Cooking with sis ~ Indonesian corn cookies

*** update : visit this post at my moved blog : HERE ***

If you scroll through my blog, it’s clear that I have a love for food. This love definitely runs in the family, my sister is a sort of MacGyver, when it comes to cooking. I was amazed to see, one evening when me & my father turned up unannounced, she whipped up half a rice table in under half an hour and it was delicious! I have to admit that I’m pretty jealous when I see people, who make these things look so easy.

On several occasions my sister made these Indonesian corn cookies, which always makes me happy, they’re so yummy and because they’re bitesize they’re ideal for any occasion. Also these little they’re tasty either warm or cold, you can easily make these little snacks a day in advance.

So I invited her if she could teach me to make these, and honestly now that you know the recipe, you should make them too!

~ Here is what you need for about 20 little cookies:

1 egg 1 spring onion

2 cloves of garlic 1 can of sweetcorn

1 00 gram plain flower 1 teaspoon kurkuma – tumeric

1 teaspoon ketoembar – coriander powder

and vegetable oil to fry in

~ Mix all the ingredients in a bowl

Heat in a wok or a deep frying pan a layer of vegetable oil.

Take 2 spoon, use one to scoop some of the mixture, then use the second one to carefully drop the mixture in the oil. Be careful that the oil is not too hot, because it may spit.

Fry the cookies a couple of minutes on each side.

Serve with sweet chili sauce and ENJOY!

My favorite and easiest pasta dish

This is absolutely one of my favorite dishes, and for a number of reasons;

it’s quick , it’s easy, it’s healthy

and besides that is tastes delicious, it also looks yummy (see above).

Although this is probably more of a summery dish,  I eat it all year around, almost weekly and sometimes even more then that. Maybe it’s an addiction, but if you’ll understand once you try this.

Here is what you need for one person:

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped 

1/3 courgette, chopped 

1 tomato

1 handful of peas, I use frozen biological garden peas

about a handful of fresh pasta

parmesan cheese, for topping 

Fry the garlic with the courgette on a medium heat. after a minute or so add the peas.

Then put the pasta in boiling water, because it’s fresh, it only needs to boil for a couple of minutes.

Drain the pasta, and add to the vegetables. Add some black pepper, and last add the tomatoes.

fry for another 30 secs, and voila!

Top with some parmesan cheese ( but, if you’re like me, you cover it completely with it, I absolutely love the stuff!)

And there you go, a delicious quick meal, enjoy!

I’m not a expert, but this really says “Happy Meal”

Apple turnovers, a quick fix when in need of something sweet.

Sometimes you have a graving for something sweet. It doesn’t matter what it is, even a teaspoon of sugar would do at that moment. I had that feeling last week as I was walking through the city, then the idea of baklava popped in my head.

A couple of years ago I was on holiday in Crete and ate this almost every day, and thinking back of that I knew it, Baklava was the solution. There was one place that I knew at that time that sells this, but when I arrived there I was disapointed. They did not sell it anymore, cause of the change of season.

 

This was not the time to find and try out a new recipe. So I went for a quick fix, an old favorite, Appleturnovers or appelflappen as we call them in Holland. I used to make these when I was a little girl with my mother and loved them.

All you need is some puffpastry, apple chopped, raisins, some lemon juice, cinnamon and sugar.

You don’t need to be Masterchef for this, but it does the trick when you’re in need of something sweet.

 

 

BBC Recipe App – Blueberry Lemon Cheesecakes

Yes, my last post is a while ago, but that doesn’t mean that I have been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks. I will take this week to update with some posts, because I have been taking tons of photo‘s, probably the reason why I didn’t take the time to sort and adjust them….

Let me start with my new addiction: the BBC GoodFood Cake Recipes App for Iphone.

Besides the fact that the app works well, is easy to use and has well explained recipes with also nutrition information, it has amazing looking photo’s of all the deliciousness of the recipes it contains. So, whenever I find myself having some time, like sitting in the bus or when I can’t get to sleep, I browse through the yummy sweeties.

When I saw the recipe for “Blueberry Lemon Cakes With Cheesecake Topping” I knew I had to make these first. So, when we went over to a friend for an english sunday lunch, I decided to provide a sweet for my friends.

And I’m glad I did, these little cheesecakes with blueberry, have a fresh sweetness, which are a delight to anybody who you serve them to.

I bought some lamps to improve my (blog) photo’s, I made these great photo’s. So sorry if I just over-posted with photo’s but I just couldn’t choose.

For those of you who don’t have the App you can find the recipe here

Enjoy!!

Fast Cars And Blueberry Muffins

How time flies…! On Sunday you get up extremely early and half asleep your standing in the kitchen weighing sugar, flower and other ingredients because later that morning your friends will be picking you up to go to Zandvoort to go and see the Italia a Zandvoort, which basically means that anything on wheels with Italian branding goes on the track to race a couple of rounds.

Therefore I thought a home-baked snacky was a good idea and when that week before I browsed into a recipe called “To Die For Blueberry Muffins” I immediately knew I wanted to make these (and you should too, because they were delicious).

