Recipe of the month: Red Peppers Paste

It’s no news that I love cooking and baking. Well, one of the ingredients I love to use whenever possible is a pepper paste. Here’s how to prepare it.

 

Red Peppers Paste

Red Lipstick peppers
Pimento peppers
Salt

Wash all the ripe red peppers well, cut out the pith, seeds and stem, then ground them all together with a meat mincer. Stir well.

Measure your grounded peppers and add 20 grams of salt per 1 kg of peppers. Stir very well and fill up jars of your choice with the resulted paste.

This red pepper paste can be used throughout the year to flavor pretty much anything from different kinds of meat to pizza. Only be careful because when adding this paste, less salt will be required than you’d normally add to the recipe.

(If you’d like this spicy, you can also add some Jalapeno peppers into the mix.)

Recipe of the month: No-bake Yogurt Cake

It’s the middle of August. It’s warm. Very much so! Here’s a no-bake cake for those days when turning on the oven just isn’t appealing. Plus, it’s absolutely delicious!

No-bake Yogurt Cake

300 ml fruity yogurt (I used peach yogurt)
500 ml cream
2 tablespoons gelatin
sponge cake
1 dl water
fruits same as/close to the yogurt flavor (I used nectarines)

Stir the gelatin in 1 dl cold water. Leave aside for a few minutes to become a hard jello.

Gently stir the yogurt and the fruit (chopped up) into the cream and mix it for about a minute on “low”.

Melt the jello (don’t boil!) over steam-bath. Then add it into the yogurt, fruit and cream mixture. 

Add readily-bought sponge cake into a baking pan (or leave it in the pan if you baked one), soften the sponge cake with a sweet syrup, then fill up the pan with the ready yogurt mixture.

Refrigerate well right until before serving!

Recipe of the month: Banana Pancakes with Syrup

Last Saturday I wanted pancakes. For dinner. I didn’t like the recipes I found, so used one of them and adapted it to my own liking. Because I wanted Banana Pancakes.

Here’s what my breakfast for dinner recipe was.

Banana Pancakes with Syrup

Ingredients

• 170 g all-purpose flour
• 30 g sugar
• 15 g baking powder
• 3 g salt
• 1 egg
• 250 ml milk
• 50 g butter
• 1 mashed banana

Syrup

• 230 g packed brown sugar
• 120 ml water
• 25 g butter

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Combine the egg, milk and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until combined. Pour batter by 1/3 cupfuls onto a lightly greased hot griddle. Turn when bubbles form on top of the pancake; cook until second side is golden brown.
2. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine syrup ingredients. Cook until sugar is dissolved. Serve with pancakes.
3. (Have some Homemade Orange Syrup with them)

Bon appétit!

PS: I made a double batch

Recipe of the month: Log cake

My favorite when I was a child, this cake used to be the one I repeatedly requested for my birthday and my mom decorated it differently every year.

For my grandparents’ birthday this year, since it was May, we decided to decorate the cake with jelly berries and I drew some leaves and grass with icing aside from writing the ages on it.

Ingredients:

Sponge – 6 eggs
6 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons flour
5 tablespoons grated walnuts or hazelnuts

Cream – 3 eggs
15 g sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
the grated peels of 1 orange
20 g butter

Preparation:

Whip egg yolks with half the sugar mix, then add the whipped foam of the remaining beaten egg whites with sugar. Gently stir in the flour and grated walnuts or hazelnuts. Place in pan on cooking paper. The sponge cake should be baked and covered with warm cloth after it’s done. Sprinkle with one or two tablespoons of rum several times, coil it up and allow to cool.

Whip the whole eggs, sugar, cocoa, orange peel and stir constantly with a whisk over steam until it becomes a heavy cream and simmers. Let it cool, then add the butter (previously mixed a bit).

Fill the sponge with cream, coil it back up, then cut pieces to form the logs. Frost over everything. With a fork previously dipped in cold water form the texture of the tree bark. Decorate with frosting, jelly beans, fresh fruit, dyed green sugar to create moss, grated coconut for a snowy effect, etc.

