DAY 47 - Mardi Gras Day!

Yesss its a holiday again :)

According to the locals there would be some carnival going on the streets just like the ones in Brazil, although i was so wanting to go i didnt really have the mood to go out today and so we stayed home and just listen to the rythmn of the drums of people dancing samba on the streets with their elaborate costume and all. There's always next year..i hope :)

Besides, we also woke up late for last night we had some little CNY goin on in the apartment and didnt get to sleep until late and so we decided to be lazy and doze off till it was close to mid day hehehe

We had some light brunch then we watch some television and i was busy making petite madelines for we run out of things to munch during tea time so i was off to the kitchen baking them while peeping through the kitchen window for some glimpse of the festival....but No luck. there were none :(

all i did saw were...

 

these hard working ladies i found browsing in the street for some sales of their produce :)



And voila! we are all set for our afternoon tea and watch a little bit of Traveling documentaries on Tele for a bit.


Happy Mardi Gras!

À bientôt

claritydefinesyou@gmail.com

DAY 42 - Baking day :)

spent the whole afternoon baking these french breads and registering to my new school :) Looks like im going to hit the books and yet again :) Should be a very interesting year for me :)

À bientôt

claritydefinesyou@gmail.com

Recipe de Gratin de Brocoli with chicken :)

Ah my first post from a new country and place :) ah well to start of my debut post i would like to wish Fariza Ismail Celestial VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY although i wont be able to cook this special meal to her but i hope with this recipe you can have a go at home and cook it together with your beloved family :)

Its actually very easy to make but a very healthy and yummy food to have and not much work on it too because you leave it to the oven to do the main job :) But anyhow...here is the recipe :)

The Ingredients :-

* 1/2 kg brocoli
* 30 g flour
* 1/2 l milk
* a few slices of the craft cheese or whichever cheese you like
* 20 cl creme
* 30 g Butter
* 2 or 3 potatoes
* 1 chicken breast fillet / cubed
* 1 big onion chopped


The Preparation :-

1. toss your onions in a pot for 2 minutes then add your chicken and toss for 3 minutes add your salt and pepper to taste. let it set for 2 mins then add 1 cup or more of water until the chopped chickens are submerged. covered and wait until it is cooked and simmering in the broth. take out the chicken cubes and set aside. and keep the broth aside.

2. Pealed and washed the potatoes are now ready for a short steaming for a good 15 minutes then followed by the broccoli for another 7 minutes. After steaming take out and let rest aside.

3. Preheat your oven to 200C.

4. Now you are ready to make your Bechamel Sauce.
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the paste cooks and bubbles a bit, but don't let it brown — about 2 minutes. Add the milk, continuing to stir as the sauce thickens. Bring it to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste, lower the heat, and cook, stirring for 2 to 3 minutes more. Stir in 1 sliced of the Kraft Cheese during the last 2 minutes of cooking. After it dissolves remove from the heat.

5. Now you are ready to assemble your baking dish
take a wide Pyrex see through dish if you have or anything that you can use for baking. Pour some bechamel sauce in your chicken and stir through it thoroughly until all portions are covered then pour everything to the baking dish and level it out then sliced your steamed potatoes just like the size a potato chip but not too thin the arranged them in your baking dish so that it will be well composed with the chicken and finally throw in your steamed broccoli and the pour down the other half of the Bechamel sauce and if its not enough to cover the dish add in some of the chicken broth u made with the chicken early on.



6. and finally layer down your kraft cheese as much as you want or you can use mozzarella cheese as you like. Sprinkle some black pepper and some basil leaves and its ready to go in the oven.


6. after about 25 to 30 minutes when you see the cheezes started to turn golden or brown turn off the oven and you are ready to serve your Gratin de Brocoli with chicken!!



In the original recipe, it doesnt have any chicken cubes thrown into it but i like it to be a one meal thingy so that you can eat it just like that so thats why i put the chicken in :)

I hope you like it and oh by the way.... Happy birthday to you my dear Fariza and many happy returns :)


À bientôt

claritydefinesyou@gmail.com

The Week end of Asunción - 21st May 2009

Its Asunción Day and since a couple of the family members are heading this way i decided to make some Brioche and also bread while maman made "Clafootis" for dessert :)

I made two things at one time the bread and the brioche and of course brioche needs a lot more labour then making the bread so anyhow the pictures will show the finished product and tiny bits of the process :) And unlike back in Malaysia, waiting time for the dough to rise is much faster and indoors too but somehow... eventhough its spring here, the wind is still blowing hard and so a bit cool so i had to put them outside for some sunbathing process hehehe :)

cute aren't they hehehe...actually while waiting i managed to play soccer wt my little nephew and niece and we won!!!!!! hehehehe

after raised up to the level i wanted its time to bake it and brush it with some egg yolk + milk and you get that brown crusty look like that :)

nice and smells nice too :) managed to perfumerised the whole house hehehe

thanks to my phone camera can zoom zoom so can take this pic to show slightly the inside which is nothing its just like roti butter kosong very delicious to eat with cafe :) and and and usually the recipe is with pure butter, but hmn...dont want to feel too guilty to eat it later so i used demi-sel which means semi salted.

voila! my very own Brioche from the Vendée Region:)

This is maman's fruit tart or rather they call it "Clafootis" here yummy too made from Cassis berries :)

and here is the bread...

closer look at and can you imagine i used a rice cooker to bake this :)

and finally the two yummies :)

anyways have a great weekend everyone and take care!

