MSU - East Lansing, MI

As part of our nostalgia tour we visited our Alma mater, Michigan State University. Otherwise known as MSU. It was amazing to see all the growth that has taken place in the last 16 years. The old buildings seemed to all stand in the same place as back when we were students there, but there were a lot of extensions and some amazing new buildings. Even if you are not alumni it's a campus well worth visiting on a trip to Michigan. https://msu.edu/visit/

Future Spartan??

Our initial plan was to walk around the whole campus and show our kids everything, and to take loads of pictures. I forgot one important thing when I made this plan and that was how huge the campus was!! We hardly had time to graze the surface and had to go back for a second visit!
If you go at the right time of year there are all kinds of things going on. Sporting events, livestock shows, theater, shows at the planetarium .... However, we had bad timing and there was nothing going on. We booked a tour of the National Superconducting Cyclotron, where my husband was a graduate student. The tours are free of charge and can be set up through the NSCL website. A PhD student showed us all the cool stuff and our kids got to see where amazing science takes place. Unfortunately it's a high security area and no photographs could be taken. The facility itself is growing at an alarming rate and with a new accelerator being installed the cyclotron itself will be deactivated very soon. I'm sure the tours will then become bigger and more exciting. Visit their website for more information about the 90 minute tour.

Another faculty that has grown is the math department, with a humongous new glass building on top of what used to be just a long corridor and a couple of lecture halls. I was hoping that the math library had been moved here, but was sad to find out that they had removed the math library completely and the new rooms were just seminar rooms.

So if you plan a visit to this amazingly beautiful campus there are somethings that you should definitely see. We started our tour at the MSU livestock pavilion. If there are shows going on you could spend all day here. It was not very busy when we went with just a few cows hanging around. The tarmac outside has not been resurfaced since I was in college. This is where me and my husband came, when things were quiet, to learn how to roller blade. I would be worried even riding a bike on the surface now!!

Up the road from the livestock pavilion is the Hancock Turf Grass Research Center. We actually never bothered going here as students, but MSU is pretty famous for their turf grass so we took the girls to see the grass. Fields and fields of Turf Grass awaited us. We were invited by the grounds person to go out and see the research taking place and were amazed at the grass that was surreal.

Back in the car and up the road visit the MSU dairy store. Fantastic ice cream, huge portions, decent prices (as long as you get many scoops). You can view their production plant floor from 9 am - 6 pm on weekdays. (We really would have liked to do this but we had to run to meet some old friends.) Take your mega scoops outside and walk over to the MSU horticulture gardens. Absolutely amazing place for a stroll 20 years ago. I'm sure nothing has changed for the worse! We didn't get here because we went for our tour at the NSCL (see above).

Jump into your car again and drive to the North side of the campus. Visit the most amazing Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum. I just saw the outside and was amazed. If it had been open when we got there I'm sure we would have had a fun few hours looking at the art. 

Check out the website of the Art Lab, which is across the road from the museum, to see if there are any classes happening.

Another stroll around the old campus, which is north of the red cedar River, will take you through lush gardens and lawns to the iconic Beaumont tower and the MSU museum. 

If you still have any gas left take a stroll along the Red Cedar River to the botanical gardens (which are very small but well kept).

Don't forget to finish off your tour by visiting "Sparty", even if it is just a drive by photo shoot like we had to do.

If you feel hungry during your visit just drop into one of the dorm "food courts". Apparently the one in Brody Hall is the second largest in the USA (although I can't seem to confirm this)!!!

Enjoy your visit!!

Murunga (drumstick) curry

My husband noticed that the local Asian store had drumsticks, one of our favourite Sri Lankan vegetables, so we had to buy some. This little shop, Kashmir Bazar, in Bochum always surprises us with unusual, really fresh, vegetables. In fact I went there because we were expecting company for dinner and I wanted something unusual. What a treat! Of course we came out with more than we went in to buy. Including their super delicious, home made, vegetarian samosas!

