An obsession with black sesame seeds

I am passing through a black sesame seed phase! Well actually I hope it's not a phase cause have you seen the benefits of these black beauties! So much goodness!
It is slightly nuttier and fully flavored than its commonly known tanned counterparts. Great to toast or as is or add a color accent to rice, vegetables and salads like I have done.
But wait, listen here! It's high in calcium, protein (I know, protein!), phosphorous, iron, magnesium, zinc, methyonine, omega 6 & 3!
These little seeds can also be used to treat constipation and promote regular bowel movements.

Now you can see why I am finding all the possible ways to add these to my dishes!! Kind of wish I had discovered them earlier!

If you have any recipes or ideas on how to use black sesame seeds I would love hear from you!

S

Batya's chocolate cake

I got this cake from
Efi translated from his mother, one of Efi's favorite I am told.
I never had much success in chocolate cakes to be honest, get real nervous about them. But today I was determined! And I am trying to use up all the flour on the house before Pesach! Imagine, what a great excuse to bake some more, just love it! :) Thankfully it is mouth watering good!

All you need is:

4 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup Nesquick
3/4 cup oil
1 cup creme freche (although I used fat free smooth cottage cheese here)
250g dark chocolate

Melt the chocolate and creme freche together and set aside.
Mix all other ingredients together.
Pour half the creme mixture in the cake mixture, leave the other half for the top of the cake after it comes out the oven.

Pop it in the oven at 180C for approximately 35mins.

Enjoy!
Love S.

Inside-out Chocolate yeast cake

Hi, remember me? Yes, I know I have been a little scarce lately! I have missed my blog actually but the work is keeping me so busy these days that I rarely have much time for myself. Celebrated my 30^th birthday this week! Oh what fun! I have started another course again too which is keeping me busy to the absolute max, but at the end of it all I shall be very happy!

So I wanted to share you this cake I made recently. I actually got it from Carine Goren’s book ‘Sweet Secrets’. Well actually my partner Efi requested it out the book. How he did not make it that simple you see. He decided that he wanted the chocolate filling from one recipe and wanted it served with the dough of another. Since it is only the 2 of us at home and I am not making a habit of eating too many sweet things, it was basically up to him to eat it, so we decided that I should probably halve the dough recipe, but with strict instructions to keep the chocolate amount the same! Is he not the cutest!!! J

Sasha being Sasha of course made a tiny little calculation error cause as you know a). I am still learning and b). I am not that good with following recipes!

So I was quite nervous while it was in the oven, but my nerves were put to rest once it came out the oven and Efi devoured halve of it while still hot! And I did allow myself a taste a can confirm its wonderful, so here goes!

Dough:

3 ½ cups flour

2 tsp instant yeast

2 eggs

½ cup sugar

¾ cup luke warm milk

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

2 ½ sticks soft unsalted butter

Chocolate filling:

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter

100g bittersweet chocolate

5 Tblsp cocoa powder

¾ cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp cinnamon

Make your dough and proof first. In a mixer fitted with dough hook, mix flour and yeast, add eggs, sugar, milk and vanilla extract and mix till smooth. Add salt and butter and knead till dough is smooth and shiny. Cover and leave to double in size for approximately 1 hour.

To prepare the chocolate filling, melt together the chocolate and butter on low heat. Sift the cocoa powder and sugar and mix in together with vanilla extract and cinnamon. Let it cool till it is spreadable.

Turn the proofed dough out on a floured surface and roll out to a ¼ inch thick rectangle. Spread the chocolate filling evenly. Roll the dough to form and tube, then slit the dough length wise down with a sharp smooth edge knife to form 2 strips that you can plait. Twist the together into a spiral. 

Place into a backing tray, cover and leave to double in size again.

Pre-heat the oven to 170C.

Brush the cake with egg wash and back for 25-30 minutes or until they are brown and cooked through. 

Enjoy! 

Israeli Cheesecake (my slimmer’s version)

Yeah right you are thinking. Just like everyone else that I have told when listing the ingredients. You might be thinking, ‘what’s the point’.

