Tomato Soup

I have been so fed of my own soups lately. I needed a new one, and I remembered this one from A Cup of Jo and Kenton was impressed. Not hard, just needs a lot of garnish at the end.

INGREDIENTS:

-600 grams of canned tomatoes. 

-2 tablespoons of butter.

-4-5 tablespoons of tomato paste, or tomate frito.

-half an onion.

-2 garlic cloves.

-2-3 teaspoons of sugar.

-1 teaspoon of thyme.

-1 teaspoon of italian herbs.

-some cream.

-salt and pepper.

STEPS:

1. Melt the butter and sautee in it the onions and garlic in saucepan.

2. Now add the thyme and the tomato paste until it caramelizes a little.

3. Now add the tomatoes can, with the juice and break the tomatoes a bit.

4. Now add 4 cups of water or 1 litre, or slightly less and bring it to a boil.

5. Now reduce the soup a little, bring it down to a simmer and let the water evaporate a little, like 20 minutes.

6. Now puree it with a hand mixer.

7. Now add the cream, I added like 30 ml, and it improves the consistency a lot.

8. Now add the sugar, otherwise it is too acidic.

9. Now add your spices until you feel satisfied. I added salt, pepper, italian spices, more thyme and finally another dab of tomato pasto. 

10. If you serve it with parmesano cheese on top, your world will rock.

Cheesecake La Viña

Last summer I made this cheesecake from the Basque Country. Pretty good and super easy. No wonder it is everywhere in the internet. I'd say it's not the spongy cheesecake, but more of a flan-custard texture. It's really quite good. Here it is:

INGREDIENTS: 

-600 grams of cream cheese.

-4 eggs.

-300 ml of double cream (36%fat).

-180 of white sugar.

-1 tablespoon of corn flour.

STEPS:

1. Whip up the cream cheese with electric mixer a bit until it is smooth and creamy.

2. Now add sugar to it.

3. Crack eggs and integrate one by one.

4. Now add the flour and make it disappear.

5. Now add the cream and incorporate with the blender.

5. Pour into baking paper in a medium pot.

6. Bake for 50 minutes to 180 degrees in the middle of oven heat from both. If it gets too brown on top cover with aluminium-

7. Let it cool off for a few hours and then stick in fridge. The cake actually tastes better the following day.

Yum, a keeper recipe. My family loved it on a picnic day.

 

How to make Peanut Butter

I had no idea peanut butter was so easy! 

but I can also see the benefits of buying it! ha. Kenton is addicted to peanut butter, he buys one jar per week. Yup, that's right, I am not kidding.  

So I made this and I was so happy! Finally we could save some money every week! this peanut butter works out to be 1 euro per jar, and his is 4 euro. But then he announced me to that he prefers the one he busy at Bangladeshi.....

Anyway, here is the recipe! it is a good one. Well done Big Bold Baking. 

INGREDIENTS:
-2 cups (284 grams) of roasted salted peanuts.

-1,5 tablespoons of honey.

-4 tablespoons of vegetable oil (but never olive oil).

-a strong food processor.

1. Grind up your peanuts with a strong food processor. I used my hand mixer and let's say it was nearly the last time I used, nearly broke it. Do not do it with a hand mixer, it's just too much the paste it creates. 

2. When you have the fine paste after grinding your peanuts for about 2 minutes in your strong food processor, add the oil and the honey. 

3. Grind again and that's it.

Gemma calls for 2 tablespoons of honey, I think it is a great ratio, but if you like it less sweet add 1 tablespoon or 1,5. Also you can add a little more oil, but I liked mine more like this.

This is a great discovery. I even put it in a peanut butter jar I had! 

              

How to make Coconut Milk--Jamaican way

 I was seriously surprised today when I realized I could make coconut milk with this Jamaican recipe. Oh yeah!  

This is one satisfying recipe you all. Trust me. And as you all know I am anti clutter in the kitchen and I don't even have a food processor but will go to the ends of the world with my hand mixer or batidora in Spanish.

Well, really, that is all you need to make coconut milk, apart from the coconut, that is and some water. Here it is.

INGREDIENTS:
-1 coconut.
-4 cups of water.

STEPS:
1. Break the coconut after you have drank the juice. I always break mine on the stone step of my house. Give it a good whack against a rock and it should crack.

