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Entries by Kitchen Butterfly

Reasons to Believe: All things Creme Fraiche, Mascarpone and Ricotta

Domestic goddess that I am. I’m in red raffia heels. OK….wedges. I feel like Nigella. Creme Fraiche on the go, 2 fruit cakes in the making (last Christmas’s success), this time the recipe is adjusted to include some Maltina and pureed lemon sugar. Its the creme fraiche that I’d like to start off with. Thankfully, my feet are not hurting…..and I admit, it is time to drop the charade and take off the shoes.

I am confused as to exactly what chemical reaction has gone on with my ultra-pasteurised whipped cream and reconstituted buttermilk.

Something has definitely happened. The mixture is thick, thicker than the double cream consistency yesterday. It looks dollopable…… and at the bottom of my glass some liquid has collected – whey to the initiated.

Author name:: Kitchen Butterfly
Publish date:: February 21st, 2012
Discussion:: 5 Comments
Categories:: Baking
Cooking
My Favourite Things
Tags:: Reasons to believe
Using ultra pasteurised cream to cook

About Kitchen Butterfly:: Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

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Chocolate Dump-it All Cake a la Hesser

Normal.

Is not a word I’d use to describe me. Myself. Is that bad English?

I am intrigued by butter. Sticks of butter. The allure of reading American recipes that call for a ‘stick of butter’ hasn’t worn off……and I can count January the 8th as one of my best days in the history of food! Because in a shop round the corner from me, a shop that has given me graham crackers and cheese, gianduja chocolate and Marrons de glace….I found sticks of butter.

Do you hear me? Sticks of butter.

Now if you had sticks of butter on your wish list…just seeing them, hugging and holding them close was a dream come true for me. Do you understand my desire, lust, infatuation? Infatuation….that has seen me buy 10 boxes of 4 quarters. Or 40 sticks.

Author name:: Kitchen Butterfly
Publish date:: February 17th, 2012
Discussion:: 14 Comments
Categories:: Baking
Tags:: Chocolate dump it all cake
Easy chocolate cake
Sticks of butter

About Kitchen Butterfly:: Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

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Happy Valentine’s Day: (Celebrating) Love In The Time of Fat

Saint Francis And The Sow

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow,

and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow,

and the sow began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath

them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

—–♥♥♥♥♥—–

Yes, sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.

This Valentine’s day, I’m celebrating myself.

This year, I am re-teaching myself my loveliness.

One of my fave ever compositions

Author name:: Kitchen Butterfly
Publish date:: February 12th, 2012
Discussion:: 15 Comments
Categories:: Musings
Tags:: Celebrating self-love
Loving yourself
Many ways to love yourself

About Kitchen Butterfly:: Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

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Cook Naija: Plantain Salad Imoyo

National pride. Patriotism. What you might call it. There was a certain feeling of absolute ownership and total knowledge I had about my country, Nigeria – its people, its culture, its habitat…and especially its food.

Surprise, surprise..for it turns out ladies and gentlemen, that my knowledge of Naija, while authentic is not as all-encompassing as I thought.

Author name:: Kitchen Butterfly
Publish date:: February 8th, 2012
Discussion:: 22 Comments
Categories:: Discover Nigeria
Healthy Eating
Nigerian recipes
Tags:: Plantain recipes

About Kitchen Butterfly:: Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

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Spiced Apple Sauce

Out with the old, in with the new.

Ditch the cinnamon sticks and sweet fragrance of warm spice. Replace it with heat and heart. Crisscross apple sauce….you’ll have no regrets.

Author name:: Kitchen Butterfly
Publish date:: February 4th, 2012
Discussion:: 14 Comments
Categories:: Cooking
How to
Tags:: Apple sauce
Condiments
Make-ahead condiments
Spiced apple sauce

About Kitchen Butterfly:: Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

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The Anatomy of an Artichoke

Note: The exploration for this post was done in 2011 while I lived in The Netherlands. Artichokes haven’t appeared in any store aisles in Nigeria (that I’ve come across anyway….). I am sharing it because I unearthed some ‘gems’ in the process. I hope you enjoy reading it.

