The Doodle Cookbook

It's ben a long time

2022-10-29T14:52:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone!

I gained access to my blog again! Hooray!

It's been a very long time since I've posted here, 10 years to be exact. A lot has changed since then and there's so much to update you all on. I don't even know where to start honestly.

I want to start off by saying thank you to everyone that has visited this blog over the years. I'm amazed by the amount of subscribers and comments I've received, even if the latter is mainly spam.

I'm not sure what I want to do with this blog. I don't know if I want to continue it or repurpose it. It started out as something I was doing while still in high school. Now I'm approaching 30 and I still draw and I still love to cook, but I've shifted my focus.

Gulyás Soup With Review

2012-09-13T14:35:00.003-07:00

Hi guys!

I'm almost done with my web design project, I'll actually be turning it in soon and I believe after that my teacher will provide a host for me to launch up the site. Pretty exciting even though my page looks basic and boring in my opinion, there's a lot of things I'd change about it but I'm probably not allowed to. Anyways, as I mentioned before the theme was popular food throughout the past century. Easy stuff. I chose French onion soup, Hungarian Gulyás /Goulash (as Americans call it), and molten cakes. I had cook all 3 of these, take pictures, and write a review on it. I briefly mentioned the French onion soup in my previous post so I'll move on to the gulyás leves.

My (now) ex, as mentioned before, is Hungarian so I made sure I got a fairly authentic recipe. Us Americans like to put our own spin on things and ruin it instead so I wanted to make sure I had a Hungarian recipe of it but obviously in English. This soup turned out great and it's now my favorite soup, before that it was egg drop soup.

Okay onward with it. The recipe I used is provided below:

Goulash/Gulyás Ingredients (for 4 persons)

Recipe from Budapest-tourist.

600 g beef shin or shoulder, or any tender part of the beef cut into 2x2 cm cubes
2 tablespoons oil or lard
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 carrots, diced
1 parsnip, diced
1-2 celery leaves
2 medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or 1 tbs. tomato paste
2 fresh green peppers
2-3 medium potatoes, sliced
1 tablespoon Hungarian paprika powder
1 teaspoon ground caraway seed
1 bay leaf
ground black pepper and salt according to taste
water

For csipetke (Pinched noodles added to goulash or bean soup in Hungary. Csipetke comes from the word csípni, meaning pinch in English, referring to the way of making this noodle):

1 small egg,
flour,
a pinch of salt,
cc. 1 teaspoon water

Instructions

Heat up the oil or lard in a pot and braise the chopped onions in it until they get a nice golden brown colour.
Sprinkle the braised onions with paprika powder while stirring them to prevent the paprika from burning.
Add the beef cubes and and sauté them till they turn white and get a bit of brownish colour as well.
The meat will probably let out its own juice, let the beef-cubes simmer in it while adding the grated or crushed and chopped garlic (grated garlic has stronger flavour), the ground caraway seed, some salt and ground black pepper, the bay leaf, pour water enough to cover the content of the pan and let it simmer on low heat for a while.
When the meat is half-cooked (approx. in 1,5 hour, but it can take longer depending on the type and quality of the beef) add the diced carrots, parsnip and the potatoes, the celery leaf and some more salt if necessary (vegetables tend to call for more salt). You'll probably have to add some more (2-3 cups) water too.
When the vegetables and the meat are almost done add the tomato cubes and the sliced green peppers. Let it cook on low heat for another few minutes. You can remove the lid of the pan if you want the soup to thicken.
Bring the soup to the boil and add the csipetke dough, it needs about 5 minutes to get cooked.

How to make the csipetke:

Beat up a small egg, add a pinch of salt and as much flour as you need to knead a stiff dough (you can add some water if necessary).
Flatten the dough between your palms (to about 1 cm thick) and pinch small, bean-sized pieces from it and add them to the boiling soup. They need about 5 minutes to get cooked.

And I was nice enough to take some pictures while making it. :)

Looks good, doesn't it? I turned out really good in my opinion.

Review

I had a lot of fun making this but it did take quite a bit of time. Thankfully, I cut down some of my work time by buying pre-cut cubes of meat for stew. I had thought of cooking the meat cubes first a bit before adding them into the broth but I was afraid they would dry out and not capture the soup flavor, so I followed the recipe exactly and I’m glad I did because the meat didn’t dry out at all. Making this did require something new of me, using caraway seeds. I had never used any sort of seeds in my cooking and had never even heard of these ones or had an idea of how they would taste. When I bought the seeds they weren’t ground up, there were whole, so I had to take some time to grind the seeds a bit which didn’t work out too well because they were a lot harder to crush than I expected. The rest of the cooking process was pretty straight forward though, it was a matter of letting everything simmer together.

