Gebraten hähnchen mit Kartoffeln

Welche aßen wir am Kleinmarkthalle. Es legt in Frankfurt, Deutschland. Die Hähnchen war das Tagesgericht. Ich fand es ein bißchen trocken sein aber schmeckt gut.

Easy Apple Cake

175g self raising flour
175g soft butter
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs beaten
1. 5 medium sized cooking apples peeled and cubed
1 level teaspoon cinnamon
grated rind of 1 lemon
60g raisins
Icing sugar to dust
18cm square baking tin

Set oven to 180 degree celsius.
Put sugar, butter,  and flour in a bowl.  Add eggs and beat well. Stir in apples cinnamon, lemon rind and sultanas.

Bake in oven for forty to fifty minutes until cake has risen and feels firm to touch in the centre and a skewer comes out clean after insertion into the cake.

Leave to cool in tin for ten minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool.  Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Basic Pancake Recipe

125g plain flour
1/2 level tsp salt
1 large egg
300ml milk
oil
15cm pancake pan

To make the Batter
Put flour and salt in a large bowl,. Add the egg and half the milk and mix well with an electric hand-mixer for a minute or two until it is really bubbly. Stir in the rest of the milk and pour into a jug and leave for about 20 minutes.

To make the Pancakes
Heat the pan and add some drops of oil. When it starts to smoke, pour in enough batter, tilting the pan to coat the base evenly. Cook until the pancake edges start to curl away from the pan and it browns underneath. Use a palette knife to flip it over and cook for another 30-45 seconds, and slide it out onto the plate. Make the rest of the pancakes, oiling the pan as necessary. Separate pancakes with kitchen or greaseproof paper.

To Freeze
Cool, put in a food bag or wrap in foil, seal and label. Use within three months.

Rich Chocolate Torte

250g dark chocolate
175g soft butter
125g caster sugar
200g packed ground almonds
4 separated large eggs
4 teaspoon apricot jam
23cm buttered tin

Set oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Melt 175g chocolate.  Cream 125g butter with sugar until light and stir in almonds egg yolks and melted chocolate and beat well.

Whisk egg white till stiff and fold into mixture.  Pour into tin and bake 50 to onehour until firm to touch.

Remove from oven and rest for five minutes then turn onto rack.  Warm jam and spread on cake. Melt chocolate and butter and spread over cake.

Beef Bier Stew and chestnuts

The veggie uncle had chestnuts for sale. What was interesting was that the nuts came half-shelled. I'd prefer if they had been fully de-shelled. Still, it had been a long time since I last had any, and a bag of butter roasted chestnuts is dreadfully expensive, even those sold by the illegal hawkers.

I asked him for some instructions. He directed me to just boil them as they were, and peel the shells 20 minutes later before eating. So I cooked some beef stew and made a salad. I was going to have the chestnuts to go with the salad.

Turns out Bobo doesn't like chestnuts, and I had such an awful time peeling them (I do not maintain long nails, so I scrapped my nails badly while trying to peel the stubborn shells off) that I was a bit sick of them by the time I ate them. After peeling the shells off, I fried the chestnuts in butter. They tasted quite yummy, but half a kilo by yourself is no joke. Sure cured me of my craving.''

I poured a whole can of Asahi bier in with the beef before dumping ketchup. Really easy dish to make, though Bobo was really angry when he found out his bier had gone into dinner.

Did you say "semen" cake?

I wanted to bake blueberry muffins on Sunday, but I was engrossed with delivering and helping to write Vater's rice dumplings. Fat bears do not do well on bicycles. Bobo said my wrestling with the foldable bike everytime is like watching a bear performing at a circus. I think wrestling with the bike made me so tired that was why I took an afternoon nap.

So I tried again yesterday evening except I was too lazy to refer to a recipe (I did google some, but decided to trial and error). I opened the can and poured half a can of blueberries, sans juice, into some butter which I mixed a bit too enthusiastically... until the whole mixture turned into a grey mixture. I just poured some milk, an egg, pinch of baking soda and sifted flour and mix the whole lot together. Still looked a bit grey, and I did not add much sugar (only like 20g, because I thought the syrup might be sweet), so I poured in the syrup.

Well, it still looked cement-like so I told Bobo, who came into the kitchen to make some honey lemon water, so. He said "what? Semen cake?"

>.<"

Anyway it came out pretty tasteless, even though it did rise a little in the oven.

Vanilla cupcakes with loads of chocolate chips

Borrowed this book from the library, and the recipes looked easy enough to try. I chose to make "Our Favorite Vanilla Cake", except I halved the recipe, converted the recipe to metric and made cupcakes instead.

