UGH! SO! I must first start of this post with an "in memory" to my iPhone4. It shattered AND it had all of my delicious pictures on it. Some of these pictures I did not back-up on my computer because sometimes I can be a REAL dunce. So, to the late iPhone4, I will miss you. To the new iPhone4: 1. Thank you for being free.
Unfortunately, I made some awesome food and cupcakes that I wanted to post about, but the pictures were on my old phone. I will just have to make them again, but it is such a shame because I made the cutest sprinkle cupcakes that looked like bunnies and Easter eggs and some delicious artichoke risotto.
BUT DON'T WORRY! I made some good food this week too and managed to capture some pictures!
Carrot Cupcakes
I love carrot cupcakes, mainly because they are horrible for you, but sound healthy because there is a vegetable in them. I love deception. But I also love them because they are super delicious. I got the recipe for the cake from Ina Garten via foodnetwork.com because I saw her make some simple carrot cupcakes and I have never made them before so I didn't want to mess it up. She made 24 cupcakes, but the recipe I have below is for 12 cupcakes because chances are I'm going to eat these cupcakes by myself and the beached whale look is so last season.
CUPCAKES
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
3/4 cups chopped walnuts
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Beat together the sugar and vegetable oil and then add one egg at a time. Add the cinnamon, then flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the vanilla extract. Stir in the carrots and the walnuts. If you wanted to add raisins (I wanted to, but I realized that I didn't have any at last minute), then add the raisins at this stage and stir in. You should add equal amounts of raisins and walnuts. Bake the cupcakes for about 18-20 minutes, depending on your oven. I always put my cupcakes in for 10 minutes, and then check them every 3 minutes after that because cupcakes overcook very easily. They should look like this and when you insert a knife or toothpick, it will come out clean:
To top off these cupcakes, I made a cream cheese frosting from my own recipe.
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
2 8 oz. package of cream cheese
1 stick butter (salted)
2-2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoons vanilla
I always make my cream cheese frosting by just tasting it as I go. It's important that your cream cheese and butter are at room temperature and very soft. If they aren't soft then the frosting will be too dense. Beat the cream cheese and butter until they are well blended. Add the powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time and mix at low speed (for your own safety because powdered sugars gets everywhere). Add the vanilla in at the end and top your cupcakes! I love those little carrots that are on the top of carrot cupcakes when you buy them at bakeries so I made them too. My sister always makes the colors for my frosting because it is the one thing in which she is better at compared to me. :-P My cupcakes turned out sooooooo cute!
After making these cupcakes, I was hungry for real food. My mom wanted me to make falafels for a while and I decided to make them for her finally. The first step that you want to do is soak your dried chickpeas overnight to make them soft. I only wanted to make the falafel balls from scratch because I already had tzatziki sauce from Trader Joe's that I wanted to eat with them.
Falafel Balls
1 cup dried chickpeas
1 large onion, chopped
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon dried cilantro
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
4 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon baking powder
8 tablespoons flour (approximately)
Vegetable oil, for frying
I don't know how anyone can make this recipe without a food processor, so I am going to assume that you have one unless your knife and mashing skills are equal to those of a ninja. Put the chickpeas and onion into the food processor and press the "on" button. It's a little tricky.. Then throw in the garlic, parsley, cilantro, salt and red pepper flakes. Pulse in the baking powder and the flour. You may need more than 8 tablespoons, but that's how much I had to use. The mixture will look something like this:
Heat up the vegetable oil. Test the oil by dropping a little piece of the batter into the oil. If it sizzles, then the oil is hot enough. I used an ice cream scoop to measure my falafel balls and then dropped it into the hot oil. I didn't want to deep fry them so I half-deep fried them. You'll need to flip them half-way if you do this method. Mine looked like this half-way:
When you are done, put them on a plate with paper towels on it to soak up the excess oil and salt IMMEDIATELY. Otherwise the salt won't really stick to the balls. I wonder how many more times I can say balls and still find it funny.. ANYWHO, my balls looked like this:
I wanted to eat these in a wrap form. But you can just put these in a pita and add some toppings. I used tzatziki sauce and some pepper/onion medley that I got from an Indian restaurant.
The falafel wrap was pretty good, but I kind of think it tasted more like a hush puppy.
This Sunday is Mother's Day and I promised my mom I would bake a cake for her so let's see how that turns out!!
Stacey
