Coconut Burfi

I'm not sure if this is actually burfi. My dad always makes burfi with milk, but I've seen many recipes that don't contain milk, or only a little bit. I stuck with what I knew and went for milk. So, although I call this coconut burfi, it seems suspiciously like paal kova with coconut. :-P

Start again with 10.5 metric cups of milk. It's an odd number because I use two pouches of milk in a 4L bag. Yes, milk here comes in 1L and 2L cartons or 4L plastic bags. I don't think this is odd, but my US relatives do. Anyway, start with the milk and simmer it down.

Meanwhile, I took two cups of sweetened shredded coconut and pulsed it in my food processor a few times, to make it finer.

I didn't want the burfi as dry as the paal kova, so after 90 minutes, I added the sugar (2/3 cup) and continued to stir for about 30 more minutes. I was worried about it being moist enough for the coconut, so I erred on the side of a little bit wetter. Then I added the coconut and two tablespoons of butter.

Spread it onto a glass dish and refrigerate until firm.

Turned out to be a bit too wet... closer to halwa than burfi. Oh well, it tasted good and I suppose that's what matters.

Bacon-wrapped Eggplant Boats

I got this idea from Dave at Year on the Grill. His original idea was to wrap potato pieces in bacon and then fill them with goat cheese. I did a variation on that in my guest post for him. Instead of regular potatoes (which I'm not fond of), I used sweet potatoes. For the filling, I made a red curry flavored ricotta cheese filling. You can check out the details in the post.

The great thing about Dave's recipe is that it's very versatile. There's a near infinite variety of cheese fillings you can use. I started thinking, though, if there's anything else that can substitute for a potato. I looked at the eggplant in my fridge and thought, yes that should work nicely!

First, I cut up the eggplant, then popped the pieces in the oven to soften the insides (makes it easier to scoop out).

The filling is... you guessed it! Ricotta cheese, though no red curry this time. There's still lots of good stuff in the filling, including sauteed garlic, green onions, bacon, and shredded parmesan.

Here are the boats all wrapped up and ready to be returned to the oven!

The end result. These were FANTASTIC. I would definitely make this again! In fact, I like these better than the sweet potato boats, as I am crazy about eggplant!

And this is long overdue... thank you to everyone who passed awards to me. Jhonny Walker passed to me a cocktail award... but the image doesn't load up on her blog, so I can't post it here. Sorry, Jhonny! I'm not sure if it's my browser that is causing the problem.

Thank you very much to Rebecca for this friendship award.

I'm giving this to my friends, the two Abbys: Abby Quijano at Abby's in Trouble Again and Abby at Breathing Space.

From Abby Quijano, I received the Gorgeous Blogger Award. Yea, I always wanted to be gorgeous! :-)

I would like to give this award to Heather at Sherry, Trifle, and Cats and Anastacia at My Make-up Mania.

This sunshine award I received from Abby at Breathing Space. Thank you, my dear!

I want to pass this to Jhonny Walker at Food... Thought For!, Erica at My Colombian Recipes, and Sireesha at Mom's Recipies.

Thank you to Heather for the Kreativ Blog award.

I'm supposed to list 7 things about myself and pass this on to 7 other bloggers, but I'm going to break the rules a bit, as this post is getting long. I'm giving this award to Juliana at Simple Recipes and Bridgett at La Bella Cook.

Thank you everyone! :-)

Paal Kova

Thank you to Country Wings in Phoenix, Isabelle, San!!!, and Carla and Michael for following my blog!

It's been a while since I've posted. My meals haven't been very exciting lately, nor have I done any baking or the like. Also, I had a freelance project (yea, work!), and in general I've been spending less time on the computer. Well, I got a kick in the pants from Pearlyn at A Full-Time Housefly. So here I am with an Indian dessert.

On a recent trip to Toronto, I stopped by an Indian dessert store. After I explained to the lady that I can't eat wheat, she put together an assortment of wheat-free milk desserts for me. As you can see, I only got one of the dark brown square... and that turned out to be my favorite! After searching the net for about 15 minutes, I think I figured out what it was - paal kova.

Seems there are a couple of ways it can be made. One is by combining butter, milk powder, and condensed milk. The other way is by boiling down milk, then adding sugar and butter. I decided to try the latter first. Be forewarned that this takes a good 2.5 hours of near-constant attention to make.

