Recipes

Blue bowl of light brown garbanzo bean soup, garnished with basil and carrot ribbons.
31 Oct 2010

Pia's Garbanzo Bean Soup

A few weeks ago we had a heavenly garbanzo bean soup in a small café in Fallbrook. I tried to recreate the same soup. I did not achieve this but created another really delicious soup. Very satisfying on an empty stomach.

Prep time: 30 minutes Cook time: 40 minutes
Red mug of foamy drink with cinnamon dusting, on striped green fabric.
31 Oct 2010

Chai

There are an abundant amount of different chai recipes. This one I tried yesterday for the first time and I love it.

Prep time: 7 minutes Cook time: 5 minutes
Creamy light brown lentil soup with a spoon, garnished with red spice and a green herb in a blue-rimmed bowl.
19 Oct 2010

Red Lentil Soup

Mom gave me this recipe years ago. It is perfect for a cold fall or winter evening, either as an appetizer or served together with bread as a main dish.

Prep time: 8 minutes Cook time: 45 minutes
Ruffled pasta with shrimp, corn, and zucchini in a reddish tomato sauce.
26 Sep 2010

Late Summer Harvest Pasta

Dad and I came up with this while he was visiting this weekend. It is delicious! We decided on the title because the veggies in it are all in season right now. In fact, the zucchini, tomatoes, and thyme are all from the shared garden in my apartment complex and we picked them right before cooking this.

Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 15 minutes
Golden-brown loaf of cake, partially sliced, revealing moist fruit pieces inside.
21 Sep 2010

Mamma Pia Cake

Try this cake. It's so wonderfully delicious!

Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 45 minutes
Dark green frog bowl with red fire-roasted salsa and a spoon.
5 Sep 2010

Fire-roasted Salsa

Ripe tomatoes, onion, and garlic are roasted in an unoiled pan until slightly burnt, creating a rich, smoky base for this versatile salsa. Blended in stages to achieve a chunky texture and customizable spiciness, it's an ideal accompaniment for tortilla chips or Mexican dishes.

Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 15 minutes
Golden taco with seasoned meat and fresh lettuce, on a red plate.
5 Sep 2010

Mexican Spiced Ground Turkey

Perfect for any Mexican meal! Use this as a filling for burritos and tacos or as a topping for nachos.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Close-up of a hand scooping roasted sweet potato and corn hash from a blue bowl.
4 Sep 2010

Roasted Yams Summer Salad

This is a potato salad I love. I am not a potato salad person, but I had a big potato and yams I had to use up. Since it was a very nice and warm summer day I decided to try out a new recipe which I found in Barbara Kingsolver book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". Off course, because it is me, I can't let a recipe stand how it is, I had to change it. 

Prep time: 12 minutes Cook time: 40 minutes
Three textured, light brown meringue cookies on a dark blue plate.
4 Sep 2010

Meringues

This is the first time ever that I successfully baked meringues. The trick is to bake them for a long time in low heat. I usually bake everything on 400 F. No wonder the meringues looked good from the outside but fell right into themselves when I took them out of the oven. This time around they were in the oven for 40 minutes on 300 F and were perfect!

Prep time: 2 minutes Cook time: 40 minutes
Bowl of dark berry sorbet with a spoon on a colorful tablecloth.
23 Aug 2010

Blackberry Sorbet

The blackberry bushes growing along the fence of my apartment complex are overflowing with ripe berries, so I froze half of the ones I picked, intending to keep them for use in smoothies and/or berry pies/crumbles in the fall. But when craving a cold dessert on a hot evening, I decided to try making a sorbet out of them. It was absolutely delicious!

Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 0 minutes
Stir-fried green beans with dark sauce over white rice, red lotus decoration in background.
22 Aug 2010

Stir Fry Green Beans

Upon returning to Berkeley after spending 3 months away, I was unable to buy everything I needed to fully restock my apartment, so what was originally intended to be Szechuan Green Beans turned into this. I was quite pleased with the outcome.

Vibrant salad with sliced tomatoes, mixed greens, sprouts, and mushrooms.
22 Aug 2010

Mixed Salad

Don't get stuck on salads with just lettuce. When making salads, let your imagination go wild. Use whatever ingredients you have and which strike your fancy! The more colorful, the better!

1 Mar 2009

Vanilla Sugar

This can be used in any recipe instead of vanilla extract. White sugar provides the most neutral taste, but I prefer it with brown sugar (it's so good that I always eat a pinch on its own while baking...).

Prep time: 2 minutes Cook time: 2 minutes
Two fresh spring rolls with sweet chili dipping sauce on a green plate.
1 Mar 2009

Spring Rolls

Though known as an appetizer, we most often eat them for lunch. If you plan to serve them as a main dish, plan on using one time this recipe per adult, so that they get 4 rolls each. Also, we prefer them stuffed with only tofu and vegetables, so we omitted the rice noodles that typically are part of the stuffing.

Prep time: 25 minutes Cook time: 3 minutes
13 Feb 2009

Basic Bread

The secret of this basic bread dough is that flour is added to the liquids, rather than the other way round, which is what most regular bread recipes call for. Adding flour into the liquid allows the gluten and fibers to absorb more water, and as a result you get a more pliable dough and a moister, less crumbly bread. In other words, your bread tastes better! We learned this technique through Patricia Wells' excellent book At Home in Provence. In our house we use freshly ground spelt flour, but any good quality bread flour will work. Be creative and try to add other grains than wheat or spelt. Just keep wheat or spelt to 50% or more to provide gluten which makes your bread springy.

Prep time: 21 minutes Cook time: 40 minutes