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/

Honey Tomato Chicken

- Zaty.

I'm just so sick of my own cooking (and I'm sure Mr. M feels the same way) so yesterday I tried to make a modified version of "ayam masak merah" (ie. tomato chicken). This was inspired by this recipe; I adapted it to suit what I had around the house (I didn't have tomatoes and ginger, most importantly).

The taste was bit different from what I expected, I'm guessing 1/2 can of tomato puree was too much, so next time I use this recipe I'll use only a 1/3 or less. I had to add in a bit of boiling hot water to make the gravy less thick, and added in honey and soy sauce for extra flavor.

Anyway, here's the (fixed) version of what I made yesterday:

Ingredients (for 2 people)

• Group A - to 3/4 fry:
• 4 pieces of chicken nibbles
• turmeric powder
• Group B - to blend:
• 2 shallots
• 3 Tbsp dried chilli blend
• 1cm ginger (I was out of this so I used galanghal, but next time I'll make sure to use ginger)
• 3 pcs garlic
• 1 medium onion
• Group C - other stuff:
• 1/3 tin tomato puree
• 1 large Tbsp-full of honey
• 2 T soy sauce
• 1/2 tin of button mushrooms, sliced
• 1 small onion, cut into rings
• 1 cup frozen vege (peas, carrots, corn).
• sugar
• salt Optional: 1 cup boiled water
• Optional: 1 cup boiled water

Instructions

1. Clean and prepare chicken as appropriate (small pieces is easiest and fastest to cook). Toss the chicken pieces in a bowl and cover them completely with turmeric powder.
2. Heat up some oil in a pot, and fry turmeric-covered chicken until about 3/4 done. While waiting for this, blend everything in Group B - it doesn't have to be finely blended.
3. Take chicken pieces out and sautee the blended Group B ingredients till a fragrant smell rises.
4. Add in tomato puree, mixing well. Wait for a few minutes so that everything heats up well and the paste produces some oil (ie. until 'pecah minyak').
5. Add in soy sauce and honey as desired.
6. Add in sliced mushrooms, stir for a few minutes.
7. Place the previous chicken pieces back into the pot, stir well. 
8. Wait for the gravy to thicken, stirring the pot content every half a minute. Continue until sure that meat is cooked.
9. When gravy has thickened (might take about 10 mins), add in sugar, salt, peas etc. Wait for a few minutes, stirring constantly. 
10. When done, serve with rice (preferably tomato rice, but I ate it with plain rice).

Result

Will update with picture when my internet's not being annoying. :P

Have a nice day!

Quiches!

- z.

So there I was salivating while reading/viewing some food blogs where suddenly, upon cruising through some of their archives, an entry about quiche loaded before my eyes. It was then that I realised that I should probably start making some... before I lose too much liquid from my body. :P

And THUS, the search for easy-to-make Quiche recipes began!

I learnt that there were two ways of making quiche : one where you make the crust and contents separately, and the other where you just pretty much mix the whole thing up. Laziness would dictate that I do the latter, but seeing that I was out of self-raising flour which that one requires, I did the first one, which wasn't too bad to begin with. Later I saw a friend and got some self-raising flour from her, so I did the second recipe as well because I had way too much 'filling'. Much later, I used the excess of that (I told you I made way too much :P) for some pasta.

So let's make some Quiche already!

Quiche #1

The quintessential quiche, for me, is one that uses sour cream or 50% cream 50% milk.
...but to put it simply, I used neither in this first recipe...because I forgot, lol. So this is practically like an egg tart. A very savoury egg tart.

Next time I make these (which will probably be aaaaaaaaages away because they're so unhealthy with all that cheese and eggs, lol) I will :

• add cream (duh)
• add spinach (because I'm dumb and forgetful D:)
• add tomatoes (because I forgot again D: D: D:)
• make the crusts thinner :D
• use cheddar cheese 

Anyway, Here's the recipe I used for this one: ( My comments/alterations are in red. :) )

• Crust (recipe suggested by Afdzal, thank you!!) : from Recipezaar.
  
• Ingredients
• 1 cup flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup olive oil or canola oil - I used soya bean oil
  
• ¼ cup cold water - refrigerated is good
  
  
• Directions
• Mix flour and salt with fork. 
• Beat oil and water with whisk or fork to thicken.
• Pour into flour and mix with fork ~ I think it's perhaps easier to use my hands, so I did. However, if you do this, don't knead too much, and make sure to put it in the fridge for a few minutes.
  
