Cyn's food and hobbies

Flip Flop Jewel turned necklace

2012-02-01T16:24:00.001+05:30

Waste not want not! I once had a pair of fancy red flip flops that had a big metallic ornaments with red stones on each thong, the flip flow went kaput beyond repair, but the silvery pieces were still more than fine, so I removed them, washed them and kept them aside. I thought they would make good pendants, and this is exactly how one ended:

I made this one a few years back using small red glass beads passed on two nylon threads which passed conveniently through the metallic loop in the back of the jewelled shoe piece, my plan was to get more strings of beads, but I never got around to do it and now I like it the way it is. I still have the other jewel in a box, and I’m yet to find an idea in which to use it, but its day will come. There are things that are just too pretty to trash without thinking about how to salvage some parts of it don’t you think?

Save the nut bowl

2012-01-27T12:07:00.001+05:30

Years ago I bought this cute and functional nut bowl, completely made of acacia wood, nicely varnished and we used it for years, it’s been on our patio table at all our informal weekend friends gathering, when we got an indoor dinning table it became a centrepiece on which I put a candle, my daughter has played with it, the monsoon has made it crack in one place, it has relocated 3 times across the country, and after 5 year you can just imagine that it was a bit worn out.
I’ve been toying with simply giving it to my maid and getting a new one, but I love that darn silly nut bowl of mine, so inspired by the holidays I gave it a little paint job to revive it:

The edges and outside of the bowl were the worst hit, the varnish there had completely come off, and I only wish I had a clear picture of how battered it looked before to share.
What I did is fairly simple, I just took some silver acrylic paint and painted the top edges and outside to cover the years of tear and wear, and left the inside of each compartment in it’s original treatment so that we can still use it for food stuff and can still wipe it clean with a damp cloth it still sits on my dinning table, without a candle as I haven’t replaced the last one that was in there and got damaged by my daughter.

Corporate gift makeover

2012-01-25T11:48:00.001+05:30

You have to love the stupid ideas companies get when it comes to Holiday gifts, end of project gifts, and what not, over the years DH got enough backpacks, laptop bags, sports bags to open a shop, enough coffee mugs to make sure that for a couple of years we were stocked (they all broke and we are corporate logo mug less at the moment), and of course various pens, calendars, calculators and even a wooden photo frame!

Now the photo frame would have been nice if it wasn’t engraved with Ernst and Young in big bold letter, back in the days I just about hated that company for all the time they kept DH away from me, and didn’t need a photo frame to just about remind me that. I guess it would have been a sensitive gift is DH had a fixed desk and was into keeping picture on it, but that isn’t the case.

So here is what I did with it:

I gave it an orange sponge paint job over a white primer, then added swirls in 3D liner paint to conceal the engraving. If you peek close enough you will of course still see the corporate engraving, but it doesn’t immediately jump to your eye anymore.
The photo in it is very recent, even after painting that frame I didn’t use it for the longest time, I had it stashed into a box in the middle of a mess wardrobe, and with each move I kept dumping it in some more mess, but I had a fun photo of us as a family to put in a fun quirky frame.

Framing craft

2012-01-21T14:55:00.001+05:30

We all have photo frames around, and they don’t necessarily have to hold fond memories, they can have fun quirky content too.
frames where not only the frame gets to have a crafty makeover, but a crafty content:

I don’t really remember what this picture is supposed to be, what I remember though, is that I thought it was cute and cut it out of magazine, originally it was made into a greeting card I never really wanted to send, and so I decided to frame it. The frame is an old IKEA wooden frame I had brought with me from Switzerland, it fell, the glass broke, and instead of putting another photo of me or my life in it, I decided to paint it silver, and then use 3D liner paint in light blue and light green to draw twirls and placed that greeting card I will decidedly never send…

Jam filled vanilla cake

2012-01-20T12:25:00.001+05:30

I made this one for Christmas but this is a recipe you can try for every occasions, and even non-occasions, as it is easy and delicious.
The vanilla sponge is made on a time tested basic recipe passed down in my family, working on the “4 quarter” method, simply put that means you weight the eggs in their shell and add the exact same weight of each flour, butter, and sugar along with whatever flavouring or extra you want in it.
The icing in my picture is an egg white and icing sugar icing which I’ve been told is also called “Royal icing” it has the distinction to dry to a hard sugary crust and is probably the only Icing I’ve ever been able to master.
The jam filling part of this cake is probably the only slightly difficult part of the cake making.