Original Recipe

Makes a double layer 9-inch round cake/ one 9 by 13 inch cake or 24 cupcakes

3/4 cup butter

1 cup + 2 tbsp sugar

4 eggs

2 1/4 cups flour

2 1/4 tsps baking powder

3/8 tsp salt

3/4 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F. Grease two 9 inch  pans or place cupcakes in a 24-cup cupcake pan.

2. In a large bowl or mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add in the eggs, one at a time.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

4. In a measuring cup, combine the milk and vanilla.

5. Add the flour mixture little by little to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk and vanilla and mixing as you go. Do not overmix.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 to 35 min (18 to 20 min for cupcakes) or until a toothpick comes out clean.

7. Cool the cake completely before removing from the pan. Run a butter knife along the edges to help ease the cake out of the pan. Ice with the frosting of your choice.

My attempt

Makes 12 cupcakes

115g butter

100g sugar

 2 eggs

150g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

400ml milk

1 pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla extract
Loads of chocolate chips (which I mix with a little bit of flour)

1. Preheat the microwave to 160 deg C (I may try 170 deg C next time). Prepare 12 paper cups.

2. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and pale in color, then mix in the eggs one at a time.

3. Double sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. 

4. Beat the milk and vanilla extract.

5. Mix in the flour mixture and milk mixture into the butter and sugar mixture, alternating mixtures.

6. Pour in the chocolate chips and fill the cups. 

7. Bake for 20 minutes.

Breakfast at Pension Gerlinde

This was one of the fantastic breakfasts we had at Gerlinde. It came with our board, and because Onkel H is one of their regulars, we got to have a discount on our stay as well. Love Love. :)

I loved this bread the most. Unfortunately it isn't simple to make if not I would eat this every damn day. Onkel H said this bread is called vollkornbrot.

Frühstück at Gerlinde is awesome because they also operate as a cafe so some days they have cake slices leftover from yesterday's tea. Naturally greedy me will grab a slice, especially if it is blueberry tart!

My version of lazy ass Banana Bread

Note: Scheduled post. This was baked on Monday night.

It's quite mind-boggling how the two of us can be so lazy. I had been thinking of making banana bread or chiffon cake for the last few days, and over the last few days, have been slowly acquiring the necessary ingredients. Like cockroach-less bananas, which is a whole other story in itself.

I even bothered to pop home earlier to settle a solid block of frozen butter on the countertop to thaw before running to my other home for dinner. So imagine how annoyed when I was ready to bake banana bread (it won because the bananas were ripening really fast and B1 refused to eat bananas ever since the previous episode) and there was only 120g of sugar left...

I had earmarked this recipe by Elise from Simply Recipes, and had converted the recipe to metric system.

Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 40g melted butter
• 200g sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 225g of all-purpose flour

Method

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yield: Makes one loaf.

"B1, help me get sugar from downstairs ok?!" I yelled from the kitchen.

"No!!!" equally loud from the bedroom. Argh. Threats of scheidung left him unmoved. Damn, used this trick too much. To think the supermarket was only downstairs. Wtf. That's how lazy the two of us were.

I looked into the fridge. No Honey. Hmm but there are those mini pots of yoghurt that I bought on discount last Tuesday. Only mixed berry flavor left...So here's the adjusted recipe:

Nibblezware-modified Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients

• 5 ripe bananas
• 40g melted butter
• 120g sugar 
• 60g mixed berry yoghurt (or whatever yoghurt you like)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon banana essence (no sugar in the house, but banana essence? no problem)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 225g of self-raising flour

Method

I preheated the microwave oven's convection function to 170°C. Mistake, that emo bitch likes it 20°C lower. Note to self to use 150°C next time.

<s>Mash bananas with butter. Leave some little bits of chunk.</s>Mistake #2 Forgot to measure out flour and sugar first.

Measure flour and set it aside in the colander (yeah you heard me, I use a colander to sift my flour. Not enough space in the galley so some utensils have to double up duty).

Measure sugar and pour into the bowl. Measure butter and dump into the bowl too. Use the butter knife to butter the sides of the pyrex loaf pan, while moaning my fate. Then peel 5 bananas, slapping away at the fruit flies which have gathered. They were really dumb and easily killed.

Mash bananas into the sugar with butter. Leave some little bits of chunk.

Break an egg in and mix thoroughly. Dump in the banana essence, and baking soda and salt. Sift the flour into the mixture and give the bowl a vicious drub.

Pour the mixture into the pan and set to bake for 1h 10min at 170°C. At first I was relieved that the mixture was rising in the oven after sitting pretty for the first 10 minutes. Then I noticed after the 30 minutes that the top was turning brown yet the inside was wet. So I switched off the convection, and reduced temperature to 150°C for the next 30min. And cover the top with a corningware lid (no choice, the baking dish doesn't come with a cover).

Turned out pretty nice :).

