Super Quick Rendang Spaghetti

Last weekend's breakfasts: from Jowo to Londo

Saturday breakfast menu was quite varied, from Nasi Goreng with pete and sausage, Kering Tempe (Candied Tempe), Sayur Asem (Vegetable Sour Soup), Tomato and Green Chili Sambal, Potato Omelette, Javanese Omelette and Garlic Fried Tempe.

Saturday flew and Sunday came.. I was too dizzy to cook. Husband wanted to have Soto for breakfast, but Pak Slamet didn't open until 7.30. So I offered to make spaghetti, since it didn't involve elaborate preparation. However, we turned out to be too full to have another breakfast.

Sorry Pak Slamet, we'll come another day.. :p

posted from Bloggeroid

Gateau Chocolate

Nice but too dry.. Great with milk, though.. :)
I used 30% black rice flour, 70% wheat flour..

posted from Bloggeroid

Crème Caramel

This isn't the crème caramel made from egg custard and then cooked using bain marie technique. The pudding itself contains carrageenan and agar as gelling agent. So it's just like your usual instant milk pudding (with the addition of egg yolks and vanilla).

But the fun part was making the caramel. Heating sugar until it browned and reached the hard ball stage was quite..something! :D I almost never caramelised sugar since after that internship in candy factory (I was curious and tried to make my own candy at home).

The idea of crème caramel was the opposite of crème brûlée, which is egg custard with hard caramel layer on top. So in crème caramel, we pour the caramel into the base of the mold. It will set quickly into hard caramel. Then pour the hot milk mixture into the mould. It will look like this..


After the pudding has set, take it off the mould. The caramel will be soft and liquid as in the first picture. The taste? YUM!! I know instantly this is one of the things that I'll keep making.. :)

posted from Bloggeroid

Purple Lasagna

Purple and orange made an interesting combination in this dish! :)

I made the pasta from wheat flour, egg, water and purple sweet potato flour (for the purple color of anthocyanin). The other stuffs were the usual bolognese sauce (though I did put a generous amount of shredded carrot) and bechamel (white) sauce. The toppings were breadcrumbs and shredded mozzarella cheese (crunchy AND gooey!)

Yum! Definitely better than K-m**l's! ;)

posted from Bloggeroid

Ratatouille ala Kerotia

Ratatouille is a traditional French dish. Made of vegetable, it is cheap and easy to make. Therefore, it is often called peasant food.

The ingredients of ratatouille are tomato, zucchini, eggplant, bell pepper, carrot, onion, garlic, mixed herbs, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. In my recipe, I add mushroom and tomato paste, and omit the bell pepper (due to unavailability at the moment).

First, slice the vegetables thinly. Then cook them separately (because each vegetable cooked at different length of time) until tender. Meanwhile, chop garlic and onion. Peel, de-seed, and chop the tomato as well. Saute the chopped garlic and onion with olive oil in a large pot. Add the tomato, and cook until you have a thick tomato sauce. Add tomato paste, salt, pepper, mixed herbs, and the vegetables into the tomato sauce, mix thoroughly. Serve with rice, pasta, or bread. Et voila! Bon appetit!!

***
Ratatouille became so popular after an animated movie with the same name in 2007. In that movie, Remy, the rat-chef, made and popularized Confit byaldi, a version of ratatouille.

Confit byaldi basically uses the same ingredients as ratatouille. But instead of tossing all ingredients in one pot, the ingredients are arranged in layered fashion and then baked slowly, covered in parchment paper.

***
Anyway, I introduced this dish to my family years ago. And last year, when my Mom and Dad went for Umrah, they were served ratatouille on flight. Mom tasted the food and later wrote in her journal, "I had ratatouille for lunch on the plane. It tasted just like my daughter T used to make. I miss my kids. Ya Allah, please keep them safe while we're away."

*sobs* I love you, mom..

