HALLOWEEN THEME

Our last Cooking Playdate session was such a blast! Since it coincided with Halloween, we thought it would be fun for the kids to experience a nice party with costumes and Halloween games.

This time, it was really laid-back since we focused more on the Halloween theme and activities. Sandri & I had prepared a lasagna the day before (did you know that a lasagna tastes better the next day?) and I had prepared pumpkin soup also in advance. 

Ranie did another speciality drink: sunkist, sprite, navel oranges, nata de coco and jelly.

Dinda brought and cooked on the spot: Spaghetti with corn (angel hair spaghetti mixed with a little bit of milk, cheese and lots of corn) and also barbecue chicken (see recipe below)

I forgot to take a picture of the apple tart but it was a real hit and was finished so quickly. Here are the recipes for the apple tart and the barbecue sauce for the chicken:

BEET CAKE

This is such a beautiful video of the baking process. What a delight to the eyes!

beet cake from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

HEALTHY ALL THE WAY

After so many months of no Cooking Playdate, we finally found a date where at least 4 of us were free. We decided to do something really simple, focusing more on just getting together, the kids playing with  each other.

We were all for some reason into eating healthy so we thought of making spaghetti with a vegetable bolognaise sauce (basically a bolognaise sauce but with loads of veggies) - see recipe below.

So that was the main dish we were going to cook together, but to add to our lovely meal, Tarra brought some steamed pempek (fresh from her hometown of Bangka), Ranie made a refreshing Peach Tea and Sandri & I prepared strawberries dipped in vanilla-honey yoghurt.

Chopping away in the kitchen

The sauce was really simple to make. Just remember to let it cook for at least 30 minutes so all the herbs and tomato can sink into the meat and vegetables.

A real hit each time Ranie makes this. It's real simple: make black strong tea in a pot of boiling water, add ice, mix with real peaches and it's juice (in a can) and a little bit of sugar. Et voila!

These strawberries were not our dessert, but a snack I thought we could enjoy while the kids were playing. The dip was made with: Cimory natural yoghurt + vanilla essence + honey. Just try it out before you serve to make sure it's not too sweet or not sweet enough. Also, if you have vanilla bean pods, you can use that too to have the extra vanilla flavor.

Below is the recipe for the vegetable bolognaise sauce. Don't forget to let the sauce simmer for at least 30 minutes so all the herbs and tomatoes soak in.

The next Cooking Playdate is coming up soon. Our next theme is Halloween so wait for that! :)

TRIAL AND LAUGHTERS

We started off this session with a theme which was: no oven! Yes, that's right, so far, we have been making dishes that mostly require using the oven and we realized that not many people own an oven so we needed to change our cooking methods. So this time around, our recipes were "oven-free":

* Creamy Mushroom Spaghetti

* Rosti

* Chocolate Pudding

First on our list was to make the rosti and we had such a good laugh and learned so much while making this. You see, Dinda had prepared all the ingredients in advance and after explaining all the steps needed, she started to heat up a pan and start frying the rosti. Unfortunately, they became all sticky and burnt! After using 5 different pans (yes, no kidding!), we realized that a) the oil was probably not hot enough and b) the rosti preparation probably needed to spend more time in the fridge before frying so that the cheese wasn't gooey and all sticky when put in the frying pan. So you see, our sessions don't all end in perfectly presentable dishes but we can assure you that the rosti (though unpresentable) was delicious :)

The creamy mushroom spaghetti was super easy to make; a mixture of mushrooms, garlic, spaghetti, cream and parmesan cheese. Nothing could have gone wrong there! And it indeed turned out to be as delicious as we thought it would be. Highly recommended for those who are starting out...

Last but not least, we made a chocolate pudding which was in Laurie David's book "The Family Dinner" and was said to be a "fast" recipe.... and indeed it was easy and fast to make... again another recipe to impress your family & friends... add a little whipped cream on top of it and they'll be even more impressed!

COMFORT FOOD WITH A TWIST

After a successful first get-together, we couldn't wait for the following month and this time around, we accidentally decided to make comfort foods. I say "accidentally" because we never decide way in advance what we're going to cook. What happens is that a week before our event, we tell each other what we plan to make and it just so happens that for this gathering, our recipes revolved around comfort foods, which were:

* Spinach Lasagna

* Healthy Chicken Nuggets

* Apple Crumble

Have you seen the episode of Jamie Oliver's show where he explains to children what are in chicken nuggets? That just makes you swear off chicken nuggets forever. But, the thing is, children still love chicken nuggets and they still ask for these tasty small bites. So what can we do? Why, make healthy versions of them of course! :)

As for the Spinach Lasagna, it was delicious! A great recipe with of course the perfect ingredients such as ricotta cheese, mozzarella, bechamel sauce... all so very italian! It might scare you at first but it's definitely worth a try, especially if you're trying to impress your family :)

Our last recipe was the classic Apple Crumble found in Nigella Lawson's cookbook. It's a no-fail recipe to make; everyone who tries this recipe is satisfied. The only thing to know is that this dish is best eaten when hot, with cold vanilla ice cream.

THE BEGINNING OF OUR STORY

Welcome to The Cooking Playdate blog!

We are 5 women in love with life, food and our kids and we get together every month to share recipes with each other and have our kids play together. We all live in Jakarta and lead different lives but we share a common interest in feeding our family good, healthy, nutritious food.

It all started by simple conversation between 2 of us talking about how difficult it was to find easy, nutritious recipes and how we both agreed that homemade food needs to make a comeback. After more than 3 hours discussing the possibility of getting our friends to join our small group, we decided that besides cooking, we would also take this opportunity to get our kids to play together and enjoy the food we prepared.

Our first get-together was March 13th, 2011 and we made the following dishes:

* Spicy Carrot Cake

* Cauliflower Gratin

* Herb-Marinated Chicken

* Couscous Salad

All of the recipes we tried can be found below the photos of our activities.

This blog was made especially for moms out there looking for recipes that are not only easy and that their kids can enjoy, but these recipes have been tried by several non-professional cooks and we all agree that they are easy to make, delicious and absolutely not a hassle!

So, if this blog is exactly what you're looking for, just click on the link on your right that says "Get Updates By Email" and you'll receive updates of our activities (including our recipes) in your mailbox every month :)