The Spicy Side of Life - Chicken Rendang and Nasi Minyak

I don’t know whether I am back in business, but I try. Today I had that wonderful feeling again … of hot and spicy food slightly heating me up from the inside.

I had some Chicken Rendang and Nasi Minyak. 

As it was my first step into the direction of Malay cuisine, I had to do some research. Usually I go about by checking Wikipedia and then reading through the different dishes. I found a few other things I would love to try, like for example Murtabak, but that has to wait for a while.

I set my eyes on Nasi Minyak, rice flavoured with ghee and some dry spices and … you will see later. The description said, it is usually eaten with Rendang.

The most traditional way of doing that dish is with buffalo meat. As I don’t have it and I didn’t want to try getting it, I settled for chicken, which is also quite common these days.

So, don’t be afraid of the heat or the colour (you will see later, why it has roughly the same colour), we have means and ways to reduce the heat.

Now, let’s go for the Chicken Rendang first.

Chicken Rendang

Ingredients
1 tbsp. ghee
500 g chicken breast, cut into small chunks
1 tsp. turmeric powder
Salt
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Thumb-sized piece of ginger, finely chopped
1 stalk of lemongrass, finely chopped
1 dried chilli, finely chopped (less seeds, less heat)
Some water
400 ml coconut milk
A hand full of fresh coriander

Method
Melt the ghee in a pan. Then fry the chicken pieces together with the turmeric and a bit of salt.

Bash the shallots, garlic, ginger, lemongrass and chilli together in a mortar, adding a bit of water to make a paste – kind of.

Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. In the same pan, fry now the paste you just made.

Now add the coconut milk and the chopped up stalks of the coriander. Bring this to the boil and leave to simmer.

At some point add the chicken back and continue simmering until the sauce thickens.

Just prior to serving, add the coriander leaves and check the seasoning whether you need more salt.

Serve the Chicken Rendang together with the …

Nasi Minyak

Ingredients
A mug of basmati rice
Two mugs of water for steaming the rice
1 tbsp. ghee
A hand full of cashew nuts
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
4 cardamom pods, cracked open
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped (mind the seeds)
1 tsp. turmeric
Another mug of water
A hand full of peas (frozen, if you like)
A hand full of fresh coriander
Salt

Method
Add the mug of rice and the water into a pot and bring to the boil, while the lid is open. Then put on the lid, reduce the heat to a minimum and leave for 20 minutes.

Fork through the rice to loosen it up a bit, if you like and then set the rice aside.

Melt the ghee in another pan and roast the cashews. Then remove them from the pan.

Toss the cinnamon stick, star anise and the cardamom into the pan and fry them.

After that add the shallot, chilli and the turmeric. Let them all together enjoy some heat.

At this point it’s time for the rice to return. Add them to the pan together with some water.

While you are at heating things up, add the peas as well and finally the chopped up coriander leaves and the cashews.

Serve right away – as I already said – together with the Chicken Rendang. Well, they have both turmeric in it, so it’s not too much contrasting in terms of colour on the plate, but it tastes luvly.

Hähnchen Rendang und Nasi Minyak

Heut ist es mal an der Zeit für malaysische Küche. Das habe ich bis jetzt noch nicht ausprobiert. Also wird es mal Zeit. 

Insgesamt habe ich zwei Chillies verbaut. Es war trotzdem leicht scharf und aufwärmend. Das ist auf jeden Fall gut, wenn es wieder kälter wird – oh nein, der Winter kommt.

Falls man nicht so auf Schärfe steht, wäre es vielleicht angebracht, die Samen der Chillies zu entfernen. Was soll’s immer her mit der Schärfe.

Hähnchen Rendang

Zutaten
1 EL Ghee
500 g Hähnchenbrust, in kleine Stücke geschnitten
1 TL Kurkuma
Salz
2 Schalloten, feingehackt
2 Knoblauchzehen, feingehackt
Daumengroßes Stück Ingwer,feingehackt
1 Stengel Zitronengras, feingehackt
1 getrocknete Chilli, feingehackt
Etwas Wasser
400 ml Kokosmilch
Eine Hand voll frischer Koriander

Zubereitung
Das Ghee in der Pfanne schmelzen. Dann darin die Hähnchenstücke anbraten mit dem Kurkuma und etwas Salz zusammen bis das Fleisch etwas Farbe bekommt – und damit meine ich nicht die Farbe von dem Kurkuma.