Kerotia's Carrot Cupcake

It's carrot time!! ^^


This Sunday was exhausting yet refreshing. At the end of the day, I was very tired I fell asleep the second my head touched the pillow. With a big smile of satisfaction! :D

I had planned to go biking to the Tlogorejo market and UGM early in the morning. But then my mom wanted to come along. So I ditched the bike and took motorcycle instead. Just out of our block, my mom suddenly changed our destination. “Go to Beringharjo!”

Without much argument, I obeyed. We spent one-and-a-half hour there, had lunch on our way home, and visited Giant supermarket instead of Tlogorejo market. *not a very farmer-friendly decision, I know* :(

I started making the cake around 3 pm and finished around 9 pm. The process for making this carrot cake was not that long (approximately 1 hour of preparation, plus 3 hours for baking and decorating), but I had a few break for taking a shower, praying, and also making dinner for the 2 volunteers from US who is staying in our home. *I made Rendang Spaghetti, recipe will follow*

So here is the recipe of Kerotia’s Carrot Cupcakes..
(for 36 cupcakes)

Ingredients:
250 g flour, sifted
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp (or more) cinnamon powder
50 g tempeh flour for extra protein (optional)
4 eggs
300 g caster sugar
1 cup (240 ml) vegetable oil
2 big carrots, finely grated (approx. 250 g)
1 apple, grated and squeezed the juice out (I used half Fuji apple because I made mistake by not squeezing the juice out, hence the batter became thin.)

Mix all of the dry ingredients together (except sugar). In separate bowl, beat the eggs and sugar. Add the dry ingredients into beaten eggs & sugar, mix thoroughly. Add the oil little by little while mixing. Add grated carrots and apple. Put the batter in the paper cup (placed in the cupcakes tin), about ¾ full. Bake in preheated oven, 180°C for approx. 25 minutes. (Or test it by inserting toothpick to the cake. When it comes out clean, the cake is done.) Cool the cupcakes in a wire rack before decorating.

For the decorations:
White chocolate, melted
Marzipan, tinted with orange food coloring
Nonpareils and flower-shaped sprinkles

I used the green-colored sprinkles as the carrots’ leaves. My mom wanted to help, but she kept using blue sprinkles instead of green.. =))

Happy Ramadhan everyone!!


PS: This cupcakes will make a great Ramadhan gift.. ;)

Great Friends, Great Pizza, Great Cooks..

After half day of adventure in Gamplong village, in the task of searching wedding favors for Widya, seemed that we still had a lot of energy. We had to channel our energy to keep our neighborhood safe and sound.. :)) So we made pizza.. Kneading the dough is vigorous activity! :p

Me and Widya persuaded Chacha to take part in our mission. Being hungry, what else she could do but to agree? ;)

Here's the recipe for our pizza..

Dough ingredients:
175 gr flour
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup of hot water
olive oil or margarine (Just so the dough won't stick.)
1 tsp oregano (I love to add herbs into the dough as well. It enhances the aroma.)

Mix the dry ingredients altogether. Add water while kneading throughly. Add a little oil and proof the dough to rise.

Tomato concasse:
3 tomatoes, chopped or mashed
1 onion
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tsp oregano
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil or margarine

Chop onion, saute in olive oil/margarine. Add tomatoes and tomato ketchup, cook until thick. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano.

Toppings:
chicken frank, sliced
mushroom, sliced and browned
green paprika, diced
cheese (We use Kraft Quick Melt, since we couldn't get mozzarella.)


Roll the dough into 1-2 cm thickness. Spread concasse on top of the dough. Arrange the toppings and cheese. (Not too thick, otherwise the dough won't cooked fully.) Bake in the oven for approximately 15-20 minutes in 200'C.


Buon appetito!

Breaded Chicken a la Kerotia

Beautiful Borscht

If you love Creamy Corn Soup, you might love this..


