Considering seconds, while writing. So pleased with it! And no work at all. I shoved in the oven 100 g of short grain rice, about 40 g of sugar, 700 ml of milk, lots of vanilla paste and left it in there for 1,5 hour in 150 degrees.
Cooked off some frozen berries with lots of sugar to make a nice and simple compote. Delicious!!!! 🙂
“Food & Drink” is back for a new season, with skinny Roux Jr and a bint, who suggests great wines with meals, to me, who can only have a small glass once a week. I’m craving a nice, cold Pinot Gris, but with the new financial discipline and the mentioned alcohol abstinence for a few more months to come, the answer is NO.
Roux boy was talking about doing a better job with leftovers, like with remains of the roast chicken from a Sunday. He suggested croquettes, which I’ve been thinking about making for quite a long time. Today I did. But not with the leftovers, I bought 5 roasted chicken drumsticks, warmed them up while I was waiting for the potatoes to cool. In the meantime Dustin has helped himself to one of the drumsticks, little shit, must have smelled good, as he’s normally not walking on the kitchen tops.
So, I riced the spuds, peeled off all the meat and chucked the bones, added some lemon zest- came through really nicely-chopped spring onion, a touch of basil( Roux used tarragon, I hate tarragon), an egg, a handful of grated cheddar and seasoned well. Tossed in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and had them ready to deep fry.
The Frenchie made a chutney too, apparently of leftover tomatoes, which he chopped and threw to some sweated shallots and garlic, cooked off with sugar, red wine vinegar, chilli flakes and seasoning. I’m not amazed at mine, but then I’m not a massive chutney maker and expert. I had a jar of green tomato chutney from Louise though, so served it alongside mine. Both Florek and I preferred Louise’s. It tasted like it was made with a recipe and love and time.
Will be made again, will be seasoned more bravely, might use a thick bechamel like the Spanish, to make them a bit more creamy. Florek said what would rock would be some cheese oozing out. So, must make again.
A dessert so simple that it’s embarrassing. And yet here’s Florek licking off the rest of the compote from his plate. 🙂 Something nice and sweet was needed after the afternoon of filling up forms for maternity allowance.
I measured nothing, but managed to get 4 small cheesecakes into 4 rings, I’m that good, haha! Whipped some cream with icing sugar and lots of vanilla paste( seen on tv how vanilla paste is made, I think I’ll switch to pods as soon as I finish this jar), added about half of 300g container of Philadelphia cheese. Made sure not to overwhip, didn’t fancy the consistency of butter. When I was happy with the taste, I filled my 4 rings with bases made of blitzed biscuits with melted butter, which were flash-baked for about 10 minutes. And then all set in the fridge.
The compote- frozen mixed berries, cooked off with a splash of water and sugar, cooled. No need for blitzing, rough texture of the whole fruit is quite nice on a creamy, smooth cheesecake.
One of the best stir fries I’ve ever done. The photo is not really astounding, but I found it hard to take a good one of the noodles in a bowl. The taste made up for it.
I googled he recipe first, lots of different takes and ideas, I decided to go with someone called Ching He Huang, a bit more credible than John Smith maybe. 🙂
Thinly sliced chicken breast got a nice coating of a Chinese five spice, chilli garlic paste( the bird called for chilli sauce ) and soy sauce, after 20 minutes I tossed some corn flour into it as well. What a smashing idea altogether. The chicken was moist and succulent and full of flavour, which went through the rest of the dish. I threw in chopped red pepper, mange tout, some cup mushrooms, bean sprouts, seasoned with soy sauce and sesame oil, then the noodles,cooked to packet instructions, good toss to all if it and chopped spring onions to finish. Florek had seconds.
A link to that bird’s recipes, I’m going back to what she has to say:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/search?programmes[]=b00cjxzp
My former colleague from Ubon,Akacja, has started a chat on Facebook yesterday that involved a new flavour of Soplica Vodka, this time it was Soplica Pigwa( quince). If it wasn’t for Izzie, I’d have stopped at a Polish shop in Cheltenham this morning and got some to check it out, it will have to wait a few months though.
We needed a dessert this evening, to go nicely with burgers and a burning fire while it pisses down outside, so I made a mousse, which Florian once branded as better than Gü. The original one was with Amaretto, I had no Amaretto, I had 1,5 bottle of Soplica Orzechowa in the pantry, which is also awaiting the return of the good times.
