How do you test out brand new knives?
By cutting, obviously.
How do you get people to eat anything?
Fry it!
An apparently known Italian saying is ‘Fritta è buona anche una ciabatta’, Laurens’ grandma used to tell him that. It means ‘even a (house)slipper is tasty when fried’. (Never knew the tasty bread was named after house slippers, or would it be the other way around? And why?)
Now I don’t know about frying shoes, or slippers. I doubt that’d be really tasty, not even if they’ve only been used indoors. But we all understand the essence of the saying. Frying foods makes an instant treat.
So that giant banana squash that never got finished, I made fries out of it. Healthy, happy, wonderful fries. No sauce needed! I also had a red pepper left that wanted to be used, so some pepper fries were added too.
I just cut fries-size strips of the squash (And pepper) and fried it in vegetable oil. That’s it! Super-dooper-easy. And tasty too. L and I actually debated whether kids would be angry because they got served vegetables, or happy, because they looked like fries. Since we don’t have kids, we couldn’t try it out, but my almost-4-year-old cousin is coming over Sunday, so I bet we can test it out then (and have his mom be happy we’re not just feeding him candy and chips.)
Now I really don’t think I should start frying everything, as it’s still not the healthiest way of preparing foods. But once in a while, or when there are picky eaters around, I’ll definitely make these again.
[print_this]Squash fries
- squash
- flour
- microwave
- big pan
- oil for frying
Cut the squash in strips that resemble french fries. Put them in the microwave for a minute to pre-cook it a bit. Sprinkle a little flour over them, for added crunch. Fry in hot vegetable oil until nice and crispy. Enjoy!
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With the ginormous banana squash in Hand I had to figure out what exactly to use it for. Surely, we eat squash, but this was enough for about a week. So I needed to change things up.
Looking online I found tons of pumpkin bread, squash bread or zucchini cake recipes. I figured I’d be able to do something like that with my giant squash as well.
My beloved new knife cut off a giant piece of squash. I peeled it, seeded it and shredded it. Let the fun begin.
Let me start by saying, I don’t know why people call something that contains 2 cups of sugar a bread. It’s not bread, it’s cake. To me the term bread means something savory. A pinch of sugar to help yeast or enhance flavors, is all fine. I figured I’d still make it, but think of it and treat it more like a cake. And I was right. In taste and consistency the end result came out a lot like my mom’s age old spice cake recipe. Served with some whipped cream, or ice cream, it’s a tasty treat. But it sure as heck isn’t a bread!
I liked it though. In taste and texture, which means I probably won’t be making my mom’s spice cake again, as this is a little healthier and tastes the same. Go figure.
Also, the recipe is meant for a BIG loaf pan. Or at least that’s what I assume as my regular sized one filled up really high. The middle took forever to cook and I was afraid of burning the sides. Fortunately that didn’t happen, but still, the cake could’ve used another 10 minutes and then surely the bottom and sides would’ve been too dark. Next time I make it, I’ll use a large springform, and maybe put a nail (the ones you use to make buttercream flowers) on the bottom to help distribute heat to the middle. It worked like a charm for my tiramisu cake, so why not here?
All in all, the cake worked out, but next time I’ll make a smaller recipe and/or use a bigger pan and make sure there are more people to share with. This was a little too much for just the 2 of us.
[print_this]Banana squash cake (recipe adapted from allrecipes.com, makes 1 giant loaf)
- 2 cups shredded banana squash
- 2 cups sugar
- 3 cups flour
- 1 cup half melted butter, half oil (any liquid fat is okay)
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp nutmeg (or if you can get ‘speculaaskruiden’, change 1 tsp nutmeg for the speculaaskruiden)
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325/165 F/C. Beat the eggs until they mix together well, then beat in the sugar, oil/butter and vanilla. Gradually mix in the flour, baking powder and spices. Then slowly mix in the shredded banana squash.
Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish and place in the oven. After 45 minutes check for doneness by putting a skewer in the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. (Mine took about 75 minutes to come out pretty clean, but could’ve gone a little longer. Rather go too long than too short, no-one likes uncooked cake (unless it’s batter straight from the mixer!)
Serve with whipped cream, ice cram, or just by itself!
