Spaghetti with Meatballs

So when my cousin came over for Easter weekend, we made quite a bit of food. Among our accomplishments were the muffins and the sushi. We also made chicken pie, which he really really liked. Which made it a hard choice, when we came across this recipe for spaghetti with meatballs in M&S's Easy Pasta cookbook, since he is a huge fan of pasta but still wanted to make another batch of the chicken pie. Unfortunately, since he was leaving the next day, we didn't have time to make both.

The end result was, as you might have guessed, that the pasta won. ;) Now this cousin of mine pioneered the famous spaghetti "recipe" that the boys in our family all love and emulate. A recent addition to this was meatballs from BMC. I'm not too big a fan of those meatballs, I prefer the sausages, but my brother really really likes it.

Anyway, my point was, UK, obviously, doesn't have BMC products available. And according to my cousin, the halal meatballs you can buy from here are not as nice. Also, he is a fan of the meatball marinara filling from Subway. Which is why he wanted to make this dish, because he wants delicious meatballs, hehe. So anyway, I've babbled on enough. Here we go!

What you need:
(serves 6)
1 potato, diced
400g fresh steak (beef) mince
1 onion, finely chopped
1 egg
4 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Plain flour, for dusting
5 tablespoons olive oil
400mL passata (sieved tomatoes)
2 tablespoons tomato puree
400g dried spaghetti
Salt and pepper
Fresh basil leaves and Parmesan cheese, to garnish

What you do:

1. Place the potato in a small saucepan, add cold water to cover and a pinch of salt and bring to the boil. Cook for 10-15 minutes until tender, then drain. Either mash thoroughly with a potato masher or fork or pass through a potato ricer.
2. Combine the potato, steak, onion, egg and parsley in a bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper. Spread out the flour on a plate. With dampened hands, shape the meat mixture into walnut-sized balls and roll in the flour. Shake off any excess.
3. Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan, add the meatballs and cook over a medium heat, stirring and turning frequently, for 8-10 minutes, or until golden all over.
4. Add the passata and tomato puree and cook for a further 10 minutes, or until the sauce is reduced and thickened.
5. Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of lightly salted water to the boil. Add the pasta, return to the boil and cook for 8-10 minutes, or until tender but still firm to the bite.
6. Drain well and add to the meatball sauce, tossing well to coat. Transfer to a warmed serving dish, garnish with the basil leaves and Parmesan cheese shavings and serve immediately.

Okay, first off, we did some modifications, mainly by upping the quantities a bit. Half a kilo each of beef and spaghetti (actually, the sharp-eyed among you will spot that we used linguine, just for a change), a rather big potato and a bit more of passata and tomato puree. But of course, this isn't one of those sensitive recipes, so you can scale up or scale down as needed. :)

All in all, I thought this recipe was quite easy to do and definitely not as messy as I thought. My cousin though, the lazy bum, thought it was way too much effort to do and resorted to making bigger and bigger meatballs, haha. In the end, I had to relegate him to just cooking the pasta (he's an expert in that ;) ) while I handled the meatballs. One warning though... you would need a very very large pot. We had to fry the meatballs in two batches in a frying pan, then transfer to a medium-sized saucepan. The meatballs filled the saucepan almost to the brim! We didn't have a choice though, since we didn't have any bigger pots. So when we added the tomato sauce, it was kind of hard to stir without breaking up the meatballs. And we definitely couldn't add the pasta into there, so we just did it the normal way. Mixed up individual portions.

Now, to the important bit... how did it taste? My cousin didn't like the tomato sauce so much, he thought it was a touch too sour. I thought it tasted okay, especially with cheese, but found it a bit too dry for my liking. It would probably have been better if we had added some water in it, or even used a ready-made pasta sauce. Might have tasted slightly better too. So I strongly suggest you just do that. It'll be much more convenient anyway. :)

The meatballs, on the other hand, were a hit. Even though they weren't what my cousin was expecting, he found them quite okay. My aunt really liked them as well. I thought they were fine, except for the onions. The knife I had to work with was not the sharpest of knives, and well... I am not not that used to working with onions, haha. So as a result, my onion was not that finely chopped. I think it would have been better if we had used shallots (easier to chop finely) or even blended the onions in a paste - and throw in the parsley with it. It would have made the meatballs taste more uniform. Plus, the onions kind of ruined the texture of the meatball. And if you do use finely chopped onions/shallots... I suggest you fry them until tender first. Just to get rid of the crunch, and give it a sweeter taste. :)

Apart from that, everything was just fine... though my cousin feels like it would have been better if there was more meat in the tomato sauce itself. I think that's a bit over, but hey... to each his own...

