Shepherd's Pie

KBB#40: Shepherd's Pie

one of the best thing that still happened to me is that i'm still a member of KBB after all this time. though it's getting harder to keep committing to do all the challenges its given every 2 months, but i still always love all the challenges given. from a long time ago, there's always some connection about what i want to make and what i challenged to make. like this shepherd's pie, i've been wanting to make this pie during my internship program which happened last year, but due to the time constraint i never had the chance to make and try it at home and so the wants to make it just evaporated not long after.

then this month, the opportunity to actually make this pie comes again. it's really fun to make this kind of pie, my favorite part is making the mashed potato and cooking with wine is just something fancy that i love, hahaha, though at the end you barely taste any wine there. shepherd's pie is supposed to be made with lamb but i used beef instead. the final verdict, shepherd's pie has a nice delicate taste that is very good for you who's craving for something comforting without too much rich flavors, though i prefer something a bit rich and flavorful but nonetheless this one is very good for me and my diet.

KBB#30: rosemary cheese spritz cookies

this morning, i woke up with a strange feeling and curiosity. it may sound cheesy or cliche but i often dream about this person whom i haven't met again since such a long long time. there was once superstition that says somebody is missing you when you dreamed about him/her. do you believe it? or is it just us who miss them, lol. this things, the dream and the superstition, are somehow disturbing me. however, everything should still go on normally today. so, without getting too long talking about the dream i had last night, let me give you this cookies..

this cookies were kbb challenge for this month. the theme is cheese and this cookies mainly consist of it and of course butter. when i first time read the recipe, i was kinda eager to try this recipe asap. the reason is basically because this is savory cookies and it has nutmeg and rosemary in it. i bet it would taste awesome. and i was right, it tastes awesome!

my family loves this cookies like crazy because it has the richness of the cheese. to be precise, this cookies almost taste like eating a creamy pasta dish, so lovely! i just can't stop myself after the first bite, i really want to keep eating it. so for all of you who loves savory cookies, this one might be your next favorite recipe. *wink*

a late torta pasqualina

i know that it maybe late, completely late for sure.. but i just couldn't keep this post not being published. actually, this was KBB's challenge last month, we had to do a savory baking. indeed, some of us were going to celebrate easter earlier this month, so we were all dared to make this (rumor has it) traditional italian easter tart.

however, i wasn't really positive about how this tart might taste like. what i did thought was that it would taste a little weird on my tongue.. guess why?! because here in Indonesia, we rarely eat spinach with cheese. but seeing all the history i've made with foods i've been eating all my life, i never had any problem with italian food. oh, sorry, i had.. :) it was salad with arugula and rare meat. i would never eat that again. but this Torta Pasqualina, i was also curious about how it would taste. turns out, all my anticipation on whether i will like it or not must change into an anticipation of how many inches my waistline would increase after eating it. i love it! perhaps because of it, i will be making spinach quiche quite often in my kitchy.

but i know, some of you might just be as curious as me when i was first hearing its name. what is torta pasqualina? torta pasqualina is so sexy to say, torrrrta pasqualina. i always always always love hearing spanish and italian language. i wish i had some chances to learn those languages soon. okay, back to torta pasqualina, it is some sort of tart, made from 7 layers of phyllo pastry in the bottom, then a thick layer of spinach - eggs - spices - and milk mixture, then a heaven of cheesy layer, and closed with another 7 layers of phyllo. not forgetting to mention the 10 special whole eggs pour into the cheesy layer just as it is. as the tart baked, the eggs would become hard boiled eggs. LOVE IT!

kaastengel

maybe some of you don't know about this biscuits. it's famous in Indonesia though, i don't know where the name comes from because it doesn't sound Indonesian at all. perhaps the name comes from Dutch because there are many Indonesian cakes using sound-like-Dutch name. for example: klappertaart, onbitjkoek, and this kaastengel.

when it comes to Christmas or Eid, cookies and biscuits always seen in almost every house. Kaastengel is kind of a must have one, the other is Nastar and Cats' Tongue. actually, kaastengel is almost a savory biscuit with parmesan or edam cheese as the main ingredients. this is my first time making kaastengel but it turns out great. all my family members love this, moreover they can't stop nibbling at this biscuit when they're watching television, except me. i don't like savory biscuits, i prefer the sweet one.

the recipe was originally from Anchor but i found it through Mbak Anne Vijaya's blog. the recipe makes a crisp and very tasty biscuit. i'll simply put it on top of the favorite cookies recipes. at least even though i won't make it to satisfy my appetite, it could make other people happy. i know a lot of people who loves kaastengel as much as i love Cashew Sandies (Putri Salju in Indonesian). they'll be thrilled with this recipe.

