Balsamic Tomato Bruschetta

Chicken and Thyme Penne

Roasted Tomato Soup

Mushroom Vols-au-Vents

Spinach and Cheese Triangles

I made these delicious triangles for a picnic and they were easy and tasted great. I always loved cheese and spinach triangles that came from the freezer, and these ones were very close. The only problem is that the filling wasn't as creamy and cheesy.

I could only find frozen spinach that came in 250g packages so I used that. Once all the liquid has been drained, it's weight decreased even more, but the ratio of spinach to cheese was just right.

The holidays are nearly over so I hope you enjoyed them, and see you soon!

Ultimate Mashed Potatoes

It is the holidays once again, and this time I plan on finishing all my work within the first few days so I can have the rest of the holidays off. I plan to, but most likely I will end up cramming on the last few days.

Moving on, I made mashed potatoes! I used to love mashed potatoes and gravy from KFC, but I detest KFC hence I don't get to eat much mashed potatoes. But I will in the future now that I have this recipe. Normally I would boil potatoes in water until it is soft, but this recipe uses chicken broth which adds a lot more flavour. The soften potatoes are then mashed with cream, butter, sour cream, bacon and chives - only I didn't have chives so I substituted with spring onions.



This was amazing and is far tastier than that KFC crap. I love bacon and it gives the mashed potatoes texture and flavour. The hardest and most tedious part of the recipe is peeling potatoes, but once you try a mouthful of mashed potato it all becomes worth it.

Have a great school holiday!

Teriyaki Chicken and Soba Noodle Salad

I made this salad for myself when I had a friend over. It was flavoursome and refreshing. The soba noodles were light and the vegetables were crisp. I made my own teriyaki marinade, but I recommend using store-bought which has much more flavour.

The chicken breasts I marinaded for many hours, which enhanced the flavour. The soba noodles were very easy to cook, and not much different to pasta. I didn't have beansprouts so I left those out. I had some trouble when I cooked the chicken though because the pan I used was too hot. I ended up steaming the chicken to prevent the outside from burning and the inside remaining raw.

The combination was unbelievable. It was sweet and salty and cool. I will definitely be making this when I am feeling hungry.

Caramelised Onion and Mozzarella Omelette

I wung this recipe when I was away from school. I was hungry for something salty, but I didn't have many interesting ingredients in the fridge or pantry. I did have half a bag of mozzarella cheese stored in the freezer, so I decided to use that.

First I caramelised half an onion. This is actually the most time-consuming part, but you do not have to do much work. I cracked a few eggs and mixed it with salt, pepper and water. Pour the eggs over the onions and cook. Sprinkle over some cheese, fold over and you're done. I was expecting this to be nice with the onions and cheese. It wasn't nice, it was mind-blowing.

The cheese was gooey and stringy, and the onion lent great flavour. Served this with a drizzle of tomato sauce and you have one of easiest but most delicious lunches out there. You should serve this with an undressed salad of lettuce and tomatoes.

Penne alla Boscaiola

Heh, who knew having an eye infection for three days can give me time to cook loads of yummy food.

I was feeling hungry yesterday and I looked in the fridge, then the pantry, then back at the fridge. I had bacon, mushrooms, cream and some other vegetables. I decided on pasta, which seemed the easiest way to go. I boiled some Penne, and made half a batch of Boscaiola sauce to top it with.

Boscaiola sauce is made with bacon, mushrooms, onions, parsley and cream. This sauce was quick and tasty. I think I used the wrong type of mushroom, though. Oh well, most mushrooms taste the same anyway.

I think I am really getting the hang of cooking pasta. This recipe is a keeper.

Chicken and Corn Soup

Whenever I go to an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, there will always be Chicken and Corn Soup. I always loved this soup, but knew it contained many preservatives and artificial flavours. I was browsing through a cookbook, when I found a recipe for Chicken and Corn Soup, so I decided to try it out.

I realised, after I had started, that I did not have enough chicken stock, so I made up the volume with chicken broth, which has less gelatine, but still has good chicken flavour. Make sure you do not do what I did and mix one tablespoon of cornflour with 3 tablespoons water, when you're supposed to mix 3 tablespoons of cornflour with 1 tablespoon of water. This caused the soup to be very thin, when the desired consistency is very thick.

Despite the soup being thin, I still loved this. I will definitely be making this again.

Shepherd's Pie

This is a recipe that I have made a while ago. I didn't feel like posting it because it wasn't very successful. The mashed potato was too salty, and the filling was a bit greasy. I'm posting it now because I have run out of things to post.

The reason this was so unsuccessful is partly because it lacked taste. While I added a ton of salt in the potatoes (causing it to become too salty), I omitted the Worcestershire sauce as well as the bay leaf. I baked it in individual ramekins, instead of a large bowl. The original recipe is probably delicious, and it was my fault this turned out so bad.

