Bookmarked Recipes 11

Just a reminder that Bookmarked Recipes is being hosted by Dell at Cooking and the City this week so head over and check out the round up that will be posted there today.

Daring Baker 5 - Postponed!!!!

Today is Daring Baker day and if you read a food blogs you're bound to have seen some of the results from other daring bakers today, however I've had a busy month and haven't been able to do the challenge yet but will be doing it in the next couple of weeks so check back soon for the results of my Danish Braid, but in the meantime check out the results of the other Daring Bakers

New and improved Malteser Bun Traybake

I made malteser buns a while ago and although I loved them I really wanted more biscuity base to it. So I've fiddled and here's the results and recipe - I'm really loving this version better.



Malteser Bun Traybake

Ingredients
400g milk chocolate
200g unsalted butter
4 tbsp golden syrup
250g digestive biscuits (I actually had about 200g digestives in my cupboard then added some rich tea to add a bit more bulk)
175g maltesers
250g white chocolate
50g unsalted butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
75g maltesers, crushed

Recipe
1. Blend the digestive biscuits to make fine crumbs
2. Set up a double boiler and melt together the milk chocolate, 200g butter and 4 tbsp golden syrup.
3. Mix in the crushed biscuit and maltesers and stir well
4. Spread out the mixture in a swiss roll pan and compact the mixture in the pan. (it can be helpful to place this in the fridge until you have your topping ready)
5. Wash out the bowl on the double boiler and dry, then set up the double boiler again. Melt together the white chocolate, 50g butter and 1 tbsp golden syrup.
6. Pour the white chocolate over the top of the compacted biscuit mix and spread evenly.
7. Pour on the crushed maltesers and spread over the top pushing gently into the melted chocolate.
8. Leave to firm up in the fridge for a couple of hours then slice into portions.

Triple Dog Dare! (Sharon Fruit)

Tootnz over at Okara Mountain has triple dog dared us to try something new this month the theme was fruit so I went off and had a good look round the fruit in my grocery store and spotted something I pass by all the time and never consider buying or trying.... until now cos I have been triple dog dared after all!

The Sharon Fruit!


I really didn't know what to expect from this fruit... whether it was going to be really sweet or tart or what, but I sliced in, took a bite into the fleshy fruit and spat it out again... really not my kind of fruit. I can't even remember what the taste is similar to , i just remember not liking it, but I'm glad I tried it to know instead of assuming i didn't like it. Thanks toontz!

A bookmarked recipe from a bookmarked recipe: Zebra Cake

The trouble with running an event for getting through your list of bookmarked recipes is that it seems to add more recipes to my must make list and this was one of them.

For bookmarked recipes 7 Deeba had sent in Zebra Cake. I loved how this looked and how simple it looked to make compared to how complicated it looked!!!! I loved the simplicity of this but also the novelty so I just had to make it. Unfortunately mine doesn't look as lovely as Deeba's and I haven't been able to taste any yet because I'll be taking it to Summer Madness. But I'm sure this will be a winner.



Check out Deeba's Zebra Cake for great photographic instructions and the recipe.

RFJ 5: Apricot and Cranberry Chicken Kiev

It's Royal Foodie Joust time again! This month the ingredients were picked by Erin (The Skinny Gourmet) and were apricot, ginger and butter. Now these just scream dessert to me but I'm trying to avoid too many desserts at the minute so the thinking cap went on for a dinner dish - I actually fell asleep one night thinking through lots of ideas and woke up knowing exactly what I was going to do! Weird huh? I don't know how exactly I decided to make an apricot and cranberry chicken kiev but I have to say it was delicious. I made it for dinner tonight and loved it! (I left out the apricot and cranberry filling for hubby though - have I mentioned that he's picky? lol). My photos don't show the filling too well unfortunately but trust me it's there.



Apricot and cranberry chicken kiev

Serves 1

Ingredients
1 skinless chicken breast

Filling
1 garlic clove
10g peeled ginger
1 rounded tsp cranberry sauce
1 tsp butter
1 peeled apricot

Coating
2 slices of white bread
10g ginger
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper

Also needed
flour
egg

Recipe
1. Blend together all the ingredients for the filling
2. Cut a pocket in the chicken breast and fill with the filling.
3. Blend together the coating ingredients
4. Roll the chicken breast in the flour, dip in the egg then roll in the coating
5. Bake in a preheated oven of 180˚C for 30 minutes then serve

Bookmarked Recipes 10

I'll not be around next Monday but be sure to read the end of this post for details of what's happening.

