Custard with a zeSt

When parties are decided out of the blue, do not stress yourself in the kitchen.

Custards are always a delight :) 

Add Orange zest to the custard mix while you are setting it to cool.

Chill the fruits separately and add them later to the custard.

Bake It Yourself - Walnut raisin bread

Baking is the latest craze ongoing in the family. Even with the little boy on tow, Milu (Manu's sister) managed to go for baking course and now she is baking incredibly wonderful cakes! It was a great motivation for me. 

I had always wanted to bake my own bread. I had scoured a lot of recipe books in search of an easy and interesting recipe. But, all f them had listed bread making as a very complicated process. So, I had not pursued it through, until last week when she showed me this beautiful and impressive cake she baked. Finally, my motivation levels shot up high and conquered my laziness. I read more about baking and got a basic understanding of the concepts like proofing, kneading and most importantly, the role of yeast. I always thought it was just another ingredient like baking powder and could add it to the dough. I was surprised to learn that even the dried yeast is a live organism, just waiting to be 'activated'. Luke warm water and sugar acts as the feed and brings it to action!

And over this weekend, I finally baked my own two loaves :-) 

Good news! I have adapted the recipe to make it as easy as I could. The process as such is not complicated, it just needs a lot of resting(rising) time in between. So, I just went on with my weekend chores simultaneously.

Ingredients:

• 375g bread flour
• 125g wholemeal flour
• 2 tsps fine salt
• 330 ml water (I used a pet bottle for the measure)
• 75 g walnuts, chopped
• 150 g raisins (Manu wants me to add more next time)
• 2 tsps dried yeast (itz marked Ragi instant yeast in my bottle)
• 2 tsps sugar

How To:

1. In a small cup, take 100 ml of the water and add 2 teaspoons of sugar. Mix the yeast to it, stir and leave for 5 minutes.

2. In a big  bowl, combine the flours and the salt.

3. When the yeast mixture turns frothy, make a well in a center of the flour bowl, and pour in the yeast mixture.

4. Using a spatula, draw enough of the flour into the yeast mixture to form a thick paste.

5. Cover the bowl with a tea towel, then leave to ‘sponge’ and risen. (About 20 minutes)

6. Pour in a bit more than half of the remaining water into the well and mix in the flour. Then stir in as much of the rest of the water as needed to form a firm, moist dough.

7. Turn the firm dough out onto a work surface. Knead, with the base of your palms, until smooth and rubbery. (I had to do this for around 7 minutes.) 

8. At the end of the kneading process, add the walnuts and raisins and mix well.

9. Put the dough in a bowl and cover with a tea towel. Leave to rise until doubled in size – around 45 minutes.

10. Take the dough out of the bowl, poke holes and punch the air out of the dough and divide it into 2 loaves.

11. Shape the dough into your desired shape.

12. Place the shaped dough on a baking sheet and cover with the damp tea towel.

13. Preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius.

14. Proof – or let the loaves rest and rise – until doubled in size. This takes about 30 minutes.

15. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes, until baked. One test of 'done-ness' is a hollow-sound when tapping the loaf underneath. 

16. Wait for a bit for  the loaf cools down, take pictures if you are interested, round up the members of the house :)

17. Feel mightily proud, slice, share and enjoy the warm steaming bread !

Power failure @ SG

For the first time ever, we experienced power failure at SG. This happened on 2nd Jan evening at my block. Owing , I was opting for a quick fix dinner. I had convinced Manu, Mahesh (Bro) and Appa that I make restaurant quality creamy Pasta. Even though I suspect that the tipping point in my favor was the excuse to open the Shiraz bottle which Mahesh had brought :)

As I was draining the al-dente pasta & finishing up the sauce, the music and lights went off! It took us a few seconds to realize that it is power failure. Being from the state with scheduled & unscheduled power failures, we know the protocol. First step was to check the fuse status. Second, but the most important step, is to check if the neighbors have power cut. Last step is to call PUB, the Singaporean version of KSEB and inform.
The truth is that, it was a relief when we saw the neighbors rushing out and panicking being unsure of how to handle this situation. Kind of a NUTS (No U Turn Syndrome) by fellow Singaporeans. But then, we decided to skip the informing part and enjoy the first power outage.
Glorious moment dawned when the men of the house agreed how useful my candle collection is. We lighted all of it and set around the dining counter, refilled the wine glasses and had a beautiful candle light dinner.
The timing was excellent.The power was back when we were getting ready for the pudding.

Only set back is I won't be allowed anymore to quote 'power-failure-free-Singapura' as a plus point.

A hearty low-cal soup

As part of healthy life style, I discovered that I should switch from my fave fried Kway teow to Vietnamese Pho.
Likewise, I should introduce soups and salads into daily meals.
Oh! So expensive they are, to be eaten at Soup Spoon or Salad Stop.
Healthy food is more expensive to eat out, which brings me to my own kitchen.

I decided to boil a soup.
The recipe is here :

2 large carrots
A bunch of asparagus
A handful of almonds (This can be optional, I wanted to add some protiens)
One big white onion, cut as u like, but not too small.
One Tablespoon oil (Butter is better, for people who want enhanced flavor and added calories)
Cream Cheese - Maybe 2-3 Tablesppon ( for creamier and calorified soup)
Salt (Sorry, forgot how much I added)

Cut the carrots into two big pieces & boil them until they soften, in ~600ML of water . (I used 500ML, but my soup came out thicker and had to add some more water)
Boil the Asparagus & almonds (I put them together :) )
Once you boil it, you just need to squeeze the almonds to peel them!

Slightly sauté the onion in the oil to take away the moisture (4-5 minutes in reduced heat). It locks in the flavor too. Once the onion is slightly brown, add the peeled almonds, boiled asparagus and carrots and salt.
Let it mix well for a minute or two. Switch off the stove & let it cool.
Once its cooled, blend all of it to a paste.
I do not know if using a Blender Or a Mixer makes any difference.
My blender gave up on the way. So, I used the mixer grinder.
You might need to add some water to help the mixer.
Once itz thoroughly mixed, pour this mix into the water you used to boil the carrots.
Make your husband stir it in low flame until he gets bored and starts complaining (3-4 minutes). That's when you ask him to taste it.

In desperate need to escape from the kitchen, the definite answer would be "Darling .. Its delicious"!
You may repeat this statement to feed him the soup later.

Garnish with Shallots, a bit of garlic and cilantro leaves Or whatever you like to see :-)
I added cilantro coz it looked nice on the gleaming sun-kissed yellow soup!

Public opinion is that it tastes good.
Serve with slightly toasted bread. Remember to buy wholemeal ;)

Have a good meal!