Coconut palm from my balcony

With a new super zoom lens, this is what I got from my living room of a tree by the balcony. I should go on safari with this lens.

 

Mrs Vogel’s Scherben

This all started while we were having tea at Sheerin’s one evening after work. For those who don’t know Sheerin, she and her lovely husband are both colleagues and we had worked together for a few months. But since I’ve rotated and kind of moved hospitals, I don’t see Sheerin that often but we do keep in touch thru calls and sms. Since they live 3 minutes away from the hospital and are always inviting us over for a meal with “no formalities” like she always says, H and I love to see the 2 kids and chat over her tea and lots of time with food too. I always learn something new from Sheerin and she introduced me to the concept of chaat which are little savoury snacks.

That day we had little balls made of gram flour with a spicy yogurt sauce and a sweet tamarind sauce drizzled over the combination. We also had these little strips of deep fried flour and sweet carrot halwa.

 

I was flipping thru Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours and stumbled across this recipe which reminded me of the deep fried dough snacks we had at Sheerin’s. By the way, Happy Birthday ovenhaven and Tommy, we are all geminis! Zhullie (ovenhaven), here’s another recipe from the book to try.. Is it just me or does the name of this recipe sound a little rude..? Sherben.. What an interesting name for these puffed dough strips.

 

It is an easy recipe which can be made by hand in a bowl. But lazy me had put everything in the Kitchen Aid and the dough came together within minutes.

 

Here’s the recipe

Mrs Vogel’s Scherben

Adapted from Dorie’s latest book

 

1 cup plain flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teasppon salt

1 tablespoon butter

1 egg

3-4 tablespoons of cold water

 

Beat butter with sugar and salt with the paddle attachment of your mixer or in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Add in egg and beat well. Add flour and slowly add in water one tablespoon at a time till the dough comes together. Leave to rest in the fridge for an hour or overnight if preferred. Cut the dough into 2 portions and roll out paper thin. Cut into strips a knife. Leave to rest in the fridge for another hour. Deep fry in batches till golden brown and crispy. Dust with icing sugar and cinnamon when warm. Drizzle with good quality honey and eat immediately. Or store in an airtight container and eat in the next few days.

 

Best eaten warm. This was made on a Sunday, my only day off after working for 20 days straight. Its so nice to sleep in, wake up late, flip thru cookbooks, watch a movie on the computer with H and do nothing at all but stay at home.

the promised recipe..

First things first, I would like to apologize for the delay in approving and replying to comments. Life has gotten in the way of this blog. I don’t usually complain about work and I often try not too, but well, this few weeks have been tough. Let’s just say lawyers and doctors don’t go well together. Not that I’m in any trouble with the law, its just these nitty gritty things that have been happening combined with me having to work with the MOST annoying person on earth in combination with some adverse events occuring. I imagined after working for a couple of years under all sorts, from the nice, kind, talented, funny, some rather eccentric, to the megalomaniac (read: surgeons), abusive, highly strung, obsessive, compulsive, stressy seniors. But this person kind of tops it all. This person is so very strange. I am still counting the days.

OK, enough said, Here’s the recipe I promised you a month ago. Yummy, chewy, soft cream cheese filled walnut rolls. Again this method uses the sponge method which means that a yeast, dough and water mixture is first briefly kneaded together than left to rise for 4-5 hours. It is then added to the final dough and rolled out for a second rising. The sponge method is superior to other methods of baking bread as the texture of the bread becomes super soft.

There are no step by step photos here but give it a try, this recipe is a gem

Cream Cheese Nut Rolls

Adapted from Don Yong’s Bread Winners

Sponge

420g bread flour

4 g instant yeast (1 tsp)

250 ml water

Dough

2 tablespoons bread flour

150g plain flour

2 tablespoons milk powder

12g instant dry yeast

120g sugar

2 teaspoons salt

2 small eggs

90g butter

200g walnuts, chopped

200g raisins

Cream cheese filling

500g cream cheese

200g sugar

1 small egg

115g plain flour

60g raisins

Method

1. with an electric mixer and dough hook, mix 3 ingredients of sponge for 3 mins. Leave to rise in an airtight container 4-5 hours.

2. Prepare the cream cheese mixture: using the paddle attachment, beat cream cheese and sugar for 3 mins on medium speed. Add the egg and beat for another 2 mins. Fold in flour and raisins

3. Prepare dough when sponge is ready. Place remaining dry ingredients except raisins and walnuts into the mixer. Add eggs and begin to mix for 2 mins. Add sponge in pieces over 1 min. Add butter and mix at medium speed for another 7-10mins. Round up the dough.

4. Roll the dough into a 1 cm rectangular sheet 30×50 cm. Spread cream cheese filling. Sprinkle raisins and walnuts. Roll up the dough like a Swiss roll lengthwise. Cut into 12 pieces. Arrange in a baking tray 30 by 40 cm and 6 cm high in 3 rows of 4.

5. Leave to prove in a warm place for 1 hour. Brush the surface with beaten egg. Bake at 190C for 25-30mins.

step by step..

This post is rather messy, filled with different sizes of photos. Pardon me, I am once again post nightcall. I’ve been busy with 3 calls in 10 days, all being bad and I’ve been working every Saturday and Sunday for 20 days in a row. Its not been fun, and at times like these I really dislike the long hours that this job demands. But anyway, its over, and I’m done with my calls in June. July will be here and times will get better, I’m sure. H and I have planned a trip to a fabulous location, nicknamed “God’s Own Country” any guesses anyone?

Here is the promised step by step post on the carrot cake I’ve been raving time and again about. The recipe can be found here.

First, grate the carrots, preferably enlisting the help of a willing gentleman. Grate nine small carrots or 3 large ones, you’ll need 3 cups full.

