Meal Upgrade: Bread and Eggs

Hello friends, How are you all doing? I am great :D

Now lets talk about breakfast. And specifically the all time classic; Bread and Eggs! I don't know about you but I find the basic omelette with tomatoes and peppers quite boring. So at every installment, I try to switch things up a bit.

So without further ado, Bread and eggs: my way.

For the Bread, I toasted them same way I did Here and cut them in half into triangles.

And now for the eggs; You'll need the following ingredients 

Ingredients:

• 3 Large Eggs (Cant have an omelette without eggs now can we? :D)
• One Small white Onion sliced
• Celery: About two sticks sliced
• I medium carrot, peeled and cut into half inch cubes
• About a quarter of a stick of Leeks, thinly sliced
• One Sausage, diced
• One Clove of Garlic finely chopped
• I Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• I Teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
• Salt and Pepper to Taste 

Cooking Instructions

Start with a nonstick pan on medium heat. (also turn on your oven as you will be needing it shortly) Add your vegetable oil and when hot, add the sausages and allow to brown for a few minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce and a pinch of freshly ground black pepper for some flavor. Once browned, remove the sausages and set aside. Add the sliced onions to the pan and allow to soften, add the rest of the vegetables leaving the garlic for last. Stir continuously and season. Remove from the pan.

Reduce the heat to the lowest and pour your beaten eggs into the pan and top with your vegetables and sausages making sure to spread evenly. Optional: Top with about a table spoon of chopped parsley.

Pop into the preheated oven at medium heat for about 5 minutes and you've got yourself an omelette.

I like to cut min up into pizza style wedges. This recipe serves two and the serving in the picture is actually half of the prepared omelette.

Give this a try, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Until next time, remain blessed.

Love, Preye

What I Ate: Dirty Rice and Beetroot Sauce

Hello People,

I had never had wild rice and had been itching to give it a try for quite a while. So when I saw a shelve full of different varieties of rice at one of my old hunts (Onime's Food Basket), I quickly grabbed some and started planning a rustic meal; and some weeks later I finally cooked up the meal.

One thing I didn't know before I started cooking was that wild rice takes a long, looonngg time to cook.

The pack specified cooking the rice for about 50 minutes but I ended up cooking for the better part of two and a half hours. Although to be fair some part of that time was spent preparing  ingredients and making the sauce.

Anyways, back the the meal.

For the rice I used:

Brown Rice and Wild Rice Mix, about 3 Cups
Chipolata Sausages...6pieces
Streaky Bacon...4 strips
Shrimps...about half kg
Unsalted Butter
Dark Soy Sauce
Worcestershire Sauce
Onion
Garlic
Seasoning and Spices
Juice of one orange

I started off with the rice, using the packet instructions and left it to cook.

Then chopped up the sausages, bacon, onions and garlic.

I browned the sausages and bacon in the butter to get some caramelized flavor. Next I took out the sausages and bacon, and added the chopped onions and sauteed them for a bit. Threw in the sausages and bacon again, added the shrimps and the rest of the ingredients and seasonings and finished off with the juice of one orange.

When the rice was almost cooked, I mixed in the rest of the cooked ingredients and allowed it simmer for about 10 minutes to infuse the flavors and the dirty rice was ready.

For the sauce I chopped up some carrots, onions and beetroots and sauteed them in some butter then added some chicken stock, seasonings and some chopped mint. Finished it off with some heavy cream and the sauce was ready.

For the chicken, I had some boiled chicken in the freezer so I just browned them a little bit in some olive oil in keeping with the rustic theme of the meal and voila, the meal was ready!

Though this meal took a long time to make, the taste was totally worth it. I got five stars from my numero uno taste tester :D

I'll definitely be adding this to my list of staples and you should give this a try.

Until next time, God bless you.

Love, Preye.

I Love my Chocolate Cake!

This is my favorite and easiest chocolate cake recipe. Its indeed a genius cake...I mean, a great tasting chocolate cake without chocolate, or eggs, or butter...? Who wouldn't be sold on that?

I have blogged about a modified version of this cake in this post and I've made this cake too many times to count.

Here's a link to the recipe: Margaret Fox's Amazon Chocolate Cake

And here's last week's installment of the cake (I bake this almost every week...I know X_X so much cake)

I dusted with Castor Sugar.

And then decided to serve it a different way.
I drizzled some condensed milk over the cake...yummy goodness! The cake soaked up the milk and the sweetness of the milk balanced out the bittersweet chocolate taste.

DH loved the condensed milk version (of course). But next time I bake this cake, I'll use whipped cream and some fruits to switch things up a bit.

