HOW TO MAKE AN URBAN ORGANIC GARDEN

I'm not a huge fan of gardening to be honest. I much prefer baking and cooking. But I do feel that we all need to know how to grow our own food. We're so used to buying our food at the market or the supermarket, that we have no idea what exactly it takes to grow food. This is especially true for people living in cities, like me :)

So when the Jakarta International School (JIS) asked whether the YUM Organic Farm was interested to conduct a 2-day training on how to make an urban organic garden, I jumped on the occasion. YUM's Organic Farm Coordinator, Oleh, was also excited to do it, and I think he did an excellent job teaching teachers and 7th and 8th grade students at Sekolah Musika.

Sekolah Musika is a school in Ciputat that caters to children from low income families. The owner of the foundation that runs the school used to work at JIS, and she would like her students' horizons to be broadened just like kids in international schools. That's why she has asked JIS and YUM's help to teach her students how to grow an urban organic garden.

Oleh starts by doing a 1-hour in-class presentation where the students are taken through all the steps in organic farming

The land is then cleared, marked and the soil is turned over

After a grueling 3-hour process, we were able to finish making 4 beds. These beds are made entirely from soil, the cheapest alternative to cement or bricks, and made in such a way that it will last up to 10 years.

The side of the beds are then covered with grass.

Finally the planting area is turned over and fertilizer (rice chaff and chicken manure) is added.

This is the fun part, when the children can start planting!

The whole gang at the end of the 2-day activity :)

INSPIRING FOOD PREPS

I'm so happy because I found a new great blog while browsing on my Flipboard. It's called Back To Her Roots and it's well designed and has really inspiring posts on cooking and organizing your cooking.
Best of all, it has tips on Weekly Food Preps, which I've been thinking of doing but never got to it. Basically it means that during the weekend, you spend a few hours cooking and prepping so that you have food ready for the weekdays and you don't have any excuse to eat junk food or leftovers (which is my huge problem!).

Check out 2 food prep options that were made by Back To Her Roots:

I think it's amazing! And I'm really looking forward to make:
- Salad-in-a-jar
- Deviled eggs for snacks
- Fruit and yoghurt parfait
- Vegetable sticks (and dip)

MARTHA STEWART CHEWY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

I'm so happy that after so many trials and recipes, I finally found the perfect Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe! Each time I've tried in the past, it would taste good but it never looked perfect. Most of the time, it would melt and the cookie dough became one big huge chocolate square!

But I never gave up :)
So when I saw the Martha Stewart "Cookies" book at my local library, I picked it up and promised to try the recipe, which I did this weekend and lo and behold: the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe!

Below is the recipe from the book, which you can also find online, but I made a few changes. This time I put the dough in the freezer for up to 1 hour and I think that's what did the trick!

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 200gr unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips

Directions

• In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
• Divide the mixture in half, and put each half in plastic film (see sample below). Since the dough is very soft and sticky, I prefer to put it in the freezer first to let it set and become hard. Keep in the freezer for approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour.
• 15 minutes before you want to bake your cookies, preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius. Take the dough out of the freezer and cut around 2cm and roll into tablespoon-size balls of dough. Place them about 4-5 cm apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
• Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the center, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

Photo courtesy of this blog

CHOCOLATE MILK

I want a glass of this like right now!

OUMA BOULANGERIE

I recently discovered this new bakery from a friend, and then realized it belongs to someone I had met before, a close friend of my brother and sister-in-law. I also remember them telling me he used to make them pastries in Paris so without a doubt, this was gonna be good!

I couldn't decide what to try so I bought a little bit of everything: brioche (light buttery bread), baguette, walnut raisin sourdough bread, rye bread, croissants and raisin danish. 

The packaging is stunning and I don't know what to say about the pastries except that they're DELICIOUS!
If you're interested to try, call them at 02191511185, or email them: info@ouma-boulangerie.com or contact them via their twitter @oumaboulangerie

CHOCOLATE BEET CAKE

I'm a huge fan of beetroots; I love their texture, their taste, but I especially love their color. It just so happens that the YUM Organic Farm has plenty of it so each time I go there, I bring back at least 2 kilos of beets.