Quote of the day: Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner.

Sushi

When you do sushi, people usually think... salmon, tuna, crabsticks... you know, fishy things, hehe. But me, I'm a chicken girl. I eat so much chicken that I will probably sprout feathers one day. But not fly. Chickens don't fly... or at least, not very far. It would be kinda cool to fly though. See the world from up above.

... Okay, getting sidetracked here... Anyway, back to the topic on hand, whenever I go to Japanese restaurants in Brunei, I either go for the teriyaki chicken option or... tori katsu maki special in Excapades, which is basically an inside-out sushi roll with a chicken fried in breadcrumbs filling. Yum! I'm not too big a fan of fish... particularly raw ones.

Of course, sushi is relatively easy to make at home, so I thought... well, why not? :D The instructions below are for makizushi, a type of sushi which is usually wrapped in nori and rolled into a cylinder before being cut. So here we go!

What you need:
5 1/4 cups sushi rice
1 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon salt
Note: I cheated. I used a seasoned rice vinegar used for making sushi. There are also powdered mixes available, but its easier to mix in the rice if its liquid. :)

Sheets of nori (seaweed)

Skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into long thin strips

Tori teriyaki:
Japanese soy sauce
Sugar

Tori katsu:
Salt, for seasoning
Flour
Water
Japanese breadcrumbs (panko)

Other equipment:
Bamboo rolling mat

What you do:

1. To make the rice, cook according to directions on packet. Let stand for about 10 minutes, covered.
2. Meanwhile, combine vinegar, sugar and salt in a small saucepan. Cook and stir over high heat until sugar and salt dissolve. Remove from heat.
3. Place rice in a large non-metallic bowl. Drizzle vinegar mixture over rice, to taste, and gently fold in to combine. Leave to cool completely.
4. To cook the teriyaki filling, combine the chicken with soy sauce and sugar and stirfry over high heat until cooked. Season to taste.
5. To make the tori katsu (chicken cutlets), season the chicken well and roll in flour until evenly coated. Mix equal amounts of flour and water in a bowl to make a thick batter. Dip in flour coated ingredients, then roll in breadcrumbs until well coated. Gently press. Deepfry until breadcrumb coat is golden brown and drain.
6. To assemble, place a sheet of nori over the bamboo mat (makisu). To keep it clean, its best to wrap the mat in cling film before using.
7. Spread about a cup of the sushi rice over the nori sheet. Leave a 1/2 inch border around the edges. Make sure not to make the rice layer too thick either. You should still be able to see the nori through the rice. If using your hands to spread the rice, moisten them with water first so that the rice doesn't stick. Place the strips of cooked chicken across the middle of the rice.
   
8. Roll the mat lightly by holding it with your thumbs and the ingredients with your fingers. Make sure not to roll the mat into the sushi!
9. Remove the mat, trim both ends of the makizushi and slice into six to eight pieces using a sharp serrated knife. Serve immediately with soy sauce and wasabi, if you wish.
   

Isn't my plate pretty? Hehe. Its actually a small dip plate, but works very well with sushi. My chicken sushi are the ones wrapped in nori while the other ones are obviously salmon. Those are another type of sushi called nigirizushi and are easy enough to make. Just shape the rice using the palsm of your hand then place the topping over it. You need very thin slices of whatever you're going to use, if possible. Otherwise, bind with a thin band of nori.

Anyway, as you may have guessed, I made two types of chicken filling - teriyaki and tori katsu. For me, the teriyaki was easier to make, slightly healthier and more flavoursome as well. I probably didn't season the tori katsu well enough. It was a bit bland, even with the soy sauce dip.