• Press into 9" pie crust ~ I used a muffin tray, it works just as well
  
  
• Filling (found at Suite101)
  
• Ingredients:
• 1 cup shredded cheese ~ I used vegetarian edam. It tastes kinda funny before it's cooked, but the aftertaste pretty much disappears after it's cooked. It's also quite creamy, so it's got a nice texture to it after the quiche is done. 
• 1-1½ cups of whatever ~ I used:
• 1tbsp of finely chopped garlic
• 1tsp of ginger
• 2 cups meat:
• minced chicken (2 burger patties, mashed, actually =_=)
• 1 chopped chicken sausage 
• I realise that these processed meat products aren't as good as real lean meat, and aren't exactly healthy/conventional lol, but they're practical items to have around the kitchen.
• 1 big white onion
  
• 1 carrot
  
• 1 capsicum,
• ¼ cauliflower
• Salt to taste
• Blackpepper
• A pinch of oregano, basil, parsley 
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups heavy cream or half & half with milk ~ Didn't add this in x_x 
• ¾ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp nutmeg, ground ~ Didn't add this either, because I don't have any. And I think I might be allergic to it, for some reason. I substituted this with some basil, a little bit of oregano and some parsley. Because I kinda predicted that I was gonna screw up anyway since it's my first time, so might as well experiment, lol.
  
  
• Crust + Filling (also from Suite101)
  
•  Directions
• Sprinkle cheese evenly over the bottom of the crust. 
• Place veggies, meats and other additions on top of the cheese. ~ I separately cooked my filling first till about 75%, because I use meat and I tend to get paranoid about meat not being cooked well :P.
  
• Whisk together eggs, cream, salt and nutmeg in a medium size mixing bowl on medium speed.
• Carefully pour cream on top of veggies, etc. ~ Seriously, do this carefully or everything may spill out of the crusty bit like mine did. -_-
  
• Bake at 350degF/approx. 176.6degC for 45 minutes or until knife comes out clean.
• Let sit for 15 minutes before slicing. ~ Content IS hot when it's fresh from the oven. Or you'll get a burnt tongue *shifty eyes*
  
• Refrigerate leftovers.
  

And the result?

It doesn't taste that bad, I swear. x_x

~

Next, Quiche #2


Note for next time:

• USE BUTTER! =_= I keep skipping ingredients accidentally, sigh! (I'm terrible at following recipes...)

Recipe taken from Best Recipes. :)

• Ingredients:
• 4 eggs ~ Used probably 3 eggs...long story.
  
• 1½ cups milk ~ I used 2 cups by accident, sigh...
  
• 3 tbsp melted butter ~ I suppose oil would do?
  
• ½ cup self-raising flour ~ IMPORTANT! 
• 1 cup grated cheese ~ Haha I grated my thumb while doing this =_= - the ingredients were fine tho!
• 2 cups of whatever ~ See above 'whatever'
  
  
•  Directions: 
• Set oven to 180degC
• Whisk together thesefirst 4 ingredients (eggs, milk, butter, s-r flour)
• Fold in cheese and filling
• Pour the mixture above into a quiche pan  ~ I used a normal medium-sized square baking pan ... which is a lot thicker than a normal quiche pan (quiche pans tend to be wide but short).
  
• Bake for about 40 minutes ~Wait for about 10-15 minutes before serving
  

 Et voila:

This was right after I took it out from the oven, so the middle part is kinda bulging out.

To be honest, I prefer the taste of the 2nd quiche to the first, but then... I was silly enough to miss the milk of the 1st one, so I guess it's unfair to compare to begin with. Hehe.

As I've written above, due to the excess filling, I decided to make a pasta dish. Thus:

Pasta!

So that's just pasta (leftover elbows and spirals from previous cooking), about 250g, boiled (without the essentials : a tsp each of oil and salt, because, again, I forgot to add until they were done T_T), with other stuff. After sifting out the boiling water, I chucked the pasta into the pot with the extra filling. Then I twirled the whole combo around the pot with medium heat to let it mix. I added some salt, black pepper, oregano too. BecauseomgIloveoreganoomgitisawesome :P

And that's that. End of story, YAY! I can do other things now because this entry's done! :D :D :D

Hope I gave some ideas on how you can venture more in your cooking, or at least improve on. :)

sushi

- zaty.

how to make a sushi can be seen here : [click]

learn well, so that the batch of sushi you produce will not get screwed up.
like mine did :

i show you the pictures, folks, as a lesson.

patience pays off.

i was impatient, so i couldn't wait for things to heat up and then cool down and stay warm etc etc. and other than that, i basically didn't really note the measurements of each ingredients. the rice was too sticky, i used too much vinegar (it stank, but thank god the sushi didn't -___-), and i had NO idea how to roll it up, but too lazy to google it up. and the only thing i placed in the sushi was egg slices. uglily-cut egg slices. *evil laughs*

but wait, there's more.

and as horrorful as above looks, there's something even scarier.
oh yes. it gets worse.

behold...

