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Gone to custard

February 4, 2015 //
9

dardevil custard

There are some days when you need comfort food. When everything has turned to custard it’s best to have a bowl of it, or at least that is Daredevil’s advice. Daredevil is a peace loving character who only fights for what he strongly believes is right. Of course, what he considers the right thing doesn’t necessarily coincide with other people’s opinion and he sometimes feels like Don Quixote. When he realises he is on a kamikaze mission he usually makes himself a big bowl of chocolate custard and eats it slowly and quietly in the corner, reviewing his position. It doesn’t happen too often, but yesterday he felt the urge. “Do you think, Mouse, my custard is eligible to be included in the book?” he asked, while he had another mouthful.

“What’s in it?” asked Mouse, “you don’t just rip open a packet of custard powder, do you?”

“No, I use corn flour, milk, sugar and cocoa and – when I have one on hand – an egg.” Mouse thought for a little bit and said, “not sure about the cocoa, it isn’t on the ingredient list. And I see you use corn flour?”

“C’mon, corn flour is a flour and it is a much better thickening agent than wheat flour.”

Once again Mouse couldn’t say no. “Okay, give me your recipe. I am only collecting them at the moment and I’ll think about it!”

Ingredients

3 heaped tablespoons of corn flour, 2 cups of milk (or milk and water), 1 generous tablespoon of cocoa, 2 tablespoons of sugar.

Method

In a bowl, mix the corn flour, sugar and cocoa and add half a cup of milk to make a smooth paste. Make sure there are no lumps in it.

Heat the rest of the milk (1 1/2 cups) and before it boils add the paste you made earlier. Stir continuously until it bubbles. It will thicken quite quickly once it starts boiling. Stir until it doesn’t thicken any further.

Eat warm or let rest to cool.

“You said earlier you might add an egg if you have one. When would you add this?” asked Mouse.

“Simply mix any eggs into the corn flour paste before you put it into the heated milk” answered Daredevil. “They are also a thickening agent and you can leave out a little bit of the corn flour.”

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Publishing process

February 1, 2015 //
2

mouse devil reading book

“We won’t get 101 recipes” said Mouse again and looked at her list. “I think we have twenty-five or so.”

“There are still a few to come” said Witch. “I definitely want to do my teff custard”. Witch is the one that tries all sort of different flours. Teff is her favourite. It is an Ethiopian highland grain and is gluten-free, but has the stickiness of gluten. It is often used in gluten-free flour mixes, but it is hard to come by on its own and very expensive. For this reason, Mouse, who is a frugal Dede,  doesn’t want to include anything with teff flour in the book.

“But we have to talk about different flours in the book” insisted Witch. “And, okay, I have already published the teff custard on October 2013. I’ll just link to it here.”

“I think it is time to discuss how we make the book. We have enough material. Quality is better than quantity and our readers might be getting sick of all these flour and water recipes” continued Mouse.

Harvey, the rabbit, came into the room and said “but I want to make a yeast plait that you eat at Easter”. “And I want to make profiterole” chimed in Loudmouth, the chicken. “We haven’t even made any dumplings except for the bread dumplings” called someone from the back. “There are still more recipes to come!”

“Do we need to publish them all on the blog?” asked Mouse. “I am starting to worry about how we design the book. I have to get on with the editing. Do we just collate all the stories we have here, or what?” Mouse looked around for a response. She is not confident enough to make such far-reaching decisions on her own.

No answers were forthcoming so Devil, who has no problem with decision-making, stepped in. “Personally, I think the Dedes should be in the book, but we might rewrite the story a little to make it smoother. At the moment we just have blog posts. This doesn’t make a book!” He commended Mouse for all her valuable input into the recipes and how she explained what to watch out for, but he thinks it needs to be streamlined. The others agreed. Detail piped up and said “But if we don’t have 101 recipes the title doesn’t work anymore. Didn’t we want to call the book The Artist’s survival cookbook or 101 recipes with flour and water?”

“I noticed that too” said Philosopher. “What do you think about the title The Artist’s survival cookbook or how to make a crust”

“We could also call it The Artist’s survival cookbook or living on the breadline” said L’Artiste who knows a thing or two about that.

“See?” Mouse was happy that the discussion finally started. “There are so many decisions to make. The title, and then the question, do we have to photograph everything again? How do we want to design the book? How are we going to publish it?”

“Do you really think our readers are interested in all this?” asked Philosopher. “Shouldn’t we discuss all this amongst ourselves?”

 

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, recipes, Self-publishing

Toast bread

January 30, 2015 //
0

mr vague research

“We won’t get 101 recipes together” lamented Mouse. “We are already scraping the bottom of the barrel with our left-over recipes.”

