Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Cheesy Potato Croquettes

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I went to my regular egg supplier the other day, and I realized that they are also selling huge sacks of potatoes for Rm5 or Rm6 each, depending on what kind of potatoes there is inside the sacks. I got into my frugal mode and grabbed a huge sack of 8 kg for Rm6.

When I came home, it occurred to me that the supply can last for more than a week for my family, and I decided to get creative with it. Initially, I wanted to make rosti out of it (Rosti is a traditional Swiss dish made out of shredded potatoes) but rostis are rather bland to my liking. I opted to make potato croquettes instead.

Here’s sharing the recipe with you.

Ingredients:

1 kg of boiled potatoes

2 eggs, nicely beaten up

Cheddar cheese/bacon bits (optional)

KFC powder

Oil for frying (or if you prefer, you can bake it in the oven… but my oven goes KABOOM on me… so… yeah…)

Scrub your potatoes clean and boil them til they are fully cooked. Drain them and leave it to cool for 1 hour… or overnight in the fridge.

Shred or mash them up. Not too finely, though. You wouldn’t want to have mushy texture as it will break while you’re frying it.

Crack your eggs into a bowl and beat them up with 2 table spoon of KFC powder.

Add in some mozzarella cheese/cheddar cheese/bacon bits. Pour in the egg mixture and mix them well.

Heat up the oil and fry them up til golden brown.

Ooops… duzzin look so nice, but you can serve it with steak, rice or even eat it on it’s own with some dips.

Looks can be deceiving. I assure you that it’s yummy. Only 3 was left for me when I served them to my two hungry boys. >.< My husband says it tasted like cheesy hash brown.

Cleffairy: Hmm… perhaps I could make my own nuggets next. *GRINZ*

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Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Soya sauce fettuccine

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I’m a huge fan of pasta, but the Italians would send me to the gallows for not following the rules.

Here’s a yet another quickie fusion recipe from me:

Ingredients:

1 strip of chicken fillet, cut to pieces

1 tablespoon of chopped garlic

7 tablespoon of soya sauce

3 tablespoon of oyster sauce

1/2 glass of water

A dash of pepper

1/2 pack of Fettuccine pasta, boiled til al dante

Some cooking oil

Here’s how you cook the quickie soya sauce Fettucine:

Sauté the chicken with the chopped garlic til fragrant. Add in the soya sauce and oyster sauce as well as 1/2 glass of water and simmer it til the sauce thickens. Add in the fettuccine, and stir will so that the sauce coated the fettuccine evenly. Sprinkle a dash of coarse black pepper on it.

Take out and serve.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Yield: 3 servings.


Cleffairy: Nobody ever said you have to play by the rules. Rules are meant to be broken. 😀

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Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Tomato+ minch meat soup

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I was running out of ideas on what to cook the other day, and recalling that STP used to ask if any of us has ever seen any recipe on the blogs and tried it, I decided to do just that. Seek for some recipe on blogs and share it here with all of you over here.

Initially, I wanted to try making my own version of STP’s nasi goreng cincaluk, but I don’t have any cincaluk. So hop again I went, and this time, I landed on Claire’s blog where she cooked up some sort of tomato soup with minced meat and potatoes quite some time ago.

I thought Claire’s cooking is good and simple enough to cook, and so I decided to cook something similar to that.

I tweaked the original soup that Claire cooked, anyway. While Claire used potatoes, tomatoes and meat, I used tomatoes, button mushrooms and meat instead. I don’t know how Claire did it, but this is how I did it:

Ingredients

4 large tomatoes, cut into half

Some button mushrooms, sliced

100 grams of minched chicken/beef/pork

2 bowls of water

1 teaspoon of sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Oil

Heat up some oil, sauté the sliced mushrooms and meat until fragrant with some ground black peppers and sugar. Add in 2 bowls of water, and throw in the tomatoes and bring to boil.

Observe the soup. When the tomatoes turned mushy, that means the soup is ready. Take out and serve it with your favourite bread or plain rice.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Yield: 2 servings

Cleffairy: I’m going to ask the same question as STP. Have you ever tried any recipe that you saw on the blogs that you visited regularly?

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A Penny For Your Thoughts, Down The Memory Lane, Food/Travel, Time Heals What Love And Reason Cannot

Memorable fried potato with soya sauce

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This is yet another quickie and simple dish from me. While it’s a simple dish, it has a very huge meaning to me. Why? I will tell you why.

My husband…. is a lazy ass who will make bloody shits of excuse or even go to war in Iraq if I asked him to cook.

The excuse would be endless. The most common one would be “It’s a waste of time” (He’d rather drives out miles away to eat out) as well as “I don’t know where you put the stuff” (Good grief… the kitchen is Wonderland, issit, dunno where I put the stuff and can get lost inside…tsk tsk tsk…).

Despite of being skinny to a fault. I am like an elephant. I never forget. Especially when people do things for me. I would remember them for the rest of my life, or for as long as God permits me to. (So don’t make me pissed, okay? I will remember the bad things too!)