KBB#19: Pizza

this month KBB is having its third birthday! hip hip hurray! :)

Happy Birthday, KBB! may you always enlighten all the Indonesian bakers anywhere we are. live long! well it can be say that i'm a newbie in KBB, but this club makes me feel comfortable and i always love doing every challenges that i have given. this month, we were asked to celebrate KBB's birthday by doing any recipe from all of the challenges so far. i definitely chose a challenge that has already exist before i joined KBB. it was so hard to choose one of all those tempting recipes and i have to think twice or maybe more to decide one. finally, i chose Pizza. why? because in my house, we all love pizza especially with our own selection of toppings. haha. 

making pizza doesn't create a lot of mess but it does take some of your time. first, you have to make the pizza sauce (you can cheat on this one, though. use a store-bought one, however i prefer using the homemade and made it a day in advance). second, you have to make the dough from yeast which leads to a proofing time. third, assembling all those veggies and meat on top of it (but this is the most fun part!). since i was little, i have always been loving to see people making pizza. i love the way they toss the dough up to the air and catch it again, then they put much sauce on top of the dough, place the toppings artfully, and in the end they put it in the rustic oven. they look so skillful! however, i wasn't doing all of the process like them, i just did it all amateurishly. haha.

don't be intimidated with all the processes, do it happily and you'll get an exciting result too. i was so thrilled with the result and directly put this recipe in my favorite recipes' list. thanks to KBB who finally encourage me to make pizza and giving such a wonderful recipe for the dough. it's really a super tasty recipe. for the sauce, i got it from my Italian food cookbook and for the toppings, just choose whatever you'd love to be on your pizza. i used pepperoni, canned champignon mushroom, mozzarella cheese, sausages, and garnish them with freshly grind pepper and dry oregano. you can add more vegetables to it, i didn't put much because my little brother is so picky with veggies.

floss bread

hello everyone! i am now presenting my floss bread, as i promised you. this is the mini version of the real floss bread actually. i love floss bread but to be honest, i love the store-bought more than mine. haha.

this is my first time making real bread. i think i have to knead them longer because my bread isn't soft enough. you know what? this is one tiring job but i think if you can do this everyday it will be a very good exercise for your biceps. next time i make another breads, i'll definitely knead them longer.

my recipe doesn't actually call for floss bread, i got it from DailyDelicious (a really mouthwatering blog, isn't it?). it's actually a milk bread recipe and i reduce the sugar make the topping from another recipe (i really forgot where it comes from, really sorry). i love the topping. the texture of the bread is somehow like the texture of hot dog buns. overall performance, this floss bread is quite a satisfaction for me, not huge satisfaction but just enough to make me eat it over and over again. 

noodle loaf

actually, i regret i missed last month's MasBar event. the theme was egg, quite simple though but i couldn't find any recipe that best suites the theme.. hehe. and for this June's edition, we're cooking with noodles..

i like noodles, me and my family, all of us love noodles. fried noodles is the best one, i guess so. but i'm not going to make fried noodles this time, i made noodle loaf.. i've been keeping this recipe for quite long. i just never find any occasion to cook this. i got this recipe from the internet, from a food-blogger by the time i haven't blog. honestly, i really did forget where exactly the blog is, i'm so sorry. i modified this recipe.. cut down the recipe as usual and add another ingredients. tasty enough for me, but not for my little brother. he thinks it should be more tasty.

this is one quite simple recipe, it actually uses egg noodle, i just used instant noodles. you know instant noodles have its own seasoning inside, i add them all. just choose the right flavor to enrich the taste of your loaf.

KBB#17: Savory Baking - Potato and Tomato Quiche

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

guess what? i've officially become one of KBB member now. this is my first real challenge, Savory Bake.
when the challenge email (read: love letter) came, i was quite intimidated yet interested. we have to made lattice pie with puff pastry base and savory filling as the theme was savory bake.

if some of you are confuse with the differences of pies, tarts, tartelettes, and quiche (just like me before doing this task), well tarts and pies are actually the same, while tartelettes are the small / bite-size version of tarts, and quiche according to Wikipedia are pies made primarily from eggs and cream in a pastry crust. thanks to KBB for enlighten me. i found quiche is quite match with this month's challenge, pastry base and most of them are savory. so i choose one of many quiche recipe in my cookbooks called Potato and Tomato Quiche. for this quiche, i made two kinds of garnishes, one for the lattice and one for the perimeter. i used the usual simple lattice you used to see, the woven one, for the lattice tops and for the perimeter i braided my pastry just like Martha Stewart tells in her web. it's literally not that hard, it's really fun and a nice thing to do especially if you love crafting as much as i do. the only hard thing is because of the weather, i live in a tropic country called Indonesia. it's hot here, my pastry can easily reach the room temperature and when it has reached the room temperature it's getting sticky and hard to shaped.