Die Schalotten, Knoblauch, Ingwer, Zitronengras und Chilli in einen Mörser geben und dann ordentlich zusammenstampfen. Ein wenig Wasser dabei, so dass eine Paste entsteht – oder so ähnlich.

Das Hähnchenfleisch aus der Pfanne nehmen und statt dessen die Paste hineingeben. Das Fleisch erst mal zur Seite stellen. Die Paste anbraten.

Dann die Kokosmilch und feingehackte Korianderstengel hinzugeben. Das ganze zum Kochen bringen und köcheln lassen.

Irgendwann kommt dann auch das Fleisch zurück in die Pfanne und weiterköcheln lassen bis die Sauce etwas dicker wird.

Kurz vor dem servieren noch die Korianderblätter hinzugeben und kontrollieren, one noch etwas Salz nötig ist.

Das Hähnchen Rendang servieren zusammen mit …

Nasi Minyak

ZutatenEin Becher Basmatireis
Zwei Becher Wasser zum dünsten des Reises
1 EL Ghee
Eine Hand voll Cashewkerne
1 Zimtstange
1 Sternanis
4 Kardamomkapseln, das innere davon
1 Schalotte, feingehackt
1 rote Chilli, feingehackt
1 TL Kurkuma
Noch ein Becher Wasser
Eine Hand voll Erbsen
Eine Hand voll frischer Koriander
Salz

Zubereitung
Den Reis mit dem Wasser in einen Topf geben und zum Kochen bringen. Sobald der Reis schön blubbert, den Deckel drauf und die Hitze reduzieren. Für 20 Minuten vor sich hinköcheln lassen.

Wenn man mag, kann man dann nochmal das ganze kurz mit einer Gabel auflockern. Den Reis zur Seite stellen.

Das Ghee in einer anderen Pfanne schmelzen und die Cashewkerne darin rösten. Dann die Cashewkerne aus der Pfanne entfernen.

Da kommt jetzt die Zimtstange, Sternanis und Kardamon rein. Kurz anbraten.

Es folgt die Schalotte, Chilli und Kurkuma. Die Zutaten ein wenig die Hitze schmecken lassen.

Nun kommt der Reis wieder zurück in die Pfanne mit einem Becher Wasser, so dass uns da nicht anpappt.

Wo jetzt nun schon mal alles erhitzt wird, kann man auch gleich die Erbsen hinzugeben und wenn man dann schon fast fertig zum Essen ist, kommen noch die Cashewkerne und der Koriander mit drunter.

Zeit zum Essen. Wie ich schon erwähnte – ja, das habe ich schon gesagt – Nasi Minyak und Hähnchen Rendang zusammen servieren und Spass dabei haben. Lecker!

Udon Noodle Stir-Fry ... kind of

At some point I had bought some udon noodles. They have this lovely package, where you have these nice little portions inside with a small ribbon around. Anyway, I had them neglected for a while, so I thought it was time to bring on some Asian flavours.

A tiny little Tea Time Treat - Ginger and Lime Shortbread Sandwiches

How would you describe the difference between minimal, light, minimal to light and slightly when it comes to the absence of details in the picture on your television screen when playing back a progressive signal, 720p at 50 Hz, via your YPbPr input?
If you manage to figure out, you can understand what I have to go through at work sometimes.
Anyway, let us head over to something slightly more simple, tea time treats. What is a tiny little tea time treat for you?

To Taste with Tofu - Fried Tofu in Spicy Tomato Sauce

Everyone loves tofu. Right?

...

...

...

... eh ... eh ... au contraire? Rather the opposite? Oh! Well, there is a rumour tofu is bland and tasteless and you can live very much without it. At least that is what some feel.
I say, you can eat everything with the right sauce ... eh ... almost everything. Before we go on now, I don't have a problem with or without tofu. In fact I like to have it from time to time, but ... now to the right sauce ...

The heat is on! Have some Moroccan Chicken Kebabs!

