Dinner - Part 2 of 3

Doink did not just savour the Creamy Meatballs. This is another recipe which I came up with. I was trying to come up with something more special. Bruschetta consists of grilled bread rubbed with garlic topped with extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. But this time round, instead of using a grilled bread, I usedchicken instead.

Again, I had to modify the recipe but please use chicken breast for this recipe. I thought I had chicken breast but instead it was minced chicken instead. *banging head* The taste is still good but I believe that chicken breast will make the dish taste even better.


Chargrilled Chicken Bruschetta

Here is the recipe for the Chargrilled Chicken Bruschetta.

Ingredients
4 boneless skinless chicken breast
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic - minced
3 plum tomatoes, chopped
3 tbsp fresh basil, minced
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
pinch of pepper
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1.Preheat grill to medium heat. Combine olive oil, 1 clove of minced garlic and 1/2 tsp salt. Brush over the chicken. Place on grill, and cook for 8 minutes on one side of the chicken.
2. Meanwhile, combine tomatoes, basil, lemon juice, salt, pepper.
3. Turn chicken over and place the cooked side up. Top with the mixture you prepared in (2). Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Grill an additional 8 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked.


Yummy Mashed Potatoes

This lovely dish is served with Doink's favourite mashed potatoes. My simple and lovely mashed potatoes that satisfy Doink's tastebuds each time I prepare it. *smile*

Bet some of you may be wondering what happens to the greens? Will continue in my next post.

Tip:
1. If you want your Chicken Bruschetta to taste cheesier, add mozarella cheese on top of it. You will definitely love it. *drool.
2. To make your mashed potatoes to taste more sinful, add some bacon over it and I bet you will definitely want more.

Dinner - Part 1 of 3

Oh, cutie is happy. Coz I was finally cooking a yummy meal for Doink. *jumping up and down cheerfully* This is one of the dishes that I prepared for my dearie Doink.

This is a new experiment dish. It's meatballs with mushroom cream sauce. Initially i thought of making chicken served with cream sauce but then I realised that I did not have any chicken breast in my kitchen but only left with minced chicken. So I had no choice but to come up with another type of dish.

Absolutely creamy!!!

So I took the minced chicken and made my home made meatballs but this round I did not add parmesan in it. I firstly cook the meatballs and than add some garlic with thinly sliced mushroom in it. Add cream sauce and a knob of butter and slowly cook till it thickens. Add salt and pepper to taste. When it's almost done, add some basil over it. The dish is ready to be served. *drool*(You can substitute half the cream with milk if you want it to be less sinful)

So good you can even eat it on its own! *lol*

I also prepared some garlic bread to go with it and it taste absolutely excellent. Didn't snap any of the garlic bread picture as I think I had blog about that quite a few times. It's my typical home made garlic bread. So deliciously good that Doink and I couldn't get enough of it. *grin* But can't be having too much of it as it's a bit too sinful. Hehe....

Tip: If you want your dish to taste even better, add some bacon over the sauce.

The Olive - Plaza Damas

Doink brought me to this small cosy restaurant at Plaza Damas, The Olive to celebrate our February month - our birthdays and Valentines Day. The place looks kinda nice, with just a few tables, nice dim lights. Looks romantic but when it's crowded with people, the place seems more like a market. And there isn't much room for the waiter to walk.

We wanted to go upstairs of the restaurant as Doink remembered that the ambience up there is better but unfortunately there were some kind of function being held upstairs so in the end we had to be seated downstairs.

Complimentary baguette bread

Complimentary bread was served. It's just the normal baguette bread where you can buy off the shelf from major hypermarket. Taste wise - just taste exactly like how a baguette would have tasted. *lol* Honestly, I'm expecting better bread being served as most Italian places do serve pretty good herb breads.

Grilled Mushroom

Do you have any idea what that is. To be honest, I forgotten what it's called. It's grilled mushroom. Presentation was totally bad and worse thing was that they overcooked my mushroom and it was slightly burned. It actually taste very good but sad to say that it was partially burned which spoiled the taste.