Leave in fridge for at least a couple of hours before serving.

Bon appétit!

Recipe of the month: Rose lemonade & Elder flowers lemonade

You may have noticed that I forgot to post a recipe last month. So this month I’m cheating a bit making up for that by providing sort of two recipes.

These are my favorite summer drinks

Rose lemonade

7 liters water
1100 grams sugar
1 lemon’s grated peels
2-3 lemons’ squeezed juice
3-4 fragrant Roses’ petals

 

Elder flowers lemonade

7 liters water
1100 grams sugar
1 lemon’s grated peels
2-3 lemons’ squeezed juice
6-7 Elder flowers

 

Preparation:

Warm up the water, dissolve the sugar in it, then let it cool until lukewarm.
Wash the Elder flowers or Rose petals and place them in a glass jar (or other kind of recipient with a large enough opening) along with the lemon peels and lemon juice.
Pour the sugared water into the jar over the rest of the ingredients and stir well. Cover with a gauze or similar fabric so air can get through.
Leave this to mature (ferment?) for around 5-7 days (possibly less if you place it in the sun), stirring 2-3 times daily.
When ready, filter and keep it in an open bottle in the fridge as your drink will be slightly carbonated, so a tightly closed bottle might explode.

Note: the more flowers/petals you add, the stronger your drink will become, so you can adjust the recipe to your liking.
Depending on your personal taste, you can add more lemon juice to the Elder flowers lemonade.

Happy drinking

PS: I just made Rose lemonade today, can’t wait to drink some at the end of the week!

Cute corner bookmarks

I’ve been mostly neglecting the Green Lifestyle posts, particularly the ‘Arts, crafts & recycling’ section as I like to post pictures of what I made. Luckily for me (and you) I still have my friend’s camera for the day and I found a super quick & easy tutorial to share.

I’ve stated it before and I’ll say it again: I’m always short of bookmarks. Last year I posted a tutorial on how to create some Classy handmade bookmarks with the paper napkin transfer method – which I still make semi-regularly as gifts, as well as for myself (only semi-regularly cause my fear of hot or sharp objects around my fingers doesn’t seem to pass)  

Here are the latest creations, all done in less than five minutes!

Cute corner bookmarks

Scrap cardstock: white, colored, patterned, etc. – It’s a good idea to work with two different colored cardstock 
Craft glue
Scissors and paper pinking shears
Craft accessories, decorations
Pens and markers

Cut two 2×2 inch squares from the colored cardstock. Cut the corner off of the white (different colored) cardstock, then cut one of the squares in half diagonally to create a triangle.

Spread a thin layer of glue on one side of the triangle and fit the white cardstock inside, trimming it with pinking shears to create a decorative pattern along the edge.

Add a thin layer of glue along the two shorter edges of the triangle and press onto the square – this creates a pocket for the corner of your book.

Allow the glue to dry and your bookmark is ready to slip onto the corner of your page!

Happy crafting and reading!

Through the lenses

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about having the courage to behave like a tourist in the city I live in (in more ways than one). And over a few weekends, I decided to do exactly that, even though I’m still on a mission to block out the sound of traffic around me by listening to my favorite music while I’m out and about.

The weather was gorgeous, I borrowed a camera and went for looong walks – taking in all the beauty and treasures Kolozsvár has to offer. I have to do this staycation thingy more often!

Have look at some gems I’ve taken the time to notice and rediscover

St. Peter’s Church

Downtown Reformed Church, Dragon slayer St. George’s statue and the Reformed High School of Kolozsvár on Farkas street

King Mátyás (Michael’s) Statue

St. Michael’s Church

Franciscan Church and monastery

Fishermen’s Bastillion, Karolina-column, Kétágú Church, Martin Aaron’s statue, King Michael’s birthplace and a couple of other gems you see walking down the streets

Neolog Synagogue and the Hidelve Church

Fountain in Central Park

On Fellegvár Hill

View from the top of Fellegvár Hill

Kolozsvár from above
(taken from the plane as I was arriving back from Paris last month)