Preparation time: 1 hours; serves 6 - 8 if served with at least 2 other curries

Ingredients:

350 g	Drumsticks/Murunga
1 cup	Water
1/2 tsp.	Tumeric
1 tsp.	Salt
1/4 cup	Onion, diced
2	Green chillies, sliced
1 sprig	Curry leaves
1/4 tsp.	Dill seeds
3 tbsp.	Coconut milk powder

Method:

Cleaning the murunga is probably the most time consuming part of this recipe. The skin is not edible at all. Thus when you choose your fruits make sure they are fresh, firm and not too thin. If they are really thin there will be no flesh to eat and if they are too thick it's likely that the flesh will be woody. I cleaned mine with a super sharp peeler. Don't try to take all the skin off because the flesh is too soft to be cooked without any skin. Here is what mine looked like once they were cleaned.

Cut the murunga into around 2 inch (5 cm) sticks. 

Once you've got them cleaned and cut the rest is rather simple. Put all ingredients in a saucepan, except for the coconut milk powder, and bring to the boil. Once it is boiled reduce the heat and simmer the curry until the fruit is tender. How long this takes will depend on the maturity of your fruit. Could be 5 minutes, could be 20. Put the lid on to speed things up. You can tell once the fruit is cooked because it becomes kind of translucent. If you don't notice this then just take out a piece and try it (see below for a description of how to eat murunga).

Once the fruit is tender add some coconut milk. Since it's highly unlikely that all your water has boiled off either use very thick coconut cream or coconut milk powder (as given in the ingredients above). If you use coconut milk powder remove some water from the curry, allow it to cool a bit (else the milk powder will clump), add the powder, dissolve and return to the pan. Bring to the boil and then it is ready to be eaten.

Eating murunga is the fun part. Each piece separates into 3 (you will see what I mean once you cook it). Take the end of one of these pieces in your right hand and stick the other end in your mouth. Now pull the flesh off by sliding the piece between your teeth. Turn the piece around to get the other side. My kids love this part! You could also try scraping it off with your fingers but this is tiersome and less efficient, although I believe it is the more polite way!!

Coffee meringue cake

This is a very old recipe. I think it comes from one of my mum's old recipe books but I cannot be sure. I have found it elsewhere on the web, but there are no references (surprise, surprise!).  I've made it a couple of times but it never turns out right. But it always tastes exceptional. This time it turned out perfect so I'm sharing my tips with you. This is a great cake if you have someone who is gluten intolerant, like my good friend whose birthday it was. 

Preparation time: 3 hours ; serves 8 (because it is very, very rich and sweet it could serve many more) 

Ingredients:

4	Egg whites (L or M)
8 oz/220 g	Caster sugar (if you don't have "caster" sugar see below)
4 oz/110 g	Granulated sugar
5 tbsp.	Water
4	Egg yolks
12 oz/330 g	Unsalted butter (Süßrahm if you are in Germany)
1 tsp.	Instant coffee dissolved in 2 tsp. hot water OR
150 g	Chocolate

Method:

There are some points during this recipe where you have to be really careful. The first place is when handling the eggs. Since the egg yolk does not get properly cooked you should use very fresh eggs and not give this cake to the young or the elderly. When separating the egg yolk from the white make sure everything is absolutely dry and free of oil else your whites won't become stiff when you beat them. There are many ways to separate your eggs and I won't go into that here because you can find multiple ways with a google search. 

The recipe calls for caster sugar. Its really important for making the meringue. It has to be very fine, but not as fine as icing sugar. Even German fine sugar is not fine enough. I got around this by putting my sugar in a small food processor and pulsing it a few times. Seems to have worked fine. Oh and if your sugar is not fine enough it will sink to the bottom of the meringue and you will have a sticky mess. (Still tastes good. A bit sticky on the teeth and nothing like a meringue.)

Once you have the two ingredients sorted out the next thing you need to do is prepare your baking sheets. You need 3 of them. Make sure you can fit all 3 in one go into your oven. If you can't then you can't really make this cake. You cannot let the egg whites sit while the first batch is cooking. The Whites will deflate and be useless. 

