Thursday's Tip: Pizzas

Very easy to make from scratch, dough and all. After you've made the dough, from then on it takes only about 30 mins from prep to the finished product. I used Jamie Oliver's recipe for the dough, with some changes.

Ingredients:

• 1kg strong white bread flour  • 1 level tablespoon salt • 2 x 7g sachets of dried yeast • 1 tablespoon caster sugar • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil • 650ml lukewarm water

Sieve the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl, make a well in the middle. I poured the water into the well, dumped the sugar, yeast and oil in, mixed it around a little for the yeast to sink into the water and left it for a few minutes. Then mix the flour in from the sides slowly with a fork. When it gets nice and sticky, dump it onto a clean work area and knead the flour into it. You may need to add more flour if too sticky. Put it back into the bowl, cover and leave it for an hour until it has doubled in size. After that, take it out and knead a little bit more, then you can use it straight away or wrap it in clingfilm to freeze.

If using straight away, just roll it out to the size you want on a floured/oiled surface, add your toppings! Preheat your oven to 220*C, and bake it for 10-15 mins or until its crust and cheese is nice and golden brown.

Topping ideas: 

To keep it simple, there are four categories you'll always need, in the order of layering: SAUCE first, VEGETABLE second, MEAT third and CHEESE right on top. Within these you can vary it.
I've also tried this butternut squash recipe, but the squash is expensive, not sure if i'll do it again.

Sauce ideas: Tomato puree, spag sauce, cheese sauce, mushroom sauce, tomyam sauce, pesto, mayonnaise.

Vegetables/Fruits: Pineapples, spinach, zucchinis, tomatoes, shredded carrots, chopped cauliflower/broccoli,  capsicum, chilli, fresh basil, squash, asparagus sliced thinly, brinjals, olives, mushrooms, caramelized onions, thinly sliced apples/pears with honey, sliced grapes, anything else you can think of.

Meat ideas: Pre-cooked minced chicken/beef or anything, sausage sliced thinly, salami, pepperoni, lap cheong, ham, bacon, tuna, anchovies.

Cheese: My usual is mozzarella, but you can experiment with the many varied types of cheese. Parmesan on top of Mozzarella is pretty good too.


The one pictured above has spaghetti sauce, brinjal slices, onions, garlic, capers, red chilli, some dried herbs, pre-cooked bacon, mozzarella. Just layer everything on and drizzle some oil to cover all the brinjal slices. It's the best tasting one so far.

Easy breezy Straws

Another super simple recipe, which takes only 15 mins or less to make.

Ingredients:
Puff Pastry
Jam or Cheese or Cinnamon Sugar or ANYTHING else you like!
Some flour for sprinkling
Icing sugar or cheese

Set oven to 200 deg Celsius.
Sprinkle some flour onto surface so that it doesnt stick.
Just roll out two pieces of thawed puff pastry, make it rectangular.
Spread the jam or sprinkle the cheese or cinnamon sugar on to one piece.
Cover with the other.
Slice it carefully into long strips.
Twist and place onto baking tray.
 Bake for 15 mins or until golden.
 All done!
As a garnish, you can sprinkle some icing sugar onto the sweet straws AFTER baking, or sprinkle cheese onto the cheesy ones BEFORE baking.

Thursday's Tip: Two-Minute Mug Brownie

Tried this the other day with great results! I only had whipped cream then, but i think it would taste best with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was also a little too sweet, i would lessen the sugar and cocoa. 

4 tbsp flour
2 tbsp packed sugar
1 1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
Pinch salt
2 Tbsp canola or other mild vegetable oil (do not use EVOO)
2 Tbsp milk, coffee or water

In a heatproof mug or ramekin, stir together the dry ingredients until no lumps remain. Stir in the oil and milk until you have a thick paste.

Microwave on high for a minute, checking it every 30 seconds (microwaves vary) – it will be done when it’s springy on top but still a bit gooey – like the very best brownie. Eat warm.

