Peach Crazy

(This is the first in a series of peach recipes on Chai + Cake.)

You know when you have a big tub of ice cream in the freezer and, when there's just a tiny bit left, suddenly nobody wants to eat it anymore? And then it's just sitting there for days...

So today I decided to do some good and make some space in the freezer by using that ice cream to treat myself to a thick fruity milkshake. It wasn't exactly low-calorie but it wasn't all bad either; I did get 2 servings of fruit out of the often elusive 5-a-Day.

Blend together 1 peach, 1 banana, ½ cup of milk and 2 scoops ice cream (I used a scoop each of mango and homemade peach*), pour into a glass and enjoy!

Of course you could use skimmed milk and low-fat yogurt instead of the ice cream for a much healthier smoothie.

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*I'll be posting the ice cream recipe in a few days.

Birthday Presents & Chocolate Chip Walnut Loaf

It was my birthday a few weeks ago and I got THE BEST PRESENT EVER!

I've wanted a stand mixer for a long time and I finally got one this year! I left it in the box for maybe a week because it was all new and shiny and I didn't want it to get spoiled. That didn't last long though. 

There are so many things I want make in it but for the first run I wanted to keep it simple.You cant go wrong with a loaf cake. 

I was so excited when I started, I literally stood there, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, watching the K-beater cream the butter and sugar. When I got over that, I set about preparing the rest of the ingredients because my hands were free to do other stuff!

Before now, I have been using this hand beater for almost exactly 11 years... 

I will absolutely not be discarding it though, it still works perfectly and it'll stay tucked in its corner in the cabinet for when it's needed.

I also got the perfect cookbook, full of chocolate recipes...

I wanted to make something out of my new cookbook in my new Kenwood mixer, so I picked out this quick and simple loaf cake recipe...

Chocolate and walnuts are a classic combination and they make this plain cake so much better. I've never thought of doing it this way, I always think of putting walnuts in brownies or in chocolate cake. I'm so glad I came across this recipe though. It's my new favourite (I'll post the old favourite soon too), it's so easy and quick to whip up and the chocolate and nuts add a richness and flavour that elevates it from an ordinary tea-time cake. I love it when something so simple tastes so so good!

Chocolate Chip Walnut Loaf

adapted from 500 Best-Ever Recipes: Chocolate by Felicity Forster

Ingredients

4 oz butter 

½ cup caster sugar

2 eggs 

1⅓ all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 oz walnuts, finely chopped

3 tablespoons chocolate chips (I used semisweet)

1. Preheat the oven to 180⁰C (350⁰F).
2. Grease and flour an 8x4-inch loaf tin and line with wax paper so that the paper hangs over the long edges.
3. Add the butter and sugar to a mixing bowl and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and creamy.
4. Add the eggs, one at a time. Mix well after each addition.
5. Sift together the flour and baking powder and add this mixture, two tablespoons at a time, to the mixing bowl with the beater on low speed.
6. Add the vanilla, chopped walnuts and chocolate chips to the cake batter and stir to combine.

7. Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf tin and smooth the top.

8. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the loaf comes out clean.
9. Allow the loaf to cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes, then remove it from the tin, gently peel away the wax paper and place it on a wire rack to cool completely.

A Foodie's Vacation: Part 2

So last week we left off in San Francisco at Kara's Cupcakes. The cupcakes actually went with us as we began our drive to Los Angeles along the coastal highway (aka 1/Highway 1/California State Route 1 etc.)...

It's a long drive made longer by the frequent stops you cant help but make because the views are gorgeous. 

After an almost seven-hour drive, we stopped in a place called Santa Maria and then were on our way again the next morning. 

As we got closer to LA, we stopped for a while in Santa Barbara...

... and in Santa Monica (below, Santa Monica Pier)...

...before finally reaching Los Angeles...

In LA, I was mostly interested in going to the Farmer's Market, however, without really planning to, I found myself at the first ever Yum Festival in Ontario CA, led there by a search for the Jogasaki sushi burrito, and it was so much fun! 

The Yum Festival is a food truck festival held at the Ontario Mills outlet mall and the event benefited the McKinley Children's Centre. 

Los Angeles has a particularly vibrant food truck scene so it's a great experience and you get to sample so much amazing unique food. There were so many trucks though, about 50 according to the website, so it's impossible to try everything. 

Here are some photos of a few of the trucks...

My priority was still the sushi burrito so that's what I got in line for first...

It was divine! It was so so good! I got the Jogasaki 4A which has spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, avocado, cucumber, BBQ eel and sushi rice, all wrapped up in soy paper. One of the best things I've ever eaten! Ever!

We also got a huge delicious fish sandwich (chargrilled salmon topped with garlic basil aioli and a deep-fried tomato) from Just for the Halibut with thick Dirty Chips...

You can gauge the popularity of The Grilled Cheese Truck by the length of the queue...

For dessert: a big fluffy waffle topped with English Toffee ice cream from Waffle de Liege...

The next Yum Festival is on September 29 2012. Ontario is about an hour's drive from Los Angeles but it's well worth the trip if you're in the area around that time.

Next day around lunchtime we headed to the Farmer's Market...

The Farmer's Market is a historic landmark and tourist attraction which has been around in some form or another since 1934. It's open seven days a week but we went on a summer Sunday afternoon, so I'm assuming it was busier than usual, crowded with locals and tourists alike. It's a charming and almost maze-like space. You could spend all day strolling around, browsing the stalls of fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables, meat and seafood, spices, teas, pasta, baked goods, ice cream, sweets, and of course, the restaurants. 