Take 3 sheets of parchment paper and draw 3 8" Circles on them. Tun the paper around to make sure that the pen marks are not in contact with the food. Make sure the paper lies flat on he baking tray. If it was in a roll you should roll it the "other way" to flatten it.  

Now put the oven on. I used a fan oven at 150°C (200°F). The oven has to be hot enough when you put the meringues in. This is not a good time to optimize!

Next Beat your egg whites in a metal bowl. Somehow eggs beat better in a metal bowl! You will know that your egg whites are stiff enough if you can hold the bowl upside down and the eggs don't fall out. This does not work so well if you use a glass bowl so be careful. Once the egg whites are stiff enough add 4 teaspoons of the caster sugar to the egg whites and beat until well combined. About 1 minute.

Now using a metal spoon fold in the rest of the sugar.

The next part took me a bit of reading to figure out how to do it best. Luckily macaroons are all the rage, so there were plenty of places to get some tips from. I packed my beaten egg whites into a piping bag without a tip (I don't own a tip large enough!), and then first piped along the circumference of the Circle drawn on the parchment paper. Then I slowly piped the interior.  At the end I took a spatula and smoothed the tops. Finally I put all 3 meringues  into the oven at the same time and baked them for I hour.

The meringues were done perfectly, which really was a pleasant surprise. Let them cool on a wire rack and start making the butter cream.

This butter cream is a bit involved but it is delicious. Do not be tempted to use a regular american style butter cream That would taste horrible here.


Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring until all the sugar is dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved you can increase the temperature and let it boil. Don't continue stirring it, but give it a swish every now and then. While you are waiting for the sugar to be done you can beat the egg yolks so they are broken up and have a few bubbles. Now comes the eternal question. When is the sugar ready? If your syrup drips off your spoon like water it is not done enough. You need to be able to what they call "pull to thread". This means you can take a cooled drop of syrup and pull between finger and thumb to a fine thread. This description is actually pretty good one and you will see what is meant when you make the syrup! Make sure you don't caramelize the sugar.

Once the syrup is ready you have to pour it over the egg yolks beating all the time. It is really good if you have a second pair of hands here. Someone to beat & someone to slowly pour in the sugar syrup. Be very careful because you have to pour the syrup in when it is boiling. Don't pour it on the whisks because this will cause it to splatter everywhere and you will probably get burned. The syrup will cook the egg yolks at least a little bit. Keep beating until it is pale and fluffy. If making the cake with coffee flavour (which I highly recommend) add your flavouring to the egg mix. Now beat the butter in a separate bowl until it is soft and then slowly add the sugar mousse into the butter. Beat until smooth. If you want to make chocolate flavour melt your chocolate and add it to the butter before you beat it. The heat will help soften the butter in case you forgot to take it out of the fridge in time!

Now you can put the cake together and enjoy!

TVP - Soya chunks - Sri Lankan Curry

If you are Sri Lankan then you definitely have eaten TVP. You can get it in all kinds of flavours in Sri Lanka. It's not very popular among the wealthier, meat eating population, mainly because it does not taste good if not prepared properly. You might be tempted to just buy a pack with flavouring from the store and cook it according to the instructions. And then it will taste like my dad describes it "fake sausages with no taste". But if you use this recipe you will have a delicious curry to eat with anything you fancy. I've been working on this one for years and it passes my biggest test - my kids LOVE it!

Outside of Sri Lanka you can buy TVP in stores that sell Indian foods. They call them soya chunks, because this is exactly what they are! Chunks of dehydrated soya.

P.S. Don't waste your money buying stuff that claims to taste like chicken or cuttle fish (or anything else for that matter) because it won't and it will cost a whole heap more.

