Grilled Chicken with Bacon and Rosemary

3 Jun 2012

I subscribe to allrecipes.com. Just a few days ago, I received an email from allrecipes and its "Your Daily Recipe" was on grilled chicken with bacon and rosemary.

I remembered eating delicious roast bacon with dates prepared by Aunty Jenny. I'm not a fan of dates and now this recipe of bacon with chicken sounds good, especially I have rosemary in my herbs garden.

We tried the Grilled Chicken with Bacon and Rosemary from allrecipes.com for dinner tonight. It was quite easy to prepare. I've made minor changes to the recipe.
 

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon of finely chopped garlic
• Skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 8 bite pieces (don't cut too small as the chicken will shrink after grilled)

• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 sprigs (cut into 8 halves) fresh rosemary
• 4 thick (cut into 8 halves) slices of bacon

Directions

1. Rub 1 tablespoon of finely chopped garlic on chicken breast and season with salt and pepper.
2. Lay one rosemary sprig on the chicken breast. Wrap the bacon around the chicken to hold the rosemary on. Secure the bacon with a toothpick.
3. Preheat microwave convection oven and cook the chicken breasts for 25 minutes.
4. If use an outdoor grill, preheat for medium-high heat and lightly oil the grate. Cook the chicken breasts until no longer pink in the center and the juices run clear, 8 minutes per side. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C). Stay near the grill to combat any flare ups from the bacon.
5. Remove toothpicks before serving.

While the chicken was grilling in the oven, Jared loved the nice aroma of bacon coming out from the oven and kept on telling us that he's hungry.

Jared and Jaden love the grilled chicken with bacon. Hubby gave 9 out of 10 marks. I never expect full marks from him as he wanted me to keep on trying and cook it for him. If it's something that he doesn't like, he will politely say "Can I pay you not to cook this anymore?". Hmmm ... having said this, I've not heard this from him for a long, long time.

We can also cut the chicken breasts into smaller bite pieces and with the toothpick securing the bacon intact, it can be served as finger food during party or gathering.

Steamboat Soup and Ingredients

7 Feb 2012

I like steamboat. It is healthier as compared to BBQ, easier to prepare and wash up after meal. I enjoy having steamboat with family and friends, have a good catch up while waiting for soup to boil.

I've had steamboats at restaurants, family and friends houses. My best friend, Christina had also invited us for steamboat dinner in Klang and also at her house.

Based on testings and eating steamboat at all these places, I've been making and having guests over to our house for steamboat meals several times. I'm compiling them here so that I can share with friends and also for my own reference.

My steamboat pot comes with dual compartments for soups, so we can have both types of soups (plain, clear stock and tom yam stock) in the steamboat at the same time.

Plain soup stock

• Pork bone or Anchovies (Ikan bilis)
• 3 chicken carcasses, clean and remove fat
• 2 stalks spring onion
• 1 carrot
• Chinese cabbage (use the stem to boil stock, leave the leaves vegetables for steamboat)
• 2 slices ginger
• 1 tsp white peppercorns
• Red dates
• Wolfberry (Kei Chee)
•  Corn and Yam - put in steamboat pot with the strained stock

1. Put all the ingredients into a deep pot and add water until three quarters full
2. Bring to a rolling boil
3. Skim off any impurities or scum
4. Reduce the heat and simmer for 1 1/2 - 2 hours
5. Strain the stock
6. Add salt to taste
7. Discard the rest of the ingredients or use them to boil another pot of Tom Yam stock

Tomyam soup stock  

• The above ingredients from plain soup stock
• 3 stalks lemon grass (serai), smash 
• 12 cilipadi 
• 2 tomatoes, quarter
• 1 Big onion
• 3 limes, squeeze for juice 
• 5 kaffir lime leaves (limau purut)
• 1 bouillion tomyam-flavoured chicken stock cube or tomyam paste

1. Add water into a deep pot until three quarters full
2. Bring water to a rolling boil
3. Add lemon grass, cilipadi, tomatoes and onion
4. Let the soup boil again
5. Lower the heat and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours
6. Then add lime juice, kafir lime leaves, tomyam-flavoured chicken stock or tomyam paste
7. Strain the stock
8. Add salt and fish sauce to taste

Strain the stock into the steamboat and put in corns and slices of yam.

