Chocolate cake with chocolate outside, chocolate inside and more chocolate in between

Pardon me, but the pictures do not do this chocolate cake any justice. Allow me to describe how it really is - it is a bed of chocolate sponginess for a creamy chocolate spread doused in chocolate icing. So yes, it has a lot of chocolate. And sugar and butter and all those mood-enhancing things. But the best part is, you need only to eat one slice, just ONE to get all the mood-enhancing benefits. And when it is dark and grey and drab outside or when one is feeling blah, this cake just lifts you. And contrary to the all the butter and sugar, this cake is a life-saver - it has saved me more than once from the depressing winter blues.

The recipe is taken off Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake but I went freestyle on the icing. And although she called for 30% fat content sour cream, I took a leap of faith and used 10% Greek Yoghurt, just because that was all I had in the fridge. And it is a perfect substitute! So not only is this cake a mood-enhancing life-saver, now it is also good for you! (As if I need another reason to eat chocolate cake!)

So here it is folks, my version of Chocolate Cake with chocolate outside, chocolate inside and more chocolate in between.

My kids requested candles as decoration and blew them out ..oh about 20 times before we got to eat the cake!

 For the cake 

• 200 grams plain flour
• 200 grams caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 40 grams best-quality cocoa powder
• 175 grams soft unsalted butter
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 150 ml Greek Yoghurt (the thick kind) or Sour Cream

The Super Easy Method :  

• Put everything in a food processor and let it run for a few minutes until everything is mixed well into a brown batter. It should be of a thick consistency.

• Pour everything into a pan and slide into a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for about 25-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cake is spongy.  

The Usual Mixer Method.

• Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl

• In another bowl, beat the soft butter (at room temperature) until you have a creamy mixture. Then add in the flour mixture.

• In yet another bowl, whisk the cocoa, greek yoghurt or sour cream, vanilla and eggs together and beat this into your bowl of flour and butter mixture.

• Pour everything into a pan and slide into a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for about 25-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cake is spongy.

For the Icing

• 50 grams unsalted butter
• 125 grams 70% dark chocolate (broken into small pieces)
• 150 grams icing sugar
• 125 ml Greek Yoghurt or sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt the butter and chocolate in a microwave. I microwave for 1 minute, stir to melt all the clumps and microwave for another minute or less until I get a smooth chocolate syrup that I cannot resist dipping a spoon into (and licking it clean)

In the meantime, blitz your icing sugar in the food processor to get rid of all the lumps. Or you can just sift it.

Finally, add all ingredients into the food processor and whizz away until you get a sticky decadent, chocolate cream. Or add everything into a bowl and mix away using a mixer or, an old fashioned hand-whisk.

Cool it off in a fridge (or outside on the balcony on winter day- to let winter know that your mood reinforcements are coming!)

The you are ready to spread it on the cake.

The Assembly


Let the cake cool and then cut into 2 halves, top and bottom. Make a chocolate cake sandwich with icing in the middle and then spread more chocolate icing generously all around. Decorate as you see fit. Or not as a chocolate cake is a gorgeous sight in itself. Cut yourself a big piece and enjoy with your cuppa! Mmmmm...

Tuna and grilled vegetables tart

It is Christmas market time again and the delicious smells are wafting the air. I think that is the best part, together with the glittering lights. If you are not familiar with Christmas markets in Germany, it is when the market squares are filled with stands selling food to eat and things to buy. And a skating rink or two if you are lucky. And talking about food, the air is constantly filled with delicious, and I mean delicious smells of food that somehow seems even more mouth-watering when smelt in the cold 0 degree air - sausages frying on a wood fire grill, soups in large pots, waffles baking in open ovens, various cinnamon and vanilla-filled treats topped with cherry jam and whipped cream, hot fruit punches punctuating the air with scents of orange and grapes -  the list goes on and on and I will add a few pics of the Heidelberg Christmas market in the upcoming posts, but right now, I just want to encourage your imagination (since nobody seems to do that anymore in this day and age of instant gratification!)

And one of the yummy treats that I like to eat at the Christmas market is called the Flammkuchen , which is kinda like a thin-crust pizza topped with creme fraiche and various toppings like the original of ham and onions, or my favourite of smoked salmon and roasted leek and another of grilled vegetable and feta cheese. But the problem of eating a Flammkuchen for me is, that I usually get bored after the 4th slice and then I will stop eating it, after which I will be hungry again an hour later since I basically have eaten 4 very thin slices of dough with a scant topping. So I have made this homage to the Flammkuchen using a thicker (puff) pastry and having more toppings. Once you have tried this version, feel free to substitute the vegetables and remember to spread the word coz everyone should know how to make something this delicious and easy!


For the topping :

1 small zucchini sliced thinly
1 small red capsicum/bell pepper in thin strips
A handful of chopped olives
2 cans of dolphin-friendly tuna in water or sunflower oil mixed with
As much mayonnaise as you want to drench your tuna in (I used 5 tablespoons!)
A sprinkling of grated parmesan


For the base :

The easy way - Use one pack of ready rolled puff pastry from the supermarket. This is the time to pat yourself on the back for being so clever.
 

