Fruit dumplings

When you say dumplings, the first thing that comes up your mind is those small rolls of meat wrapped in super thin dough, served dim-sum style-- that is, if you're Asian like me. Certainly dumplings in Asia aren't sweet and they are usually steamed, not boiled. Well, not in CZ. Here, dumplings can be sweet and yes, they are boiled-- and the filling is not of meat but of fruits.

They call it "ovocné knedlíky" or fruit dumplings. They usually make this in summer when the fruits are aplenty. That's exactly what I did after coming home with baskets of them from my in-laws' garden a few weekends ago. I used raspberries and strawberries for the filling.

OVOCNÉ KNEDLÍKY

Dough:

1/2 kg. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
3/4 sachet dry yeast ( 3/4 small fresh yeast)
a handful of crystal sugar
250 ml milk

- Mix everything with a wooden spoon. Add flour if too sticky. Let stand for 45 minutes.
- Knead and let stand for another 45 minutes.

Punch dough and knead for a few minutes. Flatten a small amount and put about 5 raspberries ( about 2 sliced big strawberries) in the middle. Sprinkle fruits with powdered sugar before wrapping them with the dough.

You can wrap them in a way that would make them look nicer than the ones in the pic above. I was just in a hurry to finish making them. Excuses, excuses. :)

Next step is to boil a pot half- full of water. Put dumplings in boiling water for 3 minutes then turn them over and boil for another 3 minutes.

Your dumplings are now ready for eating! For toppings, Czechs usually shred ginger cake and mix them with powdered sugar. Melted butter is almost always present in every meal, including this one. Yes my dears, this is considered a meal here, not a snack.

Me? I call it a snack. And since I'm just getting Czeched, I don't follow the usual way of eating it with shredded ginger cake. I usually eat it with cottage cheese. It's actually up to you what you want for toppings. Let me know if you come up with something really yummy.

Tak, dobrou chut!

Note: Makes about 10-12 dumplings. Thanks to Mamka for the recipe.

The baker

Time is a constant challenge for me now that the school year is about to end. There's a special party we're throwing for the graduating kids next Wednesday, there's another camp I'll be going to with the kids in the second week of July which requires me to finish my lesson plan asap, there are plans to prepare for the next school year.......All these are crammed between now and next week. These and the fact that next school year means more responsibilities for me (hint, hint. :) don't really give me time to even pluck my eyebrows.

But I make time to bake. Last night I just wanted to try my luck in baking "Medovník" or honey cake. Mamka lent me the recipe a few months ago and I've been itching to make it myself. Yes, it's borrowed so that means I can't publish it here or I might get excommunicated.

Medovnik is basically layering the dough and cream. I finished baking at almost 11pm. It took more than an hour for the cream to cool. Note to self: I'll prepare the cream first next time. I was about to call it a night when A asked me if I mixed the crumbs for the topping with cocoa. Darnit! I thought I would fall asleep with a big smile of contentment. Bummer. Still my first try was a success. The cake tastes good. I actually like it better than the commercial one. The latter is too sweet.

Life never ceases to amaze me. A year ago the mere sight of a wooden spoon still scared the living daylights out of me. Now I can finally put on my hat and proclaim myself a baker. :)

Baking mishaps

The kids and I baked carrot cake at school last Wednesday afternoon. I brought my own round pan but the crazy thing about this pan is it leaks a bit if I didn't use an electric mixer for the batter. True enough, it started dripping the moment I put it in the oven. This oven, by the way, is a character. It looks like it belonged way back to the jurassic age. Small, stained, scratched and rusting, it certainly had seen better days. It still works, which is what matters, but a single drip from the batter landing on the sooting wire at the bottom would mean smoke coming out from the oven.

I solved the problem by getting rid of the wire rack and using the rectangular baking pan for support. I was about to give myself a pat on my shoulder when I realized it would take time for the cake to be done this way especially the middle part. What the heck, I'll put it over the wire rack again in a while when it has hardened a bit, this I told myself. That's exactly what I did except that when I put the wire rack with the pan on it, the right edge got dislodged. To my horror, almost half of the still liquid batter was spilling all over the bottom! Sure enough, the entire school was right away profused with smoke. It was everywhere even when we opened almost all the windows to let the fresh air in.