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Oh, and this is what happens when you’re impatient and remove it from the pan within a couple of minutes. (Truth be told, we had an appointment and NEEDED to leave…)
The other week, when I went to the farm a couple of minutes form my house to buy my produce, they had some really big veggies laying around. They were advertized as ‘Roemeense courgettes” (Romanian zucchini) and I had no idea what they were. They looked like a cross between a pumpkin (because of the very hard skin and the stem) and a very very large very pale summer squash. The farmer-lady told me it had a very mild taste, almost towards potato and that it was very versatile.
Not scared of a challenge I brought this Romanian vegetable home with me. All 2 .something kilo’s of it.
During the week I hadn’t come across a reason to use it,and by the weekend I knew I had to give it a go some time relatively soon. If only because we were running out of other veggies.
I’ve used the Romanian vegetable in a very pure form, just cutting them up and frying them in oil, like fries if you will. And I’ve used them in a cake/sweetbread. Both were succesfull.
After using the vegetable as if it was a potato and frying it, I decided I wanted to know what it was exactly. After all, I’d never heard about it before. I googled and googled and finally found pictures of that same vegetable that had inhabited my kitchen counter for a week before being butchered. It was a banana squash.
So stay tuned for my banana squash recipes. 2 of them are divine! (and the third and final recipe hasn’t been thought up and made yet, so I can’t do much more than hope it’ll be awesome!)
Last Saturday L and I went into Duikelman to buy me a set of knives. Actually, to buy me 1 chef’s knife, which was my birthday present, however we ended up with a set of 3 knives. L is wonderful that way. He saw the glimmer in my eyes and me drooling and decided I should get the whole set. More on the set later though.
While walking around the store I saw about a million-and-a-half things I wanted to have, and then, there it was, the beautiful, old-fashioned French charlotte that had been on my wish list for quite some time.
I’d wanted a charlotte ever since I watched an old episode of Julia Child’s ‘The French Chef’ online. She adviced the charlotte as the perfect dish to make soufflés.
The timing couldn’t have been better, as the deadline for the Daring Cooks challenge was coming up and this month’s challenge was soufflé.
Sure I could’ve made it sooner and made it in two cocottes or something, but hey, sometimes you’re lucky, Murphy can be on your side and in this very instance my procrastination lead to me being able to bake my soufflé in the beloved charlotte. I love it!
Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.
Following Dave and Linda’s suggestions I adapted one of their recipes to my own needs (and to the stuff I happened to have laying around and sounded good in a souffle. I ended up with a cheese and scallion soufflé. And my-o-my, was it good or what?!
Next time I make it, I’ll tweak the recipe some more, using Julia Child’s tips. And when I’m not making a huge batch, I will omit the collar I put around the charlotte, so I can actually see what’s going on. Oh, and we’ll have a camera set-up so we’ll be able to time lapse it. But other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing, as it was Just That Awesome!
As a final note, I’d like to add, soufflés aren’t as scary as they sound. Even if you remove them a little too early (which I did) you can still put them back and they’ll rise back up again, at least to a size that’s okay to show off. Oh, and when using the convection setting on your oven (which was a must in the oven I used) lower the temperature a bit to prevent running the risk of it over-browning (which was why I tried to remove it too early).
All in all this challenge proved a huge succes. L told me I should make this more often, which I definitely will!
[print_this]Cheese and scallion soufflé (recipe makes 1 medium sized one)
- 20 grams of butter
- 20 grams of AP flour
- 160 ml milk
- salt, pepper, nutmeg and hot sauce to taste
- 3 eggs, separated
- 2 small scallions
- about 70-75 grams of grated cheese (I used emmenthal)
- 1/4 tsp (heaping) cream of tartar
- butter and tin foil as necessary
Prepare your dish and collar by buttering them generously. Sprinkle some grated cheese (a tiny bit) on the bottom and sides of the dish.
In a small saucepan melt your butter and add the flour. Stir together and let it cook about 2 minutes to lose the flour-y taste. Heat up your milk in the microwave. Take saucepan off the stove, pour the hot milk in, all at once and whisk vigorously until you’ve got a thick white sauce. If it doesn’t thicken up much, place it on the heat again for a little bit while whisking. You probably won’t need that though! Add salt, pepper a tiny bit of nutmeg and a drop or 2 of tabasco or other hot sauce if so desired.
