Pandan Loaf Cake

I recently bought some pandan extract from a Chinese grocery store. I found this recipe from the Decorated Treats blog and I didn’t fancy making a pandan chiffon cake as I find that process quite complicated! If you have never had pandan flavour before, it has a vanilla and flowery taste. This recipe is a pound cake so the method is really easy and it tastes delicious! I have already made this cake twice!!

Ingredients – 180g salted butter, 180g granulated sugar, 180g Self-raising flour, 3 x eggs, 3 x tbsp milk, half tsp of baking powder, pinch of salt, 1 tsp pandan extract. Optional – green food colouring.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to GM3 and line your loaf cake tin. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy into your mixer.
2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt and mix this into the creamed mixture in 3 batches. Alternate each batch of flour with milk, starting and ending with flour.
3. Add the pandan extract and if your extract is white, add some green food flavouring. Mix until well combined.
4. Pour the batter into your loaf tin and smooth it at the top. Bake for 40 minutes or until the cake is ready (no wet batter sticking to the skewer to check). Leave it in the tin for 5 minutes and turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Sugar Bread Crust Treats

When we made the TikTok toasted chocolate pancakes, I found that there was a lot of wastage of bread and I was really reluctant to throw it away. So, I did some research and came across recipetineats.com ‘s blog and saw her ‘Cinnamon Sugar Bread Crust Treats’ recipe. Such a great idea as it only takes 10 minutes to prepare and the outcome is super addictive to eat!

Now, I am just saving all my hard bread in the freezer so that I can use it to make this treat again. It is definitely a favorite recipe in our household! If you don’t have enough crusts, you can use leftover bread and cut it into stick pieces.

Ingredients: 6 cups of stale bread crusts or enough for 1 – 2 trays, 60g of melted butter, 3 x tbsp sugar, extra sugar to sprinkle on top once baked, and 1 tsp of cinnamon.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to GM4 and line your trays. Cut the bread/crusts into 3cm pieces.
2. Place them in a large bowl and drizzle in the butter and coat it evenly.
3. Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon and toss through. Spread them onto the baking trays.
4. Bake for 5 – 8 minutes until golden brown and crunchy.
5. Whilst still hot, sprinkle over the remaining sugar and enjoy!

Pistachio and Lime Courgette Cake

I had lots of courgettes in the fridge and thought why not use it for baking. I must admit, that i haven’t really used vegetables in baking as i think it is strange! But i have seen alot of recipes ie beetroots, carrots etc and interested in how the bake would turn out.

I love looking at recipes in the book and i found a recipe called Pistachio and Lime Courgette Cake in Martha Collison’s Twist book (page 74) and decided to give it a go! I have baked a loaf cake with courgettes and lemons from Lorraine Pascale’s books and it turned out really tasty! You wouldn’t think courgettes can be used in a cake but it is actually really nice as it keeps the cake really moist!

For this cake, i really think the icing makes the cake delicious as it brings a nice sweetness to it as the limes are quite a subtle taste. You don’t need too many ingredients to make this cake and i didn’t use 250g icing sugar, probably around 150g is sweet enough!

The boys enjoyed baking it but when it came to eating it, they didn’t like the ‘green’ bits inside the sponge!! lol! The cake was really yummy!

Ingredients: Cake – Butter for greasing, 250g courgettes (2-3 small ones), 2 x eggs, 125ml vegetable oil, 150g caster sugar, 225g self raising flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 salt and zest of half a lime. I always add 1 tsp of vanilla extract into the cake mixture.

Icing – 100g full fat cream cheese, 150g or 250g icing sugar, zest and juice of half a lime, 30g chopped pistachio nuts.

Method: Preheat oven to GM4, grease a 20cm tin and line with baking paper. Grate the courgettes coarsely, don’t do it too finely as it will go mushy! Try and squeeze out the water from the courgettes or otherwise the cake would be really soggy. I have read in the past that you can put the courgettes in a table cloth and squeeze out the water. As it is quite a small amount, i just used my hands to squeeze the water out.

