ANNA'S FOOD BLOG

Pancakes

08:54 | Labels: flour, pancakes, savory, sweet

PANCAKES

You know another thing I love? Pancakes! I mean who doesn’t love pancakes? The North Americans and pro the rest of the world have theirs smeared with syrup, the French with their delicate cooking prefer a very thin crust folded with either sweet or savory filling. I have perfected a recipe that I have been making for as long as I can remember. Probably, my mother taught it to me but I forget. You see,

By the time I am 60, I could confidently say I’d been making and eating pancakes 90% of my life. However, I just learned fairly recently that those flour wraps I made to eat with my chicken sauce were actually British Pancakes. First(much long ago) I thought they were ordinary pancakes. Apparently what the world recognizes as pancakes are thick, fluffy slabs of flour stacked up and most likely drizzled with syrup. So, I just called them Nigerian pancakes, however that name seemed to be taken by a more savoury recipe calling for sliced peppers and onion. Then, (quite recently) I thought they were crepes, apparently that refers to very thin slabs of batter eaten folded with filling. My recipe, I learned is more like the british pancakes than any other. I can serve it plain, with syrup, icing sugar, whipped cream or a savory sauce. Sometimes I have to adjust or totally remove the sugar when I’m making them for my dad

Sorry about the long story, if you just need to get to the recipe, but this is actually the fun part of being a food writer. You get to tell stories that don’t put too much pressure on you. So here I am typing away at 2 am in the morning. I have work tomorrow(I say tomorrow coz I don’t regard it as the next day until I see light or I’ve slept)

Also forgive my local measurement s and ingredients; I try to make my recipes as flexible as possible. One reason I couldn’t be a scientist. No precision.

Most people use a little melted butter in their pancake or crepe recipes. I have tried it and it resulted in a thicker, gummier, cakier pancake than I had hoped for. So I don’t add any fat to the batter.

Finally…. Here it is.

Ingredients
2 cups flour

3 eggs, beaten

Sugar to taste. I use ½ cup for sweet pancakes and 1/8 cup for savory ones.
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups milk. You can mix liquid milk but I prefer to mix powdered milk with water butter or margarine for frying.

Method

· Sieve the flour into a large baking bowl

· Add the salt and sugar.

· Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the beaten eggs.

· Add half the milk.

· Beat well until smooth and lump free.

· Add some more milk according to your desired consistency and stir.

· Lightly grease a frying pan with a little butter. Wait till the pan is hot then pour a little batter and tilt the pan so the batter evenly and thinly coats the pan. Cook until set and lightly golden.

· Turn the pancake with a fish slice or toss it in the air if you know how.

· Put in a plate and finish frying the rest of the batter.

Serve rolled up with sweet or savory filling.

Sweet Filling

You can fill with jam or cut up fruits and whipped cream

Savory Filling

Fill with any vegetable or meat based sauce. Try any of my stir fried sauces. Most of them are wonderful in pancakes. Here is my cabbage and chicken sauce: chicken sauce

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Simple Pizza Recipe

08:19 | Labels: cheeze, delicious, food, home baking, meat lovers, mediterrean, pepperoni pizza, pizza, tomato paste

PIZZA

Yippee! Now we can make pizza at home with this basic, delicious recipe.

First The Bread

Ingredients

· 500g flour,

· 20g dry instant yeast ,

· 1/2 tsp. of salt

· 1 tbsp. olive oil

· Extra flour and corn flour for kneading,

· 1 cup of warm water.

Method

· Put the flour, salt and yeast in a bowl and mix.

· Make a hole in the middle and add olive oil and a little water.

· Stir from the middle and add more water until dough is soft and sticky.

· Cover the bowl with a warm cloth or foil and allow to rest for 10 mins in a warm place.

· Knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth and soft.

· Put back in bowl, cover and leave for like 20 mins to rise.

Then The Tomato Paste

Ingredients

· 1 tbsp olive oil

· 10 fresh tomatoes sliced

· 1 large onion diced

· I stock cube

· Salt to taste

· 1 tbsp ground fresh pepper

· Ground black pepper

· 1 tbsp white vinegar

· 2 tbsp ketchup

· 2 cubes of sugar

Method

· Heat olive oil in a pan.

· Add onions and stir fry for 2 mins.

· Then add tomato and stir.

· Add the seasonings.

