Passion Fruit Pudding Cake

My boss has a big bounty of a garden and he generously brings in lots of different kinds of fruits. One of these fruits in which he brings surplus of is passion fruit! Passion fruit is such a treat because it’s not very common. The abundant amount of rain Southern California has received lately has helped more fruit, well, come to fruit. Passion fruit has a certain tropical flavor. It also absolutely looks like an alien fruit: it has a purple shell and inside, there are a bunch of green slime covered seeds. Sounds appetizing, right? Well, it’s actually super tasty and they’re only about 15 calories a pop!

My boss had brought in a large amount this time and I had quite a few sitting in my fridge. I didn’t want them to go bad, so I looked up passion fruit recipes and found this one. I altered it a little to have less sugar. A passion fruit pudding cake…full of moisture and flavor without being too sweet. Those who know me know that I’m not a huge cake fan, but this recipe is a cross between a pudding and a cake so I like it. It may look a little intimidating, but it’s quite simple to do. I’ve already baked it twice because it’s so delicious. It’s perfect for a guilt-free dessert because it’s so light, but also hits the spot because of its flavor and texture.

Feb242017

Doing Dessert at Home

We saw a really funny meme the other night. It showed someone’s meals logged throughout the day and the first 4-5 were all super healthy. The final one was a pint of ice cream and chocolate chips cookies and it’s sad, but true. We think that more people can relate to that than you might initially think, because it’s extremely hard to fight your sweet tooth the whole day.

Feb212017

Stove to Oven Apple Crumble Dessert

One night, after a delicious supper of leftovers, Hungry and I were craving something else. We had a fridge full of goodies so the world was our oyster. What did we want for dessert? More than just a square of chocolate. What about making something? What about pairing Hungry’s cooking skills with Fit’s baking skills? Yes! Sounds like the right way to go. We had plenty of apples and I always like to add a topping, so we created an apple crumble dessert! This recipe was so fun, but also relatively un-intimidating and simple to do: we cooked on the stove and then baked to finish it in the oven. If you can, grab a partner to make this lovely dessert with you in the kitchen!

Feb192017

Mutari: Serious Hot Chocolate in Santa Cruz, CA

Recently, we went on an amazing road trip up the California coast. Mutari is a little hot chocolate joint we visited in Santa Cruz, California. We stopped by to escape a rainy Santa Cruz night after dinner and before returning to our hotel on our trip up the coast. It was an experience. I’ll get straight to the point that I did not love their chocolate. But I loved their passion and it made everything taste a little better.

Dec132016

Crustless Cranberry Pie Cake

This one is an interesting recipe. It’s technically called a “pie” as per this recipe, but I think it’s more along the lines of a cake. It’s texture is much more akin to a cranberry cake, it has some body to hold the cranberries within the batter. This was one of the easiest recipes of Thanksgiving and the theme of cranberries will certainly carry on to Christmas as well. This is a simple dessert that makes cranberries the star. The cranberries are put whole into the pie-cake and, when baked, they melt into tart-y goodness. I tried to minimize the sugar and butter in an attempt to healthify this. If you’re running last minute on a dish you need to bring to a party, choose this one–not much prep involved!

Dec022016

Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie

One of many delicious recipes to come from our Thanksgiving feast...pumpkin cheescake pie! Two beautiful things in one: pumpkin pie and cheesecake. I feel like pumpkin is the quintessential Fall food and I was more than happy to have stumbled upon this recipe from smitten kitchen! This may not be the most fit recipe, but I tried to healthify it a little by trimming down the sugar. I cannot explain or describe how wonderful this pie was. I’m usually not a huge pumpkin pie person, but I was eating this for every meal (yes, breakfast too). I just couldn’t control myself! Thebeautiful smoothness of the pumpkin with a cheesecake marble on top was too much for me to handle. A perfect dessert that isn’t cloyingly sweet.

Aug012016

Raspberry Meringue Pie

Recently, I had a Downton Abbey get-together with a few friends. I’ve been watching with one friend who has just started because I love the series so much, I don’t mind to watch it all again! And because I recently got the Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook, I wanted to turn a simple Downton Abbey viewing into a food-included party! There were a few things on the menu: cucumber sandwiches, egg salad tea sandwiches, a beautiful salad, tea (of course), and raspberry meringue pie. The others will be coming as a recipe to Hungry and Fit soon, but for now, let’s start with the Raspberry Meringue Pie.

This pie has a wonderful tartness that comes from pure beautiful raspberries co-mingled with the small meringue atop it. I’m really not a fan of super sweet pies, so the tart ones are my favorite (see: my mum’s rhubarb pie). I shouldn’t say exactly how much of this pie I ate, but it was more than one serving. This pie brings the dessert to you without all the sugar-y sweetness you’ll find in most pies. I had a lot of help from Jamie (our resident guest chef) on this one. Let’s dig in.

Jul042016

Red, White, and Blue Cookies

Happy 4th of July! While you’re thinking of what to bring to that friend’s BBQ, consider wowing the crowd with a sweet treat–with festive colors, of course! This patriotic batch of cookies are easy to whip up and let me tell you, the batter is delicious. I tried to cut some of the fat and sugar down in this recipe so you don’t have to feel too guilty about them alongside your beers and hot dogs. I got this original recipe from Dani California Cooks and tweaked them into cookies. I love being creative with other people’s recipe to really make it my own. Enjoy!

Jul032016

LA’s Best Dessert Right Now

With social media acting more as an IV for people across all generations in 2016 than actual medical care, there isn’t a single new item that isn’t known to the world within a scroll of the finger. (Your choice of finger would depend on whether your phone still fits in your pocket or is bigger than your laptop.) So with that in mind, it’s only a matter of time before someone like Jeanette Settembre writes an article for the New York Daily News about this find.

Asian dishes constantly find their way to the spotlight and since there are so many cultures and peoples in that area of the world, I can’t see an end to the discovery on this side of the ocean. Recently, bao have been gaining popularity and a spot in LA called Take a Bao (clever names, although they usually involve pho) has been delivering options from tofu to duck and bbq pork. You need to make sure that you don’t just look at their savory bao. Just like with a crepe, you can stick something sweet in that bun.

Apr142016

Chocolate Chip Protein Cookies

I have tried recipe after recipe to find the perfect protein cookies. They often come out too dry, too cakey, or downright rubbery. We can’t have any of that! I have finally found a recipe that comes out well! Hoorah! These aren’t the healthiest, but they have significantly more protein than other cookies and less sugar and fat than other cookies. We’ll say it’s healthier. These puppies have 7g of protein a piece–pretty awesome for a cookie! It’ll be a crowd pleaser and they won’t even know that it’s healthier than normal. Careful of how long you keep in the oven, I left mine in a minute too long (as you may be able to see).