Blanquette de veau

Another winter comfort food in my house is Blanquette de veau. It's filling, makes you warm till your toes and yummy!

Here it goes, my place without the potatoes:


Ingredients
About 1 kg veal (shoulders/ribs)
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
20cl creme liquid (fresh cream) - I use 3% fat Bridelight
1 egg yolk
1 cube beef stock (non-fat)
1/2 kg potatoes
About 400g canned carrots

Method:
- Cook the veal with water enough to cover the meat
- Steam the potatoes
(I cooked both in the pressure cooker - veal in the pot and potatoes on the top steam basket)
- In a casserole, put in butter, and add flour to the melted butter (roux blanc)
- Then add a bit of water from cooking the veal. Add bit by bit until you get a sauce.
- Add in beef stock cube. Stir until dissolve.
- In a bowl, add creme liquid to the egg yolk and stir together
- Add it into the casserole
- Add in the cooked veal,carrots and potatoes (cut into big chunks)
- If the sauce is thick, add in some water from cooking the veal.
- Check the taste (with the stock cube I don't need salt)
- Simmer slowly.
- Serve while hot :D Bon appetit!

Hubby's plate with potatoes:

Birthday project

Since my birthday falls on Saturday this year, I decided to bring some baked goodies during the weekday. I take Friday off, so that means I wl bring in the cakes on Thursday.

I decided to bake 3 different kinds of cakes this year. I've narrowed down 3 recipes and arranged them in the order what to be baked first. Yes, it needs planning because I only have a limited time to bake in the evening. After work I have gym classes to attend, and no I don't want to skip them. It's also good to spread the bakings over some days because:

1. I won't be too tired

2. The oven won't be too tired

3. Not so much dishes to be in the dishwasher at the same time

4. Cakes are better after 24 hours



I baked the cakes in the following order:

Tuesday night: Cream Cheese Chocolate Brownies

Wednesday night: Apple Cinnamon Bread and Lemon Mini muffin

Thursday morning: Eat time!



Cream Cheese Chocolate Brownies

I like making the Chewy Choco Brownies. I think I made it 3 times within 1 and half month!

This time I added cream cheese topping to the recipe. The recipe is taken from Joy of Baking website. It has the marble effect as well. I'm not that artistic, so the marble is more like swish swash swirl. It is so yummy and the brownies are dense, I think because it is 'protected' by the cream cheese. I made this first because cheese cake is known to be best refrigerated overnight. It is proven true!!!! When it's still chill out from the fridge, have a glass or pan filled with hot water. Before each cut, put the knife in the hot water, then wipe the knife, and you'll have a clean cut brownies.

Recipe

Choco Chewy Brownies recipe - base



Cream Cheese Topping recipe - topping





Apple Cinnamon Bread

This is an easy recipe too. There is no need to use machine. Dump all ingredients and mix well.



Apple Cinnamon Bread recipe



Lemon Mini Muffin

I have 2 trays of mini muffins and I seldom you them. Why? Because it's always easier to bake 1 big cake! Also, it's time consuming to grease the trays and from previous experience, I had trouble getting them out (huhuhu) But it has been for some time that I want to use the trays. I found the lemon mini muffin recipe, and decided to do it. For the first time I used baking spray. Wow, it's amazing! Just spray on the trays and the mini muffin came out so pretty :D

I think we can expect more mini muffins in the future!!!!

Lemon Mini Muffin recipe (from Stunning Recipes . com)

I hope my office mates enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed baking the cakes :D

Kuih Bakar

Three different types of cakes in one afternoon? Yes! :D There is only 1 cake which is new recipe, Kuih Bakar. My sister bought the pandan paste for me some time ago, and I have been waiting the right moment to use it.
As for the chocolate brownies, I used the fudgy chewy brownies recipe which I have been using before. It's a winner and this time I make sure that I do not over-bake it. It turned out chewy and fudgy! The best result so far :D
The raisin prune cake is something adapted from the Fruitcake recipe using brown sugar. Actually I planned to make mixed fruitcake again, but they ran out of candied mix fruit. My hubby thought it would be fun to test with prunes instead. I'm up for testing :D

Kuih Bakar
(Adapted from My Kitchen Snippers)

Ingredients :
1 1/4 cups of sugar
2 cups of flour
1 cup of pandan juice (6 pandan leaves + 1 cup of water - blended)
2 1/4 cups of coconut milk
4 large eggs
2 tbsp of melted butter
1 tsp of pandan paste
few drops of green food coloring
1 tbsp of sesame seeds (optional)

1) Pre-heat oven to 325 degree F and greased a baking pan.
2) Mix all the above ingredients except sesame seeds until well combined.
3) Pour mixture into baking pan and sprinkle with some sesame seeds and bake until golden brown or skewer comes out clean when tested. It should take an hour.
4) Cool it down before cutting.

Note:
I skipped the pandan juice and the sesame.
Instead I added 1 tsp more of pandan paste.

Grilled chicken wings

My favorite meal at the moment is grilled chicken wings. I hope I didn't get any side effects by eating too many chicken wings!

My usual marinate is with yoghurt, tandoori mix, curry powder, salt and pepper. Sometimes I tried to change the marinate recipe, but I love the combination of yoghurt and spices.



I hope to find other marinate recipe so that I can do some varieties. Not that I am sick of this recipe... :D

Fruitcake - revisited

About two weeks ago I planned to make another fruitcake (the bake one). I got all ingredients but somehow there is a change of plan. I baked something else than the fruitcake.
Anyway, it's a long weekend, and it's such a waste of time if I didn't bake anything. Right? :D
One hour later, the cake is in the oven, and hope it tastes better than last one.

Indeed the cake is better than the last one. I like the brown color of the cake and the texture is moister and softer. It's indeed a keeper!



FYI, I tweaked the previous recipe a bit. The previous recipe is here.

This is the tweaked recipe:
Ingredients:
230 grams unsalted butter
200 grams packed brown sugar
4 eggs
50 grams ground hazelnut
About 150gm mixed candied fruits, raisins
Splash of lemon juice
230 grams all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/4 teaspoon salt

Methods:
- Pre-heat oven 160C, line the baking tin (20cm) with baking paper and grease it with butter.
- Beat butter, sugar until fluffy.
- Add one by one eggs, vanilla essence
- Fold in ground hazelnut
- Splash some lemon juice on the fruits, then cover the fruits with flour. Like this they are not stick to each other.
- Fold in fruits in the batter
- Sift flour, baking powder, salt
- Add progressively into the batter, fold in until all are well incorporate.
- At this point, the batter is 'heavy'.
- Spoon the batter into baking tin
- Bake in the oven for about 1 hour on 160C, then reduce to 150C and bake until about 30mins-1 hour. Test with skewer, when the skewer comes out clean with a bit of moist crumbs.