Pop your own corn

It was a typical lazy Saturday afternoon, watching movies on the TV when we were attacked by the need to munch and crunch. I remembered that I picked up a bag of corn some time back and never got round to experimenting with popping my own corn. So a quick scan of the net and finger in the air selection of corn popping method, we were off. Then it was quick decision time, should we go buttered? Salted? Or caramel? In the end it was to be all three!! One thing to note, I used coconut oil to pop the corn which is healthier (pre buttering, salting and caramelising of course) and smells great!

Was it good? Well the saying goes a picture tells a thousand words. Btw I do feed the little one!

 

 

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Croissants

This is a back post, I can't believe I forgot about this one. For a really long time I've been wanting to make croissants, am always fascinated with the folding of the dough to make the layers. I finally did get round to it using a recipe from the great British Bakeoff. To results was ok-ish, which means the hunt for a better recipe is on, however it will be a while before I will attempt it again...too much waiting in between steps!

Mini me having a go at the dough

 

 

Bacon wrapped asparagus rolls

To be honest, I don't know what this called, I so happened to catch it on TV, some chef was making it and I thought it a good idea and tried to replicate it. Turns out, the rolls can be quickly made up and then stick the whole lot in the oven and let it do the cooking, my favourite kind of cooking after a busy day at work. Served with potato and carrot mash..yumm! Next time though I might make a little more effort and make gravy.

 

Raspberry tart

I made this a few weeks back with raspberries freshly picked from the garden. It's simple quick and yummy, just use a ready made pastry shell, whip some custard with mascarpone cheese, top with raspberries and garnish with mint (from the garden too) and enjoy! Simple!

 

Chocolate butterflies

When I was invited to a friend's for lunch this weekend and it slipped out that it was her birthday, I decided to make a cheesecake for her. Since she was not wanting to celebrate her birthday (she claims 'I'm old already lah'), it seemed like a suitable choice as its not too birthday-ish but yet it's still a cake. To make it special, I decided to look into tempering chocolate and making decorations with it. I found a quick and simple method of tempering chocolate using the microwave. The trick is not to be impatient and melt the chocolate in small bursts, once done, to make the decorations it's more of a balance of having to move the hand quickly in order to keep a consistent flow of chocolate to draw with and keeping the movements controlled so we don't end up with blobs of chocolate which is what we started out with!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drying out on non stick parchment

 

 

Potato salad

This is no simple potato salad, it's got more ingredients than a usual potato salad. The little extras means that the amount of mayonnaise used is less and the overall taste is much lighter and yet has more depth! What's great is that this is a side that can be prepared ahead of time, leaving more time to either cook the main dishes or relaxing before dinner is served, in this case the potato salad is served with homemade turkey burgers in homemade bread, sorry to say the leafy salad and tomatoes were not home grown!

 

Seeded loaf

It's back to baking bread again, I have loads of strong flour in the larder that needs using so bread it is. This time it's a seeded loaf filled with all the seedy goodness of wheat and barley flakes, kibbled rye, sunflower seeds, millet and linseed. I used my usual French loaf recipe but with half plain strong flour and half seed and grain flour. Because I was changing the recipe it was a bit touch and go but it will turned out well, fortunately for me it did but unfortunately for me, I did not take note of my changes so it will be another experiment to try to recreate this lovely loaf!

Freshly out of the oven

 

 

Tuna meatball pasta

Pasta with a twist, this is tuna meatballs in a simple tomato sauce with pasta. First fresh tuna is minced in the blender with breadcrumbs, season then form into balls and baked in the oven. The recipe said to fry them in the pan but I opted to bake them as I normally do for meatballs. Then the sauce is made with chopped tomatoes but because its fish, there's some sweet pointed pepper mixed in then blended together. Cook your choice of pasta then mix in the tuna balls, sauce and sprinkle with grated Parmesan... Dinner is served, enjoy!

 

Meatloaf with crunchy cheesy topping

Meatloaf is one of those easy dinner recipes where you just need to scrunch everything into the loaf tin and leave it to bake. This one has a special topping made from crispy pancetta mixed with breadcrumbs and grated cheese. The topping needless to say was yummy but the loaf itself was quite plain. I have another meatloaf recipe that tasted better so next time I'll use the topping from this one on it.

 

Blueberry Friand

Finally, I managed to test out the recipe for blueberry friands. It's from one of baking books and every time I flip through the pages to find something to bake, the image catches my eye and think to myself 'that looks so yummy' but somehow I never tried to bake it till now. It's a very rich and indulgent piece of cake and not for everyday eating! The taste was sublime but I think I need to work on the egg whites as the cake was not as airy as I expected....till much to learn with regards to beat egg whites till the right stage! But still a delicious bake.

 

Sarah's 2nd Birthday lunch

After as small family lunch on Sarah's actual birthday, its time to party with friends and neighbours on the following Saturday, so its finger food galore!

In the line-up we have :

Marinated figs with mozzarella and prosciutto
This little kebab is described as the modern version of pineapple on a stick. Laced with basil infused olive oil for a dressing, it really does get the taste buds going!

Baked goats cheese with honey
Little medallions of goats cheese lightly baked and drizzled with honey, served on a bed of spinach leaves. I'm generally not a fan of large chunks of cheese but the combination of flavours here (this includes getting a mouthful of spinach) is just right!

Smoked Salmon with fennel slaw on toasted spelt bread

To tingle the taste bud further, there is smoked salmon given a sophisticated twist with fennel slaw, sprinkled with fried capers (who would have thought to fry capers! When fried, they become little salty crispy nuggets, yumm indeed!). All this served on toasted spelt bread. Oh yes, don't forget, topped with avocado too!

