Rice, Cheese, Eggs and Salmon!

Food porn yet again! Somebody hide the oven away from me, I had been overworking that thing like nobody's business. Made my third chocolate cake yesterday, this time adding a teaspoon of ground ginger and using tapioca flour instead of wheat flour. It turned out like Turkish Delight - the texture I mean the taste is still bleh.

This time, I combined ingredients from TWO recipes and sort of mixed and matched the ingredients using my guts. Find it here and here.

Ingredients:

1 Salmon fillet. Debone, skin it, cut it into bite size pieces.
2 large Portebello mushrooms. Cube it to bite sizes.
Curry powder, 2 tbsps.
Rice, 2 cups - cooked.
2 tbsp of butter.
Cheddar/Mozzarella cheese, 2 cups - shredded.
4 eggs, beaten.
1 cup of milk
Herbs of your choice - I used basil, rosemary, oregano, cayenne pepper and parsley.

1. Melt the butter in a pan, low heat. Saute the salmon flakes on both sides medium done. Add in the mushrooms and saute for 5 minutes covering it in the butter. Turn off heat and leave it at a side.

2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and mix in the herbs of your choice. Add the rice in and stir well. Add milk and mix well. Add the curry powder and mix well.

3. Grease the baking dish. Pour in the rice + eggs mixture.

4. Remember the salmon and mushroom? Put that on top.

5. Now top it off with cheese. Bake it at 180'C for 30-40 minutes.

Voila!

Fresh from the oven!

Now for the innards...

Just take a moment and look at the juice.

VERDICT: Success! Mother thought the egg was too raw but that's how it should be. The egg was supposed to be 'semi-cooked'. Whatever, more for me!

Itadakimasu!

Quick Dinner with Rice, Cheese, Eggs and Loads of Other Stuff

I am a lazy slut, I like my meals quick and filling - evident from my girth.

I like to improvise and mix-match whatever ingredients I have and hope it passes for a decent meal.

I had some Emmental Cheese, eggs, rice, tomatoes and some herbs so I googled "recipes with rice and cheese bake" and I found this. 

But I did not have some of the ingredients they listed like milk and paprika so I resorted to adding my own mix of herbs.

I used 3 eggs(beaten), oregano, basil, thyme, Cayenne pepper, salt and mixed them with 2 cups of cooked rice and some cubed tomatoes. Sprinkled on the cheese and baked them at 190C for 30 minutes. Remember, every baking pan must be greased.

This edible abomination came out. Mum and sis liked it but I forgot to put black pepper in so it was a bit bland for me. I simply had a glob of chilli sauce accompanied and fixed the blandness. 

I will definitely make this the next time. But I will improve on the:

1. Emmental cheese is better suited for crusting purposes. The most suitable cheese to use is either Cheddar or Mozzarella.

2. You can use other vegetables besides tomatoes - courgette, carrot, chives, celery, anything will do actually. I should try aubergine the next time...

3. Black pepper and other spicing agents. I hate bland food. It is any wonder I am not too fond of Chinese food?

4. Add/mix a cup of milk in the rice mixture before you place the cheese. If you don't have milk, salted butter. 

5. Meatballs, definitely worth a try! I might add chicken or fish fillet pieces the next time.

6. This would be glorious with bacon pieces...or you could just follow the website I based it from.

Chocolate Cake Recipe (without milk)

So mother nature is being a monthly bitch as usual and strives to make me fat with these sugar cravings and shit. I thought, why don't I make a chocolate cake?

My fridge is always empty, and I thought let's have a cake handy whenever I'm feeling for a little snack bite.

I had all the cakey ingredients but milk, so I googled a recipe that doesn't use milk, since my sis is lactose intolerant and it's just not a thing for us.

It's here, if you want to take a look.

Preparation was fairly easy, I got the texture and consistency right.

Well, it looks like the one from the website so okay...

This nigga was still piping hot when I cut it. I'm supposed to leave it to completely cool, but I was too eager to nom it.

Review:

It did came out right, that cakey texture with cakey taste and shit. 

BUT. Since it doesn't use milk and substitutes it for 6 tbsp of oil and 1 tbsp of vinegar. It tasted...like cheap chemical. Yeah, I can't describe this weird acid taste. It had that local bakery made chocolate cake taste, you know where they use cheap ingredients?

Yeah, it tastes like that. I think I will never ever make a milk-less chocolate cake anymore. The oil and vinegar substitute isn't up to my standards. Granted this recipe required frosting and I'm too fucking lazy to do it.

So yeah, it edible and mum likes it. Sis asked that I make Lembas Bread again. I was very happy with that one, it turned out amazing.

Lembas Bread!

The Tolkien nerd inside me has arisen!

I have always wondered what Lembas Bread were made of, turns out they're cookies/shortbread kind of thing.

I had to look for the best recipe that uses affordable but quality ingredients.

This is what I found from tumblr.


Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 8 tablespoons of cold butter (1 stick)
• 1/3 cup of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon*
• 1/2 teaspoon maple syrup/honey/golden syrup
• 2/3 cup of milk/heavy cream (or more, if necessary)
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla



Minutes to Prepare: 15
Minutes to Cook: 15
Number of Servings: 10

Directions:


1) Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celcius (425 degrees Fahrenheit).
2) Mix the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.
3) Add the butter and mix with a fork or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles fine granules.
4) Add the sugar and cinnamon, and mix them thoroughly into the mixture.
5) Add the milk/cream, syrup/honey and vanilla and stir them in with a fork until a nice, thick dough forms.
6) Roll the dough out about 1/2 in thickness.
7) Cut out 3-inch squares and transfer the dough to a cookie sheet.
8) Criss-cross (DO NOT cut all the way) each square from corner-to-corner with a knife.
9) Bake for about 12 minutes or more (depending on the thickness of the bread) until it is set and lightly golden.

I tried making squares, I really did but it was too time consuming and my measurement prowess is...bleh so I simply used a small tupperware and used that to cut small circles on the dough. See the small eaten bit over there? Yeah, I ate a piece during making the rest of the batch. 

This was a raging success, it was gone in 3 days like hot cake(pun intended). Out of the 18 pieces I baked, I ate only about 4...the rest sapu-ed by my mum and sis. FML.

*if you substitute this with powdered/ground ginger, you'd get a nice ginger cookie. 

** credits goes to the original author of this recipe, whoever you are. THANK YOU!

***UPDATE! I found the recipe! It's HIYYAAAARRR.