I started with about 10.5 metric cups of whole milk. I brought this to a boil, then turned the heat down to medium and let it simmer. You can't go too far, as the milk needs to be stirred every few minutes so it doesn't stick to the bottom or boil over. After one hour, this much milk was left.

After two hours, this is what it looked like. You can see it got chunky. At this point, I added a generous 1 cup of sugar. Bring to a boil and stir constantly for the next 30-35 minutes. Yes, constantly. That is why there are no pictures from here until the finished product. I could not stop stirring lest the milk burn.

So... 2.5 liters of milk yielded this much dessert. At the end, I stirred in 2 tablespoons of butter, and then spread it into a glass dish to refrigerate.

Was it worth the effort? Definitely! It isn't as brown as the store one, but I think it's because I didn't put that much sugar. The store one was incredibly sweet... in fact, sweeter than I would prefer.

The Ferry Market Place, San Francisco

Thank you to Sonia, Reanaclaire, Nazarina A, Tangled Noodle, Cheryl, Kelly, Nicole M., and amrita hapuarachchi for following my blog!

I also would like to thank Rebecca, Abby Quijano, Heather, Jhonny Walker, and Abby for some lovely awards that they have passed onto me. I will cover them in my next post.

Today, I am honoured to be presenting a guest post by my friend, Esme! I love her blog, Chocolate & Croissants. Like me, she is a lawyer, though we practice some thousands of miles apart. But, as if to prove that it's a small world after all, we both articled at the same firm, although some 15 years apart! How freaky is that??

Esme recently visited San Francisco and here is her post about the Ferry Market Place.

Hello I am Esme from Chocolate & Croissants. I am honoured to have been invited by Palidor to write a guest post. I am originally from Canada and now live in Southern California-yes it is sunny and about 70 degrees today. One of my favorite places to visit is San Francisco. Each time I go, I venture over to the Ferry Market Building. Today I will share my finds with you. I hope you enjoy the visit.

For anyone that loves food, or just eating the Ferry Market Place is must visit spot in San Francisco. The building is home to a potpourri of restaurants, markets, bookstore, kitchen gadgets and little boutiques specializing in mushrooms, cheeses, cavier, breads and more.

Saturday mornings are my favorite time to visit when the market is bustling with farmers selling their produce. It really does not make a difference what time of the year you visit. The produce sold is always in season. Who can resist the colors of these vegetables?

All the vendors are happy to let you sample their produce. You could easily plan your meal based on the colors of the produce. These fruit remind me of fall leaves changing colors as the days cool off.

You could easily plan an entire meal focusing on one ingredient. Think of all the different possibilities for the recipes you could create with these mushrooms.

Of course, you want to have a centerpiece for your table. One could easily use the pumpkin or some colored corn for an autumn theme.

If you are more traditional and like flowers, there are plenty of fresh flowers to be found.

Should you want to sit down and enjoy a prepared meal, your possibilities are endless. You can visit the Chinese tea shop and snack on dumplings, soup and other delicacies. You will be amazed by the wide assortment of teas. Their beautiful collection of pots make a wonderful gift.

Of course you will want to enjoy some dessert after all this wandering around. What should you choose-some cannoli from the Italian shop?

Or maybe some chocolate.

Should you find yourself with a beautifully sunny day. Take your food like we did and find a bench outside. This sandwich was incredible. Whatever you choose, you have made a good choice. Each week the produce is varied according to the season. It would take me weeks before I could taste everything the Ferry Market Building has to offer.

Thank you so much, Esme! I really wish I could visit the Market, but until then I'll live vicariously through your pictures.

Chinese Curry Beef

Thank you to my newest followers Velva, Pete, and Petite Nyonya!

Catherine at the The Unconfidential Cook asked me an interesting question, which is whether I've lost any weight since going gluten-free. Happily, no. Yes, I said happily because I neither need nor want to lose weight. It's already hard to find clothes as often times even the smallest sizes are too big. ... ... I'm not engendering any sympathy, am I?

Joking aside, I did drop a few pounds over the summer, and I think consuming wheat may have contributed to that. Meaning, I think wheat prevented my body from absorbing enough nutrients and calories from food. But don't anybody with a food allergy even think of consuming the allergen as a means of weight loss!! It's not only stupid, but potentially fatal.

