didally.com
Of Food and perhaps a little about me
Archive for October, 2007
October 30, 2007 at 6:00 pm · Filed under Bread, Recipes: Quick & Easy
Lazy brunch. How do you define lazy meals? It used to be instant noodles or packet lunch, and it’s always the same old stuffs, like chicken rice, laksa, fishball noodles, etc. Lazy meals to me would probably mean cooking with minimum fuss. There are days when you get sick of rice or noodles. That’s where you find other alternatives to get those carbohydrates you crave for.
During my usual grocery shopping, we saw packs of pita bread at the hams section and thought that we could make some really simple stuffed pita for brunch the next day. We grabbed a pack along with some bacons, fresh button mushrooms, bell peppers and green coral lettuce.
To prepare the stuffing for the pita bread, I just sautéed the bell peppers, mushroom and bacon with some olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper. I also prepared some green salad with the green coral lettuce and tomatoes to go with the stuffed pita bread. I toasted the pita bread before stuffing in the ingredients. You can stuff whatever you like, really. If you prefer not to cook at all, just open a can of tuna with mayonnaise to eat with the bread. It will be lovely to just roast some vegetables like bell peppers, aubergine to go with my bread. Healthy and all full of goodness.
As you can see, I made a silly mistake of cutting the bread at the top instead of halving it. Thus, the stuffing made an ugly slit on my pita bread. Haha… To get more crunch, I stuffed in some of my salad as well.
For readers who have been following my blog for some time, you might have noticed that I like adding bell peppers to my pasta or roasting them. Bingo to those who have guessed correctly. It’s partly because of my hamsters. I’ve sometimes run out of ideas on what to feed them. At times, they can get so fussy over the fresh food I give them. So I have to get creative. B complains that he gets the leftovers instead. Oh well…
Bell peppers have a crunchy texture, ranging from green, red to yellow. Yes, they resemble the traffic light colors when packed together. Although termed as the peppers family, bell peppers are not hot at all. In fact, they are also called sweet peppers. They are a good source of vitamin C, vitamin A, beta carotene and folic acid. Yellow and red bell pepper have more time to mature, thus they are sweeter compared to the green bell peppers, providing more vitamin A and C and are full of cancer-fighting carotenoids. I learnt this only when I start researching on bell peppers. Green, yellow and red peppers are the same, being the green ones are the least mature. When the green peppers get matured, they become yellow, and then to red, being the most matured ones.
Preparing Bell Peppers
To prepare the bell peppers, wash and scrub them well. Cut them lengthwise and remove the seeds from the inner cavity (including the white spongy parts). Cut them in any way you like, diced, juliennes or chunks.
How to select and store them
Choose peppers that are vivid in colours and without any bruises, taut skin and firm to the touch. Their stems should look fresh and green. You can store them in your vegetable compartment in the refrigerator for up to a week.
You can try adding chopped bell peppers to your appetizers or salads. Other than the beneficial nutrients, simply stir-fry them with chicken or pork to liven up your dish with their beautiful colours. You can even purée roasted peppers to make a soup.
Share with me what are your favourite lazy meals. I would love to hear them!
October 30, 2007 at 3:51 pm · Filed under Misc
An Award? I’ve received the Rockin’ Girl Blogger Award from Ovenhaven some time back. Thanks, girl for passing me this virtual award. It’s a little surprise when I saw my blog mentioned in her post about this award. Ovenhaven’s bakes always make me excited. They look so delicious and sometimes I wish I could eat them off the screen.
I’ve no idea where this blog award came about. Haha… but still I’m passing this award to these fellow bloggers whom I’ve been hooked up with. Most of whom I’ve not met before.
Camemberu – Love her recommendations on where to find nice food in Singapore. She always gives her honest opinions on what’s good and what’s yucky out there.
NoobCook – Her nice step-by-step illustrated pictures for her recipes. They’re clear and easy to follow. I am so tempted to start my own herb garden, after seeing how she makes use of her edible plants for cooking.
