Goodfood Recap #35

We took a little break from the normal cooking so managed to order in 2 boxes this month for Goodfood. We’re definitely enjoying it while it lasts because if I remember correctly, we will be skip for the next month or so. This box has been some really interesting meals and to be honest, I saw most of them as being fairly successful.

Mushroom Dan Dan Noodles
with Yu Choy

The last Dan Dan Noodles weren’t awesome. I’m going to be honest that they weren’t but this one tastes fantastic. The two types of mushrooms used and the yu choy as the veggie base with the noodles and the sauce all turned out so great. I really enjoyed this noodle bowl a lot.

Skillet-Roasted Chicken Thighs
with Meyer Lemon, Zucchini & Olives over Zesty Quinoa

We rarely cook with quinoa unless its for one of these boxes so its always refreshing to eat it. Its something that I have thought about incorporating more into our lives outside of these meal boxes. This meal was pretty good in general. Chicken thighs are always super tasty to eat but then my biggest issue with it was the olives and that is based on preference as I don’t like olives but my husband loved this because he loves them and loves everything else about it.

Coconut Chicken & Sweet Potato Stew
with Roasted Brussel Sprouts

So..this meal was considered somewhat of a fail on my part. I’m not sure if I just didn’t follow the recipe properly or the recipe didn’t quite work with my appliances but this meal took about 3 times its estimated time. Usually for me, if there’s more cooking involved, it might take almost double the estimated time. It tastes pretty good and stews are always very comforting to eat. The idea of coconut milk base and then having carrots and sweet potatoes is really nice as well. It just was an incredibly long time to cook..oddly.

Pork Chops
with Homemade Maple-Bacon Jam, Sauteed Bok Choy over Spinach Rice

Welcome the star of this box. This meal is amazing! For one, the maple bacon jam is awesome. Literally, the best thing I’ve made from these boxes. Then the pork chops turned out good and paired with the jam is delicious. I like the spice blend that was mixed with the rice and the spinach. Then there’s the bok choy which always was great. I love this meal so much.

That’s it for this recap!
It was a pretty solid batch of meals.
It should be a month or so before we get another one of these boxes.
Just because of selection and time conflicts. 

Goodfood Smoothie Recap

Goodfood launched their smoothies add-ons for the boxes a few weeks ago (maybe a month or so). For their current clients, they gave a little discount to have the incentive to give it a go. Of course, being the wanna-be health nuts that we are, we wanted to give a go out of curiosity mostly. I’m not sure the smoothie lifestyle is for me but it sure helps in getting in the fruits and veggies count as well as the hydration and milk count although we do use almond milk.

With that said, they launched with 6 flavors. It comes with the 12 smoothies pack so we decided to grab 2 of each flavor so that my husband and I could each try it out.

Let’s take a look at it.

I know I’m missing one but I took this afterwards and the Mean Greens cups both were broken in the process of transport so we had to make those quickly. With that said, it should have more organization and whatnot to keep the containers in an upright position or just a way that it doesn’t break so easily since it is put into an insulated box with dry ice. Other than that, the packaging with the cups and lids makes it very convenient and saves my own cups from having to wash and whatnot and it should all be recyclable or if you please, reused since its fairly sturdy.

For each of the smoothies though, I decided to just take the images from Goodfoods site since smoothies aren’t exactly the most appealing thing to look at. This is in the order that we tasted it. I have put aside that our blender is not at par to make smoothies but we will be hopefully hunting for some boxing day deals to get a ninja blender or something along those lines because we do want to start having more smoothies and such.

Let’s see what we thought.

Mean Green

Nothing like drinking a salad, right? That is pretty much what I thought about this one. It felt like I was drinking a salad. I prefer to eat my salads so this worked for its purpose and tasted exactly as I’d expected. Actually, I take that back because it smelled pretty acidic but when I drank it, it actually didn’t taste acidic, just very green, if you know what I mean. Which is a good thing. It was a pleasant surprise in a way. The husband however, wasn’t a big fan of this one.

Mango Goji

I’m a huge fan of mango and goji. This sounds like something really healthy and perfect. Somehow though, this one didn’t work too well for me and I blame it on papaya because I’ve always found it really heavy and sweet that it just doesn’t appeal to my taste buds. However, its not such a bad flavor just in shorter doses for myself. However, my husband did approve with this one.

Cocoa Mint Boost

I’m a big fan of mint chocolate flavored anything and think of this as something a lot more natural but with a similar taste profile to that. It works really well. I’m not such a big fan of the addition of the kale but everything else here works really well together.

Acai Bellini

Acai Bellini is definitely our favorite in the Goodfood smoothie selection. It has to do with the normalcy of it if we look at the ingredients but it tasted so delicious. It had such a great balance with fruity and fun. It is how I pictures smoothies would taste and it was absolutely fantastic. Both my husband and I are fans of this one.

Carrot Ginger

Carrot Ginger is really good also. We called this kind of like a carrot cake and gingerbread cookie all mixed together. Plus, it had these little details that taste so great. We are a big fan of this one. Probably our second favorite.

Pina Colada

And the unanimous choice of what didn’t work for us is this one. I think its the fact that wheatgrass and our blender didn’t go too well and it felt like I was eating grass. It was also the idea that it smelled like this beautiful rich coconut smell but the taste was kind of acidic and coconut which was this weird effect on my taste buds. The husband and I didn’t really like this one a lot. I’m sure for experienced smoothies, this might work but its just not for us.

That’s it for this Goodfood Smoothies recap!
This is a special recap segment.

*Almost* Everything but the Kitchen Sink Cookies!

Have you ever heard of these cookies? Kitchen Sink Cookies for short apparently…

These ones came up in my search when I was digging up recipes based on another blogger’s comment for Coconut Cloud Cake post. Brian at Hard Ticket to Home Video commented that “mixes coconut, toffee and dark chocolate”.  I have never baked with toffee so I had to run off and look for that.  Of course, the trusty Walmart Superstore here has everything and I managed to pick up a pack of toffee bits on Saturday.

I changed it around a bit to match the tastes of my boyfriend and his family, which will be delivered to them tonight 🙂

I found this recipe on Martha Stewart`s site.  The link to the original recipe that inspired it is: http://www.marthastewart.com/332894/everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-cookie

 

These cookies are quite easy to make as its pretty much mixing the wet ingredients then in another bowl the dry ingredients. After that putting it together and after having the cookies dough done.  Its time to add all the contents: dark chocolate, toffee bits, coconut shreds, dried cherries, pecans, oats and pretzels.  Point is, its supposed to have EVERYTHING…

My version doesn`t change much for the dough.  I did remove the salted pretzels and dried cherries.  Its not hit in their families and then swapped almonds to replace the pecans.  Also, I didn`t have any dark chocolate on hand so I used some semi sweet chocolate chunks.  Plus, the intended recipients aren`t big fans of dark chocolate and more semi-sweet.

 

Obviously, this one fits in all my nono`s. So I couldnt`t try it out.  However, what they do feel and look like are Oatmeal cookies with Chocolate chunks, coconut, toffee bits, and almonds.  Now that sounds like a winner combination right. My mom did help me out to taste it and she said that it was a bit too sweet (but she always thinks that) however, she did say the taste was pretty good.  The texture of it was not too hard and all the ingredient choices matched up to a good taste.

If you don`t like any ingredients or you want to swap things in and out, as long as you know the end result taste works for you, then go for it.  It should work out fine. 🙂

Seeing as I`m a beginner with toffee bits, what else do you recommend I do with it? Any other great recipes or types of cookies or cakes that it would work well in? I was thinking maybe fudge might be a good option? I don’t know.  I’m not experienced with fudge either..Give me some suggestions.  I’d love to hear all about it 🙂

Coconut Cloud Cake!

Doesn’t that sound delicious? Apparently, last night at my boyfriend’s mom’s birthday gathering with the family, it was a huge hit! Everyone told me how much they liked it and for the first time, one of them even asked for the recipe.  Another reason why I need to post it up PRONTO! 🙂 But seeing everyone enjoy it makes me happy because its why I do it!

Before I get ahead of myself, I was asking with another recipe, what to make for Easter and Marilyn @ MKG-Memories-Keepsakes-Gifts told me that sour cream coconut cake is a must.  I can’t eat sour cream, so I found myself a coconut cake with everything that I could eat. Awesome suggestion Marilyn!

This was found here: http://www.marthastewart.com/349949/coconut-cloud-cake

This cake could get complicated to make and my forewarning is that in general its not complicated however, it does take several steps and before putting this frosting, you need to wait for the cake to cool down for an hour.

