Repost: Ginger Chocolate Cookie Bars

Ginger Chocolate Cookie Bars

These started pretty much the way most of my favorite treats do: I was making chocolate chip cookies, decided I wanted them to be Chocolate Chocolate Chip and well, here you go!

3 tbsp vegetable shortening

5 tbsp coconut oil (I used Tropical Traditions)

1 c brown sugar
1/2 c cane sugar
1 tsp vietnamese cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups chocolate (I used dark, semi-sweet & white)
1/4 c candied ginger, chopped
2 c pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 325 F. Line a baking pan with parchment. melt shortening, oil and chocolate. Don't overmelt that way you can have some chunks if you like. set aside to cool.

add sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and ginger. mix together with a wooden spoon. add flour and baking soda. mix together with wooden spoon.

Add eggs (make sure batter is not warm at all before adding eggs!) go to it with the wooden spoon.

Spread batter onto baking sheet evenly. bake for approx 25 min. let cool. eat!

Mad Scientist Cookies: Kalamata Cocoa Paprika

What do you make when you're invited to a mad scientist party? Well that is a tough question. I settled on one thing and then at the last minute went in a totally different direction that you might find surprising.

While you might say a cookie is a cookie is a cookie, you can't say that when it's got some new and surprising elements. May I present to you my Kalamata Cocoa Paprika Cookies. Go crazy!

For the cookies you will need:

2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1/8 c cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
1/2 c dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 c kalamata olives, drained and chopped

Whisk together flour, cocoa poder and baking soda. Set aside. Use a bowl and a wooden spoon, toss in butter, sugar and paprika and mix it all together. Add the dry ingrediants and mix. Add the egg, mix until you can't see any more flour.

Set the dough aside for a 1/2 hour. Line baking sheets. Preheat oven to 325 F. Using a regular teaspoon, measure out the dough, roll, press down and place on the baking sheets.

Bake about to 5-6 minutes. Turn off oven and let sit 3 minutes before removing from oven to cool.

You can serve these alone or with some fresh ricotta!

Oh and look at how gorgeous all these woman are! Thanks to Tracy Lee for the picture!

Apricot Ginger Pecan Cake

Since I love to experiment and had dried apricots and candied ginger lying about, last night I made this lovely little cake.

3/4 c dried apricots, chopped, soaked and drained
1/2 c candied ginger, chopped
1 stick butter, melted
1 c oats + 2 tsp water, stirred together

Combine throughly to make sure everything is coated by the butter.

Then add: 1/2 c pecans
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp flour
1/2 c cornstarch

Mix together until just combined (do not overmix!)

Pour into buttered 7x2" pan and bake @325 F for about a half hour.

Let cool before taking out of pan, place on plate and then sprinkle w/powder sugar.

Enjoy!

Luna's Chocolate Spelt Cake

Chocolate Spelt Cake

1 stick butter

pinch salt

¼ tsp ginger

¼ c mascarpone

1 c spelt flour

1 c muscavado

4 eggs

¼ c cream

1 c cocoa


Combine all ingredients in a processer to meld. Pour into buttered cake pan. bake at 325 for 25 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream & brandy cherries.

Lemon Cocoa Nib Cupcakes w/Caramel

I originally posted these last year, but they are soooo good, I thought they (and you) deserved a second helping!

Lemon Cocoa Nib Cupcakes w/Caramel

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 12 muffin tins with liners.

zest and juice of 2 lemons, separated (the juice is for the caramel)

stick butter, softened

3/4 c sugar

2 eggs, room temp

1/2 c half and half, room temp

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 c Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1/2 c All Purpose Flour

1/2 c cocoa nibs

I actually just threw everything together until just combined. Scary I know. Divide among the lined tins and bake for 15 minutes.

For the Caramel

the juice from the lemons

1 c sugar

1 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp half and half

Put lemon juice and sugar into pan and cover on medium heat. Caramel goes quickly so you want to watch it. When it looks perfect, leave it on just bit burn so it lightly burns. Pull from stove and then add salt, butter & half and half, give it all a quick swirl.

This is your frosting! I swished it on, let it cool and then added some more. They are so good!

Witch in the Kitchen: Seductive Spice Mix

We stopped over at Lhasa Karnak the other day so I could gather supplies for the first recipe in the "Witch In the Kitchen", which is the Seductive Spice Mix.

I actually changed the ingrediants just a bit to see how it would taste. I chose not to use Paprika, replaced the cayenne with ancho chili and took out a half teaspoon of cinnamon.

3 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ancho chili powder
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp saffron powder
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground ginger
3 tsp salt

As you assemble this mix, think loving thoughts. Remember your soul and love go into everything you make!

