Lemon Slices

I don't know why I bought a heap of lemons, but I did and so I had to find some way to use them up. I wanted to make a lemon meringue pie but it was just a bit too damp for it and there wasn't really anyone around to eat it. So I settled for some lemon slices from my Martha Stewart holiday cookie book. I've never tried them before and they turned out super delicious. The recipe says they last 2 days in the fridge but mine are still good a week on.

Ingredients:

Crust
	6 oz	Cold butter
	1 3/4 cups	Flour
	3/4 cups	Sugar (fine)
	3/4 tsp.	Salt
Filling
	4 lrg.	Eggs, lightly beaten
	1 1/3 cups	Sugar
	3 tbsp.	Flour
	1/4 tsp.	Salt
	3/4 cup	Fresh lemon juice
	1/4 cup	Milk
	Icing sugar, for dusting

Method:

I made the crust just like all my other crusts, by hand! First I cut up the butter into little pieces and then added it to the flour and the salt. 

I left the sugar until the end because I wasn't looking forward to rubbing sugar between my fingers. I guess in retrospect my fingers would have been well exfoliated!

Once I had my breadcrumbs I added the sugar and mixed it well. 

For this recipe it is important that you have the correct sized dish because the filling is liquidy before it is baked and you will have a big mess if you pour it into a shallow dish. I used a 9 by 13 inch cake tray which I lined with parchment paper. 

Then, with my hands, I pressed the mixture into my baking tray and then ... popped the crust into the FREEZER for 15 minutes. It might be prudent to check if you have space in the freezer before you start. If you're experiencing winter, then just throw it out on the balcony or the windowsill. 

Time for the oven to go on and the filling to be made. I set my oven to 160 C because I use a fan oven, with a regular oven I believe it is 180 C or 350 F. 

The filling is also relatively easy. The worst part is squeezing the lemon! I needed 3 1/2 large lemons to get 3/4 cup. I'm assuming that you could use lime juice too, (I always substituted lime juice for lemon when I'm cooking in Sri Lanka) although I think you'd need quite a few limes. Since limes tend to be more citric than lemons you might also want to consider using less than 3/4 cups. And I just had a brain wave, why not use any citrus fruit. I'm sure it would work with orange, grapefruit, etc.

Then I hand whisked the eggs, sugar, flour and salt together.

Stirred in the lemon juice and milk and voila! The filling was done. Really simple. In fact a great recipe for those little chef's in your house. Up until now there were no sharp utensils and no heat involved. I think I'm going to add this to my daughters recipe book.

The pastry was now ready and so was the oven so I popped it in and baked it for around 18 - 20 minutes. As you can see it was getting a bit brown in places when I took it out. Once you get this thing out of the oven you need to reduce the heat by about 10 C (25 F) so that the oven is ready to cook the lemon filling.

Onto this hot pastry, I poured my lemon filling and then carefully put it back in the oven for around 18 minutes. At around 18 minutes the filling was set and so I took the thing out and let it cool for a bit. Then, very carefully I tried to take the whole slab out of the pan. I was really freaking out at this point because I was sure it was going to break. But it didn't! I think that if I hadn't pressed in the dough so well at the beginning that it may well have cracked.

I left it on a wire rack to cool and then once it was cool cut it into rectangles. I don't remember how many I got out of it. You can cut them smaller if you are serving them together with a lot of other things and larger if they are being served by themselves. Use a really sharp knife to cut them because the bottom is crispy. Finally I dusted the squares with icing sugar. I did this by putting the icing sugar in a sieve and then shaking it over the squares. It didn't last long though. The squares are rather damp and absorb the sugar almost immediately so it wasn't pretty for long. If you are serving them for a special occasion (or photographing them!) I would recommend sprinkling them just before you serve them.

Find your Chef friendly version here!

Scotch Crispies

My goodness the last time I made these sweet treats must have been around 20 years ago! I discovered them in an old Sri Lankan exercise book of mine. And just to prove how old this book is, it has 120 pages and cost just 15 rupees! Now what can you buy for 15 rupees nowadays? A Dot toffee maybe???

I picked to make these because I needed to put together something simple and quick to take to a friends place for tea and I was not in a cake mood. Turned out to be a good idea because my kids really like these things (and they are not too unhealthy).

Makes 16 to 20 pieces; Preparation time 1 hour (15 mixing, 45 baking)

Ingredients:

2 oz	Self-raising flour
or
2 oz Plain flour + 1/2 tsp baking powder
8 oz	Rolled oats
1/4 tsp.	Salt
1/2 tsp.	Baking soda
4 oz	Butter (or margarine)
4 tbsp.	Black treacle
2 oz	Sugar

Method:

Set your oven to 150 C (300 F).

