Bruce's Cheater's Nachos

Nachos...mmm... I could eat them any day of the week. But they're oh so bad... carbs from the corn chips... sour cream... cheese.... There goes the diet! Well, since you're blowing the diet, may as well fit in as much veggies as you can, so that at least you're eating healthy... kind of.

Ingredients
1 bag corn chips (any flavour)
1 bottle of salsa (I used Old El Paso's Bean Nacho Salsa)
Roasted eggplant
Sweet, roasted capsicum (you can make these on your own, or buy them in jars)
Cheddar Cheese
Low fat sour cream
Avocado pieces

Method

1. Pour the corn chips in a bowl.
2. Arrange the eggplant on top of the chips.
3. Add the bean dip, and arrange the sweet roasted capsicum on top.
4. Grate the cheddar cheese over the chips and dip, then pop the bown in the microwave, on HIGH for approximately 3-5 minutes (or until the cheese is melted).
5. While the dish is the microwave, slice some avocado.
6. Place the avocado on the piping hot nachos, and serve with dollop(s) of sour cream and chives.

Granola

This recipe was taken from the net, but I made an omission from the dry ingredients. I couldn't find wheatgerm at the supermarket, so I made the granola without it. Still yummy though! This recipe makes A LOT of granola - about 800g maybe? Just so you know.

Dry Ingredients

4 cups of oats (you want the traditional, unprocessed ones)
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar - I like the richer taste)

Liquid Ingredients

1/3 cup of vegetable oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
4 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Optional

raisins or other dried fruits

Method

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
2. In another bowl, combine the liquid ingredients.
3. Pour the liquid mixture over the dry ingredients and mix in well.
4. Spread the mixture over a large pan sprayed with non-stick spray, or greased with vegetable oil/butter.
5. Bake at 150 degrees Celsius for 50-60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.
6. Add your dried fruit in the last ten minutes (I added mine after the granola was cooled tho)
7. Leaving the granola in the pan, cool the mix on a wire rack.
8. Store in an air-tight container once cooled.

Granola with yogurt is very nice indeed!

Am thinking of more combinations I can make with the granola. Any suggestions?

Update: I tried making granola with maple flavoured syrup, by substituting two tablespoons of honey with maple syrup. Turned out pretty good, will have to try using pure maple syrup tho!

Starry's Theory of The Perfect Tuna Sandwich

*recycled from my main blog!

Preamble: Starry is a part feline pixie, therefore her words are true. Who else would know best about a tuna sandwich other than a cat? Besides, Starry will not tolerate insubordination and will zap any living being to smithereens if they mock/ridicule/question Starry's theory. If they don't like it... they can go formulate their own theories and leave Starry alone.

The Rules to Making the Perfect Tuna Sandwich.

1. Tuna sandwiches should use two slices of lightly toasted bread.
2. Low fat mayo is a must.
3. 2 slices of low fat cheese is another.
4. And lets not forget dolphin safe tuna in SPRINGWATER. Not oil. Not brine. SPRING WATER.
5. If you can't get any salad for your sandwich, at least get sweet spiced gherkins.
6. After chucking drained tuna in a bowl, add a few teaspoons of the water used to preserve the sweet gherkins. This gives the tuna a little tang, and a unique sweetness.
7.Then add mayonnaise. The mixture should not be too sloppy.
8. Add pepper if you wish. Best pepper to use will be a mixed blend. And should be freshly ground.
9. Put a slice of cheese on bread. Then the tuna. Then sliced gherkins. Then cheese. Then slice gherkins again. And lastly the bread.
10. Cut into 4.
11. Eat up!

There. Now you know how to make the perfect tuna sandwich. Here's how to make the perfect sticky date pudding..

1. Buy Sara Lee's sticky date pudding, cut a slice and pop it in the microwave.

Plum Cobbler Pie

This is an absolutely yummy recipe, and so very easy to make!! I've modified this recipe a little bit - I've tried a mixture of stone fruits (eg: plum and nectarine) to equally edible results, and I suspect you might be able to substitute the stone fruits with berries. With peaches and nectarines however, the skins don't peel back as easily as with the plums.

I've added cinammon to the mix as well, just because I like cinammon, and it goes quite well with plums. Lastly, I've substituted brown sugar for dark brown sugar.

Ingredients
750g plums
90g sugar
2 tablespoons water
cinnamon powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

125g self raising flour
60g butter
55g brown sugar (preferable dark brown for a richer flavour)
2 tablespoons of milk

caster sugar
milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius.

Filling

1. Quarter the stone fruits (or half them if they are small) and remove the seeds. Make sure that the fruit pieces aren't too small as they will disintegrate fairly easily from the heat.
2. Put the fruit in a saucepan with the sugar and 2 tablespoons of water. Make sure the saucepan is relatively high: the fruit should only come up about half or three quarterway to the top. This is because the fruit may boil over.
3. Heat and stir the mixture until all the sugar is dissolved. Lower the heat and simmer the fruit mix for about five minutes with the cover on. Make sure the fruit is slightly tender - I've noticed that when you wait for the fruit to be fully tender, it will disintegrate, leaving you with more pulpy syrup than fruit chunks.
4. Stir in the cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.
5. Peel off the skins if you prefer.
6. Transfer the mixture into a round bakeproof dish. Try and use one which is deep, and about 15cm in diameter at the top.

Cobbler Crust

1. Sift the flour into a bowl.
2. Use your fingertips to rub in the chopped up butter, until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs. Try to minimise the area of your hands which come in contact with the mix. The heat from your hands will melt the butter.
3. Stir in the brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of milk, using a knife in a cutting motion. Stir the mixture until it comes together in a soft bowl. If you have to add more milk, do so in minute amounts.
4. Turn out the dough onto t lightly flour surface and roll out until approximately 1cm thick.
5. Using a cookie cutter, cut discs to arrange around the edge of the filling. Arrange in an overlapping pattern. If you are like me, and prefer a rustic look, you can use your hands to make roughly round shapes.
6. You should end up with an exposed bit in the middle of the cobbler. If you have extra dough, you can make any odd shape you want, and place it in the middle.
7. Brush the pastry with milk and sprinkle with caster sugar. Bake for half an hour, or until the crust is golden and cooked through.

(will try to add pictures later)

Another Blog!!

Yes, another blog, that makes... ten million blogs on blogger which belong to me...bwahaha. Actually, this blog is more for me than anyone else. I want to keep my recipes all in one place, so I thought I'd stick 'em up here.

Weirdly enough, I actually have an account for recipeezaar.com, which is an online cookbook, where you can post your own recipes. But me being kiasu, and me being lazy to follow their guidelines, I thought I'd post my version on here.

Also, by posting it on here, I don't have to dig through so much stuff just to get whatever recipe I want. And I don't have to read about my life while I'm at it. lol. So, yup.. its allll here!