The last time I had mexican food was about eight years ago (I think..).
Although it was a nice experience , it didn't inspire me to cook it at
home (also because I hardly cook those days!). Tortilla chips during
movie sessions don't count ;)
The recipe
for the dip is from Recipezaar. It was good! However, I'll probably
leave out the onion the next time. It's just too overpowering for my
taste.
Easy Guacamole
Ingredients
3 ripe avocados (ripe as in really dark in color and super soft when squeezed)
1 small onion, finely diced
1 medium tomato, diced
sour cream *optional
salt and pepper, to taste
Methods
1)Take avocados and cut into the avocado until you come to the large seed inside.
2)Cut around the circumference of the seed.
3)With both hands twist the two halves in opposite directions and pull apart.
4)Now if your avocados are ripe enough they will separate easily.
5)Now carve out each half with a tablespoon.
6)Place avocados into a medium bowl and mash and stir until moderately creamy.
7)Some people like the avocados more chunky than others-- either way it tastes great.
8)Add diced onion and tomatoes to the avocados.
9)Add your preference of salt and pepper and taste to see if salty enough.
10)In a separate small bowl put in 2 tablespoons of the dip.
11)Add 1 tbsp of sour cream and salt again.
12)Taste it.
13)And decide if you prefer your guacamole with or without sour cream.
14)If you like with sour cream add 4 tablespoons or more to the avocado mixture and salt again.
15)If not, do nothing and leave it like it is.
16)You can do the same with the Tabasco sauce if you like Tabasco sauce.
17)Serve chilled with chips or add a little to your taco salad.
Wanting to add more varieties of grains in our diet, I decided to check
out quinoa at the bio (organic) foods section of my local supermart.
But I didn't find any and so I bought a pack of millet instead. Later, I
read that it is also a good substitute for rice and it is gluten free!
The taste was neutral, at least we didn't dislike it :D I can see
myself cooking it again and substitute it for rice once in a while.
How to cook millet from goodness.com
Snaps of my first successful batch of bread were posted on my flickr but
somehow I didn't write about it here. The recipe was through the food
blog The cocoanut . Since the
link to the blog is inactive currently, I've pasted the recipe below for
anyone interested in trying out this lovely loaf (made into buns).
Simple Milk Buns
Source : The cocoanut
Ingredients
500 g plain white flour*
350g milk (I used skim milk)
20 g honey, about a tablespoon-and-a-bit’s worth
25g warm melted butter
1 x 7g sachet instant dried yeast
1 tsp salt
Method
In
a large bowl, whisk the yeast with the milk and honey. Add the flour
and salt, and combine until you get a soft, sticky dough. Pour over
the warm melted butter, and mix this into the dough. Knead the dough
for 10 minutes, or if you have an electric mixer like me, you can use
that instead. Simply attach a dough hook and let it do all the work
for you, around 7-10 minutes.
Leave the dough in the bowl for an
hour to proof. After an hour has passed, punch down the dough to
release all the carbon dioxide. Transfer the dough to a loaf tin, and
let it proof for another hour. The dough will rise again to about
twice its size, and this time you want all that gas inside to remain.
At this stage, I like to brush the top of the dough with water and
sprinkle poppy seeds. This is entirely optional, and I only did it
because I happen to have a jar of poppy seeds in the pantry.
Set
the oven to 210oC, and when hot enough carefully place the dough into
the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 180oC and
bake for another 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is dark
brown. Remove from the tin, and leave to cool on a wire rack.
*I
used all purpose flour, because that’s what I had at home. However,
you might want to try using strong white flour or bread flour, which
are more glutinous and will ‘jump’ over the top of the tin much more
than normal flour.
The result of this very simple recipe is a very fluffy sponge cake!
Basic Sponge Cake
Ingredients
4 eggs, separated
4 tbsp sugar, combine with a bit of vanilla sugar
4 tbsp flour
1 tsp baking powder
pince of salt
Fillings
Hazelnut cream spread (example nutella)
Method
1) Pre-heat oven at gas mark 3.
2) Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt. Beat until stiff. Set aside
3)
Beat egg yolks with sugar (including vanilla sugar) until creammy.
Combine flour and baking powder into egg yolks -sugar mixture and mix
well. Next, fold in the egg white (beaten earlier) carefully into the
until well integrated.
4) Pour cake batter into lined baking tin and bake for 15 mins.
5) Spread hazelnut cream spread or any other fillings you like when cake is completely cooled.
This is my first tiramisu recipe that I've ever made and tasted nearest
to the ones served in an Italian restaurant I once worked in. They are
absolutely addictive! Cream is rich with a hint of rum..yum! Hope you'll
try it!
Tiramisu
Ingredients:
4 cartons (1x250g) mascarpone cheese
41g castor sugar3 eggs, separated
250ml kahlua or other coffee-flavoured liqueur
425ml very strong cold black coffee
30 sponge fingerscocoa powder, for sprinkling
Method:
1. Put the mascarpone cheese, sugar and egg yolks in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until evenly blended
2.
Whisk the egg whites until standing in stiff peaks. Fold into the
mascarone mixture until evenly incorporated. Spoon a quarter of the
mixture into the base of a glass serving bowl.
3. Mix the liqueur and coffee together in shallow dish.
4.
One at a time, dip one the sponge fingers in this mixture for 10-15
seconds, turning once so they become soaked through but do not lose
their shape.
5. After each one has been dipped , place it on top
of the mascarpone in the bowl, making a single layer of sponge fingers
that covers the mascarpone completely.
6. Continue to layer the mascarpone mixture and sponge fingers alternatively, finishing off with the mascarpone.
7. Sift cocoa powder liberally over the top.
8. Cover the bowl and chill in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Serve chilled.
Finding asian cooking ingredients here
hasn't been easy. Fortunately, Tesco has a section of shelves that
fulfil my needs. Though the supplies are limited, they do stocked
general ingredients i.e. the soya sauce, curry powder, various instant
sauces, etc. One of the best finds is rice noodle. This rice noodle is
not quite like the fine rice vermicelli but some what similar to kway teow.
On
the packing, it suggested to pour any flavour of hot soup over the rice
noodle. However, for my taste, I prefer dry version instead. The
following recipe was inspired whilst watching Nigella 's cooking programme with minor additions.
As you can see, I've prepared a small
portion of each ingredients as we're going to toss these ingredients
with the ready noodles. Clockwise - stir fried mince pork, toasted
sesame seeds, stir fried button mushrooms, fried onions in oil, finally
spring onions.
Usually, the tossing is done for one
portion of noodle. In an empty bowl, first put the fried onions in oil,
mushrooms, mince pork, dash of soya sauce and pepper to taste, mix the
ingredient, then put in the rice noodles, toss til consistent, finished
off with a sprinkle of spring onions and sesame seeds. Repeat the same
for 2nd portion. This way, the unfinished ingredients can be kept in the
fridge and heated up until the next meal :)
Verdict : the rice noodle were smooth and firm. Slurping was very easy! Give it a try :)