Muck-a-Muck – Her gorgeous food pics and recipes! Very nice food styling too.
October 20, 2007 at 3:24 am · Filed under Recipes: Baking, Family
Chocolate is another love of mine, especially dark bitter chocolate. I like the initial bitterness, ending with a slightly sweet note. Absolutely divine. As mentioned in my earlier posts, chocolates are perfect companions with fruits like strawberries, orange, bananas and even durians. They go well with peppermint and various sorts of nuts like hazelnuts, almonds, peanuts, walnuts, etc. I like to try out different types of desserts, unique flavors, like spiced cakes. But ultimately, when there’s a choice, I still want my comfort food. Chocolate-flavoured desserts.
Two months back, on National Day, I promised the girls to having a baking session at my house. They love chocolate too and so I went in search of a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe. I found this recipe at Kitchen Capers Forum. The reviews from the members are that they tasted quite like Famous Amos cookies. The most important factor is that it’s a fairly easy recipe for the girls to handle.
The 2 girls were fussing over how they want to get involved. In a situation where one niece is older, you tend to let her do more, while the younger one watched. Then the young one complained that why she didn’t get to pour the flour and crack the eggs. But I am glad that she’s an understanding little girl as I assured her that the fun time was in shaping the cookies. Both of them sure had a great time singing while shaping the cookies. This recipe is different from the previous ones we made at AC’s house. It’s consists of a drier batter, thus the need to shape the cookies. They did a fantastic job preparing the cookies for baking.
Their patience did paid off. They were so proud of themselves, exclaiming that the cookies were crunchy and super duper delicious. It was a great bonding session with them. Missed the great times with them before I moved out. I’ve promised them another session in the coming school holidays.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe by Connie from Kitchen Capers Forum
Yields about 40 small cookies
125g Butter
70g Castor sugar
70g Brown sugar
½ tsp Vanilla essence
1 Egg
260g Self-raising flour
130g Chocolate chips (Add more if you like more choc chips)
- Pre-heat oven to 180C.
- Sift the flour, set aside.
- Beat butter, essence and sugars using mixer until smooth.
- Add egg and beat until well combined.
- Stir in sifted flour and the remaining ingredients.
- Take rounded teaspoons of mixture and roll into balls.
- Place balls about 4cm apart on slightly greased oven trays or line with baking sheet.
- Bake in pre heated oven for 15 minutes or until browned.
- Cool in trays for short while and transfer to wire rack for cooling.
Cooking and baking is something I want to do with my own children in time to come, apart from the other standard children activities. I want them not to only eat, but to enjoy cooking the food they eat. It’s fun and you can train them to be independent at the same time. And they learn about measurement, judgment and patience. Patience will yield good results. I want my children to be able to whip up simple dishes like fried rice or noodles, fried eggs, salads or sandwiches. Really hope that I can achieve that in the future.
October 17, 2007 at 1:40 am · Filed under Recipes: Seafood
There are times where you just want to shop for a particular ingredient at the market, but ends up getting a whole lot more ingredients after some persistent persuasion by the stall uncles. So when I was buying the prawns, I couldn’t resist bringing some squids home.
I thought of making calamari but detest the idea of having to clean up the kitchen. A dual seafood combi stir-fry will be perfect. And I had better finish up the bottle of teriyaki sauce before it hits its expiry date. The end result is a simple and flavorful dish. I wish there was more rice. Haha..
Seafood tends to get cooked very fast, so try not to overcook them, as the flesh will get tough.
Stir-fry Squid & Prawns with Teriyaki Sauce
Serves 2
1 medium squid
6 prawns, medium-sized
1 tbsp teriyaki sauce
⅓ white onion, thickly sliced
3 chilli padi, sliced, seeds removed
1 tbsp soya sauce
½ tbsp hua teow wine
½ cooking oil
cornstarch water (for thickening gravy)
Preparing the prawns
Remove shells from the prawns. Butterfly them. To butterfly the prawns, turn each one on its back and, with the point of a sharp knife, make a cut down the centre of each prawn, but do not cut through. Pry open with your thumb like a book and remove the brownish-black vein, scraping it away with the point of the knife – it should also come away easily. Wash and pat them dry with kitchen towel.
