Macaroni & Cheese

For some reason, the thought of making white sauce from scratch is daunting to some people. But it really isn't! And the best thing is, it's a really versatile basic recipe. You can do almost anything with it. Some examples I've made so far are the lasagne and the cream of mushroom soup. Here, I show you how to use it in a popular favorite (in our cheese-loving house, anyway), macaroni and cheese! ;) Here we go!

What you need:
115g macaroni
55g butter or margarine
30g plain flour
575mL milk
170g Cheddar cheese, grated
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Salt and pepper
100g fry breadcrumbs
45g Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

What you do:

1. Preheat a 180°C oven. Grease a 10-inch gratin dish.
2. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until just tender (follow packet instructions). Drain well.
3. Melt the butter and margarine in a saucepan. Add the flour and cook 2 minutes, stirring. Stir in the milk. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes.
4. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the macaroni, Cheddar cheese and parsley to the sauce and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.
5. Transfer the mixture to the prepared gratin dish, spreading it out evenly with a spoon.
6. Toss together the breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese with a fork. Sprinkle over the macaroni. Bake until the top is golden brown and the macaroni mixture is bubbling, 30-35 minutes.

I said earlier that white sauce is really easy to make. Well, I may have been exaggerating slightly, but really, it is a relatively simple recipe, no? The basic white sauce here is given an extra boost in flavour by the Cheddar cheese. We added in some mozarella as well though, so our resulting sauce was kind of ... stringy. And despite what you may think, too much cheese may not be such a good idea.

Ooh, before I go into that, let me just mention that one of my brothers wanted macaroni & cheese, and another one (Hadi is neither of them...) offered to let me "help" him make it. He really seems to enjoy cooking in the kitchen, haha. Not sure if we should be worried yet, but hey. Kudos to him. Another guy in the kitchen, ladies and gentlemen! And this one is still an irresponsible teen who doesn't have to cook for himself yet *cough*likehadi*coughahem*. ;)

Anyways, as I've mentioned over and over, our family is a HUGE fan of cheese. So this brother of mine decides to put a whole lot more cheese in. We actually multiplied this recipe by 4, which gives roughly 680g of cheese. Now, that is a rather alarming amount, so we settled for roughly ... I dunno, 600g maybe. Which would have been good, but we also decided to reduce the amount of milk. Which means that out resulting sauce was very very very thick. To be fair, it didn't feel that thick when we were assembling the dish, but after baking, the whole thing turned out kind of dry, which usually means that the sauce was too thick. Ah well. Live and learn.

But another problem we had was the amount of seasoning we put in. Because we were fasting, we couldn't really taste the sauce, so I just put in what I hoped wasn't too much salt. Turned out that it was too little - and our macaroni & cheese was a bit on the bland (as well as dry) side. Ah well. Still good though. Honestly. Nothing had to be thrown out, or given to the cats. ;)

Looks like this recipe doesn't really multiply well, since we had some extra sauce leftover as well. Or maybe we should have put it all in, to prevent the dryness? I dunno, but we couldn't fit it all in anyway. :( Again - ah well.

I guess we can only hope that our next attempt will turn out better. :)

Quote of the day: Fettucini alfredo is macaroni and cheese for adults.

Puasa Special: Murtabak Daging

Remember these? My Puasa specials? ;) I've been staying here in Brunei longer during the Puasa period, compared to past years, but somehow, not one Puasa special has turned up. Possibly because I already wrote about most of them last year. :P

But then, Ibu made these. We don't specifically have them during Puasa, but most of the time, we have other foods to eat, so I guess Ibu doesn't really make them until Puasa? I don't know... I haven't been staying here long enough, hehe. Anyways, I'm not sure what constitutes a "murtabak", but I suppose these aren't really like the ones you get in the Indian shops. But, they're similar, easy to make and tasty, so why not? :D Here we go!

What you need:
Sheets of 8-inch spring roll pastry (kulit popia)
Eggs, beaten lightly

Beef filling - like in the buns, but decrease the amount of potatoes, add in sliced onions and make it quite dry, or you can use your favorite recipe

Oil, for frying

What you do:

1. Place one sheet of the pastry on a tray. Place about 2 tablespoonfuls of the beef filling in the center. Add in about 2 tablespoons of the beaten egg onto the beef.
2. Wrap the pastry around the beef like... err, you're wrapping a present. First the left and right sides of the pastry over the filling, then the top and bottom over that ... if you get what I mean?
3. Repeat with another sheet of pastry. Pour some more egg over the center, place the first wrapped parcel, seam-side down, over the egg, then wrap again.
4. These keep quite well in the fridge, about 2-3 days, perhaps. When storing, store in an air-tight container with sheets of clingwrap between layers,
5. When ready to cook, heat up some oil for shallow frying in a pan. Fry the murtabaks in the oil on both sides, until puffed and golden-brown. Serve hot - with some curry, perhaps?