Ingredients:

- 4 eggs (you need to weight them in their shell at this point, and if your tin is bigger you simply add an egg or two)
- The exact same weight of the eggs in each flour, sugar and butter (at room temperature to be soft)
- a heaped teaspoon of baking powder
- 2 teaspoon vanilla essence
- a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter
- your choice of jam for the filling (I used cherry in this recipe)

For the icing:

- 3 fresh egg whites
- 250g confectioner’s sugar (icing sugar)
- a pinch of salt
- food colouring (optional)

1) As said before, you absolutely need to weight your eggs in their shell before starting the recipe, the whole ratio will depend on it, the 4 quarter term applied to this recipe comes from the fact you have a 1:1:1:1 ratio with equal weight parts for each of the main ingredients. I sued a round holed tin for that cake, but any shape will do.

2) Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius and beat the Butter in a mixing bowl until it is soft and creamy, add the sugar and mix well together, add the eggs and beat to a homogenous mix and add the vanilla essence.

3) Sift the flour and baking powder together, and add to the wet batter, folding in the flour gently until completely mixed and creamy.

4) Grease and dust your cake tin, and pour the batter in it, levelling the batter carefully if you are using a funnel tin like I did so that the base will be flat once the cake has been flipped on a tray.

5) bake the cake for about 40 minutes, or until a wooden skewer or blade knife comes clean after having been inserted in the thickest area of the cake.
Once baked, transfer to a wire rack gently and let it cool completely before filling and icing.

6) While the cake is cooling you can work on your icing if you are choosing to ice the cake.
To do so, put the 3 egg whites and the pinch of salt in a mixing bowl and use an electric beater, or the egg white beating attachment on your food processor to beat the egg white to a stiff “snow”, peaks should be forming while beating when the mix has reached the rich texture and a cut with a knife will leave a mark.

7) Once your eggs are stiff, add all the icing sugar to the mix, folding gently and until an homogenous mix has been created. Set aside until the cake is ready.

8) Once the cake is cool, take a big bread knife, and gently and carefully slice horizontally through the middle.
Very gently remove the top portion taking great care into not breaking it and set aside.
Take a teaspoon and gently scrape a groove in the bottom section of the cake and fill the groove with the jam.
If you are planning to go with the icing, then take a little icing and line each side of the groove with it, this will cement your cake once the top portion has been placed back on it.
Gently place the top section of the cake back where it belongs, the jam filling is done

9) If you are doing the icing, transfer your cake to a serving dish, as you won’t be able to move it afterward. Pour the icing over the cake to cover it, if you want wipe the excess gathering at the base, but do so very gently and after a few minutes, the icing is meant to ooze down before it sets.
On the cake above I used a small portion of the icing sugar mixed with red food colouring and did a freehand doodle on the already half set white icing, you can let your creativity go wild there.

Origami to conceal clutter

2012-01-18T12:25:00.001+05:30

In our old apartment in Bangalore, our kitchen had two tiny overhead cabinet in which we stored all our food stuff, they had one door coming with a big glass panel that let you have a peek at what was inside.
Now I imagine a domestic goddess would keep colour coordinated canisters, keep them neatly lined and sorted by sized and content, and the whole thing would look nice. I’m not that type, but I hate seeing clutter, and I hate the idea that a cupboard while specifically designed to hold mess away from sight will still let you have your untidy habit shouting at your face from sadistically eye level positioned glass panel.
Here is the solution I found to the issue:

I simply made two square out of regular white paper to match the dimension of the cabinet glass panels, then used origami paper to fold little origami fishes (the only one I remember from the days I got into learning a few origami tricks).
Then I artfully pasted the fishes on the pieces of white paper, and finally just opened my cupboards and taped the paper against the glass from the inside.

Clutter concealed, cute kitchen, and happy toddler pointing at the pretty fishes in my kitchen daily!

And I even managed to trace a website where you can learn how to make that very same Origami Fish.

Potato and fenugreek leaves salad

2012-01-16T12:54:00.001+05:30

In India fenugreek leaves are called methi, and are traditionally cooked in a wok along with potatoes, the methi gets a bitter taste, and the longest you cook it the more bitter it becomes. I always thought methi was to be consumed cooked, until a Marathi lady in my daughter’s school told me it could be consumed as a salad.
I blended a good old Swiss classic of potato salad, and tossed fresh fenugreek leaves and seasoned it, an easy one for a nice lunch or a side dish.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of fresh fenugreek
3-4 potatoes, boiled, peeled cooled and cut into chunks
1 red onion sliced
Olive oil (enough to coat the potato chunks)
Paprika powder to taste
Cumin powder to taste
Rice Vinegar, a drizzle

1) Pluck the leaves off your bunch of fenugreek and discard the stem (not used in the recipe) wash and drain the leaves, pat them dry and set aside.

2) Cut your cooled boiled potatoes into chunks and put them in a large serving bowl, pour olive oil on them and gently mix, the olive oil coats the chunks to make them non sticky.

3) Season your oiled potatoes with the cumin and paprika powder, then cut the onion into fine slices, and rub over the bowl to separate the layers, gently stir your salad once more to blend, being careful not to mash your potato chunks

4) Toss the fenugreek leaves on top, drizzle with rice vinegar, and gently stir the salad again and serve.