Well here it is - this week's round up of Bookmarked Recipes and this week we have some more great recipes from some more great bloggers who have bookmarked them from some really great places!!!



Michelle in Colorado Springs kicks off this weeks round up with Triple Strawberry Cream Pie using a recipe from A year from Oak Cottage. I'm a big strawberry fan so this is a hit for me!



Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen has brought some fantastic Peanut butter chocolate squares. She had tasted these a couple of years ago when they were made by a friend and has got the opportunity to make them now.



Dhanggit of Dhanggit's kitchen had fun last time so she's back with some Chorizo, cumin and curry bread. A recipe from 30 Bread Recipes by Lisa Mazieres. Dhanggit had to make this bread after finding a curry plant in her mother in law's garden while looking for something else... how very fortunate because this looks beautiful.



Divya Kudua from Easycooking from India has taken a recipe from Cooking 4 all season and made some Eggless chocolate brownies with banana!!!!. I'm a fan of chocolate brownies... in fact I'm a fan of pretty much chocolate anything, but these sound great with the addition of banana.



Kate of Paved with Good Intentions has made something she just couldn't wait until winter to try: Brunch Ham Puffs using a recipe from Pepperidge Farms. How could you say no to these! They look so tasty and full of flavour.



Cat from Creating with Cattitude joins us for the first time from Arizona with some Copycat Chippers cookies just like the ones from her local favourite bakery, but she found the recipe on Picky palate. Nothing beats some freshly baked cookies.



Pam from Sidewalk Shoes has made some delicious Buttermilk Baked Chicken using a recipe from Everyday food: Great Fast Food. This looks so crunchy and sounds so flavoursome.



Laura from the Spiced life has made something I've been craving recently..... cheesecake! And not just any kind of cheesecake but chocolate cheesecake bars!... I think I'd be in heaven with one of these. They are made from a recipe on La cuisine d'Hélène.



Dell from Cooking and the City has made something that has been on my to do list too because it sounds so darn scrummy! Tartiflette (cheese & potato bake). I just love cheesy potatoes! She found this recipe on Taste.com/au.



Becke the Columbus foodie made some Boston Baked Beans from the Wat the Cookie Crumbles. These beans sound like some real good comfort food, I'd be happy sitting down to a bowl of this!



Finally, I have cut it quite fine myself this week and made something just today: Chicken with peppercorns and shredded ginger. After just finishing it about half an hour ago I have to say this is one truly delicious dish! I'm glad I had it bookmarked in Anjum Anand's "Indian Food Made Easy".



Thanks everyone for your submissions!!! It's always exciting to see what people have been making and recreating as well as meeting some new bloggers.

As I said at the beginning of this post I'll be away next Monday (in fact I'll be gone from this Thursday until next Tuesday), so the lovely Dell over at Cooking and the City who is a regular to this event has been so lovely and agreed to host next week's round up (thank you Dell!!!). Submit your entries as normal to the usual email address and it will be included in the round up on Dell's blog next Monday, then I'll be back as usual after that for a few more weeks until my next excursion!

Remember if you want to take part here's all you have to do....
1. Pick a recipe from a book/magazine/blog/website/tv show and make it. (Note you can only submit 1 recipe per week)
2. Blog about it
- include where you got the recipe in your blog post (including a link to their website if possible)
- include a link to this post or this blog in your blog post
- include the logo (see above) for Bookmarked Recipes in your blog post
- include a photo of your recreation on your blog post
3. Email bookmarkedrecipes[AT]gmail[DOT]com with the following information:
- Your name and where you're from
- The name of your blog
- The permalink for your entry
- A photo of your entry
- A note of where you got your recipe from

Chicken with peppercorns and shredded ginger for 200 posts and Bookmarked Recipes

I can't believe it!!!!! This is my 200th post on Ruth's Kitchen Experiments!!! I was hoping to make a special treat for this occasion however I have a few things to get done for various food events, as well as a big clear out of our house for getting some new furniture and things in and on top of that I'm going to be away from Thursday evening until Tuesday morning at Summer Madness. Don't worry Bookmarked Recipes will still go ahead with a special guest host and I'll also have a couple of scheduled posts to keep you all reading! But back to what I was saying, I was hoping to make a special treat like a cake, or cookies or something, but I'm posting this delicious dinner we had tonight instead.

It's from Anjum Anand's "Indian Food Made Easy" cookbook. The original recipe is for 6 so again I had to reduce the recipe for just the 2 of us and also used chicken breasts instead of joints because it's what I had on hand. I made the marinade for 6 servings for ease with the stock then adjusted the rest of the ingredients.



