Russian Crepe (blinchiki)

This is something really easy to make but takes a really long time! However, I find this recipe to be lightest, fluffiest with just the right amount of sweetness. My hubby sent this to me, so I don't know where the source is from. You can make the filling sweet (cream cheese, whipped cream), savory (meat crumbs), fresh (fruits) or just have it as is.

Ingredients

2 ¼ cups of milk or water
3 eggs
1 ¼ of flour
1 tbsp of sugar (if you want your crepe to be sweeter, you can use 2tbs of sugar)
1 tsp of salt
3 tbsp of vegetable or olive oil

Directions

1. Mix the eggs, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl until thoroughly blended.
2. Add milk or water to the mixture and mix well.
3. Stir in flour, mixing well to make sure that there are no lumps in the mixture.
4. Add vegetable oil to the batter and mix well. Leave to stand for 10-15 min.
5. Oil a skillet (you can use frying pan as well). Pour the batter on the hot oiled skillet and cook on one side until golden then flip the crepe over and brown the other side.
6. Repeat step 5 for the next crepe, making sure there is a very light coating of oil and nothing burnt on the skillet/pan.
7. Serve sweet crepes with jam (варенье), sour cream, honey (мёд), syrup, melted chocolate, whipped cream, and fruit.

Tip:

If you would like for your crepes to be denser (thicker), you can add more flour. If you would like for your pancakes to be thinner, add more milk or water to batter.

Have fun with this recipe!

Steamed Meat Bun

Recently I was craving for some good mantou (Almost Bourdain has a great recipe with step by step guide, alas, s/he blocked her blog so I can't see the recipe anymore!), a plain sweet Chinese bun with no filing. It's not the cha siu pao, so don't think of those yummy delicious gooey meat filled buns. Anyway, I made some and hubby wasn't too happy it wasn't filled. I ended up searching on YouTube for a decent recipe for buns (mantou and meat buns has slightly different taste, mantou is sweeter, meat bun dough saltier).

I found 2 videos I like, a  Taiwanese lady called TaiwanDuck and YazzMatz. I am happy with YazzMatz's YouTube recipe (coz it seems easier), except the dough turned out really gooey, sticky and really salty! So I adjusted the flour and salt measurement and am happy with the result. For the meat filing, I can't imagine how just plain ground turkey and chives makes anything yummy, so I made my own. It's not perfect, so I will add this later on when I perfected the recipe, catered to hubby's taste bud of course :)

The one I made, not bad for a first timer!

Dough recipe:

3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 pkg of active dry yeast (equals to 2 1/4 tsp)
2 tbsp white sugar
1 tsp fine salt
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup of warm (to your touch) water

Instruction:
Preferably in a mixer, put all ingredients together and mix for about 10 mins (when your dough looks smooth). If you don't have a mixer, knead with hands (like washing laundry motion) for about 20-30 minutes.

Once done, coat the inside of a huge bowl with a teaspoon of vegetable oil. Put your kneaded dough into the bowl, place a warm wet towel over it and set aside at a warm place for about 30 mins to an hour or until it doubled in size (depending on how warm it is).

Prepare your meat filling while waiting for dough to rise.

Once done, check your dough. If it's doubled in size, take it out and roll it again. Make it into a round shape, punch a hole in the middle, break the "chain" and roll it into a long skinny log shape so that it's easier for you to use your palm to cup (effectively working as measurement tool) and twist off a portion of dough (at this point it should make a nice "plop" sound when you twist it off. I learn this from my mom, who used to make the bomb steam buns). Roll that portion into a dough, using roller pin roll it to a desired thickness and round shape. Put your meat filing in, pleat it and you got a nice bun!

Steam in a steamer for about 15-20 mins (meat filing is raw, so need to cook the meat as well). Serve it hot!

Peanut Butter Cookies

This is a recipe I got from Chef John. His original recipe is here (he has a video, so follow the video). You can try his ingredients or mine, I find his too salty for me to eat a lot of them cookies, and that makes me sad! So I changed the salt content and the peanut butter uhm... I don't know what to call it, version? consistency? You know, the crunchy or creamy type. It gives the cookies a chewier texture and I love 'my' version more coz I can eat like 5 at one go and don't need to chug down a lot of water to ease the saltiness.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or 1/4 tsp fine table salt)

1/2 teaspoons baking soda

*Bake at 375 degrees F. for 10 minutes


Instructions:


In a mixer bowl, put in the butter, sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cream for about 1-2 mins until they are creamy looking. Throw in the egg, mix until combined and throw in the flour. Mix at slow speed so you don't get flour all over you and  then mix until well combined.