MY GHASTLY ATTEMPT AT CALIFORNIA ROLLS! *le shock*

i SO cannot cook for a living. hahahah. XD

more shots to lose your appetite, if you so desire (scroll down pls) ;)

hahahaha. don't judge food by its cover. the above pathetic-attempts at sushi may look ugly, but they taste more horrible than they look. hihihi ;P

things i've cooked thus far, in WELLYLAND :)

- zaty.

stuff i cooked. ROFLOL. rawr. behold, my untalentedness XD

1. egg & mushroom fried rice:
didn't taste too bad. really. really!!!

2. 'maggi' goreng
more like indomee. wasn't too bad if i do say so myself. wahahahaha


3. cucur jagung
a sad attempt. too much corn, too little flour. LMAO.

4. 'maggi' basah with eggs
not 'sup' style. =P errr... ok la i guess.

updated at 9.30, 01/03/2008

5. veggie soup
potatoes, carrots and some torn-up seaweed sheets in (basically) garlic soup and plenty of black pepper powder. heheh

6. egg+brocolli+carrot+mushroom sandwich filling
eatable i guess. huhu

clearly i'm bored. and i'm hungry now. later. haha

Kerabu Mempelam [P]

- Zaty.

SO! This was made more then a couple of days ago by Ma, her very own recipe! ;P Sorry about the lateness, I couldn't/didn't find the time. Simply put, I was lazy =P

Alritey, onto the pictorial!

Needed:
Grater/slicer, knife (duh), onion, mangoes ('young' ones, which are more sour and not-so-soft), lime (squeezed), lime leaves, sugar, salt, chillies (preferably cili padi or the like).

*optional : anchovies, peanuts (both need to be fried)

The How-to's:

Set A : Mangoes - grate and slice finely

Set B : Peanuts - fry, if they haven't been fried yet.

Set C : Anchovies - fry well.

Set D : Lime - squeeze them and add sugar & salt to the juice. as for the leaves, slice finely.

Set E : Misc stuff - slices the chillies, serai (lemongrass) and onions.

Now combine all sets!
Note : only add more lime squeeze (not water!) if it's too dry - remember to add quite a lot of sugar to de-sour-ise the mangoes & lime.

End result:

Oishi~~~ ^______^ It's slightly hot, sour, sweet, tangy... YUM! It'll surely make food taste better =D

Mee Goreng

aka Fried Noodles =D

- Zaty.

So this here is taken from hookedonheat.com. Keeping it here for convenience purposes ;)

Ingredients
100 g rice noodles or vermicelli
2 cups finely sliced cabbage
1 cup bean sprouts
2 cloves minced garlic
¼ cup thinly sliced onion
1 tbsp curry powder
1 chopped tomato
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp chili powder
Salt, to taste
3 tbsp cooking oil

Method
1. Soak noodles in cold water for 20 minutes and drain.
2. Heat oil in a wok and tumis (sauté) garlic & onion over medium heat till onions become soft.
3. Add cabbage and bean sprouts and sauté for about 2 minutes.
4. Add curry powder, chopped tomatoes, chili powder and soy sauce, & continue to cook for another 2 minutes.
5. Add noodles and stir-fry until cooked - it's done!

Note : optional topping - crispy anchovies and eggs for extra flavoring ;P

Ends with:

Simple, ne?

Shepherd's Pie [P]

- Zaty.

So yesterday Ma made her long-awaited Shepherd's pie, a yummy one at that (heheh!). Onto the important stuff:

Ingredients
Beef (minced), potatoes (LOTS), cooking oil, carrots, peas, cauliflower, sweet soysauce, sugar, salt, pepper, ginger, garlic, chillies, onions, spices.

*not in picture : cooking oil
*makes for about 10 people ;P

Steps

Note : Set A needs to be prepared first, while waiting for A to boil, you can prepare the other ingredients

Set A : The topping (mashed potatoes)
1. Boil the peeled potatoes in a big pot, medium fire.
2. Put butter and/or oil and salt in the pot as well.
3. Leave it until it gets soft, work on set B while waiting.

Set B : The filling (meat & veggies base)

Stir well until it looks like thus:

While waiting for the filling to dry (90%), mashed the potatoes of Set A (should be soft by now) . Add butter, salt and some pepper if you like =):

Now, we let two become one ;)

By the powers combined, I give you.. Shepherd's pie!!

Now, baking time! Set the oven or whatever heating mechanism you use to about 175ºC for about 25 minutes or more, depending on the mashiness of the potatoes. When it's done, the color of the topping's surface will look like this:

The end result (drumrolls please) :

Sorry I couldn't resist taking some. :9

Bon apetit~ ^__^