My simple breakfast.

Truthfully if I don't have to rush to work so early in the morning, I prefer a simple breakfast. This is what I have been having daily growing up before leaving for school. I only started on cereals and milk when I was studying abroad. My breakfast diet changed drastically when I started work of course when stall food became accessible and choice became somewhat limited. Then there was no turning back as my usual simple diet became boring and unappetizing. Oily fried noodles, nasi lemak and the likes became the staple! Nowadays, once in a while I do go back to my old simple breakie like today, with no kids and hubby to cook for, I settle for the good old slices of toasts (wholemeal of course), slathered with margarine spread and slapped with some jammies, to be washed down with a cup of coffee. Simple yet divine, don't you think?

Waste not want not.

Here's what you should do when you find at least 3 overripe bananas on your kitchen counter:

Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
Line a muffin tin with paper cups.
Mash the bananas.
Add 125ml vegetable oil, followed by 2 eggs and 100g soft light brown sugar (I used caster sugar).
Mix 225grm plain flour, 1tsp bicarbonate of soda and 3 tbsp cocoa powder (sifted) with the oil and banana mixture, beating gently.
Finally spoon into prepared cups.

* Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes, by which time the muffins should be dark, rounded and peaking proudly out of the cups. Allow to cool slightly in their tin before removing to a wire rack.

** Recipe - Nigella's Kitchen

*** I also added a dash of vanilla essence and a handful of chocolate buttons.

Oh by the way - this is what you will get in the end ---> Chocolate Banana Muffins.

[notice that I didn't mention cake mixer? didn't need it! Uhuh, no excuse for not trying this.]

Rediscovering his interests.

Zarif has always been hooked on online computer games. Our old desktop is getting slower by the day and it really needs to be upgraded. However, he has been using the office laptop that I brought back. So hooked is he with the online games or any form of electronic games, that he gets really restless and almost all edgy when he doesn't get his hands on a computer/ tablet or even handphone games. I thought that is it, he his addicted already! Ever since returning the laptop, Zarif has slowly rediscovered his other interests. Besides reading, Zarif has rediscovered his other hobby... Lego. Perhaps I should not really hurry to get a new laptop or to upgrade the desktop huh? Perhaps...

If it's Curry night...

it usually means it's Chicken Curry.

and it usually means I wouldn't be cooking it!

Yeay.... off day, well not totally. I become more of the sous chef really. 

I must make sure that all ingredients are laid out, and I have to make sure that all things 

have been chopped by my assistant accordingly.

The executive chef shall then enter the kitchen to do his "thang"... to cook his Special Chicken Curry.

The sauteing of z shallots... with z right amount of spices.

 

Other ingredients all good to go.

Man at work.

Seriously cooking up a storm!

 

Just look at the amount of curry that went into the pot! 

Personally... I wouldn't use that much, that's why I've been banned from cooking chicken curry

 (and I am soooo upset! pfft!).

Taraaa... hubby's Chicken Curry... notice the feet! I shall reserve my thoughts on those!

Your cooking is just fab! How about learning another dish dear??? 

Ribs & Caesar Salad tonight.

For dinner tonight I decided to cook the ribs that we got from last weekend's Eid Al-Adha Korban. Just look at the size of the ribs! Unfortunately there were not much meat on it, but I decided to roast them anyhow.

Marinated with Smoky BBQ sauce, rosemary, black pepper and salt. 

Par boiled some potatoes and toss them together with the ribs in the oven. 

Found some leftover mushrooms and carrots in the fridge, added those to the roasting pan too.

 

As expected, the meat was very little, good thing I had some frozen baked pasta 

and broccoli soup as side dishes.

Oh, and I made Caesar Salad for the first time ever!

I totally love San Francisco Coffee's Caesar Salad (why SFC particularly?, well simply because it's in my office building and it's a quick take away for my late lunches after gym). I found romaine lettuce (or cos lettuce) at the supermarket this morning, so I decided to try the dressing recipe that I found online sometime last week. I thought it turned out well, at least the kids loved it.

