Baked macaroni cheese

This is quite an awesome baked macaroni .

I followed this recipe 

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/macaroni-cheese-69

It is easy to do n I changed it slightly only.

Recipe

Ingredients 

Macaroni 250gm

1 block of cheddar cheese grated

1 packet of full cream milk - 250ml

Originally she used evaporated milk

1 egg instead of 2 eggs

Sprinkle of ground nutmeg 

Salt n pepper to taste

In addition - a few slices of luncheon meat diced

A few pcs of Swiss mushroom - remove stalk n cut into slices 

Cook the pasta with some salt 

Drain n keep warm inside the pot

While pasta is cooking, stirfry the luncheon meat n mushroom with some olive oil. Set aside.

Grate the cheese.

Keep a small bowl of cheese aside for topping.

Use the remainder cheese n mix with milk, egg,nutmeg, salt n pepper. 

Pour the cheese mix over the pasta.

Stir in the luncheon meat n mushrooms too.

Prepare a large baking dish.

Pour the mixture into the dish.

Top with the bowl of shredded cheese.

Preheat oven to 220 degree celcius.

Bake for 15-20 minutes till the topping is brown n mixture bubbling.

Fry the luncheon meat n mushroom

The cheese mixture n the bowl of grated cheese.

Before baking

After baking

Smells so wonderfully cheesy!

Happy baking!

Garlic Butter Prawns

These prawns were oven roasted using garlic butter. The recipe is from Deliaonline the link is here 

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/main-ingredient/fish-and-seafood/prawns/roasted-butterflied-tiger-prawns-in-garlic-butter.html

I only found it troublesome to remove all the shells and heads and the 'intestines ' of the tiger prawns.

I bought only 8 pcs and they came up to $8.44. I bought them from Sheng Shiong but you can purchase these at any wet market or supermarket. 

I omitted serving with parsley as I didn't purchase any fresh herbs, I used dried parsley for seasoning. 

Recipe was for 20 prawns but mine was only half portion 

Remove the head and the shell of prawns leaving the tail.

Slit the prawn on its back and remove the intestine.

Wash n dry with paper towels and set aside.

Prepare the seasoning

Crush 2 pcs of garlic

Use about 30 gm unsalted butter - softened

1/2 tbsp dried parsley ( use fresh if you have)

Grate 1/2 lemon zest and juice

Some salt and black pepper.

Mix all the above n apply to the prawns.

Place them on a buttered tray or baking dish.

Pre heat oven to 220 deg celcius. 

Place in top shelf and cook for 5 minutes if using a tray and 6-7 minutes if using the dish.

My prawns didn't spread out flat but sort of curled up 

Serve with lemon slices and sprinkled with parsley.

Enjoy!!

Pancakes recipe from Nigella Lawson

This pancake recipe is from Nigella Lawson and the texture is firmer - if you are looking for Happy Meal type you won't find it here but they still tastes great!

Kindly refer to this link

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/american-breakfast-pancakes-141

My children ate a few pieces and I added bananas to my portion.

What I want to improve on the next batch is to increase the sugar a bit more perhaps another half teaspoon sugar.

Recipe 

1 tbsp baking powder

1 pinch salt

1 tsp white sugar 

2 large eggs beaten

30 gms butter - I used unsalted - melted and cooled

300 ml milk

225 gms plain flour

1 teaspoon vanilla essence - additional 

Butter for frying ( I omitted)

Method

Put everything inside the blender and blend.

I did it the conventional way. I placed everything in a measuring jug and used my whisk.

Make sure the flour at the bottom get mixed in too.

Heat the non stick pan on low heat.

Pour the batter into the pan.

Mine are about 4 inches wide.

When you see the surface bubbling or blister, flip the pancake over and cook for another 2 minute or less.

If you want to make banana pancake, pour the batter onto the pan, then wait a few seconds, cut 4 thin slices of banana n place into the pancake.

Use slight pressure and push into the pancake.

When the bubbles appear, flip it over.

Cook it another 40 seconds or so. 

The bananas will be nicely caramelized.

