No Bake Strawberry Yoghurt Tart ?????

Actually I planned to make Yoghurt Cheesecake�. a Secret recipe copycat.. But I didn�t get hold of cream cheese and my yoghurt�s coming to it�s use by date.. And I got a lot of fresh strawberries in the fridge (just went to Camerons the week before, Strawberries were on sale, RM20 /2kg @ 4 big boxes).

So, this came as a sudden idea. I planned to use digestive biscuits for this, but the minimart nearby didn�t have it. So, I changed plans to use Oreo and Weetameal instead.


No Bake Strawberry Yoghurt Tart Recipe

Ingredients:

Weetameal Crust
130gm Jacob�s Weetameal (1 small pack)
2 Tbsp honey
65 gm melted butter

Oreo Crust
150gm Oreo (1 tube)
50 gm melted butter

Yoghurt Filling
500gm / 2 cups good creamy strawberry yoghurt
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp sugar
1 � Tbsp gelatin
2 Tbsp water

Topping
2 cups of strawberries (cut into halves)
1 cup water
2 Tbsp sugar
� Tbsp gelatin

Method:
1. Weetameal crust: Blend biscuits in a food processor, mix in honey and melted butter. Mix well.
2. Oreo crust: Blend whole cookies in a food processor and mix in melted butter. Mix well.
3. Press crumbs into a deep dish or tart foils. Freeze.
4. While tart cases are freezing, prepare filling. Bloom gelatin in water. Boil milk and sugar. Pour onto bloomed gelatin. Stir until gelatin is totally dissolved. Leave to cool down.
5. Pour yoghurt into milk, mix well. Ladle yoghurt mixture into chilled tart cases.
6. Place tarts into the fridge again to set and then prepare topping.
7. Boil water and sugar, remove from heat and sprinkle in gelatin. Stir to dissolve. Leave to cool until syrupy consistency.
8. When yoghurt filling has set, arrange strawberries on top of filling and spoon in a 5mm layer of gelatin mixture.
9. Chill in fridge until everything is set.




The tarts I made, 2 big and 2 small




Weetameal crust






Weetameal crust cut up







Oreo crust







Oreo crust cut up



****

I personally prefer Oreo crust

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Vegetarian Stuffed Crust Pizza ????

I was given a large oval aubergine/eggplant/brinjal on my trip to the Camerons the week before. My vegetarian colleague had earlier asked me whether I know how to make pizza, and, it had been ages since I last made pizza. So, I�ll make pizza with this aubergine.

Vegetarian Stuffed Crust Pizza Recipe (for two 12 inch pizzas)
Crust (for 2 12 inch pizzas)

Ingredients:
3 � cups High Protein Flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup water
1 � tsp yeast
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Dissolve yeast in water. Mix flour with salt. Pour in yeast mixture and olive oil. Knead until dough is no longer sticky. Leave to proof until double. Punch down and shape into pizza.
**
Well, I kept the dough overnight in the fridge after punching down (no shaping) because I wanted the pizza for lunch instead, and I�ll be waking up late.

Toppings (for 2 12 inch pizzas)

500 gm mozzarella cheese (some grated, some cut into strips)
1 cup tomato pasta sauce
1 red onion, sliced
1 green capsicum, sliced
1 yellow capsicum , sliced
1 big red tomato, sliced
1 big aubergine, sliced and pan fried with a bit of olive oil.
� cup button mushrooms, sliced
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Assembly.
1. Roll out dough, pulling the edges until it�s bigger than the pan.
2. Arrange mozzarella strips on the edges and wrap them up by folding in the edges. Place shaped dough into an oiled pan.

3. Spread 1 Tbsp olive oil onto dough surface evenly.

4. Spread 4 tbsp of pasta sauce onto dough.

5. Arrange toppings starting with the heaviest, aubergine, tomato, onions, capsicum and mushrooms.

6. Sprinkle salt and pepper over pizza. Bake in a preheated oven at 190C for 15 minutes or until the crust is slightly golden
7. Take out from oven and sprinkle on grated mozzarella. Bake for another 12 minutes or until the crust is golden and cheese all melted and golden.