I've been wanting to make Beet Cake ever since I saw this video, but never got the time to do it until this weekend. It was actually also a bit of a dare because everyone at the YUM office would look down on beets and I was trying to prove a point - that beets are yummy and can make a really nice cake :)

As you can see from the photo above, the cake turned out great: crispy on the outside and super moist in the inside. My only disappointment was that we couldn't taste the beets (which is probably a good thing!) but I guess the point of them being in the cake recipe was for the moistness...

So here's the recipe I used based on the video:

BEET CAKE

2 cups of beets, cooked and pureed/grated (this is about 2-3 medium sized beets)
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
115 gr semisweet/dark chocolate, melted
2 tsp baking soda 
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
220 gr butter, unsalted, at room temperature
3 eggs

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees celcius.
Mix the butter and sugar with a mixer at medium. Gradually add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.
In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together: flour, baking soda and salt. It would be best to sift so you don't get lumps of baking soda which happens.
Add the dry ingredients to the first mixture, then add the melted chocolate and the pureed/grated beets.

Put everything in a square or round baking tray and bake for approximately 45 minutes.

CANNELLE & VANILLE

One of my favorite bloggers, Cannelle & Vanille, has recently published a book and to promote it, she's made a video with the help of Ryan Marshall, from The Panic Room who makes beautiful videos. I've shared two of his videos in two previous posts: here and here.

The Cannelle & Vanille blog is not only full of incredibly tasty recipes, but it's a feast for the eyes. Aran Goyoaga is a trained pastry chef, who is known for cooking gluten-free recipes, and also a food photographer; no wonder the food images are sublime. See this article on Whole Living magazine where she talks about what to stock up with if you want to make gluten-free recipes.

Small Plates & Sweet Treats from The Panic Room Videos on Vimeo.

PASAR MODERN BSD

There's something about fresh colourful vegetables that just makes me happy. Maybe I was a farmer in one of my past lives :)

I do admit I was surprised when I arrived at the Pasar Modern BSD and saw how neat and clean everything looked. This was not what I would call a normal pasar.

 I should really go to the market more often :)

MARTHA STEWART'S FUDGY BROWNIES

I haven't made brownies in a really long time.  I think I was somehow traumatized (if one can be traumatized by making brownies) because I used to make the most excellent brownies when I was a teenager, and somehow I lost the recipe and I couldn't seem to make the same kind of brownies anymore. I remember trying several recipes, several weeks in a row, but none of them were good enough.

However, I was browsing the internet a couple of days ago and found a recipe on the Martha Stewart website and thought "hey why not?" so I made these brownies and they turned out really good!

No stress, no pressure.... I guess that's how cooking should be :)

Fudgy Brownies

225 grams dark chocolate, cut in small pieces

110 grams butter (Elle & Vire unsalted)

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

3/4 cup flour, sifted

1/2 tsp salt

handful of hazelnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

Place the chocolate and the butter in a bowl and place over a pan of boiling water. Be careful that the bowl is not touching the water.Stir frequently until the chocolate and butter are melted. Remove bowl from heat and let cool for about 10-15 minutes.

Once cooled, stir the sugar in until well combined. With a whisk, add the 4 eggs one at a time, whisking until smooth (no need for mixer here). Add the vanilla essence, then gently fold (with a spatula) the flour and salt. Add the hazelnuts here if you want.

Take a square baking pan, smear a little bit of oil then cover with parchment paper.

Pour the brownie mixture in the baking pan and bake for around 60-65 minutes. The top part will be hard and crunchy but make sure that the inside is well cooked. Bake until a cake tester (toothpick or knife) comes out with only a few moist crumbs.

Enjoy!

THE COOKING PLAYDATE #6

Ever since one of the Cooking Playdate members, Dinda, left for Amsterdam and each one of us also had trips abroad, we haven't found the time to meet up and cook again.  The last time we did a cooking get-together was 31 October of last year!!

Anyway, as we were all back in Jakarta and a long weekend was here, we decided it was high time to cook and eat again, gather the kids to play and spend a whole day eating and chatting. Here's what came out of that day:

These chicken cornflakes balls above were a great hit with the kids (and even the parents!) because they were crunchy on the outside. It's actually very easy to make and healthy because it's baked instead of fried. I found the recipe on this website.