Finally we have about 4000 °C outside. Great, that's what we always wanted. At least that is what we dreamt about when we still had -40 °C in March. Must have been somewhat like that. Anyway, now we have perfect weather for some Moroccan food. Therefore it is not coincidence we are having Morocco as the current theme for Bloggers Around the World. Very clever and smart of me, don't you agree? At least I'm still in control and am smarter than my phone and my television. However, that of course is of no particular interest at the moment ... as usual.
After all this still tries to be a food blog and not a wisecrack blog ... I suppose. Then it's food we are going to talk about and Moroccan Chicken Kebabs in particular.

Christine & Christian - Episode 5: Caramelised Bananas with Incredible Caramel Sauce

Things are still going on. I have been quite busy. After 9 days of cooking from Tasting India by Christine Manfield, I managed 16 recipes so far. Just this week, until now, I used up ... hm ... about 16 chillies: green ones, dried small ones, dried long ones, but so far no fresh red ones. Whatsoever, my supply is going down.
However, this week I also tried two recipes, where I didn't need any chillies at all. One of it were the carrot dosas I tried just this morning after leaving the batter at room temperature the whole night. The result was ... edible.
The other recipe is called in the book Sanjay's Caramel Bananas. Have a look ...

Well, um, eh ... it doesn't look so incredible now, but ... to me, in the end the TASTE counts.
The bananas are just rolled in sugar and then fries in butter.
What's important about the whole dessert is the caramel sauce. How to do caramel, you should know. Yes, you know ... sugar with a bit of water in a pan at high heat, no stirring, changing colour to brown and things like that. Whatever happens, don't be tempted to use a spoon to stir things up ... by no means.
As the colour changed to brown, add some cinnamon and also some chopped up ginger. Toss it in (don't stir), add cream and a few splashes of brown rum. Mix it, but don't stir.
Pour the sauce over the fried banana in the other pan and coat the banana with the incredible caramel sauce.
Whatever happens now ... just make sure you eat the bananas soon.
For sure I will make this again ... before I try all the other recipes from Tasting India. Even if I would stop cooking through Tasting India now (which I don't), that bananas with this caramel sauce was worth it. I have also been thinking about a version including chocolate. Hm, I will have to see about that.

What else did I cook. Here some further impressions:

That is curry-leaf chicken, which tastes great as well. The brownish bits are the fried curry-leaves. Sorry, I didn't have fresh curry leaves, but so far, I don't  have an idea were to get them. I would go for planting or sowing in my garden, if I get the chance. Ah, do you notice the long dried red chilli in the background as well?

A white dal, enjoyable, but not as good as the other dal I tried. There is a cinnamon stick to be seen here and ... have a guess ... there are three dried red chillies in it. For this dal it was necessary to prepare an onion paste. So far I have found out, that it is quite important to have these pastes, although I still need to find out, why exactly. I still have leftover dal and so I might end up using them to stuff some samosas, but I might eat it just as it is as well.

Here comes another lovely potato dish: sesame potatoes. Apart from the sesame and some ginger paste, there was the need for some ... yes, green chillies. It was also the first time ever, I used fenugreek seeds.
I guess, there are a lot more adventures to come. After all, next I have a whole weekend for that. Who knows!?!

If you want more pictures, just check out my Facebook page here.

Christine & Christian - Episode 4: Up and running

After a few hours of warm up by leafing through the pages of Tasting India, I started cooking from it on Thursday April 11th. 
I mentioned there would be over 250 recipes in the book. Now after carefully counting ... that is if I really was that careful, but that would be too many 'ifs' ... I came to the number of 283 recipes in the book, not counting any variations. I added, though, also individual recipes for spice mixes and pastes, of which I might need some more then once. That also means there are also some quite simple recipes in it.
While cooking for 5 days I managed 8 so far, including one for garlic and ginger paste ... or was it ginger and garlic paste. No worries. I was also invited to cook some Indian food with some friends. On that day, there was also butter chicken on the menu, which tasted very very luvly. Fine, that doesn't count for the recipes, because I didn't make it from the book.
I contributed a gorgeous dal, which tasted as luvly as the chicken, although one of my friends said, it was even better than the chicken. Ah, whatever, very lovely.
I leave you with some food impressions before I have a few more words.

