presto pesto

i cooked again! because i had to. well, because i felt like it.
or most probably because my brother dropped by on a Saturday night and he was too lazy to get takeout pizza LOL.

well anyway, i made this. as usual recipe came from one of those Tasty videos on Facebook.

Garlic Chicken Pesto Pasta

1 tablespoon oil
2 chicken breasts, sliced
2 tablespoons chopped garlic, chopped
½ tablespoon salt
½ tablespoon black pepper (i used white pepper)
¾ cup thickened cream (the recipe called for heavy cream but i dunno where the heck do i find that)
½ cup parmesan cheese
¼ cup pesto
3 cups penne pasta, cooked and drained
¾ cup cherry tomatoes, halved (the more the merrier)

1. Heat the oil in a pan. Combine the chicken, garlic, salt, and pepper, and cook until chicken is browned.

2. Mix in the heavy cream, parmesan cheese, and pesto, stirring until evenly combined.
3. Bring to a boil and cook for about five to seven minutes.
4. Toss in the pasta and cherry tomatoes, stirring until evenly coated.
5. To serve, sprinkle parmesan cheese and basil on top.

i substituted penne pasta with shell pasta because i wasn't really a fan of penne, but i didn't expect the shell pasta to be so huge when cooked. and i totally skipped step #5 because i served it directly from the pot bahahahhaha.

Dinara eats anything i make. my brother said it lacked some greens, but i didn't know what sort of greens i could add into the recipe. my brother-in-law enjoyed it but he sorta balked when i said i dumped in parmesan into the mix. he eats clean these days, lol. the husband as expected didn't like it, he's more of a bolognaise fan when it comes to pasta.

but nothing beats rice! on Sunday the husband lost his mind and ordered fish! he never eats fish. if he does, he'll only eat 1/18th of the fish, and guess who's the lucky person that gets to finish the remaining portion? =D~~~

ss19 favorite

the kitchen smokes

lately i've gotten a little hooked on watching those Tasty videos on Facebook. they make every single recipe soooo easy to make, you'd be a dum dum to not want to try at least one out haha. i actually did try out this one recipe: Spinach Dip Chicken Bombs last Saturday night, i had the ingredients at hand so i wanted to see if the recipe was doable for a idiot-cook like me. i only had one chicken breast though, being the picky eaters that they are i didn't know the kids would be interested as well. i had extra stuffing left over, so i promised Dinara i'd make her some more the next day.

i bought breadcrumbs at Cold Storage for rm4. just sayin'. i just wish Tesco carried asparagus (updated: dan2 after i wrote this, i found asparagus in Tesco. chee~!).

so on Sunday while debating between taking the kids for brunch at Double A Cafe and making my own lunch, i decided on the latter - jimat duit konon. (also, because the former didn't accept credit, haha).

dip dip dip!

Spinach Dip Chicken Bombs

Olive Oil (to fry)
Spinach
Salt + Pepper
220g Cream Cheese
Mozzarella
1 tbsp Garlic Powder
1 tbsp Cayenne (added for that extra taste)
Chicken Breast
Flour
2 Eggs
Breadcrumbs

1. Heat olive oil. Add spinach, season liberally with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring often, until spinach is wilted, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat.
2. Combine the cooked spinach, cream cheese, mozzarella, garlic powder and cayenne, and stir to combine.
3. Slice chicken breasts half crosswise. Cut a slit into the center of each half to make a pocket. Take a heaping spoonful of the spinach dip and stuff it into the pocket. Pinch the edges of the chicken closed.
4. Place the flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs into separate bowls. Roll the chicken into the flour, then the eggs, and finally dredge in breadcrumbs, making sure to coat all sides evenly. Repeat to bread the remaining chicken.
5. Heat oil and fry chicken until the breadcrumbs are golden brown, about 4-5 minutes per side.

ta-da!

made strawberry milkshake as well, everyone in the house seems to like it. to me it's simply less-sweeter from the McDonald's version (which is manis nak matiiii). i used to make this a lot after we got back from our Cameron Highlands trip, no surprise lol. i froze the strawberries in order to lengthen their life (thanks Aida for the tip!). also thanks to my ohsem Tefal BlendForce Maxi blender, i'm able to blend ICE haha.

i call this unhealthy because the ingredients involve: strawberries, ice cream, susu pekat, full cream milk, yogurt, ice and chia seeds (ahahahhahah to negate all the other ingredients konon LOL LOL)

unhealthy strawberry milkshake

made something else for Significant Other by simply throwing everything into the Happy Call, and added seasoning where appropriate. to soften the the potatoes and carrots, i boiled them in advance.

hmmm... sedap la pulak. i think the vege on the side tastes nicer because they absorb juice from the steak.

