A Professional Amateur Cook's Records

So you should have realised by now that every time I list onions in my ingredient list, I always list exactly which colour/type. So have you asked or wondered why I do that? Well, I thought I should explain it a bit. Red Onions   Characteristics: Thinner layers that are less meaty. Although they are quite similar to the yellow ones, they do have their own moments and place in dishes. These are best to have fresh and really nice in salads or other raw dishes. The main reason is a bit vain- colour. With their purplish-red colour they really make a dish pop. Also, when cooked in a longer preparation, the colour washes out and they have a lesser impact than the yellow onions. Yellow Onions Characteristics: About fist-sized and have thick and tough outer skin as well as meaty layers. This is the onion that is the most versatile and the one that you'll see the most often in my kitchen (partially due to my general dislike for onions. I only use them if I have to and un...

Simplest healthy salad. Great for a park-nic! Yields: 1 massive batch for 3-4 people to savour. Ingredients 1 can of Black Beans (400-500 g)* 1 can of Red Kidney Beans (250-300 g)* 1 can of Black Eyed Peas  (250-300)* 1 large Red Onion Seasoning Large bush of Coriander- finely chopped, stalks and all Lots of vinegar (easy 5-6 tbsp or even more!) Salt Pepper Instructions Rinse all of the beans clean in cold water and but them all in a large mixing bowl. Splash (generous amounts of) the vinegar all over the beans. Throw in the finely chopped coriander and season with salt and lots of pepper. Mix it all together. Et voilà! You have accomplished your task. Garnish/Serving Tips & Tricks While serving it, you can garnish with some goat cheese or crumbs of feta. *You don't have  to use canned beans. You can just soak washed, uncooked beans overnight (I keep them soaked for 10 hours minimum). Then rinse them and cook them in a pressur...

So I have this friend. She really, really doesn't like cinnamon. And like a good friend, instead of accepting her as she is, I decided to tweak a vanilla muffin recipe into this one until she did. I find that cinnamon tends to dry out my muffins when I usually bake regular ones so be assured that this recipe is still nice and moist and most importantly- delicate. Yields: 10 large muffins Ingredients 1 cup of All-Purpose Flour 90 g Sugar* 1 tsp Baking Powder 1/4 tsp Salt 3/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon (You can be brave and add a whole tsp.. if you're into cinnamon and find it taxing to measure 3/4 tsp) 1/2 cup of Milk (room temperature) 1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence 1/4 cup of (softened) Unsalted Butter** 1 egg (room temperature) Instructions Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Take a large mixing bowl and sift the all-purpose flour in first. Add the sugar, baking powder, salt and the cinnamon. Mix. Create a crater in the centre of the dry ingredients for the ease of combin...

Crispy, buttery concoctions that simply melt in your mouth.. And one of the easiest recipes! Good choice for someone that is just starting baking. So this is a recipe out of New Zealand that I found i because of my friend in a British cookbook... I often get lazy to be very frank, find icing to be an unnecessary step.. So just a little titbit, the icing is optional especially if you are like me and don't really a sweet-tooth... Yields: Give or take 24 cookies. Ingredients 175 g Unsalted Butter (melted) 1/2 cups of Sugar 3 tbsp of Cocoa Powder 1 1/4 cups of All-Purpose Flour 2 cups of Cornflakes 1/4 tsp Salt Icing Dark Chocolate* Walnut Halves or Pecans** Instructions Preheat the oven to 180°C. Take a large mixing bowl and place the sugar and cocoa powder in it. Whisk the butter in until they are a homogenous mixture. Slowly whisk the flour in ensuring that there are no lumps. Fold the cornflakes into this mixture   Either grease an oven tray ...

A Lebanese parsley salad that I basically turned into Lime Central with some parsley as a stop on the way. Yields: My perfect portion for a full dinner. Ingredients Large bushel of Curly-leaf parsley - roughly chopped. 3 Tomatoes- finely diced* 1 Red Onion- finely diced 1/2 cup Cucumber- finely diced 1/2 cup bulgur wheat (Extra/Virgin) Olive Oil Seasoning Salt  Pepper 2 limes** Instructions Thoroughly wash the bulgur wheat until the water runs clear (like you would with rice) Soak the wheat in warm water, cover it and set aside while prepping the vegetables. The soak takes about 30 minutes. After the soaking is done, Drain all the water away and use a cheese cloth or muslin to squeeze all the water from the wheat and ensure that it is as dry as humanly possible. In a large bowl, put in the now drained bulgur wheat and squeeze the juice of 1 lime. I like to let this sit for a minute to let the bulgur soak up a bit of the lime juice. Add the tomatoes,...