The Enoki Beef Rolls were made by Tarra, who had previously made them at home. It's actually quite simple. First, you sautee in a pan the enoki mushrooms with a bit of olive oil, butter, salt and pepper but careful not to overcook them. Then, marinade your beef sukiyaki slices with Kikkoman and teriyaki sauce (or try oyster sauce and soy sauce if you don't have Kikkoman). Wrap your enoki mushrooms in a slice of beef (see above) and fry in a flat pan with olive oil and a bit of butter. Make sure your beef slices are cooked, but again, don't overcook them.

photo taken from Jamie Oliver's website

The other main course we had was Spaghetti Aglio Olio Tuna and that is really easy to make. Obviously, the photo above is not the result of my cooking, but we were so happy to have this Cooking Playdate after all this time, that we forgot to take pictures :)

You can find the entire recipe for the Spaghetti Aglio Olio Tuna on our Cooking Playdate website (coming soon).

photo taken from Flickr

Last but not least, I had some organic beetroot from the YUM Organic Farm so I decided to mix with canned chickpeas/garbanzo beans and green salad. I cooked the beetroot in water between 20-40 minutes depending on the size, then cut them in small pieces.

My salad dressing was just: olive oil + white wine vinegar + mustard + mayonnaise + salt + pepper + honey.

HOW TO MAKE PESTO

I love food, I love cooking and I love beautiful videos so it's not a surprise that I think this video is worth watching. The team at Tiger in a jar has been doing excellent videos, especially of food, and the "Beet Cake" video is one of my all-time favorite movies. Check it out on the Cooking Playdate blog.

And check out all the videos from Tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

BAKED RASPBERRY PANCAKE

Last weekend, as I was browsing through Pinterest, I came upon a beautiful picture of some sort of cake with raspberries and clicked on the picture. It brought me to this website and I fell in love with the amazing pictures of the food and the different recipes that looked so delicious. So I decided to try the recipe below and I was not disappointed!

The baked pancake turns out like a sort of clafoutis or flan, but the great thing is, if you don't have an oven, you can just make it like a pancake or crepe though don't make it too thin.

Finnish Baked Raspberry Pancake

500 ml milk


2 eggs


1 cup normal flour


1/4 cup melted butter or olive oil


2 tbsp sugar


A pinch of salt


1/2 tsp vanilla essence or powder


Topping: some fresh or frozen raspberry and some sugar

Pre-heat oven to 200-225 C.
Using a wooden spoon or egg whisker, quickly mix everything in a bowl (except the raspberries and sugar for topping) until well combined (about 1 min).
Pour the mixture into a baking dish lined with parchment paper. Make sure it is not too thick.
Sprinkle some raspberry and sugar on top.
Bake for about 20-30 min or until brown.

BANANA CINNAMON CRUMBLE MUFFIN

I fell upon this recipe by accident, but trust me, it's a keeper!

About a week ago, Amal's school organized a bazaar to fundraise so they would have enough money to help a school in the Puncak area which had problems with their water installation. So the kids decided they would cook something and sell it at school the next day. Since all I had at home was bananas, flour, sugar, eggs and muffin tins, I thought I'd browse for a banana muffin recipe and that'll be that. What came out was this delicious banana muffin with a brown sugar-cinnamon crumble topping. Delicious! 

So here you go, I'm sharing the recipe, which I should precise is not my recipe but you have to try it out:

BANANA CINNAMON CRUMBLE MUFFINS

• (makes 9-10 muffins)
  

  
  

  Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 bananas (Sunpride), ripe and mashed
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup butter, melted (or you can replace with oil)

For the crumble:

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

LIGHT FLUFFY CHOCOLATE CAKE

I just made the most amazingly easy and light chocolate cake. My mom had found the recipe on a cooking website we like to look at once in a while called Marmiton, a french site for recipes with whatever's left in your fridge. What also made us want to do it was that it only took 15 minutes to make, and 10 minutes to bake :)

The ingredients are very simple:

100g milk chocolate (I used Colatta)

4 tbsp flour

4 egg whites

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees celcius.

I made a step-by-step with pictures below:

1. Put your chocolate in a bowl then put the bowl in a pan with boiling water. Heat the chocolate until it is melted.

2. Mix the flour spoon by spoon. Don't forget to sift your flour so you don't have lumps.

3. Once mixed, you will have a thick chocolate dough.

4. Put you egg whites (+ pinch of salt) in the mixer and mix until hard.

5. Slowly incorporate the egg whites into the chocolate dough. Slowly is the way to go here. You want the mixture to be fluffy.

