TWD Real Butterscotch Pudding

Yes, it is 9:36 PM on Tuesday night. I am tired, and I have had a couple of glasses of wine. After dinner I go the Butterscotch pudding made. I had read the comments from the TWD website on Sunday , so I was ready! I had a near miss with the food processor, but no mess. I was happy with the outcome. My only surprize is it tastes a little boozy?!

3rd (and last) day of Tikka

OK, so I skipped a day. Last night was the 60th anniversary for our local cinema. That was not to be missed! There was a retro price (50 cents) and popcorn was in a reasonable sized retro bag. What was different was all sales and donated nonperishable food was donated to the local food shelf. Is this a real neighborhood or what?!

So tonight (Tuesday) was the third and final night of Tikka. The best was saved for the last! yes, South Africa's Woolworths Tikka Curry Paste. Yum! Fru one onion in a little butter, add three chicken breasts (or in my case thighs), two tablespoons of the Tikka paste, three chopped tomatoes, and fifteen minutes later, wow! Add a little yoghurt and chopped coriander (or parsley in my case) on top of a bed of whole grain rice and it is a fab dinner!

2nd day of Tikka

So the 2nd day of Tikka was really Butter Chicken. And it really was not anything like Indian restaurants in Cape Town. Bukarra in particular has amazing Butter Chicken. The best thing I can say about this mix is that it is very easy, quick, and easy to clean up, so three things actually! Taste is not one of them. I'm looking forward to the 3rd day of Tikka with the classic old standby Wollie's Tikka paste, YUM!

12 days of Christmas? No 3 days of Tikka

My friend Jane is in Cape Town South Africa for six months. A few weeks ago I got a little surprize package from Jane. It was two packets of Chicken Tikka Masala and Butter Chicken mix. Both of these are different dry mixes that you add to cooked chicken and sliced tomatoes. So last night (Friday) was the first day of tikka. We tried the Chicken Tikka Masala. Sorry, but I forgot to get a photo of the dish! Saute the chicken in 2 TLB oil, add 4 sliced tomatoes and the dry mix. In about 20 min it is done. I drained the oil before adding the tomatoes, this wasn't in the instructions, but that was too much oil to keep. Made some jasmine rice to go along with the tikka. At best I would say it was ok. Would I recommend? No, stick with the Wollie's version (that will be the third day of tikka!)

Preserved Lemons

I made a new batch of Preserved Lemons a couple of days ago. It is really easy to do. 3-4 firm lemons, 4 TBL salt, brine solution of 1 heaping TLB salt in 2 cups hot water. Cut and quarter the lemons, rub 1 tsp of salt over each piece. pack into a canning jar. After the brine has cooled pour and cover the lemon wedges. Screw on lit and place in fridge. That is it! The catch is they last 2-3 months. A couple of weeks ago when I made Lemon Chicken Tagine, I found out that the Preserved Lemons were too old and kind of gross!

TWD Grandma's All-occasion Sugar Cookies

I made the dough on Sunday night and put it in the fridge. Monday night after work baked them off. No problems. The recipe said 50 2 inch cookies. I got maybe 25 2 inch cookies. The cookies are fine. But what I realized is they are not my Nana's sugar cookies, they are someone else's Grandma's sugar cookies. And this is ok. But what I realized is, I miss the ones Nana used to make.

Fragrant Chickpea Soup

Fragrant Chickpea Soup almost ready for the immersion blender on the stove.

Lemon Chicken Tagine

Lemon Chicken tagine just about finished cooking

Lemon Chicken Tagine and Fragrant Chickpea Soup

Saturday 06 December, 2008

So I am still on a tagine/North African food run.

Here is a photo of the tagine closed. As I was making this, about 3 hrs before a friend comes over for dinner I realized that the preserved Lemons I had made and kept in the fridge went bad. So, this had to be made with a non-preserved preserved lemon (if that makes sense). The smell in the kitchen is great. The ckicken is very tender given all the steam that the tagine keeps in. The ckicken was a bit of a challenge. It was still a bit frozen when I had to take a big cleaver to the legs. Let's just say I think I could have scared anyone looking in the window with the multiple hacks of the cleaver on the chicken!

Cinnamon Chip Scones at Open Arms of Minnesota

Saturday 06 December

This morning was one of my baking Saturday's at Open Arms of Minnesota. Today I baked 250 servings of Cinnamon Chip Scones. Sorry, no photo. This was only 50 eggs. Much less than the 300 servings I baked of Yellow Cake on 08 November 2008 which took 144 eggs! The scones were easy and fun to bake. I think they will make a tasty breakfast treat for clients this week.

Ouma Scholtz Buttermilk Rusks (Dirk's Grandma)

Friday 05 December

I have not seen Dirk's recipe for his grandmother's rusks for a while. It was definately time to make them again! It is basically an Afrikaner version of a big breakfast biscotti. It is very crunchy so you can dunk them in tea/coffee if you want. Easy to make. It is the time! It can take up to 8 hours of drying in the oven to get them just right. When done right, they taste great, when done wrong they taste stale.

The photo is the rusks in the oven, before they are cut into bars, turned on sides, and dried back in the oven.

Little cookbooks and Fragrant chick pea soup

Tuesday, 02 December 2008

I was digging around in a bookcase over the weekend. What fell out of a book was a small cookbook thay came with a Le Creuset Tagine I bought a few years ago. I have not seen the small cookbook in quite a while. It opend up to the page I had always used. Fragrant chick pea soup, Lemon chicken tagine, Preserved lemons, and Honeyed, spiced chicken tagine. The book, really booklet is roughly 3 in X 5 in and has ten recipes and only ten pages in English. But they are ten great recipes! So tonight I made a batch of the chick pea soup. The name is correct, it really is fragrant, and so was the kitchen tonight! Sorry, no photo.