Amaretti

These are delicious Italian Almond biscuits made with ground almond, egg white and sugar - no flour, so they're gluten-free! =)

I had lots of egg whites frozen from my CNY bakes, so it was a cinch to make these cookies for Easter.

Ingredients:
60g Egg White
250g Ground Almond (bought from Phoon Huat)
200 grams Castor Sugar that has been processed through the food processor
1/2 teaspoon Almond Essence (optional)

Method:
1. In a mixer, add the ground almond and castor sugar and mix for 1 minute.
2. Into the mixer, add the egg white in 3 batches, until everything comes together.
3. Roll the sticky dough, teaspoonful by teaspoonful onto a lined baking tray.
4. Pop it into a pre-heated oven at 190 degrees C, for about 5 minutes, or until the cookies have risen, are a deep golden color and have tiny cracks.
5. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. When cool gently peel cookies from the baking paper. If they stick, turn the paper over, take a damp paper towel and gently wipe the bottom of the parchment paper to loosen the cookie.

Recipe adapted from: http://www.joyofbaking.com/AmarettiCookies.html

This cookie keeps well and usually taste better a few days after baking... if they can last that long. ;p

Baked Chicken Stuffed with Avocado

This is so easy and healthy to make. The resulting stock from this dish, we used to make chicken noodle soup with the leftover fettucini. =)

A tip: NTUC sometimes has Avocadoes from Mexico in a bundle of 4 for about S$4, which is the cheapest I've found Avos in Singapore. Most places sells them for about S$1.50-S$1.90 each. Cold Storage retails the Australian Avos for S$2+!

Baked Chicken Stuffed with Avocado

http://video.about.com/homecooking/Avocado-Stuffed-Chicken.htm

Ingredients:

8 chicken breasts/legs, pounded flat

4 avocados

6 tablespoons lime juice

1 teaspoon pepper

2 teaspoon garlic powder (You can also use fresh minced garlic)

16g fresh, minced basil leaves

400g diced cherry tomato (You can also use normal tomatoes, but dice them smaller to make it easier to stuff)

150g chopped sweet onion

pepper mill

Method:

1. Slice the Avocados
2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Cut the avocados lengthwise all the way around. Twist the halves and using your knife, strike and remove the pit.
3. With a large spoon, scoop the avocado out of its peel. Then, with a small paring knife, slice the avocado lengthwise.
4. Put the lime juice on the avocados to prevent them from turning brown.
5. Place the avocado slices in a mixing bowl. Add the pepper, the garlic powder, the minced basil, the diced tomato, and the chopped onion. Mix this all together.
6. Divide this mixture into two parts, so that you will stuff the chicken with one part and retain the other half as an accompanying salad for your meal.
7. Lightly oil a deep baking dish with cooking spray. Make sure that the baking dish is deep to hold all the chicken stock that will be produced by the chicken.
8. To stuff the chicken, lay a piece of chicken out on a flat surface. Scoop out a spoonful of the mixture and lay it onto the chicken. Roll the meat over the mixture and tuck in the ends.
9. Place the stuffed chicken in the dish. Do this with all of the chicken. Then sprinkle the top of the chicken with the cracked peppercorns.
10. Bake the chicken in the oven for 45 minutes.

Serve the chicken with the carbohydrates of your choice. We like it with Aglio Olio fettucini, as we can drizzle the resulting chicken stock over the fettucini.

Fresh Tomato Soup

This soup is soooo good, you'll never want to have Campbell's version of tomato soup again! The beautiful fresh taste of tomatoes is preserved, while the smooth creamy texture of the soup will make you crave for more. =)

Original recipe from Allrecipes, and can be found here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Garden-Fresh-Tomato-Soup/Detail.aspx

Fresh Tomato Soup (serves 10)

Ingredients

1.5 kg skinned fresh tomatoes (approximately 2 large tomatoes per bowl of soup)

1 and a half large onion, sliced

6 whole garlic cloves

1.5 L chicken stock (or 1.5 L water, with 2 Knorr Chicken cubes)

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon white sugar, or to taste

Optional:

Finely chopped fresh basil and croutons for garnishing

Directions

To skin tomatoes:

1. Boil a pot of water.
2. Lightly cut through the skin of a tomato and then immerse the tomato into the boiling water for about 20 seconds, or until you see the skin of the tomato start peeling off. The tomato shouldn’t be in the boiling water too long as you don’t want to cook it. You just want the tomato’s outer layer to soften so that the skin can come off easily.
3. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the tomato into a large bowl of icewater.
4. Use your fingers to easily remove the skin of the tomato.
5. Now cut the tomato into half and remove the hard stalk bit, and then cut the tomato into smaller pieces and put it aside for the soup.