Chicken with peppercorns and shredded ginger

Serves 2

Ingredients
Marinade
9 or 10 cloves of garlic, peeled
10g fresh ginger peeled
1 tsp garam masala
1 chicken stock cube, dissolved in 3 tbsp hot water

Other ingredients
2 chicken breasts, skinned
1 tbsp vegetable oil rapeseed oil
1/3 small onion 1 shallot, peeled and finely chopped
1 green chilli
5g fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into shreds
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp amchur powder (mango powder) - an addition of mine to this recipe and an ingredient I recently bought in a new Indian food shop
salt, to taste
2/3 cup water This is actually double the reduced quantity but in order for the chicken to cook through properly you need this
1 tsp coarse ground black peppercorns
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp lemon juice
1 handful of fresh chopped coriander

Recipe
1. Blend the garlic, ginger, garam masala and stock together to make a paste. Then cover the chicken with it and leave in the fridge for at least an hour. Bring the meat back to room temperature before cooking.
2. Heat oil in pan and add the onion shallot and sauté for 6-8 minutes until brown. Add the chilli, ginger, ground coriander, amchur powder and salt, leave to cook for about a minute.
3. Add the chicken to the pan and brown each side. Pour in the water and pepper, bring to the boil then lower heat, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes.
4. Turn up the heat and leave for 3-4 minutes to reduce the sauce.
5. Stir in the garam masala, lemon juice and coriander and serve.


This is my entry for Bookmarked Recipes this week.

Taste and Create: Sweet Bacon Chicken Bites

I really love the blog event Taste and Create. This is my 3rd time taking part now and I just love the idea of being paired up with a fellow food blogger and trying a recipe from their blog. This month I was paired with Phe MOM enon and I had a great time looking through this blog and in fact had about 5 or 6 recipes I really wanted to recreate. This one won me though, because although Phemom had made them before with some adaptations (which sounded delicious to me anyways) she gave the recipe another go but stuck to what she was told and discovered they were tastier by going with the recipe. But I also picked this for the fact that it was something my carnivorous simple eating hubby would eat too. I loved it, he loved it and Stewie loved the one that dropped on the floor! The sweetness of the sugar, the spice of the chili and the crispiness of the bacon. A really delicious dish and it worked great for a weeknight meal too - simple and quick to put together.

The original source is Paula Deen via the Food Network - I've reduced the portions for 2 people and used a little less chili for personal preferences, so here's the recipe as I did it.



Sweet Bacon Chicken Bites

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts, cubed into 1" pieces
5 slices of back bacon cut into strips
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tsp chili powder

Recipe
1. Wrap a bacon strip round each cube of chicken securing with a toothpick.
2. Mix the sugar and chili powder together in a bowl and roll the chicken/bacon in it.
3. Spread on a baking tray and cook in the oven at 170˚C for about 30 minutes.



Thanks for this great recipe PheMOMenon! It was great to be paired with you.

Tried, Tested and True 2: Pitta Sweet Chilli Stir Fry Pizza

When Giz and Pshygrad of Equal Opportunity dinner announce Tried, Tested and True 2 I was incredibly excited but have only just found the time in the last few days to make and post my entry thinking the dead line was today but turns out I'm a month early.. This time round we've to submit healthy dishes that are low calorie - adapted from high calorie dishes and I think I've done it with this. They're also linking this round of TTT to organ donation - a very important thing we should all consider!!!!

I love making pizzas with sweet chili sauce, chicken and various vegetables - I started doing it one night when hubby wanted pizza and I wanted stir fry so I combined the two to make a pizza (topped with a little cheese). In order to make it lower in calories and healthier I've been preparing them on pitta bread instead of making the pizza dough and leaving out the cheese and chicken. Really tasty and quick and easy.



Pitta Sweet Chili Stir Fry Pizza

Ingredients (I've left out measurements and quantities to allow for personal preferences)
Pitta bread
Sweet chili sauce
Mushroom, sliced
Sweetcorn
Baby corn, chopped
Bean sprouts
Scallions, chopped
Red bell pepper, chopped

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 170˚C
2. Lay out pitta bread and spread a little sweet chili sauce on top. top with the various veg and drizzle on a little more sauce.
3. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

As easy as that!

Bookmarked Recipes 9

I'm a little late again posting this because today I got carried away cleaning and i thought seeing as I was enjoying it i may as well keep going because it doesn't happen often lol. Well here it is - this week's round up of Bookmarked Recipes and this week we have some more great recipes from some more great bloggers:



Happy Cook from My Kitchen Treasures kicks off this weeks Bookmarked Recipes round up with some Parathas from a recipe on Foodie's Hope. I'd never heard of these before but they look real good! Thanks Happy Cook.



