Easy Chocolate&Raspberry Cake

Great, impressive and dead easy chocolate cake. The proportions of sugar, salt, etc are seriously P-E-R-F-E-C-T  in this cake, and it is so easy and just dead easy! Thanks to my Korean friend Moises, who brought it for Thanksgiving....oh so easy people. This is the video where I got it from. 

INGREDIENTS:

-200 grams of dark chocolate (70%) 

-100 grams of milk chocolate.

-300 ml of heavy cream.

-300 grams of digestive biscuits.

-150 grams of butter melted.

-2o0 grams of raspberries.

STEPS:

1. Make the base. Crush the biscuits in a plastic bag until pulverized. Then mix with melted butter. 

2. Now, create the base of the cake. Place transparent film in the container you are using. A good size in 23 cm as diameter, but you can make it smaller. Now add all the paste and create the base with your fingers until it solidifies a bit. 

3. Now stick in freezer for 15 minutes.

4. In the meantime, melt the chocolate carefully in a pot. When it is all melted and cooled off a bit, add the cream and mix. A wonderful thick chocolate paste will appear in front of your eyes.

5. Now add to your base and let it cool for 15 minutes and now add the raspberries. What I do is draw a cross with the raspberries and that helps me then to make diagonals and create perfect lines until I fill it all up with berries. 

6. Now stick in fridge overnight.

7. Get it out of fridge 1 hour before you eat so that it is softer, and not too hard the chocolate and then sprinkle with caster sugar. 

So good people, so so good, give it a try, this cake will not disappoint a soul.

What I learned this Thanksgiving dinner

 Our annual Thanksgiving this year was a bit of a disaster....on the morning of the dinner I did the following:

-Nearly melted my Iphone on the stove.
-Burned the stuffing altogether.
-Decapitated our little plastic William Bradford statute. 

-Ruined the salad bags leaving them outside the fridge for 2 days.

I nearly had a meltdown had it not been for Kenton. But basically I learnt a few things that I need to write here so that I don't forget. 

1. Stuffing CANNOT be made the day before the dinner. It will get absolutely disgusting. I burned our stuffing but it was already disgusting on the morning of the dinner....so I had to do it again, so even though it was really stressful to make it again, I was kinda glad because it was 

so gross. You can see my stuffing in the trash here.

2. It was the first year I cooked a big big turkey of 6,5 kg. So I followed my own recipe of the turkey that I always do, plus I covered the turkey with a blanket of cheesecloth of butter and wine so that it would not dry and it worked (see photo at the bottom). You can see it in this link in the first 10 minutes, it is super easy. 

3. You do not need a fancy container for the turkey. One of those chino foil trays work as long as you put it on your heavy duty tray of the oven. Then, you place the turkey of onions, in a bed of onions and you eliminate a lot of equipment.

4. The puritan hat and the pilgrim bonnet that the Martha Stewart's page has are fantastic! also the measurements are not for kids but for adults. I have done them now many years and they are great and easy. 

https://www.marthastewart.com/908657/paper-pilgrim-bonnet

https://www.marthastewart.com/917670/paper-pilgrim-hat

5. Keep all your Thanksgiving food that is tough in a bucket all together in the same place so that you don´t go crazy looking for it. Let's be honest, most things will be okay outside because it is winter. Remember to keep the salad in the fridge, cause I ruined mine cause I was too optimistic.

6. Use plastic cups and plastic glasses. Honestly no need to complicate yourself with real dishes....plus, real dishes make the dinner cold in 5 minutes. It is pointless. 

7. I eliminated mashed potatoes altogether. This dish stresses me out because it is so hard to heat up on the same day. Getting rid of it was a brilliant idea. Instead I boiled Brussels sprouts and corn.

So I think this is it people, great findings this year. I thought I knew it all, but nope, still messed up so much. But it was a super fun dinner, we did a quiz at the end of Thanksgiving and we had so much fun.

    

Peruvian Lamb Soup

I had 3 lamb chops the other left. When I did not know what to do with them. I googled: lamb soup, and all these recipes came up from Latin America. They seemed so easy! So I gave it a try and I did not regret it....so good and no stock!!!!!!!!!! this is the video that I kinda followed. 

INGREDIENTS:

-1'3 litres of water 

-4 or 5 chops of lamb.

-3 celery sticks.

-2 big potatoes.

-1 small white onion.

-2 cloves of garlic.

-1 tsp of salt.

-some pepper.

-1 carrot.

-3-4 slices of 

-some oregano.

-a good bunch of cilantro and some lime to garnish.

-optional: brussels sprouts.

STEPS:

1. So easy. If the chops are already fried and cooked, then great, if not fry them in the pot a little so they brown from both sides. Now set apart.

