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…)

When hearing the name of this recipe: spaghetti ai cucuzzi e ricotta, I think you would not guess that I made it with one very-much-under-estimated vegetable called blonceng :) It is considered such an uninteresting vegetable that people here never really consider that it would pair nicely with pasta, nor that it has another ‘cooler’ Italian name: cucuzzi :) But for me I found it delicious and has a soft and abit sweet taste, I first experiment with cucuzzi (sicilian gourd) when I was in Italy, introduced by Pipo, my Sicilian vegetable seller at my usual tuesday farmer market, making soup and also use the leaves (called tenerumi) to make pasta.

Blonceng is so ridiculously cheap in Indonesia, we usually got one for 3000 rupiah, around 20 euro cents :) plus it is rather big that I could use it to make four times meals for four people. Imagine that! I made gratin two days ago with blonceng and mom was amazed to see this vegetable transformed into something looked…tres chic! :)

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Is my cookie too small or is my tea cup too big? :) Made this yesterday, my first reaction was on the first bite was: hmmm…it is ONLY ok, the second bite: ow, it is quite good :) the third bite: I don’t think I can stop eating this :))) Made with four kind of flours: whole wheat+all purpose+organic red rice+oat (both we made at home) (more…)

I have just got back from a week trip to Solo, Central Java, visiting my best friend Deb and to Bali to meet Bruno and Lorenzo before they returned to Milan. I am back at home now, with loads of beautiful batik and ingredients I brought back from Bali and Surabaya. Still need to organise those, plus catching up with the wired part of me :) I opened my computer and see this recipe I should have posted before I left for the trip.

I just wanted simple banana muffin but with a bit of twist, so I added podang mangoes (again), I try to make as many food as I can with these beauties before their season ends :) (more…)

This was like two hours ago, we turned off the light, brought in the birthday cake, mom blew the candles, we all had a slice and it was wonderful :) With the light off, you can’t really see the cake, with the light on:

You see? There is frosting. Yes. FROSTING, my worst enemy. Making the cake was quite straight forward, but I really struggle with the frosting for hours! My friend Ivan even gave me a call, worrying about by frosting crisis this afternoon. But I did not give up, and finally: One birthday cake for mom, made all by me :) Yes, it looked abit childish. Yes, it was uneven. Yes, it was imperfect. But It was beautifully imperfect, loaded with love. (more…)

Ahhhh…a rather small victory today, making my first tortina in Indonesia. Everything is local ingredients, except the butter which is exported from France (still can’t believe I only can find margarine in Indonesia, no local butter, but will keep looking).

I woke up at 8 today, with an URGE to bake :) and I finished at 12. A rather long time for baking…errrrr…NOT only baking… this included chasing the chicken for eggs (not me, my tata…cracking, grating, squeezing coconut for the milk, looking for rolling pin and ended up with bottle…you know what I mean :) but if you have ready made coconut milk, some organic eggs and ready-to-use pastry sheet, then you can make this much faster. But in my small village (no supermarket, no organic grocer), if you want the good things, you just could not get them fast, but I am not complaining, for example, I needed fresh eggs, so my tata went to some old women who had hens at their house, and you just can’t get as much as you want, it all depends how many eggs the hens lay that day, we could only get three (they came not in plastic bag, but wrapped in banana leaves :). There is not organic chicken farming here, except those ‘industrial’ chicken and eggs (meaning poor chickens trapped in small cages with zillion other chickens), there is not even organic term here in my village, but there is kampung food (means village), and they are good food…Oh, I can go on and on about this, I will stop now and just tell you more about the urge :)

It is started yesterday by having some ripe podang mangoes on my table, with wonderful aroma that tempted me to turn them into something. That something happened to be tarts. I started to make the dough last night, leaving it in the fridge overnight, woke up at 8, and started baking the process:) (more…)