When hubby cooks.....

....spaghetti with tomato sauce!
I had an appointment with the doctor for my son. It was late in the afternoon. Since hubby came home earlier than us, he started cooking his favorite dish which he is of the opinion nobody can cook better!
Since I don't exactly know the proportions, I 'll write down all that I could figure out while sneaking from behind and partly because he asked me for the ingredients ;-) !
Ingredients:

1/3 packet of whole wheat spaghetti noodles (1 packet=500 g)
1 tsp salt
water for cooking the noodles

Tomato Sauce:
olive oil, lots of it! (~3-4 tbsp)
1-2 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 large tomato, chopped finely
3 tbsp tomato paste
1/3 box Igloo frozen 8-Kräuter chopped herbs
1/4 box Igloo frozen chopped parsely
1 tbsp capers along with a few tsp brine
salt, to taste
a 1 inch (2-3 cm) piece of parmesan, grated

Method:

• Bring water to a boil and add salt and noodles. Stir in between. Cook till done (al denté, or as per taste). Pour out the water and wash them shortly with cold water and if the sauce is not already ready, add a little olive oil to coat the noodle with oil to prevent from sticking.
• Fry the garlic for short in olive oil and add the chopped tomatoes and stir
  
• add the tomato paste and stir. Cook till everything has become homogenous
• add the frozen herbs, the capers and salt to taste and stir
• Either mix the sauce with the noodle or serve separately garnished with grated parmesan, as per choice.
  

Since we have a 3 year old, who can make a big drama if he does not get to see the noodle pure, without anything, we always keep things, whenever possible, separate and mix in our own plates later!
The noodle were very well done. A quickfix which was also tasty! The only thing I missed was the pinch of sugar. They say here that tomatoes always need a pinch of sugar to enhance their taste, and I feel it is quite true.

Sunny Corn muffins !

I think, I'm not overdoing it when I say these were the best muffins I ever made and ate.
The combination of corn and coconut made this simple recipe into something so special!

I dedicate this recipe to my dear Advik, my nephew, who needs a gluten- and dairy free diet.
He was about 7 months old when I first met him. He was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. So sweet and chubby with large black eyes. It was so much fun playing with him. All you had to do was stand in front of him and do something funny or stupid and he would start giggling, moving his whole body with excitement! And I still remember so well, when I would sing him a lullaby, instead of falling asleep he would look startled with wide eyes and lift up his head to listen! So, I usually had to stop singing, lest I may make him totally awake. :)
But, time flies and he is going to be 7 now. I was so surprised last month to realise that he is already so old. "Seven!", I thought. And since about three years he is on this diet and it has not been easy for his mom, my sister, to take on this challange, which it still proves to be for her, when you have to exclude anything from their daily diet plan which does not clearly indicate to be or is not obviously diary- and gluten free.
Since we live so far apart, living on two different continents, across the ocean, I wanted to be a part of it in some way and I thought of making and finding recipes which are gluten and dairy free. So, from now onwards, every now and then, you will see such recipes without gluten and dairy on my blog. Thanks to the internet and the blogging trend, I already have a couple of good sources for such recipes. And I would surely appreciate, if you have tips for me in this regard.

So, here goes the recipe of these mouthwatering and flavourful corn muffins:

Preparation time: 45 minutes
Baking time: 20 minutes (in preheated oven)
Oven temp.: 160°C convection (180°C electric)
Makes 6 muffins
(To make 12, double the quantities)


Ingredients:

Wet ingredients:
125 ml hot milk (soya milk)
1 tbsp vinegar (any variety)
80 g cornmeal (gluten-free)
1 egg (optionally correction: 3 tbsp applesauce)
60 g sugar
60 ml oil

Dry ingredients:
60 g cornstarch(or any gluten-free edible starch)
2 tsp cream of tartar baking powder (56% cream of tartar; gluten-free)
50 g grated dessicated coconut
50 g raisins
50 g dried soft apricots, quartered

Method:

• Soak the corn meal in hot milk in a large bowl for half an hour, keeping it warm
• In the mean time mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and set aside
• Place muffin liners in the muffin tins
• Preheat convection oven to 160 °C (electric : 180°C)
  
• Add the rest of the wet ingredients and stir shortly just to mix, don't mix for long!
• Add the dry ingredients and mix quickly just to wet all the ingredients
  
• Fill the muffin tins with the batter using a tablespoon and place in the preheated oven
• Bake for 20 minutes, check if baked through and then take out immediately
• Don't leave in the oven for too long!

Note: To make it eggless, replace the quantity of egg with applesauce, roughly 3 tbsp for each egg. This is a standard procedure with wheat muffins. I haven't tried it with these ones.

