Images Vegemite Beef and Broccoli Sandwich

And then there are days I just don't know what I'm doing in the kitchen really. I'll be going, "Gosh, I'm hungry. I need sustenance." (a word I picked from up from Thor).

I should have just reached out for quick bread and jam, but when one is moved by the belly, one ends up complicating things with oo-I-should-add-this and oo-I should-add-that.

And then I take a step back and whoaa..what IS this!

..That's precisely how I landed myself with this beef and broccoli sandwich.

The Mega Broccoli and Beef Sandwich

This is the recipe, in the simplest form, because it wasn't something I planned with pen and paper.

I stir-fried onions and beef slices, and cooked it with a dollop of vegemite. Then, I felt guilty about it all being meat with no greens, so I boiled some broccoli florets to make it a balanced meal.

.....BUT broccoli on its own felt like a weird combination. I decided to fry it in egg, seasoned with a wee bit of salt and pepper.

Then, I toasted two slices of sandwich bread, spread the beef on it, followed by the broccoli and voila! Lunch finally gets served. I look at the time and slap my forehead.

Vegemite Beef

Broccoli fried in egg

Vegemite Beef and Broccoli Sandwich

Images Baked Mandarin Orange Chicken with Buttered Potatoes and Apples

Baked Mandarin Orange Chicken with Buttered Potatoes and Apples

Distributing mandarin oranges to friends and family during the Lunar New Year is an age-old practice for people with Chinese roots in my homeland. I received my fair share during the festive season. That said, this is a long overdue blog post, at least two months behind schedule!

Aaah..anyway, back to the oranges. I wish I could have eaten it all as is, peeled fresh and just out of the fridge, but there was more than this household could handle with two boxes in keeping. So, I did what I could to clear it off quicker - I decided to cook it. And this is really yummy stuff although it's a simple recipe! Then again, when it comes to food, I've rarely ever said yuck.

I didn't mess the flavour with too much seasoning. I felt the juice from the orange would be sufficient to pass for delicious and it did.

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken drumsticks
- 2 potatoes (sliced thin, not all the way through)
- 2 red apples (sliced)
- 2 medium red onions (quartered)
- 3 mandarin oranges (Peel skin off from the segments of two oranges. Squeeze the juice out from one)
- 1 tbsp salted butter (softened)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Cooking oil

How-to:
1) Season chicken with a little bit of salt, pepper and some mandarin orange juice.

2) Place the chicken on a lightly oiled baking tray. Add onions, orange segments and the remainder of the orange juice to create the yummy gravy. Sprinkle on a wee bit of salt and pepper.

3) Spread butter onto apples and potatoes. Place in a separate baking tray (also lightly oiled).

4) Bake for about 45 minutes at 175C. Baking time differs. You're done once the chicken is cooked and the potatoes are tender.

I garnished mine with some chopped celery leaves.
 

In the oven - Chicken with mandarin oranges

Baked Chicken and Mandarin Oranges

Images Spaghetti Chicken (Simple Style)

I have a friend who had continued his tertiary education in Rome, Italy a few years ago. And I remembered every time when he comes back for his annual holidays and even in his emails, he would complained loudly about the food over in Rome - that's it's all pasta and pizza. As I'm a pasta lover, I told him, why don't we switch place - I don't mind having Italian's authentic pasta almost every day ... I sure won't complain ! ^_^

I never get bored with cooking and/or eating pasta. But I prefer to cook spaghetti over others as the members in my family are more receptive to it - maybe it resembles my very own Asian yellow noodles :)

Anyway, this home-made Spaghetti Chicken is quite straightforward. I use tomato sauce and tomato puree together instead of making a tomato concasse as my family members aren't really receptive to pure tangy tomato flavour - or else, no one will eat it. :)

Ingredients :

Sauce 

- 3 pieces of medium-size drumstick (without skin, de-bone and cut into smaller pieces)

- Tomato Sauce (about half a 500gm bottle)

- Tomato Puree (one and a half standard can)
- 1 carrot (big size)

- 1 or 2 fresh tomatoes 

- 2 medium size onions

- a few cloves of garlic (chopped)

- a few teaspoons of sugar - according to taste (optional)

- cooking oil

Pasta

- 500g of spaghetti (serves about 4 persons)

- 2 teaspoons of sea-salt

- some butter

- Parmesan cheese (grated or shredded)

- a bit of cooking/olive oil (optional)

How-to:

1) Parboil tomatoes (with skin), then dice it (after taking out the skin & seeds)

2) Parboil carrots & onions (both with skin peeled off), also dice it. 

3) Heat up pan with cooking oil, put in the chopped garlic, stir it until near brown.

