I often make skirt steak with only sauteed onions and lime juice on top, but what attracted me to this recipe is the avocado – I had never heard of chimichurri sauce with avocado in it. And it works! It is like a more sour and chunky guacamole. And instead of rice and beans on the side, I’ve got some quinoa, beans and corn salad.

Here is the recipe I sort of followed:

http://hispanickitchen.com/recipes/carne-asada-a-la-plancha-with-cilantro-avocado-chimichurri-2/

Red Beet & Almond Pasta

A very clever way of sneaking in healthy ingredients in a pasta dish! You make a pesto-like mixture of roasted red beets, garlic, olive oil and almonds. Add it to onions, garlic and chopped red beet stems and leaves sauteed in butter. And then top it off with lemon juice and cheese. Yes, this is borderline vegan already! Just switch up the cheese with a vegan product and use olive oil instead of butter. The red beet/almond “pesto” is an excellent dip in its own right, actually.

Just a couple of lessons learned: don’t skip the salt, and don’t spare the lemon juice! If you want more dramatic red color, roast your own red beets, don’t use Trader Joe’s already cooked baby beets, or anything canned because they give a less saturated red color to the spaghetti.

https://www.tastemade.com/videos/roasted-beet-almond-spaghetti

Pandan Waffles with Mango Puree

A different take on waffles – with coconut flour, tapioca flour and coconut milk instead of the standard ingredients. And of course with some pandan extract, which gives it the green color. I didn’t add enough sugar for them to be sweet on their own, so I had to supplement with a mango puree, boosted with cassava syrup.

Followed this recipe: http://chopsticksoptional.blogspot.com/2014/03/pandan-waffles.html

Got the idea from a food post by Cara Evangelista (thank you!)

Upside-down Pear Gingerbread Cake

The original recipe calls for apples, but pears are more interesting… so here is my “mod”. The taste is a rich one – the honey and molasses come through strong! Best eaten warm with a scoop of ice cream no doubt.

Recipe by smitten kitchen

https://smittenkitchen.com/2009/11/gingerbread-apple-upside-down-cake/

French Toast with Mascarpone/Bacon Stuffing & Sweet Potato Grits

A local brunch joint (“Bull Market”) offers a French Toast like this, and I almost dropped everything yesterday to go. Then I reevaluated and decided to make it myself, and to also add a side of baked sweet potato mashed with grits, butter, salt and a little maple syrup.

No recipe for the French Toast – used a big think chunk of challah bread drenched in an egg/cream/water mix, and pan-fried it. After that I cut it in half, made wide slits and stuffed it with a mascarpone/cream cheese and bacon bit combo. All of this drenched in maple syrup and sprinkled with honeyed pecans.

Sorry to link to FB – but that is their original French Toast dish: https://www.facebook.com/bullmarketfl/photos/a.154085368078450.34319.154006601419660/744384165715231/?type=3&theater

P.S. The grits idea comes from Red Cow’s side dish menu.

I copied local restaurants today 🙂

Ricotta and Honeyed Grapes Appetizer

The food52 website is right – this is a killer appetizer, and if I was at a party that served it I would devour tons of these. Well, I ate these at home right now for breakfast: no party required. A green grape, honey, white wine and shallot mix, significantly reduced, plus some nice crusty bread and ricotta cheese (which definitely needs the salt and olive oil to get a boost). In the end you get a sweet and savory mix that is highly original!

Recipe here:

https://food52.com/recipes/10488-ricotta-with-honeyed-grapes

Green Tea Soba Noodles

Green tea soba noodles actually do taste like green tea if you eat them plain, but any sauce will easily mask that subtle taste. So I tried them just with soy sauce and sesame oil. The remaining ingredients are chives, mushrooms, sesame seeds, red pepper flakes.

You can buy green tea noodles on Amazon or from Asian markets.

Cuban Christmas Cookies

They are a “kitchen sink” type of cookie with everything in them – nuts, cherries, raisins. Then you roll them in corn flakes, so they end up being crunchy and crispy and a bit chewy even, all at the same time.

The recipe is from the Three Guys from Miami – Torticas de Navidad! Don’t forget to roll your “R”-s and to get Maraschino cherries without articifial coloring 😉 Happy Holidays! https://icuban.com/food/torticas_navidad.html#.WFrJhNM3krY.facebook

More autumn-themed dishes. This polenta combines baked squash with caramelized onions, roasted pine nuts, tons of cheese (I had leftover cheese cubes galore!). The toppings are leeks, mushrooms and just a little but of prosciutto (honestly, it doesn’t need the meat at all).

What gives the dish its umph are the caramelized onions. The more the better! And by the way – instant polenta worked well too. I am not sure it needed all 3 hours of resting and a whole hour in the oven. But it does need to wait 20 minutes after that, if you want just the right gooey cheese texture.

Recipe: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/baked-butternut-squash-and-cheese-polenta

I am on a cornmeal binge after Thanksgiving. Pumpkin Spice-Everything season is annoying, but pumpkin itself is delightful!

Pumpkin preserves are called “ratchel” in Bulgarian (accent on the E – as in ratchelle). And this one jar I had, had walnuts in it – making it even better. You really don’t see pumpkin preserves a lot in the store these days – there is pumpkin butter alright, but not something that preserves the pumpkin’s texture.

So here goes – the recipe for the pancakes: http://www.freshtart.com/blog/cornmeal-pancakes-sweet-or-savory/23713015

Douse them in the preserve syrup! And have a side of whipped cream ready too.

Finding the preserves is a different issue. Surely, they can be made from scratch: http://www.food.com/recipe/pumpkin-preserves-85315

and here is one in Bulgarian which can be Google Translated: http://ladyzone.bg/article/za-doma/recepti/recepta-za-rachel-ot-tikva-s-orehi.html