2. Dice up the onion and garlic and sautee in the pot with the grease of the lamb. Stir a bit.

3. Now add the lamb chops back, let it all cook a little together in the pot for a few minutes.

4. Now add the celery and the carrot and cook all together.

5. Now add the water, the salt, the pepper, the oregano and the 2 big potatoes in cubes and bring it to a boil.

6. Once it boils, bring down the fire and simmer for 30 minutes. The potatoes will make the broth thicker, but at this point you can also add 2 handfuls of rice. Yum! 

7. Now try and add more salt if needed. Also pick up the chops and get the meat out and cut up in small pieces and back to the pot. All the flavour of the bones will be in the soup now. 

8. Now garnish with cilantro and lime. 

So good! Next time I will add brussels sprouts too cause I think it goes great with lamb.

Pumpkin Granola Soft Bars

Back to the swing of things this fall/winter! Gone are summer days and you would think blogging days are in the past, but heck no! 

These bars were pretty good and chewy and great to grab for breakfast. Found them in this great website but mine is a variation because these babies definitely need chocolate, yessssss no doubt about it. You can also add raisins or cranberries like 1/2 cup and it is good too, not too sweet.

INGREDIENTS:
-1 cup of oats.
-1/2 cup of flour.

-2 eggs.

-1 cup of pumpkin puree.

-1/4 cup of honey.

-3 tablespoons of coconut oil.

-1 tsp vanilla extract.

-1/2 cup of chocolate chips.

-1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice.

-1 tsp of cinnamon.

-1 tsp baking powder.

-1/4 tsp of baking soda.

STEPS:

1. Mix all wet ingredients in a bowl and then the dry ones mix in another bowl EXCEPT for the chocolate chips that you add at the very end of everything. 

2. Stick in oven at 175 degrees, top and bottom fire for about 20-25 minutes.

That's it. Super easy and good breakfast bars for when you need a snack. Also not sugary!!! 

Pumpkin Muffins

Yes, yes, another pumpkin recipe, but that roasted pumpkin gave more material that what I would have anticipated, so I had to look for another recipe to use the 1 cup left of pumpkin flesh I still had. And these turned out pretty great! and the recipe yields 12 decent muffins, so really, what else can you want? The recipe is from Cooking Classy.  Nevertheless I altered a few ingredients, like the amount of sugar and salt because I hate super sweet stuff as you know. Also I added more spices so that they would taste stronger, like more spiced.

INGREDIENTS:
-1+1/2 cup of flour (212 grams)
-175 grams of sugar.

-1/2 cup of oil.

-1 cup of pumpkin flesh.

-2 eggs.

-1 tsp baking powder.

-1/2 tsp baking soda.
-1/2 tsp salt.

-1/2 tsp ginger.

-1 teaspoon mixed spice.

-1 and 1/2 tsp of pumpkin spice.

STEPS:
1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. 
2. Mix all wet ones in a bowl.
3. And now mix it all together in a third bowl.
4. Pour mixture into cups and bake for 10 minutes at 220 degrees and then turn down temperature to 175 and leave them there for about 20 minutes or 25.  They will look down at the top.

So good! ha....yum these are yummy, fluffy, not dry and spiced...and woah what a color. 

Pumpkin Bread

I get a little bit sick every autumn to hear Americans talk about pumpkin this, pumpkin that, and all the pumpkin shots in Facebook. But yesterday I bought a real pumpkin and then after roasting it and mixing it with sugar I began to understand their fascination....it is so good! 

So I roasted it and made around 4 cups of pumpkin puree with the handblender and I made this pumpkin bread that Deb Perelman had that looked straight out of a Dickens storybook. And it is GOOD! Wow so good, and not hard. Here it is. The sugar may seem a bit insane but remember that pumpkin puree is not sweet AT ALL. 

INGREDIENTS:
-1 and 3/4 cups of pumpkin puree. 
-1/2 cup of vegetable oil (or 115 grams of melted butter)

-300 grams of flour.

-3 eggs.

-330 grams of sugar.

-1 and 1/2 tsp of baking powder.

-3/4 tsp of baking soda.

-3/4 tsp of salt.

-3/4 tsp cinnamon.

-1/2 tsp ginger (you can put 1/4, I like the ginger kick)

-1/4 tsp nutmeg. 

-1/6 ground cloves.

For the top:

-1 tablespoon of white sugar.

-1 tsp of cinnamon.

STEPS:

1. Whisk oil, eggs and sugar until smooth.

2. Add baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and whisk.

3. Now add puree and whisk.

4. Now add flour and whisk with spoon until flour disappears.

5. Pour onto dish and now sprinkle the topping sugar that you have mixed with cinnamon. 

6. Bake for 1 hour in 175 degrees approximately, but try with knife towards the end to make sure it comes out completely dry.

Very good recipe, and not too sweet. A great fall dessert. Honestly this pumpkin bread is the type of stuff you buy in Starbucks.

Here are the photos of the roasting part, and one of Cambridge in the fall. 

