Healthy Polenta Chips

Potato chips replacement!

Finally. Let's be honest here, you can not just stop with eating 1 chip.

Here is the healthier version of potato fries. Eat them by itself or eat them as a side with a juicy steak.

What you need:
- 2.5 cups of water
- 1 cup of polenta
- 1.5 tsp of chicken stock (powder preferred)
- 1 tsp of rosemary
- Salt to taste
- Olive oil spray

Ingredients needed

Note that you will need to prepare a aluminium lined dish/container/baking pan.
Here I used 20cmx20cm.

Step one:
Pour the water and chicken stock into a saucepan, let it boil.

Step two:
In thin steady stream, pour the polenta into the boiling water mix while stirring.
Not too fast because you do not want it to clog up in mix.

Steady Stream

Step three:
After the polenta mixture become thicker and mashy, sprinkle the rosemary evenly while stirring.

Step four: 

While it's still hot, pour the polenta mix to the aluminium lined tin and press it down. Make sure there are no bubbles. 

Set aside to cool and set.

Step Five:
When cool, take out polenta out of the tin and start on cutting them into pieces.
Here, I cut them into 6cm x 3cm x 0.7 cm

Step Six:
Preheat the oven on 180C.
Lay the pieces on baking paper lined tray and spray them with olive oil.
When finish, pop them into the oven for 20 minutes.

Step seven:
Take them out from the oven, let them cool for a bit and then enjoy!
Good to go with BBQ sauce or chilli sauce.

That's it for now!

Until next time,

Tania xx

Doritos Crusted Chicken Breast

People usually go with cornflakes for that extra crunch with their kitchen.

BUT, why don't we use Doritos?
The good thing about this is you can go with your favourite Doritos flavour.

So, lets get to it!

What you need:
2 cups of buttermilk
2 cups of flour (plain or self raising, whatever you have at home)
5 eggs
300g Doritos
900g chicken breast (without skin and bones)
Cayenne Pepper/Chilli Flakes (Optional, Sprinkle on coasted chicken before baking)

Step 1:
Cut the Chicken breast 2.5cm cube or smaller.
Pour the buttermilk into the chicken and keep in the fridge for 2 hours.

Step 2:
While waiting, crush the doritos (you can do it inside the bag).
Tip: For finer texture, you can put them in a food processor.

Step 3:
After 2 hours, take out the chicken from the fridge.
Preheat your oven at 180C.
The routine is to coat the buttermilk-coated chicken with flour, and dip it into the egg and cover it with doritos.
Repeat the routine for all pieces of chicken.
Lay them on baking paper-lined tray.

Step 4 :
Bake the chicken for 15 minutes.
Tip: Do not forget to check the bigger piece of chicken, if they are cooked or not.

Step 5:
Serve while they are still hot with any sauce you like! Tomato, BBQ, mayonnaise, or your own homemade sauce!

ENJOY!

Until next time,


Tania xx

Healthy Homemade Kale Chips

I think it is safe for me to say that NO ONE can stop at only eating one chip when you have the whole packet in front of your eyes.

So lets make your own Kale Chips when you don't have to feel guilty if you can not stop eating them.

What you need:
1 Bunch of Kale
2 tsp of olive oil (Preferred olive oil spray)
Salt and pepper to taste

Steps 1:
Wash Kale leaves with water and dry them with paper towels. Make sure they are dry.
Tips: It is better to wash them while they still intact with the big stem and dry them after you cut the kale leaves into smaller pieces.

Steps 2:
Preheat oven at 170C.
Lay baking paper into a flat tray. Equally scatter the Kale leaves, do not overlay each other.
Spray olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper into desired amount. (not too much!)

Step 3:
Pop them into the oven for 10 minutes. Every oven is different, so, take them out when the edges of the leaves turn into brown but still have green in the middle part.
Take them out and let it cool for a few minutes. Eat them while its hot!
Tip: Store them in airtight container.

DONE!
Now you can nibble on these Kale Chips without having to run miles to work on the calories!

