Homemade Indian Dinner

I got a little ambitious on Friday night’s dinner and ended up with a mini Indian meal for hubby and I. Yours truly was only planning to roast some Tandoori chicken, fry up some eggs and cook plain rice. I ended up making Vegetable Biryani which sadly turned up a tad too wet. Not only that, I also ended up making Chicken Makhani (Indian Butter Chicken) and toasted some store bought naan! =)

Mind you, that everything except the naan was made from almost scratch! I did not use any instant paste in my Indian dinner! I have to confess that I did use those box pre-mixed spices, but that was the extend of help I used. I still needed to do the prep work, blending, cutting, eyeballing, tasting, adjusting,…etc

Overall verdict, everything was yummy except for my too-much-water-biryani-rice. Tandoori chicken which I left to marinate for 2 days in the fridge…. was SO GOOD!! Perhaps my Chicken Makhani could use less grinded almond next time…the gravy was slightly thick. =)

Lucky Winner!

Last month, Lilia @ MySweetHeartsBakery held a contest and had her readers vote on some new headers for her blog. In return, a winner will be picked randomly to win some adorably cute cupcake liners! I jumped in and voted for the header I love the most. At the end of the contest… I found out I was the lucky winner!! Yay!! Boy, was I excited!! I almost never win stuff and I was surely excited when I found out I won something!! Hehe!

After Lilia told me that she had shipped the package, I checked my mailbox almost every day. Hehe! I finally got my surprised from Aussie land yesterday……… And it was more than just beautiful cupcake liners!! She even sent me some cookie cutters!!!! Awesomeness!!!

 

Thanks for much Lilia for sending these lovely stuff all the way from Australia! You made my day!! I can’t wait to bake some cakes in those pretty cupcake liners!!! =)

Here’s the new winning header that’s up on Lilia’s site now…… I love how she composed and set up everything in that picture. It reminded me something you get off the Martha Stewart’s magazine!

Strawberry Ice Cream

Here’s the strawberry ice cream recipe I promised after some slight improvising! This is made based on the recipe from my Cuisinart Ice Cream maker manual, with some slight changes. The first time I made this, I added strawberry preserve and fresh strawberries into my ice cream. I did not quite like the taste of the fresh strawberries in the ice cream and have dropped that from the recipe.

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
• 3/4 Cup Milk
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• 3/4 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 5 Tbsp Low Sugar Strawberry Preserve (Smucker’s Low Sugar Strawberry Preserve)

Method:

In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer (low speed) to mix milk and granulated sugar until sugar is dissolved. Stir in heavy cream, lemon juice, vanilla extract and strawberry preserve.

Turn the ice cream maker on and pour mixture into freezer bowl. Process ice cream until you get a soft serve consistency. This took me about 35-40 minutes with my Cuisinart 1.5 Quart Ice Cream Maker. Transfer ice cream into containers and freeze for 2-3 hours before serving.

Stuffed French Toast

I love having French Toast for breakfast; heck I love French Toast so much….I wouldn’t mind having it for lunch or dinner! =) Usually I would just go for regular French Toast without any filling and all. This time, I decided to “stuff” it with some Strawberry Jam (I Love Smucker’s Low Sugar Strawberry Preserve). This sweet version of the stuffed French Toast turned out great. I’m now thinking to try out a savory version..maybe with some cream cheese and smoked salmon? =)

STUFFED FRENCH TOAST RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 4 Pcs (Thick Cut) Bread
• 1 Large Egg
• 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Essence
• 2 Tbsp Milk
• 1 Tbsp Granulated Sugar
• Dash Of Cinnamon (**Optional)
• Jam / Spread of Your Choice
• 1 Tbsp Butter
• Powdered Sugar (**Optional)

Method:

Spread your choice of Jam / Filling on on side of the bread. May I suggest strawberry jam or chocolate hazelnut spread; Nutella? Then sandwich 2 pieces of bread together; jam/spread side in.

In a shallow bowl, whisk together egg, milk, granulated sugar, vanilla and cinnamon until well combined. Heat pan /griddle and melt butter. Quickly dip both sides of a sandwich in the egg mixture (make sure all surfaces are coated, but be careful not to over coat /over soak it) and carefully transfer onto the pan. Cook until both sides are browned. Cut them into halves, diagonally and dust some powdered sugar before serving. Before you devour it, you could drizzle some maple syrup over the French Toast. I ate mine as is; the sweetness was perfect for me. =)

Fish Curry

Malaysian curry is one dish I seldom cook from scratch……Especially when I can get hold of instant curry paste (though I usually need to import them from abroad). Malaysian curries are super delicious and most of them are very tedious to make and require a lot of prep work to cook up a pot of yummy curry. Thankfully, yummy ready made paste for lazy people like me is available! Hehe!

When using the instant curry paste, you do still need to add a few fresh ingredients on your own. I used A1 Curry Paste for Seafood (A1 Curry Paste is my favorite brand!) to cook some Fish Curry for dinner. I followed the instructions on the back of the package, and added some okra on my own to the curry. Using the curry paste, I came up with a delicious pot of Fish Curry in no time! =) All I did was boiled some eggs and made some Lemon Rice to accompany the Fish Curry!Thank You A1 Curry Paste and thumbs up for this yummy curry!! =)