Apparently, Ibu got this recipe from someone, and now, I'm giving it to you. Isn't that a nice demo of the spread of knowledge? :) Hehe.

Anyways, I found it really hard to describe how to wrap these things up, though its really quite easy to do. Definitely a student-friendly recipe, this one. If only I had known about these earlier, this would've made a really nice dinner dish. Ah well...

There are some itty-bitty details that Ibu feels would make this recipe even better though, hehe. First, if you're a fan of that sort of thing, frying these in Ghee would make them taste even nicer. The kids of this house (including me, *cough*) don't really like the taste of Ghee though - or so Ibu says - so she just uses plain cooking oil. That's probably a bit healthier, I guess. :P

Second, when making the parcels, try and make them as thin as possible. Not so thick squares. That way, when you fry it, the murtabak will be nice and crispy, all the way through, hehe. Which is the way I like it, personally. :D

And that's it! I love these things, although like most dishes, you really need to have a yummy filling. After all, the pastry shell is pre-made. But served hot, these are really really tasty. And filling too! Somehow. I can't eat more than 1-2 before feeling very very full. :$ And really, these are not all that big. Perhaps its the beef? Or perhaps... it's those other foods I eat with it, haha!

Quote of the day: If you ever have to support a flagging conversation, introduce the topic of eating.

Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies (v8!)

Four days ago, I ate one of the best home-made cookies ever! It wasn't that they tasted especially nice (although they were good, yes), but they were small, bite-sized and crunchy! Almost like... Famous Amos Cookies! Plus, the fact that they were made really small (as compared to my usual saucer-sized cookies) made them look really appetising, especially in the huge container they were in.

Sigh...

Anyways, luckily, these cookies were served at one of my cousin's houses, so I immediately asked for the recipe. Believe me, I wasn't the only one. Other people were also clamoring for the recipe, hehe. Luckily, it wasn't one of those secret family recipes, so I got what I wanted. ;) Here we go!

What you need:
125g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 3/4 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup chopped red glace cherries
1/2 cup Choc Bits (I used Hershey's mini chocolate chips)

- also, the cherries weren't too popular with my siblings, so I substituted that with 1/4 cup more of the chocolate chips.

What you do:

1. Beat butter, sugars and egg in a small bowl with electric beaters until light and fluffy. Stir in sifted flour, cherries and Choc Bits.
2. Drop 2 level teaspoons of mixture together onto greased oven tray. Repeat with remaining mixture, allowing about 3 cm between cookies. - we actually made them more to grape-sized balls. Really tiny.
   
3. Bake in 180 C oven for about 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on trays.

As far as cookie recipes go, this one is pretty simple. Which is a good thing, because one of my brothers suddenly decided that he wanted to learn how to bake cookies (and indeed, cook in general!). Needless to say, he was pretty surprised at how easy it was to make cookie dough. :D Shaping and baking the cookies, though, was another matter. I was the one who did it most of the time for this batch of cookies. :(

Anyway, I had really really high expectations for this cookie. After all, I had a LOT of samples at my cousin's house, and they were simply awesome. I could not stop eating them. It was a good thing that they had a huge container-ful. ;)

Unfortunately... my - our! ;) - cookies didn't turn out as well. First of all, me and my brother had a tendency to make rather large balls of cookies, though with training, our cookies were eventually dainty and bite-sized. :)

Another problem were the cookies themselves. First, they puffed up more than we expected, as with most of the cookies I've made in Brunei. I'm seriously starting to wonder whether the raising agents here are stronger compared to UK, but that can't be, as my cousin made this without any problems... :( Second, ours didn't look as nice as the original cookies! :( :( :( Those were smoother-looking, slightly flatter and golden-brown. Ours just looks lumpy and kind of pale. Sigh. :( I was worried whether the cookies were going to be cakey in texture, but thankfully, that wasn't a problem. No matter how pale they looked, the cookies were still crunchy. Phew!

