Saturday, November 27, 2010

Quick Post: Teenage Riot

Hey there! Just a quick post before I go to bed...



The masses against the classes... 

Good night, dears!

GREEN PEAS PULAO



Ingredients:

Rice ....... 2 cups
Green peas ... 1/2 cup
Garlic paste .. 1 tbsp
Ginger paste .. 1 tsp.
Onions ......... 2 small (sliced)
Tomato ........ 1 (chopped)
Green chillies .. 2-3 (slit)
Coriander leaves .... handful
Black cardamom ... 1
Cloves ................. 3-4
Cinnamon .......... 1 inch piece
Bay leaf .............. 1
Turmeric powder ... 1/4 tsp.
Red chilli powder ...1/4 tsp.
Salt .......... to taste
Oil .......... 2 tbsps.

Method:
1. Wash the rice and soak it.
2. Heat the oil and add the whole spices. Add the onions and stir fry for a few minutes.
3. Now add the ginger garlic paste, tomato, green chillies, salt and the spice powders. Stir in the green peas. Sprinkle a little water and simmer to cook until peas is half done.
4. Add 4 cups of hot water and coriander leaves. Check the salt and add if required.
5. Cook on high flame for a while and lower it to simmer.

If using a pressure cooker then after 2 whistles simmer it for 1 minute.

Tromboncino Squash

... from my mother's garden, arrangement by my wife.


More info on Tromboncino squashes here.

Sponji Mikan Cake

28 november 2010, minggu

Tanggal 23 november kemarin, hari buruh, jadi libur tuh disini, kebetulan suami juga dapet libur, kita rencana mao keluar kota, buat foto2 momiji, itu lho pohon yang daunnya bakalan berubah jadi merah kalo musim gugur. Semangat deh pagi2 uda bangun n bikin bento. Jam 8.30 da berangkat, perjalanan sekitar 1/2 jam kita berhenti di fuwari, semacam t4 persinggahan, buat istirahat, makan ato sekedar cuci mata liat laut. Ternyata pas keluar, anginnya kenceenggg banget, n dingin bangettt...pdahal kemarin tuh hangat, sebel dah. Mikir2 akhirnya batal pergi dah, kita balik pulang daripada ank2 kena masuk angin, soalnya ga terlalu pake baju yang tebel. Agakkk kecewa si gw, soalnya kalo da minggu2 depan, pasti uda ga ada lagi tuh daun merahnya uda pada berguguran...huhuhu.Ini foto tahun lalu, waktu kita liat momiji di gunung. Perjalanannya jauh n panjang, tapi kita hepi juga, namanya juga jalan2 ya.

Akhirnya buat ngobatin kecewa, dateng tuh mood bkin kue, kali ini dibantu 2 asistent kecil. Resepnya praktis, diambil dari cookpad, gw catetin lagi ya
Bahan
30 gr mentega
20 cc susu
3 bh telur
85 gr gula
110 gr terigu
vanila essence

Krim
200 cc krim segar- nama krim
3 sdm gula
jeruk segar
Cara membuat sponji
1. Lumerkan susu n mentega , microwave 1 menit
2. Siapkan wadah isi air panas
3. Campur gula n telur, aduk mixer dalam wadah
4. Letakan wadah adonan di atas wadah air panas, aduk mixer kec tinggi
5. Lepaskan wadah air panas, lalu aduk kec rendah
6. Tambahkan tepung aduk rata, tambah no 1 plus vanila ess, aduk rata
7. Oven 180, 20 menit

Cara membuat krim
1. Campur krim segar n gula
2. Letakkan wadah adonan di atas wadah es batu, aduk mixer mpe kental
3. Decor sesuai selera dengan jeruk ato strawberi

Lumayan hasilnya, n anak2 seneng banget, semangat banget waktu menghias mpe belepotan krim dah. N mreka seneng banget cicipin tuh krimnya..wkwkwkw. Kuenya habis dalam 2 hari, bukannya ga enak, coz rakyatnya dikitt...hahha. Ga ada strawberi, jeruk di rumah pun jadi lah...

Celebrating Caturday

I shot this one yesterday. I love the way the background is overexposed and blurred. It really sets off our Maximum Leader's regal face. The exposure on her fur was just right and you can see individual hairs if you click and look at the larger version. She's a bit dirty and rumpled as moments before she had been happily rolling around on the ground.

Surf Movie Saturday

We're going to see this one today. Can't wait.