For the steamboat, I usually prepare the following food:

Steamboat Ingredients

• Pork shoulder / shabu shabu
• Meat balls
• Chicken fillet
• Fish fillet (red snapper, garoupa or pomfret)
• Large prawns, remove heads but keep shells intact
• Squid, clean and cut into thick round slices
• Cuttlefish, cut into thick slices
• Fish balls
• Yong tau foo
• Mushroom - button, abalone and other varieties of mushrooms
  
• Soft bean curd, cut into big cubes
• Japanese tofu, slice into thick rounds
• Bean curd sticks
• Fish noodles
• Vegetables - spinach (tung woh), Chinese white cabbage (wong nga pak), lettuce
• Noodles - mee hoon, yee mee 

Arranged all the accompanying ingredients neatly on a platter. I prefer to use Pyrex ware and plastic containers. Previously, I used to arrange them in plates. It is more convenient to use containers as the food can be covered, store and stack up in refrigerator and do not take up as much space.

Varieties of balls

Squid, cuttlefish, fish fillet and prawn

Japanese tofu and meat balls

Shabu-shabu, taufu pok, chicken fillet and mushroom

Yong Tau Fo

To serve, bring the stock to a boil in the steamboat. Add in desired ingredients. Cover and bring to a boil again. Dish out into individual soup bowls and serve with dip sauce.

Hubby complimented the chili sauce that Christina’s prepared and I called her to get some tips on how to make the chili sauce that my Hubby likes so much.

Dip sauce (Chili Garlic sauce)

• Green Chili padi - remove seeds
• Garlic
• Shallots
• Lime juice
• Fish sauce
• Sugar

Blend chili padi, garlic and shallot. Squeeze lime juice and add fish sauce and sugar to taste.

In order to have a nice, slow and comfortable steamboat meals, I will limit the steamboat meal to 8 persons to a table.

Potato Cheese Cake and Roast Chicken

23 Apr 2011

I wanted to do so much over this Good Friday and Easter Sunday weekends.

Auntie YC invited us to her house for roast chicken dinner. I proposed to make Potato Cheese Cake, a recipe that I learned from Chef Malcolm during Electrolux's mobile truck cooking demo.

This potato cheese cake is different from the usual mash, baked or smashed potato recipes. I used potato, cream cheese, heavy cream, Parmesan cheese, butter, leek, shallot, garlic, egg, flour, salt and pepper.

The taste was good. My family and Aunty YC like it.

Cute tomatoes on the vine. We ate them raw with our salad.

Two different roast chickens ... the spicy and non-spicy types.

Jaden was hungry, especially with the aroma smell of the roast chickens.

He became restless as we were getting ready the dinner.

Chicken Chop with Mushroom Sauce

6 Mar 2011

There was once when I was buying my chicken from TTDI market, there was a lady who ordered more than a dozen of deboned chicken legs. I was curious about what and how she was going to cook which so many deboned chicken legs and decided to ask her.

She told me that she makes chicken chop, the Western and Malay style and shared with me how she did it. I like the idea, something new variation for us to cook chicken.

Since it is Jaden's birthday today, I decided to cook something different for dinner tonight. I goggled the recipe and information on chicken chop from my favourite site ... Kuali from The Star online.

I found this Chicken Chop with Mushroom Sauce recipe and this recipe is the most viewed for chicken chop in Kuali. My maid reminded me that we did not have Worcestershire sauce. I did not know what sauce is this, how it looks like, what's the taste of the sauce and I had been looking for it for a while. This morning, I went to Tesco and found this bottle of Lea & Perkins Worcestershire sauce for RM6.39.

I also made whipped potato and salad to go with the chicken soup. Hubby, Jared and Auntie YC like the chicken chop.

The next time, I will try other variation of chicken chop and roast it in the oven rather than pan fried.

Goodbye 2010

31 Dec 2010

How time flies. It's the last day of year 2010. It has been a mix of ups and downs, especially today.

Today is the last working day for my capable finance manager. She has been a good assistant to me at work and a truly good friend and companion too. She transformed my thoughts and ideas into powerful powerpoints and reports. We had lunch together, went for yoga classes together, we exchanged DVDs and cakes that we baked, etc. I particularly miss our cha cha dance session in Hua Hin and shopping spree in Bangkok.