Speaking of dip, I didn't use wasabi since I am not a big fan. But I found out something interesting... did you know that the wasabi paste/powder or whatever that you buy from the shops as well as those served in restaurants are not actually the authentic wasabi made from Japanese horseradish which is apprently quite expensive. Usually, its made from normal horseradish, green food colouring and some mustard. This is the case, even in Japan apparently. Check out the wiki article for more info. :)

Anyway, because the tori katsu was so blad, for another batch, I decided to mix the teriyaki with the katsu - a double chicken filling, hehe. Yum! I do think Excapades' is better... which is obviously because they are more experienced in making sushi, plus they have that extra orange crunchy seasoning thing on the outside of the rolls. Oh well, never mind. This managed to satisfy whatever craving I had for that sushi, so it served its purpose, hehe. ;)

Quote of the day: Sometimes sushi is just superb, and other times there's nothing like a great big steak. It depends where your taste buds are at the time.

Gooey Butterscotch Cream Muffins

I actually made this quite a few days ago, but kept on forgetting to bring the memory card adapter for my laptop with me at my aunt's place. Oh well, never mind. I finally managed to bring it (well, I actually went back and got it today) and here I present to you... my 3rd muffin recipe :D

The muffin I wanted to make evolved from various recipes. First, I wanted to do jam doughnut muffins, but it turned out that my cousin who was visiting from Bradford was not a fan of jam. Of course, that would be defeating the purpose if not everyone can enjoy it, so I decided to make Rocky Road muffins. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the marshmallows made from fish gelatine, so I couldn't make that either.

Finally, at our wit's end, we decided to go with a random recipe which didn't involve fruits or chocolate and came up with this - Gooey Butterscotch Cream Muffins. Mmmmmmm... Sound good? :D Here we go! (PS Don't worry, the other two are still coming... only not now ;) )

What you need:
Oil or melted butter, for greasing (if using)
150g hard butterscotch sweets (we used Werther's Originals)
280g plain white flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
115g soft dark brown sugar
2 medium eggs
250mL double cream
6 tablespoons sunflower oil or 85g butter, melted and cooled

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line with 12 paper cases. Put the butterscotch sweets in a strong polythene bag and hit with a meat mallet or the end of a wooden rolling pin until finely crushed.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and crushed sweets.
3. Lightly beat the eggs in a large jug or bowl then beat in the cream and oil (or butter). Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the beaten liquid ingredients. Stir gently until just combined. Do not over-mix.
4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tin. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until well risen, golden brown and firm to touch.
5. Leave the muffins in the tin for 5 minutes then serve warm or transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.

As I've mentioned before, never never NEVER overmix muffins. It doesn't matter if you still have lumps of flour in the batter. Handling the batter too much will cause gluten to form in the batter which will make the resulting muffin hard and dry. Use only 12-15 strokes. Of course, you have to make sure that there are no big pockets of flour at the bottom of the bowl. ;) This site has a couple of tips on how to make "perfect" muffins. :D

Anyway, so how did this turn out? Unlike what the recipe says, even though the tops were nice and golden, the middle of the muffins were still a bit soft, not firm. I took one out though, just to check, and it looked done, so I decided to take the whole pan out. I think it must have been the melted sweets that gave the softness, because as soon as they cooled down a little, they firmed up. :)

Again, I made this at my aunt's place and my little cousins wanted to "help". One was really disappointed that I was not going to frost these muffins, as he loved the icing from the cupcakes last time. He was also mad that I didn't let him mix the muffin batter, so he got all sulky. So yeah, call me mean, but hey, I couldn't risk these muffins getting tough. :P

So yeah, he was sulking and didn't want to eat these muffins, but I had no such qualms. :P They smelled really good, all butterscotch-y, and the outside was all nice and golden and crisp. The insides though, were nice and soft, so yay, I didn't overmix them! :D :D :D They tasted reaaaaally good too! There was a really nice butterscotch-y flavour. Also, the sweets that were not broken up all that finely had melted in the muffin and were present as pockets of gooey goodness. I suppose that's were the name comes from, hehe.

Anyway, my cousin gave up after awhile and very nicely asked me if he may have a muffin. And he absolutely loved them. I think he liked the texture very much. He asked if he could have another one to bring to school, hehe. When he had one the next day though, the muffins had gotten slightly soggy and they had to bake it for a short while in the oven to crisp it back up.