The good news is I am going to make something very exciting tomorrow. I'm not saying what it is, though it does involve sugar, alcohol and fire! See you guys soon.
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Garlic Crisps

I originally wanted to make garlic bread, but I did not have a baguette (or French loaf), so I had to make do with normal sliced white bread. because white bread is so much thinner than what garlic bread is normally, I am calling this 'Garlic Crisps'. I simply made a batch of garlic butter, and then spread it onto some sliced white bread, cut into triangles. I topped it with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, and toasted it in my sandwich press.

If you don't mind butter (ie. fat), this is delicious. If you love garlic bread, but hate that the flavour doesn't penetrate deep enough, try this. It's buttery garlicky goodness all the way through.
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Quiche Lorraine

I've made Quiche before, with vegetables, but never Quiche Lorraine. Quiche Lorraine doesn't have any vegetables except for onions, but some recipes don't have that either. It's just bacon, cream, cheese and eggs. Not at all nutritional, but oh so delicious.

I wanted to make this last week, but I don't know what I did wrong with the shortcrust pastry. I believe the fact that it shrunk whilst blind baking an unbelievable amount was due to me not resting it after lining the tin. They say you should always leave the pastry in the fridge for at least half and hour before, and after, lining the tart tin. The first time, I baked it straight after lining. This time the pastry still shrunk, but not as much. The filling leaked through the sides, which were cracked, but did not affect the taste or look of the Quiche too much.

I also planned on making an acidic salad, with orange segments and almonds, but I didn't have any lettuce left. The Quiche was tasty, but too greasy for my taste. All the bacon, cream and cheese put me off. If I had the salad to go with it, it would have been more enjoyable.

Creamy Chilli Prawns

My friends have been telling me that I say too much in my posts and nobody really reads them. I guess I am just so into food that I get carried away. So from now on, I will write minimally and let the food speak for itself.

I made another recipe from Simply Heaven, this time a recipe called 'Garlic and Chilli Prawns', using the new Cream for Cooking. It was very simple to make, only a few ingredients but, me being clumsy under pressure, forgot a key ingredient - garlic. I mean, it was there in the name! So because I left out the garlic, and because the dish was so deliciously creamy, I'm calling it 'Creamy Chilli Prawns'.

It was delicious nonetheless, but next time, when Cream for Cooking  is on sale, I shall try this recipe again with garlic. It feels really weird to say so little, but hopefully I'll get used to it.

Pumpkin Soup

Just a pre-message: I know (nearly) everyone who reads this blog, and most are from my school, but I still appreciate comments. I mean, here I am rambling on about some crap I made a few days ago and it feels like nobody's listening. If you read this blog please comment once in a while, even just to say hello, because it gets lonely here, and comments cheer me up. So if you read, please comment (and subscribe!).

I was excited about making something from Simply Heaven again, and this time it turned out far better than last time. The pumpkin soup had very clear flavours and it was very healthy. The only 'fat' in the soup was Philadelphia Spreadable Light Cream Cheese, which added richness and creaminess to the soup. Other recipes I found online used regular cream, which contains more fat than Philly, so the choice is obvious. I actually found the soup just a tiny bit too rich, and after eating (drinking?) a bowl of it, my throat got a bit itchy. My whole family loved though, which was surprising.

The absolute hardest part of making this soup is cutting the pumpkin. Definitely. It's not difficult, as such, but the amount of pumpkin you have to cut into wedges and scoop seeds out of is very large. A kilo is needed, which is about a whole pumpkin. I literally spent an hour preparing the pumpkin and cutting it into a rough dice. The pumpkin is then tossed in some olive oil, along with an onion and a head of garlic. It's then baked until tender, then boiled with 6 cups of stock. I shamefully admit that I use stock cubes, but they are just so cheap!

Next comes another tedious part - the processing. Normally, if you don't mind a chunky soup, you can skip processing and eat it as is. This doesn't apply to pumpkin soup because the pumpkin is so stringy that the texture is wrong, and looks unappetising. I don't have a food processor or a blender, so I have to use a 'Magic Bullet Blender' which only blends a bit at a time. All in all, I think I made about 10 trips to the 'blender' and back. The hard work pays off though, as the result is smooth and creamy, and delicious. The croutons are just slices of bread that I baked, cubed and baked again in the oven until crisp. It's very nice with the soup.

This was definitely a success, and I hope to make more of it in the future.

Recipe

Obtained from Simply Heaven, by Philadelphia

Serves 6.

1kg pumpkin, peeled and chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 head garlic, broken into cloves and peeled
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 cups chicken stock
250g Philadelphia Spreadable Light Cream Cheese
Salt and pepper, to taste
Parsley and croutons, for garnish

1. Toss the pumpkin, onion, and garlic in oil. Place on a lined oven tray and bake in a hot oven 200°C for 20-25 minutes or until tender.

