Spinach Olive Pizza

After beer bread for breakfast, which turned out to be a big hit in the family, my dad suggested I should  bake something for lunch. So I turned to food porn again on Tastespotting. The first thing I saw was pizza!

So lets trace back the first time I had good pizza. It might come as a surprise, but its actually Germany! While I was there for immersion about a year ago, pizza could be readily bought and most taste pretty good and cheap! Most of us lived with a host family within Münster itself, but a couple of my friends lived further out, in a village. So one day, after class we decided to check out the village. Since its a village and the train comes every hour, we stayed for dinner. With the guidance of Mel and Celeste's host father we made pizza!

Pizza is simple to make with the help of ready made dough. All you need is the toppings of your choice! Of course the star ingredient is spinach and garlic!

Ingredient ( 3 personal size pizza)

Ready made pizza base ( I don't know the exact size)

3 Tbs Tomato Paste

1 1/2 C Spinach

1/2 C Black Olives

1/2 C Pizza cheese ( Mixture of Mozzarella, Parmasan, Chedder)

Garlic ( as much as you like)

Sprinkle Oregano

Salt and pepper

Drizzle of Olive oil

1) Preheat oven at 220 Degrees.

2) Spread the tomato paste and place all the ingredients on the pizza.

3) Drizzle Olive oil before baking for about 15-20 mins or until crust turns slightly brown.

*4) Crack an egg before placing it in the oven and Tadah you have Pizza alla Bismark!

Oh yes, I sliced the beer bread from yesterday and added Butter, Parmesan, pepper and garlic and toasted it for about 8min. A nice hearty breakfast!

Herb Beer bread.

Sometimes, food for me is like a journal. The taste of certain food evokes a distinct feeling, a memory or simply captures the scene at that moment. I guess I like baking also because it momentarily brings me away to the time when I was traveling. Wondering along the streets and finding little surprises. The unpredictability of things!

Everyone remembers Köln for the Dom. Its never ending spiral stairs and of course the shopping!

But my first memory of Köln was walking in the rainy city with my friends, searching for something I can't quite remember. Feeling hungry and sad because we could not quite find what we were searching for and ended up at a bakery ( which happens to be a really good bakery, because about one year later I landed up there again to have lunch!). What caught my eye there was beer bread! In the cold rainy weather, feeling low and empty, beer bread came to the rescue, alright maybe I am dramatizing a little but I had really fantastic beer bread for the first time in my life. ( And I honestly thought it was beer flavored bread, well it isn't surprising to have this sort of stuff since we were in germany, where Beer is dirt cheap! )

And so today, I decided to recapture that memory. Its also partly because sister tan is complaining that I am baking too much sweet stuff and odd to quit sugar for once. Little did she know that I don't really like baking healthy stuff. hahaha!

I found a couple of beer bread recipe and decided to modify a little,

Adapted from Recipezaar

Ingredients

3 C Flour (Sifted. Very important step!)

3 Tsp Baking Powder

1 Tsp Salt

1/4 C Sugar

1 Tsp Garlic

1 Tsp Oregano
1/2 C Parmesan

1 (12 ounce) can Beer

1/4 C melted butter

1) Preheat oven to 178 degrees

2) Mix dry ingredients and beer

3) Pour into a greased loaf pan

4) Pour melted butter over mixture

5) Bake 1 hour, remove from pan and cool.

Its so simple, smells fantastic and taste even better than it looks!

Savory and Sweet Palmiers

There is always a first to everything. Today is my first time baking with puff pastry. Its unbelievably EASY. Simply idot proof! I first wanted to play with puff pastry when I was reading the cook book that ah huat's mum gave me. In the book, its Pesto- Palmiers. I used olive spread instead because there are two bottles of olive spread from Greece sitting in my fridge and nobody seem to know what to do with it. I bought ready made puff pastry and simply used the recipe as a rough guide to what I should do.

I will not state exactly how much ingredients I used because its really base on estimation. Base on what I am able to remember,

Ingredients
175g of Puff pastry ( Which is about half a packet)
1.5 Tbs Olive spread ( Or Green/ Red Pesto)
Handful of Parmesan, to be placed on top of each Palmier.
1 egg yolk + 1Tbs water

Its as simple as roll (the puff pastry to about 3mm thickness), Spread ( Spread whichever spread you are using), fold ( Fold in both sides of the dough.)

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees.

Place the rolled up dough in the fridge for about 15min, so that it is easier to cut, alternatively if you have no problems cutting the dough, its alright to simply cut and put it in the oven. The pastry could also be kept in the freezer till you are ready to bake them.

Cut the pastry, brush each with egg wash and place some Parmesan on top before placing it in the oven

Bake for about 10-14 min or until pastry become golden brown.

Serve hot! Perfect as finger food for parties :)

I also tried making it sweet. Tried it with Jam and then with sugar cinnamon. Turned out to look like mini cookies.

Herb and cheese Muffin.

Decided to try savory muffins today. While I was searching for something to bake, that does not require any cooking, I found this cheese and herb muffin. Which seem pretty interesting. I decided to give it a try and used Dill for the herb and mixed cheese.

I like this recipe. It has a really good texture to, moist and soft. But its important to get the right amount of salt and pepper to it. ( My muffins tasted a little blend, because I was really bad at estimating the amount of salt and pepper.) And I would suggest cheese with a stronger taste, for a stronger flavor.

12 large muffins

• Flour - 2 cups
• Baking powder - 2 teaspoons
• Baking soda - 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt, pepper, spices to taste
• Sugar - 1/2 tablespoon
• Cheese (chedder, gouda, etc), grated - 100 g
• Herbs (dill, parsley, cilantro, etc), chopped - 25g
• Egg, slightly whisked - 1
• Plain yogurt - 1 1/2 cup (+ more if the the batter is too thick)
• Butter, melted - 4 tablespoons

- Preheat the oven to 400F (200C).

- Line the muffin tin with muffin cups and oil them.

- Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda together in a large bowl.

- Add the cheese, herbs, salt, pepper and sugar. Mix.

- In a separate bowl whisk together yogurt, egg and melted butter.

- Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour mixture and mix just until it comes together. You might need to add a little more yogurt if the dough is too thick.

- Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tin filling 3/4 full.

- Bake for about 20 minutes until the muffins are golden and risen and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.