Ready, set and roll out the dough!

Spread the tuna mayonnaise evenly over the dough. Arrange the zucchini, capsicum over it and artfully (or not) strew the olive pieces over everything. Take a step back and admire your edible painting. Then put in the oven at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes or until the sides are nicely golden brown and the vegetables grilled. Take it out of the oven and sprinkle the grated parmesan and watch it melt deliciously over everything. Slice and serve with more salad if you want, or roll the slice and tell your children these are edible fingers. Crunch and munch and let it be known how easy deliciousness can be :-)

Edible Craft - Vanilla Almond Cookies

Can you smell it already?

I got this recipe off a German women's magazine while at the hairdresser's having a haircut (yes, very Desperate Hausfrau I know). But the kindergarten was having a bake sale for the Christmas market on the weekend and this was one of the simplest, most delicious cookies that I know and never mess up. And it was one of the classic German Chrismas cookies (kinda like Pineapple Tarts for Hari Raya/Chinese New Year in Singapore) so what better to sell at the Christmas Market? The only problem was stopping from popping one in my mouth (and my son's) every time we put the sugar topping on 5 cookies. But then again, that was merely quality control testing at its most efficient.
 
Usually, these cookies are crescent shaped. According to stories, these cookies were 'invented' in Vienna to commemorate the retreat of the Moors/Muslims from that area. Thus the crescent shape which, I suppose, represented Muslims. How it became popular for Christmas, I do not know. But they are crispy melt-in-yuor-mouth delicious. A note of warning though - this short-crust pastry dough can be tough to handle in a hot tropical climate. In this case, the fridge is your best friend. Put in the fridge whenever you think the dough is melting, ok?

Vanillakipferln (about 50-70 cookies, depending on size and shape)

200g all purpose flour
80 grams sugar
175 very cold butter, cut into small pieces
2 large egg yolks, beaten lightly
100g fine ground almonds
Extract from 1 vanilla pod
A pinch of salt
Icing sugar for dusting

Ready? Set. Go!

I have 2 secrets for this cookie - 1) frozen butter 2) food processor. If you don't have a food processor, you can just use a normal mixer with a kneading function or go old school all the way - use your hands (obviously butter cannot be frozen then). But the less you touch the dough with your warm hands, the better.

Food processor method

Put all ingredient EXCEPT the yolks in and mix until mixture represents dry breadcrumbs. Then add the beaten egg yolks a little at a time until the mixture kinda curdles. It will not form into a ball, but merely look like small dough balls. At this point, turn the machine off, (whole process takes about 5 minutes) take the dough out, form into rough log shapes, wrap it up in cling film and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes before moving on.

Mixer with kneading function


Pretty similar as above, but it will take slightly longer and the mixture will form into a ball. At which point you refrigerate as above.

Using hands.

Make sure you have cold hands by running under cold water and wiping them dry. Mix the dry ingredients until they form breadcrumbs (or use a pastry cutter). Then add the beaten egg yolks and knead until you can form a ball shape. Then refrigerate. The less you knead the dough, the better.

After 15 mins or so, roll out the dough between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper until about 2 cm thick. Cut into whatever shapes you fancy. Place in an oven at 160 degrees for about 15 minutes (they should remain fairly white/beige). Then take them out, and let them cool a little before turning them them onto another tray (be careful as they are crumbly when hot). Then dust the icing sugar on top while the cookies are still warm, to help the sugar stick to the cookies. Try not to eat all at one go.

These cookies keep well in an air-tight container for about 3 weeks. If they last that long. Enjoy!

A Wanton Char Kway Teow Story

Sometimes a Singapore girl just needs Singapore food. What is Singapore food, you may ask. Now that is not so easy to define. It is a reflection of our heritage and our culture that is based on the major immigrant groups back when Singapore was still a British colony pre-1965. Our forefathers back then came via ships from parts of the then 'Malay Archipelago' which included Indonesia and the Riau islands, India and China. And Singapore, being a busy trading port back then (and still is the biggest port in the world in terms of volume), attracted various traders and even more immigrants from other parts of the world. They came, they worked and they stayed and they interacted and even learnt each other's languages and cultures. Which led to the rise of 'Singlish' as a form of communication (a mixture of English, Hokkien and Malay slang which is now an integral part of our culture). Not only did the cultures and languages mingled, so did the food. And thus, you have situations like this where a Singaporean girl with a Malay cultural background living in Germany hankers for 'Chinese food'. Specifically Char Kway Teow and Wanton noodles. Oh Hawker Centre uncle, where are you?

Having no luck with finding someone to cook what I wanted for me, I had to go pick up the ingredients from the Asian Supermarket and cook it myself (story of my life!). Luckily all I needed were dried rice noodles, sweet and salty soy sauces, frozen seafood and dumplings, eggs and a bottle of (damn shiok!) sambal (Malay-style chilli paste) that luckily, I could buy from my neighbourhood Malaysian restaurant. Thus it was on that cold Sunday night that I rolled up my sleeves, took out my trusty frying pan, channelled a hawker centre uncle and set to wok (forgive me, but how could I resist that pun?)

