Chapati

Chapati are easy to make and really tasty for just being flour, a bit of butter and water. My girls love them and the only thing that keeps me from making them more often is that they take a long time to make.

Preparation time: 1 1/4 hours ; makes 8 (serves 4 of my family) 

Ingredients:

350 g	Wheat flour
1/2 tsp.	Salt
175 - 250 ml	Warm water
1/4 - 1/2 cup	Flour for coating

Method:

For this recipe do not be tempted to use all purpose flour. I've tried using it and the chapati didn't turn out very nice at all. In fact it was just by chance that I made them  again when we were in Germany. In Germany the most common flour is pure wheat flour. In the USA you can either buy pure wheat flour or use cake flour. Place the flour in a large bowl and rub in the butter or ghee. Make sure that the fat is cold. This is espcially important if you are using ghee, which is liquid at room temperature (depending on where you live of course!).

Add the warm water and knead into a soft dough. You can now knead it by hand until it is smooth, which will take about 10 minutes, or you can put it in a kitchen machine with a dough hook (6 minutes). I'm terrible at kneading so I use the dough hook.

Then cover your dough with a damp cloth and place it in a warm place. I don't usually have a warm place so I just put it next to the cooker with the hope that when I start cooking things will warm up! Let it sit like this for at least 30 minutes.

Now comes the time consuming part... frying the chapati! Don't try to do this in parallel with anything else. It's best to do it once you are done with all the other things so that it gets to the table warm. You need a cast iron frying pan for the best results. You could use a non-stick pan, but it won't come out as well.

Put your pan on the cooker and heat it to medium high. You'll have to adjust the heat according to your pan and your cooker. You'll know if it's too hot because the chapati will start to burn! Take a piece of dough and roll it into a ball about the size of a golf ball. You can, of course, make smaller or larger chapati depending on the size of your pan or the amount of time you have (smaller ones taking way longer of course).

Dip the ball in flour and roll out to form a thin chapati about 22 cm in diameter. Put it in the hot pan and fry on both sides. The chapati will bubble in some places and, because the dough is so thin, burn in those places. Try to make sure this does not happen too much, but a little is necessary. If this burnt stuff sticks to your pan wipe it out with a paper towel before putting the next chapati in. Once you have put one pancake into the pan start forming the next one. If you have nothing else to do you should be able to have a chapati ready for the pan as soon as one is done. This will speed up the process a little bit.

Enjoy your chapati with anything. My kids sometimes just eat it with butter! But a paneer tikka masala on the side is their favourite (together with the butter of course).

Fried rice - fusion variation

I came home from work today to find the curries from lunch still out on the counter and the pot of rice on the cooker with the lid off. Sitting at the table were both of my kids and my husband with their laptops open busy at work! Now I was a little bit ticked that they were sitting there and hadn't noticed that the food was still out from lunch, but to their credit they were all working hard on their blogs. Can't fault them for that now, can I?

On my commute home I had decided to make some fried rice. Mainly because my daughter had called me at work and asked if she could eat bread with her curries for lunch instead of rice, and thus I assumed that there would be a heap of left over rice. However, it seems like she gave up on the idea and ate the rice anyways. Once I'm set on cooking something there is no changing my mind. I have what we like to call "large momentum". Once I get going on an idea there is little that can change my mind however the circumstances change. So I had to cook some new rice and enough for two meals because Wednesdays the kids have to take lunch to school.

Everyone enjoyed the rice and it was requested to be made a regular. Hence I need this blog so I can make it again.

