Surprises in the attic

Broa

2011-07-19T17:02:00.002+01:00

Suddenly there was a Broa making opportunity for me today. Joao went downstairs to make his coffee and heard that the bread oven is being heated and ready to bake in 1 hour. I had to move fast and mix together the dough and hope that it has enough time to rise.

Couple of days earlier I had searched out some Broa recipes and adjusted it to the amount of ingredients that I had available

500ml warm water

8g instant dry yeast

190g white wheat flour

400g corn flour

1/2 tl salt

1/2 sugar

Mix the flours together, add salt. Mix water, yeast, sugar and let it rest 10 min. Add water-yeast mix to the flour and knead it into a dough. Cover and let it raise.

Since I had very little time left thats really all I did. Kneading time was minimum too, maybe 2 minutes max. I let it grow for 1h and was called, because oven was ready. I divided the dough into 2 balls and laid them in the oven floor (outdoor wooden oven). I have no clue about the temperature there.

Long story short now. It's delicious!! The corn and wheat ratio is just right for my taste.

Loquat cake

2011-05-20T13:11:00.006+01:00

After a long long brake from posting, I have something experimental to post now. Since living in Portugal now and getting to know all the fruits of the land I have many culinary experiments ahead of me.

Loquats have just ripened here and I had tried few commercial ones last year in Dublin, so I wasn't completely blind folded about the flavor. However, I must say that the ones from grandmothers loquat tree are so much more sweeter, juicier and also smaller, but that doesn't bother me much.

Since I haven't seen or heard anyone talking about making a cake with it here, I proudly took the challenge. Such a delicious fruit, so it must make a good cake.

Few days ago I spotted Martha Stewarts Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake somewhere in the internet pages. My loquat cake was made after this recipe, replacing rhubarb with loquats. I used about 400g peeled and deseeded loquats. That was about 20 fruits. And as usual, I reduce the butter and sugar amounts little bit.

Spreading the cake batter on loquats

Crumb topping which becomes a bottom

2010 Wrap up with DIY Christmas presents

2010-12-31T15:46:00.010Z

So here a little photo gallery how our this years Christmas presents took shape. It was a full day of sticky fingers, but it was worth it. Apart from the fact that all the little bags traveling to Estonia with me being stranded overnight in Frankfurt airport got a bit deformed. Chocolate truffles became into one big truffle. Lesson to learn is that truffles don't travel well. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Nr.7 Daring Cook's Challenge - Mexican style pierogi

2010-08-14T07:04:00.005+01:00

The August 2010 Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n' Bites and Anula of Anula's Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and additional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale.

Daring Cooks August challenge was happily greeted by me and Joao. In the past I have successfully introduced Joao to dumplings world and I have made them once before. Someone might say that these are not dumplings but pierogi, but if you ask me the taste the same.

I must admit that I failed to provide a filling of my locale. At the moment we are locate din Ireland, so perhaps the best filling would have been something potato or seafood related. Instead Joao came up with the idea of doing something mexican like.

Dough

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 large egg

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup lukewarm water

Put the flour and the salt in the bowl. Make a hole in the middle, add the egg and half of the water. Gradually ad all the water and if needed add some more flour so you get a nice smooth ball of dough. Let it sit under the moist towel for 20 minutes before starting to work with it.

Filling

200g ground beef

1 small onion, diced

1 garlic glove

1/2 can kidney beans

1/2 can chopped tomatoes

salt

chilli pepper

Fry the onion, add the beef and fry it slightly. Add the beans and tomato, salt and chilli. Leave it simmer over a low heat for the water to evaporate.

Nr.6 Daring Cook's Challenge - Nut Butter and Chicken with Curried Tomato Almond Sauce

2010-07-14T07:54:00.002+01:00

Chicken with Curried Tomato Almond Sauce

The July 2010 Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butters from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

There is unbelievable variety of opportunities out there to make nut butters from nuts or seeds. I went for the almond butter. The technology behind it quite simple, just get some nuts or seeds and put them in the food processor and let the machine do the work for you. I don't have a food processor, so I was using my hand mixer. I definitely suggest to use the food processor if you've got one. My poor hand mixer was close to smoking. The mixture wasn't quite coming together like a butter is suppose to, so I added little bit of olive oil, for it to help to combine. You can admire the result below on the photo.

By the way for the Chicken Tomato Curry recipe it suggests to take out the onion as it's meant to be a smooth sauce, but I kept it in. I like chunky texture. Also, all that almond butter and butter in the sauce, makes it a very rich meal, so I would easily serve it for more than 4 unless the eaters are big big big people. And the recipe is definitely a keep and a delicious meal. I encourage you to try it!

My very first almond butter

Chicken with Curried Tomato Almond Sauce 

1 Tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil 
170g
boneless, skinless chicken breast halves 
Salt to taste

Spice Blend: 
1.5 tablespoons (20 ml) garam masala seasoning 
1 teaspoon (5 ml) ground ginger 
1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) ground cinnamon 
1/4 teaspoon (1 ml) black pepper

Sauce: 
4 tablespoons (60 ml) butter 
1 large onion, cut in half pole to pole 
2 cloves garlic, minced 
1 425 g can tomato sauce 
⅓ cup (80 ml) almond butter 
⅓ cup (80 ml) milk 
½ to ¾ cup (120 to 180 ml) chicken broth or water, more as needed 
1 cup (240 ml) frozen peas (optional)

Hot basmati rice for serving Chopped parsley (optional garnish) Sliced almonds (optional garnish)

Directions:

Cook the chicken. If desired, pound chicken to ¼ inch (6 mm) thickness to promote even
cooking. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Heat 1 teaspoon (5 ml) olive oil a
large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add half the chicken; sauté 3 to 5 minutes on
each side or until cooked through. Cook the chicken in 2 batches, adding more oil if needed
for second batch. Dice chicken into bite-sized pieces; set aside on clean plate and keep
warm.

Prepare spice blend. Stir garam masala, ginger, cinnamon, and pepper together in a small
bowl. Set aside.

Melt the butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook
gently for several minutes to infuse the butter with onion flavor. Keep the heat low to avoid
burning the butter; a little color is fine. Add the spice blend and garlic and cook for 1 minute
or till fragrant, stirring constantly. Add the tomato sauce, stir well, and bring to boil. Reduce
heat to simmer. Whisk in almond butter and milk until thoroughly combined with tomato
sauce. The almond butter is thick so it takes a while to make a smooth sauce. Return to
simmer. Add broth (or water) to sauce to reach desired consistency; return to simmer. Add
more broth (or water) as needed to thin sauce as desired.

Remove onion from sauce and discard. Stir frozen peas (if using) into sauce. Transfer sliced
chicken to sauce. Simmer gently for a few minutes until peas and chicken are heated
through.
Serve chicken and sauce over rice. Garnish with chopped parsley and/or sliced almonds if
desired.

Rustic rhubarb tarts from scratch

2010-06-26T20:07:00.013+01:00

Finally I was able to shake off that don't-feel-like-cooking-mood and bake something. Its a beautiful summer day and its the last time to make something with rhubarb before its out of the season.

Month a go or so this recipe caught my eye while reading beautiful smitten kitchen blog where you can find the recipe, just like I did.

So I started off making the rhubarb compote to fill in my tarts. I wont bother to repeat the whole thing here, as I blindly followed her recipe and instructions. Plus, I have to follow the World Cup with the one eye (excuses, excuses, excuses), so where do I take this time to type it all in here :P

They came out pretty good. I can't belive that I say this but I would put some more sugar in the dough and suggest to eat the warm thing with scoop of vanilla ice cream. I just didn't have any, but you should get some when attempting this recipe.

Nr.5 Daring Cook's Challenge - Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchadila

2010-05-14T11:48:00.004+01:00

Its May and challenge number 5. As you can see my dear readers, I missed out on April challenge, because of busy times and also the recipe wasn't very appealing.

Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Chicken Enchadila recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchdila sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

I used my own creativity to adjust the recipe for our needs and tastes. First of all, I didn't use the same amount of green chiles. It sounded a lot of green chiles in the recipe, so I used chiles and green peppers 50/50. And even then it became amazingly spicy, so I used the sauce very moderately. I couldn't find tomatillos anywhere, so I used tomatoes instead. I don't have the grill, so I just oven roasted the chiles and peppers and panfried the chicken.

Although quite spicy, this recipe is a keeper. After all, its up to you how much sauce to use. I still have a good bit left over in the fridge. Which means shortly we'll be having the same dinner again.

Stacked Green Chile & Chicken Enchadila

675g roast, peel and seeds removed and chopped green chiles

215g tomatillos

920g chicken broth

1 garlic clove, minced

2 teaspoons yellow onion, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 tablespoon cornstarch

hot sauce

2 boneless chicken breasts

3 tablespoons olive oil

12 small corn tortillas

170g cheddar cheese, grated

cilantro for garnish

1. Coat chiles with little bit of vegetable oil and lay on the baking sheet or grill. They should become black and blistered. Remove when completely charred and let them cool down. Remove peel and seeds.

2.To make a sauce, boil tomatillos until soft in a little bit of water about 5-10 min. Drain and puree in the blender or food processor.

3. Return to a saucepan with chicken broth, chopped roasted green chiles, minced onion, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper.

4. Bring to boil over medium high heat then reduce heat and let simmer 10 min.

5. Add cornstarch/water mixture and stir well. Let simmer 10-15 min, occasionally stirring.

6. Grill the chicken breast, let it cool a bit and then slice into think stripes.

7. Take a baking dish and lay layers of tortilla, sauce chicken until finished with ingredients or as much the baking dish can hold. To finish put tortilla and grated cheese on top.

8. Take to the oven for 20 min. Let it cool down 5-10 min before serving.

Warm spinach and fried egg sandwich

2010-03-27T18:34:00.005Z

Little bit of spring on the plate and home made green ice tea in the glass

Today I was inspired by spring. I came up with this gorgeus looking dinner out of the blue. I was feeling like something light (by light I mean, small portion and no meat) and colourful. So here comes the recipe of what you just see on those photos here.

Warm spinach and fried egg sandwich

1 or 2 slices of good fresh bread

2 handfuls fresh baby spinach leaves

1 egg

1/2 teaspoons red curry paste

small handful of grated cheese

1 small garlic clove

olive oil

salt

1)Heat the pan and cook spinach leaves on dry pan for few minutes until they come togeter, remove from the pan.