Preparation time: 10 hours (don't despair, read on); serves 6 - 8 

Ingredients:

125 g	TVP/Soya chunks
3 tsp.	Curry powder (Sri Lankan) or garam masala
1/2 tsp.	Chillie powder (fantastic hot, put as much as you can bear)
1/4 tsp.	Tumeric
1 tsp.	Salt
1 tbsp.	Soya sauce
1 tbsp.	Vinegar
1 tbsp.	Tomato ketchup
1/2 tsp.	Mashed fresh ginger
1/2 tsp.	Mashed fresh garlic
1 small	Onion
1 sprig	Curry leaves
1/2 tsp.	Dill seeds
3 tbsp.	Oil
3/4 cup	Water
3 tbsp.	Coconut milk powder
1 tsp.	Roasted curry powder

Method:

I learnt how to make this by learning a few tricks from a very experienced aunty. She was a very good family friend and was always very particular about food. She had a battalion of people to help her with the cooking and they produced some amazing dishes. I loved hanging out in their kitchen when I was a child. The first part is thanks to this experience.

Put the soya chunks into a large bowl. Pour the boiling water over the chunks. Don't just put enough water to cover them, but as much as the bowl will hold, or your kettle will boil! Stir the chunks to make sure they are all wet. They will naturally float to the top, but this does not matter as long as they are wet. Let your chunks soak for 6+ hours! If at any point there is no more water in the bowl then you should add more.

If you want them for breakfast put them to soak the night before. I generally put mine to soak as soon as I get up in the morning so that they are ready for dinner. Now you may not need to soak them for so long, a couple of hours might be enough, but if you let them soak for longer they taste better. However, I once put mine to soak the night before and when I went to cook them the next day in the evening I realized that they were rotten. Too much of a good thing! So don't leave them too long. In hot climates this might be a bigger problem.

Once your TVP has soaked for long enough the chunks will be all bloated. Now take a handful out of the water and squeeze it hard to get rid of as much of the water as possible. Continue to do this until you have squeezed all the nuggets. I know this is disgusting, but the water that you extract will look like pee and smell bad. This is exactly why you need to get rid of it!!! Now put the TVP back into fresh, warm water and let it soak for a further 30 - 60 minutes. Again squeeze out your chunks. This whole process will get rid of the nasty taste that so many people associate with TVP. By doing a final squeeze you are vacating space that will be taken up by the sauces and spices.

Now add everything in the list above from the curry powder all the way to the mashed garlic. Mix it in well and if you have some time let it sit for 30 - 60 minutes.

While waiting dice the onions and heat the oil over medium high. Then temper the onion, curry leaves and dill in the oil (i.e. fry them!) for around 1 minute. If it seems like the stuff is burning reduce the heat or remove the pan from the heat.

Now add the marinated soya chunks to the pan. Stir well so that everything is well mixed and then add the water. Cover the pot, bring to the boil and then reduce the heat so that it keeps simmering. I keep it at around 5. The thing with this curry is that the less gravy it has the better it tastes. So you have to keep cooking it until everything is either absorbed or evaporated. The longer you cook it the better it tastes. You could eat it after half an hour but to get the best flavour let it cook for an hour. Don't let the curry completely dry out. If you notice that it is dry add 1/4 cup of water. Obviously the longer you let it cook the more water you will have to add.

After around half an hour you can add the coconut milk powder. It's best to dissolve it first, and never add it to boiling water because it will form lumps. If you have a lot of liquid in your pan you can tip some out, let it cool a bit and use this to dissolve the coconut milk powder. Alternatively mix it with a bit of warm water. Now add this to the TVP and continue to cook it.

If at some point you get bored or just need it to be done NOW, like I do, just take the lid off the pan and increase the heat. Keep stirring so that it does not boil and then take it off the fire once all the liquid has evaporated. At the very end you can sprinkle on your roasted curry powder, although I must admit I usually forget to do this!!

And this is how to enjoy your TVP (or fake sausages)!!

Re-fried beans

I picked up some really nice avocados last week, so we had to make some guacamole and everything else that goes with it. In our house that includes re-fried beans. The beans are super easy to make if you have access to canned kidney beans. If you don't have the canned variety you can use the dried ones, but then the process takes way longer. Just soak your beans for a good 8 hours and then boil them until they are tender. I can't tell you how long it takes or how many beans to use, because I have never done it myself. If you do try it share it in the comments below so we can all profit from it.

