Homemade Tomato Ketchup

After you see how easy it is to make tomato ketchup at home, you’ll never want to buy it in the store again. It takes so little time and almost no effort. 

Use Your Noodles - Homemade Tomato Ketchup

I used to be a ketchup addict and I mean every word. I could eat it on bread without anything else until my mouth was burning from all the sugar and acid. Then one day I realised that it is actually junk food, so I stopped eating it. But of course, pretty soon I was craving it again, so I decided to make my own using whatever was in my pantry.

Use Your Noodles - Homemade Tomato Ketchup
Use Your Noodles - Homemade Tomato Ketchup

There are a lot of different ketchup recipes out there, from the ones that only use garlic and onion, to the ones that use a variety of spices. There are some that use fresh tomatoes, to the ones that use canned and dried tomatoes. This recipe is using lots of spices and tomato purée, because I want ketchup to be done in mintues. When I need my ketchup, I need it immediately! 🙂

For me the key ingredient in homemade tomato ketchup is clove. It adds a deep, sweet aroma. But, you really need to be careful, because too much of it can make your ketchup tarty. 

The trick here is to leave the tomato purée uncovered while it is cooking, so it can thicken quickly. And you’ll want to stir it constantly, otherwise you’ll have a messy kitchen and you can get burned.

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Use Your Noodles - Homemade Tomato Ketchup
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HOMEMADE TOMATO KETCHUP

Course Side Dish
Keyword condiment, dip, fish spread
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 700 g tomato purée
  • 2 TBSP lemon juice
  • 1 TBSP balsamic vinegar
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp onion powder
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • pinch of nutmeg to taste
  • pinch of black pepper to taste
  • 3-4 TBSP honey

Instructions

  1. Put the tomato purée in a pan and add the rest of the ingredients except honey.
  2. Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat for about 25 minutes or until the ketchup has thickened to about two thirds.
  3. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for about 5 minutes, then add honey and stir well.

Notes

Keep in mind that ketchup will thicken a little when it cools down and it will taste sweeter.

Use Your Noodles - Homemade Tomato Ketchup

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Use Your Noodles - Homemade Tomato Ketchup

Immune-Boosting Elderflower Turmeric Tea

The cold weather can sometimes get to us. But not with this immune-boosting turmeric tea with elderlower and some other amazing healthy ingredients.

Use Your Noodles - Immune-Boosting Elderflower Turmeric Tea

We got a little snowy surprise yesterday, so I ran out to shoot my immune-boosting elderflower turmeric tea. I was soaking wet in a matter of minutes, but luckily I had this (already cold) tea right at my hand. 🙂

Let me tell you what’s in this tea. Only good stuff, I promise. 

Use Your Noodles - Immune-Boosting Elderflower Turmeric Tea
Use Your Noodles - Immune-Boosting Elderflower Turmeric Tea

There’s elderflower, one of my favourite kinds of tea. I pick it myself in spring and keep it airtight for whole year. It’s amazing for your immune system and for detoxifying your body. Another great ingredient – thyme. We usually use it in cooking, but it taste amazing in teas. Just be careful not to add too much or your tea might taste like soup. You can excange it for wild thyme, in that case you should double the amount, because it is milder. Thyme is one of the easiest herbs to grow at home, so I suggest you head to a gardening store this spring and get a thyme plant.

Use Your Noodles - Immune-Boosting Elderflower Turmeric Tea

This tea gets its colour mostly from turmeric. I used to hate the taste of turmeric, it kind of felt strange and too strong. But as I introduced it little by little it grew on me. Now, I love it! In cooking and in tea making. So turmeric tea in any form is amazing and super beneficial. And if you add some pepper to it, your body can absorb the good stuff much better. Ok, we got to honey. We all know honey is so much better than white sugar, because it contains lots of vitamins and minerals. But, buying just any honey at the supermarket is wasteful. It has probably been heated over 40 °C to remain liquid, but that also means it has lost a lot of its functions. Try to find a local producer that doesn’t heat honey. My favourite is linden honey.

Use Your Noodles - Immune-Boosting Elderflower Turmeric Tea

Like all other ingredients in this tea ginger is mindblowingly good for immune system and so much more covering from cancer to weight loss. And here’s our last ingredient – lemon. If you were like me, lemon was the first thing your parents gave when you were ill. And it was for a good reason.

There you have it, my immune-boosting elderflower turmeric tea. Helpful if you are ill, but also a good way to keep your health in check!

Head on to the recipe and let me know what kind of tea do you like to drink to boost your immunity system in the comment section.