Preparation time: 60 minutes ; serves 6 - 8 

Ingredients:

3 rice cooker cups	Basmati or other long grain, non-sticky rice
4 rice cooker cups	Cold water
1 l + 4 tbsp.	Oil
325 g	Eggplant
225 g	Carrots
1 tbsp.	Garlic, minced
300 g	Sausages, vegetarian of course!
75 g	Spring onions
300 g	Corn
50 g	Sun dried tomatoes
3 tbsp.	Vegetarian stirfry sauce
1 tbsp.	Soya sauce
1 tbsp.	Ketchup

Method:
Wash your rice well in cold water until the water is not so white. Usually recipes say until clear, but I have never managed clear. I don't know what that looks like when washing rice!! Then cook your rice either in a rice cooker with 4 cups of water or on the stove top. And here is a short description of how to do this because it seems like a lot of people have forgotten how to do this (like my mother-in-law who is 100% Chinese!).

Put the rice and the water in a heavy bottom pan with a fitting lid. Make sure that the rice is completely covered by the water. Place it on the stove top, on high heat, with the lid on. When the water boils (you will know this because the pot will start splattering and over flowing, can't miss it), take off the lid, reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting, stir the rice, put the lid back on and cook for 20 minutes. If it boils over again, which it might, just take the lid off, release the heat and put it back on again. Do not peep at your rice (unless you are not using a heavy bottom pan and you smell the bottom burning). Once the 20 minutes are up check your rice by eating a little bit. Then stir it again. For this recipe it is best to leave the lid off and allow the moisture to evaporate and the rice to cool.

So having that out of the way... while your rice is cooking prepare the vegetables. I finely sliced my eggplant and started deep frying it while chopping the other vegetables. Just heat the oil, add a 1/4 of the eggplant and fry it until golden brown. You should stir it once in the middle of the frying so that it gets cooked equally on all sides.

Next peel and dice your carrots, mince your garlic, wash and slice your spring onions, cut your sausages into slices, chop your sun dried tomatoes, and crack open the can of corn (yes, use a can and save yourself some time) and drain the water from it. By now you should be done frying the eggplant and it there is a good chance that your rice has cooked. If it hasn't, take a break and clean up the mess!

Once the rice is cooked heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a large wok (high heat). First add the carrots and stir fry them until they change colour (they become more yellowy). This takes a couple of minutes. Next add the garlic and mix everything well. Sausages should be added next. You can substitute the sausages with any other type of high protein food, like scrambled eggs, fried tofu sticks, or any of the other types of high protein foods that do not appear in this blog! Fry for another couple of minutes and then add all the other vegetables mixing well.

In a small bowl mix together the 3 sauces and pour them over the vegetables. Again mixing well. Next add the rice and stir until everything is well mixed. Voila you have fried rice!

Enjoy!!

Sri Lankan Milk Rice

The new year is almost upon us. As in many Sri Lankan households we celebrate new year with a traditional meal of milk rice, seeni sambol and pani (and untraditionally with red lentil curry!). Took me forever to figure out how to make milk rice correctly. It should be relatively simple, but I could never get it just right. One Sri Lankan new year my aunty Rosie was standing by and showed me how to make it properly. So it is for all of you who have been struggling and for those of you who want to try a new type of milk rice. For all you Germans out there, you can eat this with Zimtzucker just like normal German milk rice (note that it is not as liquid as the German variety).

Preparation time: 1 hour; serves 6 

Ingredients:

2 cups	Rice (raw rice)
3 cups	Water
1 tsp.	Sugar
2 tsp.	Salt
4	Cardamom pods
40 g	Butter (or 3 tbsp. ghee)
2 cups	Coconut milk

Method:
First of all, the cups above are American cups (around 240 ml). If you use a rice cooker cup then use 3 cups rice, 4.5 cups water and 2 cups coconut milk.

Wash the rice until the water runs clear. I usually wash it around 4 times. I cannot be bothered washing it more than that, so my water does not usually run clear! Drain the rice and put it in a pan so that it has enough room to expand. Go for at least 4 times the volume of the rice.

Bruise the cardamom pods (i.e. hit them with rolling pin or pound a couple of times in a mortar). You just want to make sure they are open. I have recollection of just biting them open many, many years ago! Add the water, sugar, salt, butter and cardamom pods to your pan. Put the lid on (very, very important that you have a lid that fits well so that no steam escapes) and cook on high until the water boils.

