Lazy Egg Tarts

 

When I saw this egg tarts made using puff pastry at Nasi Lemak Lover's blog, I immediately bookmarked it.  Simply because I am lazy and simple or short-cut recipes attract me.  Just so that I had a piece of frozen puff pastry waiting to be used and my girls and I loved loved egg tarts (in any crust), so this recipe came in the right moment.  Each of us had three pieces after it came out of the oven and it was pretty good for a short-cut recipe.  However, I would prefer to use the pie crust for this instead of puff pastry the next time as it couldn't hold lots of filling as I was having difficulty in stretching the thawed puff pastry to fill the muffin hole.  

I would use the custard filling recipe again and make my own crust the next time I feel like eating egg tarts.  Definitely not a bad way to get a quick fix.  However, I would recommend the refrigerated pie crust instead of frozen puff pastry if you don't want to make your own crust and want a quick craving fix..

Spicy Beancurd with Chicken

Sometimes I just needed my spicy food!  I could hardly go more than a day without any spicy food.  That's why I always have a bottle of my homemade chili in oil in the refrigerator on days that I cooked non-spicy food so that I could have that as a condiment.  If you are new to my blog and want my chili in oil recipe, you can do a search within my blog on the right panel.

I could proudly say that both of my girls are well trained in handling spicy food now.  They can eat this with no problem.  They can even eat the spicy Korean instant noodle and one day even brave enough to want to sample my chili in oil.  For your information, my chili in oil is extremely spicy and I was shocked that they wanted to try it.  I gave them a dot to try because they asked for it.  They quickly searched for water after they had it, yeah even my 4 years old dare to eat my chili in oil. :D

This dish was easy to make as well, just required an extra step in pan-frying the tofu first.  If you want it healthier, you don't have to pan-fry the tofu.  I did it for the texture and crunch.

Mixed Veggie and Chicken Thai Style

This could easily be a one dish meal because it had all the goodness in one plate.  Lean protein from the skinless and boneless chicken breast, celery (lower blood pressure, anti-cancer compounds), zucchini (vitamin C), carrot (beta-carotene, good for eyes sight and anti-oxidant) and wood ear fungus (high in iron, good in blood circulation, low in calories and prevention of tumors).  You know, it might be hard to keep track of the nutritional benefits of each fruit/veggie.  But once you know that what fruit/veggie is good for you, just make sure that it's on your lunch or dinner menu often.  Making sure your plate is colorful is important too as different color provides a different nutritional benefit for your body.

2-2-3-4-5 Sticky Ribs

 

I was bad at cutting through the bones, that's why my ribs were in big pieces.  I tried to cut it into half but my cleaver just won't cut through.  So, I gave up before my cleaver ended out with more teeth.  LOL!  Anyway, I bought some ribs when it was on sales and I wanted to try something different instead of cooked it with Bak Kut Teh and I remembered this 2-2-3-4-5 Braised Chicken dish that I cooked before which I adapted from a ribs recipe.  So, since I had some ribs now why not gave it a try and this dish was born.

When this dish was cooking, it didn't smell too good in the house because of the vinegar.  But once it was cooked, I couldn't taste the vinegar at all.  Tasted pretty good to me.  But since it was cooked in an hour to an hour and half, the meat was not fall off the bones tender.

Lastly, Happy 4th of July to those who celebrated!!!

Pandan Kaya Sponge Cake

This is the most basis sponge cake recipe uses only eggs, sugar and flour.  I flavored it with pandan paste or you can use pure vanilla extract for the vanilla flavor.  I made this because I just made a bottle of pandan kaya using my bread maker and I wanted to have it with some sponge cake.  I had used this sponge cake recipe for swissroll before and this recipe works well for me.  If you have been my avid reader, you should realize that I always stick to the recipe that works well for me.  Not quite adventurous as to try other sponge cake recipe.  Or simply put, just used the one easy sponge cake recipe that does not require to separate the eggs into egg white and did it like the chiffon cake method.

This cake was spongy and delicious with the double pandan flavors from the cake and kaya.  Quite fattening I must say, that's why it was served in small pieces, but one piece was never enough.

Italian Cheese & Herb Fettuccine

Lazy me called for lazy lunch.  I found the Philadelphia cooking creme a short-cut for creamy based pasta.  I always have frozen mixed vegetable for fried rice, Japanese curry and pasta in my freezer and packages of dried pasta in my pantry.  So, this was an easy lunch to whip up.  I only need to thaw a boneless and skinless chicken breast, sliced it and seasoned it.  Another alternative is to use the canned tuna or tuna in pouch for a quicker preparation.

This noodle dish was rather inexpensive.  1 package of pasta was $1 (on sales), 1 container of cooking creme was about $3 (with coupon), 1 chicken breast was about $1.50 and the mixed vegetable was about $0.25.  So, total cost for this lunch was about $5.75 and it served 4 persons.

Sharing this with Presto Pasta Nights hosted at Ruth of Once Upon a Feast and  "S$20 Budget Meal"  or "US$15 budget meal" hosted by Cuisine Paradise.