Daring Cooks September 2011: Herbed Consomme with Spicy Tomato Brioche

The September 2011 Challenge to the Daring Cooks was to create a delicious consomme and serve it up with some brioche!! Loved it. I make soup really often at home and there is always a batch of vegetable based vegetarian soup stock in my refrigerator!!

Banana Walnut Cake (Eggless)

Back to some baking!! The banana-walnut combination is what I always describe as sterling for cakes. The sweetness of the banana is set off perfectly by the oily nuttiness of the walnut. Needless to say, Banana-Walnut Cake ranks as one of the favourites in our home. I developed this recipe for an eggless cake many years ago when I wanted to stop adding eggs to my bakes. Though I still bake with egg whites, I like to avoid them wherever I can. This cake comes out so soft, spongy, and moist, you will never know that it was made without eggs!!

Winter Root Vegetable Soup

This is one of my favourite soups. I make some variation of it every winter when root vegetables are abundant and easily available!! The combination of parsnips, carrots, and turnips with celery turn out an astonishingly hearty and tasty soup. If you have home made vegetable stock, use that. If not, try an organic, low/no sodium variety for the most natural taste!!

Daring Cooks Challenge: Spicy Green Chile, Two Bean, and Zucchini Enchilada Bake

Spicy Enchiladas are always a welcome treat and home made ones do taste the best!! Barbara and Bunnee gave us a fabulous May 2010 Daring Cooks Challenge. My version of this recipe included the home made corn tortillas, a green chile sauce, two bean and zucchini filling mix, and grated basil-tomato cheese! For the Green Chile Sauce, I broiled the chiles and the tomatillos in the oven but added no onions or garlic in it. For the filling, I made a vegetarian mix of two beans, zucchini, tomato, and fresh corn, with loads of onion and garlic. The tortillas were easy to make and came out very soft and delicious. I did not fry before baking. I made the bake more like a baked lasagna dish, lining the baking pan with the tortillas rather than making individual stacks. It was easy to cut through the bake for individual sized portions. This is a great recipe and we really enjoyed it. I will definitely make this dish again!!

Tuscan Ribollita Or a Hearty Reboiled Soup from the Simple Kitchens of Tuscany

A staple of the simple Tuscan Kitchen is soup. And amongst soups, one of the most popular is a soup called the Ribollita. A peasant soup, the term literally means reboiled. With a tangy tomato base, this soup calls for any leftover vegetables lying in the pantry and a generous spoonful of basil pesto sauce. For the uninitiated, think Minestrone without pasta and with loads of beans. This was one of the soups that I made for supper last week. I served it with hunks of Kalamata and Olive Focaccia!!

Fresh and Creamy Cauliflower Soup

This is a deliciously creamy soup is a medley of cauliflower, carrots, and celery. Perfect for a chilly and rather rainy spring evening here in the North. Serve with a seasoned garlic and parsley bread for a nice and hearty meal.

Vegetable & Black Bean Soup

There is a lovely bakery in our neighbourhood. It specializes in bagels, whole grain breads, and an amazing array of Danish pastries! They also do soup and sandwich lunches and the best part of this is that they actually have 2-3 completely vegetarian soups on the menu each day. And by vegetarian I mean that even their basic soup stock is a vegetable stock!!

Masaman Curry on White Rice

Thai cuisine is one of my favourites. In fact, we have a world class Thai restaurant in the city here that we frequent and love - largely because they offer so much choice in vegetarian food. Of course, I do make Thai food at home too, experimenting with various spices and sauces. My favourites are green curry, yellow curry, sticky rice, pad Thai, light summer rolls, dumplings, bananas in coconut cream, and of course the tasteful Thai chili sauce!!

A Swiss Treat: Green Pea and Saffron Risotto

This one's for Zorra to help her feel at home and celebrate 'Swiss National Day'. After much deliberation, I decided to go with a Risotto and a Gratin. Both turned out to be really easy to make and were bursting with flavour!!!!

Spinach & Mushroom Rotini

Spinach and mushroom make for a wonderful combination. And with whole grain rotini, the taste is almost heavenly. This is one of my favourite recipes, one I created on one of those long winter evenings when I had a craving for a hearty yet healthy meal!! I am sharing this with all pasta lovers via Presto Pasta Night, hosted by the lovely Ruth.