Vegetable Frittata

Vegetable Frittata

We just declared a no-fry week at home to ovoid greasy foods and came up with this one, but still I can’t resist to put some cheese! Ohhh, its more or less the same thing, I think, but okay, its forgiven! The method of cooking was from a “vegetarian meals” cookbook. The original recipe has asparagus and zucchini which I don’t have stock at home and never had, hence, I put eggplant instead of asparagus and to have some green color, I put green pepper instead. The original recipe doesn’t have cheery tomatoes, but before I put the dish back to the oven, I thought it would look better to have a vibrant center piece of the dish. Just a few steps to the garden and picked up some cherry tomatoes. They just look wonderful at the center, don’t they?

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, (sliced very thinly)
2 potatoes (sliced very thinly)
1 red pepper, cut into long strips
1 green pepper, cut into long strips
3 eggs, beaten
1 eggplant
5 cherry tomatoes
Gouda or flamingo cheese
Salt & pepper

Preparation:

Drizzle olive oil over the base of medium size circular baking pan. Arrange potatoes and onions alternately in the base of the pan. Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake at 180oC or Gas 4 for 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Arrange the red & green peppers and eggplant like the spokes of a wheel onto top of potatoes, then pour beaten eggs and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Scatter cheese on top and place cherry tomatoes at the center.

Bake, covered, for 15 minutes or until frittata is firm. Cool for 10 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve.

Squid Stir-fry

Squid Stir-fry

Ingredients:

3 pcs. Squid
1 pc. Red bell pepper
1 pc. Yellow bell pepper
2 pcs. Carrots
1 pc. Green pepper
8 pcs. Green beans
1 white onion (diced)
2 garlic (finely chopped)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
4 teaspoons sesame seeds
Salt

Procedure:

Prepare all the ingredients.

In a preheated pan, add the oils, add squid and cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally, remove the squid and set aside. With the remaining oil in the same pan, add onion and garlic, cook until the onion becomes soft and garlic becomes slightly brown. Add Carrots, cover for 30 seconds or until carrots becomes slightly cooked, add peppers and green beans, season with salt, put back the cooked squid, stir-fry for about 2 minutes until vegetables are done. Sprinkle sesame seeds before serving.

Tip: To prepare the squid, remove the outside blackish lining; leaving the squid clean and white. Cut the squid into quarts. Using a sharp knife, cut parallel lines in down the length of the squid, taking care not to cut right the way through the flesh. Make more cuts in the opposite direction to form a diamond pattern.

Marinated Calamari

Marinated calamari

Ingredients:

1 kg. Calamari (squid) cut into rings
6 Tablespoons lemon juice
3 cloves garlic, crushed
½ cup olive oil.

Dressing:
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
5 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 ½ Tablespoons chopped parsley
Salt and pepper

In a mixing bowl, place lemon juice, garlic and olive oil. Add calamari, cover and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.

For the dressing, place all ingredients in mixing bowl and whisk well until thickened.

Heat large pan or wok over a high heat and cook calamari 2-3 minutes until just cooked. Drizzle the dressing over calamari and serve.

Source of recipe:
Essential Cooking Series by Hinkler Books Ltd.,
First published in 2005 , Dingley, Victoria 3172 Australia

I love this calamari. I added lemon zest with the dressing. so easy and simple. I served this with parsley rice that would compliment the flavors.

Crab sushi

This is one of the successful sushi I had! Funny I failed a couple of times doing sushi but I never gave up! First it was so messy! Second, the rice layer was so thick, third, they were too big for a bite. And at last, I succeeded without complain from hubby! I really love sushi specially with fresh salmon.. California rolls… etc. Now, its becoming more easy for me to do after a couple of failures. The labor is worth every bite!

Ingredients:

1 cups short grain rice
2 cups water
5 sticks crab meat
3 sheets nori
4 Tablespoons rice vinegar
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons wasabi paste
2 teaspoons mayonnaise
1 small green cucumber, peeled, seeded, cut into thin strips
1 ripe mango, peeled, cut into thin strips

Sauce:
2 Tablespoons light soy sauce
2 Tablespoons dark soy sauce
½ Teaspoon lemon juice
1 Teaspoon sesame oil

Procedure:

Combine rice and water in a pan, bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer uncovered until water is absorbed. Cover pan, simmer 5 minutes. Combine vinegar, sugar and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

Cool down the rice until room temperature by fanning over. When slightly cooled, stir in combined vinegar, sugar and salt. Carefully fold in the mixture until well mixed and set aside.

