Category: Comfort foods & weekend meals

Orange muffins


These plump beauties, with the right notes of orange are not only fresh tasting but also serve as such a delightful post meal dessert. In fact I ate them instead of a meal but that’s only because they don’t feel overly heavy or dense. Delicate flavours, that orangey tang and all in a form of cake. It doesn’t get better than this.

These muffins are actually a spin on Dorie Greenspan’s lemon and poppy-seed muffins. Since they called for fresh lemon and poppy seeds, both ingredients strangely absent from my local walmart (I live in China), I decided to play with oranges, and believe me, I wouldn’t have has it another way. This has tasted better than any orange related confectionery, dessert, cake I have ever had.

Ingredients

3 tbsp sugar

zest and juice of a small orange

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup yogurt

1 large egg

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

4 tbsp melted and cooled butter

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and lemon zest with your finger tips, until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange is strong.

Whisk in the flour, baking powder, soda and salt.

Now, in another bowl whisk the yogurt, eggs, orange juice, vanilla, and melted butter together until well blended. It will smell heavenly.

Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir to blend. Do not over mix, just stir in until it all just comes together. Lumpy muffin batter makes for the lightest muffins.

Divide the batter in the muffin trays and bake for 18-20 mins @ 200℃

makes 6 muffins..

Another pic for the morale boost..

Chiffon cake


Image

This is a cake I had made a few days back when I was asked to make a proper cake with a lot of icing. Yes, my husband is a sucker for filled or iced cakes.  Considering the layers of creamy icing I’d have to slather onto the cake, I decided to bake a cake which in itself isn’t heavy at all.

This chiffon cake I think is perfect for a thick icing, since it’s not heavy on its own whatsoever. Also spongy, airy and light, and in fact tastes like one of those store bought cakes which we usually get to eat at kids birthday parties. However this was all fresh, nothing store brought except the ingredients.

The other good thing about this cake is that it only needs a very few ingredients. One can make a fairly large cake out of it too and it’s perfect for gatherings.

I have no step by step pictures this time, but it’s so easy really.

Ingredients

5 large eggs- separated

170 gms sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

90 gms flour.

For icing

Whipped cream

This is it. These are all the ingredients. No need for any baking powder, butter, nothing. It;s a very light cake.

Okay, first we have to divide the sugar into three parts.

Sift 50 gms sugar with the flour,and keep aside. 50 gms sugar for the egg yolks, and the rest 70 gms if for the egg whites, so keep aside.

Starting with the egg yolks first.

Beat the sugar and the egg yolks till they take on a pale yellow hue. I had to beat mine for about 15 minutes- I was using a hand mixer. You can by all means use whatever you feel necessary. Once you have reached that stage wherein the sugar and eggs are completely mixed and pale eggy yellow, mix in the vanilla and beat until its all incorporated. Into this mixture sieve in the flour and sugar and keep aside. Don’ mix anything right now.

Now we start beating the egg whites. Beat until they form soft white peaks. This is the time we start adding in the sugar, a teaspoon at a time. This is to ensure that the sugar is completely incorporated and that there aren’t any undissolved sugar crystal. The beating has to be vigorous. Beat until all the sugar has been mixed, the eggs are shining white in fact a bit matte by now, and forming stiff peaks when you lift your beater.

For the final folding of the batter. Take 1/3rd of the egg white mixture and gently fold in with the flour and egg yolk mixture. You have to ensure that you fold it well, instead of mixing like a maniac, because it’s the folding that ensures a very risen cake. When the batter gets well mixed, fold in the remaining egg whites.

The Chiffon cake batter will look very very pale yellow, in fact sort of creamy, like the wall pain on my kitchen.

I used a springform pan. It was easy to just take off the sides, but really, use whatever shaped mold you like.

Bake at 160℃ for 45-50 minutes. The cake will rise to extraordinary proportions. It was a joy to just watch it rise every minute.

Let the cake cool before you slather the icing. You can either bake the cake into 2 molds, or be lazy like me and bake into one and divide it into two by using a clumsy hand and a serrated knife.

Enjoy !!!

Banana Coconut cupcakes


This cupcake happened when I saw, the last remaining banana in my fruit basket had turned into a ghoulish yellow black with kinds sloppy looking ends..I was grinning wide because isn’t this is the perfect opportunity we are always looking for when we really want to make banana bread..?? Ok so the banana wasn’t enough for a bread, but it was more than enough for some experimenting with the just brought coconut creamer.. yes creamer because I couldn’t fine any coconut milk and my desperation for whipping up some Thai food had left me with few alternatives..