In the mean time prepare your coconut milk. I used coconut milk powder to produce my milk. 8 heaped tablespoons made up to 2 cups of liquid with warm water gave me the milkyness that I needed. If you use canned coconut milk you might want to water it down a bit. All depends on how creamy and coconuty you want your rice. The really thick one that I can get I would put half coconut cream and half water. The coconut milk in the brown can I would not dilute. Then heat up your coconut milk either in the microwave or in a pan. Bring it to the boil.

Once the water boils, stir, reduce the heat to the minimum, add the hot coconut milk and then close the lid. Allow the rice to cook for a further 20 minutes.

Once it is cooked turn it out onto a plate. The traditional thing to do would be to flatten it with a banana leaf, I just used a piece of foil and used a chopping board to flatten the top. Then cut the rice into diamond shapes (I'm not very good at this part!). You can only really do this shaping when the rice is hot. If you try to do it later it will not form into stable lumps. I've tried heating up the rice later and forming it but that does not work very well. You can serve it with a multiple of things. I'll post seeni sambol (onion sambol with a bit of sugar) soon but you can also eat it with hakuru, pol pani, or curry.

Mushroom Soup

I was away for a couple of days and discovered a kilo of mushrooms in the fridge when I arrived home. Apparently they were on sale! This fact, combined with the sudden cold, wet and dark weather, called out SOUP. So I made a huge pot of mushroom soup. I'm halving the recipe here because it's not usual to buy a whole kilo of mushrooms unless you are cooking for a large number of people. Since you are making half of what I made it is also likely that you can make it in less than 1 hour.

Preparation time: 1 hour; makes 1.5 l  

Ingredients:

50 g	Butter
75 g	Onions, diced
1 tsp.	Garlic, finely diced
50 g	Flour
600 ml	Water
1	Vegetable cube
600 ml	Milk
500 g	Mushrooms
	Salt & Pepper, to taste
2 tbsp.	Lemon juice
4 tbsp.	Cream

Method:

The thing that took me forever was washing the mushrooms. I learned recently that you are not supposed to wash mushrooms because they absorb the water that you wash them in and don't taste as good. I'm still going to wash my mushrooms because they are always dirty, but apparently you could buy a special mushroom brush to brush away the dirt. Just another gadget to have in an already overstuffed kitchen! I think not.

Well once they are washed I trim off the ends of my now "soggy" mushrooms and then slice them roughly. If you want to have a chunky soup and don't want to run it through a liquidizer then you will have to dice them, or slice them, finely. I personally don't like chunky soups.

Then dice the onions and the garlic.

Heat the butter in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan on medium heat. If you burn the butter tip it out and  start again, else the soup will not taste good. Once the butter has melted add the onions and the garlic and stir (to prevent burning) for around 3 minutes, or until the onions are cooked. The next step is to add the flour to the mixture and continue to stir so that the flour does not burn or stick to the bottom of the pan. Cook it for about 1 minute. Next you have to slowly add the water. Add about 1/2 cup of water, stirring it in until you have a lumpless paste. If your Sri Lankan then the instructions would be... it should look like pappa (which is a glue made out of flour and water that we are all too familiar with)! Then continue adding water 1/2 cup at a time until all the water is used up. By this time your soup should be quite liquid. Now add the milk. If the soup is already liquid enough then just add the whole thing in there and stir it around. Also put in the vegetable cubes. 

If you are going to liquidize your soup then you don't need to be too worried if there are lumps of flour in the soup. 

Bring the whole thing to a boil (you can increase the heat to get it to boil quicker) and add the mushrooms and salt and pepper to taste. 

