Beef Pasta
 

I love Italian food and a personal favourite of both mine and Sean’s is the beef pasta I make. I always make it on a lazy day because it’s so simple yet so delicious and healthy at the same time.

 

• Premium Beef
• 1 Capsicum - I sometimes use 2
• Chillies or Chilly powder - Either will work fine
• Penne Pasta
• Coriander
• Salt
• Cooking Wine
• 1/4 Cup Water
• Pasta Sauce - I use Leggo’s Bolognese Sauce in Tomato, Garlic and Herbs flavour
• Garlic
• Tomato

Dark Chocolate Nutella

• 7 oz. (1 2/3 c.) hazelnuts, toasted and skinned
• 9 oz. dark chocolate
• 1, 14 oz. sweetened condensed milk
• A pinch of sea salt (Not necessary)
• Evaporated milk - Room temperature

1. Once your hazelnuts have been toasted, skinned, and cooled, toss them in your food processor and process them until they turn into a paste that resembles peanut butter. This will take a while, and may require you to stop and scrape the sides of your bowl a time or two.

2. While that’s all being taken care of, melt your chocolate in the microwave for 30 second intervals, stirring after each, until smooth and shiny. Add to that your sweetened condensed milk and sea salt, if desired, and mix thoroughly. Then mix in your hazelnut butter.

3. At this point, the mixture will be quite thick. That’s where the evaporated milk comes in. Stir in milk, a little at a time until you get the consistency you like, then add a bit more, because it will thicken more as it cools. Use about 12 oz. can of evaporated milk.

4. While it’s still warm, pour into airtight containers. Once cool, you should store it in the fridge and remove it a couple of minutes before you want to spread it so it has a chance to soften up.

Found the recipe here

Enjoy guys!

Portobello, Broccoli, and Red Pepper Melts

Great recipe for when you have guests over, simple too!

Serves 4

• 1 small head broccoli, cut into small florets
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 portobello mushrooms, stems removed and sliced 1/2-inch thick
• 2 red bell peppers, ribs and seeds removed and sliced 1/2-inch thick
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
• 4 thick slices country bread
• 4 ounces Gouda cheese, thinly sliced

Move oven rack 4-inches away from upper heating element and preheat broiler. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and toss broccoli with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Broil, tossing once, until broccoli begins to char slightly, 4-6 minutes.

Add mushrooms and peppers to pan and season with salt and pepper, tossing to combine. Broil, tossing once or twice, until vegetables are tender, 8-10 minutes. Set aside.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine mayonnaise and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Spread mayonnaise mixture on bread sliced. Top with vegetables and cheese. Place on baking sheet and broil until cheese is melted and lightly browned, 2-4 minutes. Serve immediately.

(via gastrogirl)

Salami, Olives and Chilli Garlic Cheese

I find that if you don’t like the extremely strong taste olives have, a good way to neutralize it is to eat it with some cheese. Since cheese has more of a creamy taste rather than salty or strong, olives compliment it perfectly.
I usually buy this gourmet cheese that’s Chilli, Garlic and Herbs flavour and it’s absolutely delicious. I don’t actually like plain cheese so this one has a bit more flavour and a bit of a punch with the spice.

Try this snack out sometime =]
Enjoy!

Just-Like-Panda-Express Orange Chicken

I always run out of ways to cook chicken and this seems like a lovely way.

1 1/2 lbs (680 grams) chicken breast
3 well beaten eggs
2 Tbsp milk
1 cup Cornstarch
Salt & Pepper

1. Slice the chicken into bite-sized pieces and dip the chicken pieces in egg mixture, coat in cornstarch, then dip it again in egg mixture. What’s really important here is the order as doing so creates a tempura-like batter.

2. Fry in oil heated over a medium or medium-high stove, until lightly browned on both sides. Remove and allow to cool on a paper towel before transferring to a baking sheet. To bake, make sure chicken pieces are in a single layer on baking sheet, coat with orange sauce and bake according to directions below.

Orange Sauce
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/4 c. catsup
1/2 c. honey
1/4 c. orange juice concentrate 
2 T. white vinegar
1 T. dried chives
1 T. red pepper flakes
1 T. sliced almonds

1. In a medium saucepan, combine soy sauce, catsup, honey, orange juice concentrate, chives and red pepper flakes. Stir together over medium heat and bring just to a boil.

2. Drizzle sauce over fried chicken. Bake in an oven preheated to 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes, stirring often to coat the chicken with the glaze. Remove from oven when glaze is no longer puddled around the chicken, it should be sticky and fully coating the chicken.

