My Mom's Special - Chocolate Cookies Recipe

In Indonesia during Ramadan, we usually have the custom of buying or making cookies to be served at Ied Fitri when families and relatives come and visit. The famous cookies are chocolate cookies, pineapple filled cookies (nastar), or cheese cookies (kastengels). My personal favorite are the chocolate and cheese cookies.

I've tried a lot of chocolate cookies and one of the cookies that actually tasted awesome was my moms... ^_^ . Her cookies never felt that it contain too much flour or too sweet. It just perfect. Every year she makes few boxes of cookies to fill the orders from her friends. During those days, I always make sure that she made me at least a box.. But since now I can't ask her to make one.. I need to make it my self.. So this is the recipe..

Ingredients:

• 300 g butter
• 250 g icing sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 450 g all-purpose flour
• 50 g cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon milk powder
• 100 g of cocoa powder

Methods:

• Mixer the butter and icing sugar until it soft.
• Continues to batter the mixer and enter the egg yolks one by one.
• Mix the flour, cornstarch and milk powder together, then sifted.
• Pour the flour mixture into the dough little by little until the dough begins to harden but is still malleable. Attention! You don't need to use all the flour mixture.
• Pour the cocoa powder into the batter and stir until blended together. I suggest using the mixer, to make sure that it actually blend it perfectly.
• Rub the butter in the baking tray.
• Flattened dough on a flat surface and then cut with a shaped mold.
• If you want the top to be a bit shiny, coat the upper part with some egg yolks before baking.
• Bake in hot oven 150 ° C - It usually takes around 15-20 minutes. Attention! Don't leave the cookies too long, just check every now and then until it's crispy.
• Let it cool down for a while, then sprinkle some icing sugar on top. ( I forgot to do it on the picture above :( )

Beef Lasagna

Last night, Mr. B suddenly asked for Lasagna as the menu for dinner. I made one few weeks ago, but I wasn't satisfied with how it turn out. So when he asked, I took it as a way to redeem my self. The basic recipe I used was the same recipe as the first one, but now I added confidence as the main ingredients and some changes that I feel fit.

Basic Ingredients:

• Lasagna Pasta 250 gr.

Red Sauce Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil,
• 1 clove garlic - chopped,
• 1 onion - diced,
• 500 g minced meat,
• 1 carrot - diced
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes (400g) - I use a hand-blender it so the big tomato chucks got crushed and turned to soft tomato sauce,
• 3 tablespoons of tomato puree,
• 4-5 tablespoons of tomato sauce,
• 1 teaspoon oregano,
• 1 teaspoon basil,
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp sugar,
• 1 teaspoon pepper

White Sauce (Béchamel Sauce) Ingredients:

• 50g butter,
• 3 tablespoons flour,
• 500 ml milk,
• 125 grams of cheddar cheese that has been grated,
• 1/4 tablespoon pepper. 

Topping Ingredients: 

• 150 g grated mozzarella cheese,
• 1 teaspoon oregano, 
• 1 teaspoon basil 

Methods: 
Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
First we make a red sauce (bolognese sauce):
Heat oil in a pan, then add the garlic. Saute garlic until fragrant
Then continue with the onions. Saute until onions are wilted and then enter the minced meat.
Put the carrots in and mixed it all together.
Season it with the oregano, basil, pepper and salt.
Pour the crushed tomato, mixed it well.
Add tomato sauce. Taste until you satisfied. Then add the tomato puree.
Taste everything and when it's done put it aside and let it cool.

Then it's time to make the white/Béchamel sauce:
 Heat the butter into the saucepan.
Once it melted, pour the flour and stir until blend through.
When it was mixed, pour the milk. Add the pepper.
Finally add the cheddar cheese into the batter, and continue to stir it until thickened.
Taste it and when you done, let it cool down.

Time to organize both sauces and the lasagna into the baking dish. Begin the bottom layer with few lasagna plates. Then followed with the red sauce, next white sauce and then layer it with lasagna again. Make sure to finish the surface with the white sauce on top. Sparkle the mozzarella cheese - covering everything, add oregano and basil. Baked the lasagna for around 30 minutes.

Result:

Practice makes perfect... This time around I know what I need to do and in the end I really satisfied with the result. On my first try, I didn't use the tomato sauce and just relied on the crushed tomatoes. So it ended up tasted a bit sour. But now, because of the tomato sauce (I used Heinz tomato sauce), it had a nice sweetness in it. I also add some carrots to add some textures and flavor.

About the lasagna plates, last time I boiled it first but then it got stuck together. So now I just let it be as it is, because I read that lasagna plates now days are already pre-cook. So you don't need to boil it anymore. I don't know if it's true or not. But as far as I saw it yesterday, when it finished the lasagna was soft and cooked through.