Be careful, the vegetable cube is quite salty so make sure you taste it before adding more salt. Allow your soup to simmer over low heat for another 10 minutes or so. Then it is almost done. All you have to do is liquidize it. I am a fan of the stick mixer with a metal stick. This can be inserted directly into the boiling soup and the soup can be pulverized. However, you must be very, very careful and know how your gadget works. Else you will end up with hot soup splashed all over you and some pretty nasty burns. If you are not sure allow your soup to cool first (this cooling is not accounted for in the preparation time. One way to decrease the time would be to add the mushrooms to the mixture once the water has been added, then remove the pan from the heat and then add cold milk to the mixture. This should bring it to a decent temperature to experiment with.) If you use a liquidizer then you have to cool the liquid all the way down before liquidizing. Again, the preparation time does not take this into account. Once you have the required smoothness, bring the soup back to the boil. 

Remove it from the heat and add the lemon juice and cream. You can also add the cream later into the individual bowls to make it look fancy. No time for that over here. Soup has to be served piping hot. That means that it cannot be served in the kitchen and then left to sit on the dinning table!

NOTE: This soup freezes pretty well. So if you happen to return to a fridge full of mushrooms you know what to do.

Chef friendly version

Breadfruit Curry - Sri Lankan Style

On the weekend I had to drop off my eldest at a lazer tag establishment. We were surprised to find that it was right down town! Since we were the first there and had a few minutes to spare I dropped into an Asian store that was a few doors down. I was happily surprised to find that they had breadfruit in their vegetable section, and one good one too! As I picked it up one of the people working in the store, who was of South Asian decent, asked me what I would do with it. It always surprises me that the people selling these things don't know what they are! Sometimes in the Sri Lankan store in Dortmund I have people ask me what I do with the vegetables I buy. They are usually rather embarrassed by the question since I look German and they look Sri Lankan!! Maybe I should have a little card with my blog address on it and tell them to check up in a few days to see what was done with it :)

Breadfruit is one of my favourite vegetables. Unfortunately it is never in season when I visit Sri Lanka so I have not had it for years. I also love kiri kos (jak fruit in a milky curry) and have no recollection when I last ate it. A very sad state indeed. I have hope though. Maybe eventually I will be able to get unripe jak fruit here in Germany. I can already get ripe jak fruit, although it does not taste as good as the stuff in SL.

If you happen to find a breadfruit, buy it and cook it. It is really easy to prepare and delicious to eat.

Preparation time: 1 hour; serves 4 if served alone with rice 

Ingredients:

600g	Breadfruit
1 sprig	Curry leaves
3	Green chilies, roughly chopped
1 tsp.	Salt
1/2 tsp.	Tumeric
1 cup	Water
1	Onion, diced
12	Black pepper seeds
4 tbsp. (heaped)	Coconut milk powder
2 tsp.	Roasted curry powder

Method:

The hardest part about making breadfruit is the cutting and cleaning of it. As you can see above I cut mine into quarters and then cut the middle piece out (kind of like I would take the core out of an apple). It is possible that white milk will leak out of your fruit. This did not happen to me but I think it is because the fruit was probably not very fresh (as it had not been picked just yesterday!). The best way to deal with this white milk is to wipe it off with newspaper. If you get it on your hands or knife clean with oil and newspaper. If you try to wash it off everything will just get stickier.

Peel the fruit with a potato peeler and then cut it into cubes. You don't want small cubes else it will disintegrate. So nice big cubes about 1.5 inches wide. Then I sprinkled mine with tumeric and salt and rubbed it well. It's kind of like using a scrub on your vegetable. This 'scrub' will take off anymore milky stuff that is on your fruit.

Wash the fruit and put it in a saucepan. Now add all the ingredients except the 1/2 the water, the coconut milk powder and roasted curry powder.

Cover the pan and bring to the boil. Then reduce the heat and cook until the water has been absorbed (about 15 minutes). Mix the remaining water with the coconut milk powder. It helps if the water is luke warm. You can also use thick fresh coconut milk or coconut milk from a can. The canned milk tends to be quite  thick so you may have to dilute it a bit. Add this to the pan and bring back to the boil. Allow to simmer for another 15 minutes.