That's one thing about muffins I am not sure about... how do you store them so they do not get soggy? Supposedly, storing them in a loose container, not air-tight, will prevent that, but I am not quite sure about that since I didn't try. Muffins also freeze very well, so you could do that if you wanted to keep them fresh. Otherwise, eat within 2-3 days, although of course, the fresher they are the better. Enjoy!

Quote of the day: I believe the world to be a muffin pan, and there certainly are a lot of muffins here.

Quesadillas

After the really yummy sweet chilli chicken wraps the other day, I still had... oh, about half the pack of tortilla wraps left. At the back of the packet, there was a recipe for Quesadilla, and I thought... hey, why not. It'll use up my both my wraps and my salsa. No wasting is always good, hehe. Plus, it apparently means "little cheesy thing". Haha, how could I not want to try something that sounds so cute? According to the wiki article on quesadillas, the type of recipe they gave (I used the Discovery brand) is actually called sincronizada in Mexico, and only called quesadilla in the USA. But doesn't matter. It sounds good, which is the main point, hehe, and is really easy to make, which is even better. ;) Its sort of like a grilled cheese sandwich, only instead of bread, you use tortilla wraps. So, here we go!

What you need:
(serves 4)
8 tortilla wraps
4 tablespoons salsa
200g mature cheddar cheese
1 bunch spring onions, chopped finely
Handful of salami, chopped finely - optional, added by Ihsan, hehe

What you do:

1. Lightly grease a frying pan and place on medium heat.
2. Divide the cheese, spring onions and salami into four portions.
3. Place one tortilla wrap on the pan and spread one tablespoon of salsa all over it.
4. Sprinkle over one portion of the cheese, spring onions and salami over it, then cover with another tortilla wrap.
5. Fry on both sides until crispy and the cheese is melted. Cut into wedges and serve immediately.

This kind of reminded me of the older cheddar, tomato and salami pancake stack. Only this one was much easier to make, since the "pancake" was already pre-made. ;) With the addition of the salsa, it was much tastier too! Much better than the bland tomatoes in the other dish. This time, the salsa was nice and juicy, with a bit of a spicy kick, which is always welcome.

One thing I didn't like about this dish was really my own fault. I forgot to buy Cheddar cheese, and the ravenous students at Brunei Hall have somehow got it into their head that anything in the refrigerator is fair game and finished my old stock of cheese... so I was forced to use my Mozzarella cheese instead. Now, I like, Mozzarella cheese. Its nice, and creamy and stringy... but is so mild, that it was totally overpowered by the salsa. Mature Cheddar would have made the dish soooooo much more tastier! :D

Apart from that, everything was a-OK! :D It was easy to make, to serve and to eat, hehe. The cheese holds everything together, so it doesn't fall apart when you take a bite. :) I actually had it for breakfast, but I think this would make a nice and simple lunch, maybe with a couple of fajitas. ;)

And the poll about the new layout is finally finished. Almost half the people preferred the old layout, while another half think that the new layout is super awesome! There was a small, but significant, minority of those who think the current layout is horrible. :( If you guys could tell me what exactly you don't like about this layout, or what you prefer about the old layout (the one before the flowers, I assume), I would really really appreciate it, thanks!

Quote of the day: No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.

♥ Cupcake Love ♥

When I made the biscotti the other day, my little cousins were all eager to "help" me in making them. Of course, they were more often made my work more difficult, hehe, but it was still good fun anyway. But anyway, to their absolute delight, their mother (my aunt) planned on making cupcakes this weekend. Today, in fact. The older one was so enthusiastic that he kept on asking throughout the week if that day was already the weekend.

These cupcakes were actually inspired by another batch of cupcakes that some of my other cousins made for a birthday party:


Recipes for icing and cupcakes are all from Cupcake Creations. We used the basic vanilla cupcake recipe with buttercream frosting. They have more recipes for other variations of cupcakes, so check them out. Anyway, here we go!