“I have another one” called Mr Vague. “At least I think it is different.”

Mouse was surprised, as Mr Vague never puts his hand up for anything. Besides, the kitchen is not his favourite place. He prefers to sit on the garden fence and watch the world go by, waiting for a better day. This time he seemed keen to participate. As he lacked his own ideas he combed through old recipe books looking for an easy-to-make bread. Sure enough, he found a toast bread that was as plain as himself. He believes old equals trusted so he expected a good result. But when he tasted the finished product he really didn’t like it much. Disappointed, he chucked it in the chicken bin. Witch was furious when she saw the wasted bread.

“It can’t be that bad,” she said “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s too buttery” Mr Vague answered meekly. “And you can’t toast it. It’s too crumbly, it falls apart” he added. Witch looked at the book and saw immediately what the mistake in the recipe was. It is a yeast dough and it has to rise twice, but the book only mentioned it once. “And 90 grams of butter, yes, you are right, that is a bit much. Just use less.”

“I am not doing it again” said Mr Vague and went to leave for the garden. “Yes you are,” insisted Witch. “Otherwise you will think you can’t bake, but in truth it was the recipe that was wrong.”

Reluctantly Mr Vague got all the ingredients out and tried again. “Knead thoroughly and give it time to rise” Witch said, when she left him to it. Indeed, she was right, the bread worked perfectly this time.

Mr vague unveiling

Ingredients

6 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of dry yeast, 2 cups of warm milk (or milk and water), 1 tablespoon of butter. Milk to brush on the surface.

You also need a non-stick loaf pan (or a loaf pan and baking paper)

Method

Pour flour into a bowl, make a well in the middle, add half the liquid and the dry yeast. Let it sit for 20 minutes until the yeast is sloshy. Stir the liquid into the flour and transfer to a flat surface. Knead everything to an elastic dough while adding the rest of the liquid. Knead for five minutes, then put the dough back into the bowl and cover with a clean tea towel. Let it rise in a warm place for one to two hours.

Preheat oven to 180 0C

Knead again and place in a baking tray (lined with baking paper if it isn’t non-stick). Let it rest again until the dough has risen to twice its size. Brush milk on the surface and bake for 1 hour.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

French Toast

January 29, 2015 //
0

french toast court jester

“I have a good one” called Court Jester “if you want to give stale bead a second life!” He was preparing something on the stove top and delicious smells eminated from the pan. Mouse went over to have a look. “Ah she said “I know that one, it’s French toast, isn’t it?” Court Jester nodded affirmatively.

“Not so much my thing” said Mouse, “but I know a few people who love it”

“Including me” said Court Jester and transferred the finished toast onto a plate. He couldn’t help to grin in anticiapation. Mouse looked at the recipe. “My one is slightly different. You coat it with bread crumbs, after you soaked it in the egg/milk mixture.”

“This doesn’t sound right to me.” remarked Court Jester “I like my recipe as it is”  and he had a first big bite.

Ingredients

4 slices of slightly stale bread, 2 eggs, ½ cup milk, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, Butter

Method

In a bowl big enough to accommodate the size of bread your are using, whisk together the eggs, milk, and cinnamon. Place each slice of bread into the mixture and allow the bread to soak up some of it. Make sure it doesn’t get too soggy.

Melt butter in a large pan over medium high heat. Shake off the excess, and place the bread slices in the pan. Fry until it is browned on one side, then flip and brown the other side.

Serve hot with butter, honey, jam or fresh berries.

 

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, recipes

Croutons

January 27, 2015 //
0

boss man croutons

“We should have a section on what to do with left-overs!” Devil suggested. Mouse had mentioned yesterday that she chucks her left-over bread in the blender to make bread crumbs. Bread dumplings, too, give stale bread a delicious second life. Today Calamity came forward and said she finds the recipes too difficult as she is a catastrophy in the kitchen. But she can use her left over bread to make croutons. That is easy enough. These little toasted bread pieces are lovely to sprinkle over a salad or put in soups for a crunchy extra. It is so easy she doesn’t even need a recipe and simply told Mouse “Just cut the stale bread up into little squares, heat up some butter in a pan, add the bread pieces and toss and turn them until they have a nice brown colour and smell delicious. Let them cool as they are soft when they are warm and only go crunchy when cooled.”

“No, no, no” cried Boss Man who is of the opinion Calamity can’t do anything right. “That’s not how you make croutons.” He pushed Calamity to the side. “You heat the oven to 1800C. Melt the butter in a ramekin in the oven. When the butter is melted, brush it on both sides of the stale bread, cut the bread up into little pieces and place on a baking tray. Bake for 15 minutes or until nicely browned.” He looked expectantly at Mouse and asked, “So, which recipe do you think is better?”

