Ingredients
800 grams tomatoes (one 28 oz can if you don’t have any fresh ones)
1 medium sized onion
1 small clove of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
75 grams sugar
3 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon

Peel the skin off of the tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes should be put into boiling water for a few seconds followed by a ice water dip, this makes the skin come of very easily. Canned tomatoes can be easily peeled or might already be peeled. Fry the finely chopped onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat without letting them get brown. Add the chopped up tomatoes and the rest of the ingredients and let it simmer until it’s fairly thick. Smooth mixture in a blender and chill for at least a few hours so the flavors can blend.

This ketchup will look a bit odd to most people as it does not contain any artificial coloring and thus looks more orange than the red we are used to. It’s also free of preservatives.

Ingredients:
Puff pastry sheets
Strawberries
Sugar
Butter
Powdered sugar

Wash your strawberries and cut them into quarters. Cut the puff pastry sheets into squares of about 5cm (2 inches) and put a few pieces of strawberry on each piece. Top with a bit of butter and sprinkle with some sugar. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes at 200 C (400 F) until golden brown. Let them cool down a bit and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Ingredients
Dried spaghetti
Hotdogs
Your favorite pasta sauce (sans the meat)

Cut up the hotdogs in bite sized pieces and push the dry spaghetti’s half way through. We used 4 spaghetti’s in each piece, so our spiders end up having four legs on each side. Next boil the spaghetti’s as per the directions on the package. Another great way to cook spaghetti, and any other type of pasta, is to boil it for 3 minutes, turn off your heat source and let it rest for the amount of time noted as cooking time on the package. Our spaghetti was supposed to boil for 8 minutes, so we boiled it for 3 minutes and let it rest in the hot water for another 8 minutes. This should cook your pasta perfectly al dente!

This is what they should look like when they are done cooking. Now all that’s left to do is adding your favorite pasta sauce.

Thanks to maraz_m_moroz for the original idea!

I’m not going to lie about it, yesterday I badly needed some play dough. Never mind why, sometimes a grown man can have a dire need for play dough! Being Sunday and all, I couldn’t just go to the store and buy any of the stuff, so I decided I’d make some myself. The recipe is really simple and it uses ingredients you probably already have. This play dough is great for kids, as it is totally non-toxic.

Ingredients
2 cups of flour
2 cups of warm water
1 cup of salt
2 tbsp of oil

Mix all the ingredients in a pan on low heat and keep stirring until the dough doesn’t feel sticky anymore. You are looking for the consistency of mashed potatoes, make sure you cook it long enough or it will be sticky.

With the basic, off-white, play dough done, you can now take little portions of it and knead in some food coloring.

That’s all there is to it! Now, the only thing missing is the authentic Play-Doh smell. I never really liked the smell, but I know a lot of people love it. If you want to make your home made play dough smell like Play-Doh, there is a solution for you: just mix in some Play-Doh fragrance!

I’m not sure your play dough will be non-toxic after adding it though. The thing I find most disturbing about this product is this: the fragrance is not supposed to be used in your home made play dough. The directions read:

Gently spray on pulse points of neck, wrists, and décolleté.

What the hell is your date going to think when you show up reeking like Play-Doh???

Potato pancakes are really easy to make and only require a few ingredients. They can be the whole meal, or you can serve them with meat and veggies. We always eat them just with applesauce.

Ingredients:
1 kilo potatoes
2 big onions
2 eggs
2 cups of rolled oats
Salt
Pepper

Best served with cold apple sauce! ]]> http://whatscookingdad.com/potato-pancakes/feed/ 18 http://whatscookingdad.com/eating-with-chopsticks/ http://whatscookingdad.com/eating-with-chopsticks/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:52:57 +0000 Cooking Dad http://whatscookingdad.com/?p=55 The most creative cooks are probably the Japanese. Japanese cuisine is characterized by sheer simplicity and pure tastes. The way Japanese chefs present their food is a real form of art. Eating the food, with chopsticks, is an art form in itself. It is, however, a part of the whole experience, a part that should not be left out!

I have no problem handling my chopsticks, the kids however, have not used them often enough to get used to them. But there is no way I can get them to eat with a fork, when mom and dad are using chopsticks.

If you have problems eating with chopsticks, you could buy some that are attached. Kind of like chopsticks with training wheels! There are various types available.
I think these could also make for a great gift! Have a look: Easy to use chopsticks

I call them one eyed monsters and the kids love them!

Ingredients
Bread
Eggs
Bacon (this is optional, but everything is better with bacon!)