Recipe and Photo from the family kitchen

Thursday's Recipe: Meal Planning

This thursday, no recipe, but a special on meal planning. What is that, you ask? That, is what you do when you want healthy homecooked food and also to save some money and time. Basically it's just planning for the family's meal for one whole week at a go or even two, so that you can make a master grocery list and go only ONCE to the market or store. See? So green, saves petrol from making all those trips to the store when you aiyah forgot something.

I'm no expert on this, but i thought i'd share a tip that makes it easy for even me to start meal planning, especially since my husband loves to have homecooked food =/

Voila! Post-its are lifesavers! So i just write our favourite dishes, mixed with some easy ones and leave some  for leftovers, eating out and space to try new dishes. Then i just mix and match til i get a good set, considering things like "Can i make this in a big batch to freeze?" or "Can i make a bigger batch tonight to be left for tomorrow's lunch?". This is my go at it, it's been working well (when i actually use it), and so i won't expect my husband to go hungry. 

I usually only plan one week at a time, cos you can't expect greens to last so long even in the fridge, and i hate to see food go to waste. Also cos getting out of the house a couple of times a week is a good thing to keep you sane! So i would count all the groceries i need, by looking at this chart and add it all up to a large master list and go get it all at once, saving myself time and petrol, and also money, cos then i know what i need to get and i don't end up buying lots of things i don't need or won't eat. 

That's it for this Thursday, hope this helps you!

Thursdays Recipes: Tea cakes & how to vary

I've learnt that the basic ingredients and method of preparations essentially are the same, and i've tried three variations with much success.

Lemon Drizzle Cake (from BBCgoodfoods)
225g unsalted butter (one stick is usually about 227g, i like SCS), 225g caster sugar, 4 eggs, zest of one lemon, 225g self raising flour. For the drizzle: Juice of one lemon, 85g caster sugar (the drizzle is optional, some people find its too much lemon, but i like it. Just mix together the juice and sugar then pour over the cake, hot out of the oven.)

Banana Cake
225g unsalted butter, 140g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 3 large ripe bananas (mashed), 50g raisins (optional), 150ml milk/buttermilk/cream (i just use whipping cream or milk if i'm lazy. Buttermilk can be very expensive but if you want, just mix one cup milk with 1 tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice and let stand for 5mins), 170g self raising flour, 50g nuts (optional, any nuts you like, pecan, walnuts, etc)

Carrot Cake & Cream Cheese Icing 
225g unsalted butter, 140g caster sugar, 2 eggs, zest of 1 orange and juice, 170g self raising flour, 50g raisins, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp mixed spice, 140g carrots (grated). Cream Cheese Frosting: 100g unsalted butter, 300g cream cheese, 100g caster sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract (Beat the butter til soft, then mix everything else in)

So from this you can see that basically you need butter, caster sugar, eggs, self raising flour, and whatever flavour you like (i put it under zest and spices). If you have additional things like carrots and bananas, then lessen/half the amount of sugar, flour and eggs. This way, i think you can modify the recipe to whatever you want!

Preheat oven to 180C.
1. Beat together butter and sugar. (Make sure the butter is melted/defrosted, hard butter is harder to beat)
2. Add eggs, one at a time.
3. Sift in flour.
4. Add zest and spices (this includes whatever else you want to put in, fruit or vege, raisins, nuts, spices)
5. Line a baking tin with baking paper/Butter up the walls of a baking tin and spoon the mixture in.
6. Bake for 45-50 mins (or until a skewer poked into the center comes out clean, which means no cake parts stuck to it)
7. The end! Or if you have a topping, then this is the moment to spoon it over the cake.

These cakes should probably keep for a couple of days. It can also be wrapped in two layers of aluminium foil and frozen, will keep maybe for a week or two this way. If you want, you can substitute the butter with vegetable oil (1/3 cup should do) but i think you'd need to add an additional egg if you do that.

