Friday, December 30, 2011

Recipe: Sauce tatar

I wrote about steak tartar a while ago, i just recently saw in the shop a glass of sauce tartar and wondered if they have something in common. I don't think so, but when i looked at the price, I thought, that must be possible cheaper ?

So i thought about what stuff is inside and came up with this recipe:
Make some Mayonnaise, as described here and than simply add some more pepper, salt, fine cut pickles and a onion.



Thats it, the sauce tastes not only great to fish dishes, but also on its own on a little piece of bread.

It took me about 10 Minutes to prepare this, including eating the bread ;-)

I wonder if I should make some of this and fill some half's of cooked eggs with it for new year ?

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Xmas Swimm

Its amazing, all around Ireland there have been Xmas swimmers for Charity on the morning of the 25th of December.


In West Cork at the Inchidony beach more than 250 turned up to run together in the water for a swim.

All of this is of course for different charities and lots of money has been raised for them
On stands hot tea and soup was provided for guests and swimmers.

Next year I will make it myself into the floods !

Monday, December 26, 2011

Recipe: Scotched Eggs

Do you know the Problem, you buy breakfast sausages for the long weekend, but than you are so busy so you only do a light breakfast since you had too much of the Xmas Turkey left anyhow, so all the lovely sausages stay in the fridge until you recognize they will go off shortly....

Last time I had the issue, I  looked up how else i could use them, and preserve them a little longer.
This is the result; Scotched Eggs,
so all you need is 4 Eggs, Breadcrumbs, and the Sausage meat.

First I did get rid of the skins.
I boiled the eggs pretty hard.

Than, use the sausage meat and cover each egg with it. And breadcrumb the "ball"
Finally fry them in a pan with middle heat.
Until nice golden brown.








You can eat them hot or cold, and 2-3 days in the stored in the fridge should be no problem !

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Merry Xmas

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Xmas !

You thought i would work today ?

Nope i am celebrating and scheduled this post ahead,
to wish you all a Merry Xmas !

Well i actually might take a few pictures or so,
of my Xmas Dinner, and how i used the rest of the Turkey,
and blog about that "Next Year" :-)

I will make a small break, and will be shortly back with new stories, recipes, etc.

Yours,
Clonlin

I hope you liked my blog so far,
if you have any tips for me what to try next, leave them in the comments !

Thursday, December 22, 2011

How to make Pickled Eggs ?


I categorized this recipe with cooking disaster, and I will explain later why...

But first let me start to explain, why i had the idea to make pickled eggs in the first place ?

You might remember my article of my chicken Heidi high preforming, and she is still together with the other chickens producing a lot of eggs every day.



So I was looking into it, how to conserve some eggs I wont use straight away, and add value to the product egg.
On a visit to London i heard about pickled eggs, so I had to try this.

On the above "pickture" you see what is needed:
4 eggs
100 ml vinegar
200 ml water
1 teaspoon English mustard
a bit of salt
a bit of sugar
1 onion

Boil the eggs hard, put them into a conserving glass, mix the other ingredients well and add them to the glass. There should be no air remaining in the glass

This way you can keep it for up to 2 month, you should anyway see or smell in case the egg goes bad.

I tasted it myself after 5 days, and here comes my point why I declared it as a cooking disaster. The egg was very much tasting like vinegar and mustard. I hated it and barley could eat that one egg.
Anyway, to be completely sure what I have done, I have asked on Face book for a English men to taste my pickled eggs. I shortly found one so I passed by Grahams Shop  to bring him the remaining three... He loved it...

Well, all ladies out there, if you want to make a English man happy,
you know now what to do !

So, will complete now the remaining Xmas Shopping !













Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Recipe: Pizza

Stressed shortly before Xmas ?

Thats no reason to buy fast food in a hurry,
there is always 15 minutes time to make your own,  home-made pizza, while wrapping up the Xmas Gifts !

My early gift to myself was a Kitchen machine from Bosch (modell MUM 4701) they didnt had a model named DAD 4701 :-)


So its even easier for me, since the pizza dough gets mixed by itself.

