Quick and easy boxed lunch - veggie pasta

Hihi friends of Hazelnutt House (",) 

It's Sunday night!!!  

Tis the night that I prepare my lunches for the next couple of days - usually three days worth of lunch.  I do not enjoy eating out while at work but I don't mind eating the exact same home cooked lunches few days in a row.  So, my lunches are prepared, usually on a Sunday night and on Wednesdays nights.  I used to prepare sandwiches or wraps in the morning before heading to work, but I prefer to sleep in a bit more instead (",) ... so it's preprepared refrigerated lunch boxes for now.  

Tonight, I've celery, bell peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and broccoli. 

Here's what I do to put everything together...

Coat the pan with olive oil and in goes the ingredients... and swish them around a little before I added the seasoning.

For this veggie pasta, I added some wholegrain mustard and pesto. 

When the veggies are well coated with the seasoning, in goes the pasta that I've boiled earlier.  Stir it all up and let it cook for a bit.  I try not to cook my veggies all the way since I heat them up before eating which in turn cooks the veggies further.  

Just FYI, here's the other bottles of seasoning that I alternate with.  I try not to use tomato or cream based sauces for my packed lunches coz the idea is to eat healthy and sauces are higher in calories as well as salt content.

Here's my little tubs of veggie pasta ready to be refrigerated (",) 

I usually go with 30% carbo and 70% veggies for my veggie pasta. Coz having a full lunch makes me wanna go to sleep while at work.. hehehe...

Talk to you ladies soon!

Easy 3 ingredient breakfast - Oatmeal Flats

U know how it is when you get back from a vacation?  There's hardly any food at home and the fridge requires some stocking up before you can start cooking anything proper?

Well, we just got home from a 3 weeks vacation in the US and I am so sick of eating out all the time.  In Singapore, I eat home cooked food 80% of the time.  So you can imagine how eating out daily upset my system.  

So when I woke up today, I was scouring the kitchen and refrigerator for something to prepare for breakfast and I was so lost coz there was no bread and eggs in the house for me to whip up something simple.  

I thought hard and long and decided to try making some oatmeal flats (yeah, I decided to call them that) for brekkie.

Here's the ingredients I use: 

• 3 tbsp oatmeal
• 1 tsp peanut butter
• raisins 

I added hot water to the oatmeal before adding the rest of the ingredients.   The consistency of the oatmeal has to be thick and not runny.

Then I cooked them on a non-stick pan for about 10 mins, flipping them often to prevent browning.  

Added some strawberries that my mum bought the night before and viola! 

EASY PEASY HOMEMADE BREAKFAST!!!!

I am a happy trooper!

The outer layer of the oatmeal flat was nice and crisp while the inside was still slightly soft and warm.  No extra sugar since the raisins are sweet enough.

Talk to you ladies soon!!!

Mashed pumpkin for my pumpkin recipes

  Here's a short entry on how I prepare my pumpkin puree. 

I usually use a whole pumpkin and keep half of for pancakes or waffles.  The types of pumpkins I use depends on what is available in stores.  I use both the local as well as the Japanese pumpkins.  Both are good in my opinion.  

So, I wash and remove the skin from the pumpkin and cut them up into small chunks.  Set the oven at 200 degrees Celsius and pop the pumpkin chunks in there for about 20 mins.  

I used to use a blender to puree the pumpkin but I find that a fork does the job as well.  So I have been manually mashing up the pumpkins instead of pureeing them in a blender.  I prefer using the fork coz I like my 'puree' to have texture and bite to it instead of being too smooth. 

So, here's the end of this simple pumpkin puree entry (",) 

Click on the titles for pumpkin recipes that I've tried out:

• Pumpkin Squares
• Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Sandwich party

Hello Friends of Hazelnutt House (",) 

When I invited my pals over for a get-together, I scoured the world wide web in search for some easy recipes.   

Simple recipes were abundant and I noted a ton of them on a notepad.  I couldn't decide which recipes to choose!  After thinking for days, BINGO!  A sandwich party!  

So, I decided to put together three different sandwiches for that day. 

Egg mayo croissant:

• croissant
• eggs (hard boiled)
• mayonaise (I used my favourite Kewpie Mayonnaise) 
• pepper (to taste)
• leaves

Ham & cheese focaccia: 

• focaccia
• sliced ham
• sliced cheese
• tomatoes 

Cucumber on baguette:

• baguette
• cucumber
• cream cheese
• butter
• salt
• dill weed

Three selections of sandwiches using different types of bread.

I added these fairy flaggies just for fun (",) 

It also helps hold the sandwich fillings in place instead of having them slide around as I cut through them.  I poke the flaggies into the focaccia loaf before slicing it with a serrated knife.

Easy to make, and fun to have... although my friends were poking fun at me for adding this lil' finishing 

touches to the sandwiches. 

Fairy flaggies: 

• office labels (narrow strips)
• toothpick
• fairy stamps & ink

Hope this entry helps in one way or another when you are planning a lil' get-together with friends this holiday season... not very Christmassy but it should be a suitable occasion for a sandwich party (",)

Food: Cinnamon roll and braided bread

Hello ladies of Hazelnutt House (",)

I've had my heart set on a Kitchenaid for a long time, but each time I visit the store, I leave without getting it coz I wanted more time to ponder over the colour.  I spent many weekends at Tangs thinking and rethinking the choice of colour.  I know that I love love love this Ice Blue mixer but the Tangerine one which is my second choice, is $100 cheaper at Tangs.  Orange is the colour of Tangs thus they actually sell the tangerine Kitchenaid a special price.

Well, I finally bought this really heavy mixer in Ice Blue.  

The kiddo and I embarked on our first baking project in our new place and we decided to bake some cinnamon rolls.  I love love love cinnamon rolls but it is soOOooo difficult to find them in Singapore.

My daughter's living idol is a Laura Vitale, a bubbly Italian lady who resides in the states and she is what the kiddo loves to watch on YouTube.  Noticed that I mentioned 'living idol'?  Coz her other idols are Barbie princesses and all the Disney princesses, thus that makes Laura Vitale the only human lady that she adores ... hehehe... OK, we made use of Laura's cinnamon roll recipe and we watched and rewatched the video and the kiddo knows exactly what Laura's instructions are.

Kiddo: I'll use a rolling pin to roll out the dough.

Me: We don't need a rolling pin.  We'll use our hands.

Kiddo: NO! Laura Vitale said we can use our hands OR the rolling pin.

So, I went back to the video and fast forward to the part where Laura was flattening the dough.  Yups, true enough, Laura said just that. 

Anyways, I got my way.  We flattened the dough with our hands... 

The kiddo rolling the log...

And slicing the log into smaller pieces using a floss.

Pre-baking... waiting for the dough to rise again...

While waiting, my kiddo decided to use some remaining dough as Play Doh... 

Since we had to wait for some time for the dough to rise, I though i'd teach her to form braids.

When everything's risen and gone into the oven, here are the final products.  

I believe that we sliced the log too thin... hehee coz the cinnamon roll looks like a thick sultana danish rather than a thick sinful cinnamon roll.  Tastes great though!

Before I placed the cinnamon rolls into the over, I thought why not bake the kiddo's braid too since I had space in the baking pan. 

She looked really surprised when she found out what I had done.  Of coz no one ate this braided bread coz she was using it as Play Doh and kneading it with way too much zest and mess before it went into the oven.

I'll end off with a snapshot of Kimmie (",) for any of you who miss her (",)

Check out Laura Vitale on YouTube or www.laurainthekitchen.com for her recipes (",)

Talk to you ladies soon!!!!