Mouse didn’t want to favour anyone and said “The one on the stove top might soak up more butter, but you know, when you don’t have an oven, what can you do?”

“Who in this day and age doesn’t have an oven?” asked Boss Man.

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Categories Art, Books, Comedy, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Bread dumplings

January 26, 2015 //
0

alien bread dumpling

“You Germans have some strange recipes” commented Alien. “When I was there they served me bread dumplings. Can you believe it? Dumplings made from bread!”

“Why, what’s so strange about that?” asked Deutsch Fraulein defensively. “We don’t want anything to go to waste.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mouse who couldn’t quite follow. Deutsch Fraulein turned around and explained that there is a recipe that uses left over buns, egg and milk to make dumplings. They are great to have with a creamy sauce, like mushrooms in sour cream.

“To be honest” said Alien “I quite liked them. I even asked for the recipe. I just thought it is a strange idea.” He handed Mouse his notes.

Mouse looked at it for while and said, “Technically it is not a flour and water recipe.” she handed the recipe back. “But buns are made from flour and water, aren’t they?” asked Alien.

“Yes, but there are also onions in it. And onions were never on the ingredient list”

“If you must, just leave them out. But who doesn’t have onions in their pantry?”

“We are stretching it a bit, but okay then.”

Deutsch Fraulein piped up. ”These dumplings are basically made from reconstituted stale bread. If you want to make them, don’t throw out your left over buns or feed them to the chickens. Instead, cut them into thin slices while they are still a little soft and let the slices dry. Once the buns are hard, cutting them becomes more difficult, though it can be done.”

“You can also use toast bread instead of buns” said Alien. “To be honest, I even use normal loaves if they go stale. Sometimes if I’ve had enough of bread, half a loaf would otherwise go to waste.”

“I just chuck my left over bread in the blender” said Mouse “to make bread crumbs. But I should try your recipe next time.”

Ingredients (for four dumplings)

4 dry buns, ½ a cup of warm milk, 1 egg, 1/2 onion (salt, nutmeg to season is optional)

Note: if the buns are not totally dry, add less milk.

Method

Cut the buns into thin slices, put in a large bowl and add some of the warm milk. Let it soak to allow the bread to become moist (but not soggy). When the milk has cooled down mix the the bread with your hands. The pieces should be well wetted and stick together. If there are dry bits in it, add more milk. If the mixture is too soggy, press out the superflous milk and throw away. Chop the onion into small pieces and add to the bread mixture. Add the egg. Mix thoroughly and form dumplings.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and add the dumplings. Let them simmer on low heat for 20 minutes.

If you have bread dumplings left over, you can eat them the next day with vinegar and oil, like a salad.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, recipes

The egg and the chicken

January 24, 2015 //
0

mouse devil eggs

“I would go for pasta without eggs anytime” said Evan G List, the vegan. “How can you possibly eat animal products when so many Dedes are animals?”

“Well…” Mouse felt uncomfortable. She understood Evan’s point of view but felt like she was put on the spot.

“Look” said Devil, who calls a spade a spade, coming to her aid. “We have the chickens in the backyard because there is too much weed and they love to eat it. In return they produce chicken poop, which is a brilliant fertiliser for the vege garden. It happens that they also lay eggs. Shall we throw those out, or what?”

“No, of course not. But you shouldn’t have chickens in the first place!”

“Then we would need to go and buy fertiliser. Who knows how that is produced. Sorry, that doesn’t make sense to me.”

Mouse does a wonderful job. All the food scraps go either into the worm bin or in the chicken trough. And what either of them produces from their food, goes on to nourish the soil in the vege garden. We eat the veges and produce scraps. It is a perfect cycle.

“But you don’t have a cow. And you use milk and butter!” Evan said triumphantly.

“Yes, you’re right, we’ve made a choice. Our mantra is everything in moderation.” Devil didn’t want to get into an argument. There are some things you just can’t argue about. (By the way, in New Zealand all cows are grass fed and outside all year round. However, there are far too many for the environment.)

Mouse turned to Devil and said, “I think we need some sort of summary about what we are actually doing here. Can you succinctly describe the reason for our recipe collection?”

