Veggie Fritters (Gorengan)

Indonesians love fried stuffs. And I only learnt when I was 27 that it was not such a good thing. So I tried to reduce my consumption of fried foods ever since but not in an extreme way. Every once in a while I'll have fried foods or gorengan as we call it.

There is always something good in something bad, they say. And it's damn right.

So I decided to do my own gorengan. I made some adjustments that hopefully reduced the "badness" by using vegetables, less frying oil and no MSG. It tasted pretty good. I mean, gorengan is never that savoury snack dish. But it could make a good entree or simply a snack while watching rugby.

In this recipe, I was using white cabbage, green beans and carrots. All were leftovers from the salad the night before. You can make sweet dishes, too, using this batter and make pisang goreng (fried bananas), fried sweet cassava, etc. Just free yourself and experiment.

Guacamole

I remember the first time I had guacamole. I couldn't stop eating it! I liked the sweetness, the citrousy tang, and the freshness of this green dip. It's such a perfect Sunday snack when you don't feel like eating big but some munchies would be great as companion to watch your favourite Sunday TV show. Share it with friends and family, chances are they're gonna totally love it!

Cheese Balls Rolled in Almonds

I have been in a crazy mood of cooking and baking for the past month. Some I took their photos of... some I just missed doing that. Basically if I cook in the evening, as soon as I am done cooking, I just can't wait to eat it. Except it is something you can eat even when it's cold, like cookies! Also, I have had this strange urge to keep eating cheesy stuff. And the result is I have baked three kinds of cheese cookies from different recipes in the past 2 weeks. THAT I find very peculiar. Definitely out of habit for me.

But then, take a look at the bright sides: I get to eat the cheese cookies I've been longing for and I get to blog about them here!

The cheese cookies I am talking about now are covered by almond pieces. I have to admit that I didn't see the picture well. The recipe calls for crushed almond pieces without skin, but I bought the ones WITH skin.

And then I was too impatient to cut them into very thin slices. That made two third of the cookies were covered by almonds (rather chunky almonds, I must say), and the rest was bare. Both tasted lovely. Vincent loved the ones with the chunky almonds. Me, I preferred the bare cheese cookies. I got to taste the cheese more, unobstructed by the almonds.

Check out this Cheese Balls with Almonds recipe, adapted from "Kue Kering Keju" cookbook by Cucu Cahyana & Yeni Ismayani.

Cookies (chocolate chip and lemon)

cookies baked in a pan

As I said in my last post, my oven was broken on the day my brother and his girlfriend came from Surabaya, my hometown. I already made the cookie dough and I had to put it in the fridge until I could figure out what I should do with it (or with my oven). After 2 days passed by, I thought I couldn't keep the dough too long in the fridge and it didn't seem that any electrician was working during the Christmas week. So I experimented with my non-stick pan.

It worked!!!

What I did was to line the usual baking cookie tray with baking paper and arrange the dough on top of it. In the mean time, I reheated a large non-stick pan on a hob with lid closed. Very quickly I put the cookie tray inside and close the lid again. Wait for 10 minutes, voila!!! The cookies were ready. Okay, you need to do more batches this way, but in case one day your oven breaks down and you are ready with the dough, this is an alternative way to "bake" your cookies.