 

Dal Makhani - one of the best dals I ever had ... with that ginger and garlic paste, tomato puree, butter and cream it promises a lot of taste and ... guess what? Have no fear!

Butter Chicken - I wonder, why it has this name. There were a lot of spices, yoghurt, milk and obviously chicken.

Just give me a large plate of it ... anytime!

Sweets for the sweet - Wholemeal Halwa. Don't ask, just taste ... there is a touch of cardamom to it ... if you do it right. All that stirring was some good exercise. Was it half an hour? It was supposed to be less.

 That would be something for hot days - Ginger Lime Soda. I just hope we will have some days this year, so I can put that drink to proper use. It's really refreshing. The ginger isn't too intrusive.

Eggplant (Aubergine) Masala - There were two green chillies and two dries red chillies going into it. I wonder what that will do, if you have properly hot chillies. Those fresh green ones from my windowsill need some more sun. This eggplant masala is delicious how it is with some rice ... good I have a rice cooker.

I hope, that gives you also some good inspiration for our current Bloggers Around the World - India. If you like to know more about one of those dishes, ask away ...
 
Now I had also chance to stock up some things. While sitting at home unprepared and pondering about what to cook, I was still in need of some vital ingredients and there was no chance for shopping. By now, it's fine! I'm up and running ... as you can see above as well.
What about fresh coriander, though? That might cause a problem, searching through shops for some. Parallel to that I started my coriander growing program again. Better late then never, although it will take some time before I can use some of that ... if it works at all. I definitely should get some more ready plants for the garden, when the time is right.

Rice Balls with Spring Onions and Smoked Salmon

On our current part of our virtual food journey for Bloggers Around the World I asked everyone to do something Japanese, or with typical Japanese ingredients, or ... whatever, let's go on with it.
I hope you are all busy ... brains working what to do ... or already cooking or baking ... or even writing up something. Whatever you do: Have fun!
I was thinking and looking around, too. So I came up with some rice balls with a spring onion an smoked salmon filling.

All we need is cooked rice, smoked salmon, spring onions, some sesame seeds and a bit of ginger, if you like. No big fuss about it! Pure and simple!
A good thing, that I have a rice cooker. So I simply put in three cups of rice with sufficient water and let it do it's job, while I relax and do something else.

Oh, the rice is already done. No worries! The cooker will keep it warm. So I head over into the kitchen and cut the smoked salmon and the spring onions in a very relaxed way. Here goes a bit of ginger in it.
In fact the rice could be a little to hot. So I better turn the cooker off and open it a bit before I proceed. 
With wet fingers I take a handful of the rice and form it into a ball. Then I make a hole into it to squeeze in one or two teaspoons of the spring onion and smoked onion mixture. I just need to make sure the rice closes around the filling.

To serve them I sprinkle a few roasted sesame seeds on them. That's it!
You can have them anytime. I even had some for breakfast. Above that, I reckon, you can also go for a different filling, like maybe a total veg version. What about cucumber or zucchini or ... you will get ideas.
If you have the feeling, you might need some kind of sauce with the balls, why not mix some wasabi and soy sauce together, and there you go.

So far for my contribution to the current Bloggers Around the World. I never have been to Japan, but I suppose it would be very interesting. However, you can't have everything or go everywhere.

Now it's still up to you. There are still 12 days left to do something Japanese for Bloggers Around the World. I'll be waiting on you ...

You can always try ... Chicken Apple Soup

Goedendag! Hoe gaat het met jou? Ik wil je graag uitnodigen. Wat zegt u?
What? You didn't understand a thing? Well, it doesn't matter, my Dutch isn't that good either, anymore. In fact it never has been, although it should ... or maybe not.
Anyway, I want to invite you to have a soup together with me, a chicken apple soup. I improvised this recipe after a friend told me, he had tried something like this after having something like this in the Netherlands. Let's have a try then.

It might be Dutch, but then again, it might not be. I haven't taken the time to try. Nevertheless we leave it that way.