Put the eggs, sugar, old and in a bowl and beat until creamy. Fold in the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir the courgettes and zest. The mixture will look quite dense like and not like a cake mixture! Pour the mixture into a tin and bake for 35-40 mins until golden on top and firm to touch. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin before decorating.

Make the icing by beating the cream cheese, icing sugar, lime juice together until smooth. Spread on top of the cooled cake and the sprinkle the pistachio nuts on top and the left over lime zest.

Pancake Day 2023

It’s pancake day today! I have a super easy recipe that you can make with your kids, the texture is like the American pancakes, soft and fluffy!

Ingredients:

1 egg, 1/3 cup of plain flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, 45ml milk, and 1 tsp butter & 1/2 tbsp oil for frying.

Suggestions for toppings – Maple Syrup with berry fruits, Nutella and banana, ice cream and sprinkles or the classic flavor – lemon, and sugar!

Method:

1. Separate the egg, putting the white and yolk in separate bowls. Mix the egg yolk with the flour, baking powder, vanilla extract, and milk to make a smooth paste.
2. Beat the egg white and a pinch of salt with an electric whisk or by hand until fluffy and holding its shape. Gently fold the egg white into the yolk mixture. Be careful not to knock out any of the air.
3. Heat the butter and oil in a non-stick frying pan. Dollop a third of the mixture into the pan and cook on each for 1-2 mins or until golden brown. You can make about 3 pancakes or you can make 1 big one! Enjoy!

Oct 21 – Vegetarian Dish – Beetroot and Feta Pasta

I have been quite lazy lately with learning new vegetarian dishes and cooking the usual food for our ‘once a week veggie’ day like jacket potatoes with tuna or seafood pasta etc.

In my Good Food Magazine, August edition, I saw a recipe using beetroots, I only really eat beetroots in salads and the ones that I buy in the supermarkets are already diced or pickled. I have never used a raw beetroot before so it is a challenge!!! 🙂 I wonder what our kids would think of it as it would pink pasta! 🙂 I can’t wait to see what it turns out like!

Ingredients – 2 x large beetroots, peeled and chopped into chunks, 1 x tbsp olive oil, 2 x onions finely chopped, 4 x celery sticks, finely chopped, 4 x carrots, peeled and finely chopped, 1 small bunch of basil, 2 x garlic cloves finely chopped, 400g wholemeal pasta, 75g of creme fraiche and 100g feta.

Method:

1. Boil the beetroot in a pan of salted water for 5 minutes and use a slotted spoon to take the beetroot out and leave the water aside.
2. Put the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the onions, celery and carrots and cook for 8 mins until softened. Finely chopped the basil stalks and celery tops, and add the garlic and fry for a 1 minute.
3. Tip the pasta in the same water that you used to cook the beetroot and cook the pasta for about 20 mins. Drain and reserve 200ml of the pasta water and tip the pasta back into the pan.
4. Meanwhile, put the beetroot with half of the vegetables, most of basil leaves and crème fraiche into a food processor. Blitz until smooth and add the reserved pasta water to make into a thick mixture.
5. Stir this sauce through the pasta and add the remaining vegetables and season. Divide it up and crumble over some feta cheese on top and scatter with the remaining basil leaves. Enjoy!

It was nothing like I have made in the past, even Dan raised his eyebrow when he saw the dish and Gray kept asking why is it pink!! Lol! It was very delicious and felt extremely healthy to eat!! The pasta sauce is quite thick but really sweet! We had plenty for leftovers and it was more flavorsome the next day!! I would definitely be making this again!! It was just alotnof chopping required!

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Sept 21 – Veg Dish – Chinese Steamed Eggs

From my childhood and still now, steamed eggs has always been a family favourite dish to eat at dinner time. My boys love it too when their ‘Por-Por’ (grandmother) makes it! I have asked my mum for the recipe! It is actually really simple but sometimes it’s still and a hit and miss when cooking it!! Even my mum sometimes messes up the cooking time!!

