Happy Holidays and Leopold Mozart's Sleigh Ride

I did make a christmas fruit cake, it is maturing I so wanted to post it but I still have to decorate them and this time of the year it is really busy in my place. Have few parties to organize and few to go also. That is why there has been no blogging and bloghopping.
I will be back to blogging by the begning of new year.

Wishing all my readers Happy Holidays

And instead of a cake picture and recipe here is a video of my daughter playing solo in the orchestra. She is the one with long hair and standing first in the row.
They performed for a christmas concert.

Christmas concert at the Margaretachurch in Knokke (W-Flanders,Belgium)
By the Harsymf group: concertmaster Shyama Vermeersch.

Performance of Leopold Mozart's Sleigh Ride ( part 2 sleighride to the party, 3 the shivering young girl, at the party, end of the party, returning home

Chicken Ramen

If you look to my blog there is far more baking goodies there then hot dishes.

Not that I don't cook at home just than mostly when I make something for lunch I never take pictures as I like to serve my food hot and if I wait to take picttures I will have 2 hungey stomachs at the table asking where is their lunch :-)

And I also like to eat my food warm than cold. So mostly I tend not to take pictures.
I have blogged about some dishes and if you look to the picture you will see steam on them :-) or mostly they are blurred as I am in such a hurry.

Few months back I bought The Wagamama cookbook and I am in love with it. There is so much super delicous recipes in this book.
And most of the recipes are the same as the dish they serve in their place in London, Amsterdam, Belgium etc I have made a couple of dishes and all of them were really delicous and most important they are healthy and delicous.

Combine noodles, hot stock, fresh vegetables and lightly grilled chicken and you have a complete meal in a bowl. The writter of this book says fast food really doesn't get better than this and I have to totally agree with him.

For 2 person
2 bonless skinless chicken breasts
vegetable oil for frying
salt and peper
250 gm ramen noodles
1 litrer chicken stock ( chinese one, when i make the broth i just add grated fesh giner and chillies )
2 pak choi, trimmed and roughly choppes or 2 handfull of baby spinach. ( i used iceberg salade)
Hand full of bean sprouts
4 spring onions, trimmed and finley cliced

Cook the noodles in a large pan of boiling water for 2-3 minutes untill just ender. Drain, refresh under cold water and dicide between 2 bowls.

Preheat the grill or gridle pan. Lightly oil and season the chicken breast and grill for 5 minutes, slice on the diagonall and set aside.

Heat the chicken stock untill boiling.
Put the pak choi/baby spinach ( with me the iceberg salade) , bean sprouts and chicken into the bowl were the noodles is and laddle the hot stock. Garnish with the sliced spring onions.
Enjoy.

Sending this to Presto Pasta Nights which is hosted at Cinamon Spice & Everything nice

Filled Cookies with Nuts and Marzipan

Middle of last week I got my new oven and it is a convection oven.
I started baking the day itself. Each time I went to the kitchen I coudn't stop smiling , this oven is much bigger than the old one.
Next day when i went to my in laws place I told my MIL how can one just feel so good because having a new oven.
Ofcourse i do have to get used to the new oven as i found out when i baked bread this weekend they were baked in less time than my old oven.

Really the last days I have been walking aroung here at home with a huge smile , even now while writting the post I am smilling just because I have a new oven :-)

Ofcourse my daughter and hubby can't understand the joy I am feeling with my new oven. They both think I am weird for beeing so happy for something like a oven.

It is exams for my daughter so I love baking while she is learning in her room and she is my taster, the moment they come out from the oven and can be handled I take one to her for tasting.

I must say these cookies are really delicious. They are buttery and you bite into them and inside you have this filling of nuts , marzipan and redcurrant jelly all mixed together.

My New Oven

For the dough
100 gm ice very cold unsalted butter
200 gm flour
75 gm sugar
1 medium egg

a pinch of salt

Cut the cold butter into small pieces. Add them to the flour, sugar, egg and the salt in a bowl.
Mix it with the hand till it forms a ball. Don't over work it, if you do then the dough get tough.
Wrap the dough in a foil and keep in the fridge for 1 hour.

For the filling:

100 gm Walnuts chopped fine
50 gm marzipan. ( grate them fine)
50 gm red currant jam. ( you don't have to stick to this jam, i am sure you can add any taste)
18 half walnuts.

For the drizzle
50 gm dark chocolate
1 tbsp butter

Melt the chocolate together with the butter for the drizzle.

Mix in a bowl the walnuts, marzipan and the jam.
Divide the dought into 18 balls. Take a ball and shape them into a round shape ( i presses with my palm) Take a tbsp or less filling and keep them in the middle of the circle shape and then take each end and press and make a ball.
Repeat with the other balls.
Press a walnut half in the middle of each balls.
Preheat the oven to 180°C and bake them for 18 minutes.
Cool them and drizzle the chocolate and leave the chocolate to get hard.
Enjoy the cookies.I am sending this to Susan for her if you check out her place you will see what all cookies santa as got till now just go here and also do make some cookies and send her way.

Pistachio and Lemon Curd Macarons

Some three weeks ago I mentioned to my hubby and daughter, we are doing again Mac atack

Daughter : yuppieeeeee Macarons, what colour are you going to make and what filling?