- You can use red chilli powder instead of paprika, the taste will be stronger though.
- You can add other typical salad vegetables to the mix as well, and grated carrots, and tomato slices would not be out of place in that bowl.
- Resist the urge to cut your potatoes or other vegetables into tiny cubes, the salad will loose its texture and the taste is likely to be affected.
- Rice Vinegar is a sweet tasting vinegar and it can be found in hypermarkets and gourmet shops in India, it might seem slightly pricey but a bottle goes a long way, typically you will find it in the Asian produce section of your store. If you can’t find it, better use lemon juice or even tamarind water rather than plain synthetic vinegar which has a harsh bitter taste

How to salvage a cheap old cabinet unit.

2012-01-15T11:56:00.001+05:30

Once upon a time I bought a glass door cabinet unit for a kitchen we once had, it was supposed to be cheap, temporary, and not relocated too many times. It was one of these typical plastic laminated MDF board furniture and it did the trick at keeping my very cabinet challenged kitchen tidy back in the day. Then we relocated 3 times in a year, and with each move the parkers and movers broke it yet a little more, it lost a glass panel, then a door, and the humidity of the monsoon in one of our apartments made it look even worse. so much so that after or most recent move the thing looked like this:

The infamous cabinet is the one on the left of the bookshelves, it’s no longer in the kitchen as it was originally planned to be, and isn’t even remotely holding anything food or kitchen related like it was in the previous 2 apartments. Nope it sits like an eyesore in my living room holding DVDs and CDs and a bunch of clutter away from my daughter behind the glass door, making it messy enough.
Until I got so fed up with it and decided that since it was there to stay a while longer with us, it might as well get a quirky make over:

I opened the door and painted the glass in a cream colour from the inside, then used gold 3D lining paint (lots of it) to draw little twirls on the glass, the drawer panel and the lower cabinet panel, and finished by using regular silver acrylic paint to line the tacky cheap wood panel carving imitations that were there. It is still pretty much a piece of furniture that will be destined to the dump yard one day, but at least while it is sitting in my living room it doesn’t have to hurt my eyes as bad, and it goes with the bright cheerful theme I am getting in that room.

A close up of the glass panel:

Advent Calendar 2011

2011-12-31T15:01:00.001+05:30

this the advent calendar I made for my daughter this year. it was a bit more time consuming than the previous year as I decided to make a 3D Christmas tree out of toilet paper rolls. To pull that one off you need to plan your thing month in advance to have the 24 rolls before the first day of December, you can also use kitchen tissue paper roll that you cut to match the length of the toilet paper roll.
I wrapped the back end of the roll with newspaper bits, then painted each roll in green individually before gluing them together in the shape of the tree. I then cut 24 circles out of recycled green paper (you can use craft paper as well) on which I wrote a number in 3D gold liner paint, then stuffed each roll with a little present before pasting the green circle on each end sealing the goodies inside, and then used 3D green glitter paint to define each circle. I added a star cut out from white craft paper and wrapped in gold leftover gift wrap paper that I then pasted on top of the tree. Time consuming but a really stunning result for this one.

Advent Calendar 2010

2011-12-31T14:51:00.001+05:30

In Switzerland it is traditional to have an advent calendar for your kids to countdown the days until Christmas, and my mom used to make one every year wrapping 24 little presents for each days leading to the big day. And I wanted to carry on the tradition for my daughter for her second Christmas and this is what I came up with.
The calendar is fairly simple, and while you can’t really see it all the gifts are tied to a cardboard piece I cut in the shape of a Christmas tree and painted silver and pasted the thing in the door frame of my kitchen. I used a star shape to draw little tags out of yellow craft paper, used 3D liner to line them and wrote the number of the day into each one before pasting them to the present. I used a moon shape to make the 24th tag and placed it on top of the tree.

Patchwork Painting

2011-12-31T14:44:00.001+05:30

I started this one in August 2011, shortly after we relocated to Mumbai to brighten our dinning area, and finished it in November 2011.
I wanted to make something, bright, a bit quirky, and more in tune with my fast style of painting. This is not saying this painting actually took little time, but the dynamic and the fact I split it in smaller area to work on individually made wonder for my limited patience, working on one tile at a time layer by layer is far better in my book than obsessing over a waterfall for hours. I first divided the canvas in a grid, then painted each tile a solid colour, then added a completely individual pattern to each tile, then painted a bigger brighter figure in every alternate tile often using 3D lining paint to add some depth to my painting, and lined each tile with a blue grey line, to give a tiled or patchwork effect to it.
I think this one will look stunning in a rustic or baroque natural wood frame, if I ever find something this one will probably end up being framed for a more dramatic effect.

