Basic Pancake Recipe

Pancakes are very easy to make. You can make them in batches and reheat them for a quick breakfast.

My grandma used to fill them with a sweet cheese filling (quark (white cheese) with rasins and a little bit of suggar according to taste). We used to eat them fresh or the next day when she just banged them into the oven for reheating. The cheese then turned harder. Both ways are totally delicous.

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons each sugar and baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk (milk substitute, water or soda)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil plus oil for frying

In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients. Mix well. Beat in the in egg, milk and vegetable oil, stirring until wet. Mixture should end up slightly lumpy. Leave the mixtrue for about 10 minutes.
Heat a griddle or large skillet to medium high. Add very little oil to the pan.
Pour some of the batter on the skillet. If you like American style pancakes then you can make several small pancakes a time, depending on how many your skillet or griddle will hold without the pancakes touching and leaving room to be able to flip them. I personally like the European style more, which are large ones and for those I use a medium sized pan.

The pancakes are ready to flip when you see many bubbles popping on the surface. Flip and cook for another minute, the second side doesn’t take as long to cook. Both sides should be a nice golden brown.

Tip: If you want to fill them with a savoury filling leave out the suggar. For those who want to keep it kosher (or follow a diet that doesn't allow mixing different proteins), use a milk substitute or use water or soda (the pancakes will be even fluffier)

Homemade Ice Cream in a blitz

Years ago at a Tupper party the Tupper lady made ice cream using just a few ingredients and this hand mixer/blender. I adapted this for ease to use a food processor.
This recipe will make real nice fruit flavored ice cream in just a few seconds. And the best part: You don’t need an expensive ice cream maker.

2 cups frozen fruit (sliced if necessary)

1/2 cup of sugar (adjusted to taste)

1 cup heavy cream or yoghurt

Put the fruit in your blender or food processor. Add the sugar and a little of the cream and start processing/blending. Keep blending until the fruit is well pureed. Add more cream as needed to get the right consistency. Depending on the fruits you use you may have to put the mixture back in the freezer for a bit.

This recipe works best with berries, peaches, mango or bananas.

French Toast with a nutty filling

In my household we always do Erev Shabat (Sabath Evening). The traditional ceremony involves blessing two Challas (white braided bread. You can get it plain (my hubbys favourit), sweet, which I like or with rasins).  Every week we are left with way too much Challa, which I turn into french toast Saturday morning. However, after eating it week in week out I started to get rather board with it. 

I read on the internet several times about filling french toasts and deep frying it. As I am just a little bit health concious deep frying is just not really what I would call for. So, I plaid around with some ideas and came up with this one. It is very versitile, supper easy to make and you can substitute the nut filling for other self made or  bought fillings. You need about 30 minutes from start to finish for a great breakfast.

16 slices of bread

Nut Mixture

1/4 cup oil OR 1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup packed brown or white sugar

1/2 cup chopped nuts - go wild, mix or just use one type.

Batter

1 cup milk

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 175°C.

During this time, heat the oil or butter together with the sugar to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and stir in nuts. Set aside.

In a bowl mix the milk, eggs, granulated sugar and vanilla together. Dip 8 slices toast into the batter and place them back on the baking sheet. Spread a heaping tablespoons of the nut mixture onto each. Dip remaining bread slices into batter and place over nut filling to make a sandwich.

Bake for 20 minute or until hot. Serve immediately.

Prepare a baking sheet and place the bread slices on it. Bake for about 5 minutes or until lightly toasted. Remove from oven and set aside.

Date cookies

Again, a family tradition from my friend Donna. Granted, I have not made them yet, but have eaten them once. They are really delicious. Donna, you truely are the greatest.

Dough
400 gr Margarine (4 sticks Margarine)
1/2 c oil
1 kg flour
2 tbs Sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 cup water

Filling
2 tubs date spread
Cinamon
Sugar

Powdered Sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C.
Mix all dough ingredients together. Cut the dough into 4 and roll each out to a square (not too thin, but not too thick). 
Spread 1/2 a tub of date spread onto each dough square. Sprinkle with cinamon and sugar. Roll up and cut into about 2 cm cookies, however, cut only half way through.

