Winning Eyeballs

I don't love Halloween. I never liked dressing up, I don't like being scared, and all the gross/creepy things on purpose are not my cup of tea. But at work we had a Halloween party, and one part of the festivities was an "ugly food" contest with a promised prize, so I decided to get a little halloween-y and make something a little gruesome looking: eyeballs floating in a pool of blood.

And guess what?!

I won!

Sorry this is too late for y'all to make your own prize-winning eyeballs for Halloween this year, but here it is for next year.

Notes:

If I did it again I would cut the recipe in half. I only made 12 eyeballs and then had tons of the panna cotta left over, which I poured into a bread pan for a mold, sliced and served with more "blood" sauce. It was delicious, but not everyone likes gelatin based desserts, so it was an excessive amount for our relatively small party.

You will need something spherical or semi-spherical-ish for a mold. I used mochi ice cream containers which were (luckily) just the right size and shape to work with the grape "iris", and it was a good excuse to get mochi ice cream from a certain specialty food store. You can also find them at some Asian markets.

I arranged the instructions into very small, very manageable steps; it looks like a lot, but it isn't hard.

Coconut Panna Cotta "Eyeballs" with Raspberry-Cherry "Blood" sauce
2 cans (400mL) coconut milk
2 packets Knox unflavored gelatin (1/2 oz or 14 grams)
1 cup water
1 cup white sugar
12 dried blueberries (more or less, depending on how many eyeballs you want)
6-12 green seedless grapes (more or less, depending on how many eyeballs you want)
fresh or frozen raspberries and/or cherries
a little more white sugar (just a teaspoon or two should do it)
Pomegranate arils (optional)

To make the "eyeballs":

1) Warm coconut milk in a saucepan, stir occasionally, or it will do some crazy splattering. Don't let it come to a boil.

2) Meanwhile, sprinkle gelatin over cold water in a small saucepan, let stand about 1 minute, then start warming this up over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the gelatin is dissolved.

3) By now your coconut milk should be hot, but not boiling. Pour the hot gelatin water into the hot coconut milk, add the 1 cup of sugar and keep stirring over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved, it should just take a couple of minutes. Remove from heat and let it start cooling.

While the mixture is cooling, start prepping your eyeball molds and with the other eyeball parts:

4) Make sure your mochi ice cream cups (or whatever you are using for a mold - see note above) are clean and dry.

5) Put the dried blueberries in a small bowl, pour boiling water over, let stand for a couple of minutes to soften.

6) Cut some grapes in half latitudinally, scoop out a small amount of grape insides, just enough to fit a dried blueberry inside.

7) Insert the soaked dried blueberry into the hollow you just made in the grape half, place the grape half cut-side down in the mold. Press down to make the blueberry and grape as flat against the bottom of the mold as possible.

8) Repeat with as many grapes and blueberries you need to fill all the molds you have to make as many eyeballs as you want.

9) Pour the coconut milk-gelatin mixture into the molds over the grapes. Hold the grape halves down with a finger while you pour so they stay centered and flat against the bottom and don't get pushed around.

10) Let the panna cotta finish cooling and setting up in the fridge, it will take a couple of hours. 

To make the "blood":

11) Warm up some raspberries with a little sugar (I used about 1 1/2 cups frozen) with a little sugar until the sugar is dissolved, the raspberries will break apart, but that is just fine.

12) If you want to use cherries also, place them in a blender (I used about 1 cup frozen) pour the warm raspberry mush in the blender over the cherries, blend together until everything is pureed, but not liquified. Add a little water if necessary to keep the blender from getting stuck.

13) Put the raspberry-cherry puree through a sieve to separate the good stuff from the seeds. Store the sauce in the fridge until you are ready to serve with eyeballs.

To assemble the "eyeballs floating in a pool of blood":

14) Unmold the panna cotta cups onto a serving platter. I had to gently pull some of them out with my fingers, they didn't all come right out easily when I flipped over the mold. Arrange them strategically on the platter.

