The oven baked crispy chicken fingers

The previous week has been a hectic one for me. Lots to do at work and getting ready for Christmas with lots of shopping. Furthermore, I've attended a short course at William Angliss Institute last Saturday and Sunday and it was eye-opening experience for me. I'm now anxiously monitoring the 2011 classes update as their courses sell out very quickly... 

These oven baked chicken finger were made yesterday after I returned from the course.

Like most kids, my son loves fried chicken.  I didn't want to give him fried chicken all the time and so I made these oven baked crispy chicken fingers but my fussy kid still prefer his fried chicken...

Oh well...I like these healthier version of crispy chicken anyway. 

Great to serve with sweet chili mayonnaise

Yummy dip...

Enjoy!

My healthier version of oven baked crispy chicken fingers

serve 2-3

1. Marinate 400g chicken strips with 1 tbsp sweet chili sauce overnight in the fridge.

2. Preheat oven to 200°C or 180°C (fan forced). Line oven trays with baking paper

3. Dry the excess liquid of the chicken strips with paper towels. Coat the chicken strips with cornflour and dust off the excess. Dip the chicken into about 50ml of milk and coat the chicken with 1 cup of wholemeal breadcrumb mixed with 30g of grated Parmesan cheese and 1/4 tsp of freshly ground pepper.

4. Bake for 30 minutes. Serve with mayonnaise and sweet chili sauce.

Happy Baking

Poh Ling's Chewy chocolate chip Cookies

Three cheers to the Australian Masterchef runner up, Poh Ling Yeow! Her recipe for these cookies, published on the Herald Sun on 14 November 2010 is really good!

I made 2 different kinds of these chewy cookies. One batch is the chocolate chips pecan nuts cookies for my next door neighbor who just had twins!...and the other batch is Oreo and chocolate chips cookies for ourselves. These cookies are really fantastic if you are big fan of soft cookies and I am!

chocolate chips pecan nuts cookies

I hope these tasty cookies will be a great gift for new parents...

Oreo and chocolate chips cookies - Take a look at its chewy inside...yum!

Here is the recipe from the Herald Sun newspaper article.

170 g butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg
1 2/3 cup plain flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
200g chocolate, roughly chopped (I use a mixture of dark and milk chocolate chips)
1 cup of nuts of choice, roughly chopped (I use pecan nuts or Oreo for another batch)

1. Preheat oven to 170°C or 160°C (fan forced). Line oven trays with baking paper
2. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. While beating, add one egg at a time and mix thoroughly until combined.
3. Stir in sifted dry ingredients and mix to incorporate. Add chocolate and nuts (or chopped Oreo) and mix evenly.
4. Dollop 1/4 cup of cookies dough (I did them in smaller portion, 1 tbsp each) onto tray with 5 cm apart.
5. Bake about 12-15 minutes. Cool on tray for 5 min and transfer to rack to cool.
Note: Over-baked cookies will lose their chewiness and will be crispy instead. Her recipe makes 20-22 cookies. I made 25 cookies.

Happy Baking

Awards!

Thanks Sandra and Manu for these awards...

I'm happy too to pass on these awards to the following 10 bloggers. Because I like all the blogs that I'm following, I must admit that the choice has been tough and so I have decided to give these awards to the fresh bloggers like me who started blogging only this year and have lots of food blogging achievements for the year 2010.

Diana, A girl, a dog and an Oven

Jess, Bakericious

Wai Kitt,

茄子

ekatskitchen

Simply Hanushi

Lena, frozen wings

Hearty Bakes

The dainty baker

j3sskitch3n

Happy Baking!

Flourless Chocolate Torte

I love "Better homes and garden" and fast ed. Naturally, I grabbed this special supplement issue of "Better homes and garden" immediately when I spot the magazine in the supermarket.

