Tag: homemade
Plantain Bread.
Plantain is a very versatile fruit, though we treat it like a vegetable. You can have it grilled, baked, fried, roasted, mashed, stewed or just boiled, and it is good for you. Just make sure you cook it, do not eat it raw.
It is rich in fibre, iron, Potassium, magnesium, vitamins A, C and B6 and tasty too.
If you have some left over, and ripening from yellow to black, fret not, you can still use them in pancakes, porridge (I have an awesome plantain porridge recipe coming soon), and quick bread/ Cake.
I like making simple loaves for the kids’ school snacks or tea time treat. It comes together fast and you can add raisins, coconut, nuts, whatever you fancy.
For a simple plantain loaf, you will need:-
Mash or puree your plantains and add the sugar, butter and the other liquid ingredients and mix well. 
Sift the dry ingredients and add to the wet. Add you coconut flakes and chia seeds too.
Add the thick batter to a well greased loaf pan and bake at 160 degrees Celsius for about an hour. Start checking at around the 50 minutes mark, as it also depends on your oven and other variables.
It is a fave in our house.
It tastes even better the next day, and if you want you can make a bigger one in a ring pan and even ice it a bit.
For a bigger plantain bread/cake you can double the quantities and bake for 75 minutes.
Note: The riper the plantain the sweeter it is and the sweeter the plantain, the better. Also I do not use a lot of sugar, as we do not like our cakes too sweet.
I like adding coconut in it, finding the flavours blending together pretty well. You can also use coconut oil in place of the butter.
How do you like your plantain?
Tasty Homemade Pizza.
It has not been to my pockets’ and tummy’s advantage ending up living right behind one of Kampala’s best pizza spots. These guys serve up amazing clay oven baked pizza and other Italian dishes that are too good to be passed up.
I have therefore decided to be making pizza at home instead. It’s obviously not as great as the next door one – but it is cheaper, the kids help out and those leftovers in the refrigerator come in handy as toppings. Win! Win!
I make the pizza dough from scratch using various recipes. I have two favourites already; one is the Wolfgang Puck pizza dough method from Food wishes blog here. And the other is by Nyaranyango on Instagram. Here is her pizza dough recipe:-
- 11/3 cups warm water
- 2 1/2 tsp instant yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar ( I use honey)
- 2 tablespoons oil ( I use olive oil)
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- Herbs of choice and crushed garlic ( I use a tsp of mixed dried herbs and about 5 crushed cloves of garlic).
For the pizza sauce, I use this recipe from Becca’s Kitchen on IG. I like how straightforward, simple and tasty it is. I prefer using honey to sugar and not blending it up, letting it remain a bit chunky.
For the cheese topping, use what you like. My preferences are aged gouda, mozzarella or any cheese from Kyaninga Dairy , however I usually go with what I have at the moment.
No pizza stone? That is ok. You can use your baking sheet with some corn flour or semolina sprinkled on it so the dough does not stick to the sheet.
This dough recipe is enough for four mini pizzas, two medium or one large one. I usually make two medium pizzas from this; one vegetarian and the other with meat.
Once I add the toppings of choice and the cheese, I bake them for about 15- 20 minutes at 190°C. The time may differ due to different reasons; your oven settings, how thick your pizza base is and your toppings, even what rack you place it on.
As my son would say, its “easy peasy” pizza. Plenty enough for a filling weekend dinner and next day snack, and you can make it as delicious, decadent, cheesy or healthy as you wish.
What are your favorite homemade pizza toppings?
Lockdown Baking: Choco Orange Loaf
Now that the lockdowns necessitated by the Coronavirus do not seem to be ending soon, we might as well continue baking right?
This was originally a muffin recipe I used to make for the kids’ snack boxes, that I have tried a couple of times as a loaf and added some more orange juice and zest to test the flavour. It is moist, delicious and great for a tea time snack or as dessert.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- I cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- 6 tbsp vegetable oil or melted butter
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 5 tbsp dark cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg, beaten well
- orange zest of one orange
- 1/4 cup natural yoghurt
The method is pretty simple. Preheat your oven to about 160 degrees Celsius, Mix wet and dry ingredients separately then combine gently, add to your greased loaf pan and bake for about an hour until a skewer comes out clean.
You can serve this as you wish…
Try it, let’s indulge together!
MY KAMPALA NOTEBOOK 