Ingredients:
150 g chicken breast, cut in bite-sized chunks
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp minced ginger 
1 red bell pepper, cut into stripes
1 red chili, finely chopped
750 ml water
6 tbs apple compote
100 g pasta or rice (I had rice pasta ... he he he)
Salt for seasoning
1 spring onion, chopped in rings


Method:
First fry the chicken breast pieces from all sides and put aside.
Get yourself a sufficiently sized pot and gently fry the onion in oil. After a few minutes add the garlic and the ginger and let it go for a few more minutes.
Then it's the time for the bell pepper and the chili to make it's appearance on the cooking scene. Put them in the pot and proceed with the cooking for a few more minutes ... eh ... that is until the bell pepper has softened a bit.
Pour in the water and bring to the boil. After that reduce the heat and add the chicken, the apple compote and the rice pasta. Let it all simmer for about 15 minutes. The chicken should be cooked through.
Finally add the rings of the spring onions and turn off the heat ... ready to serve.

You can always try. Normally, maybe, you wouldn't put such things together, but you never know, if you don't try. It might be the case you discover some nice flavours.
Een fijne dag nog! Tot straks!

Randomly Indian: Dhal and Saraswat Machchi Kadhi

A few days ago I decided to give Cooking Around the World a new design. Basically I changed the background colour and the welcoming banner for the blog. I hope you like it! When you look at the picture there are foods and places. One of these places I can see every day, if I want to. Have a guess which one that is! However, there are other places there, I'd rather like to see more often.
Additionally I adjusted my Facebook page as well. It has to reflect the blog. 
While I was at all this I decided to change my profile picture. You can only see it partly, but I'm wearing an Indian kurta. It looks like this ...

I just wanted to mention those things. Keep it in mind as you read on. Strangely, things fit all together once more.
Have you ever thought about doing a themed dinner party? You dress up for it, maybe do some decoration, put on music and it all fits to the food you are going to have. How would you like that?
What about doing it alone ... a one person themed dinner party?
Let me tell about it ...
There is a certain person that is running this blog called Belleau Kitchen. As he is doing this random recipes challenge every month I cannot resist, but take part in it. Quite often you end up with cooking food you wouldn't have otherwise. 

 

This time we have the theme 'cuttings, memories and clippings'. That means I have to go and search my shelves for those hidden cuttings and clippings to find some recipes. I don't have as many cuttings and clippings as others and they are also not so well organized.
Anyway I got myself a small pile and rolled the dice of random. I ended up with number 3 - therefore I went for the third sheet of paper.
It was a clipping from a health journal of a health insurance company and ... strange enough ... it featured some Indian dishes. Did I say some? Yes, five to be exactly. Taking the number three further I decided for the third dish and it was ... dhal.
Well, that would be something to have as a side dish. Due to this fact I randomly decided to do the fish curry mentioned on that clipping as well. That is called 'Saraswat Machchi Kadhi'. I tried my Hindi dictionary on that, but gave up quickly. Then I asked the Internet and it called it Goa style fish curry. I even found the same picture of it as was used in this health magazine article.
I made sure I had all the needed ingredients and then, went for it ...

