Home-made Meatballs

I know I promised all of you this recipe ages ago but I had been so busy...so sorry for that. I got an order from my neighbor for Spaghetti Bolognese with Chicken Meatballs for her family weekend dinner, and even though she didn't said she wanted home-made meatballs, I always like to experiment, so I searched for a few top-rated best meatballs recipes and combine them! After making the meatballs, I requested my maid to help to fry them as I need to pick up my daughter from school, and my MIL was at home for a visit. When I returned, I saw her waiting for me at the door munching the meatballs and asked for the recipe! ^^

Ingredients:

500g minced beef or chicken, or you could even combine both at half each
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp dried ground basil
1/2 tsp dried ground oregano
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup minced garlic
1 egg (stirred)
Olive oil enough to fry the meatballs (not deep fried)
*If your kids do not mind a bit of spice, you can also add in 1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Methods:

1. Mix everything into a dough starting from top to bottom list (egg should be the last).
2. If you want to hide in some veggies, you can ground 1/4 cup of carrot and add in, or even broccoli. Potatoes would also be a good addition.
3. You can fry the meatballs or even bake them

These will be great for Bolognese sauce and also good on it's own, dip in ketchup or chili sauce. My kids adore these meatballs and as I'm writing this post, my son saw the photos and asked if I could make them again :)

Freezing and reheating method:

You can freeze them before or after frying/baking. If you are cooking (frying/baking) them first, please ensure they had really cooled before you throw them in the sealed freezer bags. If you are freezing them uncooked, you need to first freeze them on a tray and once they've hardened, you can take them into the freezer bags.

To reheat cooked meatballs, after thawing, you can either fry again just to refresh them or reheat in microwave between 30-60 seconds depending on quantity of meatballs. Or, if you are using them for Bolognese sauce, just pop them in the pot together with the sauce a few minutes before you turn off the fire.

Left-over BBQ?

Sometimes after a BBQ nite or BBQ party, we may still have a few left-over grilled beef, lamb and chicken, also veggies if you used them. Do not fret that this will have to go to the dumpster unless of course, they had turned bad the same day, or got contaminated. Other than that, they will make a great meal or lunchbox for the next day or even the next few days if you kept them sealed and frozen well. All you need is a little bit of creativity and innovation ;)

If your left-overs are cooked, meaning you have grilled them before freezing, you could thaw them first then lightly reheat them using small amount of oil. You could shred them first before 'stir-frying' or reheat as they are and shred afterwards. I like to add extra seasoning to disguise the 'yesterday's food' thoughts, so feel free to experiment using sauces, herbs, spices, or just the usual salt and pepper. You could also add in some veggies in the stir-fry, if you like. These are then serve with hot tortilla wraps, with fresh vegetables and sauces.

I also add them in fried rice and noodles which was a hit with my kids, and as mini pizza toppings!

Hope your family will enjoy these too, happy experimenting!

French Banana Beignets

When I first made these and shared it in my FB, some of my friends are interested and PM me for the recipe. Honestly, I've never heard or seen these before, but accidently found the recipe when I was looking for banana recipes. I love bananas...banana cake, banana muffins, banana stew or locally we called 'Sira Pisang', I guess. So what is beignet, but most importantly, how to pronounce it?

Ok, beignets or pronounce as 'beh-nye' without the strong 'h' sound, is a French deep-fried pastry with powdered sugar. The original beignet is just plain, but there are many variation now, chocolates, with cream filling, and of course...my favorite bananas :) There are also many shapes, and it's soft and fluffy like pop-doughnuts. In this variation, its a combination taste of our local 'Jemput-jemput Pisang' or famously known as 'Cekodok' and doughnuts. Kids love these, but I would advise not to serve this to a diebetic person as it is VERY VERY VERY sweet.

Ingredients:

2 cups of self-raising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup of mashed bananas
1/2 cup milk
2 tsb vegetable oil
Enough oil for deep-frying

Sugar coating:
1/2 icing sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Method:

1. Mixed the dry items and wet items in 2 separate bowls until fully blended, then combined.
2. Drop spoonful of the batter into the hot oil and fry until golden.
3. Drain in paper towel and roll in sugar coating while still warm. You can also use dusting method instead of rolling

These cutie balls will be great for tea-time, with hot coffee or tea, or both!

Simple Olio Spaghetti

On days the whole family want something simple but tasty, I'll make these. Ok, I have to admit that the chicken was pre-made, which means I always buy a bunch of drumsticks whenever I see them looking fresh at the poultry isle, then marinate and freeze them at home for my convenient use anytime in needs :)

There are many ways to marinate chickens, too many recipes which I won't be sharing in this post as this post is about - the spaghetti. Olio Spaghetti is by far the simplest but still maintain you as a great cook at home..haha! You may have heard Aglio, Olio and also Pepperoncino or Pepperoncini Spaghetti and wondered? Yes, they are all the same thing :)

The recipe below is for 2 adults (standard size meal) or 3 kids below 9 years.