Devil didn’t need time to think. “There are two goals, remember. Firstly, if you buy these staple foods in the shops, they are highly processed and contain too much sugar and salt, as well as flavour enhancers and additives to extend their shelf-life. Secondly, they are overpriced in my opinion. Well, maybe not too overpriced, as the processing certainly costs money. We just want to show everyone that you can make staple foods much cheaper and healthier at home. The recipes aren’t too difficult or time consuming. ”

Mouse said “Yeah right, now I remember. The idea was conceived when you lost your job, wasn’t it? You didn’t get out of bed and moped about because you had nothing to do and no money” Devil didn’t want to be reminded as it was a sad time for him, but Mouse was right. It was the creative L’Artiste who suggested they should write a book called The Artist’s survival cookbook or 101 recipes with flour and water. He knows a thing or two about living on the breadline. Mouse was excited that all the Dedes were working together to make it happen, even though the bulk of the work landed on her. Again! She doesn’t mind. “It’s coming together nicely” she said. “But we need a full Dede meeting to get ideas on how to take it further.” Mouse is a good administrator, but creativity is not one of her strengths.

 

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, gardening, Hand Puppets, Life, Promotion, recipes

Muffins

January 20, 2015 //
4

foxy lady muffins2

Push Push appreciated that Nosy Neighbour had simply left the sugar out when he made American pancakes (or piklets, the name she knew them by). She never would have dared to alter the recipe, but he was right, it didn’t change the texture at all. She devoured them with a topping of mixed fruit and yoghurt rather than jam. Nosy Neighbour told her that when he was in America he ate them with real maple syrup, but this is far too expensive here. “And the production of maple syrup is environmentally questionable” added Foxy Lady who was passing by. She glanced at Nosy Neigbour’s recipe and said, “Blimey! That looks very similar to my muffin recipe, except there is less liquid in my muffins and they’re baked in a muffin tray in the oven.”

Push Push pricked her ears up as she loves muffins too, though like every other elephant she has to watch her weight. So can’t have them too often. “Can you simply leave out the sugar in muffins as well?” she asked excitedly.

“If you want to have them sweet and not savoury, it’s not that easy. With pancakes you have sweet toppings, so you don’t realise where the sweetness comes from. But you usually eat muffins without anything on them, so the sweetness needs to be inside. However, if you want to avoid sugar you can replace it by mashing up a banana or two and mixing them into the batter. They are sweet and you also get some vitamins and additional flavour.”

“We don’t want to have sugary recipes” said Mouse “When I eat refined sugar, my joints hurt.”

“Everything in moderation” answered Foxy Lady. “You are right, sugar is poison for the body as it depletes it of vitamins and has absolutly no nutritional value. But with your home cooking at least you know how much sugar you put into your food. Half a cup of sugar in eight muffins that you share around won’t hurt. That’s less than what’s in a glass of the fizzy drink people like so much!”

“Come on then.” Mouse held her hand out to Foxy Lady. “Give me your muffin recipe.”

As Foxy Lady handed over the sheet of paper she explained the importance of thoroughly mixing all the dry ingredients in one bowl and all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Once the content of the two bowls are combined you need to work fast and resist stirring too much.

“Yes,” confirmed Mouse. “Professor already explained why when he did his scones.”

While Foxy Lady’s recipe was for simple plain muffins, she admitted she never makes the plain ones. She adds all sorts of things she finds in the cupboard to the dry mix, like cocoa or a pinch of chilli pepper and a dash of ground allspice. When she leaves out the sugar and adds banana or other fruit instead, it has to be added to the wet mixture. “I hope it all makes sense and it gives you an idea about what you can try to suit your own taste” said Foxy Lady finishing her speech.

“If you have never made muffins before, make the simple ones first” recommended Mouse. “And when you know what the batter should look and feel like, you can start replacing and adding.”

To make it easier to get the muffins out of the muffin tray in one piece, Foxy Lady places folded up squares of baking paper in the tray first.

Ingredients

2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of Baking Soda, half a cup of sugar, 1 cup of milk (or mixture of water and milk), 1 egg, 20g melted butter. Baking paper.

Method

Preheat the oven to 2200C. Place a ramekin with the butter in the oven and it will melt nicely while you mix the other ingredients.

Line the muffin tray with baking paper.

Place all the dry ingredients in a big bowl and mix well using a fork. (The bowl must be big enough to accommodate the wet ingedients later as well)

In a different bowl, whisk the egg lightly, mix in the milk and finally stir in the melted butter.

Then pour the wet ingredients into the bowl that contains the dry ingredients and mix it with a few turns of the spoon. Make sure all the dry ingredients are wetted through without overdoing it. Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tray. Fill each mould up 2/3. The muffins will rise when baking.

Bake in the oven for 20 Minutes.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Fun, Hand Puppets, recipes

American pancakes or piklets

January 19, 2015 //
2

american pancakes

“These aren’t pancakes” Nosy Neighbour shook his head in disgust after he tried what Push Push called the best pancakes ever. She has refined them with a savoury topping made from mixed garden vegetables in sour cream. “Pancakes need to be fluffy and light and smaller. And you have them for breakfast, not dinner, with lashings of honey or butter.”

