The theme for today’s post is… cooks are frauds.

Or, OK… here’s a more upbeat theme: even if you think you can’t do something — you probably can! Don’t you love the times you can surprise yourself by discovering some untapped capacity or skill you have? The kitchen is a great place to try new things and to grow. The fancy foods you see, admire, and think you could never make at home… you can. Really. They’re probably not all that fancy! For this dessert, I tried two things that I was a little scared to try:  flourless baking, and homemade caramel. I thought I’d end up with gross, overly-eggy baked custard and burnt caramel, but I ended up with two really simple, fun recipes.

There are some desserts you are likely to eat only when you order them in a restaurant. Créme brulee (blowtorch in the kitchen, anyone?), chocolate molded into the shape of a paper bag (thanks, Mom and Dad!), or bacon and chocolate chip ice cream (yes, that does exist in a restaurant near us), for example. I think many of us would put flourless chocolate cake in that category — right? “Oooooh, flourless chocolate cake… how do they get cake without flour?” (I really hope I’m not the only person with this flourless fascination… otherwise this post could stop being interesting right… now.)

Anyway, what I didn’t know, and what I am here today to announce to the world, is that flourless chocolate cake has a dirty little secret. It is actually the easiest chocolate cake to make at home… ever. I was prepared for the process to be fussy, difficult, and irritating… looking back, I am now questioning why I chose to make a recipe for which I had such low expectations. In any case, there was no reason to be so anxious about it! I thought I was creating a restaurant-style fancy dessert, and really, I should have just pulled out an easy-bake oven, because this cake was child’s play.

There’s no magic here — the eggs and the cocoa give it structure, the coffee gives it depth of flavor, and, well, the sugar and chocolate just get in there and makes it a real dessert. The crust is just substantial enough to notice, but quickly disappears into the thick, fudgey, almost brownie-like cake. What I really loved about this was the flavor. To be honest, I didn’t use very high-quality chocolate (long live Aldi!), but it still had a rich, densely chocolate flavor that is incredibly satisfying.

Moving on to baker’s secret weapon #2. You can see that I paired the flourless chocolate cake with a basic caramel sauce… truly a match made in heaven! I got the recipe from Simply Recipes, a great resource. I really can’t describe the process any better than Elise does there, so head on over, and make this sauce! One thing you might want to try is adding a little salt to the caramel. I think a really salty caramel sauce would be even better with this rich, sweet cake.

Caramel + chocolate cake = best friends

Finally, before arriving at this incredibly mouthwatering recipe, I have an announcement! Remember when I promised you all contributions from Puerto Rico? Well, they’re here! Every Monday, I’ll be posting a recipe from my dear friend Courtney who is in sunny Puerto Rico, living the island life, and eating her way through all the delights of Puerto Rican food.

She’s taken a lot of time to prepare fantastic Puerto Rican food and to also write thoughtful posts that share a bit about life and culture in Puerto Rico, so get excited! The food looks WONDERFUL and extremely accessible, even for those of us who have never been to PR. Whoohoo! I’m so excited! Everyone have a great weekend, and we’ll see you Monday with exciting new recipes!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Adapted from Culinate, originally from Hip Kosher

• 8 oz. semisweet chocolate
• 1 Tbsp. instant coffee powder
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 5 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 Tbsp. cold coffee

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter or spray a 9- or 10-inch springform pan.

Put the chocolate, instant coffee powder, and butter in a heatproof bowl, then set the bowl over a saucepan containing about an inch of barely simmering water. Cook until the chocolate has melted, stirring occasionally to blend ingredients completely. Remove the bowl from heat, and set aside to cool slightly.

Combine the eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer set at medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes. Then add the cocoa powder and beat until well blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice. Add the chocolate mixture and cold coffee and blend them in thoroughly. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few chocolate crumbs clinging to the sides. Transfer to a cake rack to cool almost totally until cutting around the edges of the cake with the tip of a knife and releasing the sides of the springform pan.

