Pumpkin fairy lights

 I wanted to make pumpkin fairy lights to light up the crochet witch that my daughter made for me, but I could not find anything I liked anywhere. I was not about to buy some lights. I'm not sure why, but that somehow didn't seem right. After raiding my craft drawers I only had to buy some paper!

You will need:

A string of 20 fairy lights 

A hole punch

20 Brads [for some reason called "sample bag clips"(Musterbeutelklammern) in Germany]

Brown play-doh or plasticine or similar substance

1 sheet 50,5 * 70 cm Orange transparent paper (Transparent-Extrastark)

Scissors

Ruler

Cellotape

Pen/pencil (maybe!)

Method:

First make a trial strip. You need to do this because the bulb has to fit through the hole that you punch. Cut a 1.5 cm by 10 cm strip of orange paper and punch a hole into the end. Check if the bulb completely passes through. I found that the wires coming out of the bulb are wider than the bulb itself so I had to squeeze them a bit to get them through the hole. If your bulb does not fit through you may have to find a hole punch with a larger hole or a smaller bulb. If you have to buy the string of fairy lights and have a hole punch at home make a hole in a thick piece of paper and take it to the store with you so you can see if the bulb fits through it. Don't forget it you make a larger hole your strips will have to be wider. Adjust accordingly. Also don't forget if your bulb goes through too easily it will also come out easily. Mine just happened to be perfect. Once I had the paper in it did not just slip out. 

Once you have the correct material cut 11 strips of orange paper per pumpkin (1.5 by 10 cm). It is not so important that the strips are exactly the same width, but it is important that they are exactly the same length (that is, for one pumpkin). Stack them and trim them if necessary.

Punch a hole in the bottom and in the top. If you have a single hole punch things will be easier, but if you don't you can use a regular hole punch. I have a single one somewhere in the house but no one seems to know where it is! When using a two hole punch you'll need to take the back off the hole punch so you can see where you are punching. Make a small dot at the place you want to be the center of the circle. Place the strip into the hole punch so that you can see the dot and then punch! You can stack a few together so things go quicker. In fact if you can punch all 11 in one go then it will be much easier for you to pass the bulb and the brad through the hole. It worked with my standard hole punch so I think it should work with most.

Pass the bulb through 11 strips of paper. The side you want to be on the outside is facing my hand in the picture. The side on the top will be inside the pumpkin. In the photo I passed one strip through, but later on I passed all 11 at the same time and to get it through the last bit I bent the paper a bit. This seemed to get it through.

And then pass a brad through the hole on the other side as shown in the picture. 

Next distribute the strips to form what looks like a Chinese lantern (at least thats what my kids think it looks like).  You may need to loosed the brad to make it easier to distribute the layers. It's easy enough to tighten it later. Squeeze it a bit to make it look more like a pumpkin. 

Take a small blob of play-doh and form the stem. You may need to hold the wires together. My wires insisted on separating so I put a small piece of tape around them to hold them together. 

And voila!! 

PS. You may need to wait for your play-doh to dry before hanging your lanterns.

Sri Lankan Vegetarian Cutlets

This recipe has been a while in the making. While I can make fish cutlets pretty well it doesn't do us much good because my kids are vegetarian and it is only my husband who is a pescatarian. Cutlets are a popular Sri Lankan short eat, but they are also served with rice and curry unlike other short eats. Like all Sri Lankan short eats they take time to prepare and are best eaten piping hot. 

Sri Lankan's have all kinds of myths as to why cutlets pop. I've been given years of advise about how to make the perfect cutlet. I've followed all instructions but none of them work consistently. But fortunately, after around 20 years, I finally realised why these snippets of advice actually work and why cutlets pop.

Cutlets pop because there is too much moisture in the cutlet and/or the oil is not the right temperature. [This is exactly the same reason why my falafel used to pop (passed tense since I've perfected my falafel!)] And it is as simple as that. Reduce the moisture, use a thermometer and you too can make the perfect cutlet. So you might ask "then why did it take so long to perfect this recipe?" The answer is a simple combination of "it's not so easy to reduce the moisture with just vegetables" and "it's hard to find the time when you have a full time job and two kids". 