Then the school's caretaker rushed inside with this wild look in her eyes. She was yelling something like "where is it, where is it?" in Czech. Where is what? In her barrage of words I only caught one that sounded like electricity and got it. She thought the school was on fire! I shook my head and tried to tell her in my elementary Czech that there was no fire but there was no stopping her from running around the room desperately looking for the faulty wire. I stood in the kitchen waiting for her to come and calmly opened the oven when she did. Next thing I knew, she was bursting in hysterical laughter.

In between fits of laughter she told me the teachers from upstairs were alarmed of the smoke and called her to check. When I told this to A, he said it would have been really something if one of the teachers called the fire brigade and they would come to hose the school down with water. I'm glad all the drama didn't end this way.

Despite everything, our carrot cake still emerged near perfect and was a hit among everyone who tasted it.

Fruit and nut bars

I think my baking is getting popular among my kids' parents, hehe. Wednesday afternoons are cooking time for me and my kids at school. I have to say cooking is their most favorite activity. All playing, yelling and even bullying with each other will cease whenever they hear the most revered line-- "Cooking time! Go wash your hands with soap, kids."

Today another Mom asked me for the recipe of these fruit and nut bars that I baked with them last week. The same Mom was raving about my experimental (because I didn't even measure the ingredients it took me sometime to write down the recipe for her) banana muffins and how happy she was to bake them with her kids at home. Sometimes feedbacks like this gets me high. As in feeling pud ba, hahaha....

With these fruit and nut bars, the credit goes to the baker behind this website. I came across her blog when I was searching for Christmas cookies to bake last month. I tweaked the recipe a bit by substituting the dates with dried plums and raisins. I got a huge pack of dried fruits from one of the parents for Christmas so they came in handy when I decided to try to bake it. I also used two eggs instead of one because I found the mixture kinda dry. I guess it was because the eggs I had were quite small. Anywho, aside from a lot of chopping and slicing, this recipe is so easy to follow. What's more, it's so healthy you wont feel any bit guilty for eating quite a lot of it. Enjoy!

Pasta Arrabbiata

Pasta has always been a fave of mine. When I was still living in Cebu my most favorite place to get my pasta fix was Don Henrico's. Their "grand emperor's pasta" is top-notch. But in Cebu my pasta plate was kinda limited to the sweet Pinoy spaghetti and super oily carbonara. A whole wide world of choices awaited me in Prague the moment I learned to shop and read Czech labels on my own.

I first tasted pasta arrabbiata a year ago (see, the years I missed) when M, a co-teacher, brought us to this Italian restaurant a few minutes walk from Zelivskeho metro stop. It was love at first taste. I love its being spicy. I thought it was something difficult to prepare so I perished the thought of preparing it myself until I stumbled on a recipe after a series of nonstop blog-hopping just to kill the time. It's actually from a food blog I frequently visit. This is the blog to visit when you want an easy to prepare but nonetheless yummy dish.

I got the taste that I wanted. This pasta is so yummy especially when you're a chilli and spice fan like me.

Calorific!

Czech Christmas cookies are totally loaded with calories. This I learned just by reading Mamka's recipes. Imagine all 250 grams of Hera butter plus more or less 300g of powdered sugar, eggs, couple hundred grams of ground nuts in just two trays of cookies. Caloriiiiific, isn't it? But who cares, really? Certainly not me. Gazillion calories notwithstanding, the husband and I baked two kinds last weekend. Then, as if suddenly hit by a strong feeling of success, he announced he would like to bring his officemates the products of his own labor. This drove me to bake the immortal brownies and choco-chip cookies to add some variety and for the husband to be Mr. Popular the next day at work.

And he got the title, of course, hehe.... The cookies in a shape of a flower and moon are my most fave Czech Christmas cookies. They are called "Linecke" ( which doesn't mean anything in Czech according to A). The chocolate ones are called " Medvedi Pracky" or Bears' Paws. They look totally harmless because of their size, right? Now I tell you, if you're constantly checking your waistline, immediately put these cookies to a place where the sun wont shine---like someone else's stomach. But if you're all for the season of giving and eating, have one or two, and then some more. After all, Christmas only comes once a year so eat and be merry!

Feeding the world

Hit by a cooking bug is how I am since learning to cook edible meals. I never pictured myself holding a spatula, not even in my wildest dream. So what happened to me? No one, not even myself, actually knows. I only know there's a force within me which drives me to whip, stir, steam, etc, as if I was on a mission to feed the world.

