Hummus

My first taste of hummus was several decades ago in England, of all places. I was a traveling companion to an aunt (hellooooo Auntie Moe!) and she introduced me to hummus. Also taramasalata, which I thought was funny because it was pink, but that doesn't come into this story much. Both were delicious, but both were forgotten after that vacation and I'd returned to Singapore, where it's hard to find either (since neither are particularly local favorites).

Years later, I rediscovered the store-bought kind here in the US, and ate it with everything and in everything (except desserts). 

But I'd also wanted to make it myself, especially since everyone says it's so ridiculously easy. So I did. 

The only reason I'd waited this long (apart from my general propensity for procrastination) is the ease with which one can pick up an inexpensive store-bought tub in a multitude of flavors and brands. Why make when you can buy? is my life motto, because it saves time which, unlike money, one can never earn back.

Then one day I found tahini in my regular supermarket, lurking inconspicuously next to the peanut butters - without even having to go hunting in a gourmet grocery store, mind you! - and decided that the stars had aligned. 

It was as easy as I'd heard, and more delicious than.

Here is the recipe.

I didn't make any changes to it, but I did add leftover black beans to half a batch and pureed them in.

I'm not discriminating against store-bought, though - all hummus is good.

I Found An Icing

Some weeks ago, I spent a solo weekend in New York to visit Edwin and Jono. There was a lot of eating involved, about half of which was dessert/treats. And one of those treats was a caramel cake at Magnolia Bakery.

It was devastating.

Not only did I eat ALL the icing, when I never eat frosting in general (I scrape it off and just eat the cake), I also came home craving it and harboring covetous desires to replicate it.

The problem: I'd have to bake a cake to put the icing on.

I like cakes, but a whole cake seemed a bit much when all I needed was a slice or two. I momentarily considered buying a box mix and tossing away about 80% of the cake, but I couldn't bring myself to put good icing on a Betty Crocker yellow cake. Wrong in so many ways. 

Then I remembered that last winter, I'd made a sugee cake and, in an attempt to exercise restraint, disallowed myself from eating the last quarter of it and instead put it in the back of the freezer for a rainy day.

Hurrah!

On my birthday, I dug out that bit of cake, along with some good Irish butter I'd also been hoarding and made the caramel pecan buttercream icing that had so haunted me.

Amazing. Almondy-pecany-buttery perfection.

Who would've thought - sugee cake and caramel icing? Even Mum didn't believe it when I told her - sugee cake, apparently, is more familiarly served au naturel or with fondant and royal icing, particularly at weddings.

What do I care about following food rules?

Anyway, here is the recipe - see notes below:

• 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 5 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar 
• 11/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons dark corn syrup
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Notes:

1. I quartered this recipe.
2. I used much less confectioner's sugar
3. I totally forgot to add the milk
4. I added crushed pecans as a sprinkle

Truly Scrumptious Pumpkin Pie With Streusel

In the spirit of fall, I made a pumpkin pie last week. I don't usually care for pumpkin pie but this one is amazing, not the least because it's not very pumpkiny under all that wonderful nut streusel. 

I found the filling and topping recipe here.

And this is the recipe I used for the crust:

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 cup Crisco
• 3/8 cup butter (or 1/2 cup butter and no Crisco)
• iced water.

Method:

1. Rub fat into flour+salt.
2. Freeze for about 1/2 hour.
3. Fill with pumpkin filling and bake according to the recipe.

Pizza

This January, we've had a record five days of school canceled because of the cold. People who've lived here for years tell me that this is unprecedented. It's been nice having the kids home with me but we did quickly run out of things to do indoors. So on some of those days, we ignored the "too cold to go out" warnings and went out for lunch and a grocery run. On other days, we stayed indoors and baked. 

