Rainbow Cream Cheese Cupcakes

This is a simple cream cheese pound cake recipe with a little variation - the inside is multi-coloured. I was about to write this as being for the kids, but I sure enjoy a rainbow cake as much as any kid, and I'm nearly 30. The frosting is a simple buttercream with a couple drops of blue food coloring, but I left the decoration to the "kids" (read: the man of the house) so it tastes better than it looks in the picture. Buttercream frosting is easy to handle and keeps its shape, so this is not only easy to make, but interactive enough to be fun.


Ingredients:

3 sticks butter, softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened

3 cups sugar

6 eggs, at room temperature

3 cups sifted cake flour

1 1/2 tbsp vanilla

Confectioner's sugar

Three (or more) colors of food coloring.

 Directions:

1) In a large bowl, cream together butter, cream cheese and sugar until smooth and fluffy.

2) Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

3) Add flour a little at a time, beating until smooth. Add vanilla.

4) Separate batter into 5 small bowls, then add food coloring to each to make five colors. (I usually go the standard route – red, yellow, green, blue, purple.)

5) Prepare a cupcake pan, inserting cupcake papers into each of the muffin holes, and then use a spoon to ladle the batter carefully into each cup. Then, alternate colors by ladling different colors of batter on top of each other. The cups should be about 3/4 of the way full.

6) Bake in the oven at 180 Celsius for about 30 minutes or until you can stick in a toothpick and pull it out clean.

Tips:

* This method can be used for any kind of pound cake - if you want to make rainbow colored bundt cake, layer cake, etc just spoon the batter into the cake tin the same way you might have spooned it into the cups.

Goya Champuru Yakisoba

Guess what - we got GOYA! In case you don't know, goya is a bitter melon that looks like a bumpy cucumber and is indigenous to Asia. Right now in Tokyo, people are finding other ways to stay cool besides using the AC, so planting goya as a "green curtain" in front of your windows and veranda is all the rage. As a result, we have a surplus of goya everywhere, including our own garden.

The most famous dish using goya is an Okinawan one called "Goya Champuru," which I will show you how to make one of these days. This is a variation on this dish using yakisoba, which is a treat that Japanese eat during festivals around the country. It has a real feel of summer, the way watermelon and hot dogs do in America.

This dish uses a number of items that may only be available at an Asian foods market, but unless you've lived in Japan, I guarantee you've never had anything like it.

Ingredients:

2 mounds of yakisoba
1/2 goya, cut lengthwise
80g spam (yep, they love this stuff in Okinawa)
2 tbsp salad oil
2 tbsp chicken broth
60 cc water
2 eggs
2 tsp soy sauce

Directions:

1)  Cut the goya into thin slices to resemble half-moon shapes. Soak them in saltwater for 10 minutes.
2) Heat up the vegetable oil in the frying pan, and add the goya and the spam. Cook until the spam has just begun to darken.
3) Add the yakisoba noodles and the water, and stir fry, tossing gently until the water has evaporated. Add the chicken broth and mix.
4) Mix the eggs in a small bowl, then pour in the saucepan. Cook until eggs are gently hardened.
5) Add soy sauce, mix and serve.

Tips:
* Goya is very bitter, and when it is cooked it it usually soaked in salt water to remove some of the bitterness. This is done to taste - some people prefer it bitter and others prefer it cucumber sweet. After a few times eating it you should be able to judge how long you want to soak your goya.

Zucchini and Shrimp Capellini

My favorite pasta is capellini. When I was a kid I was unfortunately subject to some very bad pasta that was always thick and sticky, so for many years I did not like pasta. It was capellini (from a different source than the said thick and sticky) that freed me from the curse.

This quick and easy recipe was designed especially for summer, and goes perfectly with the light and fluffy capellini. It will not bog you down or having you feel hot tired and sticky as we so often do this time of year.

For the sauce:
6 deepwater prawns ("northern prawns", or "pink shrimp")
200 g tomato sauce
1/2 a small-medium sized eggplant
20 g celery (finely chopped)
20 g bulb onion (finely chopped)
20 g red pepper (finely chopped)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp vinegar
1 head of garlic
Pinch of salt

Directions:
1) Start by cooking the olive oil and chopped garlic in a saucepan.
2) Add the shrimp when the garlic has been browned, and cook on low heat.
3) Add the onions and celery to the mixture and let them cook until soft.
4) Then add the remainder of the vegetables, and a little salt.
5) Add the tomato sauce, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, and cook for about 3 minutes until done. Be sure there is just a little extra moisture in the sauce for when you add the pasta.

Pasta: 
120 g capellini,
half a zucchini (cut lengthwise)

Directions:
1) Use a peeler to slice sheets off the zucchini.
2) Slice the sheets lengthwise into very thin strips, like pasta.
3) Boil the zucchini with the pasta (approx two minutes) until the pasta is slightly al dente
4) Quickly cool the pasta by dumping it in a sieve and running it under cold water.
5) Add the pasta to the sauce pan and mix it all up on low heat, tossing until the sauce has coated the noodles. Then, serve.

Tips:

* My recipe does not use a lot of sauce - you may want to double the recipe if you prefer extra sauce.
* By the way, up there the picture has been taken with the sauce set on top only to show you the contrast of the zucchini strips with the noodles. As all pasta lovers know, proper pasta is served with the sauce mixed in with the pasta - it doesn't make for a good picture but sure makes for a good mouthful! I gave the instructions above as adding the pasta to the sauce, but you serve it any way you wish.