Almond meal

Hey everyone,

Its been a while since I last posted anything and its only because I have been crazy busy. I hope everyone is well? Anyways, this is just to share a simple procedure on how to make Almond meal because I am going to use it in my next blog post.

 Here's how I started, I bought these almonds from a supermarket for 500 naira each. Now we are going to get rid of the skin for finer almond meal (This process is called blanching)

To blanch your almonds, Pour some water in a pot, bring it to a boil then add in your almonds for about a minute or minute and half.

 Next you toss it into a sieve and run it under cold water, carefully peel the skin off almonds by holding one almond, the fat end in between you thumb and index finger, the with the pointy edge facing down, peel almonds.

Blanched almonds

Now to convert these blanched almonds to almond meal, dry them and throw them in the bowl of your food processor with the blade attachment fixed(A good blender would work fine too).

 Pulse for some minutes till they look like they do in the picture below, this took about 5 minutes , then I sieved it with a medium mesh sieve, returned the lumps back into the food processor and pulsed for a few more minutes. I repeated this process till I got my fine almond meal

Beautiful right?... yeah I thought so too

 Almonds can be gotten from pretty much any super market, feel free to try it out. Thanks for reading...Peace out guys
 

Blueberry muffins

Hello,

Its been a while since NEPA has refused to give us light in Ikorodu plus the ongoing fuel scarcity.
Anyways after much wahala, we finally got fuel to power the generator. So I decided to play around with a blueberry muffin recipe from a cookbook I own, I added a couple of things to jazz it up a bit. This recipe is really easy to throw together and not overly sweet.

Here's a list of things you'll need

•  2 and 1/2 cups of flour
• 1/4 cup of white sugar
• 1/8 cup of brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 1 cup of buttermilk or milk
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons of freshly brewed coffee
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of blueberries
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
•  60 grams of melted butter
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• About a cup and half of streusel topping( recipe will be posted later, as it can be omitted)

 Firstly, we classify the ingredients into two: Wet and Dry ingredients
                                          DRY INGREDIENTS            WET INGREDIENTS
                                            Flour                                   Buttermilk/ milk
                                           White sugar                             Brown sugar
                                       Baking powder                          Melted butter
                                              Salt                                         Coffee
                                                                                            Lemon juice
                                                                                                Eggs
                                                                                         Vanilla extract
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Now add all the dry Ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together nicely

Crack both eggs in another bowl, beat slightly then add the rest of your wet ingredients, mix well.

                                                                                                                                                    

Now add your wet ingredients into your dry and slowly mix them until well combined

Next, Fold your blueberries into your muffin batter  

Line a muffin pan with 12 cupcake liners, then fill each one with about a tablespoon of streusel topping. (I will post the recipe for the streusel topping later, you can make your muffins without them or you can wait for the recipe for the streusel topping.)

Fill each liner with muffin batter and sprinkle on them the rest of the streusel topping

Bake for 20 minutes in the oven, then insert a skewer stick or toothpick, if it comes out clean, its done

This muffins are super easy, moist and very delicious. I'd love for you guys to try it out. Recipe makes 14 muffins.

I call it my Breaded potato balls

Hello Everybody,

So I was in my room again, didn't know what to do today then I heard my mum yell "E ma je ki potato yi baje" which means don't let the potatoes go bad. so I went to the kitchen and found out that some of the sweet potatoes had gone bad. I didn't want the rest to go to waste so I started brainstorming. What do I do with these potatoes?
 Then it hit me, I thought about what I did the other day, to boil the potatoes, peel and mash them,  but this time pour the pepper into the mashed potatoes then add shredded chicken (instead of fish) , roll into small balls and fry them, easy right? wait until you actually start. Here's how I started

I got my potatoes, washed and boiled with a little salt until soft

Next I tossed them in a bowl of cold water and peeled them

Mashed them with a wooden spoon. A potato masher would have been a better option here but I don't have one..

Next I got some peppers and a small onion bulb, I used a hand grinder to get this consistency

I seasoned some chicken, boiled and shredded it

Then I added the pepper and chicken to the mashed potatoes and mixed it all together

I took a little chicken stock, added some salt and one stock cube because I didn't want to add too much liquid. I poured the stock into the mashed potatoes and mixed it all together.

 

 

My cousin suggested dissolving the seasoning into the chicken stock before adding to the mashed potatoes, thank God she was with me, I probably would have added the seasoning directly in the mashed potatoes and it wouldn't have mixed in properly and i would have ruined everything 

Next I rolled them into balls and heated some oil in a pan and threw one in

This was where the problem started, after about one minute everything scattered in the oil and looked like this  

Ew right?..sad

Then I remembered watching food network and hearing that eggs serve as binders, so I threw everything back in the bowl cracked in an egg and mixed it all together to see if would work. I forgot to take a picture after cracking in the egg.I fried another one, after about a minute and 30 seconds, it looked like this

It didn't really work...still sad

Then I had a light bulb moment..

I cracked two eggs in a bowl, poured some breadcrumbs in another, then seasoned them both. I dipped the potato balls in the eggs and rolled them in breadcrumbs

 Then I fried them in a deep pan with oil just enough to cover the balls while frying. I fried them for about 3-4 minutes and they turned out perfect. 

Aren't they pretty?

They turned out to be very delicious, my brothers ate them all 

This was very challenging for me but I'm glad it turned out alright in the end.

Potato pottage...I think

Hello again,

   So, I was hungry today and after eating three bars of chocolate and realizing that i was still hungry, I decided to get off my bed to get something to eat. I found some sweet potatoes in the kitchen, I thought of frying them at first but I was feeling lazy to peel them. After staring at the potatoes for a while I suddenly remembered a lazy method my mum taught me a long time ago where I get to wash the potatoes, boil them before peeling them.
   The next thing on my list was what to eat it with, I thought about frying eggs or making a sauce then it hit me, why not just make a sauce and combine it with the potatoes just like asaro(yam pottage) but kinda funkified not just because I'm making use of potatoes but because of the steps involved.

First step: Get your dirty potatoes

wash and boil them with a little salt until soft and a knife can go through each one conveniently

Peel the skin off while running under hot water, then place aside Careful! its hot

Get your tomatoes, peppers and onions

wash, throw in a blender and pulse for a few seconds

until it looks like this

shred some fish, any type of fish will work here

Get a pan to heat some oil in, add your blended pepper, cook for about three minutes, season it then throw in your fish

Throw in your potatoes and break apart: this depends on the consistency you want, if you want it creamy or chunky. Personally I prefer to go with a 50:50 consistency ratio so i added a little water to give me a little mashy effect.

Mix it all together on low heat, you can taste here and re-season to your liking and that's it

Simple lunch i threw together this afternoon.

I hope you guys enjoy this post and try it out because today's trial was a success and it was very delicious too.