Danish Bread With Egg & Cheese

The texture of Danish Pastry is very similar to puff pastry's: flaky and buttery. Its main ingredients include yeast, flour, milk, and lots and lots of butter. To produce the trademark flaky texture, the dough is spread out thinly over a wide surface while generous amounts of butter is applied evenly on all areas, after which the dough is folded systematically and rolled. This tedious process is repeated several more times to achieve the flaky and buttery effect. Wow... these sounds tedious if making I am going to make this Bread at home but since I am not good at bread making, I decided to get a loaf of Danish Bread from the bakery instead :p


So for today's breakfast, we will have Danish Bread with Egg & Cheese. I just love the crispy and buttery fragrant of the bread when toasted..... it's so yummy no matter what you eat it with.... :)

Ingredients: (serves 2)
4 Slices of Danish Bread
2 Slices of Sandwich Cheese
2 Small/Medium Egg
2 Slices of Ham, optional

Methods:
1. Use a medium size cookie cutter to cut out a shape on two slices of bread and set aside.
2. Place 1 piece of bread on a square piece of foil which is slightly bigger than the bread so that you can wrap the 4 corners up when toasting.
3. Place the cheese and ham(if using) on the bread and top with another bread that is with a cut-out.
4. Crack the egg in a small bowl then slowly spoon it into the bread opening.
5. Next wrapped up the 4 corners of the bread and toast it in the oven toaster for about 5 - 8 minutes depend on how well you want the egg to be done.
6. When done, remove the toasted bread onto a serving plate and sprinkler some dried parsley and pepper then serve it with extra fruits or tomato if desire.

Notes:
a) You can use any kind of bread towards your liking or in your pantry.
b) Try to choose those thicker bread if not, you will need 3 slices so that the egg white will not overflow.

Quick & Easy Meal

This is one of the easiest and nutritious way to prepare an Quick and Easy meal for kid that contain both meat and vegetables. You can use whatever ingredients you have in your pantry or fridge. For this dish, I use some frozen mixed vegetable for the colour, potato cubes for the crunch and mini hotdog for easy kid consume. You can serve it with either White Rice, Macaroni or Spaghetti


Ingredients: (serves 2)
6 -8 Mini Hotdog
1 Medium Potato, cut into cubes
2 Tablespoons Of Frozen Mixed Vegetables
1 Small Red Onion, cut into wedges
1 Small Tomato, cut into wedges(optional)
1 Packet of Lee Kum Kee Sauce For Sweet & Sour Pork

Methods:
1. Pan-fry the potato cubes until golden brown, dish up and set aside.
2. Use the remaining oil to grill the hotdog until cook through and remove.
3. Saute the onion wedges with 1 teaspoon of oil until fragrant then add in the frozen vegetables and stir-fry for 1 minutes then add in the packet of Sweet and Sour sauce then give it a quick stir.
4. Next add in the hotdog, potato cubes and tomato wedges and stir it till well combine. (remember to stir the sauce and mixture over low heat or else the sauce will dry up very fast)

Notes:
a) You can use any kind of hotdog that you can find in your pantry or towards your preference.

Filed Under: Meals For Toddler(Meat & Poultry)


I replicate this dish from one of my colleague, she told me that her mum used to cook this at home and from her description I am kind of curious on how will it taste like to put cucumber, enokitake mushroom and fish cake together into one dish. So what I did is from her description, I also add in carrot slices, wolfberries and egg white to make the dish more complete and vibrant in colour.
Ingredients: (serves 2)
1 Medium Japaness Cucumber, cut into thin slices
1 Packet of Enokitake Mushroom, wash and trim
1 Piece of Medium Fried Fishcake, cut into thin slices
6 - 8 Slices Of Carrot
1/2 Tablespoon of Minced Garlic
1/2 Tablespoon of Oyster Sauce
1/2 Tablespoon of Wolfberries
100ml - 150ml of Water
1/2 Egg White, lightly whisk

Methods:
1. Saute the minced garlic with 1/2 tablespoon of oil until fragrant then add in the carrot slices and fishcake, stir-fry it for a while then add in the cucumber slices.
2. When the carrot is almost soft, add in the enokitake mushroom and oyster sauce then give it a quick stir and add in 100ml of water and the wolfberries and let it simmer in low heat for a 1 - 2 minutes.
3. When it is almost thicken up, slowly drizzle in the egg white and give it a stir until the well combine.
4. Serve hot with white rice.