In terms of what to eat, there was so much to choose from. I think I walked around the market twice before finally deciding what to get...

... I settled on Seafood Gumbo (a Creole stew made of shrimp, crabmeat and okra, with bell peppers and onions, in a thickened, spicy, intensely flavourful stock), served with Creole mustard potato salad and corn bread, from The Gumbo Pot...

... and we also got some really good fish curry and mee goreng from Singapore's Banana Leaf...

Towards the end of our trip we traveled to Chicago, which was mostly about meeting old friends (my parents' medical college friends rather) and getting some shopping done. There was an afternoon of sight-seeing but not much local 'food tourism'...

One morning we loaded up on an IHOP breakfast before heading out for a day of retail therapy...

... CINN-A-STACK® pancakes (My sister said I wouldn't be able to finish them but I believe I proved her wrong)...

... and the stages of consumption of New York Cheesecake pancakes (Unlike me, my sister did need help, as you can see in the third picture another fork and knife have appeared on the plate)...

Our flight back to Islamabad was via New York and the day I was leaving I managed to squeeze in lunch with my friend Maria, who I used to work with. She suggested an Indian-Latin fusion restaurant Vermilion on Lexington Ave and I'm so glad she picked this place. I ordered the Caldeirada de Peixe, a Brazilian seafood stew served with tomato rice, and it was amazing, with a thick, rich, spicy, intense broth packed with strong flavours. It was a big serving though and I was really upset I couldn't finish it...

This is kinda random, but on the way to the Chicago O' Hare airport I stopped at this coffee place, Caribou Coffee. I hadn't had my morning tea and I needed to preempt a withdrawal headache. Anyway, I really loved their cups and their slogan...

"Life is short.

Stay awake for it."

A Foodie's Vacation: Part 1

It's taken me a while to sort through all the pictures, all 2,489 of them, from my trip to America a few months ago but I've finally gotten around to it.

2,489! And that's excluding cell phone pictures from four devices! Remember when there were no digital cameras and you had to be economical with photography because you only had so much film?

Anyway, it's high time I shared them here, before I put it off too long and my post starts with, "Hey guys! Here are some photos of when I went to America two years ago..."

I sifted through them to separate all the food-related pictures and I realized they don't give an accurate picture of all that I ate and sampled.

I ate much more!

There was so much to do. Sight-seeing, meeting family and friends, travelling from one state to another, one city to another. And we had a few days in each city so I had to squeeze in my 'food tourism' where I could, when I could.

My first stop was Magnolia Bakery. I've been here before but you kind of have to go to Magnolia if you can when in New York. 

I don't have a lot of pictures of the bakery shown above (1240 6^th Ave) because we were distracted by Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig filming "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" across the road...

... as close a close-up as we could get from where the police and the production assistants had us standing...

... but here are some photos from Magnolia Bakery at Grand Central Terminal...

Next up was Crumbs Bake Shop in Times Square. This wasn't the same day as Magnolia, just so you know. Not that you should be surprised if I had eaten cupcakes twice in one day, but I didn't.

It was so hard to choose what to get...

... but we finally decided on a Milkshake cupcake and a Carrot cupcake. The Crumbs cupcakes are huge!

After New York, we headed to Florida for a few days. I don't have many pictures from the Florida Keys but we did have some delicious Key Lime Pie there...

Next, it was on to Texas for a good 10 days to visit family. We stayed with my aunt in Irving and below are some pictures from our trip to the Fort Worth Stockyards. I love going there, it's so 'Old West'! It's a great place to visit if you're in or around the Dallas/ Fort Worth area. I've been to the Stockyards before but this time we got to see the Texas Longhorns cattle drive (top photo) too...

I hadn't baked in days and I needed to get  back to it, so I baked a lot while there, with the help of my cousins: some not-so-perfect but delicious brownies (left), coffee cupcakes (top right) and mini strawberry cheesecake cupcakes (bottom right).

A few days later we threw my sister a surprise birthday party and I took over cake-baking duties, while my cousin Manall cooked us an amazing dinner of scallops and spaghetti with bruschetta.

My cousin Hebah helped me bake two vanilla layer cakes, which we filled with macerated strawberries and covered in cream cheese frosting (We were still in a strawberry kinda mood).

I can take no credit for how pretty the table looks, that was all my cousins...

After Texas, we flew to California. I'd never been before and I really loved it, especially San Francisco. The city has such character and it's a really unique interesting place...

At the Fisherman's Wharf we had some amazing clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl...

... and nearby is Ghirardelli Square which used to house a chocolate factory but when the chocolate manufacturing was moved to a different location in the 1960s the square was restored as a retail and dining complex... 

The chocolate shop and cafe pictured above has some of the old factory equipment (below) on display...

... and lots of Ghirardelli goodies to buy. It's kind of hard to walk out of there empty-handed...

... and you really shouldn't leave without sampling an ice-cream sundae...

There's a Kara's Cupcakes outlet in Ghirardelli Square and I think these were the best cupcakes I ate during my trip. I bought a Key Lime Pie cupcake and an Organic Strawberry Cream cupcake. They were perfectly sized (not too big, not too small), were moist and light, and each had a delicious filling in the centre... 

I thought I could cover the entire trip in one post but that would have been way too long so I decided it was better to make two posts of it.

In part two, I'll share photos from the Yum Festival in Ontario and the Farmer's Market in Los Angeles, as well as a few from Chicago.

Stay tuned!