I Must Have Breakfast! (Part 2)

Goooood morning!!! Rise n shine peeps, and have some breakfast! :D


It's always good to start the day with good breakfast. As for me, I try to make sure my breakfast contains a good balance of protein, carbs and colours :)


Yea, colours! Colours in my food is very important. It doesn't just make the food more appealing but also a great way to ensure you always have a good balanced meal.


Breakfast 1: Tuna Ciabatta

I could just slab some tuna in my ciabatta and call it breakfast! But the colours would be blah. So I added some red from the tomatoes and greens from the cucumber. Pretty and YUM. :)

Toasted Tuna Ciabatta with tomatoes and cucumbers

Breakfast 2: Avocado Ham Cheese Tortilla wrap

Again the colours from ham and cheese would be too blah. So I added some greens from avocado and cucumber, and of course my red always comes from my favourite tomatoes. :)

 

Avocado Ham Cheese Tortilla Wrap

Breakfast 3: Cheese Kransky Pastry

If you are interested to make pastries, do check out my earlier post about puff pastries! (Check out the post here: Playing with Puff Pastry!)

Cheese Kransky Pastry with cherry tomatoes and spinach leaves

Breakfast 4: Cheese Kransky and Baked Beans Pastry

Unfortunately, no more greens in the fridge. :'( If you are interested to make your own Tau Sar Piah looking pastry, check out my earlier post here: Puff Pastry Part 2!)

Giant Tau Sar Piah for breakfast. LOL.

How you like the colours in my breakfast?

Can you spot a common item in the photos above? Yes, that's the cup of Milo I can't live without every morning! Hahaha.

I will explore more options to add other colours in my breakfast. But that's all for now! :D

Have a great day ahead! :)

Simple Breakfast Recipe: Awesome Fluffy Pancakes

I've been thinking of making my own pancakes at home for a very long time. Why pay more for a pancake when it's so cheap and easy to make at home?


So finally, the day arrived. It was a beautiful Sunday morning. Found a pancake recipe by Nigella Lawson (Link).  And I thought to myself, wow, if this recipe is from The Domestic Goddess, I can't possibly fail this one, can I? >_<


Guess what, I didn't! The pancake was thick, spongy and fluffy just as described in the website. The BEST pancake you can make at home! :D It was super easy, only involves throwing everything into a mixer, cook and eat! Serious!

Eat it while it's warm so that it's crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside! :D

Here's the recipe to make for 3 person (Nigella said 4. They must be really small eaters. We can eat 3-5 pancakes each! Lol):


Dry Ingredients
225g plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of white sugar

Wet Ingredients
2 large eggs (beaten)
30g butter (melted and cooled)
300ml of milk

Some butter for frying


Step 1: Prepare the wet ingredients - beat eggs, melt butter and prepare the amount of milk needed. Put aside.

Step 2: Throw in all the dry ingredients in a mixer and gently stir to mix with a spoon. Make a small well in the middle and add the wet ingredients and blitzzzz away (Nigella said throw everything in and blitz. But I was quite skeptical, so I added eggs and butter first. And then slowly add in the milk.)

Step 3: Heat a small pan and start cooking your pancakes already! (I use a small round pan which makes normal sized pancakes and butter to fry but that's optional)

Step 4: Serve with butter and maple syrup. Or honey. Or banana and nutella. And nuts! Strawberries would be great too! Well, any berries would do. Especially blueberries! Or blueberry jam, omg! What about vanilla ice cream? ;D Endless possibilities.


And that's it! So easy to make and soooooo good!


The weekend is here again, I might just make some! You should too, enjoy!! :D


Note: There were some slight bitter taste in my pancakes due to the bicarbonate of soda but it didn't bother me much because it was easily masked by the maple syrup/honey. Read more about baking powder and bitter taste here.


Pancakes becomes the reason to wake up on a lazy day ~ Emily 

Easiest Breakfast Idea - French Toast

This is the thing - I love french toast and it's extremely easy to make, not to mention super yummy too. But, it seldom cross my mind to make it for breakfast! WHYYYY? >_<


So, because of that, I must write this post to remind myself and all my readers out there to make some french toast for brekkie!! :D


You know, for more than 2 decades, I've always make my french toast with only 2 ingredients - egg and sugar. And only recently, I found out from a friend that the original recipe (well most people) add milk or cream! >_< Anyways, it was my first time adding milk in my french toast and I absolutely love it! LOL. Maybe one day I should make both versions and test it on my guinea pigs!! Hehehe :P


Here's my super simple and yummy breakfast:

Fluffy Yummy French Toast

The bread alone is already very yummy. But you can always add toppings to jazz it up a bit e.g. honey, butter, jam or fruits.


Now, go make some already!

Enjoy! :D

Puff Pastry Part 2!

I just got myself a new packet of Puff Pastry! ^_^ Looks like I'm getting quite addicted! And I'm not the only one! Haha...the bf has been requesting for pastries too! Lol.