i made this quiche rushing with the day. i had to go to the church at 10.30am and going somewhere after. as the result of that, i woke up at 6am today preparing everything and finished at 9. wooo, relax! it's not that long to bake this quiche actually, it's just me being so slow. that's why i couldn't take a decent pictures today, i just want it to be fast and quickly so bad. o yeah, by the way, daddy's back with our dslr but i'm still a little attached with my dsc. honestly, i failed making this quiche on Tuesday, because i forgot that my filling is so runny. i baked them in a baking tray and just lined the pastry sheet on it. then i pour the filling, result: the filling ran out from the top of the pastry to err.. everywhere? yes. it was also pouring down from the kitchen table to the floor, and it turned out to be a huge mess! that's okay, at least i made a better one today..

kimbap (korean style sushi)

tee-hee, my exams have all done! and today i made Kimbap (Korean Style Sushi) and i guess i'll talk a little longer today..

before the exams i had some moments to watch Korean mini series called My Fair Lady and i don't know why but all Korean movies can make me crave for the food they're eating or showing on the show. i browsed quite a lot about korean food lately, starting from teobokki, beebimbap, bulgogi, etc etc, and so on and so forth.. haha. hey it's really nice to see them plus they're actually simple.. i am interested in making teobokki, beebimbap, bulgogi, but ended up on this kimbap since it was the simplest one.

making this kimbap is not hard, just prepare wide nori sheets, crabstick, chikuwa, or whatever ingredients available in your house, thinly sliced cucumber and carrots, one thing left: egg. the recipe itself i got from Korean-Cuisine, there are more than lots of korean food to look at. i modified this recipe a little, bf told me so, as the result of that i add some black pepper soft-shell crab and cashew (those were available in my house's dining table), can you guess which one is the black pepper, cashew, crabstick, chikuwa, or even the mix up? hehe. for the recipe and how to make them i simply just follow the original recipe. please take a look at it.. :)

i am really satisfied with this kimbap. what i quite regret was that daddy are going out of town and took our dslr with him, so i was left with little sony dsc which was pretty cool though (it has gourmet mode, by the way). i used it to take pictures of kimbap today, is it better or no? i know that i'm still lacking my food photography skill, but i really wish i could be better everytime i take another new pictures. hehe.

well, i guess enough for the talk today.. see you later readers! thanks for reading..

Good Day! :D

  

arancini ai funghi

yihii.. another MasBar task done! this is my second time joining masbar event, this time i really want to commit on masbar. this month's theme is 'rice'. as i am living in a country where most of the people eat rice everyday, i should make this easy. but in the fact, it's not easy for me. i've been planning on making this recipe on last Thursday, but there's always something missing from the ingredients. then i decide to make them today. today, i also have to make a quick run to the nearest supermarket to buy mushrooms. it's all because i woke up late and the mushrooms in the traditional market have already sold.

  

the recipe itself, is not that complicated to make. quite simple except in the balling part, part when we have to shape the rice batter into cylindrical shapes. it's worth the effort, though. okay, without further ado, i'll give you the recipe..

vegetable cream soup

i've decided to join another food group recently.. called 'Masak Bareng', this is my first entry for their monthly event. this month's theme is soup and i actually want to try zuppa soup for my post, but i couldn't find any frozen puff pastry nearby so i cancelled using the pastry on top of the soup. let them be plain. my sister likes this soup so much, she even asked me to cook it again soon. haha. well, i have to think twice about it since i'm not a huge fan of soup. 

i used zuppa soup recipe that i have in one of my cookbook. i modified them a little bit. this is quite simple just like other soup. honestly, i don't love cooking as much as i love baking, but i still like it cause either cooking or baking occupy me in the kitchen and i like love being in the kitchen. despite that fact, i want to master both of them, so i guess i will continue to post frequently for 'Masak Bareng' event. hope i can make it..

ha kao

so today's project is Ha Kao or Shrimp Dumpling. i made this because last wednesday there was a little party in my house. my family served Dim Sum as the appetizer, there were Shao Mai, Ha Kao, Chinese Spring Roll and Ba Pao. Dim Sum never taste bad for me. hahaha. i always go crazy when i see those tempting stuff. the worst thing is, on that Wednesday, nobody left me any Ha Kao, the plate left empty! well, that's a risk for hosting a party. you have to serve the guest first, mingle with them, and eat when they've all eaten. you know, after that, i don't know why but i really am craving for any Asian Dishes. though it's pretty unrelated with Ha Kao, but suddenly i also crave for Okonomiyaki, which i planned to make tomorrow. hehehe. but today, let's start with the Ha Kao first..

shrimp curry muffin

hmm, today is shrimp curry muffin day, quite successful. but still imperfect, 'cause the paper liner wasn't filled properly with my batter so the muffin didn't popped out from the paper liner nicely. but that's fine, it's still delicious, especially when you eat it warm in a cozy evening with tomato ketchup and chilli sauce. nyumm.. 

my bitterballen

today, i finally made my bitterballen. hihi. it turned out almost perfect, i'm just lacking my skill on frying. hahaha. and actually making bitterballen is not that hard, it's quite simple.. the funny thing is that usually i was a really lazy girl on  turning the batter until it forms a ball. i did that patiently this time and it gives me quite a satisfaction to look at. hihi.