Recently, she started baking and cooking. It seems to be the trend for working with our company ... somehow, staff will start cooking or baking no matter how little we cook or bake. For her farewell, I got her cooking utensils presented in a lovely pink polka dot with ribbon box. I bought 2 pizza trays, pizza cutter, pastry roller, whisker, meat temperature, potato masher and a spring form pan. Hope she will think of me whenever she bakes or cooks. As much as I would like her to stay on with our company, I am happy for her next endeavour.

Fei Yin made me a photobook which was very nicely done with attention to details. I'm missing her already.

Although today is a sudden declaration of public holiday, it's not a rest day for finance personnel who have to close company's year end books. I decided to buy cakes for office staff. It's new year eve and they have to work to meet dateline. Fei Yin and I went down to Coffeebean and bought 12 slices of varieties of cakes and a Latte for my boss, which made him a happy man as he does not like sweet things and he loves coffee.

Looking back to 2010, I've been promoted to Finance Director, a milestone achievement for me in my career. I'm taking my career one step at a time. To me, being a wife and a mother does not mean we can't have our career. It's not easy but it's not impossible, especially if you have a supportive spouse. I'm glad my Hubby understands what corporate life is all about and he is happy if I am happy at work.

In Jun 2010, Hubby and I had our first holiday trip without our kids to Macau, in conjunction with our 8 years wedding anniversary. It was hard for me to leave our kids behind while we had good times. I am happy to have an understanding mother in-law who offered to take care of our kids while we were away. She encouraged us to have time off from kids once in a while to rejuvenate our marriage and love. It was nice that Hubby could pay 100% attention on me and held my hands when we walked.

In 2010 also, our house construction kicked off, after more than a year of planning and designing the house plan, meetings, obtain approval, tender, etc. Luckily, Hubby is handling this project.

In 2010, there were unpleasant happenings too. 2 of my close friends and relative were diagnosed with cancers. There were also a few marriage complication among family and friends. These reminded me to take care of our health and pay attention to our spouse. Somehow, we always neglect our spouse once we have our kids. These also made me realise how important family and friends are to me. They are part of my life.

Today, my boss told me that 2011 will not be a good year for me ... after I bought him a cup of Latte. There will be significant outflow of cash. I hope this relates to our house construction and not any other cash outflow. I also pray that our house construction will progress smoothly without major obstacles. This is Hubby's dream and I'll be happy to see his dream comes true in 2011.

My new year resolution is very simple. I want to spend quality time with my family ... my kids, my Hubby, my parents, my siblings, my friends and family members. They need me and I need them too. I should not take them for granted. They need my attention and care. After all, why do we work so hard? To provide a better and quality living to them, isn't it?

During work day, I spend a significant of my time at work. I am someone who needs "me time" every night before call it a day. I will browse through my emails, Facebook, reading blogs, etc. I also bake quite a bit. Baking is a good stress reliever and I am happy to see my family and friends enjoying my cake. I know I need to hit on to the gym more often to lose my weight and attend more yoga classes which is good for my health. I also like scrapbooking and update my blog. I am not a superwoman and everyone only has 24 hours in a day. With all these activities and hobbies, I've seen myself starting on a project and stopped half way and not getting them done. There were 2 mini album workshops that I've attended and the mini albums were still half done.

I need to live a balance life. An extreme of anything is not good. I need to stay focus too. Else, I will end up nowhere and never do well in anything that I do. It will always be an average results.

I need to pay more attention on my family lifestyle. Live as stress free as possible as stress is bad for health. The one most simple way to achieve this is not to wait for things to be done on last minute. Get things done a head of schedule.

Yes, today my best friend Christina asked me if my Hubby and I are interested to join them for eating, massage and shopping trip to Bangkok in mid 2011. Kids are not allowed and the trip has been booked. Hooray!

Auntie YC invited us to her house for new year eve's dinner. She roasted a chicken, the Jamie Oliver's way.

While Hubby and kids were swimming in the pool, I roasted another chicken, my very first roast chicken. I followed the recipe that I learned from Paul of Food Studio ... rub chicken with salt, pepper, paprika and mustard.

Hubby preferred the chicken roasted by Auntie YC, as a comparison, not that my chicken tasted bad but I've put too much salt that the chicken was salty. Jared ate a lot for dinner and he's weighing 20kg today, whereas, Jaden's weight is 15.2 kg.

Roasted potatoes, carrots, garlic, etc prepared by Auntie YC.
Onion cooked with butter, sugar and red wine. Goes very well with my roasted chicken.

We watched movie and TV at Auntie YC's house in Mt Kiara, while waiting for fireworks to countdown to new year 2011.

