Gorgonzola, Pear and Bacon Pasta

This pasta dish is amazing, and VERY rich, so don't under estimate it!

The best way to start a lazy afternoon....

Serves 4 - 6 (Easily 5)

500g pasta (I used tubular spaghetti)
1 Tbs oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
5 bacon rashers, sliced
2 pears, cored, peeled and chopped into small cubes/match sticks
1 cup white wine
300mL cream
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped in half
pepper, to season
parmesan cheese, grated, to serve

Cook pasta until al dente, drain. Meanwhile, fry oil, garlic, bacon, pear and wine; stirring until pear is soft.
Add cream and blue cheese. Stir until cheese melts.
Add pasta and walnuts and stir until well combined. Season with pepper, and serve with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

This meal would be even better with rocket added when plating up.

Creamy Sweet Chilli Pasta with Peas and Broccoli

I designed this recipe myself, based on the fact that I only had $10 in my wallet and some broccoli in the freezer. I guess you could say this recipe is also inspired by a seafood pasta dish that I ordered whilst at a restaurant in Batemans Bay, NSW. I'm pretty confident that the 'creamy sweet chilli' sauce on that dish was simply an amalgamation of minced garlic, bottled sweet chilli sauce and cream.
Serves 4

500g pasta (I used tubular spaghetti)
1 Tbs oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 head broccoli
1 cup frozen peas
2-3 Tbs sweet chilli sauce (to your liking)
250mL cream
seasoning
cheese of your choice

Boil pasta using packet directions. Meanwhile, bring water to boil in a large pot. Add broccoli and peas and cook until just tender, drain.
When al dente, drain pasta, and using same pot, stir fry oil and garlic for 1 minute. Add cream and sweet chilli sauce, and allow to thicken, stirring at all times. Add pasta, broccoli and pea and season. Warm through and serve, sprinkled with cheese of your choice.

Ingredients simmering in cream-based sauce.

....the added pasta.

Served with grated cheese....

Thai Fried Rice

Serves 2

1 Tbs oil
3 cups cooked rice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 egg
2 tsp sambal oelek

1 Tbs fish sauce

1 Tbs soy sauce

1/2 lime, to serve

Heat wok on high, pour in the oil and add garlic and sambal oelek. Stir quickly.
Add the rice and stir to mix. Sprinkle the fish sauce and soy sauce and stir to mix again.
Push the rice aside and make room for the egg. Add the egg and scramble the egg until the egg is all cooked.
Serve hot with a wedge of lime.

Tofu Laksa

This is a basic, quick recipe that I use quite often when doing a laksa at home for myself.

Serves 2 (large serves)

• 2 serves hokkein noodles
• 2 serves vermicelli noodles
• 2 tbs oil
• 100g tofu, cut into squares
• 185g jar Ayam Malaysian laksa paste (or any type of Laksa paste)
• 1 litre chicken stock
• 1 440ml can coconut milk
• 1 small can coconut cream (optional)
• 1 cup fresh beansprouts
• Fresh coriander leaves and stem/roots, chopped
• 1 lime, to serve

1. Place noodles in a large heatproof bowl. Cover with boiling water. Stand for 4 to 5 minutes or until just tender. Using a fork, separate noodles. Drain.
   
2. Meanwhile, heat wok over medium-high heat. Add oil to wok and stir fry tofu until crispy on outside, remove and put aside.
3. Cook laksa paste, stirring, for 1 minute or until fragrant. Add coriander root/stem. Cook, stirring, for 30 secs or until softened. Stir in stock. Bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes.
   
4. Add tofu. Stir fry for 30 secs. Stir in coconut milk and cream. Divide noodles between bowls. Ladle over stock mixture. Top with beansprouts and coriander leaves. Serve with lime halves.

Chinese Plum Chicken Stir Fry with Noodles (of course!)

Some might serve this dish as the Plum Chicken alone, by just adding some extra vegetables and omitting the noodles. Some might serve it with rice, and others on top the noodles.

This is my first attempt at a Plum Chicken stir fry. As you may have guessed I am going stir fry it with noodles as well (what's new?). I'm not sure whether that might be going too far, as this is quite a sweet dish, and adding the noodles may be somewhat of a 'carb overload' for some, yet I'm still going to give it a crack.

I have browsed a few different websites to come up with my own version of Plum Chicken.

Marinating chicken.

Thicker pak choy, chopped.

Thinner, leafy parts of pak choy, divided from thicker stem.

My fav chopsticks at the moment...ceramic.

Stir frying the chicken.

Pak choy with sambal oelek.

Eggs added.

Chicken added.

Rest of pak choy....almost done!

Add the noodles and sauces and mix.

4 servings noodles of your choice
1 Tbs vegetable oil (sesame oil would have been preferable)
1 large chicken breast, thinly sliced
1 bunch pak choy
3 eggs, slightly whisked
sesame seeds, to serve

Marinade
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp ginger, minced
1 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs sweet chilli sauce

Stir Fry Sauce
1 tsp sambal oelek
2 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs sweet chilli sauce
1 Tbs rice wine vinegar
1/4 - 1/2 cup Asian-style plum sauce (eg. Ayam brand)

Place chicken in a glass or ceramic bowl, add marinade ingrediants and combine well. Marinate for no less than 30 minutes. Prepare noodles as per packet directions, set aside.

