Single Girl's Pasta Bolognaise

It's been some time since my last recipe post. Been too busy to bake or cook. Am ashamed to admit that it's been many takeouts...Anyway, I suddenly had the urge to make spaghetti bolognaise-but not with spaghetti-I don't particularly like the shape of spaghetti and find it hard to eat without splattering. And I always seem to be wearing a white shirt when I want to eat something that is bound splatter. Anybody got any explanation for that? The shape of the day is spiral pasta, which holds the tomato sauce nicely and is easy to eat.

My pasta recipe's a normally complicated. But today, it's single girl's Pasta-so it's simple. I'm only cooking for one. And there's nobody to impress.

Ingredients:

A cup of tomato puree.
A cup of spiral pasta
A large onion
A spoonful of chicken meat-minced
One chicken franfurter sausage
3 large button mushrooms
2 Spoonfuls of sugar
A pinch of salt
Dash of pepper
A spoonful of water
Vegetable cooking oil
















First, boil the rinsed pasta. When it's al dente, drain into a bowl and set aside. While that is happening, slice the onions and the sausage and the mushrooms thinly. Heat some oil in the wok and stirfry the onions with some sugar till its soft and caramelised. Add the mince meat and the sausage. When the mince meat has changed colour, add in the tomato puree, with a bit of water. Stir and add salt and pepper to taste. Leave it to simmer a bit. When it's done, put a large dollop on your pasta in a nice plate and enjoy your culinary effort.

Can you say MMMMMM........?

Lemon Raisin Cake

I made this cake twice in two weeks. Everyone fell in love with it. It is not the usual pound cake, being light but not spongelike, sweet but not cloying, tart-ish without being sour. The secret is in the lemon juice, the zest and the yoghurt. I've found that yoghurt is indispensable in butter and pound cakes. It gives the cake a little extra something that you don't usually find in the store bought variety.

Ingedients

2/3 cup (80 ml) lemon juice (about 2-3 large lemons)
1/2 cup raisins
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
6 large eggs
2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 tablespoons (6 grams) pure vanilla extract
1 plain yogurt (or mango flavour)

Preheat your oven and line the bottom of 2 baking tins about 8x8x3 with silicone paper. Leave the sides clean and ungreased-this is to help the cake adhere to the sides as it rises. Cream the butter and suger with a mixer on low. In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add this and the rest of the ingredients except the raisins into the mixer gradually. When the batter is smooth, mix in the raisins by hand. Pour into the baking tins, bake at 150 Celsius for 45 to 55 minutes. Check with a toothpick-if it comes out clean when inserted in the middle, it is done. Cool on a wire rack.

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

3 cups of whole milk
1/2 block of butter
1 1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
3 tbsp cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups cubed French loaf
2/3 cup of brown sugar
1/3 block of softened butter
2 heaping tbsp flour


Preheat your oven. Get a medium sized casserole dish and filled it with the cubed French bread. There is no need to grease the dish. The bread cubes should fill the casserole dish tightly, not loosely. Mix the milk, 1/2 block of butter, white sugar, vanilla and cinnamon in a jug or a bowl. To make the butter melt faster, I used powdered whole milk and mixed with hot water. I put the butter into the hot milk and it melted beautifully. Wait for this mixture to cool before beating in the eggs-you dont want the eggs to cook and congeal in the hot milk. Taste it. You can add more sugar or vanilla to give it more kick. Pour over the bread cubes. The mixture should come up to at least half the height of the casserole dish. Make sure that all the bread cubes on top gets a soak in the custard mixture.

Now, in a separate bowl, mix the last three ingredients. Use your fingers and knead till you get little fat crumbs of butter/flour/brown sugar. Top the bread cubes with these crumbs evenly. They will form a wonderfully sweet and crispy topping on the bread pudding when done.

Bake for an hour in a 120-130C oven.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Easy Beer Bread

Beer bread was something totally foreign to me. You don't normally associate beer with bread. But this totally works! Breads and beers have one ingredient in common- yeast. You can taste their common denominator in this quick bread. I stumbled across the recipe while searching for a bread that I didn't need to knead or wait to rise. This bread is so simple you can eat it within an hour of making it. And it is absolutely delicious slathered with butter.

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp bakings powder
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
A dash of dried sage, thyme and rosemary
1 can of beer
1/4 cup melted butter


Preheat your oven. Line a 9x5 bloaf tin with silicone paper. Combine all dry ingredients. Pour beer over and just barely stir it in. You don't want to overstir. Pour into the loaf tin. Pour the melted butter over it. Bake for 44-55 mins in 190 degrees celsius oven.

Butter Cake

Zucchini Bread

The Zucchini Bread is modeled along the lines of the Carrot Cake. They're like siblings. If you like Carrot Cake, you're sure to like the Zucchini Bread. They have largely the same ingredients, except that Carrot Cake is a CAKE with the option of cream cheese frosting, and Zucchini Bread is not traditionally frosted. But hey, there's no baking police to catch you if you do.

This recipe yields 2 8x4 inch loaves.

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
  
• 2 cups grated zucchini (3-4 medium sized Zucchinis)
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Warm up the oven, line the baking tins with silicone paper. To make the paper stick to the tin, grease the tin first with butter, then cut the silicone paper to fit and just press on. If you want a bread look, use two 8x4 inch loaf pans. But if you're winging it, just use any shape baking tin-not too large. Just make sure that after pouring it, there's at least a 2-inch clearance to rise. I've used everything before, and it tasted the same and everybody loved it anyway. So.

In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and frothy. Mix in oil and sugar. Stir in zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon, soda, baking powder, salt and nuts; stir into the egg mixture. Divide batter into prepared pans.

Stick into the oven for 35 minutes. To test if done, poke a toothpick in. If it comes out clean, its done.

Recipe adapted from Allrecipes. com.

The Easy Peasy Chicken Sandwich

I made this sandwich on the fly with whatever ingredients I found in the fridge. This was what I came up with.

White bread, mayonnaise, salad cream, fresh lettuce, shredded chicken and julienned carrots(not shown.)

The photos are pretty self-explanatory. Make and enjoy!