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.

Coffee aroma reindeer tealight holder

This project started out with someone wanting to make a garland for their bedroom for Christmas (it was not me!). I got roped into it because I am gullible when it comes to children wanting to do crafts! It turned into a pretty tea light holder that yesterday turned into one with a coffee aroma. Perfect for gloomy winter days.

You will need:

1 A4 sheet of coloured paper (or letter size if you are in the USA. Your garland will be a bit shorter.)
1 metal lid from a jam jar
Strong glue (we used Uhu)
Transparent, non-flammable paper (about 1/2 an A4 sheet)
A thin tipped black felt tipped pen
5 - 6 white jewels and one red one
2 handfuls of coffee beans
A tealight

Method:

We started with the reindeer and found him (and a few other friends) at this website https://www.woojr.com/christmas-paper-chains/christmas-paper-chains/ . We printed out this template and followed the instructions to make the garland (the instructions are on the template) using brown paper. Cutting it was rather fiddly so we took turns to cut it out. If you want something quicker you should consider the snow man or the Christmas tree.

After the garland was cut out I was deserted! The reason being that the garland was too short to go across the door and there was no way that my child was going to cut out a second one (very low attention span!). I did not want to trash the reindeer because they looked so cute.

Using a thin black felt tip pen I gave the reindeer some eyes and then stuck on the jewels for the noses. I was constantly visited by my daughter so that she could give me advice, which is why one of the reindeer has a red nose (Rudolf of course!).

I then rummaged around in our box of jam jars to find a lid that was the right size to wrap the reindeer around. I also found a piece of transparent paper left over from making tiny origami lampshades for a string of fairy lights.

I measured the circumference of the lid and cut out a rectangle from the transparent paper that was a centimeter longer than the circumference and as wide as the reindeer were tall. Then I stuck the reindeer to the transparent paper and the transparent paper to the rim of the lid (the inside of the lid upwards). If you want a sturdy construction you might use a glue gun to secure the paper to the lid.

Finally, we put a handful of coffee beans in the lid and settled a tea light on top of them. Now we have a wonderful coffee smelling tea light holder!!

You can use any of the templates above and any coloured paper, be creative! We'd love to see your products.

Sore Throat Tea (Sage/Lemon)

We're through the first outbreak of sore throats and coughs and now we are battling the second. Cough syrups don't work so well for us so we drink a lot of tea instead. In an attempt to use up the herbs that are growing in our garden we try all kinds of things. Sometimes stumbling on something amazing. This tea (or herbal infusion to be exact) is definitely one of those things. All four of us have tried it and all agree that it works well to sooth the throat and it tastes good.

For one cup all you need is around 4 leaves of fresh sage (Salbei in German), 2 slices of lemon and some honey. Put the sage and the lemon in a cup (or pot) and pour boiling water over it. Let it sit for 6 - 8 minutes, strain and add honey to taste.

Enjoy this hot and you can literally feel it soothing your throat.

NOTE: Be careful which lemons you use since many have chemicals sprayed on them that are not for human consumption. If you are not sure if you can eat the rind, just squeeze some lemon juice into your tea instead.

Twig door wreath

The kindergarten my children attended always has an Advent Bazzar in November. All the produce sold is made by the parents under the guidance of a very crafty teacher. One of the years they made these awesome wreaths made of twigs. They basically had a whole heap of someones garden trimmings and they molded them into shape and tied them together with brown wire.

Unfortunately I was not in the group that made the wreaths (I was busy managing the truffle making) so I don't know exactly how they made them. I did however manage to find a tutorial on YouTube that is pretty good.

Once you have the wreath the only thing that limits you is your imagination and wallet. I found some left over ribbon to make a huge bow for the bottom, bought a few cheap Christmas balls and used a string of plastic fall decorations to get a bit of colour.

I was very careful to use light weight things because we cannot nail anything into, or hook anything onto our door. It has to be held up with sticky tape!!

While decorating I found it best to hang the wreath up on a door so that I could see how everything fell (literally sometimes!). If using glass ornaments I would seriously advise you to put a thick blanket on the floor!

The whole thing is hung up by a matching ribbon (I ran out of left overs and picked up a new roll from IKEA, if I hadn't found it I would have just used wool) which is passed over the top of the door and stuck down with tape on the inside. Very, very heavy duty tape!

