Thursday, March 23, 2006

Busy in the kitchen...

I was given some dried raspberries a couple weeks ago from Trader Joe's and I've been looking for something to use them in. I found a new quickbread recipe that orginially called for raisins, so I replaced them with the raspberries.

Chocolate Raspberry Ginger Bread has a dark color and a subtle flavor from molasses and cocoa. The moist bread is studded with chopped dried raspberries and has a deep chocolate taste from the cocoa powder. In this recipe, use natural rather than dutch-process cocoa, as the only leavining is from the baking soda. I think this would also be good with some of the raspberry flavored chips. I found the ginger to be pretty pronounced here, but I think it will mellow out and the bite will reduce overnight. Sometimes baked goods that have a lot of applesauce can be a little rubbery, this one has a couple tablespoons of canola oil that prevented this from happening.

I also made some of the Cran-Apple Muffins today for Jeff to bring into work for a co-worker who's family was recently struck with a tradgey.

Tonight's dinner was a pretty different combination of flavors and textures for us, but it was darn good! Poached Eggs with White Corn Polenta starts out by making a creamy polenta that is full of corn kernels. I used a fine-ground white cornmeal which ended up making the polenta pretty smooth. The flavor from the parmesan permeates the soft cornmeal and the butter brings a bit of needed richness. Since we had some leftover salsa from the other night, I topped the polenta with it and then added the poached eggs. A sprinkling of crisp bacon brings a saltiness and a bit of heat from cracked black pepper that finished the dish with a bang.


Recipes

6 comments:

  1. Let me see if I got this straight: the chocolate raspberry gingerbread is LOW FAT? Ye gods! I have to try this!

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  2. i'm beginning to think of ginger is a wonder ingredient. recently i had a tomato based pasta sauce with a little bit of cinnamon and ginger in it; wow was that good. now i really need to try this chocolate bread recipe. i hope you post it on your recipe list.

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  3. That bread looks lovely. I can imagine how good it must taste - ginger AND raspberries, yum.

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  4. Please keep staying busy in the kitchen ... WE LOVE EVERYTHING THAT YOU'RE MAKING!!!

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  5. Tania - It's even better toasted!

    Polly - I sent you a note!

    Sara - Thanks!

    Ivonne - Stayin' busy! Thanks :)

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  6. That chocolate raspberry gingerbread sounded so good to me that an explicative escaped my lips as a word of awe LOL It sounds like it could be truly amazing.

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