Cookbook challenge, week 10, day 4 - Get It Ripe

I made two things from Get It Ripe today. There's no photo for the first, and I haven't uploaded the photo for the second.

I made the Carob Chai cake this morning. I didn't have enough time to make the cardamom icing, but it turned out more than fine without it. Also, I subbed out some of the oil with applesauce, and I replaced about 1/3 of the maple syrup with golden syrup because I couldn't justify using an ENTIRE CUP OF MAPLE SYRUP for one single-layer cake. Anyway, this cake was really, really nice. It was kinda like a mild gingerbread (minus the molasses), moister and fluffier and a little milder in flavour. It was actually perfect without frosting. The only thing keeping me from making this again is that massive amount of maple syrup. Maple syrup is pretty damn expensive, and 1 cup is nearly an entire bottle. I might try some other sweeteners to see if it works with something cheaper.

The other thing I made today, which I've actually made quite a few times but haven't made in at least 6 months, if not longer (I haven't made it once since we've been in this flat), was Andrew's Butternut Risotto.


I love this stuff. It takes quite a while, especially if you do what I did and use pearl barley because you can't be arsed to find short grain brown rice for one recipe. But it's worth the time spent, especially because you end up with a shit ton of leftovers. We had plenty with our dinner, and there's enough left over for several more meals.

We had the risotto with the Swiss Chard frittata from Vegan Brunch. I made two changes to the way I usually make it, and it made all the difference in the world. First, because I was roasting garlic for the risotto, I roasted an extra bulb and used that instead of the sliced garlic called for in the frittata recipe. Second, I cooked the frittata in the cast iron skillet that I used for cooking the chard. This was the best frittata I've ever eaten. Absolutely freaking delicious. From now on, I'll be throwing some roasted garlic in my frittatas as much as possible.