mycookerygarden

I turned the pot moringa plant as the branches were growing lopsided. See the plant's 180° moves in the pics below. Amazing.

I am recording this apple pie for its beauty. By my "low" standards. Usually, my dishes are not presented well or pretty. I decorated this crust with nice leaf petals this time, and they baked well. So, ta - dah! The pastry mixture is more biscuit like rather than short-crust pastry - only used 1 tbsp butter and some olive oil with an egg for about 1.5 - 2 cups of flour. So, this is the healthy part. The cubed apples (about 3 medium apples) was stewed for about 20 mins with quite a lot of cinnamon powder (2 tsp) and about 2 tbsp of sugar. So, altogether quite a "dry" crust apple pie - it will be more palatable for dessert lovers with a scoop of ice-cream. Baking in the oven at 180C. A little bit of leftover egg with water as egg wash - helped the browning. You can see this is a healthy crust by the crumbs from the knife cutting - it is a little dry because there was only about 1 tbsp butter and some olive oil used in the pastry, with an egg.

I had a block of Malagasy cheese that I found too "milky" - is it called "young, not matured cheese" ? I could not eat this cheese on its own. So, I looked around for a recipe to cook the cheese. Voila - spicy cheese crackers with lots of herbs sounds like it will disguise the milky taste. It did. Tea time Based on this recipe: https://www.browneyedbaker.com/spicy-southern-cheese-crackers/ 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (about 2 cups) = I used about 200g of Malagasy cheese 0.5 cup (113 grams) salted butter, at room temperature = reduced a little 1 teaspoon kosher salt 0.5 teaspoon cayenne pepper = I used chili powder 0.25 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 0.125 teaspoon garlic powder = I must have used a lot more 1.5 cups (213 grams) all-purpose flour  I tasted the dough when it was out of the mixer and added quite a lot of pepper, garlic and even chili powder to get the spiciness to the right level. To each his own. This is actually a v...

A friend gave me an organic lemon. It looked bigger than usual and it had some spots, showing its naturalness! So, what to do with a nice lemon? I remembered Mary Berry's Lemon Drizzle Cake but her one or two recipes in the web had this 1:1:1 ratio of flour, sugar and butter. For the classic sponge cake, I think. But this other recipe seems better for my taste. http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/4830/polly-welby-s-famous-lemon-drizzle-cake.aspx 110g (4 oz) butter 170g (6 oz) self raising flour 4 tablespoons milk 170g (6 oz) caster sugar = I used 150g and it was sweet enough 2 eggs lemon zest and juice from 1 lemon 3 tablespoons icing sugar = for once, I had icing sugar in the fridge This cake turned out great. I love it because the lemon infused cake is so light to eat and the sourness and sweetness matches so well. Absolute delight with such simple ingredients.   Heavenly slice - the lemon juice hits the sweetness of the cake just right. All mixed up with lemon zest...

For non-vegetarians, the idea of a tofu burger is not exactly palatable. BUT .. this one can make the grade. Well, it is not meat but it is tasty tofu. And not the mashed up type of patty where you don't know what exactly you are tasting. I prefer to see and eat the whole piece of tofu - a recognizable and tasty tofu patty. All it needs is to press the water out (stack something heavy on top for 20 mins or more), season with some soya sauce and pan-fry it. Oh, add some sauce like ketchup or barbeque sauce (usually not vegetarian) - so look for HP sauce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Sauce The inspiration for this cooking came from this blog: https://lovingitvegan.com/tofu-burger/ Next time, I'll add in the mushroom sauce with coconut cream. Pan fried pieces of tofu Arrange to your heart's content - coriander really jazzes up the taste, besides the bottled sauce!

I just realized that maangchi's blog has so many kimchi recipes. When I made my batch, I was referring to this one: https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/napa-cabbage-kimchi Which is one of her earlier posting giving the portions to make both napa cabbage kimchi and radish kimchi ( kkakdugi). This other recipe for the traditional napa cabbage kimchi looks good as well. It has carrot matchsticks and half the amount of hot pepper flakes as the above recipe. Next time. https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/tongbaechu-kimchi/comment-page-1 I bought a small cabbage about 940g, so I adjusted the ingredient measurements by four. 2 large size napa cabbages (about 8 pounds: 3.6 kg) = 940g 2 Korean radishes (about 4-5 pounds: 2 kg) = 0.5kg 1.5 cup of kosher salt = as needed when salting the cabbage, maybe 4-5 tbsp 0.5 cup sweet rice flour, 0.25 cup sugar, 3 cups water = used glutinous rice flour, reduced all measures to a quarter 4 cups of hot pepper flakes = 0.75 cups of Korean chili paste +...

An Edible Garden is fun as you can eat the fruits of your labour. I tried to plant Okinawan spinach from one cutting cut into 2 stems. Alas, the first stem died as I had planted it before rooting. I had read somewhere that it could be planted this way. Well, this did not work out for me. The second cutting fared better after some roots grew in the water first. Okinawan spinach from a friend. Made a salad with some of the leaves. 4 Mar 2018: Two cuttings in water. The leaf-less cutting survived 1-2 weeks in soil before it rotted. Those leaves at the side of the pot are Indian Borage leaves. I stuck them in there to suck up some water, because I had over-watered on some days. 22 Mar 2018: First planted. 3 Apr 2018 10 Apr 2018 14 Apr 2018 26 Apr 2018 Bought a pot of sweet basil from NTUC supermarket. Cut up the big basil leaves for a pasta. There were about 5-6 plants in this pot. 7 Apr 2018: In the original brown pot, t he long roots were ...