The result is just like a Singaporean - a mashup of cultures on a plate. Happy tummy makes a happy mummy. And happy kids too :-)

Wanton Char Kway Teow aka Fried Flat Rice Noodles with Soya Sauce, Prawns and Chicken Dumpling Topped with a Generous Amount of Chilli Paste, Spring Onions and Fried Onions too!

1/2 packet of flat rice noodles (it was just me and the kids)
5 tablespoons of thick dark sweet soya sauce
3 tablespoons of light salty soya sauce
A handful of raw prawns
6 frozen dumplings of your choice
About 3 tablespoons of oil for frying
1 or 2 eggs
1 fat clove of garlic, minced

Chopped spring onions
Fried onions
Sambal

Prepare to wok!! (Ok, ok I'll stop!)

Prepare the noodles according to packet instructions. Mine said just soak in warm or cold water.

Heat the wok with the oil. Don't be afraid to crank up the heat. When the oil is hot, add the minced garlic. Then add the noodles and soya sauce in quick succession. Mix well. Add more or less of the soya sauces as your taste buds deem fit. Then add the prawns and the dumplings and a little bit of water to let everything meld together. Stir, while enjoying the smell. When the prawns and dumplings are cooked, make a hole in the centre of the noodles and drop an egg into it. Scramble and then cover it with a noodles. Wait for a few seconds and scrape the bottom of the wok and turn the noodles and the egg over and over again, moistening the noodles. Turn of heat, and let the leftover heat cook the egg while it clings onto the noodles. Note that all this should take about 10 minutes or slightly less, depending on how hot your stove gets. A slightly burnt flavour is actually rather desirable as it adds another depth to the taste sensation.

Pile the noodles on plates and garnish generously with chopped spring onions, fried onions and a BIG dollop of sambal (ok none for the kids), with a squeeze of lime. I actually closed my eyes, sighing with happiness when the sweet-salty silkiness of the noodles topped with the crunch of the onions, melded with the bite of the chilli paste in my mouth. Happiness is, finding the perfect antedote to the cold grey and rainy weather wíth a taste from home. Even though it was cooked far, far away.

Chocolate Muffin with Creamy Phily Cheese Filling

I hardly write about sweet things on this blog, but that does not mean that I hardly make them! When the cold and gray hits and the kids act up, I need major backup power and sustenance. In the form of choc.o.late. They mostly come in packs of ferrero rocher, but I do like something warm and chocolatey out of the oven. I've had variations of warm and chocolatey out of the oven - with no flour, with olive oil, with ground almonds, with creamy cheesy filling, with gooey chocolate filling, with something crusty at the bottom, with nuts...the list is endless. And since I am baking them anyway, why not share them with the world so that you all can enjoy my sustenance too? After all chocolate is so life-sustaining that even mountaineers carry them around. And we all know how much stamina being a busy woman needs. So here is one of the recipes of stamina-giving life sustenance that is not only delicious, but you can actually rope one of your toddlers to help you with (while the other, thankfully, naps). And it is worth every bite and the mess you may have to clean up afterwards. (Note to self and other unsuspecting mothers - do not let your son lift the mixer from the bowl while the whisks are still rotating. Nobody likes that much chocolate that they want to paint their kitchen walls with it!)

(Adapted from the Sarotti Cocoa Recipe)
For the Chocolate Muffins

• 125g soft butter
• 90g white sugar
• 30g brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs

Beat  everything BUT the eggs together until it forms a light, whitish batter. And then add the eggs, one at a time and whisk for a few more minutes.

• 200g all purpose or cake flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 20g good quality cocoa (I used Sarotti Cocoa)

Mix the above dry ingredients together and sift them into another bowl.

Add the sifted dry ingredients into the bowl with the wet ingredients and mix until the mixture becomes chocolatey. Resist dipping your fingers into them for a taste. Then add the final ingredient:

• 150ml milk (I used organic full-fat)

This should make the cake dough lighter with a dropping consistency. At this point, ok you or your child can dip your finger to the side of the bowl (I'm trying to be hygenic here) for a taste.

For the Philly Cream Cheese Filling

• 100 g Philadelphia Cream Cheese
• 25 g sour cream
• 1 teaspoon of milk
• 2 teaspoons of sugar

Whisk everything together to form a smooth creamy paste. But frankly, I have also used the cream cheese direct from the carton, with no complaints.

And Now, To Bake It!

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Meanwhile take out your muffin tray and fill them up with 12 muffin cups. Fill up each muffin cup halfway with the chocolate cake batter, then 1 teaspoon of the creamy cheese filling, and then top it up with more cake batter until about almost full. This batter usually leaves me with 2 more muffin portions, which I bake in 2 ramekins and gives me a delightful 14 muffins altogether, instead of just 12 (woohooo!)

After only 20 minutes, take the muffins out of the oven and let them rest a while to cool for as long as you can smell without eating them. Then sit down with your little helper and watch his face light up as he eats the chocolate muffin he helped to bake. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is worth cleaning the chocolate splatter mess for. And the muffin is pretty darn delicious too!

Stuffed capsicum/bell peppers in creamy tomato sauce served with butter pillaf.

Whoopeedoo another entry! Sorry folks for the radio silence. My other job at the University of Heidelberg suddenly required me to conduct exams for German students who wanted placements in English-speaking countries, Singapore included, and I suddenly got swamped with work. That's right non-Singaporean folks! Singapore is an English-speaking country and noooooo we are not in China! And thankfully, not near the Phillippines or Vietnam though at this point, I just want to do my part in spreading the word that if you have not yet donated in some way or other to the efforts in aiding the people in need, this is a good time to do so.

So if you are thinking of making this meal today, do spare a thought for the unfortunate. I know I may seem to be paying only lip-service since I am sitting in my warm home, eating this warm meal with my family, but let's all do our part in trying to spread kindness and warmth, however little it may be. Even if it is just instilling in our children the thought that we have to help others in need.

For the Capsicum/Bell Peppers with Minced Meat Stuffing

• 500g minced meat and
• 1 onion chopped finely seasoned with 
• 1 teaspoon coriander powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin powder
• Dashes of salt and pepper
• A few sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped or 1/2 tsp of powdered version
• And an egg to bind the meat together
• (Add some breadcrumbs if you have any coz it will add to the texture)

Mix everything together and stuff as much meat as you can into 4 capsicums/bell peppers that have been halved and cored with the green stalks removed. Place them on a tray and slide them into the oven at 180 degrees for about 20-30 minutes or until the capsicum/peppers are kinda grilled with brown spots and the meat is well done (you can cut through one of the capsicum halves if you are not sure and want to check).


For the Creamy Tomato Sauce

• A clove of garlic, finely minced
• 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon of creme fraiche or single cream
• 1/4 cup of apple juice
• Salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon of butter
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil

Melt the butter and olive oil. Add the garlic and let it sizzle with a pinch of salt. Then add the tomato paste and creme fraiche/cream and let it meld together. Then add the apple juice to form a sauce to your liking. Feel free to add more or less of the ingredients to get the consistency that you like. Let the mixture boil for a little bit. Then check for seasoning and set aside. 

For the Butter Pillaf

• 1 cup of Thai Jasmine Rice
• 1 1/2 cups of water (read your packet instructions)
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 1 teaspoon of dried or fresh dill
• Salt and pepper for seasoning.

Add all ingredients together and place in a rice cooker. Or if you don't have one, then boil everything on medium heat. Stir the rice mixture once in a while.  Once there is no more water in the pot, turn down the heat to minimum (or even switch it off if your stove is really hot). Fluff it up with a fork and leave it for another 5 minutes with a half-covered lid. If heat is not already turned off, turn off heat now.

Now get your children to help with setting the table while you plate the food like this or in a similar meat-rice-sauce permutation. Who cares, they all land in the mouth and disappear within the next minute anyway. And then they will ask for seconds. (This is now my hubs' favourite meal)

Woohoo! Mission accomplished.

Chicken Cacciatore with Minimum Fuss

The good thing about renting an apartment when vacationing with 2 toddlers is that I still get to eat good food without having to stress about how they would behave in a restaurant, since I can cook the food myself. I have no problem bringing them out to restaurants most of the time back home, but I have some reservations about eating dinner out when in another country just because I don't know how the restaurants would react to food all over the floor. Plus I actually like buying local produce and recreating the food in my own rented kitchen. Well yes of course, it depends on which country I am in, but this time being in Italy and having eaten at many authentic Italian restaurants and Italian restaurants in Italy when I was sans kids, recreating certain dishes was actually fun for me. Kinda like playing the Italian mama (minus the big hips I hope!)

So this time, it was Chicken Cacciatore, or Hunter's Style Chicken Stew. There are uncountable variations of this classic, but mine is a minimum fuss, no alcohol style, adapted for the busy mom with 2 kids everywhere. Especially after a day out of sunny and windy fun in the mountains.

  

 And then we came back, all hungry and happy, to a warm comforting stew

 

 For the chicken

• 3 chicken legs (I prefer this to breasts as I find breasts too dry. Plus the bones in the chicken legs actually add to the flavour of the stew, without having to resort to additional broths or worse, glutamate-filled granules)
• Dried Italian herb seasoning 
• Salt and pepper 
• Garlic powder
• Salt
• 3 or more tablespoons of olive oil

Mix all ingredients together and season the chicken legs with it. This can be done the night before if you are one of those mommies who plan ahead what to cook. But if you are more like me and tend to cook at the spur of the moment, just leave it aside while the oven warms up to 180 degrees. Once the oven is heated, just slide the chicken pieces onto the middle shelf and let it cook until the skin is brown because white chicken skin is NOT pretty in a stew. Should take about 30 minutes, turned once.

In case you have no oven, which was exactly what happened to me in my rented apartment, you can fry the chicken pieces in some oil in a frying pan. For this method though, to make sure that that the chicken pieces cooked quickly, I bashed them unmercilessly flat. It did cook quicker, but there was a lot of wiping up of the oil splatters and the whole apartment smelt of chicken after that. But at least it was a delicious smell.