2)Add some olive oil to the pan, chopped garlic and 1/2 teaspoon red curry paste. Let it come to sizzle and then add the bread slice(s). Fry 1 min from both sides. All you really need is to get the bread hot and absorb some of that garlic and curry paste flavored oil, remove the bread.

3)Take a fresh pan or just wipe down this one with paper towel, so the curry paste oil gets removed. Add some fresh oil on the pan and fry the egg just the way you like it, sunny side up or rock hard.

4)Now assemble the masterpiece. Place the bread on the plate, spread the spinach evenly over it. Sprinkle grated cheese over spinach and fried egg goes on top.

NOTES: I used two slices of irish wholemeal soda bread. Two because the bread is quite flat, so the slices are not that big. Ideally you want your bread to be size of the fried egg, so make your own calculations.

I was very happy with the outcome. If you dont like spicy at all, leave the curry paste out. What it does is a little warm feeling in your mouth after the eating, nothing too spicy, just the way I like it.

Nr.3 Daring Cook's Challenge - Risotto

2010-03-14T15:48:00.006Z

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

This month I was really on the edge. I just finished cooking and eating my delicious risotto. I love risotto and I make it every now and then, not always with home made stock though, actually never. Making your own stock gives little more work, but the result is worth the hassle. I wanted to make it with butternut squash or pumpkin, but the ones from local shop were from Brazil and since I am trying not to contribute to this worldwide shipping of food I had to pick what ever was local. So I found some Irish mushrooms and carrots. Also, I made some alterations to the recipe myself, as I added the mushrooms and carrots, just after the onion and like this cooked everything together. In my opinion, it allows the flavours to get incorporated much better. Perhaps some Italian chef would have another opinion about it, but he wasn't here, so I did it according to my own beliefs.

Chicken Stock

1 kg of chicken

1 Kg of chicken bones

2 onions, roughly diced

1 medium leek, white part only, roughly diced

2 sticks of celery, roughly diced

2 cloves of garlic

1 cinnamon stick

1 Tsp peppercorns

2 bay leaves

peel of 1/2 lemon

1/4 Tsp allspice

Wash the chicken, place in the pot and bring it to boil. Skim away any scum as it comes to the surface. Add all the other ingredients and leave it to simmer very gently uncovered for 1.5 h. Take out the chicken and leave the stock to simmer for another hour. Then pour the stock through a fine sieve and its ready to use.

Risotto

60 ml olive oil

1 small onion

2 handfuls of fresh mushrooms, halved

1 carrot, chopped

400g risotto rice (Arborio)

60 ml white wine

1 l chicken stock

60g parmesan cheese, grated

Heat the oil in the pan and add the onion. Now I added the chopped carrots and halved mushrooms. I let everything to sizzle for some time. Add the rice and let every grain to get nicely covered with juices from the pan. Then add wine and let it bubble until evaporated. Add enough stock just to cover the rice, cook on medium heat and stir with a wooden spoon until most of the stock has been absorbed, repeat this final step until stock is finished. When stock is finished then the rice should be ready as well, if not, get some more stock and continue until rice is cooked. For the final step, remove from the heat and mix in grated parmesan cheese.

Head isu!

Nr.2 Daring Cook's Challenge - Pita Bread and Mezze

2010-02-14T09:57:00.003Z

Mezze - Middle Eastern version of Spanish Tapas

February challenge was a nice one. Probably I wouldn't have ever tried it myself without this challenge, since pita bread is so widely available in the shops. I was prepared for the worst, since lately my challenges haven't been so successful, but I must say I stayed satisfied with the result of this one. Some of the breads didn't puff up, but at least half of them did.

Hummus I have done before, so this part didn't exactly have a challenge element for me. I used lemon juice and parsley to season the hummus.

The 2010 February Daring COOKs challenge was hosted by Michele of Veggie Num Nums. Michele chose to challenge everyone to make mezze based on various recipes from Claudia Roden, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugid.

Pita Bread – Recipe adapted from Flatbreads& Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

2 teaspoons regular dry yeast (.43 ounces/12.1 grams)

2.5 cups lukewarm water (21 ounces/591 grams)

5-6 cups all-purpose flour (may use a combination of 50% whole wheat and 50% all-purpose, or a combination of alternative flours for gluten free pita) (17.5 -21 ounces/497-596 grams)

1 tablespoon table salt (.50 ounces/15 grams)

2 tablespoons olive oil (.95 ounces/29 ml)

Directions:

1. In a large bread bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Stir to dissolve. Stir in 3 cups flour, a cup at a time, and then stir 100 times, about 1 minute, in the same direction to activate the gluten. Let this sponge rest for at least 10 minutes, or as long as 2 hours.

2. Sprinkle the salt over the sponge and stir in the olive oil. Mix well. Add more flour, a cup at a time, until the dough is too stiff to stir. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 to 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Rinse out the bowl, dry, and lightly oil. Return the dough to the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until at least doubled in size, approximately 1 1/2 hours.

3. Place a pizza stone, or two small baking sheets, on the bottom rack of your oven, leaving a 1-inch gap all around between the stone or sheets and the oven walls to allow heat to circulate. Preheat the oven to 450F (230C).

4. Gently punch down the dough. Divide the dough in half, and then set half aside, covered, while you work with the rest. Divide the other half into 8 equal pieces and flatten each piece with lightly floured hands. Roll out each piece to a circle 8 to 9 inches in diameter and less than 1/4 inch thick. Keep the rolled-out breads covered until ready to bake, but do not stack.

5. Place 2 breads, or more if your oven is large enough, on the stone or baking sheets, and bake for 2 to 3 minutes, or until each bread has gone into a full balloon. If for some reason your bread doesn't puff up, don't worry it should still taste delicious. Wrap the baked breads together in a large kitchen towel to keep them warm and soft while you bake the remaining rolled-out breads. Then repeat with the rest of the dough.

Hummus – Recipe adapted from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden

1.5 cups dried chickpeas, soaked in cold water overnight (or substitute well drained canned chickpeas and omit the cooking) (10 ounces/301 grams)

2-2.5 lemons, juiced (3 ounces/89ml)

2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

a big pinch of salt and good handful of chopped parsly

Directions:

1. Drain and boil the soaked chickpeas in fresh water for about 1 ½ hours, or until tender. Drain, but reserve the cooking liquid.

2. Puree the beans in a food processor (or you can use a potato masher) adding the cooking water as needed until you have a smooth paste.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Adjust the seasonings to taste.

Nr.1 Daring Cook's challenge - Pork Satay with Peanut Sauce

2010-01-14T08:06:00.003Z

This is my first Daring Cook challenge and I was very excited about it. Hopefully I will be able to collect some new recipes for dinners.

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

Satay Marinade

1/2 small onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon ginger root

2 tablesoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric

2 tablespoon vegetable oli ( or peanut or olive oil)

450g pork (loin or shoulder cuts)

1) Put all the ingretiantes to food blender and blend it until puree. Place the pork cuts into the marinade and chill it for 2 hours.

2) Grill pork cuts or fry on a sizzling pan.

Peanut Sauce

180ml coconut milk

4 tablespoons peanut butter

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1-2 dried chillies, chopped

1. Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and lemon, mix well.
2. Over low heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter and your soy-lemon-seasoning mix. Mix well, stir often.
3. All you’re doing is melting the peanut butter, so make your peanut sauce after you’ve made everything else in your meal, or make ahead of time and reheat.

Feelings about this recipe: Satay marinade was quite nice and something I might try again once in a blue moon. Peanut sauce was something absolutely weird. Somewhat sweet and peanut tasting, no, no, no in my house.

Cheese puffs for a tea party

2010-01-10T11:07:00.007Z

A friend of mine was stopping by for Saturday afternoon and so then I invited another one and what was a meant to be a simple visit grew into a serious tea party with 4 participants!!! Life is what you make of it, isn't it ?!

I did some searching in the recipe department of my brain and cheese puffs came up. Recipe that I once spotted somewhere and have wanted to try out. I chose David Leboviz's cheese puffs making some of my own adjustments to the recipe.

Cheese puffs

Recipe gives around 30 bite-sized pieces

125 ml water

40g butter

1/4 teaspoon salt

70g flour

pinch of chile powder

2 large eggs

90g of grated cheese

Put all the ingredients ready, because the mixing has to happen without any interruptions. Preheat the oven to 220 C.

1)Bring water, butter, salt, chile to boil.

2)Dump all the flour in and mix vigourously, until it comes together into a ball.

3)Add eggs one by one and mix fast again. Add next one only when dough has come into homogenous mass. Don't mind the lumps at the beginning, keep on mixing and it will become nice and uniform.

4)Now add the 3/4 of the cheese and mix well.

5) Put dough into a pastry bag. Press small cherry tomato size balls on the greased baking sheet. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.

6) Bake 10 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 190 C and bake 20-30 minutes. You want them to be nice golden brown and crispy. 5 min before taking them out, poke the puffs with a knife on the side to let the air out, so they can become crispier.

I didn't do the poking part and they stayed softer in the middle and still very tasty. You decide. Comment form all four participants was that the puffs were delicious.

Ready for the oven

As the tea party evolved the bottle of good Portuguese wine was brought to the table and that eventually led to a friendly snow fight out doors. Cheers to tea parties!

Serious thought from the last day of 2009

2009-12-31T18:22:00.004Z

I have been secretly worried about the Earth for some time now. But like most people, there's the conscious, but not knowing what can I do to help.

For a start I am suggesting you to see the film The Age of Stupid to get your mind set. There is also another motivating film In Transition 1.0 that gives you clear examples how people are genuinely worried and trying to get us out of this mess.

But nothing gets done if 0.1% people are involved. And lets face it most people are not even aware of the climate change issue. All they hear from the news is that government is introducing tax on CO emission and average (stupid) mind feels upset and thinks that all they do is increase taxes, how can I buy that new plasma tv now!

If that average person would take a proactive approach on climate warming and think about the little things they can do by sustainable living perhaps then there wouldn't be needed to have a tax on CO2 emission. Is it too much to ask from people to think?

Bottom line. I could make a big speech, but I won't and I'll let you do the searching. The main thing is to find ways to greener future. No one is going to knock on your door and tell you what you need to do next. Maybe in some places they are, but think how much money they are spending on it, by running a campaign to explain common sense. Simply start from this:

1) Please see these films.