To make the soup:

1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, onions, garlic and chicken stock. Boil for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes and onions soften.
2. Blend the soup in a blender until smooth.
3. In the empty pot, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux. Gradually whisk in bit by bit of the blended tomato soup so that no lumps form. Once there is a good amount of smooth tomato soup in the pot, you can just pour the rest of the tomato soup in.
4. Season with the sugar or add in salt if you wish to taste.

I used a thermal pot for step no. 3, so that after bringing the soup to boil, I put it into the thermal pot for the soup to ‘rest’ and its flavours to blend.

I then serve the soup with fresh chopped basil, which brings out the very bright tomato flavour of the soup. I also throw some homemade croutons into the soup as garnish. Yummy!

Brenda's Cream of Broccoli Soup

My family loves cream soup, and once I learnt how easy it was to make and freeze my own, we've not bought a can of Campbell's anymore! =)

I use my thermal pot for making cream soups, and here's our favourite cream soup recipe:

Brenda's Cream of Broccoli Soup

2 litres water

600g Broccoli (with stalk)

60g Celery (finely sliced)

3 cloves Garlic (chopped)

1 large Onion (chopped)

30g butter

50g flour

2 Knorr chicken cubes

1 tablespoon rolled oats

500ml UHT milk

Dash of Nutmeg

Pepper to taste

Grated Cheddar Cheese for garnishing

1. Boil 2L of water.

2. 600g of broccoli is about 2 large heads of broccoli. I usually just trim the broccoli of any discolouration and leaves, and then add the whole broccoli with its stalk to the boiling water. Boil for them for about 5 minutes, then remove the broccoli and save the liquid for later.

3. By now, the broccoli is soften (and HOT!). Use a knife and cut out about a quarter of the florets, chop them up roughly and reserve them for the final step. This will give your cream soup texture. Cut up the rest of the broccoli and put it in a food processor or blender, but don't start blending yet! =)

4. In a frying pan, melt the butter and fry the onion, garlic and celery until soft. To this mix, reduce heat slightly and add the flour and stir thoroughly for about 1 or 2 minutes. Add some liquid from the soup pot until you get a thickened mixture.

5. Put this thickened mixture into the food processor or blender, and blend it with the broccoli. If needed, you can add more liquid from the soup pot. How creamy you want your soup depends on how long you blend.

6. Pour the blended mix back into the soup pot, add in the chicken cubes and oats, and then turn up the heat. The oats thicken the soup and gives it a nice flavour and texture.

7. When the soup is boiling, stir in the milk, all the broccoli, nutmeg and pepper. Heat the mixture until it simmers or until tiny bubbles appear at the side. It’s ready to serve. However, if you’re using the thermal pot like me, I usually put it back into the thermal pot for a time to let the flavours mix. You do not have to reheat the soup before serving.

8. Garnish the soup with grated cheddar cheese. Serve with crusty French bread. =)

9. Freeze whatever soup not consumed.

You can also substitute the broccoli with watercress for cream of watercress soup or potato and carrot for potato soup. =) Also, you can add salt or pepper to taste, but our family finds that the soup is tasty enough without additional salt.

I like my cream soup soupy-thick, rather than gravy-thick.

Brenda's Non-drip Sloppy Joes

Ever since Noel came back from his trips to the beautiful Telunas Beach with a school group for Service Learning at a Malay fishing village, he's been bugging me to make Sloppy Joes. So finally, I googled for Sloppy Joe recipes, and made some for him.

I surprised not only him, but myself as well. Sloppy Joes are so much easier to make than hamburgers and are just as tasty. Also, having modified the method to utilise my excellent fuel saving thermal pot, I can cook this meal with relative ease long before the meal begins. =)

Although I read that Sloppy Joes keep well in the freezer, the amount I made is just enough for my meat-loving family. Keep? Nothing is left for the next meal! But if you do want to prepare this long in advance, the general advise is to put the meat in muffin trays and freeze it. Then remove the frozen meat from the muffin tray and keep it in a ziploc bag in the freezer.

SLOPPY JOE

Ingredients:
500g lean ground beef
50g chopped onion
40g chopped capsicum
2 tsp chopped garlic
1 tsp yellow mustard
3/4 cup ketchup
3 tsp brown sugar
===
1 tbsp oats, mixed with 1/4 cup hot water (if using thermal pot) OR
1 tbsp oats, mixed with 1/2 cup hot water (if NOT using thermal pot)
===
A dash of dried oregano (optional)
ground black pepper to taste

Method:
1. In a large frying pan (or wok) over medium heat, brown the ground beef, onion, and capsicum; drain off liquids. (The liquids can be saved and frozen as beef stock for stew etc.)