This recipe is so easy that I laughed after making it. Although this cake contains as much chocolate and butter as the one that I made previously (Donna Hay's chocolate cake), this is surprisingly so moist and delicious. The best thing is it is gluten-free! I was thrilled because I can make this cake for my friend and her child who are both on gluten free diet due to Celiac.

 

Here's the recipe from the current supplement issue of Better Home and gardens, Better Basic with fast ed (2010)

200g dark chocolate
200g butter
4 eggs
230g brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking baking powder (I've used the gluten free one)
250g almond meal
icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Line 22 cm round cake tin with baking paper.
2. Place chocolate and butter in heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, Stir until smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.
3. Add eggs, sugar and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Fold in almond meal and baking powder. Spoon into prepared tin and bake for 45 min or until firm to touch. Cool completely on wire rack.

I used half the recipe and use 2 x 12 cm non tick shallow round stone bakeware.

Happy Baking

How to feed a bunch of kids with different diet requirements?

My answer would be just give them Nothing! or maybe banana...LOL

Now, I can fully understand how difficult to look after a group of kids with different dietary requirements.

It all began when the childcare that my son goes was organizing a special afternoon tea session for both parents and kids. As parents, we were requested to bring in a food item to share with everyone but the guidelines are : No nuts, No dairy, No eggs!

To minimize uncooked food handling at this warm humid summery weather, I chose to avoid bringing fresh cut fruits. So, all I can think is to make this super simple honey popcorn!

And the interesting part is the childcare rejected my contribution because they said that popcorns are potential choking hazard for toddlers. The ironical part is everyone else brought in cakes and biscuit that do contain dairy product and eggs...as I should have known...

As for the uncooked food like fruits and sushi, it became their food hygiene concern as one of carers was trying to distribute the uncooked food before they go off in the hot sun.

No offense to anyone but I think that it is really too difficult to please everyone with all different individual needs. I should have stick to my original plan of making simple cupcakes and cookies instead of considering too much of these guidelines. Nevertheless, here is my super simple pop corn for kids that are allergy to nuts, dairy and eggs...

1/2 cup corn popped in 3 tbsp of canola oil in a hot saucepan and drizzle the pop corn with fresh honey

Enjoy.

Reduced fat version of chicken potato bake

In the Oct 2010 issue of Super Food Ideas magazine, they did a series of low fat make-over foods. I was thrilled initially seeing its cover but wasn't very impressed after reading their "make-over".

As I was looking for a recipe to use up my "sprouting" potatoes, this make-over dish seems ok. Plus, I was keen to use my lovely home-grown thyme fresh from my mini herb garden for this dish (LOL...I'm so proud to writing this) and I decided to give this dish a go...

Enjoying this dish with a lovely sunset...

 

It was funny that I can see my toddler son was drooling when he saw this photo before dinner...LOL

Here is the recipe from the Super Food Ideas, Oct 2010 issue.

Serves 4
Olive oil cooking spray (I use Canola oil spray)
1 large (280g) chicken breast fillet (I use a quarter roast chicken, shredded)
3 garlic cloves, crushed (didn't use that)
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1 leek, trimmed, halved, washed, sliced (I used 1/2 onion instead)
800g desiree potatoes, thinly sliced (I used 5 large potatoes, very thinly sliced)
1 cup reduced fat grated tasty cheese
300ml light cooking cream

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 7cm deep, 19cm base square baking dish.
(I use a 19 cm x 10 cm rectangle deep dish)

2. Spray a non stick frying oil. Heat over medium high heat. Add chicken, cook, stirring for 4-5 min or until cooked through. Transfer to a plate. Add garlic, thyme and leek to pan and cook for 4-5 min or until softened. (I didn't cook the chicken because I used roasted chicken but cook the onions until softened)  

3. Layer 1/3 of the potato over the base of prepared dish. Top with half the chicken and mixture. Sprinkle 1/3 of the cheese. Drizzle 1/3 of the cream. Repeat layers, ending with potato, cream and remaining cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 50min or until potato is tender 
(Mine took an extra 30 min because my baking dish was deeper than the one mentioned in the recipe. Got to emphasize that the potatoes have to be very thinly sliced or it will take much more longer to cook. My potatoes were very thinly sliced and still took so long...)