Tag #useyournoodles so I can see your beautiful UYN creations. Also, stay in touch on Facebook and Instagram or subscribe to get the recipes directly to your mailbox ♥

Use Your Noodles - Immune-Boosting Elderflower Turmeric Tea
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IMMUNE-BOOSTING ELDERFLOWER TURMERIC TEA

Prep Time 10 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes
Servings 2 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 cups boiling water
  • 2 cups room temperature water
  • 2 heap tsp dried elderflower
  • 1/2 tsp dried thyme
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  • pinch of black pepper
  • 1 TBSP lemon juice

Instructions

  1. Put dried elderflower and thyme in a tea infuser and steep it in boiling water for 5 minutes. Keep it covered.
  2. Remove the infuser and add room temperature water, honey, turmeric, ginger, black pepper, and lemon juice. Stir well and pour into cups.
Use Your Noodles - Immune-Boosting Elderflower Turmeric Tea

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Use Your Noodles - Immune-Boosting Elderflower Turmeric Tea

Triple Chocolate Sour Cherry Brownies

Rich, melt-in-your-mouth triple chocolate sour cherry brownies. An easy recipe for decadent homemade chocolate brownie explosion.

Use Your Noodles - Triple Chocolate Sour Cherry Brownies

What’s better than chocolate? Triple chocolate. And even better are these triple chocolate sour cherry brownies with bittersweet, semi-sweet and white chocolate.

Since it is Valentine’s day on Sunday, I think it’s appropriate to do something chocolaty. One of my Instagram followers suggested I did a brownie recipe, so I’m making it! How exciting is this?

Use Your Noodles - Triple Chocolate Sour Cherry Brownies

I’m by no means a brownie expert. This recipe came out by pure luck. It was one of those moments when you say, I’m just going to make something. So I did, I checked out a few recipes, written down some thoughts and ratios and started cooking. After the brownies came out of the oven the first time I was smitten by them. They were the perfect ratio between a cakey and fudgy brownie, in favour of cakey, which is what I like.  Later I added more sour cherries and some white chocolate chips on top, just because I can 🙂 

Use Your Noodles - Triple Chocolate Sour Cherry Brownies

If you’ve ever made brownies, you know they can be fudgy and dense, or they can be more cake-like. These brownies are more on the cakey side. There is some baking soda in them and an extra egg, so they have a cakey texture on top and the bottom, but they are thick on the inside, because the ratio between butter and chocolate to dry ingredients is high. There are bittersweet chocolate chips in there, which gives them extra gooeyness. White chocolate chips and sour cherries on the top are for some sweet and sour, moist kick. Believe me, they re even better than they sound.

Use Your Noodles - Triple Chocolate Sour Cherry Brownies

If you are wondering how to make a perfect brownie, Samina from The Cupcake Conffesion has written a nice post about Top 5 mistakes to avoid when making brownies. They might seem obvious, but from my own experience I say, the obvious mistakes are the ones we make most often.

As for the cooling down goes, I’m the one that’s always impatient. I want to dig in immediately. But, if you are planing on serving your brownies to someone, please don’t do that! There’s almost no possibility you’re going to be able to cut them into beautiful piceces, or even taking them out of the pan, without messing them up. The best is if you cool it down completely. If there’s no one waiting for these little goodies, dig in with a spoon, while they are hot. But watch out that no one is looking 🙂

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Use Your Noodles - Triple Chocolate Sour Cherry Brownies
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TRIPLE CHOCOLATE SOUR CHERRY BROWNIES

Course Dessert
Keyword brownies, chocolate, chocolate cake
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 15

Ingredients

  • 200 g semi-sweet chocolate
  • 110 g butter
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 cup whole grain spelt flour
  • 4 TBSP cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp vanilla seeds
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 60 g bittersweet chocolate chips
  • 60 g white chocolate chips
  • 1 cup sour cherries

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven at 175 °C. Butter the sides and the bottom of a 20×33 cm (8×12 inch) pan and line it with baking paper.
  2. Put the bittersweet chocolate and butter in a large bowl and set it over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted.
  3. Turn off the heat and add the sugar. Whisk until the sugar is completely combined, then remove from the saucepan and wait for the mixture to cool for about 10 minutes.
  4. Whisk in the eggs, one by one.
  5. Add vanilla bean powder, baking soda, salt, and a third of the flour to the chocolate mixture. Whisk well. Add the rest of the flour and whisk again until the mixture is smooth.
  6. Stir in the bittersweet chocolate chips.
  7. Pour the batter in the prepared pan and sour cherries. Don’t press them in.
  8. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the edges start to pull away from the sides of the pan. Keep in mind that it is better to slightly underbake than overbake brownies.
  9. When you take the brownies out of the oven sprinkle them with white chocolate chips. Here you can press in a little if you like.
  10. Wait for the brownies to cool completely, then lift them up together with the baking paper and cut them into 15 pieces.
  11. Store in a plastic wrap or air-tight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

For more Valentine’s day dessert ideas check my Coffee Pudding recipe.

