Here we are already drudging along the second week of September... already into our fourth month of married life! Looks like we've settled in quite nicely now, but it's proving to be a lot of work managing the household chores, cooking and working a full-time job. Most days I plan the next day's dinner in the evening, and if I'm stuck I just go through my emergency meals spreadsheet that I've been compiling, complete with hyperlinks to the recipes. I've been finding it very useful on days when hubby doesn't feel like wrecking his brains over ways I can use what's in the fridge and leaves me with a genial "Surprise me!" void.
You see, the element of surprise stops at the exact point that I actually decide on a recipe - then he'll instantly start tweaking and twisting and stretching the ingredients and side dishes to such extents that I might as well just go on "Ready, Steady, Cook" with a mystery bag of produce and place it in front of him, letting his imagination run wild. Wild meaning that if there's meat, there has to be fries.. if there's pasta, some of it has to be left sans sauce for him to enjoy as God (or Barilla) created it.. What worries me most is that if left to his own devices, he'd be more than happy to eat steak or pasta every day, so I have to be a bit sneaky with the veggies and the tough task of at least one weekly meat-free meal. Last time I suggested I make a nice soup for dinner, I showed him a few recipes on Tastespotting, and as soon as he saw a stew-like Beef and Barley soup, I had lost my battle. It did look delicious, and it was cooked in the slowcooker, and I did have to go buy that dress after work, so what do you know I did end up making just that!
Lately I've been trying out quite a lot of new recipes, including FX Cuisine's Falsomagro, which turned out to be an exercise in bondage with me all tied up with a lump of meat on a Saturday evening. All the hard work and swearing paid off in the end, cause it's definitely one of the recipes I'll be going back to. Good thing I figured out how to 'knit' a string jacket for the Falsomagro (pictured here) - next time round it won't take half as long to prepare. I made some minor changes to FX's recipe, mainly that I left the eggs slightly undercooked so that they were easy to peel and could continue cooking whilst inside the Falsomagro, but in the end they had just solidified to a bright yellow and were not overcooked to a greyish rubbery lump. I did not serve the Falsomagro slices topped with the sauce - instead, I had added some pancetta cubes to the sauce ingredients prior to cooking, and used the heavenly result to dress fresh pasta and used that as a starter. With the Falsomagro slices I served a very simple Bernaise sauce, which in my opinion, let the tastes and textures of all my hard work stand out much better.Today should have been one of our 'lighter food' days after quite a few days of indulgence. Yesterday we had agreed before that I was to limit myself to Brodu (a Maltese traditional soup which is basically a light vegetable broth flavoured with fresh beef chunks). But then hubby came running into the kitchen later in the evening sniffing around with a huge smile on his face - I'd lit a Yankee Housewarmers candle, which had in a few minutes filled the house with the smell of cakes, and what my husband apparently concluded were donuts.. as if I'd decide to start frying donuts at 9pm yeah right!! He was so disappointed that I decided to surprise him with a batch today, even though I'd have to rush home like a madman after work and after going to the supermarket to fetch a few things we needed.
I did a few research on the net - what hubby and most of the Maltese population mean by donuts is the doughy, yeasty, sugar-enrobed concoction, and definitely not the glazed light Krispy Kreme version. On 101 Cookbooks, there was an oven-baked recipe which sounded tempting, but then I thought what's the point - if this is gonna be a treat, then let it be a full-blown one! I looked and looked and decided that I should really tweak my findings into my own recipe, and the risk was worth it.. I'm writing it here for my own reference in the very near future cause this one was definitely a hit!
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Donna's Donuts
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
5 cups plain flour, sifted
2 sachets instant yeast
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
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Method:
Mix the milk, sugar and salt and whizz in the microwave till warm. Mix so that the sugar and salt dissolve completely. Place 2 cups of sifted flour in the food processor (with the dough hook attached), add nutmeg and vanilla essence and milk mixture and process till mixed well. Sprinkle yeast and process for a few seconds. To the melted butter, add the 2 eggs. Pour this mixture with the rest of the contents in the mixer, and process till it's incorporated. Add the remaining flour gradually, until the dough starts leaving the sides of the food processor as it turns. The dough will be very very soft, but shouldn't be liquidy or pourable. Transfer the dough with the help of a spatula to an oiled bowl. Cover with clingfilm and let it sit in a warm place for 30-40 minutes, until the dough doubles in size. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and fold it over a couple of times, ensuring there's plenty of flour underneath it. Roll the dough to a thickness of around 3cm, cut out small rounds of about 8cm in diameter (I wanted relatively small donuts) and place the dough rounds on floured dishes. Cover again with clingfilm and allow to rise for another half an hour.
Deep fry the donuts in hot vegetable oil, turning once one side is done. These really cooked fast and were done in 2 minutes flat, so you have to keep an eye on them otherwise they burn! Drain on paper towels, roll in generous amounts of sugar and pipe either nutella or strawberry jam (or both like I did) into the centre. Best eaten warm (with a loved one). Store any leftovers (yeah right) in an airtight container.. but as I said these were verrrry good so if you do not intend to eat them all please think ahead and send out a batch to a neighbour as soon as you make them!
