Sunday, January 11, 2009

One-Egg Scramble

Eggs are perfect scrambled with cheese.

Some may say that's too much of a good thing.

To lessen the guilt, use only one egg in the scramble.

Add tomato to give it a healthful boost.

First fry the tomato with a clove of garlic and one shallot in a bit of olive oil.



Beat one egg with grated parmean and add to the tomato.



Season with freshly ground black pepper. Turn off the heat when the egg forms clumps.

I prefer not to add salt because I like the natural savoury taste of the egg and parmesan.




Spread mayonnaise on two slices of home-made wholemeal bread and pile the egg onto one of them.





Press the other slice on top of the egg, cut the sandwich in half and serve at once.





Oh, and take a picture before you eat the sandwich.

I had some spinach soup to go with it.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Lily's Stuffed Pumpkin

I had a pumpkin sitting on my dining table for two weeks.

Lily saw it and gave me this recipe for steamed stuffed pumpkin.

First cut off the top of the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds.

Fill the pumpkin with sliced boneless chicken breast seasoned with oyster sauce, pepper and a dash of sesame oil.



Steam the pumpkin for about 40 minutes.



When it's cooked, transfer it to a serving dish.




Scoop out the chicken together with the pumpkin flesh and serve warm.





The pumpkin held its shape very well and the chicken was surprisingly tender even though it had been cooking for 40 minutes.



I enjoyed this very much. 

The next time I cook this, I will marinate the chicken in curry.

I am looking forward to pumpkin curry.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Pissaladiere - Almost



I had Provence on my mind.

That led me to pissaladiere.

I tried making some.

It was somewhat difficult to be true to Nicoise tradition when I had only 4 olives and 2 anchovy fillets.

So I chopped up the olives instead of using them whole.

I then mashed the anchovies to a paste.

Voila - pissalat, minus the herbs.

Just so the pissaladiere won't look too dull I added cherry tomatoes, blanched and skinned.

Then, I thought why not some sun-dried tomatoes as well.

To take things a bit further, I spread tomato paste on the dough with the "pissalat" before heaping on the fried onions, tomatoes and olives and some grated parmesan.

Hmmm - maybe I made pizza instead!

In any case, it was a delicious lunch eaten with some carrots left over from dinner.




Sister Number 2 and 5 were the beneficiaries of this pissaladiere experiment.






Friday, January 02, 2009

Leftovers

Some people like to turn leftovers into new dishes.

I like to eat them mostly as is.

All that's needed is a bit of display skill.




My Christmas dinner tasted just as yummy the day after.

Virginia ham with honey and pineapple glaze, apple sauce, cranberry, pineapple and ginger chutney, salad, steamed pumpkin and mashed potato.

All home-made.

Strictly speaking, the pumpkin was not from Christmas.

I had steamed it 2 or 3 days earlier for lunch.

But it did kind of go with the Christmas theme.

So there you go, leftovers that look good and taste even better.