Last minute dessert

This was something I whipped up one day when I had unexpected guests. It is even very healthy (until you add the toppings in the end).

Ingredients

     2 pears

     2 tbsp honey

     cinnamon

     nutmeg

     whipped cream

     chocolate sauce

1. Slice the fruit and remove the core. Arrange on a pan and drizzle honey, cinnamon, and nutmeg over it. Bake at gas mark 6 for 10 minutes.

2. Dish the fruit onto plates. Top with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

Stove-top Pizza

When we first moved in, we thought our oven was broken (turns out we just didn't know how to work it). In the meantime, I had wanted to make pizza. Thus came along stove top pizza!

Pizza dough:

2 tsp Baking Powder

2.5 cup Flour

1 tbsp Oil

1 cup water

Salt to taste (I generally add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp)

Toppings:

Tomato sauce

Cheese

Anything else you want

Mix ingredients together in a bowl until it forms a dough. Pull out a chunk about half the size of a fist, and roll it flat.

Heat up a frying pan. I put the dough directly on the pan, but try some spray-on oil if it seems to stick.

Fry on one side until it begins to brown, then flip. Quickly add tomato sauce and other toppings, then cover the pan until the other side browns.

Remove and serve.

Slow-cooked Ratatouille

I've always wanted to make layered ratatouille (like you see in the film). I also wanted to play with the slow-cooker.

Main ingredients (sliced):

     Aubergines

     Courgettes

     Onions

     Red peppers

Sauce:

     Chopped tomatoes in sauce (from a tin)

     Minced garlic

     Olive oil

     Salt (to taste)

     Pepper (to taste)

     Basil (dried, or diced leaves if fresh)

1. Mix the ingredients for the sauce together. Spread a spoonful on the bottom of the slow-cooker.

 2. Layer the vegetables along the bottom.

 3. Spread sauce over the vegetables. Repeat until you run out of vegetables or sauce.

4. Cook over low heat for 10-12 hours.

Tada!

Eggless Lemon Yoghurt Cake

I'm not a very good baker, but I had to use up lemons and yoghurt, and I felt like something sweet. Unfortunately, I also lacked eggs. Thus:

Lemon Yoghurt Cake
Ingredients:
  1.5 cups of flour
  1 tsp baking soda
  1.5 cups yoghurt
  0.5 cup granulated sugar
  2 lemons worth of juice + zest

Preheat the oven to 180 degree C (gas mark 4).

Mix flour, baking soda, and sugar. Add in lemon juice and lemon zest (leave a little aside for the topping) and mix well. Slowly add in the yoghurt until blended.

Pour into a greased cake pan. Bake for ~30 minutes, or until a fork comes out clean

Once cool, add icing and sprinkle with lemon zest.


Icing
  1 tbsp chocolate powder
  2 tbsp melted butter
  sugar to taste (I used 1 tbsp)

Mix ingredients together and spread over cake while butter is still warm.

Veggie Lasagna

As a birthday treat to myself, I decided to make vegetable lasagna, loosely based off a recipe from BBC GoodFood.

Ingredients (makes 2 pans)
     2 tbsp olive oil
     1 red onion, sliced
     1 large aubergine, sliced flat
     2 courgettes, sliced flat
     3 assorted bell peppers, sliced into strips
     800g chopped tomatos in sauce (from a tin)
     400g lasagne sheets (fresh or half-cooked)
     300g bechamel sauce
     200g mozzarella, grated or sliced thin
     50g parmesan, grated or sliced thin

Before starting: Saute the onion, aubergines, and courgettes separately (if you want to layer it) or together (to save time).

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Grease baking trays with oil.

Place a layer (or several) of vegetables, ladle in tomato sauce. Add a layer of lasagna, then bechamel sauce. Repeat until both pans are full (any excess ingredients can be saved and tossed in a pot with pasta). Top with mozzarella and parmesan.

Bake for 40 minutes.

A sprinkle of parsley really spruces it up

Pudding Galore

Yesterday, we had a birthday tea party, with all the usual dishes: biscuits, scones, cupcakes, etc:

But what do you do with all the cut-off crusts from the sandwiches? Make bread and butter pudding! Also a great way to get rid of all the double cream in the house.

I copied this recipe on BBC Good Food. Next time, I will add more sugar, as it did not turn out very sweet (still very good when accompanied by custard).
I made one traditional one and two variations (one with chinese 5-spice and one with chocolate powder). They turned out very interesting: the one with the 5-spice ended up being very savoury, while the chocolate one was just decadent (I had a very heavy hand with the powder).

Did make a little too much, but my flatmates didn't complain. <3

A meaty vegetable dish

Wasn't very hungry today, but had to use up some bok choy. Ended up steaming them in OXO beef stock, nothing else. Would repeat again: the meat flavour went very well with the texture of the vegetable, and it was very easy to do. Could even imagine it as a main dish, with a few more ingredients.

Sadly, forgot to take a picture before eating, so here's a pretty photograph of bok choy I pulled from google:

Credit Steamy Kitchen.