Fancy some granola? I do!

Inspired by a friend’s comment that she had made some homemade granola, I had a go at making my own. At the end of my granola-making session, I had two questions:
1) Where have I been all this time that I didn’t know about granola?? (You’re probably thinking that too aren’t you?!)
2) How can something this easy be so darn yummy and why do they charge so much for those fancy boxes of granola in the supermarket?
Sorry – that was really 3 questions.

I have a confession … as much as I love fresh grapes, cranberry juice and cherries; I seriously don’t like the dehydrated versions. So I am therefore not a big fan - actually not a fan at all – of raisins, currants, sultanas, dried cherries or craisins / dried cranberries. Some of you will probably think I am bonkers for disliking dried fruit – but that’s just me, I’m afraid. I’ll always remember that quote in the movie Benny and Joon where there is a discussion about raisins and Joon says “They used to be fat and juicy and now they're twisted. They had their lives stolen. Well, they taste sweet, but really they're just humiliated grapes. I can't say I am a big supporter of the raisin council.” I couldn’t agree more, Joon. Anyhoo – I digress. Sorry.

I like muesli … but the boxes of muesli from the shops pretty much always come with dried fruit in them (especially raisins and sultanas) and the thought of picking all the dried fruit out of my breakfast cereal every morning drains my will to live. It also does not seem like a productive use of my precious time. Not to mention a waste of dried fruit. So consequently, I don’t buy muesli. I never ever bought granola either which I used to think was some kind of posh other word for muesli – after all it sort of looked the same in the boxes.

When I did some online research about making granola, I realised that you could pretty much put in or leave out as much or as little as you liked. So after browsing a ton of recipes and having some idea of what went into making granola in my head, I went to the local health food shop and bought a bag of jumbo rolled oats and a variety of nuts and seed. I pretty much had everything else I needed in my kitchen cupboard.

Here’s what I ended up with and it is totally yum! Now its summer and soft fruits are starting to appear en masse in the local shops, a handful of fresh fruit turns breakfast into something healthy and delicious! No humiliated fruits in sight either. Yay!!



The recipe I used is an amalgamation of a variety of recipes found online.

3 cups of jumbo rolled oats
A third of a cup of almond slivers
Half a cup of desiccated coconut
1 generous cup of chopped nuts of your choice (I used a mix of chopped pecans, brazil nuts and hazelnuts. I bought plain, unsalted nuts from the health food shop)
A third of a cup of seeds of your choice (I used pumpkin seeds.)
Half a cup of banana chips broken into smaller pieces
A generous tablespoonful of flaxseed or wheatgerm (I used flaxseed)
Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
A teaspoon of vanilla essence
2 tablespoons of sunflower oil (I guess you could use canola or vegetable oil – some recipes don’t have oil at all but use a lot of applesauce instead)
Half a cup of maple syrup
A third of a cup of unsweetened applesauce (I had a jar of plain store-bought applesauce in my fridge so I used that instead of making my own but I think in the autumn when I can get some windfall apples from neighbours and friends, I might make my own.)

Preheat the oven to roughly 165°C or 325ºF.
Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper.

In a large bowl, mix up the oats, flaxseed, chopped nuts, desiccated coconut, almonds and ground cinnamon. In a smaller bowl, mix the oil, vanilla essence, maple syrup and applesauce together. Pour the contents of the smaller bowl into your large bowl of dry stuff and mix it thoroughly until there are no dry bits. Tip the mixture out into your baking tray and spread it out.

Pop it into the oven and bake it for 10 minutes, then take it out and gently stir it about to bring the stuff at the bottom of the tray to the top. Pop it back into the oven again for another 10 minutes, then bring it out and stir it about again. I then pour in the pumpkin seeds and banana chips and stir them into the mix. You basically want to bake it until the mixture in your tray is a gorgeous golden brown, stirring occasionally so the mixture browns evenly. This normally takes about 30 minutes or so. Apparently the browner the granola gets (without burning) the crunchier the granola will be.

