FOOD - Bread with a color? Yes yes yes

Yessss, it is true! Bread with a color. In Asia they selling bread in different colors because they don't know the regular or usual white or dark bread like we have in the Netherlands and the bread they make are terrible sweet as like in Indonesia. I've found a recipe but put less sugar in it. I've used 3 colors to make this delicious bread.

The basic recipe for the dough:

2 cups (240 gram) bread flower
1 cup (230 ml.) lukewarm milk 
1/2 teaspoon (5 gram) dry yeast
1/4 cup (50 gr.) sugar
1/3 teaspoon (3 gram) salt
3 tablespoons (30 gram) butter

Put yeast, sugar and milk into a bowl. Mix this well. Then add the flower. Stir it untill the dough is heavy. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Now add the room temperature butter slices. Knead for 5 minutes and smash the dough on to the cutting board. The dough will be a little messy but by kneading it for about 10 minutes it will smooth it out. After 10-15 minutes kneading the consistency will change to a compact dough. You can test it by pulling the dough and check if you can see through it.

Put the dough into a bowl and cover it with folie and a damned towel. Let it rust for about 40 minutes. 

Afther 40 minutes your dough is ready to use.

Cut the dough in 4 pieces from the same weight. Put in every dough the foodcolor that you have choosen. I used the colors red, green and blue.

How to color your dough?

Take a piece of dough and make it flat. Add the foodcolor in the middle and knead the dough.  Kneading kneading and kneading. Afther kneading all the pieces let them rest for about 40 minutes.

Shape the dough

Roll each piece of dough into uniform patch. Roll them as thin as possible but make sure it does not go cracks.

Put the 4 pieces of dough together. Make sure they are evenly.

Now roll the 4 layers into one huge role and make sure that the points connect  where the dough comes together. Do the same with the sides. You can see the shape of a loaf of bread. Put the bread in a bread mold, cover it and lit it rise for 1 hour. Afther 1 hour you can put the bread into the preheat oven and bake the bread in 26 minutes on 180 degrees.

Afther 26 minutes your bread is ready. It is higher and the colors are brighter.

Let the bread cooldown untill room temperature, then cut and serve

Try to make this recipe. Enjoy your meal.

Greetings Paula

FOOD - Chinese steamed buns MANTOU

Yes yes, you notice it, I love food and cooking. I love the steamed Chinese buns and every time when I go to the Chinese store I always I took the freezer suits and eat every morning at breakfast. Afterwards I thought, " you can make them yourself ? "

This is my version after I followed the video below .

If you follow the movie and the chocolate substitutes panda pasta then you get the delicious sandwiches that I always make .




Requirements :

4 cups flourn 
2 cups lukewarm water 
2 teaspoons dry yeast 
2 teaspoons cocoa or pandan paste 
1/2 cup sugar 

Please note that you need two bowls for the dough and the total time is 3 hours . So you have to steam and a steamer is convenient.

If you prefer the ready- to-eat version because you first want to try, below the package as our Chinese store has.

Enjoy your meal !!

Regards Paula

DIY - Don't throw your winebottles away....you can use it again!

Here in the Netherlands the weather is cold, grey and rainy. So it's time for housecleaning and throw lotst of old stuff away. But I found a lots of winebottles and so I've starting to crafting and turn the bottles into decoration. Just watch this photo tutorial, it's very simple to do.

What you need

Empty winebottles

Wall filler

Take a paint color you like. I used a gray textured paint 

FLower. Just from the supermarket

Method

Clean the bottles from inside and especially from the outside. Labels I've removed with ammonia. Rubbed the bottles in with the wallfiller. Then you have to let them dry very well.

If the bottles are dry, you have to paint the bottles with the desired color and the desired paint. I used gray structure paint. Paint the bottles one by one because when you sprinkle the flour, the paint has to be wet. So let them dry very good.

When the paint is dry, you have to brush off the flour from the bottles and here is the result

This technique has been known among hobbyists and crafters . I would say ... try it yourself out . You can also do it with a cap or a vase .

Lots of fun.

Greetings Paula

DIY - Part 2 of the Mixed Media Canvas tutorial - THE KEY TO SUCCES

A few months ago I've wrote a blogpost about "how to make a Mixed Media Canvas". I've showed you the basic stuff and it took me months to think what the slogan will be. To get some more inspiration I've took al the magazines to look what the trends are and which color is the color of the year 2016. I've found it: Serenity and Rose Quartz are the colors for 2016 in The Netherlands

The basic i've made is ready to put some more color and more relief. I've been searching for the right accessoires in my boxes and sort the stuff by color. Rose and copper colors I need, but I saw I have no one product in copper. So we take other materials.

The base I found TOO rose and used gesso over it and worked with different paints and distress paints. The distress paint gives a nice effect and that I was my goal.

I had a cardboard fence and I would like to use. Some roses that I've covered with gesso so the paint arrested better if I wanted to finish the painting.

This is the result from months of thinking

  

FOOD -Do you like Tempeh (soy beans)?

I think that everyone knows the Indonesian product tempeh. If you go to an Indonesian or an Asian shop and you see those long white suit and you do not really know exactly what to do with it, check my recipe. Everybody who doesn´t like this product always says it tastes like shit! Well, if you dont prepare it good then you really do not like it! Today I made ​​a recipe that I eat almost daily with white rice and a cucumber salad. Yeah, I do not eat meat every day. In Indonesia I´ve discovered this recipe and I love it.

What is tempeh?

Info from Wikipedia

Tempeh (/ˈtɛmpeɪ/; Javanese: témpé, IPA: [tempe]) is a traditional soy product originating from Indonesia. It is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. Tempeh is unique among major traditional soy foods in that it is the only one that did not originate from the Sinosphere cuisine.
It originated in today's Indonesia, and is especially popular on the island of Java, where it is a staple source of protein. Like tofu, tempeh is made from soybeans, but it is a whole soybean product with different nutritional characteristics and textural qualities. Tempeh's fermentation process and its retention of the whole bean give it a higher content of protein, dietary fiber, and vitamins. It has a firm texture and an earthy flavor which becomes more pronounced as it ages.[1][2] Because of its nutritional value, tempeh is used worldwide in vegetarian cuisine, where it is used as a meat analogue.

Ingredients

5 cloves garlic
4 x spring onions
1 cup rice flour
1/2 cup water
pepper
salt
aromat 

Directions

Pour in a bowl the riceflour, pepper, salt and water. Mix it together to a smooth batter

Cut the tempeh into slices. Cut the spring onions into pieces and place it in a chopper along with the garlic cloves. Cut them finely .

Add them in the batter and stir well. Always test if you think the batter taste good. Always add salt or pepper and sometimes I pour aromat because it will make the batter tasty.

Put the slices of tempe in the batter and make sure that all slices may stick with the batter. The batter is so thin that you can smear each slice with the batter.

Put in a pan sunflower oil and allow the oil to be quite hot because this way you´ll keep the tempeh crispy. At the moment that the oil isn´t hot enough you get oil / style food. Well to my opinion that´s not good. When drops of the batter drops in the oil, you can see that it is splashing. Now it´s time to put the tempe into the oil.

Bake until golden brown and place on a plate which is lined with kitchen paper. Drain well and serve the side dish.

And they are ready! I say enjoy your meal .... !!