What you need:
150g butter, softened
150g caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Note: To make Chocolate Chip Cupcakes, add 50g of chocolate chips

For the icing:
150g butter, softened
250g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons hot water

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C.
2. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper baking cases.
3. Crack the eggs into a small bowl and beat lightly with a fork.
4. Add all ingredients into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes until light and creamy.
5. Divide the mixture evenly between the baking cases.
6. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until risen and firm.
7. Allow to cool for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Allow to cool fully before icing.
8. To make icing, beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Once well combined, add the vanilla and water and beat until smooth and creamy.
9. Spread the icing over the cooled cupcakes, and sprinkle over small sugar or chocolate decorations.

That one batch of icing was actually supposed to be for one batch of cupcakes, but we managed to stretch it out into two batches. The icing was sooooo sweet, that we spread it out quite thinly. It is 2/3 sugar, after all. :P

Other than that, these cupcakes were really nice. The tops were nice and flat-ish, instead of the rounded tops of muffins, so it was relatively easy to spread the icing on top. Of course, relative being the key word here. Its not that easy, if you've got a two and five-year old, wanting to spread the icing as well. And if you leave them for even a couple of seconds, they've got icing all over their mouths and the spoon stuck in it. :P I tried to take a picture, but my cousin suddenly turned all shy, haha.

Anyway, these cupcakes weren't as light as I heard cupcakes supposedly were, but they were definitely more delicate than muffins. The texture was nice and smooth, and not too sweet (without the icing, hehe). I liked the the icing and the slightly crunchy sugar/chocolate decorations on it. The texture of the whole thing was just delectable. :D

Anyways, the site that I gave you had a lot of recipes, as well as various decorating ideas... I really would like to try some of them soon, hehe. :D Someday, someday...

Quote of the day: If you threw a cupcake against the wall, you would hear something of a 'poof!' If you threw a muffin, you would hear a 'thud!'

Double Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti (Happy Birthday Rasadhi~!)

In one of the TV series I watched (and just finished!!), Gilmore Girls, after they come back from their backpacking around Europe trip, they munch on these Italian biscotti. The biscotti were all crunchy and looked delicious. Apparently, biscotti means twice-baked in Italian.

One of my friends, Rasadhi, is also a huge fan of that show and her birthday is tomorrow, so I thought it would be a neat idea to send her some biscotti. Home-made, of course, hehe. Unlike "normal" cookies, biscotti are also quite low in fat, so this would be rather welcome, I'm sure.

So, here we go!

What you need:
(makes about 2 dozen biscotti)
1/2 cup whole hazelnuts - I used 1/3 cup chopped hazelnuts
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips, or good quality chocolate, chopped
2 large eggs
2 large egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules, dissolved in 1 teaspoon water

What you do:

1. Preheat oven to 175C.
2. Place nuts on a dry cookie sheet and toast for 7-10 minutes, until the skins popped open and the nuts are fragrant. Remove from oven and place on a clean kitchen towel. Rub the nuts with the towel to remove skins. Set aside. (I omitted this step - too lazy)
3. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips.
4. In a medium bowl, stir together eggs, egg whites, vanilla and coffee.
5. Add the egg mixture and hazelnuts to the flour mixture and stir by hand until just combined.
6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With floured hands, shape the dough into two 8-inch long logs. Place the logs 2-3 inches apart on a cookie sheet that has been greased with butter or oil or nonstick spray. Flatten each log into a rectangle that is about 3-inches wide.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes until firm and cracked on top. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for about 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 135C.
8. Place logs onto a cutting board, trim the ends and cut each log diagonally into 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick slices with a sharp serrated knife. Place biscotti cut side down on the cookie sheet. Return them to the oven for 20 minutes, then flip them over and bake for another 20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

As you can see, the recipe doesn't have any butter at all. Most of the fat comes from the egg yolks and the nuts and, of course, the chocolate chips. My little cousins actually "helped" me make these biscuits, since I made these at their place. The Brunei Hall kitchen is getting worse by day, and I doubt that I could make proper cookies with the oven there. Not to mention that the counters are getting more disgusting every time I go there... Sigh... Makes me want to buy take-out instead.