Laura from The Spiced life is joining in with Black Beans with Mango Sauce & Savoury Corn Cakes with Chipotle Cream from The Days are just Packed. These look real tasty and packed with flavour! Thanks Laura.



Lisa from Food and Spice joins in from Ontario, Canada with some beautiful parmesan crackers who found the recipe on Kitchen Unplugged. These look fun nibbles which I'm sure I would have made disappear really quickly.

Lisa is also hosting No croutons required, a monthly vegetarian event focusing on soups and salads, this month the theme being beans and lentils. Check it out and get involved. I'm getting my thinking hat on for it.



Nilmandra from Soy and Pepper is back with Devonshire Honey Cake to take to relatives.... what lucky relatives to get such a delicious beautiful cake! This recipe is from BBC Good Food.



Sarah from Homemade is back with Chicken Fajitas with crunchy lime cabbage and avocado based on a recipe from Epicurious. I'm a big fajita fan and this would be a hit with me!



Erica from Stuff I make my husband (cool blog name right!?1?!) joins in with Soba noodle salad with vegetables and tofu from a recipe she found at Cooking Light. How healthy and delicious!



Dhanggit from Dhanggit's kitchen has made a beautiful Lemon Rosemary Thyme fried salmon. I'm really trying to like fish more and this looks like a tasty easy way to cook it so I might try this myself. Dhanggit found this recipe in Maxi Cuisine Livre August 2005 (a french food magazine)



Pam from Sidewalk shoes has made a really beautiful looking loaf of bread called Pain de Maison sur poolish using a recipe from The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook. I'm so jealous, because i make bread that tastes nice but doesn't look anywhere near as stunning as this.



And I have made some Chicken with Kidney Beans from a recipe in Easy Food Magazine.




Thanks everyone for your submissions!!! It's always exciting to see what people have been making and recreating as well as meeting some new bloggers.

That's it for this week. Remember if you want to take part here's all you have to do....
1. Pick a recipe from a book/magazine/blog/website/tv show and make it. (Note you can only submit 1 recipe per week)
2. Blog about it
- include where you got the recipe in your blog post (including a link to their website if possible)
- include a link to this post or this blog in your blog post
- include the logo (see above) for Bookmarked Recipes in your blog post
- include a photo of your recreation on your blog post
3. Email bookmarkedrecipes[AT]gmail[DOT]com with the following information:
- Your name and where you're from
- The name of your blog
- The permalink for your entry
- A photo of your entry
- A note of where you got your recipe from

Every Monday I will post a round up of all the entries here on my blog for everyone to see, share and maybe even try for themselves!

Chicken with Kidney Beans

While hubby's away, Ruth will play. And play I did. I decided for dinner tonight to make a dish that he wouldn't have in a million years. It's a recipe for my Bookmarked Recipes event from Easy Food Magazine (yes I'm back to sharing recipes from it). This actually came at a good time because I had some chicken and kidney beans to use up. I thought the recipe sounded like it was going to taste a little bland so I added some balsamic vinegar, a pinch of cumin, ground coriander and garlic powder to add a little extra to it, however upon tasting I'm sure it would still be delicious without my additions.

The original recipe was for 6 but I obviously had to change that to 1 serving for myself, so the recipe below is for 1 serving.



Chicken with kidney beans

Serves 1

Ingredients
1 skinless chicken breast
salt
pepper
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
olive oil
1 shallot, diced
1 tsp tomato puree
1/3 cup / 80ml chopped tomatoes
Pinch of sugar
1/3 cup / 80ml kidney beans, drained and rinsed.
Pinch of ground cumin
Pinch of ground coriander
Pinch of garlic powder

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 180˚C
2. Season chicken breast with salt, pepper and pour on the balsamic vinegar. Heat a little olive oil in a pan then brown the chicken on each side. Remove to an oven dish.
3. Fry the onion until soft, add the tomato puree, chopped tomatoes, sugar, garlic powder, coriander and cumin and leave to simmer for a couple of minutes.
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then stir in the kidney beans. Pour over the chicken and cover the dish (tin foil works great if you don't have a lid)
5. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes and serve.

Tips and awards

A few days ago the topic of the day on the Wikihow How To feed was How to Cook. I'll be sending this to hubby with the hope he may learn a little something from it!

I've been very encouraged recently by some fellow bloggers when they sent some awards my way.

First Neen and Do from Post Collegiate Cooking awarded me with a "Blogging with Purpose" award. I felt so touched at receiving this award because I have been asking myself what is the purpose of my blog.... I started this off to force myself to try some new recipes and learn more about cooking using ingredients instead of jars of sauces and ready meals - to get myself out of my comfort zone. I'm still learning a lot about food and cooking but has my purpose for blogging changed or evolved?? Anyways that's enough rubbish from me about that.
I'm passing this award on to That Girl from "Paved with Good Intentions" because she's a top blogger who always has a great story to read with each recipe. She's such an encouragement to so many other bloggers (myself included) and so it seems right to send a little encouragement right back.



The lovely and sweet Dell from Cooking and the City has shown me some love with the "I love you this much" award. And I want to send it right back to Dell, she's been a great friend to me and a great support and encouragement as she's also made something for every week (except 1) of Bookmarked Recipes! I have no expectation for anyone to get involved as this event was primarily for me to get through a long list of recipes I've been meaning to try but it's great to feel the love when others get involved too.


Miss Bliss at Frolicking Foodie has awarded me with the Arte y Pico award which recognises a blog with creativity, design and interesting material - what a huge compliment!!!!
I'd like to pass this honour on to Mr Orph. He is a great cook and is always pushing his boundaries and trying something new. He is an inpiration in his attitude to food and cooking.



Finally Happy Cook at My Kitchen Treasures gave me a "Rockin Girl Blogger" award.... how cool is that!?!?!?! I love it!
And I love Pixie over at You say Tomato I say Tomato. This is one of my favourite blogs, because Pixie is always trying something new and exciting.... and she's also one of the sweetest people in the world!


Rob's been away yesterday, today and will be home tomorrow night and I was hoping to be making some nice food that I don't get to eat when he's around however yesterday I was out for lunch and stuffed myself so much i couldn't eat dinner and tonight I'm so knackered and tired out I'm not sure i feel up for making something new. I'll be back soon with a new recipe though... I promise!!!

Bookmarked Recipes 8

Here it is - this week's round up of Bookmarked Recipes and this week we have some more great recipes from some more great bloggers:



Elle from Elle's New England Kitchen has been on a raspberry and lime kick recently and had a recipe for Blueberry and Lemon cupcakes that became raspberry and lime cupcakes too. She took this recipe from a book called Recipes from a very small island. I love cupcakes with fruit in them so these are a hit with me.



Wiffy from Noobcook in Singapore joins in the round up with a Basic Grilled Steak an essential recipe for everyone and it's something I'm still trying to master. She got the recipe from video jug where a few handy tips are shared for testing the steak before cooking and more.



Laura from The Spiced Life based in Ohio has made some really tasty treats - Mini Peanut Butter Cup Bars - which had been discussed again and again at the Cooking Light Bulletin Boards. The recipe she used is the original recipe found on Joe's blog Culinary in the Dessert. The look fantastic and actually might have inspired me to get making another bookmarked recipe of mine for next week.



Deeba from Passionate about Baking has made some very delicate and tasty looking Cream cheese, bell pepper and cucumber nibbles adapted from a recipe on Cherrapeno. They look so refreshing and beautiful. Great work Deeba!!!!



Rosie from Rosie bakes a peace of cake from England has made a cake that contains a lot of ingredients that are close to my heart. It's a beautiful Coconut and Lime Cake from a recipe on Delia Smith Online - I could eat this one all by myself.



Aussie Dell from Cooking and the City is back with a delicious dish: Chicken with Herbes de Provence. This recipe is actually from a book that I have had on my wish list for some time now - Bill Granger's "Holiday"



This week I've made 3 bookmarked recipes that kind of all roll into one - Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Rice & Peas and Tostones (fried green plantain) from We are Never Full.



Thanks everyone for your submissions!!! It's always exciting to see what people have been making and recreating as well as meeting some new bloggers.

That's it for this week. Remember if you want to take part here's all you have to do....
1. Pick a recipe from a book/magazine/blog/website/tv show and make it. (Note you can only submit 1 recipe per week)
2. Blog about it
- include where you got the recipe in your blog post (including a link to their website if possible)
- include a link to this post or this blog in your blog post
- include the logo (see above) for Bookmarked Recipes in your blog post
- include a photo of your recreation on your blog post
3. Email bookmarkedrecipes[AT]gmail[DOT]com with the following information:
- Your name and where you're from
- The name of your blog
- The permalink for your entry
- A photo of your entry
- A note of where you got your recipe from

Every Monday I will post a round up of all the entries here on my blog for everyone to see, share and maybe even try for themselves!