Easy Sugar-free Refrigerator Pickles

Since I’m not a believer of sugar replacement or any sweetener since I believe that everything processed is not good for our body, here is a twist of some Keto pickles recipes. Of course, without any sweetener or sugar.

I live in Indonesia and our pickles is actually a mix of cucumber, carrots, shallots and some, will add chilies. So you are most definitely okay to add chili in your pickles. I cannot. My bf cannot handle heat. 😜😜.

Alright, here we go. FYI, it will give you 2 x 500 gr jars of pickles. If you only wanna make 1 jar, then cut everything half.

Ingredients:

• 1 Japanese cucumber (dark green, long and taste is sweet. Yes, I’m taking it’s sweetness to replace sugar). Dice, slice do whatever you like.
• 1 big carrot. Again, cut it however you like.
• 10 medium shallots. Cut into half or quarter, depending the size
• 1 small yellow onion. Slice it thin
• 1 clove of garlic. Crushed.
• 3 tsp black peppercorn
• pinch of sea salt
• 10 tbsp white vinegar
• water

Instructions:

1. Prepare the veggies, then put them in a bowl, then mix with peppercorn and pinch of sea salt
2. Crush the garlic, and put 1/2 in each jar.
3. Add the veggies in the jars
4. Pour 5 tbsp of vinegar to each jar
5. Pour the water until covering the veggies.
6. Close the jar, mix it well, put them in the fridge for 24 hours. That’s it!

(Very) Spicy Shrimp Paste Shallot Chilli Sauce Easy Recipe

I have a dependency to spicy sauces. For me, eating my meal without any heat comes out of the spicy meals is not really enjoyable (well of course, not to all kind of food). So even though people in my country said spicy sauce (we call it “Sambal”) can only be enjoyed with rice, I don’t agree. It goes with eggplants, any parts of a chicken, beef, shrimp, and so on, and so on.

Yesterday I made one of my favourite chilli sauces. This recipe can go up to 14 – 15 full tablespoons (around 400 ml) or in my personal dictionary: 6 meals. It is not as spicy as my usual garlic chilli sauce in my opinion, but anyway, let me know if you try this recipe.

I know my bf called this sambal as toxic waste that you can only approach in a hazmat suit, but I think he’s just not really into spicy food. hihihi…

Here are the INGREDIENTS:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

• 200 gr curly red chilli*
• 100 gr Evil chilli (most people call it Ghost Chilli)**
• 200 gr shallot
• 3 garlic cloves
• 8 gr shrimp paste (terasi)
• 8 Tbsp coconut oil

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Put all the ingredients (except the shrimp paste) to the pan, and stir-fry until withered. It will take you around 7 – 8 minutes.
   
2. Meanwhile, grill the shrimp paste and put them in the mini chopper.
   

   
3. Using the mini chopper, put them all (careful it’s hot!) and grind it. You can actually use the blender, but the thing about blender is, some of the chilli paste will be left behind and I just don’t like it. Using this mini chopper is better in my opinion. Traditionally, Javanese people in Indonesia using pestle and mortar like the one I used in my spicy instant noodle recipe. But, if you can be faster then why not? *grins*
   
4. When everything is chopped and blended and crushed, put them all back in the pan. Using small flame, let it shimmer there. This way you make sure that your chilli sauce will not easily turn bad.
   
5. When you’re done, let it cool and transfer it in a jar. Make sure you keep it in the fridge if you live in a tropical country like Indonesia. It will last up to 3 weeks.

 

*

**

Easy Cheese Sauce Recipe

This recipe has been in our household for years now. I begin to make it around 3 years ago, and then I stop looking. It is so good that my BF decided to use this sauce for his lasagna, mac & cheese and my scalloped potato.

You won’t believe how easy it is, especially if you live in Indonesia (like I do!), where cheese is so expensive and you don’t want to use any recipe that is using more than 2 type of cheese.

For your information, I twisted this recipe from KetoDiet Blog and adjust it to my easiness in doing it here. So if you are following Keto lifestyle, feel free to use the original recipe since mine is not (but I put the substitute in the ingredients section if you want to do it).

So here it goes!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 114 gr cream cheese
• 1 cup/ 250 ml fresh milk (or if you are completely Keto, replace with 1/2 cup of whipping cream + 1/2 cup of water)
• 227 gr cheddar cheese, shred it.
• Crushed black pepper
• Optional: dash of ground paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, ground celery

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Use the pot, melt the butter over medium flame.
2. Then add in room temperature cream cheese and whisk it so all are incorporated.
3. Then add in the milk (or the whipping cream), start with 1/4 cup and keep whisking it until it looks smooth. Keep adding the liquid slowly while whisking it.
4. Wait until you can see the little bubbles (it means your liquid is hot enough).
5. Turn off the flame, and add the cheese while keep on whisking it until your cheese melted.
6. Up to here, the cheese sauce is already lickable! But… I love to add up some other ingredients. I always add a dash of ground paprika, crushed black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and ground celery.

One thing we both always do after I finish making this sauce: finger licking the bottom of the pot after the sauce is transferred. It’s that good! Last night, it was my BF’s turn, since he’s making his amazing lasagna using this cheese sauce. It was a treat! Look at this! It looks YUMMY!!!

Wait. What?! Recipe for the lasagna? He doesn’t even want to share with me. I know. Bummer!