2. With Thermal Pot:
Transfer the beef mix to the thermal pot and add the garlic, mustard, ketchup, brown sugar, oats mix, oregano and pepper to taste. Mix thoroughly and cook over medium heat until mixture bubbles for about 2 minutes, then transfer to the thermal pot’s outer sleeve to cook for at least another 30min for the flavours to mingle. (You could make this hours in advance and have piping hot Sloppy Joes for a picnic! =))

2. Without A Thermal Pot:
Add into the frying pan, the garlic, mustard, ketchup, brown sugar, oats mix, oregano and pepper to taste. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.

3. Serve the Sloppy Joe on a soft hamburger bun; it’s up to you how dressy you want the burger to be - a slice of cheese? Onion rings? Tomato slices? It’s all up to you. =) However, make sure that when cutting the burger in half, to cut it slightly concave so that the bun holds the meat better. As it is, this Sloppy Joe recipe holds itself quite well because of the oats, but a well-cut bun helps too.

Enjoy!

Lemon Meringue Cheesecake

At last! The anti-baking/cooking spell is broken. The day after my one month confinement, I got a baking itch and baked a chocolate brownie; simple and satisfying. Then it was a lot of other bakes and food that followed. The only problem was that I didn't have the time to upload the pics/recipe, what with breastfeeding Ezra, homeschooling Ethan and being the all-round BFF to Edna. =) Busy, busy days... but like a brownie, rich and satisfying! *wink*


Inspired by a Cedele Lemon Meringue, I tried looking for a Lemon Meringue recipe, but was sidetracked by a most intriguing dessert I found on www.kraft.com.au - a Lemon Meringue Cheesecake. Besides, looking at the recipe, I realised how simple this Meringue? Cheesecake? is to make.

Unlike a Meringue pie, I did not need to bother with a pie crust. Further, I didn't need to deal with cooking the lemon curd. For like a chilled cheesecake, this recipe only required a sweet biscuit base and using the electric mixer to mix the cheesecake ingredients to chill, and then on with the Meringue top. =)

Or so I thought...

True to form, the cheesecake part was a piece of pie. *wink*

Lemon Meringue Cheesecake
(modified)

Ingredients:
120g Marie Biscuits (crushed in a ziploc bag with a rolling pin. I set Edna to this task and she pounded with gusto!)
115g Butter, melted
500g Cream Cheese (That's 2 block PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese), softened to room temperature
1 can Condensed Milk
1/2 cup Lemon juice

Method:
1. Mix the biscuit crumbs with the butter well, and then press the mixture into a 26 cm (or thereabouts) springform pan which is lined with baking paper. Use a flat bottom glass to press in the bottom of the pan, and the back of a spoon to press the crumbs to the sides of the pan. Chill in the fridge if you do not intend to use it yet, or freezer if you intend to use it soon.**
2. In an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until it's smooth, then add the condensed milk and lemon juice. Continue beating until the mixture is well mixed.
3. Pour the cream cheese mix into the prepared biscuit crust. Chill until the mix is firm, which takes about 3 hours, or overnight.

As for the Meringue top, I deviated from the kraft.com.au recipe.

You see, I expected the Meringue top to be a bit flaky/crunchy like Cedele's, which is why my first attempt looked like this:
Certainly, I was a bit disappointed that the Meringue wasn't like Cedele's crispy one, but then I realised that Cedele's meringue is probably done in a Meringue cookie style, characterised by more sugar, low oven temperature and longer baking time - not what this recipe required.

To cut a long story short, what happened is that through doing research on why my Meringue was soft, I discovered The Perfect Meringue! Just imagine a lighter than marshmallow meringue that is so light it disappears on your tongue... mmm....

The Perfect Meringue Topping

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon Cornstarch
1/4 cup Water
4 Egg Whites (it's much easier to separate eggs and whites when they just come out of the fridge. For making meringue, you'll need to allow the whites to get to room temperature. Cold egg whites don't fluff out as well.)
1/2 teaspoon Cream of Tartar
1/2 cup Caster Sugar

Method:
1. In a small saucepan, whisk the cornstarch and water together. Keep whisking while cooking it over medium heat until the mixture thickens. Be careful because this will occur very quickly; in about a minute. Once thickened, remove the saucepan from the heat and continue whisking until it's smooth. Then cool completely before use. Remove lumps if there are any.