3. Garnish with chives or chopped scallions, red pepper flakes, orange zest, and sliced almonds. Serve immediately over sticky rice.

An alternative to this recipe is instead of using orange concentrate you can use lemon. I personally prefer lemon chicken since I think it as distinctive taste.

Enjoy!

Salami and Olives on Crackers

Since I love salami I always try and find new ways I can eat it as a snack and this is one way I always love. So simple and do delicious. Just get your favorite crackers, add a very fine slice of salami on it and top it off with juicy green olives.

This snack is tasty and healthy too!

Watermelon and Kiwi Sparkling Wine Sorbet

Here are two different types of sorbet I found. My Mum’s visiting Auckland soon so I thought I’d gather a few sorbet recipes/dessert recipes seeing as she loves that kind of stuff. No doubt you guys will too!

For the Watermelon Sorbet, you’ll need:

• 1 1/2 cups Sparkling Wine (also known as Proseco)
• A tiny bit more than 1/4 cup of Agave Nectar
• 2 cups of fresh Watermelon juice - you can drain it through a sieve if wanted
• 3 Basil leaves - cut or whole

1. Mix the sparkling wine and agave nectar in a saucepan and heat on medium heat until it comes to a boil and stir for 2-3 minutes. Leave it to cool for a few minutes.

2. Once the mix is cooled, add the watermelon juice and basil leaves and give it a good stir. Now either place it in the freezer for a few hours (2-3) and pour the mix into an ice cream maker or place it in the freezer and stir every 30 minutes. Similar to my Vanilla Strawberry Ice Cream Recipe

For the Kiwifruit Sorbet you’ll need:

• 2 cups sparkling wine
• A bit more than a 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 2 cups of fresh Kiwifruit juice - again it’s optional to run it through a sieve

Combine the sparkling wine and agave nectar in a saucepan once again and heat it over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Again stir for 2-3 minutes and then let cool.

Now add the kiwifruit juice and the remaining steps are the same as the watermelon sorbet instructions.

(via gastrogirl)

Honey and Sugar Lip Exfoliator and Moisturizer 

Here’s a really simple way to make your own lip exfoliator and moisturizer from home with cheap household ingredients! It’s absolutely great for dry weather in Winter.
Why honey? Because it contains anti-oxidants and anti-microbial properties that protect your skin and lips from the UV rays and helps support the skins natural ability to refresh and rejuvenate depleted skin.
Olive oil also helps to rejuvenate your skin and lips and lock in moisture so you don’t lose it.

All you will need is

• Honey - Whatever honey is okay, manuka or normal etc. Take your pic
• Olive Oil
• Sugar

So I advise that the first time you make this you don’t overuse the ingredients. Just because it’s always nicer to use the ingredients freshly mixed but you can definitely store it in a container providing it’s sealed.

For the Exfoliator:

Usually I go about this with 1 teaspoon of honey, scooped into a small bowl or container then add 1 teaspoon of olive oil and 2 generous tablespoons of sugar. Mix the concoction well and then just scoop some of it up with your finger and apply to your lips and exfoliate away. Rinse it off with warm water.

Simple right?

For the Lip Moisturizer

This you may want to keep in a small sealed container to use often or even for when going out. Any miniature container will do or if you have screw top lip balm container those work great.

Again you want 1 tablespoon of honey, 1 teaspoon of olive oil but no sugar this time. Mix the ingredients together and if it’s still a bit too sticky for your liking, drop in a tiny bit more olive oil.
You can now just apply this straight to your lips like any other lip moisturizer.

You lips should feel clean, healthy and moisturized! Keep this routine up and you’ll never have dry lips for winter. 

Pancakes Served with Strawberries

I made this a while back, aha the shape of some of them are terrible! But fresh strawberries are a lovely to eat pancakes with. These are just normal pancakes, nothing unusual about them.

If you don’t know how to make them then refer to my blueberry pancake post I made a few posts back. Link is here: Blueberry Pancakes

Try it out and enjoy!

I think everyone knows how we begin making our pancake mix and if you really don’t well it’s simple and easy. Basically nearly everything goes into one mixing bowl.

1. So go ahead now and add your flour, eggs, sugar, and strawberry essence all into one mixing bowl and start mixing away until the mix is smooth.

2. Now put half of your blueberries into a bowl and save the other half for serving. You’ll want to either cut up the blueberries in the bowl into even smaller pieces or smoosh them up with something like a fork or be manly and crush them with the might of your hands (beware of mess). Once your done, add all the blueberries and what blueberry juice you might have extracted into your pancake mix and just give the whole thing a good stir so the blueberries are all mixed in.