2) Stop consuming!!! You don't need all those THINGS!

3) Eat local foods.

Good Bye 2009!

The day that the sun never came out

2009-12-29T15:33:00.006Z

Another lazy morning where the entertainment options aren't that fun. So I Stick to home duties and hang on in here 'cos the afternoon is already on.

With the nasty weather outside the least thing I can think of is to go out for food shopping.

A quick pick in the freezer and voila! I have chicken breast as pretty much the only option on the menu... how exciting is that?

Chicken breasts aren't the most tasty or fun meal to cook, so what a heck do I do with this?

Google it!

In 0.23 sec google gave me 14,900,000 results with the key "chicken breast tasty"...

Obviously no-one in their perfect mind would go through nearly 5 million of results, so I don't know why

they even bother...

Anyway, in the first page I found the so popular top 10 of chicken breast recipes.

The draw gave me the marvelous:

"Blood orange chicken salad"

As mentioned above chicken breast was one of the few things in the fridge so all the rest was pretty

much made up, but

anyway I mention the recipe just as a reference.

So here's the improved recipe:

1 - Prepare the Vinaigrette: In a small bowl, whisk the juice of one orange, 1/2 red onion chopped, 3 soupspoons of olive oil, 1 soupspoon of vinegar, 2 teaspoons of mustard, 1 teaspoon of orange zest, salt and pepper to taste;

2 - Marinate the chicken breast with a couple of tablespoons of the vinagrette for 20 minutes.

3 - Throw the breast in the oven (200C), adding salt and pepper. 5 minutes on each side.

4 - Boil the Pasta;

5 - Boil the veggie medley! A salad can also be used alternatively.

7 - Cut the chicken breasts in eatable pieces;

8 - Cube a nice chunk of cheese;

6 - Mix everything in a large bowl - Chicken, pasta, veggies, cheese and the rest of the vinaigrette.

And enjoy your new tasty and exquisite chicken salad...

(Presentation suggestion)

The Baker gets some rest and the Cook is taking over

2009-12-28T19:20:00.003Z

What does that mean now?

It means that I am replacing Daring Bakers challenge with Daring Cooks challenge for 2010. Daring Cook is basically all the salty dishes. Let's see maybe I stick to it, maybe get back to baking...

Since Joao hasn't proved himself as a great cake and pastry eater I will give it a try with salty dishes. You see this whole thing has a practical side. When its baked it needs to be eaten. So next post is going to be a salty meal. Stay tuned!

Daring Bakers Gingerbread House for Christmas

2009-12-26T15:09:00.002Z

Little Gingerbread House

The December 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers' everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

I must admit that I was lucky enough to grow up with a mother who was making gingerbread cookies on every single Christmas and some of the years we got more wild and built the gingerbread house. I remember that one year there was an accident with the house though, there was a little elf standing in front of the house holding a candle in the hand and when we weren't looking he set the house on fire. Anyway, we forgave him and continued our Christmas dinner.

I went with the Scandinavian recipe for the dough, since it's more from my side of the town. Yes, I did experience the same problem as everyone else that the dough seemed too dry, but I decided to ignore it. Since it was going to sit in the fridge for overnight, I thought that hopefully its better the next day. I was right! Dough was joined together much better, however it was quite difficult to work the cold dough, I had to put all my strength into the game. I did my own templates and designed my house rather smallish, taking account the fact that its only two of us consuming it, if any. I cheated a little bit and instead of sugar syrup I used melted chocolate to glue the bricks together.

Building in process

Scandinavian Gingerbread from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas

226g butter, room temperature

220g brown sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

4 teaspoons ground ginger

3 teaspoons ground cloves

2 teaspoons baking soda

100 ml boiling water

875g all-purpose flour

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until blended. Add cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Mix the baking soda with the boiling water and add the dough along with the flour. Mix to make a stiff dough. If necessary add more water, a tablespoon at a time. Chill 2 hours or overnight.

2. Roll the dough on a floured surface, cut required shapes and transfer these to the baking sheet.

3. Preheat the oven to 190'C. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the cookie dough feels firm.

Leave cooling on flat surface to maintain the perfect shapes.

Christmas in Ireland celebrated with Pixies

2009-12-24T15:03:00.011Z

In deed here we are back to the jolly season of christmas where all the beggars look cute and overweight baby Jesus will come to visit us.

I must confess I've been naughty but I still hope on my luck to get some candy in my sock.

To celebrate the holy holiday once again we're holding a little dinner/tea to the lonely souls of Dublin emigrants (3 in total). Of course there are other reasons involved, mostly the satisfaction of our stomachs with an unreasonable sized meal. I don't know how can I still consider having a feast, after being in Portugal for 10 days eating like a true swine, but I guess it's in my culture.

The preparations started quite ahead of the happening and for a change we're on schedule this time.

For this years menu we have Presunto with Melon (Yes, we found a melon in December! Go Carbon Footprint!) and a selection of filled (enchidos) and cheese. For the main meal we are having a pheasant stew with roasted potatoes and veggies. Aire is also intending to eat Sauerkraut, but not me! Blerg! (go and see in wikipedia).

Appetiser: chourico (sem cedilha), melon, presunto,cheese

Sauerkraut

Main meal: wild pheasant, roasted potatoes and veggies, sauerkraut

For dessert we're counting on an industrial tiramisu, which tastes much better than it sounds.

Industrial tiramisu, but still very good judging by the leftovers...

A selection of Portuguese pastries is still available for the strongest stomachs.

Pasteis de nata and Brendeiras de Natal

All this will go side by side with good wine brought all the way from home inside the ultra protective surfing booties!

No image available

With the christmas lights on, some candles here and there and a nice smell of cooking in the house, Merry Christmas everyone! Um Feliz Natal para todos! Häid jõule kõigile!

Enjoy yourselves, wherever and whoever you are...

Roasted veggie dinner

2009-11-27T20:16:00.005Z

5 star dinner

Its winter here and we need to get our vitamins and minerals from somewhere, so I shuffled some veggies like baby potatoes, turnip, carrots, beetroots and green beans on the pan and in the oven they went with some olive oil and mixed herbs for 40 min or so. For a final touch I served it with some feta cheese cubes to give it a kick.

Cacamoons ( Macaroons )

2009-10-27T08:55:00.001Z

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Ingredients

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Excited I was to see the recipe for October challenge, Macaroons! I started to bake it and colored the dough lovely baby pink. Piped the biscuits on a try and off to the oven they went for 5 minutes. Took them out to heat the oven to 190 C degrees and no feet grew for my biscuits. Disappointed I was indeed. I wonder if the dough was too thick, although I did use the exact measurements. Also, the biscuits started to gain some color on top but later I discovered that the inside was completely uncooked and moist. Being disappointed with a result and all I didnt bother with fancy filling, just melted some milk chocolate with little bit of cream.

Daring Bakers Vols-au-Vent

2009-09-27T08:59:00.001+01:00

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

What a lovely challange! Well chosen! I couldnt see myself even on craziest baking times baking Vols-au-Vent. I must say that it was a second time for me to make puff pastry and I stayed 50-50 satisfied. Something was not right. I imagined that the dough would rise a bit more. I seemed as if it collapsed a bit as I took them out of the oven. Perhaps the industrial one has baking powder in it for staying so well structured. Oh well..

For the filling I chose something salty. Joao had his say here this time. He suggested mushroom, spinach and cheese filling. I added garlic from my side. I fried the mushrooms on the pan with garlic, added spinach, gave it a little toss. Sprinkled some flour on it for thickener, then some milk, to form nice sauce. When it all became nice and saucy then grated some mild cheddar in it. Came out pretty yummy.

So this is how these babies looked when coming straight from the oven. Bon Appetit!

Infamous Milan Cookies

2009-07-27T19:00:00.015+01:00

After considering to renounce this months challenge, due to a very busy schedule, the portuguese little helper offered himself to bake it. As usual his initiave was rather... errr... compromised by all the external distractions offered by a day off. So in the end I was still very involved in the baking process.

I don't feel very possessive about the daring baking's chalenges, however I still feel responsible for their outcome and I just couldn't leave it to an overconfident and easily distracted Portuguese baker.

To make things easy we decided to bake only the milan cookies, since the timeframe was rather small. However it turns out that they dind't come out exactly like on the reference pictures. The dough was to liquidy and in the end it was quite complicated to give some thickness to the cookies. After the first attempt becoming a whole tray cookie, the following were kept to a minimum size in other to maintain their... individuallity??

Anyway, it was a challenge alright but in the end we made something similar to what was intended.

Here follow the intructions:

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

Milan Cookies
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies

• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar
• 7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour
• Cookie filling, recipe follows

Cookie filling:
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.

The best picture from the best possible angle from the Milan Cookies.

Bakewell Tart…er…pudding

2009-06-27T22:19:00.008+01:00

Lemon curd bakewell tart

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

I left the jam out and decided put lemon curd into my tart. I'm glad that I did it, because the result came out quite satisfing. This time I was happy enough, because all the cake was eaten on the first day. I managed to give it away to friends and even Joao gave thums up to this cake, so this recipe is a keeper.

Sweet shortcrust pastry

225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 (2) egg yolks
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Frangipane

125g unsalted butter, softened
125g icing sugar
3 eggs ½ tsp almond extract
125g ground almonds
30g all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Lemon curd

2 lemons, rind and juice
2 egg yolks
55g butter
225g sugar

Grate rind of lemons and squeeze out juice. Put sugar, rind and juice, butter and beaten eggs into a large basin on top of a pan of simmering water. Stir with a wooden spoon until thick and curd coats the back of the spoon. Pour into warm sterile jars, cover, seal and label. Refrigerate.

Assembling the tart

Line the tart pan with the crust. Pour the lemon curd on the crust and spread it out evenly. Cover the curd layer with the Frangipane, spread evenly. Dont mind if it gets slightly mixed with the lemoncurd, it won't spoil the final result.

Three dinners

2009-06-17T00:06:00.006+01:00

In past 2 weeks or so, I had some divine dinners. Nothing too complex to make, but complex enough to satify the senses.

Bacalau a bras

This is a typical dish from Portugal and very much loved in there. Bacalau is typical salted cod in Portugal. Dish is easy enough to make, but little bit time consuming as all the ingredients: cod, potatos, onion, garlic, eggs are required to boil or fry separately and then mixed all together. Its worth the effort though.

