So bring me a Figgy Cake... And a Happy New Year!!!

It's my first post of the year and yet it's something I baked last year... . But this is not your average end of the year celebration cake! It was so good that I had to stop all my fourth day of the new year activities to post it. Maybe you will want to bake sometime to celebrate something other than Christmas. If you are a grown-up who drinks, it's a perfect pairing for a bubbly. But a warning: it's so delicious that I had to make an effort to freeze a slice to be able to replicate it later, once it was a very improvised recipe.

The project was to bake a original British style figgy pudding so to go with the song, as my sons are always repeating "So bring me a figgy pudding"asking me when I was going to bake one. The problem was that I was crazy busy as most of you guys, and had to improvise the steaming for something like "wet" baking. I will explain myself: Once I came across this recipe that recommended to bake normally adding a water filled pan to pretend it is also steaming. And it worked. Happy 2014!!!

Almond Figgy Cake

This recipe is vaguely based on Simon Rimmer's Figgy Pudding, published in Something for the weekend, and online at BBC.

2 cups chopped california dried figs
1/3 cup cognac ( I used Remi Martin)
3/4 cup hot water
1 cup flour
1.5 cups almond meal (ground almond)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup concord grape raisins soaked overnight in1 cup of your favorite wine
1 orange, zest and juice
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 F, with a large baking pan filled with water on the lower rack of oven. Start soaking figs in cognac and hot water for about 15 minutes, or overnight, if you have time. Mix flour, almond meal, baking powder and nutmeg in a bow and set aside. In another bowl mix brown sugar, eggs, olive oil and whisk up to when you get a creamy texture. Slowly add cognac and water mix from the figs. Add figs and raisins to flours and mix up to when they get fully coated. Add liquid mix to flour mix stirring with a wooden spoon. Let it rest for 5 minutes, mix again and pour batter on a flutted tube pan.  Bake in the oven from 45 to 55 minutes (still with the water filled pan in there, refill if necessary), or up to when crust is golden and core dry. Serve it hot with vanilla ice cream, or cold for brunch with a latte. 

Farro with Sweet Potato and Black Garlic

As the holiday break neared, Anna and I commiserated (with good humor) about how busy we were. "Eh, it's going to be a Trader Joe's week, right?"

I knew exactly what she was talking about. I had already planned for a Trader Joe's week to make the busy season a little easier. My menu plan was based on whatever good stuff TJ's had to make meal time as easy as possible.

Here's one of the dishes I made, perfect for the post-holiday detox. This grain salad makes up for the stale holiday cookies we're all still nibbling. Delicious warm or cold, it's on the sweet side — a nice bridge as I retrain my taste buds to be happy with less sugary fare. It's filling and full of good-for-you ingredients. The photograph doesn't do it justice. I'm not sure it's possible to take a good photo of farro.

Everything in it can be found at Trader Joe's: fast-cooking farro, sweet potato, pomegranate vinegar, and — my favorite! — black garlic.

If you're unfamiliar with it, black garlic is simply fermented garlic. It's savory-sweet, garlicky without the bite. TJ's just recently started carrying black garlic, but it isn't always easy to find. I didn't see it the last time I was there and was worried they had already dropped it. The manager admitted "it's been sort of a dog for us," but they do still stock it. You can find it in specialty stores and online (including Amazon).

If you can't find it, no problem. Just sub some regular garlic. And if you don't have a Trader Joe's near you, of course you can find these ingredients elsewhere.

Farro with Sweet Potatoes and Black Garlic

If you can't find black garlic, you can leave it out or substitute a clove or two of minced garlic, sautéed in a bit of oil. A bit of cooked sausage also would be a tasty replacement. Farro is one of my favorite grains, but if it's out of your comfort zone swap brown rice.

1 package Trader Joe's 10-Minute Farro (or 1 1/2 cups raw farro)
1 sweet potato, diced
1/2 head of black garlic, chopped
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
olive oil

Dressing:
4 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons pomegranate vinegar (or other fruity vinegar)
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Cook farro according to package directions (if you're using raw farro, cook it however you do that — I've only used TJ's!). Whisk dressing ingredients together in a bowl.

Warm a spoonful of oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add diced sweet potato and cook until soft and slightly browned.

Combine farro, sweet potato, garlic, walnuts, and dressing in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. If salad is too dry for your taste, add a splash of olive oil and stir.

Mashed Potato Snowman

If you happen to live in a place where it doesn't snow,  like we do,  you might use this idea to make the kids have a little winter cheer with something else. It was the last hands on class I gave to second and third graders at school this year, after a series of edible craft sessions, which included sweet potatoes and green beans turkeys and a pea spread cemetery for Halloween.

The project to celebrate the end of the year was to make a snowman out of mashed potatoes and other foods, and the result was so much fun. We made those my son's classroom today with second and third graders. They were really thrilled to work on the project and eat it right away after finishing.

I baked the potatoes at home, and when I brought them to school, they were ready to be peeled with the tiny fingers and mashed easily with forks. Carrots became little noses, bell peppers for the mouths, but of course, some children's couldn't refrain to think outside the model and made...something completely different!

You will need: 

One medium organic baked russet potato per child
Enough mini carrots to make noses
Cooked black beans for buttons
Crimini  mushroom tops for hats
Red bell peppers for the lips
Cooked peas for eyes
Parmesan cheese to dust the snowman
Salt to taste



Invite the kids to peel and mash the potatoes, and use their imagination! You might be surprise that they might come up with something like this:

Or that:

The process is fun and can be a little messy, but they were so proud to see their artwork ready to eat with all their classmates when they finished: