Cook What . . . . . .

Cook what you like to eat is the way to go.  Happy and confident preparation in cooking is the answers to success.  The result is excellent, and the taste is delicious, you are so glad to eat it and happy to serve it for the family and share it with friends.

Dishes, From Mains, Sweets and Snacks

Rice and Garnishes (Javanese Cooking)
Steamed rice, white and yellow served with sambal goreng, empal (double-cooked beef) opor ayam, gulai kambing (lamb curry), Terik Telor (braised egg in mild coconut sauce ) sauteed beans, gudangan (vegetable salad with coconut dressing). Recipes of these dishes are in my older posts.

Javanese food, love to eat and love to cook.

Steamed White Rice Cone - Garnishes

Yellow Rice with Garnishes

Fried rice or nasi goreng, I seldom cook, it's not very popular with my family.  But rice pilaf is delicious, quick preparation only and served with meat or vegetable dishes. Easy rice pilafs to do are tomato rice pilaf, rice pilaf with middle eastern flavour.  Both pilafs are delicious garnished with meat or spiced vegetables.
Pasta and potato served with braised meat, chicken, and fish the family love these dishes, and often I prepare and cook them for the family,  comfortably.

Desserts are prepared when the girls and family home for a visit.  Or having friends around.
But I love baking cakes, scones and braised or poached fruits and sometimes these beautiful sweets are shared with friends.
Poached fruits served with yoghurt is excellent and easy enough.  I made the best of the quinces from the market this year, poached /braised them and the result were amazingly beautiful.

Quinces Braised/Poached in Syrup with Cinnamon. Cloves, Bay Leaves

I do this yearly since I got to know this old fashion fruit.

Poached apple and pear are often I do, keep well refrigerated, for future need.
A friend stops by, and we had a slice of chocolate and nut cake, served with the poached pear.

Poaching pear in red wine

Chocolate and Nut Cake

Sweets: Cakes and Tarts

Sponge cake is one of the family's favourites.  Often I serve it not only for morning or afternoon tea but also as desserts.  Ice cream is offered with extra fresh or poached fruits.

Two eggs sponge for this cake and baked in two small round tin.

Fresh Baked Sponge

Sponge Cake with Fresh Fruits

Chocolate cake, there are a lot of chocolate cakes, from simple to the decadent one.  Simple chocolate cake for afternoon tea baking this time, cut into slices and simply dress it with a topping.  I love the flavour of coffee in this chocolate cake.

The Recipe

My Chocolate and Coffee Cake

Ingredients
200 gr chocolate block
25 ml of cream
100 g unsalted butter
(melt the chocolate with, butter and the cream)
1/2 cup strong coffee
1 heaped cup plain flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 large egg
1 tablespoon yoghurt

Method
Place the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, add in the melted chocolate mixture and the coffee, mix quickly to make a smooth cake mix.
Add in the egg, yoghurt, and mix them together until the mixture rich to a drop spoon consistency
Place the dough in a rectangular line in
Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 45 minutes.

Let it stay on the tin for five minutes, turn it out, and cool on a cooling tray.
Dress the cake, with chocolate topping and nut





Family sponge cakes and meringue are beautiful, and the grandchildren love them.  Three egg sponge cake it is.

The recipe for the sponge
3 large eggs
3/4 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1level cup flour consists of of-1/2 cup cornflour-1/4 custard powder and 1/4 cup self - rising flour.
1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teasp[oon bicarbonate of soda.
Method
Line two sandwich tins with baking paper
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate soda three times
Beat the eggs and sugar until light and creamy, for about 9 minutes or longer.
Add in two spoons of the flour mix, stir and fold gently
Continue adding the flour to the egg mixture a little bit at the time, stir and fold gently
Pour two the two prepared tins, divide the cake mixture evenly
Bake in the preheated oven for 16-20 minutes
Take them out from the oven, and transfer to a cooling tray to cool.
Join the cake with jam and whipped cream and top with fresh fruits.

Susy Home Baked Tart

Tarts
It is good to cook a relax way, use bought puff pastry and bake the pies with any fruit filling in the season. I do this a lot. However, it is a good feeling if the tart is prepared from a scratch, the pastry and the filling is homemade preserved or poached fresh fruits.

Dress the crust with chopped nuts for extra texture and finished it off with icing sugar for dusting.




Scones and Snacks.
Scones

Scones with homemade jam topping

Scones, either sweet, fruity or plain are a part of my baking.  I could freeze them for time-saving.

Fruit Scones

 Anyone could easily do this, and the ingredients are from the pantry

Snacks
Using Susy water pastry is the easiest to do for vegetable cheese and egg pie.  The pastry is made out of flour and water.  The filling is from the garden: vegetables, herbs, and the cheese and egg from the refrigerator.  A savoury for snacking, a childhood favourite was martabak, and I do it often too.

Martabak is a mixed egg, spring onion, wrapped in delicate pastry and fried.  

Preparing Martabak

Fancy Flat Bread

Flat Bread

These flatbreads are delicious for snacking.

The ingredients are flour, yeast, salt.  Flavoured with cheese and olives.

I hope it is enough to give you the idea, you don't' need the recipe.




Those above dishes are sample what I love to do, cook from your heart people say, and cook what you love to eat, then you cannot go wrong.  Indeed, I do agree!.

Special Occasions
Birthday party for the family or only a special dinner for a celebration.  Gather ingredients from the pantry and cook honest and simple food.  Most of the time, the result is very satisfying.  The idea just precisely the same, cook what you like and want to eat.
Poached chicken breast and the garnishes for the celebration did need a little organisation, but it was just as fun because the dish was cooked with love and was well received and appreciated.

Susy's Feast

Susy's Feast
Rustic Poach Chicken Rolls Served with Sage Flower/Tarragon-Brown Butter
Garnished with Roasted Root Vegetables and Stuffed MushroomsAdd caption

To cook this dish, please open my older post, simply type Susy's Feast to search.  There are instruction and information on how to prepare the dish.

There are a lot more fancy cooking for parties, please look and explore the blog.  And type party dishes to search.

Cooking what you like to eat is the best reason anyone can have as the reward is priceless.

Everyday cooking is taking place in my kitchen, and I do just that. Well, every day almost.  I tell you what, one day I cooked a simple and delicious dinner and only took me for 11 minutes or even less to be at the table.  As lunch is always at six or before, and that day the cooking did not start after half-past five, that made the family anxious and thought secretly that today would not be any evening meal.  He was so completely wrong.  And what was the 'Dish'?  Cooked with fresh ingredients and from scratch served with sourdough bread.  Now You May Guess!


Until Next Post
Susy