In fact, the cookies weren't all that bad, really. True, they lacked something when we omitted the cherries, but that should be easily solved by using more chocolate chips. *cough* Haha. They tasted really nice as well, although I think a bit of vanilla essence here wouldn't hurt. ;) Their texture was slightly different compared to my cousin's cookies, a bit more grainy, though. I shall grill her on her cookie-making tips, next time I see her, I think. Hehe. For now, my theory is that the butter here is different. :P

But in the meantime, my siblings seem to be more than happy with this batch of cookies. I am soooooo tempted to make the cookies from my usual recipe bite-sized now. I bet they would turn out awesome. :D

Oooooh, speaking of awesome, I got "recognised" yesterday! Haha! To tell the truth, I'm pretty surprised that people can tell from the photo I gave ages ago, but someone came up to me yesterday and asked if I was Ihsan. ;) Apparently, she reads my blog, hehe! Its an awesome feeling, to meet people other than your friends who are reading your blog. :D And, someone also asked the same question at the civic course I attended last month, hehe. So that makes two people! Please. Allow me my 15 seconds of fame! :$ Haha. Anyway...

Quote of the day: There is a peculiar burning odor in the room, like explosives. the kitchen fills with smoke and the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookies. The war has begun.

Strawberry and Mascarpone Slice

I love strawberries. They're one of my favourite fruits. :) They're quite expensive though, both here and in the UK. :( In the UK supermarkets anyway. Sometimes, though, you can get them quite cheaply in the roadside stalls selling fruit, especially in London. The best thing about these stalls is that the strawberries (and other fruits, I'm sure) are so much more sweeter than the ones sold in the supermarket (unless, of course, you get M&S's luxury strawberries, or something). And they're also much bigger!

Another thing I love but is expensive here is mascarpone cheese, as I've mentioned before. I claimed I wouldn't use it again (here in Brunei anyway), but when I saw this recipe, I had to try it. It had both strawberries AND mascarpone in it! Has to be good, right? Here we go!

What you need:
175g unsalted butter, softened
70g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
250g plain flour, sifted

300g mascarpone
60g icing sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon lemon juice
300g strawberries, cut into quarters
50g dark chocolate

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Lightly greae a 20 x 30 cm shallow baking tin and line with baking paper, leaving it hanging over 2 sides.
2. Beat the butter and sugar with electric beaters until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and beat well. Fold in the sifted flour until well combined. Press firmly into the prepared tray and prick all over with a fork. Bake for 25 minutes, or until light brown. Cool completely.
3. Beat the mascarpone, icing sugar and lemon juice with a wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in the strawberries. Spoon over the vase and refrigerate for 3 hours, or until firm.
4. Chop the chocolate into small even-sized pieces and melt - either over a pan of simmering water, or in the microwave. Drizzle melted chocolate over the slice, then cut into pieces.

Okay, there was one thing I didn't quite keep in mind. Although I like strawberries and mascarpone separately, I don't actually like fruity things with creamy things. So I wouldn't actually like this slice anyway. Oh well, never mind. Its gotten the seal of approval from various people before, so I suppose *someone* would eat it.

Anyway, after tasting this, I think there are a few adjustments I would make in this recipe. First, the biscuit base would have been MUCH better off if it had just a pinch of salt in it. Either use salted butter, or add about 1/2 a teaspoon of salt. The original unsalted version tasted blandly sweet, and a little salt would have given it a bit of depth.

Second, the mascarpone would have gone really well with some vanilla essence. I would've added it if I had remembered it, but I didn't remember it, so I didn't add it. Oh well, life goes on.

Third, well, this is really my fault, there wasn't enough mascarpone, weirdly enough. I also couldn't spread it over the whole of the base, but that may have been because I used a 25 by 25cm pan instead. Because they sold strawberries in 250g packs, I used roughly 280g of mascarpone with 250g of strawberries, but there seemed to be a LOT more strawberries, meh. Which is a pity, because the children I served this to picked off the strawberries and only ate the biscuit with the cheese.

Which brings me to my fourth adjustment, don't serve this to children under 15. They don't like it. Unless they like strawberries with cream. Or perhaps even trifle. Otherwise, keep them far far apart. ;)

Other than that though, there were no problems. The batch I brought over to my grandmother's house was finished withing the hour. Oooh, which reminds me, you might not want to leave this out too long as the mascarpone kind of melts in the Brunei climate. Ideally, you want to serve this straight out of the fridge, and cool and creamy.

I've recommended this recipe before to one of my friends in Bristol (yes, even though I've never made it before this) when she was looking for a creamy fruity dessert to serve. But because she didn't really want to bake the biscuit base, she just used a dense buttery cake slice - bought from the supermarket - and spread the strawberry and mascarpone topping over that. Apparently, that was received very well by her dinner guests, so to those of you who are ... er, time-challenged, you might want to keep that in mind. :)

Quote of the day: Strawberries are the angels of the earth, innocent and sweet with green leafy wings reaching heavenward.