My sister tried the dish and this was her opinion of it, "The caraway seeds were a nice touch to the soup, they gave it a spearminty flavor. The meat is chewy. The noodles were very good, they were perfectly made; they were firm and not too smooshy." My mum’s opinion was, “Love it – very tasty. Meat was flavorful and veggies added good flavor.” My dad’s opinion of it was, “Big hunks of stew meat spiced and seasoned well. Potatoes captured the seasoning and were tasty.” My opinion of it was simple that I loved it and plan on incorporating into my family’s dinner more often. I loved the taste of the broth and I really enjoyed how the meat and vegetables really captured the flavor as well. What I was really fond of, though, was the csipetke noodles. I love eggs noodles in the first place so being able to make them and add them to the soup was a perfect little addition. The potatoes could have cooked for a little longer since they weren’t as soft as they could’ve been, but they were good nonetheless.

And the finished product:

Busy bee but have been cooking

2012-06-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! No new doodled recipes yet, I'm really sorry. Actually, I lie, I started the Mardártej one but only got as far as drawing out the cute little illustration for it.

My online classes started up a few weeks ago and I'm now in a web design class, one of my projects will be making a website based on the theme of food throughout different eras in the 1900's.

So part of my project was finding foods that were popular from three different eras, finding a recipe for them, and cooking them. So I've been busy cooking and baking this week but I've really enjoyed it because it also meant bringing new things into my family's diet, since my mum has a habit of making the same things over and over.
For the era of 1900-1939 I chose French Onion Soup to make:

I took this one as I was caramelizing the onions. A little after this picture I did end up burning some on the bottom, I blame negligence and the fact my teflon pans need to be replaced soon.

And after the soup finished I cut up some bread (in massive pieces, I should've cut them smaller) and melted Gruyère cheese over it to make breadcrumbs for the soup.
It turned out really good though. :)

Madártej - YUM!

2012-04-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!
So I got around to baking a few days ago, if you count making custards baking; not that I haven't made anything the past few months in the past but they weren't notable enough to be mentioned. My boyfriend is from Hungary and over there they have a dessert called "Madártej" (translates to "Bird Milk"), it's basically a Creme Anglaise/English Cream dessert with floating puffs of meringue-like dumplings. My boyfriend said it was very good and told me to give it a try, since I was interested in making it. So I went on to do so. It came out great, though I will admit that as an American working with the metric system of baking/cooking was strange to me but it worked out fine, I think I over-did it a tiny bit with the vanilla though and also my puffs didn't come out as puffy as I was hoping. Really, the puffs are just whipped egg whites and that's it, they taste great with the creme though.
So here's how mine looked:

See? I even drizzled some caramelized sugar on it.
All in all, it turned out great and I definitely plan on doodling a recipe for this. :)

Little Burger Cupcakes Recipes

2011-06-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

Gah, sorry about the size...I had to make it smaller instead of using original size. Feel free to double-click it though if you have trouble reading it.

Hooray guys, it's finally done! I'm not sure why I took so long on it, well I am, but I still think it's ridiculous how long it's been since I've submitted an actual doodled recipe. I'm getting back into the swing of things so no worries.
Anyways, I'll be making these soon and writing a review so tuned for that and happy cookins!~

2 New Recipes Coming Up

2011-05-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

Damn my inconsistency with this blog, I'm really sorry (hehe, broken record player syndrome). I seem to be doodling more and other things than doing recipes, I haven't even baked in forever. But I will be this weekend, my friend and I are going to be baking my birthday cake (Cake 2/3; I had one yesterday, will have one this weekend, and then the pedobear cake the following weekend). Which, by the way, I had a nice 18th birthday yesterday, I spent my afternoon at the mall with my best friend, came home, had cake, and then another friend stopped by. Fun fun. I honestly don't feel any older though, despite the fact I'm 18, but meh, it'll probably set in eventually...

Anyways, Past and upcoming recipes all in one canvas (no words on these, those get added on later with photoshop. x3) ; the new ones are a surprise even though one is fairly obvious (it is not a burger though, well...it is but it isn't :P) compared to the other. :D

Zero says (9:57 PM)
And what’s the other thing? Looks like a piece of crumpled paper. xD

This made my night. xD

I hope everyone's doing well and your blogging experience is way more successful than mine. Haha.