For the Gravy

• A can of Italian tomatoes or passata (pureed tomato)
• 1 onion, chopped roughly,
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 capsicums/bell peppers, chopped as roughly as the onions
• 1 zucchini (in keeping with the Italian vege theme) also chopped likewise
• 1 carrot, well ditto above
• Dried Italian herbs
• Shakes of salt and pepper
• 2 or 3 bay leaves
• 1 cup of apple or grape juice (both works for me, instead of wine)
• A handful of olives
• A dash of balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons or so of olive oil

Add olive oil to a heated pan. Add the garlic and onions and bay leaves with a pinch of salt to prevent them from burning. When the onions are transluscent, add the other chopped vegetables and slick them in the aromatic oil. Then add the juice and then the dried herbs and pepper, and more salt if needed. Let the stew boil merrily and then add the olives and balsamic vinegar to balance the salty sweetness.

When the chicken pieces are brown enough (they do not have to be completely cooked through), add them to the pot and put the lid on and let the flavours envelope and meld together. The longer, the better although I generally let them simmer for another 15 minutes, or until the chicken meat is tender enough to melt from the bone and the gravy has reduced and is slightly thickened. You can add more water or juice if you want more gravy, but also add some flour if you want your gravy thicker. Then let it simmer some more while you sort out your holiday pics or dance around with your kids.

Once the taste and the consistency are to your liking and the chicken flesh comes off easily from the bone, it is time to eat! I served mine over leftover boiled potatoes, but you can just as easily serve it with mashed potatoes or pasta. Yummyyumyum.

Buon Appetito!

Pasta Carbonara meets Mac & Cheese

 

It has been a rough and tumble few days with hyper kids, snotty noses and unintended playground tours when we actually wanted to do mountain walks and visit old towns and castles. But never mind, as parents, we have been getting more and more adept at combining what we want with what the kids want. So that afternoon, it was a walk around the Parcines town, with its quaint cobblestone streets and houses and old buildings, combined with a visit to a nearby playground under a 400-year-old Sequioh Redwood tree. Then when the kids were tired and hungry, we went back to the apartment for a quick cooking session (15 mins!) and a quick lunch, to be followed by a drive to the waterfalls up on the mountain. By that time, both kids have succumbed to exhaustion and we actually had a quiet couple time (albeit in the car) talking about love, life and the universe. Gotta love these stolen moments :-) 

Pasta Carbonara meets Mac & Cheese (for Mommy, Daddy and 2 hungry hyper toddlers)

250g Pappardelle (or any pasta that holds creamy sauces well)

1 egg

50g grated parmesan

100g grated cheddar

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 small zucchini or a handful of frozen peas

1 large sun-ripe tomato diced into pieces as small as the zucchini or the peas

Salt and pepper shakes

Dried Italian herbs seasoning (or whatever you like and have on hand)

Dashes of garlic powder

Ready? Set. Go

Boil the pappardelle according to packet instructions and reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water after draining the rest. Set aside.

While the pasta cooks, set out a big bowl and crack in the one egg. Add the grated cheeses and oil and season well with salt and pepper plus whatever dried or fresh herbs you have on hand. I used my handy Italian dried herbs mix and added powdered garlic as well. Stir the savoury cheesy mixture until everything is well-mixed.

Pour the boiled pappardelle back into the pot. Working quickly, stir the savoury cheesy mixture into the pasta, stirring constantly. Add the pasta water little by little to your desired cheesy consistency. Don't worry if it seems too wet intially as the starchy water will bind with the sauce and make the pasta even cheesier and silkier. And the vegetables and check for seasoning. 

If you want, you can even add bits of smokes salmon or sausages to this dish. But I decided to stick to the vegetarian version and and it was lapped up by adults and kids alike. Perhaps it was all the running around at the playground, or the sun warming our faces as we eat, but pasta always seemed to taste better in Italy.

Buon Appetito!

Chicken Pie Tart On The Run

So there we were, 2 brave parents who wanted to get out of the humdrum of daily life managing work and 2 toddlers, that we booked a short 6-day holiday in the Italian Alps. We were sure it would be a manageable 6-hour drive (7, tops), and we would reach our getaway one-bedroom fully-fitted holiday apartment in a quaint village, all excited and ready for our adventure and a relaxing time. We packed DVDs we wanted to watch, books we wanted to read, and planned places we wanted to go, so sure that we would have time to do them all. It would be a refreshing break, we told ourselves. It would do us good, we said. Nobody would fall sick, no no no!

However we forgot to remember how unpredictable life with toddlers can be! The aforementioned 6-hour car trip became an 11-hour one, with stops at restaurants with kids' play corners, picnic breaks at sunny playgrounds (where we ate the Chicken Pie Tart that I had baked the night before), 2 toddler whine sessions, 1 mommy meltdown session and a blessed period when both children fell asleep. And then we met traffic jams. But thanks to dear daddy who pulled us all together, we got to our apartment in Parcines in one piece, although later than planned. And the place was what we had hoped for - nice and big, bright and airy with sunshine and mountains all around. And so it was worth it.  And the next day would be even better, we were sure of it. And hopefully, more predictable.