Mr. Pilot's lunch

i dunno about you, but i'm liking this chicken thingy. even my two elder kids managed to finish one piece each, and that's saying something (especially when there's vegetables involved). can't say much for Sophia, though. she'd be the most sibuks one to grab a piece, then go YUCK (Snoopy-style) when it enters her mouth *rolls eyes*.

oh yummmms

see my biggest fan? she took the biggest chicken piece of them all and finished it all by herself =D *proud mommy*

my happy eater

shakey's mojos

my husband is a big fan of Shakey's Mojos. i'm not sure if you've heard of them before, because i haven't, mainly because i was always a fan of Pizza Hut. well anyway, Mojos are simply fried potatoes mixed with some sort of secret seasoning that makes them simply awesome among the fans. go ahead, Google and see. you'd find a whole bunch of recipes on how to make them, but you'd have to experiment for yourself to see which one hits home.

i've tried making them quite awhile ago using some random recipe on the web, but i don't think it turned out quite the way the husband remembers it to be (i'm a fan of potato no more, especially after wolfing down so many of it during my first trimester with my third child).

recently he decided he wanted to have Mojos again (he's always looking for something to munch on while watching his favorite tv series T_T), so he handed me a recipe he found online and asked me to try it out and see, which required baking the potatoes first prior to frying. surprisingly, he likes how the potatoes turned out. i had to tweak it a little bit, because the recipe called for 6 big potatoes (takmo aku buat banyak2, nanti who gonna finish them??). so i'm jotting down here whatever i mixed into the seasoning below for future reference. i used local potatoes btw, i think if you use those russet ones or those bigger American ones, they'd taste even nicer? beats me =D.

Ingredients:

2 potatoes
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons thyme
1 teaspoon garlic powder

salt, to taste,
pepper, to taste
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
oil

Directions:

1. Rub olive oil onto the potatoes, wrap in foil and bake the potatoes at 200 C for about 50 mins or so, let cool.
2. Cut the potato into slices (how big you want them to be is up to you)
3. Heat oil.
4. Mix the flour, cayenne, paprika, thyme, garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste (adjust the seasonings to your liking, which i did. paprika wasn't called for in the recipe but my husband likes it spicy, so...)
5. Combine the milk and egg. Dip each potato slice into mixture then dredge thoroughly in the seasoned flour mixture (the recipe didn't call for egg either, but i thought it to be weird to not have egg to dip in =P).
6. Deep fry the potatoes without overcrowding, until crisp and golden.
7. Drain on paper towels and serve.
8. Season with more salt if you prefer your potatoes saltier lol lol but if you're health-conscious, then by all means skip this part.

homemade Mojos

ta-da! ok fine so maybe the photo doesn't look too appealing (i've lost my touch with taking awesome photography lately) but the taste was not bad, in my opinion lah. haha. the husband polished the bowl clean and later asked for more -____-.

oreo cheesecake

i made this while hubs was sleeping on Saturday evening. i had the mood to throw everything into a bowl, so this was what i came up with last Saturday.

thing is, i print screened the recipe on my phone and i didn't manage to capture the name of what i was trying to bake. smart eh? but no worries, the ingredients the recipe called for were readily available, i didn't have to struggle to prep anything, just throw everything into a bowl and shove it into the oven to bake. HAHA.

the base of the cake required crushed oreo cookies so i chucked a whole bunch into a ziplock bag and asked the kids to squash them into tiny pieces (come to think of it, i should've just blended them but where's the fun in that? lol). i lined the crushed oreo in an oven dish and chilled it in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. i'm not really sure whether the recipe was correct in stating only 2 spoonfuls of butter to mix with the oreo, because the base kept crumbling to smithereens post-bake (2 spoonfuls barely made a difference).

and the rest of the steps? dump everything into a big bowl - cream cheese, yogurt - sugar, flour, eggs - and blend away until it turns into cream. i got a little worried because the mixture never became thick even after mixing awhile with my hand blender (the last time i blended butter + eggs the mixture started resembling scrambled eggs). oh well, too late to be doing anything to save it, haha.

the mixture is then poured onto the oreo base and into the oven it goes for 40 minutes or so. it came out really weird looking as expected. being the impatient person that i am, i cut out a piece while it was still piping hot. it tasted weird too. HAHA.

refrigeration did the trick

i only realized later that the cake was supposed to be chilled before serving... to become oreo cheesecake! =D only then did it actually taste better than that first cut. the taste? not up to par with Secret Recipe lar. resipi cincai maa, what do you expect? =P~

Dinara loved it (she calls them cupcake), the maid cut it up into little pieces for Dinara to snack on whenever she felt hungry (which is all the time). Dayana only ate the top part of the cake, and left the bottom T___T.

cheesecake anatomy

soOooOo... until i decide to experiment again, toodles~!

choc chip cookie day

i made cookies last weekend. it was supposed to be a mom-kids project, but as usual i ended up doing everything on my own T__T. they wanted to help out but they succeeded in getting flour and sugar all over the kitchen floor, so i shooed them away. i tried calling them when it was about time to pour in the chocolate chips but they were already long gone. HAHA.

