Wednesday, February 10, 2010

100th Post! =D

In 'celebration' of my 100th blog post, I'm going to post a recipe that I've tried a few days ago.. ;)

Since I was busy doing nothing these days, I figured that I might as well do some cooking or baking. So my mum, teacher and many of my friends said that I had grown 'horizontally' rather than 'vertically' nowadays.. Ehehehe... =____= That's why I had somehow 'vowed' and promise myself to cut down my weight by not consuming that much sugar, dairy products and bread... =/ And of course, I'll be putting my dad's treadmill to good use by exercising 20 mins a day. Hopefully, I can keep my word to this promise and go slender and slim~~ LOL! But trying to learn to cook without any assistant from my mum will do me some good, since I had nothing to do. It's better than wasting my time here on the computer, right?

Less talking, more cooking! I'll just copy and paste the ingredients and procedures now. =P

Macaroni and Cheese (Mac 'n' Cheese)


Ingredients
(Serves 6)

recipe adapted from meals matter & SoGood.TV

- 200g elbow macaroni
- 40g butter
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 300g shredded red cheddar cheese
- 1 piece of plain bread
- 2 cups milk
- 3 tsp grated parmesan cheese (optional)
- 1 bay leaf (optional)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder (optional)
- 1/2 tsp nutmug powder (optional)

Directions
1. Cook macaroni till al dente according to package instructions. Drain the macaroni in a colander, rinse with cold water and lay them flat on a roasting tray/casserole.
2. Use a food processor/blender to grind a piece of bread till it resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.
3. In a heated saucepan/wok, melt butter. When all the butter has melted, add in the flour and stir gently.
4. Add milk, bay leaf (optional) and continue stirring till mixture thickens.
5. Add salt, pepper and if you like the taste of the following, add them as well – cinnamon powder and nutmug powder. Add half the shredded cheese and reserve the other half for later.
6. When all the cheese has melted and the mixture is even (it should be of a slightly thick consistency), taste a bit of the mixture and season accordingly if needed. Pour the mixture over the macaroni. Stir to make sure that the macaroni is fully coated in the sauce.
7. Top the macaroni with the remaining cheddar cheese, followed by breadcrumbs (you don’t have to use all) and parmesan cheese.
8. Bake at 180C (360F) for about 30 minutes, till the sauce is bubbly and the top is slightly browned.

Ta-da!!! Credits go to the NoobCook! =D I adore this website~~ Hehe.

I've made some bread pudding last month and some Beignets (Ben-yays). A Beignet is a French Donut which is a delicacy in New Orleans, USA. I came across this yummy, yummy yum-yum when I was watching 'The Princess and the Frog'... It's the bun-like bread with honey and icing sugar dusting. But my recipe didn't need the honey. It's easy to make and simply DELISH~

I found the video of this yum-yum on Youtube. Here's the recipe! But I've read someone's comment below saying that this isn't Beignets but Italian Zepollies. =/ Oh well, at least it's something edible and something yummy!! =D

Beignets (serve 6)

For the video, please click here!

Ingredients:
- 165 ml water
- 45g butter, cubed
- pinch of salt
- 125 flour
- 3 eggs
- 1 tbsp pastry cream (optional)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 500ml vegetable oil
- icing sugar for dusting

Procedure:
1. Boil the water, butter and salt for 1/2 min in a small pot. Add flour when butter is completely melted and quickly stir the mixture to get a dough. Remove the pan from the heat.
2. Add the eggs one by one. Only add the next egg after the previous egg is completely mixed with the dough.
3. Add your pastry cream and sugar. Mix well.
4. Shape the Beignets working with two spoons to form a rounded shape. Deep fry it.
5. After that, place the fried Beignets on kitchen towel to drain excess oil. Then dust it with icing sugar.
6. Serve!!! =D

See?? Easy-peasy~~ If you tried it, tell me how it went and the taste.. Good luck in the kitchen!

Moody...

I had been so moody lately... D=

Maybe it's because of the financial problem my family's facing and also the problem I'm facing in my choirs.. My dad's asking me to choose between Italy and China. Of course, I'll definitely choose Italy since I've been to China for countless of times. But I can't back out from any of the two competitions! I've got myself into a HUGE mess that I don't know how to clean up... Sigh! So I'm so depressed with myself. My mum's urging me to go earn some money by looking for a job. I want to have a job! But the problem is the time since I'm having classes for most of my days in a week! I am having a job, which is teaching TWO students piano lessons which I will have RM126 per month. How is that going to be able to pay for my trip/trips?! So now, I'm kind of working in my aunt's office in which I was assigned to tidy her pile of clothes and categorize them into Baby Boys: Months to Years, 2 - 3 years old and Baby Girls: Months to Years, 2 -3 years old. I don't even know whether I'll get paid. It's not that I'm worried that my hard work will be just volunteered work, it's just that it feels weird working for my family member and... Yeah, it feels weird... And my mum keeps telling my aunt that I want to work there and blah, blah, blah! I didn't even say I wanted to work there and she made all the decisions herself! >:( And now when I say that I don't want to work there, she said that I'm making it hard for her as she already told my aunt about it! ARGH!

It's all that Starbucks' guy fault! If he hired me in the first place, I won't have to go through all this trouble!!! SCREWWWWW HIMMMMMMMM!

Ahh.... That felt good... ^^' I've been keeping this in my heart which made me moody all these days... Now, it's all out and my heart already felt lighter!

So now that it's a few more days till Chinese New Year/Valentines' Day, my mum's busy baking cookies and I'm the only one who had been giving her a helping hand since my maid who has an attitude and who is rude and annoying and loud is 'busy' doing things slowly in purpose so that she wouldn't have to help my mum. My mum said she regretted hiring her because no one wanted to hire her in the first place when she saw my maid in the agency! ARGH... I just loath her... =_____=

Now that money is a problem, continuing my studies in Form 6 is back in my consideration. I know that I may had made my decision final when I said that I was positive about studying Contemporary Music, but now that my sister's going off to the US to further her studies, my dad had also been worried about money. Therefore, now I was thinking, maybe I should be studying medicine to become a Pharmacists or a Chemist which will have a more promising future than music...

Sorry for my emo-ness... Like I've mentioned earlier, I had been moody for these few days...