View of Pacines, Southern Tyrol from our southwest balcony

View that greets me in the morning

Chicken Pie Tart

I cannot survive on only cold sandwiches and fruits on car trips so if it has to be eaten cold, it had better be filled with yummy things in a flaky pastry crust. So I came up with this tart as I had run out of dough to make the topping and it turned out pretty darn delicious. You can also make individual pastry cases I suppose but that would be too much pastry in every bite methinks. In case of extreme lethargy or too-much-to-pack syndrome, just buy puff pastry or shortcrust pastry from the nearest supermarket. Otherwise, this is my recipe for a shortcrust pastry using the food processor.

For the Shortcrust Pastry

I followed the same pastry recipe as the one for the Salmon and Buttered Onions Tart, which is pretty much my fallback easy pastry recipe. Here it is again

• 200g all purpose flour
• 100g cold butter
• A pinch of salt.
• 2-4 tablespoons of cold water (but don't add them all in one go!)

Put everything EXCEPT the water into the food processor and let it rip for about 20 seconds or until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Then add in the 2 tablespoons of water and wait until the dough comes together. You will notice that the 'breadcrumbs' will get bigger and fatter and suddenly there is this lump of dough banging itself against the walls. If if doesn't do that, then add in more water, 1 tablespoon at a time. But be patient.

Then take the dough out and place it on a floured greaseproof paper. I just roll the dough out on the greaseproof paper and when the dough is the size I want it to be, I lift the paper and place it such that the dough is above the pie dish, flip the paper 180 degrees and let the flattened dough drop squarely on the pie dish. Remember to grease your pie dish first.

Bake blind in a 180 degree oven for about 5 minutes or so until it has hardened and the colour has changed from pale white to beige.

For the Chicken Filling

• 250g chicken breast or thigh meat, cut into small pieces
• 1 potato, cut into small cubes
• 1 carrot, cubed likewise
• 1 onion, sliced and diced
• A handful of sliced and quartered mushrooms
• A handful of peas
• A handful of corn (frozen or canned)
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1 tablespoon of oil
• About a quarter of a glass (any ol' glass) of water
• About a quarter of a the same glass of apple juice
• Whatever herbs, fresh or dried you have on hand. I used an Italian Dried Seasoning Mix in view of my destination.
• Salt and pepper for seasoning
• Generous topping of grated parmesan

Add butter and oil to a heated pan. When the butter has melted, add the diced onions and stir until the onion is transluscent. Then add the flour until it forms a thickened buttery mixture. At this point, add the small pieces of chicken meat and stir until it is coated in the thick buttery mixture. Add more oil if you think the mixture is too thick and cannot coat the chicken pieces.

Then add the potatoes, carrots and mushrooms. Stir them around before adding the water and apple juice to wet the mixture. Mix in the herbs and seasonings. When the mixture is bubbling merrily, add the peas and corn, stir, cover and let them cook on medium heat. Remember to stir often to avoid the flour mixture from burning at the bottom.

After about 15 minutes, check for the softness of the vegetables and the doneness of the chicken meat. The mixture should be thick, kinda like chowder consistency. If not, add a bit more flour and let it cook a while longer.

The Assembly

Take the cooled pre-baked pastry out (it's ok too if it is still hot or warm to the touch), and spread the chicken filling in it. Top with a generous grating of parmesan as this will form a topping and will keep the filling wet and juicy in the middle.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes until the parmesan topping is melty and the crust is done to the right degree of brown crispness. If you find that the parmesan topping got too brown and crispy while waiting for the crust to bake, add more grated parmesan topping on top in the last few minutes for added cheesy-meltiness.

Wait for the tart to cool and pack it into your picnic basket. I baked this the night before and left it on the counter to cool before packing it up for our 6am start.

End result - delicious factor is upped by 10 degrees when eaten in the sun. Beats a boring cold sandwich on any picnic day!

Enjoying lunch in the sun

Toddler potion

Mommy portion with extra grated parmesan on top.

Chargrilled Tuna with Pan fried Zucchini, Tomatoes and Olives served with Buttered Saffron Rice

I love seafood, but living in the middle of Germany, "seafood" is usually defined as fish and "fresh fish" usually means flash frozen ones that travelled about 6 hours in a truck from the coast after perhaps 4 hours of processing. Seafood that in Singapore would have been held by the tail, prodded with a stick and scoffed at. But once in a while, I get my hands on some really fresh, good quality (need I say) expensive fish which gets me all jittery and excited at the same time because for one - how will I cook this? and for two - will my kids eat this? And so out come the cookbooks and this one was inspired by Jamie Oliver's Char Grilled Tuna with Vegetables. I always have zucchini in my fridge as this versatile vegetable can be something crunchy (like in a salad), or something crispy (like encrusted in a parmesan crust and baked) or something sweet and saucy like how it was transformed as part of a vegetable dish to accompany the fresh tuna that I was afraid of. It was totally freestyle cooking on a Saturday evening when the whole family was at home. So with the hubs taking care of the bubs for the next half hour (I timed it - it was almost leisurely cooking when I did not have to attend to the kids!), let the tuna transformation begin!

