My little sister called me from New York few weeks ago, asking me for banana cake recipe, and of course my answer was: look for it in the blog.

And she did. (I think)

The few days ago, I called her, while we were talking, I asked her about the banana cake and her answer was: “oh, I didn’t use your recipe, it is just too complicated:

…

I was a little sad in the beginning, but when I saw my recipe, I think may be she was right, I mean, I am sure it is hard to find black rice flour in New York and all. And after all, my recipe was more bready than cakey.

Well, darling girl, this one is for you. Simple banana and to the point banana cake. You don’t even need a mixer to make it.

And it is soft, sweet, crumbly. Just like you. Hugs!

Banana Cake

115 gram unsalted butter, softened

100 gram sugar

1 egg

125 ml plain yoghurt

2 ripe medium banana, pureed

170 gram all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp sugar for sprinkling

seeds from 1 vanilla pod

Preheat the oven to 350F/Gas 4/180C

Butter and flour one 28×16cm pan

Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Mix well the softened butter and sugar with hand, then add the egg, mix well, then the yoghurt, mix well, then pureed banana, mix well then vanilla seeds. Add the flour mixture, mix until just incorporate, don’t over mix.

Transfer to the baking pan, spread well, sprinkle that 1 tablespoon of sugar on top

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted come out clean.

Wait until it cools down abit (20 minutes) before cutting it. I know it is hard to wait for the cake :) In fact, I took photos of Charlie to keep me distracted from the cake:

Have a nice weekend everyone! :)

It takes a while to return to my normal rhythm of life, it has been full of friends and family visits for this past three weeks, and now, finally just us. This is Marco’s lunch today, I had a late late breakfast, so, I guess I will fix myself a bowl of green salad with tofu after writing this post. It was some kind of hachis parmentier. “Some kind” because I did not use diced meat and sauce lynnoaise, but ground beef and some fresh tomatoes, plus some shallots and lemon thyme (I prefer to use the common thyme but we only have this at home right now).

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I wanted to make that delicious chocolate and raspberry tart from Michel Roux. And ended up with my kind (but still delicious) of chocolate and strawberry tartlets.

Because.

When I went to my usual shop for grocery shopping, I have problem finding the two important ingredients for this tart: the dark chocolate and raspberry…of course I can NOT make a chocolate and raspberry tart without the chocolate and raspberry themselves.

So.

I switched to a serious ingredients hunting mode. And I found this:

1. Looking badly at many many local supermarket for finding that 200 grams of good quality dark chocolate = Impossible!

2. At the baking shop: only greeted by arrays of scary (a.k.a chemical) looking chocolate block = I will not put that in my stomach

3. At the import/specialty supermarket = Found one…kind of…for Rp. 48.000 for 100g = 4 euros = Not gonna pay that much for a chocolate that actually costs only 1 euro in Milan.

4. A pack of raspberry (100 grams) cost around Rp. 70.000 = Almost 6 euros = errrr….only when I was desperate for raspberry and only Peck in Milan had it that I ever paid that much for a pack of raspberry = No!

*Sigh…I never thought it would be this complicated only to make a tart. but since I have already make the tart dough (which was sitting restlessly in my fridge), there is no way I would give up making chocolate tart, so I tried to make it with dutch press cocoa powder (which comes in the cutest packaging) and bought a kilo of strawberry instead.

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These cookies reminds me of that Spike Jonze movie: Where The Wild Things Are :)

Why? No idea, I haven’t even finished watching it :P

May be because I am still amused by these too-cute-to-be-true Japanese cookies cutters, in Indonesia we usually find those moon, heart, star shapes, not these ones:

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It has been ages! I know…what kept me from posting: we had to move house. Remember I told you about my leaking roof? Last time, it rained so bad and it rained outside-IN! The roof could not be fixed, because it was an antique joglo and to fix it would require a biiiiiig effort and of course living in tropical country with a badly leaking roof is not an option. So we moved. Still an antique joglo, but with a strong strong roof and an extra room for guests. The house is still bare, and we are still waiting for the kitchen tables and we have a new family member: Charlie.

