Junglefrog Cooking » Bread

Bruschetta with arugulapesto – DHSPC #6

Simone (junglefrog) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:00:14 +0000

My version...

Let’s just do another easy one, I thought to myself when going through one of Donna Hay’s cookbooks. It should be a simple recipe but enough of a challenge in getting it right. Well… if only I had thought about that a little better.. I failed, I failed miserably in recreating the original that you will see below. It seemed fairly straightforward but the trick in this particular image is not so much the recipe as that is real simple, but the angle of the photo.. You’ll see what I mean soon! In the meantime we are already on the 6th version of the Donna Hay Styling and Photography Challenge and I loved all the entries from last month! I would say spread the word..

Photo; Con Poulos

Above you can find the challenge recipe photograph by Con Poulos. it’s from the cookbook Seasons and let’s face it; it doesn’t scare you just by looking at it, does it? But wait until you analyze this a little further. First of all there is the issue of the size of the props. If you compare the size of the bottle with the size of the bruschetta then it can’t be very big and they appear fairly close together. The tricky part for me however is that the bread in the foreground is big. There is a lot of focus on that plate of food so it is prominently featured in the frame. However I tried to place it and however I changed my lenses I could not – for the life of me – get it right. I’ve tried a wide angle and going in really close but that didn’t give me any blurred background. I tried placing the plate in front and the bottle in the back and using a telelens (which makes objects appear closer together) but then I only got a small piece of the bottle in the frame. I tried so many things I forgot to pay attention to the actual position of the bruschetta but ok…

Plate is too small in the frame here

My plate is probably bigger too or maybe the bread in the original is bigger. It’s shot on a round table and I didn’t have a round table obviously but still I just failed completely in getting it right. I know you are all eagerly awaiting the next challenge so postponing it until I got it right was not an option so you’ll have to do with my failed attempt. Can’t wait to see what you come up with! And please, please let me know how you did it.

Wrong again

I tried it with a smaller plate above (only had a little christmas plate at hand..lol) but again not good! The light in the original is coming from above right and is mildly strong. I had a beautiful clear day and so much light that it was a bit too much but I gave up and just did my own version, which you see as the first picture. Rather different but still with the same elements mostly.

I will try again but also curious what you come up with! Good luck on the challenge! You’re gonna need it (or maybe it is really simple and it is just me..lol)

Feel free to change the recipe to suit your needs and/or allergies/preferences. If you’re vegetarian you can use maybe some slices of eggplant or courgette and if you’re glutenfree, change the bread etc. All options are allowed! The rules are below the recipe.

Bruschetta with mozarella, prosciutto and rocketpesto

Print recipe

Serves:	4
Prep time:	None
Cook time:	None
Total time:	None
Meal type:	Appetizer, Bread
Region:	Worldwide
From book:	Seasons

Ingredients

8 slices bread
1 clove garlic (halved)
extra virgin olive oil (for sprinkling)
3-4 pieces bocconcini (in small slices or you can use regular mozarella)
8 slices prosciutto
black pepper (coarsely ground)

Arugulapesto

1 handful basil
2 handfuls arugula (rocket)
1 handful basil
40g pine nuts (roasted)
20g grated parmesan
1/4 garlic clove
60ml extra virgin olive oil

Directions


For making the arugula (rocket) pesto put arugula, basil, pine nuts, parmesan and garlic into a foodprocessor and puree roughly. While the motor is running add the olive oil and mix until it is a thick, rough substance. Don't make it too fine. Chunks are ok to have.

Heat a gridlepan and bake both sides of the bread golden brown and crispy. Rub this with half a clove of garlic and sprinkle with some olive oil.

Put some of the slices of mozarella on the toast and liberally cover with the pesto. Top this with a slice of prosciutto and finish with some salt and pepper.