Thanks to Miriam for recommending that machine,
her mother got it already since 35 years, that I call quality for a low price !
Anyhow, throw the following ingredients in your machine if you got one, otherwise just do it by hand.
Ingredients:
1/2 packet yeast (10 gram)
3 cup flour (or about 600 gram)
1 cup warm water (or about 200 ml)
3 teaspoon of oil.

While the pizza dough gets mixed from your machine, get ready to prepare the toppings of your choice.
I used tomato with cheese, sausages, carpers, paprika, etc.


It was the first time I made Pizza from scratch, and it was so easy and soooooo good !
I will try in future now different variations of dough, this one was very fluffy and it raised quiet thick !


Enjoy !

Sunday, December 18, 2011

How to make a Xmas crib

I am not exactly a great wood worker,
but was still in need of a little Xmas Crib in order to present the lovely figures i got last year from my in laws in a nice setting under the Xmas tree.

I remembered the salt dough prints I did with my baby last summer. So I thought Salt dough can be used also the make a little building (crib)
So how to make the dough, you can look that up in my earlier post , unfortuantly in this project my one year old couldn't help much.

I started with a case kind of like a pizza,
and added on to that.

On the picture on the left you see i made walls, and checked if they will be high enough for the figures i already had.

With toothpicks I brought some strengths into the structure.
From time to time i put the structure for 10 minutes in the 180C degree oven, to make it more stable, and than to add on and make the walls high enough.

I figured i had to make pillars in the corner to support the structure as well.





Painting the roof, here my one year old could help.


The wholes in the room have been there,
but i figured i leave them, so i can stick through them 2 lights from the xmas tree lights later.

This way it will hopefully look more romantic.




.
Thats the final result, considered that i only spend about 30 minutes to form the building, i am pretty proud of myself looking at it.


I am already planning add ons for next year, and since the matterial is flexible I also could do more artwork on it, with paining it, or add an wall brick stone effect, etc...

With 2 pins i actually fixed also 2 angels on the roof...

Well, anyway, thats a easy way to make a little crib, with 100%  biodegradable ingredients.

Enjoy the Xmas time !

Friday, December 16, 2011

Recipe: Schnitzel

Earlier this year I wrote about Schnitzel in a blog post, and was now asked what it is and how its made.
Its so simple but delicious, here it goes:

Get yourself some Pork chops from the local store or butcher and follow the instructions below.
 Ingredients:
 Pork
 Flour
 Breadcrumbs (can be self made from dried bread our bought)
 Eggs
 Salt and Pepper, Lemon, Potatoes
 butter

First use a hammer to flatten the pork, than spice it wit Salt and Pepper. Put it in the flour, after in the eggs and finally in the breadcrumbs.



Its a bit messy for your fingers so you can use a fork to if you like.
After you prepared all, fry them in the pan with lots of butter, until they are golden brown. Traditionally Schnitzel is served with Potatoes, and arranged with fresh Parsley and lemon.

Enjoy !

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Recipe: Crème brûlée

It was my first time making Crème brûlée, so I was nervous, having a French wife i wanted to fulfil the expectations.

It turned out actually so good that to have to share my recipe, which I adjusted a bit from a original recipe I found online:



Ingredients for 6 portions:
400 ml Cream
200 ml milk
90 gram sugar
4 Egg yolks
1 pack Vanilla sugar (or use sugar and a vanilla stick)

brown sugar to make the caramel on top with a burner.

Basically you mix all together, but be careful not to get to much of bubbles or even a foam into the cream. I kept the cream overnight in the fridge, but its also okay if you let it rest only for a few hours.

Next step is to take a oven tray, and the ceramic to fill in the creme. Its Important that the containers for the cream are not too big, look at the size in my pictures, that was a perfect size one.



Fill the baking tray half way up with water so the containers are surrounded by it and give it in the preheated oven at 150 degree C for 45 minutes.

The cream should have settled. As a last step sprinkle the brown sugar over the creme and burn it so it builds a nice layer of caramel on top.

You can serve the creme still warm, or I actually prefer it once it has cooled off.

Its gorgeous !
Men out there, think about serving that to your Lady on new year or valentines day,
She will love you !