Apple Crumble and Custard Slice

Apple crumble is a super popular pot luck dish for students in the UK. Not only is it really easy to make, it is also popular with people of all ages. :P We usually have it with whipped cream, but apparently, custard is the usual accompaniment. :o Never knew that, but then I'm not too big a fan of fruity desserts.

The basic recipe is really simple. You basically just slice up the apples, then sprinkle the crumble topping over it and bake it in the oven. One of my friends once made an even simpler one with pre-sliced canned peaches. The following recipe is also meant to be super-easy, but because I couldn't find the premade items in Brunei, it's made slightly longer. :( Oh well, never mind. Its not that hard, and it makes serving the crumble ever so much easier! Here we go!

What you need:
340g ready-made sweet shortcrust pastry - or 1 batch home-made sweet shortcrust pastry (see below)
1 large cooking apple, about 250g
2 tablespoons caster sugar
4 tablespoons ready-made thick custard - I had to make my own (use 1 tablespoon custard powder per 3/4 cup milk, and season to taste with sugar)

Crumble topping:
115g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
90g unsalted butter, melted

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Roll out the pastry and use to line the base of a 11 x 7 in shallow cake tin. Prick the pastry with a fork, line with foil and baking beans and bake blind for 10-15 minutes. Remove the foil and baking beans and return the pastry to the oven for a further 5 minutes until cooked and golden-brown.
2. Meanwhile, peel, core and chop the apple evenly. Place in a pan with the sugar. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves, then cover with a lid and cook gently for 5-7 minutes until a thick puree is formed. Beat with a wooden spoon and set aside to cool.
3. Mix the cold apple with the custard. Spread over the pastry.
4. To make the crumble topping, put the flour, cinnamon and sugar into a bowl and pour over the melted butter. Stir thoroughly until the mixture forms small clumps. Sprinkle the crumble over the filling.
5. Return to the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes until the crumble topping is cooked and golden brown. Leave to cool in the tin, then slice into bars to serve.

To make the pastry:
You need 225g plain flour, 110g butter, 2 egg yolks, 25g caster sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon water.

1. Sieve the flour, sugar and salt together into a bowl.
   
2. Cut the fats into 1.5cm (½ inch) cubes and rub lightly into flour, lifting the mixture to add air, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
   
3. Make a well in the middle of the mixture and stir in beaten egg yolks and water using a knife, until a soft but not sticky pastry is formed.
4. Cover tightly and allow to rest in a fridge for 15 - 30 minutes, before using as directed.

I like making shortcrust pastry, actually. Its so easy, and tastes sooooooo good, providing you get the proportions right. The ready-made ones are overpriced, and don't even taste good! At least, not the ones I've tried. :P When you make your own pastry, you can just *tell* if it's going to be a good batch. The ones that turn out good are always a good colour, and a good texture as well. Soft, yet doesn't break apart easily, and they're usually kind of yellowy (from the butter, and in this case, the egg yolks).

But anyway...

As I've mentioned before, I don't really fruity desserts. I don't mind fresh fruit, but desserts with fruits in it are sometimes too sweet, or too sour for my taste. If I have to have sweet things, I'd prefer something chocolatey - especially dark chocolate ones, which aren't that sweet anyway. ;)

But I do know some people like fruits in their sweet things, whereas some people *cough*Hadi*cough* just like sweet things in general. So I decided to try this recipe out, while I have lots of people around me to siphon off the dishes I make, hehe.

Anyway... my first mistake here was the type of apple I used. Because I had no idea what a cooking apple was, I used one of those big Fuji apples. This created a problem, because it didn't really break down into a puree. :( But I decided to use it anyway, and mixed it up with the custard. It didn't turn out too bad though, which was a relief, hehe. Ibu thinks I should've used green apples though, to give it a better flavour. I do like green apple juice, so why not in crumble. ;) Maybe next time, hehe.

And then... the second problem was the crumble topping. This is something I've never made before, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be that liquidy. I place the blame squarely on Izzah, who though an extra 10g of butter wouldn't matter. :P Then again, I approved of it so I suppose it's partly my fault as well. ;) We still managed to "sprinkle" the topping over the filling, so all was good. :D

Apart from those *minor* mistakes though, there were no other problems. And if I do say so myself, they do taste pretty good. :D Well... actually, I made them for a barbecue we had recently, and they weren't actually popular with the mostly teenage audience, although one of my cousins really really liked it. I was disheartened to see just how much was left over - and was pleasantly surprised the next morning when I found only two pieces left. Ibu said that Babah liked it so much, he ate a lot of it, hehe. ;) So it just depends on who is around, and what they like, I suppose. :P

Quote of the day: You cannot sell a blemished apple in the supermarket, but you can sell a tasteless one provided it is shiny, smooth, even, uniform and bright.