Once a month (on the 3rd of the month) I will give you a recipe plus the accompanying photo out of the Donna Hay magazine. I will try to make it seasonal but can’t promise anything.
You have that same month to produce your post. You can post it any day you like just as long as you finish it before the end of that month at the latest.
You have to produce that recipe, alterations to the recipe are allowed to make sure any dietary restrictions are met. But only minor changes!
You have to cook and STYLE the recipe trying to replicate the photo as best as you can. If you think you can do a better job then the original photo, by all means feel free to make your own changes to the styling.
Shoot the dish and then write a blog post about it. It would be great to add notes on how you took the photo and how you styled the dish, so that other people can learn too.
Link back to this months blog post about the challenge and link back to the Donna Hay Challenge page here
Leave a message on the post that is up here for that month, saying that you completed the challenge and link to the post on your site so others can find it too.
If you want to use the original photo in your blog post as well as the recipe be sure to link back to the Donna Hay website plus the photographers website. They will both always be mentioned in the monthly challenge posts.

Each month a winner will be picked who will be featured in the Hall of Fame page. If you like you can add a badge to your site saying that you are taking part in this competition. The badge is featured below and should link back to this page.

Above all this challenge is about having fun styling and photographing a dish by taking Donna Hay as our great example. You can join all months or whenever you feel like joining in. Using an example of the great photographers that Donna works with, I always find that it is a good learning experience to see how did they light the scene, where does the light come from and how did they manage to make it look so beautiful. Try and analyze all of that and then come up with your own version.

While taking food photos is all about finding your own style and certainly not copying anyone else, it does help to analyze how your hero’s do their job. It’s about learning to light and style a scene properly. In no way am I trying to suggest you copy another person style. Find your own unique style! This challenge is just a tool to help you along the way..

Pretty soft buns

Simone (junglefrog) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:53:49 +0000

Home made fresh buns

Don’t you just totally love it when you walk into the house and you smell that best of smells; freshly baked bread? And then to take it out of the oven and the moment you hear that soft crack when you break of a piece of warm crust and pop it in your mouth, unable to resist? O how I wish that scenario actually happened here in this very house!

Instead I tend to end up with bread that is either too dry, too firm or just plain disappointing… In all of the before three cases, it still beats getting the bread of the supermarket. Not that they have bad bread perse, but it’s just not the same as homemade, now is it? So yes, I do struggle with breadbaking. I followed a breadcourse before as you know, but as with many such things, haven’t baked a bread since. It was an enormously interesting course and I learned a lot but it was also pretty daunting to do all that stuff yourself. So when I learned about Levine’s workshop I decided that’s where I wanted to go.

Dough rolled and ready to be baked sprinkled with poppyseed

She approaches the whole breadbaking from a homebaking perspective, so I felt right at ease and with her guidance I actually started to feel confident I could maybe do this myself at home without too much danger of messing up the bread. We made two types of bread; the soft buns you see above and some crusty pistolets that I haven’t eaten yet. Too much bread to all eat in one go so they went straight into the freezer. But if the lunch we had is anything to go by then I just know that it is going to be awesome too. O and Levine gave us some amazing baguette too, which basically means I will have to come back to learn how to make those too.

Fresh crusty bread

For now I will tempt you with this recipe for soft buns, which you can also make into the pretty ‘braided’ buns you see on top and below. And trust me when I say that it took me a while to make anything resembling a knot with that bread but it was fun and if you can’t do that you can always just keep them round!

Fresh soft buns with seeds

Soft buns

Print recipe

Serves:	16
Prep time:	None
Cook time:	None
Total time:	None
Allergy:	Egg, Milk, Wheat
Meal type:	Bread
Region:	Worldwide
By author:	Levine van Doorne

Ingredients

560g flour (Good quality)
9g yeast (dry yeast)
10g sugar
60g butter (unsalted, at roomtemperature)
100g egg (At roomtemperatue, whisked loosely)
250 g full fat milk (lukewarm)
10g salt
baking tin of 24 cm, greased