So anyways, this was by far the easiest cupcakes I have made without bothering much about the whole wet ingredients, dry ingredients shenanigans.. It was made in one bowl without any mixer.. just a spoon and a bowl..

Ingredients

1 banana

1 egg

2 tbsp brown sugar

1/4 cup coconut powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup flour

30 mls milk

15 mls vegetable oil

 

take the banana

add in 2 tbsp brown sugar

mash them all together like there’s no tomorrow.. doesn’t this look like melted chocolate? hah..

crack in an egg and pour in 15 mls of vegetable oil

add in the coconut powder and the baking powder.

next in is the flour.. just stir

this is the resultant brownish gloop.. and yes the kitchen was smelling awesome..

into my pretty silicone molds.. I love these colorful babies.

I filled them a little more than half way through.. you can see the banana remnants atop.. don’t worry these will all be gone..

I baked these at 200℃ for around 22 minutes.. depending on your oven.. these are hot and I ate 2 already..

Enjoy !!

 

 

 

Way too easy macaroni


Home alone, hungry and too lazy to make anything extravagant & in reality not interested in distracting yourself when your favourite movie is on..

Wat do you do? cook something when the commercial break is on.. This is the easiest in fact too embarrassingly easy and crazy delicious version of the lazy wife macaroni edition..

This post doesn’t have the cooking instructions and picture tutorial, for the reasons that I didn’t have my camera on me and that it was almost too lame to put the pictures of a hot skillet and boiling noodles.. really it was that easy..

Ingredients

macaroni/pasta noodles – depending how hungry you are.. I used 3/4 cup

2 tsp olive oil

1 clove crushed garlic

1 tsp salt

1 tsp turmeric powder (completely optional)

1 tsp chilli flakes (cuz I needed some bite & kick)

Boil your noodles according to package instructions

Heat the oil and add in the garlic, turmeric, chilli & salt and tip in the macaroni.. and that’s it. I got this big bowl and finished it in no time. So basically it took two commercial breaks.. in one I put the macaroni on boil and in the other I made everything else.. Seriously that easy..

Enjoy!!!

Spaghetti with flat green beans & cheese sauce


There are a few pleasure in life, and eating spaghetti on a weekend with no worries is one of them. We usually like to get a little decadent on weekends adding plenty of cheese, beer, soda and chips to our diet and this spaghetti was no exception.

It was beautiful, like a song, creamy sauce with cheddar cheese, and crunchy beans.. a match made in heaven. This hearty meal took nothing more than 15 minutes to prepare.

Cook the spaghetti according to the package instructions and while that is happening, cut up 1/2 cup of green beans and put another pan of water on boiling, cuz we are going to cook the beans for a few minutes

Such pretty fresh green beans..

Into the boiling water they go, be careful while putting them in. Let them cook for 3-4 minutes. We don’t want to boil them.

Drain them after 4 minutes and under a stream of cool water. Look how green and gleaming they look.

In a skillet/pan heat 1/2 tbsp of olive oil and add chopped garlic and tip in the beans and fry for a couple of minutes until they are completely coated with the oil. I also add a pinch of oregano and some dried basil at this stage.

Here we have out beans set them aside and let’s get on with making the cheese sauce.

using the same pan we had fried our beans in, ad another 1/2 tbsp olive oil and once hot enough add in 1 tbsp flour and mix well for a couple of minutes until cooked.

I don’t have the rest of the pictures, since it got a teeny bit difficult stirring the sauce continuously and trying to take the picture at the same time.. but here’s how you do it.

Once the flour has has mixed with the oil and cooked for a minute, slowly add in the milk, around 100 mls and keep stirring dissolving all the flour and making sure there are no lumps. I also add around 30 mls of water to the very thick sauce since I would also be adding in cheese. keep stirring until the sauce is cooked, and you will know it when the white sauce starts coating the pack of your spoon.

Now add in 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese or any cheese that you fancy & keep stirring, add in 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper.take it off the heat and check the sauce for salt. Make sure the salt is enough because a bland cheese sauce is just blech !!!

Aaah.. here it is.. the glorious cheese sauce now being poured into the spaghetti tub.. these black clumps you see is the black pepper.. Pour in the sauce and add in the cooked beans.. Add a dash of dried basil and that’s all. Sprawl on the couch, put on a movie and eat and forget about everything else.. It’s a gorgeous, wonderful Saturday brunch single meal treat…

Enjoy !!!!