Super fast food - very frugal fried rice

When hungry, and wanting more than oat meal, I cook a fried rice. Just heat 1 table spoon cooking/olive oil in a pan, fry quickly half sliced onion, and two cloves chopped garlic. Add 1/2 cup cooked rice. Stir. Add a bunch of cut bak choy. Stir. Add salt, pepper, hot sauce and soy sauce to taste. Serve hot. I eat mine with a (half) boiled egg.  Hunger satisfied, nutrient needs met.

Alternative Foodie

Very crispy triple chocolate chip cookies

Cookie time!

The real one. Not those you get from those websites you have been visiting. I wonder if I leave you some virtual cookies too. Do not fret then, as in our house, cookies or what is generally known in Malaysia as biscuits - has to be ever present in the pantry. Earlier in the month, I heard one yang lady screaming, "BISCUITS" every now and then. I asked her mum, what was going on. We run out of cookies & biscuits in whatever form. Ops. Since we were having visitors, I put out the cookies & biscuits in the open. Digital eat them all. Chocolate chips and all the sugars. For cookies to survive around Digital, they have to be hidden, and rationed. He is the real living cookie monster!

So when we were back at our family home, for the wedding, and have a couple of extra days to be lolling about we made heaps of chocolate chip and oat cookies with whatever ingredients we already had. Nothing magic really as my sister run a bakery, from home. But we did not have brown sugar so we just used powdered sugar (from granulated sugar). I was the one who put together the mix ... and am too hard headed to open a recipe note, had put it all from the way I always make cookies. By how I think a cookie mix is made, by eyeballing them with eyes and hands. Err but with a real baker hovering around I used bowls and cups though. So here we go.

Very crispy triple chocolate chip cookies

2 cups butter/margarine
3 cups powdered sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocoa powder (3/4 cup for more chocolaty taste)
5 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup quick cooking oats
1 cup instant breakfast cereal mix (corn,wheat, oat, milk,sugar) - totally optional
2 cups almond bits
1/2 cup chocolate rice (optional - we were just using our stock)
1 cup chocolate chips

(1) Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla extract, mix well.
(2) Sift  flour and baking powder together. Add the flour mix to butter and sugar mix. Fold gently. I used wooden spoon.
(3) Add oats, breakfast cereal and almond bits, fold.
(4) and last, add the chocolate rice and chocolate chips. Fold up and down. I used my hands at this stage as the mix can be handled with hand, and not the consistency that needed to be piped.
(5) Shape the cookie, any shape, any size. Ours was two marbles size, then we flattened them, also with just our fingers.
(6) Bake in 180 Celsius for 12 minutes. Yield 100s of cookies. About three big cookie jars.
(7) Enjoy.

The cookies are for the to three families. My nieces - the two twins 3 YO screamers. My three nephews, 2 YO, 5 YO and 8 YO; and one cookie jar for Digital. It has been 10 days, and we still got half a jar.

Going Italian again with red snapper carbonara spaghetti

One of the fish we got from the fish market by the sea, last week, was a red snapper. We already cooked the head and tail parts in a curry. The middle part was cut as fillets which some was made into soup for the kids. Red snapper is a prized fish in Malaysia, prices ranges from RM 24 to RM 34 for one kilogram. We got a whole fish for RM 41.00. Being Malaysians, we use every part of the fish, including head, tail and bones.

For a simple pasta lunch, I poached some fillets that was cut into small pieces and added them into a carbonara sauce. Instead of milk, I used the liquid from poaching the fillet for the carbonara sauce. The liquid and filet combination  made a delicious pasta meal, another of my son favorite.

Red snapper carbonara spaghetti:

Fish preparation:

2 of 2 by 4 inches red snapper fish fillets
3/4 cup water
salt
pepper

Heat water, add salt and pepper. Once boiled drop into it the fish fillets. Let simmer for 3 minutes. Separate fish  from liquid, cut it into smaller pieces. Set aside both fish and liquid aside.

Sauce preparation:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon flour
1 clove garlic, mince
1/4 cup mix cheese (mozzarella, cheddar. parmesan)
salt
pepper
liquid from the fish poaching
and the poached fish fillets

Heat oil, add minced garlic, and fry till a little toasty. Add flour, heat it till a little brownish. Add liquid, salt & pepper, mix well. Once the mixture is getting thicker, add cheese, and mix well. Then add fish fillets. Finally add cooked pasta. Once pasta is coated with the sauce, it is ready to be served.

The carbonara spaghetti makes a nice combo with garlic bread and mix salad of apples, oranges, tomatoes and lettuce. The salad we had was topped with some left over baked chicken and parmigiana cheese (parmesan). Dressing was a simple combination of salt, olive oil and lemon juice.

So there was our dinner, very Italian, very Mediterranean. We do have to go slow on the cheese and up the olive oil to benefit from the Mediterranean diet (theory) for heart health.



Happy dining everyone,
Alternative Foodie.

Never fail pizza dough

The classic method of preparing pizza dough, like other yeast bread is by adding dried yeast to water, then adding this mix to the dry ingredients, before kneading it all together. Often the dough gets too wet or too dry requiring addition of water or flour. It is also hard to teach beginners on how to get their dough right. That the exactness of water to flour ratio is dependent on flour characteristics. Learning from what we do while making bread using bread machine or at a commercial bakery where all ingredients are usually mixed from the very beginning, the pizza dough I now days prepare has three steps:
(1) Measure all dry ingredients; flour, sugar/honey, salt, dried yeast and put it all in a mixing bowl.
(2) Add required amount of oil/butter, mix well.
(3) Add water, mix then knead.

