No knead bread :)

No knead bread day. A smudge of butter on this warm bread and a nice cup of coffee....

Umpph! It made my day. 

When apples just sit and stare at you...

Toss it higher and make it round -

I don't know if it is normal for everyone. For me when it comes to making dinner, am always annoyed because firstly, I have absolutely no idea what to cook and secondly, I hate eating outside. SO am back to square one standing in front of my refrigerator contemplating what can I make out of the freezer's 'occupants'. While I was busy looking around I realised I haven't done anything with the Italian lamb sausage I bought in March 2013! Yes you read it right, MARCH! Fingers crossed and phew! luckily the sausage was not expired or anything worst - like probably have something green and fuzzy on it. Yuckies!

When I saw sausages I was thinking of puy lentils so I went to see if I have some in the pantry. Sadly none of its kind in my keeping. Ergo I opened back the freezer door and stared at its 'occupants' again. Mr. S has been asking for me to make calzone but I don't have the cheeses needed to make one. But I do feel like bashing something today. Therefore c'est le jour de pizza aujourd'hui ! People keep telling me it is hard to make a nice pizza crust and all, but I think that is just wrong. Dead wrong. You have absolutely no idea how easy it is. You don't need to have Kitchen Aid to make the dough. You just need your hands and fists. Haha.

Making pizza dough is very inexpensive. Trust me. All you need:

Makes about 2 12inches pizza

1 tablespoon  active dry yeast

 1 1/2 cups warm water

3 1/2 cups plain flour (you can substitute with whole wheat flour, if you fancy)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

A pinch of salt 

Now that wasn't so bad was it? First thing first. 

1. Make sure your water is warm and not too hot when you add the active dry yeast. You don't want the hot water to kill your yeast else your dough wont rise. Set aside until the yeast starts forming bubbles in about 3-5 minutes.
2. Sift the flour (any unbleached plain flour will do) and make a well in the center. Pour the yeast mixture into your well together with a pinch of salt and extra virgin olive oil.
3. You can either mix with your hand or using a spatula, drawing the ingredients together. You will know that it is ready to be kneaded when you're having trouble to move your spatula through the dough. 
4. Prepare your work surface. Make sure it is clean and dry. Flour the surface to avoid dough sticking to it when kneading. Otherwise, if you do not wish to knead the dough directly on your table or work surface, you can always line it with parchment paper sprinkled with flour. Frankly, it is actually easy to clean the mess later with some warm, soapy water once you're done. 
5. Turn the dough onto your work surface. You should have a loose, sticky ball. It is time for bashing and kneading! (my personal favourite)
6. Wash your hands and dry them. Make sure you have no jewelry. Lightly dust your hands with flour to keep it from sticking too much. Form the dough into a ball and punch the dough. Kneading is EASY! Press the heels of your hands into the dough, pushing it forward slightly. Punching helps the gluten start working. Continue until the dough is slightly springy.
7. To know when to stop kneading, shape the dough into a ball and let it drop on your work surface. The dough is ready if it holds its shape.
8. Spread a little bit of olive oil inside a bowl and transfer the dough into the bowl. Cover the bowl with a kitchen cloth and set aside for approximately 2 hours until it doubles in volume. You will need a warm temperature (24-26°C) room for it to properly rises. 
9. When the dough has doubled, punch it down to eliminates the air bubbles. Split the dough equally and on a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll out the dough. Use your hand and shape it to your pizza pan. 

Toppings can be anything that you like really! For dinner tonight I made a combinations of tomatoes, onion, cheese, Italian lamb sausages, and thyme. Layer tomato paste or if you are like me, I cheated and uses ready  made spaghetti sauces instead. You know a Ragu or Dolmio or Prego - whichever you like. They do have readymade pizza sauce but I usually prefer Ragu's chunky tomatoes and mushrooms spaghetti sauce. Then layer your thinly sliced ingredients onto your dough and off it go into your preheated oven. Oh don't forget to top it with your favourite cheese! Bake it for about 10-15 minutes (220°C) until the crust is golden all around. 

Reason why I said thinly sliced ingredients is because your pizza should stay in the oven for the shortest time possible to prevent it from drying too much and you ended with crunchy biscuit instead. 

And voilà! There you have it. Simple right. You don't need Dominos after this. Go ahead and try any toppings. Go crazy. I still have one batch left (from earlier dough) for tomorrow. Am making breakfast pizza with streaky beef bacon and eggs and cheese. Hot pizza in the morning. Yummieh!

Bon appetit!

