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Friday 8 July 2016

Summary of Food Blogs 51-100

I have had numerous requests from individuals for recipes that were published in the past. A couple of people have asked that I publish all of them in a book, and others have suggested a compilation blog, with links to the kitchen blogs only. I'll keep the book idea on ice for now, but here is the second installment of the summary blogs in the meantime. Links, photos, and introductory paragraphs all included. Enjoy!

Blog 51 - Making Delicious Homemade Sweetcorn
"I love sweetcorn, but the tins rarely if ever satisfy in terms of quality. For this reason I experimented until I was satisfied with the results and I now have a recipe that has my guests asking for more. Best is that it is so simple to make and that you probably have everything you need at hand."


Blog 52 - Baking Corn Bread
"I love everything made with corn, be it chips, pap, or bread. The rest of my family are much the same. This is why baking corn bread is such a hit and I return to this family favorite every so often. Never baked it before? You will not believe how easy it is."


Blog 53 - Baking and Decorating a Minnie Mouse Cake Part 1
"My little niece turned four 3 days before Christmas. I have blogged before about her love for Minnie Mouse and it came as no surprise when she said that she wanted a Minnie Mouse Cake for her birthday. She even placed an order for a pink polka dot dress as a gift! Inevitably this became the theme of the party and her aunt set about baking and decorating the cake. In today's blog I share a brilliant recipe with you for baking shaped cakes and we cut the shape from the cake. In the next blog we'll begin the decorating process."


Blog 54 - Baking and Decorating a Minnie Mouse Cake Part 2
"Today we will be decorating a Minnie Mouse birthday cake for a four year old. In yesterday's blog we baked the cake and shaped it. Today we will fill it, dirty ice it and then cover it with fondant. I'll walk you through this very easy process."


Blog 55 - Making an Old-Fashioned Trifle
"Trifle is certainly not a fashionable dessert any longer, yet it remains one of my firm favorites. Every Christmas, without fail, my maternal grandmother would make a huge trifle and the whole extended family would gather at their home for Christmas. The kids would sleep in the lounge on a huge Christmas bed and the adults would try and fit into the bedrooms. Those are some of my fondest childhood memories and no doubt is a primary reason for my nostalgia about trifle. When I was in high school, I tried my first attempt at making trifle. How difficult could it be? My gran said that you prepared the different parts separately and then simply mixed them together. I did just that! What I got was a gooey mess that resembled something associated with castor oil, which does not belong on a food blog! Yet, I learned from my mistakes and am happy to walk you through the pitfalls of trifle in today's blog."


Blog 56 - Baking a Lemon Meringue Pie
"I love Lemon Meringue Pie, but I can't always find one that is just the perfect balance of sweet and tangy. Truthfully, I often resist buying myself a slice, because I find that too often it simply becomes unbearably sweet. Is mine better? I don't know. Perhaps it's simply that I do not serve myself humongous slices and therefore find it more manageable! You be the judge of the quality, but in the meantime, I'll share with you my own version of a baked Lemon Meringue Pie."


Blog 57 - Baking a Garlic, Chili & Cheese Loaf
"I have become fascinated with bread of late and am experimenting with a lot of recipes. One that found great favour with the family over the holiday season was a savoury loaf I baked with garlic, chili and cheese in it. I did not have a lot hope that my sisters-in-law would like it, as they are very squeamish when it comes to chillies, but even they went back for second and third helpings. That decided it; it was a recipe I had to share with you."


Blog 58 - Leftover Dough? Bake some Savoury Quick Snacks
"I often have small pieces of dough left over from baking projects, such as when I've covered a pie, or something like that. I freeze these and when I have enough of them (or unforeseen guests), I quickly roll them out and make a couple of quick snacks. In today's blog, I use two different kinds of dough, leftover from other baking occasions, but treat them exactly the same when making the snacks. This one is easy enough for the kids to do, with you supervising when it comes to the warm oven."


Blog 59 - Sesame Seed Bread
"Today we will be baking a lovely Sesame Seed Bread with wholewheat flour. As mine is intended for a potjiekos as a side dish, I choose to bake it in rolls so that it can be served as a tear and share bread. This makes it so much easier to serve when gathering outside around the fire. Always try to keep in mind the type of gathering when deciding the shape your bread should take."


Blog 60 - Mixing Your Own Sour Dough Starter
"We have become so accustomed to bread and other baked goods made with instant yeast that most of us had forgotten about the rich flavours and aromas afforded us by baking with a natural sour dough. Not familiar with this? I had to explain this to my brother the other day, as well. Sour dough is developed when we mix a basic dough to which we add a natural reactor. We let this stand for a few days, allowing a process of fermentation to develop. When all is ready, we have a dough with live cultures that will leaven our baked goods adding that distinctive sour dough flavour. I show you how I learned to start my own sour dough in today's blog and then we can put it to use in upcoming projects."


Blog 61 - Baking an Olive Bread fit for Italy
"Olives. You either hate them or you love them. I fall into the latter category and can hardly think of enough uses for that delectable little fruit. Small wonder then that my experimentation with bread brought me to a recipe for baking olive bread. I baked this one during the course of a morning and it was ready for early lunch. Very easy to do."


Blog 62 - Baking a Sourdough Bread from a Discarded Starter
"In a previous blog I shared in detail my successes and failures in growing a sourdough starter. Not wanting to discard any of the mixture, I kept saving it, until it had grown into a phenomenal amount of mixture. I decided to attempts baking a loaf of sourdough bread with this and, thinking that you might be as interested as I am in the results, decided to to record the process photographically. This blog reflects that record, with explanations of the process added."


Blog 63 - Homemade Pizza, made with Sourdough
"Who does not love Pizza? I know that it is a great favourite with everyone in my family. I have been wanting to try my hand at making homemade pizza dough for a while and somehow never got around to it. Today was going to be the day when I finally did. I searched through a number of recipes, but could not find any that used sourdough. In that case there was only one thing to do; make my own adjusted recipe from what I've read. I will give you alternative steps for using yeast as I walk you through the steps, allowing your the option of selecting what works best for you."


Blog 64 - Baking Rye Bread with a Sourdough Starter
"I suppose you either love Rye Bread, or you loathe it. I love it! I have to admit that I find a 100% Rye Bread simply too chewy and heavy for my taste and therefore prefer to mix the rye with some other grains. Perusing a number of recipes for Rye Bread has led me to conclude that this must be true for most people as most recipes have the rye mixed with other flours. I bake my own mixture in today's blog, using the sourdough starter discards that I have blogged about before. I'll give tips for alternative raising agents throughout the blog, if you do not have a sourdough starter ready."


Blog 65 - Baking Sweet White Rusks with a Sourdough Starter (alternative options given)
"It is not news to regular readers of the blog that I am nurturing a sourdough starter. The problem is that we are in the middle of a heatwave that has temperatures sky rocketing to record highs. This is not the ideal climate to bake in. The result is that my starter has now grown to phenomenal proportions and I took advantage of the first break in the weather to bake. In today's blog I will show you how I adapted an ages old recipe for Sweet White Rusks so I could use my sourdough starter. However, since I know that everybody does not have a starter ready, I will also share the use of alternative raising agents in the blog."


Blog 67 - Baking Mosbolletjies with a Sourdough Starter
"I still had lots of sourdough starter left after the extreme heatwave we experienced drove me out of the kitchen. As a result, I baked up a storm as soon as the weather broke and high on my list of priorities was baking Mosbolletjies using my sourdough starter. I adapt an old recipe to use my starter, but share the use of alternative raising agents in the blog as well."


Blog 68 - Using a Sourdough Starter to Bake White Bread
"I am still having great fun with the sourdough starter I shared with you in one of the previous blogs. I decided it was high time I found out how it would fare if I baked a normal white loaf with it. And that is how it came to be that I baked white bread at home, instead of buying at the nearest shop. I hope I'm not giving it all away when I say that the test warranted the effort, leaving me very satisfied with the results."


Blog 69 - Baking Italian Panettone with your Sourdough Starter
"It certainly isn't news to anyone that I have fallen in love with the delicious flavours added to my baked products since I started using my own home-grown sourdough starter as a raising agent. The problem is that the starter is alive and growing. This keeps me on my toes and I need to keep on baking if I don't want the starter to take over my life. I decided it was time for something a little foreign for today's baking experiment. I would try my hand at baking an Italian Panettone. This could easily be my favorite of all the attempts to date. Let me know what you think."


Blog 70 - Mixing Peppermint Fondant
"Someone shared a recipe for a deliciously looking peppermint fondant on Facebook not to  long ago. The recipe caught my attention and I opened the link to read some more. When I saw that it did not require any cooking and could be mixed with stuff I already had in the house, I knew I was going to make it. I am happy to share my findings with you in today's blog."


Blog 71 - Making Delicious Welsh Rarebit
"I had already left school when I was introduced to Welsh Rarebit the first time. I was hooked. This was something I simply had to know more about. Eventually I developed my own version of a flavourful Welsh Rarebit and this is what I share with you today. It must be one of the quickest meals to produce when you've no time on your hands."


Blog 72 - Baking Focaccia with a Sourdough Starter (alternatives given)
"We are mostly familiar with Focaccia being a pizza without the toppings in South Africa. Really it is a very delicious yeast bread that is served flat, like pizza, flavoured with toppings of your choice, but recognizably without the melted cheese indulgence. In today's blog I show you how to use your sourdough starter to bake this Italian delicacy as a perfect side dish. I give tips for using alternative raising agents as well, if you do not have a sourdough starter ready."


Blog 73 - Baking a Hungarian Split Farmhouse Loaf
"I am having so much fun trying out a variety of bread recipes from around the world. What makes it even more fun is that I can bring you on the journey with me by means of these blogs. Just a pity it isn't possible to cut yourself a slice! Today we visit Hungary to bake one of this country's signature loaves, the Split Farmhouse loaf. If you research this recipe, you will find that it has the same basic ingredients across the board. However, since I am not a fan of White Bread, I swapped out some of the ingredients to give it my own South African(?) twist. Don't worry, I'll give you the original recipe as well, if you want to stick to it. As always, I will be using the sourdough starter blogged about earlier, while giving tips for using alternative raising agents as well."


Blog 74 - Baking American Monkey Bread with a Sourdough Starter (alternatives given)
"When I came across this recipe in one of my recipe books, I immediately knew I would have to try it. What can be better than a slightly sweet bread filled with nuts and raisins? It simply looked and sounded too delicious not to bake it at least once. But, having a growing sourdough starter in the house, it was a no-brainer that I would have to adapt the recipe to use this. I'll share the alternative options for other raising agents with you as always."


Blog 75 - Making Slow-Cooked Green Curry Chicken
"I am a huge curry fan and love spicy food. Yet, I always need to bear in mind that I am cooking for a South African palette that is not fond of foods that are too hot. Today I share a recipe for making a mild Green Curry Chicken that is slow cooked in the oven. Simply delicious!"


Blog 76 - Baking Jewish Challah with Rye Flour and a Sourdough Starter
"Jewish Challah is a plaited yeast bread that is eaten with festivals. I adapt this popular dish to include a little Rye flour and to use my sourdough starter. As always, I will also give directions for using other raising agents."


Blog 77 - Making Nachos in a Jiffy
"We all love Nachos, but since it is such a rich dish we have it very rarely. Yet, it is a brilliant dish to prepare if you have very little time on your hands. Only, be warned, do not expect any leftovers to make it to the next day!"


Blog 78 - Baking a Moroccan Holiday Bread Using a Sourdough Starter (alternatives given)
"This bread is incredibly tasty due to the use of various seeds both in the dough and sprinkled on top. It is a little heavier in texture than many another bread. This is as a result of the use of polenta in the dough. However, since the polenta makes up such a small percentage of the flours added, the bread can certainly not be called too heavy. Truly a brilliantly beautiful bread to eat."


Blog 79 - Baking 'Ultimate Braai Broodjies'
"My mom shared a post for 'Ultimate Braai Broodjies' with me on Facebook. It was a recipe she had encountered on someone else's wall. She suggested we gave it a try, and as it seemed absolutely delicious, and she arrived home with a packet of ready dough, the two of us set out immediately to do prepare dinner - without the braai! There were a couple of snags in the recipe and I'll walk you through it. As good as it looks? Our conclusion: Even better!"


Blog 80 - Baking Oatmeal Bread with a Sourdough Starter (alternatives given)
"In today's blog we are going the healthy route, baking an Oatmeal Bread. The flavours in this bread are simply delicious and you will not regret having tried it. Unlike most breads it is made with milk. The combination of the milk and oats is where it derives its flavours from. Now add your Sourdough Starter and it can only get better. As always, I do discuss alternative raising agents as well."


Blog 81 - Ham, Bacon & Mushroom Quiche
"If there is one thing that will win my family's hearts, it is a good ole quiche. Now, if you are anything like them, then you have to try this one. It has everything that is to love about quiche and is loaded with protein, having ham, bacon, egg and cheese. I add the mushroom and green pepper because a few veggies makes anything better in my opinion."


Blog 82 - Baking a Berry Meringue Cake
"Normally I refrain from baking excessively sweet cakes, but every once in a while I will allow myself some indulgence to the children's delight and the chagrin of the adults. Oh well, all sugar highs will eventually wear off ;-). Today's Berry Meringue Cake is certainly sweet, but few things beat it for taste, texture and visual appeal. You have to make this one at least once in your life."


Blog 83 - Making Home-Made Ice Cream
"May I confess that I am one of a minute group of people who do not like ice cream. Therefore making home-made ice-cream never occurred to me to do. That is until the 16-year old in my life walked into the kitchen as I was baking with a tub of chilled cream in his hands. He wanted to make ice cream and naturally figured that his aunt would be up for the experiment. Well, okay then. As we are both coffee-holics, that is the flavour we settled on. We did a Google research, read a couple of recipes, kept the ideas we liked and discarded the rest. This blog shares our experimental Home-Made Coffee Ice Cream recipe with you."


Blog 84 - Date, Almond & Cherry Coffee Cake With A Sourdough Starter (alternatives given)
"I found this delicious looking recipe for a Coffee Cake in one of my recipe books and decided to try it out. As per usual, for me, I adapted the recipe so that I could use my Sourdough starter. I also changed the suggested fillings of the original recipe completely. I give advice for using alternative raising agents in the blog as well."


Blog 85 - Baking Italian Pane al Cioccolato with a Sourdough Starter
"What to do when your Sourdough starter has grown to the point where you HAVE to use it, but you really crave some sweet chocolate? Bake an Italian Chocolate Loaf! Today's recipe is one that I adapted from one of my favorite recipe books so I could use my sourdough starter. As always, I will give advice for using other raising agents in the recipe."


Blog 86 - Baking Brown Bread with a Sourdough Starter
"It took running out of bread in the house for me to realize that I have neglected sharing this very easy recipe for baking everyday brown bread with a sourdough starter with you. What is brilliant about this recipe is that if you take a careful look at the list of ingredients on your Low GI bread in the shops, you will notice that they use largely the same ingredients. This bread really will sustain you much longer than most. As always, I give advice for using alternative raising agents as well."


Blog 87 - Baking and Serving French Couronne with a Sourdough Starter
"French Couronne is a basic white bread, shaped like a giant doughnut. What makes it exceptionally brilliant is the fact that it is traditionally started with a Chef, better known to us as a Sourdough Starter. Most recipes will start you with instructions for starting your chef, but you can use the Sourdough Starter we have been using with great success in this recipe. I share the recipe with you and then end it with a lovely serving suggestion at the end."


Blog 88 - Baking Sweet & Savoury Scone Cakes
"The kids were visiting today and I had to think of something to feed them real quick. They insisted on having something sweet, but I wanted to include something savoury as well. Out came an old trick I learned from my mom. We would bake two batches of scones in cake format, one sweet and one savoury"


Blog 89 - Baking Sicilian Sfincione, Using Sourdough to Add Flavour
"We have been baking a lot of products where we used our sourdough starter as a raising agent. In today's blog it will give slight rise to our dough, but mostly, we will be using it to add flavour to the dough. We bake a Sicilian Sfincione, which is Sicily's version of Italian Pizza."


Blog 90 - Baking Wholewheat & Rye Pistolets with a Sourdough Starter
"Pistolets are small round buns with a hard crust and a soft center, that originate from Brussels. We put our own twist on these delicacies when we bake them with a wholewheat and Rye combo in today's blog. As usual, I will be using my sourdough starter, but I will also give advice for using other raising agents in the blog."