Shrimps in chilli sauce

Another easy meal. Shrimps cooked with onion, garlic, olive oli, white wine and chilli. Nice fresh salad and tomato rice on a side. I must admit that this meal was also inspired by Portugal. I remembered having shimps with piri-piri last year when on holiday in Albufeira.

Warm bread with fresh mozzarella and tomato

It was a bread baking day and since we are not big eaters then this fresh bread with some mozzarella and tomato and once again fresh salad on the side became a yummy dinner.

Apple Strudel

2009-05-27T22:17:00.002+01:00

Rolling the strudel

Now this one was exciting for me. I love Apple strudel. I have thinking about it for a while already, so May's challenge was like Linda and Courtney reading my mind. The best strudel I ever had, goes all the way back to my childhood. She was a neighbour of ours and the strudel she made was divine. I remember my mother asking the recipe more than once, and we did it, and we did it, but it never came out the same. Maybe her oven had a little twist. I dont know.
The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.
This strudel was quite close to the my childhood one, but still missing something. I think I could have added more sugar. In my apple strudel I kept the apples, but left out raisins and replaced breadcrumbs, with ground almonds.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

2009-04-27T01:00:00.001+01:00

Raspberry cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

As suggested by the hosts, this months challenge was about getting really creative with your cheesecake. Once again I have gone down the simple path and chose a single flavour, raspberries, for my cheesecake. Its the same old story that Joao doest like complicated sweets, so I must keep it as simple as possible to appeal him. Result was almost perfect. Cheese part was lovely, tasty and tender, but the crust stayed bit mushy. Cheesecakes that I have eaten the crust is dry and crispy, but mine stayed soaked.
I failed to keep some raspberries for garnish, so my cheesecake looks a bit boring, but taste was far from being boring, don't judge simply by the looks.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

crust:
180 g graham cracker crumbs
115 g butter, melted
2 tbsp.
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
670 g cream cheese, room temperature
210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the centre. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Handmade spinach egg pasta

2009-03-29T08:00:00.006+01:00

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I loved this months challenge. I feel that pasta is something that I would have never done myself, if there wasn't for Daring Bakers. Pasta is always there in the shelf of the supermarket or delicatessen store, if I want to go to more fancy cooking. Its very inexpensive, so there is really no need to do all that heavy duty.

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I bought the fresh spinach and rolled up my sleeves and got it started. Chopped spinach and there came my first wow and amazement and double checking of the recipe. Is it really all this amount. Next step, measuring out the flour, making the well, starting to mix in the spinach and eggs and once again, WOW, is it all that amount of spinach??? I started to knead it together and it didnt look anywhere near to be a pasta, just all this dry mixture of flour and spinach. But I didnt give up and kept manipulating it. It took some time, much more than 3 minutes suggested in recipe, close to 10 at least to get it into this.

Following the instructions I kept on kneading 15 minutes or so and ended up something that looked more close to being pasta.

I left it to relax at room temperature for about an hour. Rolling out didnt seem too much of a trouble. I managed to roll it out quite thin. I used fairly small baking dish to make the lasagne, sinde its only two of us eating. It took exactly half of the made pasta to fill in this dish. Other half I rolled out and cut into pieces and left to dry.

For a sauce I chose simple ground beef version with a little twist of good quality Portuguese chouriço from Joao's last trip home. I usually dont use any measures, just shuffle in about 500g ground beef, 2 small cans of chopped tomatoes and rest of it is pure fantasy, sometimes mushrooms, different types of veggies, Herbs de Provance etc. This time I also added some carrots to the sauce to cut the acidity of tomatoes and chouriço. For bechamel I used recipe given, plus added some grated parmesan cheese for a taste.

Spinach Egg Pasta (Pasta Verde)

2 jumbo eggs (2 ounces/60g or more)
10 ounces (300g) fresh spinach, rinsed dry, and finely chopped; or 6 ounces (170g) frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
3 1/2 cups (14 ounces/400g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour (organic stone ground preferred)

Mixing the dough: Mound the flour in the center of your work surface and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and spinach. Use a wooden spoon to beat together the eggs and spinach. Then gradually start incorporating shallow scrapings of flour from the sides of the well into the liquid. As you work more and more flour into the liquid, the well’s sides may collapse. Use a pastry scraper to keep the liquids from running off and to incorporate the last bits of flour into the dough. Don’t worry if it looks like a hopelessly rough and messy lump.
Kneading: With the aid of the scraper to scoop up unruly pieces, start kneading the dough. Once it becomes a cohesive mass, use the scraper to remove any bits of hard flour on the work surface – these will make the dough lumpy. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes. Its consistency should be elastic and a little sticky. If it is too sticky to move easily, knead in a few more tablespoons of flour. Continue kneading about 10 minutes, or until the dough has become satiny, smooth, and very elastic. It will feel alive under your hands. Do not shortcut this step. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it relax at room temperature 30 minutes to 3 hours.
Stretching and Thinning: If using an extra-long rolling pin work with half the dough at a time. With a regular-length rolling pin, roll out a quarter of the dough at a time and keep the rest of the dough wrapped. Lightly sprinkle a large work surface with flour. The idea is to stretch the dough rather than press down and push it. Shape it into a ball and begin rolling out to form a circle, frequently turning the disc of dough a quarter turn. As it thins outs, start rolling the disc back on the pin a quarter of the way toward the center and stretching it gently sideways by running the palms of your hands over the rolled-up dough from the center of the pin outward. Unroll, turn the disc a quarter turn, and repeat. Do twice more. Stretch and even out the center of the disc by rolling the dough a quarter of the way back on the pin. Then gently push the rolling pin away from you with one hand while holding the sheet in place on the work surface with the other hand. Repeat three more times, turning the dough a quarter turn each time.
Repeat the two processes as the disc becomes larger and thinner. The goal is a sheet of even thickness. For lasagne, the sheet should be so thin that you can clearly see your hand through it and see colours. Cut into rectangles about 4 by 8 inches (10 x 20 cm). Note: Enza says that transparency is a crucial element of lasagne pasta and the dough should be rolled as thinly as possible. She says this is why her housekeeper has such strong arms! Dry the pasta at room temperature and store in a sealed container or bag.

Final product, straight from the oven and following day .. mmm

Camera action!

2009-03-15T19:02:00.002Z

Dear fellow bloggers,

I am asking little help from you. Our Sony digital camera has died. Doesn't blink an eye, so it means that I need to get a new one and fast, because I have Daring Bakers challenge to cook and post. My question for you dear friends is: are you satisfied with a camera you use and let me know what type is it? Also perhaps leave me your blogs address as well, so I can check out the images that you have taken with it. Oh and I am talking about digital compact cameras. I wont be getting a big one, since I want it for travels as well and I won't have much patience to walk around all day with something excessive to carry. My own bum is enough already :)
So folks I'd appreciate if you drop me a line :P

Aire

Flourless seduction

2009-02-28T08:00:00.000Z

Beautiful bite ...

I am cooking this months challenge from my mothers house. I came to Estonia for a week. Its snowy here and pleasently cold, not too much. Just a perfect environment to pamper our tastebuds with divine chocolate flavour.

New chocolate cake recipes are always welcome. This was my first time to try the flourless version. The amount of chocolate that goes in is a bit scary in first glimpse, but in the taste it transformes into true pleasure.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

Cake was unbelievably easy to make. I did ditched the ice cream making part and served it with store bought vanilla ice cream. The photograph that I am using is without the ice-cream though, for a simple reason that I prefered it without ice-cream. Just with a dash of powdered sugar and lingonberries from my mothers freezer.

Chocolate Valentino

454 grams of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
146 grams total of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

2 in 1:Shrove Tuesday+Independence Day

2009-02-24T11:36:00.015Z

Meal is served ...

Now this year's last Tuesday in February happens to be with double celebrations. Shrove Tuesday that travels every year to a different Tuesday, happens to be on a same day with Estonian Independence Day. I am not a big patriot of my country, but since it is a day off it gives an opportunity for a family to get together, cook, eat and relax together. And so it is in our family. I came traveled to Estonia for a week and my brother also came to my mothers house where we had a little festive lunch with simple and delicious foods.

For apperizers we baked some canapes on puff pastry. Filling them in with various fillings that we could find from the fridge, like: ham, salami, pickeld wild mushrooms, tomato, sundried tomato, mozzarella, blue cheese.

Finger food

Main dish came from my suggestion to make oven potatoes. Every family in Estonia is familiar with oven potatoes. Our grandmothers would make it in wooden ovens and this would give a special touch and crispiness, but even simple electric oven will do the job.

Simple pleasures

For desserts there was several suggestions, but mine and Karina's won. My suggestion was Tart with lingonberries and Karina's wish was traditional buns for Shrove Tuesday. Photos are talking for themselves.

Su-su-su-su-sushi!

2009-02-16T19:39:00.003Z

Oh yes, I finally did it. Can you believe that it's so easy to make? It costs a fortune in Japanese restaurant. Why? I did it without big research, just looked one sushi making clip in youtube. Bought sushi rice, sushi mat, avocado, cucumber and smoked salmon.
Now I would like to do some more research and reading about it, what's the best seaweed to use or is there different variety at all etc. Joao found it a bit chewy, for me it seemed fine, but I suppose, it wouldne hurt to look into that and see if there are some better than the others.

Broa

2009-02-05T18:05:00.007Z

Now, since the bread was finished this morning, I had to bake another one to keep my man's belly singing. Yes, it seems that I am one of those women who bakes her own bread. At least for now that I don't have kids hanging on my thighs while trying to manage in the kitchen. Who know, by the time I have 7 kids I feed them all sliced bread from plastic bags, because baking bread is at the end of my list and therefore I never get there. I do have to admit that I like baking, its not just the man's belly that I try to satisfy. I find in nice, to smell the baking in the house and overall challenge myself. So far, even if I use the same recipe, no beard comes the same, somehow its always different. Also, when coming to read the bag of those breads that we can buy in supermarket, I cant but wonder, why is it when I make a bread I only put flour, salt, water and yeast, but when they make it, they find loads of other crap to put in it. So, I make my own and it simple.
This time I went wild and decided to try new recipe. Google helped me out here. In Portugal they eat Cornbread and so far Portuguese that I have met, all like it alot. I borrowed the recipe from David Leite.

Unfortunately soup is fake, from a powder. But the bread came out delish.

