Slice and serve right away, or store it covered, in the fridge, for 4 – 5 days.

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Nutrition Information:

Yield:

14

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 348Total Fat: 12gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 9gCholesterol: 2mgSodium: 273mgCarbohydrates: 59gFiber: 3gSugar: 40gProtein: 5g

All nutritional information presented within this site are intended for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and any nutritional information on BitterSweetBlog.com should only be used as a general guideline. This information is provided as a courtesy and there is no guarantee that the information will be completely accurate. Even though I try to provide accurate nutritional information to the best of my ability, these figures should still be considered estimations.

© Hannah Kaminsky
Cuisine: American / Category: Cakes & Cupcakes

 

Hannah (BitterSweet)29 Comments

Back to Reality, and Tomato Soup

After a long weekend at Vida Vegan, with nothing but the best catering options and free-flowing coconut milk beverage all day long, supportive and smiling faces everywhere you look, and let’s not forget the communal nooch bowl, the transition back into the real world would have been challenging in the best of circumstances. That was a given for everyone who participated in this shared dream of a blogger meetup. What I wasn’t prepared for was the rough landing back at home, and I don’t mean on the airplane. Pitch black, shockingly frigid for a late August day, a vacant house with no electricity sat waiting where I remember leaving my welcoming, loving home. A shell of what it should have been, fallen trees had cut the mainline; the patient had long bled out and died on the spot. We could only pick up the pieces now.

All the reports indicated that Irene was largely over-hyped, there was little serious damage, and so why should I have expected anything else? No one was hurt, no windows broken, and only minor flooding to be found, but the real devastation remained silently waiting in the kitchen- more precisely, the fridge.

Working up my courage, and with one deep breath, I yanked open the fridge door as fast as possible, like tearing off a stubbornly adhered bandage. Puddles of water accumulated on the floor in seconds, and immediately a rancid odor polluted the air. Spoiled. Rotted. Beyond saving. Anything perishable, had clearly passed on long ago.

Notable exceptions were found, after sifting through the wreckage. Glorious heirloom tomatoes stuffed hastily in the fruit bin remained blemish-free, and a few heartier veg also miraculously survived. With a few solid pantry staples and a trusty gas stove, my mission was clear: electricity or no, there was soup to be made.

Generous spices amped up this ordinary offering, lending a warmth that higher temperatures couldn’t deliver alone. Ordinary, unremarkable, but so incredibly comforting when the very ground itself seems to be shifting underfoot. Moroccan seasonings were the inspiration, but only in a very loose interpretation did they emerge in the final dish. Measurements for those spices are approximate, so taste frequently as the soup bubbles along.

Such a small effort served us all well; I had a big bowlful right then and there, and later on in the day, my mom dished it up as a sauce over pasta.

Thankfully, the power did finally go on yesterday afternoon, and normalcy is slowly returning to the everyday routine. I’m still mourning the loss of no less than eight homemade ice creams, but if that’s the worst of it, I’d say we got off pretty easy on this natural disaster.

Yield: Makes 2 - 4 Servings

Spicy Tomato and Chickpea Soup

Spicy Tomato and Chickpea Soup

Generous spices amped up this ordinary offering, lending a warmth that higher temperatures couldn’t deliver alone. Ordinary, unremarkable, but so incredibly comforting when the very ground itself seems to be shifting underfoot. Moroccan seasonings were the inspiration, but only in a very loose interpretation did they emerge in the final dish. Measurements for those spices are approximate, so taste frequently as the soup bubbles along.

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 20 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
  • 1/2 Large Yellow Onion, Diced
  • 2 Cloves Garlic, Finely Minced
  • 1 Stalk Celery, Finely Diced
  • 3 Large Tomatoes, About 3 Cups Diced
  • 1 1/2 Cups Water or Vegetable Stock
  • 1 2.8-Ounce Tube Sun-Dried Tomato Paste
  • 1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce or Tamari
  • 1 15-Ounce Can Chickpeas, Drained
  • 1 Teaspoon Smoked Paprika
  • 3/4 Teaspoon Ground Cumin
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Ground Coriander
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
  • 1 Teaspoon Dried Parsley
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Dried Rosemary, Crumbled
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Dried Oregano
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Dried Basil
  • Salt and Pepper, to Taste

Instructions

  1. Standard soup procedure here: Heat the oil in a medium-sized stock pot, and add in the onions and garlic first. Saute for about 5 minutes, until softened and translucent, and add in the chopped celery and tomatoes.
  2. Cook for 5 more minutes before adding in the water or stock. Stir in the tomato paste, soy sauce, chickpeas, and all of the spices and herbs until thoroughly combined.
  3. Allow the mixture to simmer away, melding the flavors and concentrating the tomato-y goodness, for 45 – 60 minutes. It’s perfectly edible once merely heated through, but given enough time to mature, the flavor improves noticeably.
  4. Finish with enough salt and pepper to satisfy your own personal preference.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