Last week, we made pizza from scratch. I don't usually do this, because home-made crust never turns out the way I want it to. It is not a bad crust, as far as home oven crusts go, but it isn't the sort of tender, crisp, unchewy crust one gets in a pizzeria that has a wood-fire brick oven. I've learnt over time that it has less to do with the kind of pan or dough one uses than the temperature of the oven. My oven has a very low upper limit, which is usually nowhere even near the upper limits promised on the temperature dial. I only discovered this duplicity upon investing in an oven thermometer, following quite a few baking adventures with dismal outcomes in spite of issue-free mixing processes. This is an unfortunate thing (the low maximum temperature, not the duplicity) because it means I am not unable to successfully bake stuff that I enjoy baking but that requires very high heat, like yeast breads. 

Still, I try. I tell myself that the practice (even if not also the results) can do no harm. 
And I keep looking for a decent pizza dough recipe that works with the limitations of my oven.

This is one of those decent recipes. There are only two things in this recipe that set it apart from other, previous recipes that have fallen flat:
a lot of olive oil - much more than the token tablespoonful in other recipes
allowing the yeast to proof before adding in other ingredients.

Here's our recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cups of water (between 110 and 130 F)
• One package (1/4 oz) or 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for oiling the bowl
• 3 1/2 cups bread flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 tsp salt

Method:

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water with the sugar, in mixing bowl. Let stand for about 10 minutes, or as long as necessary for bubbles to form and foam.
2. Stir in the oil.
3. Add the flour and salt and knead with dough hook in mixer (or knead by hand with about 3/4 of the total amount of flour, adding the remainder as you knead).
4. Oil a large bowl, roll dough into large ball and place in bowl. Cover with moist towel and let rise about 1 hour until doubled in size. In the summer, I leave it in a locked car on our driveway. In the winter, I preheat the oven to the lowest temperature, turn it off and leave it in the oven along with a second, large bowl of boiling water to provide heat and moisture. 
5. Use dough immediately or refrigerate (or freeze) overnight. Pat half the dough onto a preheated pizza stone (or 12" unheated pan) dusted with flour or cornmeal. Prebake 5 minutes in a 450-500F oven. Then spread sauce and toppings and bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

The girls patted out and assembled this pizza. Because there were little hands involved, we didn't use a preheated pizza stone and instead used a cool pizza pan. Kate doesn't like pepperoni so we left her third without. 

Toffee/Heath Bars

Happy new year, everyone!

We had a wonderful year-end, packed with all kinds of good things. The kids had an extra-long winter break due, in part, to very bad weather (school got canceled for two days this week) and us taking time off early to go somewhere fun (more on that in a later post). Now that they are finally back in school, I'm slowly catching up on chores, correspondence, photos, updating this blog and routine in general. For the purpose of more accurate record-keeping, I'll be back-dating some of these posts to reflect when their events actually happened in 2013.

We traveled a lot over the Christmas break and, as a result, didn't do as much baking as we usually do. None of the teachers or neighbors got our annual platter-of-cookies. In fact, most of our Christmas goodies were given by friends (thank you, friends!). I did, however, try this one new recipe from my father-in-law. 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• Saltine crackers, enough to cover 13" x 9" surface
• 1 pkg milk chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Grease/spray a 13" x 9" baking dish, line with foil, and spray the foil.
3. Lay a single layer of saltine crackers, salt side down, in the foil-lined dish.
4. Melt butter and sugar in saucepan on stove. Boil 3 mins. Mixture will thicken.
5. Pour mixture over crackers.
6. Bake in oven for 5 minutes or a little longer, till crackers float.
7. Turn off oven, remove from oven and cool 3 mins.
8. Sprinkle chocolate chips, return to cooling oven to melt chips (or melt chocolate chips in double boiler and pour on), then spread with knife.
9. Cut into bars while warm (or before cooling completely so layers do not separate and/or crack).

