Garlic Naan Recipe

Posted on May 31, 2012 2 Comments

garlic naan recipe
Earlier in the week I posted the Indian Green Curry recipe and this garlic naan is a pretty awesome addition to that. Or on its own. I mean you can’t go too far wrong with bread, butter and garlic can you? In fact. Bread, butter and garlic are kind of like food heaven for me.

After working out how easy curry was to make, I figured making garlic naan would be an absolute snap. I used to live on Indian food so the idea of curry and naan was more than I could pass up.

Only vaguely related: I am a huge Masterchef fan, because I am incapable of resisting reality tv and food in one package. And I love how passionate George and Gary are. So I was extremely disappointed to hear George say that he didn’t really get into Indian food. I mean that’s a lot of food to wipe out in one go. And it’s not even like he tried it and just didn’t like it but to say that it just had never inspired him to dive in and try it. Pretty appalling attitude from someone who is supposed to be a chef. It won’t stop me from watching because I am an addict, but I would like my disappointment noted.

What you will need to make garlic naan

3 cups (450g) plain flour
1 teaspoon dried yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1/2 cup (125ml) warm water
1/2 cup (125g) natural yoghurt or milk
1 egg, lightly whisked
80g ghee (I used butter instead)
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped

How to make garlic naan

1. Mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a large bowl.

2. Whisk the water, yoghurt (or milk. I didn’t have any yoghurt and using milk instead worked just fine) and egg in a small jug.

3. Add the dry and wet ingredients together and stir until the mixture comes together.

4. Turn onto a lightly floured board and knead for 5 minutes or until mixture is smooth.

5. Place in a bowl, cover with cling wrap and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes. In winter, I will often put it next to a pre-heating oven to help it rise. We will need the oven at 180 degrees. Put the tray you are going to use into the oven to pre-heat as well.

6. Punch down the dough and add half the ghee (or butter) to the dough and knead until it is well incorporated.

7. Melt the remaining ghee (or butter) in a pan on a low heat and add in the garlic until you can smell that deliciousness. Then take it off the heat.

8. Divide the dough into 8 even portions. Press each portion into a retangular shape about 3mm thick. Put half the naan into the oven and bake for 8 minutes or until golden brown. Do not be tempted to take it out before it is golden brown! If you do it will be doughy and not very nice. Take it out of the oven and brush with the butter/garlic mixture. Then repeat for the second batch!

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Indian Green Curry

Posted on May 29, 2012 1 Comment

indian vegetable curry

Potato Curry Recipe

I have not made a whole lot of curries. I don’t know why. I guess I always thought they would be hard to make or alot of work. But given that I like to make plenty of things that are alot of work that doesn’t make sense, even to me! Anyway turns out I was dead wrong and that was just an idiotic idea that I had in my head. I based this curry on this recipe and I changed it alot.

I am a fussy eater. I’m funny about texture. And although I like most vegetables, I don’t like most vegetables cooked. Writing that down makes me realise that as much as I complain about Riley’s fussy eating, I’m EXACTLY THE SAME. Possibly I shouldn’t complain so loudly. Anyway, I don’t like most red or orange vegetables cooked – tomatoes, carrot, sweet potato, pumpkin. Tomatoes are actually usually fine because they are diced up and just cook down. So I’m a big fan of the green curry. Green curries are usually used to describe thai curries but I love this indian-style curries using green vegetables, potatoes and mushrooms. But you can use any combination of vegetables that you like. You need not buy into my neurosis, after all.

What you will need for your potato and pea curry:

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 brown onions, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoon ground coriander
2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
600g potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 head of broccoli, cut into florets
4 portobello mushrooms, halved and thickly sliced.
2 cups of vegetable stock
270mls of coconut milk
2 cups frozen peas

How to make it:

1. Put the oil and the diced onions into a pan on a low-medium heat and stir occasionally until slightly golden in colour. This usually takes about 15 minutes.

2. Add in all the spices and salt – coriander, cumin, tumeric, chilli and garam masala. If you don’t have garam masala don’t worry it will be just fine without it – I’ve made it both ways! Stir on the heat until those spices are starting to smell pretty fantastic (usually around 1 minute).

3. Add in your quartered potatoes (if you are using baby or smaller potatoes you won’t need to quarter them, just halve them instead). And toss through the onion and spice mix so all the potatoes are covered.

4. Pour in enough vegetable stock to cover the potatoes. Cover with a lid and simmer for 20 minutes.

5. Add in the can of coconut milk (or coconut cream if you prefer) and add the broccoli, mushrooms and frozen peas and simmer uncovered for a further 10 minutes or until vegetables are cooked through.

