Ketchup Macaroni

I made this pasta dish that my grandma would make for us a lot when we spend our summers at her house. My mom said she would use ketchup to imitate spaghetti sauce. While it tastes nothing like spaghetti, this stuff still tastes really good. She would always use elbow macaroni, but use whatever you have.

Ketchup macaroni: makes 6 servings
1 pound dry pasta
1-2 onions
1 - 1 1/2 pounds ground beef, pork, or turkey
1/4 - 1/3 cup ketchup

1. Fill up a pot with water and bring it to a boil. Add some salt and cook your pasta to how you like it, about 8-10 minutes for me.

2. Slice your onions up. Heat some oil in a large pan and cook your onions. You can keep it on high for about a minute, then reduce the heat to medium. Cook your onions until nice and brown. I think it took around 10 minutes for me to cook them. Your pasta should be done around now.


3. Remove the onions from the pan. Cook the meat until browned. I separated mine into two batches, because if the meat gets crowded in the pan, all of the water comes out of the meat.


4. Put the onions, meat, and pasta into the pan and stir it around on low-medium heat. Add your ketchup and mix until everything is coated.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

I felt like baking something for my coworkers because I haven't baked anything in a while. I was going to make oatmeal cookies, because I bought this bag of special oatmeal. It's a patented preparation to make the texture better...oooohh, fancy! But, I ended up making cake, because one of my coworkers was talking about how she likes soft cakes. I had this recipe saved for a while; it's about time that I made it. Incidentally, it was a green cake just in time for St. Patrick's Day. Pandan is a leaf, the juice of which is used in a lot of Vietnamese desserts.

Sorry, it's in metric...and I'm too lazy to convert it. I got it from http://roseskitchen.wordpress.com/2007/03/12/pandan-chiffon-cake

Pandan Chiffon Cake
225 grams cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons salt
8 eggs, separated
300 grams sugar, separated in two
170 mL coconut cream
125 mL vegetable oil
2 tablespoons pandan juice
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1. So the real first step is to blend 12 pandan leaves with some water and strain out the juice...I used artificial flavoring so I skipped this.

2. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder in a smallish container.



3. In a medium bowl, mix the egg yolks and 150 grams of sugar with an electric hand blender.


4. When it's mixed, add the coconut cream, oil, pandan juice and a little bit of green food coloring.


This is what I used instead of pandan juice, for reference. I tried using just one tablespoon of this stuff (it's thick and goopy) and 1 tablespoon of water.


5. Add in the sifted flour and mix well until smooth.


6. Preheat your oven to 350 right now. In a separate large bowl, beat the egg whites on high speed until it's foamy. Add the cream of tartar and beat for another minute.


Add in the rest of the sugar until the egg whites are shiny and stiff.




7. Scoop one third of the egg whites and mix it into the batter, the way you would normally mix. Then, add the rest of the egg whites and fold it in.


Pour the batter into a greased pan. I used a bundt pan. Look how pretty and green it is!


I baked it for 40-50 minutes or until a fork inserted comes out clean. If you the pat the cake it will be light and springy.

Cinnamon Rolls

I tried making cinnamon rolls. My mom doesn't like frosting and icing, so I made them naked.


Cinnamon Rolls: makes 8 small rolls
from King Arthur Flour

Dough:
1 3/4 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 1/2 cups flour
3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoons salt
1/8 cup dry milk
1/4 cup instant potato flakes (weird huh? it's supposed to keep the dough moist)

Filling:
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons flour
2 teaspoons of milk for brushing

Frosting:
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons milk

1. Mix yeast with 1 tablespoon warm water and a pinch of sugar in a small cup. Let it sit for 15 minutes. If it doesn't foam up, the yeast is dead.

2. Mix all of the ingredients for the dough in a large mixing bowl. Mix in a stand mixer for 8 minutes on speed 2. You could also hand mix it...but I get tired of that.



3. Place the dough in a greased bowl and let it rise until it's almost doubled, about 1-2 hours. It probably wasn't a good idea to make yeast dough that day; it was cold.


4. Grease your hands and your workspace to prevent the dough from sticking. Roll or pat the dough out into a 8"x12" rectangle.

5. Brush the dough with milk and sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

6. Roll the dough up and slice into eight pieces. Grease your baking pan and place the rolls inside. Cover and let it rise until puffy, about 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

7. Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.


8. If you want to make glaze, you can either put it on while the rolls are warm, or completely cooled. If you put the glaze on with it's completely cooled, the glaze will be pretty and white. It gets translucent when poured on warm rolls.

Blog post fail...

So, I was going to post about this new bread that I tried to make. It's gluten-free, not that anyone I know has Celiac's disease, but I like to try new things. It's buttery, cheesy, and garlic-y, so I was excited to try and make it. Instead of regular flour, tapoica starch is used instead. The bread is supposed to puff up as it rises.

Here's where the recipe is from: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2010/02/20/gluten-free-and-lovin-it-%E2%80%93-cheese-buns-extraordinaire/

Here is how it turned out:



It was hard like a rock. XD Oh well, maybe I'll try it again later.