Friday, June 30, 2006

Another Bread Pizza

Another one of those days when I was just too lazy to cook and decided to have this for dinner. I also didn't want to waste the stewed tomatoes that I bought wrongly .. heh I couldn't remember why I bought it but I find it handy when one is lazy to do their own pizza sauce. It has celery, tomatoes and onion plus other things which I can't remember.

I used baguette which I bought from Delifrance for this.



pizza_bread



The stew tomatoes that I used

P04_large_stewed




Ingredients
1 baguette cut into 6
1 can stewed tomatoes (Hunt's)
Slices of honey baked chicken/turkey ham or you can use whatever meat you like
Parmesan or cheddar cheese (shredded)
Mozarella cheese (shredded)
Olive oil for brushing bread


Method
1. Brush olive oil on the edges of the bread
2. Spread stewed tomatoes - be generous
3. Sprinkle meat slices
4. Sprinkle parmesan/cheddar followed by mozarella cheese generously
5. Bake in preheated oven at 190C for about 15-20mins or cheese starts to melt
6. Sprinkle with italian dressing and serve hot

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Fried Kway Teow with Cockles

Another one I made for dinner a few days ago. My mother-in-law bought some fresh cockles for me but it was too little to cook it as a dish. So whipped this up.



kway_teow




As usual, this is based on estimation. The sauce you can add more if you like it stronger.

Ingredients
500g kway teow
100g beansprouts
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 large clove garlic, chopped
1 large fresh red chilli, thinly sliced
3-5 tbsp kicap manis
2 tbsp light soya sauce
fresh cockles (amount depends how much you like them)
2 stalks spring onions
3 tbsp oil

Method
1. Heat oil in wok
2. Add onions to fry, once translucent, add chopped garlic and chilli
3. Once fragrant, add kway teow followed by the soya sauces
4. Stir till well combined
5. Add beansprouts and spring onions
6. Add fresh cockles and stir the kway teow for about 2-3 minutes till they are cooked
7. Serve hot with pickled green chilli

Tiramisu

I have been thinking of making tiramisu for the longest time and finally took the opportunity of Father's Day last Sunday to make one for dearest hubby. My version is a non-booze version since I can't take alcohol but to add a taste of so called booze, you can put a bit of Rum essence to the syrup mixture if you like.

This recipe is a combination of a few recipes that I combined and fortunately it came out pretty good. This is a rather heavy dessert, so weight watchers, eat it sparingly .. hehe


A slice of the cake
tiramisu2


This recipe yields a small, slightly tall cake. I didn't realise that I ran out of instant coffee until I was preparing the syrup. So no choice, I used Old Town hazelnut coffee mix which came out just nice for me as it was also not too strong for the girls.

Ingredients
12 sponge fingers
250g mascarpone cheese (you can replace with cream cheese if you like)
50g cream cheese
300g dairy whipping cream
2oz sugar
1 egg yolk
Cocoa powder for dusting

Syrup
100-150ml boiling water
50g sugar
4 Tbsp instant coffee
1/2 - 1 tsp Rum essence (optional)

(I used 100ml boiling water with 1 packet Old Town Hazelnut Coffee mix)


Method
1. Mix the all the syrup ingredient and put it aside
2. Place yolk and sugar in a bowl over a pot of a little boiling water and whisk it till it turns lemony yellow (The boiling water should not be touching the base of the bowl)
3. Once egg yolk mixture turns lemony yellow, add cream cheese and mix it well followed by mascarpone cheese
4. In a clean bowl, whip the whipping cream till stiff (do not overbeat as it will curdle)
5. Mix cheese mixture into the whipped cream and mix it gently
6. Assemble the cake by soaking the fingers into the syrup and arrange it at the bottom of the pan, dust with some cocoa
7. Pour half of the cheese mixture on top making sure that the fingers are covered well
8. Lay the balance soaked fingers on top of the cream mixture and dust with cocoa and pour the balance onto the fingers
9. Level the top with the spoon and dust it with cocoa
10. Refrigerate overnight before serving

Monday, June 19, 2006

Chicken Tomato Curry

I was feeling a little better after my first trimester and was sort of craving for roti kirai/roti renjis/roti jala (all are the same). So made it and have it with this simple chicken tomato curry. It is a simple recipe, mostly by estimation. You can add other ingredients like curry leaves or replace milk with yoghurt or omit it if you don't like. Throw in one or two slit green chilli would be nice too.


chic_tomato



Had it with this
roti_jala


Ingredients
5 chicken pcs
3 medium potatoes, cut into quarters
half tin of peeled tomatoes with the juice
1 cinnamon stick
3-5 cloves
3-5 cardamon pods
2 star aniseed
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp cummin seeds
1 large onion, sliced
2 tbsp garlic paste
2 tbsp ginger paste
4 heapful tbsp meat curry powder, add a bit of water to become a paste
water
milk (optional)

Method
1. Fry the cinnamon stick, cloves, cardamon pods, star aniseed, fennel and cumin till fragrant.
2. Add sliced onions and fry till translucent then add the chicken pcs followed by ginger and garlic paste. Stir till fragrant and add tomatoes and followed by curry powder.
3. Continue stirring till the chicken is 3/4 cooked. Add water 1 cup at a time - how much depends how thick or thin you like the gravy. Lastly add the potatoes till cooked. You can add milk if you want to have a slightly thicker consistency.
4. Add salt to taste.