15) Some of the coconut gelatin may have gone underneath the grapes/blueberries so that when you flip them over it is hard to see the "iris" and "pupil," kind of like a cataract (well, more like a pterygium), so you may perform surgery -- very carefully cut some gelatin away from the grapes so that they'll be visible. This can all be done ahead of time.

16) Just before serving, pour the sauce around the eyeballs artistically, and sprinkle the pomegranate arils around also, if desired.

Claim your prize and dig in!

Credit where credit is due: 

Recipe from here, but there are tons of coconut jelly/panna cotta recipes out there that looked amazing. I used this one because it was very basic and simple, just a few ingredients. And it really was delicious.

Coconut and fruit eyeball plus raspberry "blood" idea from here, but it seems like it wouldn't work with kiwi fruit since kiwis have that protein-disolving enzyme, antinidain.

Mochi ice cream mold idea from here.

Using grapes as irides idea from Lovemuffin who answered "grapes" when I asked "what can I use as a spherical jello mold?" (he's so cute.)

Leftover Egg White Ideas and Macaroon Redux

I have a friend who told me that she was working on a spreadsheet that shows which recipes have only egg whites or yolks, and how many of each, so that it would be easy to plan ways to make lots of awesome stuff without wasting half an egg. Good idea, right? I'm inspired to label blog posts in this way, maybe it will be easy to find egg white/egg yolk companion recipes.

After making the lovely tiramisu which uses 4 egg yolks and no egg whites, and not wanting to just throw away the egg whites, I brainstormed ways to use them all:

-Make an egg white omelet
-Make 2 more batches of tiramisu, and use the 12 leftover egg whites for angel food cake
-Use in pancakes/waffles instead of whole eggs
-Make macaroons --> the winner!

If you have any more ideas, please share in the comments :)

I doubled my macaroon recipe, and I thought I would re-do the recipe for you with better instructions, but no pictures.

Macaroons

3 c. unsweetened coconut

1 c. finely chopped almonds

1 c. sugar

4 egg whites

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a cookie sheet. 

Chop up the coconut finely - I do this in my awesome spice grinder about 1 cup at a time; it just takes a couple seconds and I shake the grinder while it works to get everything ground evenly, but not turned it into powder. Place the chopped coconut, finely chopped almonds and sugar in a bowl, mix all together. Add egg whites, mix well. This last time I made the cookies, I beat the egg whites for a couple minutes until they were frothy before adding them, and it was easier to mix them evenly into the dry ingredients, and I think it gave the finished cookies a better texture.

Scoop small balls of the mixture onto the prepared cookie sheet, only about 2 tablespoons per cookie, or use a small ice cream/cookie scoop things for easy evenly sized cookies. Bake for about 10 minutes, them set on the pan for a couple of minutes, then scoop them off and let them cool on a rack.

These cookies will not spread out, you can place them very close together on the pan and they will not grow into each other. I fit this whole (double-)batch onto one cookie sheet. 

Another Summer Salad

I recently rediscovered a fancy pumpkin seed oil and quince balsamic vinegar set that was given to me a while ago, the bottles were hiding in the outside fridge, lonely and forgotten. I read something online about eating pumpkin seed oil with heirloom tomatoes, and it sparked a memory -- I have pumpkin seed oil! It was very exciting. So this is the salad that I made:

About 3 large tomatoes, diced
2 small-medium sized cucumbers, diced
a few basil leaves, chopped
1 can of small white beans, drained and rinsed well
drizzle of pumpkin seed oil, to taste
drizzle of quince balsamic vinegar, to taste
sprinkle of salt

Combine everything in a bowl, toss it all together, and eat.

We ate this with corn on the cob for a light dinner. No pictures - our camera has been missing for 2 weeks. It will turn up, but prepare yourself for some more picture-less posts, I actually have things to share.

Also, thank you, Laura, for your comment, it's always nice to see that I still have readers, even after a long break between posts. :)

Autumnal Muffins

A few years ago I signed up for newsletters from the National Honey Board, "Honey Feast," because they have recipes. The most recent one had a recipe for pumpkin honey muffins which was perfect to go with the fall colors.