First of all I put on my Indian cooking kurta. Well, I simply declare it that one from now on. By the way, it is not the one shown in the picture above. I have a few more other ones. Why do I have so many Indian clothing to wear? Go ahead and ask me, if you like to know!
Then I put on some music from the soundtrack of a famous Indian movie ... as far as I know.
Now our Indian themed cooking party can start.
Good thing I still had some urid lentils on stock. They went into a pot covered with one centimetre of water.
Meanwhile I prepared the marinate for the fish. I squeezed one lime and mixed the juice with some freshly grated ginger, mustard powder, sesame seeds and coriander seeds. The white fish fillet was cut into small bite sized pieces and went marinating.
Before I continued with the dhal, I brought some basmati rice on the way.
Back to the dhal. I freshly picked a green chili from one of my bushes on the windowsill, cut it in half and tossed it in with the lentils. If I were to change the recipe, I would cut it into small rings and add it to the lentils. Anyway, one bay leaf, a chopped onion and two chopped cloves of garlic went in, too. Here also some grating of ginger is necessary. Some curry powder rounds it up. Now heat it up on medium heat and let it go for 20 minutes, checking every now and then and working through with a spoon.
The fish has nearly enough marinating. However, there is still some chopping of an onion to do. That one made me cry slightly. Then half four tomatoes, spoon out the seeds and then cut the tomatoes into small pieces. Now take the fish, pat it dry and fry it for 5 minutes in sesame oil at a medium heat.
Don't forget to give some attention to the rice when it's ready and to the dhal. After the 20 minutes you have to turn off the heat of the dhal.
Take out the fish from the pan and put aside. Now fry the onions in the pan.
If I hadn't already enough work with cooking I suddenly decided it would be a brilliant idea to have a cucumber raita with it all, as well. So I took some of the chopped onions and put the together with some halved slices of cucumber, cumin, salt, yogurt and water and mixed it all up.
Add some curry powder to the onions in the pan. Then add the remaining fish marinade and some 250 ml of coconut milk to the pan and bring to the boil.
What about some naan breads. Yes, that would have been lovely, but I'm not that crazy today and make some on my own. No, I even didn't buy any ready made ones to just warm up. Sadly!
Remove the green chili and the bay leaf from the dhal and heat the dhal up again, if necessary. We are almost there.
Let the tomatoes meet their destiny by adding them to the boiling coconut milk mixture. I guess the fish can go for some swimming, too. Go for it! Warm it up again.
If I'm right now, all the food is ready. You just need to plate and bowl it up and decorate everything with some fresh coriander. I already know that the remaining coriander will not survive too long in my kitchen. I should use it up in the coming days.
Here we are with the food ...

Sitting alone at the table and tasting the fish curry, memories spring to my mind. The food wasn't dangerously spicy. I still remember the fish curries of my Tamil friends and Tamil food in general. They always used to say they have to adjust the spices to the European palate. However, the first time I tasted a dish, I had the feeling it wasn't adjusted sufficiently.
Having this fish curry in front of me, I wished it would be going at least a bit in that direction. Don't get me wrong, it still tasted delicious. It was only thinking. While doing this I thought ... well, I'm sitting here all by myself eating this lovely food ... and then ... I put away the fork and went on eating as we used to do it with the best tools ever, my fingers.
Once more, I managed to end up with something lovely, doing random recipes ... and that's not cheating. After all, why should I keep any clippings with rubbish recipes.
Moreover, I ended up with fish again. This wasn't the first time either.
So far about random recipes this time. Time and again, I thought about cooking through one cookbook. After all, I nearly baked myself already through a book about French bread.
Now I have a few books in mind I seriously want to choose one from and go completely through it and report about it here on my blog. One of the books on that list is 'Tasting India' from Christine Manfield (Christian and Christine?). That post now made me hungry for that book. However, things haven't been decided in the final and I won't start before April.
In the meantime I still have a voting going on my Facebook page. If you don't mind, please head over there one time and give your vote. That would be very much appreciated. You can also suggest other books to make it more interesting.
You see, once more, it came all together ... strangely ... as last time. India was on my mind and suddenly it's all India!
Any thoughts? Just leave a lovely comment!

Am I lazy or crazy? Ginger-Marzipan-Chocolate-Pralines

Sometimes I have to ask myself, am I lazy? I just hang around and do nothing in particular, although there would be plenty to do. However, I simply don't want to.
Then again, I could be crazy - kind of - that is if you want to use such harsh words. On the other hand (apart from four fingers and a thump) it could be quite helpful at times to be lazy and crazy. Not only once that has led to new inventions in the past.
While I don't want to suggest that the now following would be a great invention, you still could have a go at these Ginger-Marzipan-Chocolate-Pralines ...

Please, have one ... 

What you need:
100 g marzipan
About 40 g candied ginger
A few tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
Some almond slices

How you do it:
Get a small piece of marzipan and wrap an about 1 cm long piece of candied ginger in it. Make sure the ginger is surrounded by marzipan on all sides. Repeat this until all the marzipan is gone and ... it might look like this.

Put the cocoa powder (I still got some chocolate orange one from Sugar and Crumbs) in a small bowl and roll the marzipan ... eh ... rolls in it, so that it gets all nicely coated with cocoa powder. How does that look (be careful with your imagination)?