Mighty challenge

2009-01-29T08:30:00.004Z

Days are becoming longer now and somehow this tiny little sign on every day gives excitement that the summer and warmth is somewhere out there on the way. Also, when it comes to food, I feel like eating more juicy and light foods. Lot of fruit and vegs, although its not exactly season for it, but even citruses and kiwis will do.

The ending of 2008 was very rich, which I did enjoy, but you know, summer coming up and all I am happy that, this month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Now this was the challenge of them all so far. I read the recipe and figured I will do it in a flash. Batter was easy enough, but the challenge came when those little babys came out of the oven. They stayed too thick, were nice and brown on the edges though, but when it came to shaping, disaster. They were too soft and lacked crispiness, so it was impossible to shape them, they springed back. I had decided to go with a simple round shape that I simply roll into a stick to go with a dessert. Reality wasn't so pretty, I did try to shape them into a stick, that became more like a sausage. First batch was a disaster, luckily I had enough batter to give it another try and this came out somewhat similar to what I had imagined. Oh well, "not all days are brothers", we say...

Following is a recipe taken from a book called “The Chocolate Book”, written by female Dutch Master chef Angélique Schmeinck.

Tuiles

Preparation time batter 10 minutes, waiting time 30 minutes, baking time: 5-10 minutes per batch

65 grams softened butter (not melted but soft)
60 grams sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar (7 grams or substitute with a dash of vanilla extract)
2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)
65 grams sifted all purpose flour
1 table spoon cocoa powder/or food colouring of choice
Butter/spray to grease baking sheet

Oven: 180C / 350F

Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter. Be careful to not over mix.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with butter and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. This will help spread the batter more easily if using a stencil/cardboard template such as the butterfly. Press the stencil on the baking sheet and use an off sided spatula to spread batter. Leave some room in between your shapes.

Bake in a preheated oven (180C/350F) for about 5-10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Immediately release from baking sheet and proceed to shape/bend the cookies in the desired shape. These cookies have to be shaped when still warm, you might want to bake a small amount at a time. Note: place a baking sheet toward the front of the warm oven, leaving the door half open. The warmth will keep the cookies malleable.

My babyBlog is 1 year old!!!

2009-01-28T19:52:00.006Z

Yeap, 1 year old. I cant believe its been a year since I made my first post and also its been a year and a bit more since we came to Dublin. We've moved twice, we've changed jobs, we've are back to school again. Bottom line, its been year full of action. Hopefully there will be another one with as much action or tiny bit more :P

I don't have a Birthday cake for the occasion, mostly because its 8pm and I discovered only now that its a day to celebrate. To accompany the post is a picture of a delicious tart my specialty Pastry cream and chocolate filling raspberry tart :)

Happy birthday, dear Blog!!!

Daring French Yule Log

2008-12-29T21:10:00.006Z

I almost didnt dare after first reading the December challange recipe. It was 10 pages long. This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.
There I was from my head to toes with the chocolate and close to crying and wanting for it all to be over. The result was worht it. Everyone loved it. Defenately a festive choise.

Element #1 Dacquoise Biscuit (Almond Cake)

2.8 oz (3/4cup + 1Tbsp / 80g) almond meal
1.75 oz (1/2 cup / 50g) confectioner’s sugar
2Tbsp (15g) all-purpose flour
3.5oz (100g / ~100ml) about 3 medium egg whites
1.75 oz (4 Tbsp / 50g) granulated sugar

1. Finely mix the almond meal and the confectioner's sugar. (If you have a mixer, you can use it by pulsing the ingredients together for no longer than 30 seconds).
2. Sift the flour into the mix.
3. Beat the eggs whites, gradually adding the granulated sugar until stiff.
4. Pour the almond meal mixture into the egg whites and blend delicately with a spatula.
5. Grease a piece of parchment paper and line your baking pan with it.
6. Spread the batter on a piece of parchment paper to an area slightly larger than your desired shape (circle, long strip etc...) and to a height of 1/3 inches (8mm).
7. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for approximately 15 minutes (depends on your oven), until golden.
8. Let cool and cut to the desired shape.

Element #2 Dark Chocolate Mousse

2.5 sheets gelatin or 5g / 1 + 1/4 tsp powdered gelatin
1.5 oz (3 Tbsp / 40g) granulated sugar
1 ½ tsp (10g) glucose or thick corn syrup
0.5 oz (15g) water
50g egg yolks (about 3 medium)
6.2 oz (175g) dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
1.5 cups (350g) heavy cream (35% fat content)

1. Soften the gelatin in cold water. (If using powdered gelatin, follow the directions on the package.)
2. Make a Pate a Bombe: Beat the egg yolks until very light in colour (approximately 5 minutes until almost white).
2a. Cook the sugar, glucose syrup and water on medium heat for approximately 3 minutes (if you have a candy thermometer, the mixture should reach 244°F (118°C). If you do not have a candy thermometer, test the sugar temperature by dipping the tip of a knife into the syrup then into a bowl of ice water, if it forms a soft ball in the water then you have reached the correct temperature.
2b. Add the sugar syrup to the beaten yolks carefully by pouring it into the mixture in a thin stream while continuing to beat the yolks. You can do this by hand but it’s easier to do this with an electric mixer.
2c. Continue beating until cool (approximately 5 minutes). The batter should become thick and foamy.
3. In a double boiler or equivalent, heat 2 tablespoons (30g) of cream to boiling. Add the chopped chocolate and stir until melted and smooth.
4. Whip the remainder of the cream until stiff.
5. Pour the melted chocolate over the softened gelatin, mixing well. Let the gelatin and chocolate cool slightly and then stir in ½ cup (100g) of WHIPPED cream to temper. Add the Pate a Bombe.
6. Add in the rest of the WHIPPED cream (220g) mixing gently with a spatula.

Element #3 Cinammon-Milk Ganache Insert

1.75 oz (4 Tbsp / 50g) granulated sugar
4.5oz (2/3 cup – 1 Tbsp / 135g) heavy cream
A pinch of cinnamon
2.7 oz (75g) milk chocolate, finely chopped
3.2 oz (90g) dark chocolate, finely chopped
3Tbsp + 1/2tsp (45g) unsalted butter softened

1. Make a caramel: Using the dry method, melt the sugar by spreading it in an even layer in a small saucepan with high sides. Heat over medium-high heat, watching it carefully as the sugar begins to melt. Never stir the mixture. As the sugar starts to melt, swirl the pan occasionally to allow the sugar to melt evenly. Cook to dark amber color (for most of you that means darker than last month’s challenge).
2. Heat the cream with the cinnamon (use the quantity of cinnamon you want to infuse the cream, a pinch is the smallest amount suggested) until boiling. Pour cream into the caramel and stir thoroughly. Be very careful as it may splatter and boil.
3. Pour the hot caramel-milk mixture over the milk and dark chocolate. Wait 30 seconds and stir until smooth.
4. Add the softened butter and whip hard and fast (if you have a plunging mixer use it). The chocolate should be smooth and shiny.

Element #4 Chocolate Crisp Insert

3.5 oz (100g) milk chocolate
1 2/3 Tbsp (25g) unsalted butter
2 Tbsp (1 oz / 30g) praline
1 oz. (25g) lace crepes or rice krispies or corn flakes or Special K

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler.
2. Add the praline and the coarsely crushed lace crepes. Mix quickly to thoroughly coat with the chocolate.
3. Spread between two sheets of wax paper to a size slightly larger than your desired shape. Refrigerate until hard.

Element #5 Vanilla Crème Brulée Insert

1/2 cup (115g) heavy cream (35% fat content)
½ cup (115g) whole milk
4 medium-sized (72g) egg yolks
0.75 oz (2 Tbsp / 25g) granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean

1. Heat the milk, cream, and scraped vanilla bean to just boiling. Remove from the stove and let the vanilla infuse for about 1 hour.
2. Whisk together the sugar and egg yolks (but do not beat until white).
3. Pour the vanilla-infused milk over the sugar/yolk mixture. Mix well.
4. Wipe with a very wet cloth and then cover your baking mold (whatever shape is going to fit on the inside of your Yule log/cake) with parchment paper. Pour the cream into the mold and bake at 210°F (100°C) for about 1 hour or until firm on the edges and slightly wobbly in the center.

Element #6 Dark Chocolate Icing

4g / ½ Tbsp powdered gelatin or 2 sheets gelatin
¼ cup (60g) heavy cream (35 % fat content)
2.1 oz (5 Tbsp / 60g) granulated sugar
¼ cup (50g) water
1/3 cup (30g) unsweetened cocoa powder

1. Soften the gelatin in cold water for 15 minutes.
2. Boil the rest of the ingredients and cook an additional 3 minutes after boiling.
3. Add gelatin to the chocolate mixture. Mix well.
4. Let cool while checking the texture regularly. As soon as the mixture is smooth and coats a spoon well (it is starting to gelify), use immediately.

Assembling the Log

1) Mousse
2) Creme Brulee Insert
3) Mousse
4) Praline/Crisp Insert
5) Mousse
6) Ganache Insert
7) Dacquoise

"Happymusic" concert

2008-12-14T04:34:00.004Z

Friday I went to a concert of I'm from Barcelona and I must state that it has been my best concert experience ever. I don't have huge record of concert experiences, but I have been seeing some big names in huge stadium concerts. I have figured out already for some long time ago, that huge concerts are not as enjoyable to the audience as concerts held in smaller venues. So there you go, that's why the concert on Friday gets extra 100 bonus points on the enjoyment scale.
Concert on Friday was in a small venue and for that it was perfect. In a small space it's this intimacy between the band and the audience. Plus those guys used balloons to create interaction, it was great. They had huge red balloons released, so balloons were bouncing between them and the crowd. Such a simple thing, but everyone seemed to want to be able to give a kick to it when it was approaching over the heads. Poor little people they had no chance :D Also because the band had been formed of 20 something friends, there is great party scenery on the stage, so it is impossible not to get caught with it. Great stuff!!!
They were mostly singing songs from their new album which I didn't know yet, but of course there were couple of songs from the old one for everyone to sing along. Let me tell you, you want them to your party, its a recession and maybe you cannot afford them but you can afford buying a CD. Oh and since we are close to Christmas, you can write to Santa to get you a CD ;)

Enough sugar for a lifetime

2008-11-29T08:00:00.004Z

Another challenge finished. Wasn't easy, but I got it done. November challege was hosted by Dolores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex of Blondie and Brownie, Jenny of Foray into Food and gluten free assistant was Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go and their chosen recipe was Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting by Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater.

