A cheesy makeover

I feel that I must first apologise for the title. But it really does fit the bill. :)

Bedtime, with Nigella Kitchen and a big fat furry purring bundle of contentment next to me. Yes I read cookbooks in bed. One of my many simple pleasures in life, and Nigella's books make for particularly dreamy bedtime reading.

I am especially inspired by one of the chapters in Kitchen, entitled "Cook It Better", where she describes her inability to throw anything away. There are recipes here for stale bread (Panzanella, bread pudding), vegetable odds and ends (throw them into a green curry), subpar strawberries (make crumble). I especially enjoyed her describing "making a banoffee cheesecake rise out of the sad ashes of a blackening bunch of bananas." You just can't fault the woman, outrageous as the stuff she says.

So of course I was inspired. And good thing too.

I had, in a spate of bad judgement, bought myself a pack of processed cheese slices thinking that hey, I could make a solo meal by slapping a conveniently pre-sliced, calcium-fortified piece on a tortilla, pop it in the oven and hey, dinner.

Not so. I had to force myself to finish my first attempt. And then I vowed to buy those blocks next time.

So what to do with the rest of the vile-tasting cheese? I fretted about it and resigned myself to conveniently forgetting about the rest of those horrid slices. Until I read this. I am a big fan of the blog - a lot of the posts are about buying, cooking and showcasing local Filipino produce. Plus I love breakfast. I read this post, and yes my friends, this I would do. I would pay homage to Nigella and throw more ingredients at my unwanted one and crackers will emerge. How glorious.

I set to work. Since the flavour of my cheese was quite horrid, I threw in curry powder (4 teaspoons), turmeric powder (2 teaspoons), Maggie seasoning (about 1/2 a teaspoon), and garlic powder (2 teaspoons). And I also subbed a combination of all purpose flour and ground oat bran for whole wheat flour. To top the crackers, I sprinkled some with chilli flakes, others I cracked black pepper over.

Lo and behold, they came out more than edible. Addictive almost, with the curry and garlic and chilli all contributing to a complex, deeply savoury flavour. I am rather pleased, I must say. I'm sure Nigella would approve.

Orangette's Marion Cunningham's fresh ginger muffins

This Molly of Orangette. She sure knows how to sell a recipe. Boy I'm glad I trusted her on this one.

I have baked from her book before, a banana cake with crystallised ginger that I wound up discarding. But I blame myself - I actually despise banana bread, but as always, was so taken by her beautiful prose that I decided to give it a try.

Well, I do love ginger. And boy, do I love these muffins. Boy I'm saying Boy a lot.

They tasted just as good cold as they do fresh and warm from the oven. That tender crumb, that amount of sweetness that was just right, that addictive kick of ginger, that freshness of flavour from the lemon zest. I followed the recipe Molly provided, except I sprinkled the tops of the muffins with some demarara sugar for a nice crunchy topping, which they lived up to that nicely.

Just like Molly promised I would, I had these for dessert, as a teatime snack, for breakfast. And I have not tired of them. Far from it, in fact. Many more batches to come.

And the madness continues......

Ahh, I feel like George Washington Carver. Who knew that the humble peanut could bring so much joy and pleasure?


I have been buying and roasting my own peanuts for the third week in a row, with no sign of abatement. I crush them to top my oats, I grab a handful whenever I need a bit of sustenance (so satisfying). I have made my own peanut butter and used that to make these super pleasurable things - twice!


I decided to change it up and bake cookies instead, following this recipe, which calls for natural peanut butter. What could be more natural than homemade, eh? I also chopped my own 60% cocoa chocolate bar and dumped it into the batter. The results, I admit, are no lookers. Most of my cookies are like that anyway - I have grown to accept this sad fact *sniff*. In this case my clumsy chopping skills resulted in a lot of fine shavings along with the hunks of chocolate, and they turned the cookies a dark, rather unattractive brown. But the cookies were chewy and peanutty and chocolatey, and totally addictive. I finished half the batch within 2 days (this statement is starting to get old, I know, I know. Bear with me, will you?)


So, if you're on the lookout for a super natural, super cheap (peanuts are way cheaper than butter) and moderately healthier (peanuts are surely healthier than flour and butter, and at least they contain fibre) cookie recipe, well, look no further. Because let's face it, there aren't many out there. But this one, this is it - Michael Rechiutti's Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. Amen.

Weekend Brekkie - another take on oatmeal

I like to think of this version as an apple pie-like one. I normally eat my oatmeal with banana, the ideal fruit I think with oats. But that got a bit old, and soon I was yearning for something different. Since I had apples, why not try those? Putting raw apples directly into oatmeal didn't do it for me - no oomph at all. So I decided to try this instead - I stirred half an apple, diced, with a teaspoon of muscovado sugar and a small knob of fresh ginger (grated, with the juice) for a little warmth. I microwaved this mixture for about a minute, till the apples got tender and a sticky little sauce was created - not unlike caramel :). I topped my usual soy-oat mixture with this and it was everything it promised to be - warm with the ginger, and like I said, very apple pie.

Oh, and to grate my ginger, I used my fabulous little Japanese ceramic grater, so much easier than using a handheld one. Plus it helps to collect the "juice" that gets extracted during the grating. I got mine at one of those 5-ringgit Japanese stores and it works like dream. Genius invention.

Caramel topped Blondies

I get it now.

What took me so long?

All those bloggers were right. Caramel absolutely rocks my world. I can't get enough of it now, damnit. It's a deep, dark, delicious hole, my friends.

