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Friday, December 21, 2012

COZONAC CU NUCĂ PUFOS ȘI GUSTOS



ALUAT                                                                                    

 1 kg făină 
5 gălbenușuri 
700 ml lapte cald
250-300 g zahăr             
 3 lingurițe drojdie uscată                                                    
 1 linguriță rasă sare
200 g unt topit- sau ulei incălzit
Esențe de rom și de vanilie
Coajă de portocală și lămâie

UMPLUTURĂ

 5 albușuri
 esențe vanilie și rom
coajă de portocală și lămâie
nucă câtă vreți
zahăr pudră cât de dulce vreți
 


PLĂMĂDEALA
Într-un lighean de 4 litri punem 100 g faină, care apoi se opărește cu 200 g de lapte clocotit, și se amestecă repede cu lingura de lemn ca să nu se facă cocoloașe, iar când pasta este calduță – adică să se simtă numai puțin cald la mână – se poate adăuga drojdia. Opărirea unei părți din făină are rolul de a menține moale cozonacul mai mult timp. Se pune drojdia la crescut, amestecându-se cu 2 linguri zahăr, după care se adaugă la plămădeala călduță.Dacă se adaugă drojdia când plămădeala este fierbinte, nu mai crește. Batem pasta obținută până este ca o smântână și apar beșicuțe, apoi se adaugă 1 ou si puțin zahăr. Se presoară peste această pastă puțină făină și apoi se acoperă vasul și se lasă să crească la loc călduț, dar nu fiebinte. După 30 minute controlăm să vedem dacă a crescut plămădeala.
Gălbenușurile și zahărul se amestecă cu mixerul până nu se mai simte zahărul și este totul ca o cremă.




FRĂMÂNTATUL

Într-un castron se amestecă f bine gălbenușurile cu sarea(amestecate cu o seară înainte spre a căpăta o culoare frumoasă), zahărul topit în laptele fiert și răcit în prealabil, esențele, coja de portocală și lămîie.
Când plămpdeala a cresut, se incepe a frământa aluatul. Se adaugă ingredientele ude peste făina cernută de 2 ori și ținută la temp caldă peste noapte, și se frământă timp de o oră dinspre exterior spre interior fără a se trânti sau rupe aluatul, muindu-se mâinile în untul topit sau uleiul călduț.
Este foarte important ca aluatul să fie cât mai molcuț, spre a ieși pufos și spre a se rupe fâșii.
O metodă de a verifica dacă aluatul este bun, este de a-l înfașura pe deget; dacă aluatul se face ca o fâșie care poate fi rotită pe deget, înseamnă că vom avea un cozonac reușit – dacă respectăm și indicațiile ulterioare, privind coptul.
De asemenea în casă trebuie să fie cald, fără a lăsa să intre aer rece unde se lucrează.
Se lasă aluatul la crescut 1-2 oră/e, după care se împarte în două. Fiecare jumătate se întinde ușor cu mâna și se umple cu umplutura de nucă din belșug. Umplutura trebuie să fie făcută moale îndeajuns să se poată întinde ușor pe aluat, dar să nu fie moale, căci astfel cozonacii se încruzesc. Se rulează cozonacii și se pun în tăvi de cozonaci. Se ung cu gălbenuș amestecat cu lapte. Se lasă din nou la crescut în tăvi încă o oră, după care se introduc în cuptorul încălzit în prealabil. Nu se deschide cuptorul pentru 30 min, sau cozonacii vor scădea.
După ce s-au copt( ~ 1 oră), se scot din cuptor și se așează puțin înclinați spre a nu se lăsa pe mijloc.

Monday, September 17, 2012

CHOCOLATE CHIP WAFFLES/ PANCAKES

2 cups all purpose flour or whichever flour you like
1 cup of milk more or less
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of sugar
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup chocolate chips.
In a bowl mix flour with salt, sugar, and baking powder.
In another bowl, mix the eggs very good, than add the milk, and the butter.
Pour the eggs over the flour mix. When you have the desired consistency, add the chocolate chips- how much you want.
Pour the mixture into the waffle maker or make pancakes in the frying pan over medium high temp.
Trust me, this will be the best waffles/ pancakes you ever had.I have tried so many recipes posted online , but I did not like any, so I've created my own recipe, which did not failed me or my kids.
If you don't like it, than please let me know in the comments box below, and I will re-do it.
Thanks for reading and...
Bon Appetite!