Recipe: Nasi Lemak

Here's a recipe i tried yesterday, reasonably easy, adapted from a few recipes i saw online. I'm probably gonna put more recipes on my blog as and when i try new ones and figure out easy ways to cook so that those who need to know these things (like i did) don't have to search high and low for explanations for so many things. I'm taking a lesson from Julia Child's cookbook, to be detailed enough so that you know what to expect.

You can keep the sambal in an airtight container in the fridge for 1-2 days. A few tips i learnt recently, is that cucumber always goes bad quickly, so don't put it in the fridge with any other food in the same container and hard boiled eggs can keep in the fridge for 1-2 days too. Another thing is, it may be easier to prepare the sambal the night before you want to eat it the next day for lunch or dinner, cos it took me a little less than an hour to prepare it (but that's just me, i'm a little slow in the kitchen).

Serves 3
Sambal Ikan Bilis
1 medium red onion, 1 loose cup ikan bilis, 1 clove garlic, 4 shallots, 10 dried chillies, 1 tsp belacan, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 1/2 tbsp sugar, 1 cup water plus tamarind pulp (about two heaped tsp or pulp the size of a ping pong ball)

1. Rinse the ikan bilis and dry with paper towels. Fry til golden in 1 tbsp oil. Set aside on paper towels.
2. Blend belacan, shallots, garlic & dried chilli. (If you prefer less spicy sambal, deseed the chillies first, but i like it fine spicy). You might need to be patient with your blender and check occasionally to make sure everything's mixed up into a fine paste.
3. Slice red onion into rings.
4. Heat oil (med-hi) and fry blended paste til fragrant. (1min)
5. Add onion rings and ikan bilis and stir well. You may need to loosen up your onion rings.
6. Add tamarind juice, salt & sugar, stir well.
7. Simmer on low heat til the sambal is thickened to your liking. (5-10 mins)

Coconut rice
2 cups rice, 3 pandan leaves, 2-4 small slices of ginger, 1 packet of coconut milk (200ml), 1 cup water.
1. Wash rice as per normal.
2. Add all ingredients into the rice cooker and set to cook. (Depending on whether you like your rice wetter or dryer you can adjust how much water to put in. I put in slightly less than 1 cup of water, but i think 1 cup would have been fine)
3. When it's done, it may look like it's still slightly wet on top, but not to worry, just stir well and it should be fine.

I served this with hard boiled eggs (done the night before also) and fried fish (just kembong covered with salt and fried in hot oil the day of), and just chopped up the cucumbers just before serving.

Enjoy!

Iced lemongrass juice

Uber yummy! And really easy to do too!

a handful of lemongrass sticks, washed
6 tablespoons of sugar
10-12 cups of water
one lemon, grated zest and juiced

Stick everything into a pot, bring to a boil, make sure the sugar is melted, then turn fire down to low heat and leave it for 1 1/2 hours. Yep! It's that simple. You'll get a really refreshing drink at the end. Try it! Makes about 10 cups of juice, unless you cover the pot which is okay too.

I'm gonna try a nice barley drink soon.

shortbread cookies

Tried this recipe today, from Tastes of Home. So far so good, have kept all the nicer looking ones and chewing down on the burnt ones (a tip for you if you're gonna try it out : don't roll it out too thin, thick is better!) The little heart shaped ones are so cute! Got the cookie cutters from Ikea. Can't wait for Adrian to try it!