They are best eaten when still warm. I did not use any flavouring agents like vanilla or any other aroma, as the aroma of coconut and the combination with corn made it unnecessary.
You can take any filling you want. Fresh fruits like apricots, peeches or even dried plums would be great.
Although, on the next day, I just poured one or two tbsp water over them and microwaved them for 15 secons for each muffin and they were great to eat! The reason they get too dry is the cornmeal which does not swell enough and dries up with time. Have to optimise it a little bit more with regard to the soaking of the cornmeal. Maybe I should let the cornmeal soak in the hot milk on the stove and add more milk maybe next time.
Hubby, like so often, refused to eat it initially, looking very sceptically "corn muffins...?!". But, I know him better now, after I offered a small piece of the hot muffin to him, he was all for it ("Ya, gib mal her!" translates to something like: yeah, give me one!) and ate two of these straight away! :D

Tofu stirfry

Last week I very spontaneously bought tofu from my local market, which offers very good organic tofu. Now, it's actually been ages that I have made tofu. Usually I have problems with frying it as it breaks into pieces or sticks to the pan (I've stopped using any non-stick pans). But, this time I knew I had to be careful with the temperatures to get it right, as I had an awakening while making paneer the last time! :) . So, I just checked the fridge for the other ingredients - the vegetables, and got going....

Ingredients:

1 packet (250 g) Tofu, cut into squares and pat dried with a kitchen roll
10 florets Broccoli
2 small carrrots, cut into small and thin slices
12 pieces crimini Mushrooms, quartered
1 small green bell pepper, cut into small and thin slices
a few scallions, cut into rings, along with the fresh green parts
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely grated
3 cm piece ginger, scraped and finely grated
1 tsp fresh whole green pepper seeds
a few tbsp oil
soy sauce
sherry vinegar (it was an expensive but excellent replacement for rice vinegar)
2 tbsp corn starch (or any edible starch)
1/2 cup water (divided)
1/2 tsp shrimp paste (optional)

Method:

• Fry the tofu pieces on medium heat till they get a light yellowish tinge on one side, turn them around to fry both the sides, add some soy sauce and a few drops of sherry vinegar, stir gently and take out of the pan and keep warm
  
• Blanch, or just cook for short in some water, the carrots and broccoli.
  
• Stir fry green bellpeppers, scallion rings, and the carrots and broccoli in some oil on high heat. Add some soy sauce and a dash of vinegar, stir and take out and keep warm
• Stir fry the garlic and ginger and mushrooms, on high heat until they get a crispy brown colour
• Add the reremaining vegetables back to it and stir gently. Add some more soy sauce, if required
  
• Add some soy sauce, vinegar and a few tbsp water to corn starch in a small bowl to mix and them add rest of the water tp make a thin soupy mixture, add shrimp paste to it
  
• Add this to the pan and let cook covered, first on high heat and reduce heat immidiately to low, stir once gently and cover for another 2 minutes
• Serve with warm rice amd some chopped coriander leaves (cilantro)

This turned out quite good, better than I had expected and left us all quite satisfied after the meal. And although shrimp paste is not a typical ingredient of chinese food, it was not at all out of place and added very much to the taste, but can be easily left out as well.
One thing I plan to try out in the future is the fermented black bean curd. I'm learning!

Woodland Strawberries

Wild strawberries in my garden

Just for the memories....
Frageria vesca, called woodland- or wild strawberry, is a variety of small strawberries, which are very aromatic and strongly flavoured, but are not very fleshy, partly because of their small size. They don't always turn completely red or only partly red when ripe, but still have a very pleasant and a mildly sweet taste.
A friend of mine gave me this "Wald-Erdbeere", as it is called in German, when she came to visit me about two years ago in autumn. Initially I thought it to be the same as some other variety, whose berries looked a bit different than the typical strawberries and although they were very aromatic, didn't taste as good.
But, the next year, when the strawberries grew, I enjoyed eating these and this time Rishab too!

want to eat some too?!

Thai Chicken in Red curry

Both myself and Chonu, my hubby, we love Thai food. After having eaten a couple of times at some Restaurants I also started cooking these dishes myself at home. Earlier, when we did not have any restrictions on the hotness of the sauce, I used generous amounts of these packaged curry pastes. And we found them not bad at all. They do not contain any preservatives or colours or any flavour enhancers et cetera. And still, they give the food a very authetic Thai flavour. One does notice the difference in the freshness between a good Restaurant curry, I admit, but still not to such an extent. In fact, this Thai friend, living here in Germany, told me that she likes to use them too - although, I guess more out of need than choice.
I still use these curry pastes, to avoid making things too complicated, but despite that, I cannot use these pastes like before, as that makes the curry we make too hot for my son to be able to eat and enjoy them. Earlier I used half of the paste each time for both of us, now it is not more than a teaspoon of the total, which is almost 1/10th of the whole quantity. But, it still adds to the wonderful flavours of the curry. So, I usually keep at least one packet of these pastes in stock in my pantry. But, otherwise I try to use as many fresh ingredients for the curry as possible.