Hubby : ohhhhhh Noooooooooooo You are not going to make them again and moan from the kitchen it didn't come out nice and start over and over again and make us eat all those horribly gone wrong Macarons.

Last time I had to do few times till i got them good
So while few of the Mac team was in London for FBC , and to compensate me not beeing there I thought I will make them.

It was so quiet in the kitchen .........that hubby came to look what is going on and when he saw the Macarons resting before going to the oven, he looked one look to the green colour of row of macarons and said oh NO you are not making those alien looking things are you.
That is what he calls them now, as I use such colours :-)

This time I used half almond powder and half pistchio nuts.
I didn't get a real smooth finishing to my macarons, but I didn't want to make them again so I thought this will have to do.
They were really delicious with the lemon curd filling. I used shop bought lemon curd.

You can find the recipe from my earlier post here instead of using full almonds i used half pistachios.
So this is for my Mac tweet

Coconut,oats and chocolate chip cookies

My oven got busted last week. Actually I think It must have gone bad before that.
Me the silly one didn't figure out. I baked my bread which I usually bake and when I took them out of the oven they were not baked, it was like , well i don't think I can describe them.
That was the day when I made my few trials of the Achappam, so I thought maybe in the hurry I must have done the wrong temperature.

I even had to run to the bakers near by to buy bread otherwise I didn't had bread for that evening ( weekdasy it is bread here in the evening)

Then I made again bread few days ago and the same thing happend then I knew my oven was busted up.

Ofcourse these cookies were made before my oven disaster.
Goog news is saturday hubby and I went for oven hunting and we bought a new one and they wil bring the oven tommorow.
I must admit I was lost without my oven.
Now to the baking

When I saw these cookies in Sunita's place, I remember telling to my self I must make this

I was not disapointed, it was just so so good.
And for sure if you know sunita's cooking you know it will be filled with healthy ingridients.
Except when she is in a real indulge mood like her Mini Chocolate pots , which I saw them and ran to my kitchen and indulged myself too.
But for the most she is a well behaved girl she sticks to real healthy but yummy bakes like this one.
I followed her recipe exactly, except I add a tsp of chillie flakes as I have seen sunita often spicying up her baking and while making these cookies why not try the same.
Here at home we allo loved it, we all loved the light tingling feeling while eating these cookies.
So thankyou sunita for yet another wonderful recipe.

Want to have a go at making this super delish cookies chech out her place for the recipe

I am sending this to Susan for her if you check out her place you will see what all cookies santa as got till now just go here and also do make some cookies and send her way.

Acchapam (Rose Cookies)

I don't think I really appriciated when my mom made all the Indian sweets or some special treats.
And also I was never intrested in cooking during that time like most of you .

If I am honest when I was in my early teens I don't think I even thought aobut how much time and efffort she put into make some of the spcial food she made. Every day when we three girls came back home from school,there was something home made which she whipped up for us, which we used to hogg like piggies or on the weekend or special occasions she used to make other things which took a lot of time and work.

I remember she used to make these Achappams and not just for 1 cup of flour, i think when she made them it was mostly for a kilo of flour as I remember , they were made and kept in this huge parle biscut tins.

I am telling about how Ididn't apriciate the work she had put to make things for one reason, I tried for the first time to make Achappam few days back.

Well the first I mixed everything and tried them and whil i dipped the shape into the hot oil I saw them breaking into circles than just giving beautiful flower shape.
So I mixed a new batch tried again , no use it was a disaster again, so i searched the net and found a recipe just using flour and i tried them, well i got beautiful flowers, but then were too soggy with oil and then heavy so I binned my third batch of the day.

So I tried again the below recipe which I got form the net.

It is true they say making Achappam is like winning lottery.
I got 7 beautiful rose shaped achappams and they wee not sticking into the mould , came out perfectly, but from the 8th one it started sticking.
So i gave up .
I just think I am not that lucky in making these beautiful cookies like Mishmash or Aparna.

I am not giving up, I am sure gonna try again, but I think i will wait for a while :-)

Raw rice powder - 1 glass
Sugar - 1/4 glass
Coconut milkthick , I used tinned coconut milk. ( didn't measure just used till i got a batter like for dosa
Eggs - 1
Black seasame seeds ( i didn't have so used white)
Oil for frying

Beat the eggs well.
Mix together egg, sugar, rice powder, seasame seeds and coconut milk well.
The consistency should that of dosa batter.
Heat the oil and dip the achappam mould.
The mould should be very hot so that the achappams will come out from the mould when you dip it in the oil.
Once the mould is hot enough, dip the mould into the batter and fill it till 3/4th of the capacity.
Dip it in oil again and after half a minute, shake the mould lightly so that the achappams will come out easily. (If you shake the mould vigourously, the shape will not be maintained and there are chances of the achappams to break.)
Once slightly golden brown, turn and cook the other side.
Remove from the oil and place them on a tissue paper.
At a time, you can make 3-4 achappams or more depending upon the size of the vessel

As this is a traditional christmas cookies from kerala I am sending this to Susan for her if you want to see what all cookies santa as got till now just go here