Well, I would have said now, that's all, folks! But somehow we need to distract a bit from that look. So I decided to stick a sliced almond piece into each one.

That already makes a difference. Now ... that's all, folks! We only need to transfer them to another plate for looks.

Just last week while visiting a friend, I got a surprise gift. He is an artist and 'paints' pictures with metal pieces. He goes all over and collects all kind of metal objects to use them in his pictures. Some pictures he sells and others just stay in his place. Maybe he will do an exhibition with them one day. 
Anyway, he also got some old silverware, which you can see now in my picture. I was going to destroy those pieces to use them for painting, but he thought I might appreciate them more.
How do you like them?
Now the question still remains, whether I'm lazy or crazy.
While hanging around - at the computer - I noticed that I didn't take part in We  Should Cocoa for a while. In fact the last post I could find on my blog was from June 2012: Galway Irish Coffee Tiramisu.

 

I thought it would be about time to have a go again. Here, though comes the lazy problem again. The person who invented the We Should Cocoa challenge had me already kept busy with one of her last posts: Chocolate Log Blog: Chocolate Walnut Pastries. I tried to bake some from memory after reading this post once.
So I didn't want to do baking of any kind again this time. Therefore I went for the Ginger-Marzipan-Chocolate-Pralines. This month theme of We Should Cocoa is 'Ginger' and it is hosted by Jen from Blue Kitchen Bakes.
Now bit by bit a bit more about being crazy ...
This recipe was kind of a low cost one. I didn't use any further energy apart what came from my body. So it could work for ...

... this month. Camilla from Fab Food 4 All wanted to see something for dessert this month. Hey, you could use the pralines as well for that. Camilla is doing this challenge together with Helen from Fuss Free Flavours.
In order to further demonstrate that this recipe is frugal, I'm going to enter this post as well to Recipe of the week from A Mummy Too.

And finally, I add this as well to Javelin Warrior's Made with Love Mondays and, hey, this time it's really Monday.

If that's not crazy, orinally I just wanted to take part in one challenge and I was lazy and now ... I end up with entering in multiple challenges.
Above that, ff you know any further challenges these pralines would fit into this month, let me know! Then we got a nice collection of challenges other can take part in as well.

Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake

I was thinking ... yes, for a change ... and it came to my mind ... right, I haven't lost it completely ... that there was this lovely blog hop I used to join in once in a while. It is called The Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, in short SABH.
The SABH is presented by Delicieux, The Hungry Australian, Dining With a Stud, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, and 84th & 3rd. I had a look and ... the theme for this month is cake and three veg.
Here I am now, somehow I have to bake a cake with veg in it. The only things that come to my mind are carrots and beetroot in a cake ... that is, a sweet cake. If you have a look at the other blogs later (as would be recommended) you see how inventive others have been.
After some research through various books and taken the ingredients I have at home I came to this: Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake.

Well, lemongrass is used as a herb in the Asian cuisine and you for sure wouldn't call it a veg. What about the veg then? I used carrots. In fact you could call this cake also: Lemongrass-Lime-Ginger-Carrot-Chocolate-Cheesecake.
However, that would not sound as intriguing as the name I came up with friends from the net. I try this cake exclusively for this Blog Hop. I have no experiences with it, as I never did it before. We will see, how things end up. So, let's do Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake. 
Ready, set, bake ...

Ingredients, here they come:
Cake base:
300 g flour
14 g baking powder
Pinch of salt 
1 tbs cocoa powder
50 g brown sugar
100 g of carrots
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger
150 g yogurt
2 tbs of vegetable oil
2 eggs or 4 egg whites

Cheese topping:
400 g cream cheese
100 g sugar
2 eggs
2 tbs milk
1 stalk of lemongrass
Zest of one lime

Chocolate topping:
100 g 25 g of chocolate (I thought I needed more, but I didn't)