Tiramisu Cookies

When baking, my sisters much prefer making cakes to cookies, as they *are* much easier to make. Just mix everything up and pour and bake. Whereas cookies, you have to shape them one by one, and often, you have to bake more than one batch.

Despite that though, I like baking cookies much more. One reason is that I don't really like eating cakes all that much. Another reason is that cookies are so much cuter! I mean, just compare - one big lump of dough to delectable bite-sized morsels of delight. :P If you were hardworking enough to actually decorate the cakes, perhaps it could be fun. But I think cookies look so much nicer, hehe.

And that is the reason, ladies and gentlemen, that I decided to make these cookies - tiramisu cookies. After my disastrous attempt at making tiramisu last January, you would've thought I would stay well away from it. But I couldn't tear myself away from the lovely picture of the cookies in one of Ibu's books, hehe. So here you go!

What you need:
50g butter
90g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
50g plain flour

Filling:
150g mascarpone cheese
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee powder
1 tablespoon light muscovado sugar

Topping:
75g white chocolate
1 tablespoon milk
2 tablespoons crushed chocolate flakes - I substituted with Milo powder instead

What you do:

1. To make the filling, put the mascarpone cheese in a bowl. Mix together the water and coffee, stirring well until the coffee has dissolved.
2. Add the coffee mixture and the sugar to the cheese and mix together well. Cover with cling wrap and chill until required.
3. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line two or three baking sheets with baking parchment.
4. To make the cookies, cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy, Add the beaten egg and mix well. Stir in the flour and mix thoroughly again until well combined.
5. Put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1.5cm plain nozzle and pipe 28 small blobs on to the baking sheets, spaced slightly apart.
6. Cook for about 6-8 minutes until firm in the centre and just beginning to brown on the edges. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
7. When ready to assemble, spread a little of the filling on to half of the cookies and place the other halves on top.
8. Put the chocolate and the milk in a heatproof bowl and melt over a pan of hot water. Take care not to overheat. When the chocolate has melted, stir vigorously to make a smooth spreadable consistency.
9. Spread the chocolate topping evenly over the cookies, then sprinkle with crushed chocolate flakes to finish.

Okay... so maybe my cookies don't nearly look as pretty as the ones in the book. :( Its a shame, really. The main problem was that I tried to squeeze in all the cookies on one baking sheet, so during the baking in the oven, they all spread out and fused to each other. Which forced me to cut them into (sometimes random) shapes myself. Sigh. That's why... next time, don't be so hasty Ihsan. Yes yes, I can just hear people saying that.

Anyway, since that was the first part of the recipe, it didn't bode well for the rest of the cookies and I was *almost* tempted to give up. But since I already bought the cheese, and since the rest of the recipe is really really easy, I decided to just go ahead and make them.

Which was a good thing, because these cookies are awesome! I've never had tiramisu, since I'm not a big fan of coffee, but I had to taste these before giving them to other people right? And they were really really good! I've always liked mascarpone cheese, and true to form, it was smooth and creamy here. The white chocolate gave a nice vanilla touch to the whole thing, too! After persuading a few people to try it (well, you have to admit, the cookies don't look very pretty, haha - one person thought it was some kind of pancake!), they all broke out into resounding applause.

Well, not really. :P But they liked it, yes. Syukri, who is on a "diet";), took one small bite out of a cookie, then shoved the whole thing in his mouth and proceeded to take another cookie immediately - which happened to be the biggest one of the lot, haha. Ka Anum liked it better than her tiramisu (cake version) but Hanisah still thinks Ka Anum's one was better, since it was sweeter. :P Ah well, you can't win them all, haha. ;)

I only had one myself, but this recipe doesn't really make a lot... Only 14 cookies! That's nothing, in a family of 10! But the good news is that its really easy, so you can just make a lot. Although I'm not sure if filling and topping the cookies much in advance will cause them to soften. Most likely, so I guess you can't make them too long in advance. A day or so, at most.

But even more bad news is the price of mascarpone cheese in Brunei! I bought a 250g pot for $7! Whoa... There was a 2kg pot (or was it 1 kg? I think it was 2...) selling in Supasave for $29! Cheaper, but I don't need that much! So I guess I won't be making too much of this. Unless... we replace the mascarpone with cream cheese. Though I don't like cream cheese all that much, that will definitely bring down the price considerably.

Anyway, on that note... to all the Muslims out there, Selamat Berpuasa~! :$

Quote of the day: In the Middle Ages, they had guillotines, stretch racks, whips and cahins. Nowadays, we have a much more effective torture device called the bathroom scale.

