Carrot and sesame sandwich bread recipe

This is an other most loved bread recipe, carrot and sesame sandwich bread, of course Dan Lepard recipe.
Good way to use up the old carrots.
Recipe is here.

Thai chicken cashew stir fry with charred lime

I made thai chicken stir fry with cashews and charred lime for lunch. I used the thai green curry paste I had in the freezer. Recipe is from BBC good food magazine november issue.

I got this book from the library today, "thai food" by David Thompson. I am very excited about this. It looks like I will be able to cook tom yam soup at last. Here is what the book says about tom yam sopu, which actually is dtom yam according to the book.

This is good timing that I got this book as we are about to start alternate day low GI diet and will be having just soup 3 days a week. Will try the chicken tom yum soup soon.

Easy marble cake

I make marble cake quite often, here is the recipe.

225 grams stork

225 grams golden granulated sugar

4 eggs

2 tbs vanilla extract

225 self raising floor (or plain floor + 2 tsp baking powder)

50 gr cocoa powder

I use Stork instead of butter, and first thing to do is take it out of the fridge. It is quite soft so doesn't need to wait outside for long. 10 minutes is usually enough.

While Stork is getting to room temperature, heat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a 20cm round cake tin first.

Then cream 225 grams of stork with electric food mixer in a bowl and add 225 grams of golden caster sugar to it and mix until light and fluffy.

In an other bowl, whisk 4 eggs with 2 table spoons of vanilla extract then add this to Stork and sugar mixture slowly while continuing to beat the mixture. 

Continue to mix with electric mixer until everything is light and there is quite a lot of air in the mixture, this makes the final cake light.

Sift 225 grams of self raising flour (or plain flour and 2 teaspoon baking powder) in a bowl and then sift for the second time into the cake mixture. With a spoon slowly fold flour taking care not to knock the air out of the cake mixture. Sifting the floor twice makes the cake even more lighter!

Tip half of the cake mixture in an other bowl and sift 50 grams of cocoa powder into this half and fold in with a spoon taking care not to knock the air out of the mixture.

Take spoonful of each cake mixture and place in the prepared tin alternating the vanilla with the cocoa. When finished tap the tin on the work floor lightly so everything settles in.  Then with a skewer swirl the mixtures to give the marble effect. 

Bake in the oven for 50 minutes or when a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.

If I get a change to go to the supermarket then I usually make "lime syrup marble cake" Dan Lepard recipe, mostly replacing the lime with oranges.

Beetroot feta salad

I made this beetroot feta salad this week for our packed lunches. We loved it so much that made it again for dinner tonight. 

It is so simple. I had beetroots raw and cooked them in pressure cooker for 45 minutes in the evening.

Next day in the morning I chopped a big bunch of parsley and mixed it with almost same amount of salad leaves.

Peeled 2 beetroots, diced them and threw them in the salad leaves.

Crumbled about 200 gr of feta cheese on top of everything and put it in 2 lunch boxes.

Made a vinaigrette by mixing 6 table spoons of olive oil with 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar and kept this in 2 small plastic tubs in the lunch boxes.

I made tonight's salad using the left overs of the beetroots.

Green beans, carrot meze salad and carrot cake

We had a veggie dinner tonight. Green beans cooked Turkish way, green salan and a carrot meze salad was on the table.

Green beans are really easy to make. Sometimes I use frozen and sliced green beans then no need to clean or slice the beans either.

500 grams green beans, washed heads and tails off and cut into two.

1 medium onion, diced

4 tomato diced

50ml olive oil

100ml water

Salt and pepper to season

1 teaspoon sugar

Layer the beans, diced onion and tomato in a pan. Pour the olive oil and water over the veg. Season and add sugar.

Stir everything together and cook on high heat until it starts to boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until beans are cooked and has a soft bite to them.

I use pressure cooker for this recipe and cooks in 20 minutes in pressure cooker.

This is best served cold or in room temprature.

Carrots with yogurt sauce - meze salad

Slice the carrots 0.5 cm thick in an angle. Put carrots, 1 tablespoon olive oil and enough water to cover the carrots in a pan and bring to boil. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until the carrots are cooked. If there is any water left in the pan, get rid of the water and put the carrots in the same pan on the heat for an other minute.

Let the carrots cool.

Make the yogurt sauce by simply adding 2 gloves of bashed/chopped garlic to 200ml of yogurt. 

Pour the yogurt over the cooled carrots, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with chilli flakes.

We had Dan Lepard's easy carrot cake as pudding. I used dark muscavado sugar and did not ice the cake as the recipe calls for, instead mixed 2/3 pack of full fat soft cheese, roughly 200gr, with 3 table spoons of icing sugar and spread this mixture in the middle of cake and dusted the cake with a little bit of icing sugar.

 

Lemon wheel cookies

Last Saturday we had a go at Lemon wheel cookies, Gretchen Holt-Witt's happy dish from Sweet Paul Magazine. These are very pretty looking and delicious cookies. 

Jamie Oliver's pulled brisket chilli

Jamie Oliver's pull brisket chilli wraps was for dinner tonight. Recipe here.