Ingredients:
250g cooked spaghetti (set aside)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil (can add up to 1/3 cup if you want more)
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp dried basil flakes
1/2 tsp chilli pepper flakes (optional if you don't like it spicy, especially for kids)
Salt to taste

Method:
1. Heat up the oil and garlic, then add in the spaghetti. Stir and fold the spaghetti all over to ensure covered with the oil, then add in all the other ingredients which are the herbs, together. Keep on stirring to ensure all are mixed well.
2. Serve with cheese on top and either some fresh garden salad (if you are vegetarian) or grilled chicken as the picture or just garlic breads.

The best thing about Olio is, you can add in anything apart of its simple self. In these photos, you can see me adding cherry tomatoes. Add in some shrimps when heating the garlic and oil to have Shrimp Olio, or some squids too for a seafood one. Or at the end, instead of grilled chicken, you can put in grilled giant prawns with cheesy topping, or Portobello  mushroom like below, just simply anything! Enjoy!

Mama's Special Mee Hailam

I called this Mama's Special Mee Hailam because my family loves this so much, and it's also special because you can put just anything out of your fridge! If you don't like beef or chicken, you can purely use seafood such as squids and shrimps, but you could also mix both seafood with beef or chicken, or have all of them together! For vegetarians, you can just used any veggies - peas, mushrooms, any green leaves, cabbages, baby corn, carrots...some of these or even all! That's the best thing about this recipe ;)

Here are the recipe, and you can choose whether you want to put all or some of the things in A list. Enjoy!

A list
1kg of yellow noodle
1 chicken breast cuts into cubes
200g of shrimps (you can choose to unshell or not)
200g of squids cut into rings
10 fishballs or chicken balls cut into halves
500g beef cooked in pressure cooker, keep about 2 cups of stock
A quarter of whole cabbage - sliced
1 carrot - sliced
Half a pack of peas/baby con - sliced
Half a pack of mustard - cut about 2 inches
1-2 tomatoes (depending on size) cuts into 8
Half a pack of oyster mushrooms  sliced
2 celeries - sliced

B list
2 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoon blended onions with garlic mix
4 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon thick and sweet soy sauce
2-3 tablespoon of corn flour mixed with half a cup of water

Heat up the oil and blended mix, then fry the chicken and seafood in List A till 3/4 cooked, before frying the veggies (please do not add tomatoes or the green leaves yet, it should be the last). If you are using beef with the stock, you can add in beef and stock now and mix everything which will look like a stew. Then, you can add the oyster sauce and soy sauce in, mix again. If you are not using the beef stock, you could use the chicken or beef stock cubes, but need to add 2 cups of water. Finally, add in the noodles, let it set first before adding the corn flour mixture. Turn the noodles and soup. If it's too thick, you can add in more water, but if it's too thin, you could add another 1 tablespoon on corn flour mixed in a bit of water. You can add in salt up to your taste.

Stir-fried Beansprout

This is another healthy and easy meal which my family love. You can eat this with plain rice or just on it's own (a good dieting food *wink wink).

1 pack of beansprouts - cleaned and toss to dry
A little chives - cut
1/2 onion - sliced thinly
2 tablespoon of sesame oil
2 tablespoon of light soy sauce
Sesame seed and pepper to taste

Optional:
1/2 stick of carrot - sliced thinly
1/2 green pepper - sliced thinly

Heat up sesame oil and fry onions. Toss in the beansprouts and other vegetables, adding in soy sauce. You could add a little water if you like, but not so much. Lightly stir-fry the ingredients and finally add in sesame seed and pepper to taste.

Cheese Scrambled Egg

My husband loves eggs, though I have this silly notion that I will never serve my family just 'eggs'. I don't know why, I feel like it's humiliating to be serving my family with just a simple fried or boiled egg, even though my husband loves nothing more than rice with just fried egg!*Grrrrrrrrr* Even a simple plain scramble egg, which seems to be his daily food when he was a kid, I can't register this, so usually if I'm serving eggs, no matter how busy I am, I will have either another dish/food or else a 'hybrid' recipe :) I don't think this is an original idea, maybe someone had thought of this first, but I created this for my family breakfast, so maybe you could try this for your table too.

4 grade A eggs
8 tablespoon of milk (can also use evaporated milk)
4 tablespoon of any kind of cheese - cheddar, mozarella, parmesan (you can add in more if you like)
2 tablespoon of butter
Salt, pepper and dried parsley to taste
* Optional - chopped button mushrooms, chopped sausages, chopped green/yellow/red peppers

In a bowl, mixed eggs with milk and salt, pepper and parsley, whip well. Heat butter in the pan and pour in the mixture, turn the heat to medium to low then stir. Keep on stirring and add in the cheese, stir up to the texture you prefer. Some would like it to be dry and some a bit sticky-watery type. If you are using the optional ingredients, please fry them first before adding in the egg mixture.