4

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 225Total Fat: 7gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 993mgCarbohydrates: 33gFiber: 9gSugar: 9gProtein: 10g
© Hannah Kaminsky
Cuisine: Moroccan / Category: Soups and Stews

Hannah (BitterSweet)25 Comments

It’s All Greek to Me

Nipping at the heels of the latest food trends yet again, Turtle Mountain has managed to combine two powerful buzzwords in one fell swoop: “Coconut” and “Greek yogurt.” As if their plain coconut yogurt, a boon to the dairy-avoidant and soy-intolerant all at once, wasn’t enough, this latest creation manages to up the ante further. So new that I have yet to spot it on grocery store shelves, I was lucky enough to get advanced warning for this latest coconut invention and a box of three unmarked and label-less white containers in the mail. Slated to include 6 flavors in all for this line, I’m still dying to get a taste of the chocolate, strawberry, and plain varieties not included in my small sample package.

What’s most important here, however, is the texture. Without that critical viscosity, there’s little separating this latest offering from their pre-existing line of standard coconut yogurt. Achieving entirely different results from such a small change in the formula could be difficult to believe, but the promises do hold up to scrutiny- Across the board, these Greek yogurts are quite thick, somewhere along the lines of a sour cream consistency. Completely smooth even without stirring, no lumps or chunks to speak of, the richness that each spoonful brings is incredible, especially considering the substantial nutritional content. Insane amounts of fiber mean that one container plus perhaps a side of veggies or a piece of fruit makes for an entirely satisfying meal, which still feels slightly decadent.

Pale purplish-pink in color, the Raspberry Greek yogurt carries not only the seeds of its namesake, but even the tiny raspberry hairs (ie, remnants of the pistals; the female portion of the flower) as well. Much more tangy than sweet, it’s balanced by just enough cane syrup to resist bitterness, but may not be for those expecting a dessert or pudding-like experience. All the better, if you ask me! I for one don’t want to eat candy for lunch, and this option actually offers a complexity of flavors beyond pure sugary sweetness. However, fair-weather coconut friends beware: this yogurt doesn’t attempt to hide its roots, and definitely has a bit of tropical twang.

Blueberry fell a bit short for me, considering my high expectations. Very tangy but low on actual blueberry taste, it seemed to have more color than flavor. Chunks of fruit would have helped, but alas, all that can be found throughout this plastic tub are merely a few scattered seeds, merely proof that perhaps there were once berries involved. Sure, it’s fine, certainly not bad, but boring at best.

Ending on a high note, the Vanilla was the expected redemption to the whole tasting experience. A creamy off-white that reminded me of mayonnaise, I didn’t have very high hopes. Surprisingly, it carried only a slight aftertaste of coconut, and allowed the vanilla flavor space to breathe and be tasted, with a very modest amount of sweetness as well. Not terribly tangy, but mellow and agreeable, it works beautifully as a pairing to countless other treats. Dressed up in a fruit and granola parfait, I had an impressive yet simple and healthy treat in a matter of seconds. Such versatility is really the winning aspect of the Greek yogurt angle, since it’s thickness can stand up to more demanding applications than the typically runny plain yogurt.

Though there wasn’t enough of any flavor to spare for recipe experiments, rest assured that those won’t be far behind… Especially when I can get my hands on some plain Greek yogurt, there are endless possibilities for both sweet and savory baking!

Hannah (BitterSweet)31 Comments

To Post or Not to Post?

Perfection is an unrealistic goal, and yet so many blogs attempt to achieve just that. Guilty of that precise crime, it’s difficult to decide what should make the cut when it comes time to make the next post. Should an unreliable recipe go live, potentially frustrating curious readers? Never; that would be an unpardonable offense. But what about the blurry line separating good from great? Should a nice recipe be dumped just because it isn’t quite “perfect”?

Life is quite messy itself, so it only seems fitting to allow a few messier creations in as well. Take for example, cookies that baked up like a dream, with a fantastic chewy texture and sophisticated bitter cocoa flavor, sandwiched together with blueberry creme acting as the luminous violet glue. Summery yet not incapable of bridging the seasonal gap, crowd-pleasing, and an all around delight. The problem? They suffer a bit from ugly duckling syndrome.