Rice Wine Chicken - 黄酒鸡

Yo!!! All the Precious Mummies who read this post, do you still remember this Rice Wine Chicken dish that you used to have during the 30 days of Confinement? I guess most of the Asia Mummies do love this dish due to it's special fragrance of the sesame oil and shredded ginger. It is a very nutritious dish which contain Woodears, Mushroom, Chicken and lot of Ginger and Rice Wine.


I love this dish especially with a lot of the shredded ginger and sesame oil. I just simply love the fragrance of this dish when saute the ginger with the sesame oil. The purpose of eating this dish during confinement time is to expel the wind from the stomach as well as clear the blood clot in the womb.

This dish goes well with either steam white rice or Mee Suan(面线) as you can use the gravy as a soup base. I love the crunchiness of the Chinese mushroom and smooth and sticky woodear after being stew in the sauce. But for those who has not being a mother yet, you still can try cooking this dish by either retain the rice wine as the main ingredients or replace it with water.

Ingredients: (Serves 2)
4 Chicken Wings, cut at the joint
1 Tablespoon of Grated Ginger
4 - 6 Dried Chinese Mushroom, soaked till soft
1 or 2 Cluster of Fresh Woodear(木耳), washed and cut into thick section
8 Slices of Ginger, thinly shredded
1 1/2 Tablespoons Of Sesame Oil
1/2 Tablespoon of Wolfberries(枸杞子)
3/4 - 1 Cup of Glutinous Rice Wine
1/2 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce, optional
1/2 - 1 Tablespoon of Cornstarch mixture

Methods:
1. Marinate the chicken wings with 1 tablespoon of grated ginger for about 20 - 30 minutes to enhance the favour.
2. Heat a craypot or frying pan with sesame oil and saute the shredded ginger until fragrant and almost golden colour then add in the marinated chicken wing.
3. Stir-fry the chicken until it turn white on the surface(sealed the surface of the meat) then add in the Woodears, Mushrooms and oyster sauce.
4. Continue to stir-fry for about 30 seconds to let it absorb the sesame oil fragrant.
5. Next pour in the rice wine and wolfberries and let it simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes or so. (If you prefer more gravy, you can add in more rice wine according to your preference)
6. When the chicken and mushroom is cooked through, stir in the cornstarch mixture to thicken the sauce a bit and give it a glossy texture.
7. Serve it with white rice or mee suan(面线) as prefer.

Notes:
a) You can replace chicken wings with chicken pieces or meat.
b) You can omit the dried mushroom and woodear for different texture of this dish.
c) It's optional that you must add in cornstarch to thicken the sauce.
d) You can either season it with Oyster sauce or salt depend on your preference.

From Thy Bounty Fair - Confirmation Celebrations

It's time for our second From Thy Bounty Fair here at Catholic Cuisine and we are very excited about it! Since this is the traditional time of the year when Confirmations take place we wanted to give everyone an opportunity to share with us your celebrations. It's such an exciting time in the life of a young Catholic and I'm sure many of our readers have devised beautiful ways to celebrate.

Our fair will take place on June 17th so I need your stories and ideas no later than June 15th. I'm middle-aged and move slowly.

So send me the details at bonnybluehouse at gmail dot com and please, even if you don't have a blog we want to hear from you! No blogs required, just write it up and e-mail me. Pictures delight us! Send everything.

Have a blessed day!

Sauces for the Liturgical Calendar

While browsing over at SQPN, I took a look at the new webcast they have called Grace Before Meals. In this series of videos Father Leo Patalinghug cooks up some great pasta sauces based on the colors of the liturgical calendar. Right now they have up the green, red, and white sauces. And soon there will be a purple! That is one I am very curious about.

Here is the Green (pesto) Sauce for ordinary time. Enjoy!

