Banana Pancakes!

So, there’s this trend going around where people are making two-ingredient banana pancakes. They mash a banana, add an egg, whisk together, and viola! Gluten-free, fat free, full of protein, dairy free!

I decided make this “magical” recipe on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning. And like all good things in life, it didn’t work.

 

I followed the recipe exactly, of course. I very diligently mashed a banana and very carefully whisked in an egg and very eagerly dashed in some vanilla essence. But once I dolloped the suspiciously gloopy batter onto a skillet, it started to go horribly wrong. It wouldn’t flip! And when it did flip, it broke all over the place! When I finally managed to plate it, it looked like banana-flavoured scrambled eggs (not pictured haha).

I took a bite expecting it to taste horrible, but it was delicious. It was just suffering from some structural issues. So I thought and thought, and decided to add two teaspoons of plain white flour, one teaspoon of sugar and a pinch of baking soda to help. Thankfully, it worked. I managed to make about five weeny banana pancakes with one whole banana and one egg. Perfect for a solitary breakfast for one! I sliced up another banana (you can never have too much banana), piled them on top of these delicate pancakes, and drizzled some honey on top.

To be really, really honest with you? They were better than regular pancakes. They were soft and crispy and SO banana-y that I fell in love with this (improved) recipe right away. If anybody reading this has had some success with the two-ingredient banana pancake recipe, please tell me what I did wrong! And for those of you who haven’t tried this, go try it! It’s amazing! :D

Decadent Glazed Chocolate Tart

Sometimes, there comes a recipe, that impresses me so much and produces something so simple, but so good, that it shocks me. It makes me look like a better cook than I am, and that impresses and shocks me even more.

This is one such recipe.

It’s from Epicurious and it’s so simple! I’ve made this recipe about four times now, and it has turned out perfect every single time. I don’t have a lot of go-to recipes that are fail-proof like this.

I studded the top with raspberries…and it looks so beautiful. I would rather do this for a dinner party than an actual cake because I honestly feel that baking a cake and frosting it takes way longer and requires much more effort.

The only small change I made from the recipe is my crust. I used crushed digestive biscuits and walnuts with melted unsalted butter. The reason I did this was because, again, this is my go-to recipe for a crust, and I’m not very confident with a regular pie-crust recipe just yet (I’ll get the hang of it one day haha).

This honestly tastes like chocolate truffles. No joke. It’s soft, and creamy and completely and utterly for chocoholics (which I think is 90% of the world). It’s a crowd-pleaser and the easiest thing I know how to make.

Honestly though, who am I kidding? This is basically 12 ounces of pure molten Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate, a whole tub of thickened cream, almost an entire pack of digestive biscuits, one block of melted unsalted butter, a handful of top quality walnuts and a big box of fresh raspberries…it’s almost impossible for all of this to not taste good together. :)

Christmas Dinner

Soooo. I’m a Hindu. Which means I’ve never celebrated Christmas in my life. But the older I get, the more there is to get excited about. Christmas holidays from work, Christmas gifts from people, mulled wine and Christmas cookie parties… what’s not to like? The only problem is, in Singapore, you get your holiday season in the summer.

I decided to get into the festive spirit and do it properly with a Christmas dinner on the actual day itself. Which is today. I think this is the fastest I’ve ever uploaded a post lol. But, clockwise, I made:

1. Garlic butter green beans
2. Chicken chipolatas
3. Onion gravy
4. Parmesan mashed potatoes
5. Honey roasted carrots
6. Parmesan roasted asparagus
7. Two different kinds of deli turkey breast

There were bread rolls as well (store-bought) that I forgot to place in the picture, and then there was also dessert. Phew!

Since I was working all by myself, I decided to do the carrots first as they’d take the longest. These were incredibly easy, and although they took a while, the prep time was absolutely minimal.

All you have to do is get your carrots (baby or adults, whichever lol), toss them in some olive oil, honey and salt and pepper. Done! I popped them in the oven and got started on the next bit.