How the experimenting went:
First of all we like to concentrate on the cake dough.
I mixed all dry ingredients together in one bowl, that is sifted the flour with the baking powder in, added the brown sugar and cocoa powder, and, not to forget, the pinch of salt.
Then I concentrated on the other ingredients with a different bowl. I put in the yogurt and the oil. Time for grating ...
The carrots and the ginger were grated to the yogurt. The oil and the eggs (or egg whites) joined. A little bit of mixing was due then.
It's time for the contents of both bowls to join forces together. Therefore I added the yogurt mixture to the flour mixture and ... of course ... mixed everything together into a brown and sticky dough.
Already before all that, I had a spring tin form greased. This was ready now to receive the dough ... sometimes, though, I wish afterwards I had used baking paper, but ... I didn't.
With a rubber spatula I tried to level things out and once that was accomplished more or less, the cake went to the oven for 10 minutes at 200°C.

That 10 minutes is exactly the time I wanted to use to prepare the cheese topping.
No need to panic! Really?
We just have to mix all the ingredients for the cheese topping together. Well, not exactly. The lemongrass needs chopping up, as fine as possible. Of course, I didn't forget to grate in the zest of the lime.
10 minutes over. I made it!

I removed the cake from the oven and turned up the heat to 225°C.
Now the cheese topping goes onto the cake ... on top. Oh, oh, it seems quite liquidish. Will it set properly? No worries, we will see.
Back goes the cake into the oven for 15 minutes. Then the heat is reduced to 125°C and the cake stays in the oven for another 30 minutes.

After that the cake needs cooling down and somehow we have to figure out to remove it from the tin without destroying it again ... hard job.
Anyway, I couldn't even wait properly for the cake to cool down. It was getting late. I wanted to eat the cake at a proper cake time ... what nonsense am I talking ... cake time could be anytime.
Whatsoever, I grated some chocolate over the cake. Somehow it melted partways, but i wasn't bothered. After all I had to take some pictures and have cake.

What would you say? Will such a cake taste nice, delicious, wonderful, or whatever good?
It did! You will not be disappointed.
Although now, it was the first time I tried this cake, I can only say, it's worth a try ...

 Now back to the SABH ...

I hope you enjoyed the Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake!

For sure you will enjoy the other entries ...

Time for Chutney - Apple-Onion-Chilli-Chutney

Sometimes my mind is playing tricks on me. There was this blog challenge over at A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate ... It dealt with chutneys, pickles, piccalillis, jams, curds and marmalades.
Somehow, I had in mind this challenge would end today, but in fact it was one week earlier. So, while I thought I still had plenty of time, I didn't. I blew it!
I love piccalilli and jams and things like that. I did a piccalilli once and I liked it very much. That's an internal reminder for me to do it again.
Now, I've never made a chutney and that was what I wanted to try now. Since I still had quite a few apples left, it had to be something with apple. After getting some more information on that subject I was ready to go ... to make an Apple-Onion-Chilli-Chutney.

What we need:
2 tbs butter
2 red onions, finely chopped
500 g apple, peeled, cored, and cut into small pieces
2 tsp ginger, in very tiny pieces
2 small fresh red chillies, finely chopped (I left the seeds in)
250 g brown sugar
250 ml apple vinegar

What I did:
After having done all the preparation with cutting things into bit's an pieces the butter went melting in the pot.
Then I added the onions and started softening them.
With that said and done, it was time for the apple pieces to join and to season everything with ginger and chillies.

I let that go for a while for the apples to go a bit softer as well. My apples though were not the fastest or easiest to turn soft. Not the right type for a fast one.
After I was tired of waiting any longer I added the brown sugar and the apple vinegar and left it going until it looked like this ...

This may take a while. About 50-60 minutes. In fact, I decided to let it go a bit further than shown in the picture. 
Once I was satisfied I put the apple-onion-chilli-chutney into sterilised jars. I sterilised them standing for a while in hot water. That should do.
The chutney just filled one and a half jar. The full jar I turned upside down, after closing, of course. Otherwise it would have been quite messy and ... stupid. That should create some kind of vacuum helping it to seal properly to keep longer.
I like to eat it on bread with cheese. The chilies just give a very subtle burn at the end. So it's not too strong. If you want it stronger, just add a few more chillies. 

Well, I didn't make it for the blog challenge, but anyway it was nice to finally try my own apple chutney. 
That would have been the challenge.