A different rendition of a favoured comfort food. Yields: A single person's comfy dinner. Ingredients 1 cup Macaroni* 1 1/2 cups milk (with extra to spare just in case) 3-4 cloves of garlic- minced 1/2 yellow onion- finely chopped Butter or oil 75-100 g Creme Fraiche 1/2 cup grated Cheddar  Seasoning Salt Pepper Chilli (flakes or a Jalapeño) 1/4 tsp Garlic Powder Oregano Instructions Get a large sauce pan (non-stick is always a good idea) and put some oil in along with the garlic and salt on medium high heat. Stir until the oil is starting to heat up and add the diced onions. Stir again. Add the pepper, (chopped) chilli and garlic powder, stir it in and cover with a lid to let the onions cook through. Turn the heat lower to a medium low so that the onions don't burn. When the onions are translucent, add the milk let the milk slowly come to a boil. Just as the milk comes to a boil, add the pasta and the oregano. The addition of the pasta causes...

Make it on a lazy Sunday and you have a go-to quick meal for a week! Yields: More than enough for a week's worth of quick lunches. Ingredients 500 g spinach* Lots of garlic- minced (I use minimum 6 cloves because I must.)  100 g can of Sweet Corn Butter (Oil will do too  ¯\_( ツ )_/¯   ) 50 g Gorgonzola 50 g Jong Cheese** (or Cheddar will do too) Seasoning Salt Pepper Chilli(s) (Jalapeños work great) Instructions Prepare your spinach*. Get a pot and fill it with water and bring to a boil. Prepare a bowl with ice water on the side. Add some salt. When the water is at a boil, add the spinach in.  I leave it in for 10-20 seconds. Either grab the spinach with tongs or strain the water out and add the spinach to the ice bath so that it stops cooking.  You now have blanched spinach. Yay. Now just put this blanched spinach on a chopping board and just roughly chop into your preferred size. Get a sauce pan and melt the butter in it ...

Simple, rich and fresh soup.. What else do you need on a cool day? (Also known as Zucchini Onion Soup ) Yields: 4 generous servings. Or 8-10 stingy ones. Ingredients 2 courgettes 2-3 yellow onions (depending on size) 4-5 scallions 4-6 cloves of garlic Any neutral oil or butter (depending on how diet-y you are.)* 500l veggie stock (or a single bullion of any kind in half a litre of boiling water) Creme Fraiche Seasoning Salt Pepper Chilli(s)** 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder 1 tsp Cumin Powder Instructions Get the vessel/pot that you will use to make the soup ready to go by setting it up with some oil/butter in it already. Heat it up just a bit and set it aside to add the first portion of the ingredients. CHOP CHOP CHOP. It's easier to cook once everything is chopped, minced, diced and ready to go.  So start with the garlic and roughly chop it. Since everything is going to be blended at the end there is no real need for perfection- all you need is roughly t...

It's like French Toast. But better. Because it's not sweet. Yields: Breakfast for 1. Ingredients 2 (chicken) eggs (quail might be asking for trouble) Splash of milk (I really don't know how much I use but I think it's in the area of 1.5-2 tbsp) Bread. What I use: Regular breakfast- regular multigrain  Fancy breakfast- baguette* Forgetful breakfast- whatever bread I grabbed while I was grocery shopping 10 minuted before the shop closed from a very poor collection. I have even used hotdog buns once out of sheer desperation. Any oil or butter to grease pan Seasoning Salt Pepper Maggi seasoning (for me this is a must, but obviously optional for you) Chilli powder Cumin powder Coriander (like fresh. You can replace with the powder but it doesn't feel as good.) Instructions Get a large bowl and crack the eggs in. Lightly beat with either a whisk or chopsticks (some people use forks too). Add the splash of milk. NOTE: if you are plannin...

Before you use one of my recipes, do skim through this post just to be safe in terms of my seasoning habits... Or you might just make either bland food or something as salty as the sea! I don't do measurements for seasoning and spices. It's all about the mood and my own likes and dislikes. A nice way of putting it is that I'm, 'artistic'. The real way of putting it is that I'm reckless... Unless I'm making a dish for someone else, I rarely stick to using the same spices each time.. The number of times I've an extra gingery dish or something too cinnamon-ey is not even worth calculating at this point... I'm getting off-point here but what I mean to tell you is that I have a very wide selection of spices and I really do try to use them in every way. And that means that I come up with combinations that are often new or just not widely used as far as I know... Or they just taste off. You can't always win and that's an important lesson. In...