The texture of the cake was pretty nice and fluffy.  Everyone described it as “light”.  I’d say thats a good word for it.  The frosting was very delicious.  I actually like it being made with egg whites. It gives it a little nice texture different from whip cream.  I haven’t had whip cream in such a long time, it hard for me to actually describe it. I did like it a lot though.  The taste was very good. If it was something I’d make regularly, I might decrease the sugar just a tad.

There was a good amount of modifications that I made.  For one, I didn’t have cake flour so I used all-purpose flour.  Superfine sugar was replaced by granulated sugar.  All cream of tartar was removed.  You will notice if you click through to see Martha Stewart‘s cake that hers has a little frosting center.  However, due to time constraints, I had to skip that step, instead I covered the exterior with frosting and then added a bit more coconut on the top.

I think it went pretty well. It looks pretty decent and the taste was totally awesome! My boyfriend said he felt like it was a slice of heaven 🙂

Any other Easter baking traditions to share? I’ll probably be baking on Wednesday night again 🙂

Baked Chinese New Year Cake

Chinese New Year is right around the corner.  This year its just me and my boyfriend celebrating together.  My mom has yet again gone on her vacation and to represent our family for my cousin’s wedding in Australia.  Fun times, right?

Before she left, I asked her to leave me the recipe for this wonderful little dessert that we have to ring in the New Year’s.  Just saying, this weekend will most probably be the first recipe up for A Bite of China project. I added the link there so you can check it out.  We are going to ring in the Year of the Snake in style 🙂

For now, we start with my attempt at this delicious dessert:

Before I tell you more, here is the recipe:

CHINESE NEW YEAR CAKE

Ingredients:

1 bag (400g) White Glutinous Rice Flour

2 1/4 cups Milk (but I used water)

2/3 cup cooking oil

1 1/3 cups sugar (I only used 1 cup)

1 tsp baking powder

3 small eggs (or 2 large)

Optional:

1 cup Coconut flakes (I used coconut shreds)

some Toasted Sesame Seed (skipped these)

Right out of the oven, it tends to be puffy but it will go back down as it cools down

Directions:

1) Mix above 6 ingredients in a large bowl.  Use electric mixer to beat 3-5 minutes at slow/medium speed and 5-7 minutes at high speed until bubbles formed.  Add coconut flakes

2) Pour the cake mixture into a baking pan lined with parchment paper or non-stick spray to prevent cake sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds on top of the cake (if you desire).

3) Put the pan in a preheated oven at 350F and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the top of the cake turns golden.

4) Cut the cake after cooling at least 10 -15 minutes.

If you look at the ingredients, you’ll see what changes I made.  Just a confession (and I blame it on fatigue and stress), instead of baking powder, I used baking soda.  However, it did turn out pretty decent. I figure it might change the consistency a bit.  Just be super attentive if you do that that the glutinous rice flour doesn’t get stuck at the bottom of the large bowl.  That happened to me and the electric mixer just doesn’t go that far so remember to scrape the bottom a bit to make sure you get it mixed thoroughly.

Also, stick with non stick spray or oil to prevent the cake from sticking to the baking pan.  I was trying out parchment paper for the first time and the glutinous rice flour has that name because it gets very sticky and it just stick onto the parchment paper as I tried to cut a piece out.  Ended up sitting there peeling off the little pieces of parchment paper before I could taste it.  Just warning you to save you the hassle.

As for the taste, despite all my little changes, I may have taken away the sugar but adding the coconut shreds (which my mom doesn’t do) helped compensate for that and gave it a nice texture to bite into.  Definitely going to try it another time WITH BAKING POWDER this time and probably will post an update at the bottom.

Do you enjoy trying food or desserts from other cultures? Which ones do you like? Any recommendations?

Sunday Baking:Coconut-Almond Bread!

Baking on Sundays is starting to become a routine.  This Sunday, I used baking to get rid of a terrible migraine.  You know what though, it worked (weird as it may sound).  I bought a new loaf pan as an addition to my bakeware so I’ve been wanting to try it out, just never figured out what type of bread to bake.  I flipped through recipe books and stuff but I was missing ingredients for everything so I just ended up winging it with a little inspiration from Looneyspoons Collection called “A Grateful Bread”.

“A Grateful Bread” is supposed to have grated apples and grated carrots and grated coconuts (aka coconut shreds) but I didn’t have any apples left at home.  I really didn’t think coconuts and carrots would’ve been a very awesome match without apples to balance things out.  Thats just a feeling I get, if you’ve done it and it turned out tasting good, I’d love to hear about it.