I was never a fan of cheesecake growing up. I never liked the taste, found it always too rich, sometimes with a sour taste. I could count on my one hand the number of times I actually tried cheesecake.

It was a couple of years back that Efi asked me to make cheesecake to break the Yom Kippur fast, and at first I was very much apprehensive, firstly cause I did not have a clue how to even start baking a cheesecake and secondly because of my previous experience. But you know, it was for my Efi, and so I wanted to give it the best attempt.

On my third trip to Israel I found a recipe book booked ‘Sweet Secrets’ by Carine Goren. I can highly recommend this book if you are even the slightest interested in baking. This was exactly what I needed!

Now I am naturally conscious about eating healthy and always find ways to cut back on excess calories without affecting the taste much. I took a serious gamble here, and in my personal opinion, I was hugely successful.

This is my version of Carine’s No-bake cheesecake:

For the crust and crumb (do this first as it needs time to cool before adding your filling)

1 1/2 cups flour

1tsp baking powder

¾ cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ¼ stick unsalted cold butter cubed

3 egg yolks

Preheat over to 180C

In your mixer, mix flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla extract and butter till it resembles crumbs. Add the egg yolks and pulse just till a dough is formed.

Press half the dough into the actual dish that you will be making your cheesecake in to form the base of the cheesecake. With the other half, press into a dish, once this is baked into a biscuit you will be breaking this up into a crumble, so the dish really does not matter.

Bake for approximately 20 mins or until golden and then set aside to cool completely.

For the filling

1 cup full cream

¾ cups sugar

1 packet of instant vanilla pudding mix

3 1/2 tubs of fat free smooth cottage cheese

In a mixer, combine all ingredients for a couple minutes till well mixed through.

When the crumb base has completely cooled, scoop the filling inside and smooth over with your spatula. Gently sprinkle the crumb that you have broken up over the cheesecake and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

What I love about this cheesecake is that I can eat without feeling that it was too rich and heavy as it is so light, I have officially turned into a cheesecake junkie. I am very curious to hear what you think, so let me know if you try it!

Shabbat Dinner in summer

In the heat of summer, cooking in a hot apartment with no air conditioning and preparing a great big heavy Shabbos dinner is not the most enjoyable thing for me.

After some consideration I decided that something light was in order for this heat wave we are experiencing.

Efi will never say no to chicken schnitzel. It’s easy to prepare and saves well too. As for the rest of the dinner I planned to just make various hot and cold salads to keep the meal as light as possible.

For the chicken schnitzel, I seasoned fresh breadcrumbs with dried coriander leaves, salt and pepper. (I have a recent obsession with coriander lately!)

The Israeli salad was made including: sweet red pepper, ¼ cup each of fresh coriander, parsley and mint. I added some fresh pomegranate seeds just for fun. A dressing made of lemon juice and olive season with salt a pepper is mixed through.

Warm potato salad is something I watched Jamie Oliver make on one of his cooking shows some time ago and fell in love with, who does not like carbo-loading!! I chose a bunch of Mediterranean baby potatoes that were cleaned and quartered and boiled till quite soft. Water drained in a colander and shaken about to rough up a little. A dressing is made of 2 Tbsp each of olive oil and lemon juice seasoned with salt and pepper and a ¼ cup fresh chopped parsley which is poured over the still hot potatoes...mmmm

The highlight however was the Warm aubergine and chickpea salad!!!

The aubergine was sliced lengthways and set aside with sprinkled salt for 30 mins. Thereafter rinsed under fresh water and cubed. In a pot, I warmed a little olive oil and added ½ tsp of dried flaked garlic and a tsp ground cumin. The cubed aubergine was then added and cooked till soft and a little browned. A drained can of chickpea’s added to the pot and warmed through. A Tbsp olive oil and tsp lemon juice stirred through and tossed with some fresh coriander leaves.

Shabbat Shalom! 