Until next time,


Tania xx

Kitchen Test: Strawberry and Watermelon Cake with Rose Cream

Welcome to my first ever Kitchen Test!

This is the place where I pick my favourite recipe and try it on. Sometimes I will change it a bit or change the ingredients according to the product availability here in Australia.

So, I've been a fan of Strawberry and Watermelon Cake from Black Star Pastry in Newtown and I am a bit excited when I found the recipe by Christoper The on Gourmet Traveller.

What you will need:

- 250 gm seedless watermelon, thinly and equally sliced
- 60 ml (1/4 cup) Rosewater (check out my DIY Rosewater)
- 4 tbsp Caster sugar
- 40 gm Almond meal
- 500 gm Strawberries, halved
- 12 seedless red grapes, halved
- 1 tbsp coarsely chopped pistachios

Almond Dacquoise

- 150gm almond, coarsely chopped
- 150gm Pure icing sugar, sieved
- 5 eggwhites
- 135gm caster sugar

Rose-scented Cream 

- 300 ml thickened cream
- 30 mg caster sugar
- 2 tbsp rosewater

We will make the Almond dacquoise first.
Preheat oven to 180C.
Process almonds in a food processor until finely ground, then combine in a bowl with icing sugar.
Whisk eggwhites with electric mixer until soft peak form, then gradually add caster sugar and whisk until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold through almond mixture.

Spread the mixture into equal sized oven tray (I used 20cmx30cm) lined with baking paper.

Bake until golden (10-15 minutes). Set aside to cool
Note: Originally, the mixture suppose to be spread into a bigger oven tray (eg: 30cmx40cm) and then cut half lengthways to make sure you have equal quality of dacquoise. However, because I used smaller sized tray, thus thicker layer, I lower the heat and let them stay in the oven for a longer period of time (180C for 25-30) so in the end you will have crispier dacquoise.

Now, lets go to the watermelon.
arrange the slices in a single layer on a wire rack. Sprinkle them with 20ml of the rosewater and then scatter with 2 tbsp of sugar. Stand to macerate approximately for 30 minutes and them pat with paper towel.

While waiting for both to be ready, lets do the rose-scented cream.
Whisk cream and sugar with an electric mixer until soft peaks form, gradually add rosewater and whisk until stiff peaks forms.
Do not over whisk, keep an eye on the texture!

Check on the dacquoise, if they are cool enough, lets get stacking!

1. Place 1 dacquoise for the base
2. Spread 1/3 of the rose-scented cream

3. Scatter half of the almond meal

4. Put the watermelon on top and trim to fill any gaps
5. Scatter the other half of the almond meal

6. Followed by 1/3 of the rose-scented cream
7. Place the other piece of dacquoise and

8. Spread the remaining cream left.

9. Refrigerate until firm (1-2 hours)

Combine strawberries, remaining rosewater and sugar in a bowl, mix them together.
Set aside to macerate for 15 minutes.

Take out your cake and carefully place the strawberries and grapes.
Scatter the pistachios and then serve.

DONE!

Tip:
- Presentation wise, you could add dried flowers on top of the cake which you can find in David jones food halls.
- You could also trim the side of the cake, to give you a neater look.
- If you are making this cake for an event, freeze them for a couple of hours before the trip to the venue, so that you do not have to worry about this cake flop to the side.

That's it folks!

Until next time,


Tania xx

Mini Bite Size Tortilla-Crust Pizza

Greetings, Food lovers!

So, instead of doing assignments, I procrastinated by making these mini bite sized pizza. So I thought, might as well blog it for people out there who's been eating Nutella sandwich while studying (Yes, you!)

Its a pizza, you practically can put anything you have in the fridge, slice em and pile em together.
This is ideal for any events, thus BE CREATIVE! You can put duck and blue cheese, if you prefer your pizza that way. :D

Ingredients

Ingredients (Clockwise):

• Tortillas (for the base)
• Cabanossi
• Corn (Can be fresh or from a can)
• Pizza sauce (you can use tomato sauce)
• Diced Capsicum
• Mix of tasty and mozzarella cheese
• Chilli flakes

And you will need:

• Cookie cutter (A can will work too, shown below)
• Muffin Tray (Preferably the mini ones)
• Spoon (or your finger!)