Strawberry & Ginger Sorbet

This is a good alternative for those of you who likes ice cream but do not fancy taking in all that fat. It was a try and error recipe that turned out to be absolutely delicious! Now to those who like to have some alcohol in their sorbet, you can always replace half a cup of lime with white wine, champagne or any alcohol of your choice. 

Strawberry & Ginger Sorbet

2 cups of fresh strawberries (you can use frozen ones if you like)

1 1/2 cups of lime juice

3 tablespoon of castor sugar

1 inch of ginger, grated

pinch of salt

Methods: 

1. Make sure you have a blender and blitz everything together. 
2. Sift the liquid to ensure smooth sorbet. Put in an ice cream maker and churn according to instructions.
3. Alternatively pour into a strong plastic box and put in the coldest part of the freezer. After 1 hour 30 minutes it should have frozen round the edges – take it out and beat vigorously with a fork, electric whisk or in a food processor until you have a uniformly textured icy slush. Put back in the freezer and repeat at least twice more every hour and a half, then freeze for at least another hour.
4. Transfer the sorbet to the fridge for 20 minutes before serving.

There you have it! It is the same method all the time. So you can tweak any flavours you like from fruity strawyberry , spicy ginger to even decadent chocolate sorbet. Hope you find yours to satisfy your craving for frozen treats. 

A jar a day keeps doctor away?

Don't mind the title of this post... A jar a day will get you to the toilet NON-STOP for sure! Haha... I made chocolate pavlovas for my friend and her sister but still had some raspberries left over in the freezer. Since the berries don't stay long and get rotten easily I came up with an idea to turn it to a jam. And I did!

How to make this jam? Easy peasy!! Oh and I mix it with a bit of strawberry to just give it a bit of body :) I can assure you this recipe is not sweet - just maybe a bit sourish from the raspberries. 

Strawberry & Raspberry Jam:

Raspberries

Strawberries

1 1/2 cup of castor sugar

2 tsp. of vanilla essence

3 strips of clear jelly (agar-agar)

Methods:

1. Place your berries, castor sugar and vanilla essence in a pot and heat it up in a slow fire. Stir now and then to make sure you don't burn them.
2. Once everything is dissolved, add in the strips of jelly to thicken it. You can opt not to use this and it is all up to way. You don't want to over measure this else you end up having a summer berries jelly instead of jam. 
3. Turn off your stove and cool it in the room temperature. 
4. Once it is cool, scoop it into a sterile jar. Keep it in refrigerator. Serve it on bread or even with plain yoghurt ( I tried mixing it in plain natural yoghurt, it was YUMMY!)

Eid 2012- Chocolate Pavlova

Too lazy to type in the recipe. Sorry. PM me if you need one:)

------------------------------------------------
Thursday, September 6th 2012.

Okay okay here is the updated ones. I did not snap any photo after the baking part. However this photo was taken by the HR lady in my office. Yummy? Ermmm I would say yes because everything was gone! 

Some has been asking for the recipe. This has been in my family, initially baked by my sister. She adapted the recipe from Nigella Lawson. I however layered 2 pavlova with cream and raspberries in between before topping it up with strawberries. 

Chocolate Pavlova :

4 large egg whites

1 cup superfine sugar

2/3 tsp vinegar 

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

40g dark chocolate chips

1 1/2 cup whipping cream

1 tsp vanilla essence

Strawberries, raspberries or any berries you like

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 175C and line the baking tray with baking parchment. 
2. Beat the egg whites until satiny peaks form and slowly add in a tablespoon of sugar at a time until the meringue is stiff and shiny.
3. Sprinkle the cocoa powder, vinegar and chocolate chips. Gently fold in everything until the cocoa powder is mixed in.
4. Mount the meringue onto the baking parchment and smooth out the top and sides. (To make this easier, draw a circle on to your paper parchment.)
5. Place in the oven and immediately turn down the temperature to 150C. Bake for one hour until the crust is crispy and the interior should still be a little gooey.
6. Leave the meringue in the oven door slightly ajar until it has cooled completely.
7. When you are ready to serve, invert it on a big, flat-bottomed serving dish.
8. Whisk the cream until thick yet still soft and plop a dollop onto the meringue. Put strawberries (or anything you favor) on top of it. 

ALL THE BEST! 

From the cook's room -- Saturday's Dinner!

Butternut squash soup & Fried angel hair with beef and mushroom.

Last Saturday was just a relaxing day for me and Mr. S as we had nothing planned. For once we were just hanging out without any activity in our calendar. But we went to KLCC and had to change his shirt that I bought for him during Isetan Member Pre-Sales because both of its sleeves are up on his elbow (Oh we are talking about long sleeve buttoned shirt!) Sigh sigh! What can I say, I married a giant! Lmao.