Recently (as in, since yesterday), Sean and I have been talking about what it would look like for us to own our circumstances, instead of being owned by them. Since he started a new job a couple months ago, we have been busy, overwhelmed, and exhausted — on survival mode. We survived, unfortunately, by cutting back on many things — sleep, time with friends, time with each other. This cutting back has been good — it’s kept us from killing each other out of pure stress, for example — but it’s left me feeling a little empty.

I’m tired of saying that we can’t!  Today, I’m saying…. Yes We Can!

…or something like that. The main idea is, we’ve been in reaction mode for a few months — reacting to our circumstances — and we want to turn that around. We’ve always made it a goal to live on purpose for our values, but lately, we’ve been letting life events dictate to us what our priorities need to be, or ought to be. We haven’t owned our circumstances… they’ve been owning us. Let me give some examples:

• Getting up at 5:15am every day… owned.
• Three hours of commuting every day… owned.
• Must go to bed at 8:30 every night because we’re so tired… owned.
• No time to shop, groceries in the house limited to milk, eggs, and some horseradish mustard… owned.
• Bird pooped on my head on the way home from work… owned. SO OWNED.

Yes. Yes, that happened. Well, all of those things happen frequently, but the bird poop thing, that JUST happened. As I was about to get on the bus, a pigeon left a small, sticky gift on my head. For a split second, I considered going ahead and getting on the bus… with the bird crap in my hair. I take CTA seriously, people… you don’t miss a bus for any reason. You don’t know when the next one is going to come!

At the last minute I thought better of it, ducked into the 7-11 for some napkins to do a quick wipe at my hair, and waited for the next bus. I then had the pleasure of riding in close company with a group of people all thinking… is it me that smells? Nope… it’s definitely that other chick.

Alright, so the pigeon probably won that round. But we’re refusing to give up! There are certain things that we won’t compromise because of tight circumstances. The reality is that our time is very limited, but we’re committed to making the most of it and focusing on what we can do to improve our marriage, live healthily, align ourselves with God’s purposes for us, and build strong relationships with people around us. Take that, pigeon!

And incidentally, if you do find yourself (like us) with only horseradish mustard, milk, and eggs… try making these Swedish crepes (sans mustard). They’re like huge Swedish pancakes — eggy, delicate, but surprisingly substantial — and we always have the ingredients lying around. The recipe is from a cookbook compiled by the ladies in the church I grew up going to, but I’ve altered it a bit and elaborated on the method. Making crepes is one of those things anyone can do if they’re told how, and this is our foolproof method (aka, Sean makes these).

I’ve also included my mom’s recipe for syrup below (see her comment… it’s from her family, because they couldn’t buy syrup from the store). It’s not your Grade B pure maple, but again, this is what I grew up with and it tastes SO MUCH better than anything sticky-sweet that comes in a plastic bottle, spiked with weird preservatives. You can see that we also dressed these up with the very berry coulis… twas incredible! On the scale of owning vs. owned… I’d say we own this no-fuss breakfast-for-dinner!

Swedish Crepes

Adapted from Jan Dwight

Serves 2 – but easily multiplied for more people!

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine, slightly cooled

Whip eggs with a whisk until light and fluffy. Starting with the milk, add other ingredients, one at a time, beating until well combined. Cook on heated 6-inch nonstick frying pan.

To cook crepes: Heat a nonstick frying pan on medium until rather warm (not to where a bead of water will sizzle, but warm). Pour about a 1/4 cup of crepe batter into the pan. Tilt and swirl the pan in a circular motion until the whole bottom of the pan is covered with batter. Use a heatproof spatula to push the batter down from the edges of the pan if any has crept up the sides – you want the whole bottom of the pan covered with batter, but none of the sides, or it’ll be hard to flip. Wait until you can see air bubbles rising from the bottom of the crepe to the top. Gently flip the crepe over to the other side, cook just 1-2 minutes more until golden brown.