Give this a try, I guarantee you'll love it. :D

Until next time, God Bless You.

Love,
Preye.

And Dinner is Served!

Hello People,

Its been one busy week (or two?) for me. Yeah I know...my weeks are always busy but these past two were at an all time high. I had loads of sewing to do and was also appointed as part of an electoral committee for a professional organisation. So I was combining work, out of office meetings, sewing and of course the "constants" like traffic, "no light" (power outage) and inefficient shop attendants (story for another day); its been an interesting period.

Did I mention this past week was our Thanksgiving week in church! "HALAL" Week. Basically one week of awesome praise and thanks to God for His goodness in our lives...and I sure do have a lot to be thankful for...Well I danced my heart out (and my leg into a sprain lol) and had an awesome week of praise and thanksgiving.

Ah yes, back to the post. For dinner today, (which started out as lunch actually), I decided on Braised Chicken with boiled ripe plantains and a cool cucumber salad to cleanse the palate afterwards.

Here's a list of the ingredients and cooking instructions

Ingredients: Braised Chicken
Chicken Laps (Or any cut you prefer - 2kg)
Fresh Tomatoes - Chopped ( about 1kg)
Onion (1 Large Bulb)
Cameroon Pepper - Ground (1 Tablespoon)
Herbs - I used Fresh Rosemary, Basil, Mint and Parsley
Ginger
Salt and stock cube
Spices (of your choice)
Olive Oil
Dark Soy Sauce
Lemon Juice
Ketchup (Optional)

Directions
Rinse the chicken and drain/dry off water; Heat about a quarter cup of olive oil in a pot and brown the chicken in it to get the caramelized flavor.
Once the chicken has browned on both sides, add your chopped tomatoes, onions, grated ginger, seasonings and spices. Tie the herbs with a clean cotton rope (this makes it easier to pull them out later) and add to the pot. Add just enough water to cover the chicken and bring to the boil; put on the lid, reduce the heat and allow to simmer for about 40 mins.
Take off the lid, add the juice of half a lemon, about 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce and a squirt or two of ketchup (I actually added the ketchup to mask the rosemary which I was a bit heavy handed with :P).
Simmer and reduce until you have a thick sauce and take off the heat. Fish out your bouquet of herbs and dispose.

For the plantain I basically cut each piece in three parts and boiled them until a fork slid in smoothly without any resistance. I then drained out the liquid and salted.

And now for the salad.

Ingredients: Cucumber Salad
1 large cucumber
2 Large Tomatoes
1 small Onion
A sprig of mint leaves
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
Salt and Black Pepper to taste.

Instructions:
Cut and remove the seeds from the cucumber; slice (about half an inch thick), sprinkle with salt and place in a colander to drain excess liquid (about 30 minutes should do)

Chop tomatoes, onions and mint leaves. Combine all ingredients and mix well. refrigerate and serve cool.

Dinner was delicious and filling (Is it just me or is boiled plantain more filling than fried plantain? - same quantity).

I've got quite a bit of catching up to do (a long line up of posts) and I'm actually typing this up while getting my hair braided (yayy for multitasking :D)

So until next time, "BeThankful"

Love,

Preye

What I Ate: Chocolate Popcorn Crumble Cake!

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.

                                                                             - Harriet Van Horne 

And so it was, that one fine rainy day I walked into my kitchen and decided to experiment. With little or no recipes, no TNT (tried and trusted) meals, and a willingness to go with the flow; I was able to create some deliciousness out of a combination of some unusual ingredients.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet my "Chocolate Popcorn Crumble Cake with a Caramel/Granola topping"! I know...terrible name. lol. But trust me, it tasted so good I wouldn't mind naming it "That Crunchy Deliciousness" 

Here's how it happened. I have this TNT recipe for a chocolate cake via Food52 and I was badly in need of a cake fix. Unfortunately, I had no AP flour...Gasp! So I raided my pantry and found a pack of popcorn flour I had bought on a whim a couple of months ago and never used (I originally planned to make Banana-popcorn bread). I also had some corn flour on hand, and with a few tweaks to my favorite Chocolate cake recipe, my "Frankencake" was born.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Popcorn Flour (You can actually make yours from popcorn, see techniques here and here)

1/2 Cup Corn Flour

1 Cup Light Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

1  Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt

5 Tablespoons Canola Oil

1 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar

1 Tablespoon Vanilla Essence

1 Cup Cold Water

For Caramel
Granulated Sugar, Honey and Butter cooked at medium heat until sugar melts completely and is golden brown. I added a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of Vanilla for added flavor

For Granola Topping
Here's a link to my Granola Recipe. I made some slight changes; dry toasted the oats and nuts in a pan (my cake was in the oven and I didn't want the temperature drops that would result from the constant opening) and then poured the hot caramel over them and mixed until fully coated. I also left the nuts whole.

