Stew Pot Sunday: Vegetable Curry

Well I made a Vegetable Curry from my Company's Coming Slow Cooker cook book.  It was a FAIL!  It had some really good ingredients in it, stuff that I normal use in my Indian curries, but some how it had a wierd smell and tasted bland.  The funny thing was that 3 out of the 4 kids ate it with no complaints, which I thought was weird.  I won't post the recipe, and I won't be making a curry in a crock anytime soon.  I will have to stick with the traditional version that my great friend Mrs. Gray, who is originally from Fiji, taught me.

The one thing that did turn out is my Roti....Its so simple and easy to make, once you get the hang of it.   I remeber being over at Mr.s G's the first few times when she had invited us over for lunch.  The wonderful smells she could create. 

I was in HEAVEN!

Soon after I asked if she could teach me how and thus began my training.  I remember watching her roll roti out and being so quick and then handing me the rolling pin and me trying to do it to.  I ended up with misshapen ones while her's were always round and perfect.  With practice I've gotten pretty fast.

I want to leave you with a recipe for Roti, but it's kinda hard to do as its all by feel, but I'll give it my best shot.

Roti

2 cups flour
about 1 cup very warm water, use more or less depending on the dough.
vegetable oil
salt to taste

I start with the flour in the bowl, add my salt, and slowly add the water until the dough starts to come together, then I add a splash of oil and work it into the dough.  Make sure you don't add to much water as you don't want the dough to be sticky.  If you've ever made bread or pizza dough you want that soft pliable consistency.  The dough won't be smooth after you've kneaded for a bit, BUT let it rest in a bowl covered for about 10 minutes and it will get a smooth texture.  Divide into about 10 balls, and roll out using flour till very thin.  Meanwhile heat up a dry pan. 

Depending on the stove, you may have a high temp or a med temp or something in between.  I use 5 on my electric stove, Mrs. Gray uses hi on her gas stove.  Its all relative.  You just need a temp that you can easily cook and roll the roti at the same time, without the ones in the pan burning.

Place the roti in the pan and cook until you see the dough changes color and gets dimply, flip, and cook the other side. It will start to puff up, flip again and turn it with you spatula till it gets golden brown spots.  Transfer to  a tea towel and brush one side with melted butter, cover with the towel. 

By the time you are done cooking them, the rest of the roti should be soft and yummy!

The Lego Cake.

Boy have I been busy working on this an that lately.  I finally got the 18th C Polonaise done, so I'm free to work on other sewing projects now.  Yippee....

Recently my oldest son had a birthday...he requested a lego themed party and of course one of the main things he wanted was a lego shaped cake.  Its not my best work BUT I did what I could with the limited supplies I had.  Everyone enjoyed it!

Hope you do too!

I made the rounds with a cookie cutter and "dirty" iced them before forming the fondant over top.

I used the Plain Eggless cake recipe, an Italian buttercream, and fondant.

It has a few dents in it, thanks to my wonderful kids who couldn't stop touching it.....

"I'm just looking"

"Ya, with your fingers"

One of my favorite sayings "Look with your eyes, NOT your fingers"

Cheers!

The Day the Snow Came.

Well, it's September 16th and we are having our first snow storm of the season....I am excited and dismayed.  One because our wonderful summer has officially ended and two...ITS THAT MUCH CLOSER TO YULE/CHRISTMAS!!!!  YIPPEE!!!  My 3rd youngest, Max told me that its Christmas time now, gotta get the tree up! Hmmmmm....I think its a bit early.

Before Mother Nature decided there had been enough summer, Max had also asked me to make him some "Fresh Cookies".  Of course how can you say no to the cutest little guy ever!  I made 2 types of cookies today...one Banana Oatmeal Cookies, which are so yummy and a great alternative to banana bread; and two Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies, a recipe I had never tried before.  Here it is:

Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar1/4 tsp salt

1 cup margerine
2 tsp vanilla
sesame seeds
preserves (jam) any flavor
1 egg




1. Cream butter and sugar together, add egg and vanilla and stir, add salt and flour and incorporate.
2.  Form into balls and roll in sesame seeds, place on cookie sheet
3.  Make thumbprint in the center of each cookie, and fill with 1/4 tsp of jam
4.  Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, let cool for a few minutes and the remove from pan.