A few days ago a friend now residing in US left me a message on Tagged. I mentioned to her a day before the dinner I hosted for my friends last Monday. "Ug makabalo na diay kuno ka moluto ron?," she incredulously asked in Cebuano. (And you can cook now?) Well, I couldn't blame her for being skeptical. I was known in our circle as someone who couldn't even hardboil an egg. So Mama, below is for your eyes to feast on. To see is to believe, eh? He-he

Upper Left: Cassava cake. I found some grated cassava at the Thai/Asian food shop along Francouska. Upper right: "Bola-bola" is Philippines' answer to meatballs and Czech's "Sekana."
Lower left: "Siopao" or steamed pork dumplings. These are similar to Czech's "ovocne knedle." The difference is we stuff the dumpling with meat, they stuff it with fruits. We steam it. They boil it.
Lower right: The nameless starter. Maybe we can call it M's toast, hehe.

I also cooked fried rice but forgot to take a pic. Chef Lokreng prepared a very yummy tuna pasta enough to feed the entire Praha. Also not pictured are the chocolate muffins I baked. Two ended up in the bin later because the appointed resident pacman, A , couldn't eat them fast enough before they hardened like a rock.

How many were invited again? Only four and a 1/4 people. (Tekla has a 3-month-old baby.) Only three and one-fourth showed up. One was MIA so Mia missed the siopao!:)

Hambugera kaayo noh? hahahaha....

One of my many quick fixes

Nachos are my current favorite. This dinner requires a 10-minute preparation which is perfect for Wednesdays and Thursdays as these are my longest days at school. When you work all day the least you'd want is to work in the kitchen when you get home.

What you need:
a ripe avocado
onion
tomatoes
grated cheese
chips
salsa

As simple as chopping the vegetables and scooping out the avocado, sprinkling them with grated cheese, adding a tablespoon or two of salsa and putting them in the oven or microwave till cheese is melted, you'll have dinner ready in ten minutes or less. I eat by spooning the delectable mixture and topping my tortilla chips with them, then rolling my eyes upward in bliss as I take a bite. Each bite is coupled with agreeable noises....hmmm...hmmm....hmmm....this is good!

Note: In Prague, you can buy salsa from any grocery store. It's usually at their international section. The brand I buy is Vitana. Same goes for the chips though I prefer the one that Albert has.

Leche this flan

Forgive the other meaning of the word if you speak Spanish. What supposed to be a very easy dessert to prepare gave me nightmares- figuratively and literally. Leche flan or custard is ever present during fiestas and noche buenas in PI. I thought it would be a good dessert for the dinner with my co-teachers last Monday though it isn't actually all-Filipino. It's a Spanish legacy to the Philippines.

I wanted a lighter version of the heavyweight 12-yolk original recipe. Twelve egg yolks made me visualize the clogging of the girls' arteries and I refused to be responsible for that especially when two of them are trying hard to kick out so much unwanted flabs. I also didn't want to steam it because we don't have a steamer. Through constant food blog-hopping I found just the right recipe here. I'm not sure about the caramel though. It's the reason why I had nightmares but I'm not going to relive the experience here. Another blog gave me the solution: Caramelized Sugar--1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup hot water. Melt sugar in hot water and boil on low heat until syrupy. Pour in mold and let cool to harden.

Ta-dan, leche flan galore! The girls were all praises. This flan was gone in less than five minutes but sweet of them, they actually left a small slice for A. Dinner was a success. Now they are craving not just for glass noodles but for springrolls, adobo, and this custard as well.

In two weeks it will be the Aussie's turn to feed the hungry. And I'm hungry already.

What to cook?

This Monday I'll be cooking for four people from different countries. My four co-teachers are coming to our flat for dinner and they requested me to prepare an all-Filipino/Oriental meal. This, plus the fact that two of them are trying to eat only healthy food, makes me virtually hyperventilate. What in the world am I going to prepare?

One of them is craving for glass noodles. That means cooking "bihon" is a done deal. The others said they will eat anything I prepare, which even makes it difficult to narrow down the list. One thing that's sure is they will appreciate to have a healthy meal on their plate.