Earlier in the week, I made this wonderful beef curry. I tried to create the flavors of a Chinese curry powder which my mom brought back from Hong Kong. It's not quite like that curry powder, but it does taste very similar to a canned version of Singapore curry that I used to buy.

I added a couple of yams to the curry. Normally curries have potatoes, but potatoes just aren't my thing. This is the first time that I've curried yams, and I was quite pleased. The slight sweetness matched the spicy curry well.

This dish represents both sides of my heritage, as the flavor of the curry is Chinese, but the cooking method is Indian.

Chinese Curry Beef

Marinade

• 1.5 pounds beef, cut into 1-inch cubes (I used blade roast)
• 1/3 cup Balkan style yogurt
• 1 teaspoon garam masala

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients so the beef is evenly coated with the yogurt and garam masala. Cover and refrigerate 6-8 hours.

Spice powder

• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 2 star anise
• 6 whole cloves
• about 20 black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

In a spice grinder, grind the first 5 spices to a fine powder. Combine with the turmeric and cinnamon and set aside.

• 1 medium onion, quartered
• 2-inch piece of ginger
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 red hot cubanelle pepper, diced
• 1/3 cup oil
• 2 yams, peeled and cut into chunks
• salt to taste
• 1 can (400mL) thin coconut milk
• 1 cup of water
  

In a food processor, blend the onion, ginger, garlic, and hot pepper to a smooth paste.

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion paste and fry, stirring frequently, until it turns a rich brown color, about 15 minutes. You may need to turn the heat down to prevent the paste from burning.

Add the beef and all the yogurt marinade. Fry the beef, stirring frequently, until about 1/3 of the liquid has evaporated.

Add the yams to the pot, and continue to fry, stirring frequently, until almost all of the liquid has evaporated. Season with salt.

Pour in the coconut milk and enough water to cover the beef and yams (I used about 1 cup). Cover and bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to low and simmer until the beef and potatoes are tender, about 45 minutes. Remember to stir the curry every few minutes.

I am also thrilled to be the recipient of some awards! First, I would like to thank my friend, Nat at Girls are Made of, for this lovely friendship award.

I would like to pass this friendship award to my two friends:

1. Wandering Coyote
2. Esme
   

A big thank you to Sireesha at Mom's Recipies, for passing on the following awards to me:

I'm passing this award to:

1. Angel in the Kitchen
2. Talita
   
3. Tangled Noodle
   

This award I would like to present to:

1. Jo
2. Nat
3. Pari

I'm presenting this presentation award to:

1. Nithya
2. SE(Denufood)
3. Kim
   

I'd like to give this award to:

1. Abhi
2. Helene
3. Rebecca

I'm passing this award to:

1. PigPig
2. Natashya
3. Vrinda

This award also comes with a meme, but since this post is already too long, I am skipping it. If you would like to do the meme, please visit Sireesha's post.

Cinnamon Coffee Cake

Thank you to Karen, Blair, Ciararad, SE(Denufood), Erica, monicajane, and a_breen87 for following my blog!

It's been more than 6 weeks since I've gone gluten-free. In that time, I've done very little baking. It hasn't been as hard as I thought it would. The only time it feels challenging is when I look at all your food blogs and see the wonderful baked goods that you make. Which is actually everyday. So maybe it's not been so easy after all. :-P

Then I found Chaya's blog. She does a lot of gluten-free baking, using a gluten-free substitute for flour which she shared with me. It consists of rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca starch.

I tried this coffee cake recipe, minus the blueberries and streusel topping. I halved the recipe, with the exception of the egg. I opted to use the entire egg to compensate for the lack of gluten. The batter looks dark because I added extra cinnamon. I did a little subbing of my own on the flour alternative. I forgot to pick up potato starch yesterday, so I subbed in cornstarch.

After the ingredients were mixed together, I gave the batter a taste. It tasted pretty good, although the texture was a bit grainy. So far so good! It baked up nice and smelled wonderful coming out of the oven, and you can see that it has a very nice crumb. But the big question is: how does it taste?

Pretty freaking good. Actually, I'm amazed at how good it tastes. The texture is nice, but still a little grainy, and I wonder if it might be from the cornstarch. So, next time - because there will be a next time - I'll make sure to use potato starch.