· Put off the heat and add vinegar, ketchup and sugar.

Then the Toppings ( all toppings must be cooked. Except vegetables)
Shredded grilled chicken,
Tomatoes
Salami
Ham
Pepperoni
Minced meat
Mushrooms
Sweet corn
Green pepper

Whatever else your heart desires.

Finally, Assembling the Pizza

Roll out dough, cut out pizza circles, put on a greased baking tray, spread tomato paste, sprinkle toppings of your choice and cover with grated mozzarella cheese. Bake at a high temperature for 20 mins or less.

Please try it out and lemme know how it went down #howtomakepizza

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Chicken and Cabbage Sauce

08:08 | Labels: cabbage, chicken, Cooking, delicious, sauce, savory

CABBAGE AND CHICKEN SAUCE.

You’ll need

· Half a bulb of cabbage, shredded

· 400 g raw chicken diced or shredded. (You can used cooked chicken, just cut down on the cooking time)

· A bulb of onion, sliced.

· Seasoning cubes

· Dry pepper, I use black pepper, some call it Cameroon pepper, and anyways the flavor is delightful and would yield a far different taste than red pepper

· Salt, to taste

· Thyme, to taste

· Curry, to taste

· Ginger powder, a dash

· One piece of garlic, crushed and diced or a dash of garlic powder

· Wild onion powder, to taste.

· 2 tbsp of melted butter or oil to stir fry

Method

· Prepare your ingredients

· Heat your saucepan, preferably non-stick as stir fried chicken tends to stick to the pan.

· Put in your butter, margarine or oil

· Add in 1/3 of the sliced onions and the crushed garlic give a quick stir.

· Add your chicken and stir till the chicken pieces aren’t sticking to the sides of the pan

· Add all your seasonings.

· Stir

· Let it simmer a bit

· Stir some more till the chicken is done. Taste it just to be sure

· Add the rest of the onion

· Stir

· Add your cabbage. Make sure it is washed and drained. We don’t want water in this sauce. It is not gravy.

· Stir for a couple of minutes or until the water is dried up. (if you didn’t listen to me when I said to drain the cabbage.

Voila! Your sauce is ready to be used as a filling. If you want to use it as a gravy for mashed potatoes or white rice. All you need to do is add a little corn starch (corn flour) mixed with water to a very watery consistency. Or add a spoon of bisto gravy granules with ¼ cup water.

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Bread Pudding

14:30 | Labels: baking, bread pudding, sugar, sweet treat, whipped cream, yummy

BREAD PUDDING

I love bread! There, I said it. What I love most about it is how simple it is. In fact, I came home from work this evening and was too exhausted to wait for the soup to defrost so I had bread and cocoa.

So, I believe recipes including bread should be simple. Not as easy as buttering your toast though, but simple all the same.

Bread pudding isn’t one of my favorite treats but this recipe is here at someone’s request.

I believe the bread should be dry or stale to achieve the desired texture and so sometimes I toast the bread in the oven to dry it out a bit.

RECIPE

Cooking time: 1 hour

What You’ll Need:

· A loaf of unsliced day-old bread, cut into chunks. This should give you about 4 cups of bread chunks.

· 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted the fat gives it most of its flavor so you want to use sweet smelling butter or margarine)

· 1/4 cup dried fruits or nuts or mixed (optional) some people just love fruits and nuts. I don’t.

· 2 large eggs or 3 small ones, beaten

· 1 cup milk. Whole cream milk with 3.5% fat. The kind that comes in juice boxes. If you can’t find that, use a tin of evaporated milk.

· 2 tablespoons sugar. I prefer brown for its flavor.

· 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
Get your ingredients
Put on your oven.
Arrange bread chunks in a 6 or 8 inch non-stick baking dish. (I use a Pyrex dish. It’s made of glass and oven safe).
Drizzle melted butter or margarine over bread. Sprinkle your fruits and nuts if desired.
In a separate bowl, beat eggs, milk, sugar, nutmeg, and vanilla until well mixed.
Pour over bread, and lightly push down with a fork until bread is covered and soaking up the egg mixture.
Bake in the middle rack of a preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until the top springs back when pressed lightly.
Serve with whipped cream or plain. Serves four.