I can still remember. The last time my husband cooks a meal for himself was many years back. More than 5 years ago. It was Cintan Mushroom Chicken instant noodles. I could remember it clearly because… I was relatively indisposed and he fed me with it. Tasted awful. The instant noodles was very soggy and the eggs was overcooked. I couldn’t even move my body out of the bed back then and he was probably starving to even consider eating out or wait for me to cook for him. (No choice, he had to cook, hahaha… or else, don’t you even  dare to dream on catching him dead in the kitchen. LMAO)

And the last dish that he cooked for me to eat when I was as flaccid as rotten vegetable was fried potato with soya sauce, also more than 5 years ago. I remembered it well, because it tasted rather good, and had me crave for more after that. (Thank God not all his cooking tasted like the awful Cintan!) I didn’t really know how to cook that stuff back then, as my cooking are usually the spicy kind.

It was simple fried potato with soya sauce. I had them with plain rice. Simple, but it really touched my heart and made me love him more, cuz he is an awful cook and like my father, he is the kind who were brought up by their respective mothers to prefer going to war or something rather than cook. It was installed in their mindset that cooking is ‘women’s fucking job’, and I believe there’s no effective way to un-install this shitty program from their brain.

Anyway, it is a comfort to know that he would fight a battle in the kitchen for me, and feed me with some food when I’m relatively indisposed or sick.

My husband can really make nice, fried potatoes with soya sauce. And I felt like eating it again a a couple of days ago.

I wasn’t sick or anything the other day though, and so, instead of waiting for miracle to happen again *cough*, I took out the necessary ingredients to cook fried potatoes with soya sauce, and share it with him. My recipe is an improvised version, though. Here’s how I ‘abridged’ my husband’s original fried potato with soya sauce.

Ingredients:

5 medium sized potatoes, sliced

3 tablespoon of oyster sauce

5 tablespoon of light soya sauce

1 teaspoon of chopped garlic

Some cooking oil

Half cup of water

Salt and pepper to taste

Here’s how you do it:

Clean the potatoes, get rid of the skin, and cut the potatoes like in the picture above, and fry them til golden brown. Take them out and put aside.

Pour away the oil til and leave some inside the wok to sauté with the chopped garlic.

Add in the oyster sauce, soya sauce and water. Stir. And let the sauce sizzle and thickens. Before adding the fried potatoes. Make sure the sauce coat the potatoes evenly. Add a bit of salt and pepper to taste in you prefer.

Take out from the wok before the potatoes turned mushy, and serve hot with plain rice.

NOTE: If you prefer the fried potatoes with soya sauce to be sweet, add in half a teaspoon of honey into it. It’ll do the trick, and your children will be asking for more.

Cleffairy: The most recent time where my husband actually made something for himself in the kitchen was mid April 2010, and it was Nescafe instant mix. (Cuz I was tired and was sleeping away my fatigue) Will update you folks if he ever cook again, and let you buy lotto with the date. And if you get lucky, please remember to treat me something nice to eat! LOL.

ps: Obviously don’t give a damn about all the shitty cholesterol. It’s my problem if I wanted to go inside my grave early, ok?

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Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Simple kangkung belacan

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I was out of idea on what to cook the other day, as I was almost out of groceries. There were only some kangkung (water convulvulous) in my refrigerator along with some chicken fillets. I didn’t really want to eat them, though. Didn’t really have the appetite for some veggies then.

Want not, but waste not. So I decided that some kangkung belacan would do the trick.

Ingredients:

Some kangkung

1 small piece of belacan (shrimp paste)

Shallots

Garlic

1 chilli

Chicken fillet, cut into small pieces (you can also use shrimps, beef or even squids)

Some oil

Here’s how you make kangkung belacan 😛

Pound some belacan (shrimp paste) with shallots, garlic as well as chilli.  In my case, I just smashed them with my butcher knife, cuz I don’t have the pounder.

Sauté the pounded belacan mixture into the wok along with some chicken. When the chicken is cooked, add in the kangkung. Cook the kangkung til it’s soften, and serve with white rice. 😀

Yield: 1 serving

Preparation time: 15 minutes


Cleffairy: Cooking needs not be complicated. 😀

ps: One might be wondering why my blog is turning into somewhat a recipe dump. But in truth, I’m just taking a break from blogging. 😀 Original programs will be resumed  pretty soon, when I’m not so busy with work.

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Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Fried tumeric squids/ Sotong goreng kunyit

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I’ve always love fried tumeric squids, or locally, known as sotong goreng kunyit. My mum used to make them for me when I was a little girl, and I could eat them with plain rice over and over again.

Allow me to share the recipe with you. Sorry for the blurred picture though. I don’t quite give a damn about pictures and presentation. As long as the stuff is edible… Plus, my family was hungry, and I forgot to turn on the lights.