 

I did a few things to cut corners and save time.  First, I put the sesame seeds in a plastic bag so i could shake them to coat them in the seeds and Second, I used a 1/4 tsp measuring spoon.  It was small enough to fit in the little indentation and gave me the right amount of strawberry jam.  I also made these cookies with my own strawberry jam that I canned last season.

I think this is a great basic recipe....I am imagining lemon curd, raspberry jam, chocolate, double chocolate, apple, mango....the possibilities would and can be endless. They look fabulous and taste soooo  YUMMY!  They literally melt in your mouth!

Enjoy!

Kate

Easy Peasy Breakfast Latkes

I have found THE BEST breakfast food ever!  The Latke!  I stole the base recipe from here!  Thank you Amy for posting it.  This is my version, and my picky eaters loved it too...


Easy Peasy Breakfast Latkes

2 medium potatoes, shredded and excess liquid drained off
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3 pieces of deli black forest ham, cut into small pieces
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup bread crumbs
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 tsp onion powder
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp margerine

Preheat pan on medium heat, add oil and margerine to pan.  Meanwhile mix everything together in a bowl.  Form into round flat cakes and cook until brown on both sides. 

The Taste of Comfort

So you all have that feeling...you have those days when you wish that you could have a home cooked meal like your mom used to make.  I was having one of those days today.  I was craving my moms swiss steak,at least i think it's called swiss steak, the one thats smothered in gravy and you can cut it with a fork.  YUP that's the one! 

Here's my version....

any cheap cut of beef cut into steaks

can of diced tomatoes
1 green pepper, cubed

1 onion, cubed

2 beef boulion pkgs

1 cup water
1 pkg of gravy mix, any kind.  I used pork because it was in my cupboard
salt and pepper to taste

Heat up the skillet to med-high and spray pan with oil.  Sear the meat on both sides and then add the remaining ingredients.  Turn down to low and simmer, covered for 2 to 3 hours. 

If you want you can also throw the pot in the oven for 2 to 3 hours at 350 degrees.

I serve it with either potatoes or rice to soak up the delicous gravy!

The Cake Project

So a friend of mine wants to comission me to make a cake for her for a friends birthday and I accepted. I love a challenge and this is definately a challenge. I'll post the progress here.


THE CHALLENGE:

To make an eggless cake with rolled rondant in the shape of a Luis Vuitton purse AND have accessories to go with it also made outta fondant.

Oh and it has to be done by the 20th of February! You wonder "How is she gonna make a Luis Vuitton cake while taking care of 4 boys, going to the gym, keeping up the house and doing errands? Will she EVER sleep?"

Fear Not my young deciples! I, the Master of my Universe, will show you that it CAN be done!

I may go crazy a few times, but I will get it done.....LOL

Step 1: Find an eggless cake recipe that does not taste like crap! (oh I guess I forgot....Why an eggless cake? Because the lady whose birthday it is, is allergic to eggs and I don't realy like killing people. Its bad for business and friendship....VERY,VERY BAD!)

So In my quest to find the perfect and elusive eggless cake that tastes good I happened upon a few pages of recipes at http://www.allrecipes.com/.  I came across a recipe called Plain Eggless Cake. It had 91 reviews and a 4/12 of out 5 star rating. So I read through the reviews and since most of them sounded quite positive, I thought, what the hell lets try it.

So I printed off the recipe and read the ingregient list and thought orange juice? in a cake? Hmmmmm. Okay I'll roll with it. Here's the recipe....

Plain Eggless Cake

2 1/2 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1 cup orange juice

1 cup melted butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees C. Grease and flour a 9x13 cake pan

2. Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda together and then make a well in the center. Add condensed milk, orange juice, vanilla, and melted butter. Mix until batter is smooth. Pour into the cake pan and put in oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

In all the while that I have been making cakes I have had yet to find a scratch cake that could measure up to the box cakes in the store. The scratch ones were always either to heavy, to crumbly, to gross tasting, to labour intensive and tricky, to this, to that, etc, etc. But I can't believe how easy this was to make.

The trick in this batter, and it's such an easy trick that we learned when we made volcanoes explode, is that the acid from the orange juice mixed with the baking soda creates a chemical reaction that makes bubbles form in the batter. This is why it is so fluffy and light. OMG, How incredibly simple is that! It just astounds me!