If you’re adding dried fruits, apparently you should add it after your granola has been baked and is cool. You can also add chocolate chips if you want to the mixture once it has cooled down. The result is a lovely crisp textured cereal with just the right amount of sweetness for me. If you prefer it sweeter, I guess you could add some soft brown sugar to the mixture when you’re mixing it in your bowl at the beginning. This is fabulous eaten with cold milk and a scattering of fresh fruits.

Do you like granola? How do you eat yours? Do you make your own?

More green, anyone?

Following on from my green Malaysian baked pudding of sorts a couple of weeks ago, I decided I was going to try to make some more green edibles from my homeland. One of my friends actually made this for me last week (thanks Bee!) and introduced me to the recipe. This is Kueh Dadar – it is a pandan and coconut flavoured pancake filled with a sweet coconut mixture.



The recipe can be found here.

I substituted dessicated coconut for the grated coconut in the recipe. I also didn’t have any palm sugar (gula melaka) in my store cupboard. Instead I used dark brown soft sugar (I used this one).

I didn’t have fresh pandan / screwpine leaves so I used the same paste I used beforefor my Kueh Bakar. I think it worked out rather well. The crepes are made from a pancake batter made with coconut milk and pandan essence. There’s no sugar in the batter. The coconut filling was rich and sweet, making it the perfect filling for the fragrant crepes.



This is a surprisingly easy Malaysian kueh to make. And it is very yummy indeed.

Have a great week ahead friends.

Rolo Pretzel turtles

These are about the easiest quick-make snacks ever – it’s a salty + sweet combo that really works … trust me!

I think I probably first saw these on the internet on Jaden Hair’s Steamy Kitchen blog.

You only need 3 ingredients:
1) mini pretzels
2) Rolo sweets – these are a chocolate covered caramel sweet
3) Nuts – I use roasted pecan halves but you can use almonds, hazels, cashews or even M&Ms or Smarties.

Preheat your oven to 190°C (don’t know what that is in °F) and grab a baking tray. First you have to unwrap the Rolos – naturally eating one or two along the way for quality control purposes.



Place your mini pretzels on the baking tray and place a Rolo on top of each pretzel.



Bake in oven for 2 minutes, until the chocolate just begins to soften. The Rolo should be soft but not completely melted.

Remove your tray from oven and immediately squish the chocolate with a nut.



Now I normally stick them into the fridge for half an hour or so to harden the choc up again if I am transporting them some place but you don’t have to. In actual fact, you really need to eat a few whilst they are warm and gooey. Go on – your taste-buds will thank you for it!



These are so very more-ish and extremely good. Try them soon, OK?

I’ve not been doing much crafting of late … been pretty tired. I hope to remedy that soon and share some more sewing projects with you soon.
TTFN.

Another taste of home – Pineapple tarts

When I was a kid, I loved these pineapple tarts. Back home in Malaysia, these are plentiful in the shops during Chinese New Year. I made them for the first time ever this year at Chinese New Year … actually I started way before Chinese New Year as I was experimenting with the recipe and tweaking it until I got it right. My colleagues and friends were enthusiastic guinea pigs in the weeks running up to Chinese New Year.



Over the weekend, I decided I was going to make some pineapple tarts. Dinoboy got quite excited when he saw me make the jam because he thought it meant that Chinese New Year was close by and he would get the usual monetary gifts he associated with Chinese New Year. He was quite disappointed when I told him that Chinese New Year wasn’t around the corner at all and I was only making them for fun!

These open tarts are simply a shortbread cookie baked with a dollop of pineapple jam in the middle. The shortbread pastry is wonderfully short and crumbly and not too sweet – hence the perfect companion for the sweet pineapple jam.

Back home in Malaysia, the jam is traditionally made with grated fresh pineapples. I found several recipes online which used tinned pineapples. It works really well and is a lot simpler to manage.