Honey Pumpkin Muffins (from the National Honey Board)

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon (or more) ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 cup softened butter

3/4 cup honey (I used buckwheat honey because it tastes like molasses)

1 egg

1 cup solid pack pumpkin

1 cup chopped toasted walnuts (I used almonds because that's all I had on hand, walnuts would be better)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare 1 regular muffin tin, either grease or paper cups.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Set aside. 

Beat butter with electric mixer, add honey, egg and pumpkin. Gradually add flour mixture to butter/honey mixture, fold in until just blended, stir in walnuts at the last second. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin, bake for 25 to 30 minutes (I think mine took only 20 minutes). Test for doneness by inserting a toothpick in center of a center muffin, it should come out clean. Remove muffins immediately from pan and let cool on wire rack. Don't wait too long to eat them.

Columns at the National Arboretum

Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding

Here's a great dessert from Mark Bittman: Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding. Here's the recipe and here's the video to go with it. I'm was so surprised at it's deliciousness. I didn't take any pictures, but my pudding looked just like it does in the video. It is thick and rich, sweet and spicy and chocolatey, super easy to make, and so so so good. Seriously, you should try it. And I found a place that sells silken tofu for $0.59, so this might become a frequent dessert for us. And I'll tell you that because of it's richness, it can probably serve closer to 6 people instead of 4. It took me and Lovemuffin several days to get eat our way through a batch.

Chocolate Coconut Cookies

I've started making these cookies and adding coconut. Last time I made a mistake and forgot the baking soda, and instead of being horrendous (some of you will remember the time that I forgot the flour in the brownies, not so good) they turned out very much like Oreos, but even better because they have coconut in them. The Karo syrup is in there because I cut out some butter from the original recipe and that sometimes makes cookies turn out hard, and I've read that Karo syrup is supposed to help keep reduced fat cookies chewy. So, in this recipe I think the syrup is completely optional, but I haven't tested it yet, I think if you omit it, the cookies might turn out a tiny bit crisper. I only used it because I had some on hand after all the holiday baking, but I wouldn't go out and buy some just for this. Also (more science), if you add 1 teaspoon of baking powder as in the original recipe, the cookies will spread out more, have puffy, softer edges, and can be less crisp, although I think the overall crispness of cookies is more correlated with how thin you cut the cookies and how long you bake them. Anyone up for a controlled experiment with me?

Crisp Chocolate Coconut Cookies

1 cup butter
2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp light Karo syrup (optional)
3/4 cup Hershey's special dark cocoa powder (any cocoa powder will work, but I really like this kind)
1 cup unsweetened coconut, cut into smaller pieces
2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt

Cream together butter and sugar and add the eggs and vanilla. Add the cocoa powder and coconut and the flour. It is pretty hard to get the last 1/2 cup or more of flour worked in, so go easy on your mixer. I ended up just kneading it in with my hands, trying to be fast to not melt the butter too much. Chill the dough for a few minutes in the fridge, so it won't be too sticky. Then roll it into logs about 2 inches (or bigger) in diameter, this is easiest if you do it right on sheets of plastic wrap, and freeze the logs until you are ready to use it. Cut slices from the logs about 1/3 inch wide, place slices on a greased cookie sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes, depending how crispy you like it. Scoop off and let cool on wire racks.

I also like these cookies because they photograph really well. Most of the things I make, for some reason, always seem to blend right in with every surface in my kitchen. 

Thanksgiving: Roasted Vegetables

Roasting is a good idea for autumn vegetables whether it's Thanksgiving day or not. It would be nice to have for a big Thanksgiving crowd because you can make massive quantities of it by buying normal quantities of several kinds of vegetables. This bowl of chopped vegetables lasted three people for at least four meals. Oh, and it is delicious. And its so great to have more vegetables at Thanksgiving feasts, they are so typically carb-heavy and turkey-emphatic. I don't have anything agains carbs or turkey, but I do love extra variety, and you (probably) know by now how I feel about vegetables.

vegetables, pre-roasting, so pretty!

