Minced Beef Pie

We have been having chicken after my taste for chicken came back. To those of you who haven't read my last few entries, I stopped eating chicken during my first trimester of pregnancy. The taste of the chicken meat leaves a taste in my mouth and it makes me feel sick. So when we found out I can now enjoy a chicken dish, we have been having it everyday. There is a saying that says "too much of everything is not good" and it is quite true ;) . I decided to have meat for dinner yesterday and I thought of this personalised minced beef pie. My husband and daughter loves this very much!

These days though I don't bother measuring my ingredients and I go by whatever right taste I can get. But I can tell you what I did.

-I heated my pan and cooked the beef in the pan with olive oil until brown.

-I added 4 or 5 tablespoons of Napoletana Pasta sauce. I made sure though that it was just enough, not too dry. You can use other pasta sauce if you like.

-I also added Worchestire sauce, Soy sauce and salt (the pasta sauce I used wasn't very tasty). You only have to add the these sauces and seasoning if you are not satisfied with the pasta sauce you are using.

-Spray the muffin pans with canola oil.

- Cut the defrosted shortcrust pastry into 4 pieces and put it in the muffin pans. I only made 6 pies as I made sure I don't overcrowd my pastry in the pan.

- Get 3 teaspoons of minced beef and fill in the shortcrust pasty.

- Cut defrosted puff pastry just enough to cover the top of the pie.

- Prick 2 holes over the puff pastry and brush with egg.

- Bake in a preheated oven (180 degrees) until pastry is golden brown.

-Serve hot.

Minced Beef and Spinach Roll

I was going to make a fried rice or a fried noodles with my minced beef but I feel like having spinach with it. I thought of shepherd's pie but I only have 2 potatoes left and it is not going to be enough as a topping. A puff pastry came to my mind and decided to use it instead. It came out really good and there was no left over! I am thinking of making another one, one of these days ;) .

You need:

Onion (minced)
Olive oil (1 tbsp)
Minced beef (200 grams)
Baby spinach leaves (125 grams)
Bolognaise sauce (approximately 3 tbps)
Puff pastry (1 piece)
Parmesan cheese
Light tasty cheese (cheddar)

What to do:

1. Heat oil in the pan and cook onion and beef. Once beef is brown add the sauce and spinach. Please add more seasoning according to your taste. Let it cool.

2. Place pastry sheet on a non stick mat. Spread the cooked beef and spinach over the pastry sheet then sprinkle some parmesan cheese. Roll the sheet. Pour the remaining liquid of the sauce on the top of the roll and sprinkle some light tasty.

3. Bake the roll in pre-heated oven (200 degrees).

Chicken Tikka Masala and Rice with Carrots and Parsley

I had this packet of Tikka Masala sauce in my pantry for months now, so I decided to use it today. I have been avoiding chicken for months now and I told myself to be brave enough to have some last Sunday. I was happy it didn't leave any bad taste in my mouth anymore so chicken and fish was in my shopping list yesterday. So then, we had chicken tikka masala for dinner and it tasted lovely! Kindly follow the instructions at the back of the packet and I think adding cream made the dish more enjoyable.

To make the rice all you need are:

1 cup of rice
1 Tbsp olive oil
a pinch of salt
grated carrot (medium size)
dried parsley

What To Do:

1. Wash rice with water at least 3 times. Add 1 and 1/2 cup of water, oil and a pinch of salt.
2. Cook in the  rice cooker (I am using rice cooker here).
3. Once cooked add grated carrots and parsley.
4. Add more oil if rice is too dry.

*For some odd reason I couldn't upload another picture tonight. I will try again tomorrow and if it still doesn't work and you would like to try the Tikka Masala sauce, it is called "Passage to India", Tikka Masala simmer sauce.

My Cravings Continuous

I am now 5 months pregnant, hurray! I was hoping I can eat anything now but it seems like I still avoid some food including chicken. I tried a small piece of chicken 2 days ago, it was alright but I wasn't really crazy over it.

Ginisang Sardinas

Ginasang sardinas is cooked in olive oil, garlic, tomato, onion, a little bit of water and a can of sardines in tomato sauce.

Chicken Macaroni Soup

I know I said I was avoiding chicken but my husband left a big piece of chicken before he went to Melbourne. I felt bad throwing it away so I added it in the soup. I didn't eat the chicken though. This was cooked the same way as "Chicken with Quinoa Pasta soup" recipe that I posted almost 3 years ago.  http://myloveforfood.blogspot.com/2007/10/chicken-with-quinoa-pasta-soup.html

May's Sauteed Prawn

This blog serves as my recipe book as well. There are some recipes here that I don't have in my cooking book so I come back here to check how it is cooked http://myloveforfood.blogspot.com/2008/10/mays-sauteed-prawn.html .