I also used to make flour tortilla with flour, baking powder, cooking oil, salt and water. Now I just use the pizza dough to make tortilla. Also out of curiosity I used pizza dough to make a focaccia bread, it turned out just fine too.

Pizza Dough:

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2  tsp dried yeast
1 tsp brown sugar/honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp crushed black pepper
a pinch of dried oregano leafs
a pinch of dried rosemary
3/4 cup water

Mix together all the ingredients except water. Add water, mix and knead well. Dough is ready when it is pliable and soft. For tortilla, dough is ready to be shaped after 15 minutes of proofing. For pizza and focaccia bread wait for another 20 minutes. Use dough as it is normally used to make tortilla, pizza or foccacia. This recipe makes six tortillas, or two small pizzas/focaccia, or one big pizza/focaccia.

This method does not eliminate too soft dough, but there should be enough water for the two cups flour, thus if the dough is still too soft and sticky, a little flour can be added.

By the way, the same dough can be shaped into bun, and bake as bread. This recipe makes for some herb & black pepper dinner rolls. Great eaten with olive oil and cheese.

Happy baking
Alternative Foodie

The ending to our black eyed bean chili

We spent our weekend attending a family wedding. As in many Malay weddings, food was sumptuous, and we had two meals, a pre-wedding dinner, and the next day the wedding lunch. Rich briani rice and meat dishes was among the menu. And all the dessert that was hard to resist. When we got home yesterday evening, and hungry, I went on to reheat my black eyed bean chili for a quick dinner. Today I made some more flour tortilla and again eat them with the last of the very modified chili.

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Besides olive oil and garlic, some cut little green chillies (super hot) from the family backyard garden was first added to the pan. This was followed by two tablespoons of pasta sauce, and half cup of water. Once boiled I put in the rest of the left over black eyed bean chili to the pan, and left it simmering for five minutes or so. The soupy chili and some crackers was my dinner.

For our lunch today, I made another batch of pizza dough, and turned it into six pieces of tortilla. My son eat  his tortilla as cheese quesadilla. I eat mine with the last portion of the chili. And the tortilla became the warps for our bake chicken dinner.

With that I've no more chili nor bean. It is about time to get some more black eyed beans and other type of beans for more beans cooking. Soon.

Alternative Foodie

Black eyed bean chili modified

My Tuesday chili looked anemic and lacking of punch. Luckily I had yet to freeze them, it was still in the fridge. So I ladled about two cups into a pan and added slices oyster mushrooms, diced tomatoes and a blob of Tesco ready made spicy spaghetti sauce. Then some pepper and a pinch of dried oregano leafs. After adding a half cup of water I let it boiled till no more water was left. Finally I'd a decent looking chili. Yeah to a much better taste lunch.

I still have four more serving of the original chili in the freezer. May be I'll add some meat in the next portion I'm going to have, or some root vegetables as I originally planned. The bread was made Tuesday evening, was meant as a pizza dough, but some ended up as tortilla and the rest to make three longish oregano rosemary dinner bread.

In our house food tends to get on our lunch/dinner plate looking different from what it was originally intended. There is not much rule we follow, really, just that food be great tasting, nutritious and non junk. In between we eat some vegetables soup, fruit and salad. And drink plenty of water. Although I eat plenty of plant foods, I'm not a vegetarian. We also drink a good amount of milk. And kind of dependent on cheese and yogurt. My son eat much more animal protein as fish, chicken and beef, on top of dairy products. He certainly has to up his vegetable intake beyond tomato base sauces, and mushrooms. Good thing he is much better at eating his fruit these days than in in his early years. Today his lunch is a simple (bread) pizza ... same bread as mine above, but the bread got spaghetti sauce topping first before it was topped with extra cheese. Dinner will be baked chicken wings, for him. And I'll have another helping of chili.

Hope everyone's day is a great one.
Alternative Foodie

A really frugal meal - crepes and chili?

Last week my sister and her family stayed with us for a few days. She is a great cook and cooked family dishes that I enjoyed eating a lot. We also had fresh fish and live crabs (that we bought from a trip to fish market close to a fishermen village) that we just made into soup, and steamed dishes. Now that just the two of us in the house I'm back to experimenting with my food.

I had in the pantry black eyed beans and various dried herb and spices. I wondered if I can make a chili out of these ingredients. No beef, but I'd dried anchovies. The anchovies were pounded to a paste, so were the garlic and the cumin seeds. These were sauteed with a little oil in a pot. Next into the pot were sliced onion, grated ginger, paprika, cayenne (instead of chilies), and coriander powder then some water, salt, and black paper. Once boiling the already soaked black eyed beans were added. After 45 minutes or so, the chili looked good but I added a half cup of quinoa for variety. Hah, it changed into something totally not like a chili.

No matter how the chili looked, it tasted not too bad. It would be great with a tortilla. but I was getting hungry. Next best option was a quick (French) crepes. My recipe required two cups of flour, two tablespoons of dried milk,  half a teaspoon salt and half a teaspoon soda bicarbonate. The soda would give a little softness to the crepes. After mixing the dry ingredients and adding enough water - 2 cups, maybe more, and mixing the batter well; one egg and two tablespoons of cooking oil was added. I just used a hand whisk to mix this batter. The following photos show the step by step to making rolled pizza crepes.

I eat my 'chili' & crepe with orange apple salad, and my son eat his with cut apples. It was an OK meal to me, but my son always loves his pizza crepes. For dinner though I made him baked chicken warped in (pizza dough) tortilla. I love the taste of tortilla made of pizza dough, instead of using baking powder as its leavening agent. Next time I'll take some pictures.

Alternative Foodie