We declared it Christmas, again!

Feeling all festive, we had to have a cookout!

So the entire gang came down, all decked in christmas gear and armed with gifts!

The Evening's Menu

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Super Mushroomy Mushroom Soup

Honey Roasted Chicken on Baked Vegetables

Beloved Gordon's Mushroom Mac and Cheese

Vanilla Ice Cream with Berry Compote

Chocolate Log Cake

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As you can already tell, we are crazy about mushrooms! It was mushroom, mushroom everywhere!

Turn around and you see one trying to sneak up on you.

We started with the baked vegetables first. They take the longest in the oven.

 This shot was at half time.

Then, went to work on Gordon's Mac and Cheese.

And it came out of the oven, looking like this! Hmmmmm....mmm

Took out the vegetables from the oven and placed the microwave heated honey roasted chicken on top!

(We wanted to save time so we bought a ready chicken instead of roasting one)

We are not so able as to cook the mushroom soup on our own. We just reheated the HEINZ cans and threw sauteed mushrooms in to bring the flavour up a notch. Also, to make sure cooking up a storm in the kitchen didn't translate to disaster on the dinner table *wink*

It was a jolly good time!

Too jolly, if we may add...

Anyway, here are the recipes if you wanna have your hand at them!

Baked Vegetables

Serves eight

1 bag of mixed potatoes (Purple Peruvian/ Red Bliss/ Brown)

1 bag of long beans

i box of baby tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic

olive oil

thyme

salt and black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree celsius. Scrub clean and chop potatoes into quarters or halves (up to your preferance) Chop long beans into halves. Peel and wash garlic. Wash baby tomatoes.

2. Place potatoes, long beans, garlic and tomatoes into roasting tin.

3. Drizzle olive oil. Sprinkle thyme, salt and pepper. Stir to coat potatoes with oil mixture well.

4. Bake for 30 mins. After 15 mins, take it out to stir and return to oven. Check if thyme is burnt. If it is, remove from vegetables mixture. Thyme has a bitter taste when burnt.

5. Stir and serve!

Gordon's Mac and Cheese

Serves eight

2 shallots, finely diced
250g dried macaroni
1 tablespoon olive oil
100g shitake, trimmed and sliced into pieces
1 sprig of thyme, leaves removed
200ml double cream
4 egg yolks
200g cheddar cheese

100g Parmesan
25g butter
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil

1. Add the macaroni to a large pan of boiling salted water with the olive oil and cook for 7-10 minutes until just tender. Drain and rinse under cold water to remove excess starch. Return to the pan and set aside.

2. Melt the oil in a small frying pan. Add the mushrooms and fry until golden brown, add a small knob of butter and the thyme, cook for another minute then season with pepper. Drain the excess oil from the pan and then add the shallots and cook for a further 2 minutes or until softened.

3. Bring the cream to a gentle boil and add it to the mushrooms, add the egg yolks (a little at a time, stirring well to prevent egg from cooking), and parmesan, mix well and crumble in two-thirds of the cheese. Add the macaroni to the cheese sauce and stir until everything is fully incorporated. Heat gently for a few minutes to melt the cheese. Season with pepper.

4. Butter the ovenproof dish, and pour in the mixture. Top with some cheddar and parmesan and transfer to oven for 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown, remove and leave to stand for 5 minutes or so, then serve!

 The next time we go this crazy, will have to be Chinese New Year!

HAA--JAA!

Merry Merry Christmas <3
Love, Rach and Via

A Sweet Midnight to Christmas

On the Eve, Rach and I decided to bake our midnight away into Christmas!

We decided it had to be something sweet, creamy and simple!

(because we could only manage amateur recipes at the moment, to more hard yummy work ahead!)

So, Oreo Cheesecake it is!

Love the red the strawberries brought to the cheesecake! Hmmm...

And now, introducing the ingredients...

Mix, mix and more mixing. Remember to stir in only one direction.

Pour the cheese mixture onto the oreo base in the tray.

Spread it evenly with a spatula.

Initially, we wanted to use the remaining cream cheese we had to write 'Merry Christmas!'

The plastic bag didn't work well, thus a heart filled with strawberries was born!

Here's the recipe, if you wanna try it out!

Oreo Cheesecake

Serves eight

2 (250g) packages PHILADELPHIA brick cream cheese, softened

18 OREO cookies, mashed (depending on how oreo you want it to be)

2 tablespoons butter, melted

3/4 teaspoon vanilla essence

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1. Place 12 of the cookies in resealable plastic bag. Flatten bag to remove excess air, then seal bag. Finely crush cookies by rolling a rolling pin across the bag. Place in bowl. Add butter; mix well. Press firmly onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan or tray.

2. Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl with a whisk/ spatula (we used a spatula) until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition.

3.Chop or crush remaining 6 cookies. Gently stir half of the chopped cookies into cream cheese batter.

4. Pour over prepared crust; sprinkle with the remaining chopped cookies.

5. Bake 45 min. or until centre is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. Cut into 12 pieces. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.

Our cheesecake was yes, sweet, creamy and utterly oreo-y. But it was too soft. Our mistake was that we used the soft PHILADELPHIA cream cheese in tub instead of blocks. So, do look out for the right type and have fun!