You start by cutting a round hole in the middle of a slice of bread. This can easily be done with a glass or cup. Fry one side in a frying pan with a little butter. When the first side has been toasted, flip it over and break an egg into the hole. Cook on low heat until the egg is done. That’s your basic egg in the basket, pretty boring. So, let’s make it a bit more interesting!

Cut some bacon into small strips and fry them. They will be the hair of your one eyed monster. Alternatively you can use some grated cheese for this. Use the part that you cut out of the bread to give your monster arms and legs. Use mayonnaise and ketchup to finish things. There you go, a one eyed monster!

When I make pizza, I make pizza. No store bought dough or pizza sauce. I make everything from scratch, the whole 8.2296 meters (we don’t do yards here!)

Let’s start with the dough. Pizza dough is really simple to make and only requires a few ingredients. The amounts stated here are for 3 medium sized pizzas, enough to feed our family of four and have a little left over for a midnight snack!

Ingredients
500 gr. flower
250 ml. water
1 packet of dry yeast
Olive oil
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar

Dump the flower onto your kitchen counter top and press a little depression into the middle. Add water, yeast, salt, sugar and a splash of olive oil and start mixing from the middle with a fork. When the water and flower start to bond, use your hands to knead until you have a smooth dough. The dough should not be sticky, add some flower if it is.

Kneading the dough is a pretty good workout and stress reliever! If you have a bread maker, it will probably have a dough setting, I like to use my bread maker to make the pizza dough. In fact it’s the only thing I use it for. I have tried using it to bake some bread, but the thing I hate about it is the hole that the kneading paddle leaves in the bottom. Anyways, back to the pizza.

Put the dough in a bowl and cover with a towel, so it can rise (or just let it sit in your bread maker) If you have the sauce already, you can skip this step, the dough doesn’t really need rising.

On to the secret sauce! The sauce you put on your pizza can really make the difference, so put some extra love into it!

Ingredients
1 can of peeled tomatoes
1 clove of garlic
1 handful of fresh basil leaves
Pepper
Salt
Sugar
Ketchup
Olive oil

Start with the tomatoes. The whole tomatoes are way too watery, we’re making pizza sauce here, not tomato soup! Take the tomatoes out of the can with a big spoon and make a cut along one side using your finger. Now gently squeeze the water out of it and put what’s left into a big glass.

Once all the tomatoes have had this treatment, use your stick blender to turn it into a smooth paste. Chop the basil leaves and garlic and add salt, sugar, pepper and a splash of olive oil. Don’t go easy on the salt and pepper, there will only be a fairly small amount of sauce on your pizza, so it should have quite a strong taste.

Mix everything and add about 1/4th the amount of ketchup, give it a final stir and you’ll have the best pizza sauce you’ve ever tasted! Using one can of tomatoes to make the pizza sauce, I usually have about half of the sauce left over. The sauce can be kept in the freezer until the next time you make pizza.

Back to the dough. Cut the dough into 3 equally sized pieces and roll each one out into the desired shape. The dough will still rise in the oven so don’t make them too thick. Add about 2 tablespoons of sauce onto each pizza and spread it out evenly. You are now ready for the toppings.

When it comes to assembling your pizza, there is only one way to do it, and it goes like this:
Dough, sauce, cheese, toppings, cheese.
Don’t let me catch you doing it differently!

There are many different toppings you can use for your pizza. The general rule for the toppings is that they should be fairly dry and cooked. Mushrooms, for instance, contain quite a bit of moisture, so they should be cooked before adding or sliced very thin. Chicken breast is a nice pizza topping too, but it should be fried in a pan before adding it to your pizza.

Here are some of my favorite toppings:
Ham and pineapple, the world famous pizza Hawaii
Tuna and unions
Döner-kebab or Gyros, serve with lots of garlic sauce.
Salami

Cheese is added to all of the above. There are many different cheeses you can use on a pizza or a mix of several. I normally use grated Gouda cheese and Mozzarella.

The kids love to make their own pizza, so I usually put all the toppings into small bowls and let the kids have fun with it. Keep an eye on things though, because too much toppings will make a mushy pizza.

The pizza should be baked in a very hot oven, crank it up as high as it goes and bake the pizza until the crust is colored medium brown. Enjoy!

homemade pizza with salami and unions

Ingredients
2 eggs
2 tbsp. Sugar
A little milk

Break the eggs into a glass and add the sugar and a splash of milk.
Beat with a fork until smooth.
Pour into a hot frying pan and bake on both sides until browned.
Sprinkle with a little sugar and serve with a slice of bread.

Together with a cup of coffee, this makes an awesome breakfast and will give you more than enough energy to work until lunch. Kids also love eggs cooked like this!