BASIL PESTO SAUCE [Green] (serves 4)

2 cups of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
¼ cup of pine nuts
2 pinches of red peppers flakes
1/3 cup of grated parmesan cheese
2 cups of fresh basil leaves (washed and dried)
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
½ teaspoon of pepper
1 box of penne pasta cooked al dente

Cook pasta according to instructions on box. Saute garlic and toast
pine nuts by heating a teaspoon of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add
garlic whole and allow to brown on all sides. Add 2 pinches of red pepper flakes
and pine nuts and allow pine nuts to brown slightly. Remove from heat as soon as
pine nuts develop some color. Let cool. Prepare the blender or a food processor.
Add the rest of the oil, basil leaves, garlic, pine nuts, salt and pepper, and
parmesan cheese. Allow to blend until desired consistency. To assist the
blending process, you may have to add more olive oil or occasionally stop the
blender / processor and stir ingredients. Pour over hot pasta. Add more cheese
if desired.

Also be sure to check out Father Leo's Website, Grace Before Meals, for the recpies for these sauces and more!

Braised Chicken & Mushroom

This is a very Quick and Easy meal for busy working mum to get dinner ready in less than 30 minutes. You can actually prepared some of the ingredients the night before like soaking the mushroom till soft and prepared the hard-boiled eggs and keep it in the fridge before use. It all depend on what ingredients you prefer to add into this meal.



For this Braised Chicken & Mushrooms dish, I added in Hard-boiled eggs which is Reyon's favourite and it really taste great with the help of Lee Kim Kee instant Sauce For Teriyaki Chicken. If you prefer, you can also replace the chicken wings with Pork Belly meat to make Braised Pork Belly but the cooking time will be slightly longer in order to make the pork belly more tender. You can also use this dish to go with either Rice or Noodle depend on your preference.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
3 - 4 Chicken Wings, depend on the size
2 Hard-boiled Egg
6 - 8 Medium Dried Mushroom, soaked till soft
1 Packet of Lee Kim Kee Sauce For Teriyaki Chicken
3 Shallot, thinly sliced
4 Cloves Of Garlic, light smashed
2 Slices of Ginger
150ml - 180 ml Of Water

Methods:
1. Preheat the small saucepan with 1 teaspoon of sesame oil and saute the shallot, garlic and ginger until fragrant.
2. Next add in the chicken wings and continue to saute for a few second then add in the Teriyaki Sauce and stir till well combined.
3. Pour in the water then follow by the pre-soaked mushrooms and hard-boiled egg and let it simmer on low heat for about 10 - 15 minutes until the chicken is cook through.
4. If you wan the mushroom to absord more favour of the sauce, you can remove the chicken wings first then let the mushroom and egg continue to simmer for another 10 minutes.

Notes:
a) You can use either whole chicken wings or mid-joint or drumstick depend on your preference.
b) You can even add in Firm Beancrud(Dou Gan).
c) You can replace the chicken wing with 1 or 2 strips of the pork belly.
d) If you prefer more sauce, you have to use two packets of the Lee Kee Kim Teriyaki Sauce instead of one.

St. Ignacio's Nachos

I was doing some research for our May Book Club last month and came across an interesting story about the history of Nachos. Yes, I said "nachos". My kids love nachos and when I read this story from the OED News, I just knew this would be a fun way to celebrate St. Ignatius' feast day.

She told me she had been born and raised in Mexico and there nacho has only one common usage: it is the word used as a diminutive for a little boy who had been baptized Ignacio. His family and friends call him Nacho. She thought I should know this. What a wonderful bit of information! We beamed at each other. I thanked her profusely, and later I told her she was the true reason for my success in solving the etymology of nacho(s).

To sum up the article, the dish we now know today as "nachos", which come in many variations and flavors, was originally served by a chef in Piedras Negras, Mexico as a simple combination of fried corn tortillas, melted cheese and jalapenos. It was named after that chef who was baptized Ignatio Anaya (named for St. Ignatius no doubt) but known to his friends and family simply as Nacho.I thought this was a fun story, a great opportunity to discuss what the OED is with the kids and the connection between the name we know as Ignatius and one of our favorite dishes. So why not also use this learning opportunity to celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius? The only problem is that there are so many St. Ignatiuses (Ignatiusi?) which one do you choose if your family doesn't have a particular devotion to one specific saint?