Making the pineapple jam is pretty easy.
I used:
• Approximately 3 cans (net weight per can 567g) sliced pineapples in pineapple juice – I drained the pineapple slices completely, put them into my food processor and blitzed it until it was a fine-ish pulp. I then used my measuring cup and measured out 4 cups of pineapple pulp. The 3 cans yielded roughly 4 cups of pulp.
• Sugar – I used ¾ (three quarter) cup of sugar for each cup of pineapple pulp. So 4 cups pulp = 3 cups of sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 large stick of cinnamon
• 6 cloves
• 1 segment of star anise

I used my Le Creuset enamelled cast iron dutch oven to cook my jam in. Pineapples are pretty acidic – please do not use your non-stick pots to make your jam. Apparently making this jam in non-stick coated pans or aluminium pans ruins them. Stainless steel pots can be used. Apparently you can also make the jam in a large glass bowl in the microwave. I put everything into the pot and brought it up to the boil, then simmered it for about a couple of hours, stirring constantly, until the mixture is reduced and is sticky and thick. The really tricky part of cooking the jam is knowing when to stop. I normally cook the jam till it coats the wooden spoon and the jam doesn't fall off the spoon immediately. The jam should be a rich golden colour. Here is a photo of my jam – which has gone just slightly darker than I would have liked.



When the jam is done, pick out the spices and discard them. Then put the jam into a container and put it into the fridge until you need to use it. I normally make the jam a day before I want to make my tarts.

It’s a lot easier to roll the jam into small balls like these before cutting the pastry shapes out. I use a teaspoon and each ball is roughly a third of a teaspoonful. The jam when chilled is sticky and should be firm enough to roll into a small ball between the palms of your hands. Dampen your palms slightly when rolling the balls.



On to the pastry for the tarts. I used the following to make 1 portion of pastry:

340g plain flour
2 tablespoon icing sugar
Half teaspoon salt
200g cold butter – cut into small chunks.
1 egg yolk
Half teaspoon vanilla essence
5 teaspoon ice-cold water
Half teaspoon baking powder

By the way, you will also need 1 egg beaten with a teaspoon of water for glazing the tarts just prior to baking.

I normally make my pastry in my food processor. Put flour, salt and sugar into the food processor and pulse a couple of times to mix. Then add the chunks of butter and pulse until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk, water, vanilla essence and pulse the mixture until a dough is formed. It’ll look like this.



Turn out onto a piece of food wrap, shape it lightly into a sausage-like shape, wrap it up and chill it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.



I normally make 2 or 3 portions of this pastry at a time. 1 portion makes around 30 tarts and will use up roughly a quarter of your jam.

Preheat the oven to 190º C. Cut the chilled pastry into 4 chunks.
Roll each chunk out on a floured surface until approx a quarter inch thick.
Cut shapes out of the pastry. I used this special pineapple tart mould which I bought from the Biodiversity Herbs website.



The outer ring cuts the shape and the press in the middle stamps a pattern in the pastry and makes a hollow in the middle ready for your jam ball. See?



Space the tarts slightly apart on a baking sheet.



Brush each tart with the glaze I mentioned earlier. Then drop a ball of jam in each and press the ball down slightly into the hollow in the tart. Here they are ready to go into the oven.



I baked these for 15 minutes in the oven. When done, I removed the tarts and placed them on a wire rack to cool. Yum!



I normally store them in an airtight container after they have cooled. I have no idea how long these keep for in the airtight container as they don’t last very long in our house and if I take them into work, they disappear very quickly indeed.

Wishing you a good week ahead, friends.

A green green slice of home

Did I ever tell you that I am Malaysian by birth?

I lived in Malaysia for the first 16 years of my life. (My family still live there …. mum, dad, brothers, sisters-in-law, nephews, niece, uncles, aunts and cousins. I miss them a lot.) I then spent the latter part of my teenage years at boarding school in southern England - it was nothing like Enid Blyton's St Clare's or Malory Towers and most certainly nothing like Harry Potter's Hogwarts. After boarding school, I went to a city centre university in the heart of England and after university, I stayed on in the UK, got a job, got married, had kids etc. Travelling back to Malaysia is an expensive affair and doesn’t happen very often. Now and then, I get really homesick – I miss the family and I also miss the food.