Mushroom Soup

Next up is the Mushroom Soup. This is the only thing that was served to me that night which satisfied me. Their mushroom soup taste superb. I have tried various kind of mushroom soup from different restaurant. Some are too bland, no mushroomy taste, taste too artificial, too thick etc. *shake head*. Theirs was tasty with sufficient mushroom taste and the thickness was just nice. This is something you have got to try if you do ever wanted to visit this restaurant. Hopefully they remain their standard.

Pasta Salmon

We ordered pasta and the word salmon, cream and tomato in the menu caught my attention. So I told Doink I wanted to try that. Oh, when the pasta arrived, I was truly disappointed with the taste and texture. The whole pasta just tasted like how our chinese restaurant would cooked their noodles, frying everything together and add corn starch at the end to thicken the sauce. I don't think this is how they should cook their pasta. Taste was not good at all, wasn't sure whether they put the correct sauce in it at all. We ordered pasta and the word salmon, cream and tomato in the menu caught my attention. So I told Doink I wanted to try that. Oh, when the pasta arrived, I was truly disappointed with the taste and texture. The whole pasta just tasted like how our chinese restaurant would cooked their noodles, frying everything together and add corn starch at the end to thicken the sauce. I don't think this is how they should cook their pasta. Taste was not good at all, wasn't sure whether they put the correct sauce in it at all.

Pizza Quattro

Here comes the pizza and I told myself that how wrong can a pizza turned out to be. And again, it was bad. From the picture it does look nice - thin crust pizza but the bread somehow doesn't taste that good. And the chicken wasn't marinated well and it tasted bland. Oh boy, the whole main course that was served to me that night was just terrible. *grrr*And the price doesn't come cheap. It was quite pricey as well.

Doink felt bad for bringing me to such a place and I told him it's not your fault. It's the chef, the restaurant's fault for serving such food to people. Anyway, please take note that all this opinion is truly based on what Doink and I feel about this place. Well, you can try the place and let me know if the place has improved. Hehe.....

Meaty Pasta

I'm treasuring every single second I have whenever I see Doink. It's been getting harder to be away from him and I'm missing him dearly every single day. Anyway, soon we will get to be with each other day and night.... Want to know why? Will let you guys know when it's the right time k.

Anyway, here is the Spaghetti Meatballs which I had prepared for my deary Doink one day after work. Was I tired? Nope, and in fact I was enjoying it. My energy level shot up the moment I took out the pans and ingredients. The moment Doink came to my place, dinner was ready... *yummy*


Spaghetti Meatballs

I knew that Doink always enjoy all his meaty dishes. And this is one of the pasta which I had never made for him although I know that he loves it. It's a very simple and interesting dish to prepare. I prepared my home-made meatballs and cooked with tomato base sauce. The sauce was a bit thick as I overcooked it. Anyway, I didn't add water as I didn't want to change the taste of the base sauce.


Meat Meat Meat!!!

The taste was really beautiful and I actually cooked extra so that Doink can bring some to his office for his lunch but ended up finishing almost all of it and there were too little to keep. Hehe... So in the end I prepared some rice with seaweed and some dishes for his lunch.


*Drooling*

Hmm, I wonder when will be the next time I'm going to cook for him. Hopefully in another few weeks time. I'm coming up with the menu to cook a scrumptious meal for him and trying to see if I can give him a mini surprise. This is because I did not do so the last round in the month of February.

Anyway, hope all my readers are well and really sorry for not updating for sooo long. I definitely miss you guys loads... Have a great week ahead.

Cutie is Back!

Sorry that I haven't been updating my blog for like ages. Well, cutie has been kinda busy especially during Chinese New Year. Visiting, eating, collecting angpows, eating, eating and more eating. Hehe.... It was one of the best Chinese New Year I ever had. I spent loads of quality times with my loved ones. I guess I learned to treasure them more. I miss it a lot. Anyway, it's also an excuse to leave my post about my engagement in my main page blog. Hehe. A lot of you have been asking me when I will be getting married. But to be honest, we haven't plan yet. Will let you guys know once I got the dates.

Back to food again. I haven't been cooking much and only managed to bake some cookies during Chinese New Year. That's about it. This food I have prepared quite a while back. And yes, it's pizza again. Hmm, well, I enjoy making pizza for Doink as I get to put as much as ingredients as possible.