White Chocolate, Cranberry and Macadamia Nut Cookies

I generally prefer brown chocolate chip cookies, but a person can only bake them so often before the family cries out for something different. Tried this recipe for white chocolate chip cookies yesterday, (with slight modifications) because I like everything Glory bakes. Added some craisins to her recipe and played with the oven temperature till it gave me what I wanted. Two things about chocolate chip (any color) cookies:

1. The butter is important. More important even than the butter temperature (softened but not melted) is the kind of butter you use. I've tried various butter brands from the supermarkets around here and, really, the only one that gives me moundy cookies (i.e. they don't spread flat like a manhole cover) is Costco's. So I reserve Costco's butter for baking and buy separate butter for eating. See this post and this post for my experimental results.
2. Baking temperature and time. You mustn't overbake chocolate chip cookies because they get very hard and crunchy when they cool, which is awful. At the same time, you mustn't underbake them, even for the sake of getting chewy centers, because it's sadly obvious when you bite into raw dough, cooled or otherwise. I'm sharing here my preferred temperature and baking time, which works for my oven (I use an oven thermometer because I am suspicious that my oven display is deceitful). Otherwise the original recipe is Glory's.

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) of salted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed+ 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed (or 3/4 cup of either, packed). 
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup unsalted macadamia nuts, roughly chopped (I just halved them)
• 1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup Craisins (dried cranberries)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 365F.
2. Cream butter and sugars.
3. Add in eggs and vanilla.
4. Combine powdered ingredients in a small bowl and mix into batter.
5. Add in nuts, chips and fruit.
6. Place mounds on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
7. Bake about 12 minutes or until edges are light golden brown and set. The centers will be soft, but the cookie must be light gold, not white. They will still have chewy centers when cooled but these won't taste like raw dough.
8. Cool completely before removing to rack - the cookies will fall apart otherwise.

Note: These cookies are extremely lemak (rich), as anything with white chocolate is bound to be. Eat them with a strong tea or coffee, not milk.

Apple Crisp

When one goes apple picking at a real, live orchard and returns with a bushel of tree-fresh fruit, one cannot bring oneself to consume the comparatively mediocre store-bought offerings one has stashed in one's icebox. At the same time, one also cannot bring oneself to abandon those to rot or humiliating desiccation (which is often the fate that befalls forgotten fruit). Therefore, one resorts to dessert. Pies, tarts, flans, cobblers are all wonderful ways to bring old fruit to new life and appease one's conscience while attempting to show off in the kitchen, not to mention turning out the crisper drawer of inferior fruit to make room for their more superior replacements. It is the perfect solution.

Thus was our dilemma resolved that weekend upon our return from apple-picking: we made an apple crisp. It was a step up from cobbler, because we added a secret ingredient discovered on the internet: Grape Nuts Cereal. How absolutely cunning (and delectable).

Ingredients:

For the filling -

• Apples (we used about 5 cups of gala, zestar and possibly honeycrisp - travesty, I know), cored, peeled and sliced.
• 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
• 1/2 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• Dash of nutmeg
• Pinch of ground cloves

For the topping-

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup Grape Nuts cereal
• 1/8 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt (more if butter is unsalted)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Put apples in a 8x8 baking dish.
3. Mix white sugar, the 1/2 Tbsp flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves and pour over apples evenly.
4. In separate bowl, mix together the remaining 1/2 cup flour, the oats, cereal, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, butter, salt and vanilla until crumbly.
5. Pour over apple mixture - cover apples entirely.
6. Bake at 350F for about 45 mins or till filling bubbles.
7. Serve with ice cream.

Peach Bread

We have an excess of peaches so we've been making peach recipes. Like that peach and blueberry cobbler in the earlier post. And now this recipe, which I adapted. If you make this at home, be sure to include the topping. It makes a world of difference. 