Unholy Xmas Roast Chicken

I invited Vater und Mutter over for Xmas dinner, because no one was at home when I called on Xmas eve to say "come over for Xmas eve dinner". So I ended up slaving over a hot stove one day before going back to work the next day. Bad idea #1.

Tried to take a shortcut. Asked Mutter to help me check how much the delicatessen was selling roast chicken so that I only needed to cook fries, make a salad, brussel sprouts and soup. Mutter reported that the chickens were going at 2X their usual prices. So she said "buy your own chicken and cook it." Bad idea #2.

Standing at the supermarket eyeing the chickens balefully. Should I get the usual spring chickens (which I am used to making) or a giant bird? Chose the big bird. Bad idea #3.

Bloody chicken was a pain to roast. It took more than 1 hour to roast, not including the time to marinate and insert garlic and ginger slices under the skin.  I stuffed it with ginger, garlic, onion and apples, and slathered the skin with butter, sesame seed oil (my god, I just realized I dumped two types of oil on that bird), soya sauce and mirin. I finally blanketed the birdie with bacon slices.

In the end, it was still 90% cooked so had to zap it in the microwave again.  But it was moist and flavorful. Thanks to my basting the bird and and flipping it over half way through.

Other than sushi, everything else was made by me :D

Dear B1's Mother, this is what I feed Your son

B1 took revenge on my loving to tell my mother everything by telling his mother I don't feed him enough...

This is what he gets for breakfast. Is this not enough? Nuked eggs, Australian brie, Arugula salad, St Leaven's bread.

Just one bite and I have become a massive fan of this thick bread slices from St Leaven. You can buy a loaf (about 8 slices) for S$2.50, and it has a nice milk scent. :D

Pork Chop ala Kim Gary Style

Sometimes I don't know what is my problem. I was supposed to go downstairs to buy a bottle of ketchup to make my Kim Gary Style Pork Chop, instead B1 and I came back laden with groceries costing more than $50. Wtf. 

B1 opines that the reason why I think I am spending hundreds of dollars in groceries is because I am hoarding them in the freezer. I am very reluctant to admit that he is right (don't tell him!) as I have totally ran out of space in my freezer. I have to rearrange my freezer again and free up some space. Time to eat all the German sausages I smuggled back.

To make this Kim Gary Style Pork Chop is ridiculously easy.

Pepper and salt the pork chop. Leave it for a while before dusting it with corn flour and frying. For the sauce, fry sliced garlic and then add julienned tomatoes. Fry a bit then chuck in some chicken stock (else water is fine) and tomato sauce. Serve up with sunny side up egg. 

Champignon Suppe

Coming home from Germany, I recalled the zwiebel suppe we had at Cafe Gerlinde, the restaurant run by the Beh family within their picturesque B&B. So I made Champignon Suppe (otherwise unglamorously known as button mushroom soup) *haha*.

Baking in the oven... for once it didn't burn

Just like how Gerlinde does it, I added white wine to the soup (but I was too lazy to use stock, and too health-conscious to use artificial flavorings) made from frying the sliced mushrooms, garlic, onions in butter then dumping water...Then I sealed the soup with some ready-made pastry skin and happily painted it with egg yolk which is why it is so pretty. 

We had it with some tough ass striploin I bought at Shop & Save (this is why you must marinate your cheap meat for days). I was too lazy to make a sauce, so we had it with some garlic sauce we bought back from Germany (mercifully no stomachache, despite carting that and curry sauce all over Germany and back).

Bier soß, steak und chips

I love sunny-side eggs with steak (esp beef patties). Not sure why. Could be the Japanese anime I watch, especially Rosen Maiden, where the sister serves flower-shaped runny eggs on top of beef patties. Yumz

I made this some time ago, as usual and posted it only now. So far I have made red wine sauce, cheese sauce,  milk sauce, so why not bier sauce! I even tried hollandaise sauce, though that was not for steaks. It was almost eclectically Chinese because I mixed soya sauce, Chang bier, and some sugar together to make this weird ass sauce. It wasn't very bitter, gott sei dank. B1 liked it. =D

B1 suffered from withdrawal symptoms

Poor B1 must have been suffering withdrawal symptoms. Before we bought the apartment, we were free-wheeling crazy nutcases who don't mind dropping about S$100 on a meal. But now, I have become somewhat of a tight pussy in more ways than one. 

I have been trying to cook at restaurant quality, but sometimes, we miss the kind of stuff we used to eat. I am not as badly affected as Bär und I have been doing a bit of celebration this week (and comforting ourselves as well) with food. 

Last Sunday, while doing some shopping (he treated me to my favorite ice-cream after returning my library books), he suddenly craved some abalone...I said no, since I am the one who usually pays for groceries. 

"I pay." I was flabbergasted. Even though he wanted to pay out of his own pocket, I was like... let's buy some limpets and razor clams instead.