Two days ago, I went home at 16.30, greeted by my sister who’s constantly complaining of hunger.. :p She was not feeling well, having a cold and flu, plus preparing her presentation for yesterday’s exam. I decided to make something warm and light for dinner, so my sis would not be falling asleep instead of studying. High intake of carbohydrates causes drowsiness. Therefore, eating pasta or nasi goreng before study time may not be a wise decision.

I remembered having some beetroot in the fridge. I love their intense purplish-red color. Do you know that beetroot is rich in betalain pigments? This is unlike other red vegetables, which contain anthocyanin pigments. Some of the betalains in beets are betanin, isobetanin, probetanin, and neobetanin. Betanin is used as food colouring in confectionery , frozen products, tomato soup, powdered beverages, and also meat products, e.g. bacon and sausages. Betanin acts as an antioxidant.

So I made Borscht, a deep red soup of Ukranian origin, made from beetroot as the main ingredient, and very popular in Eastern and Central Europe. I reckon, this may have something to do with the story of Dracula of Transylvania.. heheh.. It seems everyone want to be vampires these day, thanks to Edward Cullen.. :D

This is my own version of Borscht..
(recipe for two)
Ingredients:
1 beetroot
1 onion
1 potato (I add potato to thicken the soup and make it more satisfying)
400 ml chicken or beef stock (You can make this from scratch or simply use stock cube/powder, e.g. Maggi or Royco)
cream/milk
salt and pepper to taste

Dice potato, beetroot and onion. Put the diced ingredients into simmering stock and cook until tender. Strain the vegetables (keeping the liquid on the pot), process them in the blender, then return the vegetable puree into the liquid on the pot. Add cream/milk, and season with salt and pepper

Actually, it can be served once the vegetables become tender, with the veggies cube intact. But I prefer it to be creamy and smooth. The taste is savoury-sweet, with pretty pink colour.. ^^

Serve with garlic bread/toast.

Bon appetit!

And I Shall Blog Again..

Okay.. So how long has it been since my last post?

I watched Julie & Julia a few months ago. I love it!! I found the movie very inspiring, although I didn't immediately logged on to the internet and started blogging again. But I truly had this strong will to write, I swear. It’s just that I feel exhausted after work (and play, of course.. ;p).

The movie is about two life stories -of Julia Child and Julie Powell, intertwined into one by a book: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julia Child wrote the book with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. Julie Powell, inspired by Julia Child, wrote a blog about her own challenge to cook 536 recipes in the book in 365 days. And I, inspired by the movie, will try to write again.. ;)

Julie Powell and I had a lot in common. Julie Powell was a government employee. And I still am. I understand perfectly how cooking could be such a wonderful escape from our daily grind. (Julia Child also worked for the government, but she quitted, followed her husband to France, and infatuated with food and cooking there.) Obviously, Julia Child and Julie Powell put their passion in food. And my passion for food? I spent years studying food science, through all the joy and suffering.. Should you question that? :p Cooking is one sure way of showing my affection.. (no matter how the food tastes) ;)

But unlike Julie Powell who started her blog during her employment, I stopped blogging around the time I started working for the government. Suspending one post and another.. Suddenly it’s been one and a half year since the last posting.. Oh, the years indeed run like rabbits..

So here I am.. Attempting to write again. Wish me luck!

Tom Yum with Anchovies & Undur-Undur

I went to Depok beach yesterday with my neighbour friends for inauguration party of the new RAS squad. We bought heaps of seafood: clam, skipjack tuna & a kind of flat fish (flounder, I guess) in the fish market, and then brought them to a nearby restaurant to be processed. The clams were stir-fried in sweet and sour sauce, the flounders were baked, while the skipjack were deep-fried. The food was great! It was really worth the time and trouble to reach the beach (about 50 km from home).

Having tasted all that seafood delight, suddenly I had this urge to cook seafood too. I decided to make Tom Yum with this oval-shaped crustacean called undur-undur. The taste was like shrimp, but more crispy & savoury.