Preparation time: 2.5 hours; makes 24

Ingredients:

500 g	Floury potatoes, peeled
250 g	Carrots, peeled
1 tbsp.	Butter
100 g	Leeks (tender green part)
1	Garlic clove (small), minced or pulped
1/4 tsp.	Bullion powder (or bullion cube)
1 tsp.	Salt
1/4 tsp.	Pepper
1/4 cup	Breadcrumbs
1 l	Oil - for deep frying
1 lrg	Egg
1 tbsp.	Flour
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp.	Breadcrumbs

Method:

Make sure you use "floury" potatoes. In SL this would be the yellow ones. Unfortunately I don't personally know which type these are in other countries. According to the BBC Food Desiree, Estima, King Edward and Maris Piper are floury varieties. In Germany they are sold as "floury cooking" (mehlig kochende) potatoes! If you use what German's call "firmly cooking" (festkochende) the potatoes will not be as easy to mash and seem to retain too much water because they have to cook longer to become mashable. 

In case you need it (maybe floury=fluffy?)

Cut the potatoes roughly into large dice (~2 cm cube) and add them to boiling water. Cook for around 8 minutes or until soft and mashable. Don't cook them so that they disintegrate. You want some body to your cutlets. This is what distinguishes them from croquettes. Drain the water and allow the potatoes to cool.

While your potatoes are cooking prepare your carrots. I've struggled for a long while trying to figure out how to integrate carrots into my cutlets. I don't know why but I just feel like carrots are the right thing to have in there. What I've found with carrots is that they don't smash very well (unless you put them in a food processor and turn them into puree) and if you boil them forever they absorb too much water. So to incorporate them into my recipe I had to figure out how to cook them and get rid of some of the water. I finally accomplished this by grating them and then steaming them in a cheesecloth.

I like to use organic carrots because they tend to taste of something. I mean, they actually taste of carrots! You should grate the carrots on a coarse setting (the coarse setting of any "old" grater should be fine). Then line your steamer with cheesecloth and place the grated carrots in the cheesecloth. Steam them in this way for about x minutes or until they are soft. How long you actually have to steam them will depend on how coarsely you grated them. When you remove the carrots from the steamer pick them up in the cheesecloth and leave them in a colander to cool.

Leeks are another must have in cutlets. However, leeks cannot be mashed. So apparently the trick is to fry them in butter until they are soft else they will cause your cutlets to pop. I'm actually extrapolating from advice I have been given about onions! Use the leafy part of your leeks. If you are in SL or ever have been marketing in SL you will know that Sri Lankan leeks have way more green top than white bottom. In Germany it is completely the opposite. My theory is that Germans just leave their leeks in the ground for so long that the green tops are too hard to be eaten and thus have to be trashed. I personally cannot buy leeks with soft enough leaves that they could be used in a cutlet. But I'm hardcore and decided this year was the year for cutlets so I planted my own leeks. And they do not have a thick white bottom AND they have lots of nice soft green leaves (at least now they do!). If you cannot find leeks with soft leaves you can substitute with green onions (scallions, spring onions, whatever you want to call them). And if you are not in SL you know exactly what all these things are!

Leeks straight from my garden

Chop your leeks finely. Add the butter to a pan and pan fry the leeks (scallions, green onions, spring onions,...) together with the garlic. If you want to add onions you can also fry them in the butter. Just make sure you dice them really, really small. If you over fry any of these ingredients they will become hard. You don't want this. So very lightly fry them and as soon as they are soft remove them from the heat. 

By now your potatoes are cool enough. You can smash them with the back of a fork or use your hands. Don't use a potato masher because then you will have croquettes and (just a reminder) we are not making croquettes. Move over to the carrots. Pick them up in the cheesecloth and squeeze some of the water out. Don't squeeze all the water out. Just give it a light squeeze. Too much squeeze will make the carrots very dry and not very tasty. 

Add the carrots to the potatoes along with the leeks/garlic, salt & pepper, bullion powder, breadcrumbs and mix all the ingredients together. 

Now we come to forming the balls. It's very easy and unlike popular belief, they will not pop if they are not perfectly spherical. How big your balls are depends on, well, many things. But mainly it is a matter of taste. I like smaller balls. About a tablespoon full or something that fits neatly in the palm of my hand. So take a tablespoon of mixture and roll it into a nice tight ball. The first time you attempt this recipe you should make all the balls first and line them up on a baking tray (or a large plate, chopping board, etc.). Next, in a bowl, whisk together a tablespoon of flour and one egg. Pour the remaining breadcrumbs into another bowl. 

The next part some people find very messy and end up getting egg into their breadcrumbs and loads of stuff sticking to their hands. To avoid this use my two hand method. 

Take a cutlet (in your right hand) and drop it into the breadcrumbs. Use your left hand to pour some breadcrumbs over it. Once the surface is no longer damp pick it up in your left hand and squeeze it a bit so that the breadcrumbs stick and the cutlet becomes tighter. Dip a bit of this cutlet into the egg mixture and then move it to your right hand where you can roll it about so that the egg dampens all the surface. Then drop the cutlet back into the breadcrumbs, pour some breadcrumbs over it, pick it up in your left hand and put it back on the board until it is ready to be fried. So left hand dry, right hand wet. Of course you can switch the hands. Or if you are really lucky have someone else to do the dry/wet part.

