Blueberries!!! Blueberry Pancakes, Blueberry Cupcakes

Summer time is blueberry time in Europe.  Here are two of my hubbies' faves, and mine too!
Great for a lazy Sunday morning!  Pancakes, pancakes ... and cuppycakes!

Blueberry Pancakes
(2 servings)

180 ml flour
2 Tbsp white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1 Tbsp butter
150 ml milk
1 egg

blueberries

Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt). Add in melted butter, milk and egg. Stir enough to just mix all ingredients.

Place teflon pan on stove turned to medium.  Once pan is medium hot, pour about 1/4 of the pancake mix and swirl around to form into a circle. Place a handful of blueberries on top. Cook until bubbles form, then flip around to the other side before the bubbles pop.  Cook for about 2 minutes on each side or until nicely light brown.

Serve with maple syrup. 

Blueberry Cupcakes

360 ml flour
180 ml white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

80 ml vegetable oil
80 ml milk
1 egg

145 g fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Grease cupcake baking pan with some butter or use cupcake liners.

Mix all dry ingredients together (flour, sugar, salt baking powder).  Add vegetable oil, milk, egg and mix until all ingredients just combine (do not overmix).  Fold in about 2/3 of the blueberries to the mix. Again, do not mix too much -- just enough to integrate the blueberries and to keep them whole.  Fill muffin cups with the mix.  Stuff in the remaining blueberries into the center of each cupcake for a nice concentrated blueberry surprise!

Place cupcake pan in preheated oven and bake for about 17 minutes.  Test with a toothpick in the center.  The toothpick should come out dry.  Enjoy!

Joerg's Carrot Cake

Yesterday, I decided to make a carrot cake to use up the carrot pulp left over from the carrot juice my husband made for me. I think that this recipe would be better with grated carrot, but it was still good nevertheless!  I dug up the recipe from my recipe book -- I haven't tried it before and it comes from Joerg in Zurich.

Joerg's Carrot Cake

5 egg yolks
150 grams sugar
2 tablespoons water
1/4 teaspoon salt

Beat all the above together until a bit foamy.

250 grams grated carrots
lemon peel (grate off the yellow cover, not the white part underneath, and make
                sure you buy a "bio"-lemon as others are usually treated with pesticides)
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Add and mix the above ingredients together with the yolk and sugar mixture.

5 egg whites

Beat the egg whites till the foam stays in when you turn the pot upside down.
Then put this on top of the yolk and carrot mass.

250 grams ground almonds
75 grams flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder

Put on top of the beaten egg whites.
Fold in the whole mass carefully until just homogeneous, taking care that the egg white does not collapse too much.

Put in a cakeform and bake for 45 to 55 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (preheated oven, lower and upper heat).  Test with a toothpick in the middle to make sure it is cooked.

For the icing:

150 to 200 grams powdered sugar
a little lemon juice (just enough to turn the sugar into a semi-liquid mass)

Combine and spread on top of cake.

All that's left after half a day :-) No icing -- healthier.

Lechon Kawali -- ultimate comfort food -- extremely fattening!

Once in a while, I have the urge for some pure fat in my system -- and immediately what comes to mind is Lechon Kawali. Ultimate comfort food, oozing pictures of home and extended rollicking meals with family.

General directions for this recipe comes from Mila in Zurich.

Lechon Kawali

1 kilo pork liempo
4 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons rock salt
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Place a kilo of liempo in a pot. Put enough water to just cover it.  Grind about 4 cloves garlic, and put in pot. Add 2 teaspoons rock salt and about a teaspoon of cracked black pepper.  Leave liempo for about 10 minutes in a rolling boil.

Turn on oven to 150 degrees. Put liempo in a baking pan with meat side up.  Bake for 45 minutes, then turn over to other side, with fat side up, and bake for another 45 minutes. For the last 5-10 minutes, put the oven in grill.

 Chop liempo and serve with steaming white rice, vinegar/patis dipping sauce together with some native salad (dice onions, fresh tomatoes, coriander leaves). Sarap!!!

Thai Green Chicken Curry

Here is a fast and yummy dish -- a favorite of my hubby.  I've prepared it quite a number of different ways in the few years I've been making it, but I think I now have a really good version.  

Thai Green Chicken Curry

2 cloves garlic
1 knob of ginger (about as much as the garlic)
2 pieces aubergine/eggplant
2 pieces chicken breast fillets, about 200 grams, cut into strips
1 can of coconut milk, about 400 ml
3 tablespoons green curry paste (I use the Mae-ploy brand)
1 teaspoon shrimp paste or bagoong
fish sauce, to taste

Cut the aubergine into strips, then boil until almost cooked. Set aside.
In a hot pan,  saute the minced garlic until it emits a nice smell, then add in the minced ginger. Stir around a bit, then add in the shrimp paste.
Add in the green curry paste next and stir around the mixture in the pan for about a minute.

Add in the chicken strips and stir until chicken is cooked.
Add in the coconut milk and let boil.
Bring down heat to a simmer, then add in the boiled aubergines.
Simmer the curry for about 30 minutes until cooked.
Serve with steaming, white rice.

Food and being Kapampangan -- my first Adobo recipe

Kapampangan = good food! That is always the association one gets in the Philippines. I grew up in Manila with my Kapampangan parents and grandmother.  Good, warm, comforting food was always a given.  There was always enough food on the table, for our family, for our friends.

Living away from home for quite some time now, I tap into my innermost Kapampangan-ness to try to recreate recipes that I have grown up with, and experiment with new ones.  

Here is my first recipe from my Mom -- the ultimate in Filipino comfort food, adobo.

Auring's Chicken and Pork Adobo

 1/2 kilo chicken, cut into serving pieces
1/2 kilo pork, with a little fat, and cut into serving pieces
100 ml soy sauce (preferably a Filipino brand, like Silver Swan, or Kikkoman)
100 ml vinegar (preferably Silver Swan white cane vinegar)
5-6 cloves garlic
black pepper
2-3 laurel leaves

Put the chicken and pork in a cooking pot, then add the soy sauce and vinegar.  Crush lots of garlic, add into the mixture. Crush some black pepper and add in. Finally, put in the laurel leaves.  Let the meat marinate in the mixture for about 30 minutes to an hour, then boil. Once boiling, cover pot and turn down heat to a simmer until cooked.  Do not mix with a spoon, just move around a bit so all parts are evenly cooked. An important piece of information from my Mom and the secret to our adobo, she claims, is that - once the adobo is cooked, take off the pot cover so that the extra water evaporates. Serve with warm, steaming white rice.

A Typical Swiss Raclette

I lived in Switzerland for a few years, and one of the recipes that my husband and I really liked was the Swiss Raclette.  We tried it once in a restaurant, and later just recreated it at home for a fun, simple meal.

Swiss Raclette

a raclette set

raclette cheese
boiled potatoes
pickled onions
pickles
meats (such as salami, prosciutto)
mushrooms
cherry tomatoes
paprika/green or red pepper

Set out all your ingredients. Start up the raclette. Place a piece of raclette cheese in the raclette plates. Place the pickled onions, pickles, meats, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, paprika pieces on the raclette grill (or put them on top of the cheese in the raclette plates). Once the cheese is nice and melted, scrape with your wooden spatula onto the top of your boiled potatoes.  Sprinkle some salt and pepper on top.  Eat together with pieces of grilled pickles, mushrooms, meats.  Bring out a nice bottle of dry white wine and enjoy!!!