My larger pancake 

Serve with maple syrup or some strawberry jam.

Today I replaced the butter with corn oil n the caster sugar with icing sugar and it worked as well.

Happy cooking!

Thin crust pizza recipe from Jamie Oliver

It has been a long while since I last made pizza. After tasting a thin crust pizza during an outing, I decided to try and make a thin crust pizza too.

After checking several internet recipes I found Jamie Oliver's recipe. As his recipe is for several pizzas , I halved the amount . Even so, the dough was enough for 4 pcs of 8 inch pizza.

I kept half a pizza for the next day for my breakfast. Just heated it up for a few minutes.

Oh, Jamie Oliver has a restaurant in Singapore at Vivo City. Jamie's Italian. I have to go and try the food there one day.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/basic-pizza/#cUJ6Ove3xbo6FTUS.97

Recipe for half portion

Yeast mixture

Active dried Yeast 1 sachet 7 gm

About 325ml lukewarm water

1 tablespoon caster sugar

Dough

400 gm bread flour

200 gm semolina flour

1/2 tbsp of fine salt

Method

Mix the flour and salt together in a big mixing bowl.

Mix the yeast ingredients in a bowl n stir with a fork. Cover the bowl. 

Let the mixture bubble. 

After a few minutes the mixture is ready.

Make a well in the flour mixture.

Pour the mixture into the well and use a fork to stir in the flour. 

When you can no longer stir the flour in, use your hands to knead

Please note I change to using bowl so I just knead inside the bowl. Original he used the workstation 

Knead for 10 minutes till the dough is elastic. I used only 5 minutes.

Place inside another clean greased bowl n cover with cling film.

After 45 minutes, remove half the dough n wrap in cling film n freeze for next use.

Divide the remaining dough into 2 balls . Flour them n wrap in cling film. Rest for 15 minutes.

Roll out the dough n place on greased pizza pan. 

Apply the sauce n toppings.

Bake at 250  deg celcius for 7-10 mins. I used only  200 deg celcius.

Yeast ready

Dough after 5 minutes kneading

After 42 minutes

The rolled dough

I put ham mushroom and pineapple

Topped with cheese

After baking

It was yummy and the crust is 

excellent!

I just did another pizza this time I used yellow capsicum with chicken ham and also wild rocket leaves with Perfect Italiano pizza plus cheese. The base from Prego fresh mushroom sauce.

Another yummy slice!

Raisin butter rice with cashew nuts

This is a simple rice tasty flavour and cooked over a stove in my pan.

http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/25247/rice-with-almonds-and-raisins

I followed the recipe above and changed the almonds to cashew nuts

Ingredients to use 

1 tbsp butter

1/3 cup finely chopped onions

1 cup uncooked rice ( I rinsed)

2 tablespoon raisins ( I used a mix of raisins)

1 n 1/2 cup chicken broth

Salt n pepper to taste 

1/4 cup of almonds ( I replaced with about 1 cup of cashew nuts - toasted)

Method

Melt the butter in the saucepan.

Sauté the onions n then add the rice, chicken broth, salt, pepper all at once.

When the broth boils, lower the heat to low and cover.

Observe for about 5 minutes n stir the rice a little and cover again.

Do it again in closer intervals.

This way the rice will not get burnt.

It only takes about 15 minutes to cook.

When all the liquid is absorbed your rice should be cooked. 

Stir in the cashew nuts.

Serve with a meat side dish if you prefer.

Water starts to bubble 

Dinner is served!

I did another bowl with almond flakes this time round.

Honey Cake

This light textured as spongy honey cake recipe is from Pooh's Yummy Cookbook.

It is a simple recipe using 5 ingredients.

Well, 6 if you include some butter to grease the cake tin.

Recipe

3 eggs

80 gm sugar ( I used caster sugar)

90 gm self raising flour

6 teaspoons of honey 

1 pinch of salt 

Method 

Prepare 2 mixing bowls

Separate the egg yolks from the whites into the bowls.