Once the fruit is cooked it will be soft, like over boiled potatoes. Remove it from the heat and add the roasted coconut powder. It is now ready to serve.

The method is relatively simple and I'm guessing if you are not being neat and pretty and taking photographs that you can probably put this together in less than an hour. The big time consumer is letting it simmer at the end for 30 minutes, but this gives you time to make other delicious things (and if nothing else at least your rice).

NOTE: I have found that breadfruit curry tends to turn very quickly. It's best to eat it within 24 hours.

Deliciously Simple Home-made Croutons

When I first moved to Germany from the USA I could not find croutons in the store so when our good friends from San Francisco came to visit I had to figure out how to make some, and quick! A few years ago I found some in the supermarket, but they are nothing compared to my homemade, fresh, crunchy ones.

Preparation time: 30-40 minutes; Makes 2 bowls full (see above) 

Ingredients:

6 slices	White bread
1/4 cup	Olive oil
2 tbsp.	Oil (canola, sunflower, etc.)
1 tsp.	Salt
1 clove	Garlic, small (optional)
1 tbsp	Rosemary, finely chopped (optional)

Method:

Unlike many other recipes this one you really need to put the oven on before you start preparing stuff. It's that quick to prepare. I used a fan oven at 180 C, so 200 C for a regular oven (400 F). 

You could use any type of bread for this. I like to use white bread that is pre-cut. It is called "American Sandwich" here in Germany and "Sandwich bread" in Sri Lanka. The main thing is that it is pre-cut to save you some time and to make it nice and regular. I cut my bread so that cubes are formed.

Then put them in a big bowl and pour over the oil and mix quickly so that the oil gets evenly distributed. Crush the garlic and add it to the bread with the salt. I personally think that this recipe is a bit too salty but my family assure me that it is the perfect amount. So adjust according to your own taste. You will probably only know if there is too much or too little after you have finished making it! Given that you will be making this more often than you think this is not such a bad thing. Mix well. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread out the bread evenly. Put in the hot oven. Now finely chop the rosemary. If you put it in in the beginning the rosemary will burn so you have to wait. Every 5 minutes you should stir the bread so that all sides get evenly toasted. After 10 minutes or so sprinkle on the rosemary.

Bake until the bread is golden brown, 15 - 20 minutes in total. If you have a well disciplined family you can wait until it is cooled and then use it on your salad. We use ours immediately. What ever croutons are left over my kids have for dessert!

Don't forget to adjust your croutons to your taste. Pepper, chili of any other spice or herb will taste great. Just remember that more fragile herbs should be put on very near to the end and some probably after you have taken the croutons out of the oven. 

Paneer Tikka Masala

When we lived in San Francisco this was one of our favourite dishes at our favourite Indian place "Naan and Curry". We were introduced to this, then hole in the wall restaurant, by a American colleague of mine whose wife was Indian. We were quite amazed at how bad the place looked but after eating there, well, we never went anywhere else (for Indian food that is). The food was amazingly good, amazingly cheap and there was free chai, as much as you could possibly drink.
Since that first visit the restaurant branched out and we were lucky enough to have a large branch open up a few blocks from where we lived. So we would dress up our kids in yellow, orange or red attire and walk down the street to get our naan and curry fix. The dress was very important given that there was so much turmeric (note that there is none in the recipe below but the tomato will do the trick) in everything, that the kids ate with their hands, there were no booster seats and our kids were under 4 years old! Any mistake with the dress code meant that piece of clothing was destroyed for life.
Once we moved to Germany we found that not only was there no Nann and Curry (which we fully expected) but there was no decent Indian food. We finally found one that had decent food but the price has gone up by so much that the only decently priced item on the menu is "suicide water", which is just a fancy word for tap water (price 0 Euro). There was no option but to start cooking Indian food at home. After much research and much tweaking I settled on this recipe.
There is one problem though. My kids do not like the taste of the paneer that we get in Germany. We substitute with feta made from cows milk, which is a much cheaper option than paneer so everyone is happy.