Place the bamboo mat on a work surface, facing you with the strips horizontal. Place 1 nori sheet on the mat, shiny side down, with the edge of the nori 2 cm away from the edge of the mat closer to you. (a)

To make the rolls, spread about 1/3 cup of sushi rice onto the nori with your fingers, leaving a 2 cm space at the top of the nori sheet. (b)

Dab a thin line of wasabi paste down the middle of the rice and place 2 or 3 pieces of cucumber and mango. Place crab stick on top of them.

To roll, hold the edge of the mat nearest to you with one hand over the crab meat to hold it in place and roll the mat over the rice, away from you. Lift up the top of the mat and turn the roll over a little so that the empty nori strip seals the sushi roll. (c)

Unroll the bamboo mat and remove the sushi roll. Using a very sharp knife, cut the roll into 6 to 8 uniform pieces. (d)

To prepare the sauce mix all the ingredients.

Serve sushi with the sauce.

Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients:
1 whole cabbage
¼ Kilo ground meat
1 bulb union
1 crushed garlic
1 pc. Bread
¼ Cup Milk
Salt & pepper to taste
1 lit. water

Procedure:

To prepare the filling:

Soak bread with milk and set aside. Mix all other ingredients until all the flavors are well blended and set aside.To prepare the cabbage:In a large casserole, boil water and add a pinch of salt. Dip the whole cabbage for 2 or 3 minutes or until wilted. Remove the cabbage from the casserole; take off the leaf one by one carefully not breaking each. Take of the spine of the cabbage and divide each leaf into two while taking the spine off.

Take 1 teaspoon of the meat mixture and put each piece of leaf like making spring rolls. Cook in steam for 6 – 8 minutes. Serve with mashed potatoes and sauce.

To prepare the sauce:

mix soy sauce, lemon juice and add sesame oil.

Money Packs

This entails a detailed job but it’s worth every bite! I think it would have been easier if I have a short pastry but unfortunately, I can’t find it in the grocery store here, so for pastry needs, I’m doing it at home. I wouldn’t mind though.

Here’s how:

Meat Filling:
½ Kilo ground meat
1 white onion (Finely chopped)
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
Salt and pepper
Red pepper (finely chopped)

Mix all the ingredients in a mixing bowl making sure all the ingredients are well incorporated. Do this ahead while making the pastry.

Pastry dough:
3 cups flour
Pinch of salt
100 g butter, chopped

2-3 tablespoons iced water

Procedure:

In bowl of flour add knobs of butter and a pinch of salt. Work on the butter by pressing them with your finger tips; coating the butter with the flour, until the butter is well mixed with the flour. This will give a crumbly mixture. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing each addition until it forms a soft dough. Turn mixture into floured board. Knead until the dough becomes fine. Add more flour if necessary. Shape the dough into a log. Cut into 3 portions. While working with 1 portion, refrigerate the other two portions. Flatten each portion as flat as possible using a rolling pin. Cut into 3 inch square. Put 1 teaspoon meat mixture into each square and gather the ends at the top of the meat. Do this by lifting the diagonal opposite sides of the dough; seal partially by pressing just before the edges and do the same with the other two sides. Carefully press the edges all together to seal, forming a sack of money with a little handle.

Optionally, cut ½ cm of the edge of the dough, forming like a string and use this to seal each pack of meat by pressing the meeting ends. Leave an extra string to it would look more realistic like a pack of money tied with a string.
Place the packed meat in a flat plate lined with plastic to avoid the dough from sticking to the plate. Refrigerate for 20 minutes before frying. This allows the dough to be firm.

Deep fry few at a time until golden brown with a moderately fire, but not very slow. The dough absorbs a lot of oil if the oil is not so hot. Heat up the oil first and turn the fire moderately slow after adding the money packs.

Egg n Hotdog Roll Ups

Egg n Hotdog Roll Ups

Ingredients:

2 hotdogs
2 eggs
Grated parmesan cheese
1 T. olive oil

Procedure:

Heat a non-stick pan, spread oil and wipe off excess oil by wiping with a kitchen paper. Slightly beat eggs. Add half of the slightly beaten eggs; quickly swirl the pan to spread the mixture. Sprinkle evenly grated parmesan cheese. Place hotdogs in 1 edge and start rolling the egg. Cook the remaining egg the same way, and place the rolled up egg with hotdog in one edge and start rolling up. This will create a thicker layer of egg.

Slice the sausage-shaped egg and slice ½ inch thick. Serve with toasted bread. This makes a good breakfast.