I'm starting to really enjoy making food! especially since now i don't have to mess around with a wonky oven that shorts the fuse every time i heat it up, and my stove doesn't burn the tiles below instead of burning upwards anymore. Yummers. This Saturday is my father-in-law's birthday celebration thing, i wonder what interesting dish will come out of my kitchen... maybe some Jamie Oliver.

edit: i'm so sesat. apparently the birthday thing is on sunday, but i didn't know. anyway, i'm making kedgeree!

hooked

am currently hooked on m&s foods. haven't tried these two yet. i totally blame ms robyn for giving me this addiction to cranberry & orange cookies and redcurrant puffs. although they are super yummy, i really like the clean & simple packaging. they tempt me to buy them just by sitting there on the shelf, looking pretty!

yummers

seeing how i'm cooking more these days, i've collected a few recipes here and there, some really good ones (like these two up here - English onion soup and kedgeree, both by Jamie Oliver) and some that i want to try in the future. So far, i've tried a lot of western dishes so i'm hoping to see how i fare with asian dishes soon (although kedgeree is kinda indian, so i think that counts, especially since my indian husband loves it =) Try them! They're super yummy!

btw, have you noticed how my last three posts have been totally dominated by green? What can i say... i love it!

To add to my resume, i did pancakes yesterday and kedgeree today! The kedgeree smelled nice, but i haven't tasted it. It's Adrian's lunch tomorrow. The cooking was not too hard, the shopping was horrible. Haha. Who knew Worcestershire sauce is Lea & Perrins... Who knew leeks are not spring onions, and who knew that they're called bawang bakung... Who knew you can't find haddock fillets unless it's named in malay, i only saw kembong, mabong, cencaru etc... Who knew they don't sell 'normal' curry powder in Tesco, only meat curry powder or fish curry powder... Who knew, who knew, who knew!

All in all, preparing meals like this alerts me to the fact that food is expensive. And although eating out is much more convenient, not to mention somewhat time saving, cooking is cheaper. I'm taking a rest from cooking tomorrow and will try again on friday to surprise my husband with a special favorite of his.

making food for everyone makes me happy

but only once in a while. Today i mixed spaghetti with garlic, onions, capsicum, ham and mushrooms with a generous dollop of rosemary olive oil and herbs. Added baked tomatoes to that and topped it all off with a healthy strawberry yogurt with shortbread. Yums! I also tried a tea infusion with my new pot today : Lemon and Mint tea. My husband very lovingly ate and drank it all up and said it was good. I don't know whether he's encouraging me or ENCOURAGING me. But it's okay. I ate it too. Nobody died yet.

while sipping mint coffee...

I watch my little plants grow everyday, and it's just lovely, although i started off with four and now only two are successfully growing. I tried to grow dill and sweet marjoram but i have found that they don't take very well to our weather. Parsley is doing really well and my mint, well i just bought it in a ready pot from a nursery. It's amazing! I see the hand of God more and more in the sustenance of this earth, as i, a mere human, cannot compel my favourite herbs to grow no matter how much i water, fertilize or provide a sunny spot. It just wasn't intended to grow here. God planned for it to grow elsewhere and only there will it grow. So profound, so awesome! God is great!

super brownies

The thing that makes this brownie super?

1. They were not burnt. (very important)

2. They turned out really yummy! (2nd most important)

3. It wasn't a ready made brownie pack!

4. It was fun doing it with my sister.

There's only about half left now, i've been giving away big brownie chunks to everyone. This was practice! Cos i'm gonna be baking a cake soon and i really don't want to burn that.

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It's funny you know, nobody really says, "Wow, that's great!" when you successfully bake a cake, where everybody says, "Wow, that's great!" to an A grade. Seems slightly lopsided if you ask me. I'm telling you that nobody remembers if they got an A grade when planning a good healthy meal for themselves and/or their family in the future. Doesn't mean don't work hard or study smart, but i guess some priorities need to be adjusted :)

Cooking is fun-er now

It's a tranference of interest. Nope thats not it. It's an expansion of interest. You know how i've always liked making stuff, the interest just expanded to include food. It's been fun! Especially if you have friends to do it with! I appreciate the fact that friends scream in mutual surprise shock omg-i-can't-believe-i-just-did that when you accidentally drop your egg yoke into your egg white only mixture. Or need four eggs when you only have three. Or be ready to bake and find that you don't have baking paper -.-  

I'll shamelessly spill that up until recently, i hated it. I still am fearful of the heat, the oil burning my skin and extremely sharp knives slicing the tips of my fingers off but the interest keeps on growing (although if i could find mittens that extend to my shoulders to cover my arms while i'm cooking, i would definitely use them). I never thought i'd be the so-called "domestic maternal grandma" type, but what the hey, i can sew, craft, and now cook. 