Ingredients:
1 large onion, chopped
2 lemon grass, bruised & tied
4 keffir lime leaves
1 inch ginger, crushed (I wanted to use galangal but ginger is all I have)
2-3 tbsp chilli paste
3 bird chillies (whole)
1 lime (you only need the juice)
1-2 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
3-4 cups water
1-2 stock cubes
1/2 kg fresh anchovies (I recommend you deep-fry the anchovies first until they browned & firm. I made mistake by adding the fresh achovies while sauteing the onion. The taste were good, but they disintegrated into pieces, making the soup cloudy.)
2 large white tofu, cut into 2 cm cubes
1/4 kg fried undur-undur
100 g dried mushrooms, soaked in warm water
salt to season
cilantro & leek (sliced) to garnish

Saute the chopped onion until tender. Add ginger, anchovies, undur-undur, lime grass, keffir lime leaves, chillies & chilli paste. Add the water & stock cubes and bring to boil. Add tofu, lime juices, fish sauce, mushrooms & salt. Serve with cilantro & leek.


Can you see the orange pieces floating on the soup? That's the undur-undur.

You can substitute anchovies & undur-undur with any seafood. I know a restaurant which serve Tom Yum with chicken feet. ^o^

Harvest Time: Melon

Last week, when visiting one of the assisted farmer group in Lendah, Kulonprogo, I saw the field was full of balls of melons. Yumm.. Some of the melons were scattered on the road, half-eaten by the farmers, or maybe local people, thus making the air so fragrant with melon scent.
That's one thing I love about Kulonprogo: clean air, except on the main inter-city road. On the village, people often sun-dried their spices on the road. You could smell vanilla and cloves as you passed the road on your way to Samigaluh.

There were few people selling melons on the road. Later I found out, they were selling melons rejected by the distributor. Small part of the melons were spoiled, maybe because of insects or improper handling. Otherwise, they were perfect. Since I was dying to taste it, I bought one anyway, despite those little flaw. It was really cheap!! Only Rp 5000,- each. When I got home, I found that it was really sweet & nice. I wished I'd bought more.. ^o^

Keroppi Lunch Kit

I found this thing in BSD mall, during my last visit to Jakarta. I love it because it's compact and green! The spoon, fork & chopsticks are extendable. Recently, I found a matching Keroppi lunch-box in Ambarrukmo Plaza. But it's an old stock, scratched in many places. So sad.. :(

Gurita Bento

Gurita = octopus in Indonesian language

***

For today's bento, I made tomato red rice with chicken frank, broccoli & bean sprouts.

To make tomato red rice, you need: red rice (or brown rice), 1 tomato, garlic, butter, oregano, tomato ketchup.
Heat butter in a pan, add chopped garlic and chopped tomato. Add the rice, tomato ketchup and oregano. Season with salt and pepper.

I used soy sauce for the gurita eyes & mouth. The broccoli was yellowish, but that's all I could find in the fridge.



***

I remember when my bro was still in kindergarten, he wrote something in the wooden edge of a whiteboard, so it couldn't be erased. I saw the word as 'burita' and asked him, "What's this? Your teacher?"
I thought he meant to write Bu Rita (or Mrs. Rita).
"No, silly. It's Gurita."
The 'G' really looked like 'b'. And now, as a second-year university student, his handwriting is still as bad as 13 years ago.. ^_^

Eggplant Spaghetti

Another thing that I love about my working place: the people are so generous! Whenever we made a visit to their place, they always give us something (hey, we didn't ask!). Sometimes they would come to the office, bringing their harvest goods. One beautiful day, a farmer group came with a very large sack full of Japanese eggplant. Yippee..!!

Have I told you that I love eggplant? Well, let me tell you again..
I LOVE EGGPLANT!! ^o^
I love to cook them into Indonesian cuisines: sayur asem, sambal terong, lodeh, terong tauco (Is it truly Indonesian recipe? I just improvised the japanese miso eggplant recipe from Harvest Moon games), etc. or foreign cuisine such as moussaka , tempura & ratatouille (which my brother hates).