View from Auntie YC's balcony.

My simple new year wish ... good health, success and happiness.

By the way, Jaden said "Don't get angry. Be Happy!"

Ham Bacon, Sausage Bacon and Hawaiian Seafood Pizzas

17 Nov 10

I've tried making pizza twice at home. I enjoyed making pizza as its easy to make and my family enjoys eating pizza fresh from the oven.

Today is Hari Raya Haji and also the first day of school holiday. Jaselyn and Darren came over to our house to play with the kids.

I obtained my pizza recipe from The Star's Kuali by Amy Beh. I could make 3 pizzas (2 big and 1 medium) from the ingredients given.

Ham and Bacon pizza with parmesan and cheddar cheese.

Sausage and Bacon pizza with parmesan and mozzarella cheese.

Hawaiian seafood with tomato sauce base and mozzarella and cheddar cheese topping.

I made these 3 pizzas for lunch and they were all finished by 2 adults and 3 kids. The vote is for the cheesy pizzas ... sausage and ham with bacon pizzas.

Cucur Udang / Prawn Fritters

28 Aug 10

I had not been eating prawn fritters for a long, long time. When my company had a seminar at Bayan Indah, we requested for prawn fritters for afternoon tea time and ... it was yummy!

Since then, I've been browsing around for the ingredients to make prawn fritter. Earlier, I did not know that we should add corn and carrot to the ingredients till I read it from Bayan Indah Facebook.

Anyway, this is the tried and tested ingredients:

100 g plain flour

4 tbsp self raising flour

1 tsp salt

Pinch of ground turmeric

Half a carrot

1 sweet corn

180 ml water

12 shelled prawns

2 tbsp sliced spring onion

1 cup oil for frying

Oh! What a Day!

28 Mar 10

Oh! What a Day! When I thought of the list of things that I've to do for the day, its scary! I always ask myself ... why I always rush here and there?

I have obligation as a daughter, as a wife, as a mother, as a sister, as a friend, as business partner to my employer and not forgetting ... obligation to I, me and myself! That is to have my personal time, by myself, doing things that I like to do. And I always in a dilemma, is this selfish? Is this too much a request? Is this alright?

In the morning of this Sunday, I went for wet market shopping for family one week meals. Prior to that, I planned the menu for the week and ingredients that I need to buy.

After I came back from wet market shopping, we cooked pomfret soup noodle for lunch. Its our first time trying. Though not absolutely great, its not bad for a first timer. As hubby always say "Its eatable", which means "Its not nice, but can fill up the stomach". To me, this is a great improvement as he used to say "Can you please don't cook?"

At 2pm, I attended Papier mini album scrap booking workshop entitled "Life Story workshop by Wati Basri". I was so happy and glad to see Wati again. I've stopped scrap booking for awhile and this workshop, together with those participants, the lovely papers and layouts, the joy and relaxing atmosphere of scrap booking, reminded me how much I've missed scrap booking. 

After the workshop, I joined hubby and family to have tea at Auntie YC's house. She bought Chi cake and brownies from "Just Heavenly" at Bangsar Shopping Centre. I forgotten to take pictures before those cakes were eaten but only this late piece left.

At 6.30pm, we went down for swim at Auntie YC's house. I did not plan to swim initially, but after seeing how they enjoyed the swim in the nice pool, I went up to change into swimming suit.

Jared loves Auntie YC's roast lamb and a few days ago, he requested his great auntie to cook it for him.

We had mushroom and cauliflower soup with garlic bread and the above sausage and potato as side dishes.

Carrot, capsicum, sweet potato with lots of garlic, herbs and olive oil.

Meat thermometer to check if the meat is cooked and oven thermometer to confirm the temperature of the oven.

Auntie YC bought this rack of lamb from the Gourmet, Bangsar Shopping Centre. The lamb was marinated and roast well that the skin was very crispy and moist.

The fragrant smell from the lamb made Jared very hungry and he can't wait for his Daddy to cut a piece for him.

Jared enjoying his food. We thought Jared the proper way of eating western meal, the way to hold knife and fork and cut meat properly in Western dining.

Thanks to Jared for initiating the request for roast lamb for dinner and thanks to Auntie YC for entertaining his request and had us for tea, swim and the gorgeous dinner.

Lastly, we had this traditional Japanese Umeshu, Choya Royal Honey for after dinner drink.