Preparation time: 30 minutes ; serves 4 

Ingredients:

2 tbsp.	Oil
250 g	Diced onions
1/2 tsp.	Garlic puree
2 cans	Kidney beans (1 can = 425 g)
1 tsp.	Cumin powder
1 tsp.	Coriander powder
1/2 tsp.	Salt
150 ml	Water + possibly more

Method:

This recipe is pretty simple. The key to perfection is to cook it in a heavy bottomed pan. I use a cast iron frying pan. There are two reasons for this choice. The first being that the beans are less likely to burn and the other you will find out later!

You can add more or less onion and garlic depending on your taste so go ahead and experiment. I usually use yellow onions, but I assume you can use any available type.

While the onions are doing their thing crack open the cans of beans, empty them into a colander, drain the liquid and rinse them under running water. Of course not forgetting to stir the onions every now and then!

Place the pan on medium-high heat and heat the oil. Once the oil is hot enough add the onions and fry them for a couple of minutes. If you are not sure when your oil is not enough don't fret. It doesn't really matter! Sometimes I just put my onions in before the oil is really hot and it does not seem to do any harm. If you like the taste of caramelized onions you can fry them until they are slightly brown, otherwise once they start looking transparent should do. The main thing is that they are evenly cooked, so stir them every now and then.

Once the onions are cooked to your satisfaction add the garlic and fry for another 1 - 2 minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients into the frying pan, stir well and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat so that the beans remain simmering. Now comes the fun part (and the second reason for using a cast iron pan). To make your beans come together they need to be mashed. If you like your beans to be a smooth paste you could always put your beans into a food processor before adding them to the frying pan. However, we like a bit of texture in this household so I use first the back of a wooden spoon and then I move to a potato masher. Of course it would be much more efficient to just use the masher but I really like attacking the beans and crushing them with a wooden spoon. At some point I get bored with it and that is when I move to the potato masher!

When you mash the beans the insides come out and start forming a paste. This absorbs a lot of the water that you added to the pan. The beans should not dry out, so keep a jug of water on the side and add about a 1/4 cup when ever you feel like the beans are sticking to the bottom of the pan. Mix it in well each time and continue mashing until you have the desired consistency. I cannot tell you what this is, it will depend on your taste. All I can say is that if you don't smash any of the beans you won't have real re-fried beans :(

Serve with mexican rice, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, grated cheese or wrap it up and make a burrito.

Czech Jewelry

We just got back from a week in Prague. We had a really nice time and spent a lot of time taking in the sights and relaxing.
While walking in the courtyard of the Prague Castle we stumbled upon a jeweler who made the most adorable things out of old watches! We could not resist and bought ourselves some souvenirs.

My booty!

Something for the girls

The guy selling them was super nice. He comes from Brno, which is the second largest city in the Czech Republic. The items are all handmade by him and his sister (who was at a fair in Brno manning a stall at another fair). Check out his website at http://sperkysteampunk.cz/ .

We went back on our second day at the castle, bought some more earrings and took some photos!

Brownies

I've had the urge now for a couple of weeks to bake some brownies, but never got round to it. In fact I wanted to make them for my co-workers in Duisburg and spread the love. Well now that I've baked them, on a Friday evening, there is no chance in hell that they are ever going to see them. Already half of them are gone, some to the neighbours (spreading love there) and the rest in our tummies AND the kids are not even at home!!

There is a bit of a dilemma in my mind about sharing this recipe. Mainly because it's from my Spago recipe book. I've changed it to suit my tastes and converted it to metric units, but does that make it my own recipe? Neither Spago nor Wolfgang Puck has posted the recipe on-line, other people have, but does that make it okay? Copyright is such a complicated thing, especially with recipes. How much do I have to change to call it my own??

Preparation time: 90 minutes ; makes (15 large) pieces  

Ingredients:

350 g	Bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
225 g	Butter, unsalted
1 tsp.	Instant coffee
200 g	Flour
1 tsp.	Baking powder
1/2 tsp.	Salt (leave it out if you can only get salted butter)
4	Eggs, large
400 g	Sugar

Method:

Although the ingredients call for bittersweet chocolate you can use any other type. If you can't get cooking chocolate and want to use regular stuff just make sure you reduce the amount of sugar you put in. You might also want to increase the amount of chocolate!

