Easy Banana Bread

This is probably the easiest dessert/snack recipe I have ever made, and it's healthy too! I am not a fan of eating bananas physically. I'd prefer them to be made into something else. Fried bananas (which is so popular in Indonesia), smoothies, ice cream, or this kind of banana bread for instance. 

What I like about this recipe is that, it's so easy and quick. You just need some bananas (ripe bananas are better) and some basic baking ingredients such as flour, sugar, eggs, etc. The best thing is, you don't even need a mixer! I know righttt, no need to wash too many tools, yay!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 bananas (ripe ones are better), smashed
• 1 cup sugar (reduce it if you are trying to consume less sugar) 
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 egg
• 1 ts vanilla (pure is always better)
• 1 ts baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F)
2. Mix melted butter into the mashed bananas 
3. Mix in sugar, egg, and vanilla
4. Mix in again the baking soda and salt over the mixture
5. Last, add the flour, mix well
6. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan (I'm not sure if mine is in this size though) 
7. Bake for 1 hour
8. Cool it for approximately 10 to 15 mins before serving

Baked Chicken Cordon Bleu

One of my favorite dish all time! I have seen my mom made this a few times, but she would fry the chickens, instead of baking them. This time I tried to bake them. However, personally I still prefer the fried ones, maybe cause they're crunchier. 

Ingredients:

• 4 skinless chicken breast 
• salt and ground black pepper
• cheese 
• 4 slices cooked ham
• 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs (if you dont have, just use plain breadcrumbs and season them with salt and ground black pepper)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Coat a 7x11 inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Pound chicken breasts to 1/4 inch (around 1cm) thickness.
3. Sprinkle each piece of chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. Place 1 cheese slice and 1 ham slice on top of each breast. Roll up each breast, and secure with a toothpick. Place in baking dish, and sprinkle chicken evenly with bread crumbs.
4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink. Remove from oven, and place 1/2 cheese slice on top of each breast. Return to oven for 3 to 5 minutes, or until cheese has melted. Remove toothpicks, and serve immediately.

Vie's notes: I made a simple mistake here, I didn't put much salt on the chicken, that's why they were a little bit under-seasoned. Make sure that you didn't do it!

Spicy Garlic Shrimp

If you're a big fan of garlic, you'll love this recipe a lot! It's easy and simple to make too! Got this recipe from Allrecipes. The key to make this dish perfect is lots and lots of garlic. However, if you're not a fan of garlic, then you can just reduce its amount. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tbs olive oil

1 pound shrimp

salt and pepper

6 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1/4 ts red pepper flakes

3 tbs lemon juice

1 1/2 tbs butter 

1/3 cup parsley (I didn't use this much, cause my housemate is not really a fan of parsley)

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a heavy skillet over high heat until it just begins to smoke. Place shrimp in an even layer on the bottom of the pan and look for 1 minute without stirring
2. Season shrimp with salt, cook and stir until shrimp begin to turn pink, about 1 minute
3. Stir in garlic and red pepper flakes, cook and stir 1 minute. Stir in lemon juice, 2 teaspoon of butter and half of parsley.
4. Cook until butter has melted, about 1 minute, then turn heat to low and stir the rest of butter. Cook and stir until all butter has melted to form a thick sauce and shrimp are pink and opaque, about 2-3 mins
5. Remove shrimp with a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl, continue to cook butter sauce, adding water 1 teaspoon at a time if too thick, about 2 mins. Season with salt to taste
6. Serve shrimp topped with the pan sauce. Garnish with remaining parsley

Vie's notes: In case you have no idea what is red pepper flakes, here is a picture below. You can also substitute it with chopped chilies. Check out this video from Allrecipes if you want more details!

Honey Pork w/ Tofu Skin

Last 2 posts have been pastas, so I guess I have to post something different.. 

Okay, chinese food this time. This is called Honey Pork with Tofu Skin. This is actually an accidental recipe that I made, since I figured that I have just bought some pork, tofu skin and... honey. 

Therefore, I started browsing recipes on what I could do with the honey, and I ended up with this famous Chinese recipe! However, the original recipe does not include tofu skins. It was just my initiative to put it in, so if you guys don't like tofu skins, feel free to skip them. 

And again, the picture is not in a good quality.. Did not have time to grab my camera since bf was already too hungry...