The pizza are kinda same but I made a new dessert pizza this round. Also I somehow find the pizza I made this round taste nicer. Guess it's the dough which are thinner and I'm more generous in terms of cheese.

Hawaian Ham Pizza

This was absolutely gorgeous as the cheese was suffice to satisfy both of our cravings. Hehe...

BTE - Bacon Tomato Egg Pizza

Nothing beats Bacon I guess. And Bacon and egg is a perfect combi. A hearty breakfast definitely.

Meatballs -Meat meat meat...Oooh.... yummy!!!

Meatballs is meant for Doink since he is such a meat lover.

Luncheon meat pizza

Luncheon meat pizza actually tasted very good. But I dare not cook food with luncheon meat too much as there seems to be so many reports about how unhealthy it is to eat luncheon meat.

Mango puree with cream cheese pizza

This was a new dessert pizza which I made. Mango Puree with cream cheese pizza. Taste absolutely refreshing. A good way to end a meal. *drool*

I have a few other dessert pizza in mind and I might try making it when I have time. Actually I have few other dessert pizza which I had made but somehow the taste was nothing spectacular and the picture taken wasn't that good so I decided not to to share.

Anyway, I will try to update my blog more often. Hope you guys have an amazing weekend. *hugz*

It's time to indulge!!!

Chinese New Year is just less than a week away. I'm sort of looking forward to it as I'm still eligible to collect angpows. I better collect as many as possible this year as I'm not sure how many more years remaining will I be eligible to collect it. *laughs*

Also looking forward to munching all the yummy cookies, stuffing myself with all the prawn crackers and sinful peanuts and not forgetting to be spending time with the people I love.

Ok, back to food indulgance. I'm never really a fan of nutz and most of the time I do not like to order brownies when I dine outside because there is always nutz in it and the brownies tend to be quite dry.

So I make my own version of brownies. Moist and nutz-free. Hehe....


Cutie's Brownies

There are many types of recipes for brownies and I seriously have a hard time combining all the recipes and amending it according to what I think it might come out good. To my surprise, my brownie tasted pretty good and I kinda like it. It's moist and you can eat it on its own. *drools*


Mmmmmm!!!

But of course I want to make it taste even better when I serve it to Doink. So I added chocolate ice cream and peaches to serve together with the brownies.

*yummy!!!*

To be honest I don't know whether peaches go well with brownies and ice cream. I added peaches there because Doink loves peaches. *smile* He was happily helping himself to the dessert. Hehe....


*stomach growling...hungry*

Well, to me cooking is about satisfying the taste bud of the person you cook for. There is no right and wrong rules or ways in cooking. Most important thing is the person you cook for enjoys it. So don't be afraid to experiment.

Just want to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year and hope everyone will have a wonderful year. *hugz*

Folded Pizza

A calzone, sometimes referred to as stuffed or folded pizza is an Italian turnover made from pizza dough stuffed with cheese, tomato and ham. It's an absolutely amazing pizza. Some people may not like calzone as they find that there is too much bread dough. However, I love calzone especially when there are tons of stuffing in it. Yummy!!!


Calzone

It's been a while since I last made pizza. These pictures were taken quite a while back. I could still remember the freshly baked pizza just got out from the oven. It smells so aromatic and having your pizza piping hot is superbly delicious. Hehe...

Anyway, let's talk about my simple calzone. All I did was to spread some home made tomato paste, sprinkle some lovely ham and sausages and topped it with tons of mozarella chees on it before folding it into halve.

Stuffing.....*drool*

I didn't want to waste with some left over tomato puree so I added some tomato puree on top of the dough and add more cheese to it. *drool*

I prefer to make my own pizza as I can put as many stuffings as I want. Now I'm looking for time and chance to make it again so I can be greedy by putting as many ingredients as possible. *giggle* But next time I make sure I my dough thinner for calzone.



Me want pizza

I'm looking forward to make more pizza. Hopefully there is a chance. Anyway, can't wait for Chinese New Year as I can be eating different types of cookies. *greedy* Well, sad that I won't be able to bake any cookies this year. Hope there is a chance next year. Till then, have a great week ahead. (counting down to CNY to collect more ang pows) *lol*

Great Brekkie to start your day

Breakfast, the most important meal of the day. I love having a nice brekkie and slowly savouring my favourite food. And the best brekkie for me would be Mcdonald Breakfast with Doink. I love savouring my favourite Egg McMuffin. It makes me a happy little girl for the day if I get my McD brekkie.