3. Remove foil cover and Increase the heat to 200°C and bake for 10-15min or until golden. Stand for 10 min. Serve. 

Happy Baking

Nice and Easy Cherry Strudel

This recipe is originally meant to be easy cherry crumbles but the author, Suzanne Gibbs gave it a twist with a small column modifying it into a strudel. I've never try using frozen filo pastry before and bought a couple of them when they were on sale at Woolworth. "Sound easy!" when I saw the recipe on the magazine and was keen to make this using the frozen filo pastry.

After tried using the frozen filo pastry, my verdict is that I don't like them. One is because they tend to stick together after they are thawed. Two is that I can't refreeze them or thaw them separately, and ended up using  the entire pack for this recipe which I don't need this much in the first place.

Despite all complains about the frozen pastry, this recipe is really easy and the strudel is very deliciously crispy. In fact, the extra filo layers that I've added made it really good...the pastry is very light and fluffy...very delicious!

I feel like drooling all the time whenever I see this picture...(giggles)

Here's the recipe from the current issue of BBC Australian GoodFood magazine (November issue)

100g plain flour
1/4 cup caster sugar
140g cold unsalted butter, cubed (I use 100g)
100g hazelnut meal (I use almond meal)
1/3 cup (110g) berry jam
500g cherries, stoned (I use 475g can cherries)
6 filo pastry (I use 12 because the frozen pastry stick togther and so I use 2 sheets per layer)

1. Preheat oven to 190°C. Line oven tray with baking paper
2. Place flour, sugar, butter, hazelnut meal and a pinch of salt in food processor. Pulse until fine crumbs forms.
3. Brush 6 filo pastry with melted butter and scatter crumb mixture over each. Layer in stack. 
(I use 30g of melted butter for brushing each layer)
3. Heat jam and cherries in low heat or until melted.
4. Spoon onto short end of filo stack and roll.
5. Bake for 25 min (I bake mine for 40 min at 170°C) until crispy.

Happy Baking

Cranberry Oatmeal cookies

We had a wonderful break in Singapore and I bought lots of cook books and baking equipments...I can't believe that I can't wait to start baking and cooking again. Blogging makes cooking so addictive for me. LOL.

I made Cranberry walnut oatmeal cookies before and my husband and son were being critical with their not-enough buttery taste.

This time, I'm using an eggless recipe that is modified from sultana cornflake cookies, Taste.com.au. I've made some simple calculations and found that both recipes have the similar amount of butter for each cookie but being eggless, it seems to be an interesting attempt to modify these cookies for an improved taste and texture.

In fact, I was very pleasant with the result. They were equally wholesome as my previous attempt with more distinct buttery taste. The good thing is they hold their shape better so that I can even give them away as a gift.

Here's the recipe modified from Sultana cornflake cookies, Taste.com.au

make 38

Ingredients
125g butter, chopped, at room temperature
2/3 cup caster sugar (I use 1/2 cup)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/4 cups self-raising flour, sifted
1 tbs milk
1 1/2 cups cornflakes (replace with 1 cup of oat)
1/2 cup sultanas (I replace them with Cranberry)

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line two large flat baking trays with non-stick paper.
Using electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla essence in a mixing bowl until creamy. Add the flour
and mix on low speed until just combined. Add milk and mix until dough comes together. Using a wooden spoon, stir in cornflakes and sultanas, and mix until well combined.
Using 1 tbsp of mixture, roll into balls. Place onto baking trays allowing room for spreading. Flatten slightly with a spatula. Bake for 12-14 minutes, swapping trays after 8 minutes or until light golden. Stand for 5 minutes on tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Happy Baking