Sunday, September 16, 2012

BANANA-NUT-CHOCOLATE CHIP- BLUEBERRIES MUFFINS



This recipe was given to me by my best friend, and trust me, this are THE BEST MUFFINS IN THE WORLD! And they're easy to make. If you want more than 12-15 muffins, than double the recipe! That easy!
Your children will love this muffins with a nice cup of cold/warm milk.

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
 1 teaspoon baking soda
 1/2 teaspoon salt
 1 egg
 1/2 cup vegetable oil
 1/2 cup plain yogurt
 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/2 chopped roasted walnuts   
1 cup of blueberries              
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
                    In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, yogurt and vanilla.
Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
Fold in bananas, walnuts and chocolate chips.
Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. 
Add 5-6 blueberries in each muffin cup.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.


ROMANIAN MAC N CHEESE

1 packet of hair spaghetti
3 eggs
1lbs feta cheese
1 pack vanilla sugar
1-2 teaspoon/s vanilla essence
1-2 cups sugar ( or how sweet you want it)

Boil the spaghetti according to the instructions on the pack adding in the hot water 1 tablespoon of oil, for not sticking up to each other. Drain when is done. After that, put them back into the same pot in which you boil them, only because is big enough to stir it the other ingredients.

Add the eggs, cheese, vanilla, and the sugar, than mix it all together to be even.

With a non-stick oil spray, spray an oven safe dish, add the spaghetti mixture, than put it in a preheated oven at 375 F for about 30 min. or until is golden brown on top.

 When baked, let it cool, than cut in in medium size squares, and enjoy this wonderful, delicious dessert.

Bon appetite!



Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Romanian marble cake picture

This cake I have made it with walnuts, raisins, and blueberries, and from 12 eggs, 12 T sugar, 12 T flour.
That's the beauty of this cake: you can use 7 rule, 10, 12, or how many eggs you have in the house. All you do, is to change the recipe a little bit. Trust me, you can't go wrong. It still will be delicious.


The video on how to make it will come soon.

ROMANIAN FRUITY MARBLE CAKE

This cake is a 7 rule cake, and I will explain you why. Lots of Romanian bakers use baking powder in this cake, but I, personally, don't use any because the cake will rise from egg whites, so it doesn't need any baking powder.

Ingredients:

7 yolks
7 egg whites
7 Tablespoons of all purpose flour
7 Tablespoons of white granulated sugar
1-2 teaspoons vanilla, and rum extract
1 pack of vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon of cocoa
1 cup of walnuts, blueberries, or raisins, or all of them if you like it more fruity.

Preheat oven at 375 F ( 180 C).

We begin mixing in a medium bowl the yolks, with a hand mixer, with 3 T of sugar, vanilla, and rum extract until the yolks become white-ish; than we set aside.

In a separate bowl, we mix the whites with the rest of 4 T of sugar, until they are really stiff. When you turn the bowl upside down, the yolks should not come out. Set aside.

Swift the flour, and mix in the salt, and the vanilla sugar, than add it to the yolks.  Mix it good. Than add the egg whites and mix everything SLOWLY, do not break the air bubbles from the whites, from the sides in the middle.

After the egg whites are incorporated completely, put aside like 30% of the cake mixture and mix it with the cocoa. The white part of the cake mixture remained, put it in 1 or 2 meat loaf pans, than put on top the roasted walnuts ( they have a better taste), blueberries, or raisins, whichever you like or want. The cocoa mix put it on top of the nuts, than mix in slightly with a fork.

Place the pans in the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until the toothpick comes out clean when you test to see if the cake has baked.

Let it cool on baking rack.

Enjoy this wonderful, fruitful, and tasty cake, my family loves.


HELLO TO ALL FOOD LOVERS

Hi everyone. My name is Paula. If you are a food lover, than you came to the right blog.

I want to write about Romanian, American, French, Italian, Greek, Mexican, and Croatian cuisine, as these I know best to cook.

I hope you, my readers will like, or use my blog for your recipes needs and/or ideas of what you want to cook.

I don't know if any of you heard about Romania, so I am going to tell you a little about my country and it's food. Of course, I had to copy and paste some of this info from Internet, but as I will start into my blog, I will add my unique flavors, as Romanian food is all about love, passion, and flavors.

I LOVE COOKING, so I am not afraid to make some twists from the original recipes.

Originally I am from Iași, located in the northern side of Romania, where the foods, and the sweets are known throughout the country. Whomever hears me saying that I am from Iași, asks me about our food, and I am proud to say that I love to cook it or to teach others about our recipes.