Baking sugar cookies

2011-03-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

Well, good news. I'll be posting 2 new recipes up this week (probably during the weekend); I was able to make homemade chocolate and now I'm in the process of making homemade sugar cookies.
Warning: Excuse the messy bed-head hair, hehe. :3

Ta-da! A big bowl of cookie dough so far. This is a shit-load of cookie dough, funny story I was reading this recipe and didn't look at how much it yields (don't know what I was thinking). So I'm standing over at the counter (woo it's messy right now, sorry about that. ^_^;;) and I'm reading the recipe and it's asking for large amounts of sugar, butter, flour, etc. so I figured it would be big....I'm used to the normal 25-cookie recipes.

Well it turns out this one's supposed to yield 60 cookies. 60! And don't get me wrong, I love cookies but that is a bit too much for me and my family. Now I'm thinking of seeing if I can mail them to people (friends that live out of state) and give some to neighbors. If the mailing process is successful and they don't spoil maybe I can start up some home-business based on baking cookies and stuff. I think it would be a neat and fun way to make money. We'll see though.

But anyways, I'll let you know how it comes out. I've got this crazy plan to try and make them into shapes of my chibis and decorate them like so with royal icing. x3

Home-made chocolate, you say?

2011-03-27T02:25:00.000-07:00

Welp, it's 5 am and I should be working on a project for economics and various assignments for other online classes but I'll get to them later. So 2 days ago my neighbor picked us a TON of strawberries, I'm talking two bowls full. I can't figure out what to make with them, I really don't want strawberry shortcake, perhaps I'll make strawberry sorbet. Anyways, I was craving some strawberries and chocolate, but of course, we had no chocolate and I can't drive (nor do I have the money to run to the store and buy chocolate if I could drive) so I was like "Fuck". I remembered we have some cocoa powder though and I figured there's got to be a way to make chocolate or at least a chocolate sauce using that and a few other ingredients. So I googled it and sure enough, there is a way.

So I make it, ended up using all my cocoa powder, some milk, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Very simple to make and it doesn't taste too bad, I'm assuming at least because my cocoa powder was pretty old but it tasted fine. It's rich and has a fairly nice color and texture to it as long as you sift the sugar before adding it in or it'll clump up. I think the amount of butter was a little high, though. I'll probably make a recipe tomorrow and alter it a bit to my liking and hopefully yours too, who likes buttery chocolate anyways? D:

I've still got loads of strawberries left:

That's not even all of it. Hopefully I'll figure out what to make with it and freeze the rest for later.

Oh! On a side note, I'm really happy because I saw someone bought 2 shirts of mine on my zazzle, 2! ;////;

Future Recipe Ideas

2011-03-24T02:19:00.000-07:00

I've currently got nothing made (recipe wise) to post but I do want to keep this blog as active as possible. Maybe I'll post pictures of desserts and food in between as inspiration and to keep the blog active.

I've got my cookbook on my lap right now, it's a Southern cookbook that I bought while in New Orleans years back. It's got tons of dessert recipes, most I haven't even tried yet, so that'll be a goal for this year and see how many I can make. Of course, I'll doodle out the recipes and post them. I'm also thinking of doing more than just desserts and sweets though, I'd also want to do recipes for things you'd eat for dinner, etc. the only problem is when I cook I don't use recipes most of the time and I guess instead of measuring. I'm sure I can find a way around that though.

Okay, okay, enough ranting and onto the ideas.

^Puppy Chow

^Burger cupcakes

^Strawberry Sorbet

(Img removed since it was giving a fake log in page)

^Coffee Popsicles

And I'll probably make another list as I think of more things.

Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments, though; I'm open to new foods and new ideas always. :D

Recipe Success (Tried by a friend of mine)

2011-03-22T15:54:00.000-07:00

His take on it:

" using white chocolate flavor pudding because that sounds way better :3"

	"should have let it cool more :3
	before 1) taking it out of the pan and
	2) putting glaze on
	and 3)
	polar bears. made a pool of glaze on the plate :3"

	"this is probably.
	the best thing ive ever tasted." So there you go guys, the recipe works not just for me but for him too (and neighbhors who have tried it in the past). So good luck and happy baking, and if you want a rainbow rum cake like his, go for it! You can almost hear the colors.

Malibu Rum Cake Recipe

2011-03-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

Pro tip:

For the glaze, you can actually add the rum in after boiling everything else for the glaze.

Real picture:

Glaze looks like jizz, haha. Anyways, the glaze will be runnier and thinner than this, I just tried thickening it...didn't like the glaze thick.

My bro's making one later today and he's gonna take pics so I'll upload that here if he lets me.

Hi guys

2011-02-22T03:50:00.000-08:00

Hi guys (my 17 followers and other random visitors),

Sorry for the lack of new stuff lately, kind of been busy and lazy. I did bake a cake over the weekend though, a Malibu Rum Cake, and it came out great (I've been making it for years). I'll doodle out the recipe soon and then post real pictures of it.

