I love my new Ninja!

Banana "custard" (Raw/Vegan)

All hail my new Ninja blender! And since I finally have one I got to try this recipe.

Ingredients:
3 Ripe bananas
2-3 tablespoons dairy replacement of choice (I used almond milk)

Garnish (Optional)
I had banana chips so I put one on top.

Directions:
1. Cut the bananas into small pieces and freeze for several hours
(I froze mine overnight)
2. Place frozen pieces and "milk" in the blender.
3. Pulse a few times to get it mixed and then blend, stopping
occasionally to scrap down the sides.
4. Serve! Place the extra in the freezer for later.

Note: Next time I will probably add cacao to make a "chocolate covered banana custard" or maybe strawberries.
Anything really. It's delicious just like this.  

Banana Cake w/ Nutella Frosting

I made this cake for my friend Mara's birthday, it turned out awesome!

Banana Cake:
1 1/2 cups ripe bananas, mashed
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375°
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs (one at a time) and the vanilla.
4. To that add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately then fold in the mashed banana.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan (I used a spring form) and bake in preheated oven for one hour
or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
6. Remove from oven and place directly into the freezer for 45 minutes. (ensures the cake will be moist).

Frosting:
1 26oz jar of nutella
2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened.

Directions:
1. In a large bowl mix the Nutella and butter with a hand mizer (or in a stand mixer) until light and fluffy.
If you think your frosting is too thick add some heavy whipping cream or vanilla extract,
if too thin then add some powdered sugar.

Note:
I made a lot of frosting because I cut the cake in half and put frosting in the middle. You could use the smaller jar of frosting and one stick of butter.

Decorations:
Shaved chocolate
Banana Chips
Chocolate heart (I just poured melted chocolate into a cookie cutter on parchment)

Yalanchi

I made these with my friend Chelsi not too long ago (Along with the couscous salad and kunefe) so I wanted to make them again.

•1 cup oil
•6 cups onion, chopped
•2 cups rice
•1/2 cup parsley, chopped
•1 cup water
•1 cup tomato sauce
•1 cup lemon juice
•1 tablespoon salt
•1/2 teaspoon black pepper
•Dash cayenne
•1 tablespoon dill
•1 quart grape leaves (80-100)
•1/2 teaspoon allspice, optional
•1 cup lemon juice

PREPARATION:
In a 4-quart stainless steel roasting pan, saute onions in oil until clear. Stir often to prevent burning.
Add all ingredients except parsley and bring to a boil. Stir, turn heat low and cook, covered, about 15 minutes. Add parsley and stir. Let cool.
Rice mixture should be cooked the day before and allowed to cool
Rinse grape leaves and squeeze out water. Remove stem from leaf.
Lay each leaf flat dull side up. Place 1 teaspoon rice mixture on the leaf, fold sides over filling and roll leaf up.

How to roll grape leaves

Couscous Salad

Salad:
Couscous, 1-2 10oz boxes of 5-min OR any amount/type you want
(I used two boxes of Original Near East, use whatever kind you want)
Cucumber, Chopped
Bell Pepper, Chopped
Carrot, Chopped
Tomato, Chopped
Spinach, chopped (I chiffonade mine)
Onion, chopped
Garlic, Minced
Teaspoon of fresh dill
Teaspoon parsley
Dressing (recipe follows)

Dressing:
2 tablespoons balsamic vinager
2 tablespoons olive oil
Basil
oregano
thyme
Salt/pepper/garlic powder
(I also add a squeeze of lemon to mine)

Directions:

Make the dressing:
Combine all ingredients in a blender/food processor or just mix by hand and set aside.
(depending on how much couscous you make you may need to double the recipe)

Salad:
Prepare Couscous (according to whichever couscous you pick).
Add to it the dressing and the vegetables, parsley and dill.
The vegetable are whatever amount YOU want, I like a lot, some people like few.
Refrigerate for a few hours to overnight.

'Smores Cupcakes

The actual cake recipe is much like the one I had for my red velvet,
just slightly modified.

Cupcakes:
1 C Almond Milk
1 tsp. Apple Cider Vinegar
1 C Sugar
1 1/4 C Flour
1/3 C Canola Oil
1/2-3/4 C. Cocoa Powder
1 teaspoon instant espresso (optional)
2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. Baking Soda
1/4 tsp. Salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cupcake liners in your cupcake pan.
2. Combine soy milk and apple cider vinegar in a bowl and let sit for 5 minutes to thicken.
3. Combine sugar, oil, extracts and espresso in a large mixing bowl.
Once your soy milk mixture has thickened add it to you mixing bowl. Combine thoroughly.
4. Add the rest of your dry ingredients, mix until all lumps are gone.
5. Fill cupcake lines 2/3 full.
6. Cook in the over for 17-19 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the
center of a cupcake comes out clean.
7. Wait at least 30 minutes, or until completely cool to frost.

The frosting I mad was fail, despite is looking nice so I won't list the recipe.
It was marshmallow but the taste was a bit off. So use any frosting you want, this would be really good with peanut butter
frosting or you could mix chocolate chips into it and have them as muffins.

For decoration I crushed some graham crackers and melted some dark chocolate.

Armenian food: Kunefe

My friend and I had an awesome Armenian food night and this was dessert. We found a few different recipes but this was what we settled on. There are many variations:

1 package shredded phyllo dough (We just bought packaged)
2 sticks of melted clarified butter
1 15oz package of ricotta cheese
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup simple syrup for serving

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a large bowl, crumble the phyllo with your hands (or use a food proccessor) and then add melted butter and mix together. Put part of the mixture in the bottom of a pie pan.

Mix together the walnuts, sugar and cinnamon then put the mixture in a thin later it pie pan. Covered with riccota (Whatever mount you want, we didn't need a lot because it was a small pan). Then cover with the rest of the phyllo mixture.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the top is brown and crispy. Let cool for ten minutes the spoon the simple syrup onto the top of the kunefe and sprinkle with leftover walnut mixture (if you have any) and let cool for an additional 20 minutes before serving (we put ours in the fridge, it came out perfect).

Almost Vegan Mint Chocolate Cookies

So these are almost vegan but I use honey, so technically they're vegetarian.

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 C. Vegetable or Canola oil
1/2 cup raw sugar**
1/2 - 3/4 cup honey (replace with 1/2 C maple syrup + 1/4 C agave to make vegan)
1 TBS almond milk (or soy, coconut, ect)
1 TSP vanilla exctract
1/2-3/4 C chopped fresh mint (Depending on how strong you want it)

Dry Ingredients:
2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1/4 TSP salt
1 TSP baking soda
1 TSP baking powder

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°

1. Whisk together the wet ingredients in a medium sized bowl
2. Sift the dry ingredients into a separate bowl.
3. Add the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined.
4. Drop by tablespoon (or roll into balls) onto a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

You'll notice some of the cookies have a topping. I made an icing/ganache by combining 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 3 TBS honey (or agave) and2 tablespoons melted coconut oil and spooned it on top then refrigerated them for 10 minutes.

**I used a vanilla sugar. When I scrap my vanilla beans I put the extra in a jar with sugar and shake it once or twice a day.