Peach Bread

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp almond essence
• 1/8 tsp butter essence
• 2 cups ripe peaches (skinned, diced coarsely), about 2 large peaches
• 1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Topping:

• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar (light or dark)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line a large loaf pan (about 9") with parchment paper.
2. Cream butter and sugar.
3. Add eggs, one at a time; mix well.
4. Add water, vanilla, almond and butter extracts/essences.
5. Mix in peaches.
6. Combine dry ingredients and fold in.
7. Pour in loaf pan.
8. Mix topping ingredients together in small bowl and sprinkle evenly over top of batter.
9. Bake 50 -55 mins or until skewer inserted in middle of loaf comes out clean.

Uffda Tacos

Erm.

I may be wrong but I think that people don't know what food cravings are until they've met a Singaporean. Really. I mean, everybody knows Singaporeans love food. We eat five or six meals a day and have a book called the Makan*sutra, which is a guide to the best hawker fare on the island, categorized by dish. I even know Singaporeans who have planned the catering menus for their own funerals. Nothing new there. But cravings! Pregnant women have nothing on Singaporeans, let me tell you. I know, because I've been both.

I have multiple ongoing cravings. These are the dishes I can eat any time of the day, as often as I can get them, without feeling jelak**. Here is a short list (because if I let myself list them all, I'd become depressed):

• Mee siam
• Mee rebus
• Lontong
• Indian rojak
• Mum's popiah
• Soon kueh
• Hakka yong tau fu
• Bak zhang
• Nyonya zhang
• Ubi kayu pedas

Okay, that's enough. And no, I'm disinclined to translate those dishes to English. They're meant to sound exotic because that's how they taste. Moving on now.

Other cravings are one-time, ad-hoc afflictions. The good news is that they go away after finding and eating that particular dish. The bad news is that sometimes the finding (and, therefore, the eating) is imposible so the craving goes on and on, like a thorn in the flesh, consuming me from the inside out.

My most recent craving has been uffda tacos, more generically known as fry-bread tacos. It's fair food, which is sad in itself, but it can only be found in the more northern parts of the state, where we don't live. I first tried it one summer at a county fair while visiting the in-laws, hundreds of miles from home. Immediately, it became a craving. From then on, I've schemed every summer to eat it and obsess every fall, winter and spring for summer to come so I can eat it again. Tragically, it isn't a guarantee that each summer, our out-of-town jaunts will serendipitously collide with an uffda taco stand. So some summers I've had to do without. Very unhappy. I get crabby. I pore over vendor lists at local market and craft festivals and county fairs. I do internet research and fanatically follow the tour schedule of the uffda taco stands (we are not on their route, bah). I corner the relatives (who have the audacity to live in towns that are on the route) at family gatherings and tell them about my craving the way some people recount their chronic illnesses to hapless strangers too polite to walk away. Perhaps if I pester them enough, I think, they will introduce me to someone who knows someone who knows someone who might be related to someone who might have married someone who works in an uffda taco stand. Like I said, there is no craving like that of a Singaporean's ("Or maybe it's just you, you crazy woman", I hear you think. Yeah, right. How many other non-food-crazed Singaporeans have you met? Mmhmm.)

This summer was threatening to be one of those uffda-taco-less ones. I mean, it's almost August and there hasn't been an uffda taco sighting for miles! Decided I'd have to go the DIY route. After all, if I've made a sewing career out of making things I coveted but couldn't buy, surely I could do the same with food? 

Armed with the advice of one of those aforementioned cornered relatives (who makes her own uffda tacos with frozen bread dough), I hit the local supermarkets for supplies.They didn't have frozen bread dough. Evidently, no one in the metro area has an uffda taco craving. Despondent. Went home and looked up recipes on the internet. Found this one. Highly-rated but no yeast. Decided that it would probably do, with slight modifications.

Yes, it did.

Finally - uffda tacos.