Also if you guys have suggestions feel free to leave a comment and state it there. ^_^

Flan Recipe Review

2011-02-18T16:35:00.000-08:00

Well...the flan recipe is a major fail that was just waiting to happen. I decided to try it out yesterday and I found myself making the ugliest flan/puddi I've ever seen as well as burning my finger and melting a rubber spatula. My boyfriend suggested I redo it, after I showed him pictures of how it turned out, but I decided I'd post it anyways as a heads up for that recipe (I recommend not using it, I'm going to try finding a better recipe to work with and actually test it out before doodling it out so I don't waste my time) as well as a way to learn from my mistake. I am by no means professional and I'd hate for anyone to think that I am, try a recipe, watch it fail, and complain to me.

Well let's start out with....
Failures In the Recipe

The ingredients seemed alright, the flan tasted good and the texture was good very simplified version.
The caramelized sugar part for the topping gave me some trouble, it was a disaster only in the sense that I ended up melting my rubber spatula (lol, what was I thinking) and burning my finger.
The custard part... I had no problems while mixing it together or anything like that.
The cooking time was WAY off, 6 minutes my ass. After 6 minutes in the oven it was wasn't even close to being cooked or custard-like at all, it was extremely liquidy. I ended up having to cook it for about 20 minutes and even then it was still a bit runny in the middle.
The recipe lacked an important thing, according to my mum, and that would be that when cooking your flan in the pan it should be surrounded by water in another pan. I'm guessing the reason being for this is to keep the sugar warm enough to where it won't burn. Though for the last 5 minutes of cooking I did put it in water because mum said to do it.

Pictures:

Flan in a pan surrounded by water.

Flan flipped upside down onto a plate (still in the glass pan).

Some sugar clumps didn't melt all the way:

And the fail of the century, I should've let it cool down more:

Yep, so...I'm not happy with the results and the recipe so I will redo this eventually, both the recipe doodle and rebaking it and showing results.

The Fortune Cookies

2011-02-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

I thought it'd be a good idea to post pictures of how the recipes turn out so you know it won't be total crap. My goal would be to have tried out all recipes listed, show your pictures, and give them my own review on how they turn out. I've yet to make the mini-cupcakes, microwave brownies, or flan but I have made the fortune cookies two or three times now and I love how they turn out.

So first review would be the Fortune Cookies. Here is how they turned out:

So as you can see they're not a complete fail (excluding the one being pointed to on the bottom photo and that was no mistake, I didn't it that way because it wasn't folding right). They come out pretty big, though, so play around with the amount you spoon onto the span. I like mine bigger than the average fortune cookie, and even with the size of the ones I have I managed to make about 16 or so.

Tips:

I strongly recommend starting off with baking 2 at a time first. You will need the cookies to be hot still to fold them into the shape or they will break on you.
Because they're hot I also suggest you use gloves so you don't burn your fingers.
I put my finished ones in a muffin tin so they would maintain their shape while cooling off.

My Review:

I've never had home-made fortune cookies before and I'm not Chinese so it's not like family has made them before. They're nothing like the mass-produced ones, though, they're softer and a little chewier in some spots. They taste almost the same to me. I really enjoyed making them and eating them; speaking of making time you'll need to make sure you have enough time to make these. I spent over an hour making just one batch and that's because I would bake 2 at a time and such.

Mini Cupcakes Recipe

2011-02-15T16:40:00.000-08:00

To see actual pictures of what they look like and the process of them being made please visit Squidoo.com/bakerlla-famous-mini-cupcakes.

For the cookie cutter shape and size, it is recommended you use a flower-shaped one that is 1.25" wide X .75" tall.

Candy melts can be found at an local grocery store or craft store in the baking section. ^_^

Valentine's Day Fortune Cookies

2011-02-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I'm a day late on this. I could've sworn I uploaded it on here already but I guess not. Anyways, this recipe works for any day though, just minus the food coloring and you have yourself home-made fortune cookies. :)

Flan Recipe

2011-02-08T13:53:00.000-08:00

The two milks used are Condensed milk and Evaporated milk, just to clarify since it's a bit hard to read what they say.

Microwave Brownies

2011-02-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

Ingredients

2 eggs
1 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 of butter or margarine
3/4 cups of flour
1/2 cup of cocoa powder

I've yet to give this recipe a try but it had a fairly decent rating and comments/reviews so I went along with this. I'll probably test it out soon and post pictures of how it turns out, they can't be as terrible as the one floating around Tumblr.