Additional ingredients

1 egg
baking trays lined with baking paper

Additional ingredients (Optional)

poppyseed or sesameseed for the top

Directions


Kneading the dough in the kitchenaid; put all ingredients, except the butter in a bowl. Stir together with a wooden spoon. Using the doughhook, knead the dough for about 8 minutes and then add slowly add the butter and keep kneading until the dough feels pliable and is stretchy. It should feel as sticky as a post-it note. It is usually around 10-15 minutes. If you're kneading by hand; put all ingredients into a large bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon until the flour gets moist. Turn out onto a worksurface and knead by hand for about 15-20 minutes til you have a pliable dough. Don't ad extra flour if it's not really necessary; the dough will get less sticky during the kneading.

1st rise; Grease a large bowl with some oil and put the dough in. Turn once so all sides are covered with oil. Cover the bowl and leave the dough to stand at roomtemperature for about 1 hour so it doubles in volume.

Shaping: Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled workbench. Divide with a doughcutter into 16 equal parts and make them into little balls. Leave those covered for about 10 minutes and round them again firmly.

For separate buns: put the balls of dough onto a baking tray a few centimeters apart. If they do not fit onto one tray take your other tray and divide them over the trays. Bake them one after the other.

Breadcrown: Divide 8 balls of dough into a baking tin and put the other 8 in the other one.

Coat the dough balls with a little bit of eggwash and sprinkle with seeds if you want to.

Second rise; leave them covered at roomtemperature for about 60 minutes until almost doubled in size. The dough has risen enough once you press a finger in and it slowly moved back.

During the second raise preheat the oven to 200 C. Bake the buns for 15-20 minutes brown. Remove from the baking tins or from the baking trays and leave to cool on a cooling rack. You can freeze these really well. You can use the same dough to also make little knots in your bread. See notes

Note

As mentioned you can use these same buns to make different shapes. You can rol them out after the first raise to very thin long strand and then tie a knot in them or use your imagination to make something pretty of them. Continue also here with the second raise

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Creamy goatcheese with pomegranate

Simone (junglefrog) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:29:19 +0000

Creamy goatcheese with pomegranate and chives

Wow… if you are reading this, that actually means that it worked! You might have wondered where I went to the last couple of days but I have been very busy behind the scenes with changing over all my websites (and there are six in total) from one host to the next.

My friend and Dutch blogger Kay from Kayotic Kitchen first alerted me to the fact that maybe I was paying just a bit too much on my hosting package and then when I went to Germany Meeta told me pretty much the same thing. Time for me to start looking at other options.

While I have been really happy with my hosting company the fact of the matter is that I am now going from something like 1200 euro per year to a total of 90 dollar a year… That is too big of a difference to dismiss!

I’ll spare you all the nerve wrecking details, but as I said; if you’re reading this.. it is working!!

What else is going on here; I had my second meatcourse which I will tell you all about later. I had a couple of really fun cupcake shoots and in the meantime I am starting to think about Christmas menu’s.

It’s been difficult getting my head into cooking mode with all that is going on. On top of that I am also worried what January 1^st is going to bring. With Tom still looking for a new job and the change over to the studio it’s quite a bit of changing around here lately but that’s ok. Change is what makes the world go round right?

So to give you a lovely and very tasty recipe I am bringing you this creamy goatcheese with pomegranate which is fabulous as a quick lunch spread but would also be ideal for any party. Try it you’ll love it!

Creamy goatcheese with pomegranate

Recipe type: Sidedish

Author: BBC good food

Prep time: 10 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Serves: 6

Ofcourse goatcheese and honey is a classic combination but add the pomegranates and the chives and it is even yummier!

Ingredients

150g pack soft, rindless goat’s cheese
250g tub ricotta
50g pomegranates seeds, from a tub
small bunch chives , snipped
1 tbsp clear honey
2 tsp red or white wine vinegar
loaf of crusty bread , to serve

Instructions

Mash the goat’s cheese and ricotta together in a bowl, then use a spatula to roughly spread over a large plate. Scatter with the pomegranate seeds and chives and set aside until ready to serve.
Stir together the honey and vinegar, then as you’re about to serve, drizzle over the plate. Enjoy with crusty bread.

