Victoria Sponge Cake

This has been one of Andre's favourites since we've moved to England. It's a basic sponge cake with layers of strawberry jam and cream in between.

The plan was to have just two layers. I cheated and bought a packet of cake mix. Plain vanilla sponge. My round cake tin was slightly bigger than what the packet instructions wanted me to use so the two layers came out a little thin. I still haven't learnt my lesson with these cake mixes: buy double what you need. A mix that promises to make 12 cupcakes, usually only just makes 9.

So back to the shop I went for another packet of cake mix. This time I poured the whole mix in one cake tin. That's why you see three layers with the top one slightly higher.

I didn't have strawberry jam so used a mixed berry instead which is just as nice. Spread the jam on top of the first layer and top with whipped cream. Place next layer on top and repeat jam and cream before placing the final layer. 

Now a traditional Victoria Sponge cake will have castor sugar sifted over the top. Andre requested butter cream icing, so I made half a batch of this and used:

70 g butter

140 g icing sugar

1/2 T milk

Beat together until smooth and creamy. 

It was just enough for a good layer of icing on top. The cake tastes AMAZING. Andre even had some after dinner last night and he doesn't often eat dessert!

Best burger ever!

Best burger I've ever had!

We decided to make home made burgers on Monday night. I found this recipe by The Pioneer Woman. It was really easy to make and delicious. Here are my summerised steps:

1. Mix: beef (about 300g enough for 3 burgers for us) + 1/2 t salt +1/4 t pepper + Tabasco

2. Onion:
Low heat - 2T butter + sliced onions + 2T brown sugar
20 min

3. Spicy mayo:
1/4 c mayo + Tabasco

4. Toast rolls (either on a grill on on top of the toaster)

5. Form patties and grill over med - low heat

6. Spread spicy mayo on rolls + patty + onions + greens

We had some left over pepper sauce from our steak night before. I don't usually like pepper sauce but I couldn't get enough of this one. It's good. Here's an approximate recipe for that. It's by Jamie Oliver. Andre found it so you can google if you like to measure things out. I don't.

In a small saucepan heat cream, white wine, beef stock, dijon mustard and ground black pepper.

That's it.

You wanted more? You can thicken it with cornflour if you want.

Pepper sauce on steak night

After all this meat we're going vegetarian for a few days to recover. We're not used to eating so much meat anymore. Andre actually felt a bit ill the day after the steak. I only managed about a third of the  steak pictured above. So we had a vegetable only stir-fry last night. I'm having the left overs for lunch now. It's a bit garlicky so so you can be glad I'm typing and not telling you this!!

Rogan Josh Lamb Curry

I've made this curry a few times now from my "Healthy Eating" recipe book and am busy making it again right now for dinner tonight. The lamb has already been simmering in the sauce for an hour and a half. When I finish this post I'm going to start the rice and then we'll eat!

Here are the ingredients:

1 T oil
2 onions
1/2 C low-fat plain yoghurt
1 t chilli powder
1 T ground coriander
2 t ground cumin
1 t ground cardamom
1/2 t ground cloves
1 t ground turmeric
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 T fresh ginger, grated
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 kg boned leg of lamb, trimmed, cubed. (I just use one packet of diced lamb. not sure how much it is, but not a whole kg.)
30 g slivered almonds (I never have this in the house so haven't included this.)
1 t garam masala
chopped fresh coriander leaves to garnish

And here's what to do:

1. Heat oil, add onion - cook 5 min

2. Add yoghurt, chili powder, coriander, cumin, cardamom, cloves, turmeric, garlic and ginger.
Add tomato - simmer 5 min

3. Add lamb and stir until coated. Cover and cook over low heat for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. The longer the
softer and better!
Uncover and simmer until liquid thickens.

4. Dry-fry almonds over medium heat - 3-4 min - until nuts are golden brown. Remove from pan.

5. Add garam masala to curry and mix through. Sprinkle with almonds and coriander leaves.
Serve with rice.

Home made yoghurt

Here's an easy recipe for making your own yoghurt.

Boil 1 1/2 litres of whole milk.
Cool the milk to 45 C
Add 250 ml plain yoghurt.
Add 1 teaspoon vanilla essence.
Mix, pour into a container and keep warm for 10 - 12 hours.

I place my container on top of a radiator and drape a towel over it to keep the heat in.

