Kafta with Pomegranate Molasses - AFF featuring West Asia

Decided to post up my final post of the year by participating in this month's AFF. In fact I have been procrastinating on recipe since 1st week of Dec haha! Anyways, I am glad I finally got it done and over with....and it was really delicious haha! So no regrets there for sure. :) In fact this is perfect timing to make this dish since poms are on sale and you will need at least 4 of those big fruits to extract a cup of the precious molasses for this dish.

Please pardon the qualities of my pictures as most of them are taken using my phone camera haha! Anyway, brown coloured food are usually harder to produce nicer shots. ;P There is basically two steps in making this dish, first is of course making the pom molasses is most of the tedious part is the reduction of the juice. So here is the recipe:

Pomegranate Molasses (makes 1 cup)
3 large pomegranates, yields about 500ml juice
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup caster sugar

• Place all the pomegranate seeds into a blender and zap at high speed for about 1-2minutes.
• Using a fine sieve, drain through all the pom juice and toss the pulp and seed.
• In a saucepan, add in all the pom juice, lemon juice and sugar. Set to medium fire and bring to a boil. Then lower the fire to low and let it cook down till it is thick, much like syrup consistency.
• Let cool completely and set aside for later use.
• 

 Kafta with Pomegranate molasses (Serves 2-3)

Ingredients:

200g minced beef

1 large onion

2 -3 sprigs fresh parsely

3 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp seasalt

1/2 tsp white pepper

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp bread crumbs

1/2 diced onion 

2-3 tbsp pomegranate molsses

• In the blender, add in onion, parsley, garlic and all of the seasoning. Once it blend till paste form, pour into a mixing bowl.
• Add the minced beef & bread crumbs into the mixing bowl and stir to combine paste with meat till uniform.
• Form about 1.5" balls from the meat mixture. Then chill if needed prior to cooking so that it will be more firm.
• In a large skillet, add about 1 tbsp of cooking oil over medium heat. Add the kafta balls and cook till golden brown. Add a couple tablespoons of water to steam cook if necessary.
• Remove the kafta balls from the skillet once cooked and add in the 1/2 diced onions and cook till soft.
• Return the cooked kafta balls into the skillet and 2-3 tablespoons of the pomegranate molasses.
• Toss and coat the meatballs with the molasses and dish up.Serve when it is still hot with steam rice.

I was really please when my two little ones love these meatballs! The meat was moist and tender and flavorful, yummy! Loving the slight tang the pom juice gave the meatballs, plus the spices wasn't overpowering at all...definitely a keeper around my household.

I am please to submit this month's  Asian Food Fest: West Asia hosted by Shannon from Just As Delish.

Signing off now and wishing everyone a wonderful new year! Promise I will post more often haha

Pumpkin Wholewheat Blueberry cake with Oatmeal Streusel

Feeling a little motivated to blog tonight, so I immediately got myself to work on it before the feeling fades away, haha! Been baking and cooking as often as I usually am, just lacking that "umph" to get me to seat down to type out all these. Anyways, tonight shall be an exception, at least I get this post up before the year 2013 ends. No worries, I will be blogging still, but taking my time and posting selective recipes. :)

Without further ado, here is the healthy cake which I concocted after reading several cookbooks over the last couple days. Pumpkin wholewheat blueberry cake topped with Oatmeal streusel. Frankly speaking, I am a sucker for anything with streusel, haha! Crunchy sweet and buttery altogether, what's not to like seriously! But mixing oatmeal into it....oh that's like goodness in a whole new level.:9 And I just love adding healthy stuff like pumpkin and wholewheat to my bakes. ;)

Ingredients: (Makes 9"x 12" rectangular pan, I chose to bake in mini loaf pans)
Streusel Topping:
150g all purpose flour
80g instant oat 
150g light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp salt
150g unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes

Pumpkin wholewheat blueberry cake:
100g cake flour
100g wholewheat flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
100g caster sugar
4 tbsp vegetable oil
125ml fresh milk 
125g peeled, steamed pumpkin and blended/mashed till smooth
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries(tossed in 1 tbsp flour)

• Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line with parchment the baking pan. 
• To make the Streusel: In a large bowl, mix together the flour, instant oat, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt together. Add in the cubed butter and rub in till well combined. Work the mixture with your fingertips to press into nice karge crumbs, set aside.
• To make the cake: Heat up the milk to almost bubble. Remove from heat, add in the pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil and mix well. Add in the egg, vanilla and stir well.
• Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and combine well. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and scatter with the blueberries that has been tossed in flour (prevent sticking) over the top of the batter.
• Then sprinkle evenly the streusel crumb evenly over the blueberries and cake batter. It will completely cover the whole top of the cake, it ok!
•  
• Bake and rotating at mid time through the baking time until the tester comes out clean and the streusel topping is golden brown, about 45 minutes.
• Remove from the oven to a cooling rack and let cool completely before removing from the pan.

So loving the golden pumpkin cake and I can't taste the wholewheat in it too! The juicy blueberries giving the cake a even more moist mouth feel. Plus the ever so yummy streusel oatmeal topping to complete the whole cake, too good! I am super please with the outcome of this cake, definitely a keeper. ;)
If you do try this out, do let me know by dropping me a comment or tag me in Instagram @ig_honeybeesweets . ;)

Have a good night guys! Gonna catch some Zzzz before the start of another busy day. ;)