The first crepe will take a long time to cook (because inevitably, you’ll be impatient and the pan will still be too cold when you start cooking) and it may stick. As the pan heats up, the crepes will cook rather quickly since they are so thin, and they won’t stick any more – the butter in the batter will create a nice barrier. You want thin crepes with the lacey patterns you can see in the pictures.

And if you mess this up, I guarantee that whatever you pour into the pan will come out tasting delicious, no matter what it looks like!

Grandma’s Maple(ish) Syrup

• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup water
• ¼ teaspoon maple flavoring (in the spice section of your grocery store, by the vanilla, etc.)

Bring the water and sugars to a boil, stirring occasionally. When it reaches a boil, turn the heat down and add the maple flavoring. You can keep it warm while you are waiting to serve, but keep in mind that it will thicken as it cools.

I did promise another recipe to go with the very berry coulis, and there is one that’ll go up next week… but when I looked back at the most recent recipes, I noticed that it’s been a while since I posted a meal idea, so I thought I’d end the week with a really delicious dinner, plus some thoughts on recipe creation in our mixed-culture kitchen!

Every so often I get a brainwave idea for dish or a dessert, and I can’t stop thinking about it until I make it happen. These original recipes or ideas are the ones that I just love sharing — like these curried lentil burgers, or the lemon cream cheese pound cake and the chai spiced apple cake.

The secret to coming up with your own food? You have to come up with an idea that catches and keeps your interest — something you really want to spend time on. Original(ish) recipes are real labors of love — I often go through a loo-oo-ong process of spicing and tasting and fiddling to get them just right. Even if they are based largely on other recipes, like this one was, my adjustments can sometimes throw the ratios of the whole recipe off, and I basically end up building the whole thing again.

These curried lentil burgers were like that: a definite labor of love. Inspiration was twofold: I found this recipe for lentil burgers on another blog, and was immediately reminded of a deliciously spiced lentil burger I had at this restaurant in KC. I took Jennie’s basic recipe and modified it to include the basic Indian flavors: onion, garlic, ginger, cumin, ground coriander seeds, cayenne pepper for spice, tumeric for color and aroma. By the time I was finished writing the recipe (I write all my recipes before I cook them, then add notes of changes made along the way), my brain hurt. It’s tough deciding ratios of spices for something you’ve never made before!

Why did these curried lentil burgers get into my head and refuse to get out? I think it has to do with their mutt-like character.  It’s hard to classify I recipe like this — it’s not Indian, and it’s not really American either. We eat a lot of food like that… fusion, I guess? It seems that a lot of what comes out of our kitchen is an American take on Asian food, or an Asian take on American food. I know that that phenomenon is partly just a generational trend — people our age grew up eating Thai food and sushi on the weekends, and we might be the first American generation to have really experienced that.

In addition, though, I think part of our eclectic meal choices come from our intercultural marriage. We don’t eat the food I grew up with, although Sean would probably be perfectly happy with that. I love to cook Korean food… but even then, I know it’s not the real thing. It’s my (our) take on it, and that’s OK. Mostly, we just eat our own, third-culture food. Welcome to the world of curried lentil burgers and chipotle lime shrimp fried rice!

You’ll see that the recipe is comprised of three separate steps: step one, make the lentils; step two, sauté the veggies in the spices and mix the burgers; step three, form and cook the burgers. I decided to split up the process over a couple of weeknights, and that made it definitely manageable. None but the second step really requires much attention or thought, and once those burgers came out of the pan and onto the bun… OH BOY it was all worth it! We’re making them again tomorrow!

I almost forgot to mention (sorry for the long post!) — we ate these burgers with ALL of the fixings listed below. I was especially a fan of the horseradish mustard and the fried egg… especially amazing if you can achieve a runny yolk. Just throw that in the bun on top of the burger and watch the magic. And I added the sweet potato fries recipe at the bottom, too. Whew! I think we are finally done… on to the recipes!