For the Chargrilled Tuna

• 2 fresh, good quality tuna steaks from a sustainable source
• 2 tablespoons of fresh orange juice
• 2 tablespoons of salty soya sauce

For the Pan-fried Vegetables in Sauce

• 1 zucchini/courgette or other green vegetables like broccoli, leek or asparagus, cut slanted or lengthwise for a longish shape
• 3-4 tomatoes, quartered
• A handful of olives, left whole
• 1/2 an onion, sliced
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, mashed with the back of the knife and minced
• 2 tablespoons of fresh orange juice
• 2 tablespoons of water
• Salt and black pepper shakes for seasoning

For the Buttered Saffron rice

• 1/2 an onion, diced as small as you want
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of butter (or Ghee, that lovely clarified butter that you can probably get from an Asian supermarket if you are in Europe or the US or Australia since that is where many of my readers come from! Besides Singapore of course - but you, my fellow Singaporeans, should know what Ghee is!)
• 1 big mug of fragrant Thai jasmine rice
• 2 big mugs of water
• A pinch of saffron
• A pinch of salt

Take a deep breath, Ready? Set. Go!

Actually it is not that difficult, lah (A Singaporean suffix, this "lah". Kinda like the Canadian "eh" or the Chinese "hor", this I-would-say "non-word" emphasises a sentence in a colloquial way, unique to that country, but I digress. Malaysians, please don't hit me).

For the Chargrilled Tuna

Marinate the fish steaks for at least 15 minutes. Then heat a pan until really hot, add the tuna steaks and chargrill them on one side for about a minute. Then flip and do the same to the other side. I like the tuna to be still pink inside so that was enough for me. And since my children are already eating sashimi from the tender age of 1, I am sure they will not complain about eating slightly-pink-in-the-inside tuna. But if you are not like me and your kids are not like mine, feel free to cook the tuna to your degree of doneness.

Cover the tuna and set aside. When cool, slice it lengthwise to be piled on top of the vegetables.

For the Buttered Saffron Rice

Add olive oil and butter or Ghee, the clarified butter to a heated pan and add onions and garlic with a pinch of salt to prevent them from burning. Then pour in the rice and mix the grains around to coat them in the buttery garlicky oil. Oh good heavens, the smell should be heady and appetising by now. When the rice is making crackling and popping sounds, add all the water and let it boil, covered. Take a little bit of the water and add the saffron to it, making a saffron infusion. Add the saffron infusion back into the rice. Check and stir frequently to make sure that the water has not dried yet. Once it does (about 15 minutes on medium heat), turn off the heat, stir and fluff it up with a fork. Cover the pan, but not completely, leaving a space for the steam to escape and fluff up the rice even more.

For the Pan Fried Vegetables in Sauce

Add the onions and the garlic to a pan of heated olive oil (or your preferred vegetable oil), with a pinch of salt, of course. When they are wilted with the smell wafting up, add the rest of the vegetables and cook until they are semi-soft. Then add in the orange juice and some water if you want more sauce. Prick the tomatoes to let the juice out and let them mingle with the other liquids to make a heady sauce. Season and let your tastebuds tingle.

To serve

Pile the rice on your plate and then pile the vegetables and lastly, the tuna slices on top. Savour every spoonful of the buttery tuna and let the fragrant saffron rice envelope your senses. And finally, enjoy your meal and don't forget to congratulate yourself for doing justice to this beautiful fish.

Penne with Prawns in Vegetables, Olives and Lemony Feta Sauce

 

 

There was this debate between my husband and I about whether or not to cover the pot when boiling pasta. My husband watched me cooking pasta once, and that was when we discovered our differences in the kitchen. But luckily, we all have google app on our phones and our favourite catch phrase has since been "Let's look it up!" Believe me, it has averted petty squabbles more than once. So anyway I looked it up and found out that the reasoning behind boiling the pasta without putting on the lid, is for the simple reason that, boiling pasta with the lid on tends to always, always cause the pasta to boil over. So someone decided to skip the mess and not put the lid on, and since no one likes to clean up pasta water mess, the good word just kept spreading around. Thus my conclusion is, if you are willing to watch your pasta like a hawk, by all means, cover that darn pot (you hear me hun?). Othewise, what is a few cents more on the utility bill compared to not having to clean up pasta water mess?

Having said that, this pasta dish took me 20 minutes to cook. Sure my vegetables are haphazardly chopped and my olives were more or less and whole, but they were still delicious all the same. And since I cooked the pasta uncovered, there was no pasta water mess to clean up. That alone, saved me 5 minutes :-) 

 

For the pasta (feeds 2 Adults and 2 toddlers)

• 250g Penne or other kid friendly pasta, cooked according to packet instructions and drained, setting aside about 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Place the cooked pasta back into the empty pot. You will see why I do this, in the later part of the recipe.

For the sauce

• 1/2 an onion, chopped finely
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic,mashed with the back of a knife and minced
• 1 zucchini/courgette, sliced
• 4-5 tomatoes, quartered,
• A handful of olives, left whole or halved
• A handful of raw prawns, deveined and shelled (I used frozen ones that are already shelled and too small to be deveined hehe clever me!)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of creme fraiche or 4 tablespoons of single cream or you can skip this if you feeling guilty (but please, if you are feeding kids, they will simply burn the calories off!)
• 100g (more or less) of feta cheese
• Shakes of salt and black pepper 
• A squeeze of lemon, depending on how you strong you want the lemony taste to be
• Grated parmesan for serving

Feel free to skip the prawns and add more vegetables if you want. I've used broccoli and carrots before, as well as leeks and asparagus. Even frozen peas and frozen french beans. Feel free to freestyle baby!