If you save the last 250 ml of your home made yoghurt each time to make your next batch you will never have to buy yoghurt again.

Chicken Pie

Making chicken pie can be really quick and easy as long as you've cooked the chicken before and have bought ready made pastry.

So two nights before making this chicken pie I cooked some chicken pieces in the oven for dinner and made double as much as we'd need so I'd have enough left over.

The next morning I took all the bits off the bones, made Andre a chicken mayo sandwich for work and put the rest back in the fridge to wait to be made into pie.

I buy ready made puff pastry. I always buy this with my groceries and then just leave it in the freezer. Remember to take it out and put it in the fridge the morning or night before you plan on making pie.

So here's a list of ingredient I used:
Chicken, cooked
green pepper, chopped
mushrooms, chopped
25 g butter + little extra for mushrooms
25 g flour
150 ml chicken stock
2-3 T cream
lemon juice
herbs, salt and pepper
pastry
1 egg, beaten

1. Blanch the green pepper in boiling salted water for 2-3 min.
Drain and rinse with cold water.

2. Sauté the mushrooms in butter for 2-3 min.

3. Melt 25g butter, then add 25 g flour and cook slowly until it becomes straw coloured.
Add 150ml chicken stock to the butter-flour mixture. Turn up the heat and stir until simmering.
Add 2-3T cream. Reduce heat and simmer until the mixture becomes sirupy.
Add a few drops of lemon juice, herbs, salt and pepper to taste.
Turn off the heat and add the chicken, peppers and mushrooms.

4. Add mixture to dish.

5. Roll out your pastry to about 1 cm thick. Cover dish with the pastry. Cut off any excess hanging over
the sides and use this to decorate your pie. I was in a romantic mood. See the picture below.
Cut air holes in the pastry to allow the steam to escape. Again see picture below. Brush some of the egg over the pastry to give it that golden colour.

6. Bake 25 - 35 minutes at 220C/ 425F/ Gas mark 7

Mexican Layer Dip & Kiwi Daiquiris

I found this recipe for a mexican layer dip over here on The Pioneer Woman's blog.

Start by making Pico de Gallo (above). Here's the recipe also from Pioneer Woman. But I'll tell you what we did too.

Finely chop 5 tomatoes and one small (or half a large) onion.
Add 3 finely chopped jalapeno peppers. We bought the red ones already chopped in a jar so we didn't know exactly how much three would be so added just about the whole jar.
Next chop up a good amount of cilantro. I think we call it coriander leaves.
Put all these ingredients in a bowl.
Squeeze the juice of half a lime over, add some salt to taste and give it a stir.
Taste and set aside.

Now we'll start on the dip. Empty a can of refried beans into a pan on low heat. We only found small tins so used two. Add some tobasco sauce and finely chopped green chillies. As much as you think you can handle. We added lots! With all the other ingredients like sour cream and avo, you'll be fine!

Next sprinkle some ground cumin. We didn't have ground cumin so instead we ground our own.

Spread the beans at the bottom of a shallow dish. We used a pie dish. This is your first layer.

Next layer: grated cheddar. You can use more mature cheddar for a sharper taste but we only had mild.

Layer 3: Sour cream. Plop on and spread gently.

Layer 4: Guacamole. You can make your own, there's an easy recipe on the same link as the Pico de Gallo recipe, but we were lazy and bought it ready made.

Layer 5: More grated cheese and then sprinkle some black olives over.

Lastly, top with the spicy pico de gallo you made earlier. You can add some more jalopenos on top if you think you need to. We did.

Pioneer Woman says to eat it at this stage, but we felt all that cheese needed some melting so we put it under the grill for a little while. That made the tomatoes go a bit juicy, but after letting it stand for a while it settled and it was delicious! Just place a big bowl of nachos chips next to it and don't stop until it's all finished!

This was our lunch for our Mexican Monday. For dinner we had chicken and pineapple quesadillas and kiwi daiquiris.

To make the daiquiris, peel and freeze some kiwi fruit. Then put them in a blender with some white rum, lime juice and a little sugar. Share between the glasses and top with apple juice.

Cantonese Style Duck

I saw this dish being made on a TV program the other day. I love duck. I don't know why. Maybe because of the extra fat it has. Extra fat makes everything nicer. Taste nicer I mean. And I think because it usually has a sweet kind of sauce with it and I like sweet a lot.

