Progetto Diciannove: Mocha Frosting

Remember those fudge cups I made a while back? Well, I made a mocha version of it. It happened accidentally though. It was supposed to be a cake and it ended up a fudge bar. Don't ask. 

Needless to say, I did not take a photo of the catastrophe. But it did taste good, ask my neighbors. They had a big helping of it.

The mocha icing was superb though.

Ingredients:

1 cup All Purpose Cream

1/4 cup Powdered Sugar

1 tbsp of Coffee

1 tbsp of Cocoa Powder

Being the lazy ass that I am. I popped everything into the food processor and job well done.

Progetto Diciotto: Poached Eggs

I am pleased to inform everyone that I finally succeeded in poaching an egg! It's a bit rough and well the yolk's not exactly in the middle, but its better than the soupy disasters I've ended up with in the past.

Practice makes perfect and I will make the perfect poached egg someday. :)

Progetto Diciassette: Modified Eggs Benedict

I had a craving for Brinner (Breakfast for Dinner) the other night and decided to make this lovely treat.

Since I don't plan on sharing my far-fetched English Crumpet recipe, I have taken liberty to showing you a link to one of the many cooking site you can learn from: Click Me

I was a bit sloppy on my sunny-side up (so yeah, I still can't poach an egg. I'm trying! Its just turning into a disaster not to mention a waste of perfectly good liquid chickens.) It turned out ok in the end.

Instead of the traditional ham I used smoked chicken.

I forgot about the creamy hollandaise sauce when I took the photo by the time I remembered it I was halfway through eating. My apologies dear readers.

Peanut Butter Indulgence

I plan to do reviews on certain food items, since I'm swamped with work, I can't bake as often as I used to. Today's feature is Smucker's Goober Peanut Butter and Jelly.

I'm not really a fan of peanut butter but it sure does release endorphins when you need them. I usually have a spoonful of these calorie packed treats on a gloomy day.

Classic PBnJ, it's love.

Progetto Sedici: Crepes

This is the first time I've ever tried to make crepes. I got inspired by watching that episode on How I Met Your Mother where Robin made some for Ted.

I used pancake mix and added more liquid ingredients to get the liquid-ier consistency.

Ingredients:
250g Pancake Mix
2 Tbsp of  Oil
2 Eggs
1 Cup of Water

Procedure:
1. To make things easier; pop everything in a food processor and blend until all the lumps are gone. Refrigerate for at least an hour so that the dry ingredients can absorb the liquid ingredients.
2. Heat a crepe pan or skillet with a 15-cm. base, preferably nonstick, over medium-high heat. Sprinkle with few drops of water; when pan is hot enough, water should sizzle immediately. Brush pan lightly with oil.
3. Remove pan from heat and quickly add 1/4 cup of batter to one edge, tilting and swirling pan until base is covered with a thin layer of batter.
4. Return pan to medium-high heat. Loosen edges of crepe with a metal spatula. Then flip when you feel that the bottom-side is firm enough.

I love cheese, so I placed cubes of white cheese in my crepes. There's just something about the sweet and salt blend that can set fireworks in your mouth.

Topped off with powdered sugar, delish!

Progetto Quindici: Nutty Carrot Cake

I've been dying to try out my friend's recipe for the longest of time. But the thing is, I'm lazy to make a carrot cake from scratch.

Today was another one of those slow days so I decided to check my pantry. Lo and behold, the mix Monica and I bought was still there and other things like pecans, almonds and pistachio. So I decided to do a little experimenting and I came up with this recipe. Yes, I'm so proud of myself. I had no help from google whatsoever.

Ingredients:
Betty Crocker Super Moist Cake Mix
1 1/4 Cup of Water
1/3 Cup of Oil
3 Eggs
2 Medium Sized Carrots
2 Cups of Pecans (Finely Chopped)

Pre-heat up to 350 Degrees

Procedure:
1. Grate your carrots and set aside.
2. Combine cake mix, water, oil and eggs. Blend until smooth and creamy. I used my food processor for this. I'm that lazy today.
3. Pour onto a larger bowl then fold in the chopped pecans and carrots.
4. Grease your pan, I used a non-stick bread pan.
5. Pour batter into the pan 3/4 of the way.
6. Bake for about 30 minutes. You can use the old toothpick method to check if your cake's okay.

Usually people use cream cheese icing for this sort of cake since it's not that sweet. But I don't have that much of a sweet tooth, I used powdered sugar instead.

Progetto Quattordici: Poached Eggs: FAIL

If you've been in my life long enough, you'd know how I like my eggs. I like then runny and sloppy. Sadly I'm crappy in handling these poultry wonders. 

My uncle wasn't around today to make lunch, so I decided to try and poach an egg. I know right? Ambitious much? After three failed attempts; I decided to sunny-side-up the eggs instead. It took me two tries to get it right. Finally!

It doesn't look perfect but it's good enough for me.

Brunch: Sunny-side-up & Lemon Iced Tea

See! It's not perfect, but it's good enough.

Runny. Hmm. Yum!

Progetto Tredici: Mini Chocolate Fudge Cups

My neighbors gave me chocolate fudge squares and I decided to make a somewhat twisted version of my own. It came out alright.

Ingredients:

1 Cup of butter
1 Cup of white sugar
1 Cup of brown sugar
1 egg
1 Cup of all purpose flour
6 Tbsp cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder

Pre-heat up to 350 degrees

Procedure:
1. Melt the butter and cool to room temperature.
2. Whisk together the egg, sugar and brown sugar. Stir in the melted butter until well combined.
3. Combine the flour, cocoa and baking powder. Blend into the first mixture without overmixing.
4. Grease your pan before pouring your mixture onto it. I used a mini-cupcake tray just for fun.

5. Bake for around 25 minutes.

Progetto Dodici: Buko Pandan

I wasn't in the mood for baking, I made this treat instead.

Ingredients:
8 Pandan Leaves
5 Coconut not too hard, not too soft- Grated to strips
10 Cups of Water
3 small cans of Cream
1 medium can of Condensed Milk
2 bars of Green Gulaman
1 3/4 Cups Sugar (more if you want it sweeter)
1 cup Kaong (optional)

Procedure:
1. Boil water together with 8 pandan leaves that are individually twisted to break the fibers and expose the juice. Simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Before adding 2 bars of gulaman, make sure you remove the pandan leaves and check if the remaining water is equal to 8 cups – 1 bar of gulaman is good for 4 cups of liquid. If it is not 8 cups, less will mean hard gulaman and more than 8 cups will result in mushy soft gulaman.
3. Ensuring gulaman is well-dissolved stir well.
4. Add sugar while mixing. Do this for 5 minutes.
5. Pour through a strainer into cooling trays. Wait till it cools and hardens, then put in fridge.
6. Meanwhile, mix the grated buko with the 3 cans of cream and 1 can of condensed milk.
7. Add kaong if you prefer.
8. Get gulaman from fridge and cut into 1 cm cubes.
9. Mix with buko mixture.