tattum's kitchen

Happy Halloween!!

*( trick or treat, see what happens if your mouse gets near Jack-o-lantern)

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ok, this is the one!! Look at this rounded, sponggy, little sweet things!! Oh, how happy I am! jijiji :0)
You know, the first time I tried a Banana Muffin was in a Starbucks from the 87th St with Broadway, in New York... how can you not fall in love with this city?
Well this was just a little note to share with you all.
By the way, the recipe, I'll post it later, but you can find it again in the Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook, page nº 12.

Besos

Apple Crumb Pie

Fran, really kindly, sent me an apple pie recipe that you can read here. But because I had a few connection problems with my  computer, I couldn’t get his recipe…so I promise to make it next time.
I had a look to my cookbooks, and remembered of the one I had bought only a few weeks ago, recommended by Sweetnicks,  Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook.

The other day, my sister, bought me already made pastry, to make it a little easier for me, and well because I’ve been dreaming of it for a few months now, and because it’s a rainy day and it’s cold, I just thought it was a perfect occasion.

I’ve always had a little of envy about the American baking custom. Here in Spain it’s quite different; for an “aperitivo” or for a  “caña y tapa”  we are perfect, but we are not too keen on baking. (you can see my previous post) ;)
There are very little patisseries, with really good cakes and pies, and they are usually owned by english, americans or northern europeans...the spanish bakeries, use lots of creams and fat, and it's quite imposible to find simple muffins, with chocolate chips, banana or blueberries, even the croissants, they are like really big but empty in the heart,so when you touch them, they deflate....

Anyway, I'm really happy with the results, and for sure it will become a must at home.

Here comes the recipe:

 Apple Crumb Pie, Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook, pag.92

1 unbaked pie shell (you can use Fran's recipe for this one)

 Apple Filling

1/3 cup granulated sugar 2 tablespoons flour 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 4 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced 1 tablespoon lemon juice

 Crumb Topping

1/2cup flour 1/3 cup sugar 4 tablespoons salted butter, chilled

Preheat the oven to 375ºF

 To Make The Apple Filling:

Combine sugar, flour, nutmeg and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add this spice mixture to the apples and toss the ingredients together. Spoon the apple mixture into the prepared shell. Sprinkle the filling with fresh lemon juice and set aside.

 To Make The Crumb topping:

Combine the flour, sugar and butter in a small bowl. Using a pastry blender, mix the ingredients until they are crumbly. Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over the apples.
Bake the pie for 1 hour or until the topping is golden. Remove the pan to a wire rack to let it cool. Serve the pie with vanilla ice cream,if desire.

 * if you like your pie less sweet, leave off the crumb topping and top the filling with pie pastry for a traditional apple pie

Hope you enjoy it! I did!

 

I Know I've Done Something Wrong, But What?

This is the look of my chocolate muffins after the 15min oven baking.

Can any one tell me what did I do wrong?
Because I know muffins shouldn't look this way...

I was reading Farmgirl Fare, when I came through a recipe of some good looking chocolate muffins. It was an emergency, and so it said in the recipe "For Small But Serious Chocolate Cake Emergencies", I thought it was perfect. But you'll see that there's no possible comparision between hers and mines ;)

I later thought that maybe the emergency was me trying to bake muffins, jijiji ;))

(right now I'm trying to get even with my baking, and there's an apple crumb pie baking in my oven, I'll write about it later)

Inverted Apple Cake

In Spain when you are sad and you don't want to show it, you say "la procesión va por dentro". It's an expression that comes from the Easter processions that we have in Spain. The catholic processions represent the suffer of the devoted to their saints. It's quite amazing to see all this people slowly and silently (well not always) walking down the street, following the saint from the church, around the town and back again to the church. It depends on the city, but you can see some, mainly in Andalucia, where they sing a "saeta", a devotional song. It's really, impressive!

well, you know where I wanna go...Instead of being at home, lying on the sofa or in bed, feeling sorry for myself, I decided to have a little "capriccio"... an apple cake. Now, here I would love to have an authentic american apple pie recipe, so if any of you knows one, pleeeaaaseee, send it to me!!! (I don't have it easy to find already made pastry, so if you also have the recipe... pleeaassee!!)

so as I was saying, I just thought, oh! come on, Tattum, have a break! so I went to my cookbook shelf, and thought about what I had at home already, and found a perfect recipe, The Inverted Apple Cake. (It really was a pear cake, but no pears in the fridge)

250gr flour
1/2 envelope of dry yeast
185gr white sugar
2 eggs
125gr butter
2 spoons of brown sugar
2 apples

melt the butter with the sugar at slow heat, once the sugar is melted add both eggs already beaten. Mix well. Add the mix to the flour and yeast, mix it but stop once the flour has dissapered.
on a rectangular cake mold, a base of paper (that brown one made for baking) and on top add the 2 spoons of brown sugar spread on the base, after that add the apple cut in pieces, and also spread on the base. to finish just add the flour mix and cook in the oven for 50 min at 180º C.

once it's finished cooking, turn around the mold so that the apples are on top.
(sorry for the bad quality of the photo, my husband took the camera with him on this trip, he's visiting Rumania, yupi!)

thanks for all the kind comments, they have been really conforting...a kiss to you all.