#mommydoeseverythingintheend

i guess i should just let them play with dough and cookie cutters next time, eh? they've been so happy the past few weeks playing with play dough (and leaving a trail of play dough-disaster in its wake oh i so hateeeeeee play dough #@#$*#&*$&$@#*@$!!)

#banplaydoughforlife

anyhoo, my friend posted her cookie recipe ingredients on instagram quite sometime ago so i thought i'd try it one day (of which has finally come hahahah). there's so many cookie recipe online you just don't know which one to try. since she's tried it and it turned out ok, i guess i really can't go wrong, eh? guess again.

#myovenistryingtosabotageme

i bugged my friend on whatsapp while i was mixing the ingredients together and insisted she hold my hand throughout HAHA.

so first step, mix all the dry ingredients together.

the dry ingredients

check.

next, mix the butter with the eggs and mix them together with a blender until they're blended well.

for the record, this is my first time using a hand blender. they started looking like scrambled eggs for a very long while.

scrambled eggs, anyone?

*quickly took to the phone and whataspped my friend*

lol

gave up and simply decided to add in the dry ingredients and hope for the best. i omitted the oatmeal from the recipe. my colleague made cookies with oatmeal once, but i didn't really fancy it.

it looked better. but everything was still lumpy. i didn't think that i had to spend A LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG TIME blending the ingredients together, my arm was already starting to ache just holding the hand blender. baking is fun at my mom's place - my mom has a stand blender, and i get two kulis (read: two sisters) to help out hahahah.

whisking away

#isokitchenaidpleasepleaseplease

once i decided that blending was enough, i added vanilla essence and folded in the the chocolate chips last. by this time the cookie batter seemed to look legit; no signs of it blowing up in my face =P =P. Sophia had fun licking the batter T__T.

chocolate chips added

i lined two baking trays with paper and scooped spoonfuls of dough onto the tray. i didn't know how big of a wallop i should put onto the tray but i did remember that i put too much once and it ended up expanding into a very HUGE cookie. i was able to make 16 cookies per tray at one time. so i popped them into the oven and waited until they turned brown.

batch number XX

the thing with the oven is, you need to judge how your oven works. in my case, 180 degrees for 8 minutes just doesn't cut it. my cookies turned brown much sooner than 8 minutes - the first few batches turned out hangit around the edges. i reduced the temperature and removed the cookies from the oven a bit earlier instead.

expanding... expanding...

they came out from the oven really soft but after cooling down on the rack, they hardened up. squee~!

someone asked me what happened to all the chocolate chips

Dinara enjoyed the cookies. but then again, she's a cookie monster. i asked Dayana if she wanted a cookie, you know what she answered? "em maybe next time!" #*$%$#*!@#@$ Significant Other wanted to know why the chocolate chips were so big T__T. the maid says they were too sweet.

ta-da! choc chip cookies

to me they tasted almost similar to femes emes cookies - you get that sweet aftertaste in your mouth after swallowing. but my cookies certainly looked nothing like them no matter how i tried. i tried experimenting with the cookie size, to get it to look more like those femes emes cookies, but they kept turning out looking flat and unflattering.

oh well. at least it turned out crunchy, which i like =D.

maggi goreng by the hands of a non-mamak

one night Significant Other bugged me to make him maggi goreng. my maggi goreng would be the Indomie brand, but he doesn't like that one. he prefers the mamak style maggi goreng.

so after consulting with Mister Gugel i came across this recipe from this blog. i'm posting this here so that i can refer back to it later on.