—–♥♥♥♥♥—–

None of my memories, sleeping or waking…have been consumed with artichokes of any sort. Globe or Jerusalem, pickled, boiled, fried or grilled. Australia’s cooking doyenne, Stephanie Alexander says in her book, ‘The Cook’s Companion’, a compendium of ingredients and recipes for the Australian kitchen ‘Artichokes have a reputation of being tricky to prepare and fiddly to eat. As a result, many food lovers have yet to tackle their first boiled artichoke’.

Carciofi alla Giudia with Fried Lemon

She spoke of me. A food lover terrified by thistles and thorns….of the artichokes.

Author name:: Kitchen Butterfly
Publish date:: January 31st, 2012
Discussion:: 11 Comments
Categories:: Cooking
Tags:: Artichoke recipes
Cooking with Vegetables
The anatomy of an artichoke

About Kitchen Butterfly:: Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

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Reasons To Believe – Locally Grown Strawberries in Nigeria

When we returned home last August, my older sister told me about strawberry season in Nigeria – January/winter to you in some parts of the world. I was convinced it was a joke. Till last Friday when I held a pack in hand.

Author name:: Kitchen Butterfly
Publish date:: January 27th, 2012
Discussion:: 19 Comments
Categories:: My Favourite Things
Tags:: Reasons to believe
Strawberries in Nigeria
Temperate fruit in tropical countries

About Kitchen Butterfly:: Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

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Pumpkin Maple Oat Rolls

Healthy 6am weekday conversations in our home are rare. As I guess they are in most households with children of any sort: pre-teen and post teens! Usually, moaning and grumbling tend to dampen the chit-chat of the blue tits and red robins; and even the cocks crowing-a dawn. The kids channel crackles with dragging feet and sniffling that has tears lurking close by.

Author name:: Kitchen Butterfly
Publish date:: January 23rd, 2012
Discussion:: 15 Comments
Categories:: Baking
Brekkie
Tags:: Easy bread rolls
fall rolls
no-knead bread rolls
No-knead dough

About Kitchen Butterfly:: Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

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A Short History of Ghanaian Food

As told by me. And in alphabetical order.

And yes, 11 days in a country makes me an expert. Of sorts.

Local names are written in italics and I’ve done my best to share the correct pronunciations.

Where available, I’ve included photographs – enjoy!

Twelve (12) Resolutions for 2012

Drawing on the sand

Updated 12th Februrary, 2012

Thanks for your suggestions, I’ve finally updated #12. X X X

Treat myself with true & honest kindness – including the occasional manicure and pedicure. And also continue to swim, run, sleep and most of all eat right. Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth has shown me why this is important. Read more…

Author name:: Kitchen Butterfly
Publish date:: January 8th, 2012
Discussion:: 34 Comments
Categories:: Musings
Tags:: a better 2012
New years resolutions

About Kitchen Butterfly:: Passionate, creative home-cook & amateur food photographer sharing life stories to encourage and inspire men & women the world over. Currently on a mission to create awareness about Nigerian cuisine - its flavours, history, culture and similarities with other world cuisines!

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Entries by Kitchen Butterfly

Reasons to Believe: All things Creme Fraiche, Mascarpone and Ricotta

Chocolate Dump-it All Cake a la Hesser

Happy Valentine’s Day: (Celebrating) Love In The Time of Fat

—–♥♥♥♥♥—–

Cook Naija: Plantain Salad Imoyo

Spiced Apple Sauce

The Anatomy of an Artichoke

Reasons To Believe – Locally Grown Strawberries in Nigeria

Pumpkin Maple Oat Rolls

A Short History of Ghanaian Food

Read more…

Twelve (12) Resolutions for 2012

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