Now for the main recipe: sift the flour, salt, cocoa powder and baking soda into a large bowl and mix in the sugar. Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl and combine wet and dry ingredients.

Line the bottom of your baking pan with parchment paper and grease the sides (I use an oil spray).

Pour in the batter and bake at medium heat for twenty-five minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Note: Popcorn Flour and Corn flour are both gluten free so the cake will not bind...if you would like a less crumbly texture and more moisture, you could add ground flax seeds or gelatin to serve as a binding agent. (or stick to the original recipe here)

Once your cake is ready, pour the hot caramel over the top of the cake and spread the granola over it. The caramel will bind the granola to the cake. Remember to handle with care as melted sugar is extremely hot. You can press in the granola with a soft spatula to help seal it in some more. Allow to cool.

This is what it looked like when I was done.

You can take the cake out of the baking pan before adding the toppings

Yum! :D

I was pleased with the way this turned out and I'll definitely be doing it again in the near future (with some additional modifications).

Until next time, God bless you.

Love,
Preye.

My Go-To-Snack: Granolas

As a Nigerian, when you think "food" the first three meals that come to mind would probably be;

• Eba and Soup
• Rice (in its many forms)
• Beans (and dodo or yam/potatoes or my personal favorite with dry garri sprinkled on top)

I love Eba, but I find myself feeling tired after eating a meal of Eba and Soup (I just feel like sleeping right at the table...lols)

Rice...not so much and well beans for me takes commitment to cook especially the variety I like (brown/red beans) so I try to reduce my "exposure" and substitute with lentils.

Anyways, all this "story story" was to say, I try to include healthy snacks in my family's diet and reduce the frequency of heavy meals. We do the heavier meals for breakfast, and fruits, grains, yogurt etc for lunch and just "wing" dinner depending on the mood.

So enter Granola! My go-to meal/snack (it can serve either function).

Granola is a breakfast food and snack food popular in the Americas, consisting of rolled oats, nuts, honey, and sometimes puffed rice, that is usually baked until crisp. During the baking process the mixture is stirred to maintain a loose, breakfast cereal-type consistency... 

                                                                                                                  Source: Wikipedia 

While you can walk into most Supermarkets and get a pack (a pricey pack at that), I prefer making mine fresh each week with the exact ingredients I want.

So here's my "recipe" (I use that term loosely :D) for homemade granola.

Ingredients

• Rolled Oats -  Roughly two cups
• Nuts - Two cups (or less-I like a lot of nuts in my Granola )(I use Groundnuts, Almond Nuts, Pecans, Hazelnuts, Cashew Nuts and any other nuts I happen to have on ground)
• Light Brown Sugar - Half Cup
• Salt - Half a teaspoon
• Honey - About a third of a cup.

Instructions

Preheat your oven at medium heat

Step 1: Chop your nuts (for groundnuts I just crush them to split in two, and for larger nuts like pecans and almonds, I chop them up).

Step 2: In a large bowl, mix the oats, nuts, brown sugar and salt until combined then gradually add the honey allowing it coat the dry ingredients. You can use  a wooden spoon for this or your hands.

Step 3: Spread parchment/baking paper on a large baking tray (or two trays) and spread the mixture on the parchment paper. Here you want to make sure the granola is evenly spread and not piled up so the grains can cook evenly.

Step 4: Bake at 220 Degrees Celsius for about 20-30 minutes stirring every 5 minutes (Note that different ovens may produce different results).

Once fully browned pour in a tray and allow to cook before handling (Warning: Caramelized sugar is pretty hot). When cool store in an airtight container and enjoy your granola in many ways. Here are a few suggestions.

• As a snack: I pack them as lunch time snacks for DH and I and also entertain guests (Tip: Serve with a Yogurt/Banana smoothy...yummy)
• As a breakfast meal: Serve as you would your favorite cereal - with milk. No added sugar required
• As a Garnish for ice-cream (and pretend the oats make the ice cream healthy lols)
• In a Parfait: Here's a recipe for one Granola Parfait Recipe
• Any other way you like...there is a world of possibilities out there. I am actually thinking up a pie with a granola crust...will let you know how that goes.

So there you go, my favorite go-to snack.

p.s there are numerous recipe's out there for Granola's but I played around until I found one that suited my palate so go ahead and explore. 

And as Alton Brown would say, "Until next time, I bid you good eat"

Preye