8.Cut pizza while it�s still hot and enjoy the stringy cheese dripping from the sides of the pizza.

****
I made 1 for lunch, and baked another the next morning to bring to work.

****
Crust recipe and tips for baking adapted from annamariavolpi

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Pandan Sponge Cups

My hubby was complaining why I'm making fancy cakes nowadays.

He wants me to make simpler cakes for him instead.

So, I used the sponge recipe from Strawberry Mirror Cake to make him this pandan sponge for midnight supper.

Pandan Sponge Cups Recipe

3 eggs

3 egg yolks

150gm sugar

1 tsp pandan emulco

3 egg whites

1 pinch cream of tartar

1 tbsp sugar

75gm sifted cake flour

1. Preheat oven to 190C.

2. Beat eggs whites until foamy, then add in cream of tartar. Beat until soft peaks, then add in 1 tbsp of sugar and beat until stiff and glossy.

3. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, egg yolks, and sugar until creamy, pale and light. Beat in pandan emulco.

4. Sift cake flour. Fold into egg yolk mixture.

5. Stir in 1/3 of beaten egg whites into egg yolk mixture. Then fold in the rest of the egg whites.

6. Spoon batter into muffin cups until 1cm to the rim. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

****

This recipe yields 12 sponge cups.

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Eggplant with Fragrant Topping ????

Eggplant or brinjal is one vegetable that many people either love it or hate it, it's the extreme of either ends. I love eggplants... but less oil please.

In Chinese cooking, eggplants are usually deep fried before cooking with other ingredients. They do this to "strengthen" the structure, so that it won't be all mushy. But it's a bit too oily, cos, eggplants are good oil 'suckers' !!!

I have a few creations that doesn't require the eggplant to be fried. This is one of them.

I know there is another version... that boils the eggplant til soft, peel them, torn to small pieces, and topped with sambal, soy sauce and lime juice.... This is not the same.. not the same..

Eggplant with Fragrant Toppings recipe

Ingredients
1 long eggplant
3 shallots
2 cloves garlic
1 red chili
1 Tbsp dried shrimp (washed, dried, chopped finely, but I used very small dried shrimps, so there�s no need to chop them up, the drier the shrimp, the crispier they'll be)
� tsp salt
2 Tbsp oil

Method
1. Chop shallot, and garlic finely. Separately chop chili finely too

2. Boil a small saucepan of water. Cut eggplants just to fit the width of the pot.
Blanch eggplants until they are cooked and soft, but not soggy. This takes less than 2 minutes

3. Drain egg plants and cut into strips.

4. Arrange nicely on a plate.

5. Heat wok and put in oil. Saute garlic and shallots until slightly golden.

6.Put in chopped chili and dried shrimp, and saut� until everything is golden and very fragrant

7. Put in salt, and stir.

8. Place fragrant toppings over blanched eggplants

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Assam Prawns ???

This is another family favourite from Grandaunty.

When grandaunty made this dish last time, she�ll divide the prawns equally among family members. The children have lunch and dinner at home, and the adults only have dinner. If we�ve eaten all our prawns by lunch, then it�s no more by dinner. No stealing!!! So, we�ll eat half of our portion and save the rest for dinner. We learn to cherish our assam prawns.

This is a slightly different version that most of the assam prawns that I�ve eaten in restaurants. Ours is slightly carameled, rather sweet and made with very simple ingredients.

Ingredients:
300 gm prawns (as thick as my index finger when shelled, about 200gm)
3 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp tamarind paste
� tsp salt
1 red chili, finely chopped.
2 Tbsp oil

Method:
1. Shell prawns, leaving on the tail.
2. Add in sugar and salt.
3. Marinate for 30 minutes.
4. Add in tamarind paste. Combine well using fingers, removing seeds (if there is) as the fingers rub the tamarind paste onto the prawns.
5. Add in chili. Mix well.
6. Heat wok, add in 2 Tbsp oil and wait until the oil is hot, pour in prawns.
7. Fry them until prawns are slightly caramelized. Dish up.