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Chipotle bread – Living leaner

Simone (junglefrog) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:00:07 +0000

Cranberry chipotle bread

I peer into the oven, a little worried that my bread will not be coming out as I had intended it to. Hmm, still undercooked. I close the door again, busy myself with cleaning the kitchen after having made quite a bit of a mess doing various dishes at the same time. Open the door of the oven again, just a crack and it’s starting to look better.

When I saw the recipe for a Jalapeno cranberry skillet bread on E-curry by my good friend Soma just this morning, I just knew I had to try this one. It looked so good and it looked so pretty too on Soma’s photos! Ofcourse I did not have a skillet so I figured in terms of cast iron it was either my Dutch oven or my aebleskiver pan. Now the latter would have been a very interesting experiment but I will leave that one for another time… Although mmm, while I’m writing this all sort of ideas pop into my head how I can make mini buns this way! Oooo, next on the to do list!

In the end baking the bread in the Dutch oven did work out but it was difficult getting it out in one piece since it was a little bit stuck to the bottom so I had to cut it in two. Still not a bad effort for my first skillet pan. This is also fitting nicely into the budget for Living Leaner, the challenge setup by my good friend Mona. I actually had this bread together with those pretty pears you saw earlier and miraculously managed to stay below the 10 euro. I didn’t think I would be able to make it but I did.

So what did I pay? I obviously had some stuff in the fridge and cupboard that I used otherwise I would never have made it, but still. I bought extra for both the pears and the bread the following item.

One bottle of red wine € 2,99
100 gr ham € 2,29
100 gr spanish salami € 2,50
1 kilo pears € 1,10

Out of stock I used a lot as I had all the ingredients for this bread in house. Flour, cilantro, dried cranberries, milk and butter. The original recipe called for cornflour which I did not have so I used all purpose flour instead. It also called for jalapeno peppers which I substituted for some chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce I had also leftover from another recipe. So I do feel a little bit like cheating as I had so much still in house, but on the other hand, that’s what it’s all about also right? Using up the things we have leftover.

The meats are gonna be used to be put on the bread, together with some grilled courgette (also leftovers in the fridge). I probably have some roasted peppers and pesto lying around still plus cheese leftovers… and I might find some other things that need to be eaten! This is actually the most expensive meal as all the other meals we had sofar for the living leaner challenge were good for two days and have only set us back less then 5 euro’s a day.

So all in all not bad, and I’ve made some great and easy recipes in the process that are definitely going to be made again!

Chipotle cranberry bread

5.0 from 2 reviews

Recipe type: Bread

Author: Adapted from E-curry blog

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
150 gr all purpose flour
1 chipotle chili in adobo sauce
2 tbsp fresh coriander
1/2 cup dried cranberries
2 tbsp of honey
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp of black pepper
150 ml milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

I used a small Dutch Oven to bake this bread. A 20 cm pan makes about 1 fairly flat bread.
Preheat the oven to 200 C.
In a bowl, sift the all purpose flour with baking powder, black pepper and salt.
Pound the chipotle and the fresh cilantro/coriander leaves until it is coarse paste.
Add the cranberries to the flour and toss for them to be coated.
Whisk the milk, honey and eggs in a different bowl and stir in lightly with the flour mix. Add the paste of chipotle and cilantro/coriander. Add the melted butter and stir just until blended.
Add 1/2 tablespoon oil to the Dutch oven and heat the pan over the stove top or in the oven until the oil shimmer and is really hot. When the dough is added to this, it should sizzle loud.
Remove pan from the stove top or the oven and scrape half of the batter into the hot pan. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until the center springs back when gently pressed. The bread should be golden brown and crispy at the edges.
Turn the bread out onto a rack to cool and slice only when cooled.