2. Place roasted vegetables in a large saucepan with stock and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Blend or process the soup until smooth then return to the saucepan.

3. Whisk the Philly into the soup until smooth, simmer for a further 5 minutes until well heated. Season to taste then ladle into serving bowls and garnish with parsley. Serve immediately.

Guacamole

 While browsing through my copy of Simply Heaven, I remembered I had half a container of spreadable cream cheese leftover in the fridge. I began looking for a recipe which used spreadable cream cheese, and my eyes fell on Guacamole. I know it doesn't sound very exciting (even for those who know what it is), I was drawn more to the prawn fritters. Unfortunately I didn't have time to make the fritters, so I just made the Guacamole.

I realised, too late, that my avocados weren't very ripe. They were really hard and quite bland, but it was too late to turn back. Everything worked fine until I squeezed all the juice from a lemon into the mixture. It calls for one tablespoon, and somehow I think a whole lemon has much more juice. It tasted very sour, so I ended up adding another avocado. The coriander and lemon juice totally overpower the avocado taste, but, surprising, my family loved it. Instead of (unhealthy) chips or nachos, I ripped up some Lebanese bread and toasted them in my sandwich press. Within minutes they crisped up and tasted excellent dipped in the guacamole.

I know this is another short post, but I haven't gotten into the cooking groove recently. I am definitely in a muffin mood, though, so get ready for high-calorie, chocolate-packed recipes. Oh, and for the record, I bought the square bowl just for shooting the guacamole in. Yeah, that's how much I'm dedicated to foodography.


Recipe

Obtained from Simply Heaven, by Philadelphia

Makes about 1 cup

125 grams Philadelphia Spreadable Light Cream Cheese
1 avocado, peeled and mashed
1/4 cup chopped coriander
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and pepper, to taste
Extra coriander for garnish


1. Combine the Philly, avocado, coriander, lemon rind, juice and seasonings. Spoon the dip into a serving bowl. Chill.

2. Garnish with coriander and serve.

Caramelised Onion and Goat Cheese Tartlets

Remember how I made a batch of goat cheese the other day? Well by itself, it tasted bland and I didn't quite like it. It's probably the fact that I've never tasted commercial goat cheese before, or goat milk for that matter. But why would I dive head-first into cheesemaking with goat cheese? Well it was to make Caramelised Onion and Goat Cheese Tartlets. I've searched online, and it seems only goat cheese goes well with caramelised onions in this recipe, so as to avoid paying more for commercial cheese, I made my own.

Cheesemaking involves heating milk to a boil and adding acid, like vinegar or lemon juice to it, to separate the curds and whey. Once separated, the mixture is poured into a colander lined with a cheesecloth (I just used a kitchen towel) and the whey is strained out. Depending on how dry you would like your cheese, you can tie the cloth up and let it drip for an hour to further extract the whey. In my opinion, goat cheese should not be overly dried.

Because I didn't know just how salty commercial cheese is, I was wary of adding salt. I add a teaspoon, tasted, added some more, tasted again. I seriously could not tell the difference. As much as I hate to say it, it really depends on your taste. I didn't add any herbs because I didn't have any on hand, but herbs would have added a nice touch.

The tartlets were okay, but the crust was too hard. I opted to make my own shortcrust pastry, but I didn't know what went wrong. It was extremely hard, and shrunk every time i rolled it out. They were placed into the fridge for 20 minutes and blind baked for 10 minutes. I made less than planned because the cases that were not in tartlet cases flattened into discs of thick pastry. I caramelised the onions, and they were delicious. Onions are my favourite vegetable when they are cooked, but I don't quite like them when they're raw. They make me cry too much. I topped each pastry case with a quinelle of caramelised onion, and a quinelle of goat cheese. They looked very cute. I brought them to a picnic with a bunch of friends, along with a batch of ham and pineapple pizza scrolls. Adults seemed to like the tartlets, but children seemed to stay away from them and took the scrolls instead.

Now that I have tried cheesemaking, I may make my cheeses from now on. With cheeses so expensive these days, people really should start making their own.


Recipe(s)

Goat Cheese

1 litre goat milk
1/8 cup lemon juice or vinegar
Salt and herbs
Candy thermometer (I had to use this because I didn't know when to take off the heat)
Cheesecloth, or a clean kitchen towel
Colander
Large bowl


1. Pour the milk into a large pot (Do not use aluminium) and heat on medium-low heat.

2. Heat milk to 180-190°F (82-87°C) and take off heat. Pour the lemon juice or vinegar into the milk and stir. Leave for 15-30 seconds to let the milk separate.