Tip:
In beating the eggs, it has to be beaten slightly. Don’t wait for bubbles to form and it has to be beaten right before cooking. No need of adding salt coz the parmesan cheese is quite salty.

Fish Paté Sandwich Mini Towers

Sandwich Mini Towers

Ingredients:
Sandwich
100 g. Light cream cheese
1 can Fish Pâté
1 T. Chili sauce

Preparation:

Remove crusts of the sandwich. Mix chili sauce with cream cheese. Spread cream cheese mixture in one side and fish pâté on the other side of the sandwich. Put them together to assemble towers. Cut sandwich into quarts.

Crab Sandwich with sesame seeds

Crab Sandwich with sesame seeds

I am a big fan of Ainsley Harriot and saw him doing this in one of his TV shows. He used shrimp, but I don’t have fresh shrimps. So I settled with crab meat in sticks!

Ingredients:
Sliced sandwich bread
Crabmeat sticks
1 egg white
Dried sesame seeds
1 Tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon butter
Salt and pepper

Preparation:
Slice the crabmeat sticks finely and place in a food processor or blender. Add egg white, salt & pepper and blitz until fine. Spread the mixture into sliced sandwiches. Run with the back of the spoon to flatten the mixture. Sprinkle sesame seeds and press with the back of the spoon.

Heat oil and butter in a pan and place the bread with crab mixture facing down. Cook for 2 minutes and turn to toast the other side. Don’t be tempted to add oil to avoid greasy sandwich.

Mortadella and egg sandwich

Ingredients:
Sliced bread
Slices of Mortadella
2 slightly beaten eggs
Salt & pepper
Mozzarella cheese

Procedure:

Slice off the sides of the bread and toast in a preheated pan 2 minutes each side. Remove from pan and set aside. Add 2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil to the pan and wipe off with a kitchen paper. Spread the egg evenly by swirling the pan and cook quickly in a low fire. Remove from pan and set aside. Assemble the sandwich in layers alternately with mortadella, cheese and egg. Cut diagonally and serve.

Old posts

Been exploring on blogger lately and found out that for some reasons, I need to post my other posts that I havent posted here. I just decided recently to make this my home page, so dont be surprized if u can find posts here that I have posted before in some other categories.. that's quite a lot huh... I hope the image toolbar will cooperate this time. I dont know what happened to Hello from Picassa. There seems to be a problem lately and its giving me a hard time uploading food pictures!

Yellow rice with green peas topped with spinach and grilled pork

Yellow rice with green peas topped with spinach and grilled pork

It’s my first adventure with tumeric. In short its my first time to have this ingredient and I am so pleased with the yellow vibrant color on my plate! I love to incorporate vegetables with my dish for the sake of having fiber intake.

Ingredients:

1 cup long grain rice
1 cup water
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 white onion (finely chopped)
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
2 tablespoons oil
Salt & pepper to taste
A handful of spinach
2 pork fillets

Preparation:

In a casserole, put water, rice and tumeric. Bring to boil and simmer covered for 10-15 minutes or until rice is done. When done, fluff the rice with a for to avoid rice sticking together until completely cold at room temperature.

Meanwhile, sauté garlic and onion in oil until translucent. Add rice and mix vigorously until all the flavors are well blended. Add green peas and continue cooking until peas are done. Sprinkle a little water to provide a little moisture. Season with salt and pepper.

On the other hand, grill 2 pork fillets until done.

In another pan, bring to boil 2 cups of salted water, blanch spinach for 1 minute or until wilted.

To plate the dish, place rice in a plate; add blanched spinach in the center and topped with the grilled pork.

Beef and Charred vegetables with couscous

Beef on charred vegetables with couscous

Another quick and healthy way of cooking is grilling. This is quick and oil-free recipe. Aren’t you bored of fried dishes? Well, I am. So here is another way of preparing healthy dish.

Ingredients:

1 cup couscous
1 cup stock
Carrots
green peppers
red peppers
yellow pepper
white onion

Preparation:

To prepare couscous, Place couscous in a mixing bowl; boil stock or salted water and stir in directly to the bowl of couscous. Cover the bowl and leave for 3-5 minutes until couscous had absorbed the liquid completely until done. Fluff the couscous using a fork to avoid the grains from sticking together.

In hot grill pan, grill vegetables until charred or black spots starts to form. Turn over to cook the other sides of the vegetables. Vegetables are more succulent when charred because its natural flavors are released. Grill beef on the other side of the grill pan until done.

To plate, place the char-grilled vegetables on top of a plate of couscous and place sliced beef on top.