Ready? Set. Go!

Add the olive oil to the pan and when hot, add the chopped onion and the minced garlic with a pinch of salt to prevent them from burning, and stir until the irresistable garlic aroma wafts over. Then add your zucchini, tomatoes and olives and let them wilt together in the pan, while soaking up the garlicky oil. When the zucchini (or the hardiest vegetable that you are using) is all nice and soft to your liking, stir in the creme fraiche or cream, making sure that it is all well-blended to form a creamy sauce. At this stage, it should still be quite dry, Break up the tomato pieces in the pan to lend tomato juiciness and colour to the sauce.  If you have raw prawns, this is when you cook them. Then add about half a cup of the pasta water to bind the sauce together. When it gets all nice and bubbly, turn the pan off, add the crumbled feta cheese, a squeeze or more of lemon and adjust for seasoning.

I like to do it the Italian way where they add the whole pan of sauce into a pot of drained pasta and stir, and let it sit for a while to soak up all the flavours before serving. Then ladle the pasta on plates with a generous grating of fresh parmesan and fresh cracked pepper and dried chilli flakes if you dare and a few sprigs of basil, if you happen to have them. Then get ready for the creamy, lemony pasta coating your tastebuds and tell me if you do not want seconds!

Mission accomplished.

BBQ Roast Chicken in A Roasted Vegetable Sauce with Baked potatoes and Sour Cream

I have a love affair with roast chicken dishes. I love it that I can just put them in the oven, do stuff completely unrelated to them for the next 45-60 minutes, and then 'Ding!' lunch is ready. My kids love them, I love them and oh have I mentioned my cats love them too? They usually prowl around our feet while we eat chicken, like the predators they are, hoping (and getting) many many tasty morsels.

I'm so hungry mommy! Can I have some chicken prueeesee?

I love this dish for its simplicity. And since I have the habit of marinating the chicken or meat that I've  bought before freezing them, all I have to do on the day that I want to cook this dish is thaw the chicken and cut the vegetables. After arranging everything on a tray, I put it in the oven and then spend the next 45 minutes doing yoga (if the little one lets me. If not, then I will be playing with her AND doing yoga. Quite fun really :-)

Anyway before someone gets confused, there is no cat recipe here!!!!!!

It's strictly chicken and vegetables in a tray y'all, and it's mighty delicious. Here is the recipe.

For the Chicken

• 3 or 4 chicken legs (I use organic free-range and they do taste better!)
• 8 tablespoons of BBQ sauce (of your fave brand)
• Shakes of garlic powder, salt and pepper
• A few pinches of dried rosemary (or a few sprigs of fresh ones)

For the vegetables

• 2 capsicums or bell peppers quartered
• 1 leek, cut into similar sizes
• 2 onions quartered as well
• 1 zucchini/courgette, well, you know the drill
• 6-8 cloves of whole garlic, skin and all (optional)
• 4 large potatoes cubed, or similar amount of baby potatoes 
• Olive or Canola oil. 
• Sprinklings of dried herbs like rosemary and thyme and paprika 

Feel free to substitute vegetables according to what you have in the fridge. Sometimes I throw in black pitted olives too, since that adds a nice saltiness to the sauce in the vegetables.

 To serve:

• Sour Cream and chopped chives, seasoned with salt and pepper
• Or Creme Fraiche and Herbs 
• Tobasco sauce, chilli sauce or chopped fresh chilli as befitting your tastebuds.

Ready? Set. Go!

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Take out a tray and place the cut vegetables on it. Season with pepper and herbs but NO SALT as it will draw out too much liquid from the vegetables (read that somewhere and have not done that to my roasted vegetables ever since).

Place the chicken legs on top, pour some olive oil over everything and slide the tray into the oven.

As for the potatoes, you can either put them on a separate tray or put them together with the vegetables (but you will need a big tray for all of that!).

Let them cook together at 200 degrees for the next 45 minutes, turning once at the 20 minute mark, and another time at the 40 minute mark. The chicken will have shrinked away from the bones, the skin all crispy and dark and there will be charred bits on your vegetables. It all adds to the caramelly, BBQ flavour, but if that is not what you want, then make sure that the chicken covers the vegetables completely and turn the chicken more frequently.

The roasted leek and capsicum somehow forms a delicious caramelly sauce that goes well with all the garlic, if you are a garlic person. When which, you will be squeezing the roasted garlic out of their crispy shells and mashing them into the sauce. If not, then just omit the garlic and just have caramelly sauce to pour over your BBQ roast chicken legs. I have also been known to liberally sprinkle tobasco sauce or chilli sauce, or occasionally chopped fresh chilli over my entire plate while my children watches and wonders why is mommy occasionally wiping tears away from her face?

Yummy for the tummy, that's all I have to say.