Difficulty Level... 7/10.. It took a lot of effort. 2 different sauces and then need to layer and bake it quite a handful. But for me, the stuff you need to really pay attention to are the sauces. Just make sure it taste good then I think you are aiming for a success..

Frozen Cheesecake

Last weekend, out of nowhere Mr. B suddenly asked for cheesecake. I was pretty shocked because yeah, my cooking skill still on level 1. So he browse around and found this frozen cheesecake recipe and it said you don't need to bake it. Sounds like a brilliant idea for me..

The site is a swedish site, so I just copy paste it to english here..

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs - separate the egg yolks and the whites
• 2 dl of granulated sugar - 1 dl weighs about 90 grams
• 400 g of cream cheese
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar -It can be costly and difficult to obtain outside Europe, but can be simply made at home. Sometimes it can be replaced with vanilla extract, where one teaspoon equals one package. However, when it is needed as a topping, vanilla extract is unsuitable. -source: wikipedia
• 4 dl whipping cream
• 6 pieces digestive biscuits

Methods:

• Prepare a round springform pan with 24cm diameter.
• Crumble the digestive biscuits in the bottom of the pan.
• Beat the egg yolks with sugar until fluffy.
• Mash the cheese and mix in into vanilla sugar.
• Stir them (the cheese+vanilla sugar) together with the egg yolks+sugar mixed (preferably in a food processor or with electric mixer).
• Whip the cream in another bowl.
• Mixed it together with the egg+cheese batter.
• Beat the egg whites hard and stir gently into the batter also.
• Pour batter in the pan and place in freezer overnight. 
• Pull out and let it be in room temperature one hour before served.
• Decorate it with icing sugar or fresh fruits.

Results:

8 - 10 portion.

I really love it. The texture was super soft and not heavy. It was almost like an ice cream cheesecake instead of cheesecake.. cake. But I think it tasted a bit too sweet and it needed more biscuits on the layer underneath it. If I'm gonna make this again (which I think I will because it's actually quite easy) I will put less sugar (not the vanilla sugar). 

Difficulty level... around 70 from 100... From separating the eggs to deciding how soft the mix should be.. Separating the egg is the hardest part for me. But in the end when you actually make it, you will know how it supposed to be.. 

Chicken Tetrazzini

Mr B, my hubby.. bought me recipe books just before we moved. So now I have books filled with gratin kinda dish, sup dish, and asian dish (including Indonesian - yeaaay). After looked around throught out the books, he finally decided that he want me to try a recipe called Kyckling Tetrazzini or basically Chicken Tetrazzini in English. So with no further adieu.. let's start cooking..

Ingredients:

• 200 g Spaghetti
• 75 g butter
• 1 carrot - diced
• 1 dl all-purpose flour
• salt and pepper
• 4½ dl chicken broth
• 4½ dl milk
• 450 g chicken that already being slight fried or boiled, then diced.
• 125 g cheddar cheese - shredded.

PS:

• I added 3 champion mushrooms that I diced to the ingredient mixed. We bought too much of it, so we decided to add it.
• dl is deciliter

Methods:

• Preheat the oven to 175 C
• Boil the spaghetti according to the directions on the box. But I usually just boiled it for a few minutes in a boiling water with some salt and oil until the spaghetti is tender but not too soft.
• Boil the carrots and mushrooms for 5 minutes.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add flour and stir until it forms a smooth dough.
• Pour in the chicken broth and then the milk into the dough. 
• Mix all until it boiled and thickened.
• When it does, put the spaghetti and the carrots+mushrooms into the sauce.
• Season it until satisfied with the flavor.
• Pour the spaghetti and sauce into the baking dish. Sprinkle the cheese evenly on top.
• Bake until the cheese started to brown.
• Let it rest for a while before served.

Result:

This dish was one of the first dish I made in my own kitchen. So it was filled with little disaster. Like when we made the white sauce (which after a while, I found out that it actually called Béchamel sauce), Mr.B gave me the ingredients that he already measured. When I melt the butter then added the flour, I noticed that the flour seemed to be too much, compared to the butter. But we kept going, with the result of the butter and flour mixed turn into bread-crumbs-looking dough. Good thing we finally made a new batch, and actually followed the measurement on the recipe. Turn out it wasn't that hard.. *smug* Just make sure you stirred the butter and the flour all the time and the measurements are correct, than it should've been no problem. I also noticed that to make the sauce thickened, it might took a while. I always used the medium heat because I was afraid I will burn the milk or the flour. So yeah.. just be patient with stirring the sauce.