The Best and Easiest Chicken Gravy Recipe

So, today I’m feeling a bit like an adventurer. I wanna make chicken gravy from the scratch based on ingredients I love and think are the best pair for chicken. So I decided NOT to take a look at any recipes and just go with my guts. It turned out AMAZING!

No. I’m not the only person who said it, by the way. Both my bf and his best buddy said it too. Then I decided to write down the recipe now before my limited memory decided to archive it to the place I would never be able to retrieve. (yeah, I’m THAT bad. hihihi)

This gravy is best made using homemade chicken stock (I promise I will give you the recipe as soon as I make it this week), and chicken fat that was dripped of your roasted chicken. But of course, you can just replace every cup of chicken stock with 1 chicken bullion cube and 250 ml (1 cup) of water, then double the butter to replace the chicken fat. (BUT, I really recommend the chicken fat drips!).

Here are the INGREDIENTS:

• 1 tbsp butter (you can use salted or unsalted butter. Just remember to adjust the salt)
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tbsp cumin (a lot? yes, that’s because I love it. But you can adjust it to your taste. Start with 2 tsp at least)
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp chicken fat drips (or replace it with butter)
• 2 cups of chicken stock (or 2 chicken bouillon cube + 500 ml water)
• Black pepper
• Salt

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Start with 1 tbsp butter in a pan using just medium flame, and add the thinly sliced yellow onion right after the butter is melted.
2. Once the onion starts to look transparent, add in the thinly sliced garlic. Keep turning them until caramelized.
3. Once it’s beginning to be caramelized, add dried thyme and cumin and keep turning them around 2 minutes.
4. Add in all-purpose flour and mix it with the onion and the garlic and after they’re mixed, pour the chicken fat (or extra butter) in and turn it for 1 minute, then pour in the chicken stock (or water with the chicken bouillon cube).
5. Shimmer it on small flame to thicken to about 1 cup (Since you need to strain it later, take a wild guess that after it’s strained, it’ll be 1 cup)
6. Season it with salt and pepper, taste it, and after you’re happy with it, leave it there for 2 extra minutes before straining it.
7. Now all you need to do is just straining the gravy and prepare to receive praises with grace!

What can you do with the gravy? Well, pour it on a chicken sandwich for breakfast, or on your mashed potato at lunch and on your roasted chicken for dinner! You can even pour it on your pasta! Use your wild imagination! Be crazy about it JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN! Make more of it because this recipe is only made for 1 cup of gravy!

Lemme know how it goes! If you twist this, let me know how you twist it and I promise I will give it a try!

Easy Recipe: Roasted Green Pepper Hummus

Ingredients of Roasted Green Pepper Hummus

Today I decided to make Roasted Green Pepper Hummus. A super simple recipe from Trinity’s Kitchen, which of course, made with some twists.

The consideration this time is my bf’s dislike over garlic (so I only use 1 clove), and instead of Red Pepper, I use Green Pepper. I also substituted Tahini to 1 tsp of Sesame oil (since not even once, I know what Tahini is, and I’m so sure I can’t find it here).

Today, I also make another Salsa (the 1 jar before didn’t make up to more than 3 days for both of us), Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Simple Beef Soup. Yeah, I was busy in the kitchen and enjoyed it by singing my heart out over 80’s – 90’s rock songs. Ha ha ha.

This recipe is vegan, gluten-free, dairy free. NOT low carb tho. So watch out.

 

Here are the INGREDIENTS:

• 2 green bell peppers (feel free to replace it with the red, yellow or orange)
• 1 garlic clove
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tinned chickpeas (265 gr drained)
• 1 lime and the zest
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 crushed black pepper

INSTRUCTION:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F/ 180 C.
2. De-seed and cut the bell peppers. Then put it in the oven for around 20 minutes. In the last 10 minutes, put the garlic (with the skin) and roast them together.
3. Meanwhile, drain your chickpeas and prepare your hand-blender. You can use the regular blender but I really don’t wanna leave some of the delicacy in the blender. So I decided to use hand-blender.
4. Once the bell pepper and garlic roasted and cool down, add every ingredients in a small pot and blend them all to your desired consistency.
5. Keep it in airtight meal box and leave it in the fridge. It taste better cold!

It’s that easy and simple! NOW, you don’t need to be a chef to make your own dip!

Best Salsa Recipe, EVER!

The original recipe from Kim’s Cravings page, I believe is good already. But I had to accommodate my bf’s dislike over garlic and spicy stuff. Also, I only need to make 1 500ml jar of salsa, since we still have cashew dip in the fridge.

I substituted 4 jalapenos with 1 red chili and deseeded it, then cut down the garlic to only 1 clove. In Indonesia, this chili is called curly red chili.

 

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 medium red tomatoes
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 red chili (de-seed)
• 2/3 cup fresh cilantro (I love it! But please adjust to your taste!)
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tbsp lemon/ lime juice and the zest
• 1 tsp of sea salt.

INSTRUCTION:

1. Throw everything in your food processor, or chop everything finely, BUT leave the cumin and sea salt out.
2. After chopped/ processed to the way you like it, then start seasoning it and adjust as you go. When you’re done, put it in the jar and leave in the fridge at least overnight. It get’s better each day in my experience.

That’s it! Try it and let me know!