***
The remaining oil is best used to fry kangkung� or other belacan based dishes.

***
Cook prawns immediately after adding in tamarind. If not they�ll taste half rotten later.

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Barazek (Middle Eastern Pistachio Sesame Cookies)

My hubby's aunt brought these wonderful cookies back from Australia, and I fell in love with it.
And I found out that they were middle eastern cookies.



I found a recipe on the internet with pictures that matched what I ate because I saw many barazek pictures that didn't look like what I ate.



Ingredients
3 cups sesame seeds
1/2 cups honey

1 1/4 cup ghee (clarified butter)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 cups flour
2 cups sugee (semolina)
1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup chopped pistachios

Method:

Topping
Mix the sesame seeds and honey.

The dough
Cream ghee, eggs, sugar and salt.
Sift in flour, sugee and baking powder.
Mix well.

Assembly
1. Take 1/2 tbsp dough.


2. Drop dough onto chopped pistachios that has been placed on a flat plate.Lightly press dough onto pistachios.

3. With the dough sticking on the back of the spoon, drop the dough pistachio nut side up onto the sesame honey mixture.Lightly press the dough

4. Spoon out dough with generous amount of sesame sticking at the bottom.

5. Place dough sesame side up pistachio side down onto baking tray. Lightly press them flat.

6. Bake at 170C for 15 minutes

7. Cool on baking tray for 2 minutes before transfering to wire rack to fully cool down.

Yummy yummy!!

***

I made this for Chinese New Year. Hub's side of family loved this, my side who were not sesame fans... were just so so about this.

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Wendy's Lasagna

This is a backpost, way back to Chinese New Year 2008.

I had open house for my friends, and I made lasagne for them, they are fans of cheese and all things close to the cow.



Did some research and I find that the cheeses that they use is kind of rare in Malaysia, and the most important is they are darn pricey here.

I saw on pioneerwomancooks the way she does hers was easy, but finding hot sausages is rather difficult here. She uses cottage cheese, mozarella and grated parmesan... I just downed it all to mozarella. Used fresh tomatoes and did away with the hot sausages. I added cream to the white layer to make it creamier... Some of my friends can't take beef, so I changed it to chicken... the rest of it, stayed kinda similiar.

So, here's my way of doing it, using easier to find ingredients.

Wendy's Lasagna Recipe

Tomato base
1 Kg minced chicken
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
1 bulb Big onion (finely chopped)
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp dried basil
2 Tbsp dried parsley
2 cups pureed fresh tomatoes
1 large can San Remo tomato paste (I think it's around 500gm)
2 tsp salt

Saute garlic and onion in olive oil. Put in minced chicken and cook until brown. Add in tomato puree, tomato paste, parsley, basil and salt. Cook mixture until it is almost dry. Dish up and let mixture cool down

White Sauce base
1 cup whipping cream
2 eggs
300gm grated Mozarella Cheese
2 Tbsp dried parsley

Mix everything together well.

Final Assembly
1 Packet of instant lasagne sheets (250gm)
200gm grated mozarella cheese
1 Tbsp butter

1. Butter the base of a 9 X13 inch baking pan.
2. Lay a layer of lasagna sheets on the bottom.
3. Spoon carefully half the white base onto the lasagne sheets.
4. Spoon 1/3 of the tomato base onto the white layer, making sure not to disturb the white base.
5. Lay another layer of lasagne sheets on top of the tomato base layer.
6. Repeat step 3, 4 and 5.
7. Top the lasagna sheets with the final 1/3 of the tomato base and sprinkle grated mozarella on top generously.
8. Bake at 170C for 30 minutes.

I made this 2 days in advance and kept it in the fridge until my friends arrived. Made them wait for lunch..... hahaha!!!

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