It basically has 3 ingredients, eggs, milk and water!! Use 3 x eggs and mix it in a measuring jug, then pour warm water approx. 100ml and top it up with milk so that the whole mixture measures up to approx. 400ml. Stir everything and pour into a metal pot for steaming, you can add a pinch of salt to it if you want. My mum’s tip is to make sure the water is boiling hot like bubbling before you pour the eggs in. Steam for 5 minutes on the maximum gas setting, I would normally steam this for 10 minutes and then switch it off and leave the lid on for awhile so that the eggs can set. The eggs should have a bit of a wobble when you take it out and looks set at the top. If it is still liquidly, then steam for another 5 minutes. Add some light soya sauce on top and serve with your other dishes and boiled rice. Also, you can add chopped up spring onions on top but i just leave it plain for the boys!

My boys love this dish as this is their favourite and can eat the whole dish between the two of them!! This is the only ‘Chinese’ dish that I can make from scratch! I know how to cook more ‘Filipino’ dishes!! Although, I am hoping to explore more Chinese cooking in the future as I have got a few cookbooks! 🙂

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Aug 21 – Veg Dish- Gnocchi & tomato bake

It was my husband’s turn to cook for a vegetarian dish and he decided to make a gnocchi and tomato bake from BBC Good Food website. Normally, I would fry with hot oil and add mixed herbs and rosemary and some butter to it towards the end so the texture is crunchy outside and still soft inside. I think, I saw Nigella cooking using this method in one of her TV programmes in then past and have always fried the gnocchi since.

So, when he said he was going to bake it, I really did wonder how it was going to taste! Surprisingly, the dish turned out really nice and you only need a couple of ingredients and it was super easy to make! I will definitely try out more gnocchi recipes being baked as it is such a different texture from being fried. I might have a look out to see what other recipes that you can make with gnocchi and try them out!

Ingredients: 1 x tbsp olive oil, 1 x onion chopped, 1 x garlic clove crushed, 400g can chopped tomatoes, 1 x red pepper (deseeded and finely chopped), 500g gnocchi, handful of basil leaves and half a mozzarella ball, torn into chunks.

Method:

1. Heat the grill. Heat 1 x tbsp olive oil, fry the onions and red pepper in a pan. Stir the garlic clove and fry for 1 minute. Then, add the chopped tomatoes and gnocchi and bring to a simmer.
2. Let it bubble for 10-15 minutes until the gnocchi is soft and the sauce is thickened.
3. Season it and add the basil leaves (torn) and transfer to ovenproof dish. Scatter the mozzarella cheese and grill for 5-6 minutes until it is bubbling and golden.

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July 21 – Veg Dish – Vegetable Lasagna

I really like lasagnas, when I go to Italian restaurants, I always order a pasta bake or lasagnas! I don’t like making lasagnas because I find it too fiddley! You have to make two different sauces and then when it comes to assembling it, I never know which order to do it! We have found the best lasagna to buy is from Lidl, (meat version), the texture is really nice, not soggy and it has alot of beef! It’s one of our favourite dish to eat for our dinner!

My brother in law made us a veggie lasagna a couple of months ago and it was really delicious so I asked where he got the recipe from. He got it from the BBC Food’s website. I love it when it says ‘preparation time is less than 30 minutes’ as in reality, it took me over 40 minutes to prepare everything, I must be an extremely slow chopper! LOL!

I followed this recipe and the lasagna was huge!! The only difference with this set of instructions, I put the spinach right at the bottom rather than mixing it in with all the other vegetables. I found that I didn’t have enough layers as per the instructions, I am not sure whether it was because my oven dish was too big so I didn’t have enough fillings to make up the layer! I always don’t know how to do the layering and get confused with the instructions! my husband rightly said to me, why I didn’t check it out on youtube! LOL! Next time!

