Roti snack

Inspired by Kauai's Breakfast Burrito... Hubby and I were in a hurry to get to an appointment and since neither of us ate all day, we were both somewhat peckish.

So, we pulled out the ready-to-fry frozen rotis and while he fried them in an electric pan, I chopped up red salad onions, peppers, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce and cucumber, scrambled a couple of eggs with some of the onions and mixed in the peppers. Seasoned it and threw it on the still warm rotis, topping it with the rest of the cut up fresh greenery and voila. Yummy meal in minutes.

Asian chicken

It took me a while to do this post because my camera cable went missing but after some searching and scratching I found it in a beach bag of sorts, thankfully!

Anyway, this was my attempt at making something sweet and sour-ish to satisfy the asian binge I'm on of late. I even took the extra effort to make the plate look pretty and all that was missing was a set of chop sticks. Though this wasn't a one pot dish, it was really tasty and my hubby loved it.


You can either use chicken drumsticks or filleted breasts pieces. The drumsticks make for a less dry and more juicier option.

For about 6 drumsticks deboned and cut up into bite size portions:
2 eggs
cornflour

Sauce:
1/2 cup of sweet chili sauce (I used the one from Woolies)
1/4 cup soy sauce
tablespoon of vinegard
chilli powder
chopped garlic
little olive oil

Veggie bed:
1 onion cut in half and thickly sliced
1/2 red pepper sliced
1/2 yellow pepper sliced
cup full of green beans sliced into 1cm pieces
dried chili
Cajun spice

After the chicken pieces are cleaned and cut up, dip it into the egg and lightly roll it in the cornflour. Deep fry the pieces and let it drain on absorbent paper.

For the sauce, you mix all the ingredients together and set aside. I didn't measure exact amounts but tasted as I went along, so use your prerogative.

Stir fry the veggies for about 5 minutes, stir in the dried chili and Cajun spice. Remove the pan from the stove and let is stand to cool.

Then pour the sauce into a pan or a wok and heat it. Add the chicken pieces and let it simmer until the sauce thickens a bit.

Place the chicken pieces on top of the stir fry and pour some of the sauce over it. Serve with a side of rice, garnish it if you wish and dig in.

Baking bread

Who doesn't love freshly baked bread? Here's my adapted version of the Cheese and Parsley Braid recipe from Shanaaz Parker's cookbook, Indulge.

4 x 250 ml flour
5 ml salt
5 ml sugar
30 ml butter
10 g instant dry yeast
250 ml grated cheese
45 ml finely chopped parsley
1/2 onion finely chopped (I sometimes add a little bit of finely chopped peppers.)
160 ml milk
180 ml lukewarm water
beaten egg to glaze
melted garlic butter

Preheat the oven to 180℃. Sift flour, salt and sugar and rub in butter. Sprinkle in yeast and work through. Stir in cheese, parsley and onion (and peppers if you want to use that). Add milk and water and mix into a soft dough. Knead on a floured surface until the dough is elastic and smooth.

Place in an oiled bowl and cover. Let it rise to double it's original volume and knock it down.
I didn't braid this bread, I used a silicone loaf pan, brushed it with beaten egg and let it rise again. Baked it for about 45 minutes until cooked and brushed it with the melted garlic butter. (The photo's a bit blurry... was having a shaky-hand camera day.)

Hungry for haddock?

One of my favourite fish to eat, is smoked haddock. I regularly serve it for supper and whether baked, fried, poached or however, I love its salty and pungent flavour.

I'm sharing two of my haddock recipes...
This is my favourite recipe of the two... For about 4 pieces of haddock:

1 and a 1/2 onions, sliced
1 tablespoon of crushed garlic
1/2 of a green, yellow and red pepper, for wonderful colours, sliced
1 teaspoon of crushed mustard seeds
a little bit of cajun spice
butter
crushed black pepper

Braise the onions and garlic in some butter. Add the mustard seeds, peppers and cajun spice. When everything is caramelised, place the haddock on it and put small pieces of butter on each. You can sprinkle some cajun spice on them if you want. Turn a few times, until cooked. Get some black pepper over it and it's ready to serve. Really yummy with fresh bread or baked/fried potato chips.

This one is very simple too. I was hungry and was desperate to have lunch quickly and without much effort. I simply dipped haddock steaks in some spiced crumbs and fried them in a little bit of butter. Had it with some baby potatoes and a fresh salad, I was stuffed!!!

You can use whatever spices to flavour the crumbs, I used the prepacked kind you find in the shop.

Chocolate crinkle cookies

I found this recipe over on Chocolate Bytes and it's the easiest biscuit to make... in the world.

It uses real chocolate, so I simply love it when my choc-craving kicks in. It's also a very kid friendly recipe, since you need to roll the dough into a ball and in icing sugar to make each biscuit. A great way to keep those mischievous hands occupied.

Here's a batch straight out of the oven.