Another year .. another book

I know I am totally behind in updating my blog. I have some photos but no mojo as yet :-( . The daily routine is catching up on me since the last couple of weeks as the girls started school. I am still struggling to get use to it but getting there *LOL*. I hope it is not too late for me to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Kinokuniya, one of my favourite book store is currently having a 20% storewide discount till end of this month for it's members. I usually do my stocking of recommended books during such sales. One of my very recent purchase which happened to be yesterday is this book. It was sitting pretty alone on one of the shelves and what caught my eye was the simple cover and illustrations. I like the recipes as it uses lots of whole wheat flour and honey - seems very healthy and wholesome. I am very happy as I just found out that it has very high review ratings at amazon. I can't wait to try some of the recipes and will update them in this blog (soon I hope) *LOL*

Easy Orange Cake

I had one orange sitting in my refrigerator for about a week or so. I wasn't in a mood to have fresh orange but decided to use it for a cake. So I came out with this easy orange cake. The original recipe was taken from KC but I modified it based on a suggestion by a member and I got this !

Ingredients
250g self raising flour, sifted
150g sugar
125g butter, softened
2 eggs (60g each with shell)
120ml water
1 medium orange (I used navel orange)

Method:
1. Boil orange with skin and all in a pot of water for about 40mins till the skin is soft and almost translucent (make sure that the orange is fully covered with water), remove and cool the orange
2. Cut the orange to remove the seeds and blend it, put aside
3. Beat butter and sugar till creamy
4. Add eggs, one at a time to beat till well blended
5. Add the orange pulp, mix it well
6. Add water to the bowl or container that was used to hold the orange pulp (I don't want the waste the leftover pulp), put aside
7. Fold in flour and gently mix it, followed by water and then the balance flour
8. Pour batter into a greased and lined 8 inch pan
9. Baked in a preheated oven at 180C for 40-45mins or till skewer comes out clean (bake at the lowest rack)
10.Let cake cool in the pan for about 5mins before turning it out on a cooling rack

Easy Baked Pasta .. the cheat way

My family just love pasta apart from pizza. Recently, I took the opportunity to use my new Le Creuset dutch oven which I purchased recently with this simple baked pasta. Like many of my other dinner, I 'cheat' using ready made sauces.

I got abit tired of just using the traditional sauce. So I decided to make it abit like lasagna but using pasta instead.

Here I used 2 kinds of sauces. One is the traditional spaghetti sauce (I used prego) and the other is actually cream soup but I added cheese to it.

The 2 main ingredients, but I used mushroom campbell's soup. It is the kind in sachets.

The following is how I did it but you can vary it by using bolognaise sauce and replace the pasta with lasagna.

Ingredients
1 package pasta of your choice (375g), boil till al-dente
1 large bottle pasta sauce of your choice
1 sachet campbell mushroom soup
1 Cup of water for the soup
3 slices cheddar cheese
mix of shredded mozarella and cheddar cheese

Method
1. Heat 1 cup of water in a pot and add soup, stir to blend the powder
2. Add cheese slices and stir till they melt, put aside
3. Pour cooked pasta into a casserole dish and our 3/4 of the pasta sauce and mix it till all the pasta are covered with the sauce
4. Pour the cheese sauce over the pasta and followed by the balance pasta sauce
5. Sprinkle shredded cheese generously covering the pasta
6. Bake in a preheated oven 190C for 30-40mins or till the top turns golden brown
7. Sprinkle with herbs if you want and serve it hot

Enjoy!