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoon honey
• 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 chicken breast/pork
• dried tofu skins (put it in hot water for about 15mins until they're all soaked wet, drained the water then) 

Directions

1. Whisk together honey, soy sauce and garlic
2. Coat the meat with the sauce
3. Leave it in the refrigerator for about 30mins-1hr
4. Cook the meat over medium heat until half cooked
5. Stir in and cook the wet Tofu skins w/ the meat until all of them are well cooked (don't forget to taste while cooking) 

Simple Baked Penne

Pasta pasta pasta! who can get enough of this amazing Italian dish? It is delicious, and easy to make. I had an idea of making Baked Penne, cause we usually order it from the local Pizza delivery here, which tastes good. Bf's favorite too. Then I wondered, why don't I make it by myself? I asked my bf to accompany me to buy the ingredients in the supermarket, and made it the next day. The result is fortunately satisfying! He said that he likes the sauce so much. 

Ingredients

• drizzle of olive oil
• 1 pound dried penne
• 1 clove chopped garlic
• 3-4 tomatoes 
• ketchup
• sugar, salt, pepper 
• parmesan cheese
• cheese slices 
• beef

Directions

1. Heat oven to 200° C.  
2. Oil your baking dish with 2 teaspoon of oil. 
3. Cook penne (according to the package directions)
4. Heat oil in saucepan in medium heat. Cook garlic for 1 minute. 
5. Cook the minced beef until it is no longer pink
6. Add tomatoes, ketchup, sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, pinch of pepper. (I know I don't have the exact amount of the ketchup sugar salt and pepper. I forgot to measure, cause usually I just depend on my tasting skill. So I suggest you to taste EVERY SINGLE TIME. Don't pour too much, if you're not convinced!)
7. Bring to boil
8. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened (+/- 15 mins)
9. Stir in the cheese slices (I used 3-4 slices)
10. Put half of the cooked penne into the baking dish, top them with parmesan and cheddar again if you want. Repeat this step with the remaining pasta, but not the cheddar (to prevent it from burning)
11. Bake it for 10-15minutes before bubbling, then put the cheese slices on top and let it bake until bubbling for another 5 minutes

Vie's Notes: You could actually changed the penne into someting else. Fusilli, macaroni, ziti, farfalle could work too, don't you think?

Spaghetti with dried chilli and pangritata (from Jamie Oliver book)

original recipe and text from Jamie Oliver - The Return of The Naked Chef book

Pangritata is great, It's basically fried or toasted breadcrumbs in garlic oil. In Italy, pangritata was once used as a substitute for Parmesan, which some people couldn't afford. It gives a dish an excellent texture and crunch and, if made well, great flavour. 

Ingredients:

serves 4

455g/1lb dried spaghetti, the best you can get

6 tablespoon extra virgin oil

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

16 anchovy fillets (I didn't use thism substituet it with mushrooms)

juice of 2 lemons

2 small dried red chillies, crumbled

for the pangritata

8 tablespoon olive oil

1 clove of garlic, sliced

1 good handful of fresh thyme, leaves picked

200g/7oz fresh breadcrumbs

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

First make the pangritata. Put the olive oil into a hot thick-bottomed pan. Add the garlic, thyme, and breadcrumbs; they will fry and begin to toast. Stir for a couple of minutes until the breadcrumbs are really crisp and golden. Seaon with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper and drain on kitchen paper.

Cook the spaghetti in salted boiling water until al dente. While it is cooking, put the oil and garlic in a pan and heat gently. As the garlic begins to soften, lay the anchovy fillets over the top. After a minute you will see them begin to melt. Squeeze in the lemon juice and sprinkle in the dried chillies. Toss in the drained spaghetti and coat it in the sauce. Taste a bit of pasta - it may need a little more lemon juice and a little extra seasoning. Serve straight away, sprinkled really generously with the pangritata. 

Vie's Result :

Vie's Notes: This is pretty much an easy yet delicious dish to make. It has this wonderful sensation of the crunchiness of the pangritata and in the other hand the chewy and moist from the pasta.

Salty and Crispy Roasted Chicken Thighs

Feeling like eating roasted chicken at that time, so I decided to make them. This is pretty easy, all you need to do is just season them with salt and pepper, put them in the oven (around 200 degrees celcius for about 20mins), then voila! 

A salty and crispy roasted chicken ready to be eaten! :)

Vie's Result :  

Vie's Notes : Sorry for the poor quality of picture, I took it with my blackberry because I forgot to charge my camera's battery...