Crunchy Coffee Cookies

Cookies are very popular everywhere. All cookies can be combined with all kinds of flavours and tastes. As a coffee lover, I want to try to create cookies with sense of coffee. The result is very satisfactory, they are very crunchy, not too sweet and have strong coffee flavour in it. They are truly only for coffee lovers. When a friend of mine came to my house, I served her these cookies, and she was very pleased and liked them.... and she took some for home.. ^_^

This is also my entry for Jugalbandy Click Photo Event for the month May 2009.

Crunchy Coffee Cookies

Ingredients:
100 gr butter / margarine
50 gr icing sugar
1 yellow eggs
1 eatspoon instant coffee
25 gr almond powder
100 gr flour


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Grease cookie sheets.

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and coffee. Beat in the egg, flour, and almond powder. Mix until well blended. Make figures as you like using cookies cutters or decorating tubes.

3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are golden. Let cool on wire racks.

Oven dish with egg, chorizo and bread

An egg.... being poached, fried, boiled or in the oven; an egg makes your (easter) -breakfast, -brunch or -lunch complete. Egg is already so good that you have little to add.

This is my entry for Jugalbandi Photo Event which theme of this month is Spring/Autumn.


Oven dish with egg, chorizo and bread (source: Delicious magazine, march 2008 edition)
Serving for 4

Ingredients:
1/2 sweet onion, finely chopped
1/2 dry Spanish chorizo sausage (substitute with salami)
parsley, finely chopped
4 slices old bread
4 eggs
200 ml milk
salt, pepper and paprika powder to season

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 190°c.

Cut the sausage or salami in small pieces. Butter an oven-proof dish or smaller ramekins and lay the bottom out with the onion, pieces of sausage, parsley and pieces of bread. Break an egg on each dish. Gently pour in the milk and season with salt, pepper and paprika powder.

Bake in the oven for about 4-5 minutes, when the eggs are just cooked. Serve hot when it just comes out of the oven.

Raisin Bread

I love raisin bread eventhough I know it's in the category of calorie rich foods. I think once a while I may break the rules by eating high carbs foods as comfort... and then burn it out again by doing some exercises. My motto is "Life is only once so enjoy it while you still can" :o)

My ambition is to make my own raisin bread. But right now it's easier and faster to buy it (pics below) from the local bakery. What I can do now is to keep this recipe in my blog just in case I feel want to bake it myself.

The recipe is originally taken from here.

This is also my entry for Jugalbandi Click event for the month March 2009 with the theme Wood.

Ingredients:
1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup raisins
1/4 cup soft butter
1/4 cup sugar
>1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup scalded milk
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs, beaten

Preparation:
1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.

2. In a large bowl, combine raisins, butter, sugar, salt, and hot milk; stir to dissolve the sugar. Let mixture cool to lukewarm.

3. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of the flour; beat well. Add yeast mixture and the beaten eggs; mix to blend well.

4. Add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft but stiff dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic.

5. Place dough in a lightly buttered bowl, turning once to grease the surface. Cover with a clean dish cloth; let stand in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours.

6. Punch dough down and divide into 2 portions. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.

7. Shape into 2 loaves; place in 2 greased 8x4x3-inch loaf pans. Cover and let rise again for about 45 to 60 minutes, until almost double.

8. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes, placing foil over loaves the last 10 minutes, if loaves are getting too brown. Remove loaves from pans and let cool on racks.

Jugalbandi Click Event: Sweet Marinated Tofu // Tahu Bacem

This is my entry for Jugalbandi Click Food Photography Event. This month the theme is about cheese/tofu.

Tahu Bacem is sweet marinated fried tofu. The word "bacem" means that it is sweet and spicy. Tahu Bacem is a typical Indonesian delicacy and is given as an accompaniment to the rice meal, but can also be eaten as a savory snack. In place of tofu, you can also use tempeh. The preparation is the same.

The ingredients for the seasoning include gula jawa (Javanese palm sugar), salam leaves, tamarind pulp, shallots, garlic, galangal and ketumbar. Because the tofu firstly boiled in the ingredients then afterwards to be fried in the oil, it will give them nice, dark red-brown color.

Tahu Bacem would be just one dish in a meal. There would also be a couple vegetable dishes. The seasoning at the table would be a dish of sambal, any of a number of chili pastes.

Ingredients:
10 thick slices of tofu
1 teaspoon tamarind pulp
300 gr grated palm sugar
500 ml water + 250 ml coconut milk
3 salam leaves
salt to taste
1 teaspoon coriander powder
5 shallots, thin slices
3 cloves garlic, thin slices
2 cm galangal

Directions:
1. In a pan put all ingredients together including slices of tofu.