I serve this with rice and it is yummy. But I’ve also made garlic naan to have with it and I’ll share that recipe later in the week!

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Dinosaur Birthday Cake

Posted on May 9, 2012 5 Comments


When it came to making a dinosaur themed cake for the girls’ birthday I knew I didn’t have the sculpting skills for a dinosaur shaped cake and I didn’t have the funds to get a professional to do it for me. So I compromised (I know. I’m reeling from the shock too). And I planned instead for a simple three tier cake design decorated with mini bunting and toy dinosaurs.

Making the Devils Food Cake

I made three cakes – I only had one sized pan so I just cut down the cakes after I baked them but this would be significantly easier and less wasteful if you had different sized cake pans. Or you could always use the extra left over for cake pops. It’s at this point that I realise I am fast resembling a cake pop pusher.

First: make the cake

I used this Devil’s Food Cake from Taste minus the red food colouring and espresso.

What you need

175g butter
3/4 cups caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 1/3 cups self-raising flour
2/3 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup milk

How you make it

1. Preheat your oven to 180 or 160 for fan forced

2. Grease and line a round cake tin with baking paper

3. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla until fluffy

4. Add eggs one at a time

5. Stir in flours, baking soda, cocoa, water and milk

6. Pour into pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but start checking after an hour.

Buttercream Icing

The buttercream icing is very basic and involves 2 sticks of butter (500 grams) and 4 cups of icing mixture along with two teaspoons of vanilla extract. Beat until smooth.

Icing the Cake

I iced the three layers separately and refrigerated them that way before putting them all together for decoration.

Mini Bunting

The mini bunting was so easy to make. All you need is some string, a glue stick and some craft paper. You cut the craft paper into a diamond shape so that when you fold it over it makes a triangle. Then all you have to do is glue the back of the paper, fold it over the string and you have mini bunting. So easy!

Dinosaur Decorations

This was by far the easiest part, which involved raiding the toys for mini dinosaurs and we have loads of those!

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Dinosaur Cupcake Recipe

Posted on April 26, 2012 5 Comments

The best cupcake recipe

It sounds like a big claim, doesn’t it? But for me, that’s exactly what these are because they are a basic recipe that can be adapted to any flavour you want and are absolutely idiot proof. Which when I’m baking, is a very handy thing to have. And it didn’t come from a recipe book or a family recipe, it came from Yahoo Answers. I was searching for cup cakes I could make using only one egg and I came across this. And I haven’t used any other cupcake recipe since.

How to make the cupcakes – basic white cupcakes

What you will need

1/2 cup butter
1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

How you bake the cupcakes

1. Preheat your oven to 190 degrees (or 170 degrees fan forced). This is 375 degrees in farenheit.

2. Put your chosen cupcake wrappers in your tray

3. Put your butter in a bowl and using a mixer add in all the dry ingredients until you reach a fine crumb.

4. Mix in 1/2 cup of milk and the egg until all combined.

5. Add in the remaining 1/4 cup of milk and the vanilla

6. Place in the cupcake wrappers (fill up to about 2/3 of the way). For me, this usually makes about 15.

7. Put in the oven for about 15-18 minutes. As soon as you start to see them become even a little bit golden around the edges you will want to take them out.

How to make icing for cupcakes – basic vanilla

What you will need

1 cup butter
2 cups of icing sugar mixture
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Making the cupcake icing

1. Beat the butter and then add in the icing sugar until it is all smooth. You can use more or less icing sugar depending upon how sweet you want it.
2. Add in the vanilla and then you are ready to ice.

Note: If you are not using a piping bag to ice and are planning on just having a smooth layer of icing on your cupcakes you could probably get away with halving the amount of icing you prepare. But having too much icing is never really a problem is it?

How to frost the cupcakes

I used a disposable piping bag and a 1M icing tip. The 1M icing tip is brilliant and takes care of all of the hard work for you. If you wanted your icing to be higher you could do two layers of icing as well.

Decorating the cupcakes – a dinosaur cupcake topper

This was definitely the easiest part.

What you’ll need

craft paper
scissors
a dinosaur shape to trace
sticky tape
toothpicks

How to make the dinosaur cupcake topper

1. On the reverse side of your craft paper trace out the number of cupcake toppers you need with your dinosaur shape.
2. Cut out all of your shapes. If find fastidious husbands are great for this job.
3. Stick each shape on to a toothpick with sticky tape.

The final product – Dinosaur cupckes!