Chicken and mushroom pastry puffs

And there is something for the less adventurous, triangles of puff pastry filled with chicken and mushroom pie filling. Get them while they are hot!

Sausage, cheese, tomato ciabatta squares
This is one for the kids and the kids in adults, I mean who doesn't like sausages, right? Since this is a finger food party, the sausages are sliced and placed on top of ciabatta squares, spread with tomato sauce (proper sauce mind you, not maggi tomato ketchup) and topped with mozzarella. Pinned in place with a cocktail stick and then toasted till the cheese is melted and golden!

 Bread Salad and Apple Coleslaw
To accompany the food, there is of course the salad. I made two types of salads as I've noticed that there are two kinds of vege eaters, one that goes for the green leafy variety and the other that eats vegetables but not the floppy green kind! So the two selected to cater to everyone's perference are a bread salad with an Italian dressing (the green leafy one) and a simple apple coleslaw ( for those adverse to all things green and leafy)

Vanilla ice-cream with balsamic blueberries
To end the meal, a nice creamy vanilla ice-cream topped with balsamic blueberries and a piece of wafer. The balsamic blueberries were made by simply heating blueberries with sugar and balsamic vinegar till just the berries are just about bursting. And no, I did not make the ice-cream but I did grow the mint!

Pineapple rolls
And lastly, something to keep the hand occupied while we talk away, pineapple rolls. This is a typical cookie during festivities at home. Made with melt in the mouth pastry and homemade pineapple jam.

And that is the end of one of the biggest solo cooking feat I have attempted this year, now to put my feet up and let someone else feed me for a change! :)

Rhubarb and Orange crumble

In trying to keep up with the abundance of rhubarb from the garden, we have another rhubarb dish. This time it is the good ole crumble, admittedly I'm not a fan but the classic must be attempted and attempted I did! Eaten with a large helping of custard ...errr, store bought I'm afraid as the crumble was made late at night and I was not going to be stirring the pot making custard. Next in the rhubarb series I think will be a jam, that way, I can use up more of the rhubarb.

Pre-custard, photos with the custard made it look rather unappertising

Rhubarb and Almond tart

The rhubarb plant in my garden was flourishing and it was time to get eating rhubarb, I chose a rhubarb and almond tart recipe from a new cookbook I got rather than the usual rhubarb crumble which does not tickle my fancy. It turned out quitely lovely as the rhubarb was poached in sugar water to rid them of the tart taste but only till just tender so they still hold their shape after baking which gave the tart a lovely texture. The almond sponge was just the right partner in taste. To bring it all together, the tart is best served with cream or icecream but  I only had evaporated milk which sort of worked too! In fact I liked it so much that I made again in a couple of days as a get well soon gift for a friend who injured her ankle.

Tender rhubarb encased in almond sponge...delicious!

The uncut tart, a little singed on one side as I had to
attend to the toilet needs of the little one

Elderflower Jelly with Summer Fruits

This time round, it's cooking for a friend's birthday BBQ and the weatherman says its HOT, HOT, HOT!! So time for something light and refreshing and what could be more refreshing than nicely chilled jelly with fresh fruits in it? However, after rumaging through my larder, I found that I've run out of my 'ready made' jelly mix. Deep breath and dive into Google to search for jelly recipes. Since its for a friend and her guests, I choose failproof Jamie's recipe but in a moment of bravery decided to make some tweaks to make it suitable for kids. So a quick 5 minutes for make it and pop it into the fridge, with all fingers crossed, I went to bed. The next morning, as early as 6am I was up to check if they had set and tasted fine. I can safely report that my 6am Jelly breakfast tasted sublime :)

Elderflower and Promegranate

All packed and ready to impress

Italian meatballs

After a bout of un-mentionable illness in the house, one which required a strict diet of cream crackers and water (yes, you know what I'm referring to), I found myself with a load of cream crackers to spare. I then came across Jamie Oliver's Meatball recipe which used crushed cream crackers instead of breadcrumbs. The meatballs turned out great and guess what, no cream crackers leftover, hooray!!

Blueberry Sour Cream cake

This is a very easy cake to do. Step 1, measure all the ingredients, Step 2 mix all the ingredients together, Step 3 stir in the blueberries and lastly pop into the oven and bake! Easy peasy, and 30 minutes later you have a lovely, moist cake to enjoy!

Unfortunately the colour of the blueberry in the photo does not look apertising but that's really the best bit of the cake!

Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemon

This is from Jamie Oliver's latest book, Jamie Does. Flavoured with preserved lemon and olives and then stewed till the meat falls off the bone, a very hearty meal served with lightly seasoned couscous.

Blueberry pancakes

On weekends when I'm looking for something a bit special for a leisurely breakfast, this never fails. This is an american sytle pancake filled with juicy blueberries, ready to burst when cut open, served with maple syrup, it makes a really good start to the weekend.

Fluffy inside with the blueberry ready to burst!

Irish Stew

Handy one pot dish is what this is. Chop and cut everything, dump into a casserole and stick it into the oven. Although the cooking time may be long, the lack of dishes to wash up really makes it worthwhile! Made with Guiness Stout (hence the name Irish) as one of the ingredients, this is a great warming dish for the colder weather.

Oat Cakes

If you are looking for something special for breakfast that is also good for you, these oat cakes are what you need. Similar to pancakes with oats added into the batter makes it a healthy choice, as for the topping, it's up to you. Keep it healthy with just a light drizzle of honey and lemon juice or indulge with butter and fresh fruit compote or peanut butter...really, anything goes!