Finally I had it with Doink. *smiles*

Anyway, I also love to prepare breakfast and I would usually prepare the normal half boiled egg with toast bread to having fried breakfast: bacon, eggs and sausages. I used to be waking up early morning where most people will think I’m insane for doing so. The reason being is that I used to prepare breakfast for my family every morning unless I wake up late. And yes, I can be superbly lazy at times. *giggle*

Scramble eggs, one of the yummylicious food to have for brekkie. However I realise not many people enjoy eating scramble eggs due to the texture of it. Therefore I was brought up in an environment to prepare my scramble eggs differently so that the texture will be different.

This is how my scramble eggs used to look like

However, recently I was browsing through the youtube and I saw Gordon Ramsay preparing the perfect scramble eggs. Thus I follow his simple steps (which is superbly simple) and prepare it for Doink.


*drools*

It was absolutely gorgeous and amazing. The taste was heaven.... Doink loves his scramble eggs of course and not forgetting his bacon and sausages. Hehe... *drools* I actually feel hungry while writing this blog. Haha.... However one thing weird about me is that I won’t prepare such scrumptious breakfast meal just for myself. I will only get to savour my own cooking if I’m cooking it for my loved ones. Strange huh!!!??? Well, that's me...
.

Stomach growling!!!

Well, after learning this proper method of preparing scramble eggs, I think I will stick to this style. However, if I’m cooking for my family, I will have to use my old style of cooking scramble eggs to suit my family taste buds.

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Yummy!!! Bacon a bit dry because I was absorbing all the oil with oil absorbent paper. Sinful food are meant to have it in moderation.

Try it one day and I’m sure you will bring smiles to your loved ones. Hehe... Darn, I'm hungry now even though I just had my McD brekkie. *cheeky smile*

.

Oh btw, my blog will turn 1 in 2 days time. Well, guess I will wish my Blog a Happy BeEarly Birthday in advance as I don't think I will update my blog in 2 days' time. Time flies and I just can't imagine that I have been blogging for a year now and guess what, I have prepared tons of yummy meals for Doink. There are even some food which I did prepare for him but it's just that I did not post it up in my blog. Hmm, hopefully I will be able to prepare more different variety of food to him and share it with everyone. Anyway, have a lovely weekend. I know I will have mine definitely as I'm going to spend my precious weekend with Doink. *smiling happily*

Missing a part of me....

Life has been pretty tough being apart with Doink for almost 2 weeks. Although it has just been slighty less than 2 weeks, it felt like eternity. I wish that I could be spending my weekend with Doink from having our lovely Mcdonald Brekkie to doing grocery shopping together. And on a lovely Sunday is where I will dish up a nice meal for his lunch after his usual weekly sports.

Here is one of the things I made on Sunday, Chicken Cordon Bleu. Chicken Cordon Bleu is a French-inspired poultry dish which is kinda simliar to Chicken Kiev - chicken stuffed with seasoned butter.


*drool*

The ingredients used to make this dish are ham and Swiss Cheese but I did not have any Swiss Cheese and I wanted to finish my block of Mozarella Cheese. So I had to substitute. Not sure if it's right to substitute the cheeses. *grin* But I believe Swiss Cheese will make the dish taste nicer.


Goey Cheeseeee

Chicken Cordon Bleu most often appears in a rolled presentation, with the chicken butterflied and pounded flat and the ham and cheese wrapped up inside. The tightly rolled Chicken Cordon Bleu cthen be dipped in breadcrumbs and fried, grilled, or roasted. But as for me, I just stuffed the cheese and ham in the Chicken and dipped in breadcrumbs and baked it for about 30 mins till it's browned.

It's better to make some sauce to go with it as the chicken breast is kinda dry but this is optional. You can opt to make mushroom sauce or some creamy sauce to go with the chicken. Simmer 1/2cup chicken broth and 1 cup heavy cream on low. Add salt, pepper and herbs to taste and stir till it thickens. Pour over the chicken.