Preheat oven to 425. Cut up you favorite autumnal vegetables into similar sized pieces. Some good vegetables to start with (and I'm sure you'll have more ideas): Brussels sprouts, carrots, summer or winter squash, onions, mushrooms and celery, and now that I think of it, cauliflower would be a good addition, too. Toss the generously with olive oil, add mashed roasted garlic (optional) and any spices you want. I just used black pepper.

Place in a single layer in a pan, sprinkle with coarse kosher salt, cover with aluminum foil and put in the oven. After 30 minutes or so, the vegetables should be making a lot of bubbly noises in the pan, and will be starting to look a little more cooked, shrinking and losing form somewhat. If that is what's going on, take off the foil and let them roast about 10-15 minutes more, turning occasionally with a spatula, you should start seeing darker edges on some vegetables, they should all be tender and shiny, and the mushrooms should be shriveling up.

I made these again tonight to eat with gnocchi. I tried steaming the less tender vegetables (carrots, Brussels sprouts and celery) to see if it would speed up the roasting time so that it could be more of a make-ahead dish, but steaming didn't cut down appreciably on the time needed for roasting.

roasted vegetables

Thanksgiving: Pies

We made lots of pies for Thanksgiving, which was fun because there weren't very many of us, just Older Brother, Lovemuffin, and me, and we shared with everyone we could, but we still had lots leftover to eat for breakfast and lunch and dinner the whole weekend. I hope you have noticed the new link I put in my sidebar, my visiting teacher has a blog devoted to desserts and it is lovely. I used two recipes from her blog, which was wonderful because she had them up before Thanksgiving, unlike me. But on a positive note, my crusts were excellent (not bragging, just a fact). I doubled my recipe, used a lower proportion of whole wheat flour, and ended up with enough for 5 single-crust pies with a little left over.

One pie was a pecan and chocolate delight that we brought to someone else's house so that we wouldn't eat the whole thing. I had about 3 bites altogether and kind of regretted sharing so much.

Pecan Chocolate Pie

The second was cranberry cream pie. I made three of these in three days so that we could share and still have plenty of our own. I had a hard time getting this one to set up as much as it is in her picture. It was pretty soupy until it was completely chilled. And you know we were eating it before it was completely chilled. This soupiness I attribute to the fact that the cranberries were frozen before I made it, so when I rinsed them off probably some water stayed frozen on them and messed up the balance of liquid to thickener. I think I will keep experimenting with this one, maybe try instant tapioca as a thickener as well as not frozen berries. And I think it would be lovely with some other fruits too, so you might see this come up again.

Cranberry and Cream Pie

The other pie I made was pumpkin and coconut, which I thought would be great after my pumpkin/coconut cake experiment. And it was mediocre. I more or less followed the recipe on the back of the Libby's canned pumpkin, but replaced the evaporated milk with coconut milk, added extra spices including cardamom, and added about 3/4 cup of shredded coconut chopped more finely in my spice grinder. The recipe looks very much like this one, but without the Trader Joe's spice blend. Maybe Trader Joe's spice blend would have improved it. Well, it was better on the second and third day, and the coconut milk is a good way to make it lactose-free in case you have one of those that you need to accommodate (hi Dad!). But the coconut flavor was not pronounced enough, and I thought the shredded coconut would be an improvement on the texture of pumpkin pie, but it wasn't. Pumpkin pie isn't my favorite in the best of times, but it was pretty disappointing to have it so unimproved.

Pumpkin Coconut Pie

Older Brother said that someone he knows was telling him about their family, who on Thanksgiving morning all get together and eat pie for breakfast and then of course the regular meal later. I think that sounds  like a great idea and I will probably implement it next year. Or maybe tomorrow. What is your favorite kind of pie for Thanksgiving? Do you have any special pie traditions?