maggi goreng

ingredients:
1 packet of curry-flavored Maggi Mee
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 garlic clove, minced
3 cili padi
1 egg, beaten
3-4 stalks sawi, chopped
3 pre-fried tofu puffs, sliced (this i didn't have when i tried this out)

seasoning sauce:
1 packet of curry sachet (included with the noodles)
1 heaping teaspoon thick soy sauce
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
1-2 tablespoon chilli paste (i had no idea what this is, so i omitted this)
3 tablespoons water, to blend

steps:
1. Boil the noodles, blance in cold water, set aside.
2. Mix together all the ingredients for the seasoning sauce into a bowl.
3. Pour oil into pan and toss in the garlic and chillis. Stir-fry for a few seconds.
4. Add in the seasoning sauce.
5. Throw in the sawi and stir-fry for a minute, adding more water if you deem necessary.
6. Add in the noodles. Thoroughly fold in the noodles until coated with the dark seasoning sauce.
7. Add in the tofu puffs (again, i didn't have this lying around my fridge at the time)
8. Make a well in the center of the pan and pour in the beaten egg. Leave it to sizzle for 1 minute or so.
9. The egg should be a little charred on the botton. Scrape and mix the egg with the noodles.
10. Serve on a plate. You can add a bullseye to the dish like i did (egg-overload, i know) or garnish it with calamansi lime (i forgot what you call it in Malay).

i didn't take any photo of my masterpiece, mainly because Significant Other polished it off before i could even try it myself -_____-

mashi's ikan recipe

sup ikan. my friend made this. sedap woOoOoO =P. the recipe according to Mashi:

- tumis bawang merah 2 ulas, bawang putih 2 ulas + cincang halia 2 keping
- letak skali serai (ketuk sket) + kayu manis dlm 2 cm, bunga lawang 2 kelopak (bukan 2 kuntum), cengkih 2 bijik
- tumis sampai wangi
- dah naik bau baru tambah air
- add in carrots... once dah mendidih... put in the fish (ikan jenahak, siakap)
- letak garam secukup rasa + black pepper (ketuk sket kasi pecah)
- potong bawang besar seeloknya bawang kuning tu... campak je dlm kuali
- tunggu ikan masak

and there you have it. LOL.

duct tape

oh, that's what Dayana calls em - cupcakes i mean. DUCT TAPES. lol.
yesterday i made red bottom cupcakes. thanks to the recipe and the link Pah pasted on her blog. i wasn't that adventerous to try Pavlova yet so i decided to try something abit easier - red-bottom cuppies: a combination of Joy Of Baking's red velvet cupcakes and black-bottom cupcakes. squeee~!

i ammended the recipe for a couple of reasons:
- Pah mentioned that the chocolate cuppies that resulted from the recipe wasn't so nice, my mom also agreed that chocolate cake without the usual mix of butter and eggs would be less yummy
- i didn't want to add swirls on my cupcakes becaue they would spell messiness when eating and storing them. so i decided to bake the cream cheese together with the red velvet instead.

so yesterday evening i dragged my sister and Dayana to 'Yummies', a little bakery in Bangi. ramai gila orang dok membeli belah, sibuk nak buat kuih raya la tu @_@.

writing the recipe here for my reference (which is identical to Pah's):

Cream Cheese Filling:
8 ounces (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature (i used Philadelphia cheese)
1/3 cup (65 grams) granulated white sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Red Velvet cupcakes:
2 1/2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (15 grams) regular cocoa powder
1/2 cup (113 grams) butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence
*pre-combine 240ml fresh milk or evaporated milk + 1 tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice, mix together, wait for 10 minutes before use (or you can use Buttermilk!)
2 tablespoons liquid red food coloring
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Method:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and line muffin cups with paper liners.

Cream Cheese Filling:
- In your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth.
- Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla extract and beat until creamy and smooth.
- Set aside.

The Red Velvets:
- In a mixing bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder. Set aside.
- In bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter until soft (about 1-2 minutes). Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes).
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined.
- In a measuring cup whisk the pre-combined milk and vinegar with the red food coloring.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the pre-combined milk and vinegar to the butter mixture, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour.
- In a small cup combine the vinegar and baking soda. Allow the mixture to fizz and then quickly fold into the cake batter.
- Working quickly, spoon the batter into the paper cups until ½ or 2/3 full.
- Whallop abit of cream cheese on top of the red velvet mixture.
- Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 25 minutes, or until the cream cheese filling has set and the cupcakes feel springy to the touch (a toothpick inserted into the chocolate part of the cupcake will come out clean).

red velvet mixture, and cream cheese

into the oven they go

i bought small muffin cups so i ended up making 3 batches - 63 cuppies. i scooped in the red velvet, my sister whalloped the cream cheese, and my other sister naik atas tido sebab sakit perut. first batch turned out with the cream cheese looking a little bit tanned because i left it in the oven abit longer. second batch i experimented with less red velvet and more cream cheese, but the cuppies didn't rise all the way up (and summore we realized we were running low on cream cheese). the third batch was the best i guess, because i was quite generous with the red velvet so the cuppies rose to a pretty looking height.

