Lemon Curd Holidays

With all my spare time, I decided to make our holiday presents this year. Contrary to popular belief, handmade gifts are not necessarily cheaper than store-bought ones, but boy are they fun to make!

I made some simple, easy to make lemon curd and bottled them up in nice jars. Here's the easy-peasy lemon curd recipe I modified from the allrecipes.com site:

Lemon Curd
yield: about 2 cups

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1. Put all ingredients, except for the lemon zest, in a bowl and set over a double-boiler
2. Stir constantly until mixture is thick and leaves a trail at the back of the spoon (about 15 minutes), or until it reaches 170 degrees.

Important note: Don't let the mixture boil!

Keeps for 1 week in the fridge, and about 2 months in the freezer.

Negishi

So, what else can a bored housefrau do apart from cleaning (sometimes), cooking (a lot) and playing online games (constantly)? Why get a puppy, of course!

We got a cute bear-type chow chow puppy, not really what we set out to get; we originally wanted a lazy pug that we'd fatten up and let sleep in the apartment all day. But a pug wasn't meant to be as there was a fresh batch of chow chow puppies in the pet store that we looked in. A herd of healthy, fluffy, yappy puppies greeted us when we went inside the store that we just couldn't help but scoop one up in our arms and carry him home.

When we bought him, I wasn't aware that it's not advisable to buy a puppy from a petshop because you can't really prove the pedigree of the animals there, and of course the whole russian roulette health thing. I wish I read about that before we got our Negishi, but it was an impulse buy and it's too late to give him back. Thankfully, he's still quite nippy and lively and bouncy; I hope he stays healthy.

We named our little furbaby Negishi - one of my most favorite movie characters - and he is just a fuzzy bundle of joy and a virtual poop and pee machine. Husband, who lived in a dog-filled house, is a bit sensitive when it comes to doggy smell in the house so I pick up and wipe down Negishi's mess as soon as it happens so the smell won't hang around the house.

Well, I just can't help but gush over our new furbaby. Sometimes, husband and I just stare while he sleeps oh-so-cutely and just sigh and giggle over our pup.

A Spicy Thought

I came in late in the spice game, having only appreciated the wonders of spices just a couple of years ago, when I first moved out of my family house and started cooking for me and my husband.

It's actually amazing how spices transform the taste of food, and how it can elevate a superbly bland meat like chicken breast into a culinary napalm in your mouth - in a good way! Just a bit of salt does a lot to highlight the different dimensions of the spice mix. So far, I have only used the curry powder from the handful of spicemix boxes my friend N. gave me as a coming-home present from Bangladesh, but I plan to at least use 2 of the mixes this coming week. Watch out for it!

Brownies!

I have had a love affair with brownies since I was a kid. My mom used to buy a box every week from a neighborhood bakeshop, called Snow White. The box had this whimsical colored illustration of Disney's Snow White with the seven dwarves but it's what was inside that had me looking forward to seeing the box every week. Sprinkled generously with cashew nuts, the top of the brownie is perfectly crackly but below the thin crust of sweet chocolate and nuts is a soft crumbly interior. Needless to say, that brownie started this calorifically sinful love affair.

Searching for the perfect brownie recipe is something that I've been obsessing about and while I've outgrown the cakey-type of my childhood Snow White brownies, I've discovered that at this point in my life, I really really like chewy brownies.

I found this recipe online almost a decade ago (thank you to the person who posted this for me to find) and it's been my go-to recipe for simple, quick and absolutely chewy brownies.

Chewy Brownies

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

1 cup cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups sugar

5 eggs

1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

3/4 cup bread flour

3/4 cup cake flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsps vanilla extract

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x13x2 rectangular pan with foil. Set aside.

2. Sift flours and salt three times. Set aside.

3. In a small saucepan, melt butter over low fire. Once melted, remove butter from heat and stir in cocoa. Set aside.

4. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar at medium speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. At low speed, stir in cocoa mixture, walnuts (if using), vanilla and sifted dry ingredients.

5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes or until done. Cool on wire racks. Cut into bars.

*I used my mini cupcake pan this time to control my portions (otherwise, I'd gobble the whole thing down) and topped each brownie with a sliver of almond. This is best when cold. Enjoy!

Chewiest Chocolate Chip Cookies

A couple of days ago, husband had a serious craving for something sweet (no not me, hehe) that he almost munched on a spoonful of pure white sugar before I stopped him with a promise of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Now, my best chocolate chip cookie recipe came from THAT NYTimes article which dissected the elements of the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

I was thinking of making a batch of the NYT cookies, but it takes quite a long time to make as the recipe calls for letting the dough sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours, 36 hours for the best taste and texture. I don't think my sugar husbandmonster isn't up to waiting another day or two for some sweets. I remember having a Cook's Illustrated magazine issue that lengthily explored the dynamics of the best chewy chocolate chip cookie, and even mentioned the NYT recipe craze. CI's version is almost, if not identical to the finished product of the NYT recipe sans the 24-36 hour wait.

So without further ado, here's the CI recipe:

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies (from Cook's Illustrated Magazine, June 2009)

(Makes 16 cookies)

1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

14 tbsps (1 3/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1/2 cup (3 1/2 oz) granulated sugar

3/4 cup (5 1/4 oz) packed dark brown sugar (I used muscovado sugar)

1 tsp table salt

2 tsps vanilla extract

1 large eggyolk

1 large egg

1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips or chunks

3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted (optional)

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and pre heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large (18 by 12 in) baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour and baking soda together in a medium bowl; set aside

2. Heat 10 tbsp butter in a skillet over medium high heat until melted, about 2 minutes. Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has a nutty aroma, 1 to 3 mins. Remove skillet from heat and using a heatproof spatula, transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl. Stir remaining 4 tbsps butter into the hot melted butter until all butter is melted.

3. Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated. Add egg and eggyolk and whisk until mixture is smooth and no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 secs. Let mixture stand 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 secs. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth and shiny. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture just until combined, about 1 min. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if using), giving dough a final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain.

4. Divide dough into 16 portions, each about 3 tbsps. Arrange 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, 8 dough balls per sheet.

5. Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, about 10-15 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving.

I made some minor modifications on the recipe due to some different circumstances. I live in Manila, which means to say that at this time of year, it's very very humid and really quite hot. I had to refrigerate the dough for about 10 minutes so I can mold some respectably shaped cookies. I also did one batch of the 3 tbsps-sized cookies and a batch of smaller ones for better portion control. The larger cookies were a bit softer than the smaller ones, but we didn't really mind.

I was surprised at the amount of salt and vanilla extract in this recipe and I was tempted to cut the amount of both items, but I resisted and thankfully, the cookies tasted really good. The salt balanced the 2 cups of sugar in the recipe and the vanilla added a great flavor.

This recipe was engineered to have the cookies remain chewy after several days, and we still have some from the batch I made several days ago and the texture is still the same.

All in all, I really really like this recipe as it cuts down on the prep time without sacrificing taste and texture. Try it and let me know how it turned out! :)

Epices

I got some really cool gifts from Bangladesh. As you may know, my good friend N. came home for a couple of days and gave me a bag filled with boxes of spice mix. It couldn't have come at a better time as I've been on an Indian food frenzy lately. Just last week, we had 2 Indian mains out of the 5 I cooked.

So here are the goodies I got:

clockwise from left: rezala masala, kebab masala, curry powder, tikka masala, tandoori mix

I asked N. how the other spice mixes are used (rezala? Indian/Bangla kebab?) but she told me that she blindly grabbed the boxes whose smells remind her of Bangladesh. Out of all these boxes, she has only cooked with the curry powder mix. Good luck to me, this'll be some great cooking adventure for sure!

I'm defrosting some beef now and I'm raring to use the curry powder that came straight from the source. I'll have to retire my McCormick curry powder for the meantime, I guess.

Tea Time

N., a good friend popped in last Friday to say hi after spending several months in Bangladesh. Since it was too hot and humid for hot tea, we had iced tea instead and some nice store-bought goodies. I served some Estrel's caramel cake, Quezo de Bola ensaimada from Hizon's and freshly baked buttermilk biscuits from the wonderful Bisquick world of just-add-water-and-pop-into-a-hot-oven.

Served with softened butter and raspberry jam, we were in biscuit heaven. It wasn't really the traditional English tea party with hot tea and milk, scones and clotted cream and cucumber sandwiches but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

the spread -- didn't get to take a picture of the biscuits :(

I love spending afternoons like this, good food and conversation with great friends.

How I Overcame My Teeny Tiny Panic Attack

A really, really good friend will be coming over for afternoon tea in two days. When I heard the news, I had a teeny, tiny panic attack as the state of our cave, er, house now isn't what you would classify as spic and span.

So off to the store I went to buy some cleaning implements and replacements of the ones that we have that have long languished in the Hardly Been Used So I'll Just Die prison. Since my kitchen gets really oily due to the lack of an exhaust vent, I am now faced with a sticky, dusty, dirty floor to tackle.

I figured I wouldn't want to use the spray floor cleaner because I don't like the smell, I'm scared of all the chemicals that are in it and I'm a masochist that way, so I opted to go down the tried and tested route -- water, detergent (chemicalschmemical! I like the smell of detergent!) and good old-fashioned scrub sponge. The morning was squandered away scrubbing the floor and wiping it clean, seeing a very distinct difference from the old, dirty floor to the newly cleaned one. I was thoroughly aghast. I can't believe how dirty our floors were! And I can't believe that I actually finished scrubbing the floor all by myself! I was pretty proud of it, really. Not only that, this sense of accomplishment carried me through wall scrubbing as well, but I don't think it carried me high enough to any piece of wall higher than my 5 ft 1 in.

There you go, my first adventure in being a domestic diva all summed up in a couple of hours' worth of floor and wall scrubbing and feeling mighty proud of myself.

The End is the Beginning

Having just ripped myself away from the rat race, here I am, at home with nothing to do but household stuff. I'm not really that adept when it comes to housework; I grew up in a large home with staff that took care of everything related to the house. I've been living in an apartment with my dearest husband, who in contrast, grew up in a home with no househelp -- his mom had him and his brothers do chores around the house, so he does most of the cleaning. His favorite room to clean is the bathroom, which is a great big super yaaay for me. I cleaned the bathroom once and no, I won't do it again, thank you.

Right. So a bit of background: I came from a high-pressure environment managing a dynamic training team in an ever changing industry, and now I stare out of my 10th floor living room window, wondering what to do next. On my third day as a hausfrau, I find myself twiddling my thumbs with nothing much to do but surf and watch t.v. which I found a bit neuron-burning. So today, I swore to myself that I'll be more productive around the house and become a domestic diva before the next corporate job comes along.

I think Feist neatly sums up my life now: