What's Your Food Resolution?

Hi,
I know,I know that I haven't post anything for so long. I don't have any reason but...laziness.
It's December now, and I just realized that it's almost a year since we moved here. In a few weeks will be 2013.
So, what is your resolution for 2013? I don't really in to resolution thing too myself actually (and I never really keep my resolution, or remember the resolutions I've made before, ha ha!). However,resolution is a good thing to keep you in spirit in improving ourselves.
Anyway, I came across this site feedingourfamilies.org.nz and saw that they suggest us to consume meals with at least half vegetables the whole family will benefit, as the picture bellow that I took from their site.

It has 'wow'-ed me, and I think it probably good idea to implement a good portion of veggies every day. I admitted I hadn't give my family enough veggies. There's almost-always some portion of veggies on our table, but probably not good enough. Oh, and I love veggies, but I don't eat fruit well. I don't know why.

I think this portion of veggies suggestion gave me ideas of resolution: Next year I will serve more veggies and more fruits for my family, insyaAllah. I don't know how yet, but I will find a way. One of the way is probably getting the right tools.

I always thought that beee-a-tiful stand mixer like this..

or this..

(pics from here)
~ooh look at their colours *gulp*~

...is a dream kitchen utensil that I could always dreamed of, but probably will never buy it. It's really expensive!!
Now after thinking of my resolution, I don't really want those mixers anymore. I mean, I don't bake cake a lot, and I start begin to think that cakes made from too much flour, and too much sugar, and too much fat... too much whatever. I made cake mostly for my sons, and sometimes for myself. Now my dream is shifted to....JUICE EXTRACTOR! That will be great to consume fruits, don't you think? But I don't know which juice extractor to dream of. Any suggestion?

Anyway, let's hope that my resolution here become reality (amiiiiin!).

So, what is your food resolution? :)

www.homemades.co.cc has disappeared!

Oh no....
That was my first reaction when I look for www.homemades.co.cc and could not find it.
My first guess was my co.cc, which was free domain, is no longer free. So it's disappear.
The only thing I thought that could save this blog is to return to blogspot domain address. I don't know much about internet and domains...this is as far as I could understand so far. ^o^" oh man.....!
I might lose some readers after changing address, but, worry not!
Here is my NEW blog address: www.simplyhomemades.blogspot.com.

I hope reader-friends would not lost (too long), we will be in new address.
I (hopefully) don't have to change address again. Amiiiin.

Tomato Soup

I have been struggling to continue my project to find natural food colouring as in this post. I was probably focused to much in cakes, while food colouring is actually can be used in many type of food, like soups.

Last night was the second time I cooked tomato soup. I found the simplest and easiest recipe here and got idea of how to make the tomato soup looks naturally red. Unfortunately I forgot from which site was the idea came from. I will re-post again if I could find it.
Update: I found the site again! Here it is, give it a visit: homecooksrecipe.com

Wouldn't it wonderful if you can have good RED tomato soup? If we use canned tomato paste or sauce, you might will get that hot red colour. However, I want to cook as close as natural food, and canned tomato could probably has artificial food colouring, right?

So, here is the key; Beet Root. Just a slice of beet root, and everything is good. I used about the size of ice cream's scoop or maybe two tablespoon of beet.

I did used one tablespoon of tomato paste to follow the original recipe. One tablespoon did not really change the colour to red. Beet root does. You can use any tomato soup recipe and put a slice beet root to it make natural red.

By the way, I looooove this soup because it means I could continue the natural colouring project. Beet root officially a natural food colouring! I'll update the natural colouring post right now.

So, here is the recipe that I made.

Tomato Soup

Ingredients:
1kg ripe tomatoes
1 medium onion
1 small carrot
1 celery stick
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tablespoon of tomato purée
a slice of beet root
a good pinch of sugar
2 bay leaves
some ground black pepper (I use black and white pepper)
1.2 litres hot stock (I just made it from water and a piece of chicken :p)

Directions:
- Dice all of the vegetables including the onion.
- Heat up oil on the pan.
- Throw in the diced onion, carrot and celery stick. Stir until soften.
- Put in the tomato purée, stir well.
- Get the diced tomatoes in the pan, stir again.
- Season it with salt, sugar, black pepper and bay leaves.
- Let it cook for a while until the tomatoes a bit shrink.
- Pour in the stock, but save a bit to help blend the beet root in blender.
- Put the lid on and stir occasionally until they are soft and juicy.
- Take the lid off and fish out the bay leaves.
- I waited a little bit more to let the vegetables a bit cooler.
- Meanwhile, blend the beet root and a bit of stock until smooth.
- Pour in cooked tomato into blended beet root and blend altogether until smooth.
- Put it back to the pan and you can taste it and add more seasoning if necessary.

My New-Old Kitchen

Hi there,
sorry for loooooong un-posting this blog. In my Facebook I did mention that my little family and I just moved to our new rental home. I hope it could be a good excuse, ha ha! Okay, that's just one part of the excuses, other part is just lazy, and the other part is just there are other things I prefer to do rather than blogging. Sorry.

We just moved to this very old house, compare to the previous one. But to compare to the previous one again, I love this one better. Why? because we don't live under the landlord's floor anymore, haha! I mean, even though our landlord was nice, freedom is nicer :p

Alhamdulillah we now live in stand alone house with cheaper weekly rent payment. Now, as the first and third reasons I mentioned above, I am quite occupied with setting up our home. This is very old house, which probably fit into retro category. I'm not sure what year is this house was built. I like vintage and retro thing in designs and interior, as long as it's not too overwhelmed. I'm still trying to work things up with the littlest budget.

Most of the rooms are simple and plain, although I'm not so crazy about the doors' panels. Unfortunately, kitchen is the most problem for my eye sight. The cabinets' doors, oh! They might look a bit better in photos, but for me they're too far from pretty (sorry, House!). The material looks cheap (sorry again). I really don't mean to whine, but if I can do something better to fix this, I really would.

I've been thinking of some choices to make. I was thinking about taking off some of the cabinets' doors or attaching the doors with contact paper or wall paper or even fabric. Unfortunately, my husband was not really into these ideas. So, now I'm still thinking. Anyone has any idea? Do help me if you do. Otherwise, I should just live with it.