For us, we took some time to look into the lives of a few of these saintly men named Ignatius, hoping to find one who might have been of Latin or Spanish descent. Of course there are the best known St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Ignatius of Loyola. The maybe lesser known St. Ignatius of Santhia and St. Ignatius of Constantinople. Or even a few whose causes are pending; Blessed Ignazio Maloyan (whose feast day will be June 11th) and Blessed Ignatius de Azevedo. Our family chose St. Ignacio Delgado y Cebrián, one of the Martyrs of Vietnam, mostly because I have a weakness for lesser known saints and he is of Spanish descent. St. Ignacio's feast day is on July 12th and I haven't yet decided what kind of nachos to make. I am posting this now because a friend of mine was telling me that she found it frustrating to read about feast day celebrations after the fact or without enough time to prepare. So, this is early for you, Genni. Enjoy your nachos!

*Oh, by the way... I thought it funny that the only picture I could find of what looked most like Chef Anaya's original nachos was from LaBamba Restaurant... in Aberdeen, Scotland!

Green Is For the Growing Time

Do you hear that? I think the Church is taking a collective sigh of relief. The Liturgical Calendar has had a shift in the liturgical seasons and now we are in the slower-paced, less festive Ordinary Time. We have come through the cycle of Christ's birth, life, passion, death, and resurrection. The festival season of Easter is over, and we've had Pentecost. We were filled with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Now the Church gives us time to let those fruits grow within us; it is the growing time of Ordinary Time, reflected with the green liturgical color. My son calls this the BIG Ordinary Time because the green section on the Liturgical Calendar wheel is the largest section.

Ordinary Time is anything but ordinary. It's unfortunate our English language has that definition of the word. The use of the word "Ordinary" is merely meant as in time, ordinal, keeping track of the number of weeks. The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar explains this time:

VI. Ordinary Time

43. Apart from those seasons having their own distinctive character, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks remain in the yearly cycle that do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, especially on the Sundays, they are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects. This period is known as Ordinary Time.

It's also known as ferial time, a time without feasts. In the Traditional Calendar this season is referred as "Time After Pentecost". I find both titles in English fall a bit short, but we just have to look at the Church calendar and around us (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) to understand what this liturgical season should mean to us.

Weatherwise, this is summertime. (Yes, not officially, but meteorologically it is). My vegetable garden is planted, and now I'm waiting for it to grow. We're deep into lawn mowing season in the suburbs, and the forecast is for hazy, hot, humid days, with the usual afternoon thunderstorms. We are watching our little gardens, tending and weeding, keeping them from pests and diseases.

We'll be spending more time together as a family, either on outings or vacations, or family celebrations. We stay up longer, enjoying the sunlight. The heat almost forces us to slow down the pace. Those with children in organized sports will be sitting poolside, field side, or perhaps bleachers, with lots of car trips. But again, we're doing a lot of it together.

Perusing the calendar for the next few months, there are many saint feast days that we are commemorating. These saints give us the example of how to LIVE our Faith. They are part of our family, and we'll be spending time with them. We'll continue the instructions of the mysteries of our Faith and meditate on the teachings of Christ during this season, and use the example and intercession of the saints to apply it our lives. We've got to slow down the pace to be able to listen, to tend and weed our souls, and allow those graces we've received at Pentecost to grow -- and then share the harvest.

The cookbook I pull out this time of year is Twelve Months of Monastery Salads: 200 Divine Recipes for All Seasons by Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette. There are lots of ideas for vegetarian salads. I either use them as sides for our main meal, or some recipes can be adapted by adding strips of chicken or steak or tuna on top.

But I'm leaving you with a very simple spinach salad of my own concoction; a green salad to reflect our green growing time!

Spinach Salad

Ingredients::
1 pound fresh spinach
sliced mushrooms
1 avocado, diced (optional)
8 slices bacon
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped or sliced
2 tablespoons red vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cook bacon until very crisp. I use a microwave and paper towels to keep down the grease and odor. But if you want to use the drippings over the salad, fry in a pan or oven.

Wash spinach; trim if necessary. With paper towels gently pat dry.

Combine vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper and whisk. Put the spinach leaves in a large bowl. Add avocado cubes, chopped eggs, and mushrooms. Break the bacon into pieces and sprinkle into salad. Add the dressing and toss all ingredients and serve immediately. Optional, pour a few tablespoons bacon drippings on salad, toss, and serve.

The bacon adds a salty dimension, and I use hormone and nitrate free bacon. But this salad can be made as a dinner salad by adding cooked chicken pieces, either substituting the bacon, or just adding the chicken.