I used 150 g of double cream, half of which I have melted with 50 g of dark, Swiss chocolate, then left to cool in the sink with cold water. Then added the remaining cream, altogether about 3 tbsps of Soplica- kept on adding and tasting, I wanted to be able to taste the hazelnuts, but minded Izzie at the same time. Then I whipped 1 egg white with 25 g of sugar and folded it in. Topped with some grated white chocolate and chopped pecan nuts( had no hazelnuts). It will set in the fridge for about 3 hours.
Nigella’s recipe. Go Nigella!!!! I made them cause I felt like banana muffins and as a sign of solidarity for Nigella, who’s private life has been pissed all over in courts and tabloids recently.
I used 75g of melted butter, 250 g of self raising flour, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1/2 tsp of soda, pinch of salt, a good tsp of cinnamon, 115 of caster sugar, all waiting in the bowl apart from butter, that was awaiting its turn on the hob. I blitzed 2 ripe bananas, added to the dry ingredients, then 2 whole eggs, beaten, 1 tsp of vanilla paste, same amount of honey, that melted butter that was waiting and 125ml of milk. I also threw a handful of chopped walnuts, they were looking at me from the pantry shelf.
All this nicely combined went onto greased muffin tray, made me 12 nice muffins easily. Baked in 190 degrees for about 40 minutes, I kept on checking, as in the recipe Nigella said 20-25 minutes. The stick kept on coming out too moist for my liking.
The smell in the house- awesome. The taste, lovely, or, to quote Florian- pretty fucking good. I would be happy to throw one more banana in next time. And maybe even more cinnamon. Ha. 🙂
I’m in the middle of one, while writing. It’s a bit like a coarse souffle, the bottom- that was top in the oven- is crunchy and rich from the butter, the cake is moist and lovely with chunks of pineapple and lovely and wet right under the pineapple ring. What would make it a great, accomplished dessert would be a scoop of some lovely sorbet on the side, maybe coconut or passion fruit. I’ll remember that when having people over for dinner next time.
For 4 of those I used 25 g of butter creamed with same amount of sugar and a tbsp of rum, generously spread on the bottom of my creme brulee ramekins. Canned pineapple rings were too big, so needed a good trim,but eventually were placed on the bottom with a cherry in the middle( I used cherries in kirsch leftover from Black Forrest Gateaux). Then the cake mix;
70 g of butter and caster sugar, 1 whole egg, 70 g of self raising flour, 25 g of desiccated coconut, half a tsp of baking powder and about 2 pineapple rings finely chopped. I thought it was a bit too thick, so I added a bit of pineapple juice to loosen it. Also, filling up the ramekins too much is not clever, as they will overflow and will be a mess to get out later. One learns from one’s mistakes( occasionally).
Well pleased with oneself. 🙂
I was asked to bake something with chocolate and I obliged. On a Saturday afternoon with rain and wind outside and a prospect of spicy chorizo pasta in the evening- I produced little mini black forest gateaux slash chocolate muffins slash Schwartzwalder tartlets….:-)))
I baked the bases in my muffin tray, I might have paid more attention while spooning them out into it, as they rose with little peaks on top. Had they been flat, the presentation would have been a lot more professional.
For 9 little muffins I used 110 g of soft butter, same amount of sugar, 80 g of self raising flour, 2 eggs, 30 g of cocoa powder and a touch of baking powder, all for Maurycy Kitchen Aid to work into a lovely, brown mixture, which baked in 190 degrees for about 23 minutes.
When cooled and sliced in half I soaked both parts with kirsch, then spread some morello cherry jam on the bottom parts, followed by some whipped cream, but not too much, as not to make them sickly. On the cream went cherries from the kirsch, then the top of the muffin, more cream, a cherry on top and a sprinkle of dark chocolate. Very pleasant indeed.
One more golden thought for improvement- next time I’ll use my Soplica Polish vodka to soak the cakes, as the kirsch thingy is rather shy on flavour.
On the same note as the previous post, I must just add yesterday’s creation. My new cake tin, tiny and round is a perfect size, nothing gets wasted. And decorating cakes is lots of fun, I’m very pleased with the presentation. Simple sponge made of 2 egg whites, random amount of sugar, 2 egg yolks beaten in, 2 tbsp of plain flour, 1 tbsp of potato flour and a touch of baking powder, all baked for about 25 minutes in 180 degrees. Sponge cut in half and filled with whipped cream with chopped, tinned pineapple, on top toasted flaked almonds, glace cherries and a touch of love. Made us a lovely dessert to finish a very nice 2013. :-)))