4) Put in immediately the chicken drumstick pieces, stir-fry it until near cooked.

5) Add in the parboiled carrots, onions and tomato, continue stir-frying under medium heat. 

6) When the chicken meat is cooked, time to add in the tomato puree and tomato sauce.

7) Stir evenly until all ingredients are covered in the sauce, add in sugar.

8) Add some water if you need to create more gravy for your pasta, bring it to boil. 

9) On another stove, bring to boil a pot of water that is big enough to submerge the pasta. 

10) Add in the salt, then slowly dip in the uncooked spaghetti.

11) Add in a little cooking oil if you like, stirring the pasta occasionally thru out the cooking.

12) Let it boil until 10 to 20 mins, depending on whether you like it al-dente (firm) or soft.

13) Drain the pasta, and toss it in a bowl, mix/toss some butter into the cooked pasta.

14) Serve a portion of the spaghetti on a plate, add in the sauce & sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on it.

Options:

- If you can take the acidic/tangy tomato taste in the sauce, you can leave out the sugar or/and you can even add more of the tomato sauce.

- If you like 'firm bites' of onions, you can leave out the parboiling process.

- After adding water into the sauce, if you like, you may add a bit of corn flour to thicken the consistency of the sauce.

- You may not need to add in oil while cooking pasta, but for me I still think it does help in preventing the pasta from sticking together in a clump, plus I like that it glistens the texture of the pasta.

- Instead of Parmesan, you can use Mozarella ... but it wouldn't have the same pungent taste and aroma - which I favour. ^^ 

Images Spicy Apple Chicken

Spicy Apple Chicken with Snow Peas

An apple a day keeps the Doctor away, so they say. I think it's just one of mom's tricks to get us to eat our fruits .. seriously.

This is a really simple recipe, something I made the other day because I had one red apple left in the house and I wanted it gone before it starts to get all dry and wrinkly.

It's mildly sweet and spicy all in - not strongly flavoured. Check out the recipe below.

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken leg quarters (marinated with salt and 1 tsp meat curry powder)
- 1 red apple (roughly chopped)
- 1 clove garlic (roughly chopped)
- 1 medium onion (roughly chopped)
- 1½ tsp blended fresh red chili
- A pinch of dried rosemary
- A pinch of salt and pepper

How-to:
1) Bake chicken in a preheated oven (180c, approx. 45 minutes for me). Save the chicken juice.
 
2) For the sauce, blend apple, garlic and onion together (with a little water to get things moving), until fine.

3) Heat chicken juices in pan with the blended ingredients, rosemary and chili. Season with salt and pepper. Stir until the sauce is slightly thickened.

4) Coat baked chicken in the apple sauce. Serve with vegetables of your choice.

Baked Curry Chicken

Plate the Chilied Apple Chicken

Spicy Apple Chicken Garnished with Coriander

Images Vegetarian Minced Meat with Mango

Vegetarian Minced Meat with Mango

I had with me an unripe mango...well, not as ripe as I want it to be anyway.

So, I scoured the internet for a recipe and found one for Pork Mango Picadillo from Simply Recipes. It looked fabulous.
 
I didn't have a number of the ingredients on hand so I used whatever I could find in my kitchen. That's how I landed myself with a vegetarian dish. This is how I did it, but do check out the original recipe!

Ingredients:
- 1 slightly unripe mango (cubed)
- 1 large onion (sliced)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 6 baby cut carrots (sliced into threes)
- 4 cherry tomatoes (halved)
- 1 can meatless spaghetti minced sauce
- 4 tbsp tomato puree (from can)
- 1 tbsp blended fresh chilli
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground sweet cinnamon
- A pinch of salt and black pepper
- A pinch of dried rosemary
- Fresh coriander (chopped)
- 2 tbsp cooking oil

How-to:
1) Heat oil in electrical multi cooker. Add onions and garlic. Give it a quick stir-fry and let it brown a little.

2) Then, add carrots, tomatoes and tomato puree, chili, ground coriander and cinnamon. Stir well and simmer with some water until carrots are cooked.

3) Add meatless sauce. Season with black pepper and salt. Stir and once it begins to boil, add in the mango.

4) Leave it to cook for awhile. You're done when the mango is slightly tender.

5) Serve with rice and garnish with coriander.

What I got was a saltish, sour, spicy dish. That hint of sourness hits the tongue only when you bite into a piece of mango. I don't know about you but to me, this is a definite appetite booster!

Cooking carrots in a tomato based sauce

The "pretend" minced meat

In goes the mango

A perfect blend of sour, salty and spicy!

