Nigella's Mexican Scrambled Eggs

I'm starting to detect a theme here...

I feel that I have yet to learn how best to photograph scrambled eggs...

These scrambled eggs are pretty fantastic Nigella totes these as the ultimate hangover cure; even going so far as to suggest that they're worth deliberately hanging yourself over for... I'm not convinced anything is "worth" a hang over... but they're still pretty dang good!

There's something about eggs and chilli that just works for me! The kind of remind me of "Parsi Eggs" which are a spicy, Indian style of scrambled eggs my whole family enjoys... at some point I shall have to make and photograph 'em for y'all!

Now, Nigella calls for corn tortillas in her recipe; to the best of my knowledge you can't get corn tortillas in New Zealand... In fact, I've never seen a corn tortilla in the flesh my whole life! (Sheltered much?) I used the easily available flour tortilla to provide the crunch for my eggs... and to that end they worked fine! :) You could use the bottom few chips from a bag of corn chips, or even toast to the same effect, I would imagine...

A word on scrambling eggs: when I was first "taught" how to scramble eggs (ie; sans microwave) at school we were told to cook them reeeally slowly over a very low heat, stirring all the time 'else they'd go rubbery. This leads to very soft, but slightly grainy eggs, in my experience, not a texture I particularly enjoy. What I like to do is to crank the heat right up on a non-stick pan, melt a knob of butter and whip the eggs into a bubbly frenzy. Then I pour the eggs into the hot pan and allow them to set on the bottom before slowly pushing them 'round (wrinkling them, really) with a silicone spatula. Once you've wrinkled the first layer of egg, stop and let the next layer set on the hot pan before wrinkling again. Continue until all the eggs are neeearly cooked. Then turn off the heat and tip out onto a plate/piece of marmited toast... smother with HP Sauce and you're away (although I'd skip the marmite/HP sauce for Mexican eggs...)!

You don't want to cook the eggs all the way in the pan because they'll continue to cook in their own heat off the pan... over cooking eggs WILL make them rubbery!

The point of all this, I think, is scramble your eggs in the way that makes you most happy!

Click on for the ingredients...

Guilty Taste & Create: Drunk French Toast

Almost a month to the day... I made this delicious French Toast found on my May Taste and Create partner, Min's blog: The Bad Girl's Kitchen... Since then Life has spectacularly got in way with a variety of colourful excuses/reasons anywhere from the photo's were taken on my Daddy's camera and thus I was at his mercy to have access to them to my usual "lazy" excuse to Holy Hell! I head for London (and ultimately, Sweden) in a little over a month!!!

Still, it's very rude on my part - I didn't even send Min an apology e-mail yet. But fear not! If you were to sign up for Taste and Create for July (e-mail Min before the 8th of the Month) you won't be paired with me, and so your partner will, in fact, be reliable... I'm taking a break... Did I mention Sweden yet? ALL BY MYSELF!!! London for a week with family first... MEEP!!!

Now, French Toast... or, more to the point, Drunk French Toast... The drunk-ness makes it all the more studenty! In fact, if I were flatting right now, I'd have been able to follow the recipe exactly as all my favourite people in Wellington drink Bourbon! My parents however, do not... my French Toast wants to be a pirate when it grows up... I used rum!

In future I'd use more rum... but otherwise the recipe is fantastic as Min writes it... I'm currently working 2-3 shifts/day and haven't the energy for more than a basic update right now... but I will be back! Perhaps typing from Sweden!

Watch this space...

xoxox ~ Kat

Egg Flop Omelette

Super healthy, super tasty breakfast...

Omelettes and I get along in kinda the same way that stir-fry and I get along... I like to eat 'em... but I kinda suck a cooking them.

My current theory is that this is because I like to fry my "fillings" and then pour the egg over them and cook it all together unlike a normal person - who either doesn't cook the fillings at all or cooks them separately from the egg part and actually using them to fill the omelette...

My may is easier - and requires less mess. But only when "mess" refers to the number of plates and pans required. The finished result invariably looks a mess... kinda like someone else already tried it and didn't think much of it...

But that's beside the point! Kat Omelettes are tasty and healthy. And that's what matters here. They involve egg, which is good for protein. Spinach (whenever possible) which is good for iron. Tomatoes, which I cook a bit to help prevent prostate cancer ( ;] ). And cheese which is good on everything. Oh! And they're cheap. And easy. Student-able. Yeah.

See how I managed to get the daisies in the background in perfect
focus? Yeah! Mad photography skills...

I dunno... Let's just read the instruction now.

Taste & Create: Rawa Dosai

Dosa are something I first tried in India last year... to an untrained, Western eye they're basically delicious, savoury pancake. When Taste & Create, which is my favourite monthly blog event, paired me with Jayasri Ravi of Samayal Arai this month I was super excited to see her Dosa Section, and I immediately hopped on over to have a look.