I must admit that caramel isn't my number one choice and probably without Daring Bakers I would have never tried something like this. Therefore I am happy for the proposal, now I know that this is not my cup of tea.

CARAMEL CAKE WITH CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 Cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Cup Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 each eggs, at room temperature splash vanilla extract
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350F
Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth.
Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy. Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.
Sift flour and baking powder.
Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}
Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan. Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes.
Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it.
Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

CARAMEL SYRUP
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)

In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber. When colour is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back. Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.} Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING
12 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 tablespoons caramel syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool. Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner's sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner's sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.
Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month. To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light

Cake, frosting, cake with frosting.

Winter gatherings and Portuval vs. Catalunya

2008-11-24T17:29:00.018Z

Life in our new house has indeed brought brightness and parties to our life in this dark time of the year. We have only lived here for a month now, but hosted 3 dinner parties. I have picture records only two of them though.

On one dinner we had the chef Rui Martins from Portugal, who gracefully prepared a two course meal. As a stater we had auted mushrooms with tomatoes and herbs on a toast for starter and for main meal more traditional deep fried chicken wings and thighs with tomato rice, salad and Nando's Sauce Toppings (a non-typical-portuguese franchising).

Portugal

Another major event was the reception of chef Jordi from Catalunya (not Spain) to make paella. For starter we had some cured ham and salami type of thing from Catalunya or Spain (I am trying to be politically correct here, not to insult anyone, but forgive me if I do). For main meal chef Jordi made poor peoples paella with chicken and some vegs. This is what roughly seemed for me to be in the dish, true recepie is only known by the chef himself and not to be given out to anyone.

Catalunya

As I mentioned there was three dinners and so the third one of them I was cooking and made a simple Lasagne, which tasted yummy, but unfortunately I don't have any photographic record of it. I leave the images for the responsibility of your imagination.

Chef Rui Vs. Chef Jordi

Just not to pass in vain, I will mention the fact that booth of these gran latinos are marvellous cookers, truly passionate about their food and able to do horrendous things to protect their master pieces.
With these Iberic Peninsula cuisine icons I realised that a good meal comes from the dedication of the chef and the environment created around the ritual of dinning and not the use of gourmet ingredients and the fashion look of the dish.

Tossing the dough

2008-10-31T00:00:00.001Z

Daring Bakers October challenge was making a real pizza dough. Well, I must say it I wasn't too excited about it and in the end it reflected on the result.
I have been making a pizza quite frequently myself. I never toss it and throw it, but try to get it on the pan in some more modest way and in the end the result is yummy.
I followed the recipe of the dough and all. I didn't have anything exciting for the filling, busy, busy life, no time to shop. So I boiled a tomato sauce that I usually make for pizzas: crushed tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, Provence herbs, salt. Pepperoni slices and cheddar mozzarella grated cheese mix.
Tossing was a disaster, didn't work for me, dough got stuck on my hands, so I just spread it on the pan stretching it towards the sides.

Cheese got a little burned :(

BASIC PIZZA DOUGH ~
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.

Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter).

Ingredients:
4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

DAY ONE

Method:
1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).

5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.

6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.

7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.

DAY TWO

8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).

10. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.

11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.

12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.

13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for about 5-8 minutes.

Perhaps it was my not excited attitude towards October challenge that influenced my final result or my busy lifestyle, who knows. In the end I wasn't happy with the result, it came out too greasy. As I said I have been making pizzas before and it seemed to me that this dough took more oil than the recipes that I have been using previously. Or maybe the cheese that I was using was with higher fat content, I don't know.
Oh well, eventually it was eaten and hungry bellies were thankful for Daring Bakers pizza challenge.

New house

2008-10-29T16:52:00.003Z

We would like to inform you that we have moved. Our new address is:
4 ****** *****
****** *******
*******
******* 6

You surely understand that for safety reasons I cannot actually write my new address here, but if you need it to send Christmas cards, give me a shout and I email it to you. We managed to get a bargain. We got a 2 bedroom house for the price of 1 bedroom flat. We have back garden for bbq and for my herb garden and summer tomatoes.
The guys with a van who helped us to move said that this is a posh area. I don't mind posh as long as its safe and quiet, but I do mind posh if shops and services are expensive. Last night we went to local Superquinn and paid fortune for chicken breast. Today I managed to locate Aldi and got twice as much goods for less money than I paid yesterday. Crazy!
We moved in yesterday. Didn't get the heat working then, I was all grumpy and slept with 2 blankets. Today I made phone calls to Landlord and landlords little helper. At the beginning it seemed that things got super, heat working and all, but now its still the same as yesterday, heat doesnt work, keeps switching off. Either I am dumb or thing is really faulty. And now the little helper doesnt answer the phone any more because its past 5pm. Another night with 2 blankets and I leave it for Joao to figure out tomorrow as he has a day off.

Back to school

2008-09-29T15:28:00.004+01:00

I have started on a new full time job which means that in the evenings I am extremely tired and on my days off I just want to rest, rest, rest.
This coming weekend I will start a physiotherapy course which means that my free time will be even more limited. I promise that I don't leave my dear blog, I try to get to it at least once a month. There comes Daring Bakers to help me, because I have to keep up with those guys, which means I will be here publishing it. I must admit that I am taking a braking from Daring Bakers in September and it's only my second month with them :D Bad, bad girl.

I am not the only one going to school. Joao already started his Masters last week. So we will be one knowledge greedy family. All for the sake of hopefully being able to have comfortable life one day.

Why is this rabbit with a hula-hoop hanging in the toilet? Probably because he didn't invest in his youth ...

Portugal - Food, Fun and Ferias

2008-09-23T16:04:00.008+01:00

I haven't died or ditched my dear blog. We were on a holiday to Joao's house in Portugal to catch little bit of sun and enjoy all the goodies that this country has to offer.

It was 2 weeks of pure holiday fun with beach, friends and family, wedding, good food in enormous quantities etc.
We flew to Faro this time. Ticket was more affordable and also we wanted to make sure we get our obligatory dose of beach. In Algarve the chances of getting it are higher. Over all we had a great time there, although the whole place is not quite Portugal. Its very tourist orientated, all the music and even restaurants for them, with pasta and pizza, fish and chips. Albufeira still has nice scenery, lower buildings and small town like environment. Highly recommended!

Algarve with its beach. Yummy piri-piri shrimps. Beach with obligatory beach food, Bolas de Berlim pastry.

Next stop was wedding of Miz and Justin. Can you belive that it was my frist time to be in a wedding? Well, there was one time before. My aunts wedding, but I hear that I was 2 years old then, so I have no actual memory of it.
They got married in the Monastery of Alcobaca and this holy ritual was fallowed by a huge and yummy dinner. If I say huge, then I mean HUGE. Of course Portuguese might argue with me here and say that this is nothing because in the old days it was even better and more fooooooooood. Fooooood for 2 days!!! Hehehe. They certainly appreciate eating well and I must admit that me too :P Miz and Justin were beautiful and we had a good time. Oh and by the way the wedding cake was very good :)

The wedding dinner was held in a very nice wine farm. In the centre is the girl who catched the bouquet - wedding bells are ringing, wedding bells are ringing ... hehe :)

Friends forever - after plenty of wine.

Friends of the bride, the fashion ones :P

This time I actually remembered to photograph the food, sometimes. This is of course only a fraction of meals that I had in there. And I only notice now that I dont have a photo of Pastel de nata! Pastel de Nata!!! How can it be??? It only means one thing, I need to go back!

Portuguese goodies

As I mentioned earlier we went for Albufeira for the beach and sea, but it turned out that the sea was actually more pleasant in Nazare and surroundings. The sea was wild as usually and it's needed to be very cautious specially if you're like me and you can't swim. I enjoy going to the sea a lot though. Going to beach and not being able to go to the sea, it feels like being entire day in pyjamas, just doesn't feel right.

Vale Furado beach with a Spiderman

Staying at Joao's house it's impossible to be kept away from the natives, so in our busy agenda we could push some quality time with his family, friends and nosy neighbours.

Kids are so cute, if they are not yours

In the end we can say that we had a very good time in Portugal.

lõpp ... fim ...

I became a Daring Baker - Éclairs

2008-08-31T08:36:00.001+01:00

Daring Bakers?
Daring Bakers.
It's a challenge made up by ancient foodbloggers to give us, the cooking/baking connoisseurs some challenge in everyday cooking and baking. Basically you sign up with those guys and then they will give you one recipe to bake in a month. Everyone, all those 1000 members or so, will bake exact same recipe and then publish it on exact same day. Me and all those other 1000 foodbloggers think its fun :)
Let's get to the challenge then. August challenge was Chocolate Éclairs by Pierre Hermé hosted by Tony Tahhan and MeetaK. Hosts allowed to make some modifications and the rule was to keep at least one chocolate element in it. I went with more traditional version, I 'll explain later, why. I kept the pastry cream just with eggs and milk, left out the chocolate and my chocolate element was chocolate glaze.
When I have been baking, I've always kept it relatively simple, no fancy cakes, so reading this recipe at the beginning made me feel like, wow, I think I need to take a day off to do this and the day before, to make sure I have everything and a day after to make sure I can clean everything and can get a rest.

Let's get to the business.
Part 1. Making the dough. It's very easy. Just the non traditionality of making of the dough is what scares at first. Boil the milk! Sounds like making a porridge. But once its done, its done very fast and in the end its a beautiful creamy dough, just a shame it wasn't sweet :P I didn't have a proper pastry dough, so I used the old fashioned plastic bag technique.

Scoop the dough into one corner of the bag and then cut the corner off.

I learned the trick from my mother actually, this is how we decorated gingerbread cookies with sugar glaze at every Christmas. It works perfectly fine, if you don't need to do fancy reliefs. One day I will get a real pastry bag though, maybe I should put it in my list for Santa :P

Squeeze chubby fingers on the baking sheets

Part 2. Making pastry cream. I thought, eggs and hot milk, it's a miracle if it comes out fine on a first trial, it will all end up with lumps ... Well, I must admit that I had extra set of hands helping me on this recipe. So one set was mixing vigorously while the other added the hot milk one teaspoon at a time. Like this, it all worked out great. This is a most beautiful Pastry cream I have ever made, nice, shiny, creamy ... lovely.