Here is the recipe, in case you ever crave them but don't feel up to braving the behemoth of noise, crowds and overheated pavements that is the Minnesota State Fair:

Fry bread

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour (I used bread flour)
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 2 Tbsp softened butter
• 1 cup milk, warmed to 120-130F (to activate the yeast)
• Oil for frying

Method:

1. Mix everything in electric mixer with dough hook; knead for 10 minutes. Or hand knead. Add more flour as needed to make a silky dough.
2. Let rise for about an hour till its bulk increases by 50%.
3. Divide into 6 balls (roughly the size of tennis balls), roll each to 6-7" in diameter, with about a 1/2" rim that's about 1/4" thick. Make a small hole, about 1" wide, in the center of the circle. This is to prevent ballooning when the dough is frying and thus allowing the center to lay flat enough to cook evenly.
4. Heat oil to medium-high temperature. Fry circles one at a time, flipping over when the first side is golden.
5. Drain on paper towels.

Meat filling

• Ground beef, with taco seasoning
• Lettuce, shredded
• Tomatoes, diced
• Cheese, shredded
• Olives, sliced
• Sour cream
• Salsa or taco sauce

Last word: Unsurprisingly, Singaporeans send other Singaporeans food in the post for their birthdays. This is what arrived in the post this week, from my lovely friend Eunice. 

It's ubi kayu pedas. And yes, I also know a DIY version - back when I was a teacher, I made the office clerks teach me how to make it (you fry paper-thin slices of tapioca and add sambal, peanuts and ikan bilis aka anchovies).

Two cravings down. There will be others, though. There always are. 

* Makan: eat (Malay)

**jelak: satiated by (especially very rich) food, to the point of repulsion. (Malay)

Peach and Blueberry Crisp-Cobbler

Made this tonight, from the excess of peaches in our kitchen. The original recipe is here but I changed it a bit because I wanted a crisper topping than traditional cobbler. I think my life would be perfect if I was only required to serve desserts and treats at mealtimes. I am happiest when I am baking these and most dejected and uninspired when I am cooking regular meals (boring). And the ideal world would be one in which desserts are the main course and any savory offerings merely the foil to allow for the consumption of even more sweets after.

Peach and Blueberry Crisp-Cobbler

Filling:

• 6 large ripe peaches
• 1 cup blueberries (frozen is ok, but thaw first)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar or a little more, if peaches are not very sweet
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice

Topping:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup oats (I used quick-cook)
• 1/4 cup light or dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1 /4 stick butter (5 oz)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Boil a pot of water and blanch peaches for about 1 minute. Dunk in cold water and remove skins. Wedge peaches and then cut into thirds (about 1" pieces).
3. Combine peaches, sugar, flour, zest, lemon juice in large bowl and mix well to coat. Add blueberries and toss gently. Let stand for at least 10 minutes.
4. Combine in a separate bowl the flour, sugars, flour, salt and cinnamon. Rub in butter till clumpy. Add in oats and vanilla and mix with fork.
5. Pour fruit mixture (including liquid) into oven-safe dish. Mine was smaller than a 9 x 13 and larger than an 8x8. Spread topping evenly over fruit mixture.
6. Bake for 45 minutes or until liquid underneath oozes out and topping is set and crispy.
7. Serve warm with ice cream.

Nutella Banana Cupcakes and Hamburger Cupcakes

 

I'm back on Nutella.

Jenna and Kate saw these hamburger cupcakes online and wanted to make them, so on Thursday afternoon we baked a batch each of of french vanilla and dark chocolate mini cupcakes and assembled these burgers.

Into the leftover dark chocolate cake batter, I added some nutella and mashed banana, then frosted the cooled cupcakes with nutella-cocoa cream frosting. 

The recipe is very inexact because I was using leftovers and tasting as I went. Also I was working with Betty Crocker's boxed mix, which was a nice moist basic cake and enough for only seven regular-sized cupcakes. Here are the approximate proprotions:

Batter - mix and bake

• Enough dark chocolate cake batter for about 7 cupcakes (obviously if you are making a full batch of 12 or 24, you should increase the rest of the ingredients proportionally)
• About 2/3 of a very, very ripe banana, roughly mashed (should have small chunks)
• About 1/5-1/4 cup nutella

Frosting
About 1 cup heavy whipping cream
About 1/4 cup powdered (icing) sugar
About 2 Tbsp cocoa
About 2 Tbsp nutella, or more to taste

Whip till stiff, and pipe using star nozzle.