LOL…I assure you, the thing is not poisonous. LOL… I’ve been cooking this stuff ever since I was 10. 😛

Ingredients:

200-300 grams of squids, cleaned and cut

Shallots

Tumeric powder

Long beans

Salt

Some cooking oil

Here’s how you do it:

Mix tumeric powder with the squids that has been cleaned and cut in a bowl. Add some salt, and leave it aside for 5 minutes. Cut up some long beans and shallots.

Pour some cooking oil into the wok/pan. Sauté the shallots, and toss in the squids. Let it cook for about 5 minutes before adding the long beans. Cook for another 2-3 minutes, take out and serve with plain rice.

Yield: 2 servings

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cleffairy: Simple, eh? Maybe you can feed this stuff to your family when you’re up to it. 😀

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Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Frugal eggs noodles/yee mee recipe

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The mad fairy is at it again. One dark rainy night, the fairy was hungry, and so, she decided to cook something really simple and comforting for herself and her lab rats whom she have the cheek to call family.

This is what she cooked that night…a pot of simple eggs noodles or locally known as yee mee. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 ‘nest’ of yee mee

1 egg

1 spoonful of chopped garlic

4 spoonfuls of oyster sauce

3 spoonful of light soya sauce

Cabbage leaves

Salt and pepper to taste

1 bowl of water

Some cooking oil

1 teaspoon of cornflour dissolved in water (optional)

Despite of the ingredients, yee mee is actually easy to cook. All you need to do is sauté the chopped garlic and then pour in the light soya sauce and oyster sauce. Mix well, add in the water  stir lightly and simmer for about 5 minutes.

When the soup is boiling, add in the cabbage and the yeemee. Thickens the soup with dissolved cornflour mixture if you prefer.

And crack an egg onto the yeemee. Add in salt and pepper to taste. Omit if you feel don’t like your food to be salty and peppery, though.

Turn off the fire, and stir the egg into the yeemee well.

Take out and serve while piping hot.

Yield: 2 servings

Preparation time: 15 minutes


Cleffairy: On a dark and rainy night, I would prefer my tummy to be all fuzzy and warm with such comfort food. How about you?

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Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Simple Coke Chicken

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I was in a fairly romantic mood the other day and was busy trying to concoct some love potion again when I saw Coke Chicken Recipe in Garfield and Pete’s blog.

I decided to tweak the recipe abit so that it’ll be much simpler for me, and this is how I do it:

Ingredients

1/2 chicken, cleaned and cut

Coke

2 tea spoon of salt

2 tablespoon of light soya sauce

Water

First of all, put the chicken pieces into the pot, pour water til it covers the chicken and simmer it for 15 minutes.

When the chicken is half cooked, pour away the water, and replace it with Coke.Add in the salt and light soya sauce.

Simmer on slow fire for about 30-45 minutes til the Coke caramelized. Take out and serve while piping hot. Good to eat on it’s own.

Yield 3 servings.

Cleffairy: Coke chicken is so easy to cook. I wonder why it’s so expensive in those Chinese restaurants.

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Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Simple and tasty fried chicken

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I recently discovered that I can actually use an all in one seasoning to marinade chicken, and so, I decided to try it out, since it’s simple to boot. 😀

Ingredients:

500grams of chicken parts, cut to pieces

All in one seasoning (eg: Maggie Pasti Sedap, Knorr Cukup Rasa)

Oil for deep frying

Here’s how I do it:

Take a pick of your seasoning of choice. Maggie Pasti Sedap or Knorr Cukup Rasa.

Sprinkle some of the seasonings onto the chicken cuts, and marinade it for at least 15 minutes.

And then, deep fry the chicken til golden brown. Serve while it’s piping hot. Goes well on it’s own, or with a bowl or white rice. 😀

Cleffairy: When it comes to food, the simpler, the better. Life is complicated enough.

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Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Comforting Corn and Chicken Soup

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Remember my previous blog entry where I made corn fritters for my family for tea time? Well, my friend gave me more than enough corns for me to make a few meals out of it. I turn some of it into soup.

It’s very easy to make, and like most of the recipe that I put up in my blog, they’re frugal food and usually contains no more than 5 ingredients in each dish. Good for the tummy, friendly on the penny. And most important thing is, it’s very easy to make. I would recommend this for students who are on a budget as well as busy mums out there who lacks time to prepare nutritious food for the family.

Allow me to share the recipe with you.

Ingredients:

1 corn

1 carrot

3 piece of chicken(preferably drumsticks, but anything goes.)

Cabbage

3 bowl of water

Sat to taste

Here’s how you do it. Boil water to the pot and bring it to simmer before tossing in the cleaned chicken drumsticks inside of it. Break the corn into few piece if it’s too long and put it into the pot together with the chicken. Slice the carrot and shred the cabbage leaves. Toss it inside once the water is boiling, and add in salt to taste. Cook for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Goes well on it’s own on a cold day, or serve it with plain rice for lunch or supper.

Yield: 4 servings.

Preparation time: 45 minutes.

Cleffairy: Good and nutritious food does not have to be expensive.

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