McBreakfast at home

I love those mcmuffins at Macca's but they're actually really easy to do at home. I just got some english muffins from safeway and popped them into the frying pan with the bacon and egg without adding oil [the fat from the bacon was enough to fry everything up] and piled them together like this.
then a slice of cheese and some ketchup there that's it! a bacon and egg and cheese mcmuffin. heheee the only difference is that the ones at Macca's are much saltier!

little discoveries at home

all bread tastes better warmed but not all types fit into a toaster! so this is how I toast non toaster type breads- on a hot pan without oil! works like a charm for lebanese bread, yeasty breads, whatever.
today I tried making "shioyaki" for the first time. it's basically salt grilled fish, japanese style. it's very easy to do, just rub salt into a fish then rinse with salt water and dry with a paper towel then on a hot grill 9 mins on each side [depending on how big the fish is]. after we took it off the grill we sprinkled a bit of lemon juice over it. it doesn't look very pretty in the picture though coz we just served it right off the foil we grilled it in!

with nothing but salt and a bit of lemon juice in it I thought it would be quite boring but it was surprisingly tasty with a nice fresh flavour to it, the lack of other strong "stuff" over it really brings out the natural flavours of the fish, and the fats from the fish gave it a nice flavour too, crisping up the edges. I'll definitely do this regularly as not only is it tasty but really easy to do and not having to use any oil at all is a bonus.

instant pasta and sauce

these continental pasta and sauce packets aren't too bad, although they're cheap. they just need a bit of tweaking. i like adding whatever's around like chopped onions, chives, chilli powder, sausage slices and whatever cooked veggies leftover. they're useful for uninspired times.
it's really getting chilly now!!!

easiyo!

Easiyo is a brand of home-made yogurt mixes and the yogurt "maker" sold at Coles. the yogurt maker is a big tumbler that's got thick sides presumably to maintain a steady temperature which would be the best environment for the bacteria to multiply. each batch of yoghurt produces 1 kg of it, so this freshly made yoghurt is about 10c-70c cheaper than buying those ready made ones from ski as each easiyo packet is somewhere between $3.50-$3.90. I don't know why the different flavours have different prices. perhaps some are most costly to produce!?
the whole point of this is because apparently, freshly made yogurt has more of the friendly bacteria that help our digestion and promote a healthy gut.

so, this time we used a strawberry flavoured one.

it's quite simple to make, first pour some cool drinking water into the container and add the contents of the packet. then top off with more cool water. [this water has to be either filtered, boiled and cooled or bottled as the tiniest amount of chlorine would kill off the yogurt bacteria]
then, hot boiling water is poured into the tumbler up to a certain level, and the yogurt container is placed in it, like so. and covered and left for 8-12 hours at room temperature for the bacteria to multiply.
the next morning we found that it had set into yogurt ! yum. it tasted nice and creamy and flavourful enough but I still like those commercially made berry ones better because those have actual fruit pieces in the yogurt. on the other hand, this one proports to be healthier as it has more bacteria and is fresher with no preservatives.

food...and flowers!

i know i meant for this to be a food blog but since my regular blog is wonky at the moment and i can't post anything to it, i have to put these pics here! at the zoo yesterday i was faascinated by the beautiful animals but also the flowers! this one was particularly interesting. It's probably an iris of some sort [if i've not mistaken] the fact that there're so few of these around made me appreciate it even more, it looks so elegant there all alone among the green stalks.
this one looks so ethereal and glowing, its soft petals seemingly framed into a "Face".
back to food!!

last week I decided to bake some brownies to celebrate Christine's bday but instead of doing all the work I just bossed Phoebe around and made her do everything :D she liked it though so she didnt mind. we used a very easy melt and mix brownie recipe with walnuts and the result was very good, a flavourful, chewy, nutty brownie full of bite.

melt in a microwave using a BIG bowl 250g butter, 2 cups brown sugar and 250g semisweet chocolate, whisk in 6 whole eggs, then stir in 2 tsp vanilla, 2/3 cups flour, 2/3 cups cocoa powder and 1/2 tsp baking powder. add 1 1/4 cups chopped walnuts then bake at 180C until set [if using cupcake cases like I did, it'll probbaly take 20-25mins, if baking in one big slab, probably 40 mins but check regularly to make sure they don't burn!]
below are pics of some fish we had with our porridge for lunch one day. some of the fish were pregnant so there were long egg sacs [shown below] which we grilled along with the fish flesh topped with nothing but tomyam paste. i like the ones from Thailand better than the malaysian made ones. these egg sacs look like sausages! each was filled with thousands of tiny eggs!
yummy but i stopped at one because they're full of cholesterol.
the grilled fish pieces. the skin was nice and crisp from the grilling.

grilled lamb attempt

I got inspired watching nigella lawson make a roast lamb dinner for one with mushy peas so I decided to give it a go. unfortunately i didn't quite get it right, the lamb was soo tough and chewy and not very flavourful although i did chop up garlic and fresh rosemary and drizzled it with olive oil. the grilled onions and tomato was okay though. the mushy peas didn't turn out very good either coz i didn't like how sweet they tasted [i didn't add any sugar!] those peas must be naturally sweet.

the only thing that was perfect were the mashed potatoes, after all you can't go wrong with those!