First Painting since in India

2011-12-31T14:33:00.001+05:30

I made this one between March and July 2011, after we moved into our new apartment in Bangalore, my husband likes landscapes and I like water, so I decided to make a waterfall.
I am aware this one is not a particularly great painting, as I’ve never really been the type to enjoy doing landscapes and portraits when it comes to painting, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time on that one without being completely happy with the outcome all along. The then salmon pink walls didn’t help, I admit it looks better in our current apartment where the walls are white and natural light comes in our place in abundance.
I favour acrylic paint, and this is exactly what I used here, and this is probably the last landscape I’ll ever paint.

Black Olives and Rosemary Focaccia

2011-10-29T20:32:00.001+05:30

Focaccia is an Italian bread, there are many variant of it, here is one full of flavour, to enjoy plain, as a sandwich bread, or just drizzled with olive oil. You can make one big loaf, but I prefer making mine into small individual breads.

ingredients:

500g white flour (maida)
7g dried powdered yeast
1 teaspoon of salt
3 table spoon olive oil + extra to brush
2-3 table spoon dried rosemary
1/2 cup black pitted sliced olives

1) In a mixing bowl sift the flour, yeast and salt, add the rosemary, olives and oil, and mix, then gradually add water to make a soft elastic dough. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, punching it and folding it energetically on a lightly floured surface.

2) Put a baking parchment or grease a baking tray and flatten your ball of kneaded dough on it so that it is about 2 centimetre thick all over. Cover the tray with a clean kitchen towel and fold the fabric under the tray, let the dough rise for 45 minutes.

3) Preheat the oven to 230 degrees Celsius. Lift the towel and soak your finger in water and punch holes all over your loaf, then brush so olive oil on it.

4) Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown, immediately cover the loaf with a clean kitchen towel and let it cool down that way. Covering the loaf ensure that the crust remains soft during the cooling process.

- You can make a plain focaccia just using salt and olive oil in the dough, or add green olives, sun dried tomatoes, capers, to vary the taste.
- the most important thing when baking bread is to have a good yeast, this is the toughest thing to find in India, sadly I get mine from Switzerland, but you can always ask your baker where to get good quality yeast fresh or dried…don’t let this deter you from trying to bake bread, you might have a few trial and errors to go through.

A simple Tabouleh

2011-09-26T17:53:00.001+05:30

Tabouleh is a Mediterranean salad, originally made from bulgur wheat (known as dhalia or broken wheat in India). In Switzerland however the dish is made with couscous grains (couscous semolina) and is a BBQ party side dish classic, many store have their “Tabouleh kit” in which you find the right amount of couscous and dressing made of olive oil mint and parsley, which leaves you to just add tomatoes. My version here is simple version without tomatoes.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup couscous grain
A handful of each chopped flat leaf parsley, chopped mint leaves, and sultana raisin (kismish)
Olive oil to taste
A few drop of Tabasco
Salt to taste

1) boil some water and pour over the couscous grain, (the ratio is roughly 1.5 part water for one part couscous), let the grain absorb all the water and set aside to cool.

2) chop your parsley and mint finely, and once the couscous grains are cooled add to the bowl, along with a handful of sultana raisin, some olive oil, a few drop Tabasco and a little salt.

3) Enjoy! it makes a great lunch salad on it’s own or a side dish to grilled meat or pita bread and hummus.

Variants:
-You can add chopped tomatoes and cucumber to it for a different taste.
- If you can’t find flat leaf parsley which is a not too common ingredient in India, you can replace it with regular parsley which is far easier to find in bigger supermarket nowadays, if parsley really isn’t your thing, chopped coriander leaves will do the trick too, but the taste will be different.
- Couscous grains aren’t easy to find, and a 500g box will set you a whooping 255 rupees or more, but one pack goes a very long way. if you can’t find it where you live, chose a finely ground broken wheat (dhalia), don’t use suji (semolina) it turns pasty once water has been added and it end up tasting awful (yes I tried)

About

2011-09-26T14:29:00.001+05:30

About this blog and the author:

I’m the author of Cyn’s Adventures in India, the first blog I ever wrote, in 2007 I wanted to get a recipe blog on the side, and started Cooking with Cyn, which is the old title of that very blog, had a few recipes on it, then life took the toll out of that new project and I left it be with no updates since 2008, but the idea of getting a food blog kept coming back and forth.

But then while cooking still is one of my hobbies, I redescovered my love for painting and doing small handicrafts and decoration project after my daughter started school, I used to post them on my other blog, and probably will continue to do so, but I suddenly felt they needed a bit more spotlight, and my orignial idea of a food blog, became a food and craft blog, and there is no saying where that will take me, from there.

Based in India, all the recipes and craft projects are all cooked and made with ingredients and materials easily available around here.

Enjoy