In future, I might add a bit of softened butter (like 1 Tbsp) to stabilize the frosting. But maybe not, because the flavor as is is out of this world.

Incidentally, Kate became a nutella convert  that day. Yay!

Pumpkin and Blueberry Loaf

This is a wonderfully moist cakey loaf I rediscovered in my recipe book a few days ago. I first made it about 4 years ago when my friend Jeanne shared the recipe (and a sample of its baked result) but forgot all about it till now. My loss - it is probably my favorite dessert loaf now!

PUMPKIN & BLUEBERRY LOAF

Ingredients:

• 1 stick of butter (1/4 pound)
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice*
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 3/4 cup fresh blueberries (not dried) - do not be tempted to omit the blueberries. You must have them. There is no point to this loaf without the blueberries. Really!

* There are many recipes for pumpkin pie spice. The one I used (relative ratios in parentheses) is:

• Cinnamon (4)
• Ground ginger (2)
• Ground cloves/ground allspice (2)
• Ground nutmeg (1)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour (or line with parchment paper) a loaf tin (large - about 2 pounds)
2. Cream together the softened butter and sugar.
3. Mix in the eggs, pumpkin and water.
4. Mix together the dry ingredients and fold into wet ingredients.
5. Stir in blueberries till just well mixed.
6. Pour into loaf tin and bake about 1.25 - 1.5 hours.

Peach Pie

Made a peach pie today. We had two crates of peaches and nectarines and they were all ripening together so we ate some, jammed some, made some into ice cream topping and sliced the rest for this pie. The recipe is Betty Crocker's, modified. Next time I make it, I need to add a little more sugar to the peaches but it is otherwise quite scrumptious.

Pastry:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 sticks minus 2 Tbsp butter (save one Tbsp for the filling)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 2 tsp vegetable oil

Method:

1. Rub cold fat into flour+salt (or use pastry blender - but I always finish off with fingertips)
2. Add in buttermilk and oil and mix briefly to bind dough.
3. Divide dough into two halves - roll one half into large circle to line pie dish and roll the other into large circle for top crust. I rolled the dough between parchment paper sheets dusted with flour.
4. Cover and leave in the fridge when not working with it so pastry can rest.

Filling:

• 5-6 large ripe peaches- skinned, pitted and sliced
• 1/3 cup flour
• 2/3-3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp butter, cut into small pieces

Method:

1. Mix dry ingredients together.
2. Mix in peaches and lemon juice.
3. Pour into pastry-lined pie pan.
4. Dot with butter pieces.
5. Top with crust - cut 4 slits and flute edges.
6. Cover edges with foil.
7. Bake in 425 F oven for 30 minutes, then remove foil, and bake for a further 15 minutes.

Lemon Bread

Found a small sack of lemons in the fridge yesterday that needed to be used up, so I juiced them and turned them into lemonade, lemon curd (to become lemon pie this week) and lemon bread. This is Williams-Sonoma's recipe for lemon bread. And by "bread", they really mean "cake". Either way, we love it.

Ingredients
For the bread/cake:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 Tbsp finely grated lemon zest
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

For the lemon glaze:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Grease and line a medium loaf pan with parchment paper.
3. Mix flour, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl.
4. With electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter and sugar, then add eggs, beating well after each addition.
5. With electric mixer on low speed, mix in zest, then alternately add in flour mixture and milk.
6. Stir in pecans.
7. Pour into prepared pan and bake 50 -60 mins, until done.
8. Mix glaze.
9. Remove loaf from pan onto wire rack, poke holes in top with fork.
10. Pour glaze all over top. Cool. Eat.

New Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Am experimenting with CCCs, because no matter how scrumptious our current CCC recipe is, and how many delicious variations we've made to it, there will always be one out there that's differently better. Or betterly different. 

Here's the one we tried last week and loved. I only made two changes to it:

1. I used light brown sugar instead of dark, since I didn't have dark in the house.
2. I used pecans instead of walnuts, since I didn't have walnuts in the house either.

It's definitely a keeper!

Mexican Rice

In an attempt to do holiday cooking close enough to an actual holiday so I can claim that I am actually observing the holiday in question*, here is a recipe for Mexican Rice that I got from my friend Karin. It is quite, quite delicious. We eat it with tacos. Or, rather, I eat it with a taco salad since I'm paranoid that taco shells, when bitten into, will lodge their sharp bits in the gums that used to host my wisdom teeth. Someone should write a book about my paranoias. It will sell like hot cakes because people will believe it is fiction when it is actually a biography.

Anyway, here is the recipe, taken from Cooks Illustrated, and bestowed upon us by the generous hand of Karin.


Ingredients:

• 2 medium-large ripe tomatoes, cored and quartered (about 12 oz)
• 1 medium white onion, wedged
• 2 medium jalepeno peppers, de-ribbed and de-seeded, chopped very finely
• 4 cloves garlic, minced (about 4 tsp)
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 cups long grain rice
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Puree tomatoes and onion till smooth. Measure out 2 cups, and discard the rest.
3. Rinse rice in a fine strainer till water runs clear, drain well.
4. Heat oil in dutch oven (or oven-safe pan) over medium-high heat. When oil is hot (toss in a few grains of rice - if they sizzle, the oil is ready). Fry the rice for about 6-8 minutes, till lightly golden, stirring often.
5. Lower heat to medium, and fry garlic and jalapeno pepper, till fragrant.
6. Pour in tomato-onion puree, chicken stock, salt and tomato paste. Bring to a boil.
7. Remove from heat, cover and place in oven to continue cooking. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until all the liquid is absorbed and rice is tender. Stir well halfway through cooking.

Stir in cilantro and serve or freeze.

* Cinco de Mayo

More Salsa, With Mango This Time

Sorry about this being another salsa post. I finished the last batch and had half a red onion leftover in the fridge, and cilantro, besides. So of course had to make more salsa. Went out and bought a mango. I don't eat mangos in Minnesota. They're oddly crunchy and sour and haven't got much flavor, even when they're sweet(ish). I've been spoiled on those slender succulent Philippine mangos and the delectable, gigantic (they're the size of a small loaf of bread) Taiwanese honey mangos. Why would people eat crunchy mangoes? Except in salsa, of course. Here's the recipe for this mango salsa. I made it up, so it's completely experimental and personal-taste-ish.

Ingredients (just mix together in a bowl):

• Half a red onion, chopped.
• Two cans Rotel tomatoes, with juice
• 1 serrano pepper, or more, finely chopped
• Half to one whole lime - start with the juice of half, and taste.
• Chopped cilantro - I used about 1-2 tsps.
• One mango - cube the flesh - the sweeter, the better.

I still have cilantro, so I might have to make Chipotle's knockoff lime cilantro rice. This also means I have to make the barbacoa meat that goes with it. Drats. That seems like more work than I need, just to save the cilantro. We'll see.

Salsa

I have a salsa weakness. I feel insecure if we don't have a spare jar of it in the pantry. I crave it in spurts, but often, and regularly; the hotter, the better. I've never made it myself, though. It wasn't for lack of recipes; I just didn't bother. This week I made some (finally) - recipe from here. Thank you, Liz! Definitely a keeper, but next time I'll make it spicier and sour-er. 


