The Best Tomato Soup Ever!!

So I am a self confessed recipe hunter!! I'm always on the look out for easy recipes online. Once I start seeing strain this, wait for 5 hours do that, wait for 20 hours to spin the food in the air, I immediately close the page! "Aint nobody gat time for that"

Now if I see a dish I like somewhere and I am looking for a recipe for it, one of the first things I do is google the meal and add Ina Garten!!  She is one of the cooks on food network- Barefoot Contessa and her food always looks delicious and relatively effortless to make. Also, I have tried a couple of her recipes and they always turn out great. 

So when I saw that she had a simple tomato soup recipe, my first thought was tomato juice (yuck)... Lol. Buuuut the recipe looked too easy not to try! I am a serious sucker for easy recipes. So here is how it went.

Tomato Soup (Adapted from Ina Garten's recipe)

Ingredients
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium red onions (chopped)
2 carrots (unpeeled and chopped)
3 cloves minced garlic 
10 medium tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon tomato puree (e.g. De Rica or Gino)
A handful of chopped fresh basil leaves (Efinrin)
2 cubes of Knorr Chicken
2 tea cups of water
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
180g cream 

Directions
1. Heat the olive oil in a large, pot over medium-low heat. 
2. Add the onions and carrots and cook for about 10 minutes, until soft. 
3. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. 
4. Add the tomatoes, sugar, tomato paste, basil, knorr chicken, water, salt, and pepper and stir well. 
5. Bring the soup to a boil, lower the heat to the lowest, and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, until the tomatoes are very tender.
6. Add the cream to the soup and blend with your blender 

Serve with bread

Results: Delicious!!
Difficult Level: Easy
Making It Again? Oh yes!

Winner of the What You Made For Dinner Giveaway

The winner of the What You Made for Dinner Giveaway is Awele! Congratulations!! I will contact you to arrange delivery of the banana bread.

Much Love,
Jumoke

WYMFD Giveaway Entry 2- Chocolate Cake with Caramel Shavings and Crushed Walnut Pieces

Our second entry for the What You Made for Dinner Giveaway is from Awele. She baked a Chocolate Cake with Caramel Shavings and Crushed Walnut Pieces. Oh my! Talk about decadent. Awele's entry coming up!

"I have always been a fan of chocolate cake and because I realized I couldn't keep spending my hard earned cash on  buying them (at least not as much as I usually do) I went on a mission to bake the perfect one.  I set out in search of an easy recipe, and I found one at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/easy_chocolate_birthday_90089.

I followed the directions to the letter and used the ingredients as shown in the attached picture. As this is my first chocolate cake, I didn't want to experiment with the jam and chocolate layering and all so instead I crushed some walnut and caramel pieces over the surface."

Result- Excellent!

Difficulty level- Simple did not have to mix the batter for long

Making It Again?  DEFINITELY

WYMFD Giveaway Entry 1- Fried Rice and General Tsao Chicken

For our What You Made For Dinner Giveaway, our first entry is from Fehintola. She made a chinese special fried rice (made with brown rice!) and General Tsao Chicken Wings. Fehintola's entry below:

"I am on a health kick at the moment and one of the things I've given up for now is white rice. But I still love rice, and heard that brown rice is way healthier than white rice and is rich in fibre and nutrients. So made fried rice with brown rice. 

I find that in terms of being healthy, moderation is the key. Also eating what you love is still ok so far you can have it in the healthiest possible way and there is no need to deprive yourself. 

I had the rice with some deep fried chicken wings. Ok, that part wasn't healthy, but I limited myself to only one chicken wing :)"

Recipe

Fried Rice:
i. The brown rice was cooked a day before and kept in the fridge
ii. I stir fried vegetables and meats including chicken, shrimps, smoked beef sausages, green onions  green pepper,  red bell peppers, carrots,  fresh green peas, sweet corn, fried eggs (white, no yolk). 
iii. This was seasoned with maggi, Cameroonian pepper and ground chili pepper and stir fried using tiny sesame oil and extra virgin olive oil. 
iv. I poured the cooked rice into the stir fry meats and vegetables, mixed it all together.
v. I added extra light soy sauce n oyster sauce, mixed it thoroughly for 5 minutes and this was ready to serve.

Chicken Wings and General Tsao Sauce:

i. I marinated chicken wings a night before with maggi, ginger, garlic, adobe all purpose seasoning and a pinch of salt.
ii. Each chicken wing was dipped into all purpose flour and deep fried.

For the sauce:
i. I mixed soy sauce, corn flour, chicken broth, and sugar 
ii. I stir fried garlic, ginger and green onions 
iii. I poured the soy sauce mix into the stir fry garlic and ginger mix
iv. It was cooked for another 5 - 10 minutes until thickened, then I pour the deep fried chicken and stir fried for another 5 mins

Result: Loved the way it tasted!!
Difficulty Level: This was my first time of making something like this, I was slightly nervous about getting the taste right, but it was not too difficult though.
Making It Again? I will cook this over and over and over again

Simple Cheesecake

When I say "simple" cheesecake, I mean reeeally simple. The three main ingredients are digestive biscuits, cream cheese and cream. There are a lot of complicated recipes online that make AMAZING cheesecakes, but I wanted to make a very simple cheesecake. Recipe and pictures follow soon! I was a naughty blogger though! I didn't take enough pictures whilst making it :(

On a related note,  I have been gorging myself on this cheesecake, help!! I am a foodie, I love food but I want to be healthy, keep my weight under control. Does anyone have any helpful tips, suggestions? Anything that can fit into a busy, traffic laden lifestyle :) Suggestions will be very welcome.

