Chicken Quesadilla

I love Mexican food.  My family love Mexican food.  Base case, we love food that has cheese and tomatoes. 

It was a lazy Saturday last week and I was feeling a bit under the weather.  Really wasn't up to cooking dinner but hey, I have three hungry mouths to feed.  Thought of eating out but lazy to drive. I tell you, I was feeling extremely lazy on that day!  All I wanted to do was sleep...well! 

Anyway, in the end, decided to make a simple dinner.  Since I have a pack of ready made wraps in my little pantry, I made the simplest dinner ever...Chicken Quesadilla.  I didn't really follow any recipe, just throw in some chicken, onion, capsicum, cheese and that's it.

It's light but yet filling.  Most importantly, I don't have to sweat it out over the stove!

Serves 4:

2 pieces chicken breast, cut into strips

1 large yellow onion, cut into rings

1 large capsicum, cut into small squares

a few sprigs cilantro, chopped

cheddar cheese

8 wraps

1. Marinate the chicken with salt, pepper and barbecue sauce.

2. Heat olive oil in a frying pan, fry the onion, add in chicken breast and stir for a few minutes.

3. Add in capsicum and cook until chicken is done.  Set aside.

4. In another non-stick frying pan, heat the wraps (without oil).  Spoon the chicken mixture onto the wraps (while it's being heated), sprinkle cheese on top and lastly cilantro.  Cover with another piece of wrap and carefully, turn it over until the wrap is crispy.

5. Take it off heat, cut into quarters and serve immediately.

You can serve this with guacamole or sour cream.

Strawberry Scones and Cameron Highlands Holiday Get-a-way

The last week of the 2-weeks school break in mid June brought us to a short holiday in Cameron Highlands.  Yup.. again! If you have been following my earlier posts, my big big family and I went there last October.  We had a great time there and now, it's only us.

It was a last minute decision which we enjoyed the much cooler air in the highlands as it was freaking hot in KL!

This time, we discovered a small old fashion cafe that serves tea snacks such as scones, pies, cakes and sandwiches.  Their scones are really yummy and the best part, the food there is so cheap.  If you ever go to Cameron, I highly recommend you to visit The Lord's Cafe at Tanah Rata.  This quaint little cafe is on the first floor of Mary Brown outlet.  You can't miss it as it's right smack by the main road of Tanah Rata.

After eating their homemade strawberry scones, I felt inspired to make some when I get home and I did.  The recipe is at the end of this post.  Here are some of the pictures of our holiday.

 Lavender Farm

  

Me and my mini me at the Lavender Farm

   

 Taken at the Rose Farm

A small cabbage patch in the Rose Farm

Below is the strawberry scones that we had at Lord's Cafe.

And now, here's the recipe for my strawberry scones.

1 stick chilled butter, chopped, plus extra for greasing
3 cups self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup icing sugar, extra for sprinkling
1 cup dried strawberries, chopped
scant 3/4 cup milk, extra for brushing

1. Pre heat the oven to 160dC. Grease a 12-inch square cookie sheet.
2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bow,add the salt and butter, and cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.  Add the sugar, strawberries and milk and mix to form a dough, adding a little more milk if the mixture is too dry.
3. Sift flour onto a clean countertop and roll the dough to 1 inch thick using a rolling pin. Cut out 10 scones with a 1 1/2 inch round cutter, gathering up the trimmings and re-rolling as necessary.
4. Place the scones on the cookie sheet so that they are touching each other, which helps the scones to rise up straight. Brush the tops of the scones with a little milk and sprinkle with icing sugar.
5. Bake 12 - 15 mins until the scones are golden brown and sound hollow when you tap it from the bottom. Remove from oven and serve warm with strawberry jam and whipping cream.

 I served these scones with my homemade strawberry jam.  Where did the strawberries come from?  From Cameron Highlands, off course!..hheheheh..

 To wash it all down, nothing beats the strawberry tea..from the Camerons too.  Simply fantastic and satisfying tea!

Wanna have some scones?? 

Toad-in-the-Hole and Banana Blueberry Pancake

This is it!  The time has come to say Goodbye to 2012.

It has been a mixture of pleasant and bitter-sweet journey with quite a bit of adjustments made along the way.  Colleagues of many years who became close friends, left with fond memories and new ones came along who can't quite fill that void.  Learning about the passing of an old colleague which left me shocked and sad.  Having said that, there were sweet moments where friends welcomed their first born into this world. We've had our big family reunion and holiday together.  Most recently, met a friend who I have not seen for 26 years!  It was so good to see her again.  Well, as the saying goes, 'life goes on' no matter what happens.

I feel so thankful that I have my wonderful loving family who are always there for me.  They are my pillar of strength. And a few good friends who are willing to go all out in helping a friend in need!  Life is priceless!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank you, yes, each and everyone of you, for your wonderful, wonderful scrumptious food, great recipes and of course, beautiful photos too.  Photos of your travels as well that brought me there and could just imagine what it's like to be there.  Getting to know you and becoming friends even though it's virtually to speak but nevertheless, I've enjoyed all your posts and can't wait to see what you have in store for me comes 2013!

This shall be my last post for 2012.  Hopefully I'll be able to entice you and hold your interest to many more wonderful recipes in 2013.