3. Place the colander over the large bowl and place the cheesecloth over the colander.

4. Carefully pour the milk into the colander and stir constantly.

5. Once most of the liquid has drained down into the bowl you can tie the corners of the cheesecloth together and attach to a stick, like a wooden spoon. Let hang over a bowl and let drip for 1-1.5 hours.

6. Remove the cheese from the cheesecloth and season with salt and herbs.

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Caramelised Onion and Goat Cheese Tartlets

Obtained here.

Makes about 20 tartlets.

2 tbsp olive oil

4 onions, thinly sliced

2 sprigs fresh thyme

Salt and freshly ground pepper

3 sheets shortcrust pastry

Butter

100g fresh goat's curd

1. Heat olive oil in a heavy-based pot. Add the onions and thyme and season with salt and pepper, cooking over medium heat and stirring frequently for 10-15 minutes.

2. The onions on the bottom should become quite dark but not burnt - when it darkens, remove from heat and allow to sit for 3 to 5 mins for the onions on top to sweat and soften those underneath.

3. Stir well, return to the heat and continue to cook for about 10 mins until the onions are completely soft and dark, golden brown, removing the pot from the heat occasionally to allow further softening. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

4. Preheat oven to 180°C.

5. Lay the pastry sheets out on the bench and cut into 5cm circles. Line buttered tartlet cases (you could also use muffin trays) with the pastry and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Bake blind for 10-12 minutes or until golden. Set aside to cool.

6.Spoon equal amounts of caramelised onion and fresh goat's curd into cases and serve.

Lebanese Bread Pizza

Alas, a savoury recipe!

I was at school last last friday and they were selling pizza for 2 dollars a slice. But they weren't ordinary pizzas with a thick, tough doughy base. No, they had a crispy thin base that broke off like Doritos. On top was some tomato pase, chicken pieces, onions, cheese and I think dried oregano. I drizzled mine with sweet chilli sauce, but I think I had forgotten how sweet sweet chilli sauce was. I could not taste anything but the sticky sweetness of the sauce, except for the occasional chicken piece. But the thin crispy base was enough to get me excited about making this pizza.

The problem with pizza recipes are that they tell you how to make your own pizza dough, and exactly what toppings to put on your base. I think the art of pizza is the fact that you can put almost anything on your pizza. So I have long given up searching for pizza recipes. I have one staple pizza dough recipe which came with my bread machine, and basically just top up with whatever we've got in the fridge. But since the base is premade (Lebanese bread), all  had to do was to get my mum to drive to the local store and buy some chicken and cheese.

I had read somewhere that you had to crisp the bread up first, then top, then bake. It said to grill on high for three minutes. Of all the five settings on my oven, I've only ever used one, conventional, so I was hesitant to try the grill setting. But I did, and I set it to the highest temperature and put 2 halves of bread on a foil-lined baking tray and put it in the oven. I then went to check the marinating chicken while my grandma sliced some onions. I can't cut onions because they make me cry alot. When the timer went off, it smelt like something had burnt, but I couldn't see because the light inside the oven went off. When I opened the door, I saw the bread was completely black and was on fire. As the smoke alarm went off, the tray was quickly rushed outside. We turned the fan on to let all the smoke come out.
 
All bakers have to have what they are baking catch on fire at least once. I'm glad I've had mine now, so it won't happen when I'm serving highly-anticipated guests at my restaurant in Paris. Hey, I've got dreams too!

Anyways, I ended up crisping the bread up in my sandwich press instead. I think it works better than the oven because it heats both sides of the bread evenly. I topped off each halve of bread with mushrooms, chicken marinated in BBQ sauce, onions, corn, Mozzarella and Tasty cheese, and dried oregano. Then I baked it in the oven once the smoke had gone. It was really good, but I wouldn't serve this to hungry workers, though. Now I know why you need such thick bases on pizzas - to be filling. There's just nothing there to eat, so I would only make it again for lunch or a snack.


Recipe

Note: This is only what I did. You can put whatever toppings you like.

Makes 4 slices of pizza

2 slices Lebanese bread, cut in half
150 grams dice chicken thighs
1/2 cup BBQ sauce or marinade
1/2 onion, sliced into rings
3/4 cup tomato paste or pasta sauce
1/2 cup corn kernels
1 cup Mozzarella cheese, grated
1 cup Tasty (cheddar) cheese, grated
Dried oregano


1. Place chicken pieces in a bowl and pour BBQ marinade on top. Stir to coat, and cover with cling wrap    and place in fridge. Marinade for 20 or more minutes.

2. Crisp up bread halves in sandwich maker or in a skillet, until hard.

3. Preheat oven to 200°C.

4. Briefly heat the chicken pieces in a pan until just cooked.

5. Divide tomato paste equally onto the bread. Divide onion, corn and chicken between the bread.

6. Top with cheese and oregano. Bake for 10-15 until cheese melts.

7. Eat immediately.