Recipe

Ingredients

Biscuit Base:

• 300g Digestive Biscuits 
• 50g Butter-  Melted

Cheese Filling:

• 380g Cream Cheese
• 100g Cream
• The juice from one large lemon
• 70g Granulated Sugar
• 1 egg

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180 C

Biscuit Base:

• Grind the biscuits with a fork or food processor then mix with melted butter
• Press down the biscuits into the bottom and sides of your baking pan
• Pop into the oven for 10 minutes, take it out and leave it to cool

Cheese Filling:

• Mix together the cream cheese, cream, lemon, sugar and egg until smooth
• Pour on top of the biscuit base.
• Place the baking dish that contains the cheese cake into a larger baking dish and pour boiling water into the larger baking dish, making sure the water does not touch the cheese cake- This will ensure your cheese cake does not crack
• Pop this into the oven and bake for 1 hour
• After baking the cheese cake for 1 hour, turn off the oven and  crack open the oven door 1-inch, and let the cake cool in the oven for 30 minutes.
• Cover the cheesecake with foil and cool in the fridge for a minimum of 5 hours, or overnight.

Results: Not bad

Difficulty Level: Simple

Making It Again? Oh for sure! But I will try a more complicated cheese cake recipe

Rice, Efo Riro and Plantains

Today's recipe is a classic naija dish and it never fails! The Rice, Efo Riro and Plantain combination is one of my favourite. You can never go wrong with this!! Recipe for Efo Riro coming up. I have to mention that this recipe is how I make it, I hear that this is not the "proper" way to make it,  but it works for me :)

Ingredients

• Chopped Vegetable of your choice (I used tete and ugwu but I hear for authentic Efo Riro, you are supposed to use Shoko)
• Blended Tatase, Onions, Ata Rodo, Tomatoes (the pepper mix should not be too smooth)
• Palm Oil
• Dried Cat Fish
• Cooked Assorted Meat: Beef, Goat Meat, Cow Leg, Shaki, Pomo, Chicken or any other meat of your choice (cut in small chunks)
• Five Tablespoons of Palm Oil
• Iru aka Locust Bean
• Maggi Cube
• Salt

Directions
1. Heat up the Palm Oil
2. Pour in the blended pepper and let fry for 10 minutes

3. Add the Iru 
4. Let the pepper fry for another 10 - 15 minutes
5. Whilst the pepper is frying, clean your fish and tear it into chunks
6. Add the dried fish and cooked assorted meat into the pepper

7. Wash your vegetable by pouring it into boiling hot water then scooping it out and squeezing out all the water. Repeat at least once

8. Add your washed vegetables to the pepper and mix

9. Turn down the cooker and let everything steam for another 10 minutes
10. Fini

Don't forget to send in your entries for the what you have been making for dinner giveaway! Send your dinner pictures to whatwasmadefordinner@gmail.com. The winner gets a moist banana bread loaf.

WHAT YOU MADE FOR DINNER GIVEAWAY

Sneak Peek of the Next Post

So we'd like to know what you have been making for dinner. Please take pictures of the steps, the finished dish, add a little introduction on the dish and send us an email at whatwasmadefordinner@gmail.com

Don't forget to add:
Result;
Difficulty Level; 
Making It Again?

We will feature a few of the dinners received. We will choose the best dinner and this person will receive a loaf of banana bread, seen here- http://whatwasmadefordinner.blogspot.com/2014/02/what-was-baked-for-dinner-banana-bread.html

We can only deliver the banana bread within Lagos and this giveaway is for one winner only. Closing date is Tuesday 18 March 2014.

So start cooking, taking pictures and send to us!! We can't wait to see what you have been making for dinner!

Pasta, Pesto, Sausages and Chicken

Was looking through the cupboard to see what we needed to use before they expired and found this jar of Pesto. So threw together some pasta and pesto with sausages and some cooked chicken that I had sitting in the freezer. This was ready in 15 minutes... No joke!! Love quick food!! 

I again kept knorr and cameroonian pepper to the side whilst making the dish, and boy they were needed!! Lol. I added the knorr and pepper and these improved the taste of the pasta immensely!! Recipe and More Pictures coming up!

P.S. Pesto is primarily made from Basil Leaves (aka Efinrin). The basil is blended with Olive Oil, Garlic, and Nuts. It's actually very easy to make Pesto, but don't quote me on that. I actually have never made it but I shall most definitely be making it soon and will post up the results.

P.P.S. Everyone should have dried/blended Cameroonian Pepper in their kitchen. It is amazing!! It is peppery (obviously!! Lol) and has a strong flavour... Try it and you'll never look back!

Ingredients (Serves 2 people)

150g Pasta (Sphagetti, Macarooni, Any type of pasta really…)

100g Pesto

2 Smoked Sausages (aka Frankfurters)- Chopped

I Piece of Cooked Chicken (shredded)

Salt

Black Pepper

Seasoning Cube- Knorr Chicken

Cameroonian Pepper

Directions

1. Salt the water and cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet

2. Warm the smoked sausages and shredded chicken.

3. Once pasta is cooked, drain the water out.

4. Add the pesto, seasoning cube, sausages, chicken, black pepper, Cameroonian pepper and mix

5. Let it simmer on very low heat for 5 Minutes, then serve

Result: Not mind blowing but satisfying

Difficulty Level: Easy

Making It Again? Oh yes!! But with homemade pesto next time ;)