For last Friday we had already planned a few days before that we will be eating Thai style chicken. And the desire to make it became even stronger after I saw a post on My Cooking Hut, a food blog, yesterday with some beautiful pictures and delicious recipes from someone who is a Malaysian. Her post on a prawn curry was the inspiration for this recipe.
The chicken turned out so good. Sometimes I feel the clarity of thought and a relaxed mind at that moment is so important to get good results while cooking too. Rather than a hurriedly prepared meal. I personally get into trouble when I have to prepare something in a hurry and I loose this feeling which usually guides me while cooking. Then I prefer sticking to the food I grew up eating, which I could prepare with my (concious) brain shut off!
So, here it goes, a simple but very tasty recipe:

Ingredients:


3 filets Chicken, washed, pat dried and cut into thin stripes

Chicken Marinade:
fish sauce and
a pinch of ground curcuma
1/2 tbsp dried coriander powder (optional - I'm just so fanatic about it!)
1 tbsp lime/lemon juice (added later, had forgotten to add this!)

Onion paste:
1 onion, peeled and chopped
3 small garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 inch (about 3 cm) ginger, chopped coarsely
1 tsp lime juice

1 can of coconut mik, shaken before opening
2 cups green beans (French beans), chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped into thin slices
fish sauce, to taste

1 tsp Kaang Pa Country Style Red Curry Paste (Lobo)
1 lemon grass, cut into long pieces and the white part crushed
5-6 kaffir lime leaves, chopped or leaves slit on both sides of the mid-vain
1/2 lime (or lemon), the juice
1/2 tbsp dried coriander powder (optional)
1 cup cabbage, chopped

1 tomato, chopped
10 sprigs Thai basil leaves, washed and pat dried

2 tbsp coriander leves (cilantro), chopped, to garnish

Method.

• Marinate chicken : chicken pieces+ fish sauce+ turmeric+lime juice
• Make into a fine paste: onion, garlic and ginger with lime juice using an electric chopper/ food processor
• In a sauté pan or wok cook the beans and carrots in a few tbsps of coconut milk on medium heat till done, add a dash of fish sauce or to taste, if required add water, and set aside
  
• Again add a few tbsps of coconut milk in the pan and cook the chicken, stirring in between on medium heat till the chicken is done, adding more coconut milk, if required, and letting the coconut milk to dry up and turn golden brown. Take out and mix with the cooked vegetables
• Add some more coconut milk to the pan and fry the onion paste with the lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, the red curry paste, first on high heat and then, when the paste starts to get a bit dry, on low heat for a further two minutes , stirring continuously
• Add the chopped cabbage and a little more coconut milk stirring further
  
• Add the chicken and vegetables backinto the pan, stir and add the remaining cocnut milk and all the other ingredients except for the Thai basil and cilantro garnish and simmer for further two mintes.
  
• Switch off heat and add Thai basil and leave covered for a minute, mix
• Serve garnished with cilantro

Now, my red curry does not as red, as I have taken very little of the paste and no red chillies for it, but it tasted so delicious! When it comes to Thai or any south Asian food, I'm all for it!

Caramelised pear and apple ginger cake

This is one of those "one of its kind" cakes. Dellllllicious! The contrasts of spicy fresh ginger and sweet apples blend so well togehter in this cake and give it a distinct flavour. All of us enjoyed it thoroughly last Saturday. Chonu, my hubby, enjoyed it to the full - you won't believe, but I actually got many compliments from him, my "not so easy to please with food" hubby, for this - now, that makes it all the more special! :)
Now I need to credit two people for it. One is Sophie , the chief Blogger at The Back Burner
who found this recipe and posted it at The Back Burner and the other, of course, Lisa of Spicy Icecream who posted the recipe at her blog.
I admit, the pictures don't look as beautiful as the the cake tasted, but I did not follow the recipe as exactly and used my own measurements partly. Since hubby prefers apples to pears and also because I didn't have enough pears - I'm sure with pears it would taste great - I added two apples to the two pears I had. But, I knew it would make as good a cake. So, I didn't even see it as a compromise. And it surely wasn't one. It tasted great! Although, I am a bit at loss as to why it rose so much in the middle and not evenly. It happed in the later half of baking in the oven for sure. So, it was not eay to hold it all together while taking it out when it was still hot. I served it with whipped cream to which I had added some whole cane sugar which I had also used in the cake instead of brown sugar and which gave the cake and the whipped cream a wondeful flavour.


