The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle. Recipe available here.

The official line for the daring bakers challenge:

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Check here for the recipe. And don’t forget that the original recipe is for TWO cakes. Had I read the instructions properly, I wouldn’t have ended up with TWO HUGE cakes…A couple of slices was enough for me and J, and luckily my colleagues were happy to take care of the rest

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe adn Nestle Florentine Cookies.

I tried two – a simple vanilla panna cotta (recipe here), and a slightly more daring tarragon panna cotta. Should have taken a safe bet and stayed with vanilla, or chocolate, as tarragon-lemony panna cotta really didn’t taste like dessert…nor like a savory dish…but worth trying, if you want to taste something new, and want to use up fresh tarragon leaves

The Florentine cookies were a nice accompany for the creamy dessert, and would bake them again any day.

Vanilla panna cotta was eaten immediately which is why I don’t even have a picture to prove, but the tarragon panna cotta with the Florenites is shown below. Ignore the messy kitchen behind the panna cotta in the picture…

So, I baked a birthday cake, one which Pille introduced in her blog. It was only five of us eating it, and believe it or not, but we destoryed the whole cake within less than an hour. Tastyyyyyy!

Some more cakes coming up soon, and hopefully some fingerfood recipes as well. Will keep you posted.

Actually, later I did some research and I found that with banana pancakes, the trick is to fry them at low temperature (otherwise they’ll burn and won’t cook inside). I guess that was the trick. Make sure to follow that advice.

Actually I just wanted to share with you my thoughts on Chinese packaging – anybody knows what’s the story? They package absolutely everything in plastic, and not only that, they also make sure that all the packages are sealed in a way that it is impossible to open them without using a knife or scissors. The other day it took me almost ten minutes to open a packet of biscuits, and when I finally succeeded, I discovered that EACH BISCUIT was separately packaged into another plastic bag, which was as impossible to open. And this goes to all things packaged, whether it is a packet of noodles or rice or chewing gum or whatever. What’s the story? Maybe this is why the Chinese people are all so thin.

About the pasta – we did not use any specific recipe, just tried to improvise a dish from the ingredients that we had at hand. Nevertheless, both dishes came out wonderful (or maybe it was just that we hadn’t had pasta like forever).

The first dish, bacon-mushroom penne, was made by J. A plateful of simple, creamy goodness that was. And easy! Next time would maybe add some asparagus for texture and colour…or frozen peas? Could also use turkey bacon for less fatty option, but I don’t think I’ll find it here in China…And to be honest, I don’t think turkey bacon would give as much flavor as the smoked pork bacon did.

• ca 200 g penne pasta
• 100 g smoked bacon, cut into stripes
• 100 ml cream (up to you how heavy you use)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1-2 gloves of garlic, crushed (depending on how into garlics you are)
• 4-5 button mushrooms, sliced
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• butter

# Heat butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan (a wok-pan would do as well), add bacon and fry until browned and crispy. Remove from pan and pat dry with household paper.

# Remove excess fat from the pan (not all of it), add garlic and onion to the pan, stirring and scrapping the brown pieces from the pan. Fry until golden, add mushroom to the pan and fry for an additional couple of minutes. Tip: if too dry, try adding some water, to not to burn the onions/mushrooms.

# Pour cream to the pan, season with salt and pepper and heat through, to thicken the sauce. Finally add the bacon to the sauce.

# In the mean time boil penne pasta until al dente, drain, pour over with some olive oil and stir. Add to the sauce, give everything a good toss and serve immediately.

The second pasta dish was my own creation, nothing special, but also very tasty. Hearty, flavorfur, yet not an overpowering tomato base – a perfect match with the wine we got.

• ca 200 g spaghetti
• 2 large tomatoes, diced
• 100 g smoked bacon, cut into stripes
• 3-4 button mushrooms, sliced
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 gloves of garlic, crushed
• some dried (or fresh) basil
• half a cube of pork bullion
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• butter
• some red wine (optional)

# Start the same way as the previous dish: heat butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan (a wok-pan would do as well), add bacon and fry until browned and crispy. Remove from pan and pat dry with household paper.