So with that being said, I changed some ingredients around and made a Coconut-Almond Bread instead.

Here’s the recipe (modified from original recipe in The Looneyspoons Collection by Janet & Greta Podleski):

COCONUT ALMOND BREAD

Makes 1 Loaf, 12 slices

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats

1 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

1/3 cup chopped almonds

1/2 cup water

2 eggs

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray a 9×5 inch loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.  Add coconut and almonds. Mix well.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together water, eggs, oil and vanilla.

4.  Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients.  Mix just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Pour batter into pan.  Spread evenly.  Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until wooden pick inserted in center of loaf comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes in pan.  Remove bread from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.  Cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator.

I gave you the modified version as I had changed so many of the ingredients and eliminated.  The only issue I had was why the bread didn’t become fluffier.  I’m guessing its because I took away some of the other grated ingredients but didn’t change the quantity other than the chopped almonds and grated coconut.  All in all though, it did taste pretty good.  I might have changed the balance of the coconut shreds and chopped almonds.  This bread is perfect as a dessert as it has a nice sweet coconut taste.  On the other hand, the almonds helped it give it the chewy crunchy taste.

I’ll definitely be doing more bread! Hopefully next weekend I”ll do another one!

Any suggestions for what bread to make? Any suggestions to make it fluffier? Will you try this out?

Oaty Coconut Cookies

For a welcome gift last Friday(and something to keep myself awake till late hours before picking him up at the airport), I decided to make Oaty Coconut Cookies.  I originally had wanted to do just Oaty Biscuits (which I had done before) but still, this was fun. I had all the ingredients on hand.  I actually liked the texture of the cookies, even my mom enjoyed it because it wasn’t too sweet.

I got this recipe out of my new recipe book, “COOKIES, BISCUITS & BAKES 500” by Catherine Atkinson.

Here is the recipe if anyone wants to give it a shot.

OATY COCONUT COOKIES

Ingredients (Makes 18):

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup desseciated (dry unsweetened shredded) coconut

1 cup butter, at room temperature, diced

1/4 cup firmly packed soft dark brown sugar

2 eggs

4 tbsp milk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup plain (all-purpose) flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

HOW TO MAKE THE COOKIES:

1. Preheat the over to 400F.  Lightly grease two baking sheets.  Grease the base of a small glass and dip it in some sugar

2. Spread the oats and coconut on a ungreased baking sheet.  Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes until golden brown, stirring occassionally.

3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs then add the milk and vanilla extract.  Sift the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together and fold into the creamed mixture.  Stir in the oat and coconut mixture.

4. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture on to the baking sheets, spaced well apart to allow for spreading while baking.  Flatten each with the sugared glass.  Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown.

5. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and leave to firm up and cool completely.  The cookies will keep stored in a airtight container for 3-4 days.

MY OPINION/APPROACH/EXPERIENCE/RESULTS:

This recipe is very straight-forward, simple and quick.  I found that everything was good.  The only problem that I encountered was that the “dough” turned out a bit soggy, when I followed the recipe. I eventually had to add a bit more flour (about 1/2 -3/4 cup flour) to give it a bit more texture.  Because I am lactose intolerant, I also had to replace the milk with water.  I don’t really think that affected the texture too much, usually it doesn’t.

As you can see above, the cookies did turn out rather good, also the texture was becoming a bit more like a biscuit-like or maybe scone, instead of a cookie.  Still, I really liked the taste of it.  For the last few times, I felt like the recipes were all on the sweet side, but this one, I felt very good with the taste.  I definitely will give this another shot another day.

If anyone does give this recipe a shot and had no problems, please do share with me.  I’d love to hear how it turned out for you.

If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear about that as well.

Coconut Macaroons

 

I had a mega party this weekend to collaborate the celebrate of several friends’ birthday.  One of my other friends took care of the birthday cakes but as a request of having one of my baked goods, I decided to make coconut macaroons (first time ever!).  Check it out below!

I think they were a tad more golden brown it was supposed to be but the taste was very good.  Maybe I’d decrease the sugar content a bit just because I used sweetened coconut flakes.  I also forgot to oil the bottom so it was sticking a bit onto the bottom of the tray.

For those interested, the link that I tried was this one:

http://www.marthastewart.com/337007/coconut-macaroons