It feels and looks beautifully warm and I excited to make Moroccan Chicken with it! Stayed tuned and don';t forget you have until Thursday night to enter the giveaway!

Just to clarify: entry is a comment. Extra entries of tweeting only count if you comment first. Thanks!

http://lunaskitchenmagic.blogspot.com/2010/03/lunas-kitchen-magic-turns-2.html

Celebrating my My Success

To start off the year, I wrote a life list. This is a list of things I would like to accomplish or simply enjoy sometime in the next 30 or 40 years.


Every few years, I end up with someone who decides to take me on as a ‘project.’ This generally happens when I am at the tail end of a crappy job and just sort of stuck, or one of those moments where I am transitioning from broke back to normal.


I easily recognize the signs. In light of that, and since I feel it coming, I thought I would share some of the successes I have had in my life. We all have times when we might complain or whine or feel stuck. But it isn’t fair for us to allow others to let us forget where we have been.

*I have been in the paper, demonstrating arts & crafts for a class my sister taught

*I have been on the honor roll and was in the elevated classes in Jr High

*I won a lip synching contest in HS because of my dancing

*I won a songwriting contest in HS and sang in front of the whole school

* I have recorded two demos and done back up for a rapper

*I am a published poet and erotic writer

*I had an internet jewelry business long before Etsy

*I graduated from Culinary school with A's & B’s and I both commuted & worked while in school

*I have been a successful grill cook, pantry cook, event line chef and pastry chef

*I was the pastry chef at a winery

*I am a writer for Cuisine Noir

*I have an internet radio show Luna’s Kitchen Magic

I may not have a lot of money, but this is just a drop in the bucket of what I have and can achieve. I am still young, so anything can happen!

The scariest thing I saw this week...

was cheese mites. In a hug cluster buried in a hunk of cheese. It was disturbing! They look like dust, except they are buried in the cheese. So, one must be vigilant about taking care of your cheese!

Milbenkäse or Spinnenkäse is a German specialty cheese flavored with salt and caraway, dried and then placed in a box filled with these mites. The mites are fed with rye flour and the cheese is aged three months to one year. This is a cheese that has been made and consumed since the Middle Ages, and is only produced in Wurchitz. Yikes!

Mimolette is produced in Lille, France. It is an orange cow's milk cheese that has mites added to the crust. This cheese was orginated at the request of Louis XIV.

Make sure to store your food properly. While these cheese's may be delicacies, the mites can infest other items, such as a flour, pastas, crackers etc. Always be very conscious of how and where to store a cheese such, and if you don't know how, look up resources on the internet.

Keep in mind that this is the type of delicay best enjoyed by people with strong immune systems!

What You Should Be Buying Organically

Organic is a big buzzword these days and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. However, there are some foods that are more important that others when it comes to eating clean.

Some foods, such as bananas, melons and avocados have thick enough skins that the low amounts of pesticides used on them usually don’t make much difference between conventional and organic.

Here are some of the top foods that you should be eating organically to avoid pesticides, heavy metals and general contamination:


Beets

Green Beans

Bell Peppers

Carrots

Almonds, Peanuts and Pecans

Strawberries

Celery

Apples & Pears

Raspberries

Citrus

Potatoes

Stone Fruits

Dairy and Eggs

December

This month has all ready been jam packed with greatness for me! I have met up with my food blogger friends from Twitter/Foodbuzz, been to a molecular mixology class, a beef tasting, and underground dinner AND signed up for a meat CSA. whew, and that is all just since the 4th!

So i need to catch up and write about some more food buzz stuff and write about all of the above. Watch this space kids, its gonna get filled with gooey goodness!

This is my confession...

The last few weeks have been tough for me. For one, the loss of my laptop sucked, but the fact that the hardrive died was an unexpected blow. With its death, I lost a lot of research.

On top of that, I have been crazy busy and uninspired.

The last week or so though, people have been talking about things on twitter that have grabbed my interest. So, the bad news is the last two weeks of the show have been non existant.

The good news is that there are some cool new ideas coming up & some great things on the horizon. thanks for bearing with me and being so great!

Chef Luna

Whole Wheat Star Shaped Biscuits

What is the perfect bread to go with a roast & potatoes? Biscuits!

I decided to pull out my copper star shaped cutters for a cute treat.

The most important thing to remember is not overknead them and to make sure your butter cut is throughly.

2 c whole wheat flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

6 tbsp butter (cut into small cubes)

3/4 c 1/2 & 1/2

2 tsp sesame seeds

1 tsp dried thyme

Place flour, baking powder and salt in bowl, cut in butter.

