Fresh Coconut Pudding

Recently, the local Asian market began carrying loads of fresh coconuts. They are really popular in my house. We usually just eat them plain, but today I felt like making a sweet dish with the coconuts.

I mixed a thickened crème anglaise made of heavy cream with the coconut water. I used heavy cream instead of milk because I wanted the final product to remain creamy even though I substituted in coconut water for some of the dairy. The result was a creamy and decadent pudding. I garnished the dessert with some toasted, sweetened, shredded coconut, and it was ready to serve. If you can find some young coconuts in your local market, give it a try!

Homemade Creme Fraiche Recipe

Sweet Mascarpone and Berries with Lemon Ganache

If you're looking for a fast and easy yet elegant dessert recipe, this one is for you. I usually make this dessert to please my little 9-year-old sister-in-law who is allergic to eggs.

The rich cinnamon-flavored mascarpone mixture with the refreshing combination of blackberries and blueberries makes a very festive sweet treat for little kids and big kids as well.

To give more body to the dessert, I sprinkle a layer of coarsely-crumbled Italian puff pastry and top with a layer of lemon ganache. The result is to die for!

Palak Paneer (Fried Indian Cheese in Garam Masala and Cream Spinach)

There are few dishes as synonymous with Indian cuisine as palak paneer . After tandoori chicken and naan (Indian round fluffy bread made of white flour), it's probably the most common item on menus at Indian restaurants. Variations of the dish are prepared all across the country.

At the core, though, palak paneer is a very simple dish. Spinach (or palak in Urdu) is cooked with a spicy cream mixture and studded with fried Indian farmer's cheese, called paneer. The cream is spiced with the same masala that is used in many other dishes. If you're new to Indian cuisine, this is a great introduction. You'll never go back to regular old cream spinach again.

Angel Hair Pasta in Roasted Tomato Pink Sauce

Angel hair pasta is a round-rod pasta and is the thinnest vermicelli noodles. I like to simply sauté it in butter and pair it with roasted tomatoes. I add grilled eggplant to give a meaty texture to the tomato sauce and also add a "hint" of cream to make the dish richer. If I haven't said it enough times, that's why they invented treadmills.

I made this today because my uncle came over for dinner. He became a vegetarian more than 10 years ago, even though he was an avid carnivore before. He eats tofu every day and always tells me how much he craves pasta (his wife cooks Vietnamese food exclusively). So I made his favorite dish accompanied by a pink tomato sauce. For dessert, I made another favorite of his as well: chocolate lava cake. I think he enjoyed the meal but by the end he was complaining: "Jackie, my cholesterol, my cholesterol". Ehh, he ate it all...