Images Shepherd's Pie - Cream Corn Style

Shepherd's Pie, also known as Cottage Pie, is probably one of the easiest pies to make. It's basically meat pie with a mashed potato crust on top. No flour based pastry required. Like! I know this isn't Facebook but I had to say it.

I was left with half a can of cream corn when I used half to make soup earlier. And I figured I should clear it off before it stays too long in the fridge. I have this habit of keeping too many things in there - waste not, being the motivation.

But I have been keeping track of my fridge hoarding activities! I contain it by making a conscious effort to include leftover cooking ingredients into the pot even though the recipe does not call for it. I've now come to realise that this is good practice and I don't need a bigger fridge after all.

Ingredients:
- 3 large potatoes (more or less, enough to cover the bowl/s, skinned)
- 1 tbsp salted butter
- 3 tbsp milk

- ½ can sweet corn cream style (425g can)
- 1 tbsp whole kernel corn (can)
- 200g minced beef
- 2 cloves garlic (chopped)
- 1 tbsp cooking cream
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- Pinch of salt and pepper

How-to:
Corn Filling
1) Heat cooking oil in pan. Add chopped garlic. Give it a quick stir-fry.
2) Once you can smell the garlicky aroma, pour in sweet cream corn, cooking cream, whole kernel corn and minced beef.
3) Stir until meat is cooked. Don't let it dry out, add water if necessary.
4) Season with salt and pepper and you're done.

Mashed Potato Top
1) Boil potatoes until tender. Then, mash until fine.
2) Stir in butter and milk.

To assemble, pour the filling into a baking dish (not too high - leave some space for the topping). Lay the mash potato on top or pipe it on (I used an icing bag). Bake until lightly browned which took me about 30 minutes at 180c.

Minced meat and corn in cream

Potato piped on - Into the oven it goes!

 

Mmmm..mmm..yum!

Nom nom nom

Images Mango Chicken

This is probably the yummiest dish I've ever made and I say this only because it is hard for me to resist the charm of the mango. Don't you just love 'em? I can understand people avoiding the Durian or Tarap but I'm pretty sure the mango is welcome in most homes!

When cooking with mangoes, I opt for simplicity. The mango provides a natural flavour that is so delicious that I try not to mess it up with too much seasoning. A pinch of salt and pepper is as far as I go.

Here's how I did this.

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken leg quarters
- 1 large sweet mango (diced, seeded)
- 3 cloves garlic (chopped)
- ½ tsp meat curry powder
- 1 bunch asparagus (about 20-30 spears)
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- Salt and pepper

How-to:
1) Marinate chicken with curry powder, salt and pepper. Bake at 180c for 45 minutes in the oven. Do not throw the chicken juice away.

2) Stir-fry asparagus in cooking oil with a bit of garlic and a pinch of salt. Leave aside.

3) To make the mango sauce - Pour chicken juice into pan. Stir-fry that with the remainder of the garlic. Add the mango. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook until the mango is slightly tender and starts to look like gravy.

4) Finally, assemble cooked asparagus on a plate. Lay the chicken on top and pour the gravy over. Voila!

Baked curried chicken

Assemble on plate - first asparagus, then the chicken, finally the sauce

Diced mango

Chicken juice, garlic and mango - the gravy

Images Egg and Mushrooms on Toast

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I'm no peanut butter and jam girl so making breakfast always requires a little more effort. You wouldn't want to be me if you're always rushing off for work early mornings.

Of course, there's always wonton noodles at that hawker stall round the corner or roti canai from my favourite mamak to save the day. How typically Asian of me!

My ideal b-r-e-a-k-f-a-s-t would be this:

A Toast to Captivating Breakfast

How I did it, roughly...

Ingredients:
- 1 piece of bread
- 1 medium red onion (sliced)
- 4 fresh white button mushrooms (sliced)
- 1 small egg
- 1 tsp oyster sauce
- 1 tsp dark sweet soy sauce
- Pinch of table salt and pepper
- Bacon bits (optional)
- Cooking oil

How-to:
1. Heat oil in cooking pan. Add onions and mushrooms. Add oyster sauce and sweet soy sauce (and a little water if too dry). Do a quick stir-fry, making sure all the ingredients are coated with sauce. Remove from pan and leave to cool.

2. Lightly toast bread in a toaster. Then, place it on a baking tray. Arrange cooked onions and mushroom in a circle on the toasted bread making a small wall, leaving space in the middle for the egg. Crack egg onto the middle of the toast.

3. Bake this in a pre-heated oven for about 10 minutes at 180C or less (I would watch the oven).

4. To serve, sprinkle salt and pepper on egg. I added bacon bits because I felt like having some.