Bake about 15 minutes. Let the cookies cool slightly and cut them through completely.

Tip: Date spread is basically pureed dates. You get it in this country just about in every mini-market or corner shop (as they call it in the UK). You can make it yourself by destoning dates and cooking them in a little bit of water. Puree it and hey presto, you have date spread.

Donna's Carrot cake

This is the best carrot cake I have ever tasted and dead easy to make it. My friend Donna always makes it for Kindergarden events or just for fun. Adjust the amount of cinamon according to taste and how strong the cinamon is.

1 1/4 cups oil
1 cup each light brown sugar and dark brown suggar (the wet type)
4 eggs
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp cinamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3 large carrots (grated)

Preheat oven to 180°C.
Mix everything together and fill into a large form. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. Enjoy

Ritz Chicken nuggets

I love chicken nuggets or schnitzel, as we call them in Israel (actually chicken nuggets are called schnitzelonim, the big ones are called schnitzel). When I get the opportunity to eat a good schnitzel I will take it. My husband makes great schnitzel, and yet... I was getting board with eating it more or less the same way every time. I started to experiment with the "bread crumbs" I was using. Several years ago I heared someone telling me that they had used Ritz crackers.

When I went shopping the other day I thought: Hey why not... The nuggets turned out sooooo delicious. Even better then the one my husband makes lol. I just couldn't stop eating them.

So, here is the recipe I came up with:

2 whole chicken breasts cut into stripes or nuggets
3/4 package of Ritz type crackers (depening on the size you have it may be more or less. I think I used about 300gr...)
2 eggs
1/4 cup water

Preheat a grill/broiler (not too hot so the chicken won't dry out)
Prepare a baking sheet.
In a blender turn the cracers into crumbs and put them on a plate
Blend together the eggs with the water on a seperate plate
Dip the chicken picees first into the egg mixture and then coat them with the crumbs. Put the prepared chicken on the baking sheet.
Once the baking sheet is full put it into the hot oven and broil the nuggets for about 10 minutes.
Repeat with the rest of the chicken pieces.

I made 2 baking sheets worth of delicous chicken nuggets which didn't last too long. My hubby was also impressed with them. So, even though they are the most expensive crumbs I ever used I will definately make it again.

Chinese Dipping sauces

I am a big fan of chinese dipping sauces. I love them with my schnitzels, with steak (yeah, I know), with grilled chicken etc or add them to stir fries and sauces. I even put them on my sandwiches and have them with chips... you get the picture.

There is just one problem with it: The store bought sauces are filled with all types of  stabalizers and what have you not. So I started experimenting with making them at home. Have fun making them too:

Sweet Chili Sauce

Sweet and a little spicy. A staple in my house. This recipe is very quick and simple to make.Only twist to the store bought sauce is the addition cilantro, which kicks the whole thing up a notch.

Yield: 2 cups

2-4 tablespoons hot ground chili paste or chilli flakes (according to taste)

2-4 teaspoons minced garlic (again according to taste)

1/2 cup rice wine vinegar

2/3 cup water

2/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons cornstarch

4 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Combine everything, except the cilantro, in a small sauce pan and mix. Once blended, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cliantro.

Sweet and sour plum sauce

1 can crushed pineapple in syrup

1 c. sugar

1 c. and 2 tbsp water

1 c. vinegar

1 tbsp. soy sauce

2 tbsp. cornstarch

1 c. plum jam

Heat pineapple with syrup, sugar, 1 cup water, vinegar and soy sauce to boiling. Mix cornstarch and 2 tablespoons cold water, stir into pineapple mixture. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Cool to room temperature, stir in plum jam. Cover and refrigerate. Makes 6 cups.

Hoisin Sauce

1.5 cups soy sauce

1 cup peanut butter

2 tbsp of honey

2 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp hot sauce

1 tsp garlic powder

¼ tsp of white pepper

Mix all ingredients together until smooth. Makes 4 servings