Once the sauce has cooled down a little bit (make sure it doesn’t form a ‘crust’ by whisking occasionally), add the 3 egg yolks to the sauce and stir them in completely. Chop the scallions into thin half rings and mix them in with the white sauce.Beat your egg whites in a very clean bowl (it’s best when the egg whites are room temperature), once they start to foam a little, add the cream of tartar and a pinch of salt. Beat them until they form stiff peaks, but still have their ‘velvety’ sheen. Stir a good spoonful of the egg whites into the now severely cooled down white/egg yolk sauce, then transfer all the sauce mix into the side (emptied/pushed aside) of the egg white bowl. Fold the whites into the sauce, while adding in the grated cheese a bit at a time (save a heaping tablespoon of cheese to sprinkle on top). Fold quickly, gently, but thoroughly!
Pour the mixture into your baking dish and (if desired) place your buttered collar around the dish. Place the souffle in a pre-heated oven (180 degrees celsius on a regular setting, probably about 160-165 at convection) for about 40 minutes. Check after 30-35 minutes (not before 25 minutes) and sprinkle cheese on top, then keep an eye on it to make sure it’s fully cooked and not burned before you remove it from the oven.
You can test your soufflé like you’d test a cake, with a skewer to see if the filling is still wet.Serve your souffle with a nice green salad as a main dish, or separately as a starter. If you bake it in individual small dishes like cocottes, reduce the baking time by a lot! (25 minutes or so?!??!)
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What to do when you have the ingredients for taco’s, but the weather is awful? Instead of taco’s, you make a taco pie!
This NaBloPoMo thing isn’t working out for me very well. Now it’s even been 2 days of no posting. It’s really not that I don’t want to. Life has just been a little on the hectic side. With both our cars broken down, lots of work, not enough sleep and a house that’s still not finished (is a house ever finished?) I prioritized cooking and eating over blogging about it. It stinks, I know, I blame myself. However this blog is supposed to be fun and not a chore. So my NaBloPoMO ia not going to be about posting every day anymore. It’ll be about posting when I can and want to.
In the mean time I did do some wonderful cooking, and L did take some pictures, so eventually you’ll hear all about it.
First things first though, taco pie.
The cold and dreary weather that seems to have settled on annoying me, made it impossible for me to get excited about taco’s. Strange but true! At the same time a nice pie sounds just wonderful to me on those days. Combine the fact that you have all (or most) of the ingredients to eat taco’s with the craving for something heavier, and there’s taco pie.
I found this recipe on some tv-related-non-cooking-forum a number of years ago and have been tweaking it ever since. It’s different each time I make it, but it always has the same basics. Ground taco seasoned meat, and beans in a puff pastry crust with taco chips between layers.
I didn’t have refried beans on hand, but did have a can of black beans, so I put those in a frying pan and smooshed them to obtain the same texture. As I said, the recipe is versatile, so just use whatever you have on hand and make that pie. You tummy will love you!
[print_this]Taco pie (recipe makes 1 big pie!)
- 1 package of puff pastry
- about 1 – 1.5 lbs of meat (ground – I usually use beef or pork, but turkey or chicken would be great as well)
- 1 can of refried beans
- 2 hands full of tortilla chips
- Grated cheese, as much as you like
- taco seasoning, 1 tbsp or more – to taste
- Some slices jalapenos (to taste, optional)
- Hot sauce, tomatoes, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce or whatever you fancy as a topping (optional)
This is the easiest pie in the world! Repeat after me, this is the easiest pie in the world!
Ground your pork and brown it in a skillet, while cooking add the taco seasoning.
Line your pie pan (I use a BIG non-stick tart pan) with puff pastry. Place the browned pork in the pie pan, this is your bottom layer. Crubble up some corn chips and sprinkle over pork. Sprinkle some cheese over chips. Open your can of beans and smear the beans over the chips as your next layer, then add more corn chips and put a generous amount of cheese on top.
Bake in a hot oven (375 F, 180-190 C) for about 20-25 minutes, or until all the cheese has melted and formed a crust, and the puff pastry is baked.Top with any taco topping you like and enjoy!
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