I had a really interesting realization the other day while I was at a convenience store. I always see gas stations as grim, dark, dismal places where you can witness some of the worst things about our society. I don't mean the obvious purpose of the place, which is our dependence upon foreign oil. That's another subject entirely. I'm referring to the fact that at almost any time you visit one of these places, you can witness someone indulging in their addictions to junk food, caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, or gambling. All over the country, there are men and women spending money at "convenience stores" that they should really just keep in their pockets. I've always focused on the worst of these places, so in that frame of mind I went into our local Mobil station recently and witnessed a guy who was hanging around the registers chatting with the two clerks who were working. He seemed to have been there for quite a while, and didn't look like he had any intention of leaving anytime soon. I immediately judged him, thinking, "What a loser. This dude's entire social life revolves around the candid relationship that he's developed with a couple of gas station clerks. He's probably in here every day, just standing around talking about nothing." But as I walked out and was getting back into my car, I realized that I had been too quick to judge and really had no right to think so poorly of the gentleman inside. What business of mine is it to judge this man for spending time in there? When I'm alone, I prefer to spend time reading old falconry books with a glass of Scotch or a "Rusty Nail" in hand. I consider it an intellectual endeavor, time well spent. Others might see my sitting there with antiquated books and hard liquor and think, "How sad. That's how this guy chooses to spend his time." And maybe they're right. After all, we are a social mammal, and it's in our nature to want to interact with other humans. So maybe the guy standing in the convenience store, scratching a lottery ticket and making jokes with the employees has actually chosen to spend his free time in a more natural and understandable way than I have. Maybe I should learn to be a bit less judgemental. Food for thought.

Squidgy Lemon-Ginger Cake


teatime and it's the one on the left

 Here in Istanbul you know that Christmas is approaching when  your inbox starts filling with information about the annual bazaars associated with the German School, IWI, the Church, the British Pantomime and other seasonal events, and you are exhorted to make cakes!
 Suddenly  spicy ingredients like ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, dried fruits of all kinds become doubly appealing and most importantly, we can get them all here .... on the same theme, brown sugar, not white, comfort foods, and cakes  and cookies that are just yum: the season of indulgence starts right now! Here is one of those great recipes and I have the BBC Good Food magazine to thank for sending out  a couple of Novembers ago a little supplement called Best of British.  This word ‘squidgy’  is so evocative, isn’t it? It  makes me think of something moist and tasty packed with dried fruits. In fact, this cake has fresh apple in it as well. Another plus is that it keeps brilliantly: wrap it well and it will be fine for at least a week and in fact gets better and better. It can also be frozen for up to two months which is great, so you can get ahead.
Ingredients for Squidgy Lemon-Ginger Cake
Cuts into 12 slices
200g/ 8oz butter, cut in pieces, plus extra for greasing
200g/ 8oz dates/ hurma, stoned
300g/12oz dark muscovado sugar
2 eggs
50g/ 2oz fresh or frozen root ginger/zencefil (pron: zen-jey-fil), grated
Grated zest 1 lemon
200g/ 8oz self-raising flour/kekun
1 tart apple (about 250g/ 9oz) peeled and chopped into pea-sized pieces
50g/ 2 oz white chocolate
1 tbsp chopped candied lemon peel and 1 tbsp sugar ‘coffee crystals,’ to decorate
Method
nifty little lemon zester

§  Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. Butter and line a 20cm/ 8-9 inch round cake tin (about 8cm/ 3 in deep) with baking parchment. Put dates in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Heat the butter in a small pan until melted and stir in the sugar. Allow to cool slightly.
§  Beat in the eggs, ginger and lemon zest. Drain the dates and chop them finely. Scrape them into the pan too, and mix well. Stir in the flour, then apple. Spoon into the cake tin, put the tin on a baking sheet (this stops the base browning too much) then bake for about 1 ¼ hrs, until well risen. A skewer stuck into the cake should come out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Leave it to cool in the tin.

preparing the ingredients

mixing them together in one gorgeous squidgy go

§  Break the white chocolate into a non-metallic bowl. Heat in the microwave, on Medium, in 1 minute bursts until melted (or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water). Remove the cake from the tin and peel off the paper. Trickle the chocolate over it, scatter with the candied lemon peel and coffee crystals. Leave to set before serving.


perfectly baked squidgy cooling in tin

Tips

  1.       The secret of good cake-baking is a good oven and then following a recipe faithfully. With cakes, it all matters.
   2.       Having said that, I didn’t have any dates handy so substituted dried cranberries which was fine. I think dates would have been tastier though.
3.       A lemon zester is a great little tool and comes in very handy.

4.       I always make my own self-raising flour as for years it didn’t exist here. It is very easy: 1 ½ tsp baking powder to 6 oz/ 175g plain flour ie ½ tsp to 2 oz/ 50g plain flour. Just sift it into the flour. But if you go to one of the big supermarkets, I expect you can find a perfectly good bag of kekun!

5.       At last we can get fresh ginger here! I remember the days when I brought it back in my suitcase from the UK. It freezes brilliantly and can be grated (after peeling) from frozen.

6.       The only iffy ingredient here is the dark muscovado sugar. As far as I know, you can’t get it in Istanbul but there again, new things appear on the shelves all the time here, so maybe you can. I always bring back a selection of brown sugars when I come back from the UK. Here, you should mix a bit of pekmez with regular white granulated sugar and it will give that rich taste. Pekmez is a concentrated grape syrup sold at the outdoor markets as it is a natural product made by the village women but you can also find a commercial version in the supermarkets.


and here it is!


7.       As for the decorations on top of the cake, both these items are available here but you might have to hunt.  I think I got the coffee crystals from Migros and the lemon peel from the Spice Market/Mısır  Çarşısı in Eminönü. But don’t be put off making this cake if you haven’t got exactly these items! Use what you have to decorate! It’s your cake!

Enjoy!