Using whatever method you like (Chef John use ice cream scoop, I use 1 tbsp measurement spoon), roll them into balls, place onto ungreased cookie pan, use the fork to make those tic tac toe game design, bake for about 10 mins (my oven bakes for about 8 mins or so). 


Take out, let cool for about 5mins, then transfer to cooling rack. Once it's cool enough to eat, you will like it. Trust me. ;)

Easy peasy. I love these cookies! Thank you Chef John!

Asparagus in garlic butter

Asparagus is generally served simply boiled especially in dishes like Egg Benedict.

I like to serve my asparagus simple and fuss free.

When choosing asparagus, it's better to choose a slim one rather than thick bodied ones. These are more tender thus you have more to serve. Rinse them in water and snap the ends of too 'old' asparagus away so only the tender ones remained.

Ingredients

1 lb asparagus
2 tbsp salted butter
4 cloves garlic
3 tsp salt

Put a pot of water to boil. Once it's boiling add in 2 tsp of salt. Wait until it boils again and then put all the asparagus in at one go. Cover the pot and let it boil for around 3-4 mins.

While waiting, mince the garlic and cut butter 1/8 inches. Put these into a mixing bowl. Once asparagus are done sieve them (throw the water away) and pour into the mixing bowl. Mix using spatula.

Once thoroughly mixed you can sprinkle the remaining 1 tsp salt on top for extra taste or omit as you like. Serve with any meat dish. :)

Carrot Cake fr Chef John.

This recipe is from Chef John's carrot cake. There is a LOT of carrot cake recipes out there, but I just tweaked this recipe a bit to my own preference (both hubby and me have the diabetic genes so I reduced the sugar in frosting and cake as well as the oil as it was a bit too oily).


If you like it, all credits to Chef John. If you don't like it, go to Chef John's blog and try his version. It might be more to your liking. :)


2 cups all-purpose flour 
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1.5 cups sugar
1 cups vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1/4 cup melted butter
2 cups raw grated carrots
1 can (8 ounce) crushed pineapple, drained
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

For the frosting:
1  cup unsalted butter, softened
2 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1.5 tablespoon milk
1.5 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and ginger in a mixing bowl for a minute or two; reserve until needed.

In another mixing bowl, combine the sugar, oil, and eggs. Whisk until thoroughly combined. Whisk in the melted butter. Use a spatula to stir in the carrots, pineapple, and nuts. Stir in the flour mixture in two additions.

Scrape the batter into 2 greased 8 inches baking dish. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the top springs back slightly when gently touched with your finger. Remove and allow to cool completely before frosting.


To make the frosting: Use an electric mixer to beat together the butter, cream cheese, milk, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar to form a smooth frosting. Spread evenly over the cooled cake.


**note : 


If you want to layer your cake, after cake is cooled pop them into the fridge for about 30mins before cutting it. The chill helps with the frosting (crumbs) as well.


If you would like to learn how to ice (put frosting on a cake) I learn from Design Me a Cake and this is her video.


She also teach you how to layer (cut the cake into layers) here.

Blueberry Muffin - my tweaked recipe :)

Now, of all the recipes I tried out, I had a hard time finding one that I liked for blueberries muffin. It's the berries season for goodness sake! This frustrates me non-stop, I'm (at times..hehe) a perfectionist! Do you know how frustrating it is each time you do something and you're just not satisfied with it? And everything was followed perfectly through!

I ended up baking blueberries pie and apple pies, both of which I'm not that satisfied with. The first apple pie was nice, but too juicy inside (imo). Second apple pie was too sour (cos I used granny smith apple along with other apples) and blueberries pie tho looks good, taste too sour. I'm digressing here but gimme a break. I'm just lamenting how hard it is to find a good recipe that satisfies my taste bud!

I was told, cooking is like chemistry. If you follow the instruction to the T, there is no way you can go wrong with your recipe. Trick is - sometimes the recipe calls for whip on high speed, and recently I researched KitchenAid blender. There are 10 speeds! So, between 8,9 and 10 - which one is considered high speed? Obviously I need to do more research!

So after putting through my truly 'blessed' hubby and myself through several testing (there are recipes with poppy seeds, sour cream and other stuff) I finally came down to this one.

I like my muffins sweet, not (like my hubby put it) ass gluing sweet, but sweet enough that I don't feel like I need to add sugar into my milk to add taste!