Malaysian food is pretty varied, reflecting the wonderful mix of cultures in the country. One of the best things for me about Malaysian food is its fantastic collection of kueh (kuih or kway).

Wikipedia says this about Kueh:

“Kuih are bite-sized snack or dessert foods in the Malay Archipelago. Kuih is a fairly broad term which may include items that would be called cakes, cookies, pudding, biscuit, or pastries in English. Kuih (plural kueh-mueh or kuih-muih in Malay) are more often steamed than baked, and thus very different in texture, flavour and appearance from Western cakes or puff pastries. They are mostly sweet, but some kuih are savoury.”

Living so far away from Malaysia has meant that if I did yearn for good old Malaysian food, I had to make it myself. Today when I got home from work and whilst fixing the kids their dinner, I had a sudden urge to make Kueh Bakar, a baked kueh flavoured like most kuehs, with coconut cream and pandan (screwpine) extract. Like many other kuehs, Kueh Bakar has a distinctive soft, almost pudding-like, yet firm texture. Traditionally it is baked in a heavy flower shaped pan – I didn’t have one so I poured the mixture into my frying pan, scattered the toasted sesame seeds on top and stuck it into the oven!



I used this recipe from Lily’s Wai Sek Hong blog and it turned out pretty good. The pandan extract I have is pretty strong and very green (my mum brought it over from Malaysia for me on one of her previous visits) – hence the intense green colour of my kueh.

Dinoboy has christened this “Shrek cake” on account of its ogre-like hue of green.



The aroma of pandan wafting from the oven instantly transported me back to my childhood days in Malaysia. It’s a sweet, fragrant, creamy and oh-so-green slice of home on a plate.

Bliss.

Super easy yummy banoffee pie

Dinoboy has decided he really likes this particular banoffee pie and it was easy enough for him to make with a little supervision. We made a small quantity - I normally just wing the amounts. You’ll need the following if you want to try making this. Feel free to adjust the amounts to suit the number of people you wish to serve. This recipe probably serves either 2 adults or 3 kids I reckon.

Digestive / sweetmeal biscuits (we used 6 regular McVities digestive biscuits – because that was all I had left! I’d probably use a few more to get a thicker base)
15 - 20gm melted butter
1 large banana
Dulce de Leche (we didn’t have regular Dulce de leche – so we used the chocolate version! Any shop-bought Dulce de Leche would do)
Double cream (we used about 250ml)
Half a teaspoon of sugar
Few drops of pure Vanilla extract

You’ll have to make the biscuit base at least a couple of hours ahead of serving so it has time to harden in the fridge. We made ours in the morning before school / work. Crush the biscuits up finely. We used our trusty baby food-grinder to do this but a zip-lock bag and a rolling pin would be equally effective.


Melt the butter gently in your microwave or over a tub of hot water. Add the melted butter to the biscuit crumbs and mix it up well. Press the crumb mixture into the base of a dish or in our case, a plastic tub. Put it into the fridge and leave it for a couple of hours or longer.


Slice up the banana and lay the slices on top of your biscuit base. (check out the look of concentration on that face. Love it!)


Then pour on - or in our case, squeeze on the Dulce de Leche. Here’s what ours looks like.


Dinoboy likes this part. MissyMoo does too. You want a generous layer of Dulce de Leche on top of the banana slices.


In a mixing bowl, pour in the double cream, add the sugar and vanilla extract and whisk it until it’s whipped and thick. Spread the whipped cream on top of your banana and Dulce de Leche.


Lightly cover with a sprinkle of your choice. You can use cocoa powder or in our case, Dinoboy wanted rainbow sugar sprinkles.


Dinoboy and MissyMoo really enjoyed this dessert.

Haha! Look at MissyMoo's face!


If you do have a go at this recipe, let me know what you think.