But he insisted, saying he hadn't eat abalone for a while. Eh, didn't we just have that at Chinese New Year's? Oh ja, now to think about it, he went back to his parents' for reunion dinner while I stayed at mine (thus losing my book vouchers *depressed*). Vater feeds me a lot of abalone, especially during the special occasions, so I guess that's why I don't crave it that much. We are a family of gourmands and we all can cook. Vater and brother has this meowish tactic of taking out a sardine can when they think that dinner (cooked by someone else) is poor pickings or not to their taste. To date, I don't like sardines. 

For my insult, I usually rout out an egg, cos I like tomato and egg.

But I digress. So he bought a can, while I stood in the queue with him, casting covetous looks at the can of abalone while having little pinpricks of poverty-driven consciousness. I am guessing the reason why he wanted to eat something expensive, is because he realized I was going to cook him a S$3 frozen chicken.

I tried to cut Mr Abalone as thinly as I could

I found this frozen chicken deal at 2 for $6 (usual price: S$4.50, yeah for me). B1 didn't let me buy more than 2, I had wanted to pile the fridge full. Since we are not always cooking, it does not make sense for me to buy fresh ingredients other than vegetables, as they will no longer be fresh by the time I get to them.

Mr Chicken was frozen, so I decided to stuff and marinate it for hours ago, so that he will have some taste (he did, a lovely garlic-infused flavor). I made two mixtures. One, rosemary, butter, garlic and basil, and tossed some cut shitake mushrooms in olive oil, thyme and basil, for another. After cleaning and drying Mr Chicken, I scored some parts of his skin, and stuffed the garlic from the first mixture under his skin (I was supposed to lift his skin and rub him with the mixture, but I chickened out.

I stuffed his cavity with the mushrooms, blanketed him with bacon before baking him for 1/2 hour in a bed of potatoes and carrots. He came out really juicy, though not as pretty as I would have liked.

Norwegian and salmon

It's a sickness really. I cannot buy salmon without thinking of Norway.

Norwegians and I don't get along well. I am not sure why, but it is the truth. But at least the salmon settles easily in my belly. This salmon was marinated in oyster sauce and honey for two days. It is accompanied by lotus root soup (with black beans and pork belly slices) and bacon and potato stew.

Cheesy Hamburger

This is what happens when you take photos of your cooking many weeks ago and not post immediately. You forget the details of the dish. Argh. I cannot remember what went into this sauce.

One thing I can remember is, dun buy the burger patties from Cold Storage. Very salty. I accompanied the burger with onion rings, baked potato and salad.

A lot of butter was harmed in the making of this dish

Now and then I feed B1 better stuff, because he pays for the utilities *keke*. Cannot have him wise up and realize I have been feeding him crappy groceries. 

 

I splurged a little while I was "forever alone"ing at a supermarket in the next town. 

I bought two sirloin steaks at S$16 *heart pain*. I was muttering darkly about how thick the meat was, when the butcher caught me and replied drily "all the same size, madam".

I give you madam.

Anyway, I carried the steaks home carefully but ended up freezing them because we didn't have dinner at home the next day. Can't remember why, but what a waste of the expensive meat. 

Actually cooking them took a lot of coordination with Mr Microwave Oven. I set the oven to 180 degree Celsius and chucked in the purple and red carrots, cashew nuts into the oven to roast. I think purple carrots are very irritating, they left a stain on my beautiful white kitchen counter *infuriating*, despite my being extremely careful with them. So while that's roasting, I boiled some potato halves before frying them carefully in butter so that they become an adorable golden brown. Tinny winny crispy outside and soft inside.

I fried the steaks in butter the next chance I had until they were brown with flavors sealed in. Chucked them into the oven, next to the veggies. I then made my own vinaigrette with olive oil and apple vinegar with a dash of pepper and salt. I tossed the remainder of the mesclun salad and some blueberries with the vinaigrette. B1 was very unadventurous, he pushed the blueberries to the side of his plate.

Why am I, a greedy gourmand who lives to eat, with a dude who eats to live? Tsk tsk.

Ikea Breakfast

The reason why I call this Ikea breakfast is because I bought herring roe and a strange cheese with black wrapping (they had one in red) which were newly stocked in the Ikea supermarket.

I dumped the cheese inside the microwave for 1 min... when it came out it was all melted and gooey (hmm, I am thinking of using the rest of it on a pizza). I spread it on the bread, then hurriedly served the salad with roe. I like the bite =D.

Don't look at me! I am actually a baked potato dish

I contain milk, potatoes, cheddar cheese, bacon, eggs and parmesan cheese. I am death in a dish.

<u>Updated!!!</u>

Oh apparently, I am also called Pommes Dauphinoise. =D Guess I didn't invent the dish. Sigh. I saw the recipe later when I was reading A Table in the Tarn *haha*.