Easy to clean and assemble. All Weston Tinned Meat Grinders include an 8-Piece Accessory Kit: 4.5mm Grinding Plate for medium grinding, 10mm Grinding Plate for coarse grinding, Grinding Knife, Set of three stuffing funnels: 14, 19, 24 mm with easy attaching universal flange and stuffing star.Price: $99.98
One of my favorite root vegetables is carrot. I love carrot in my soups, drinks (carrot juice), so it’s no surprise that I love carrot cake, even though the idea of adding carrots to a cake is somewhat bizarre, but carrot cake is a good cake. My contributor Pick Yin at Life is Great is here to share her carrot cake recipe, topped with a rich and decadent maple cream cheese frosting. Just the name alone is mouthwatering enough. Check it out!
Carrot cake…who knew I’d love it?
When I first announced to Vijay that I’d make some soon, he asked “The white one or the black one?” – referring to the Chinese fried radish cake rather than this baked cake frosted with cream cheese. He knew I’m not that girl who’d put a root vegetable and a cake together and I’d sooner turn a bunch of carrots into a pot of soup before considering them in a healthy dessert…
However, with more than a handful of friends professing themselves as carrot cake fans and Bee listing it as something she’d like to see featured here, it was imminent that I’d be baking one and eating some. There’s a first time for everything in life, so with not much reference or recommended recipes to fall on, I studied a few recipes and adapted what I thought were the best elements from each to come up with a carrot cake I really didn’t want to share.
The base recipe is from no other than my favorite celebration cake lady. Deb’s cakes had never failed me. I wanted a smooth crumbed cake—no chunky bits of nuts or fruits in my cake, please—one that’s packed with flavor, yet moist and preferably melt in my mouth, along with an exceptional frosting. I was pleased that my adaptation worked out really well. It took some will power on my behalf to refrain from cutting into the cake layers as they cooled. I resorted to snacking on what little crumbs that were falling off the cooling racks instead.
Carrot cake die-hards would each have their own favorites but the best thing about this carrot cake is you can alter it to your preference. Don’t like pineapples? Use some apple sauce instead. George Calombaris’s mother used apricot jam in hers. You won’t really taste any of the fruit but the flavor and texture of the cake would be greatly improved. Don’t have walnuts? Use pecans, macadamias or even cashews.
There isn’t really a recipe set in stone when it comes to a carrot cake. There’s only a favorite. I hope this version of mine would be yours too.
(Click Page 2 for the Carrot Cake Recipe)
Pages: 1 2Tagged as: Butter • Carrot • Flour
Miracle Rice is made of the same ingredients as Miracle Noodle Shirataki but shaped into small rice pearls. Having a calorie free rice substitute opens up new delicious possibilities in your low calorie, healthy cooking!Price: $17.04
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It’s hard to get too much of summer corn. Every time I visit a farmer’s market here in the city, there is always a crowd of people gathered around the corn bins selecting their perfect ears, even if it’s late in the day and the sellers are packing up their trucks and vans. Even if I’ve had corn 3 or 4 times earlier in the week, all those overflowing bins become a huge magnet. Corn is one of the reasons I finally bought a virtually indestructible Lands End tote bag, since my other totes weren’t cutting it anymore for hauling heavy grocery loads home via subway.
So what can you do with all this sweet corn other than roasting it whole, creaming it, sprinkling kernels on salads and pastas, and making corn bread? How about a Chinese soup?
If you’re like me and kind of adore Chinese chicken and corn soup (homemade or take-out version), you’ll probably also love this light soup made with corn, cabbage, mushrooms, and carrots. The cob goes right into the pot to flavor the vegetable or chicken broth, and the rest of the ingredients take 10 minutes or less to cook through.
If you’re cooking for a large party, say at your next barbecue, by all means find a huge stockpot and quadruple the recipe.
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Chinese Cabbage and Corn Soup
Serves 3 to 4 as an appetizer
8 dried shiitake mushrooms (or substitute fresh shiitake mushrooms)
2 ears sweet corn
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups shredded Napa, Savoy, or green cabbage
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 teaspoons sesame oil (or substitute chili oil if you’d like a spicy soup)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 scallions, shredded
1. If you’re using dried mushrooms, soak them in warm water for 10 to 15 minutes. Squeeze out the excess water and discard the stems from the shiitake mushrooms. Thinly slice the mushroom caps.
2. Working one by one, lean an ear of corn against the slide of a large sturdy bowl. With a serrated knife, carefully cut off the kernels while moving the knife away from you. (If you do this on a cutting board, the kernels will likely fly in all directions.) Set the kernels aside and save the cob.
3. In a large pot, bring the stock to a boil over high heat. Add the corn cob and allow it to simmer for 15 minutes so the soup can extract some of the corn flavor. Add the corn, cabbage, mushrooms, and carrot and simmer for another 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the sesame oil, then salt and pepper to taste. Top off with shredded scallions and transfer to serving bowls.
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Other Chinese soup recipes to try:
Wonton Noodle Soup, Hong Kong-Style
Hot and Sour Chicken Noodle Soup
White Asparagus and Crabmeat Soup from Red Cook
Ginseng Chicken Soup from Indochine Kitchen
Tagged as: Chinese, Recipes, Soup, Vegetarian 
Baby Porridge pictures (1 of 3)I have been feeding Baby G porridge since he was about 5 months old. He still eats porridge every day, twice daily, and he just loves it. He can finish 1 cup to 1.5 cups of porridge every meal!
I started introducing porridge to him a few weeks after feeding him sweet potato puree. Knowing that he loves sweet potato, I know exactly what he wants in his porridge so my basic baby porridge is the combination of rice, sweet potato, and water.
This baby porridge is very versatile. You can be very creative and replace the sweet potato with regular potato, carrot, pumpkin, kabocha (aka Japanese pumpkin), or butternut squash. If your baby has just started on solid food, you want to slowly introduce him to new ingredients so as to avoid food allergy. Start by testing one ingredient, and then move on to the next. This way, you can also find out which combination he likes the most.
As Baby G doesn’t like formula, my pediatrician told me to add an egg yolk to his food after he was six months old. Please take note that some babies develop allergy reactions to egg whites so consult your doctor when to introduce eggs to your baby.
I am going to share my deluxe baby porridge recipe with you in the next post—it tastes so good that I don’t mind eating it.
Basic Baby PorridgeIngredients:
1/4 cup rice
3 cups water
3-4 oz sweet potato, cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk, optional
Method:
Put the rice into a small pot and rinse with cold water a few times. Discard the cloudy water and add 3 cups of filtered water into the rice. Add the sweet potatoes and bring it to on medium heat. Lower the heat to simmer, cover the pot, and let cook for 45 minutes or until the rice breaks down completely. If using egg yolk, lightly beat the egg yolk and add to the porridge. Stir a few times, and let cook for about 1-2 minutes. Before serving, use a blender or stick blender to puree the porridge. Serve it cool to avoid burning your baby.
Flavored ramen noodles in broth. quick and easy.