6. Put your mixture in a pie plate about 10-15 cm in diameter (smaller than your usual pie plate).

7. Bake for about 8 to 11 minutes. When a toothpick comes out clean, your cake is ready!

This recipe makes for 4 big slices.

BEST LOW-CALORIE CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE

I have finally found my happiness in a guilt-free low-calorie very moist chocolate cupcake! Believe me, you will never have thought that this cupcake is low fat and low calorie because it's very chocolate-y and very moist.

Guess which ones I frosted and which ones Amal did? :)

Yesterday, I was spending time at home and asked Amal if he wanted us to bake something and as usual, the answer was: yes, chocolate cake! However, I've been thinking lately how much I've enjoyed the lovely huge kitchen at my parents' place and made way too many fattening cakes and that there must be some type of low-calorie chocolate cake out there.

So I googled and I got lucky cause I found this amazing recipe! The blog has a real easy step-by-step explanation of how to make the cupcakes (with photos), so I won't give you the full version. I highly recommend you go to the website but if you want to stay here, here's the recipe:

100 Calorie Moist Chocolate Cupcakes

makes 9

Ingredients:

• 1 cup nonfat or lowfat dairy or nondairy
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup all purpose flour (or whole wheat pastry flour)
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce* (use "apel malang" for this)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius (I used 200 degrees, but it depends on your oven). Line a standard cup muffin tin with paper liners.

In a small bowl, stir together milk and vinegar **. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, coca powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, applesauce and vanilla. Pour in the now curdled milk (tastes a bit like liquid yoghurt) and mix all ingredients well.

Stir in dry ingredients until just combined. The batter will be think and wet, similar to a runny pancake batter. Divide it evenly among the prepared muffin tin cups.

The recipe says to bake them for 18 minutes but mine took almost 45 minutes, but again, it depends on each oven. The cupcakes are cooked when you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean.

Once the cupcakes are cool, top them with a frosting also found on the blog called Best Whipped Frosting. Trust me, it's one of the best frostings I've ever tasted! It's light and not too sweet. I used half the quantities of the recipe for my 9 cupcakes and still have some leftover for next time.

* to make applesauce, just cut apple into small pieces, put in a pan with a little bit of water until apples are cooked and can be easily crushed.

** if you like, you could actually just buy liquid plain yoghurt.

The most amazing part: no oil, no butter, no eggs!!

CARROTS, BEETS AND TURNIPS

Yesterday was the bi-monthly organic vegetables delivery from the Cipanas Organic Farm, and I discovered that I had received beets, carrots and turnips (I love just being surprised by what they're harvesting!).

I usually eat my beets pre-cooked in salads and my turnips in a french beef soup (Pot au Feu), but this time, I felt like doing things differently so I went online and checked out some recipes.

I remember seeing somewhere that you could mix potatoes and turnips into a mash, so I did just that:

POTATOES AND TURNIP MASH

4 potatoes

1 large turnip (lobak)

2 tbsp of unsalted butter

3/4 cup of milk

a dash of cream

salt and pepper

Slice the potatoes and turnips and cook in boiling water for around 20 minutes or until fork-tender. Drain the water and start mashing with a potato masher. Add the butter, salt and pepper, milk and cream. Taste and add according to your liking.

The great thing about potatoes and turnip mash is that your child doesn't even realize that he's eating a vegetable high in vitamin C :)

I also wanted to try roasting beets, so I discovered a video of Jamie Oliver where he did just that and kind of inspired myself from it:

ROASTED CARROTS AND BEETS

6 organic carrots, cut around 2cm thick

3 small beets, peeled and cut in half

olive oil

salt and pepper

balsamic vinegar

juice of 1/2 orange

garlic

herbs (thyme, mint, oregano, rosemary, lavender)

Preheat your oven at 220 degrees celsius.

Mix your beets and carrots separately.

Beets: mix with salt, pepper, dash of balsamic vinegar, lavender/rosemary, garlic and olive oil.

Carrots: mix with salt, pepper, juice of 1/2 and orange, thyme/mint, garlic and olive oil.

You can put your carrots and beets in one tray but try to separate them.

Cook for about 45 minutes (you may want to cover with aluminum foil if it takes too long to cook. They should be between crunchy and tender after the allotted cooking time.

Sprinkle some feta cheese on top before serving.

Eat with roasted chicken!