So this was my very first time cooking duck. With the help of my husband of course. I love that he enjoys cooking with me.

So here's what we did. And here is where I got the recipe from.

We used 4 duck breasts for 4 people. They were quite big and we had them in the oven for an extra 5 minutes.

You need to marinate the duck breasts for 20 minutes and this is what you need for the marinade (I doubled the recipe since I used double the amount of meat, below is the already doubled recipe.)

4 T Oyster sauce

2 T Chinese five-spice powder

2 T Groundnut oil

4 T Light soy sauce

4 T Shaohsing rice wine or dry sherry

We decided to get the sherry instead of the rice wine thinking we can drink the rest, but it was either a very bad sherry or I don't like dry sherry. It will all be used in cooking eventually!

Mix all the ingredients well and place the duck in the marinade for 20 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C and place the duck on a roasting tray. Reserve the marinade. 

Roast the duck in the oven for 20 min. Then leave to rest for 12 min.

Bring the reserved marinade to a boil and drizzle over the sliced duck breast.

Our duck came out perfect. Still a little pink and very soft. We served it with Jasmine rice and vegetables.

Making sushi

On new years eve we made sushi at my mom and Jürgen's house in Germany. It's not difficult to make and can be fun to do with friends. To make sushi at home you need:

sushi rice
nori sheets
fillings - we had cucumber, avo and fish
and wasabi, ginger and soya sauce to serve it with.
Bamboo mat and plastic wrap for rolling.

Cook the sushi rice according to the instructions on the packet. Start early because you need the rice to cool down before you can start.

Cover your bamboo rolling mat with some plastic wrap to prevent the (very sticky) rice from sticking to the mat. Place a nori sheet on the mat. I've since read that you can cut (or fold and break) the sheet in half.

Cover the nori sheet with rice, leaving about a cm at the furthest end free.

We kept it basic and added fish,

cucumber

and avo.

Then start rolling. It takes some getting used to. You have to kind of pull the mat ahead a bit so it doesn't get rolled up as well.

When you get to the end, wet your fingers and rub some water across the free edge of the nori. This will make it stick.

Finish rolling. And give it a good squeeze to get it shaped nicely and keep everything from falling apart.

Remove the bamboo mat and plastic.

For slicing you need the sharpest knife you can find. And wet the blade slightly after each slice. It will help you to slice neatly and prevent the rice from sticking to you knife.

Don't forget to serve it with wasabi, pickled ginger and soya sauce.

And eat as much as you can!

Beef & Beer Stew

Friday night we gave up pizza night for this. It was so worth it though. Don't worry we only postponed pizza night by one night!

I bought beef stew blocks. I don't know what it's called really. Those ready cut up blocks of meat. It means I don't have to worry about buying the wrong piece of meat like for steak because I still don't know which is the right part of the cow to buy.

Half way through making the stew I tasted a piece of meat and it was so tough and chewy. I thought it's going to be a disaster but at least I would have tried. I let it simmer for a full 3 hours and then another half an hour just for luck. And the meat was falling apart it was so soft! It was amazing!! You have to try this recipe. For a change I followed the recipe exactly and I wouldn't change a thing. Well maybe add some mushrooms next time, but really it didn't need anything more.

So if you want to impress somebody with a good hearty meal on a cold evening when you haven't actually done any cooking all week and feeling just a little guilty about that fact, try this one.

I had half the amount of meat the recipe used so I roughly halved about everything. It was more than enough for the two of us with some left overs. So here's the halved recipe I used:

Ingredients:

800 g beef blocks (The recipe calls it chuck roast if that means anything to you? It didn't to me.)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 T butter

2 onions, sliced

1 1/2 T flour

3/4 C chicken or beef broth (I used beef)

3/4 C Belgian beer ( I used Swiss Appenzeller)

2 sprigs fresh Thyme (I didn't have so just added some mixed dried herbs)

2 bay leaves

1/2 T whole grain mustard

1/2 T brown sugar

And here's what you do, it's really easy, like all the things I make!

1. Pat the beef dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Then melt 1 T butter and wait for it to get really really hot. You want to have it on med-high heat. Brown the meat in batches and remove from pot when you've done it all. Oh, the recipe said not to stir. Just let one side brown well, about 3 min, then turn over to brown the other side for another 3 min. I actually timed each side!

