Foodarrific» Breads & Pastries

The goodness of homemade bread from scratch

Chili Queen — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:31:38 +0000

Last weekend was the second weekend in a row that I’ve baked bread. The storebought bread that is more air than bread is barely enough to last us an hour. Yup, eat 2 slices at breakfast and within an hour, I’m hungry again.

So I’ve decided that from now on, I’m going to be baking my own bread. And that’s exactly what we did last Sunday after my daughter came home from accompanying her friend to a plus size formal dress fitting.

Someone asked if I use a bread machine. The answer is no, I don’t own a bread machine. A friend gave us a loaf she had made with her bread machine and when left overnight, the bread was hard as rocks. My kids will not eat rocks.

So no bread machine for me. I make my bread from scratch, complete with an added inspiration – sweat. It’s a great way to tone my arms as well. My wholemeal bread, dense, rich and topped with nuts tastes so so good.

From scratch, by hand

Chili Queen — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:28:33 +0000

With school back in full swing, I’m more determined than ever to continue my baking pursuits. Teens are always hungry and with the long school days, the commercial air bread that we buy is hardly enough to keep them full for more than an hour. Seriously I’m tired of paying for air.

So I’ve started baking my own bread. And no, I do not own one of them funky bread machines that some of my friends have trained their maids to load up at 5 o’clock in the morning to churn away in time for breakfast.

If you fling a loaf of overnight bread machine bread at someone and they’re not wearing a Scorpion EXO-1000 helmet, you’ll probably make a hole in their head. That kind of bread is not for us. I make my bread from scratch by hand, the old school way and my teens love it. Their favorites are wholemeal nut loaves that taste so so good, even after a few days.

Nothing like good old chicken pot pie

Chili Queen — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:46:33 +0000

One of our family favorites is the chicken pot pie. It’s been something of a comfort food (sorta) to the kids since they were little.

Of course, these days, instead of paying through our noses to eat this outside, I usually just whip this up at home using store-bought puff pastry. Store-bought is heaven-sent to busy moms like me who are trying to make lunch while looking through ads for Medical Office Manager Jobs and a bunch of other stuff.

Spicy breakfast

Chili Queen — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:02:53 +0000

Occasionally on the weekend, we like to have a big spicy breakfast. There’s nothing like a kick to knock the sleep out of everyone’s eyes.

Here’s our roti canai (aka flatbread) served with chutney, chicken masala and glass of iced coffee. Our breakfast is served on banana leaves which act both as plates and mini mats.

After a meal like this, we usually skip lunch because although this may not look like much, it’s really very filling.

Expired muffins, anyone?

Chili Queen — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 08:38:53 +0000

I’ve recently pulled out my mixer and spatula and started baking again. All because I found a pack of orange and poppyseed muffin mix which had been sitting out of sight in my pantry for I don’t know how long now. The use-by date says it expired last month but what the heck, I went ahead and baked the muffins anyway.

They tasted great and we’re none the worst for the expired ingredients or adapexin reviews. Not too long ago, stuff never used to carry expiry dates. No one knew and no one cared about expiry dates, and we’re still here to tell the tale.

So as long as something doesn’t look or smell questionable, I wouldn’t throw it out. Besides if you buy prepared food from the store, how would you know if they used expired ingredients, right?

By the way, these muffins were yums… a little too sweet but yums nevertheless.

dunking toast in curry

chili queen — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:14:58 +0000

How do you usually eat your curry? With plain white rice and a veggie dish? With naan, roti canai or roti pratha (Indian bread)? Yeah, I guess that would roughly be what most of us might be used to.

But since I’m not a big fan of rice, I prefer to eat my curry with toast. It’s incredibly yummy and makes a great breakfast too. Not one of those colon cleansing foods but I assure you, once you try it, you’ll swear by it .

Onion Loaf on the house

chili queen — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:47:28 +0000

Since we try not to patronize Chinese restaurants in the weeks of Chinese New Year, we’ve been having our fill at Western restaurants instead. Recently we were at Tony Roma’s where we were served this yummy Onion Loaf on the house.

We love this tasty appetizer served with a dip that tastes like Thousand Island (or is it?). Getting a freebie like this is as good as picking up a great Cyber Monday deal .

Well, just looking at this Onion Loaf, I’m inclined to think it involves quite an engineering effort to get the onions wrapped around like this. So what do you think? Think this is good enough to eat?

the switch to wholemeal

chili queen — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 06:10:15 +0000

For more than a year now, I’ve been trying to get the family to switch to wholemeal bread. They don’t make white bread like they used to.

Anyhow with the price of white bread gone up, it’s a good excuse to switch to wholemeal. The kids were like ukf8001axx at first , but they’ve since gotten the hang of it and stopped complaining. I’m happy we’ve made the switch to a healthier option with more fiber and goodness.

baguette in herbed olive oil dip

chili queen — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:20:18 +0000

There are days when our school lunches almost resemble a small emergency evacuation and I’m not kidding. We have to be in and out of the house in a half hour or something crazy like that.

This then is my latest quickie lunch of sliced baguette dipped in herbed olive oil served with a bowl of mushroom and potato soup. Mm, simply delish. The idea came from a pizza dinner we had at Italiannies (our second visit in like ten years!) where they served us focaccia with herbed olive oil dip as a starter.

My kids loved it so much I had to replicate it at home. I used baguette instead of focaccia but I reckon any kind of bread would do. I infused some Italian herbs into a plate of olive oil. And I cheated with an instant soup mix .

breakfast @ Otak-Otak Place

chili queen — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:55:51 +0000

For the past few mornings last week, I’ve been having breakfast at this new place I found. Well, I’d read about their $5 breakfasts but not being someone who eats breakfast out very often, I didn’t pay much attention.

But I have a gym partner now who faithfully hangs out with me when I go shopping for groceries and holiday gifts, and one morning, we decided to check out the Otak-Otak Place. It’s a themed restaurant reminiscent of your no-frills school canteen back in the good old 1960′s, complete with old-time songs played on wobbly records.

They have a few breakfast sets to choose from which come with tea or coffee, and my girl friend ordered the one that comes with Chicken Curry and Toast in a basket…

… and English tea with a Jacob cracker on top. So cute!

And I chose to have coffee with Nasi Lemak, or coconut rice with spicy condiments.

I’ve seen Otak-Otak Place franchises located in a few of the major shopping malls around town. Their breakfast is pretty okay for the price and I like that the place is nice and quiet in the mornings.