Golden Milk ☼

Hey! 
 السَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ 

I just found out that today was 'Blue Monday', a term they coined to describe the most depressing day of the year. 'They' should have chosen a better name I think because this just reminds of an Icelandic holiday - think Blue Lagoon, the geothermal spa. I want to go travelling so bad its ridiculous but life (and myself) just keep getting in the way; I admire and envy people who are able to buy a plane ticket, just pack up and be off... how?! 
Anyway its past eight in evening so I think I can be cautiously optimistic in saying today wasn't that bad. I mean I did wake up late, have a few mishaps, leave half my lunch at home and feel less than fabulous, but its not blue Monday worthy. 
Other folk haven't been quite so lucky, we have a nasty cold going round and so I've been making gallons of remedial drinks to soothe the sore throats (and stop the coughing!), its a work in progress.

So if you too are feeling a little under the weather I couldn't recommend the following drink enough. 

Known as 'Golden Milk', this is an age old Ayurvedic remedy that originates from Asian culture, my grandma used to give it to my dad and his siblings! They were definitely onto something, because with a little research I found that turmeric has tons of health benefits.

Now I don't want to bore you too much, but of course its good to put good stuff into our bodies and know why they're good, right?

As for the for turmeric its hella good - promotes digestion, is an antioxidant, supports the brain, liver, joints and nervous system, nourishes the heart etc. Combine this with pepper which enhances the good properties of turmeric by increasing the body's absorption by 2000% and you're on to a winning combo. 

Read on for the recipe!

Golden Milk Ingredients

You will need: cinnamon (bark or powdered), honey, freshly ground pepper, milk and the star of the show - the tumeric!

To start with heat up your milk (this can be almond, coconut, soy, whatever floats your boat), I did this in the microwave but if you have time add all the ingredients to a pan and heat them together.  

Next we add a teaspoon of turmeric, half a tsp of cinnamon, a tablespoon of honey and a sprinkle of pepper.

Give this a thorough mixing using a milk frother, cue the action shots!

Top with a little powdered cinnamon and there we have it, the end result; a beautifully frothy, delicious and beneficial Golden drink that's sure to brighten your evening. 

😋

Enjoy!

Q x

Easy Homemade Pizza - No Yeast & No Cook Sauce!

  Hello!
  (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*

I'm currently in a hibernation-like mode, basically sitting in a cocoon of blankets hoping that I'll metamorphosise into a functioning member of society in time for Monday morning (but if I turn into a butterfly, thats cool too). 
Just kidding, I've actually had a reasonably productive day, by Sunday standards at least, I mean I didn't wake up at 12 and stay in my pyjamas all day so thats good. I did however cook up a storm in the kitchen, it was catastrophically messy and took far too long cleaning up - woes of a messy cook! so now I feel like I deserve this second cup of spiced chai and another episode of HTGAWM (annalise keating is goals), I've also re-watched some Planet Earth II because its the best thing ever. 
Now before you start getting too envious please be aware that I also made homemade pizza 
الحمد لله

But rest assured you can have it too, in the next hour or so - its that quick and easy! I love this recipe because the base is amazing, soft yet firm enough to hold the gazillion toppings I insist on putting on it & it has no yeast! so it saves so much time because there's no waiting around for the dough to rise. Also if that wasn't enough this recipe has my favourite pizza sauce, which is also ridiculously easy but with such good flavour. 
Do yourself a favour and hold off ordering the Domino's, have a go at this recipe and let me know how it goes.

To make it you'll need a few ingredients:

1. Self-raising flour
2. Salt
3. Tomato paste
4. Mature white cheddar
5. Peppers
6. Sweetcorn
7. Tuna/Chicken tikka (or not if you're veggie)
8. Salt & chilli powder

To start with we're going to make the pizza dough so that it can rest while the other ingredients are prepared.

Into a large bowl I added self-raising flour (no specific weight quantity but for 8 medium pizzas, as I ended up making, I used a little less that an entire bag of flour - that's 1.5 kg), to this I added 1 and a 1/2 tablespoons of salt - give this a quick stir. 

Now the trick to making this pizza dough soft and not claggy or thick is all in the technique - so pop your bowl into the sink and turn on the tap to warm, you don't want hot water just reasonably warm. Now start mixing in the water with your hand, keep your wrist motions swift and use a claw-like hand, which introduces air and stops everything sticking to your hand, cue the blurry action shots! 

Keep adding water until your mixture looks like this - not too dry and not too wet, add more water its the former or more flour if its the latter. Also note that you can add water from a jug if it makes it easier to control.

You then need wet your hands and the bowl and start to knead the dough, using your knuckles to press and the motion of your wrists to stretch (please check out the video too, I'm finding this hard to explain!). This aligns the entangled network of gluten proteins in the flour which traps air and makes the dough stretchy (for the science peeps) 

I'm now getting war flashbacks to my biomaterial engineering uni days; electrospinning of PLGA to make aligned fibres with the topology to provide support for myoblast elongation and fibre-reinforced polymer aligned in the z-direction for toughness greater than steel.. cool but try writing an seven page assignment on it with calculations x_x

You knead to keep dough-ing this until it looks like the picture above, the dough has has a sheen to it and is soft to the touch. (p.s. sorry, there's just too many dough related puns, I couldn't help it!). Then leave your dough to sit while you get on with prepping the rest of the ingredients.