I think this recipe can still be tweaked further, but maybe not. I'm quite happy with how it turns out so I'm keeping it. If you do tweak it, let me know what you did and how it turns out!

close up on blueberries, yummm

don't they look real yummy? hehehe

Dry Ingredients
2 1/2 cups of self-raising flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup fine white sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar

Wet Ingredients
1 1/2 cups room temp milk
1 stick plus 2.5 tbsp of melted unsalted butter
2 eggs, room temp
2 cups of blueberries
1 tsp vanilla essence

• Pre-heat your oven to 400F.
• Aerate (read notes below) the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, white and brown sugar in a bowl.
• In another bowl, pour the melted butter, room temp milk, vanilla essence and eggs together. Whisk briskly to blend well. 
• Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl, toss in the blueberries and mix until mixture is lumpy but no obvious dry flour. Pour into your cupcake pans (at this point, I use cupcake papers so it's easier to remove them).
• Bake one side for 10mins then turn it around for another 10 mins. If you have one of those awesome oven that bakes evenly, skip this step.

Notes
Aerate can be done by two ways.

• Traditional - use a sifter. I'm pretty sure all of us know how to do this.
• Modern - use a whisk! Just run your whisk through the flour mixture to ensure it's well blended. Works the same way!

Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana Soup

Now tell me who does not love a good soup?? Soup is my comfort food. The No 1 I go to when I'm sick. The hot soup going down your throat and warms up your chest (almost painfully scalding but oh-so-good at the same time) hitting your tummy, that is the best feeling I can get when I'm sick, especially with flu!

If you've been to Olive Garden, good bet is you tried this soup. Good bet is you loved it and the cheesesticks too!

I went to the website and they don't have this recipe up, so boo! But the one I have below is really close taste to theirs (hubby says it's even better and cost less than $10 to make for a HUGE pot... lol).

Now, I don't know how to make those cheese bread, so you'll have to find the recipe elsewhere.. :) . There are several changes you can make.

Sausage - you can find the sausage from anywhere. Generally, I like the one from Winco better than Walmart. Not gonna venture to other stores coz well, I'm more of a cost vs value person. I don't like spicy food much so I chose a mild instead of spicy.

Chicken Broth - I'm a true Chinese. By that I mean I'm very stingy. I love cooking another meal called porridge but that is another entry another time. Now, I saw how much those chicken broth by the packets or cans cost. Are you kidding me!? If you go to those spices aisle, you can find those cubes or powdered version. There will be an instruction on how to mix them and they make just as good a broth. Or, you can make the broth yourself, but the time and effort you have to spend is just not worth it.

Ingredients

1 lb. spicy Italian sausage
1/2 lb. smoked bacon - chopped 1/8th inch (about 4 slices is enough to be honest)
1 qt. water
(2) 14.5 oz. cans (about 3 2/3 cups) chicken broth
2 lg. russet potatoes - scrubbed clean, cubed
2 garlic cloves - peeled, crushed
1 med. onion - peeled, chopped
2 cups chopped kale OR Swiss chard
1 cup heavy whipping cream
salt and pepper - to taste

There are 2 parts to this. I'll put them as soup and meat. I prepared the soup base first as the potatoes need time to get tender. This usually takes around 15-20mins? I learnt in culinary books that 'simmer' means when there are bubbles that comes up to the surface slowly but not those violent bubbles when they boil rapidly. So, note that!

Soup Base

In a at least 3qt pot (for above ingredients, double your pot size if you're making more!), pour in water on high heat. Wait until it starts to simmer and put in the potatoes, wait until it boils for a while. When it starts to boil the starch in the potatoes will create these residue (I don't know what they are called), scoop them up and throw away. After the water is fairly clear, chuck in the garlic and onion. If you are using chicken broth mixture, pour in plain water and correct measurement of chicken broth powder. If you are using chicken broth then just pour that in now. 

Meat

Brown bacon in a pan over medium heat, making sure they don't get crispy burn. Once they are to your desired crispiness, drain the oil and set aside.

Prepare your sausages (peel off the skin). In a cold pan over high heat, put your sausage in, crumbling them as you go. This technique is called ... (Chef John explained this in his video for Sloppy Joe, go search it! lol), but anyway, it helps you to ensure the meat crumbles nicely. Once they are no longer pink, they are ready. Drain the oil and now we are onto the last part!

Ending

Pour the sausages and bacon into the soup base. Lower your heat until the soup just simmer softly for 10 minutes. If there is too much oil on the surface, scoop them up by putting a spoon on the edge of the pot with a slight pressure. You will notice the oil will go into the spoon and you can throw that away.

While waiting, we will clean a bunch of kale. Chop that first diagonally and then horizontally (so they are bite sized instead of awfully long). When 10 mins up add kale and cream into the pot, season with salt and pepper and serve! 

Tiny notes

• If you prefer your potatoes to be smaller, you can cut them in about 1/2inch thickness instead of cubes. That is how Olive Garden serve theirs. 
• Kale will turn slightly yellowish green after you throw them in. If you wish to maintain the presentation factor, throw in a bunch for the first few bowls (make sure you scoop them all up), preserve the rest of dinner or next day when you warm the soup in the pot.