Afternoon Tea: Apple & Oats Muffins

Afternoon tea by the balcony with my coffee with homemade Apple & Oats muffin. This was made from scratch!

Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
1 3/4 cup All purpose flour or wholewheat flour
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 cup brown sugar or LO GI sugar
1/2 cup full cream milk
1/2 cup Oats
1/4 canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon Sugar
1 Medium sized Granny Smith Apples or Red Apple peeled and diced

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Mix in a medium sized bowl flour, salt, oats and cinnamon sugar, baking powder and mix well
3. In a separate large bowl whisk together sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla essence and gradually add milk into mixture
4. Then add flour, salt, oats and cinnamon sugar - mix well and then fold in diced apples
5. In baking muffin tray add mixture and place in oven for 25-30mins until golden brown
6. Then allow to cool for 20mins

Freshness @ Home: Grilled Garlic Butter Maya Maya with spinach and mushrooms

I love going to the Palengke buying fresh fish. I bought these Maya Maya fillets and decided that for tonight I'm serving it with spinach and mushrooms. I've cooked the whole fish Maya Maya as Sarsaido and it definitely the best fish for sweet and sour.

Ingredients

4 fillets of Maya Maya (or other fillets of fish you wish to have)

3 garlic cloves (finely chopped)

1 tbs of butter

salt and pepper

Method

1. Mix the garlic and butter into a bowl
2. Get the fillets and rub the garlic butter into them
3. Place the fillets in a baking tray lined with foil and cook in the oven (set to grill) on 200F
4. Take out the fish once it is slightly brown
5. Serve with vegetables you desire

Freshness @ Home: Strip Loin Steak with Chillie and Garlic rub with vegetables

Getting really good steak that is fresh here in Manila is very hard! I'm an Aussie so I like everything fresh. Anyhow after sourcing so many places I finally found a really good place to get my steak, albeit a little expensive but it was a really good piece of steak. After holy week, we've been craving really good steak.

I cheated a bit with this recipe because I opted to buy my spice rub from the same place that was selling the steak so there's nothing really to it except to ensure you coat the steak with your spice rub, leave it for a couple of hours and then get a griller or even better yet place on the BBQ and cook your steak as you like it.

You can choose any vegetables to serve with your steak. I chose carrots, asparagus and mushrooms and just simply cooked with a little garlic butter and voila!

Rom really enjoyed it and so did I...we both preferred to BBQ this but as we are in a very snobbish place who doesn't beleive in BBQ I bought a griller and grilled it instead.

Freshness @ Home: Poached egg with spinach and holandaise sauce

One of Rom's favourite things that he's been missing - poached eggs. I must admit I haven't yet mastered how to poach the perfect egg but this was as good as it got on the day.

How to poach an egg

1. Get a pan and fill it with 3 inches of water and boil
2. Once it is boiling add a tbs of vinegar (you could add cider vinegar to give it taste), the vinegar helps the egg stick together.
3. Crack the egg close to the pan and carefully place it in the centre. Turn down the heat and put the lid on and come back in 2 mins
4. With a slotted spoon remove from the pan and allow the water to drip from the egg and then place it on the plate to serve.

Hollandaise sauce
Ingredients
1 egg
1 lemon (juiced)
1 cup of milk
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. In a bowl combine egg, lemon juice and beat together
2. In a saucepan place the milk and allow to simmer
3. Once the milk is simmering add the combined egg and lemon juice into the pan (turn the heat down) and continue to stir so that the egg doesn't coagulate
4. Add salt and pepper to taste (you can replace the pepper with cayanne pepper if you wish)

Freshness @ Home: Chorizo & Bacon Pasta

Bacon is such a versatile ingredient in any dish and taking leave on one of my fave shows on Asian Food Channel I decided to have a go and put something together without a recipe.

Ingredients (serves 4)
Pasta (Angel hair) 1 pkt
5 pcs of bacon (cut into rough slices)
1 Chorizo Sausage
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
1 red onion (chopped)
English spinach (optional)
Olive Oil

Method
1. Heat a pan with a little bit of olive oil and add bacon, cook until crispy brown and then put chorizo and cook until crispy as well. Take out and set aside.

2. In the same pan add garlic, onion and saute until onions are cooked, add your spinach, chorizo and bacon and add salt to taste

3. Add your already drained and cooked pasta into the mix and toss through and then serve.

Isn't it just so easy? The whole thing only takes about 30 mins to cook :)

Chicken Schitznel with Apple Coleslaw

This one of my hubby's favourite dishes and mine also since it is so easy to make and very tasty.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Preparation of chicken

1/2kg of chicken breast (if it's too thick - fillet it so that you have 2 instead of one)

1 pkt of bread crumbs

Egg wash (1 egg with mixed with a little of water)

1 cup flour

Have the egg wash in a bowl, separate bowl the bread crumbs, separate bowl the all purpose flour

Like a production line, dip your chicken breast fillet in egg wash, then bread crumbs and then finally the flour and set aside and allow to rest

Fry in a shallow pan with canola oil until golden and crispy

Apple Coleslaw

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 Granny Apple (Green apple) thinky sliced and add half a lemon to prevent apple from browning

half a cabbage (green or purple or a mixture) shredded thinly

2 carrots grated

1 1/2 tbs of mayonaise (if you could get your hands on egg mayonaise even better)

Pepper and Salt

In a bowl mix through granny apple, carrots, cabbage and mayo and mix through throughly. Then add salt and pepper to taste.

Freshness @ Home - Mussells in white wine tomato sauce pasta

One of the things I've grown to really love here in the Philippines is the weekly outting to the Palengke (Markets). It's nothing like the Sydney Fish Markets back home, but in my opinion this is even better and more importantly where you find fresh seafood.

I saw these mussels in live tanks and I haven't eaten them for a while, mind you I'm conscious of where they got these mussels from - turns out they are from Cavite, where I lived as a child. From what I remember I knew it had to be good so I purchased them!

Ingredients serves 4  
1kg of mussells (large)
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
1 lemon rind (minced) of one lemon and juice
4 tomatoes (roughly chopped)
1 canned tomatoes
1 cup of dry white wine
1tbs of caster sugar
1 pkt of pasta (Angel hair pasta is best but any pasta will do)
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Mussels easily spoil once you remove the beards on them so make sure you do this just before you cook them and place them in a bowl of cold water
2. In a medium sized pot, place olive oil add garlic, onion, tomatoes and saute until onions are clear
3. Turn the heat down and add the white wine, canned tomatoes and caster sugar and mussels and stir around (mussels cook fast so allow 10 mins)
4. Then add salt and pepper to taste - set aside
5. Cook pasta in a separate saucepan (as per normal), drain and then in a bowl take some of the sauce from the mussels and mix through the pasta
6. Then serve on a plate and more sauce as you wish