Preparing the squid
Pull the head out. Remove the guts and soft bone. Peel the skin(thin purplish membrane). The skin should comes off easily as you pull them off. Cut open the body as it lays flat on the cutting board. At this stage, it might be visually gross because the squid ink will flow out. (You may reserve the squid ink, if you’re interested in making squid ink pasta. Lol)
Wash the squid thoroughly until it’s clean. Next, makes diagonal light cuts(do not cut through) on the squid, with each cuts 0.5cm apart. Then do the same in the opposite direction (intersecting with the previous cuts). This makes the squid looks nicer when cooked, as it will curled inwards and creating a nice pattern. I made mine too far apart, so it didn’t curled nicely. Wash and pat them dry with kitchen towel. Slice the squid into small pieces (approx. 4cm by 2cm).
However, if you prefer to have your squid rings, you do not need to cut open the body. Just slice them into rings. It’s just a different presentation.
- Marinate prawns and squids with teriyaki sauce, soya sauce and hua teow wine for about 1 hour in the fridge.
- To cook, heat pan with oil. Fry onions and chilli until the onions are slightly translucent.
- Add in the prawns and squids, together with the marinade. Keep frying for about 2 to 3 mins.
- Add the cornstarch water slowly while frying the prawns and squids. Approx. 2mins.
- Once the gravy thickens, remove pan from heat.
- Serve hot with rice.
Enjoy!
October 13, 2007 at 10:46 pm · Filed under Bakes
A few months just after our first baking session of the year, we had the second one. This time, we have little Chevelle joining us. I had fun playing with her. I found it rather amusing that we were busy baking in the kitchen and she was in the living room stuffing her mouth full of potato chips. Haha…
As usual, we planned a list of goodies we wanted to bake and head to the supermarket to shop for the baking stuffs. We wanted to take it easy this time, so it’s just muffins and cakes. Since we made orange chocolate chip muffins in the first session, I suggested making savoury muffins instead. So we decided on Bacon and Cheese muffins. AC suggested that we make Marshmallow Cake. And I am glad we did. It was delicious!
Fret not, if you noticed that this savoury muffin recipe calls for more liquid than dry ingredients. It’s not the typical muffin batter where it’s lumpy. I learnt from Gina(Kitchen Capers Forum) that this one has less butter(fat) content and is healthier. Muffins that are made from lumpy batter have to be cooled to room temperature before you eat them. Whereas, muffins(like this one) made from watery batter, enjoy them fresh out from the oven. Once cooled, they don’t taste good. We were worried because the batter was so watery, and added more flour than required. I got the tips from Gina only after we did the muffins. The muffin texture didn’t turn out great, but taste wise, it’s not bad. Something different for a change from the usual sweet muffins.
You can start your day with some Bacon & Cheese Muffins and a glass of milk. I think it’s great for breakfast or tea. You can make some extra muffins and keep them in the freezer. When needed, just heat them up in the toaster.
The Marshmallow cake was buttery, moist and very tasty indeed. And the colourful marshmallows make the cake so pretty looking. Recipe is from AC’s cookbook, so I won’t be posting the recipe here.
I am glad our friendship is going on strong and I wish we could still do this often in our years to come.
Bacon & Cheese Muffins
Recipe Asia Cuisine, from Gina Choong (Kitchen Capers Forum)
Makes 12 muffins
375g self-raising flour
200ml milk
125g cheddar cheese, diced
8 pcs streaky bacon, cut into smaller pieces
60g butter, melted
1 egg
50g light brown sugar
1. In a mixing bowl, add butter and sugar to mix. Add egg and milk to mix together.
2. Add flour to fold in gently. Add diced cheese, stir to mix evenly.
3. Add bacon pieces on top of the batter.
4. Baked in preheated oven 180C for 20 minutes. Serve warm.