Next thing on my list - cleaning. Maybe gardening. Hahaha now those are things that i'm positive i'll never like. 

If at first you don't succeed, maybe you're doing something wrong.

Well well well, here we are at the second attempt at cooking! Thank goodness my lunch date, also known as the poor guinea pig had cancelled, so that i could take my time and taste it first hahahah just in case. At least if it didn't taste good, i would have ordered pizza or something =P

This thing today came about from a pact to start eating healthier (and no, even chinese food from the mix rice place doesn't count as healthy). I guess there's nothing better than home cooked food. That however only counts if home cooked food (at least from my home) tastes good too. 

Anyway, today's recipe is Sausage with Cabbage and Corn Saute from RealSimple magazine. I show no pictures of the process because i felt abit too jakun to take pictures, might as well just concentrate on making the food taste nice. Besides, the pictures of my dish wouldn't have turned out as nice as the one from the site, as above *grin*. 

So a few healthy details about this meal:

1. I used olive oil. Apparently, it's much healthier than normal oil, longer life expectancy and something about chronic illnesses. I don't care, it makes food smell nicer. Extra virgin is the healthiest quality apparently.
2. The recipe gives a 60:40 ratio of veggies to meat. And it helps that the veggies taste so yummy! Who knew balsamic vinegar could make veggies taste so nice!

Well, try the recipe for yourself to find out how good the veggies are. And oh yes, a side note: Even though Italians and Mexicans speak almost the same language, their sausages DO NOT taste almost the same. So go look for the Italian sausage instead of being lazy like me =) 

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Going over to Lydia's place soon to bake pavlova again! I love pavlova! Well, let's hope and pray i don't embarrass myself by burning it. Again. 

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edit: Try and finish up the veggies fast. They discolor the dishes. 

The Pavlova Story

Yeah, so here's the thing:

Get all the ingredients (ask mum to get it so it's free!).

Firstly, preheat the oven to 130 deg C (that's 130 degrees Celsius for us noobs at cooking, and if you own a microwave oven, that means pressing the "bake" button until the little red numbers reach 130.

After you've got the stuff, here's the next thing you need to do : Learn how to separate the egg white from the egg yolk. You cannot have any egg yolk in this thing.

Method 1: My friend Alison suggests cracking the egg into your hand so the yolk stays and the white flows through the gaps between your fingers into the bowl.

Method 2 (which was the method i used, since i'd rather not have the eggy gooiness in my hands): Crack the egg into half, keeping the egg yolk in one side of the shell, and pouring the white out slowly - this is an accident prone method. You might wanna practice first.

In the end, i managed =)

The unused egg yolks (they disappeared soon after tho, no idea what happened to them)

Chuck the egg whites into the "whisker" - haha, the whisking machine or whatever - and whisker away! (Medium high, according to the recipe)

Then, you'll need to measure out the sugar (the pavlova ended up way too sweet so i'd probably put in less sugar than what the recipe prescribes next time). Check whether the eggs have been whisked to soft peaks (sorry, no pictures, it all happened too fast!) and then toss the sugar in a little at a time until it's all in.

Let it keep whisking til it becomes "hard peaks" (it'll look very nice and smooth and you can pinch a little of it between your fingers to check if the sugar has completely dissolved).

Then, sprinkle the vinegar and cornflour into the mix and fold in (this means not simply stirring the mix together, there's some intricate hand-eye coordination to this thing that i haven't quite figured out yet, but essentially it's mixing it all in slowly)

Then plonk the mix onto your pan (lined with baking paper) and do whatever with it. I was just gonna plonk it in a big blob right in the center but mum made me do some design thingie that looked like a real cake. I didn't like the looks of it but well, it's really up to you. 

