Tuna Potato Cheese Bake

This used to be our family favourite but I have not made it in a long time...my version of tuna bake, made with mashed potatoes, canned tuna in brine and Grana Padano cheese.

Warmed milk and butter are added to the fork-tender steamed potatoes, seasoned with a little salt and lots of pepper, then a whole can of drained tuna is folded in. When all ingredients are well mixed, grate some Grana Padano or preferred cheese on top of the mixture and bake it in the oven at 190C till golden brown and fragrant. It has great taste and texture, especially the contrast of the soft interior and the crispy top! Give it a try!

Homemade Peanut Butter

Finally, success in making my own peanut butter...the right way! This is quite a tedious process as the peanuts need to be soaked overnight, dehydrated, roasted and then pulverized till creamy.

The peanuts or other nuts are best soaked overnight to aid in digestion and to remove toxins, so this step is essential. After which, they have to be dehydrated over low heat in an oven or dehydrator till very dry, as moisture will make the entire batch of nut butter rancid.

After dehydrating, you can choose to process them in the food processor or roast them further. For this batch, I roasted them at 170C with a little ghee for aroma, till the peanuts become golden, then I let them cool before putting them in the food processor.

While processing, I added a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of organic sugar into the food processor. It took a long time before the peanuts started to turn creamy and release their oils. Then a final taste check and into the bottle it goes! Tastes really good and way better than store bought! So happy...:-)

Moist Sunflower Butter and Poppy Seed Cake

I adapted this recipe from Williams Sonoma's Almond Paste Poppy Seed Cake; I did not have almond    paste nor the time to make some, so I used my homemade sunflower seed butter instead. Since almond paste contains glycerin in it, I added a tablespoon of honey to the sunflower seed butter for that extra glide.

The cake turned out really moist despite only having 1 stick of butter in it and the sunflower seed aroma went well with the crunch of the nutty poppyseed.

It's a keeper! I wanted to take pictures earlier but due to busy schedules, managed to take this very last slice...;-)

Quiches

Jon made these quiches last week, despite not having any cream in them, they were delicious. We used milk instead of cream and increased the amount of eggs. The shortcrust pastry was a recipe from Mark Bittman's website but it turned out too soft, due to a higher amount of butter compared to the flour. Inside are bacon, spring onions, tomatoes, onions, eggs and milk. Very nice for a picnic lunch.

Hungarian Pörkölt

We have been lucky to know a Hungarian couple, who are as food crazy as we are! Gábor and Eszter, this is for you! And many thanks for the cookbook, chili powder, pointers and techniques on cooking an authentic Hungarian pörkölt...hope I made you proud.

This pörkölt has no added water in it and is very flavoursome and intense, the entire family loved it! Very lovely with hot, cooked rice.

Tartiflette

My hubby decided to give this recipe a try today - tartiflette, which is essentially a savoury cake with bacon, cheese, onion and eggs. It turned out beautifully and just salty enough without the addition of extra salt, as bacon and Gruyere are already quite salty.

This will be our breakfast treat for the weekend...;-)

Trial and Error - Cornflake Cookies

Today's buzzwords are frugality and necessity. And oversight. Having some frosting leftover from yesterday's orange cupcakes, I decided to make some impromptu cornflake cookies with it. This was also due to the fact I had half a packet of cornflakes in the pantry that no one paid attention to for months on end. So I decided to create my own recipe...and learned from it.

The frosting had roughly 80g of butter, three tablespoons of icing sugar and some lemon juice. I added another two tablespoons of caster sugar, an egg, a splash of vanilla extract and mixed these till fluffy. Then gradually I put in flour and baby oats, one tablespoon at a time until I felt the batter could hold its shape. There were three tablespoons of flour and oats each. Lastly, I added one cup of crushed cornflakes and 1/3 cup of raisins for good measure. These were baked for 20 minutes at 175C. Also you noticed there was no raising agent involved, as I like to live dangerously...not really, I  forgot to put some in. So it would be nice to add one teaspoon of baking powder or baking soda into the flour.

However, my instincts were not in sync today and the flour to butter ratio was unequal; butter started to flow away from the baking pan and onto the oven floor. I even spilled some while removing the pan from the oven. Sigh...more cleaning to do. Good thing was, the cookies turned out alright, lovely crunch and aroma from the cornflakes and sweet, chewy goodness from the raisins.