Now all you have to do is stick your cupcake toppers into your cupcake and you have uber cute dinosaur cupcakes. And keep in mind that cupcakes freeze really well. So you can make the cupcakes and freeze them before you ice them. But I’ve even found that freezing them with the icing on top has been great too. I’ve heard people say that if you freeze them iced the icing can have a tendency to lift off the cupcakes when you bite into them but I haven’t had that problem. They defrosted really well and all I did was put them in the freezer in cling wrap.

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Cake Pops! {From Scratch}

Posted on April 16, 2012 10 Comments

cake pops recipe
I am emerging from a cake pop coma. I tucked them safely away in the freezer this morning where I would no longer be able to see them and be forced to eat them.

When I was looking at cake pop recipes for the girls’ birthday party it annoyed the crap out of me that there wasn’t one from scratch recipe. You know what also annoys me? That there is even a thing called baking from scratch.

Cakes are generally based on butter, flour, sugar, baking soda and eggs. This isn’t freaking rocket science people, all you need is a measuring cup. Buying a packet mix is not more convenient. It’s basically just the dry ingredients mixed up with a whole lot of other crap that you don’t need.

So I simply made the parts of the recipe that suggested packet mix from scratch. I based it on this recipe from Kidspot.

First: make the cake

I used this Devil’s Food Cake from Taste minus the red food colouring and espresso.

What you need

175g butter
3/4 cups caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 1/3 cups self-raising flour
2/3 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup milk

How you make it

1. Preheat your oven to 180 or 160 for fan forced

2. Grease and line a round cake tin with baking paper

3. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla until fluffy

4. Add eggs one at a time

5. Stir in flours, baking soda, cocoa, water and milk

6. Pour into pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but start checking after an hour.

Then crumble the cake.

I admit this feels perverse and wrong. To go to the trouble of baking a cake only to turn around and turn it into a fine crumb. Just use a fork and your fingers and try not to think about it too much.

Making chocolate cream cheese icing

Once you have cream cheese icing, you never go back, ever. And this is perfect for this recipe as it’s not as sweet as normal icing so it stops the pops from being too sweet.

What you’ll need

2 x 250gram packets of cream cheese. Full fat, if you even touch the light stuff I will end you.

2 x cups of icing mixture

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

I don’t mind tasting the cream cheese – in fact I love it! But if you want the icing to be sweeter or more chocolatey you can add more sugar and more cocoa powder.

how you make it

Beat the cream cheese and add in the icing and the cocoa. Easy as! You’ve been warned, you’ll be an addict for life. But that’s a small price to pay isn’t it.

Mix the cake and the icing

You will need some elbow grease for this one! But take your time – you’ll get there!

Roll the mixture into balls and place on baking paper

I used a tablespoon of the mixture for each ball but you could use more or less depending on what size you are going for.

freeze your cake balls!

I had my cake balls in the freezer for several days but you could just put them in there to harden up a bit before going on to the next stage.

More chocolate! And more decoration!

Now for the fun bit – coating them with chocolate and decorating!

What you’ll need

2 x 375g of white chocolate melts
1 x 375 g packet of smarties (or whatever else you want to use to decorate)
lollipop or cookie sticks (I got mine from Spotlight)

How to make it

1. Melt the chocolate by simmering water in a pot and placing the chocolate in a glass bowl on top. Even once it’s melted, take the pot off the element but keep the bowl on the pot to help the chocolate stay nice and melted because it hardens up quickly

2. Take your cake balls out of the freezer and let them soften up a bit. Insert the stick 1cm into the ball and then dip the ball into the melted chocolate to cover completely.

3. Working quickly, add your decorations.

I used a styrofoam sphere which I cut in half and covered in aluminium foil to display my beauties.

But isn’t it really all about the taste?

And yes it’s worth it. All of those steps. The perverseness of crumbling a freshly baked cake. Because it’s cute and delicious. And on the day of the party they were more highly prized than lolly bags. I can understand why. Four year olds are only human, after all.

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Food Porn: Potato and Leek Soup with Garlic Toast

Posted on March 30, 2012 Leave a Comment


Are we seeing a theme here yet? Garlic!!!! And it’s so good I don’t care that it comes out of my pores when I go for a run at the gym. Just as well my husband feels the same way.

This recipe is adapted from here.

 

What You’ll Need:

1 brown onion

4 cloves of garlic

1kg of potatoes peeled and cut into 2cm cubes

1/4 cup olive oil

2 leeks (white section only, thinly sliced)

1.25L of vegetable stock

Bread, a clove of garlic and butter for the toast.