Use Your Noodles - Triple Chocolate Sour Cherry Brownies

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Use Your Noodles - Triple Chocolate Sour Cherry Brownies

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cashew Cream Cheese Frosting

Looking forward to spring but also looking back to autumn with these moist pumpkin cupcakes topped with cream cheese frosting made of cashews. 

Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cashew Cream Cheese Frosting

Aaaah cupcakes!

And pumpkin!

And frosting!

… And crumbs!

I’m doing a second pumpkin recipe in a row. That’s because I had a big pumpkin waiting for me in the basement. My relatives from Croatia gave it to me to try it out. It is a big pumpkin with a blue-ish skin and a deep yellow-orange sweet meat. They call it Turkinja in Croatia. I’m a sucker for pumpkins with very sweet meat, so this one is going to the top of my list, right next to hokkaido pumpkin.

Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cashew Cream Cheese Frostin

We’re having pretty depressing days here. Like, really depressing. And these pretty pumpkin cupcakes are all gone. So I’ll be testing some new dessert recipes today, to cheer myself up. If you’re feeling down I suggest you start baking immediately!

Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cashew Cream Cheese Frostin

You’ll notice that I’m separating eggs, whipping eggwhites and adding them at the end. I’ve been using this technique for a long time now. The basic cupcake recipe has been handed down to me by my mother in law. An it has never failed me.

I’m a mess sometimes. I forget key ingredients so often. Unsalted bread is a constant at our house. Not to mention the cupcakes! I’ve made them without oil and even without baking soda. But since I’m whisking the eggwhites separately, this doesn’t really seem to be such a big a problem. They rise a bit more with the baking soda, but it’s not a drastic change.

If you prefer the easier version (wet ingredients together, dry ingredients together, no eggwhite whisking), do it! I haven’t done it, but I’m pretty sure it will turn out just fine. Let me know if you try that.

Use Your Noodles - Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cashew Cream Cheese Frostin

Tag #useyournoodles so I can see your beautiful UYN creations. Also, stay in touch on Facebook and Instagram or subscribe to get the recipes directly to your mailbox ♥

Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cashew Cream Cheese Frostin
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PUMPKIN CUPCAKES WITH CASHEW CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

Course Dessert
Keyword cream cheese frosting, cupcakes, muffins
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

PUMPKIN CUPCAKES

  • 2 cups whole grain spelt flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 4 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp allspice
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 4 eggs
  • 2/3 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup sunflower oil
  • 2 cups pumpkin puree
  • 2 TBSP lemon juice
  • pinch of salt

FROSTING

  • 2 cups pre-soaked cashews at least 5 hours
  • juice of 2 lemons
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 6 TBSP honey
  • 1-2 TBSP water

TOPPINGS

  • pumpkin seeds
  • lemon zest

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 170 °C.
  2. In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg using a whisk.
  3. In the bowl of the electric mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, blend together the egg yolks, sugar and sunflower oil on medium speed until well combined.
  4. Add pumpkin puree and lemon juice and blend again.
  5. Keep your mixer on medium speed and slowly add the flour mixture to the yolk mixture.
  6. In a separate bowl (using a clean whisk attachment or a hand mixer) whip egg whites and a pinch of salt until it is stiff.
  7. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the batter until well combined.
  8. Divide the batter among 12 paper-lined muffin cups, filling about 3/4 full.
  9. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 – 25 minutes, until the toothpick comes out clean.
  10. Cool in the baking pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
  11. To make the frosting, take cashews, lemon juice, salt, and honey and blend in a blender until it has a smooth cream-like texture. If necessary add 1 or 2 tablespoons of water.
  12. When the cupcakes have cooled completely frost them with the cashew cream cheese frosting and top with pumpkin seeds and lemon zest.

Notes

The smoothness of the frosting will actually depend on the quality of the blender you have. My blender is not top quality, so it’s quite difficult getting a perfectly smooth frosting

Also try this delicious pumpkin recipe:

Mini Pumpkin Pizzas

Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cashew Cream Cheese Frostin

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Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cashew Cream Cheese Frostin