Most dosa recipe than Jayasri has listed require several hours fermentation which put me off in this instance - simply because I decided, about two hours before teatime that I wanted to make dosa to serve alongside. Here, it should be noted that dosa are primarily a breakfast food, I think, so usually you'd make them the night before and let 'em sit over night.

The recipe I chose to try out was for Rawa Dosai - I think 'rawa' is the term used to describe grains once ground into a flour-like consistency... but I'm totally unsure about that! We had most of the ingredients already, because we do eat a lot of Indian (or, more accurately, Indian-style) food at home - but if you don't, and I don't expect many students would... it'd be well worth going to your supermarket or local Indian market and trying to source them - these dosa are divine!

Rawa Dosai, served with a Goan-Style fish curry.

I did learn, after my very, very pale first several that it's vitally important to get the pan really, really hot before you try to cook these. Leave your impatience at the door when you enter the kitchen to cook dosa!

I was excited because I was able to cook these on our tawa - a flat, side-less frying pan, which meant I was the first to use it for it's intended purpose, but any frying pan will do - just as long as you can pick it up and swirl it! :)

A real, live, tawa... :)

These were great, and we'll definitely make them again... and, one day when I'm a bit more organised, I'll try out some of the other varieties too!

Thin (Dessert) Pancakes (for Breakfast)

Made in India and served with fruit, cream and honey on my 20th Birthday...

I love,  love pancakes they're one of my top five favourite foodstuffs of all time (along with spinach, olives, ice-cream and whatever happens to be flavour-of-the-month)!! However although I love all pancakes in all their different incarnations at all times (buckwheat, crepe, American stacking, buttermilk, dosa... etc...) my favourite way of the moment varies. Currently, it's super fluffy buttermilk that I crave... when this photo was taken (and post intended to be posted) *gulp* over a year ago in India I loved thin, tender, almost crepe like pancakes.

This kind of pancake is often presented as a dessert pancake, I guess because it is more delicate than it's fluffier cousins? The batter needs to sit for at least an hour to allow the gluten in the flour to soften which results in a more tender pancake. I like to make my batter the night before (or morning before - if you're making dessert) just to be sure to be sure...

Also - don't let the fruity presentation of this post or the term "dessert" pancake blind you! There's no sugar in  this recipe - and I have been know to make these for breakfast and then keep some over to make Enchiladish later, using the now "savoury" pancakes in place of the traditional tortillas... Just make a basic chilli (or bolognese for an Italian feel...) roll the pancakes up with a little filling and place into a baking dish, seam side down, pour over a little tomato paste or pasta sauce, sprinkle some cheese on and bake at 200 until heated through and the cheese is bubbling. Yum. Yum!

OM NOM NOM NOM!!!

That's enough chat... time for the recipe, I feel.

Coconut Fruit Salad

Hello... I haven't forgotten about you, Blog... in fact I've been taking photos, receiving recipes cooking galore! I just haven't made or taken time to write about them...

This is a quick shot of my breakfast from the other morning... on the bathroom floor... because I liked the colours! It's Daddy's take on my muesli, natural yoghurt (something I've gotten used to in the last year because it's cheaper that fruity/Greek yoghurt...) and a fruity salad.

The salad being the purpose of today's post. It's inspired by my Ginger, Lime and Pineapple fruit salad dressing, but tweaked a little... for example, instead of grating the ginger, I cut it up reeeal small which meant that when you got a bite of ginger, it wasn't overpowering, but it still nibbled back! I've added a little citrus juice, and coconut for fun too!

Real World Wednesdays: Easy Cheesy Breakfast Pizza

So. I've decided to create my very own blog event/challenge for myself. I'm calling it "Real World Wednesdays" (RWW) wherein every Wednesday I will photograph and blog about (@ least) one meal!

The idea behind this is so that I can ensure that a reasonable portion of what eventually ends up here is actually student food! And, so that I actually post once a week or more... because a regularly updated blog is an interesting blog! In theory.

Tonight I'm planning on having Cottage Cheese Loaf so, unless I make the Swedish Cabbage Casserole I'm considering serving as a side - I won't have anything to post on my first ever RWW! And that would be very, very lame. LAME!!!

Yes, yes, I know that if I hadn't told you about my evil-genius plan until next week when I'm probs gonna be eating something I haven't posted before... you'd never know any different. But I would! And I have so many evil genius plans that it's very difficult to remember them all!

LAME!!!

Now I'm just yelling because it's fun... And the high level of italics in this post was/is freaking me out... Yelling seemed like a good way to distract you (me) from it all...

Now I'm confused. Are you confused? Or is it just me...? Oh dear!