Look at the pictures, I think it's from the 70s, what do you think? 60s maybe?

I haven't really set up the kitchen actually. I just put everything inside the cabinet to avoid messy look from the outside.

But look at the inside.

Still UN-organized.

Well, at least I still got this $1 2nd metal bookshelf I bought from Trademe.

Trademe.co.nz is an auction website in NZ. Anyone can sell and buy anything with auction system here. I looove Trademe, I found lots of things here, either it's new or 2nd stuffs. We found this house also from Trademe. Car, bike, dining table, sewing machine, and more, and more ^^!

Anyway, still thinking about my kitchen and other rooms. So, sorry for my absence.
I will post a recipe after this one up.

Salaam!

Gulai Ayam

Hi!
Few days ago my hubby said, "Could you make Gulai Ayam like the one Padang restaurants sell?".
"I could try", I said. "Okay", he said.

So, there I was browsing internet again, and let my hubby pointed out pictures of Gulai Ayam in the Google search page, "This one", he said. "Okay"

Anyway, here it is the gulai I made yesterday. It wasn't really like the one in the Padang restaurants, but it's nice to have them anyway. The kids, they didn't know there's chilli in it, like it too. After they finished the meal I told them there was chilli in it.

Oh, by the way, the milk and water in this recipe below is just approximate.

Overall, it's so good to see Indonesian warming food in this winter ^^!

Gulai Ayam

Ingredients:
1 kg chicken
about 1 cup coconut milk
about 1 cup water
1 stack lemongrass, whacked
1 turmeric leaf (I omitted it because I didn't have it)
4 kaffir lime leaves, tear a bit
salt

Spices, grind altogether:
3 hot chilli (I tossed out the seeds and used 3 chilli to be kids friendly. You can add more and include the seeds to make it hotter)
5 shallot
5 garlic
Ginger, about thumb size
Turmeric, about thumb size (I used 1 heap teaspoon of ground turmeric)
1 tbsp coriander seeds
4 candlenut
Galangal, about thumb size
1/2 tsp ground white pepper

Directions:
- Heat cooking oil in a pan with medium heat.
- Stir in the ground spices and cook until done and fragrant
- Add in lemongrass, turmeric leaf, kaffir lime leaves and chicken.
- Cook just a brief until the chicken change colour.
- Pour in water and coconut milk.
- Add salt.
- Cook until the chicken done.
- Enjoy with warm freshly cooked white rice.

Coco-Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hmm.. I don't really know what to call this cookies. I made this just because I have too many raisin in my kitchen's closet. My youngest looooves raisins and sultanas, while my eldest could almost throw up if he forced to eat them.

So I was thinking how can I make something with sultana that everyone can eat it? How should I 'camouflage' it? Aha! I thought. How about chocolate chips? Their colours is about the same as raisin. But then, how could I disguise the raisins' texture? If it's in a bread or cake, my eldest might notice it. Besides, my right hand is still in injury, I think it's because handling mouse too much. It's not a joke (even though that means I was in computer too much which is might be silly), my husband said many people got hands injury when they're using computer mouse too much. So anyway, that means I can not knead bread dough. I've tried once, it made my hand more aching and my bread gone baddddd. Then I thought cookies will be saver to hide raisins.

I made the cookies based on the previous chocolate chip I made before. I substitute half of the chocolate chips with raisins, and substitute almond with coconut. Still without any synthetic food additives.

Here's the responses of my beloved little men while they were eating it:
My eldest son came to me while he was munching the cookies and said: Bunda(Mum), did you put chocolate in it?
Me: yes.
Few minutes later, my youngest chased me to the kitchen, munching cookies and said: Bunda, did you put raisin in it?
Me: yes.
Me: (silently giggled)

The point is, my husband and I always try avoiding lie to the kids. So this is not a lie, I answered every my kids' question honestly. Anything that they don't ask, I don't answer, he he.

By the way, I really don't know what to call this cookies. Sorry if the name gets too long then :)
Anyway, here's the recipe:


Coco-Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup wholemeal wheat flour
1⁄2 cup brown sugar
1⁄4 tsp salt
1⁄3 cup oil
1 egg
1⁄4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup raising, diced
1/4 cup dried coconut shred

Directions:
- Mix with spoon flour, chocolate chips, raisins and coconut.
- In another bowl mix with electric mixer egg, oil, sugar and salt until thick and the consistency resemble to mayonnaise.
- Add the flour mix into the egg mix. Fold with spatula, just until all wet.
- If the dough seems too wet, put the dough in the fridge at about 15 minutes, while we heat up the oven to 170C.
- Line a cookie tin with a baking paper.
- With two teaspoons make a ball of dough and put onto the the tin. You can press the dough a little with your finger to make it wider if you like.
- Bake about 10 minutes.
- Take out from the oven and let it cool. The first time they took out from the oven they might seems a bit soft, but after cooled it will be harden a bit. It will be chewy inside and crunchy on top.

Homemade ChocoCashew Spread

Do you ever buy something in a jar and thought, hmm this thing seems very easy if we make it by ourselves at home, rather then bought it in the supermarket.

Well, that's what I thought about nutella. I tought this could be probably contains hazelnut and chocolate, that's it. I believe home made is better because we are the one who put ingredients in our food. While store-brought food, well, we don't really know what did they put in store-bought foods. They probably using preservatives, and who know how much and what kind of sugar they put in it, right?

Then I found that many home made nutella recipes do not use chocolate, instead they use cocoa powder. Hmm, interesting. Even better, I thought. I also found that some of them using honey, with more less sugar. This getting better and better, I thought!

So, I made this yesterday, not using hazelnut but using roasted cashew. I bought non-salted cashew from bulk food alley. I used the blender to grind and blend the ingredients, it is quite smooth, but not too smooth. If you see the pictures you still can see it a bit gritty. But, for me it's not a big deal. I actually love the result.