Chewy Chocolate Cookies (Happy Birthday Hamizah!)

Do you ever have trouble thinking of presents to buy for people's birthdays? Well, here's an idea. Bake them something!

But first...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAMIZAH

(well, it's a bit belated, but I was busy yesterday, hehe)

But on to my original sentence... just think about it. Baking something is much more personalised and fun-ner than buying them, say, chocolates. (Unless, of course, you have an idea for an awesome present that you know they will like, hehe.) If you pack it up nicely in a jar, it's two presents in one!

Just make sure it tastes good first. ;) `Here's an easy recipe for those of you who like dark dark chocolate. Here we go!

What you need:
4 egg whites
300g icing sugar
115g unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon instant coffee powder
1 tablespoon water
115g walnuts, finely chopped

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Line two or three baking sheets with greaseproof paper and grease the paper well. Whisk the egg whites until frothy.
2. Sift the sugar, cocoa powder, flour and coffee into the egg whites. Add the water and continue beating on low speed to blend, then on high speed for a few minute until the mixture thickens. Fold in the walnuts.
3. Place spoonfuls of the mixture 1-inch apart on the baking sheets. Bake in batches for 12-15 minutes until firm and cracked on top but soft inside. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Notice how easy this recipe is?? You basically just dump everything in and mix it together (although I do suggest you sift the icing sugar, since that tends to be quite lumpy). In fact, in both ingredients and method, these cookies are very similar to the melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake, which is another super-easy recipe! This recipe doesn't even use butter or baking powder!

And just like the cake, this is definitely a dish for DARK chocolate lovers only, and definitely not one for the children. Ibu was horrified when she saw the amount of cocoa powder I was using, but calmed down when I mentioned exactly how much icing sugar is in the recipe, hehe. ;) Its roughly ONE CUP of cocoa powder, and when you think about the fact that most recipes usually use about 1 couple of tablespoons, that is a lot! The resulting mixture, though, was nice and dark and chocolatey. *drool*

Unlike what the recipe says though, the tops of my cookies were not "cracked", but they *were* firm and the insides were nice and chewy. In fact, most of the people who sampled the cookies who didn't like the bitter chocolate mentioned that they really like the texture. Earlier on, when freshlt baked, the outside was reaaaaaaaaallllly nice and crunchy, but they slowly got less crunchy. :( Although still chewy! :D

Anyway, I reaaaaaaaaaallllly liked these cookies because I love dark chocolate, but was unsure whether Hamizah liked dark chocolate as well. But I decided to take a risk and give them to her anyway ... and voila! She says she likes it! (and her brother too, hehe). You're not just saying that to spare my feelings, are you Hamizah? ;)

Quote of the day: All of the evil that people have thrust upon chocolate is really more deserved by milk chocolate, which is essentially contaminated. The closer you get to a pure chocolate liquor (the chocolate essence ground from roasted cacao beans) the purer it is, the more satisfying it is, the safer it is, and the healthier it is.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Unlike most of the rest of my family, my brothers like mushrooms a lot. Hadi LOVES shiitake mushrooms, while another one of my brothers likes mushrooms in general. So much so that he asked me for a mushroom soup recipe - one that is easy enough to make if he goes to UK and has to cook for himself (like me and Hadi! Role models? Yay!) What can I do but oblige him? Hehe, here we go!

What you need:
225g fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon oil

2 cups boiling water
3 chicken stock cubes, or equivalent of base or granules
2 tablespoons minced onion


1/4 cup butter
3 tablespoons flour
3 cups milk

What you do:

1. In a large saucepan, melt tablespoon of butter together with the oil. When hot, fry mushrooms until golden brown.
2. Add in boiling water, chicken stock and minced onion. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, melt remaining butter in another saucepan. Blend in flour, then gradually add in milk, stirring constantly, until thickened.
4. Add sauce to mushrooms, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Actually, I wasn't sure how much mushrooms I used. It was roughly $14 per kilo, and I had a $2 pack, so it was... about 150g? That's much less than the required amount, but it looked like a *lot*. And sure enough, after Syukri had a taste, he said that the mushroom taste was a bit too strong. So that's something to keep in mind.