Anyway, back to the cookies. You might think, "Oh, how troublesome. You have to bake them twice." But these are actually much easier to make than normal cookies/biscuits. You just shape them once, then all you have to do is cut them up and bake them again. You don't have to worry about shaping each cookie with a spoon, hehe. I managed to fit them all onto one (quite big) baking tray, so all I had to do was one batch.

Now, how did it taste? Obviously, the longer you bake biscotti, the harder the texture will be. I think I might have baked these a touch too long, so they were quite crunchy. But I like crunchy biscuits, so all is good, hehe. When I posted these (she is in Bristol), UK was going through the whole "worst storm of winter" thing, so everything was kind of wet and humid. I kind of tried to seal it as best as I could, but you never know. The posting took only a day though, so it might not have been too adversely affected. Unfortunately, I'll never know, since any questions I ask will always be answered,"Oh, they were lovely." Hehe.

But if it makes you feel any better, I bought a pack of (expensive!!) Sainsbury's Taste the Difference biscotti to compare and I actually liked mine better. Haha, no, I am not biased. The Sainsbury's one were kind of more crumbly, like dried out cake, and had some honey in it, which I didn't like too much. Mine were more biscuit-like, very crunchy and with lots more chocolate chips, hehe.

Ooh, before I forget, biscotti are meant to be eaten with a cup of hot drink - cappuccino, hot chocolate, whatever strikes your fancy. Dunk the biscuit in and enjoy! Because they're so sturdy, they won't fall apart in the drink. Their solid texture also makes them suitable for posting, which worked out well for me, hehe.

Anyway, this is, of course, one of the many biscotti recipes there are out there. Some other combinations in my book were pistachio and cranberries; almonds, cherries and white chocolate, etc etc etc. You can basically put in almost anything, once you have the basic recipe down. Like any cookie recipe, you just have to keep the wet:dry ratio more or less the same. Anyway, try googling up biscotti recipes, if double chocolate and hazelnut does not appeal. I'm sure you'll find something that you'll like.

Quote of the day: I think the butter has slipped off your biscuit.

Fresh from the oven!

Welcome to the all-new Food for Thought. As you can see, I finally updated my template with something that is more related to food, and rather reminiscent of my old template, atcually. But since I didn't have the code for that one, I thought I might as well update it a little, something which I've been meaning to do but always have been too lazy to. :P

Anyway, because this template is rather... special, shall we say, I'll give you a brief introduction on how it works. This is based on the Neo Template, in which there is asynchronous loading of the different parts of the blog. Asynchronous basically means that they are not loaded at the same time, and this makes browsing the blog ever-so fast, because only parts of the blog are reloaded when you browse around. This is particularly convenient for all those slooooooooooow internet connections. ;)

This becomes apparent if you try clicking on any of the labels in the label cloud on the right. Once you do that, the posts in the "Recent Posts" section to the right of that changes with the posts that are labeled with that particular label. Yet, nothing else on the page changes! The same thing happens if you click on the "Older Posts" and "Newer Posts" links at the bottom of the Recent Posts Widget. As yet, I haven't quite figured out how to insert a link that goes back to Recent Posts once you've clicked on a label, so if you want to do that, you'll have to click on the "Home" link on the navigation bar above the posts area.

What's most useful is when you actually click on a link to a post. When you do that, only the post section changes to that particular post. Because everything else is NOT loaded (hence asynchronous loading), the posts will load much more faster than if you used a conventional template.

Cool yeah? :D

The only problem I've seen so far is to do with the comments not updating... am not sure why this is, but I think its a common problem. Not sure if its fixable though, but I thought I should let you guys know. You can always see the 5 most recent comments through the "Recent Comments" widget. Even if you click on it, it doesn't seem to show the new comments though. But you can always get to read the comments by clicking on the "Post a new comment" link on each post.
Update: It seems like if someone has posted a comment to the newest post, there would be no problem in viewing it. It is only if the person posted a comment to an older post that the comments in the post would not be updated. I am hazarding a guess that this is to do with the whole asynchronous loading thingie. Ah well...
Update II: Well, it seems like the comments are showing up now... maybe it just takes awhile for them to process?