Not so good after all...

It's a little hard for me to say, but today, after a long saturday, and a short night, my baby decided not to grow for the moment. I will save you from not "so nice" scenes...but finally in the hospital they told me something that I knew already, that I had lost the baby...

Don't be sorry for me, I'll be ok. It's a shame because of the illusion, but I know that sooner or later I'll have my baby. He's just waiting for the best moment to come...

A kiss for everyone that reads this blog, thanks for being there. XXXXX

Tattum

My Granny's Scones

My father's mum was a great cooker. I remember her in the kitchen, making all kinds of fabulous dishes. I think my father has her great touch for flavours, always knows exactly how things must taste.
And I always had such fun watching her cook.

My grandmother was very thin, and she had that 30's look, with her hair short and always with a couple of waves next to her forehead. I never asked her to give me her best recipes, and now I regret it.
She lived in Argentina, but she traveled a lot to see us where ever we were. And one of the things that I loved best was her Scones. I have never liked too much sweet, and I've always been a more salty person, so these Scones were perfect for me, not too sweet but still perfect for tea time or even breakfast. 

Today for the first time, and after having a look to every cookbook that I have at home, I made Scones. I found an old cookbook, The Brownie Cookbook, that I think that my mum bought me during a Chritmas in London, a long time ago.

The recipe is quite easy,

225gr flour
1/2 envelope of dry yeast
a little of salt
1 teaspoon of sugar
1/2 cup of milk

Mix all of the ingredients till you get a firm pastry, knead it till it's well mixed. Flat the pastry in 1 inch width and cut with a glass or mold round pieces. Bake in the oven at 230ºC for 10min.

It's better to have them just made and warm.

I finally could use Paz's molds, and now that I feel that love is all around, they made the scones taste even better. Thanks again my dear Paz. XXXXX

 

Changes up on changes we are more or less the same...

After a few weeks of silently waiting for the news to confirm, I'm definetly going to be a Mum!!

This time everything is going alright, I have a future cousin, grandson, son, and who nows how many things more, growing inside of me. I'm only of 6 weeks, and well maybe some of you think that it's too soon, but I'm happy and this couldn't be something to just step aside for later...

I will have to make some difficult changes about food in my life, stop eating so much pasta (that I love), less meat, no fat, no sugar, no coke, no beer, no wine, no chips, no chocolate...mmmm, it's going to be really hard, on the other side I will have to eat a lot more of vegetables, and I would really apreciate if all of you could help me a little, posting once in a while, good looking vegetables dishes, for a future mum in trouble, ;)

I'm excited and frightened at the same time,...I supose everything will find it's place as the time goes by, but I just can't wait for all the changes to come!!

I'm going to have a baby...a baby...a baby...a baby...oh my....!!

Lasagna Mixta

it's a cloudy and windy day here in Madrid...and I'm sure that the fall has come to stay... Eat, Drink Man Woman on TV, and Alvaro having a "siesta" just beside me... just the perfect combination...
I love this movie, each time I watch it, I wish I had grown up in China, with all that tradition and that cooking paradise..."my childhood is full of smells"  just like Jia-Jen said...if you haven't watched it, please make the effort, it's worth it...

well, I didn't make chinise food, just a Lasagna. But for me it has the same meaning. it's elaborated and you have to start a couple of hours before lunch, and I love to do it. It's a shame that because of work I can't dedicate as many hours as I wish to the kitchen...

well, this lasagna is half of meat and half vegetarian, so you can always add more vegetables, like brocoli and make it totally vegetarian if you prefer it that way...here you have the recipe...

1kg of spinach
3 or 4 carrots
1 big onion
200grs of loose corn
500gr grinded meat
1 grinded tomato can
salt, sugar
precooked dry lasagna pasta
parmesan cheese

Chop the onion and in two pans add half and half of it. In one of them you will cook the onion, the carrot , the spinach and the corn, in that order and always waiting for the carrot to be well cooked, if not it will be too hard.

In the other pan you'll make the same as for a  bolognese sause, onion, meat, and the tomato can. The only difference is that for this one you need it more liquid, so that you can add it on top of the dry lasagna pasta.

The next step is quite simple, make different coats, the first one of meat, the second one of spinach and the last one again of meat, separating the coats with the dry lasagna . On top I always cover it with parmesan cheese, but some people make a bechamel sauce, it depends on what you like best.

Enjoy!

 

From The Heart

this morning I wrote a comment in Mona's blog, I remember that Mona, from NY, talked about some corks of wine that Barbara, from New Zealand, had sent to her.

I thought that it was exciting, how many people out there, that we don't know, and with who we've got so much in common...

Paz is great! she has an invaluable kindness. she, without making any fuss of it, sent me these lovelly cookie molds. and it's funny, because I'm in love with any kitchen utensil that gets to my hands, so these molds made my day!!

Paz, a million thanks, I'll make as soon as I can heart cookies, and heart pancakes, and heart pies, and heart jelly and....

Beixos!!