 

How You Make It:

1) Put the olive oil in the pot and place it on medium heat

2) Add the sliced onion and garlic until the onion is soft

3) Add in the potatoes and leeks and cook until leeks are soft

4) Cover with the stock and simmer until potato is well cooked

5) Blend with a stick blender

6) Toast your bread then rub with a cut clove of garlic and spread with butter for cheaty garlic bread

 

And there you have it. Comfort food ahoy!

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Food Porn: Lemon and Garlic Smashed Potatoes

Posted on March 28, 2012 1 Comment


This idea also came from this episode of Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute dinners. What can I say? If nothing else I’m efficient!

 

What you’ll need:

Baby potatoes (I use about a kilo, but you could use less depending on how much you need and your level of potato love)

A bulb of garlic

One lemon

Olive oil and salt

 

How you make it:

1) Cut baby potatoes in half (or in quarters) depending on size

2) Crush cloves of garlic (still in skin) with the side of a knife and pop in the pot with the potatoes

3) Cover with water and boil until well cooked

4) Drain and return potatoes to pot

5) Take garlic from skin – very easy as garlic is now very soft. Mash up garlic and add to the pot with the potatoes.

6) Pop the skins with a potato masher – just enough so that they give – no actual mashing!

7) Fry up with a good amount of olive oil and add salt to taste

8) Squeeze over the juice of half a lemon towards the end and you are done.

{Note: I’ve used far more garlic than Jamie here. Because I hail from the school of thought that you can never too much garlic. If you disagree feel free to do less, but because the garlic is boiled it has a really sweet and mild taste and is nothing like raw garlic}

The best thing about this recipe is I almost always have these ingredients lying around. And for me this is perfect comfort food.

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Food Porn: Oven Roasted Chilli and Cheese Mushrooms

Posted on March 26, 2012 Leave a Comment

 

I watch a whole lot of the food network. I find it soothing. I can’t really explain why. I am equally as passionate about cooking shows that have extremely low relevance to me as those that do. I can quite happily watch a show about seafood for hours and I’m vegetarian.

Along the way I occasionally end up with a few good ideas. This idea came from this episode of Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute dinners.

 

What you’ll need:

Portabello mushrooms

A clove of garlic per mushroom

About a quarter of a large red chilli for each

The lemon rind of one lemon does about 6 mushrooms

Olive oil

Salt

Tasty cheese

 

How to make it:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees

2. Line your baking tray with a silicone baking sheet or baking paper

3. Place mushrooms nice and close together and remove their stalks

4. Add crushed garlic and chilli to each

5. Grate the rind of one lemon over all the mushrooms

6. Drizzle generously with olive oil and add salt to taste

7. Top with tasty cheese

8. Add to oven until cheese is golden brown

{Note: I am enthusiastic for garlic, chilli and lemon you may want less – all of these things are to taste}


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Food Porn Friday: Cheaty Laksa Recipe

Posted on February 10, 2012 2 Comments

Laksa isn’t hard to make from home but there are alot of ingredients and so most of the time I cheat. There I said it. It will never be as good as the laksa from CBD Noddles. Seriously, if you are in Sydney. GO THERE. It is so worth it. Any time I’m anywhere near there I try to go. Even though it makes all other laksas pale in comparison. That is a good problem to have, trust me.

Given I’m vegetarian I make a tofu laksa but you could replace the tofu for any ingredient you like really. It’s very versatile.

Laksa Recipe

To start:

1 tablespoon of olive oil in a hot pan. Then add a jar of laksa paste (I use Ayam because I find it more spicy than the other brand that’s available at my local supermarket.

Once that has heated through add in the tofu (or ingredient of your choice). At my supermarket they sell tofu in cubes that are pre-fried which helps it to retain it’s shape in the laksa but also helps it absorb the flavour. I cut each of the pieces in half so the laksa can absorb properly. I’d use about 350g of tofu or whatever you are using.

Then add in any veges that you plan on using. I’m big on baby corn, water chestnuts and some mushrooms but you can put in anything.

Once it’s heated through add in a can of coconut cream (the one I buy is about 270grams) and a cup and a half of vegetable stock (or chicken stock if you prefer)

Once it’s heated through it’s ready and you just have to prepare the noodles. To my mind laksa isn’t laksa without two types of noodles. I’m going to get really technical and say I use thin white noodles and fat yellow noodles. Usually you just have to pour boiling water over them and soak them to cook.

Then it’s just a matter of putting the noodles at the bottom of the bowl, pouring the laksa on top and you are golden.

Enjoy!

Also, I have read the ingredients on the laksa paste and I know that it has shrimp paste in it. I prefer to think of myself as a laksa addict rather than a bad vegetarian but I am obviously both.

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