Heat wok or large frying pan, fry chicken until just browned, place on a plate and set aside. Add more oil to the wok, stir fry thicker ends of pak choy with sambal oelek for 1 minute. Push to one side of the wok and add eggs. Stir to create a rough omelette.

When eggs are almost set yet slightly runny, add chicken and rest of pak choy. Stir fry for 30 seconds, then add sauces and combine. Add noodles simply to heat through, serve with a sprinkle of sesame seeds.

Oodles of Noodles

I used the same Beef Teriyaki Noodle recipe as one of my last posts, except this time I added sambal oelek. The dish needed that extra kick!

Beef Teriyaki Noodles

Yummy!!

Marinating beef strips.

Pak Choy.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds to serve.

       Serves 2.

• 250g beef, trimmed and sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup teriyaki marinade/sauce, plus 1/2 cup extra for stir-frying 
• 440g fresh hokkien noodles
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 bunch pak choy, leaves and stems separated, roughly chopped

1. Place beef in a shallow glass or ceramic dish. Add garlic and the 1/4 cup of teriyaki marinade/sauce. Stir to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
   
2. Place noodles in a large, heatproof bowl. Cover with boiling water. Stand for 2 minutes. Drain. Separate noodles.
   
3. Heat a wok over high heat. Add 2 teaspoons oil. Swirl to coat. Add the beef. Stir-fry for 2 minutes or until sealed. Transfer to a plate.
   
4. Add larger stems of pak choy and remaining oil to wok. Stir-fry for 1 to 2 minutes or until just tender. Return beef and juices to wok. Add noodles, pak choy leaves and remaining teriyaki marinade. Stir-fry for 2 minutes or until heated through. Serve.

• For an extra heat kick you could add 1 red chilli.

Cinnamon Apple Muffins

I'm not a big fan of cinnamon. Or apple. Or wasting food.
My attempt at eating at least an apple a day failed miserably last fortnight, and so did my supposed health kick. As a result, I had eight Granny Smith apples sitting in the fruit basket. I'm not even sure why I have a fruit basket, as I rarely eat fruit.

To avoid having to throw out these surprisingly sweet and juicy apples, I made Cinnamon Apple Muffins, purely for the purpose of giving to friends, taking into work for work colleagues, Friday staff morning tea, etc. However....once these came out of the oven and I had a taste, I wasn't too keen on sharing them. They were so yummy!!! Moist, soft and perfectly baked. I even enjoyed the cinnamon - it honestly brought the apple out. This was definitely an apple-packed muffin!! So much better tasting than a store-bought Apple Muffin.
Being a huge fan of the site, I actually found this recipe at Taste.com.au.

Due to certain elements (my own tastes, and having no baking soda), I modified the recipe slightly:

• Instead of 2 cups of plain flour, I used 1 cup plain flour and 1 cup self-raising flour to compensate for the 'AWOL' baking soda.
• I omitted the raisins, as I don't really like them, adding one more apple instead to make up the bulk.
• The original recipe required a cooking time of 20 minutes. In total, the muffins took approximately 30 minutes in my particular fan-forced oven. Possibly because I used more apple.

I decided to use my dormant MixMaster for the first time, which I inherited from my Mum. I honestly didn't see this method saving me anymore time than mixing the ingredients myself using a bowl and spoon. It also created slightly more washing up.

The MixMaster guide.

Apple, plus all dry, sifted ingredients combined.

After adding the wet mixture, this is the result. Not too thick, which is what the original recipe asked for.

Straight out of the oven.

SO moist!!!

Ingredients

• Oil spray, for greasing
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 4 medium (about 500g) Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled, chopped
• 125g butter or margarine, melted, cooled
• 2 eggs, lightly whisked
• 185mls (3/4 cup) milk

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Prepare your ingredients. You will need 12 medium (125mls/ 1/2 cup) muffin pans. If you aren't using non-stick pans, brush the pans with the melted butter or margarine to lightly grease.
2. Sift the flour and cinnamon together into a large bowl. Stir in the brown sugar and apples until well combined.
3. Whisk together the butter or margarine, eggs and milk until well combined. Blending the wet ingredients before adding them to the apple/flour mixture makes it easier to evenly combine the two.
4. Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture and stir with a large metal spoon until just combined. It is important that the ingredients are only just combined. If the mixture is over-mixed, the cooked muffins will have a tough texture.
5. Spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin pans.
6. Bake the muffins in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until golden and cooked through. When cooked, remove from oven and stand for 5 minutes in the muffin tray before turning onto a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 day.

• Freezing: Individually wrap the cooled muffins in plastic wrap or foil and then place them in batches in sealed freezer bags. Freeze for up to I month.
• Defrosting: Thaw at room temperature still in their bags. To defrost in the microwave, remove the plastic wrap or foil and place the muffins directly onto the microwave turntable. Cook, uncovered, for 45 seconds for 2 muffins, 1 minute for 4, or 1 1/2 minutes for 6 on Defrost/350watts/30%. Then stand for 1 minute to allow muffins to finish defrosting.

Noodles

Yep, noodles again. This recipe wasn't so much a recipe...more of a mixture of my favourite stir-fry ingredients thrown together. This was much like a Char Kway Teow crossed with a Drunken Noodles recipe:

Vegetable Oil
Sliced chicken breast
Organic Tofu
Garlic
Noodles
Eggs
Sliced onion
Sherry
Choy Sum
Soy Sauce
Fish Sauce
Kecap Manis
Pepper
Sesame Seeds, for garnish