Borneo Rainforest Curry

What a name!  Whenever I eat this, I imagine it being served to me by natives in a higgelty piggelty treehouse in the rainforest while orangutans swing by the window.  In reality, I know I would hate that – the sweaty stickiness, the exhaustion of trekking, the bugs.  (I recently read From the Mixed up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankenweiler (great book, I wish I’d read it in my youth) and really related to this sentence about the main character:  “Claudia doesn’t want adventure.  She likes baths and feeling comfortable too much for that kind of thing.”)  I think I must be getting increasingly high maintenance as I age, because I did in fact manage not one but two jungle treks in Thailand when I was backpacking years ago - and massively enjoyed both.

I stayed in a wooden house…

..met the opium addict better known as the medicine man…

…feasted on homemade curry…

…slept on the floor and bathed in the river…

…and trekked through a lot of lush, beautiful forest to get there.  At the moment, I’m quite content just cooking exotic food rather than going on a trek for it!  This is a delicious curry – if you can’t find tempeh, I’m planning on trying it with Quorn pieces next time and am confident it will be just as good.

Borneo Rainforest Curry

Serves 4, adapted from World Food Cafe

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive or sunflower oil

300g tempeh, cut into long strips (mine came already chopped into biggish chunks, so I kept them thus)

2-3 tbsp cashews

1 onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 lemon grass stalk, finely sliced

small chunk of ginger, chopped into matchsticks

1/2 tsp chilli powder (more, if you like – or a couple of red chillies, chopped)

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tbsp ground almonds

1 small cauliflower, cut into florets

200g baby sweetcorn, cut in half lengthwise

200g green beans, halved if you like

400g can coconut milk

rice to serve

Method:

1.  Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the tempeh and cashews for about 7 minutes until slightly browned.

2.  Add the onion, garlic, spices, lemon grass, ginger and ground almonds.  Cook for a further 5 minutes.

3.  Tip in all the veg and stir to coat with the spicy goodness (a bigger pan than mine would be grand).

4.  Pour in the coconut milk, bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes until the veg is tender.  Season.  Serve with rice.  If you’ve got coriander leaves and chillies to hand, they’d make an attractive garnish.

Banana Bran Muffins

Today more than ever I am in need of my Monday morning muffin.  It was a three day weekend (happy birthday, Buddha!), so it is with a heavy heart that I trudge back to work this morning.

It was an odd sort of weekend, in which wherever I went – for a run in the park, a gentle hike, a stroll around Central, a 2 minute trot to the laundrette - I returned with hideous sweat patches, a shiny red face and hair that was simultaneously damply stuck to my head and frizzing uncontrollably into a big bush.  Heat and humidity are not my friends.  But muffins are!  These are sweet and delicious, and if you eat them warm they give you a comforting glow in your belly.  I’m ready to face a full week at work, and whatever ridiculous weather Hong Kong throws at me.

Banana Breakfast Muffins

Makes 18-20, from Short & Sweet by Dan Lepard

Ingredients:

250ml boiling water

125g bran

3 ripe bananas, mashed

200g muscovado sugar

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

125g butter, melted

2 tsp vanilla extract

200g Greek yoghurt

300g raisins

325g plain flour

1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1.5 tsp baking powder

Method:

1.  Pour the boiling water over the bran and leave to soak for 15 minutes.

2.  Preheat the oven to 200C and line a muffin tin with paper cases.

3.  Put the banana, two sugars and one egg in a bowl and beat together.

4.  Beat in the other egg, closely followed by the melted butter, vanilla and yoghurt.  Beat until smooth.

5.  Tip in the raisins, and sift in the flour, spice and bicarb.  Mix well.

6.  Spoon the batter into the prepared paper cases.

7.  Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown and springy to the touch.

8.  Let them stand in the tin for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely – or until eating temperature, at least!

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie

I have not had a cup of tea for 8 weeks and 3 days.  Anyone who knows me well understands that this is quite the turn around for me – I could comfortably get through 10 mugs a day.  Giving it up was not an easy decision, but my front teeth were repeatedly being stained by tea and after three trips to the dentist in six months (and as someone who is absolutely terrified of dentists) something had to give.  So since my last dentist’s appointment, I haven’t touched a cup of tea.

I’m not going to lie:  it’s extremely difficult.  Sometimes I just crave a cup of tea so desperately, not least when having a treat.  Tea and cake simply belong together.  A good brew would have been lovely with this cookie, but I tried to console myself with a glass of milk.  It’s hard to be downhearted when you’ve got this big beast in front of you, anyway.