Blog 91 - Making a Sourdough Starter (without the pitfalls)
"I have written an extensive blog about making your own Sourdough Starter in an earlier blog. In that blog I have discussed a number of pitfalls and walked you through the trials and errors of my own attempts. Yet, I have had a number of people asking me to reduce this method to own only the essential steps. This blog does just that. If, during the process, you have more questions, you may want to refer back to the original blog, which you can read here."


Blog 92 - Baking Meatloaf in a Jiffy
"There are loads of recipes for meatloaf out there and it certainly isn't rocket science to bake one, but today's meatloaf is truly delicious as it comes flavoured with traditional Italian herbs. It is not as spicy as I usually make my meats and I sometimes add a bit of chilies or garlic, but it is truly delicious as is. This one is comfort food at its best."


Blog 93 - Baking a One Each Loaf with a Sourdough Starter
"This is a very tasty loaf that gets 1 cup each of four different types of flour. Add to that your sourdough starter to make it rise, and you have one of the most flavorful loaves you will ever eat, aside from the ones you add fruit and other ingredients to. This recipe is one I return to regularly for our everyday household bread and I am sure you will too, once you've tried it."


Blog 94 - Baking a Fruity Almond Twist With a Sourdough Starter
"The twist in the title is literally derived from the fact that we divide our dough in half and then twist the two dough ropes into each other when we make this delicious tea bread. There are many variations of tea bread available, but I love the freshness that the lemon bring to this one. As usual, I will be using my sourdough starter, but I will also give advice for using other raising agents in the blog."


Blog 95 - Baking Khachapuri from Georgia with a Sourdough Starter
"Khachapuri is a cheese pastry/bread from Georgia. It is a very rich dish where the cheese filling is baked inside a bread dough, resulting in a food parcel that is simply delicious. I share my own take on this traditional recipe with a couple of twists in the dough as well as the filling. One of these days I am also going to make cheesy garlic parcels for a braai using this recipe. I think that will be absolutely lovely! I use my sourdough starter as this always adds more flavour to the dough, but will give advice for using alternative raising agents as well."


Blog 96 - Baking a Curry & Garlic Tray Bread Using a Sourdough Starter
"This bread is the perfect accompaniment to a potjie or a braai. You can determine for yourself how strong you want to make the filling, but I like it strong enough to feel it nibbling back without kicking me in the gut. Basically you stretch your dough into a tray and then you pour your filling over. Stick it in the oven and enjoy the results."


Blog 97 - Cooking Sorghum Porridge
"Sorghum has been gaining in popularity for being a gluten free wheat as well as being fibre rich. Today's blog is a very short one in which I show you how to prepare a cheap option of this versatile grain in everyday porridge (pap)."


Blog 98 - Baking a Three-Flour Bread (Melette's Bread) with a Sourdough Starter
"While visiting a friend recently, she became so enthusiastic about the idea of a sourdough starter, that she insisted we immediately start one for her as well. As I was staying over for a few days, it seemed a brilliant idea and we set about doing just that. Naturally, she wanted us to bake a loaf of bread with it as soon as it was ready. In honour of my visit I rummaged through her grocery cupboard (with permission)  and put together the following recipe from what I found. It turned out absolutely delicious and I will definitely bake this one again. Fortunately, I had my camera at hand and snapped photos of the process as we worked."


Blog 99 - Baking A Rye Pugliese With A Sourdough Starter
"This bread, that derives its name from the Italian town of Puglia, is not tradionally baked with Rye, but only half and half White Bread Flour and Whole Wheat Flour. I like the flavour and consistency that rye adds to the bread though, and add it for those reasons. I show you how to bake this delicious bread using a sourdough starter in today's blog. As always, I will give adivice for using alternative raising agents as well."


Blog 100 - Baking Ciabatta With A Sourdough Starter
"Who does not love good old Italian Ciabatta? I, for one, can not get enough of this bread with its big holes and slightly chewy texture. The Italian word 'ciabatta' literally means slipper and that is where the bread gets its shape from. I show you how to bake this delicatessen in today's blog, using your sourdough starter. I will also discuss the use of other raising agents in the text."


Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy the books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
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Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
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