One of my favorite is Eggplant Spaghetti. It's very easy to made. Basically I just used everything I could find in the fridge and didn't follow any recipe.

Here's my recipe for Eggplant Spaghetti:
Boil the pasta until al dente. Set aside.
Chop onion and saute until tender. Add chopped tomato & eggplant. Add the pasta. Season with salt, blackpepper, and oregano. Voila!!

hmm.. I think I did miss something..

what the heck..
The key is IMPROVISATION, my friends. So improvise!

Alien Mouse Bento

All that bento blogs (such as Bento Corner and Adventures in Bentomaking inspire me to post my bento too. I haven't got a husband (let alone children) whom I could make bento for everyday (like Tokiwa aka Mrs. Bentocorner). But sometimes I make it for my own lunch.
Yeah, just for my own.. My mom, dad, lil bro & sis can take care of their own lunch.. :p

First, bento saves money. Second, you can really choose what you're having for lunch. I mean, really, working in a small town doesn't give you many choices for your lunch menu.

So this morning I made Macaroni&Cheese. Well, it's not macaroni actually, it's angel-hair spaghetti. I didn't use Mac&Cheese from Kraft which is relatively expensive and not available in the mini-market near my home.

Here's my recipe for a quick homemade Mac&Cheese:
pasta (about 125 grams), boiled until al dente
100 ml milk
1 tablespoon butter
1 slice cheddar cheese (I use Kraft)
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon Bumbu Kentang Goreng Indofood Rasa Keju (french fries seasoning --you can only find in Indonesia, I guess) :D

Heat butter in a pan. Add milk and Bumbu Kentang Goreng, bring to boil. Add the pasta & cheddar cheese until the cheese melts. Add flour to thicken. Voila..

You don't have to use Bumbu Kentang Goreng Indofood Rasa Keju if you like. I use it because it gives the taste and appearance of Kraft Mac&Cheese.
You can skip the use of cheddar cheese too, using only Bumbu Kentang Goreng Indofood. But it won't be as cheesy as if you use one.. *obviously..*

At first, I wanted to make my bento looked like Ultraman, just using the bread & cherry tomato for the eyes. But then my sis told me there is no way it resembled Ultraman.. so I add another cherry tomato for the nose. And here it is..

Alien mouse bento..

FROGURT

Wow.. It's been months since my last posting. Things had been pretty busy here. I got a job in the neighbor town, about 40 minutes ride by motorcycle or 1 hour by bus. So when I reached home, I was too tired to play computer, except to watch some movies.
My job is quite interesting. I'll write about it later.

A few days ago, I was browsing & organizing my old files from school. I found a folder titled ProDev, containing pictures from our Product Development class, about two years ago.

There was a project to make a product from a certain ingredient. My team was assigned to make a product from dairy commodity. Here's what we did:



It was being judged, and we won the 2nd place.. YEAY!! (there were 2 runner-ups though, I forgot which team) The winner was Click!, Chocolate coated Brem (confectionery from fermented rice). Chocolate seemed to be a favorite of the judges, I guess.. ^_^

The Cookie Monster

Eid without cookies is like sleeping without pillow. I've been wanting to bake cookies since the beginning of Ramadan but I knew the cookies would be gone before we finish the first week of fasting. So I had to postpone the cookies making until last week, exactly 1 week away from Eid.
I made two kind of cookies: kaastengels and butter cookies. The pictures below had been edited, an attempt to cutify the cookies.. ^_^


Kaastengels
This salty cookies --more like cheese biscuits perhaps-- is a must have for Eid and any other holiday festival in Indonesia.
You'll need 1 egg, 1 cup of butter/margarine, 1 cup of shredded cheese (I used processed cheddar cheese), 2 cups of flour, 1 tbsp of powdered milk, and a pinch of salt. Sometimes I add other stuffs like corned beef, chili powder, cornflakes, or parsley.
Beat the egg and butter until smooth, and mix the other ingredients. Roll the dough into 1 cm thick, cut with knife or cookie cutter, glaze with egg yellow, and bake.
I used my new kaastengels cutter, that's why they're in such uniform shape. Usually, I didn't bother to cut them with knife and my kaastengels were really out-of-shape. So there's an improvement this year.. ^.^