Despite not having anything to do in the house, I must admit that I was super lazy. While Mr. S busy vacuuming the whole house, I put clothes to wash and fold those that were already dried on the racks. Head was racing trying to figure out what's for dinner. I knew Mr. S is not a big fan of rice but am just too tired of making steaks and sandwiches. And then, ting! ting! ting! Hey, let's try something new. Heeee...

Looking inside the refrigerator and thinking I should finish what is left inside this. Urghhh! Tadaaaaa....there you go. Dinner on the table:)

To those that kept asking me for the recipe for the above, here you go! (I told you I just chuck everything in my refrigerator. Spring clean it, that is what they called it.)

Butternut Squash Soup:

Half of a medium sized butternut squash (if you can't find it, pumpkin is good too!)

2tbsp of black pepper, grounded finely

1tbsp of salt

500ml beef/vegetable stock

1 cup of milk or cream

1 medium sized onion

2tsp cooking oil

2 sprigs of fresh thyme

1. Roughly chop the onion and cubed the butternut squash into bite size chunks. It doesn't matter really because all these will be blitzed and pureed.

2. Sweat those onion until it is soft before adding thyme to it. Once onion is golden brown, add in the butternut squash along with vegetable stocks enough to cover the chunks.

3. Bring it to boil and once your vegetable softens, turned off your stove and let it cool down a bit.

4. Liquidize your soup into smooth consistency and add some generous pinch of salt and pepper to taste.

5. Depending on to your liking, you can either use milk or cream for your soup. If you prefer to use milk, bring your soup back to stove and add in a cup of milk. Let it simmer for couple of minutes and serve it with hot baguette. If you prefer to use cream, serve it in a bowl with a dollop of cream in the middle.

Fried Angel Hair with Beef & Mushroom

1 packet of San Remo Angel Hair pasta

2 cloves of garlic

1inch of fresh ginger

6 small chili

5 cherry tomatoes, halved

A bunch of spring onions, chopped finely

1 medium sized lime

4 portobello mushrooms, sliced

350g lean beef, diced

Pinch of salt & pepper

Knob of butter

1. Boil some water with a pinch of salt. Add in angel hair and cook it until al dente. Toss it and add a knob of butter to it.

2. Peel garlic and chop ginger to thin slice (it will be easy for you later). Using pestle and mortar (you can use food processor, if you want), pound garlic, ginger and chili to paste.

3. Heat couple teaspoon of vegetable oil and saute the garlic, ginger, chili paste and also chopped spring onions till fragrant. Add beef and stir fry till its tender before adding slices of mushrooms and tomatoes.

4. Pinch in some salt and pepper and toss in the noodles that you have prepared. Mix well. Squeeze some lime juice before serving.

Happy cooking all!

Love,

Iliyana I. Ramjaun

From the cook's room -- Scones :)

Fresh out of the oven for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Just felt like baking the other day and the result was above. Despite living in the middle of KL city area, I have never came across any good scones apart from the one in Boh Valley in Cameron Highland. With fresh cream and strawberry jam as their condiments, along with hot fresh brewed tea...it's definitely HEAVEN!

Felt like bringing something to the office therefore I baked more than enough for everybody to enjoy. For this one we enjoyed it with just butter and assorted jams. It still beats those hard-like-rock scones they sell in cafes. Haha.

Ingredients:

500g light Italian or plain flour

1tsp of baking soda

2tsp of cream of tartar

1tsp of salt (skip this if you are using salted butter)

125g chilled unsalted butter, cubed

25g castor sugar

1 egg, beaten

275ml buttermilk

50g castor sugar (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 220°c.

2. Sift the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt into a large bowl. Use your fingertips, rub in the butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add in the castor sugar and mix well.

3. Set aside about a third of the beaten egg and combine the rest with buttermilk, then add to the flour mixture. Mix briefly to combine into a moist dough.

4. Place on a lightly floured surface, knead gently and lightly just to bring them together. (Do not knead like kneading your bread or your scones will be hard)

5. Press to a thickness of 2cm and using a round cutter, cut out approximately 18 scones (depending on the size) and place it on a floured baking tray.

6. Add about a teaspoon of buttermilk to the remainder of the beaten egg to make an egg wash. Brush the scones with egg wash and dip the scones into the sugar (This is to your liking, usually I did not!).

7. Bake in the oven for about 10-12minutes or until golden brown on top. Serve with some clotted cream and hot tea.

Go ahead and give this a try!

Love,

Iliyana I. Ramjaun