2. Add another tablespoon of butter to the pot to melt. I know, lots of butter. Normally I wouldn't use butter, but I just wanted it to be good this time and maybe it was the butter, well margarine, that made all the difference. You want medium heat now for the onions. Add the chopped onions with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Brown the onions, about 15 min. Again I timed it! Not my way of doing it normally!

Add the flour and stir about 2 min until it starts to brown slightly and the onions are well covered by the flour.

3. Stir in the broth and scrape the bottom to get all that burnt onion bits in the sauce.

Add the beer and give your husband or whoever you're going to impress with this meal the rest of the beer. Then add the thyme, bay leaves and the browned meat and if there's any juice that has accumulated in your bowl with the meat add that too. You can add more salt and pepper, but I didn't. I didn't want to over do it and in the end it didn't need any more anyway.

Increase the heat to get everything to a good simmer. Then reduce the heat to low, partially cover and let it all simmer for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally to scrape the bits sticking to the bottom of the pot.

4. About half an hour before serving, add the mustard and brown sugar.

I served it with mashed potatoes and veggies. You can also serve it on rice, noodles, french fries. Whatever you like! But I like it with mash. The mash is just good for the meat and sauce.

Gulaschsuppe (Goulash Soup)

One of my husband's favourites and something we had quite a bit of while in Germany over Christmas!

It's really easy to make, the only bit of work is chopping up the meat. I buy the ready chopped blocks of beef, but it's not quite chopped small enough for the way we like it and the way they serve it in Germany. Below are the potatoes chopped up and I chop the meat about the same size or even smaller. I forgot to take a picture of the meat so thought I'd show you the potatoes for size.

1. Fry onion and garlic in a large pot.

2. Chop beef in small bits of about 1cm.

3. Brown the meat.

4. Add one red pepper, chopped.

5. Add about 2 potatoes, also chopped in 1 cm cubes.

6. I added about 1,5 liters water. You can add more. Mine could have done with another half a liter but I had no more space in the pot. I had a lot of meat. You decide how you like it.

7. And beef stock, 1 tin of tomatoes, herbs, salt and pepper.
8. Also add some cayenne pepper to spice it up a bit. Or as much as you like.
9. Oh I just remembered, I think I also added chili.

Simmer for as long as you have time!! I started mine at noon and cooked it for 6 hours. It's even better the next day so we had something else that night for dinner and left the soup for the next night. Before dinner I let it simmer for another hour to heat up.

Quick quiche

My mother-in-law sent me this recipe and I recently made it after I finally found a silicone muffin tray.

For the easiest quiche crust ever, flatten a slice of brown or white bread (crust on or off) by rolling it between two pieces of plastic wrap with a rolling pin (or empty wine bottle like I do if you don't have a rolling pin!). Butter both sides lightly and press into a muffin tin. I found that one slice was enough for two small quiche crusts.

Fry some onions and whatever else you would like to have as a filling, scoop into bread shell and break an egg over it.

I would beat the egg a little, mix it up, before pouring it over so it doesn't look like a fried egg on top if you're making a quiche. I made this for breakfast so then the fried-egg-look works.

Bake at 180 C for 15 min or until the egg is cooked. Carefully remove from the muffin tin

and serve on a plate decorated with balsamic reduction to make a smiley face. (Optional!)

As I said, I made this for a weekend breakfast so I fried some onion, bacon and mushroom to go on the crust and then topped each with an egg. Andre said they were good! I don't like egg too much, so maybe I'll try it next as a vegetable quiche.

Vegetable tart & stuffed peppers

After too many chocolates and dinners out these past few weeks we're now eating healthier (more veg) and no more chocs. The plan is to stick to this until Christmas. That's two months. Let's hope we make it!

So last night I made a vegetable tart. It was a combination between a quiche and an onion tart recipe which I got from my mom.

I cooked the spinach and fried some onion, garlic and bacon in a pan. Lined the dish with phyllo pastry, added the topping plus some feta and grated cheese and folded the pastry over.

I thought it might not be filling enough for Andre so I made stuffed peppers too. This recipe I got from a Spanish cookbook which we got as a gift from my dad and stepmom. It's got some great recipes in and I'm trying another one tonight.

Chop the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds.

I spooned some previously prepared mince in each. Topped with feta and grated cheese and replaced the pepper tops again.

Bake the tart and peppers for half an hour at 180 C.

Enjoy dinner and then ask your husband to do the dishes!