Shark's Fin Soup

Hubby and I was watching a TV documentary on shark's fin soup today. It disturbed me very much that I need to talk about it here.

Shark’s fin soup is a Chinese delicacy that has been a popular item of Chinese cuisine usually served at special occasions such as weddings or banquets. Consumption of shark fin soup has risen dramatically with China's growing economy and the middle class becoming more affluent.

The high price of the soup means that is often used as a way to impress guests at celebrations as a luxury item, a symbol of wealth and prestige in Chinese culture.

Sharks' fins is derived from fins cut from living sharks called Shark Finning. The finless and still-living sharks are thrown back into the sea as shark meat is worth much less and more room is available on board the ship if only the fins were retained. When returned to the ocean, the finless sharks are unable to swim and sink to the ocean bottom and die. The process has become highly controversial and the practice is brutal.

Due to the good demand for shark's fin and the margin restaurateurs are getting, it is hard to scrap off the delicacy from its menu. The abuse in shark-finning industry and the damage it is causing to the oceans ecosystems. It is a primary contributing factor in the global decline of many shark species.

We didn't serve shark's fin soup during our wedding dinner. Hubby is against the brutal action. I agreed with him but I was concern over guests' remarks as serving shark fin's soup was a luxury thing to impress guests. I'm glad that I went with hubby's idea of not to serve shark's fin soup and replace it with herbal chicken broth.

Some people said the shark is already die anyway. If we don't eat, its worse for what the shark has sacrificed. It is a chicken and egg process. If there's no demand, the supply will stop and shark finning will stop too.

Do you support the serving of shark's fin soup at wedding or banquets?

Office Pot Luck

12 Jun 09

In conjunction with Sales Meeting and team building, since our outstation and Singapore colleagues were in town, our office decided to have pot luck for lunch.

We were break into groups by department, branches, etc and informed the committee in advance dishes/food that we would cook or bring.

Some of the main course:

Pineapple fried rice, fried meehoon, pizza, broccoli stuffed mushroom by Fei Yin, curry chicken, assam prawn by Jess's mom and Muar famous otak-otak sponsored by my boss.

We had the makan session at our showroom which is equipped with our appliances in a modern kitchen concept, adjacent to our living hall ie guest waiting area.

Steamboat corner using our new induction cooker.

Dessert corner

After the big relief from my Urinary tests, I volunteered to bake cupcakes (top middle) which were freshly baked the night before the pot luck.

It was a good get together session for us to get to know our colleagues better ie who can cook and who should stay away from cooking :)

Butter Cupcake & Steamboat Dinner

Jin and family came to KL for a shopping trip. Since they were in town and so were 2nd and 3rd auntie from Kluang, I decided to host steamboat dinner at home. 2nd and 3rd auntie had not seen Jared and Jaden for a long time. We had not seen Brian for a long time too. I had a big crowd at home. 2nd, 3rd and 4th auntie, 5th uncle and wife, Elaine and Brian, Tsu Mae, Jin and family.

I made these butter cupcake (before applying icing sugar on top) for tea and also for Jared's school Teachers' Day. A few teachers had made their request for my cake via Jared. I guess those cupcakes were so fresh, moist and nice that they were all eaten that neither Jared, Jaden nor myself had tried any.

This photo was taken with a tripod and the photo is so sharp without the usual camera shake.

For steamboat, we boiled 2 varieties of soup ... clear soup and tom yam soup using chicken bones, ikan bilis, Chinese cabbage, corns, yam, red dates and keichee.

I like steamboat with lots of varieties and not just fish ball and meat balls. As such, I bought bits of almost everything that I can find from TTDI market.

Yong Tau Foo.












Fish and chicken meat.








Pork shoulder.






Squids and prawns.



A few varieties of mushrooms.













Meatball, which is the favourite of the night.






Sai Tou fish balls which were fresh and bouncy.

Sotong balls, egg tofu, pressed tofu, seafood tofu, etc.

We also had vegetables, yee mee, chili sauce, sambal sauce, chili padi with soya sauce. I also made fruit cocktail drink.

Surprisingly, my guests and hubby liked the tomyam soup. The steamboat dinner was quite a good one with most of the food consumed. At least we did not have to eat fish balls for the next few meals.

I had steamboat dinner again the following weekend for my sister and her family. My brother in-law loves to eat steamboat. After two consecutive weekends of steamboat dinner, hubby said "Let's not have steamboat for awhile".