Preparation time: 40 minutes (can be made in advance and refrigerated or frozen); Serves 4 

Ingredients:

1 tbsp.	Butter or ghee
2	Cloves of garlic, minced
1	Chili, minced (optional)
2 tsp.	Ground coriander
1 tsp.	Ground cumin

1 tsp.	Chili powder
1 tsp.	Garam masala
1/2 tsp.	Salt
8 fl.oz.	Tomato puree
1 cup	Whipping cream
1/4 cup	Cilantro, chopped
200 g	Paneer (or feta or tofu or anything you like!)

Method:

This is a majorly simple recipe it just takes a while because the longer you cook it the better it tastes! So first melt the butter over medium high heat. Once the butter is melted add the garlic and chili and fry them until they become fragrant (usually a few seconds). Then add the coriander, cumin, chili, garam masala and salt and continue to fry stirring all the time. Do this also until fragrant. Do not burn the spices! Talking about fragrant, be aware that after you fry all this stuff you are going to have to air your kitchen really well to get rid of the lingering spice smell. 

Now add all the tomato puree, stir and cook on low heat for 15 minutes. I actually don't use tomato puree but something called "Tomatenmark" it is very highly concentrated tomato and comes in a tube as a paste. I put around 2 - 3 fl. oz of this and make up the rest with water. How much I put depends on which particular brand I am using because they all claim different concentrations.

Now add the whipping cream (or full cream or heavy whipping cream) and bring to the boil again. Reduce the heat and simmer for another 5 minutes. I don't have any photos after this stage because I turned off the cooker and ran out of the house to pick someone up. Instructions were then sent via Whatsapp as to how to heat up the dinner. 

Finally add the cheese and the coriander leaves, heat everything through and serve with any type of bread or rice. 

I have found that the sauce re-heats and freezes very well but the cheese doesn't. So what I do is I make a double batch of gravy and only put in the amount of cheese that can be consumed in one meal. The left over gravy can then be reheated and new cheese put in. 

Left overs from the next day!

Enjoy!

Rhubarb, Strawberry Crumble

This summer we spent a couple of weeks in England. While visiting good friends of ours in London we were introduced to their allotment. The English version of the German "Klein Garten". Among the vegetables there was a bed of Rhubarb. Our friend lamented that she didn't know what to do with them and wanted to uproot them and throw them away. My kids went a bit crazy and objected to throwing away rhubarb! They made me promise to make a rhubarb crumble for them and harvested some stalks.

The next morning I was bound to the kitchen to produce a rhubarb crumble. Now this would have been fine except I realized that I had not yet posted my crumble recipe and could not find anything even close on the internet. So I winged it!

This motivated me to write up the recipe so that next time my kids persuade me to bake while on vacation that at least I have a recipe!

Preparation time: 1.5 hours. Serves 8 

Ingredients:

750 - 1000g	Fruit (1/2 rhubarb, 1/2 strawberry)
3 tbsp.	Sugar
1	Lemon, zest
200 g	Butter (margarine if you are vegan)
200 g	Sugar
3 drops	Vanilla
200 g	Ground almonds
240 g	Flour
1-2 tbsp.	Powdered sugar/ icing sugar
1 tsp.	Ground cinnamon
2 tbsp.	Brown sugar

Method:

If you are using rhubarb, peel and cut it finely. Add the 3 tbsp. sugar and the lemon zest to it and set aside. Chop the strawberries coarsely, but do not add them to the rhubarb. The rhubarb needs to sit in the sugar. The time it needs to sit is the time that you need to make the mix for the pastry part of the crumble. You can use any other fruit with this recipe. If the fruit takes a long time to cook you might consider pre-cooking it.

Melt the butter at a very low heat. Take care not to get it too hot else it will cook the other ingredients and you don't want this. I suggest putting it in the microwave and heating it for 30 seconds. Take it out and stir it. If it is not completely melted put it back in for a further 10-20 seconds, take it out and then stir it again. By stirring it you are cooling it down and distributing the heat. The butter just needs to be liquid. If you happen to have over heated your butter wait until it has cooled to proceed.