If your door can bear it the lights suggested in the tutorial are wonderful addition.

Recipe Index

This is not really a post! I cannot figure out how to make an index for my recipes, which I badly need. I could use a webpage instead of a blog but then I would have to pay for it (I'm a cheapo!). Note that homemade can be interpreted as being made from scratch. Everything is vegetarian, those marked with a V are vegan.

Soups:

Butternut squash soup
Mushroom soup
Pumpkin and potato soup - half an hour

Sri Lankan curries:

Bean curry V, gluten free
Breadfruit curry V, gluten free
Dahl, red lentil V, gluten free
Drumstick (Murunga) curry V, gluten free
Eggplant curry V, gluten free
Fried bitter gourd curry (karavila) V, gluten free
Potato and pea curry - tempered (fried) V, gluten free
Pumpkin curry V, gluten free
Sweet onion sambol - seeni sambol V, gluten free
TVP (soya chunk) curry V, gluten free

Breakfast:

American pancakes
Boiled eggs
Crows nest - half an hour
French toast
Granola - homemade V
Sri Lankan milk rice V, gluten free
Waffles (German style)

Mains:

Bi bim bap, gluten free
Caramelized leek quiche
Channa Masala (chickpeas) with spinach V, gluten free
Cauliflower bake - Cheesy
Cauliflower cashew curry with coconut milk V, gluten free
Eggplant Parmesan
Eggplant with tofu - Chinese V, gluten free
Fried eggplant quiche
Fried rice - fusion variation V, gluten free
Falafel V

Grilled mini-eggplant V, gluten free
Lasagna
Linguini in creamy mushroom sauce - half an hour
Mac and cheese
Makhouda D'Aubergine (or Batu Quiche)
No bake pan pizzas
Pad Thai, gluten free
Panner tikka masala, gluten free
Pasta with zucchini, mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes
Potato gratin
Persian omelet (with potatoes and spinach)

Phyllo pie V
Pot pie V
Pumpkin ravioli - homemade

Roast peppers, stuffed with spiced rice V
Spaghetti bolognese - half an hour V
Spinach pie

Stuffed Hokkaido pumpkin 
Stuffed zucchini V (if you omit the parmesan)
Tomato pasta sauce - homemade V, gluten free
Vegetarian stir fry (Chinese) - half an hour V, gluten free
Wirzing pie (savoy pie)

Sides & Snacks:

Bratkartoffeln - pan fried potatoes V, gluten free
Chapati V
Croutons - homemade V

Grilled mini-eggplant V, gluten free
Guacamole V, gluten free
Hummus V, gluten free
Mexican (Spanish) rice V, gluten free
Refried beans V, gluten free
Rosemary garlic focaccia
Salsa - V, gluten free

Summer rolls - Vietnamese V, gluten free
Thosai (urid dahl pancakes) V
Vegetarian Chili V

Sweets and Desserts:

Apfelkuchen, apple pie, apple tart
Brownies
Chocolate chunk cookies (soft)
Chocolate mousse, gluten free
Coffee meringue cake gluten free
Cupcakes
Cut out cookies - the best ever
Lemon slices

Mango coconut tart - dairy free
Milk toffee - Sri Lankan style, gluten free
Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting
Rhubarb strawberry crumble
Scotch crispies

Miscellaneous:

Sri Lankan roasted curry powder V
Basic pastry
Sweet pie crust

2 minute spiders for Halloween

Tonight is Halloween and probably there are many more of you busy parents out there scrambling to find quick decorations. So I'm sharing the spiders I just made. Of course if you can make them in 2 minutes they are not going to be very detailed, however the effect is there.

For a basic spider all you need is 4 black, long pipe cleaners.

Bend the pipe cleaners in half to identify the middle

and then twist in the middle twice to secure the cleaners together.

Next take a "leg" from the right hand side and bend it diagonally over to the left hand side. Do this with all legs moving them from left to right and right to left. This will form the body of the spider.

Next bend the legs down in the middle to a 90 degree angle and then bend the bottom to 90 degrees in the opposite direction (up). Viola... you have a spider.

If you have googly eyes stick a couple on each leg and if you like tie a thread to the middle so that the spider can be suspended from her web.

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