Teaser: Easy choclate cake recipe

Looks yummy doesn't it? Well you won't believe how easy it is to make. To view the recipe check out my other 2 blogs where I will post the recipe soon:

http://easybakingforthetimidsoul.blogspot.sg/ and

http://chocoholicsanoymous.blogspot.sg/

Good luck!



Spaghetti Bolognaise

I love this dish because it is the perfect dish that everyone enjoys, young or old. And it's a classic dish.

Ingredients:

2 tbsps olive oil

2 cloves of garlic crushed

1 large onion chopped

1 carrot chopped

2 sticks of celery chopped

500g mince beef/chicken

2 cups chicken/beef stock

1 1/2 cups red wine

2 x 425g can tomatoes, crushed and NOT drained

1 teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons choppd parsely

salt and pepper

500g spaghetti or tagliatelle

2 tbsps grated parmesan cheese

Method:

1) Heat the oil in a large pan and add onion, celery, carrots. Cook for 5 minutes till browned.

2) Add the mince meat and break it up with a fork as it cooks. Cook till it is browned. Add the stock, wine, undrained crushed tomatoes, sugar and parsely. 

3) Bring to boil and let simmer uncovered for 1 1/2 hours. Stir occassionally. Season with salt and pepper. Just before add pasta to a boiling pot of water with salt and cook will tender. Drain pasta. Serve sauce over pasta and sprinkle with cheese.

This sauce can be made a day ahead and stored in the fridge. It can also be used to layering a lasagne. So versatile!

Good luck!

Complete meal in pictures

I usually a cook a few dishes at the same time as part of a meal. I have posted the recipes seperately because not everyone will choose to cook all the items together. You can check out the following recipes from the side bar:

-Allrecipes baked cream cheese vegetables

-Chef at home gravy sauce

-Nigella Lawson's cornbread recipe

As for the chicken it was so simple to make I did not bother posting the recipe. All I did was marinate it with pepper, salt and maple syrup and roast at 180 degrees celcius till done.

Good luck!



Nigella Lawson's cornbread recipe

Everyone tends to think of cornbread as a Christmas dish, well at least they do here in Singapore. But I absolutely love making this because it is a great delicious side dish to have with roast chicken. Most people think it's main purpose is to be crumbled and stuffed into a bird as stuffing but warm out of the oven with butter melting on it, this is a piece of heaven. I change the recipe up by adding a handful of cranberries or chopped herbs if I want variety or extra flavour. But this tastes absolutely good on it's own.

Ingredients:
Butter for greasing a square 23cm tin
175g of cornmeal or polenta
125g plain flour
45g caster sugar
pinch of salt
1 tbsp baking powder
250ml full fat milk
1 egg
45g unsalted butter, melted and cool

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius.
2) Mix the cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder in a large bowl
3) Beat the milk, the egg, and cooled melted butter. Add the egg mix to the dry ingredients and mix.
4) Put in tin and bake for 15-20 minutes till the cornbread is slighly pulling away from the sides.

Spread with soft butter when warm and enjoy!

Good Luck!



Allrecipes Baked vegetables with cream cheese

I absolutely love this recipe because it is beyond yummy! And it is so easy. I chanced upon this recipe because I was searching the net looking for good ways to use the cream cheesee that was sitting in my fridge. And I saw this on Allrecipes.com. It is a great recipe to use up leftover cheese and is a great way to get the kids to eat their greens. I have switched the method a little but here is my spin on it.

Ingredients:

2 tbsps of melted butter
2 tbsps of plain flour
1 cup of milk
3 oz cream cheese
1 cup of cheddar cheese
Vegetables (that you intend to use. In my case I used carrots and broccoli. The recipe is enough for 6 portions so you can add 6 portions of vegetables)
Bread crumbs

Method:

1) Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celcius.  In a pan, heat the butter and add the flour. Stir to combine
2) Add the milk and stir to combine. Bring to a boil.
3) Stir until thick. Add cream cheese and blend till smooth.
4) Add the vegetables and turn the heat off.
5) Put the vetables and sauce in a baking tray. Mix the cheddar cheese and some bread crumbs and sprinkle over the vegetables.
6) Bake at 180 degrees celcius for 30 mins. Take out and sprinkle with more breadcrumbs and bake for another 15-20minutes

Good Luck!

Chef at home Roast chicken gravy

I usually have a different recipe that I use for roast chicken gravy but after watching this episode of Chef at Home I decided to give this recipe a try.
To be honest it's not a recipe I'm a fan of as it has very little flavor as it does not use the pan juices of the chicken. Also because of the cream everything tastes extremely mild. So this recipe works if you love mild flavors or if the roast chicken has been marinated with a really spicy rub.

Ingredients:
1 finely sliced onion
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup chicken stock
salt and pepper

Method:
1) Add oil in a pan (ok you have permission to use olive oil now) and fry the onions till they caramalise.
2) Add the wine, cream and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce till thick and creamy. Season with salt and pepper.

Good luck!



Lazy day sambal kangkong

(Ok please excuse the not so great picture but I had to snap it fast because everyone was clamouring to eat)

So this is a super simple dish to do when you are really pressed for time and need to make some vegatables really fast. And all this involves is 3 ingredients!

But before that you need to buy this from the supermarket:



This is the Taho brand of belachan chilli and it is one of the best brands out there simply because it is super spicy and hot. And I love my food spicy, spicy, spicy!! I have this with almost everything and it tastes amazing. It is really inexpensive at less than $2 a bottle and is available at NTUC.
Ok here is the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon of garlic
1 teaspoon of the chilli belachan
Kangkong. cleaned and chopped

Method:
1) Fry the garlic in oil (anything except olive oil please), add the belachan chilli and the kangkong and cook till kangkong is wilted. Tada!

See  told you it was super simple!

Good luck!

Ms Foodie

Lazy day Panang chicken curry

Ok this post is 2 weeks overdue because I fell so sick and was unable to post. It may be hard to recall but a few weeks ago we were having showers and heavy rains everyday (Sigh. Where have those days gone?) As a result I spent a whole weekend indoors lazing around. However, lazing around still means I need to feed myself so I decided to do a little lazy cooking.

To me lazy cooking is just simple cooking that uses pre-mixes or ready made pastes or sauces that does not involve slaving to make pastes or sauces that may take over an hour to prepare. And it involves a minimal number of ingredients but serves up a yummy heart warming meal.

Now for the record this is panang curry not penang curry. Panang curry is a Thai curry and is absolutely delicious and simple to make, as long as you buy the paste from a Thai shop. In my case I bought the paste at Golden Mile shopping centre some time back. They last for over a year and can be used to serve up a delicious meal quickly. The paste looks like this:

I have bought several brands from before but I find the Mae Ploy brand is the tastiest (btw I am not being paid a single cent to endorse them) They also have amazing Musaman paste, green curry paste(which i buy tons of), red curry paste etc. So here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 Chinese spoonfuls of Panang curry paste
1 Onion, peeled and chopped
a handful of Kaffir lime leaves
300g of meat, usually chicken
3-4 chopped potatoes
1 can of evaporated milk or 2 kara packets coconut milk
Lemongrass(optional)

Method:

1) Fry the onion in some canola oil.(Please please do not use olive oil as this is an Asian dish and olive oil spoils the taste!) Add the lemongrass and a few (Not all!) kaffir lime leaves

2) Add the curry paste and fry till fragrant

3) Add the meat and potatoes and fry till all the meat and potatoes have sauce on them

4) Add the can of evaporated milk and bring to boil. Simmer and cook till meat is tender and potatoes are done.

Simple as that!

Good luck!

Ms Foodie