Butter Cookies (green tea, chocolate chips, and coffee)
I didn't use recipe and scale to measure everything. So what I wrote below is just the approximate amount.
Ingredients: 1 egg, 1 cup of butter, 2-3 cups of flour, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 cup of sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, and a pinch of salt.
Beat egg and butter, mix other ingredients. The dough was divided into 3. I add 1 tbsp powdered milk with green tea flavor to the first part; chopped chocolate bar (with cashew nut and dried fruits) to the second part; and 1 tsp instant coffee to the third part. Next, drop the dough into baking sheet using fork and spoon, then bake. So easy.. ^^
The green tea flavor was really weak. I planned to use real green tea powder but then I realized that I left the stuff at lab. Too lazy to get it, I just used HiLo green tea..

Cookies never last long in our house. That's because there's a cute cookie monster who's also happen to be my little (but bigger) sister..

Love you sis, but please let the cookies last until Eid..

Moussaka for Buka..

There's always more food in our home during Ramadan. That's somewhat an irony since we only eat two times, during sahur and buka. But mom always makes excuses, saying that this is such a special month and this is her way of showing her love for the family. Well, not a big trouble since we all eat a lot.. ^_^

Today, mom had to go to teach (she's a part time lecturer) and left the cooking task to me. I obeyed since I had nothing to do.
*Yeah, my report and my paper can wait until tomorrow..*

Mom asked me to make use the stuffs in the fridge. I found some eggplants, tempe, minced meat, and funny-smelling cheese (blame dad for putting the jackfruit in the fridge again!), and decided to make Moussaka. It's middle-eastern food (Greek), consisting layers of eggplant, meat, and white sauce.

I've been wanting to make this since I discovered my liking for eggplant a few years back. Before that, I did not consider eggplant as food, mainly because it's so Barney-looking (read: purple) and spongy. I actually asked my cousin when I saw him ate eggplant with sambal, "Do you really eat those thing?"
"Yeah, it's good.." he answered while giving me a funny look. Then I found that eggplant is used in one of the recipe in Harvest Moon games; and fried eggplant is one of Archie Andrew's favorites in Archie Comics. So I thought, "It can't be that bad.." and gave it a try. I like eggplant since then..

Here's the picture of my first Moussaka:


I couldn't find my cookbook so the recipe's been altered so much. I used tempe as an addition to the meat since my parents are cutting down their meat consumption.

First, slice the eggplants (I use 3 medium eggplants) about 3/4 cm thick. Heat some butter in the skillet and fry the eggplant until tender (try to do this altogether since eggplant absorb the grease very quickly and you wouldn't want some piece so oily while the others so dry). Set aside.
Heat some butter in the skillet, cook chopped onion until fragrant and tender. Add minced meat and cook until brown. Add chopped tempe and chopped tomatoes, tomato ketchup, oregano, a dash of salt and pepper. Set aside.
Heat some butter in a pan. Add flour and stir until smooth. Add milk while stirring continuously until it become a smooth paste. Remove from heat and let it cool. Add grated cheese and an egg and stir until smooth.
Arrange the eggplant on the pan, layer with meat and white sauce. The last layer should be the eggplant and white sauce. Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for 30 minutes with 180'C temperature.

It was good, my mom and dad love it, but my sister said that the eggplant tastes weird. She said I should have used mushroom instead. But if I used mushroom, it wouldn't be a moussaka. Just like if I used pasta, then it would become lasagna.. Well, can't please everyone..

So for today's buka, we had moussaka, leftovers from sahur (clear mushroom&chicken soup and roasted chicken), green cincau jelly (made from cincau leaves), and brownies (a present from a friend). Nice... ^_^