For this recipe you need to use something called a "bane-marie". Most of us don't have one of these sitting around at home and I would not advise you to go out and buy one! You can use regular kitchen stuff. Basically what it is is a a bowl within a bowl. The inner bowl has water in it and thus distributes the heat evenly to the upper bowl. This is crucial when you have to heat something evenly.

The first thing you need to do is find something in your kitchen that works for you. I use either a Pyrex (with a lip for chocolate) or a metal bowl and a saucepan that the bottom of the bowl fits into but that the whole bowl cannot fall into. In this recipe you need two medium sized bowls.

Put your chocolate, butter and instant coffee into a bowl with a lip. The reason I recommend a lip is because then the evaporating water which condenses on the top of the bowl cannot drip down into the chocolate. Don't forget, if you get even a drop of water in your chocolate it will seize and you'll have to start again. It is a real shame if you have to set aside 350 g of chocolate (I say "set aside" because you can use it in other baking projects, for example, it still works well in cake recipes).  Fill your saucepan with around 4 inches of water (the bottom of your bowl should not touch the water) and bring it to simmer. Place a wooden spoon in the water and then the bowl with the chocolate on top. I put the spoon in there to stop excess steam from building up in the pan. I am rather scared that I might burn myself on the steam. This way the steam always comes out from one side, and I know which side it is. Don't use a metal spoon for this, the water will condense and run into your chocolate (been there, done that)!

Allow the chocolate to melt. Do not stir to often. While your chocolate and butter are doing their thing you can measure out the rest of the ingredients and get another bowl ready with the eggs and sugar. The same method will be used as with the chocolate. Give your chocolate a stir once the bottom has melted. I use a chopstick for this, wooden! And allow it to continue melting. If your water is boiling reduce the heat. You only want it to simmer.

Around about now is the time to put on the oven 160 C in a fan over/180 C regular/350 F.

If you want really thick brownies prepare a 8" by 8" pan. They will take forever to bake so you can add on another half an hour to the preparation time above. I use a quarter tray (13" by 9") for my brownies, which considerably reduces the baking time, saving on energy and allowing for smaller portions. Line the tray with parchment paper so that the cooked brownies are easy to remove from the tray.

Easily removable if you use parchment paper

By now your chocolate is probably melted. Stir it well to incorporate the butter. If there are still a few bumps don't worry take it out of the saucepan and set it somewhere. Go back to it later and give it another stir, that will probably get rid of all the bumps. But if it doesn't don't worry too much, no one ever complained of a lump of chocolate in their brownie, right?

If you need to fill more water into the saucepan do so and bring the water back to simmering. Place the bowl with your eggs and sugar into/onto it. With an electric hand mixer beat the eggs and sugar. Beat it until the sugar dissolves.

To tell that it dissolved stick your finger into the mousse and rub it onto another finger. If there are still sugar crystals you will feel them (lick your finger clean!). By the time your sugar is dissolved you will have a pale yellow looking mousse. Take this off the fire (some things are best described the Sri Lankan way!) and add the chocolate. Whisk until well incorporated.

It's not well incorporated here, just looks pretty!

You will notice that your mousse deflates, this is okay. Then add the flour, salt and baking powder and mix in with a spatula until well incorporated.

Fill this into your prepared tray, pop it in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. You can tell that it is done by sticking in a knife. If it does not have soggy stuff on it when you take it out, it is done. Note that it may have crumbs sticking to it. Some people like their brownies soggy, if you are one of these people don't bake it for so long. Brownies are much like chocolate chip cookies and will get hard once they cool down. A typical beginner mistake is to keep baking them until they are hard. If you do this then your brownies will be super hard by the time you get round to eating them. Resist the urge to over bake. My guess is that the sugar and chocolate get hard as the brownie cools down.

Allow your brownies to cool, cut them to the desired size, and then enjoy them (although we enjoyed our straight out of the oven with a cup of Dilmah).