You see, it’s mostly the filling that I take issue with. It looks grainy, even curdled in photos, despite tasting silky-smooth on the tongue. Should such a blemish be allowed to go live, presented as the desired outcome? Does one small imperfection ruin a whole recipe? At the end of the day, would you blog about it?

I think my response goes without saying.

Black and Blueberry Sandwich Cookies

Black Cocoa Cookies:

10 Tablespoons Non-Dairy Margarine
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
2 Tablespoon Flax Seeds, Ground
1 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/3 Cup Black Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Plain Non-Dairy Milk
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Blueberry Creme Filling:

4 Ounces Vegan White Chocolate Chips
3/4 Cup Blueberries, Fresh or Frozen and Thawed
1/4 Cup Non-Dairy Margarine
1/2 Cup Confectioner’s Sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and line two baking sheets with silpats or parchment paper. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer or food processor, cream together the margarine and sugar thoroughly, until homogeneous and fluffy. Add the ground flax seeds, flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt, and mix until mostly incorporated. The dough will be too dry to fully come together, so add in the “milk” and vanilla, and mix once more to combine and create a smooth, cohesive batter.

Scoop out 3 tablespoons or so of dough per cookie, and flatten them just slightly on the baking sheet. Be sure to space them 1 1/2 – 2 inches apart, because they really spread as they bake; arrange no more than 9 cookies per sheet.

Bake for 10 – 13 minutes, until the edges are set and the cookies look barely puffy in the middle. Remove from the oven and let cool on the sheets for 10 more minutes before sliding the silpat or sheet of parchment onto a cooler surface. Allow them to fully cool before applying the filling.

To make the blueberry creme, first melt the while chocolate, either in a double boiler or in the microwave. If microwaving, heat at 30 second intervals, stirring well in between, to ensure that it doesn’t burn. White chocolate can be very temperamental, so keep a close eye on it.

Toss the berries into your blender or food processor, and completely puree. Strain the juice directly into the melted white chocolate and discard the pulp and seeds remaining. Stir thoroughly, reheating gently as necessary if the chocolate beings to solidify or seize. Once smooth, chill the mixture for at least an hour, until cold to the touch and thickened.

Beat the margarine and confectioner’s sugar together in your stand mixer before adding the chilled blueberry mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure that everything is getting incorporated, and whip on high speed for about 5 minutes, until there are no remaining chunks of margarine and the filling only appears to be vaguely grainy. Apply the filling to one cookie, and top it off with a second. Repeat with remaining cookies.

The sandwich cookies keep well at room temperature, covered in plastic wrap, for approximately four days, or in the fridge for seven to eight. Better yet, for this summer heat, stash them in the freezer for up to a month, and you can snack on them while they’re still a bit frosty!

Makes About 14 Large Cookies; 7 Large Sandwich Cookies

Printable Recipe

Hannah (BitterSweet)58 Comments

Oh Boy, it’s Obon!

Much like a Japanese version of Day of the Dead, Obon is a celebration of the departed, including a full festival of games, dances, and of course, food. Though traditionally said to occur on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, our calendar places it squarely in August, and so while the date may vary, most sources agree that today is the day to party. Good eats are naturally a part of any holiday worth observing, but Obon doesn’t have any specific must-have dishes. A comforting melange of traditional street foods, it’s all casual fare that you’ll see throughout Japan; dango, manju, takoyaki, and everyone’s favorite overseas, sushi. Inari falls into that last category and strikes me as the best suited for grabbing and going, dancing and running about. An edible tofu-based pouch that can hold all sorts of goodies, rather than an open-bottomed roll, it just sounds like an ideal snack to me.

The only trick is hunting down tofu pouches, but then the sky is the limit for fillings. Traditionally stuffed with little more than seasoned sushi rice, I like to stick pretty close with the tried-and-true assemblage, but with a multigrain twist. Zakkokumai, a blend of grains and seeds meant to enhance plain old white rice, has long been an obsession of mine. Making your own blend is a snap; just throw in any seeds you fancy (sesame, sunflower, poppy) and any grains that will cook in approximately the same time as the rice (quinoa, bulgur, oats, millet, pearl barley), as well as some quick-cooking legumes, such as beluga lentils or pre-soaked red beans. The beans may tint your rice slightly to an amber hue, but I think it looks much more inviting and less dull that way!

Packets of zakkokumai are available in Japanese grocery stores, and they typically recommend mixing in 1 tablespoon of the blend per cup of sushi rice. I like to up that figure a bit, often to twice the amount of zakkokumai for a more satisfying range of textures and flavors. To finish up the rice for sushi, stir in a tablespoon or two each of rice vinegar and mirin, and a dab of sweetener if desired. Inari pouches tend to have a light sweetness to them already though, so I prefer to omit the extra sugar for this application.