Add the sugar and honey into the yolks n use an electric beater n beat well 

Mix in the flour spoon by spoon - I beat in with the electric mixer

Wash clean your beaters n dry them

Add a pinch of salt into the egg whites and whisk until stiff

Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture

Preheat the oven to 180 deg celcius ( I used 170)

Grease a loaf tin or a round tin 

Pour into the cake tin and bake for 30 minutes 

I tented the cake with aluminum foil halfway at 15 minutes.

Remove and cook on wire rack.

Cut into 1 inch thickness n serve

Ingredients 

Egg yolk batter 

My girl helping to beat the egg whites until stiff

The yolks n the stiff white 

Before bake 

After bake 

Yummy honey cake!! You can't stop at one slice!

Dried Apricot Walnut Cake (eggless)

This is very fragrant and not so sweet. It is also eggless. I will not reduce any ingredients further as it will result in a very flat cake, I believe.I adapted this recipe from allrecipes Easy Raisin Cake. I have replaced with dried apricots n added milk. I used a smaller cake pan.

Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup of dried apricots - cut up

It is actually one packet of Harvest Fields dried apricot ( original 1 cup raisins)

1 & 1/2 cups water

90gm unsalted butter

1 & 3/4 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking soda 

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg 

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup caster sugar (original is 1 cup)

In addition I used 1/2 cup milk

Method

Put the apricot n water in pot. On the heat and let it boil 10 minutes.

Off the fire and add in the butter.

Stir till the butter melts and coats the  apricot.Let mixture cool 5 minutes.

Grease a 7 x 7 inch square pan.

Preheat oven to 175 deg celcius.

Now add all the rest of ingredients into the pot. Stir all together.

You may find it increasingly difficult towards the end.

After all the flour incorporated, spoon the mixture into the pan and level it.

Bake for about 25 minutes. 

When you smell the cake, use  a aluminum foil and tent the cake in case it browned too much.

After baking , let stand in pan 2-3 minutes and then remove and cool completely on a rack . 

Dried apricot

Added butter

Before bake

After bake 

The underside of the cake

Nice square cake

Ready to serve!

Chocolate Cookies

Crunchy chocolate cookies... Looks good right?

I even made 2 cookies and piped my children's names for them. They have eaten them up once the chocolate set.

I bought this recipe book from Popular bookshop yesterday and it contains 365 recipes by renowned chefs in the region. 

The cookies I just did is from a recipe inside the book by Patsie Cheong. Her cookies are covered fully with melted chocolate whereas I did mine differently.

This is how they look like.

Recipe

Ingredients A

125gm unsalted butter I used SCS

100 gm icing sugar

1 egg yolk

Ingredients B sifted

200 gm plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp cocoa powder - I used Hershey's

Ingredient C

100 gm cooking chocolate double boil till melted 

Decorations - can be m & ms, sugar grains, coloured sprinkles etc

Method

1. Put ingredients A into a mixing bowl n beat till creamy. Then add in the B mix n use a spatula to slowly stir into a dough.

2. Weigh it. I weighed my dough n is 440 gm. I divided it into 20 gm portions.

You can divide into smaller portions if you want yours to look like the original.

3. Line baking trays with baking paper or grease.

4. Form sticks with dough n place spaced apart on the tray as they will expand slightly.

5. Preheat oven to 180 deg celcius and bake for15 minutes.

6. I also made heart shape cookies with a cookie cutter.

7. Let the cookies cool before piping with melted chocolate. Use a piping bag.

8. Decorate as desired . I popped the tray into the fridge to let the chocolate harden. 

9. Take note for the chocolate to harden completely, you need I think at least 1-2 hours chilling.

To store the cookies I lined the box n layered with baking paper between the cookies. 

Ingredients used

The dough - easy to hold but when you press into shape do it on baking paper 

Each dough 20 gm

Stick shapes

Heart shapes

After baking 

I used Van Houten baking chocolate

Weigh 100 gm

Melted chocolate in piping bag and m & ms

Heart shape cookies 

Stick cookies

Enjoy them with your tea or milk. Happy baking!