Anyway, this recipe doesn't actually use real cream. Although there were some recipes that used cream (double cream, even!) I suppose this may be slightly healthier? Hehe. The "cream" sauce here is basically white sauce from lasagna, and is super easy to do. That said, though, this recipe uses 2 saucepans, and that is always a minus in the eyes of a student. ;)

I *did* have some trouble with the white sauce though. I probably put in too much flour, with the result of the sauce becoming very very very thick. I tried to remedy this by adding in some more milk (okay, okay, I didn't measure the ingredients out properly. :( ), but when the soup swelled up by a LOT, I gave up on that idea and just served up the soup. Hence, that is why my soup in the picture looks very thick and lumpy. :$

After seasoning and whatnot though, the soup actually tasted quite nice! Syukri admitted that although it looks ... not so smooth and though it had a bit too many mushrooms, it still tasted very nice. Ka Anum really really really liked it though, and said that it was better than her version of mushroom soup, hehe. Babah thought it had cheese in it, and he didn't quite like that. Which is weird, because I didn't add in any cheese at all. Meh. Must be the super-thick white sauce, I suppose. :P Everyone else though, didn't eat it, haha. I had a little spoonful, and actually found it quite nice - except for the mushrooms! :P Perhaps a home-made cream of chicken soup is in order, hehe. ;)

Quote of the day: Falling in love is like eating a mushroom; you never know if it's the real thing until it's too late.

Granola Bar Cookies

Yep, as promised, here are the granola bars I mentioned from last time. :D Although Hadi and Babah quite liked the fruity breakfast bars, there were a few snags. Hadi didn't really like the coconut OR the porridge oats, and the whole thing fell apart way too easily. Learning from that experience, I decided to experiment with these bars instead, which are slightly less healthy, but still nutritious all the same. :D Here we go!

What you need:
175g unsalted butter, diced
150g clear honey
250g demerara sugar
350g jumbo oats
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
75g pecan nut halves
75g raisins
75g ready-to-eat dried papaya, chopped
75g ready-to-eat dried apricots, chopped
50g pumpkin seeds
50g sunflower seeds
50g sesame seeds
50g ground almonds

- I used 175g butter, 110g honey, no sugar, 350g oats, and used raisins, dried mangos, pistachios, cashews and sesame seeds.

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Line a 9-inch square baking tin with baking paper.
2. Put the butter and honey in a large heavy pan and heat gently until the butter has melted and the mixture is completely smooth.
3. Add the demerara sugar to the pan and heat very gently, stirring constantly, until the sugar has completely dissolved. Bring the butter mixture to the boil and continue to boil for 1-2 minutes, stirring the mixture constantly until it has formed a smooth caramel sauce.
4. Add the remaining ingredients and mix together. Transfer the mixture to the tin and press down with a spoon.
5. Bake for 15 minutes until the edges turn brown.
6. Place in the refrigerator and chill well. Turn out of the tin, peel off the parchment and cut into bars.

So... in an effort to make these slightly healthier than the original recipe, I cut out the sugar and used slightly less honey. Because Hadi complained that the fruity breakfast bars were too sweet because of too much fruit, I made an effort to not dump in too much fruit in these ones, hehe. Plus, the breakfast bars were also not firm enough, because the extra fruit made it difficult to compact them properly. So I learnt my lesson, hehe. I didn't have nearly as much dried fruit as I did last time anyway. They've all been eaten, and I couldn't be bothered to replace them.

Anyway, I suppose these are "cookies" because they have sugar and butter, like most normal cookies. :D They certainly are as unhealthy, because that is a *lot* of sugar! A quarter of a kilo! Like... whoa! I don't think my normal cookies use that much, do they? :o (Actually, they do, and more, besides! I just checked... :P) The only redeeming feature about these cookies is that they have oats (good fibre) and fruits. :D

Another reason why oats are good for you is that they are low GI (glycaemic index), which basically means that you don't get hungry easily if you eat them, since they are burned relatively slowly in your body, to give a constant feed of energy. That's part of the reason why Hadi likes oats so much. But because of the sugar content of these bars, Hadi claims that he gets hungry easily - since sugar is high GI. I'm not sure if it works that way, since the oats should not, in theory, be cancelled out by the sugar, but hey. I'm not the one eating these, I guess. So I'll just take his word for it. :P

Apart from that, though, Hadi has no complaints. He loves the texture, which is chewy yet slightly crisp - a marked improvement over the soft breakfast bars. Plus, the flavour is much better, he says. More on the oats, and less fruity. If that's what he's looking for, then these fit the bill, I guess. Although... the bars fell apart ... again! I can't seem to get the hang of it. Ibu told me that I might not be pressing the bars firmly enough, and I suppose that should be the problem. But I really really thought I did. Any harder, and the oats squished out. Ooh, also, I used whole nuts. I should've broken them up before putting them in, because these also prevented the oats from sticking together properly. Oh well, maybe next time I should make them with some assistance. ;)

Quote of the day: Drinking freshly made juices and eating enough whole foods to provide adequate fiber is a sensible approach to a healthful diet.