Corn and black bean salsa (practically stolen as is from Simple Simon & Co's)
Ingredients:

• 1 can black beans, washed and drained
• 1 cup sweet corn kernels (I used leftover cooked corn from dinner)
• Half a red onion, diced finely
• 1-2 green limes, juiced
• 1 serrano pepper, chopped finely
• 2 cans Rotel diced tomatoes, with juice. I used one can of Original, and one can of the "with cilantro and lime juice" variety
• Chopped cilantro

Just mix everything together!


I jarred the mixture and gave away a jar. Salsa doesn't keep, and I wanted to share it while it was good!

I Have Sunk To New Lows

I'm craving aeroplane (or airplane, as they say here) food.

'Tis very sad, but I need to be honest. Most aeroplane food is vile, but there is one particular meal on the incoming leg to Minneapolis from Narita, that includes an oddly tasty Japanese pickled ginger noodle dish. I am always happy to eat it, not only because it is a far superior to the alternative - The Radioactive Omelette - but also because it really is tasty. 

And so, far the past few days since we got home, I've been craving that soy-and-ginger combination of flavours. Today I decided I'd better cook something close to it, or else languish to death, like a pregnant woman forced to eat hay when all she really wants is grass. Or something like that.

Remembered that I had a pack of noodles in the basement pantry (aka laundry room) that had been around for a while. 

I just hadn't realized how long awhile it really was.

Ah, well, I'm no stranger to expired Asian food, so it was perfect.

Now those noodles are not ideal as fried noodle, since they are a little on the gummy side. I didn't even buy these - someone gave them to me. People will still make them into Pad Thai and other similar dishes when they cannot find superior noodles, so it's not as if they are wrong. Just not ideal. 

Thought I'd document the process, for the kids, and also as my defense for why I let my Asian food hang around the house for years, rotting maturing.

First, the noodles were soaked in cool (not hot) water for about half an hour.

While they were getting all soft and tender, I made the garnish. Two eggs were beaten, diluted with a little water and seasoned with light soy sauce and black pepper. 

They were swirled into a thin crepe-like omelette around the wok, then sliced into strips.

When we do fried noodles in Singapore, the egg garnish is often prepared like this - separately, set aside, and saved for the presentation. We don't scramble it the way it is done in fried rice - it's too crude for noodles.

Next, the vegetables were washed and diced. We usually use choy sum/yau choy but I had collard greens in the fridge, and they were a decent substitute. The stalks were separated from the leaves, to be added into the mix at different times.

The bean sprouts were washed, drained and left as is.

One large garlic clove, minced, and a nice chunk of ginger root, skinned and julienned.

One serrano pepper, sliced thin, in place of the more colourful red chilli peppers we use in Singapore,

plus one and a half chicken breasts, sliced into thin strips, marinated with sesame oil, cornstarch and black pepper.

All the ingredients prepared, the next step was to take a break and clean up. It's a good habit I learned from Mum - clean up as you go. I could never sit at the table and eat an Asian meal that I'd cooked, if the kitchen was a mess from the cooking. Oddly, I can easily and happily wolf down Western food with grease-caked pans and utensils strewn about the counters behind me. I think I'm compartmentalizing something, but I don't know exactly what.

Then the assembly began - and this part goes very fast!

In this order, all the ingredients went into the wok:

• Garlic
• Ginger
• Collard Green stems
• Chicken
• Collard Green leaves
• Noodles
• Chicken stock
• Bean sprouts
• Light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, fish sauce
• Black pepper

and everything was tossed like lo hei, and left to simmer under the cover for a while.

Then it was served and eaten

to the accompaniment of a delightful not-very-Asian tea from M&S.

Better than airplane food, if I may say so. 

But -darn it - I forgot the shitakes. 

I knew there was something missing. It took me the whole afternoon to figure it out.

This meal was an hour to put together, and only I will eat it. Which means I still need to cook a separate meal for the other people who live in this house. More for me, is one way of looking at it. But it's also why I don't cook real Asian food very often. And why stuff hides out in the backs of cupboards for so long, only seeing the light of day every few years. Hee!