The true tester is the family, of course. My husband thought it was a bit too salty. But, I thought it taste okay, if you get used to peanut butter. Then, the next test was to the kids. My eldest straightly recognize that the jar is not the regular chocolate jar. Of course, I re-used the marmalade jar.

After he tasted it, he said he likes it. Alhamdulillaaahhh... I know that everything-chocolate is good to him, ha ha. As my youngest woke up, I didn't worry at all, he can eat almost anything.

Then my conclusion is that I will make again after this one is finish, probably with less salt.
Not to mention that it saves money too ;)

ChocoChasew Spread

ingredients:
1 cup of roasted cashews
5 tbsp milk
6 tbsp honey
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tbsp hot water
1/4 tsp salt or less

Directions:
- Make paste from cocoa powder and hot water. Set aside.
- Grind cashew, salt, and milk until smooth.
- Add oil and honey, blend well.
- Add cocoa paste and blend well. If it's too hard for your blender to blend all, you might want to continue stirring with spoon.
- Move into a jar, close tight and put in the fridge.
- Enjoy it with anything!

Do you...

Hi, how many of you trim off the fat from your chicken before cooking it? I do :p They look yucky..

This picture of just ONE chicken thigh. Look how many fats in it.

Kitchen's downs

Nobody's perfect, right? I know.
It's been few weeks I've been failed in making cakes, and few kind of food too. I don't know why, any of my experiments didn't come out with any satisfaction. It probably unconsciously got in my mind, therefore about a couple weeks ago I dreamt that I made cake and my grandma and my mom(both of them had passed away) ate it. I don't think this dream has any specific meaning. I was just happy to see them in my dream; my grandma, my mom and my cake :)
Since that dream my experiments STILL not getting any better. Maybe this is what they called as 'baking blues'. Apparently it's the acute one. Usually people having this kind of blues but still can make cakes. In my case, I can't even make cake right!
Well, I never really expect my kitchen experiment to be always perfectly success, now my little family. So I just let things flow. However, it's been few weeks, I got bored looking at ugly cakes and wasted flour and eggs...and butter.. and milk.. Arrrgh!
I know I don't have to make everything, but I don't like to see my kids eating too much store-bought ready meals too.
Oh dear, I even begin too lazy to type a post.
For the sake of my sons, cooking blues please go awaaaayyyyyy!!

Sate Kerang

Mussels Satay. Yay.
If every week your food shopping is around beef,chicken and fish (like minee), you might get bored of what you cook (like I do). So, remember there are a lot of other creatures in the sea that we can 'catch' from the fisheries! For example, mussels. At the last shopping I grabbed a bag of frozen mussels and thinking of satay. Hm.. I wish I could just buy Sate Kerang (Mussels/Cockles Satay) just like in my home country, but here, I have to cook it by myself.

Thinking about buy or cook our food. It is probably more practice and easier when I was in my home country where I could just buy any food I like. But living here makes me more experience in cooking and baking. I am forced to! Of course, because not much people selling Indonesian food here. Not much at all. Not to mention not so many various Halal food here. Sometimes there are times when we feel that we are forced to do something, and feel a bit down about it, but we finally know that it is good for us.

Back to topic. Ehm.

Usually my hubby won't let me buy mussels, because he said that this creature able to live even in polluted water. He doesn't want us to be contaminated by any poisonous pollution. However, I successfully persuade him by saying, "We're in New Zealand now, don't you think the sea is much cleaner?". He agreed right away :p

I got this recipe, and I don't do much change to it, except the type of clam(the original recipe used cockle) and the amount of chilli, because my toddler would eat too. My family enjoyed them, Alhamdulillah. My husband just requested me to make Sambal Kacang(peanuts sambal/sauce) next time I make it again. Noted! So, I probably going to make it again next week, and I will update this post with Sambal Kacang.
By the way, I know I'm still not good in photograph, especially for night shooting. It's also look too plain. Maybe I should prepare the photo scene first before cooking. Although sometimes it's hard to do it when all your family member trying to grab the food as fast as they can. Oh well, I'll try again next week, InsyaAllah.

Anyway, here is the recipe.

Sate Kerang (Mussels Satay)

Ingredients:
500 gr mussels
1 tbsp gula jawa (Javanese palm sugar)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sweet soya sauce
100 ml water
3 tbsp oil
2 cm galangal, smacked
2 cm ginger, thwack with knife's back(or anything you got)
2 stalk lemongrass, thwack!
4 indonesian bay leaves, or you can use any bay leaves
4 kaffir lime leaves, tear a bit
skewers

Spices, grind altogether:
4 cloves shallot
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp coriander
4 red chilies, I use only one for toddler friendly sake

Directions:
- Heat the wok or pan and pour the oil
- Stir ground spices, lemongrass, lime leaves, salam leaves and ginger until fragrant.
- Add gula jawa, soy sauce and salt, stir well.
- Add the mussles and pour the water, bring to boil until cooked.
- Thread the mussels to the skewer, grill
- Enjoy

Easy Pizza

My eldest son knows Pizza Hut. And KFC. And McDonald. Oh yes, he does. So wherever we go, he could spot those junk food restaurants. He likes pizza. So far after we got here, I just bought pizza crust from stores, and put on the toppings myself, bake few minutes and served. But, since I made bread once or twice, I feel a little confidence to try another type of breads. I made pastry too! But I haven't post anything about it, because I don't think it's 100% success. Well, maybe just about 70-80% success, ha ha!
Anyway, as always, I Googled the easiest recipe there is. I stumbled upon this Jim Lahey's easy way to make pizza crust. The ingredients are just minimum. All you have to do is stir and sleep over it. The change I made was just the water. The recipe just says 'water', but I decided to use lukewarm water instead.

I made it, and it turned out great. Just the way I like it. I made thin pizza with the easiest topping: whatever I had in fridge. Surely, I will make this again.


Easy Pizza

Ingredients:
3 ¾ cups bread flour, plus more for shaping the dough
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1 ½ cups lukewarm water

this is the best moment when making bread; when they puffed into chubby but air-light, just like my sons' cheeks when they were babies!