2. Now break it more with a hammer. I use a blanket to absorb the impact and not break my kitchen table.

3. Lift the coconut up with a knife from the tough shell. It is not the easiest but not the hardest.

4. Now cut up coconut with a sharp knife in small pieces.

5. Place in plate and soften it up in microwave for 2 minutes.

6. Now in 2 batches, get your hand mixer and add 2 cups of water and half of the coconut cut in pieces and blend. Do the same with the second batch. 

7. Now strain the coconut with a metal strainer. I find this the easiest way, do it little by little. 

8. Now you will have a ton of coconut pulp (see my recipe for coconut pulp), so put it on a clean cloth and strain even more with a bowl underneath. 

9. Now put milk in jason mar and stick in fridge, it will start to solidify like it does in the cans on the top. It is amazing. 

Amazing! Often the best recipes come from rural places like this recipe from Jamaica. 

Thank you so much!

 

Super easy and forgiving Banana Bread

Last summer I made this fantastic banana bread recipe that I have not been able to forget. Luckily I took some cool photos.

It was from Kitchn, I gotta say this site has pretty great stuff.  This recipe is very forgiving, so see my kind of recipe, you can change slightly ingredients and it still works. You can change white for brown sugar, add one more banana or one less, add water instead of milk, or yoghurt or kefir, put one less egg, that is what a forgiving recipe is you all.  Of course, like with ALL american recipes, I cut the sugar of this recipe, cause it called for 200 grams and I added 100 grams or 150, can't remember, but anyway add 100 and if it needs more add more.  And it was seriously real good. 

Here it is:

INGREDIENTS: 

-120 grams of butter.
-100 grams of sugar (no more because with bananas it's already got sugar!).
-2 large eggs.
-60 ml of milk or yoghurt or kefir.

-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

-3 bananas.

-480 mg of flour (2 american cups)

-1 teaspoon of baking soda.

-1/4 teaspoon of salt.

-1/2 cup of nuts or chocolate chips (optional).

STEPS:

1. Melt the butter in the microwave and then add the sugar and stir.

2. Add the eggs, the milk and the vanilla and whisk all together.

3. Now in slices or already smashed add the bananas. You can then leave small chunks or "dissolve" it completely, kinda making it dissapear. I like the first option better.

4. Now add flour, baking soda and salt and combine until the flour dissappears.

5. Lastly add the nuts or chocolate tips.

6. Turn oven on and prepare batter into the dish with some baking paper that will resolve all your problems about stickiness, cleaning containers, etc.

7. Place in oven for about 1 hour, in about 180 degrees, fire only from botton, never grill. 

8. It is ready when the top becomes brown and it breaks a little like a peak of a mountain and you stick a knife and comes out clean.

Oh so good! the question now becomes: how not to gobble it in one day.

Easy Monkey Bread with Doughnuts.

An easy dessert that I would say everyone would love. Really sugar and cinammon is a winner mix. So many recipes out there but they seemed, boy, complex. So i found this one somewhere but thought oh great idea, so I gave it a go today. I have no idea where the recipe is, but this my version of reading over 4 or 5.

INGREDIENTS:

-12 sugar doughnuts (like coated with sugar).
-6 tablespoons of brown sugar, like american brown sugar,

or coconut sugar, or muscovado sugar or cane sugar or panela sugar.

-2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

-125 grams of melted butter.

STEPS:

1. Cut up the doughnuts in bits with scissors. I cut mine like in 8 pieces each.

2. Place them in a plastic bag and add 3 tablespoons of brown sugar and the cinnamon.  Shake well until it is all well coated. Remember that there is a ton of sugar already in the doughnuts! So you do not need that much.

3. In the meantime melt the butter in a pot and add the rest of the sugar to create this great syrup.

4. Now put back the coated doughnuts pieces into a bowl and pour half this super hot syrup and stir well until it is all well coated. Stir and stir quick so that the syrup is distributed evenly.

5. Now put baking paper on the container you are going to bake it in. Now place all the doughnut balls and pour the rest of the mix over the surface. Pack it down with a spoon a little so that is more compact.