'Till our next bake!

Love, Rach and Via

Favourite Time of the Year!

It's christmas! The festival that leaves you all warm and fuzzy inside, tummies all filled to the brim and pocketfuls of presents! So let's cut to the chase and bring out the main stars.

Pan-fried Scallops with Rocket Salad



Ge's Legendary Mushroom Risotto

Baked Vegetables

Fried Lemon Chicken

It was a table full of goodness and we polished it all. 'Cept for the lemon chicken which we thought could go in the oil longer for a crispier texture!

P/s: we had a second christmas dinner!

Tell you more later, alligator!

Love, Rach and Via

Breakfast Adventure #2

You wouldn't believe how fast we came back for this one. We throroughly enjoyed our first one though a few blubbers. This time round, sauteed mushroom and tomato brushetta, aparagus on cheesy bacon eggs and strawberry pancakes!

We had to do a second take on the recipe. We didn't realise sauteed mushrooms were that simple!

Sauteed Mushrooms

Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter in pan

Wait till butter is foamy

Stir fry mushrooms in butter for about 4 minutes

Season with chopped parsley and pepper

Brushetta Tomato

Dice 2 large tomatoes

Drizzle with olive oil

Sprinkle with parsley

(Usually the tomatoes are boiled first, then skins removed, then diced.

But we prefer ours fresh. Option is yours!)

Garlic Toast

Slice baguette into thick slices

Rub peeled garlic on the sides

Butter them up

Dry pan-fry on the pan for about 4 minutes, flipping them when necessary or you can toast them in the oven!

Cheesy Bacon Eggs

Crack 8 eggs into bowl

Lightly beat, adding 6 tablespoons of milk (the more milk you add, the fluffier your eggs'll turn out)

Add pinch of pepper and chopped parsley

Add 2 1/2 cups of mixed cheese

Pour egg mixture into pan

Sprinkle bacon bits on top

And scramble away!

Aparagus

Chop off ends

Lightly boil for 1 minute or less

Drain and serve

We had intended to make aparagus wrapped omelette. Turns out we all prefer a scrambled egg morning!

So we just top the eggs with the aparagus :)

We had leftover pancake mix from the first adventure. So instead of waffles, we are going with the good ol' traditional buttermilk strawberry pancakes! One day, we'll do it from scratch!

Buttermilk Strawberry Pancake

Create mix following directions on the box

Stir in strawberries gently

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in pan (the more butter you have, the crispier the pancake)

Pour mixture into pan

Flip when you see holes forming on the surface of the pancake

Good to use a small size pan, the thicker the pancake the harder to cook :)

We had fun! So many ideas for the next adventure!

Till the next!

Love, Rach and Via

The Midnight Bake!

Here, you see Rach's favourite dessert- the easyfussfreeyummysosogood or so they say. Add a scoop of rich vanilla ice cream and it's sliding down your throat faster than you can say A-HEY! This is our virgin attempt- toasty on top, filled with one too many bittersweet chocolate chips and a little too soggy at the bottom. So, let's work backwards as with most solutions to solving a problem.

In the oven for 45 mins at 200 degrees celsius.

All soaked in the buttery,sugary, chocolatey goodness. Tasted the mixture and was good so far. But this might have been too soggy. Looking back, draining 2/3 of the mixture would do us some good.

All the ingredients we prepared. Had a mixture of chocolate swirl, chocolate cake and danish bread. This might have been our downfall. The chocolate cake and chocolate swirl bread was too soft.

Mix. Mix. Mix.



It smelt and looked good though it didn't pass the taste test. Bb gobbled a whole plate of it! That sight's a sure motivation to continue baking! For our next attempt, we'll rewind and succeed!

Have a good night!

Love, Rach and Via

Breakfast Adventure #1

Since the birth of the new home and then some, a desire to create/cook all things deliciouschocolateysweetsavouryawesome has been brewing (possibly attributed to the amazing kitchen as pictured!). In there, we do maannnyyy things. Yes, let your imagination run. And now, this is just the first-

breakfast in our pjs!

A short commentary of the morning's adventure

We made slices in the black pepper and chicken chipotle sausages. Then, started frying the sausages with a little olive oil.

Then beat the eggs with milk, pepper and secret spice mix. Melted 1 tablespoon of butter into pan and poured egg mix into pan. Dropped mushrooms and cheese slices into the egg mix quickly. At this point, decided which of us wanted their eggs scrambled or omeletted. Stirred and chopped quickly for scrambled. Waited for bubbles, checked if underside was cooked and folded for omelette.

After which, we sliced bagels in half and buttered them up. Dry pan-fried bagels till cripsy. And we plated up!

We really fought with the waffle maker.



Poured Aunt's Jemma Buttermilk Pancake Mix into the waffle machine. After 10 seconds, it starts smoking up real mad. Tried real quick to lift the cover and discovered the batch turned out pretty alright. Felt mystified as to why the smoke came up. Decided butter could soothe the angry waffle maker. But noo, it smoked up more! Turned off the heat and ran off for breakfast to save our growling stomachs.

Yum was everything except the chicken chipotle sausages that tasted a little like garbage.

Till the next!

Love, Rach and Via