Directions:
- In a medium bowl, stir in yeast into the water. Set aside until it's a bit bubley.
- Thoroughly blend in the flour and salt and with a wooden spoon or your hands.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and allow it to rise at room temperature for 18 hours or until it has more than doubled. It will take longer in a chilly room and less time in a very warm one. I personally made it after dinner and left it in warmer room over night, then made it as lunch the day after.
- Flour a work surface and scrape out the dough. Divide it into 4 equal parts and shape them: For each portion, start with the edges of the dough and pull it toward the centre. Shape each portion into a round and turn seam side down. Mold the dough into a neat circular mound. The mounds should not be sticky; if they are, dust with more flour.
- If you don’t intend to use the dough right away, wrap the balls individually in plastic and refrigerate for up to 3 days. Return to room temperature by leaving them out on the counter, covered in a damp cloth, for 2 to 3 hours before needed.
- Flat your dough with your hands, add toppings. I added whatever I could get from the fridge; olive oil, tomato sauce, minced garlic, black pepper, bell pepper, mushroom, beef sausages, chicken dices and mozzarella cheese.
- Grill in oven that already heated up to 250C for about 10 minutes. Enjoy.

Sate Ayam

Sate Ayam or Chicken Satay. It's like, everybody's favourite. There are a lot of satay or sate in Indonesia, but this sate is Sate Ayam Madura, is one of the most famous satay in Indonesia.

Back in my home town (am I talking about my home town too much? Sorry), 'tukang' Sate Ayam (Chicken Satay's seller) could easily found around almost any residence area. Some tukang sate usually open on the side of the road or street from dawn to very late of night. Some other tukang sate pushing their cart passing houses while yells out, "Teeee, sateeeeeee!!". If you're bored with your home cooking, just call out the tukang sate and your tummy will be happy. Aww, I love road side food stalls :)
But... now we are in Auckland. There's no way there will be any food seller pushing their carts around your neighbourhood. Ever. Absolutely no Sate. Maybe there are some restaurant that sells Sate. But, it might be expensive and might not have the same taste as we used to bought in home town(again).

Browsing around the recipes, I found this recipe. Hmm, might be not so hard, so I gave it a shot. First of all, the chicken. You can use the breast fillets. But, in my opinion, chicken breast is not so juicy, you know? I decided to use boneless thighs instead. They are more juicy than the breasts. I tossed away some of their fats. Too much bulky chicken's fat scares me sometimes. Thighs have a lot of fat.

I grilled the sate on a pan over stove. For the sauce, I was still not so good in frying the peanuts. Peanuts has to be fry in hot oil, but the heat must be low. We want peanuts that brown and crunchy. Otherwise, the peanuts can be over cooked, too dark, and taste a bit bitter. So it has to be taken out from oil before it's too dark. Well, I was a little late, it became too dark but fortunately it wasn't so bitter. I made it the sauce not so spicy hot because I made them for the toddlers too. If it was for adults only, I might have add more chilli peppers.

Overall they tastes good and reminded us the taste of homeland.

Sate Ayam

Ingredients:
800 gr - 1 kg boneless thighs, diced about 2x2x2cm
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 lime
2 tbsp oil
15 - 20 skewers
sweet soy sauce

Spices, grind altogether until smooth:
1 big red chilli pepper, toss away the seeds
2 small hot chilli peppers
3 big shallots
2 cloves garlic
6 candle nuts, fried or tasted
2 tsp palm sugar
1 tsp salt

Peanut sauce:
150 gr peanuts with skins, fried
water
lime


Directions:
- Marinated the diced chicken with lime juice and crushed garlic. Set aside.
- Grind the peanuts, but not too smooth. It is better to make it a bit chunky. Set aside.
- Heat oil on a pan over medium heat.
- Cook the grounded spices until well fragrant. Turn the heat off. Take 2 tablespoon of this cooked spice, mix with 2 tablespoon of sweet soy sauce, set aside. Left the other part of cooked spice in the pan.
- Mix the ground peanuts with cooked spiced, turn the heat on, add some water until reach sauce consistency. Cook just until boiled. Set aside.
- Thread the chicken onto the skewers, about 4-5 dice per skewer. Grill about 2-3 minutes one side. Brush soy sauced-spice onto the cooked side of chicken.
- Grill the other side about 2-3 minutes, then brush with spice-soy sauce again. Grill until done.
- Serve them with peanut sauce, sweet soy sauce and a splash of lime juice. You can add some chilli sauce if you like it hot.
- Enjoy! :)

Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies (Dairy-free, Additives-free)

Alhamdulillah.
I'm just very happy, and relief after making these cookies.
Every time I saw cookies recipe anywhere in internet or recipe books, they always using baking soda or baking powder. It's not that all of food additives are veerrrrrryyy dangerous. I'm not a doctor, you know. I'm just a little bit suspicious with food additives. A video and an article that I found about food additives makes me more and more want to avoid them. Besides, I just want to prove that all those synthetic or maybe chemical thing(I don't know) are not necessary to use in our food. More natural food probably are better healthier food, I think.

Of course I'm not and can't always avoid those things. I'm not so uptight avoiding it. We still eat store-bought cookies, breads, crackers, etc. But, it's just makes me happier to baking and cooking naturally. I'm not too attached with such synthetic things and don't have to buy baking powder, baking soda, and all of their friends. I can safe some money, thrifty me!
It feels like..great when we can beat those mass-production food. Ha ha, okay, I'm exaggerating.
I have talked about reducing food additives before in a cooking and baking mailing list. Some of them told me not to be paranoid. Oh dear.. Is it wrong if we have our own choice of healthiness?

Anyway, I always thought, can I make chocolate cookies without any synthetic food additives? Whenever I google about it, they always say no, you can't. Only shortbread that can be make without baking soda or baking powder, they said. Well. let see about that now.

