Sick on holiday - arghh!! The summer flu has caught me.
Again, I cannot smell and can only barely taste anything.
Thus, when I made some rice (cup)cakes yesterday (well,
it started as a rice noodle experiment and ended up in
strawberry rice cakes), I thought they were not so sweet,
but my son told me that they're very sweet o.O



The rice cakes are more an Asian style of cakes - steamed.

I used the following ingredients, but I'm going to vary a bit,
to make the cakes less sticky (and also perhaps less sweet)
next time (if ever ;-) as I'm not such a sweet tooth actually).
For 8 cups.

150 g wholemeal rice flour
50 g starch (mine was a mixture of rice/corn/tapioca)
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
200 ml hot water (or 250 ml? - I forgot..)
2 Tbsp sugar

Mixed everything up and wait for half an hour.
Add one egg (size L). Mixed again.

Prepare a steamer (I used a similar setup as here, but used
the steamer basket of my pressure cooker instead of the
bamboo steamer). Arrange the muffin cups in the steamer.
Fill in 1 Tbsp dough in each cup. Steam them for around
5 minutes. Cut strawberries in half and arrange two halves
in each cup. Cover the strawberries with dough. Eventually
sprinkle with some coconut rasps. Steam again for another
15 minutes.

Taste better, when the strawberries are still warm (but then
the cake is also stickier...).

It feels like I'm having my first holiday in years. When I was
self (and at the same time part time) employed, I couldn't
really switch my head off of business even in my free time.
How liberating it is to work in a 9-to-5 for a change (though
guess what I dreamed about at night of my first holiday lol)!



On my last day before the holiday, I could finally enjoy
walking home again without my head spinning around what
to do next, but simply observing the wild plants growing
along the way and took a few home for an arrangement
(first I wanted to put them together with the peony from
the garden, but they are so lovely on their own).

Yesterday I finally work in my poor, neglected garden
and also the plants on the windowsill got some attentions.
How bourgeois I became to take a holiday only to spend
time in the garden? A side-effect of the 9-to-5 job? :-P
No, normally when I got home from work I'd cook and
dine with my son. But this week he was on camp with his
class, so that I could work in the garden until it got dark.



Remember the violas I planted back in 2009? I collected
the seeds, but they keep sowing themselves and even took
over the flower box, where the strawberry used to grow
(there is still one strawberry plant left, tiny and almost non-
existent among the violas). It's interesting to see, that I got
new hybrids (the one above reminds me of a dalmatian ;-)).



Also, some flowers changed their colors. When they were
just blooming, they're partially white or yellow. Within the
next days, the white parts would turn into light purple like
in the picture above. Again the next days they'd turn darker
as you can see on that tiny bit on bottom left. Since I never
change the soil in the box, I wonder, either it's because the
soil has become so acidic now..?



I'm looking forward to see my Japanese hydrangea blooming.

In the past weeks I've been eating much more meat than
I usually did. Although one bad experience with a butcher
weeks ago reminded me that it's time to reduce it again,
somehow I couldn't stop carving for meat dishes. Yet, I
am no longer willing to buy anything from that butcher
anymore. I need an alternative.

I remember, my grandma used to have vegetarian days and
eat fake meat dishes. As I was more a vegetarian than I am
now, I used to taste them too and I had to say, I liked fake
meat.


top: before and after cooking the dough
below: fake chicken in murgh badami style


After watching some videos and reading some posts about
homemade seitan, I finally tried to make my own to cook
murgh badami (or rather a murgh badami inspired dish). I
start with wheat gluten, instead of flour - it saved me time
(and water).

My homemade seitan was too chewy, especially the bigger
pieces. The smaller pieces was better (although my son was
still not convinced - he's rather a real meat lover). I need to
do some experiments to improve the texture. Isn't cooking
fun? :-)

I just couldn't help it - each of those fabrics on the left photo
were calling my name :-P Only at home I got some vague
ideas, how to assemble one with another. Now I need to
overcome myself and draft some patterns...



Last week I went to our local "city potter" to see her current
work. She had a lovely cup - matte black on the outside and
white glaze on the inside -, but I was actually looking for a
big cup. She did have some big cups, but not in the right
colors. I wanted white/bright inner glaze (I love to see the
color of the tea I drink). She then offered me to make a big
cup in a similar design as the small cup. She told me it's a
500 ml cup (but I can actually even pour 750 ml liquid in).

It's really HUGE, but it's perfect for me. So practical!
No longer making (too much) tea in a teapot (and forget
about it for a while, that it's already cold when I want to
fill my cup in) from now on *huge grin*

Making (Chinese style) noodles or pasta has become a ritual
in my off-days lately, like today or on Sundays.



After trying some different recipes, today I slightly modified
her recipe and think, I finally find a mix I prefer for my pasta
- not too stiff and not too soft.

300 g wheat flour (type 450)
50 g wholemeal semolina
3 eggs (size L)
ca. 1 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt

This is the first time I made tagliatelle. I normally don't like
this kind of pasta. But after making ravioli for the my son
and his friends, I still had sauce left and somehow it was
calling out loud for tagliatelle.



Ingredients I used in the sauce (no sugar needed, if using
a lot more tomato puree, which I ran out of...):

1 garlic clove
1 onion
1 pepperoni
1 red bell pepper
1 leek
2 carrots
300 g ground meat
2 Tbsp tomato puree
690 g passata
olive oil
sugar
salt
pepper
nutmeg
paprika powder
oregano
basil

Can't tell you the amount of the spices though (it's already
a magic, that I still remember what I put in - ha!), since it's
a tasting-and-adding thing. I'd advice you to do the same.
I think, that's one of the fun part of cooking: the taste of the
food reflects the mood of the cook. And my mood today
was a good one :-)

My food today yesterday* spun around spinach and noodle.

Remember my first attempt in making fish balls? I used frozen
fish and thought that was (one of) the reason of my failing.
I took another chance today yesterday.



I used this recipe for inspiration, but I played a bit with the
amount of the cornstarch. The consistency of the balls are
not yet perfect. See those tiny loose parts in the water? I
ran out of cornstarch after I cooked the test ball and realized
it was too soft. I added a little bit of flour, but obviously still
not enough...



Nevertheless I was finally able to enjoy a meal I was longing
for since last month. Homemade egg noodles with fish balls,
shrimps, shiitake and spinach (lacking Asian greens ;-)).

The spinach I used was frozen spinach, so I still had some
left over. Luckily I remember a recipe I wanted to try for a
while: homemade ravioli (the pasta machine was still on the
table anyway).

I didn't have Ricotta, but I have milk and lemon, so I made
paneer to substitute it (made it once here). I didn't use egg
for the filling - I simply forgot to add the leftover egg white.
I mixed the flour with some wholemeal semolina, so the final
result was a bit umm... "leathery". Yet the taste: heavenly!!
- even without the sage and butter sauce.




For my son I made some ravioli only with paneer (and salt),
as he doesn't like spinach nor parmesan. He loved the ravioli
too. This dish will certainly be on our plates regularly ^_^

___
*) Typing too long and suddenly it's Monday already. Enjoy
your week! :-)