Like I said previously, I intended to use the little batch of caramel I made on Blondies. Well, they came out a little short of my expectations. Too cakey and not the heavy, chewy stuff I want my Blondie to be. Still delicious, mind you, they are topped and filled with my salted caramel sauce after all (Ms. Yard recommends poking holes in the just-baked Blondies and "injecting" the caramel into the crevices, I poked holes and just poured the stuff over). And thanks to their relative lightness I've also managed to eat my way through half the pan.

My caramel trial

Might as well admit it, I am a stalker. Of food blogs. I have a few regulars that I follow feverishly, reading and re-reading their prose and wishing (and vowing) to cook the foods they cook. Well, they been waxing lyrical over the joys of burnt sugar for years. I never thought caramel could be so, well, sexy. How could I not, really, after seeing all it shine in all incarnations possible - in sophisticated salted butter caramels (or caramel au beurre salé, mind you) , with crème fraîche or espresso, or in a wicked-looking sauce to top vanilla ice cream, or - and this is the one incarnation that I cannot get out of my head - to streak seemingly innocent blondies with.

Let me tell you something.

These writings, they are beautiful. The photos, absolutely mouthwatering. And it's all true. I can vouch for it, because I made some last night. It wasn't all smooth sailing - I had to toss my first batchTrying to follow David Lebovitz's advice on taking it beyond smoking, I waited until the caramel turned the colour I wanted then I took it off the stove. Unfortunately the residual heat was just too much and it took the caramel beyond what I wanted - an almost black, smoking, bitter mess. I tried again, watching the colour changes like a hawk and taking the pan off the stove much earlier than before. I whisked in my butter and salt and milk (can't afford cream). It came out sticky and looking very much like the ones in other people's blogs. And my kitchen smelled like a candy factory for hours later. Which was kinda nice.

But the cleanup, my friends, is no joke.

I ended up spending more time boiling my utensils in water, again and again, to remove all the stubborn traces of hardened caramel. So not only was there the danger of handling the hot sugar itself (more experienced bloggers recommend wearing goggles and oven mitts, not putting your face over the pan of molten sugar), trying to clean a pan with hot water was no walk in the park either. But that's the only way, people, to clean hardened caramel off your stuff. Except your fingers of course.

Tomorrow I am going to bake those Blondies (recipe will be courtesy of Sherry Yard's Secrets 0f Baking), and tell you if it was all worth it.

Atonement, Fall of Giants and other bits of the weekend

Lots of italics coming up, it's one of those posts.

~ Oh my, Atonement is positively gut-wrenching. My heart is broken, I tell you. And taken. By James McAvoy, who has swept me off my feet as "the young man who crossed the surrey in his best suit, swaggering with the promise of life" and lost it all - his bright bright future and his one true love at the throw of the dice, or rather the lying words of a naive young girl. Those electric blue eyes. That preppy short hair. The very upright-ness of Bobby Turner, his character - in his determination, as he wrote in his letter, to "live without shame", his lilting French, the way he walks with his back so straight, so upright. Swoon.


~ I seem to be drawing multiple parallelisms between the movie and Ken Follet's Fall of Giants, which I am currently chest-deep into. They make me reflect on the same things. How war changes everything. The fruitlessness of it all and the despairs - families and lovers torn apart, heartbreaking letters to and from the front lines, and of course, the terrible death of innocents. And the how their characters conduct themselves - on the surface, quintessentially British eloquence and conservatism, almost bordering on shyness. But you have to take a second look - into their (often blue and piercing) eyes, read into the bow of the head, the hand placed on another's. All contradictory to the searing passion behind closed doors (or in Atonement's case, it was cracked open). In my head, one of the book's protagonists (ahh a German, ironically) is Mr. McAvoy, tortured good looks and all.

~ Listening to Matchbox 20, especially this song on the iPhone. I think of my two brothers. Despite me being five and eight years older than them, we somehow have to come the same conclusions on a few very important things in life. For example, that Matchbox 20 is THE best band ever. That mankind has yet to produce a movie as awesome as The Lord of The Rings. All three of us have read the book, more than once. Oh, and the music. Sure, my brothers shake their heads at my fondness for haunting, wintry, almost new-ageish music with lyrics that don't make much sense (Cases in point: these numbers) and they're almost embarassed about my fondness for Taylor Swift. Dom's taste also runs questionable at times (erm, "Barbra Streisand" by DuckSauce, anyone?). But one day we just broke out Bright Lights together, trying our very best to twang the lines "Baby, Baby, Baby..........Maybe, maybe, maybe..." the way Rob Thomas does (and, I suspect, not being very successful) so you can understand why listening to this makes me all smiley inside.

~ My adorable tea sub that I ordered when in London. Works like a charm, looks like it belongs in a cartoon. Yesterday was a particularly stressful day at work. Couple that with the insomnia I had been experiencing the past two nights, and by yesterday evening my head felt like it was about to explode, among other symptoms. Before I went to bed I filled my submarine with green tea leaves (from Thailand) and brewed the tea using my new super cute glass. I breathed in the grassy scent and let the hot steam rise to my face. I took deep breaths. I sipped my brew, lightly sweetened with honey. I smiled at the sight of the fat yellow sub, and of course as the sight of my fat yellow (orange) cat bounding around the bed. And I really could feel myself feeling better.

I know, I seem to be living and dreaming anywhere else but here or in the moment. These are all I have now.