This drove me to experiment in the kitchen last night. Adobo is the "national dish" in PI. Everyone eats or cooks it, but it is mainly meat and spices. I wanted something with veggies in it. What about adding veggies in adobo? Now that's an idea! I immediately raided our fridge and found carrots, beans and broccoli. The result?

Adobo with a twist! Having basmati rice to go with it was perfect. To cook or not to cook this on Monday? Hay, kakapoy baya....

Going veggies

It's cold and it's gloomy, these surely are signs that autumn is here. Wonder if we'll ever have indian summer this year...

The cold weather sent me cooking this vegetable soup which is a recipe borrowed from Mamka. I always go for something warm to eat or drink after coming home from outside. Czech cuisine is basically complicated to prepare but this one is easy and a lot healthier compared to what usually lands on Czech dining tables.

Can you imagine a week without eating vegetables? I can't. This soup and I immediately hit it off the moment I tasted it at Mamka's kitchen. Recipe is available upon request. Remember it's borrowed and the owner might not approve of me sharing it to the rest of the world here. :)

That week

Didn't I say that there was a week I was like a woman possessed in the kitchen? I was beating, whipping and mixing as if these activities were the sole purpose of my existence. I wonder if A was happy I was finally off my undomestic goddess gown, or was he extremely horrified at the thought that he had to eat everything I baked? I have this suspicion it was the latter. Good thing there was this timely baby shower for Tekla and A was spared of having to eat all these:

Finally I baked my first blueberry muffins. This is another easy recipe courtesy of the internet which I tweaked a bit. I finally found baking cups of the right size at Hypermarket-Chodov after searching high and low for them for days. Then last night, while we were at Interspar for something else, we saw like a gazillion of them in all different sizes and colors. Really, the universe has a sense of humor that I sometimes don't find funny.

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups fresh/frozen blueberries
2 teaspoons sugar, for topping (optional)

-Preheat oven at 375F or 175C.
-Cream together butter and sugar.
-Add egss and mix well. Stir in milk.
-Combine dry ingredients and add to the mixture. Stir to combine.
-Gently fold in blueberries.
-Fill greased muffin cups or paper about 2/3 full.
-Sprinkle tops with little sugar. (optional)
-Bake for 20 minutes.

Note: You can also use canned blueberries. I only had a cup of frozen blueberries the second time I baked it so I mixed it with canned ones instead. There's no difference in the taste, only the muffins are bluer than these ones in the pic.

Wow, brownies!

I was like a woman possessed two weeks ago. I was baking like there was no tomorrow. I baked blueberry cake, and before all slices were eaten by the unfortunately appointed (or forced) lone consumer that is A, I noticed the bananas in the cupboard were close to rotting -- I had to bake banana bread as well. Still I was driven by unseen and unknown forces in the kitchen to bake some more. I decided to try my hands in making brownies.

I found an easy recipe from southernfood.about.com. I think I´m beginning to really love this website. The recipe is called Nutty Brownies because of the walnuts. I had to substitute them with roasted cashew, though. There wasn´t a single walnut available at the grocery near our place. When I had my first bite I thought I had to lessen the cocoa next time because it kinda made the brownies bitter. I was wrong though-- I´m not a lover of chocolates and coffee, hence the initial reaction. I noticed they taste better after a day or two, and it´s good to pair them with my ever favorite green tea.

NUTTY BROWNIES

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup cocoa, unsweetened
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (or cashew)

- Cream butter and sugar until well blended. Add vanilla and eggs; beat until light and fluffy. Add cocoa, mixing in well. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, salt, and baking powder; add to the creamed mixture and stir until well blended.

- Stir in 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or cashew). Spread in a buttered and floured 8-inch square pan. Sprinkle with remaining chopped nuts. Bake at 350°F or 180C for about 25 minutes. Cool in pan then cut in squares. Makes about 16 2-inch brownies.

Blueberry bread/cake

I'd like to spend the remaining days of my vacation experimenting in the kitchen because once the school year starts, I know I would have my hands full again and wont have the time for it. Yesterday I was so bent in making blueberry muffins. I got inspired after I watched my sis and mom-in-law bake them at the cottage during the weekend. Problem was I couldn't find a single muffin paper cup even after searching them for hours at Tesco and Interspar. Sigh. What to do with these fresh blueberries I made the special trip for at Namesti Miru? Intending to do something with them, I searched the net for an easy blueberry cake recipe.