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What would the chicken be without the egg?

Simone (junglefrog) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 07:00:54 +0000

Delicious and quick lunch dish

I have this dilemma that I need your help with… I have currently three different blogs. One in English which you are reading right now, and two in Dutch; Frog Bites and De Glazen Vork. Frogbites is basically the same as this one but in Dutch and De Glazen Vork is a sort of online culinary magazine with mostly recipes, events and other culinary things that are of interest. Now as you might have guessed it is taking a bit too much time (as if I couldn’t have thought of that before starting them!) and well a person can only do so much right? But what would you do? I’m definitely keeping this one as it is the oldest and I like the whole international foodie community. Wouldn’t want to miss it.

So that’s not even a question; but… what about the two dutch ones? They are both not as big as Junglefrog Cooking. I’ve had Frogbites for 2 years and the other for 6 months. De Glazen Vork is a shared thing together with other writers and theoretically costs me less time then Frogbites. Since the latter is a proper blog it requires more attention. Comments to be answered, other blogs to be visited. I just feel that I would abandon my followers if I stopped posting there. You know what I mean? Sort of like throwing away a brainchild.. Does that sound silly?

While the foodblogging community is very international, there are still quite a few people in the Netherlands that have an issue with speaking or reading English. More then you would guess. So… I’m thinking of leaving Frog Bites behind (*shudder*) and just continuing with Junglefrog Cooking and De Glazen Vork. It’s also that I feel I’m losing creativity having to write blogposts in two languages about more or less the same topics. I never really repeat myself, so it is different but still… no good!

What would you do if you were me? What would you keep and what would you get rid of? Impossible question probably but I got to ask! I guess I already know the answer too but still….

Now over to more important business… For lunch I had this delicious and super easy egg dish. You can literally throw in loads of leftovers (as I used here sausages I had left and roasted bell peppers that needed using up) and it’ll still taste fabulous! It does take some time in the oven but if need be you could make this in a frying pan and be a bit quicker about it.

Frittata with rocket & peppers

Print recipe

Serves:	2
Prep time:	10 minutes
Cook time:	30 minutes
Total time:	40 minutes
Allergy:	Egg
Meal type:	Lunch
Misc:	Child Friendly, Serve Hot
Region:	European

Ingredients

2 eggs
1 handful rocket
75g ricotta
250g cooking cream (light)
200g sausages (use any sausage you like. I used the tinned variety, we call knakworst here)
seasalt
pepper
1-2 bellpepper roasted
2 slices bread (toasted)

Directions


Preheat the oven to 200C. Put cream, eggs, pepper and seasalt together in a bowl and whisk well to combine.

Take two bowls and pour half of the mixture in each bowl. Take some rocket and put it in the bowl, cut up small slices of the peppers and add those as well. Cut the sausages into small pieces and add those to the dish. End by adding little blobs of ricotta on top of the eggs and a few sage leaves. You can add some grated parmesan if you like.

Put the bowl into the oven and leave for about 30 minutes. You want the middle to be just set but still a bit moist. Eat with toasted bread.

Note

This is a really quick lunch dish apart from the fact that it does need to be in the oven for quite a well. Alternatively you could make this also in a frying pan. Adding different ingredients would work well. I think I might prefer something with a bit more flavor for next time instead of the ricotta.

Still a bit too moist but I think that is due to the amount of cream I used

Junglefrog Cooking » Bread

Bruschetta with arugulapesto – DHSPC #6

Bruschetta with mozarella, prosciutto and rocketpesto

Ingredients

Arugulapesto

Directions

Related Posts:

Pretty soft buns

Soft buns

Ingredients

Additional ingredients

Additional ingredients (Optional)

Directions

Note

Related Posts:

Creamy goatcheese with pomegranate

Related Posts:

Chipotle bread – Living leaner

Related Posts:

What would the chicken be without the egg?

Frittata with rocket & peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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