This was inspired by my tragic history of loving ’treats’ that other people find vaguely cheap and unpleasant - my favourite chocolate as a child was Scotbloc cooking chocolate, sometimes I still crave those Tesco value milk chocolate bars that are about 20p for 100g, and I long believed the giant double chocolate chip cookies from the Safeway bakery were the finest in the world.  This is my attempt to recreate those cookies that I loved so in my childhood – I didn’t get mine nearly as thin, but it was so tasty and the texture was pretty spot on, really soft and chewy.  It’s big and it’s beautiful, and, as I repeatedly told myself while shaking uncontrollably, it’s perfectly good without a cup of tea for company.

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ingredients:

30g butter, softened

2 tbsp granulated sugar

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp beaten egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

62g plain flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

chocolate chips

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

2.  Cream together the butter and sugars.

3.  Beat in the egg and vanilla.

4.  Stir in the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.

5.  Scoop the sticky dough up with a spoon and pile it into a big ball on the baking sheet.  Press on the chocolate chips.

6.  Bake for 17 minutes – it should be set around the outside, but still quite soft in the middle.

7.  Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes.  Devour!

Mexican Bean & Tomato Soup

About two months ago I gave up something I loved (more on that on Thursday) and took up something I hated.  Jogging.  I had only jogged once before, a disastrous mission when I was home from Vietnam one Christmas.  I set off in the bitter Manchester cold with multiple layers on and a vague idea of jogging to a bridge on the canal, then jogging back.  I had no idea how far it was or how long it would take.  Off I went, quickly over-heating and struggling to remove hat and gloves and stuff them into pockets, hurtling along at my (pretty poor) top speed and quickly gasping for breath and clutching a stitch in my side.  Jogging did not become a hobby, or even a habit.

I decided to try it again this year when a friend asked me what my aim was at the gym and I realised I didn’t have one.  I decided that taking up running would give me specific time and distance targets to aim for, and I could even think about signing up for a race or two if it went well.  With my previous failure in mind, I decided to do it properly this time, and armed myself with the NHS podcasts for the Couch Potato to 5K training plan.  I marked the weeks and days to run in my diary, not really believing I’d see it through to week nine.  Every week I’d look at my running times and targets and think to myself ‘Well, I won’t be able to do that but I’ll give it my best shot’.  Yet every week I met my target.  The first time I did a ten minute run without breaks, I felt such a sense of achievement, I could have just run the London marathon.  On Saturday I did my last run of the nine week plan, running 5K in 30 minutes in the heat and humidity.  As it came to an end, I half expected a bit of fanfare – but I simply dragged my bright red, sweaty self home and promised myself to keep up the running and see if I can work my way up to 10K.

It’s been tough to stay motivated – if I drag myself out of bed in the early hours, it’s the hottest, sweatiest morning ever.  If I wait until after work, there’s a torrential downpour and I have to splash through the puddles (and encounter people with umbrellas ON THE JOGGING PATH – that’s just not on, surely).  But I find it clears my mind in a way that the gym doesn’t, and anyway if I want to continue eating lots of cake I should keep it up.  As I’ve been posting a lot of treats recently, here’s a healthier recipe for balance as well – perfect after a gruelling run.

Mexican Bean & Tomato Soup

Serves 4, from River Cottage Veg Every Day

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/4 tsp chilli powder (mine is extremely potent – use as much as you like, or fresh chillies)

1/2 tsp ground cumin

600ml vegetable stock

200ml passata

400g tomatoes, cored, deseeded and finely chopped

400g tin black beans, drained and rinsed

handful chopped oregano

pinch of sugar

juice of 1 lime

handful chopped coriander

Method:

1.  Heat the oil in a large pan over medium hear and fry most of the onions (reserve a few for the garnish) for about 5 minutes.

2.  Add the garlic, chilli and cumin for another minute.

3.  Pour in the stock, passata, tomatoes, beans, oregano and sugar.  Season and bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.

4.  Stir in the lime and most of the coriander.

5.  Serve garnished with a little leftover onion, coriander and some black pepper.

Chocolate Cherry Granola

One of my local colleagues recently made her first trip to Europe, spending her honeymoon exploring Italy and France.  On her return I very excitedly asked what she thought about the food, and got a surpisingly lukewarm response – apparently it just wasn’t as good as food in Hong Kong.  She took particular issue with the breakfast:  “Why do Europeans like cold breakfasts?  It’s all cereal and bread!”  I guess we all like the familiar.  The smell of savoury noodle dishes in the morning absolutely nauseates me.  When I lived in Vietnam, I always thought of pho as a lunchtime dish, but the locals would happily slurp it down for breakfast.  I do like a good cooked breakfast, but for day to day life it is generally something cold, like a bowl of this delicious chocolate granola with yoghurt.  It might not impress the people of Hong Kong, but it certainly does the job for me!

