Brownies and Zucchini

Recipe number five from the Thinkfood Cookbook is here! Today’s recipe comes from Erin over at O’Cookies.  There are definitely a lot of recipes over at O’Cookies that I am dying to try.  You can find this particular recipe here. (Unfortunately the recipe page is no longer available)

If you are looking for the rest of the Thinkfood recipes, they now have their very own page on my blog!  Just click on the Thinkfood tab in the upper left corner, or go here.

This meal looks pretty promising.  Aside from the spicyness, which I have already established I can’t handle, many of the ingredients look like something I would eat.

So, I should tell you, I had to cheat on the recipe a bit.  (I did ask Erin at O’Cookies to make sure that the recipe would still work alright 🙂 ) Since I don’t have a food processor – and my blender is circa 1960 – I had to substitute store bought almond butter instead of making my own.  🙁  I really would like  a food processor, but until one magically appears at my house, I’ll just have to make do without.

The first bump in the road had to do with not making my own almond butter.  I’m betting that the almond butter that we bought, and the almond butter recipe, had very different consistencies.  So, when making the sauce I ended up adding a lot more water to try to thin it down.  The recipe suggests 3 tsps.  I added somewhere around 8 tsps.  And it was still pretty thick.

The rest of the process was not to difficult.  I did have to improvise a bit though.  I ran out of pots, so I had to blanch the broccoli in the microwave.  I just put a cup or so of water into a Pyrex bowl, threw in the broccoli, and then covered the top with a plate.  About two minutes later, steamed broccoli!  Oh, it was supposed to be blanched wasn’t it.  I’m not really sure what the difference is….anyone?

Here is the final product:

Oh, whoops, forgot the almond slivers.  Let me try that again:

In the ingredients list for this recipe, it asks for “2 or 3 Tbsps of crushed red chili flakes, depending on how spicy you want it.” So, heres the thing about my affinity for spiciness.  I can’t handle ANY spice.  Really.  So, when putting the ingredients together, I decided that even if I just put 1 Tbsp of pepper flakes in, it would be too spicy for me anyways, so I might as well at least attempt to follow the recipe and do 2 Tbsps since the Husband likes spicy things.

And now my mouth/throat are still burning from that choice.  However, my mouth probably would have been burning if I put in 2-3 flakes of pepper.  The Husband liked it, it was spicy enough but not too spicy.

Other than the spice, though, the taste was not bad.  The Husband actually really liked it, and told me to make it again.  Next time, though, he suggested we use peanut butter instead.  The other thing I think I would do differently would be to let the noodles sit in the stir fry with the sauce.  I think this would enhance the flavors – and warm up the noodles in the process.  Unless you have perfect timing, the noodles will most likely be done at least a few minutes before the veggies.

Ease: B-, I probably would give it a lower grade if I had actually made the raw almond butter, but without that step, nothing too horrible.  The worst is probably blending the sauce together and getting it to the right consistency.
Taste: B? Its hard for me because I didn’t eat a lot of it because of the spice.  But I didn’t dislike the taste.  The Husband really liked it though, so apparently if you can handle the spice it is even better.

Would I make it again? Yeah I think  I would.  Maybe mix my own sauce without spice?  The Husband would like me to make it again, so maybe I’ll be back with some variations for those of us with zero spice tolerance 🙂

Have you ever made your own nut butter?
There  have been a few things that I have wanted to make recently that involve a food processor.  Maybe I’ll win the lottery tonight and afford to buy one 🙂

Buffer

Filed under: Dinner, Pasta Tagged: | almond, dinner, pasta, spicy