Lots of stories, but right now I really just want to share this recipe with you, this was light but satisfying (don’t see my portion, I mostly eat like a bird… :) I did not have pine nuts here, and kind of difficult and expensive to buy in Indonesia, macadamia is more available and accessible as we are quite near to Australia. I think basil tastes different in here and in Italy, but it still tasted great!

Tagliatelle with Macadamia and Basil Pesto, Baby Green Beans and Kabocha

Serves 2/3

250g dried tagliatelle

1/6 medium kabocha, peel, throw away the seeds and very thinly sliced

1 small potato, peel and very thinly sliced

A handful of baby green beans, washed

Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

Freshly grated parmesan, sea salt and pepper

Pesto:

5 stalks of fresh basil, leaves picked, washed and roughly chopped

10 macadamia, lightly toasted, and roughly chopped

1/2 clove of garlic

a handful of freshly grated parmesan

Extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt

Bring to boil water (and a tablespoon of salt) in a pot big enough for the pasta and the vegetables

In the meantime, put all the ingredients of pesto in the food processor (just put a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and a bit of salt in the beginning, you can adjust this later) and blitz until smooth, remove and season to taste with sea salt. If you feel the pesto is too thick, add some more extra virgin olive oil.

When the water boils, add the potato, kabocha and green beans, when it comes to boil again, add the pasta and cook until the pasta is al dente. Reserve some of the cooking water and drain the pasta. Throw the pasta back to the pot, add the pesto and stir well, if it is too thick, add some of the reserved cooking water to thin it.

Divide to plates, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan and ground black pepper. Serve with fresh bread and big big smile.

Buon apetito! xx

This banana bread spooked many people :) I can understand that the colour is a bit unusual, that is because I use black rice flour. The first question asked was: is it old? or is it still okay to eat? :) Well, it is not old and it is VERY ok to be eaten, it was moist and delicious and somehow earthy. I kind of love its taupe colour, and this colour also reminds me of my good friend Aliki in Milan :) I am sure she will love this kind of earthy bread.

Anyway, the ones responsible for me making this banana bread were these beauties :

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A rather long title for this simple dish :), but really, those vegetable were the last last veggies I had in my fridge. I have been too busy with projects that I have not gone grocery shopping either going to the market. In fact, I will go directly after writing this post (the project finished yesterday!) You might find the ingredients a bit odd in amount, feel free to add more veggies as you like, but I found this composition quite perfect :) (more…)

Today is one beautiful Sunday, everything is so peaceful, sunny and a bit of soft wind. I have one pumpkin sitting in my kitchen, one I wanted to turn to some halloween food but I was too busy I did not have time. And today when Marco turned up in the kitchen all so hungry, this was the first thing came to my mind, a good excuse too to use that last batch of ricotta I made that needed to be finished :) (more…)

It has been more than a month since I wrote the last post…too long! I have been busy with projects, loads of meetings and cross continent travel…uffff….I am back home in Indonesia now, last week was nightmare, jet lag plus bad cold, I guess I am not made for this hectic life.

If you noticed, this photo is too ‘rigid’ than my usual moody ones :) because I used my photography set to shoot this, couldn’t be bothered to style this as I was tired after working all day (even today is sunday!) and I still am. But I promised to post the recipe to Mrs. Eka, she was my English teacher back in high school and she asked me for the rice pudding recipe and I said I would. A promise is a promise :) (more…)

After reading Keiko’s post for Live Strong with A Taste of Yellow, I wanted to participate too, and the first dish coming to my mind was nasi tumpeng. People don’t eat nasi tumpeng everyday in Indonesia, they usually eat it for blessing or celebrating, I think it is perfect to share this with all of you fighters!

As nasi tumpeng is rather complicated to make, I turn to my beloved tata, who has been cooking for us for almost 30 years. We did not have the tools and it was too late to go to the market, so we just make a simple one, and without the distinctive cone shape. This is like the base, you can add anything you like to eat this with. People commonly eat this with assorted ‘dry’ dishes like this shredded fried egg that I made, kering tempe (sweet and salty fried tempeh) - I made this too, abon sapi, empal (salted fried beef) or Indonesian fried chicken. (more…)