 

           

White Bean Soup with Bacon

"If I had a restaurant, I would include this soup in the menu". 

And that was the declaration I pronounced after the first taste of this amazing soup. And it is great because I have been meaning to include more legums into our diet...Do you know that you are supposed to eat 3 times a week legums: lentils, beans or chickpeas??? I definitely do not do that, but I think I should at least try do it once or twice per week. Well, this recipe will do that for you, also it is not hard (perhaps the khale part, although you can also skip). This recipe is an adaption of Smitten Kitchen's version, which includes even more yummy touches here and there, but to me this soup was already real fantastic with all the fancy touches. 

The game changer of this recipe was: bacon. 

INGREDIENTS:
-600 grams of potatoes. 
-200 grams of smoked bacon.
-1,5 litres of water.

-500 grams of soft white beans.

-1 big garlic clove 

-1/2 onion.

-salt and pepper

-some khale leaves (optional)

STEPS:

1. Fry up the bacon in slices in a pot and set aside.

2. In the same pot, don't scrub it!!! sautee the onion and garlic until traslucent.

3. Now fill up with water and add the potatoes that you have previously diced (no need to peel just clean them well).

4. Bring to a boil and simmer everything until potatoes soften. 

5. Now add the beans and bring again to boil.

6. Now turn it down and puree with hand blender, it will be thick but also beautifully coloured.

6. Now let it cool and season with salt and pepper (or you can also add some vegetable stock with no water.

7. Now add bacon on top, and also you can add some crispy khale on top (which is so good but takes some work).

8. The way you do khale crispy is simple: wash it, dry it and coat well with olive oil and salt and place in oven for about 15 minutes....watch it! cause it can burn fast.

So so good you all, a great way to eat beans. Taste amazing. This one is a keeper for fall. This picture is in the highlands in Scotland.

Thai Bean Sprout Salad

Bean sprouts just go bad so fast, don't you think??? 

I had a whole bag and I looked for a salad recipe. This one came up and was pretty good! Will be making this again because it was so fresh. This is more or less the recipe I followed but with a few twists of another recipe.

INGREDIENTS:
-2 cups of bean sprouts more or less. 
-1 cucumber sliced.

-2 small carrots sliced.

-1 cup of cilantro.

-1/2 cup of peanuts crushed.

Dressing:

-3 tablespoons of rice wine.

-3 tablespoons of sunflower/sesame oil

-the juice of 1 lime.

-2 tsp. grated ginger.

-1 clove of garlic grated.

-1 tablespoon of fish sauce.

-2 tablespoon of honey.

-some black pepper but NO salt.

There are no steps other than assemble the salad and mix the dressing and pour over aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand add the peanuts. The peanuts on top is so so so good a game changer. Very good, healthy and crunchy. Obviously in this salad you can play around with some mint, some basil....try it.

American Burgers

Burgers are a great way to use mince. This summer we had a picnic with some people and the idea BING! struck. I did this recipe and my american friends, with whom I share the burgers with were pretty impressed. Then since I didn't write it here, I forgot it! So I made them yesterday and so here it is.

INGREDIENTS:

-400 grams of ground beef.

-1 egg.

-a squirt of milk.

-1 tsp of garlic powder.

-1 tsp of onion powder.

-1 tablespoon of Worcester sauce.

-1/4 tsp of salt.

-1/4 tsp of black pepper.

-5-6 tablespoons of breadcrumbs.

STEPS:

1. Combine everything in bowl very very well with fork or hands. You may need to add more breadcrumbs so that it is not too liquidy.

2. Make "balls" and then flatten them to make patties.

3. The way I fry the patties is by putting them in high heat and then quickly turning it down and then after 3 minutes flip them and then cover them. That way they are cooked inside but also a little toasted.

I think this recipe is pretty good!

My Mom's Marmalade Recipe

      

Yesterday I managed to make something I had been meaning to do for a long time: Marmalade with my mom! It's so fun and cool! Not hard either. 

We had some old figs and it turned out amazingly, the way the sugar melts is incredible, it becomes this amazing paste. So here is the magic recipe and the proportions, which is basically that you add 1/2 of sugar of the amount of fruit, so for 1 kg of fruit you add 500 grams of sugar. The sugar and the lemon are the preservers.

INGREDIENTS:
-400 grams of figs.

-200 grams of white or granulated sugar.

-1/2 lemon.

STEPS:

1. Cut up your figs in little pieces and place in a pot, add the juice of a lemon.

2. Now add the sugar to high fire, and now stir, stir, stir, and suddently it all begins to melt, keeping stirring or it will burn. 

3. Now you need to let it boil and keep stirring for 15-20 minutes and then this amazing thick paste begins to appear in front of your eyes. It is all caramelized...glossy, gorgeous paste.

4. Now after 20 minutes of the sauce bubbling up and you stirring constantly pour in your glass jar and close immediately. It will seal and make a popping sound.