6. Now place in oven for 30 minutes, fire only below, not top for about 20 or 30 minutes.

That's it. Let it cool off there for a while and you then tip it over! it is so easy to make it come out with the baking paper. It's pretty yummy I'd say. My nephews really liked it. I did too, although tonight I definitely need to run to burn it! haha but worth it.

Man my photos are not very good, sorry.

Banana and Chocolate Bread (totally dessert)

A few days ago I saw this recipe in Instagram that looked like.....sheer drooling chocolately and juicy banana flavors wet together. It was hard! I had not idea what to eat to contain my lust for this dessert. So I planned for it, and yeah it was awesome. It wasn't hard but it needed sour cream. 

And before you give up on the recipe cause I said sour cream, remember: sour cream is simply cream fermented 24 hours with lemon, that's it. So you can make sour cream, check out my recipe.  Also I cut the sugar of this recipe in half, it called for 200 grams but it is just an insane amount of sugar, I mean come on, the one thing that american recipes just never get right....

INGREDIENTS:

Dry ingredients:

-158 grams of flour or 1/3 cup.

-23 grams of cocoa powder or 1/4 cup.

-1/4 teaspoon of salt.

-1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon.

-1 teaspoon of grounded coffee.

-1 teaspoon of baking soda.

Wet ingredients:

-123 grams or 1/2 cup of unmelter butter.

-121 grams or 1/2 cup of sour cream.

-100 grams or 1/2 cup of granulated sugar.

-2 large eggs.

-3 medium smashed bananas.

-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

-1/3 cup of chocolate chips.

STEPS:

1. Mix in a bowl the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and coffee powder. Stir and blend all well. Now set apart.

2. Now to the wet ingredients list: beat the butter with a electric whisker until becomes creamy and fluffy. Now add the sugar to it and beat again with the electric whisker. Now add the 2 eggs, and beat again. Now add the 3 banana previously mashed and stir with fork. Now add the vanilla, stir it all well with fork and mix evenly. It doesn't have to be perfectly creamy and smooth.

3. Now add the flour mixture slowly in like 3 parts progressively, combining with the sour cream. So put some flour mixture, add some sour cream and mix. Do this 3 times until it is all blended. 

4. Now pour mixture into a lined banana bread container. I lined it up with baking paper cause it is so easy to undo later. Pout the whole mix that is simply ridiculously yummy and now on top place the chocolate chips. Mine were just pieces of dark chocolate I broke with a hammer.

5. Bake for an hour to 180-175 degrees in second rack of oven, so closer to the bottom but not too close. 

That's it. Keep an eye on it and when the toothpick comes out clean your cake is done! Let's be honest this is not bread, it is sheer dessert. 

My mom said it was DELICIOUS. I might add one more banana cut in chunky pieces next time to see what happens....it really has such great balance of chocolate and bananas.

Peruvian Ceviche

The secret of ceviche is using fresh fish. That's it and using the right ceviche fish which can be something like,  mero which in english is grouper fish or corbina which is called corvina fish.

Ceviche isn't hard. Just need a few ingredients and it is so refreshing and acidic. I love it. 

A simple ceviche recipe for you all for 2 people.

INGREDIENTS:

-400 grams of mero or corvina.

-3-4 limes.

-1 lemon.

-a big bunch of cilantro.

-1 red onion.

-1 lemon.

-a few pieces of fresh ginger.

-1 teaspoon of salt.

-3 stalks of celery.

-a teaspoon of aji.

-a few shrimps to enhance the flavour.

STEPS:

1. Slice onion pretty pretty thin and place in bowl. Now squeeze 2 limes and let them macerate.

2. Cut up a good bunch of cilantro and add to bowl. Same with the ginger, add the little pieces.

3. Now slice up the fish in cubes. Remember to buy the fish with no skin or it will be a bit harder.

3. Place in big bowl and immediately and squeeze the third lime and the lemon juice on top. Stir well.

Muchos pescadores en Battery Park, New York

4. Now cut up the celery in slices and add as well. Continue stirring. Add salt and a little pepper and let it "cook" or ferment with the lemon for about 30 minutes. I find 30 is a good time, cause it cooks the fish all the way through but it is not crazy soft.

5. For my ceviche I like to have the sweet potato and fry up some corn to accompany it also I add some shrimp that I peel and that just elevates it to the next level.

Try it. So good.