This is an easy peasy recipe. It's great if you have a little cook in the house. My little cooks were all occupied making loom bands for their aunts, uncles and cousins for Christmas. Not a bad thing, they have a list of over 20 people, it's going to take a while!

So my first step was to put a pan on the cooker and drop in the butter, "black treacle" and sugar. So the "black treacle" makes this sweet a very Scottish thing but I'm not going for Scottish, I'm going for "unique"! That means instead of 4 tbsp. of Scottish stuff I put in 2 tbsp. of Goldsaft (some kind of fruit molasses) and 2 tbsp. of Kittul Pani (Sri Lankan honey from the Kittul tree). I know I've made it with 100% Sri Lankan honey and I'm guessing bees honey would work too. You just have to figure out how you want it to taste. The Goldsaft is nice and dark but it is way too strong for my taste that's why I only used half the amount and made up the rest with the Sri Lankan treacle.

Impatiently I put my cooker on high heat until the butter was melted (I stirred it all the time) and then reduced the heat to medium to dissolve the sugar. I kept stirring the thing so that the sugar dissolved quicker and because I was worried that the butter might burn. This step doesn't take too long and it's not an exact science so if the sugar does not dissolve 100% don't worry too much.

I took it off the heat and set it aside. My recipe says to let it cool but I don't have too much patience for that. At least I let it stand while I mixed the other ingredients. Actually that would be all of the other ingredients: I measured them all out into one big bowl and then stirred them up.

Since I was supposed to let the butter/sugar mixture cool I took the time to line my baking sheet with parchment paper. You could also butter the tin. As per my recipe I used a 9" by 11" tin. Turns out that I really should have used an 8" by 8" but it wasn't too tragic as you will see in a bit.

Next I dumped the flour/oat mixture into the butter/sugar pan and stirred it until it was well combined. Then this went into the baking tray.

Now you could use the back of a spoon to press the mixture into the pan but a clean hand works much better. The result is a nicely compressed crispy!

The thing went in the oven for 45 minutes. As soon as it comes out cut it into pieces. Later it will be too hard. Then let it cool.

Okay it can be, and was, eaten hot but then it is not crunchy. Let it cool before storing it else it will get soggy. And then enjoy with a hot cup of tea!

Find your Chef friendly version here!

Half an Hour Vegetarian Spaghetti Bolognese

After I was totally taken over by my blog I went and totally neglected it! I don't think I've been here for a week now. I haven't really cooked anything special either :( I tried making pol (coconut) toffee but that didn't work out. Everything else has been same old, same old.

Yesterday I got to pig out! I took my Asian noodle salad to the chivara pujava and got to eat an awesome Sri Lankan lunch. The salad didn't turn out too well, not something that I would try again, but the rest of the food was delicious! I don't know when I last had gotukola sambol, it tasted so good. Needless to say I am still stuffed a day later.

But this post is not about Sri Lankan food, it's about Italian food and to be specific our all time favourite spaghetti bolognese. My kids absolutely love spaghetti bolognese just like all the other kids. Mine has a bit of twist and contains some vegetables as well. This recipe is one of those keepers. We've been eating it for at least 8 years now. Unknowingly my oldest helped come up with the recipe when she was about 2 years old!

Serves 4; Preparation time: 30 mins.

Ingredients:

250 g	Spaghetti
2 tbsp.	Olive oil
100 g	Vegetarian mincemeat
1/2 cup	Corn
1/2 cup	Peas
500 ml	Pasta sauce (tomato)
1/4 cup	Whipping cream
1/2 cup	Cheese

Method:

Oh this is the simplest of recipes and it gets consumed so fast that I had to wait to post this until I could get a photo of the finished product!

The first thing you need to do is to boil the water for the spaghetti. If you want to speed up the process then boil the water in the kettle and then transfer it to the pot. Another way I speed up this recipe is to use super fine spaghetti (called capellini) that cooks in 3 minutes. With both of these tricks I can actually get the dinner on the table in 20 minutes.

Once the water boils put in the spaghetti, give it a stir to make sure all the past is covered with water, bring water back to the boil and set a timer according to the instructions on the packet.

Now comes the tedious job of making the sauce. Put a heavy bottomed saucepan on the stove and put it on medium high. Once the pot is hot add the olive oil and then the vegetarian mincemeat.

Just a note about the vegetarian mincemeat: There are many types of such "fake" meats out there. Some are fine and some are not. I prefer the fine fake meat because you don't notice the texture so much. In Germany I've found two types. The first is produced by Eyckeler Malt and I'm not a fan of their "granules".

Basically they rot too quickly and frequently grow mold before their expiry date. But once upon a time that was all I could get. Now I buy this type:

The granules are much finer and it's much better packed. The only deal with this one is that it is so tightly vacuum packed that I have to first break up the "meat" with my fingers. And no it doesn't make it any easier when the stuff is warm. I thought that it might fall apart once it was in the pan and heating up, but it doesn't.