Kamote Cue. This is sweet potato fried in oil with sugar.

Ginataan is a famous snack in the Philippines. This is cooked with coconut milk, coconut cream, sweet potato, purple yam, banana, bilo-bilo (glutinous ground rice and water) and sugar.

Scone with Cream and Strawberry jam

A favorite of mine when I am at the shopping centre and hungry.

My Cravings

I am 15 weeks pregnant and the Filipino food makes me very very happy. I remember staying back in the Philippines for 2 months when I was pregnant with my 1st child, that was year 2004. I didn't know how to cook Filipino food that time and I was very desperate to eat some. I was even going to bring my Aunty Carmen to Bangkok, Thailand where we lived during that time. The cravings came back now, luckily I have learned how to cook most of the Filipino food. Below are some of the food I cooked for my satisfaction;

Tortang Talong

"Tortang talong" is an eggplant cooked with beaten eggs, salt and oil.

Tsamporado with dried fish

Tsamporado is cooked with cocoa, glutinous rice, water and sugar. I eat this delicious tsamporado with a fried dried fish. There are different sorts of dried fish but the ones on the photo is my Mum's favorite dried fish and it became my favorite as well. Remember the saying "like mother, like daughter"? 

Pork Adobo

I refuse to eat chicken nowadays. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth but I so wanted to have 'adobo'. Adobo is a very popular dish in the Philippines. It is marinated in garlic, peppercorn, bay leaves, vinegar and soy sauce. After 30 minutes or so, heat the oil in the pan and fry pork or chicken. I always like to add the marinated sauce when the meat is cooked. Cook it for another 2 minutes or until the sauce is reduce.

Pancit

Pancit is simply noodles. You can use vermicelli noodles or a yellow noodles. We combine both sometimes but I only have vermicelli in the pantry. I know I said I refuse to eat chicken nowadays but then I had a bowl of left over in the fridge. My husband had chicken but he left for Queensland the following day and I felt bad throwing it away. So I decided to add it in my pancit with snow peas, broccoli, carrots, garlic, onions, oil, water, beef stock, soy sauce, oyster sauce and pepper. I had to put the chicken on the side though when I had my pancit ;) .

A Delicious Roast Chicken

I baked a marinated chicken yesterday and it was really good! Unfortunately it has been marinated when I bought it at ALDI store. To those of you who doesn't live in Australia or Germany, ALDI's is a great store that is also awesome for the family's budget but the quality of their products are just amazing.

Normally I would just bake my chicken without any seasoning at all. However if I have a little more time to make a delicious baked chicken this is what I do.

You need:

1 Whole chicken
Salt
Peppercorn steak seasoning or any other seasoning you have in your pantry
Butter
1 stick Celery
1 small Carrot
1 whole Onion
1 whole Garlic

What To Do:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
1. Wash the chicken then pat with kitchen towel.
2. Rub salt and peppercorn steak seasoning in the whole chicken as well as inside the cavity.
3. Cut celery and carrots into chunky pieces. Stab the garlic a few times to allow the garlic's flavour into the chicken.
4. Put the celery, carrots, whole garlic, whole onion and a few pieces of butter inside the cavity.
5. Insert some butter into the breast skin as well.
6. Roast the chicken for 1 1/2 hour to 2 hours depending in the size of the chicken.
7. Serve it with salad or your favorite steam vegetables.

Chocolate Croissant

A very good friend of mine who is a brilliant cook taught me this recipe. She came by at our house one time to bring me some samples of this and my daughter had 3 pieces of it right away. Thank you for the recipe Joy! It is very easy to make and it is a great snack for your children in the afternoon. You can bake a few in advance and put it in the fridge if you wish to have some the following day. You can also freeze it so you have some snacks ready anytime.

You only need 3 ingredients for this recipe:

Puff pastry
Chocolate for cooking
Icing Sugar or powdered chocolate

What To Do

1. Cut one pastry into 4 pieces or cut the quarter of the pastry into half if you want it smaller.
2. Cut a small piece of chocolate, enough to put inside the pastry. Make sure the pastry is not too soft to fold so you can lift it on the baking tray.
3. Fold the pastry into triangles.
4. Bake until golden brown.
5. Sprinkle the icing sugar on the top of the cooked croissants and serve hot.