Did you know that Romania is a country known for Dracula? LOL...I just love this story!!!


Anyway, located halfway between the Equator and the North Pole, Romania is the 12th largest country in Europe.
Romania’s terrain is almost evenly divided between mountains, hills and plains.

Romanian (limba română) is the official language of Romania. The name Romania, and its derivatives, come from the Latin word 'Romanus', a legacy of Roman rulers who took control of ancient Dacia in 106 A.D. Romanian retains a number of features of old Latin and also contains many words taken from the surrounding Slavic languages, as well as from French, Old Church Slavonic, German, Greek and Turkish.
Romanian is actually easier for English speakers to understand than it is assumed. If you’ve studied other Romance language, such as Italian, Spanish, French or Portuguese, you may feel at home sooner than you think. Romanian is a phonetic language, so words are pronounced as they are spelled.
A foreigner trying to learn or speak Romanian can expect positive reactions from native speakers. Most Romanian will certainly appreciate the fact that you are making an effort to speak their language.
Interesting fact:
  • Romanian holds the intriguing status of being the only member of the Romance language family spoken in Eastern Europe.
Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character. It has been greatly influenced by Ottoman cuisine, while it also includes influences from the cuisines of other neighbours, such as Germans, Serbs, Bulgarians and Hungarians.
Quite different types of dishes are sometimes included under a generic term; for example, the category ciorbă includes a wide range of soups with a characteristic sour taste. These may be meat and vegetable soups, tripe (ciorbă de burtă), and calf foot soups, or fish soups, all of which are soured by lemon juice, sauerkraut juice, vinegar, or traditionally borş. The category ţuică (plum brandy) is a generic name for a strong alcoholic spirit in Romania, while in other countries, every flavour has a different name
Romanian recipes bear the same influences as the rest of Romanian culture. The Turks have brought meatballs (perişoare in a meatball soup), from the Greeks there is musaca, from the Austrians there is the şniţel, and the list could continue. The Romanians share many foods with the Balkan area (in which Turkey was the cultural vehicle), with Central Europe (mostly in the form of German-Austrian dishes introduced through Hungary or by the Saxons in Transylvania) and Eastern Europe. Some others are original or can be traced to the Roman or other ancient civilizations. The lack of written sources in Eastern Europe makes impossible to determine today the punctual origin for most of them.
One of the most common meals is the mămăliga, a type of polenta, served on its own or as an accompaniment. Pork is the main meat used in Romanian cuisine, but also beef is consumed and a good lamb or fish dish is never to be refused.
Before Christmas, on December 20 (Ignat's Day or Ignatul in Romanian),[4] a pig is traditionally sacrificed by every rural family.[5] A variety of foods for Christmas prepared from the slaughtered pig consist of the following:
  • Cărnaţi — sausages
  • Caltaboş — sausages made with liver
  • Tobă and piftie — dishes using pig's feet, head and ears suspended in aspic
  • Tochitură — pan-fried pork served with mămăligă and wine ("so that the pork can swim").
  • Piftie - inferior parts of the pig, mainly the tail, feet and ears, are cooked refinely and served in a form of gelatin
  • Jumari - small pieces of pig meat are fried and tumbled through various spices
The Christmas meal is sweetened with the traditional cozonac, a sweet bread with nuts and rahat for dessert.
At Easter, lamb is served: the main dishes are roast lamb and drob de miel – a Romanian-style lamb haggis made of minced organs (heart, liver, lungs) wrapped and roasted in a caul.[6][7] The traditional Easter cake is pască, a pie made of yeast dough with a sweet cottage cheese filling at the center.[8][9]
Romanian pancakes, called clătită, are thin (like the French crêpe) and can be prepared with savory or sweet fillings: ground meat, white cheese, or jam. Different recipes are prepared depending on the season or the occasion.[10]
Wine is the preferred drink, and Romanian wine has a tradition of over three millennia.[10] Romania is currently the world's 9th largest wine producer, and recently the export market has started to grow.[10] Romania produces a wide selection of domestic varieties (Fetească, Grasă, Tamâioasă, and Busuioacă), as well as varieties from across the world (Italian Riesling, Merlot, Sauvignon blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Muscat Ottonel). Beer is also highly regarded, generally blonde pilsener beer, made with German influences. There are also Romanian breweries with a long tradition.
According to the 2009 data of FAOSTAT, Romania is the world's second largest plum producer (after the United States),[11] and as much as 75% of Romania's plum production is processed into the famous ţuică, a plum brandy obtained through one or more distillation steps.[12]