Mark's burger -- with all the fixings!

Curried Lentil Burgers

Adapted from In Jennie’s Kitchen

makes 4 large burgers

• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh peeled ginger, minced
• 1 ¾ cups cooked lentils (about 10 ounces)
• ¾ teaspoon table salt
• juice of half a lemon (around 1 tablespoon)
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• ½ cup plain breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Burger fixings: fried eggs, hot sauce, horseradish mustard, spinach leaves, raw onions, goat cheese

Using a clean frying pan heated over medium heat, dry roast the spices until aromatic, 1-2 minutes. Add oil, then onion, and stir fry until beginning to soften, 3 minutes. Stir in garlic and ginger, cook until fragrant and onions are soft, another 3-5 minutes.

Place lentils in the bowl of a food processor; add spice/onion/garlic mix, salt, and lemon juice. Pulse until mostly puréed (you can leave some whole lentils for texture). Transfer to a mixing bowl; gently stir in the egg and ¼ cup of breadcrumbs. Cover and refrigerate for two hours, or overnight.

When you are ready to cook the burgers, stir in the remaining breadcrumbs. Shape lentils into 4 patties. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add burgers and cook until golden brown all over and holding together, about 5 minutes on each side. Serve hot on buns or over mixed greens.

Sweet Potato Oven Fries

Also adapted from In Jennie’s Kitchen, and Emily!

• 4 medium sweet potatoes, scrubbed clean
• 3 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon plain bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 450ºF. Pierce potatoes with a fork a few times before baking them for 10-12 minutes. Let cool for two minutes, then slice fries into desired thickness.

Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Combine potato wedges with olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin, brown sugar, cornstarch, and breadcrumbs in a bowl, and toss to coat well. Arrange in a single layer on the pan. Bake for 25 minutes, turning once, until crisp (time depends on the size of your fries! Check them to make sure they are done). Remove from oven and let the potatoes rest on the pan for a few minutes to let them continue crisping up, then serve while still hot.

I’d like to introduce you to the most amazing fruit sauce. Ever. This is the sauce that led me to a very important discovery: the secret to fruit in desserts is to not cook them – at least not all the time.

I used to strongly dislike cooked fruit. My wonderful country grandmother used to make amazing fruit pies every year for Thanksgiving… which I would skip like the snotty preteen I was, waiting until I was served the dessert of my preference. I’ve gotten over the cooked fruit aversion (see Chai Spiced Apple Cake), but sometimes, especially when spring is around the corner, I’m just craving fresh fruit, un-meddled-with.

OK… so I made this with frozen berries. HA! The hypocrisy… I’m sitting here extolling the virtues of pure, fresh fruit, and in reality, I used the same mix of berries we got from Costco and threw in our muffins last week. When life hands you Chicago, head for Costco. Costco seriously improves our fruit situation.

In reality, whether you use fresh fruit or frozen, this is the simplest, most delicious fruit sauce: a little fresh fruit, a little lemon juice for brightness, some sugar and water for balance. If your fruit is fresh enough, you probably wouldn’t even need the sugar, but you can throw it in depending on what specific fruit you are using. Strawberries work amazingly. All the ingredients just get tossed in the blender and pureéd until the mixture is saucy, and then you can run it through a strainer, if you are seed-averse.

Just to keep things interesting, this week or next  (sometime soon!) I’ll be posting another recipe that marries nicely with this sauce, in case you needed another reason to make it! In the mean time, enjoy a very berry Wednesday! (And yes, I do get excited when writing these incredibly cheesy recipe titles )

Very Berry Coulis

• 2 cups berries (about 12 ounces; quarter and hull them if needed)
• ¼ cup water
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Combine berries, water, sugar and lemon juice in blender. Purée until very smooth, then press through a fine mesh strainer to remove the seeds. Cover and refrigerate until cold. Coulis can be prepared one day ahead.