*breathe*

Right. So. Easy Cheesy Breakfast Pizza - I eat two eggs for breakfast. EVERYDAY. Except for when I'm at home. Because my Mummy says that two eggs for breakfast everyday is too many and if I want sufficient protein I can have muesli or peanut butter toast. "But Muuummmyyy" I moan "muesli and toast have tooo maaannnyyy caaarbs!" And then I feel bad for being a whingey daughter. But when I'm in my flat I have two eggs. After a while though two plain eggs for breakfast everyday can get a little boring even if they're sometimes cooked differently...

Enter: Easy Cheesy Breakfast Pizza:

Complete with BBQ Swirl!

(Yes, yes I know... BBQ sauce kinda defeats the "healthy" purpose... But it's yummy...

Recipe follows!!!

Taste & Create: The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybuch's Broccoli Dal

Phew! What a mouthful!

Well, after this morning's vegan-less panic... I thought to myself... "Mmm... breakfast time!" so I went looking through Shelby Mae's vegan recipes for something I could submit to Taste & Create this month!

I was avoiding all tofu recipes because a) un-fermented soy freaks the bejeebers out of me and b) because of a) I don't have any tofu lurking in my fridge...

But! Only a few recipes down I found this...

Delicious, healthy breakfast? I think so!

Broccoli Dal! OM NOM NOM NOM!!!

I'm going to brutally force y'all to click on the link to get the full recipe - because I don't want you to miss out on the blogging magic that is The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch!

But let me tell you - this is a delicious recipe!

I did make a few changes - mainly to scale down the recipe so that it'd feed only one. I quartered it.

• Also I didn't have any mustard seed, so I used prepared mustard instead.
• I may have accidentally trebled the original recipe's calling for turmeric... But it was still delicious!
• I don't have any almond milk, so I made my own by soaking LSA in 1/4 cup water!
• And I cooked it with a teeny-weeny red chilli rather than sprinkling cayenne over the top.

Also - add salt! This dish tastes good before salt and AMAZING afterwards!

Y'all should definitely make this sometime, for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

Delicious, Sustaining Protien Pancakes

Delicious AND Nutritious! (Sorry... I couldn't resist...)

Right, now that my interwebs are up and running... I hope to be back with a vengence! This is a recipe I've wanted to put up for y'all for a while now, and it's the second to last one from last year's flat ever to be posted!

Protien-Packed Pancakes. These are pretty neat because they're filling, sustaining, essentially sugar-free (before tinned peaches and maple syrup, at least...) and PANCAKES! My second favourite food after spinach and before ice-cream...

It is, I believe, the addition of protien-rich cottage cheese which makes this delicious breakfast so sustaining. The oats add fibre, and the addition of fruit sweetness and flavour. One batch will feed my boyfriend and me for 2-3 breakfasts depending on how hungry we are!

With the traditional maple syrup and tinned peach combo...

Recipe follows >>>

Fruit Salad... Dressing?

Om, nom, nom... Summer (or an Indian winter) is the perfect time for fruit salads!! What's always bothered me, being a saucy, dressing lovin' kinda gal, is that "fruit salad" is a euphemism for "chopped up fruit in a bowl with no unifying flavour and there for may as well be served in separate pile on a plate" yeeeah... Not quite as catchy as "fruit salad" is it?

BUT! I do not moan for the sake of moaning - the solution is out there! In the form of "fruit salad dressing" - isn't that an original name?

This particular one: pineapple lime and ginger - was particularly appropriate in India where limes are plentiful! But I guess that lemons would work too...? And the pineapple juice provides suitable sweetness without the need for added sugar - which is always a plus!

So... after the jump comes a simple recipe for Pineapple, Lime and Ginger Fruit Salad DressingYou'll need:

Marvellous Miscellaneous Muesli

I'm not a huge fan of breakfast - I eat it because I have to - energy and metabolism and all that, but I rarely want to eat breakfast first thing in the morning...

As such, I have to "trick" myself into eating - by making the food more interesting! Pancakes or scrambled eggs... Most recently Muesli has been doing the trick for me! In preparation for emptying the cupboards to make room for the housesitter - I suggested that I make muesli to use up some of our left over bits... As such, the following is not so much a recipe as a set of guidelines or suggestions...

Bruffins - Breakfast Muffins

Hey y'all... So I'm still typing up recipes for which I have photo's (ie recipes that I didn't exactly make recently... *looks guilty*) BUT I prototyped a recipe for fish pancakes the other night - to use up some of that frozen fish... And it worked out pretty Okay. So, I'm a gonna make 'em again to make sure it wasn't a fluke, then I'll post the recipe!

Between now and then - here's another recipe Modified By Kat:

Bruffins!

 Yeah, sorry for the world's brurriest photo...

These are blueberry, banana, peach muffins. I cooked 'em for breakfast 'cause I'm not a big fan of eating in the morning... However, it is real good for you! I've since discovered - through experimentation that protein keeps me going better than carbs... but for those of you who just need to eat SOMETHING these'll work out fine! Now, these are modified - the original recipe is here to give credit where credit is due! :)

Recipe after the jump...