I thought perhaps we’d be having more people come to dinner tonight than actually did and I started cooking with this in mind. I started to make a Pear Upside-Down Cake at 3:30, pulled it out of the oven at 5 and stuck the Baked Pasta Casserole into the still hot oven to get oozy and toasty as these cheesy things are wont to do. Alas it was only the three of us and I’m glad one of my favorite things just happens to be leftovers.

Ok, so this is really REALLY not my picture. I horked it from 101 cookbooks where I got the recipe. When I cook, I usually do it for dinner when the light is not so good and rather yellow. This happened with the pasta. I love this dish and I wanted to do it some justice.

I was intrigued by this cake recipe because it wanted buttermilk as well as freshly ginger, two things I definitely don’t dabble in every day. Or at all. I was totally unprepared for how beautiful fresh ginger smells. It has a clean, sweet smell that gets worked into your fingers as you grate it and into the wood of our counter top.

It turned out to be a heavy, molassesy moist cake that was still warm after we’d finished with dinner. With a chunk of vanilla ice cream melting into the edges, soaked up by the cake, everything felt right with the world. Right now both of these are sitting happily together on their respective dessert and pasta shelves in my tummy.

Ben had left some bananas to rot so today I made banana bread to celebrate overcoming a stomach flu.

I used this recipe from allrecipes.com with some minor alterations:

Moist Yummy Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 2 bananas, mashed

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the butter mixture until smooth. Finally, fold in the yogurt and bananas. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

These are by far my favorite cookies. They’re Sparkled Ginger Cookies from Bread & Honey. I think I’ve made ten batches in the last two months they’re so good!

I’ve only made two changes to the recipe. 1.) I don’t use that large grain sugar. I don’t like all that extra crunch. 2.) I only bake them for 9 minutes. They’re perfect at nine and they harden just slightly around the edges as they cool with a nice squishy center. I definitely let them cool on the pan for a while before I move them to a rack… it makes a big difference. Between these and the pumpkin scones from the same site our winter days are much tastier!

I don’t have pictures of this one because it was a while ago when I made it, but I thought I would post a recipe to get the blag going.

This is a recipe from the Co-op’s monthly ad! It is delicious!!!

Chicken Tikka Masala

To make the marinade:
Combine 1 cup of plain yogurt with juice from half a lemon, one teaspoon of fresh chopped ginger, 2 teaspoons of black pepper and one teaspoon each of ground cumin, ground cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and salt.
Place 2 pounds of boneless chicken breast or thighs, cut into one inch chunks, into a glass or metal bowl, add the marinade and refrigerate overnight.

To make the sauce:
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 serrano pepper, diced [i substituted some jalapeños from my garden]
2 tablespoons garlic, peeled and minced
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon each of garam masala [i found this at the co-op in bulk, so I'm sure you can find it wherever you live, too!], ground cumin, paprika, and coriander
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup tomato sauce, plain
1 cup heavy cream

In a 6 quart sauce pan [or 5 quart soup pot, in my case], heat 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil and saute the onions until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, serrano pepper, garam masala, cumin, and coriander and saute 3 minutes more. Add the tomato paste and simmer 3 minutes. Add the tomato sauce and heavy cream and simmer 15 minutes.
While the sauce simmers, in a heavy skillet over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and saute the marinated chicken, stirring often. Add the cooked chicken pieces to the warm sauce and mix well. Serve over basmati rice.

Here’s a picture of how it COULD look:

this is not my picture

The first baking post. A while ago the Hanzipan team got together for a weekend of mad cookery. We just so happened to make some Lemon Poppy Seed Butterfly Cupcakes from the book Cupcakes! They took zest from four lemons but it was ohhh so worth it!

Starzipan modeling the tasty tasty cupcakes. They were gone well before noon the next day.

And then Star had the idea to make some mozzarella cheese. She’d gotten a kit a while ago and hadn’t used it yet. Can you think of a better time to make cheese than that one? No, I didn’t think so. Anywho, I know these pictures look familiar but I really wanted to document the occasion properly on this wee blog!

Blog is live! Blog is go!

XD

P.S. These are White Christmas Cupcakes from the book Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans. I gave them to my relatives, tucked inside mugs. Get it? Cakes in cups? Cupcakes?

The cakes are a light, fluff pure white cake(though mine got a bit browned on top) with a white chocolate cream cheese frosting and shavings of white chocolate on top. And of course a dusting of powdered sugar.

I guess you’ve got to start somewhere, right? This is the first post of Cooking With Hanzipan! Hanzipan is (more or less) two girlies who like to cook, so here’s a blog dedicated to such delightful pursuits.

Starzipan, this is a test post. I wanted to figure out how to insert pictures, etc. The help menu saved my life! I’ve never done a wordpress blog, so I think we’ll have to do some trial and error. It’ll be MUCH easier to mess around with than blogger though. Let me know if you want to change your name or password or anything that you can’t. I’m still trying to figure out the managing options for this.