Mix in 1/2 & 1/2 (I use a fork) until you get a cohesive dough. Fling flour on clean counter and knead to make sure it is not to wet or dry.

Preheat overn to 425.F

Roll out (sprinkle more flour if you need to) and cut out with cookie or biscuit cutters. Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes. You can also brush with egg white before baking or melted butter after, if you like a shiny biscuit.

Enjoy!

Adapted from Epicurious.

SF Chefs Food & Wine event review

I volunteered on Friday for the SF Chefs Food and Wine event, and what an event it was!

I started my morning by guiding people to a room where we would all get to hear about GeorgeAnne Brennan and Martin Yan's culinary journeys.

I have not yet read 'A Pig in Provence', though I now fully intend to.

It was amazing to be in the same room as Chef Yan, whose cooking show I watched every weekend, with my dad, when I was a kid.



Afterwards I got to hit the big tent, where I tried food from Lake Chalet's chef, Jared. Lake Chalet is opening in Oakland this next week, and I am really excited to taste more of the food! If this losbster deviled egg is any indication of Jared's talents, I am ready!



I loved, loved, loved Parke Ulrich of Waterbar's sweet corn soup with pickled shrimp, which had flavors that really expanded my palate's capacity.

Bi Rite Creamery was serving up Strawberry IC, but I really gotta try the Salted Caramel....

Roland Passot of La Folie was serving up (fantastic) corn mousse with bacon marinated scallops.



Mark Dommen of One Market was having fun with his crabcakes on a spoon.

Erik Hopfinger of Circa, had awesome fish tacos, Chef Eric, please forgive that lousy description, which doesn't do your dish justice!

It was a wonderful and amazing day, and there was so much more that happened, which is why there is more to come!

The Wine Whore

Take one man who loves wine, one blog who will work for it and what do you get? The Wine Whore!

Randy is fun and very nice to put up with me!

This is the first of many conversations I hope to have with him and he has plenty to say on wine, stemware, bubbly, and wine pairings.

Take a listen, check out his site and a votre sante!

Luna's Kitchen Magic plays @ 4 pm EST and 7 pm PST Saturdays & Sundays

Ah, the Picnic

The picnic is a highly underrated way in which to enjoy tasty food and delightful company. Indoors or outdoors, in the park or at the beach, there are a variety of amazing ways to celebrate eating and each other!

From champagne to cheese, this weeks show celebrates the picnic. And in a few weeks I will celebrate by planning an end of summer picnic and posting about here, so you can recreate or emulate it!

Luna's Picnic essentials:

*a good, comfy blanket

*a nice hamper (picnic basket)

*fruit, seasonal that won't go bad

*I love Ravenswood Wine right now, & their reds are great!

*cheese, such as Petite Basque for a hard cheese or Robiola Bosina for a soft

*really good crackers

This is such a perfect way to have a date, whether it be your first or your hundredth!

Luna's Kitchen Magic airs @ 7 p.m. EST, 4 p.m. PST. see you there!

Evolution of a food lover

How does a very fussy eater as a child evolve into a chef and food lover? I know that I cannot be the only picker eater in the world who really loves delicious food. The conversation started like this:

“You know, you are really picky for a chef.”
“Really, cause most of the chef’s I know are picky!”

As a kid I mostly ate fresh fruit and veg to the shock & horror of my mother. As a teen I ate ramen, which by the way, does no good for a teenage girl’s metabolism. Middle teens, cereal. A lot of carrots and cereal.

My friend Lori, is the one introduced me to brie, stuffed mushrooms and decent wine. K taught me how to make the easiest dessert in my repertoire (which caused one of my adopted older brothers to become a dessert convert) and Steve is the reason I tried rabbit and alligator.




As your palate opens, you long to try new things. Now that I have tried them, I cannot imagine never again having really good champagne, truffles or excellent cheese. So essentially, you cannot go forward without leaving a few things behind.

Evolution, in my opinion, is important in food. You can’t just say, ‘oh I love dark chocolate’ with snobbery aimed at anyone who likes white chocolate or milk chocolate. Why? Because each of those types of sweet have something to offer if made well.

And because you like what you like. No, I don’t eat certain brands of chocolate any more, as I find the quality no longer suits my palate. I’m hardly going to make fun of someone who does. So you can call me a picky eater all you want, I’ll wear the title with pride.

Luna Raven Featured @Hunt Talent!

Tammy Hunt, the amazing woman behind Hunt Talent Agency, was kind enough to feature me on her blog, so check it out! Right Here Right Now Hollywood