One more thing... to make the blog look slightly neater, I've added my links (to other blogs) in peek-a-boo link lists. In order to view the lists, click on either of the titles "Friends (+/-)" or "Want More Food? (+/-)". This will expand the link lists and you'll be able to view the links as normal. :)

I also got rid of my various categories of food like last time, but you can easily access everything by using the label cloud. Look for the "recommended" label for extra-delicious foods. ;)

As always, feedback is always appreciated so leave me a message on the chatbox, a comment, or even email if you wish. :) Look forward to more food soon!

Thanks goes to:
Neo Template for the funky basic template
Tips for New Blogger for the various hacks I've used
Singpolyama for the peek-a-boo link lists
and my mucho awesome sister Pinji for the wonderful wonderful banner. <3

Sweet Chilli Chicken Wraps

:D Exams are over. I needn't say more.

So anyway, as promised, here's a new recipe for you to to drool over. I actually made this during the exam period, but didn't have time to write it up. As it was during the exams, I thought I should get something that was quick, easy yet nutritious. That's never easy to do, but I think this fits the bill. And it tastes good, too!

At least, I thought it was nutritious. Until I tried googling "lettuce". Did you know that iceberg lettuce (the type that is commonly used) doesn't actually have that much vitamins and minerals in it? Its just basically like eating lettuce-flavoured water. Apparently, there are other types of lettuce which are healthier. Basically, the darker the leaves, the better it is for you (and the more bitter it tastes!). So that didn't really help to motivate me to eat the lettuce... but it turns out, lettuce with sour cream is actually pretty good. :P So here we go!

What you need:
(2 servings)

2 chicken drumsticks, deboned and cut into chunks
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 fresh green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed - I used garlic powder
1 tablespoon fresh grated root ginger - I used ginger powder
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Juice and rind of 1 lime - I didn't have this, so skipped it out

Fresh salad leaves (e.g. rocket, lamb's lettuce, baby spinach) - I'm not adventurous, so decided to go for Iceberg lettuce
4 soft flour tortillas
4 tablespoons soured cream
2 tablespoons salsa (or chutney)
2 salad onions, shredded

What you do:

1. Marinate the chicken in all the ingredients (except for the second part - salad leaves, tortilla wraps, soured cream, salsa and salad onions) for at least 10 minutes.
   
2. If you can, it would be awesome if you can barbecue the chicken, like a satay. But since that's not an option for me, I settled for pan frying the chicken at a high heat until just cooked with slightly burnt outsides.
3. To assemble, spread the soured cream and salsa over the tortilla wraps.
4. Divide the salad leaves among the wraps, divide the chicken equally then sprinkle over the salad onions.
5. Roll up the wraps and serve immediately.

Just look at the amount of green in there...


Two years ago, I probably wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole. :P But I guess I am getting braver now? Hehe. Ibu Babah would be so proud. ;) If you remember our chicken fajitas from last year, this is pretty similar. But what attracted me to the idea of this dish was that it seems to be combining two cuisines together - Mexican(-ish) and Oriental. So I though, it might be rather neat to try it, hehe.

The thought of using soured cream might seem to make this dish not so healthy, but soured cream isn't as bad as mayonnaise, plus you don't really need to use a lot of it. Per serving, you probably have about 30-50 calories of the whole thing coming from the soured cream. Which really isn't too bad.

So anyway... how did the dish itself taste like? Like I said earlier, it really wasn't too bad! I liked it a lot! The sour cream and salsa goes really well with the lettuce, and the slightly burnt sticky chicken with the chillies = yummilicious! <3 Plus, it is really quick to make it too! Its a bit messy to eat, probably because I bought the smaller tortilla wraps and stuffed a lot of stuff into each one, which made rolling it harder. But if you used the big wraps, it should be fine. Or control the amount of stuff you put in, hehe.

Which brings me to the next point... yes, you can get tortilla wraps in Brunei. They're the small ones, I believe, and yes, they are rather expensive. You could either replace the tortilla wraps with pitta bread, or make your own! :D There are probably recipes out there some where. Not sure how difficult it would be to make...

So there you go! First recipe in awhile, hehe. As I promised, a new blog layout is coming soon as well. I'm rather excited about that one, so look forward to it!

Quote of the day: One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.