Supper Club: Baraka Cafe

The supper club ladies used to meet up roughly bi-weekly at one of our house and took turns hosting at our various abodes. We even had a blog of our exploits!

Sadly one by one members moved away

First, Fiona moved to New York(?) or some other state, and then back to Ireland!

Then Rachel Moved to California and then to Kansas city....

Then Sarah- our resident tiny -awesome-Japanese supper club-ee moved to California!

Then Laura moved back to California! (Whats up with that California?!)

There are still some of us in the area- but even smaller moves, like me moving from Cambridge to Gloucester have made supper club less feasible. But a few of us decided to get together nonetheless this Tuesday! Instead of our usual cooking escapades, we decided to meet up at a local restaurant, Baraka Cafe in Central Square, Cambridge.

The place was very tiny, cozy and cute! Jen had been there before and recommended we meet early, as it fills up fast!

Baraka Cafe "offers traditional Algerian-Tunisian and North African cuisine in a cozy space reminiscent of eating in the chef's home kitchen in the Mediterranean." None of which I was familiar with so it was all new and exciting! I decided to be that obnoxious person in the restaruant with a camera.

The 4 of us split a couple of appetizers and entrees.

For Appetizers we got:

Special of the night: Dates with Cheese

They were quite good! Just plain old dates with African cheese, which tastes a bit like ricotta cheese.

M'Chermlat El Sanaria :: spicy carrots in m'chermla sauce with oregano, raisins & onion jam
Very good! I wish there had been more if.

Zaatar Coca :: traditional Bedouin galette of sage, thyme, sesame seeds, lemon juice, caramelized onions on hand-stretched grilled Berber bread
I was not a huge fan of this item, it was a bit to hard and not too exciting. It could have used something for dipping.

and we didn't order this.. but they brought it anyway so we ate it

Karentika :: Oran famous savory chickpea custard with harissa tapenade
We were all quite happy with this order mess up- it was one of the better apps we got!

This was my tasting plate of chickpea custard, bread and carrots.

For Entrees we got:

Melfouf la Kasbah :: grilled marinated varieties of white & red meat with tchektchouka & pommes frites drizzled with h'rissa vinaigrette ::
A very interesting combination! I really liked the salad it came with and the french fries-- the meat was good too, though split 4 ways it was pretty small portions.

M'Katef :: New Zealand baby lamb chops delicately marinated in ras-el-hanout served with "ehbah essoufra," an Arabian almond tartlet layered in sweet saffron shallots, mint sauce & leeks spinach t'biykha ::
The leeks and spinach were the best part in my opinion, the lamb chop was a bit too fatty.

For Drinks we split a pitcher of their famous Rose Petal infused Lemonade. It was AMAZING. I could have drank the whole pitcher... but I am glad I did not.

All of the food was very good, but the portions were modest and we all left feeling satisfied but not stuffed.

We headed to Green Street Grill for a drink.

I first had a Malbec which was much too earthy for my taste, followed by a glass of Syrah, which was sweeter and more to my liking.

We all split a piece of pumpkin cake with mascarpone.

The fact that we were out and about led to much less drinking than our group usually does, which is probably for the best! I slept over Phoebe's in Fenway anyway to avoid my excessively long commute home. All in all, another very successful supper club night!

How do you like to spend your girls nights??

October-Cake

 One inspired evening (after a bottle of wine or so) Jordan and I devised the name for a dessert named Octobercake!

After coming up with the name, we then proceeded to develop the ingredient list:

(Note: Jordan wrote. My spelling is minimally better.)

The next morning I woke up with the urge to create said Octobercake, which required coming up with a slightly more defined recipe.

So the plan became that we would make an oatmeal/ gingersnap cookie crust, with a layer of pumpkin pie and a layer of pumpkin cake and then possibly top it with some sort of frosting.