MY WHIPPED CREAM MIXTURE
100g vizyon powdered whipped cream
½ cup full cream milk
½ cup whipping cream.
In a cold glass or stainless steel bowl, whisk the whipping cream until fluffy, (you can actually use it at this point but I prefer my mixture) add half of the milk, whisk. Add half of the vizyon powder, whisk in rest of the milk and rest of the powder.
Chill until ready to serve.

I hope you find this helpful.

Please try it out and let me know how it went.

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Cooking 101

14:57 | Labels: bachelor, cookbook, Cooking, food, kitchen

Excerpt from my cook book. Work in progress. Though I lost the first 40 pages, I'll start again.

TO YOU, MY DEAR BACHELOR

Dear bachelor,

I assure you, this is no set of rules. If there’s anything I know about men, it’s that you guys are somehow allergic to instructions or directions, especially from a woman. So this is not an instruction book, let’s call it suggestions on how to cook better. Just some tips from someone who loves to cook.

Okay, you’re a busy guy and you hardly have time for domestic work. Everything in your kitchen is new and your girl doesn’t live with you. But who says you have to be female or a sous chef in order to cook yourself a good mouth watering dish? Cooking is a survival skill, just as swimming; hunting etc. your ancestors have been doing it for years now since they found fire. Of course, everyone is entitled to give themselves a treat eating out at continental or oriental restaurants, however cooking your own meals gives you a satisfaction that eating out doesn’t, and its inexpensive compared to buying food from Mr. Biggs or the buka around the corner, plus its usually fresher, safer and more hygienic. Moreover, girls love a man who can cook.

If you’re reading this, then it means you’re ready to explore your innate cooking skills. Remember that animated movie- Ratatouille? Anyone can cook, even YOU. Like all arts, you only need some basic training and from then on, it all depends on what you smell, taste or even feel.

Please get a diary to record all your successful experiments.

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Exp 2: Fruit Brownie

06:54 |

Brownies to me are like a mix of cookies and chocolate cake. They are fudgy and gooey and chocolatey and I just love them, so I whipped up my own version.

INGREDIENTS
½ cup blue band (margarine)
100g chocolate. I prefer sweetened bars
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1tsp flavouring and/or nutmeg
2 tbsp cocoa
½ cup dried fruits
1 cup sugar

METHOD.
Melt margarine in a non-stick saucepan big enough to mix all your ingredients. Add chocolate and stir until just before it starts bubbling. Turn off the heat and preheat your oven.
Stir in the sugar, then the eggs then everything else. Mix well. Bake at medium heat in a greased pan big enough to fill only half an inch deep. I use an 8” square pan. Bake for about 20 mins or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

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Exp 1: Mixed Plantain Pottage

16:49 |

Truth be told, I actually came up with this because I didn’t know the exact spice for either type of plantain pottage but I knew that wild vanilla in ripe plantain pottage was a no-no because the sweetness of d vanilla would be too much for the already sweet plantains. So I decided to mix it up and thus mix up all the spices.

INGREDENTS
2 unripe plantains – diced
3 ripe plantains sliced about an inch fat
Stock fish shredded
Snails cut into bits
An onion, diced
Salt, pepper to taste
Stock cubes
3 tbsp Palm oil
Fresh basil (scent leaf) shredded
Pumpkin leaf (ugu) shredded
(SPICES)
Atereko, about 10 seeds, pounded (banga spice, it looks like rat poo)
Atanenie, 2 seeds, shelled, burnt, pounded
Wild vanilla, sliced, 1/2 tsp
(OPTIONAL)
Meat stock
Small Dry meat/fish pieces
Cow hide/skin (kpomo) diced
Periwinkle (isam) shelled

METHOD.
1. Put a glass of water in a pot to boil
2. Add the onion and the stockfish
3. Add salt, pepper, seasoning cubes, meat stock. Leave to cook for about 5mins or until the stockfish is done
4. Add the unripe plantain and diced kpomo. Stir and cook for 2mins
5. Add the ripe plantain dry meat/fish and snail.
6. Add the spices
7. Add the palm oil, isam and vegetables.
8. Stir and let simmer for 2 mins.
Tip: if it starts to stick to the pan or burn, just change pans

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Pancakes

Simple Pizza Recipe

Chicken and Cabbage Sauce

Bread Pudding

Cooking 101

Exp 2: Fruit Brownie

Exp 1: Mixed Plantain Pottage