Now mix everything together except the fruit, the brown sugar and the cinnamon. Mix it with a wooden spoon. Try not to smash it together. You are not forming a batter but crumbs. You could also use your fingers but be very gentle.

Press half of the crumbles on to the bottom of a 26 cm diameter round form. I use a tart case at home. You can also use a ceramic tart dish, it just takes a bit longer to bake. Also I can never get it out of the pan so I like to use a ceramic dish if I am taking it somewhere. If you are looking for something that looks good once served on a plate, this is not the recipe for you. This is if you want something that tastes amazing and is relatively easy to make.

Once the first half of the crumbles are in, distribute the fruit on top. Then put the rest of the crumbles on top of the fruit. Sprinkle the top with the brown sugar and the cinnamon.

Bake at 190 C (in a fan oven) for about 25 minutes.

Serve hot, warm or cold with ice cream, custard, whipped cream or clotted cream.

Potato Gratin, Easy-peasy and Delicious

I don't make enough of this stuff! It is so easy to make and every one just wolfs it down. So much so that this time I made two dishes of it so we could get a second meal out of it.

Preparation time: 25 min. Serves 4 

Ingredients:

6	Potatoes
200 ml	Cream (or soy substitute)
	Salt and Pepper
1 tbsp.	Finely chopped fresh herbs
1 cup	Grated cheese

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 C, 400 F or 180 C if you have a fan oven.

Peel and slice the potatoes. The thinner you slice the potatoes the quicker it will cook and the better it will taste.

Arrange the potatoes in a heat proof flan dish.

Pour over the cream ( I use half whipping cream and half soy based cream in order to lower the fat content). Make sure that your potatoes are covered with liquid. They should not be swimming in it, but every potato should have something on it, else they will not cook properly.

Sprinkle with salt, pepper and the herbs. For herbs I used thyme and rosemary because I still have them in a pot left over from some other recipes, but you could use anything or nothing at all! Finally sprinkle with cheese.

Stick it in the oven and once you can stick a fork through the potatoes and the cheese is melted take it out and enjoy. I can't tell you how long it will take since I don't know how fat your slices will be or how large your potatoes were. Mine took about 20 - 30 minutes. Just wait for the cheese to melt, the cream to bubble and then try pricking it with your fork.

Sorry, it was consumed to fast to be able to take pictures of the final product!!

We enjoyed our potato gratin with vegetarian schnitzel and steamed beans. But they can be eaten with anything.

Cup Cakes - Simple and Delicious

My nephew is turning 1 and my sister-in-law asked me for a cake recipe. I told her where to find the recipe that I use and then turned to my blog to find out where I wrote down the European measurements. Turned out... I never did. How could I not have I've given this link to many people here in Europe. The cupcakes turn out absolutely wonderful and they are super easy to make.
So here is the link to the recipe I use:

http://www.glorioustreats.com/2011/07/perfect-vanilla-cupcakes-recipe.html

And here is the recipe with some European measurements:

Preparation time: 45 min. Makes 15 - 16 cupcakes/ twice the recipe makes a 9" round

Ingredients:

150 g	Flour
1 1/4 tsp.	Baking Powder
1/2 tsp.	Baking Soda (Natron/Sodium Bicarbonate)
1/2 tsp.	Salt
2	Eggs (large)
150 g	Sugar
1 1/2 tsp.	Vanilla (optional)
120 ml	Oil (sunflower, canola, etc.)
120 ml	Butter milk (or substitute with regular or soya milk)

Method:

Well please forgive me but let me just forward you again to the original website. That person spent so much time putting this recipe together she should at least get a few more hits!!

http://www.glorioustreats.com/2011/07/perfect-vanilla-cupcakes-recipe.html

Just waiting to be decorated

And then there were minions!

For the soccer fan

Fun with left over icing!