Poppy Seed Zucchini Muffins

We live in a house which has a shared yard with 4 other neighbours. Our house is the only one without a garden or any kind of land to grow something in. So, I really can appreciate homegrown, fresh and organic products when I do manage to get them. A week ago or so, we got a really big zucchini from our friends` garden down the street. I was thrilled! I made my zucchini and celery soup, minestrone soup and fried zucchini - it was a really big zucchini indeed. :) By the time I used all of it, I wasn`t really into eating more zucchini for at least a month, eventhough I love them. Then, we got another one so I had to think of some other way to cook it because soups were just getting boring. First, I wanted to maybe make savory zucchini muffins but the only recipes that google popped up were for sweet muffins. I remember that I had some leftover poppy seeds and decided to combine them, not knowing what the final product would taste. I was worried about that first bite, you know... It`s not like we`re used to seeing something green in our sweet muffins. Also, I was affraid that zucchini skins would get into my teeth and that would be so repulsive. Boy, was I wrong! The muffins were so much better than I expected. No taste or feel of the zucchinis - just moisture from their presence. Ok, I would never go to a store and buy a zucchini just to make zucchini muffins but if you do have a garden and quite a few zucchinis you don`t know what to do with, this is a really nice recipe to solve that problem. Seriously! :)

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3 heaped tbsp poppyseeds (minced)
pinch of salt
pinch of baking soda
5 g baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of cinnamon
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup sunflower oil
2 cups finely grated zucchini

Preparation

Grate zucchinis straight into a cup and measure 2 cups. Then, leave it for 20 minutes to drain the excess water. Drain it with your hands as well. You know the usual steps in making muffins? Mix dry ingredients, and in a separate bowl wet ingredients. Pour wet ingredients into dry ones and mix just until combined. Pretty simple, right?  Now, forget that! I wanted to make it even simpler by getting all of the ingredients into a bowl (from a stand mixer) and mix it on low speed just until combined. That`s it! If you want to adjust the amount of sugar, just try a little bit of the batter. This amount of sugar was plenty for my taste. Pour the batter into 12 paper cups placed in a muffin pan. Bake 20 minutes on 190 Degrees C (it really depends on your oven).

If you do not like poppy seed, use walnuts instead.

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Old Ugly Clock Makeover

We had this old ugly clock that was brown, depressive and from another time (but in a bad way). I decided to throw it out but then it came to me that I could give it a makeover and a new shine. I think I achieved somewhat of a shabby chic style...
This is the old ugly clock:

Pretty horrible right?

So, how did I transform it? It`s quite simple actually.
First of all, I used sandpaper to remove the old paint. Then I painted it with 3 layers of titanium white acrylic paint (between each layer I waited 24 hours). Then, I decorated it with paper napkins with lavender pattern using decoupage. Also, I changed the clock`s face using a template generously shared by Tea from Hobbychic (thank you Tea ;). And that`s it! :)
I got this:

Much better :)

I˙m really pleased with the way it turned out. Yes, it has tiny little imperfections but I don˙t care because I invested a lot of effort and love to make this. And it fit in with the living room excellent. :)
Once again, this is before and after:

What do you think?

Introduction to Tempura plus My Mushroom Tempura

Recently I bought a wok and now I`m trying different ways of cooking asian food. One of them is tempura.

Tempura is a japanese dish but it is of Portuguese origin. It was introduced to Japan in the mid-sixteenth century by Portuguese missionaries and traders.

          First, let`s see the usual ingredients in a traditional tempura:

1. seafood (prawn, shrimp, squid, scallop, anago, ayu, crab and different varieties of fish) and
2. vegetables (bell pepper, kabocha squash, eggplant, carrot, burdock, green beans, sweet potato, yam, potato, renkon, shiitake mushroom, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and okra).

Seafood or veggies should be cut into thin slices or strips.
IMPORTANT!!! Bell peppers, eggplants, shellfish and squid need to be scored with a knife to prevent them from bursting during frying and causing serious burns.

          The second most important thing is the batter which is a mixture of cold water and flour but sometimes ingredients like corn starch, baking powder, baking soda, eggs and spices are also added. The batter should be lumpy which will produce crispier batter when fried.

          Finally, when all of the ingredients and batter have been prepared, it`s time for frying. It is usually done in a wok in which you pour significant amount of vegetable or canola oil (like for deep frying). To test that the oil is hot enough for frying, cut a 1-inch cube of bread and carefully let it drop into the hot oil. The bread should turn brown in one minute, any faster and the oil is too hot. Any slower and the oil needs to be hotter.

Tempura is served hot with grated daikon or with a tentsuyu sauce (3 parts dashi, 1 part mirin and 1 part soya sauce). Instead, it can be simply sprinkled with sea salt.

You can find more about tempura here.

My Mushroom Tempura

Ingredients

200 g mushrooms (I used white button mushrooms)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup corn starch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cold water
1 egg white
1/2 tsp curry powder
about 3 cups of sunflower oil

Preparation

Take 1 cup of water and put it in the freezer. Cut your white mushrooms in quarters or sixts depending on their size. Sprinkle curry powder on them and mix with your hands.
Heat your wok over low heat for about 3 minutes. Add oil and heat it over medium heat. You can do the test with a piece of bread to see when it is ready for frying.

Meantime, in a bowl, add flour, starch, baking powder and salt and mix. Now, take the water from the freezer (it has to be cold, not frozen) and add it to the flour mix. Add egg white and slightly mix the batter leaving small lumps.
Coat your mushrooms with batter and fry them until golden brown. If they stick to each other, use chopsticks to separate them.

It`s useful to have a rack that goes with your wok so that you can leave your mushies to drain the excess oil. You can absolutely drain them on a piece of kitchen paper towel.

 I served my tempura mushrooms with sweet chili sauce (store bought) and sprinkled them with sea salt. The crunchiness of the batter really surprised me! It took me about 15 minutes to take photos and the mushrooms were still crispy and delicious afterwards.

I adapted the recipe from here.
Maybe next time I`ll try bananas and ice cream tempura... :)

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