Zucchini fritters

Tonight's dinner- Zucchini fritters

Zucchini fritters
Makes 4

1 rather large zucchini, about 30 cm long
½ red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
2 spring onions, finely chopped
1 egg, beaten
½-1 dl flour
salt and pepper

1. Grate the zucchini in the coarse side and place the grated zucchini in a bowl. Sprinkle with some salt, mix and set to rest for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, place the zucchini in a colander and press down to squeeze out any zucchini juices.

2. Place the zucchini back in the bowl and mix with the rest of the ingredients. The fritter "batter" should be quite loose.

3. Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry as large or small fritters as you want. Flip over when the bottom has turned golden and crisp.

Serve with a dollop of yoghurt and your favourite topping, such as sliced chicken, bacon, prawns or eat them as they are.

Cupcakes

When my friend asked me the other day if I wanted to hang out and watch a movie, I said yes on one condition: that she would let me teach her how to make cupcakes from scratch. You see, I had a couple of weeks earlier been gobsmacked when said friend told me that she did a little bit of baking, but that she always used the "just add water"-cake mixes. I really couldn't believe what I was hearing, and vowed to give her a lesson in baking when I had time.

Since she didn't have any of the ingredients I had to bring flour, baking powder, sugar and eggs. The rest of the ingredients we picked up at the store on our way to her place, she came to pick me up in her car since it was raining and I don't have a car, nor do I drive.

The cupcakes turned out great and I left my friend with the recipe, she even asked for it, and said, quite a few times, while we were baking that "this wasn't as difficult as I'd expected it to be". Yay, mission accomplished!

Cupcakes
Makes about 20 cupcakes
Adopted from Laila bakar

100 g butter, melted
2 2 eggs
1.5 1.5 dl caster sugar
1 1 tsk vanilla sugar
2 2 dl milk
1 1 lemon, the zest
4 4 dl flour
2 2 tsk baking powder
1 1 pinch salt

Frosting:
100 g Philadelphia cheese
60 60 g soft butter
300 300 g chocolate/strawberry flavoured powdered sugar
0.5 the juice of ½ lemon

1. Pre-heat your oven to 200 C fan, or 220 C if you use a normal oven.

2. Start by beating the eggs and the sugars until you have a pale yellow, fluffy batter.

3. Pour in the melted butter, milk and the lemon zest. Mix to combine.

4. Using a wooden spoon or a spatula, fold in the flour, baking powder and salt.

5. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners and fill each liner 3/4 of the way up. Place on the middle shelf of the oven for 10 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out dry and clean.

6. Allow to cool some in the tin before tipping the cupcakes out to cool completely on a wire rack.

7. Make the frosting:
Cream butter, powdered sugar and lemon juice. Mix in the cream cheese.
Spread or pipe onto the cupcakes and garnish with sprinkles or flowers.

Danish Red Hot Dog

On Thursday of last week, me and my friend Susanne went to Copenhagen, Denmark for the day. And when in Denmark, do as the Danes, right? This we did, and went straight for the hot dog stand and bought ourselves a Danish red hot dog each. It was alright I guess, but I like the normal hot dogs better. But the mustard was surprisingly nice, rather tangy and more spicy than normal mustard. Yum!

Roasted Chickpeas

Last Friday we arranged a farewell-/birthday for friends who are leaving to go back to Germany this summer after a year in Norway working as volunteers at our church.

A few days before the party I stumbled across a recipe for "ROASTED CHICKPEAS WITH GARLIC, CUMIN AND PAPRIKA" at The Perfect Pantry. I didn't want to just serve the girls potato chips so decided to make the chickpeas.

I also made a pavlova, which was tasty, but the girls liked the chickpeas better I think. (Correction: Hannah LOVED the cake but "you can't eat too much of such a cake"). I had to give most of the cake away the next day but I didn't have a single chickpeas left by the end of the evening.

Michaela turned 20

Roasted chickpeas with garlic, cumin and paprika
Serves about 6
Adapted from The Perfect Pantry

1 can (400 g) chickpeas
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, grated
3/4 tsp ground sweet paprika
3/4 tsp ground cumin
salt
pepper

Set the oven to 220C.

1. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Dry them off on kitchen paper. Place then in a bowl, add the olive and garlic to the bowl and shake to ensure that all peas are covered.

2. Spread the chickpeas on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Roast the chickpeas for about 20 minutes, shaking the tray every few minutes so that the peas are roasted evenly.

3. While the chickpeas are roasting, line a plate with kitchen paper. Place the roasted chickpeas on the kitchen paper to drain. While still warm, sprinkle over the rest of the spices. Transfer the chickpeas to a serving plate or allow them to cool down before storing them in a airtight container.

Sorry Doro, but that's the only photo I have of the almost empty plate!