Somewhere along the line you can heat up your oil. You need enough oil to deep fry. If you are using a deep fryer just follow the deep fryers instructions. I use a saucepan and fill it with 1 litre of sunflower oil. You can use whatever oil you like. Nothing can make a cutlet healthy! If you do not use a deep fryer make sure your pan is deep enough so that the oil is only half way up to avoid the oil from overflowing. Heat your oil to 350 Celsius and fry your cutlets until they are golden brown. You should lower them into the hot oil to prevent splashing. I usually fry 3-4 at a time. If you put too many in the temperature of the oil will drop too much and you can only guess what happens then (yes, POP!). If your cutlets sink to the bottom and stay there (mine do) then the part touching the bottom of the pan will burn. So you need to figure out a way to prevent this from happening. I stick my skimmer mesh under them to keep them off the bottom. 

(In case you are wondering what a "skimmer mesh" is)

Drain on paper towels. Enjoy hot with ketchup, Sriracha sauce, or your favourite dip. Or serve them along side rice and curry. Check out my Sri Lankan curry recipes for rice and curry inspiration. 

You can find a printable pdf here.

Vegetarian Phyllo Pie

After attempting to make some Turkish cigars I had some left over phyllo pastry. I also happened to have a lot of mushrooms and an urge to eat pie (despite the temperatures outside being 30℃!). The pie filling was very photogenic and my tummy was rumbling even before I had put it in the pie. Definitely a keeper since it tastes as good as it looks.

PS. You could use a basic dough or use my pot pie filling with the phyllo dough.

Preparation time: 90 minutes; Serves 2-4

Ingredients

250 g	Brown mushrooms
350 g	White mushrooms
1 medium	Red onion
1 tbsp.	Oil
250 g	Potatoes, peeled
1 tsp.	Minced garlic
180 g	Vegan sausages
2 tbsp.	Fresh oregano, finely chopped
1 tsp.	Fresh thyme leaves
1 tbsp.	Flour
8 leaves	Swiss chard (Mangold)
1 tbsp.	Olive oil
	Salt & pepper

Method:

Wash your mushrooms and either slice them into 4 or quarter them. I've heard you should not wash your mushrooms but I always do because they are always dirty. Cut your onion. You can either dice it or slice it finely. I sliced mine in this instance. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed frying pan on high heat. When frying mushrooms I always like to use a cast iron pan. It makes the mushrooms brown and caramelises the red onions better. Also using high heat seals in the liquid which makes them taste really good. When the oil is hot add the onions and stir fry for about 1 minute. Next add the mushrooms, sausages and garlic continue to fry stirring occasionally until all the mushrooms are browned (they might not brown if you use a non-stick pan so go for cooked instead). This could take up to 5 minutes. When they are done remove from the heat. 

While your mushrooms are cooking prepare the potatoes by peeling and cutting them into large dice (around 2.5 cm). Boil the potatoes. They should be cooked but not break to pieces because they are going to be cooked again and you don't want them to turn to mush. During the time that the potatoes are boiling, and after the mushrooms are done (else you may burn the mushrooms!), wash and roughly chop the Swiss chard. You can use the stems in the recipe too. Drain the potatoes and add them to the mushrooms. Add salt, pepper, oregano, thyme and Swiss chard, sprinkle the flour on top and then mix everything together.  It is important to sprinkle the flour on top so that it doesn't clump. The flour is to bind together the juices from the mushrooms and chard forming a thick sauce. Return to the cooker on medium heat and continue to carefully turn things over until the chard is cooked (i.e. is limp). 

Put your oven on at 180 ℃ for a fan oven or 200 ℃ for a convection oven.

Now you can concentrate on putting the phyllo dough together. I used store bought dough that was pre-cut to a triangle, but you could use any shape you like and be creative when lining your pan. I used an approx. 20 cm diameter stoneware soufflé dish. Brush your dish with olive oil. Then brush a sheet of dough with olive oil. Make a very thin coating. I found the best way to do this was to use my fingers. I first applied the dough with my brush and then distributed it with my fingers. Line the pan with dough. Make sure there is plenty of overlap and plenty extra to wrap over the top. Each new piece you add to the pie should be coated with olive oil. If you prefer a thicker crust just use more layers of dough, especially if you want to take it out of the pan to serve it. 

Pour in the filling and top it off with some extra dough with not so thin layers of olive oil! 

Bake at 180 ℃ for 30 minutes.