Thursday, January 31, 2008
Cakes, cakes, and more cakes!
I stopped by Michaels (love that store!) on my way home from work today to sign up for the Wilton Course II Cake Decorating class. Can't wait to learn how to do different flowers using Royal Icing! I'm still debating though if I should go ahead and take the fondant and/or gumpaste class as well. I'm a little hesitant since I think I'm doing pretty well on that medium on my own so far. ;) I'd probably just try to continue to self-study first and take it from there.
Here are the snapshots of the cakes I've made in the past three months. I need more practice, so please throw a party so I have an excuse to bake more cakes! =P
Monday, January 28, 2008
Yummy in my Tummy!
Uh-oh, I’m not off to a good start at all… four days before the month ends and I find myself writing only the second entry in this blog. I was hoping to make at least one entry a week, but no such luck. I blame lack of time and laziness – though if I have to be honest, it’s mainly due to the latter. =)
A friend of mine (hi Debs!) suggested that I post some recipes that they can try themselves. So here’s one…
In my goal to try and lose some weight, I have decided to lessen my rice intake. But being a typcal Filipina, I can hardly eat a meal without rice! And since I'm not a fan of salads and sandwiches, I'm always on the lookout for other rice-less dishes that will interest me.
I was watching the Food Network and saw Michael Chiarello preparing his Crespelli “Short Stacks” with Shredded Chicken and Balsamic BBQ Sauce. Too bad they don’t have a picture on the website, but it pretty much looks like a stacked quesadilla. It looked good, but it entailed too much work for me. I don’t really feel like cooking the crepe and then baking it, nor do I want to make a BBQ sauce from scratch. So I decided to do a little variation. I basically used the crepe recipe he provided, but cut it in half and adjusted the liquid measurement a litte. Then, instead of filling the crepes with the chicken mixture, stacking them up and baking them, I just assembled them like you would a lumpia.
SHREDDED CHICKEN CREPE
For the Chicken Filling:
200 grams shredded roasted chicken
1/2 - 1 cup BBQ sauce (I used Hunt's Honey Mustard BBQ sauce)
Mix the chicken and BBQ sauce and set aside. You can adjust the sauce quantity according to your preference. I like mine swimming in sauce so I put a lot. =)
For the Crepe:
1 large egg
2/3 cup milk
1 Tbsp unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 stalk scallion, finely chopped (if you don’t like scallions, then leave it out)
Whisk the egg and milk in a medium bowl. Melt 1 Tbsp butter over low-medium heat until it turns lightly brown. Whisk the melted butter into the egg and milk mixture. Add the flour, scallion, salt and pepper. Whisk lightly for 15 seconds (just enough to eliminate the lumps, do not overwork the batter). Consistency should be a little thinner than a pancake batter. If it’s still too thick, add a little more milk.
Heat a skillet and coat it with a little bit of butter. Add enough batter to thinly coat the bottom of the skillet (about 1/3 cup). Remove it from the heat and tilt it around to evenly coat the bottom with the batter. Cook for about a minute and a half (you know the drill – just like cooking pancakes, wait until you see bubbles popping before flipping it), then flip it and cook the other side for about a minute more.
Remove the crepe from the pan, and immediately put some of the shredded chicken (how much depends entirely up to you) in the middle, fold the crepe on each side, fold the bottom flap of the crepe over the filling and roll it up.
Then repeat the process until you finish your batter. Depending on how big you make your crepes, this is good for 3-4 crepes.
That’s it. It’s simple, but filling! Yummy! =)
A friend of mine (hi Debs!) suggested that I post some recipes that they can try themselves. So here’s one…
In my goal to try and lose some weight, I have decided to lessen my rice intake. But being a typcal Filipina, I can hardly eat a meal without rice! And since I'm not a fan of salads and sandwiches, I'm always on the lookout for other rice-less dishes that will interest me.
I was watching the Food Network and saw Michael Chiarello preparing his Crespelli “Short Stacks” with Shredded Chicken and Balsamic BBQ Sauce. Too bad they don’t have a picture on the website, but it pretty much looks like a stacked quesadilla. It looked good, but it entailed too much work for me. I don’t really feel like cooking the crepe and then baking it, nor do I want to make a BBQ sauce from scratch. So I decided to do a little variation. I basically used the crepe recipe he provided, but cut it in half and adjusted the liquid measurement a litte. Then, instead of filling the crepes with the chicken mixture, stacking them up and baking them, I just assembled them like you would a lumpia.
SHREDDED CHICKEN CREPE
For the Chicken Filling:
200 grams shredded roasted chicken
1/2 - 1 cup BBQ sauce (I used Hunt's Honey Mustard BBQ sauce)
Mix the chicken and BBQ sauce and set aside. You can adjust the sauce quantity according to your preference. I like mine swimming in sauce so I put a lot. =)
For the Crepe:
1 large egg
2/3 cup milk
1 Tbsp unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 stalk scallion, finely chopped (if you don’t like scallions, then leave it out)
Whisk the egg and milk in a medium bowl. Melt 1 Tbsp butter over low-medium heat until it turns lightly brown. Whisk the melted butter into the egg and milk mixture. Add the flour, scallion, salt and pepper. Whisk lightly for 15 seconds (just enough to eliminate the lumps, do not overwork the batter). Consistency should be a little thinner than a pancake batter. If it’s still too thick, add a little more milk.
Heat a skillet and coat it with a little bit of butter. Add enough batter to thinly coat the bottom of the skillet (about 1/3 cup). Remove it from the heat and tilt it around to evenly coat the bottom with the batter. Cook for about a minute and a half (you know the drill – just like cooking pancakes, wait until you see bubbles popping before flipping it), then flip it and cook the other side for about a minute more.
Remove the crepe from the pan, and immediately put some of the shredded chicken (how much depends entirely up to you) in the middle, fold the crepe on each side, fold the bottom flap of the crepe over the filling and roll it up.
Then repeat the process until you finish your batter. Depending on how big you make your crepes, this is good for 3-4 crepes.
That’s it. It’s simple, but filling! Yummy! =)
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Happy New Blog!
I have long been entertaining the idea of writing a blog, but I knew that before long I won't be able to continue updating it. But what the heck, I decided to just do it and see what happens... who knows, I just might be able to keep this longer than I think.
It took me forever to come up with a name for this blog... all the names I tried (even non-descript names such as 'noname', 'unnamed', 'unknown', 'blank') were already taken. I even tried using Tagalog words to no avail. So after almost an hour, this is what I came up with. Hey, not the most creative name but I figured my time is better spent cleaning my apartment. =)
This is it for my first entry. I just wanted to put a quick one out on the first day of the year 2008... makes me feel as though I'm off to a good start! ;)
It took me forever to come up with a name for this blog... all the names I tried (even non-descript names such as 'noname', 'unnamed', 'unknown', 'blank') were already taken. I even tried using Tagalog words to no avail. So after almost an hour, this is what I came up with. Hey, not the most creative name but I figured my time is better spent cleaning my apartment. =)
This is it for my first entry. I just wanted to put a quick one out on the first day of the year 2008... makes me feel as though I'm off to a good start! ;)
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