first batch on the left (tanned haha), second batch on the right (too little RV)

the third batch. the best among the three LOL

we started out quite late because my dad had to set up the oven, so by the time we finished and cleaned up, it was 3am. oops. Dayana got bored and decided to sleep in front of the TV. for the record, she hasn't even bothered trying one of my cupcakes. hmmph.

norley wants to make blue-velvet for a change. my sister suggested green T_T.

taste-wise, not bad lah for first try. i was rather alarmed at the sight of the sugar quantity needed for the recipe, but it turned out ok lah. not as sweet as macarons, ugh. worksmanship sucks tho. for a private family party, boleh la lepas. mine doesn't look as nice as Pah's hahahah. takpe, janji sedap =D

budak bangun tgh2 malam buta cariek susu

pavlova

i first tasted pavlova at Serai, the Empire. i've been reading about pavlovas and macarons and red velvet reviews so i was tempted to try them. i've tasted red velvet only once, pavlova twice (from the same store, lol), and a couple of macs, including the one my friend Emi loves to bake (thanks Emi!). people kept saying the pavlova at Alexis is nice, tapi satu kerje i nak harung the traffic into KL just for a slice of cake. i think there's an Alexis in the Gardens though. are they the same?

one slice of pavlova costs about rm15 *cry* so after seeing my friend Rinie's post about how she managed to bake a pavlova (bake, not buy hahaha) i decided to bug her for the recipe. you know, just in case i get the aura to actually create one myself in the future. =P~~~

i have yet to try this on my own because i am mentally-challenged in the kitchen. so i'm jotting the recipe here so that i won't have to search hi n lo for it later. i hope that's ok.

Rinie gave me this link: Easy Recipe for Pavlova. they even have step by step directions with photos too.

Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Ingredients:
•4 large egg whites at room temperature
•1 cup of Castor sugar, also known as "Berry sugar"
•1 tsp of white vinegar
•1/2 Tbsp of cornstarch
•1/2 tsp of pure vanilla extract
•1/2 cups of whipping cream
•Fresh fruit such as strawberries, raspberries, kiwi fruit, passionfruit, bananas, blueberries
•1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

Preparation:
1.Preheat the oven to 275F (140C) and place the rack in middle of the oven. Line a baking tray with foil and draw a 7 inch circle on the foil with the blunt edge of a knife (don't tear the foil). Set aside.
2.In a clean, medium-sized metal bowl, beat the egg whites with a clean electric mixer on medium speed. Beat until the whites form soft peaks.
3.Gently sprinkle the sugar into the egg whites, one teaspoon at a time. Don't just lump the sugar in the bowl and never stop beating the eggs until you finish the sugar. Your egg whites should now be glossy stiff peaks.
4.Sprinkle the cornstarch and vinegar on the meringue and fold in gently with a plastic spatula. Add the vanilla and gently fold the mixture again.
5.Now gently spread the meringue in the circle on the foil to make a circular base. Make sure the edges of the meringue are slightly higher then the center so you have a very slight well in the middle.
6.Bake the meringue for about 1 hour and 15 minutes or until it goes a very pale, pinkish egg shell color.
7.Turn the oven off and leave the door slightly ajar to let the meringue cool completely. As the meringue cools, it will crack slightly.
8.Just before serving, take the meringue out of the oven and remove it gently from the foil and place on a plate.
9.Whip the cream with the vanilla extract until it forms peaks. Prepare the fruit by washing and slicing.
10.Gently spread the cream to the top of the meringue with a spatula and arrange the fruit on top.

also, my friend Fifie recently baked pavlova that looks totally scrumptious (she posted a pic in her FB) so i also couldn't resist jotting down her recipe =P.

Ingredients:
•4 egg whites
•1 1/4 cups white sugar
•1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•1 teaspoon lemon juice
•2 teaspoons cornstarch
•1 pint heavy cream
•6 kiwi, peeled and sliced

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Draw a 9 inch circle on the parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gradually add in the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat until thick and glossy. Overbeaten egg whites lose volume and deflate when folded into other ingredients. Be absolutely sure not a particle of grease or egg yolk gets into the whites. Gently fold in vanilla extract, lemon juice and cornstarch.
3. Spoon mixture inside the circle drawn on the parchment paper. Working from the center, spread mixture toward the outside edge, building edge slightly. This should leave a slight depression in the center.
4. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a wire rack.
5. In a small bowl beat heavy cream until stiff peaks form; set aside. Remove the paper, and place meringue on a flat serving plate. Fill the center of the meringue with whipped cream, sweetened if desired. Top whipped cream with kiwi fruit slices.

if i ever get around to doing it, i will let you know. hahaha.