Roasted Broccoli with Quinoa and Bulgur Wheat

Last year I went to Paris to visit a friend and I bought a box of mixed quinoa and bulgur wheat.  Don’t you love the little line in French that says, The Rice of the Incas?

Lest you think the only souvenirs I buy are edible, I also came home with some little tart pans I found at the Marche´ aux Puces or flea market.  Only three Euros for all nine!

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Still food related.  What can I say?  The roasted broccoli with quinoa and bulgur is not the most beautiful dish, but it sure is tasty.  I haven’t been able to find the mix again but this is just as delicious with only quinoa or only bulgur.  Or mix your own.

Ingredients
About 12 oz or 340g broccoli florets
1 cup or 180g quinoa and bulgur
32 oz or 1 liter vegetable stock or water with stock cubes to make same
Juice 1/2 a lemon
Sea salt flakes (I like Maldon.)
Black pepper
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons butter

Method
Preheat oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Rinse your broccoli in a bowl and drain.

Sprinkle on the sea salt and black pepper and drizzle with olive oil.  Squeeze on the lemon juice and toss the broccoli florets to coat.

Put it in a single layer in a baking pan and roast broccoli for about 10-12 minutes.

When the broccoli is roasted, let it cool and chop into smaller pieces.  It should still be quite crunchy.

Meanwhile, finely slice your garlic and set it aside.

Cook the bulgur and quinoa mix according to package instructions (about 15-20 minutes or until almost all the stock has been absorbed.)

Add the sliced garlic to the bulgur/quinoa pot.  Stir.

Add the chopped broccoli to the pot, turn off the flame and cover the pot with a lid.

Leave covered for 15-20 minutes and then pop in two tablespoons butter.  Replace the lid to melt the butter.

Stir and fluff with a fork before serving.

Enjoy!

Carrot Mascarpone Muffins with Mascarpone Filling

A philosophical question for you:  When is a muffin a muffin and not a cupcake?  I do declare that it is when you abstain from adding frosting to it.  Crumbles are acceptable.  And streusel toppings.  And even glaze, but a muffin cannot have thick icing or frosting or whatever you like to call the sweet whipped stuff made with butter and sugar.  Because then it is a cupcake.  I realize this may be pedantic of me, but there you are.  I’ll own it.

Which brings me to this week’s muffin.  My younger daughter requested a carrot muffin because our ingredient this week is mascarpone.  And nothing goes better with carrot cake than cream cheese icing.  But, she knows how I feel about icing on muffins.  (See above.)  So she suggested I add a mascarpone filling.  That girl is a genius and knows the way around her mother.  These were perfect!

Ingredients
6 oz or 170g carrots
1 1/2 cups or 190g flour
3/4 cup or 170g sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt + pinch for filling
8 oz or 226g mascarpone (Divided – half for muffins, half for filling)
1/2 cup or 120ml canola oil
1 egg
1/4 cup or about 30g powdered sugar (for filling)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
Peel your carrots and cut them into short lengths.  Boil until tender.  Drain and mash with a potato masher until fairly smooth.  Set aside to cool.

Preheat your oven to 375°f or 190°C and prepare a 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it or lining the pan with muffin cups.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

In a small bowl, combine the egg, oil, cooled carrots and half of the mascarpone.  Mix thoroughly.  You will have to mash the mascarpone to get it mixed in.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just mixed.

Divide the thick batter between the muffin cups in your prepared pan.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Remove the muffins from the pan and cool completely on a rack.

Meanwhile, mix the other half of the mascarpone with the powdered sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt.  Refrigerate the filling until the muffins are completely cool.

When your muffins are cool, use a sharp knife to cut a circle out of the middle of the muffin.

Lift the core out of the muffin and fill with a small spoonful of the sweetened mascarpone.

Cut the bottom off of the little muffin plug you removed and stuff the top in back on top of the filling.  Eat the pieces you cut off.  Baker’s privilege.  Remark to yourself that those are some fine bits of carrot mascarpone muffin.

Enjoy!  If you are really feeling the need for carrot cake with cream cheese icing, head over here.

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street, a culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week.  Drop Anuradha a quick line to join her on this journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.  Make sure to go and check out what my fellow bloggers have come up with this week!

Plus learn all you ever need to know about muffins, right here at Muffin 101.

Fennel Potato Mash

My love affair with fennel continues!  Sometimes a new recipe occurs to me because I lack the ingredients for what I wanted to make.  Sometimes it’s because I am feeling lazy and one dish that provides both the starch and vegetable for our meal appeals.  And other times, inspiration strikes when a search through the vegetable bin in my refrigerator turns up an ingredient I had forgotten I’d bought.  This particular dish resulted from all three.  An occurrence I liken to the confluence of the stars.  Because the resultant dish was delicious and fresh.  I hope you like it too.

Ingredients
About 10oz or 285g potatoes
2 medium bulbs fennel
2 generous tablespoons butter (or more, to taste)
1 3/4 oz or 50g freshly grated Parmesan or other hard cheese
Sea salt
Black pepper
Trim the tough green stalks off of the fennel bulbs.  Discard the tough stalks and mince the fronds.  Set aside.

Cut the hard root end off of the bulbs and slice them vertically.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters.   I missed taking a photo of this step but I think you can handle it.

Put the potatoes and the sliced fennel into a pot of water with a teaspoon of salt and heat to boiling on the stove.   Cook until the fennel and potatoes are both fork tender.

Remove from the heat and drain off the water.  With a potato masher, mash the potatoes and fennel until they are as smooth as you normally like your mashed potatoes, adding in the butter and salt and pepper to taste.

Spoon it all into a serving dish.   Mix the Parmesan with the minced fennel fronds and scatter the mixture on top of the mashed potatoes and fennel.

Isn’t that pretty?  And it tastes good too!

Enjoy!