# Remove excess fat from the pan (not all of it), add garlic and onion to the pan, stirring and scrapping the brown pieces from the pan. Fry until golden, add mushroom to the pan and fry for an additional couple of minutes.

# Add diced tomatoes to the pan, season with salt, pepper, basil and the crumbled bullion cube. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring meanwhile (and crushing the tomatoes at the same time). Tip: If I had a blender here, I would have even pureed the whole lot, to get a nice thick pasta sauce.

# Finally add the bacon and some wine, heat through and serve over spaghetti. Oh, and of course you’ll need to cook the spaghetti in the mean time, don’t forget that!

Not bad, considering it was my first try of deep-frying meat coated in batter. I’ll be making it again, but would add some salt the next time: although the chilly gives the dish a pretty spicy kick, I do think that the overall taste would only benefit from a tiny bit of salt.

Also, I got the feeling that there should have been more sauce (or at least a separate sauce accompanying the dish). What I would try next time is to deep-fry the meat a bit longer (so that the batter will not become ‘soaked’ when transferred into a sauce) and double the sauce ingredients, also adding some water and corn-flour. Will let you know what comes out of it.

• 500ml vegetable oil, for deep frying
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 3 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 free-range egg, lightly whisked
• 250g pork tenderloin, cut into bite-sized slices
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red pepper, sliced
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 1 tsp dried chilli flakes
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp honey
• a pinch of salt (recommended)
• Rice or noodles to serve

# Heat the vegetable oil in a deep saucepan, until very hot (if a breadcrumb sizzles in it, it is the right temperature).

# Make a batter by whisking the sesame oil, cornstarch and egg together (also add salt if you wish). Dip the pork in the batter to coat, then place into the hot oil to deep fry for about four minutes or until crisp and cooked through.

# Remove and drain on kitchen towels.

# Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a wok. Add the pepper, onions and chilli flakes and stir-fry for three minutes. Then add the soy sauce, honey and pork, and cook for one minute to warm through.

# Serve with some rice or noodles.I also prepared a vegetable dish from cauliflower and broccoli, stir-frying them in a hot wok-pan with some vegetable oil, and adding some water, corn starch, oyster sauce and sesame oil to taste.

The next day I tried another dish from Chinese kitchen, that of sticky lemon chicken. I really loved the look of this dish and I did enjoy its lemony flavor, but J thought it to be the worst dish ever, with way ‘too much lemon juice’.

Now, the lemons here in China must be with stronger taste or something, because on the BBC Goodfood web-site where the recipe is taken, most of the commentators complain about the ‘lack of lemony flavor’ and say that ‘next time I’ll add lots of more lemon juice’ or ‘I added extra lemon juice for some more zing’ etc…So I don’t know…Maybe J is just not into lemons. I remember him not enjoying the broccoli pasta with peppermint that had a lemony hint to it.

But I really liked it, I think it had a nice clean taste, it was healthy and it looked delicious. What more do you want from a supper??

We usually have oatmeal porridge here for breakfast, but today I had to be a little bit creative since somehow, we seemed to lack just about everything (no drinking water, no teeth-brushing water, no Internet for the first morning hours, and of course, not enough oatmeal to have porridge for two). A lonely banana had been lying in the fridge forever and I hoped I could somehow combine it with the oatmeal and…this is how today’s breakfast came about. Pancakes instead of porridge – not bad at all. Now, I don’t have any measuring cups here in China, so can only give the estimates of the quantities that I used. But I guess pancakes are all about experimenting anyway.

• 3/4 cup oatmeal
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1.5 cup lukewarm milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tbs sugar
• 1 ripe banana
• pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp oil

# Mix oatmeal, salt and flour with lukewarm milk and leave at room temperature for 15-20 min.

# In the mean time, mash the banana and in a separate bowl, whisk the egg with sugar.

# Stir all the components together, also add oil. And then…fry some pancakes! I managed to get around two dozens of small cakes out of these quantities, more than enough to have breakfast for two and still have leftovers to enjoy after dinner. Yum!

Those moist pancakes are definitely mouthwatering treats, even without any jam or cream or the like. I tried squeezing our last drops of honey for the ‘kodak moment’ but did not quite get the look I was aiming for… Oh well. Worth a try anyway.