Yesterday I really want to make cookies for my sons. I remember I have chocolate chips and almonds in the kitchen. I have to make something from those almonds before they got rotten! But, oh no, I only have 1 stick of butter, while that butter I kept to make pastry for pie. So, search and search, I found some recipe that instead of using butter, they uses oil. Good. I'm safe. Besides, using oil in baking is slightly healthier than using butter, right? ;)
Then I was thinking again, if I mix the eggs and oil until resemble to mayonnaise, maybe it can substitute butter well... While on that thought, I remember how we can bake cakes without those food additives as long as we mix the eggs right. So probably... The result of my fuzzy mind was, I will mix the eggs and oil until resemble to mayonnaise, and skip out the baking soda. Here is the recipe that inspire me to make cookie with oil, but I guess I changed quite a bit in it.

How's the result then? Good. I don't know how many cookies does it makes from one recipe, because my son kept on eating it every time I took them out from the oven. So I did't really had chance counting them.

I just love it.

Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup wholemeal wheat flour
1⁄2 cup brown sugar
1⁄4 tsp salt
1⁄3 cup oil
1 egg
1⁄2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup whole roasted almond, crushed

Directions:
- Mix with spoon flour, chocolate chips and almonds.
- In another bowl mix with electric mixer egg, oil, sugar and salt until thick and the consistency resemble to mayonnaise.
- Add the flour mix into the egg mix. Fold with spatula, just until all wet.
- Put the dough in the fridge at about 15 minutes, while we heat up the oven to 170C.
- Line a cookie tin with a baking paper.
- With two teaspoons make a ball of dough and put onto the the tin. You can press the dough a little with your finger to make it wider if you like.
- Bake about 10 minutes.
- Take out from the oven and let it cool. The first time they took out from the oven they might seems a bit soft, but after cooled it will be harden a bit. It will be chewy inside and crunchy on top.

Enjoy :)

Gulai Ikan Snapper (Snapper Fish Gulai)

It is supposed to be Gulai Kepala Kakap(Kakap's Head Gulai). A luscious meal from West Sumatera, Indonesia. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is 'kakap' in NZ. But they do got Snapper fish. My hubby love Snapper, and this time he requested Gulai Snapper.

I never really make gulai before. Gulai itself is a kind of curry. As many Sumatera's cooking, gulai needs a lot of spices and uses coconut milk(santan in Indonesian). It's not impossible to get all the spices that needed in this gulai. But, some of them need to be replaced or skipped, because my spices collection in the kitchen is not so complete. Some other spices even might hard to find in NZ. So based on the recipe I found, and the spices I have in our kitchen, I made the gulai, with adjustment.

Now let's talk about hot pepper. As in the photo, I used three kind of pepper. I used three small red chilli pepper which are very hot. I also use one of two big red chilli pepper, which I assumed not so hot. The big green chilli was from my landlady whom grown the pepper in her garden. I don't know the name of all these chillies. Back in my country, I might recognize some types of chilli pepper. But here, I'm pretty much clueless he he. Anyway, the result of using three kind of chillies was a very hot gulai. It might makes you sweating when eating it. So, if you want to try this recipe, just find chilli pepper that suits your taste.

For this gulai I used whole fish, head included. Maybe it's scary to some people, but my hubby love fish' eyes. Yes, to eat. I have to make sure they're well cooked. But no, I do not eat fish' eyes. I always feel that they are 'eyeing' on me :p

There are some Indonesian spices in this recipe which probably known in other Southeast Asian Cooking as well, like tamarind paste. There is also salam leaf(daun salam) which is sort of Indonesian bayleaf. If salam leaf is not available, you can substitute it with bay leaves. Bay leaf makes milder aroma than salam leaves. The shallots here are quite big. They can be as big as medium onion, but with some cloves in it. In Indonesia, shallots are just a little bigger than garlic.

Here is the recipe, which I already adjust to the conditions.
Oh, I forgot to tell how does it taste. Gooood.

Gulai Snapper

Ingredients:
1 medium snapper, clean and cut into pieces
2 tbsp lemon/lime zest
1 tsp salt

800ml coconut milk
2 lemongrass stalks, thwack them once with knife's back
1 tomato(green is better), cut into wedges
1 tsp tamarind paste, diluted with 1 tablespoon of warm water
3 salam leaves
3 small red hot chilli pepper
1 big green chilli pepper, chop 1cm
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
salt
cooking oil


Spices, grind altogether to smooth:
1 big red chilli pepper
1 tbsp coriander seeds, toast on pan 1-2 minutes until fragrant
1 cm fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
4 big shallots


Directions:
- Marinate fish with lemon/lime and salt. Let it sit at least 15 minutes.
- Deep fry the fish just until cooked but not overly dry. Drained.
- Heat about 2 tablespoon of cooking oil in a pan with medium heat, stir in ground spices, lemongrass, salam leaves and chopped chillies, until fragrant and change colour.
- Pour in coconut milk, keep on stirring while boiling.
- Add in turmeric, salt and black pepper. Taste it.
- Put the fried fish, tomato and diluted tamarind paste.
- Let it on medium heat for a while. Better not boiling too long because the fish will be mushy.
- Serve with hot white rice, yummy....

Sunday Burger

Hullo!
Yesterday was Sunday, and it's been a long time I want to make my own burger bun. So I got this Indonesian blog, Dapurnya Rina, from a mailing list I joined into. She said in this blog that the bun's recipe actually from Smittenkitchen(which actually got from another source also). So I decided to make burger for Sunday lunch.
Since I don't want to keep so much bread, I made just half of the recipe. The recipe I post below is for one recipe, so if you want just half of it, just cut down all the measurement in half. The buns came out soft and I love it.

The note is don't make any buns to close to meal time. My kids, and my hubby, kept on wandering around the kitchen asking whether the lunch was ready or not. Sometimes they just hang around staring without saying anything. But it's not a new thing in our home. It's not just once or twice men in my home were staring at the fridge and food cupboard as if they were watching TV.

The burger patty I made from this recipe with a little adjustment. It's actually very good, but it makes me having an idea of adding one ingredient in it. If I make it again later(and turn out good), I will post it. (otherwise, I won't post, he he). Oh and I grated the onion because I got this idea from Katjaskitchen. Good idea. Since I ran out of mayonaise, I just put some shredded mozarella on the patty while it's still hot. Put the veggie you like and there it is, the Sunday burger lunch.