Which was….the mashed potatoes! Also super easy, but very, very time consuming. I boiled the potatoes, put them through my potato masher food processor and waited. I kept them very simple; butter, milk, salt + pepper and a sprinkling of Parmesan.

After I was done mashing them, I put them in an oven-proof bowl, added some knobs of butter on top, sprinkled some dried herbs and put the whole dish in the oven to keep warm.

I did the green beans next. This was quicker; I just blanched them in some boiling water, and heated up a saucepan with butter. I kept an eye on both the pans while I chopped up some garlic very fine and added it to the butter. I drained the green beans and put it all in the pan, tossing frequently until everything was coated well. Salt and pepper, and then that was also done.

The asparagus was next. Took about 15 minutes, all I did was drizzle some olive oil, Parmesan cheese, salt + pepper. I think I overcooked them a bit, because they were no longer crunchy, but it was my first time cooking asparagus. Next time, I’ll do them for just 10 minutes. They still tasted good though!

I got the turkey and the sausages from the supermarket deli this morning. There were two kinds; honey roasted turkey breast and regular turkey breast. I didn’t do a proper big turkey, because it would be way too much food for us, and I didn’t want to waste anything. Plus, the idea of handling a bird that big is terrifying, hahha! Maybe another time.

The chipolatas were also super easy; just had to pan-fry them until they were heated through. They kept spitting though, so I ran away quite a bit to avoid the crossfire. LOL. Today was a bit dangerous.

The onion gravy for the mashed potatoes was the hardest thing on the menu today. I fried some minced onions in butter until it was nice and brown, sprinkled some flour, added chicken stock and let it all boil…but it wouldn’t thicken like I wanted it to! I waited 10 minutes, 20 minutes, nothing happened. My mom came in, shook her head and turned up the heat. Apparently, that’s all I had to do! I finished it with salt and pepper (I got through a lot of salt and pepper today, damn).

I served everything with bread rolls, crusty and hot from the oven. Anddddddd, Christmas dinner was done! All in all, I ended up making quite a bit of food! I was in the kitchen for two hours, and I didn’t even realise it. I was supremely tired once I was done and also surprisingly not hungry.

I kept dessert really simple. I got blueberries, pomegranate seeds, raspberries and cherries fresh from the supermarket today and mixed them all up with a tablespoon of sugar.

I kept the whole mixture in the fridge while I prepared the rest of the stuff, and then once lunch was over, I spooned everything over some good quality praline ice-cream (store-bought!). It was seriously delicious.

I definitely understand why meals like this are only made for special ocassions like Christmas and Thanksgiving… it takes a lot of work! I was too tired to even eat or enjoy myself once I was done. But that was also because I had stupidly decided to do everything myself haha. I had good feedback though, so this was a success! Yay!

Chicken Nuggets Is Like My Family

I know, I know, I haven’t been active on my blog for a while, but these past few months have been extremely and amazingly crazy. All in a good way! 2015 was a good, solid year and I can’t wait to see what 2016 brings for me!

Anyway, back to the post. I made these chicken nuggets a while back, when I had leftover meat from the dumplings I was trying out. I got way too tired of wrapping the meat into fiddly little wonton wrappers, and to be honest, this meat mixture was too delicious to waste. So, I made them into little nuggets!

It was super simple; I had the meat already seasoned, so all I did was shape them into tiny nuggets and shallow-fry them off with a little bit of oil. From what I recall, the mixture contained minced meat, ginger-garlic paste, soy sauce, vinegar, white pepper, salt and a teensy bit of chili powder. I also recall these babies being absolutely delicious.

They were gone in five minutes flat (I snatched and ate the most though), so you should try them! I think they’d make fantastic appetizers, if you’ve got the patience to stand there and fry them off one by one. Or, put them in dumplings; either way, this is DELICIOUS. :D