Step one:

Cut the tortillas

•  Cut the tortilla into smaller round pieces. I dont have a round cookie cutter, I used the bottom part of a can that comes with the corn. You can use a cup, or if you have steady hand you definitely able to slice it with knife. I find it easier to heat the tortilla in a microwave (not oven!) for 25 seconds and then cut them. 

Step two:

Prepare the base

• After cutting them into smaller pieces, place them on the muffin tray as shown above. 

Step three:

Pizza sauce

•  Put a layer of pizza sauce on the tortilla. Not too thick, because you dont want the tortilla to go soggy (in the future). 
• I mixed the chilli flakes with the pizza sauce, but if there are people who does not eat chilli you can just sprinkle them on top. 
• After applying the sauce, heat the oven up to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Step four:

Assembling

•  Throw (carefully) all the other ingredients into the tortilla. 

Step Five:

Oven time!

•  Place them into the oven for 10 minutes, 180 C. 

TA DA!

•  Check them between the 8th and 10th minute. I prefer my cheese to burn a little bit so I left them for the whole 10 minutes. 

Step six:

Lookin' good!

• Leave them for a couple of minutes before picking em up. It will be easier to pick up because the tortilla will hold its shape and you don't want to burn your finger and taste buds. 

 Step seven:

DONE!

•  And that it, Folks!

I hope you enjoy your pizza, because I certainly did! 

Until next time, 

Tania xx

The Mill San Francisco

A few weeks ago, I visited San Francisco with my whole fam bam for the first time. On the way to check out the famous painted ladies, we decided to have a pit stop and found The Mill. Located in 736 Divisadero Street, San Francisco (between Fulton and Grove st), The Mill's quite close to Alamo Square. You could spend your leisure time buy a cup of coffee, grab your dog, go to the park and absorb San Francisco's paranomic view.

I gotta say, I love the vibe inside and out. With the high ceiling, sophisticated modern white and wood interior, it doesn't suffocate and you just feel right at home. All you wanna do just stay there for the whole day! (forreal)

The Mill is a joint venture between Josey Baker Bread and Four Barrel Coffee who not only sells soft scrumptious tasty bread and rich tasty coffee but they do sell coffee merchandise and other kitchen utensils. If you want to check them out and buy them online, click here for prices!

Country, Wholeweat, Seed Feast, Wonder Bread, Big Country, all for $6 each

Coffee of the Day

I do recommend you to get their toast with almond butter and your favorite coffee with almond milk, well, I could be bias. Yet, give it a go! However, it is better to buy the whole loaf for $6, when it costs you $3.75 for a toast. With a whole loaf you can enjoy the toast for the whole week! (almost)

A lil' decor

Dandelion Chocolate for $8 each.  

Hazelnut Brownie and Latte with Almond milk

To be honest I'm not a coffee person myself, but damn! The coffee was a perfection in a cup! Not to exaggerate  but it was the best coffee I have ever tasted. The brownie, as all brownie promises, was very rich in chocolate (couldn't finish it in one go!) 

High Ceiling 

Merchandise neatly placed

Hario Glass server

BODUM Chambord

Four Barrel Coffee

 The Mills supplies Four Barrel Coffee - Friendo Blendo Espresso, Guatemala Chuito, Guatemala san Agustin las Canas that ranges from 15.25 and up per 12 oz.

Tea towels

Chemex Wood Handle 

Hario Ceramic V-60

Chemex Glass Handle 

Chemex Kone Filters 

Homemade honey and utensils

Diamond shaped lamp

Lil' touch flora doesn't hurt.  

Interior 

Overall, The Mills is the best place to hang out with your friend on the weekend, have your light breakfast or snack or just because you want to have your share of coffee for the day. As nice as it is, try to get in earlier or off-peak hours to avoid the line!

That's it folks!

Until next time,


Tania xx