Sasha's Kitchen: Ricotta, Pomegranate & Honey Dessert Eggrolls

I made these delicious dessert eggrolls after making a similar recipe in my recent Chinese dumpling class.  They are really good as long as you learn how to roll the eggroll wrappers, which os actually quite easy.  The only problem is that the recipe makes a whole batch of them so they're really better for a dinner party when you have  large group to serve so the extras don't go to waste, since they don't hold up.  This is a fun take on a chinese eggroll and you can vary up the chocolate and fruit in the filling to make your own creation.

Sasha's Dessert Eggrolls
15 oz ricotta cheese
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
eggroll wrappers
1/2 cup fo confectioner's sugar

Mix the ingredients for the filling (the ricotta, pomegranate, chocolate chips and honey).  Place a large dollop in the center of an eggroll wrapper.  With the corner facing you, roll on a diagonal, folding in the sides to make an eggroll.  At the end of the rolling process, seal the tip with a couple drops of water. Then pan fry the eggrolls until brown in canola oil.  Using a strainer, dust with the confectioner's sugar before serving warm.

Sasha's Kitchen: Ricotta, Pomegranate & Honey Dessert Eggrolls

Sasha's Kitchen: Moroccan Beef Tagine with Honey, Apricots and Butternut Squash

I recently received a gift card from ShopRite to do some holiday grocery shopping, and discovered that ShopRite had a huge selection of Kosher meats that were perfect for Passover. I picked up a cut of Kosher pot roast, that looked to be perfect for cooking for a holiday meal. I decided to use it in preparing a moroccan beef tagine, a lovely, cinnamon and fruit flavored Moroccan dish that is named after the type of pot it is traditionally cooked in. When we were in Paris last summer, I had hoped to try some of the tagines at many of Paris's Northern African restaurants but we didn't have time, and the one I had really wanted to try was closed for August vacation.  Never mind, it's actually not that hard to make at home, and you will have plenty of leftovers from this meal to avoid having to cook the next night. This would be perfect with couscous, which I left out since it's Passover now. The process for cooking the meat, as well as the high quality cut of Kosher pot roast from ShopRite that I used resulted in a very tender dish. Yum! This is perfect for just about any holiday meal, and was a big hit with my husband.

Sasha's Beef Tagine
2 lb lean pot roast or shoulder roast
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp coriander
3 T extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 large cloves of garlic, diced
1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock
pinch of saffron threads
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 14oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup dried apricots, halved
2 T honey
1/4 tsp pepper
1 granny smith apple peeled and diced
1/3 cup almond slivers
2 cups chopped butternut squash

Cut the beef pot roast or shoulder roast into 1 1/2 inch cubes using a butcher's knife. Place in a bowl. Mix 1 1/2 tsp of the cinnamon with the ginger, salt, coriander and turmeric (be careful, as turmeric stains), and toss to coat the meat. Add 3 T of olive oil to your dutch oven and cook the mean until browned on all sides over high heat, for about five minutes. Add the diced onions and cook over medium heat for about three minutes, before adding the garlic and cooking for another minute. Add the diced tomatoes, chicken stock and saffron, and bring the mixture to a boil. I used a bottle of lovely Spanish saffron brought home from Madrid. Bring to a boil and the reduce to medium low, and cook, covered, for about an hour and a half, until cooked through and tender.

Strain out the meat/tomatoes/onion and reserve the broth. Return the broth to the pot. Add the apricots (after soaking the apricots first in hot water for half an hour). Add the butternut squash and diced apple, as well as 2 tablespoons of honey and a tablespoon of cinnamon. I have some great honey that was made by a family friend who raises his own bees and makes his own honey, so I used that. Simmer for about 20 minutes until the squash is tender (but not mushy) and the sauce thickens a bit. Then add the beef back to the dutch oven. Serve hot.

Sasha's Kitchen: Moroccan Beef Tagine with Honey, Apricots and Butternut Squash

Michelle's Kitchen in Toronto - Low Fat Summer Berry Shortcake

In my continuing quest to live a healthy lifestyle and maintain my 60 pound weight loss, I am contantly trying to find new low fat recipes for sweets; my downfall and - I'm sure - the downfall of many of us. One of my go-to substitutions is angel food cake. Spongy, sticky and delicious it has way fewer calories of other cakes; two points per serving on my program. Angel food cake pairs beautifully with fruit and makes a great treat.

When I used to work in a professional kitchen as a gardemanger we used to make the most amazing strawberry shortcake. When I was in the grocery store the other day I found the sweetest individual angel food cakes and decided I needed a shortcake! I started playing in my kitchen, and this is the delicious result!