You need to leave it in there for an hour and 15 mins (i suggest not waiting in front of the microwave oven like i did. It is NOT like TV and it gets mighty boring after a while).

When it's done, it'll look brown and yummy smelling, although my cake looking thingie ended up quite lopsided but who cares! It didn't BURN! Woo hoo!

You'll need to leave it to cool (mum says: pls take it out of the oven to cool, don't leave it in there, you dingbat!)

It should feel hard-ish on the outside and nice and marshmallowy on the inside when it's all done and ready for decorating!

I put whipped cream and strawberries on top of mine. (Word of warning though: you need to whip whipping cream slowly, too fast and it'll curdle and look funny and be really wet. One of my guinea pigs said it looked like i was putting scrambled eggs onto the pavlova). Add the granulated sugar and vanilla essence to the cream to make it taste good!

Last but not least, dig in! Cos this baby doesn't last very long, and the fresher it is, the yummier!

I've got enough for a second batch for next week, de-lish!

Anna Pavlova

She's a famous Russian Ballerina yes, but that's not what i'm writing about today. I'm featuring the very yummy dessert named after her, pavlova! It's still in the oven at the mo, smelling real nice, and there's a half hour more to go before she's done.

I used this recipe from joyofbaking.com:

4 large (120 grams) egg whites

1 cup (200 grams) superfine (castor) sugar

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1/2 tablespoon cornstarch (corn flour)

Topping:

1 cup (240 ml) heavy whipping cream

1 1/2 tablespoons (20 grams) granulated white sugar

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Fresh fruit - kiwi, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, passion fruit, peaches, pineapple, or other fruit of your choice

I'll let you know the process next time! Gotta run!

The Chronicles of Erin's Aglio Olio

How i got closer to actualizing my dream, tiny and achievable as it is.

Prep stage: Get ready all the ingredients (which means run over to Grandpa's to get the garlic and thank him for going to the market early in the morning to get the capsicum for me).

 Once i'm done running, wash the capsicum and chop it into wedges (but first, googling the methods on how to chop a capsicum cos i have no idea how to do that). Repeat for the onion (the googling, i mean). Then proceed to chop up onion.

And we're at the part i'm most familiar with : Pasta! Boiling the pasta is easy (just as long as i remember to undercook it because i wil be cooking it again later). I've learnt that boiling the pasta with lots of salt in the water adds to the taste, so i did that.

Next up: Prepare the olive oil, the spices and other fiddly bits to chuck in for taste, like oregano here...

The chopped garlic from grandpa's kitchen...

And mexican chilli powder.

That's mostly what i would put in for aglio olio, the rest (like what meat you wanna put in) is really up to you. But in this instance, i put in bacon (which was meant for my Grandma, but well... too late. I only found out after i'd cooked it).

Toss in the olive oil (i was very generous here) and the garlic. Chuck it around the pan for a bit, then toss in the rest of the stuff (capsicum, onions, chilli powder, meat of choice). You can dump in a little bit of wine if you like. Apparently it makes it smell nicer.  

After everything sort of smells nice, toss the spaghetti in and again chuck it around the pan. (Don't chuck too hard, cos i did, and spaghetti went flying everywhere. Also, dropping the thing you use to chuck the food around the pan with does not help matters here.)

Well, if you're lucky, it'll turn out okay. Not exactly fantastic, but edible and close enough to the actual thing.

If you're lucky, you'll have a good guinea pig too, who'll tell you that for a first timer, your aglio olio is quite good *grin*. Oh yeah, add parmesan! (Not the whole dispenser - that's way too much, as my guinea pig discovered) Just a tablespoon full is good enough, or up to your taste really.

Lastly, please remember to clean up. Mums and Dads don't usually appreciate us using their utensils and kitchen then not having the decency to clean it up =P 

I'm dreaming of aglio olio...but i have no capsicum