Merry Christmas

Simple home cooked breakfast this morning and simple wishes. 

A wish for peace

A wish for quiet, greatly missed this year end

A wish for health

A wish for joy and happiness

Loysel's Toy

Tucked away and quiet for only a short while till the lunch crowd came past 1.

It has an all day breakfast menu. The egg ben trio and iced tea were yummy. Bikes were also available for rental.

Bread and butter pudding

about 4 slices of bread, cut up into large triangles

400ml milk

4 eggs

120g sugar

raisins

butter (to grease the baking dish)

vanilla essence, a few drops

icing sugar to finish

Butter the baking dish. Sprinkle raisins

Arrange the bread.

In a bowl, whisk egg, milk, sugar and vanilla essence

Slowly pour mixture onto the bread

Fill up to 3/4 of dish.

Add raisins

Place dish into a shallow tray with water

Bake at 180 degrees for 45 min

Cheesy chicken wrap

 

Chicken fillet

Streaky bacon, roughly cut

Fresh button mushrooms (or canned)

Grated mozarella cheese

Fresh basil

Gardenia wholemeal wraps

lettuce, thinly sliced

white onion, sliced (or diced)

tomatoes, sliced (or diced)

olive oil

 

Slice chicken and marinate with pepper and salt

Fry the bacon (without oil), then add in the chicken to pan. Set aside.

Cook mushrooms with oil, pepper and salt. Set aside.

Place wrap on the griller pan.

Add lettuce, onion, tomato, musrooms, chicken, bacon, basil. Top with cheese

Place another wrap on top. Grill for 2 min until cheese is melted.

Cut into 8 portions and serve.



Steelcut Oat on a steely Tuesday

Breakfast of steelcut oat.
With cinnamon and dried cranberries.

Here's an earlier posting on how best to make this - http://cookzbookz.blogspot.sg/2012/05/overnight-irish-style-steel-cut-oat.html?m=1

Other recipes for Steelcut oat -
http://www.theyummylife.com/Slow_Cooker_Apple_Cinnamon_Oatmeal

Brisbane 2011 - Gunshot Cafe

Another great cafe, near the West End Markets. Here, we had our brunch.
A vertical garden of herbs run along the wall.

*smoked trout with poached egg and hollandaise sauce
*tolouse sausages with poached egg and sweet potato hash
*smoked salmon with creamed egg and cornbread (mine)

Overnight Irish Style Steel Cut Oat Porridge

An easy, healthy breakfast cooked overnight in a slow-cooker waterbath. When you get up in the morning, just scoop it out, pour skimmed milk over and throw in your favorite toppings.

Unlike rolled oats which have been processed, steamed and roll-pressed over, steel-cut oat is oat in its (almost) original unprocessed form. As such, it takes a long time to cook through. The normal method of cooking it over the fire means you have to watch over it and stir it through a long while.

This blog shows in detail how it can be cooked easily - http://www.mommyskitchen.net/2009/01/overnight-crock-pot-oatmeal.html?m=1

I do it slightly differently. Instead of using a bowl, I sit one serving of oat in a regular coffee mug in the slow-cooker. Our slow-cooker can hold up to two mugs - one for hubby, one for me.

Method:
- Scoop 3 level tbsp of steel-cut oat or hulled oat into a coffee mug
- to rinse the oat, turn the tap on and let a little water run through the oat, and gently drain the water away
- turn the tap on and fill the mug till 3/4 full
- most of the oat will settle to the bottom, some grains will float
- add a dash of cinnamon powder
- if you like some sweetness, add no more than 1 tsp of brown sugar
- pop the mug into a slow-cooker which is about 3/5 way filled with water
- cover the glass lid and leave the slow-cooker on low heat
- go to bed ...  Zzzzzzz
- the oat porridge is ready when you get up in the morning
- scoop it out and top with skimmed milk to get the consistency you like, and add dried fruits such as raisins or cranberries. You can also add sliced bananas to your oat porridge.

Enjoy.

(note : it is not easy to get steel-cut oat here in SG and not all organic store stock it. Steel-cut oat is also expensive so I have switched to using hulled oats. I get them from Supernature http://www.supernature.com.sg/ )

***Update : the pharmacy/shop at level 1 of Tan Tock Seng Hospital has this in stock too!

Hotcakes and scones

Picture taken from Morinaga website

How about some hotcakes to start off your day? mmm... Morinaga hotcake mix from Japan -  I heard it was cheaper back in Japan - each pack carries four 200g sachets. Each sachet is sufficient to make several hotcakes.


Morinaga had this *cool* video that shows you how to make and flip the pancakes - I'm not sure if it's still there. It was still quite a thrill even if you dont understand Japanese. Have fun cracking the egg open and pouring the milk in, and also flip through the pages of the 'book' in the video. There's a story weaved in, but I havent quite figured it out yet. Go to the Morinaga website, and tinker around.

I was quite amazed when Ollie shared with me that hotcake mix can be used to make more than just hotcakes, as this recipe book would tell you too. Nevertheless, I did try a Scone recipe that she shared with me sometime back. I didn't have my digicam so there're no pics, but here's the recipe. Oh, and I haven't made any hotcakes yet.

Plain Scones (from hotcake mix)

• 200g Morinaga hotcake mix
• 50g butter (unsalted)
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp milk
  

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees
2. Rub* butter and hotcake mix till texture is crumbly
3. Mix milk into egg
4. Make a well in the bowl of rubbed flour+butter n pour in liquids
5. Mix into a dough
6. Wrap dough in a cling wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30mins
7. Remove dough from fridge
8. Dust a little plain flour on tabletop
9. Roll out the dough on this surface (you can use your palm) (dough still in cling wrap)
10. Roll to thickness of 2cm
11. And cut out using cookie cutters
12. Dust baking tray with flour** (no need to grease)
13. Place the cut-out dough pieces some distance apart on the baking tray
14. Bake for 15mins
15. Enjoy the scones fresh from the oven, with berry jam, cream, tea or coffee!

*use just your fingertips as they are the coolest part of your hands
**there's no need for too much flour as I learnt