“No you don’t” Push Push huffed. “They should be a light healthy base for a quality topping. Not some unhealthy sponge without nutritional value that might fill you up but doesn’t sustain you.

“You can’t be good all the time. You have to have some fun and eat comfort food. Life is too short!” retorted Nosy Neighbour. Mouse reminded them they should be open minded about each others recipes. There is no right and wrong. “Have you ever tried American pancakes?” asked Nosy Neighbour now. Poor Push Push turned scarlett as she had to admit she hadn’t.

“I’ll make you some” offered Nosy Neighbour kindly “and because you want to be healthy I’ll make them without sugar. Sugar just adds sweetness, but doesn’t make a difference to the texture.”

Ingredients

1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, (1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons of caster sugar if you want), 1 cup of milk, 2 tablespoons of melted butter and 1 lightly beaten egg. Oil or butter for the pan.

Method

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar) in a large bowl. In a separate bowl lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then stir in the melted butter. (I melt the butter in the pan I use for baking later. This saves on dishes)

Pour the runny mixture into the dry mixture and stir with a fork until you have a smooth batter. Make sure there are no lumps. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.

Heat a pan and melt a little butter or oil over a medium heat. When it is hot, add a ladle of batter (or two if there is enough space for two pancakes at once). It should be a thickish blob which will rise further due to the baking powder. When the top of the pancake begins to bubble, turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1cm thickness.

They taste best fresh out the pan.

Push Push was surprised to find out she actually had eaten them before, but where she comes from they are called piklets and she always loved them.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Comedy, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Buckwheat pancakes

January 18, 2015 //
0

push push buckwheat

Push Push couldn’t believe that Mouse and Devil published a pancake recipe yesterday. A while ago she promised Monkey she would give her recipe to Mouse as soon as eggs were added to the ingredient list. Naturally, when she found out she was overlooked she came flying into the kitchen, hands on hips, ready for a fight. But Mouse calmed her down and said “you can never have enough pancake recipes. There are so many different ways of making them and pancakes are such a favourite.” She pointed out that the recipe yesterday was an absolute basic one. Push Push agreed and said “pancakes are really brilliant when you first have a go in the kitchen. Absolutely nothing can go wrong. It makes me so cross when I see these expensive pancake mixes on the shelves in the supermarket. They contain dried milk and dried egg, dried everything, all processed. But the hardest work is baking them and you still have to do that yourself.”

Mouse agreed and said “All you need is flour and egg and milk or water. You mix everything together and bake it in the pan on the stove top. You can add sweet or savory toppings and it’s all done in 5 Minutes.”

“Ah well, my ones aren’t quite as quick. I use sparkling water and buckwheat flour to make them healthy” said Push Push, who is really worried about her blood pressure. She poured some buckwheat flour onto a plate. “That is a very fine flour” said Mouse after inspecting it. “Where do you get that?”

“You can buy it at the supermarket nowadays. It has a lovely nutty flavour. It actually isn’t wheat at all, but is related to rhubarb. And it has no gluten. Therefore you can’t use it on its own in pancakes. To make the batter stick together you need another flour. I usually use spelt, but you can use normal flour. “

Push Push also doesn’t use milk, but sparkling water. The end result is a more spongy, slightly brittle pancake rather than a thin elastic one.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour (eg spelt) 1 cup buckwheat flour, 1 egg, 1 ½ cup of sparkling soda water. (you can also use water with lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of baking soda). Oil or butter for the pan.

Method:

Mix the flour and water to make a smooth batter. Add the egg and let it rest for 30 Minutes. (While waiting you can prepare the topping to go with the pancakes.)

Heat oil or butter in a pan over medium heat and add a ladle full of batter. Spread the batter around the pan so it coats the bottom nicely. Wait until it has dried from the underside, flip over and bake for another couple of minutes until it’s brown on this side as well. Put on a plate and cover with a clean teatowel to keep warm while you continue with the rest of the batter in the same way.

Push Push likes savoury toppings and she just tossed a few chopped garden vegetables like beans and zucchini and silverbeet stems in a pan heated with butter. Then she added the silverbeet leaves to wilt and finished it off with a dollop of sour cream.  This concoction went into the buckwheat pancakes. Before she served them she sprinkled grated cheese on top. But the pancakes can also be served with sugar and cinnamon.

buckwheat pancakes

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Categories Art, Books, Comedy, Hand Puppets, recipes
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