Chocolate Cherry Granola

Ingredients:

200g rolled oats

30g cocoa

50g dessicated coconut

50g flaked almonds

160g honey

2 tsp vanilla extract

50-100g dried cherries

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 200C and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

2.  Mix the oats, cocoa, coconut and almonds together in a large bowl.

3.  Pour in the honey and vanilla.  Mix well to combine until sticky evenly coated.

4.  Tip the mixture onto the baking sheet.

5.  Bake for 20-30 minutes, turning the mixture upside down with a spoon half way through.

6.  Leave to cool.

7.  Break the pieces down into little clusters in a mixing bowl.  Add the cherries and mix through.

8.  Store in jars and enjoy with milk or yoghurt, or alone as a snack.

Challenge #4: Rainbow Cake

I actually squealed with delight when I sliced into this cake and caught my first glimpse of the vivid rainbow colours inside.  Until that moment, I couldn’t quite believe it was going to work.  While it’s not technically difficult at all, this cake is not for the faint-hearted – I was so nervous and tense while I was assembling it and waiting for it to set, it was a level of tension I had not experienced since the bunker scene at the end of the first series of Homeland.

This challenge was set by my friend Jen (as these challenges continue it will become clear how many friends I have who share my name, not to mention how fond we all are of baked goods), a woman who knows about good food and has finally landed the dream for all nomadic English teachers:  a real oven!  Armed with a Nigella book, I’m sure she will be putting me to shame in no time.

Jen and I used to share a flat in Italy – a flat at the top of a hill which seemed to rival Everest as we dragged ourselves home at 9:30pm every night.  Monday night would be an ‘early’ 8pm finish, when we’d have a bit more of a spring in our step as we marched home to spend the rest of the evening dissecting the day over our tea and watching episodes of Jersey Shore in open-mouthed horror.  This cake could bring cheer to any situation, but I’m sure it would be best served alongside a good gossip with an amazing friend (and optional trashy TV).

Rainbow Cake

Ingredients:

2 batches of the Victoria sponge batter

6 different gel food colourings

2.5 batches vanilla buttercream

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 190C, and butter and base line 3 20cm cake tins.

2.  Make up one batch of Victoria sponge batter as the recipe states.

3.  Divide it between three separate bowls (I weighed mine for accuracy).

4.  Use a gel colouring to dye your batter the colours of the rainbow.

5.  Pour the batter into the separate cake tins, level the tops as best you can and bake for 15-20 minutes.

6.  Cool on wire racks, turn out to cool completely.

7.  Whip up another batch, dye it the other three colours and bake as above.

8.  When the sponges have cooled, make the vanilla buttercream following the recipe.

9.  To assemble the cake, place the purple sponge on a plate or cake board.  Spread a thinnish layer of buttercream on top.

10.  Fix the blue sponge on top, repeat as above until you’ve placed all the sponges on – mine had a bit of a leaning tower look to it!

11.  Slap a thin layer of buttercream on the top and sides of the cake – I’ve seen this referred to on some websites as the “crumb layer” because it gathers up a few rainbow coloured crumbs.  Don’t worry about how (un)attractive this looks – it’s just to hold it in place and help the cake set.  Stick the cake in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

12.  Now use the rest of the buttercream to generously coat the cake.  You could add some Smarties or glitter or anything else you fancy to decorate it.

Fig & Hazelnut Scones

When it comes to cafes, I always opt for independent ones rather than chains when I’m back in the UK.  There is certainly no lack of them in Edinburgh where I went to university – some proudly proclaiming “JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter here”, and one equally proudly advertising the fact that ”JK Rowling did not write Harry Potter here.”  However, when I’m far from home I tend to stick to the big chains, because they’re reliable and consistent, they have an English menu and there is no confusion over how to order, when to pay, and all those other little issues that crop up in the unknown.  So it is that I have come to adore the baked goods at Starbucks.

My current favourite is the fig and hazlenut scone.  I actually spend some mornings daydreaming about them and calculating if I can add any detours to my day that will conveniently drag me past a Starbucks.  At last, partly due to finances and partly due to fear of the scones being rotated off the menu soon, I have taken matters into my own hands and made my own version.  I feel immensely relieved, knowing that I’m no longer reliant on Starbucks for my fix.

Fig & Hazelnut Scones

Makes 6

Ingredients:

125g self raising flour

100g whole wheat flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

50g butter

25g caster sugar

60g dried figs, chopped

50g hazelnuts, chopped

1 egg, beaten with enough milk to make 150ml liquid

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 220C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

2.  Mix together the flours, baking powder and salt in a large bowl, then rub in the butter with your fingertips.

3.  Stir in the sugar, followed by the figs and hazelnuts.

4.  Pour in the egg and milk mixture, reserving a little for brushing the tops.  Bring together to form a dough.

5.  Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface.  Roll or pat into a nice round.

6.  Cut into six slices.

7.  Place the triangles on the prepared baking tray and brush with the leftover egg mixture.

8.  Bake for about 10 minutes.

9.  Cool on a wire rack.  Best served warm!