Yummy!!!

Doink definitely love it as I was pretty generous with the amount of cheese I stuffed in it. Hehe... Well, who says too much is not good. Haha...

I made some roasted potatoes and garlic bread to go together with it. Great meal definitely.


My roast potatoes

My hands is actually itching now. It's been 2 weeks since I last touch my kitchen utensils. I feel like dishing up some food or bake some yummie goodies. Guess I will just have to wait, wait and wait. Hopefully my skills won't get rusty. Hehe....

A Special Christmas Dinner for my Special Someone

Happy New Year 2008 to everyone!!! Hope it's not too late to wish everyone. Hehe...

Well, I won't be able to connect to internet as regularly as I used to be and therefore I'm pretty handicapped. So updating my blog will be slow and moreover, I will have less stuff to update as well as I'm not around to cook for Doink for a long period of time. Whatever that I'm updating now is what I have cooked for him previously.

I have gone to another place to work and I'm missing Doink very very much. Going through life without him for the first weekend is tough. I hope I will feel better as time goes on. I wonder how I manage to survive for 2 years without him when I was in UK. Hehe....

Anyway, enough of sad stories... Here is the Christmas Dinner that I had prepared for Doink. Mom bought some really tiny scallops and to be honest, I had never cook scallops before. So I decided to take a few and try making baked scallops. I added garlic, onions, breadcrumbs some salt and pepper and bake it in the oven for about 12 minutes... Taste was ok... Not sure whether the taste was suppose to be this way as I never really had scallops before.

Baked Scallops

Next dish is Meat Tofu wrapped with Bacon. I mix the mince pork and tofu together and season it with salt, pepper and parmesan. Than I wrap them with bacon and bake in the oven for about 20 mins till the bacon is cooked... The taste is quite unique and nice. Added some tofu to make it taste less meaty but not recommended to people who doesn't like tofu taste at all.

Meat Tofu Wrapped With Bacon

Here are some extras minced pork and tofu which I had prepared the next day. I did not wrap it with bacon but instead just by itself. It taste equally good... Hehe...

Meat Tofu

I'm not good at frying food but I know Doink loves Onion Rings. A&W serves really good ones but those are quite pricey for those few onion rings... So I prepared some and wasn't sure whether the taste was ok. But to my surprise it taste very very nice. *smile* A little overfried but then it still taste good...

Fried Onion Rings

Here are some roast potatoes.. Finally I perfected it. I realised what the problem was. It's oil. I never put enough oil when I roast potatoes. To make some yummy roasted potatoes, you need to add quite a bit of oil. *sinful* See, golden roasted potatoes.

Garlic Rosemary Roast Potatoes

Prepared some special sauce to go with the potatoes. It's garlic mayonaise. Very simple to prepare. Just roast the garlic with the skin on for about 20 minutes and then bring it on, discard the skin and mash it. Mix it with mayonaise, add some salt, pepper and finally sprinkle some paprika powder. Taste really yummy!!! Can't wait to make it again....


Garlic Mayonaise

And finally the main dish is here, Roast Chicken. I amended the recipe slightly different and this time I added some carrots and onion with some homemade stuffing and roasted it together with the chicken that has been marinated. After 1 hour, the chicken smells gorgeous. I took the chicken out of the roasting pan and put the chicken on a serving plate and took out the carrots and onions and place it on the side of the serving plate. Than I made the chicken sauce by adding some chicken stock to the roasting pan and put under the oven for another 5 minutes to thicken. The sauce is now ready to be served.

Homemade Roast Chicken

My lovely roast chicken was good. I felt it was better than the one I made last year. And moreover with the chicken sauce the breast part of the chicken meat won't be dry. Doink enjoys it a lot.

I also made some sparkling mix drink for ourselves.



It was definitely a satisfying meal and enjoyable night we had. That's one of the reasons why I love Christmas so much. Being able to cook yummy meals for Doink. Hehe.... Oh, not forgetting that I made some lovely meringues too for my sweet loving Doink.



Missing you very very much Doink. I will be coming back soon but then there won't be much time for me to cook as well. Well, you probably have to wait. *frown*