The original recipe is here.

Ingredients:

Topping

• 75g soft butter
• 1/2 cup whole cane sugar
• 2 medium pears, peeled, cored and sliced thin, lengthwise
• 2 medium apples, peeled, cored and sliced thin, lengthwise
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (I had none at home)
  

Cake batter

• 1 cup oil (like sunflower)
• 3 eggs
• ¾ cup whole cane sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
• 2/3 cup golden syrup (it is similar to molasses)
• 1 ½ cups buttermilk (I used yoghurt)
• 3 cups plain flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt

Method:

• Prepare topping by adding the cut apples and pears with whole cane sugar tothe melted butter in the pan. Pour into the spring form lined with baking paper at the base.
  
• Preheat oven to 140°C (convection; regular: 160°C). In the mean time prepare the batter by beating together first the wet ingredients and them mixing the dry ingredients separately before adding to the batter and beating further.
• Pour batter over the cake tin with the fruit topping at the base.
• Bake for 1 h 45 min or until a skewer or knife inserted into the cake comes out clean.
• Let it cool down for 10 minutes and then turn upside down, holding the plate to be used on it - do this very very carefully!
• Serve with whiped cream or as it is.

Note: I found the salt to be a bit too much for my taste and hubby agreed on that point. So, I plan to add only half the quantity next time.
Although I would love to know what role salt plays in a cake, have heard of its use in cakes a number of times.

Lemoniest Lemon Cake!

I baked this cake yesterday. Again a very easy and simple cake like I have given before too. I needed to take it to the company I'm working at since the beginning of this month. I got this recipe from a very good ex-colleague of mine who actually knew it by heart and wrote it down for me on a paper about 7 or 8 years ago, which has been so dear to me and I have kept it very carefully in my folder with all the good recipes I have tried and tested. Now it is time to put it down here in my blog. And this is really so easy to remember by heart that once you have made it a couple of times, then there is no need for a paper to look at actually.
This is one very summery, lemony recipe which I always make at least once during summers. As it is a not so heavy and a very quick recipe. And if you are a beginner, then this is just the recipe for you, as I feel that one can make it blindfolded.
And the best thing about it that, despite it being so easy, it is so very delicious that I always have people asking for its recipe and lots of praises too. I think the cake deserves it too.


It is very rare that I do not modify any recipe to my taste or needs when I make it, even if it only a little bit or the first time of making it. But this is so perfect that there isn't much that I can do to change or improve it. It is just the most delicious and easiest recipe of a cake that I have ever got hold of.
So, Elke, thank you so much for this wonderful recipe!

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 30 minutes
Temperature: 180°C convection oven (200°C electric)

Ingredients:

Cake Batter:
4 eggs
3 cups all puorpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil, a neutral one
1 cup sparkling water (or lemonade or plain water is as good)
1 envelop baking powder (I think it is around 20 g or 3 tsps)
1 envelop vanilla sugar or vanilla extract (2 tsp)

1 lemon, organic or untreated, to use the zest of lemon and the juice

Sugar Icing / Frosting:
1 lemon, organic or untreated
250 g (1 packet) Icing sugar (Confectioner's sugar)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180°C convection (200°C electric)
  
• Mix flour with the baking powder in a bowl
  
• Add sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla extract and the sparkling water to it and beat into a smooth and runny batter with a hand or a stand mixer
• Pour the batter on a baking try or a large jelly-roll pan and bake in the oven for 25 minutes and checking with a knife and, if required, baking further
• In the mean time remove the lemon zest and keep aside (make sure to wash the lemons in hot water before using)
  
• Prepare the sugar icing/ frosting with the juice of one lemon and 250 g icing sugar
  
• Add the juice slowly and carefully, spoon by spoon, mixing in between to make not-too-thin frosting and keep aside
  
• Once the cake is done, take it out and sprinkle with the juice of one lemon
• While the cake is still warm, pour the frosting on the cake and spread it very slowly and gently with a spatula on the cake (as the lemon juice makes the surface soft)
• Sprinkle the zest over the icing on the cake and cut into appropriate sized pieces ans serve warm or cold.

The cake can be kept for up to 5 days in the fridge in an airtight container. Before you can stack the cake pieces one over the other, let the cake cool down completely and use butter paper which has been rubbed with just enough butter to soak the butter in the paper. This will prevent the icing from sticking to the paper or foil or wrap used otherwise.
So, as they would say in German: Guten Appetit!