Look at all those holes!!!!!



My next experiment is to take out say 1/3 cup of flour and replace it with cocoa powder to make a chocolate cake, but that will be for another time.

EDIT: I have made this cake a billion times now, and I have made a few changes to the recipe.  I have cut the melted butter down to 1/2 cup and increased the orange juice to 1 1/2 cups in order to have the 2 cups of liquid.  I have also substituted oil for butter successfully.

Busy Busy Busy...the life of Super MOM

WOW!!!

So these past couple of weeks have been crazy hectic busy! I feel like I haven't been able to relax at all.

I'm very excited to announce that I will have some of my paintings in an art show at MacDonald Island for the Winter PLAY festival February 26th to 28th! YAH!!!! Now the hard part starts...I have to construct easels to display my work as there is no hanging system in place yet and there may not be by the time the show opens. Mmmmm, Maybe I'll get the hubby to make those. I'll have to post pictures of the show for all you wonderful followers.

I have been cooking up a storm too. I tried this new recipe from my ALL time FAVORITE recipe website of all time.... http://www.allrecipes.com/

This is my version of the recipe

Hunan Kung Pao

4 skinless boneless chicken breasts cut into thin strips
4 tsp soy sauce
4 tsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp cornstarch

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and let the chicken marinate for 20 minutes.

vegitable oil
4 cloves garlic, minced

16 dried red chili peppers

1 red bell pepper, cut into chunks
1 green bell peppers, cut into chunks
2 carrots, thinly sliced
2 celery stalks, cut into pieces
1/8 c soy sauce
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1/8 c water or chicken broth
3 tsp white sugar
1 pkg chowmein noodles

In a large sauce pan on medium, heat oil and stirfry the chicken until no longer pink. Remove from the pan and drain off any liquid.

In the same pan heat some more oil and stirfry the vegitables till tender crisp. Add the chicken back in and then add the wet stuff cook until the sauce cooks down a little bit.

Meanwhile cook the noodles as per package directions. Serve the meat mixture over top of noodles and garnish with roasted peanuts, sliced scallions, and a dash of sesame oil (optional)

I hope you enjoy...because I sure did...I couldn't stop eating it as it tastes awesome cold later that night and for breakfast the next morning! LOL

If you want split the meat and vegitables in half and do one with the chili peppers and one without. That's what I did since the kids don't like spicy food.

So Uninspired...

So here I am ALL SUPER ESSITED to start a blog about my fashion and cooking and anything else creative that I do....and what happens? I crash before I even take off! I sit here thinking about what I wanna write about and I continue to sit and think until I get so dejected that I'm on the verge of giving up. Damn I hate it when that happens! Motivation IS such a Killer in my life as is my many and numerous mood swings. I can be all pumped about an idea that flies into my head from god knows where and just as quikly it's gone and I'm moved onto another one. Which I guess why I love fashion and creating and cooking so much....It's so versatile and free flowing. Unless you're blocked and then it sucks! Big time!

I'm wanting to work at getting unblocked but at the same time I think I'm going about it all wrong....I just need to relax and let the inspiration flow....which as a mom of 4 crazy boys under the age of 7 is pretty is pretty hard to do most days.

Oh well...It'll come, I just need to unfurl my blocked energy and let it flow.

But I think I will leave you with one of my favorite recipes. So that at least you might be inspired to have a bit of creativity tonight.....ENJOY!

Minestrone Soup

4 cups Vegitable or Chicken stock
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 large potato cubed
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1/4 head of cabbage, chopped
2 tbsp italian seasoning
1 can kidney beans
1 can or corn kernels, or 1 1/2 fresh corn
1 zucchini, cubed
1 cup orzo or elbow pasta
salt and pepper to taste
1 package of honey garlic brats

Directions

1. Cut brats lengthwise and then into chunks, brown in a large soup pot.
2. Combine stock, potato, celery, onion, carrots, it alian seasoning, and cabbage and bring to a boil.
3. stir in the beans, corn, zucchini, and pasta and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes until the vegitables are tender and the pasta is cooked. Season with salt and pepper.

Photo by: Traci's Kitchen http://allrecipes.com/Cook/10395721/Profile.aspx