About the taste, it's almost like a macaroni schotel, the different is that this one tasted more creamy, while macaroni schotel have a more distict taste, maybe that because of the nutmeg..

Difficulty level.. the hardest part is making the béchamel sauce... It's pretty "scary" in a way.. added that I failed on my first try. But when you got pass that.. it only about adding stuff and baked it.

Chicken Mozzarella

Few weeks ago, I bought mozzarella cheese.. just because I can.. After a while it just sat there in the refrigerator being forgotten. Then Mr. B, my hubby told me to make something with it before it got expired. So yeah.. browsing around and I found a lot of dishes I can use with it. The problem is.. I got the fresh one (the ball shape), while they mostly asked for the shredded one.

After few website (which made me forgot which one to link it here), I found one recipe that look easy enough for me to follow. So here it is...

Ingredients:

• ½ cup of milk. 
• 3 pieces of chicken fillet that has been pound to ½ inch thick. 
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes. 
• 2 tablespoons olive oil. 
• 1 tablespoon fresh parsley. 
• 1 teaspoon dried basil.
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano. 
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder.
•  black pepper. 
• 200 g fresh mozzarella. 

Method: 

• Dip the chicken fillets with milk, pick up and make sure the rest of the milk excess is gone.
• Cover the chicken fillets with bread crumbs, then put it on a plate and make sure it doesn't go on top of each other. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
• Heat up the oven in 190 C.
• Cover the baking dish with vegetable oil.
• Pour 1/3 of the crushed tomatoes to the baking dish. Spread it evenly and let it aside for a while.
• Heat a pan, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
• Fry the chicken fillets until browned. Attention: only turn the fillets 1 time.
• After it finished, put the fillets on the baking dish and make sure they have enough space within each other.
• Pour the remaining crushed tomatoes over the fillets.
• Season it with parsley, basil, oregano, garlic powder, salt and black pepper. I did it over every fillets.
• Cut the mozzarella into small pieces, then sprinkle it above the fillets.
• Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until chicken are cooked through and the mozzarella melts and start to browned and form small bubble.
• When it's done. Remove from the oven and let the cheese rest for about 5 minutes before serving.

Results:

At first I'm not sure about the taste because it only got seasoned on the top part and right before it got baked. But surprisingly it came out really good. I love the basil with the chicken and the tomato sauce. I think the basil gave a power punch to it. The sauce it self still tasted fresh and light. Super yummy..

Difficulty level of the dish... I think it's still easy enough. It's quite a hand full that we must browned the fillets on the pan first then baked it but the rest was pretty much as it is.. Just sprinkled stuff then it's done.. So yeah.. no complaints here.. ^_^

Macaroni Schotel

Today's recipe is actually my first food ever I made on my own kitchen here in Sweden. I got this one from my mom. This dish is one of my favorite since I was little. I always think that my mom makes the best macaroni schotel.. ever... So yeah, even though it's been a while since I ever tasted it, I always remember the taste. When she told me through Skype, she didn't mention how much every ingredient should take. So I just searched around and just write down the one people mostly post.

So.. here are the ingredients..

• 250 g Macaroni
• ½ large onion, diced
• 1 can of corned beef --> you can substitute it with chicken if you want to, just boiled the chicken then shred it to small pieces.
• 400 ml of milk
• 3 eggs
• salt, pepper, and nutmeg powder
• parmesan cheese to taste.

Method:

• Heat up the oven on 225 C.
• Boil the macaroni according to directions on the package.
• Saute the onion in butter until slightly wilted, then put in the corned beef.
• After both the onion and the corned beef mixed evenly, mixed in the macaroni.
• Pour the milk in and mixed all evenly.
• Seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. This is the last time you can season the dish, so make sure you got it right.
• Remove from heat and stir until the smoke gone.
• Scramble the eggs on a bowl, pour ½ of it to the macaroni+corned beef mixture.
• Mixed everything then put in on a baking dish. First put half of the mixture, then put parmesan cheese until covering it all. Pour the rest of the mixture and cover it again with parmesan cheese.
• The last step is to pour the rest of the egg evenly over the whole dish.
• Put it in to the oven and bake until the top start to browned.
• When finish, pull it out from the oven and let it rest until a bit cold (but still warm) before serving. 

Result:

Flavor wise I believed I was spot on.. it tasted like what my mom would've made. It just that I didn't manage to make it look like what it supposed to be on the upper part of the dish. I think that because I put cheddar cheese on it (which was not on the ingredients list). But yeah it still tasted good.. so I'm satisfied.. ^__^