3. Turn your stove onto a medium heat and wait for about a minute for your pan to heat up then get a butter knife and scrap some butter onto it and drop the butter smack bang in the middle of the pan. Don’t spread the butter around and with a large soup or serving spoon, pour a generous scoop into the middle of the pan, on top of the butter.

4. You’ll notice how the mix will automatically spread nicely with the butter into a relatively good shape.

With a turner, nudge at the sides of the pancake to test how much the underside as cooked and if it’s ready to flip. Flip it when it’s possible and when no mix comes out of the centre of the pancake after you jab it with a fork, then it’s done.

Repeat until you’re done with all your mix and now you’re ready to serve your pancakes.

Serve with fresh blueberries on the side and enjoy! 

Japanese Beef Curry on Rice

Japanese curry unlike most other curries, isn’t very spicy. It has a very mild but delicious flavor. Perfect for those who love curry but don’t prefer nothing too strong in spice or taste. Usually it’s made with 2-3 types of vegetables and beef. Very simple but extremely mouth watering.

For this recipe you’re going to need (Serves 3-4)

• 2-3 choices of vegetables - Traditional Japanese curry always contains carrots and potatoes for vegetables but I also like to add courgette. If you’re using carrots, 2 should be plenty.

I personally used:

• 2 Potatoes
• 3 Courgettes
• Beef
• Curry paste - I usually get this Japanese brand of curry called ‘Golden Curry’ and I always buy the ‘Hot’ one. If you don’t know this brand of curry, google image search “Golden Curry” and surprise surprise it’s the only curry that will show up.
• 1 Onion
• Soy sauce
• Cooking wine
• Salt
• Cooking oil
• 1 1/3 Cup of Water

1. Alrighty so start off by chopping up your beef into little chunks. Nothing too tiny but not too big either. You want something that you’ll be able to pleasantly chew on but you also want the marinade flavor to be able to seep through the meat.

2. When you’re done, chuck the diced meat into a bowl and pour in a capful of cooking wine followed by 4 tablespoons of soy sauce along with 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt. Let the meat marinade in that while you prepare the rest of your ingredients.

3. Now we start chopping up our vegetables. It’s up to you whatever vegetables you decide to use but I decided to go with courgette and potatoes the time I cooked it.

Start by peeling your potatoes then chopping it in half. Grab the half and stand it up on it’s flat side and halve it once again. Split that smaller half into another half and repeat again. Now dice up these little wedges and do the same for the remainder of the potatoes.

With courgette, slice off both ends and cut in half vertically. Slice it in half vertically one more time and now work your way horizontally, dicing up the courgette.

For carrots you can either use the same dicing method as the courgette or just slice off both ends and cut into thin round pieces.

4. Slice up the onion. If you don’t know how to do that, simply slice off the top and bottom, peel 1 layer of the onion off and you’re left with the clean pungent onion that’s going to make you weep if you stare at it for too long.

So chop the onion in half and turn it onto it’s flat side and start chopping thin slices off it. You’ll end up with your onion in thin half circle slices and if you grab a slice with your hands you can split the onion apart into long pieces as onions are layered (So says Shrek). These long pieces of onion are what we want.

5. Now all your ingredients are ready and we can start cooking!

Pour 1 tablespoon of cooking oil into a pan, turn the heat on high and tilt the pan to spread the oil evenly. Before you start hurling everything into the pan all at once, don’t. Start with the vegetables first because we want to soft those up and get them cooked before we chuck the meat in. No one likes tough overcooked meat.

So in goes all your vegetables along with your onion and let the vegetables simmer for around 5 minutes before you add the curry.

6. When adding the curry. Open the packet and peel off the foil. You’ll notice that, if using the ‘Golden Curry’ brand, the curry paste comes dry in rectangular blocks that look a lot like chocolate. First, break the curry pieces up and drop them into the pan. Now pour in your 1 1/3 cup of water and stir with a wooden spoon until the curry melts evenly. Now your curry is starting to look like curry.

7. Keep cooking at high heat until the curry starts to boil. When it begins to boil, bring the heat down to medium and keep it at a boil. Continue to let it boil until your vegetables become soft. I usually go by the potatoes. If they’re soft and mashy when you take a bite, then you can add your beef and mix thoroughly. Your meat won’t take long too cook and you can tell by colour when it’s cooked.

Once you see no more red in your beef, they curry is ready!

Serve on white rice and enjoy! 

I love salami as a late night snack. Not too much of it but very thin fine slices with some piri piri chilli seasoning is so yummy!

OHM NOM NOM TOTORO!

(via ffoodd-deactivated20120802)