Out of the oven, cream ready, just missing the glaze now ...

Part 3. Making the glaze. That's was the easiest part. Heat the cream, chop the chocolate etc. Part 4. Putting it all together. Is there enough cream? Pastry seems so fragile, can I cut the pastry without wrecking half of them? Well, if I do then there is definitely enough cream ... This is a real handicraft part. Cutting wasn't too bad, if using proper bread knife and sawing them gently then it all works out great. Putting a glaze on the tops requires patience, first 5 is fun, then getting to 10, then you think , "are we there yet?" The filling was just about enough, could've been few Tbsp more, but I suppose it was the missing chocolate that I left out of the cream.

This is my little Éclair factory

Here comes conclusion with everything explained. Why I left chocolate out of the Pastry cream? Because Joao is the main consumer of these Éclairs and he is a traditional guy when it comes to food. Anything new is SCARY. Chocolate in the pastry cream is something that he never had in past 20 years so unless I don't want to eat 24 Éclairs alone, I better take his suggestions into account. he liked them, so next time, it might be with Chocolate pastry cream :P Yes, well, on my first month as Daring Baker I have committed myself with some diet, which means no sweets other than fruit and that's the main reason why Joao has to like them. I had to sin of course, to try out just one Éclair, to be able to write the following. It all came out wonderful. Pastry was very delicate. Cream was, like I said, lovely, creamy. Next time if I want to leave the chocolate out, I will put a bit more sugar in the pastry cream , because otherwise it's needed to eat 5 Éclairs to get satisfied. My waist would hate me for this. In the end when they are crafted all together, they taste, wow. The best I have had, also because they were super fresh. In the Pastry shop, you never know how long has it been sitting there on the display.

Cream Puff Dough (makes 20-24 Éclairs)
½ cup (125g) whole milk
½ cup (125g) water
1 stick (4 ounces; 115g) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
¼ teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
5 large eggs, at room temperature

Pastry Cream
2 cups (500g) whole milk
4 large egg yolks
6 tbsp (75g) sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
7 oz (200g) bittersweet chocolate, preferably Velrhona Guanaja, melted
2½ tbsp (1¼ oz: 40g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

Chocolate Glaze (makes 1 cup or 300g)
1/3 cup (80g) heavy cream
3½ oz (100g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
4 tsp (20 g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
7 tbsp (110 g) Chocolate Sauce (recipe below), warm or at room temperature

Chocolate Sauce (makes 1½ cups or 525 g)
4½ oz (130 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup (250 g) water
½ cup (125 g) crème fraîche, or heavy cream
1/3 cup (70 g) sugar

Cream Puff Dough:

* Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Divide the oven into thirds by positioning the racks in the upper and lower half of the oven. Line two baking sheets with waxed or parchment paper. * In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to the boil.

* Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very quickly. Do not worry if a slight crust forms at the bottom of the pan, it’s supposed to. You need to carry on stirring for a further 2-3 minutes to dry the dough. After this time the dough will be very soft and smooth.
* Transfer the dough into a bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using your hand mixer or if you still have the energy, continue by hand. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough. You will notice that after you have added the first egg, the dough will separate, once again do not worry. As you keep working the dough, it will come back all together again by the time you have added the third egg. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.
* Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 2/3 (2cm) plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough. Pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in long, 4 to 41/2 inches (about 11 cm) chubby fingers. Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff. The dough should give you enough to pipe 20-24 éclairs.
* Slide both the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. After the 7 minutes, slip the handle of a wooden spoon into the door to keep in ajar. When the éclairs have been in the oven for a total of 12 minutes, rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back. Continue baking for a further 8 minutes or until the éclairs are puffed, golden and firm. The total baking time should be approximately 20 minutes.
Notes: The éclairs can be kept in a cool, dry place for several hours before filling.

Pastry Cream:
* In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and whisk in a heavy‐bottomed saucepan.
* Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture.Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.
* Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat).Stir in the melted chocolate and then remove the pan from the heat.
* Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice‐water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth.
* Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F/60 C remove from the ice‐water bath and stir in the butter in three or four instalments. Return the cream to the ice‐water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled. The cream is now ready to use or store in the fridge.

Chocolate Glaze:
* In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from the heat and slowly begin to add the chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula.
* Stirring gently, stir in the butter, piece by piece followed by the chocolate sauce.

Chocolate Sauce:
* Place all the ingredients into a heavy‐bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil, making sure to stir constantly. Then reduce the heat to low and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens.
* It may take 10‐15 minutes for the sauce to thicken, but you will know when it is done when it coats the back of your spoon.
Note: You can make this sauce ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator for two weeks. Reheat the sauce in a microwave oven or a double boiler before using. This sauce is also great for cakes, ice-cream and tarts.

Assembling the éclairs:

1) Slice the éclairs horizontally, using a serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Set aside the bottoms and place the tops on a rack over a piece of parchment paper.
2) The glaze should be barely warm to the touch (between 95 – 104 degrees F or 35 – 40 degrees C, as measured on an instant read thermometer). Spread the glaze over the tops of the éclairs using a metal icing spatula. Allow the tops to set and in the meantime fill the bottoms with the pastry cream.
3) Pipe or spoon the pastry cream into the bottoms of the éclairs. Make sure you fill the bottoms with enough cream to mound above the pastry. Place the glazed tops onto the pastry cream and wriggle gently to settle them.

Let's run a marathon

2008-08-23T08:18:00.001+01:00

Think! This could be you.

Its in my nature to want challenges. Otherwise its boring. Now I came up with this silly idea about running a marathon.
It was one Saturday morning when I went to work and remembered that on that same day my colleague was about to run Helsinki marathon. And there I was dreaming until I got hooked up in this feeling that it must feel awesome when you run or walk or crawl over the finish line of marathon. And it takes about 3 hours of my time, so its not that bad, I can find that time :P
This whole idea about running a marathon is scary, but at the same time, it keeps on haunting me, so I am starting to think that I think I have to do it, to get rid of the ghost.

I was googeling little a bit about training for marathon and stuff. One source said that you should be running regularly every week at least a year before starting training for marathon. And lately my running routine has seriously faded. I will get back to running as soon as I get my life back into routine, I promise. At the moment there is holidays coming up and starting a new job, looking for a new house etc.

And I am not talking here running in 6 months. I am talking about setting a realistic goal to run in 2010, this gives enough time, to shake off that laziness, right.

I did e-mail to few people, 3 to be preicise. Two of them, men, said no right away. One of them, a woman, gave me a litte hope, that I might not be alone in this crazy thought. I'm not trying to say anything here ... hehe :)

Huge dose of Estonian on 19th of August in Tallinn

2008-08-21T12:08:00.010+01:00

Unfortunately I couldn't be there ... I bet every Estonian says that, but the truth is that the little piece of Earth where its kept, is also limited, so not all 1,3 million will fit in there.

The singing, I suppose we get it with breast milk, you usually say, but no, for us it comes with basic 9-year education in school. Where practically all the kids who can sing, without sounding like untuned instrument, attend the school choir and from there on national song festival in every 2 years. I remember that at one point my "teenager monster" raised the head and I refused to go to choir . Then music teacher said that it is strictly obligatory and of course then I felt even more revolutionary and definitely not wanting to go. I cannot remember exactly, but I bet all this lasted few weeks and then I was back, attending the weekly rehearsals, because the truth is, that everyone wanted to go to song festivals. It was going away for a week, sleeping entire choir together in some classroom floor in sleeping bags. Huge sleepover for entire week. After big rehearsals going around in the capital, sometimes seeing famous people on the streets WOW ... all this, was a great reward for a girl from a little countryside school. In the end it felt very impressive to sing in this huge choir of 15 000 people . Anyway, this is how we learned to appreciate singing together, from school, with basic education and the outcome was that Estonians sang themselves free from Soviet Union 20 years ago.

More precisely 20 years ago on 11th of September 1988, 300 000 Estonians (according to wikipedia) gathered on the same spot in Tallinn Song Festival Grounds, to sing songs about the country and freedom, together with politicians and singers, who were spreading the message. Not throwing rocks and burning flags, just singing :)

Now they have repeated this event, for some it was nostalgic (that's me, I was young then, but I remember it all), for young folks, its was completely new and fresh injection of nationalism.
The outcome was simply beautiful. I wish I was there...

That's my nationalism raising head :)

This song was composed by Tõnis Mägi, also sang by him on this video, and became The song of restoration of independence of Estonia in 1991.

Meet Robert and other stories ...

2008-08-14T16:24:00.005+01:00

Robert is our newcomer pet snail. We didn't buy Robert from a pet store or didn't pick him up from a bush in the park. Miraculously Robert came to us by itself. On Tuesday evening when we sat at the table to have dinner, Joao noticed a snail on the leg of the table (I don't know if you say "leg", but you know what I mean). A snail in the house, in 3rd floor apartment? How? Its a mystery till today? We gave him a little lettuce to nibble and called him Robert. He lives a happy life in my herb garden in the balcony, just few minutes ago when I checked he was conquering the rosemary bush.

Pet snail Robert and a proud owner

Over the weekend we got some serious rain here. You might think that here they are used to it, but this one seemed to be over the limit. Roads were flooded and people locked into the house and out of the house. We even got two refugees in our house to wait the traffic jams to calm down. Because some of the roads were flooded, then the accessible ones got serious traffic. Supposebly it was a madness, something that people can talk about next 10 years. Where I was, on my 3rd floor apartment, I didnt notice much difference. Yes, meanwhile it seemed to rain so much that I didnt see the other apartment buildings next to mine, but that was about it. Oh yes and few days later, when taking a walk to the park, we found it closed on one side, because there was an ocean.

Northwood ocean

Brilliant inventions - Banana "ice-cream"

2008-08-09T17:47:00.009+01:00

I found this recipe surfing in the internet. I cannot remember at all where, so my apology to the inventor, I am not trying to take the credits here, just spread the word about this goodness. Its good alternative if you need to put a brake on all this baking and baking and baking. Its lovely dessert, without a drop of sugar added. To be honest I don't even remember the amounts, so here I give you my instructions. Perhaps you can make it even more perfect for yourself.

Banana "ice-cream"

1. I cut about 1 1/2 bananas and put it to freezer and froze it overnight. (1/2 banana just didn't make it to the freezer, I had to try if it was still good :P)
2. Take out frozen banana pieces and put it to a blender with some nuts. I used 3-4 hazelnuts and 3-4 cashews, but you can use whichever you prefer. This amount seemed plenty for 1 1/2 bananas.
3. Just blend until well blended.
4. Serve immediately.