2. Cook the mixture until boiled then reduce the fire. Stir the mixture from to time to time and let boiled gently until the moisture evaporates. Remove from the pan, put aside.

3. To deep-fry, heat several inches of oil in a stable wok until hot. Using wire or slotted tool, slip the tofu, into the oil. You can fry several pieces at a time, depending on the size of your wok, but don't dump it all in at once. That will reduce the temperature of the oil and the tofu will absorb oil rather than fry in it. Fry until tofu becomes golden. You may need to adjust the heat a bit while cooking so tofu doesn't burn. Remove with wire or slotted tool and drain on paper towel.

To pan fry, heat about 1" of oil in a heavy skillet. Put several pieces of tofu in the pan and cook until golden. Again, adjust the heat to prevent burning. You will need to turn the tofu from time to time to assure even cooking on both sides. Drain on paper towel.

Click Jugalbandi Photography Event: Rice Pilaff

A pilaff dish is satisfying by itself, but makes an ideal accompaniment to roast chicken. Served with a side salad, it is a quick and economical luncheon dish.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
225 gr brown or white rice
500 ml stock
50 gr currants
half of a red / green peppers, seeded and diced
a pinch of mixed herbs or oregano
25 gr chopped walnust (I'm allergic to nuts, I didn't use this)

Directions:
1. Gently fry the onion, peppers, herbs in the oil until transparent.

2. Then add the rice, stirring it carefully to coat the grains.

3. Pour on the hot stock, allow to come to the boil and then cover and put over a very low heat. Check and add more liquid if necessary.

4. When the rice is done, add the currants and walnuts. Just before serving, season with freshly groud pepper and grated parmesan cheese if liked.

As my entry to participate Jugalbandi Click Photography event which the theme is RED, I put my ready-to-eat rice pilaff in the red pepper to fit to the theme.

More informations about the event, please click their link here.

Food Photography Event: Oozed

Flickr food photography event hosted by Daring Baking Club (Klub Berani Baking/KBB). This month theme is OOZED. So we have to photograph food that oozed out and dripping out.

To participate to this month event, I was actually not really in the mood. Lots of works and less inspirations. Few day before ending day, I just tried to photograph egg. First I made soft fried egg. When I did the shoot, the sun light was on and off as you know I work with natural lighting. So it didn't work with the picture. Blamm, went to the trash.

Second day, early in the morning when I was going to make my breakfast, sun shined, plenty natural light through my kitchen windows. Straight I got an idea to boil soft egg. Then prepare the table, setting and camera to make a shoot. Many pictures were taken here. Only the few last pictures did work as I wanted it. Then straight edited in lightroom and photoshop, posted in flickr. End of the month, we got the result of the most voted photo as favorite and claim as a winner. Guess who...???!!!! My oozed soft boiled egg. Yaaaiiiiii.... I feel like my dear friend Cheri would say, "I would dance half-naked on the roof".

Indonesian Baking Club Birthday

KBB (= Indonesian Baking Club) becomes 1 year old. There are contests being held to celebrate its birthday. There are 3 categories of contests i.e. baking, cooking and food photography. Myself is just a new comer in this club but I'm sure this club is as fun as other club too.

After taking many pictures including baking some things, my final decision goes to this picture. Why? I love the natural color of the fruits themselves and I like to see the contrast between the background and the table mat. Well this is just my opinion, I'm sure other people would have another opinions. No matter, what important is the fun to participate and helping friends to promote their site to go global.

This is my entry to participate food photography contest of KBB with a theme "catchy color".


Another trials in order to get the right compositions are as samples followed:

Click Photo Event: A basket of waffles

Jugalbandi Click Photo Event for June is a special edition in honour of Briana "Bri" Brownlow who is now fighting against breastcancer. More informations about this special edition please click here.

The theme is Yellow which is the happiest colour in the spectrum. It signifies hope and enlightenment. Though the work of the LiveStrong Foundation, it has also come to signify the fight against cancer.

My entry for this event, A basket of waffles. This is my symbolic sympathy for Bri who's really brave to fight hard against her sickness. By looking at this picture hopefully she would feel better and I'm praying that she will get better soon.

Camera type Nikon D70, macro lens

Jugalbandi Photoevent: Spice Up The Metal

Nikon D70, 11 March 2008

My entry for Jugalbandi photo event, theme: Metal.