I'm so glad I can make this 'fast food' by myself, where I can be sure that the ingredients are fresh, healthier and insyaAllah Halal. You know, since we moved here to NZ we can not just drop by to any fast food restaurant expecting all food are Halal. I told my sons that most of them are not Halal even though the restaurant is just like in Jakarta. So it is so nice to give my kids a treat once in a while. But of course from more trusted hands, which is mine, he he.

Burger buns

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
3 tablespoons warm milk
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs (1 for the dough and 1 for the egg wash)
3 cups bread flour
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Sesame seeds (optional)

Directions:
- In a bowl, combine one cup warm water, the milk, yeast and sugar. Let stand until foamy, about five minutes. Meanwhile, beat one egg.
- In a large bowl, whisk flours with salt. Add butter and rub into flour between your fingers, making crumbs. Stir in yeast mixture and beaten egg until a dough forms. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes. The dough will be on the sticky side so it can be a bit messy at first, but keep on kneading and it will get better.
- Shape dough into a ball and leave it in the bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, one to two hours. (I just put it in warmed closed oven)
- Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Divide dough into 8 equal parts(or 4 parts if you make half recipe). Gently roll each into a ball and arrange few centimetres apart on baking sheet. Put in warmed and closed oven again, or cover them with plastic on top and let buns rise in a warm place for one to two hours.

the chubby buns

- Set a large shallow pan of water on oven floor. Preheat oven to 200C with rack in center. Beat remaining egg with one tablespoon water and brush some on top of buns. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if using. Bake, turning sheet halfway through baking, until tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Makes 8 burger buns


Burger patty

Ingredients:
500g beef mince
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 egg, light beaten
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 small onion, grated
2 cloves garlic, crushed

Directions:
- Add all ingredients into a bowl and then use your hands to make sure the mixture is well combined.
- Make round patties about 1cm thick and 12cm wide.
- The source said that you can use baking paper or cling wrap between the patties to stack up so they don't stick to each other and they store well in freezer too.
- The patties will shrink a little when they are cooked.
- Cook until cooked through.
- Put in the burger bun with all sauce and vegetables of your choice
- Enjoy!

Fried Kumara (Ubi Goreng)

This afternoon snack is just easy one. Ubi Goreng is very cheap and common traditional snack. It is, makanan kampung (village food). By the way, is ubi means yam or sweet potato in English? Is yam and sweet potato the same thing? In NZ they call it Kumara. In Indonesia it's Ubi.
This is just my way of Ubi Goreng. I always like salty taste in touch with the sweeetnes of Ubi. I cut it into chunky french fries look-a-like. I also add some white pepper. My eldest son thought they were potato french fries and he likes the crunchiness at the edges.
Here it is, Ubi Goreng.

Fried Kumara(Ubi Goreng)

Ingredients:
800 gr kumara(ubi)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp rice flour

Directions:
- Peel the kumara, cut in chunk aticks and wash in running water. Rinse.
- While still wet, add salt and pepper. Stir with your hand until all covered.
- Mix all the flour in a bowl.
- Heat oil in medium heat.
- Put some of the kumara into flour bowl, get them all covered with flour.
- Tap the kumara a bit to remove of excessive flour before tossed in oil.
- Fry them until golden.
- Drain.
- I add a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper again at this moment. But it's optional.


Have a nice tea time!

One of Natural Meat Tenderizer

Hi,
wow, it's amazing how I can post 2 posts in 2 days, I normally too lazy for it, haha!
So, as I promised in the last post, I am sharing about a little secret about meat tenderizing. Well, maybe I'm not the only one who knows that, anyway..
As a new immigrant family (I never thought to be an immigrant in my life before), we didn't bring a lot of things to move here. Not that we HAVE a lot of things :p Pressure cooker is one 'fancy' thing that I don't have here. Back in Jakarta, I could use my Mom's. Maybe pressure cooker is not so expensive for some people, but you know, we just starting to make a living here. We have to be very careful in spending money. We don't feel sorry for ourselves. No, we don't. We enjoy very well living here. It's peaceful and I can really concentration to my little family here.
Back to topic.
My hubby is meat-y person. That's why meat is one of the dish that always exist in weekly menu. So, I Google(as usual) to find a way to tenderize meat without pressure cooker. Beside, my hubby and I agreed that pressure cooker could results the texture that we don't really like. I don't know how to explain this. It is also seems to lost it's juice and flaky.
I've heard about pineapple and papaya as tenderizer before. So is the Google said too.
So, I tried pineapple few times. I don't know was it me or the pineapple, but the beef still hard to chew and it was also dry as if losing their juice. I remember long time ago I use pineapple too long and my stir-fried beef turned into mush.
Then I Google again and I found about yoghurt. Yes, yoghurt. Apparently yoghurt has been well known as meat tenderizer in Indian cooking. So, I guess it's not really a secret isn't it? :( About -I don't know- how many million Indians already know this. Shame on me!
But I will tell anyway, who knows somebody in this world still don't know that. *please raise your hand*
I tried it once to beef. It was actually much better than pineapple. My hubby love it. I love it. Then I tried to lamb. My toddlers can eat it. My hubby just cut the meat to smaller pieces and my sons can actually enjoy it. The meat more tender, and moist, but still has it's chewiness(but not hard) as a meat should be.

So, for one kilograms of lamb, I used only a heaped tablespoon of plain unsweetened yoghurt.

I didn't wash the lamb, just smear and make sure that the yoghurt cover all the meat. You can use your hand or spoon. I left them in the fridge, went shopping, then back to cook. I washed the lamb before cooking, because the recipe doesn't require yoghurt in it.

I don't know how long is it supposed to be marinated, but I think I just let the lamb sit about couple of hours. Beef might need longer time to be soaked in yoghurt than lamb. However, for further information about how long should it be sit, and how can yoghurt tenderize meat, you can find it here, here and here.

I use this yoghurt which is using vegetarian friendly gelatine to avoid any gelatine that made of animal (which could be not Halal), as we are Muslims.


Oh, they also said that buttermilk can work as well. But I never try it yet.
I think this is easy and worth it very much. I think it's better than buying bottled tenderizer, especially if it made out of chemical that I don't know about.