I would like to pre-cursor that this is NOT a healthy recipe. I tried to make some healthy substitutions, and in theory since pumpkin is a vegetable, you are getting in a veggie, but nonetheless this is definitely a “sometimes” food :P

We began with a gingersnap cookie crust:

To make the gingersnap cookies I used:

·      1 stick butter, unsalted

·      1/2 cup white sugar

·      1/3 cup brown sugar

·      1 egg (or ¼ cup egg substitute)

·      ¼ cup molassess

·      2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

o   (all purpose flour is fine too—I keep the whole wheat on my counter so it is the easier option for me)

·      ½ teaspoon baking powder

·      1/2 tablespoon ground ginger

·      1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

·      1/8 teaspoon salt

1.     Pre-heat oven to 325*

2.     In a medium to large bowl: Cream together slightly softened butter and sugars.

3.     Add egg and molasses and mix.

4.     In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, spices and salt.

5.     Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix.

6.     Roll dough into balls and place on a greased or lined cookie sheet.

7.     Bake in pre-heated oven for 10-12 minutes.

Since I made the cookies with the intention of smashing them up to make pie crust, I just made a few large cookies. Feel free to make them whatever size you want.

Pie Crust:

·      1.5 cups smashed gingersnap cookies.

·      ½ cup plain, dry oatmeal

·      4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

·      1 teaspoon cinnamon

·      Pie tin

1.     Either using the gingersnap cookies you just made, or store bought ones, crush them up using a food processor or squishing them with a blunt object.

I personally added mine into a food processor, which I discovered did not work, so I proceeded to crush them with the end of my immersion blender – because when I tried to use that as a blender, it turns out the cookie bits just get stuck inside of it.

2.     Add oatmeal, cinnamon and melted butter. Continue the swishing together process until combined.

3.     Once the crumbs are relatively evenly crumby and moist, spread crumbs over the pie tin. (You may wish to spray with a nonstick spray first, I did not do this, and it stuck.) Using your hands (Wash them first!) spread the crumbs out evenly along the bottom and the edges of the tin. Voila!

Alternatively to this step, you could just use a premade graham cracker crust pie, but the gingersnap really does add something!

Then for the pumpkin pie layer:

·      1 large can plain pumpkin, or 2 cups of pureed, baked sugar pumpkin

·      1- 12 oz can unsweetened evaporated fat free milk

·      ½ cup brown sugar

·      ¼ cup white sugar

·      2 eggs (or ½ cup egg substitute)

·      1 tablespoon cinnamon

·      1 teaspoon ginger

·      ½ teaspoon nutmeg

·      ¼ teaspoon cloves

1.     Preheat oven to 425*

2.     In a large bowl mix sugars, spices and eggs.

3.     Add in pumpkin and evaporated milk and mix.

4.     Pour into pie crust you made (or bought). Fill only about half way.

5.     Begin baking in oven for 30 minutes.

6.     Start making your pumpkin cake batter!

Pumpkin Cake layer

·      ¾ cup sugar

·      ½ cup applesauce

·      2 eggs (or ½ cup egg substitute)

·      1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (again, all purpose can be used instead)

·      1 teaspoon baking soda

·      ½ teaspoon baking powder

·      1 teaspoon cinnamon

·      ½ teaspoon ground ginger

·      1 cup pumpkin (OR I justed used ~1 cup of the left over pumpkin pie mix from above!)

1.     Check on your pumpkin pie layer, after about 30-45 minutes the top should look relatively “set”. If the crust starts to burn, cover it with tin foil.

2.     Once the pumpkin pie layer is semi-firm, pour the cake layer on top of it, filling up the pie tin.

3.     Turn oven down to 350*

4.     Bake Octobercake for about 40 minutes at 350*, or until cake layer is cooked through (you can do the toothpick test for this.)

And now you have an October Cake! 

It is particularily good served with either: vanilla ice cream, light whipped topping or a cream cheese frosting.

I tried this cream cheese frosting on it (I honestly prefer just the ice cream on it though. )

·      1 cup light cream cheese

·      1 tablespoon vanilla extract

·      4 tablespoons butter

·      ~2 cups confectioners sugar

1.     add all ingredients into a bowl and blend with mixer (or shear arm power!) You may need more confectioner’s sugar.

2.     Add to cooled cake.