Banana "ice-cream" - Eat yourself and offer to a friend.

Baking on the rain

2008-08-07T10:40:00.013+01:00

So I guess it's my turn now.

Yes, I'm the infamous one who has the name up but never dared to write a few words in this cute little board. For the ones who haven't figured out yet, I'm João, the other half of this blog, who actually is much less than half.

I hope I can maintain the standards of this place, and for that I'll promise to behave.

OK, but now let's Post!

One of these days it was raining in Dublin. I was not only surprised but also shocked. How come?! So unpredictable?! I just couldn't believe that it was raining on the day that I had plans to do nothing.

Oh well! - I thought. I guess it will be alright because there will be plenty more opportunities to do nothing.

Inspired by such a typical horrible weather I decided to do something extraordinary.

I don't want to stop any weak heart, but in fact I BAKED! In deed! Seriously!

I opted for this very basic Portuguese cake, original from my County, which is made for sweet teeth like me. It's called Pão de Ló de Alfeizerão.

It's based on Eggs and Sugar, and a small drop of flour. This mix makes it moist and very sweet, becoming a true orgy in my mouth.

I leave here a picture and the recipe. Enjoy it with tea or coffee on a rainy day.

Pão de Ló de Alfeizerão

2 Eggs
6 Eggs Yolks
100 gr of Sugar
50 gr of flour

Blend the eggs with the sugar until it's foamy. Continue blending and add one by one the egg yolks. Blend this mix for 10 minutes. Gently fold in the flour and take to a hot oven (225ºC) for 10 minutes.

PS: The cake will massively fall down after taken out of the oven, but don't panic, it's how it's meant.

Celebrating tiny baby tomato with roast chicken and Portuguese rosé

2008-08-05T10:39:00.002+01:00

Dingle peninsula

I have my mother visiting me for 5 days, so we had a strong reason to leave Dublin and to go to see Ireland for the very first time in 8 months. Yes, 8 months in Ireland and the furthest that we had been until Saturday was Malahide. But not any more, now we have been alllllllll the way to the other side of the country, to Co. Kerry at the West Coast. We drove to Limerick and from there we made our way to Tralee, though smaller roads and beautiful countryside. In Tralee we spent a night in traditional B&B above the Pub. It was very convenient I must say, listening live music and having pints and then just few steps and you are in cosy bed. Well, lets be honest here now :P There was lots of noise too, but that was only first 10 min until I fell asleep :)

Me mother

This morning I noticed that my tomato plant is fully fertile and giving birth to tiny green baby tomatoes. Wiii ... it was blossoming for few weeks now, but didn't give any sign of tomatoes, so I was getting afraid that its a one lazy tomato plant. So you can imagine my joy this morning when I discovered the first tomato on it :D

Tomato nr.1

On Monday night I had 5 mouths to feed and I spotted a whole chicken in the supermarket, so thought, why not? Let's cook the whole darn chicken. I didn't follow any recipe. Just seasoned with salt and pepper, put some rosmary. When chicken had been in the oven for an hour I put the potatoes in the oven dish underneath the chicken and then gave it another 30 min or so.
The outcome was simple, very chickenny. Unfortunately there is no photo, because I forgot to take it and taking a photo of a dismantled chicken in the Tupperware box won't have the same impact. Next time then. And yes, there was lovely Portuguese rosé to accompany all this, given us by friends who went to Portugal this spring. So now was a good reason enough to open it. But as I said no photos this time, use your imagination, I don't want you to get your imagination spoiled :P

Italy resumé

2008-07-29T17:44:00.031+01:00

It took me 4 days to set up this post. I know I promised some people photos of Venice as soon as I am back, but my "very fast" internet connection has set limits to it. Plus my mother came on Wednesday midnight, so I have been busy hosting her.
Now, our 5 day trip to Italy and Venice was everything that I expected and even more. We could experience a true summer weather with beach, lot of relaxed atmosphere, beautiful scenery, good food and very good company of many friendly Italians and 2 Portuguese.

Joana, our host and Joao somewhere in Padova

Day 1 Joana picked us up from Padova autostazione and guided us to her place where we could drop our bags and dress into summer clothes, because in Italy they have a summer. Then we met our driver Lorenzo, who took as all to the sunny beach of Lignano (I think this was the name :S). It got cloudy as soon as we arrived to the beach, but this didn't stop us to take a first summer dip and enjoy the beach. Eventually it got sunny and we kicked some ball.

Kicking the ball

Day 2 continued in the rhythm of beach life, by the end of the day we were back in Padova to meet Alessandro, Joana's second half. As Italian and a true master of pasta, Alessandro made us a lovely dinner of chilli spaghetti with fresh tomatoes.
Day 3 was a trip to Venice. It is as beautiful as you see in the pictures. Where ever you go, there is a possible Kodak moment. We spent around 5 hours walking around with our very very patient tour guide Joana. I won't make a long speech here, pictures will talk for themselves with a little help from the caption.

Breakfast at Ale's house

First buy in Venice, water

One of many canal photos

Colourful building

"3 pieces of ravioli please" - Pasta

It was still first half of the Venice trip, so the spirits were high

Our lunch: bread bought from Jewish ghetto, ham from butchers and cheese from cute Italian supermarket

Tourists stopped in front of pretty clock tower

They were feeding me to the pigeons of Basilica di San Marco

Palazzo Ducale

They didn't bang their heads. They must have been trying it out before then

Beautiful pasta, pasta, pasta, pasta, pasta

View on Grand Canal from a bridge

Sprits

Pizza

Venice - Grand Canal

So all this was Venice. There was a day 4 with walks in Padova market on Prato della Valle square. Joao made a great bought of new sunglasses after he got his previous sunglasses wrecked in the beach by a kid. But one photo below all this was long forgotten and everyone was happiiiiiiiiii.

Sunglasses models

A very warm day 4 finished on a graduation party of Alessandros friend, somewhere in nearby mountains. It was a lovely warm summer night, with many happy people. Million thanks to the party guy who invited us.

The Pasta Gang
tomatoes - Joana
pasta - Alessandro

observer - Aire
special effects - Whisky

Night before Venice - Baking bread

2008-07-22T15:45:00.007+01:00

Another attempt to bake bread. The recipe is from beautiful cookbook Piri-Piri Starfish: Portugal Found. The recipe was calling rye flour next to simple wheat bread flour, but I didn't have it, so my bread came out pure wheat bread. As it cooled down little bit, we had it with fresh mozzarella and tomato. Mmmmm ....

Tomorrow we will fly to Venice for 4 days. Wiiiiii ... I know it is going to be crowded and in general I don't like crowded at all, but it's Venice, it's a must. I am convincing myself that I am prepared for this, so in the end I can say it was wonderful. Cappuccinos, ice-cream, warm summer nights with food to nibble and wine. Bring it on!

Good old Cabbage Rolls

2008-07-17T19:51:00.008+01:00

This dish is definitely from my mothers cooking repertoire. I missed the taste of it, so I decided to give it a try. It gives a little work though, but I suppose the more you do it the easier it becomes. We always had it with boiled potatoes and splash of sour cream.

Cabbage Rolls

1 medium size cabbage
300g ground beef
1 small onion finely chopped
1/2 cup long grain rice
pepper
salt

Boil the rice.
Mix the beef, chopped onion, rice, salt and pepper.
Place the whole cabbage in the pot with water and little bit of salt, making sure that water covers cabbage entirely. Bring it to boil 5 - 10 min, so the cabbage leaves become slightly soft and you can bend them without braking. Do not over boil the cabbage otherwise the greener and softer parts of the leaves get mushy. Lift the cabbage out of the pot and remove whole leaves one by one. Cut the white tough skeleton end of the leaf thinner.

Flatten the leaf on the board, depending of the leaf size, place 1-3 Tlsp of meat mix onto the leaf. Fold the sides of the leaf to the centre over the filling and then roll the filling into the leaf starting from the white skeleton end.Place the rolls on the pan with little bit of olive oil and fry them 3-4 min from both sides until they gain brown spots. Remove from the pan and place them to a pot layer by layer tightly side by side. Pour over with the remaining water from boiling the whole cabbage. Cover with a lid. bring to boil over low light and let it simmer 1 hour.

Transformation

2008-07-15T22:47:00.006+01:00

My blog went through complete transformation to the brighter side. When I opened an account in Blogger I didn't have a clear vision how should it look like. So I have been changing it and trying out layouts. Now I can say I like it, its my new baby. To celebrate the transformation I baked so much loved in our house Chocolate Crinkles. The recipe is form Joy of Baking once again. I have been exploring this website and continue to do so.

These Crinkles are brownie like cookies with nice soft texture and rich chocolate taste, which makes them more than just cookies. Dough is very easy to make, keeping it in the refrigerator for few hours makes the process a little longer and demands some planning. I tend to make the dough on the night before and leave it in the fridge overnight.
What I like about the Crinkles is that they are nice bite size, when ready baked about 3cm in diameter. I would call them figure friendly. You know how brownies are always a very generous square and its impossible to eat half now and leave the other half for later. Who does that? With Crinkles there is no need to make those crucial decisions, because they are tinier but still have all the flavour.

Guinness Brewery

2008-07-13T10:33:00.006+01:00

Another tourist attraction in Dublin seen. It was actually a week ago already, last Sunday, that we went there. Its me being very, very delayed. I am having this blog around half a year now and most of the times I still cannot remember that I should write here on more permanent basis. I try to improve.

So Guinness. "Good child has many names", as we say in Estonia. They say its a Storehouse, Brewery and the most odd a Museum. It does explain the history of Guinness and everything surrounding it. Ingredients, making process, transport, but the educational part in this "museum" is very small. All they want to do is sell their beer and increase the profits. Oh and in the booklet they promised that visitor can pull his own draft and get a certificate and all, but we didn't find such thing. As a good consumer I must say that the most enjoyable part is the top floor with magnificent panoramic view on Dublin City and pint a fresh and creamy Guinness. The most amazing thing was when we acclaimed our free pint. Girl in the bar made a shamrock (ristikhein) on the foam. It was very pretty.

Concentrate the eyes on pint on the left, that's mine, thirsty Joao already wrecked his.