new recipes

While I'm not in classes, it's my goal to try 3-4 new recipes a week. I tend to venture out in the dessert department but not as much with savory foods, so, this week excluded, I hope to remedy that. I've already been bookmarking a lot of recipes for next week, so I hope to share something really new and amazing next Saturday! But for now, here's what I've got.

First of all, lemony zucchini pizza from Smitten Kitchen. The recipe called for goat cheese to be spread on the crust, but rather than do that, I made a chickpea spread. In truth it was hardly altered from my normal hummus recipe, other than I cut way way back on the cumin (only a dash this time) and I used about three times as much lemon juice as usual to accommodate the recipe. The results were amazing! I never make pizza without tomato sauce, but I would totally make this again.

I almost feel that this is cheating, but I altered my tried and true chocolate chip cookie recipe by using sliced up baking square chocolate instead of chips and throwing in a handful of walnuts and hazelnuts. Next week I'll try to really use all new recipes, but let me just say this was a delicious addition, and some bites taste like Nutella! Mmm.

And I finally got around to trying this chocolate beet cake in honor of Alex's birthday (my only substitution was flax + water for the eggs). I will say that no one would have guessed the secret ingredient if I had not told them, but I felt I could taste them since I knew they were in there, and that weirded me out just a little. The recipe's baking time is also WAY off (egg sub. could account for a few minutes, but not as much as it was), which probably explains my reluctance to say I was pleased with this cake, because the recipe called for 30 minutes, which I seriously doubted...but it became a big headache and even at 1 hour and 15 minutes (uh, yeah) with the bamboo skewer coming out cleaned, seemed a little too gooey in the middle for me. I still think that THIS is the best chocolate cake I have ever made, and I would recommend that recipe in a heartbeat (I leave out the food coloring and just make a velvet cake, minus the red!).