You could stop there and have perfectly delicious inarizushi, or you could take it a step further and mix in shredded nori, cooked and shelled edamame, shredded carrots, thinly sliced scallions, diced cucumbers, sauteed shiitake mushrooms– Just about anything, really! Takeout sushi may be easier, but certainly not even half as flavorful or exciting as inari you can make at home.

Hannah (BitterSweet)13 Comments

Ugly but Tasty

It’s a conundrum that anyone who’s cooked even the bare minimum of meals has undoubtedly run into; the tastiest dishes are often the messiest, homeliest, and downright most unattractive of foods. Not an issue for the eater, who can simply close their eyes and take that first tentative taste, to realize the potential concealed by such an unassuming first impression. For a photographer, however, the added difficulty stems from the fact that viewers can only eat with their eyes. No matter how delicious you think your recipe for chili casserole is, without proper styling and propping, it will never look like anything more than muddy beans in a dish. Some foods are naturally photogenic and need little if any makeup before making their photographic debut, but others need a bit of love, and a whole lot of finesse.

Oatmeal is one particularly tricky food to capture in an appealing way. Lumpy, beige mush that goes on forever. It’s all about the toppings in this situation. Sparingly sprinkle berries (always lovely and great for color), nuts, or even chocolate chips if you want to give it a more decadent feel around the edges of the bowl. Make sure you leave enough of the actual oatmeal exposed so that it doesn’t end up looking like a bowl of fruit salad, though- If need be, add more of those beautifying ingredients around the bowl itself, as if there were so many extras, they’re simply overflowing. Move them into the background to reinforce what went into the oatmeal, sort of like a subconscious reminder.

Soups, stews, and other lumpy, semi-liquid meals share many of the same difficulties as oatmeal. You have more options here though, as any colorful veggie will instantly brighten up the picture. Green peas are my go-to addition whenever possible. Take frozen peas out of the freezer and simply thaw them under warm water. Add them after the dish is completely finished cooking so that they don’t turn brown, and leave a few out until the final plating. Insert your last few peas individually to make sure that they’re visible, but try to blend them in with a thin layer of sauce, so they don’t actually look like they’ve been placed there after the fact.

Everyone always loves seeing chocolate, but it can pose a few problems for a photographer. It’s one of the items I get many questions about, as chocolate bars in particular often give others trouble, looking more like dog droppings than candy. Isolation is key here, so that the brown-ness doesn’t just continue to blend into the background and look like a crappy smudge (pun intended.) No wood grain backgrounds for me, thanks! Go with a light, bright color or simply white to provide contrast, and most certainly a white plate if you plan to use one. Cut-away photos are always a big hit if possible, so that you can let viewers see inside the chocolates and understand the contents (and thus flavors) better. A grouping of a few chocolates can also be effective, but be careful not to overcrowd the scene.

Ice cream is a legendary troublemaker on the set, but I have to say, I don’t find it to be such a pain to work with.  Though most people wouldn’t categorize it as “ugly food,” it goes from lovely and all made up to a droopy, gloppy, and unappetizing mess in mere minutes.  The key is speed and efficiency; Have your set all assembled and ready to go, white balance and exposure adjusted, and bowls empty and waiting before you take the ice cream out of the freezer. Limit yourself to a maximum of two bowls or scoops in the beginning, because it takes too much time to get that “perfect” sphere so many times over. As soon as the ice cream hits the set, snap like the wind; take as many photos as you can, from as many different angles, so that you can have a large number of greatly varied shots to choose from. Ideally, this should give you a better likelihood of getting that winning photo in one go. And don’t worry if the scoops don’t look perfect- They shouldn’t look dry and immaculate like colored mashed potatoes! A bit of melting or dripping fudge sauce makes for a mouthwatering effect.

Food in jars, no matter what the main ingredient, has the odds stacked against it. Typically long-simmered or preserved to a mummified state, they lack the brightness that fresh produce could offer. The key is to bring light, and plenty of it, into the frame. Try to shine light directly through the glass jars from behind, to give it a warm “glow.” Add fresh ingredients around the jars, to give viewers an idea of what vibrant produce went into making those pickles or jam. Remove some of the contents of the jars, and style them as you would expect to eat them; on toast, in a sandwich, etc.

The list can go on until the end of time, but these are the top five that come to my mind first. What are your ugliest dishes, and most difficult foods to photograph? If I get enough suggestions, perhaps there can be a part two for styling tips and tricks for these unphotogenic edibles!

Hannah (BitterSweet)44 Comments