The no-cook tomato sauce - now this is so easy you might assume that it couldn't possibly be any good, but alas the opposite is true, sometimes, simple is best. All you need is you desired quantity of quality tomato paste, this is a thick and rich tomato concentrate with intense flavour which I love in a pizza sauce (also aint nobody got hours for cooking fresh tomatoes, which won't even have the same flavour pay-off). Then add half a tsp of red chilli powder and half a tsp of salt, stir and add 4-5 tblsp of cold water - mix to incorporate. Add more or less water depending on how liquidy you want your pizza sauce. That's it!

Now chop your veg, I had peppers, cherry tomatoes and sweetcorn (& pineapple - although not for me because I'm not a fan of sweet on my savoury). Grate your cheese, mature cheddar is good but you do you - mozzarella, parmesan, emmental, romano etc. (yeah showing off my cheese knowledge, so what). Also whipped up some one-pot Peri-peri chicken (lemme know if you want the recipe, it can used for wraps and sandwiches too) & I drained a tin of tuna. 

Now back to the pizza dough, roll some large dough balls by rolling the dough in your palm then using your rolling pin flatten the dough to make your base, (I've said dough/roll one too many times) 

Now heat up for pan, or tawa if you have one, its basically a large flat frying pan. You don't require any butter or oil, just whack your flat dough on to the hot pan - actually don't whack, place it nicely!

Keep it on high heat til bubbles appear on the surface, then flip and cook the other side for less time since its already cooked through. Once its cooked, the darker side (the one cooked first/for slightly longer) will be the bottom of the base and the lighter, bubblier side will be the top.

Then all you've got to do is the fun part, add the toppings! Spread on a generous amount of the sauce, add the sweetcorn, peppers and chicken tikka or tuna. Scatter on the cheese, sprinkle on dried mixed herbs, slices cherry toms, torn up basil leaves and thinly sliced red onion if you have it. Omit and add ingredients as you wish.

All that's left to do is put the pizza in to a hot grill and cook until the cheese is all melted and golden. Then slice up with a pizza cutter and consume. 

😋

Enjoy!

Q x

Shakshuka - A Middle Eastern Meal

Happy Saturday!

I'm so glad because it’s been the longest week at work, ever. Yesterday it snowed and I still got that same excited feeling looking outside and seeing that the world outside my window had been transformed, like everything had been covered in a white blanket. I don't know, but there's just something about it! Here in the UK when there’s even the slightest degree of bad weather everyone goes into a meltdown (pun intended), its all they seemed to be talking about on the news, that and Trump x Russia... but lets not get into politics, we could be here a while!

When I woke up this morning however everything was back to normal, but still very cold. For me a cozy weekend morning begins with a nice breakfast, by that I mean one that I've actually put effort into (and not a bowl of cocopops), or in some cases rather than breakfast we have brunch! depending on the extent of the lie-in. 
Today I made Shakshuka, if you haven't heard of it or tasted it yet then you're in for a treat. Its basically a middle eastern dish featuring veg and egg and its delicious. الحمد لله
So without further ado, lets get you acquainted with the recipe!

You'll need a few ingredients that you most likely already have in the fridge:

1. Onion (red or white)
2. Red pepper & green pepper
3. Garlic
4. Tin of Italian chopped tomatoes
5. Tomato puree
6. Garlic 
7. Basil & corriander
8. Salt, black pepper and spices    

To start with I chopped up my onion, I ended up using about 3 quarters of a medium sized one

I diced it into quite small pieces, because I'm not a fan of chunky onion in my food, but either way I would definitely recommend smaller pieces for this recipe.

Then I chopped up my peppers and finely minced the garlic.. also I found a tiny red pepper inside the larger one, but couldn't bear to take it to the chopping block, so it survived this ordeal.
It terms of quantity, feel free to adjust as you see best, but for reference I used a little less that three quarters of a red pepper, about half a green one and a clove of garlic.

Then in a non-stick pan I heated up some extra virgin olive oil until it was sizzling and added in my onions and garlic - you want to saute this until the onions are soft and have a slight colouring.

At this point I added in my flavouring and spices! That is half a tsp of paprika, half tsp of red chilli, half tsp of mixed masala (heavy on the cumin) and salt & black pepper to taste. You need to stir this all in and cook for a few minutes to incorporate.

Then I tipped in my peppers and cooked them for a few minutes to soften them up, there's no need to cook them for too long at this stage.

After that I stirred in two spoons of tomato puree and poured in my tin of chopped tomatoes, this had a few reasonably large chunks of tomato but with the heat this reduces down, you can also use your spatula to press and stir this in (also excuse the foggy picture!)

This mixture then needs to be cooked on medium heat for around 5 minutes until it has reduced, as is shown above. Be sure to stir it every now and then to make sure it doesn't burn

I then chopped up some basil and coriander - omit or use more depending on your preference.

Then I made two wells in my tomato mixture and cracked an egg into each, but in truth I could have done with one more. 
I sprinkled the coriander and basil on top with an extra pinch of black pepper, then covered my pan and cooked the mixture for around 5-7 minutes on medium heat. This resulted in well cooked eggs, just how I like it! but if you prefer your eggs with a more runny yolk cook it for less time. 

Voilà, the end result! I served it with some buttered white toast. Make sure to eat it while its still warm, much tastier that way.

On this occasion we had it for breakfast but shakshuka can also be eaten as a light lunch or evening meal with sides. Or as part of an extravagant brunch as shown above - also how cute is my little pan! the perfect amount for one person or two if you feel like sharing (most unlikely).
😋
Enjoy!
Q x