Caesar Salad Dressing

Ingredients:

3/4 cup mayonnaise or less

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 clove of garlic minced (1 used 2 cloves)

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/2 C Parmesan Cheese ( I have no idea what this C meant, so  I just added as much as I liked the taste)

1 tbsp of milk ( I also added as much as it felt right)

I also added a couple of squirts of mustard and a dash of olive oil

Method:

Mix all ingredients together and I blitzed with my trusty hand blender. Chill before serving.

Serve the lettuce chilled too, and throw in some home made croutons in the end before serving. Divine!

Source: Cook.com

Croutons

Ingredients:

A few pieces of bread.

Remove crusts, but I find that it's wasteful to do so, leave it in if you don't mind crusts.

Spread with garlic infused olive oil before dicing.

Roast in the oven or pan-fry without oil.

Leave to cool before serving.

***********

So how did my family enjoy the meal?

Like this.

And this...

This one just loves to be photographed! 

Crunch time.

Next week is exam week in school, final year exams! So it's crunch weekend at home. Swimming lessons today has been cancelled so that the kids can start their revision early and have a whole day to focus, focus and focus.

Yesterday was not so bad.

Zarif spent sometime revising, finishing some exercise books.

Kakak decided to take a break first before actually sitting down for some serious revision.

Finally, she sat down and did some work.

Zaim busied himself with Disney Jr.com.

*********

Today however, motivation is at an all time low... sigh!

Is this a motivated pose?

How about this??? Errrkkk....

Hang in there kids, just one more week!

Mother's Day = Happy Birthday Mak

Finally, I'm back. Baking and blogging again.

Gosh, I missed this.

I have not been blogging for so long!!!

I have not been baking for sooooo long!!!

I started baking again yesterday, on what was acknowledged by my children as MY DAY, a.k.a Mother's Day. No worries, I know it's an unusual thing to be slogging in the kitchen on mother's day. Mummies are supposed to get time off, but this is what I love doing, so on Mother's day, this mummy did what she likes! Plus, I was baking for my mother who is celebrating her birthday today and who will be going for another round of chemo treatment today, of all days!!! So, it was a quick double batch of RVCs yesterday afternoon for mak.

Zaim helped with the sprinkling! My little elf.

A wee bit blurry, sorry. I managed to make enough for mak and my mother in law.

Happy birthday Mak, I love you loads. No amount of cupcakes or blog updates can repay your love, devotion and sacrifice for me and your grandchildren!!! We love you.

DIY frozen food.

I thought that I was already doing a great job by ensuring that my kids take packed food from home to school daily. Their normal packed food would be tuna sandwiches, the 60 cents buns, cheese sandwiches, chocolate spread sandwiches and their all time favourite next to the tuna sandwiches... nuggets!!! If I learned only one thing from the recent Bento workshop last month, it would be that nuggets and other processed meats are such a NO! NO! This is because it contains Nitrate that is essential to preserve meat products, which can cause CANCER!!! Errrkkkk!!! I'm not feeding my kids that!!!

Therefore, hubby and I have agreed that we should spend a little more time at least once a month to prepare our very own home made chicken nuggets for the kids to take to school. No more store bought nuggets.

So we bought the organic chicken from the wet market last Saturday, de-boned it and set out the items required to prepare home made chicken nuggets. Googled the recipe online, so here it is...

Main ingredient:

Chicken pieces cut into bite-sizes. Those smaller bits that has no shape whatsover becomes "popcorn chicken".

So prepare bowls like shown in picture above in the following order:

Flour - Egg - Breadcrumbs (these are homemade too! Just pan fry or oven bake your wholemeal toasts, cut into cubes and blitz to oblivion).

** Do add the flour with your favourite chicken spice (I used, what I already had in the kitchen which is Meat Curry Spices), and somes salt and pepper to season. Keep the salt moderate though eh.