A very fresh salad

With the weather as hot as it is today (36 C) in Cape Town, a person can eat nothing but a fresh salad.  I had the following ingredients in my fridge to make this salad.

¼ cup fresh parsley

¼ cup fresh mint

¼ cup fresh coriander

1 Israeli cucumber

2 tomatoes

Juices of half a lemon

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to garnish

Chop the parsley, coriander and mint finely. For the tomato and cucumber, cut it the same way you would when making an Israeli salad. Drizzle with the olive oil and lemon juice and garnish with salt and pepper to taste.

This salad can be eaten with just about anything or even on its own with toasted ciabatta or pita bread to soak up all the juices. My kind of summer dish!

 Shavua Tov!!

Happy 2012!

Well, it’s been a while since I last blogged, but with the ‘silly’ season upon us and me working in the hospitality industry finding the time proved to be somewhat difficult. So here is a summary of what was happening in my kitchen through Hanukkah and the rest of the holiday season.

Firstly I must admit that Hanukkah has got to be my favourite holiday and its all about the beautifully lit candles, okay, maybe the food too ;)

Sadly this year my first batch of doughnuts was a complete flop. Lesson learnt: be careful of the difference between fresh and instant yeast and how to convert fresh yeast for instant yeast! Sadly I only read the following article on eHow after I threw all the doughnuts out.

‘Yeast is the component in bread dough that makes it rise through the release of carbon dioxide and the formation of alcohol. Fresh yeast is an active form of yeast that must be stored in the refrigerator. It works best for breads that require a long period of time to rise. Instant yeast is a form of dry yeast that is allows dough to rise in a shorter period of time. You can substitute fresh yeast for instant yeast in a pinch.

1.
Read the directions and determine how much fresh yeast the recipe calls for.



2.
Measure out 2 tsp. instant yeast for every 1 tbsp. fresh yeast called for in the recipe.



3. Add the instant yeast directly to the flour during the mixing process. The instant yeast does not need to be "proofed," which is a process of allowing the yeast to activate in water before adding it to the recipe.



oh well, better luck next time...

However the good news is that my Aunt Lilla shared one of her doughnut recipes with me and Hanukkah was saved! Hooray!!

They are so easy to make and look what fun I had making different shapes!

‎ 1 cup sugar, 2 Tbl spoons melted butter, 2 eggs, 4 cups sifted flour, 4 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 cup milk.

Beat eggs until light, add sugar gradually, beating well. Blend in butter, sift dry ingredients add alternately with milk to the sugar mixture. Roll a 1/4 inch think on floured board. Cut with a doughnut cutter fry a few at a time in deep hot oil.

And then I had a go at making latkes, my very first attempt I might add!  To be honest, I am not so sure that I am a big fan. Perhaps I need more practise and to experiment with more varieties in future, so I will not give up all together and will give it a good go next Hanukkah. 

I made sure to wring out all the liquid as far as possible, worked on getting the temperature of the oil just right and I believe that I got that right, but I am not hooked. I thought I would stick to something just basic since it was my first try and made just potato and onion. I think I would like to try the carrot or Zucchini next time.

And then I made an awesome rare roast beef, as first for me and I am utterly impressed with myself as it was just delicious! After getting my roasting dish really hot, I rubbed the piece of beef in Nomu’s Roast Rub and briefly browned each side for a couple of seconds and pushed the dish back into the oven which was on a temperature of 200C for approximately 20 mins. The vegetables of choice were then added and the lid was placed on this time and the dish was left in the oven for a further 15 minutes and that was it. 

The cooking times would differ depending on the size of the meat however, but I believe the secret is not to overcook the piece of meat. What we could not eat, we sealed and put in the fridge, I ate of it two days later with a bit of mustard and it was just divine!

I have attempted to make a few cakes and deserts, but lately have had some bad luck which I am still trying to figure out what went wrong, as soon as I do, I will make sure to share them with you, for now, I just keep trying! J 

Here is to prosperous 2012 to all!!