Very well, see you later!

Semur Domba (Lamb Semur)

Semur is authentic Indonesian recipe. It's meat, with spices and most importantly, sweet soy sauce.
It's a Betawi(old name of Jakarta) very old recipe.
Like any recipe, ingredients and way of cooking sometimes depend on the cook. Even my grandmother and my mom cook Semur in slightly different way with slightly different spices. They were from Betawi origin.
So, my husband request to today's menu is Semur, made of of lamb. Semur are usually made of beef, but there are some from chicken too. Some I heard made of goat. But I never made it either from goat nor lamb.
So here it is, made as Ayah's request; using not so much soy sauce as it supposed to be. It's usually more dark, brown to black colour because use a lot of sweet soy sauce. But Ayah doesn't like too much soy sauce because it will be too sweet for him.
By the way, the shallots here in NZ are big. So I use only 4 cloves. But if you are in Indonesia, you can use 5 shallots.
Oh, one more thing, I will tell you a little secret later about a natural way in tenderizing meat, ok? ;)

Lamb Semur

Ingredients:
1kg lamb, diced
Sweet soy sauce
Salt
Water
Cooking oil
Fried shallots to spread

Spices:
5 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
5 candle nuts
2cm of ginger
2 lemon grass stalks
tsp white pepper
1/2 nutmeg

Directions:
- Grind shallots, garlic, candle nuts and ginger.
- Stir-fry the ground spices and lemon grass with enough oil (about 4-5 tablespoons)until you can smell nice fragrant from it
- Pour some sweet soy sauce.
- Stir in lamb until the colour changed.
- Pour in water, nutmeg, pepper and salt.
- Taste the salt, and you can add the sweet soy sauce to suit your taste.
- Cook until well done.
- Put them in a bowl. Spread the fried shallots on it. Serve.

New Label: Natural colouring!

Hullooo hullooo!
I decided that to urge myself to be more active in this blog, I have to have a sort of project or challenge. You know, add a little ambition in blogging, eh eh eh.
So, I thought, I was quite success(I know, it's a little snob, sorry) to 'paint' some of my food to green with Suji leaves. Then, why not continue pursuing to get other colours from natural sources?
Do you think it's a good idea?
Okay, anyway.
I will keep this post updated every time I found new colour. I will also put the link on the side of my blog so anyone can check the list.
If anyone had heard or experience using natural colouring for foods, please share with me. I will embrace you with biiiiigggg HUG! ^^

Now, let's start:

GREEN:
• Suji leaves
Tried as:
- Cookies: Bangket Daun Jeruk
- Cakes: Pandan Sponge Cake, Cake Singkong
- Others: Lapis Beras Pandan Suji

RED:
• Beet root
Tried as:
- Soup: Tomato Soup

Isn't it FUN? ;)

Risoles with Ragout Filling

Risoles Isi Ragout
Risoles or Risol is a common snack in Indonesia. In my country, this snack or fingerfood is so wellknown from long time ago, you can easily find it in many food stalls or even bakeries. It made out of rolled crepes(wrapper) and covered with breadcrumbs. The filling is become quite various nowadays. In the old times, I only know two fillings, ragout or stir-fried vegetables.



Ragout, I don't exactly know where this word came from. Could it be related to Ragout from French, or Ragú from Italian? In Wikipedia it means meaty sauce. I don't know if this related or not, but Indonesia did get some influences from European country (especially Holland). The ragout we know is usually chicken or beef with vegetable with very thick clear or creamy sauce seasoned with pepper and nutmeg.



While the stir-fried vegetables filling is more Indonesian-ish. The filling is made by stirred shallot and garlic, added with vegetables like chopped string bean and carrot, and maybe chicken or beef, also sometimes a slice of hard-boiled egg.
Whatever the fillings, we-Indonesian, usually like it HOT! A sachet or a bottle of hot chilli sauce or fresh hot green chilli called cabe rawit are usually stand by the Risoles! Yumm-eeeee!

Ehm.

So I made the Risoles for the farewell share lunch at the kindy. The head teacher was moving to Sidney. Share lunch means every parent bring a plate of food. Any food will do. So I decided to make Risoles, food I had never made before.

The recipe is taken from a this blog. I made it almost the same as the recipe in that blog, but I use frozen mix vegetables for the filling to make it simple. As for the filling, hmm... I remember many snack sellers in Indonesia probably make ragout without milk or cream and with too many flour which resulting pudding-y filling, which I think..eeww! I just don't find it tasty.

I mean, wouldn't it be nicer to imagine that when you bite that crispy yet soft wrapper, a creamy sauce ready to flowing down in your mouth, rather than stick on your teeth? I imagine to have white sauce to be the Risoles' filling. So I made it, by cutting down the amount of flour from the original recipe. But the filling have to be able to scooped and put onto the crepes. If it too liquid, I might get trouble rolling the crepes because the filling can flood all over the place. So I just use about 5 tablespoon of flour and try to get the right consistency. To make sure, I put it in the fridge so I can scoop with spoon later. After it fried, it will be melt again. Unfortunately, I didn't really measure some ingredients.

Well, insyaAllah with this recipe you can't be so wrong, I think. Hehehe. Goodluck!


Risoles

Ragout:
2 pieces of boneless chicken(or more), boiled and cut to small cubes. Keep the boiled water as the broth.
200-300 ml of chicken broth (sorry I forgot how much exactly I pour, but it is around 200-300 ml)
500 gr carrots and string bean or any vegetables, cut to small cubes (I used frozen mix vegetables. Sorry for not really made it from scratch this time :( )
300 ml milk
5 tbsp flour
1 medium onion, chopped
½ tsp white pepper
a pinch of nutmeg
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
a slice of cheese (I didn't measure it, sorry :( )
Directions:
- In pan stir onion with a little oil until golden.
- Turn down the heat to low.
- Add in flour, stir quick and pour in the milk. Stir quick until the texture smooth.
- Add the chicken, vegetables, broth and cheese.
- Season with pepper, nutmeg, salt and sugar.
- Cook until the sauce is thicker.
- Put aside until completely cool.
- You may keep in the fridge and continue to make the Risoles the day after.