The veggie lasagna was delicious, power packed with all the vegetables and extremely filling and we had leftovers for the next day! Took me ages to make so maybe I would make this again if we are having friends round because it is a nice dish to share! 🙂

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May 21 Veg Dish – Creamy coconut vegetable Karahi

It’s National Vegetarian Week this week so I thought it would be good time to learn a new vegetarian dish for this month. I saw a recipe in Lidl Summer leaflet which was a Creamy Coconut and vegetable Karahi. I have never really explored cooking Indian dishes, I have only made one Chicken Curry from scratch and that was using my friend’s recipe but many years ago! I guess, because i am not a huge fan of chillies and ‘hotness’ and the spices are really strong! I tend to buy the jarred sauces and add the meat in or get a takeaway! 🙂

This recipe seemed quite straight forward, it was just alot of cutting and chopping up all the vegetables. I eased off the chillies mixture because i don’t like it so hot! I am glad that i used a big pan for this, at one point when i tipped all the vegetables in, it wasn’t going to fit!! So, please make sure you have a big pan or you can cook it in 2 batches when making this!

Ingredients – 4 x tbsp oil, 2 x onions sliced, 2 x medium potatoes – peeled and chopped (I used a small bag of baby potatoes), 2 x carrots, peeled and chopped, 1 small aubergine chopped, 1 courgette chopped, 1 red pepper and 1 green pepper chopped, 250g frozen peas, 2 tsp easy chilli, 4 x tsp chilli flakes, 2 tsp easy garlic, 2 tsp cumin powder, 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, 2 tomato diced, 5 x tbsp coconut milk, 4 x spring onions, 1 handful chopped coriander and some salt to season.

Method:

1. Blitz the tinned tomatoes and fresh tomatoes and leave it aside.
2. In a large pan, heat the oil and fry the onions until soft, add the potatoes and carrots and fry for 5 – 8 minutes.
3. Tip all the other vegetables and all your spices to your liking and season.
4. Cover the pan and cook over a medium heat for 15-20 minutes until the vegetables are par-cooked but not mushy. Make sure your potatoes are cooked.
5. To finish the curry, add the add the tomatoes into the vegetable mix and cook for 2 – 3 minutes before stirring in the coconut milk. Simmer for approx 5 minutes, serve with rice and garnish the dish with chopped coriander.

I would definitely make this again although my hubby said, ‘why don’t you add some meat to it next time!!’ I think i would prefer this dish without the meat.

With the left over coconut milk, i used this to make a coconut pound loaf cake which i will share this with you next week! 🙂

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April 21 Veg Dish – Feta Pasta!

My husband, Dan has got an account on TikTok – @running2resonate – he loves to run so please feel free to look him up and he is on insta aswell! ! I am not on this platform but he showed me a video clip using Feta cheese as everyone seems to be posting about it. I watched the video and thought, wow, that’s incredibly easy and just by chance, I have got a feta cheese block in my fridge! lol!

So, for this month’s vegetarian dish, I decided to join in the popular feta cheese pasta craze!! lol! I was really surprise as to how little ingredients you need to make this but you can always add other vegetables and herbs to it according to your preference. I couldn’t eat just pasta with tomatoes plus I don’t think Dan would be too satisfied with this so I added some spinach to it aswell and served it with garlic bread!

Ingredients: Full fat feta cheese block, a box of small tomatoes – can be mixed, pasta, garlic, olive oil, chilli flakes and mixed herbs. I included half a bag of spinach and a bunch of basil leaves.

Method: Pre heat the oven to GM6 and use a big oven dish. Put the tomatoes in and then add the feta cheese block in the middle of the dish, sprinkle your herbs, garlic and drizzle some olive oil. Bake for 40 minutes or so until the cheese looks quite golden and the tomatoes are bursting.

As your dish is in the oven baking, cook your pasta and reserve some of the water for the sauce. Once your feta cheese is ready, add your pasta and your spinach and just mix everything together. If it is too dry, then add some of the water from your pasta. Lastly, add some basil leaves to garnish! And that’s it! So simple and an easy quick dinner. I will definitely be cooking this again and add different vegetables to it like courgettes or mushrooms etc.

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