I found one at About.com. It's originally called Blueberry Tea Cake and baked on an 8-inch square baking dish but we dont have it so I used a bread tin instead. I don't think it makes any difference to the taste, anyway. Please click here for the recipe. The result makes me decide this one is a keeper.

Banana bread

Sorry for the same pic, people. This is my in-law's computer so I don't have access to our picture files. Anyway, I've been itching to post Anne's banana bread recipe so I wont have to carry the paper where I wrote it all the time.

I've always loved banana bread. When I was still living in Cebu, I used to finish my usually unhealthy meal with a slice of it. I thought I'd never be able to bake one myself because before the mere thought of holding a spatula scared the living daylights out of me. Of course I was wrong. It's actually a very easy food to prepare. And when I say easy, trust me, it's really easy. :)

BANANA BREAD

-1 cup mashed bananas ( about 3 bananas. Best to let them sit for a week till the skin turns really brown. That makes them a lot sweeter.)
-1 3/4 cup flour
-3 tsp. baking powder
-1/2 tsp. salt
-2/3 cup of sugar
-1/3 cup butter (softened at room temp. or microwave-melted. It doesn't matter but I prefer it melted. It's faster.)
-2 eggs

Pre-heat oven at 175C. Beat eggs, butter and bananas. Mix dry ingredients. Bake for around 45 minutes or when the skewer ( or you can use a toothpick. A clean one, of course,hehe) comes out clean.

Whaaat, they aren't coming tomorrow??

I think I should write the title above with three exclamation points as well. You see, all the while A and I thought his family would be coming to Prague to visit us tomorrow. Babi and Děda wanted to see our small new flat. Take note that last time they bothered to leave their comfort zone was when Yugoslavia was still intact. I wanted this trip to be special for them.

So for a couple of days I agonized as to what I would cook for them. I'm still a clueless cook in training, the very antithesis of the women in A's family. I decided to stick to what I know-- frying, that is. Not just any frying, though. I would marinate chicken and pork overnight to cook them for lunch the next day. And that's exactly what I did. Six pork chops and three chicken breasts ready to go, just chilling in the fridge waiting for their end in the frying pan tomorrow.

"What about desserts or snacks?," was my cry for help yesterday at school. Anne, my American co-teacher, readily replied "Banana bread!" So with all the begging for the universe to help me not to mess up Anne's recipe, I baked my first banana bread ever this evening.

As usual, the universe listened. A said it's yummy but I just have to go easy on butter next time. I used butter to grease the baking tin. And grease I did.

So we were both ready for them tomorrow. Past tense. One call to ask them if they were ready for us made me scream WHAAAT? silently when I overheard they are not coming tomorrow but on Sunday instead.

Now tell me, who can we invite for lunch tomorrow to eat the pork chops? Volunteers, anyone?

Baking and bananas

The weather was so lousy yesterday we didn't go to have a stroll down Mala Strana as planned. Instead, I armed myself with baking utensils and baked my first choco-chip cookies at home. I was so happy with the outcome. My cookies looked and smelled so good, and they tasted good, too! I baked them sans vanilla, as we couldn't find it at Insterspar. It didn't make any difference at all as the coconut gave the cookies a delicious smell.

I'm not a fan of chocolates so I went easy on them. That explains why they don't look too choco-chippy. When we baked them at school before, the dough was so sticky it was difficult to roll it in small balls. Good thing I found the solution to this-- put the dough in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

On to one of my most favorite fruits in the world-- bananas. Yes, I'm a certified member of the ape family as I just love eating bananas. But there's one kind that has eluded me in Prague no matter how many Vietnamese stores I raided in search for saba. The closest substitute I found is plantain. It's not commonly sold here, though. Only Interspar near our flat has a constant supply of it, one of the delights our new place offers.

Plantain is sold at Insterspar- Park Hostivař at 49Kč/kilo. It's the closest substitute for the elusive "saba."

Fried bananas remind me of days gone by in Surigao. I associate it with my childhood when bananas were growing wildly everywhere and we ate them boiled or fried all the time. I haven't tried boiling plantain and eating it. It doesn't sound so appealing. :) But maybe, I'll make "turon" one of these days. Now that's a thought.....

Another salad on the table

Yesterday I came home from work inspired to make vegetable salad for dinner. This time I didn't want another straight from the bottle dressing. I wanted some chicken strips mixed with the veggies so I rummaged through a few unpacked bags, searching for the powder mix that does the trick. I was experimenting with chicken recipes several weeks back and this one, without so much in it but a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of powder mix, is definitely a keeper. Yup, I finally didn't care about greasing the bathroom sink with a dirty pan. The delicious smell of the chicken circulating the flat was certainly worth it.


In case you didn't get it yet, this is purely my own chicken recipe. Mine, got that? :) It isn't really worth bragging about because it's so easy. Just cut the meat in strips and season it with salt and this Gyros Kotanyi mix. Stir fry in vegetable oil, add half cup of water when meat is brown, and cover for a few minutes, occasionally stirring it. It's ready to serve with your salad when water is mostly absorbed by the meat. Adding nuts such as cashew or almonds to it is optional but recommended.

Dobrou chut!

The quick fix Queen

Yup, that's me, the self-proclaimed Queen of easy to do and easy to prepare stuff to right away silence the want and the need. I'm talking about food here, or were you thinking otherwise? Hehe.

We've been living in our new flat for a week now. I should be jumping up and down with joy for finally living in a place and be surrounded with things we call ours but maybe I'll save the jubilation later when we finally have our kitchen unit installed. It takes six weeks the earliest for the shop to deliver the materials. We've been washing dishes in the bathroom sink, and the thought of greasing it with a dirty pan doesn't appeal to me at all. Maybe I'll only resume experimenting in the kitchen when everything is installed to my heart's content.

Still, eating outside is unhealthy for both body and pocket. Our quick fix to this is to eat salads in the evenings. A likes his vegetables without any dressing but I sometimes like mine to have a bit of this and that. My co-teacher showed me how to prepare a really tasty and easy to prepare dressing when one day we made "farm salad" with the kids at school as an activity for the Farm theme. Here it is:

"Pepřová omačká s korením," which means pepper sauce with spices, and (nevermind the Czech version) garlic-flavored vinegar. Two spoons of this pepper sauce plus a few drops of this vinegar (or according to your taste) really makes a good dressing.

You can also add cheese in your salad if you feel like it. We used this Chevre du Poitou goat's milk cheese. It's so good I dumped several slices on my plate. It's a bit expensive though, a small pack costs more than a hundred crowns, but it's certainly worth it.

This is one of our cuties who carefully selected the veggies and fruits to bite. Me? I right away stuffed my Hruška (or pear as what A likes to call my stomach) with big bites of lettuce, strawberries, almonds, cheese and whatnot, along with suitably agreeable noises...hmm...hmm...this is good...the dressing is excellent...Can I have some more, please?

Currently obsessed with Couscous

I can't get Ikea's Couscous off my mind. This is the only reason why I haven't totally shunned this store after all the heavy lifting marathon we had the first time we were there. I just love eating at their restaurant. Their couscous with veggies is exceptional. It's so yummy and also affordable it makes me want to dash off there all the time. Fat chance, the store is so far from the center you have to have super cravings like mine to spend hours in transit just to eat.

So I tried to cook my own versions but they didn't come close to tasting like Ikea's. The first time I did, it came so dry it tasted like sand. My co-teacher then told me to mix it with a bit of white plain yoghurt but when I did, it came out too gooey. Not the one to give up easily, I searched the net and came across a different recipe. This time I put too much paprika that I couldn't eat more than a few small bites. This means that my neverending quest for the perfect couscous recipe will have to be put on hold till our kitchen unit is installed in our new flat, then I can drag my co-teacher to show me how to do it right.

This was the lunch I prepared which ended up in the bin. I didn't go easy on paprika it tasted like a bunch of raw chillies. The recipe I found said to just dump all the veggies you like so I put corn, peas, tomatoes, broccoli, and carrots along with garlic, cumin powder and of course, the culprit why it ended in the bin-- paprika. Better luck next time.

My current obsession is this--Ikea's Couscous with vegetables. It's so tasty I am itching to know what the secret is. Ikea is located at Cerny Most, an hour of metro ride from where we live. We were there yesterday to shop for a kitchen unit and of course, for me to eat this dish. It costs 45kc a serving but this one is kids' serving so I only had to pay 25kc. Yeah, you read it right. Just 25kc.