I've been on vacation for the past week and another week to go before I'm back to work..sigh! How boring!  Same thoughts with my kids as well when the school re-opens on Jan 2nd and the days will be back to routine.  No more late nights, no more going here and there shopping or visiting, no more playing till their hearts content.

Since I've been home, I get to at least prepare breakfast on some days.  Most days we go to a nearby coffee shop to have our breakfast until we got tired of noddles.  Here, I'm featuring two of the breakfast that I've prepared at home on two different days.  The first one is the 'Toad-in-the-Hole' and the other is 'Blueberry Banana Pancake'.

 Toad-in-the-hole

Toad-in-the-Hole

Slice of bread

1 egg

cheese slices

2 strips of bacon

1. Preheat oven to 180d C.  Pan fry the bacon streaks till half crispy.  Set aside.

2. Grease a muffin tray, place a slice of bread in the muffin hole and place a slice of cheese on top.

3. Break an egg on the cheese and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Line 2 strips of bacon on the eggs and bake till the egg is half cooked.

 Blueberry Banana Panckae

Blueberry Banana Pancake
(makes 12)
25g butter, melted
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour, sifted
1 tsp B.O.S.
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 banana, peeled and thinly sliced (you may use 2 bananas if you like more banana in the batter)
3/4 cup fresh blueberries
1 tbsp vegetable oil
maple syrup, for drizzling

 1. Place the egg, buttermilk and vanilla extract in a bowl and whisk together. Add the melted butter and stir to combine.
2. Place the flour, b.o.s. and sugar in another bowl and stir to combine. Add to the wet ingredients and stir well.
3. Add half of the banana and most of the blueberries and stir again to combine.
4. Heat the oil in a nonstick skillet and spoon in the batter; cook for 2 mins and once bubble appears, turn it over and cook till done.
5. To serve, sprinkle with the rest of the blueberries and bananas and sprinkle with maple syrup.

A Very Happy New Year to all.  Be safe, be happy and be merry!  Cheers!

My new year resolution....  to be more charitable to the ones in need especially young children and the old.

Gingerbread House, Gingerbread Man & Black Russian Brownies

Ooo yeah!  The time has come for me to try my hands at making the Gingerbread House!  I thought it was a simple task.  All I need to do is just make the dough house structure, bake it, construct it, decorate it, and voila!  Well, I'm in for a big surprise.

At least, the steps are all so simple until the assembling part!  It took me 3 hours or more to finally complete the assembling and decoration.  It took a lot of planning.  Good thing I baked the house structure a day ahead together with the gingerbread man.

                   

 

                 

 

My daughters helped out with the decoration on the gingerbread cookies.  They are very good at it and enjoyed doing it very much!  The 'dress-up' are all their creations.  Nice huh!

                 

 

                 

 

Ooo..my walls are up..but wait.  The 'fun' part was the roof and the chimney!  That's where the disappointment and despair begins and I'm not one to give up that easily. Muaahhahhah!

Okay, the roof and chimney looks good... but don't be fooled.  The 'glue' doesn't hold and the roof gave way.  Oh! I'm in desperation.  I tried various ways to keep them together.  Add more frosting and pray hard it will stick but failed!  Tried using the satay stick by supporting the roof from bottom and planted it to the 'ground' but the roof was too heavy.  So, that idea didn't work either.  Now what?

Thought of making a hole through the top of the roof and tie through with a string but dough is too hard to poke through.  So, bad idea.  I'm not gonna put my hours and hours of work to waste.  Being the so-called 'creative' person, tried hard to think of salvaging my house.

Then, yes, the idea came.  The only problem I'm having is the roof, right?  All I need to do is to keep it together - logically, it has to be connected at the top and stay as a 'triangle'.  Since the 'glue frosting' doesn't work, well, I could use ribbon to hold it together and yet make it look like a present!  Oh yes, that might work and it did!  Phew!  Next year, if I want to make this again, got to search for a better 'sticking frosting' than this one.  Anyway, please click this link on how to make this.

There you go... my first ever Gingerbread house.  It is surrounded by Black Russian Brownies.  Scroll down to the bottom for the recipe.

Dinner's done, and now all set to go at tearing down the house and pop it into the mouth.  The kids having fun at 'destroying' the house..that's what this is all about.  FUN!

 Oh! My poor chimney chin chin!

Next, the roof... they don't have a problem at tearing that down!.... kakakkaka

My nephew is such a joker.  He told me that I have to make a 'double storey gingerbread house'  for next Christmas! Yeah rite.. you are so funny, my 'bigger than me' nephew.. wakakak kakak akaka!  Errr.. you are joking right??

Black Russian Brownies
115g bittersweet chocolate, broken into pieces
115g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cup superfine sugar (I used 1 cup)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp Kahlua liqueur
2 tbsp vodka
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chopped walnut

1. Pre-heat oven to 180dC.  Prepare pan with parchment paper.
2. Melt the choc and butter with the peppercorns in small pan over low heat. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
3. Beat together the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract in large bowl and stir in the choc mixture, Kahlua and vodka.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder and stir evenly into the choc mixture.  Stir in the walnut, pour into pan and bake for 20-25 mins or until done.
5. Let cool and cut into pieces.

We celebrated our daughter's birthday together with Christmas.  This will be featured in my next post on her Durian Little Pony Unicorn Cake theme.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!