Chop up walnuts roughly, making up one full cup.

Beat 1.5 cups sugar and 1 cup of oil oil than add in the eggs one at a time till all 4 incorporated

Beat in the dry ingredients then pack the carrots into a cup and put it into the mixer. Repeat till 3 cups of carrots are added into the mixture.

Add walnuts and cranberries and beat well. The mixture will be a little watery as the carrots start to weep its juices. Bake in cake pans and prepare the frosting.

Place the block of cream cheese and a block of butter into the mixing bowl, both at room temperature.

Beat well then add in icing sugar half a cup at a time. I use between 1.5-2 cups of sugar.

I added in juice of one lime for extra kick to the sweet frosting. This was from our garden and is a variety of lime used in Asian cooking called “limau purut” in malay. It has an amazingly potent and heady scent. Your hands start to smell just by touching the fruit.

nothing much

Mel had asked why I haven’t been around in this blog. My last post was only 5 days ago! But as you can see, there hasn’t really been much baking and cooking around here lately. The last cake I made was last Sunday and it was, yup, you guessed it, the carrot cake. I really love that cake, and so do the rest of the family and it is becoming a popular request! Mel you must make this cake! And Quizas, you too.. I will be posting a step by step recipe soon.

I have still been lounging around still reading my donnahay, and here are 2 videos on how to achieve the look of this image.

Vintage look

Rounded photo corners

 

 

 

Photoshopped..

Photoshop is fun, I would appreciate tips though!

Happy Father’s Day!

 

It’s Father’s Day! My dad is in Uzbekistan on a work trip so I didn’t get to spend time with him, unfortunately it was just love sent over the phone. But we have planned another BBQ after such a lovely one the last time. This time, I didn’t cook as I had just come back from the WORST nightcall of my entire life, I had 20 over admissions, with heart attacks and bleeds in the brain hitting me from all directions with ICU transfers which created more empty bes which created more admissions, by 8 pm, I thought, that’s it, I couldn’t cope and starting calling for help from colleagues. Anyway, I’m home in one piece, albeit feeling a little hyped still from the high stress.

Anyway, that said, I haven’t been doing much cooking as I am totally swamped with work and a recent move. But I did have a little bit of energy and time left to help prepare this potato salad above, best eaten with potato chips (or so that’t the way H likes his) and baked a carrot cake with my new kitchen aid, more to come..

 

 

Our BBQ pit having an early start

 The salad is made with eggs and potato. And I like the method involved. Instead of chopping hard boiled eggs and mixing it with the dressing, the yolks and whites are separated. Then the yolks are mashed with the sour cream to form a smooth dressing. The whites are then chopped as finely as you can and then the potatoes are dressed with the yolk and sour cream mixture.

The inspiration came from below, I felt like some carbs and chips after reading the mag.

 

The June/July issue of donna hay

 

They chipped everything from aurbergines to any root vegetable

 

Makes me feel like making a newspaper box myself 

 

My favourite potato salad

4 hard boiled eggs

4 boiled potatoes

8 tablespoons of sour cream

freshly cracked black pepper and salt to taste

3 tablespoons finely chopped corriander leaves

Method

Separate the egg yolks from the hard boiled eggs. Mash yolks in a small bowl with the sour cream. Cut potatoes into 1 cm dice. Cut egg whites very finely. Combine egg whites, potatoes, corriander and sour cream-yolk mixture in a bowl and stir thouroughly to combine.

 

Red beauty

I love my new fire engine red Kitchen Aid, a gift from H and the family. Big hug for all of you! And H thank you also for all the washing up after a meal, for dropping me at the doorstep and parking the car for me at work, for dropping the car off where I am and taking the train when I finish early after a call, for all the daily breakfasts at the sleepy old coffee shop every weekday morning, for gamely being my sous chef when I need one, for cleaning our toilet, for making the bed, for ironing my clothes when I’m too tired (lucky for me I’m so lousy at ironing ur shirts u do it urself , for all the hip hop in the car and the dancing, for all those weekend walks and swims that I always wish will never end, for sharing my love for travel and good food, for never getting sick of grocery shopping (in fact i think u like it as much as I do), And for always finding something to laugh about in the lousiest of situations!

The best things in life aren’t things. Feel blessed to be among such fantastic people. Thank you too Quizas, Mel, Yati, Liz and Enah too for the prezzies, well wishes and over a decade of friendship..

 

Breakfast is..

A slice of olive and rosemary bread from The Royals spread with butter and eaten with milk coffee.

happygrub in black and white

I was looking thru some my favourite photography website and was inspired by some black and white photography that I saw. I hope you enjoy this short photo essay of some images that are from old posts in happygrub and some images that were never posted but lay in the depths of my laptop. At the end of the post is a small challenge.

Breakfast is my favourite meal, and peanut butter toast is H’s favourite start of the day.

Roasted garlic

Ketupat or rice cakes in a woven coconut leaf shell on the morning of Eid, the celebration that marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

One of my favourite shots: a young girl with apple juice running down her chin in the early morning light with mummy looking on.

Pineapple jam tarts, it symbolizes so many celebrations in Singapore.

Honey cornflake clusters waiting to be baked.

“teh tarik” or frothy milk tea custom made for H in Cambodia.

 

Now for the challenge, anyone who reads this post is invited to post some black and white shots of your favourite photos and link it back to this post. I shall also take the liberty to volunteer a list of creative people whom I would love to see what you guys come up with!

ovenhaven

tommy

elia

mel

quizas

sweetrosie

thecoffeesnob

littlegastronomy

maritasays

linda

 supperinstereo

chocolateshavings

asweetpea

mandy