Homemade lara bars
So far I’ve been doing pretty well on my elimination diet, except for my one “cheat” with a bit of oatmeal. Also, I forgot that lemon is citrus and I ate it several times. It’s so hard to cut out lemon that I’ve decided to leave it in. Could anyone really be allergic to lemons? I haven’t actually noticed any improvements in my allergies yet, but it’s only been a week and a half, so maybe it just takes more time.
The hardest part for me so far has been the nightly desire for a sweet snack of some sort. I said I was going to try to cut out added sugars as much as possible, and instead I’ve been eating Lara-type dried fruit and nut bars as a post-dinner dessert. They’re very tasty but a little bit too big for a dessert before bed. Also, they’re quite expensive (about 2 euros each). So I decided to try making my own. There are a million recipes online and I picked two to try: gingerbread bars and coconut cranberry bars. Read the rest of this entry »
Better than S’mores
When Derek went to Cambridge last month, I asked him to bring back some H
obnob’s, the delicious oaty, not too sweet British “biscuits.” He couldn’t find Hobnob’s but brought back a similar oaty biscuit made by Mark and Spencer. These oat cookies have a certain similarity to graham crackers: a crumbly, almost flaky texture, with just a touch of sweetness. I love the graham cracker and chocolate part of Smore’s, but I was never too fond of the marshmallow component. Besides, most marshmallows aren’t really vegetarian. Despite its failings, the marshmallow does fill an essential S’mores role: you need something ooey gooey to hold the biscuit and chocolate together. Instead of marshmallows, I suggest peanut butter: it’s less artificial, contains less sugar, more protein, and is much, much tastier. Smear one Hobnob biscuit with a thin layer of all-natural, salted peanut butter, and top with a square of dark chocolate. Please, use a good quality dark chocolate, not a Hershey’s milk chocolate bar; that stuff is just sugar and paraffin wax. I recommend Scharffenberger’s nibby dark chocolate. If you want the chocolate a bit soft and melted, give it a second in the microwave or a hot oven, or (my preferred, all-natural method) just leave your better than S’mores sitting in a sunny window for 10 minutes. These peanut better than s’mores are probably the simplest, tastiest, most satisfying desserts / snacks I’ve had in a long time. Plus, each one is only slightly over 150 calories (hobnob = 60, 1/2 Tbs. peanut butter = 50, one large square of dark chocolate = 50).
Rating: A-
A Craving for Baklava
I was never a huge fan of baklava, until I tried the baklava at Santorini in Chicago. I think I liked their baklava so much because they use a lot of high quality cinnamon, and I love cinnamon. Now, anyone who follow my blog knows that I am a lazy cook, too lazy to make real baklava. So when a baklava craving hit me yesterday, I whipped this very simple concoction up instead. Read the rest of this entry »
Hot chocolate: theme and variations
If you love chocolate, get cold easily, and live in Montreal (in January), then there’s nothing better than a steaming cup of hot chocolate before bed. But a word of warning: don’t buy any prepared hot cocoa mixes. Even the “upscale” sounding ones like Ghiradelli list sugar as the first ingredient. I understand that sugar is much cheaper than cocoa, but these mixes are just wrong. The “chocolate” tastes more like dirty sugar water than hot cocoa. Make your own mix to keep in the pantry, or just whip together a cup when you happen to get a hankering (or when you’ve just walked home in -10 weather). Hot cocoa seems like such a simple thing to make, and yet there are a surprising number of bad recipes out there.
Carrot Halvah
I’ve mentioned previously how much I love sesame seed halvah, and although it is bears only a hazy relationship to the middle eastern sesame dessert, I really like Indian-style carrot halwah as well. Derek adores the carrot halwa at Vatan in NYC, and we’ve tried a number of recipes without much success at replicating it. However, when I saw this recipe in my new cookbook Ajanta, I was certain it was authentic. Read the rest of this entry »
Chocolate Souffles
I love decadent chocolate desserts, so was very interested in trying this lower calorie version of chocolate souffles from Alice Medrich’s cookbook Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts. Medrich says these souffles are dark and very rich in chocolate flavor, not at all light or ethereal. She also says they’re a good dessert when you need to make it ahead of time. Read the rest of this entry »
Sesame halvah
Halvah is one of my favorite desserts. When I was a kid my uncle used to bring us Joyva halvah whenever he came to visit and I was in heaven. Later I discovered chocolate covered halvah and realized that I had just thought I was in heaven before. However, halvah is a problem for me since I can easily eat 1/2 a pack or more at a sitting and it has exactly 4.5 gazillion calories. In any case I’ve always wanted to try to make it myself but never got around to it. Read the rest of this entry »
The captious vegetarian 