2. Place room temperature egg whites and cream of tartar into the bowl of a stand mixer. On high speed, whip until foamy/bubbly.

3. Reduce speed to medium and whip, while slowly sprinkling in the 1/2 cup of sugar. Return to high speed and whip until whites form a ribbon that folds back on itself when beater is raised, about 1-2 minutes (Pre-soft peaks).

4. Stir in the cornstarch mixture and beat on high speed until shiny, soft peaks form, about 2-3 minutes.

5. Then, spread on top of the chilled cheesecake. Save some to pipe around the edges of the pan, or use a table knife to form spikes. Finally, bake in an oven at 180 degree Celcius until the peaks brown and caramelise, about 15 minutes.

6. Remove from the oven and cool before putting it back in the fridge to chill. Cut and serve.

A Close Up

**If you look at the pictures carefully, you'd notice that in the first attempt, I used a springform pan, but in the second attempt, I used an oven-proof glass pie dish. Looks-wise, using the pie dish is prettier, but it's certainly not easy to cut out a slice. In fact, each time I wanted a slice, I needed to microwave the dish for 10 sec to loosen the biscuit crust from the glass. The springform pan was a breeze to cut, but there'll be about an inch of white where the meringue cannot brown. Of course, to "disguise" this white band, you could always press the biscuit crumbs to the top of the springform pan.

Rum & Raisin Chocolate Cheesecake

I made these yummies for a Masak-Masak challenge. The challenge was to cook/bake/create something that includes the following ingredients: cream cheese, chocolate and a fruit.

I found the following recipe after a quick google and modified it slightly. I love the idea of these cheesecakes because they are in individual portions, and the recipe only requires a 250g block of cream cheese. Most cheesecake recipes require 2 blocks of cream cheese to put into a springform pan. As I'm still in a baking doldrum, I'm rather lazy to dust out the springform for baking. *g*

Rum & Raisin Chocolate Cheesecake

Making the Rum and Raisin:

1. Soak 95g (1/2 cup) of raisins in 80ml (or 1/3 cup) rum in a covered bowl for at least 6 hours or overnight. I soaked the raisins for a few days because after I began the recipe, I got lazy to continue it. *g*
   
2. To use, separate the raisins from the liquid. Keep the liquid for the cheesecake.

Ingredients for the cheesecake:

• Cooking spray, to grease muffin tin
  
• 200g plain chocolate biscuits
  
• 60ml (1/4 cup) light corn syrup/golden syrup
  
• 50g unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tsp powdered gelatine
• liquid from Rum & Raisin
  
• 200ml carton whipping cream
  
• 250g Philadelphia cream cheese, at room temperature
• 80g (1/2 cup) icing sugar mixture, sifted
• 150g 70% dark chocolate, melted in microwave
• raisins from Rum & Raisin
  

Method

1. Spray lightly, twelve 80ml (1/3 cup) muffin pans to grease. These are the usual sized cupcake pans you'd use for making cupcakes. The recipe calls for lining the bases and sides with non-stick baking paper, but being lazy, I just lined it with cupcake liners.
   
2. Use a food processor and process the chocolate biscuits until they are fine. In a bowl, add corn syrup and butter to the biscuits. Stir until well combined. I weighed the mix and then divided the mix equally into 12 portions. Each portion is put into the cupcake liners and pressed down with the base of a small glass. Place the muffin pan in the fridge until required.
3. Put the liquid from the rum & raisin in a small bowl and heat it in a microwave for 30-45 seconds on high. Add the gelatine and stir with a fork until it dissolves. If the gelatine doesn't dissolve, send it back to the microwave for another 10 seconds and stir again until most of the gelatine dissolves. Set it aside for 5 minutes to cool to room temperature.
4. In a mixing bowl, use a wooden spoon to beat the cream cheese and sifted icing sugar until smooth. Add the cooled rum mixture, melted chocolate and raisins to the cream cheese mixture and beat until well combined.
5. Use an electric beater to whisk the cream in a bowl until soft peaks form.
6. Then, using a large metal spoon, gently fold in the whipped cream into the chocolate cream cheese mixture until they are all combined.
7. Spoon the filling evenly among the muffin pans. Gently tap the pans on the bench and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 4 hours or until set.
8. Use a skewer to loosen the cheesecakes from the muffin pan. You can either leave the cupcake liner on or not, depending on your preference.

The original recipe calls for extra 50g of melted chocolate to drizzle on the cheesecake, but I've simplified it with just a maraschino cherry on the cheesecake for a cheerful look. And this is the result!

Happy Father's Day, Noel!