Crepes(wrapper):
100 gr flour
1 tsp salt
3 eggs
250 ml milk
1 tbsp butter, melted
a little more butter for the pan
Directions:
- Sieve the flour in a bowl with salt.
- Make a hole in the flour.
- Add the eggs inside the hole. Stir well with wire whisker.
- Gradually pour the milk and keep stirring until smooth.
- Add the melted butter and stirring until blend.
- Wrap the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for about 30 minutes.
- Heat a pancake pan (I use 12cm diameter pan) and smear with a little bit butter.
- Pour the crepes batter in the pan using a large spoon and tilt the pan to spread the batter evenly. You might want to choose the spoon that you think could make a thin crepe and use the same spoon all the time to make the evenly thick crepes.
- Cook about 2-3 minutes or until the surface of the crepe no longer wet/liquid.
- No need to flip to cook the other side of the crepe. Just put it on a plate, and continue to cook another crepe until finish.
- Set aside.
(makes about 25 crepes)

Dipping:
1-2 eggs, beaten
breadcrumbs


Making Risoles:
- Take one piece of crepe and put about 1-2 teaspoon of the filling and fold and roll like envelope or spring roll. Put aside the Risoles with the edge tucked underneath. Repeat until the crepes are finished.

- Dip each Risoles into beaten eggs then coat with breadcrumbs.

- Deep fry them with low heat until golden brown. Better keep an eye when frying, because it doesn't take long until they get brown. Set aside and use the tissue paper to absorb the oil.

Enjoy!

Mud Cake

Hi!
I used to wonder what would be the different between what they called as Mud Cake with other chocolate cakes. So, to find out, I made this once about a couple months ago. I made it out of a recipe from Exclusively Food which I found through Google (my number one source of recipes), with several changes.
Fortunately, the cake could feed not just anyone in our house back in Tangerang, but I could also had chance to gave a half of the cake to my brother. His wife returned to me to say that she and her sister like the cake. They said it's delicious. Alhamdulillah. I promised her to give the recipe, but we were too busy preparing to move to NZ. It took quite long time, I had forgot what kind of changes I made in the recipe.

Yesterday, I try to make this Mud Cake again from the same source, and again, made some changes to suit my liking.

When I make some adjustment to a recipe I found, I usually change the using of sugar and/or the food additives. Well, sometimes I make changes simply because I didn't have the needed ingredients on hand. Of course, that made me NOT always successfully made it, ha ha!

This is dede, who was fallen asleep on the carpet,
but woke up again after I bribed him
with the pan that I used to melt chocolate-->



Oh, one more important thing to be concern when you make cake but prefer NOT to use any food additives as baking powder or baking soda is the method. Food additives give short cut in making cake. With help of food additives, some long methods sometimes are not important to do any more. Take muffin as example. You don't need to use electric mixer or too much of eggs to raise a cake. But if you intend to make food additives-free cakes, you have to go through the complete or right procedures.
The complete procedure for sponge cake type is to whisk the eggs and sugar until as fluffy as you can get. Then fold in dry ingredients(flour and friends) and wet ingredients(milk and friends) alternately in three batches. Yep, you have to do little bit more work.
The result of most of additive-free cakes may not be high-risen ones like any other cakes with additives. But if the taste just as lovely and delicious, why bother using any of it, right?

Anyway, let's back to muddy Mud Cake. I don't know why they name it Mud Cake. The texture is not slimey-gooey like mud. My Mud Cake is more like ground or wet sand. Is it wrong? I don't know. But I would not really care about it when I eat it, because it taste good. The cake texture is really-really dense. I think this could be an option for chocolate lover who's looking for the alternative of brownies.


cracky..


..crackilicious.

One more thing before you read through the recipe, I made what I think as a lighter ganache. Well, if using milk instead of cream can be called 'lighter', then it is lighter *grin*. I only use 150 gram of chocolate, because it was all I have left on hand *another grin*. The cake itself IS full of fat of course. It has butter, oil, chocolate and sugar in it. But I replace buttermilk with yoghurt and reduce the sugar. I hope it helps a liiiiiitle bit to lighter it. If you afraid the ganache will be too runny, you may start with 1/3 cup of milk, and add more if needed.

Soooo, if your heart is broken, your boss is being a jerk, the traffic makes you vomit, or any of bad day, just go home and make one of this. Forget how much fat in it 'coz you deserve it!

Mud Cake

Ingredients:
250g dark chocolate
200g butter (if using unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon salt with the butter)
3/4 cup water
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons plain flour
1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup yoghurt

Ganache, just melt everything above simmering water and stir to blend!
150g dark chocolate
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon salted butter

Directions::
- Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
- Line 20cm diameter round cake pan with non-stick baking paper. I use a springform pan for easy removal of the cake.
- Place 250g chocolate, butter, oil and water in a large saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally until they melted. Add salt and water, stir until they blend. Remove mixture from heat and allow to cool to lukewarm/room temperature. Add yoghurt in and stir well.
- Sift the flour and cocoa powder together into a large bowl.
- Whisk eggs and sugar with electric mixer until fluffy and white.
- Fold flour mixture and chocolate mixure to the egg alternately in three batches with spatula until well combined.
- Pour mixture into prepared pan.
- Bake for about 40 minutes to 1 hour.
- Insert a thin-bladed knife or wooden skewer into the centre of the cake to test whether it is cooked through. If the knife/skewer comes out clean or with moist crumbs (not gooey batter) attached, the cake is ready.
- Remove cake from oven and allow to cool in the pan.
- When the cake has cooled to room temperature, remove it from the pan.
- The top surface of the cake will probably have a crunchy crust, which you may wish to trim off. But I didn't.
- We turn the cake upside down to give a flat surface for icing.
- Then I just cut the cake into two. I use the bottom as the top to get flat surface on top.
- Spread the ganache on first piece of cake. Top it off with the other piece of cake. Don't stop. Just spread all over the surface with ganache until all covered up.
- Let it cool. You may put it in the fridge for faster result.
- After the ganache hardened, you can cut it with knife and enjoy.