À bientôt!

Clarity!

Making bread from a microcomputer Rice Cooker :)

The dutifully rice cooker :)

Who says you need a proper oven to make a nice bread? well, since i,m moving around so much and going to picnics or staying over at relatives place i can easily make something up out of my rice cooker :) I bought 2 of this one for my parents in law in france hence this one manually translated into french as for the functions of it and secondly one is somewhere in africa now awaiting for me to work on it hehehe. Anyways, i have made cakes with it also as it has a cake funtion button as well, so i was thinking why not bread so i tried it and voila! a wonderful golden bread :)

here is the recipe, actually anykind of good bread recipe will do as this is just another mode of emploi for baking the bread. my bread recipe is really pretty easy to follow indeed :-

The bread starter

• 1 cups of warm water
• 1.5 Tablespoons of active dry yeast
• 1 cup of plain flour

¤ mixed all up and wait for about 30 minutes or less until it becomes frothy

The dough

• 1 cup of wholemeal plain flour
• 1 cup of plain flour
• 1 Tablespoon of salt
• 1 handfull of cereal
• extra flour (almost a cup)
• 1 cup of warm water
  

¤ mixed all the dry ingredients up and finally pour in the "bread starter" [pic 1] to the dough and mixed well adding every now and then extra flour until it forms a dough [pic 2] then let it rest for 1 hour

¤ after for about an hour the dough will resemble something shown on [pic 3] flatten out the dough [pic 4] and finally let it rest for about 3 to 4 more hours until it resembles the dough in [pic 5] the doubled now sized dough indicates that its ready to be baked

¤ baked in the oven for 45 minutes until its brown or golden on the top or if using the rice cooker for about 1 hour until it resembles like the picture on [pic 6]

a voila! my golden brown bread made from baking in the rice cooker :)

have a go everyone!

À bientôt!

Clarity!

My 1st Croissant! :)

I have always love to eat croissant its one of my old time favourite. The problem with me is that, i love to eat my croissant with butter and thats sinfully rich in everything particularly fats. So i have been toying with the idea of making my own "guilt-free croissant" for i have done a few recipes of my own through trial and error for my butter free bread or organic wholemeal bread as well as guilt-free Brioches as well. So i was thinking why not make my croissant less oilly and less butter and make it as healthy as possible so i came up with my own recipe for this and so this is my first procuce. Raymond was my tester person for he is french and so he should know better on how a croissant should taste and he is very particular with breads and pastries and particularly croissant. So this morning i suprised him with my mini croissant as well as mini croissant breads and he loved it! Especially when its not oilly at all and its very crispy and crunchy he said to me you must have put in tonnes of burre but i told him just the normal then less amount of butter and unsalted and just play around with the texture for the mixture for the dough so voilà! a healthy croissant!


The process of making the croissant

And the final product...voilà! Clarity's mini croissant :)


clarity me!

Love Cookies

Somebody have a sweet tooth so here is a treat for that special someone :)

Raisin and almond butter cookies :)

a lot of love pour into the working of this simple but heartfull cookies :)

Ready as can be....

Voila!

Kept inside the cookie tin especially for mon coeur :)

I call this cookies Love Cookies eventhough they are not the shape of a heart. Anyhow hope you like them cookies mon coeur!! ***emmuahhh***!!!


Love always,
Clarity!

Not feeling well activity :(

So i was not feeling well today so i decided to bake a cake just to pass the time for i have a very bad sore throat and almost losing my voice now but its ok....just wanna keep myself busy so i bake myself a small orange cake :)
so here is the cake :)

orangy cake!
Clarity!

My french Bun bread :)

I saw this technique of twisting two pieces of dough together and make it like a knot and so here is the end result of it :) Mon coeur said it's yummy :)

I'm also trying to improve my food photography skill...playing with the lightings and all....and i have another toy to play with too it's mon coeur's digital camera so we have two cameras to play with now :)

Soup + warm wholemeal bread = cosy dinner for two :)

not forgetting the loafy bread i make every once in a week for our supply of wholemeal bread for the whole week.


bready bunch!
Clarity!

No Class but I was hungry....

So i was all excited to go to my class today and was told it's not until tomorrow....so i was suddenly left with a time gap of nothing-ness so thought i'd do someting creative so i tried my own smoked salmon in dil Pizza;

so here is the Smoked Salmon in Dill Pizza :)

ingredients :
Pizza Dough = multipurpose flour+instant yeast+a pinch of salt+ 1 tbs of granulated sugar + 3/4 of warm water
mixed all to form a dough and set aside

Base for the pizza = 1 big round tomato + 2 green onions + 2 garlic clove + fresh ground pepper
put all in a food processor and grind away to form a paste
Use this paste to coat the base of your pizza;

flatten your dough and make whatever shape you like then apply the paste you just made and sprinkled grated cheddar or mozzarella cheese which ever you like and put in the oven for at least 12 minutes

then take out from the oven, then arranged the bite sized smoked salmon in dill over the pizza then arrange the veges and pineapple strips then springkled some cheese on top of it and some ground peeper for some flavour an taste and finally pop it back into the oven for another 5 to 7 minutes then your pizza is ready to be served :)


deliciously yummmy!!

have a go peeps!

Bon appétit!

Clarity!