Peanut Butter Cookies

So.... it's time for another batch of cookies. Because of the disastrous batch of chocolate chip cookies last time, I decided to try another type of biscuit. You know. For a change. From chocolate chips. ;) Because I was feeling particularly lazy (yet I *still* wanted to make something...), I looked for a simple recipe, and came across this recipe.

I don't really like peanut butter. In fact, I don't even eat it, normally. I do love those Julie's peanut butter biscuits though, hehe. So I thought this wouldn't be too bad. Here we go!

What you need:
115g butter at room temperature, diced
125g firmly packed soft light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
225g crunchy peanut butter
115g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
50g chopped peanuts (optional)

What you do:

1. With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
   In another bowl, mix the egg and vanilla essence, then gradually beat into the butter mixture.
2. Stir in the peanut butter and blend thoroughly. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt and stir into the mixture to form a soft dough. Add in the chopped peanuts, if using. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes, until firm.
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Lightly grease two baking sheets.
4. Spoon out rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough and roll into balls.
5. Place the balls on the prepared baking sheets and press flat with a fork, into rounds about 6 cm in diameter, making a criss-cross pattern
6. Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes or until lightly coloured. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Learning from the cookies last time, I tried keeping the butter more or less solid. Alas, lunch distracted me and my butter was soon a gooey liquid mass. So it was off to the freezer to let it harden a bit before I could use it. Unfortunately, I didn't have the patience to wait too long a time, so it was still rather soft when I used it. Just so you know, coz that *might* affect the cookies slightly.

Now, let's see. Because of the peanut butter, I suppose, this cookie dough was softer than my usual dough, which is why the recipe instructed us to chill the dough for 30 minutes, I guess. I actually stuck it in the freezer for close to 2 hours, so it was pretty frozen when I was ready to bake it. That didn't matter much though, The dough more or less melted in my hand, making shaping them into balls very very very very (and let's stick an extra very, for good measure) difficult. Not only that, flattening them with the fork was also rather hard, as the dough kept on sticking.

Because of that, my cookies don't look as pretty as the one in the original recipe. :( Either Brunei is super-hot, or the recipe is supposed to be made when its really really cold. Or maybe your hands are supposed to be freezing?

Anyway, shapelessnes aside, I baked the cookies as directed and cooled them, before trying one out. And they were ... good! Really good. Much better than I expected. The edges were crunchy (though that might have been because I left them in the oven for a bit too long...) and the centre was slightly chewier than I might have liked. But they were more than edible. Because I used crunchy peanut butter, there were bits of peanuts in the cookies, which I don't really like. Perhaps next time, I'll just use smooth peanut butter.

Quote of the day: If you don't mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream.

Arabian Date Slice

So... here's another new recipe for you! This time of the year, when Ramadhan is almost upon us, we are besieged by a huge amount of kurma (dried dates). Most people eat them just like that, at the end of the day, when breaking the fast. But some other people either don't really like dates all that much (*cough*) or have just too darn much. Here's an idea of what you can do with them! ;) Here we go!

What you need:
3 boxes His Majesty's dried dates - about 100 dates in total
50g butter
Biscuits of your choice, to taste (about 30 biscuits)
-use digestives, Jacob's, Marie biscuits...

What you do:

1. Remove the seeds from the dates. Break the biscuits up roughly.
2. Melt the butter in a large pan, then add the pitted dates.
3. Lower the heat and cook until the dates are soft and have become a smooth paste. To make it easier, chop the dates up into small pieces.
4. Remove from heat, add in the biscuits and mix to combine thoroughly.
5. Press into a prepared baking pan and leave to set, before cutting into slices. It may be hot, so you might want to use a glass, or something. Best served cold.
   

So anyway... I can't really tell you how this tastes like, since I don't quite like kurma all that much. But I assume it tastes like... kurma! What a surprise. :o

Haha, but seriously, people like this. It tastes like kurma (plus a bit of butter, perhaps), but the biscuits give it a nice crunch. Because the dates are naturally sweet (and healthy, too!), these little cake-cookies are suitable for diabetics as well as those controlling their sugar intake. They're also good for you too! :D As long as you don't overdo them, that is, hehe. Anything can be bad for you if you take too much of it, hehe.

They look so good, though, that even those who don't really like dates are tempted to eat it. The broken biscuits give a nice effect, and the dates almost look like chocolate! Hehe. In fact, my sister has suggested making this, but with chocolate instead.

... *cough*

Well, we shall leave that for another day, perhaps? :D

Quote of the day: What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.