Chewy apricot banana muesli cookies

- Zaty.

The first and only time I had apricot cookies was many years ago, in NZ (a classmate offered it to me). She said it was vegetarian, which intrigued me, because I thought most baking required eggs. She said eggs can be substituted with bananas for many sweet desserts. Many years later (i.e. now) I have decided to experiment!

I used this as my base recipe. The tweaked recipe (below) has some changes and additions because I didn't have some ingredients and I felt like adding banana and rose flavoring which I had lying around, hihi.

This makes about 40 chewy 2-inch-sized cookies:

Ingredients

1. 1 cup brown sugar
2. 3/4 cup margarine, softened (I used 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup coconut oil)
3. 1 medium-sized banana, mashed
4. 2 tsp vanilla flavoring
5. 1 tsp rose flavoring
6. 1 Tbsp water
7. 2 1/2 cups muesli with raisins
8. 1 3/4 cup white flour
9. 1 tsp baking soda
10. 1/4 tsp salt
11. 1 cup dried apricot, finely chopped

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 180degC. 
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, margarine, banana, flavorings and water. Mix.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients into the bowl. Mix.
4. Scoop dough by rounded tablespoons and push with another spoon onto a baking tray lined with baking paper - about 2 inches between them. While waiting in between, place the mixing bowl in the fridge - this will make the cookies slightly crunchier.
5. Bake for about 8-9 minutes per batch.
6. After taken out of the oven, place cookies to cool on a tray. They'll be good to munch after a few minutes.

I've offered them to a number of people - my landlady, her hubby, my neighbor, my SO and his sibs... they all love it. I'm very happy with how these turned out :)

Filosirapture (vegetarian filo wraps)

so today i decided to play with filo because i haven't done any baking in a while.

first things first - what do i have in the pantry/fridge?

scanned and spotted:

a few just-ripe avocado, coconut oil, soy milk, cheese, choc chips, cherry tomatoes, fried garlic, mushroom stock, spices+herbs.

(there were other things obviously, but i decided not to use them because they would require defrosting etc.)

so i decided to make (various kinds of) avocado filo wraps. using filo straight from the freezer*. i made different batches - about 3 wraps per combo, eg. avocado+cheese, avocado+choc chips.

preparation time for ingredients: + 5 mins?
cooking time: at Gas 6, in the oven for 12 mins per batch

overall, it took me about an hour to prepare the things for and make these:

defo not the prettiest dish in the world, lol.

also - sweet sour chilli sauce ftw!

i'm not even going to try to explain how i made this hahaha. it's not a horrible experiment (by my standards), but i know i can do better if i was more prepared and didn't feel too rushed (people were coming over so i didn't want them to witness my potential culinary disaster lol).

i'll defo try this again in the near future, but with a few things in mind:

1. * don't use filo straight from the freezer. leave it in the fridge for a few hours to soften it a bit or else it'll get brittle and too flaky. not fun to clean up later.
2. if you want to use milk to 'moisten' the filo up a bit, leave it to the stage just right before it's going to be chucked into the oven.
3. filo is terribly plain, and so is avocado. definitely need to spice/herb it up a bit, or else you'll have to eat it with some kind of sauce at the end (which isn't too bad tbh, i eat my savory ones with sweet sour chilli sauce :D).
4. use fresh garlic next time
5. possible different ingredients to try in the future: mushrooms, capsicum, onions, leek, tuna, mince, tomato paste, oregano, chilli, oatmeal
6. what i found were good combos in filo
1. avocado+cheese+cumin
2. avocado+cheese+tomato
3. avocado+choc chips+soy milk+cinnamon powder

... yeah.

New look!

Welcome, new layout.

Hopefully this'll motivate me to update more often. :)

Vegan-friendly 5-minute choc cake in a mug

- zaty.


This is a modified version of the mug choc cake I tried a few years ago; this cake is less of a mess to make, uses basic ingredients, is vegan-friendy, and better for those on a diet (fewer calories, less sugar, less fat, smaller portion)! Basically, I omited the egg, substituted the milk with water, and changed the portions of some of the ingredients of the original recipe.

So I've done this a few of times in the past few months, and I like how it turns out, especially if I'm in dire need of a quick chocolatey treat. The result? Half a mug of choc cake -- just enough to satiate those sudden pangs of sweet goodness.

Equipment 

1. A normal-sized mug
2. A tablespoon
3. A microwave 

Ingredients

1. 4 Tb flour
2. 1 Tb white sugar
3. 1 Tb unsweetened cocoa powder 
4. 3 Tb choc chips
5. 3 Tb water *
6. 3 Tb oil **
7. Some flavoring:
1. if using liquid eg. vanilla, peppermint essence, 1Tb
2. if using powder form eg. cinnamon, 1tsp plus 1Tb water

* sometimes I add 1 Tb oatmeal powder to give the cake some texture
**  sometimes I mix coconut oil, butter, and/or vegetable oil

Directions  

1. Place dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa, choc chips) into the mug, mix well.
2. Add wet ingredients (water, oil, flavoring), mix until well-combined. This might take about a minute.
3. Place mug in microwave; nuke for 2mins 50sec in a 1000w microwave oven (or 4 mins for 700w). 
4. Take it out of the microwave, let it settle for a few moments, and dig in!

Best eaten fresh out of the oven when it's still soft and gooey; if you leave it for a while the cake might harden (it's not that bad, it just gets a bit a bit chunky/flaky after that, and I prefer my cakes soft).

You can also sprinkle some icing sugar at the top or have this with vanilla ice cream if you like :)

Enjoy ^___^

Super Simple Stacked Sandwich

- zaty.

after much experimenting with sandwich-making recently, i have found my fav. way to stack my sandwich so that stuff doesn't spill out/fall off so much.

the result = cleaner hands, mouth, plate, everything :D

must-haves:

1. 2 buns/slices of bread - go for those seedy, wholegrain ones. and toast them just a bit
2. salad leaves - the more colorful, the better
3. meat slice/egg/protein-ish slab - cook it if it's not cooked yet
4. cheese slice

steps

in order of appearance on the plate:

1. bottom bun/bread slice
2. salad, esp. leafy ones
3. onion slices, if needed
4. ready-to-eat patty/egg/salami/slab of protein
5. sauces, if needed
6. cheese slice
7. herbs/spices, if needed
8. top bun/bread slice.

i wish i took a pic of my sandwich just now. it was quite beautiful if i do say so myself.

that is all.

/procrastinationtimeover/