I got my puff pastry from Woolies. Don't look down at homebrands - it's actually quite good (for newbies like me!) and I have no complaints about it. :D

Cheap but Good :D

Anyways, I accidentally cracked the last piece of puff pastry I had in the freezer:

URGH

But! I'm the kind of person who sees the glass as half full! So, thanks to YOU, you ugly cracks because you inspire me to try something new! Haha! :D

So what I did was I added more damage to it, shredding it into smaller pieces and line them in ramekins!

Pretty smart huh? LOL.

And then add my favourite ingredients - cheese, kransky and baked beans. :D

Add more broken pieces on top to cover it. Brush some egg wash before throwing them into preheated oven at 180C. Sit back, relax and wait for the magic to happen! (About 20mins)

And then....TA-DA! Perfect brekkie with my hot Milo :)

Throw in some cherry tomatoes for some colour :P

Another close-up photo to show you how flaky and yummy it was! Hehe...

Looks more like Tau Sar Piah (mung bean pastry) huh? LOL

The moral of the story is - Always find opportunities in difficult or challenged situations! It may lead you to something better :) In this case, a yummy pastry which looks like Tau Sar Piah.


Damn! Now I'm craving for Tau Sar Piah!! Cryyyy... T____T

Playing with Puff Pastry! :D

Oh Puff Pastry! One of the best invention by human race. :') LOL.

Anyways, so I got myself a packet of puff pastry and have been having so much fun playing with it! The crust is amazing, so forget the idea of making your own!


We have been having a lot of sandwiches for brekkie lately, so I decided to jazz it up with some puff pastry.

Tip for newbies like me: If it is cold where you live now, the fast way to defrost your puff pastry is simply putting it in the microwave with a glass of hot water. Close the door and wait for about 5mins or so. Done!

The steps to making your own pastry are basically the same:

(1) Prepare ingredients and line them on the puff pastry.
(2) Cut/Wrap to any shape you like
(3) Brush some egg wash
(4) Bake in preheated oven at 180C for about 20mins or until pastry turned golden :)

Here's what I did:

1st Attempt: Hawaiian Pizza Inspired Pastry

The Result: Taste better than it looks! Haha!

This is really what I did >_<

Turns out prettier than expected! LOL.

Ugly But YUM! :P

2nd Attempt: Baked Beans Puff Pastry 

It was more like I had a can of baked beans and puff pastry left, so let's make some Baked Beans Puff Pastry! :D Nothing can possibly go wrong with baked beans, ham and cheese!! >_<

The ingredients

So easy, you have gotta try this!! SOOOO YUM!

Brekkie for bf :D I have to say 2nd attempt was the BEST! My fav! Definitely making this again!

3rd Attempt: Cheese Kransky Pastry

Honestly, this feels like a cheat. Basically wrap puff pastry around cheese kransky, egg wash, DONE! LOL.

So, what do you think? Look pretty good huh? Taste just as good too (always toast before serving)!

My vote goes to the baked beans puff pastry while my bf said he votes for the chesse kransky but he loves the baked beans too...hmmm and also the pizza pastry!! Lol. ^_^

Well, I hope you will have as much fun as I did! 

Enjoy! :D

I Must Have Breakfast!

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Yea, I bet you came across this sentence in most health articles and hear it like a gazillion times from your parents and health-conscious friends. No? Well, I hear this from my dad all the time! (I miss you dad!)

I remember how dad would wake up earlier in the morning to prepare good breakfast for me before he prepares himself for work. Sometimes American breakfast, sometimes Asian but whatever it was, it was always, always full of effort and lots of love. He would always find ways to make my breakfast look different everyday.

Salad is a staple food in our house. In our fridge, there's always tomatoes, lettuces, cucumbers and the not-so-healthy Thousand Island! >_< Oh, speaking of breakfast, I can't describe to you how excited I get when I stay in hotels, always looking forward to their breakfast spread. Hotels that serve alfalfa sprouts in their salad bar gets extra 2 points from me! Hehehe.

Anyways dad, I want you to know that I've been making effort to wake up and have breakfast everyday now. Be proud of me. :')

Breakfast Day 1 - Cheese kransky, ugly fried egg with freshly sliced tomatoes and lettuce

Breakfast Day 2 - Cheese kransky (only had half left *cry*), bits of ham, the PERFECT sunshine eggs *beams* and of course, some freshly sliced tomatoes and fresh lettuce. Same same but different. Hehe.

Breakfast Day 3: Tuna Croissant (toasted!) with freshly sliced tomatoes and cucumber for a change ;) And breakfast is not complete without Milo in my magic cup. Weee~

So, there you go, I had breakfast on the other days too but errr...let's just say they are not too photogenic! >_<


Will put in more effort to make beautiful breakfast in the near future. Promise.


Love you Dad. This post is for you. <3