Low Fat Summer Berry Shortcake

1 kg (2.2 lb) mixed berries (you could use frozen if you like for the sauce, but get some fresh for garnish)
1/2 c white wine
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 c honey
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
2 mini packaged angel food cakes
2 individual vanilla pudding packs (4 oz each)

Put the fruit, wine and salt in a medium pot to cook over moderate to high heat until the alcohol burns off. Add the cinnamon, lemon and honey. Cook for 20-30 minutes until the sauce has reduced to be a bit syrupy.

In your dish layer a little of the fruit mix, torn up pieces of cake, then a layer of pudding (one pudding cup per layer in the dish I used). Repeat the layers until your dish is full (I got in two layers). Let the shortcake set up - covered - in the fridge for about four hours (or overnight); this gets better the more you let everything sink in together. Garnish with fresh fruit. Mine made 3-4 servings.
In lieu of the honey, you could use sugar, but I didn't have any at the time so I substituted with the honey. Also, I used a mini cassarole ramekin as I don't like having lots of sweets in my house, but the sauce makes enough that you could either have leftovers for topping yogurt, ice cream etc. or you could make one big dessert by just increasing the cake and pudding portions.

Michelle's Kitchen in Toronto - Low Fat Summer Berry Shortcake

Sasha's Kitchen: A Rainbow Of Honey Vanilla Cupcakes!

Vanilla cupcakes are the simplest of cupcake recipes, in that it's similar to forget about them and get caught up making all the fun and unusual flavors of cupcakes.  However, it's actually harder to get vanilla cupcakes just right than any other type of cupcake.  They're less forgiving than chocolate, for sure.

Today's vanilla cupcake recipe is a modification using honey as the primary sweetener, based on Bill Yosses' (The White House pastry chef's) cupcake recipe for honey-vanilla cupcakes found on the Obama Foodorama Website.  My recipe is a bit different for a couple of reasons:  first I doubled the recipe for 24 cupcakes, instead of 12, but also made some ingredient adjustments to get the cupcakes just the way I like them.  However, I was certainly inspired to use organic honey in preparing them, just as the chefs at the White House have been, using their own on-site beehive.  Let's clarify though - I simply bought a large container of organic honey - no beekeeping for me!

I did not use Yosses' frosting recipe at all, but used the very same frosting recipe that I developed for my Chocolate Stout Cupcakes.  Then I divided the frosting into six bowls and prepared six different icing colors, and used the cupcakes to make a rainbow of colors. 

Here's my recipe for the Honey-Vanilla Cupcakes, adapted from the original Yosses recipe:

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
2/3 cups of sugar
1 1/4 cup of honey
4 eggs
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour
2 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

My Almost-Famous Honey-Vanilla Frosting

4 cups of confectioners sugar
1 8 oz package of cream cheese
1/3 cup of heavy cream
1 stick of butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 T of honey

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  To make the cupcakes, mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  Then beat the butter and sugar in the mixer.  Add the honey.  Here's a trick for adding the honey so you don't have it all sticking to the inside of the measuring cup.  Coat the measuring cup with a T of Canola oil and then pour out the oil.  When you add the honey to the cup, it will slide right off and into the basin of your mixer, without leaving any residual honey in the cup.  Add the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla to the mixer, beating at low-medium speed.  Then add the dry ingrediants and mix well.  You can add a tad of additional buttermilk if its a bit too thick (that's how I wound up using 1 1/4 cup rather than 1 cup of buttermilk). 

Fill two cupcake trays with 24 liners.  Fill 3/4 of the way to the top.  Bake the cupcakes for about 25-30 minutes at 350 F, until very lightly browned and cooked through.  You can test with a fork or a toothpick to make sure the inside is done.  My husband usually does the test, and he just seems to know when they are ready to come out.  Allow the cupcakes to cool fully before you frost them.

To make the froasting, follow the instructions for my Chocolate Stout cupcakes, since its the same frosting.  Beat the butter, confectioner's sugar and cream cheese well.  Then add the heavy cream and the vanilla.  I then divided the frosting into 6 bowls.  To color the frosting, use gel frostings, and not the conventional frostings at the grocery store, which would make the cream curdle.  I used the same gel frostings that I used in making Royal Icing for my purse and shoe cookies, from NY Cake.  You could do pretty much any color that makes you happy.

Cupcakes make terrific birthday party cakes, in a less traditional sense.  So, for a child's birthday party, you could make a lot more cupcakes, frost in many colors, and then arrange the cupcakes to spell out your kid's name, a picture, animal or whatever would make your little one smile.  The creative options here are endless!  In this case, my goal was simply to create a rainbow of cupcakes, so I selected the colors that are in a rainbow.



Cupcake
Obama

Sasha's Kitchen: A Rainbow Of Honey Vanilla Cupcakes!