Now back to the pot! The vegetarian mince does not have to cook for long. 2 - 3 minutes should do the trick. Next add in the corn, peas and pasta sauce and stir everything up. Bring the sauce to the boil and add in the cream.

The cheese can either be added to the pasta sauce or saved to sprinkle on top. I usually sprinkle Parmesan and any other cheese I put in the pot. If you have any herbs you could add them now. I usually have basil growing near by so I throw a bit of that in, or maybe some dried oregano.  But herbs are not a necessity.


By now the spaghetti is done so drain it, wash it under cold water and then put it into the pot with the sauce and mix it all up. Heat it through and it's ready to be served.

Now I'm really sorry about the lack of pictures but it got consumed to fast and I haven't made it again since.

Eggplant Parmesan

It's been a busy week and I haven't gotten round to cooking much. Okay, I did cook yesterday but that was just caramelized leek quiche and a pumpkin pie. The first I've already posted and the second... well let me say that no one except me enjoyed it :( Unfortunate for the "others" they are stuck with it for dessert until it is over :)
Today was busy too but the eggplant was not going to last much longer. I figured eggplant Parmesan would be a good option to use it up. I search for the recipe on food.com (that's where I first found the recipe). But oh my, our internet connection has been really slow for many websites (thank goodness not blogger) and I could not download the recipe. I had to kind of go at it blind. So what you have here is not a traditional eggplant Parmesan but some modified version of it!

Serves 8; Preparation time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 kg	Eggplant
	Salt for sprinkling
1	Egg
1 tbsp.	Flour
3 tbsp.	Milk
2 cups	Bread crumbs
	Oil for frying
800 ml	Pasta sauce (tomato)
3 tbsp.	Cream
1/4 cup	Basil leaves (loosely packed)
2 tbsp.	Thyme
125 g	Fresh mozzarella
1/2 cup	Grated Parmesan

Method:

I'd decided on eggplant Parmesan pretty early in the afternoon. So I took a break from my work and sliced the eggplant into slices about 1 cm thick. (Note this is a European eggplant so it's big and fat. If you have the Asian variety I would slice it lengthwise instead of crosswise.) Then I sprinkled it liberally with salt and put it in a colander to rest. I went back to work and literally forgot about it!

Next there was the rush... 15 minutes to move dinner along before running out of the house to pick up my youngest one from Viola lessons. What could I possibly get done in 15 minutes and without a recipe? So I just guessed. I put two skillets on the cooker on high heat (with one I was never going to be done in time). Then I washed the salt off the eggplant and beat up an egg with some flour and milk. I didn't measure anything precisely but I know that I used 2 heaped teaspoons of flour, which is probably the same as in the ingredients above. I must have put about 3 tablespoons of milk in. But you know what, it's not a precise science. I just needed something that would stick the breadcrumbs to the eggplant. Anything that you use to make a cutlet or Chinese roll should do too. I do believe that the egg makes it crunchy so don't leave that out. 

To fry eggplant you need a lot of oil. There is something about eggplant that makes it only taste good if it is doused in oil! So I poured some oil into the pan then one by one patted the eggplant dry with a kitchen towel, to remove some of the dampness so that the batter adheres better, dipped them in the batter then into the breadcrumbs and fried them. When I turned them I added extra oil to the pan else the breadcrumbs would not become golden brown. And I reduced the heat else the breadcrumbs start burning and that is a mess. Here is what they looked like:

It took me 15 minutes to finish all of them and get out of the house. I was in time to pick up my child. Phew!!

Once I got home again I had to put everything together. I first set the oven to 160 Celsius and then got to work. I picked my largest casserole dish and poured in about 300 ml of pasta sauce from a jar. Then I arranged the fried eggplant on top of it. Since I had so much eggplant I put two layers of eggplant. Then I used the cream to clean out the empty pasta sauce jar and poured that on top.

There were some herbs that still had not died! A basil plant, which is on it's last legs and the thyme plant which was bought for the quiche. Actually the thyme has been doing really well since I started watering it. I didn't bother picking off the leaves of the thyme because the stalks were really soft so I just kind of broke it up over the dish. I did the same with the basil leaves (no stalks please!).

Then the rest of the tomato sauce was poured over and evenly distributed. Finally on went the cheese. The fresh Mozzarella was shredded and the Parmesan finely grated. All of this was popped in the oven for around 30 to 40 minutes. At some point I felt like the cheese was not browning quickly enough so I increased the temperature by 10 degrees. This helped speed up the cooking.

And while that all was cooking I managed to clean up the kitchen and make some pasta to eat with it. I took the opportunity to finish the linguine that I used for the half an hour pasta with mushroom dish. You can also eat it with bread or rice and serve a nice green salad with it if you want to be fancy.