AKARA - Fried Beans Paste

Ingredients: This makes 18-20 pieces of akara

3 cups of Nigerian sweet beans or black-eyed beans

70g pointed peppers (Tatashi)

35g scotch bonnet

1 medium onion

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 knorr cube seasoning

150 ml water

Oil for deep-frying

Method

• In a bowl, soak the beans in warm water for about 3 minutes. Drain and then briskly rub the beans between palms of your hands to remove the skin.

• Add enough water into your bowl, this makes the skins float to the surface and discard the skin. Repeat this severally until the skins are all removed just as in the picture. Then soak the bean overnight with hot water from tap.

• Rinse out beans , place in the blender with the onion, knorr seasoning, water, scotch bonnet and pointed peppers. *I use two blender for mine, just because I like my mixture to be very smooth and thick. Also I blend in small batches*

• Transfer the thick-smooth beans paste to stand mixer and attach the flat beater hook; add salt and mix on medium speed for about 5 minutes. 

• While this is mixing, heat the oil in a wok/pot, remember we are deep-frying. Also get every other thing we need ready. For instance, line the sieve with kitchen paper, get your frying spoon ready and spoon for scooping in the beans mix.

• Once oil is heated and ready,  scoop in mixture and fry for about 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper. Repeat process...

• Enjoy hot or cold...

Smoothie/Desserts

fruity greek yogurt with toffee sauce

strawberries and blueberries smoothie

For more pictures and recipes, follow @Labelleace on instagram. Thank you

Breakfast Ideas

Mashed avocado on toast with suya style beef skewers and soya milk

 Spicy Scrambled Eggs on toast

Boil egg-avocado mash on toast with a glass of soya milk

Akara burger with soya milk (recipe coming soon)

Double decker beef burger; perfect for saturday morning

Cookies Update

Egg Free Nigerian Bun

Recipe for these yummiest beauties is on my Instagram page...

My Cookie adventure...Swirl Choco Cookies

So after my "Heart Cookies" success, I decided to take this cookie adventure further with my son's request  to make "chocolate ones". I started surfing the internet for chocolate cookies and I came across this  amazing website "SugaryWinzy"; her Chocolate Pinwheel Cookies caught my attention. I came to conclusion that I was going to make it. Here is how mine came out, its not perfect but I will keep trying till I perfect.

Ingredients

6 cups of plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

450g unsalted butter

2 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla beans/extract

400g sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

Method

Place butter and sugar in a bowl; beat until pale and fluffy

Add eggs, vanilla; beat for another minute

Sift in the flour and salt in batches and mix until well combined.

Divide cookie dough into 2, sift in cocoa powder into one; mix until well combined.

Roll out  doughs separately between two parchment baking sheet to form a rectangle shape (Place dough on a parchment baking sheet, cover with another sheet; roll out using a rolling pin or clean bottle).  

Place the rolled out plain dough on top of the chocolate one and lightly press onto it with rolling pin so they merge together.

**Here comes the difficult part**

From one end, start rolling the merged dough to form a log. (I rolled mine with the parchment baking sheet, it was easy)

Wrap with cling film, place in the fridge for about 45 minutes to an hour (can be placed in the freezer as well).

Slice the dough with a knife and place them on baking trays lined with parchment baking sheets.

Preheat oven to 160C and bake for 15 minutes.

Leave to cool...

Skewers...

HEART COOKIES

These cookies speak for themselves, just the aroma that fills the kitchen when  in the oven says it all. These  crunchy outer layer,  gooey centre cookies are so easy to prepare, requires only 6 ingredients and stays in the oven for just 15 minutes. The only issue is that they never last in my house!!!!! Bake these cookies for your loved ones and they will love you forever and ever... Here we go

INGREDIENTS

3 cups of all purpose/plain flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

225g butter (diced)

200g Sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

METHOD

Place the butter and sugar in a bowl; beat until pale and fluffy

Add egg, vanilla and beat for another minute

Sift in the flour and salt in batches

Mix until well combined (at this point, I use my hands just so the dough can form a ball).

Place the dough in between cling films, flatten and put in the fridge for 30 - 45 minutes.

Roll out the dough between two baking sheet (Place dough on a baking sheet, cover with another sheet and roll out).

Cut out your shapes and place on a lined baking tray

Preheat oven to 160C and bake for 15 minutes.

Leave to cool...

Enjoy with cold milk and thank me later

PITTA PIZZAS

Hello my lovely fans. I have been away for so long, I know!! First of all, I want to say a big thank you to all of you for  visiting this blog and also for the LIKES and COMMENTS.  I am partially back with new recipes, I hope I would have the time to blog them all.  

The amount of money I have spent on pizza,  made me discover this recipe. I have never tried to make pizza from scratch, simply because of  the fear of not getting it right. But if you are brave enough to take on the challenge , kindly visit Lohis Blog. 

My son is a pizza lover. Morning, afternoon, night, "Mommy, please can I  eat pizzaaa..." is all i get to hear. In order to stop this little man from pestering me, I decided to give pizza making a go but then procrastination kicked in. I have all ingredients ready but for some reason, I really was not ready.

On one faithful day, I saw this TV advert on how to make  pizza in less than 15 minutes. I just said in my mind, "O boy, this is the reason behind my procrastinations". I was super excited to try out the recipe . The next day, I tried it out and it was the best. My son loved it but the only comment  he made (already noted down) was that I put too much sauce (he doesn't like too much sauce in his food). So here is my recipe and thank me later.

Prep Time : 5 - 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

4 pitta breads

8 tbs of stew

1/2 red onions (diced)

2 bell peppers (diced)

2 roasted chicken thighs (diced) {any choice of meat}

40g grated mature cheddar { add more if you love cheese}

METHOD

Heat oven to 200C/gas 6. 

Line baking rack with baking sheet. 

Place the pitta breads on the the rack.

Spread on it pitta, 2 tablespoons of stew.

Top with diced chicken thighs, bell peppers, onion and cheddar.

Put in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. 

Once pittas are crisp and cheddar melted, serve hot or cold.

N.B: Experiment with toppings. 

Follow @Labelleace on Instagram for more mouth watering pictures...

MeatPie