Step by step method with pictures:

Pick the chicken pieces one at a time, roll in in the flour.

Do a quick egg wash.

And roll it in the breadcrumbs. After this point it gets messy and your fingers will resemble a nugget too!

I tried working with chopsticks, yeah okay not too bad but eventually I went back to using my fingers.

Wallaa, your chicken nuggets ready to be packed and freezed.

Since we have started the production line, we also prepared some beef patties for our weekday dinner.

What's in the beef pattie?

Minced beef, onions, spring onions, loads of black pepper, salt, egg (not too much), breadcrumbs and some parsley.

  

Hubby left the nuggets "line" and jumped into the beef pattie "line" cause he wants to be in control of the size of the beef pattie that he'd be consuming in the coming week. Fine with me. :-) So he rolled it like the above picture.

Then it is patted to be flattened.

To fit nicely into a container for freezing.

Since this is a belated entry, I managed to take some pictures of the beef patties being cooked and served.

Hot on the grille.

Can you find the hidden Mickey?

Served with salads, boiled broccoli and mashed potatoes (homemade of course).

Red Velvet Cupcakes

My 1st attempt was a cake, please click for recipe.

This time cupcakes!

I thing I nailed it this time.

Thanks to Nigella's wonderful recipe in this Simply Divine book.

If you have been thinking about getting this book, go and get it NOW! 

I have tried 3 recipes so far: Apple and Cinnamon Muffins, Chocolate Banana Muffins

and this Red Velvet Cupcakes. 

Simple yet Divine, darling.

for the cupcakes:

250g plain flour (I used superfine)

2 x 15ml tablespoon cocoa powder, sifted

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100g soft unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

1 x heaped 15ml tablespoon red paste food colouring

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs

175 buttermilk (see how to make buttermilk here)

1 teaspoon cider vinegar or other vinegar

2 x 12-bun muffin tins

• Preheat the oven to 170C/gas mark 3 and line the muffin tins with paper cases.
• Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarb in a bowl.
• In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar, beating well, and when you have a soft, pale mixture beat in the food colouring - all of it - and the vanilla.
• Into this vividly coloured mixture, still beating, add 1 spoonful of dried ingredients, then 1 egg, followed by some more dried ingredients, then the other egg, followed by the rest of the dried ingredients.
• Finally, beat in the buttermilk and vinegar and divide this extraordinary batter between the 24 cases (I got more, because I used smaller cups). Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes by which time the redcurrent-sorbet-coloured batter will have morphed into a more sombre, but still juicily tinted sponged - more maroon acryclic than red velvet to be honest. (Nigella's words exactly, I like the way she writes, you can almost here her saying it, just like on TV).
• Leave them to cook on a wire rack and do not ice with the frosting till absolutely cold.

Just look at the intense colour!

The red colour is just so amazing.

Someone sure was attracted to it!

Topped it with Buttery cream-cheese frosting and some sprinkles on top.

for the icing:

500g icing sugar (no need to sift if using a processor)

{I used only 400g because that was all I had, I might even reduce another 50g, 

because it's a tad sweet. It really depends on how you like your sugar.}

125g cream cheese

{I used the whole block of Cream Cheese, only because I thought the recipe said 250g and also I sub-consciously wanted to finish the whole block as I wasn't sure I would use the leftovers soon. But it turned out okay though, nice and creamy.}

125g soft unsalted butter

1 teaspoon cider vinegar or lemon juice

chocolate sprinkles and red sugar for decoration(optional)

• Put the icing sugar into a processor and whizz to remove lumps.
• Add the cream cheese and butter and process to mix. Pour in the cider vinegar (or lemon juice) and process again to make a smooth icing.
• Ice each cupcake, using a teaspoon or small spatula.
• Decorate with chocolate sprinkles and red sugar, or as desired. 

Have a try.

Someone's happy.