The day was great, we had a spot in the sun, and saw amazing cars racing by some of which you know this is the closed your gonna get to,  the muffins were indeed delicious, and closed the day off with a dinner on the beach, which is a 5 min walk from the circuit.

I thought, great day to blog about… then I went to sleep, to work, ate something, blinked with my eyes and it’s saturday morning, when I finally post this….

Monday Brownie Blues & A vitamin power juice

Last Monday was a public holiday, my boyfriend went to play golf for the afternoon.

The house was quiet and it rained softly, a whole afternoon to be filled. I put Norah Jones and decided to start off with a vitamin-power-juice, I always put throw in something different depending on what I have in the fridge or freezer, here is what’s in this one. 

5 oranges – always a good basis 

2 red grapefruits – I just love their tangy fresh flavor

1 lemon – because they burst with vitamin C

Handful of blueberries – just because I had some left from the pancakes 

handful of raspberries (frozen) – they add a fresh taste, but also gives it nice pinkie color 

handful of mango pieces (frozen) – I always add mango, cause of it’s nice sweet taste and it add a thickness too

For that evening I was going over to my friend N for dinner, so I wanted to bake dessert, extra dark brownies with pecans and the last of the blueberries. I used darkest chocolate I could find. 

As you can see, they look pretty good, I can tell you that they smelled pretty good too…. unfortunately they didn’t taste pretty delicious, too dry and a bit too bitter too….. This calls for a remake!!!

I did found this recipe, for dark brownies if you would like to make them yourself.

Enjoy & Good Luck 

And now, something with chocolate again

 The last time the last time I blogged was the last time I baked… both too long ago.

so last friday night I went to the supermarket and made sure that for the coming 2 months I would not have any excuse,

by buying a whole pile of butter, about 1,5 kilos of chocolate and more, actually  too much sugar. 

If we would to be snowed in, which would quite impossible since is June and warmer then it’s ever been,

we could at least survive on brownies until the rescue teams would come and look for us.

So it’s sunday afternoon; time to start!

Two weeks ago I tried making these lovely looking cake balls with chocolate and cocos, For which I had a recipe from Delicious Magazine.

Unfortunately it was an enormous disaster, which I don’t want to go into too much detail – but just picture like something exploded in my kitchen, and it totally put me off.

But I had to give it another shot… and everything went smoothly, even with all the pictures I took while making it.

It was still a lot of hassle, but I pulled it off! My test-subject (my BF) was blown away, and had four.

 For all the effort and hassle, that’s the best compliment you can get!

Unfortunately the recipe for these are not on the delicious website.

If life gives you lemons…

…make a lemon drizzle cake

But first I have to tell you what a bad girl I am; About two weeks ago I  while I was waiting for my take away, I was reading a magazine in which I found a four page article with cake recipes amongst which this lemon cake recipe

which looked delicious, and I got that greedy feeling that I just had to have these recipes. 
 so as sneakily as possible I tried to rip out inch by inch while people around me enjoyed their diner, and before I had the whole thing my order was ready…  

I had to try a sort of Houdini article trick, and thanked kindly for the food. I know it was not my most decent moment, but I could not help myself.

As for the actual cake, my sister invited my family and ourselves over for an easter brunch, and this light lemon cake seemed like a good addition for the afternoon.

It was a great afternoon, with lovely food; of course eggs,  freshly baked bread and delicious cheeses then a little “tea break” when we were entertained by my sisters’ cats Russel & Jacky

In round two we had fresh fruit with cream & lemon cake which I also served with lemon curd mixed with mascarpone.

Besides of course for lemons, you need 3 eggs, flower, baking powder, almonds & milk.

But to prevent you getting into the same situation as I did I found the recipe online here

my addition to this recipe is some grounded chocolate in between the dough

Enjoy!!

my cookbook collection

As I have mentioned before I have a weak spot for books, ( actually also for magazines, but that pile grew and parting with them wasn’t easy so I forbid myself from buying any more).

But books, well you can’t ever have enough of those right?

As I was reorganizing some cupboard, I found out that I had collected a great deal of cookbooks over the last couple of years

and that for a person who only recently has made a serious commitment to the kitchen… 🙂

It made me realize that I have to broaden my horizon on the culinary front.

So hopefully I could show you something non-chocolate related

Enjoy!

We can’t eat unless it’s blogworthy

*** update : visit this post at my moved blog : HERE ***

Everybody knows Nigella Lawson, the domestic goddess, she makes the most delicious looking sweet things!

So, when we Recently we had some friends over for a sunday dinner, I decided to make her chocolate and raspberry pavlova for dessert.

before we could cut even one piece, I had everybody wait for me to take some pictures, as I said, we can’t eat it unless it’s blogworthy….

so this time not a series, but a single photo, of what is a simple but really nice and sweet dessert.

the recipe you can find in Nigella’s Forever Summer, and there is even a clip of it on you tube.

Enjoy, and if you’re gonna make this, have fun!