Quick Fix With HCP

Please bear with me while I go on raving about my HCP. Cooking is an exciting hobby and essential daily chore for me. It is a great feeling cooking something new daily that I learn from a friend, the television or the internet. With the new HCP, even the same old dish becomes exciting and new, knowing that I have a different utensil to produce better result in a shorter amount of time.

Today afternoon I was about to spread some tuna on the wholemeal bread for my lunch when I remembered the HCP. Plus I also had some custard mixture balance from the cuppies. And I kind of felt like eating something cheesy. French toast came to my mind. And then I thought why not put a cheese in between the breads in a sandwich and make a french toast of it. Then I got cooking.

It took hardly a few minutes, and with the non stick surface, flipping was so easy. No, I did not try flipping the pan. I kind of forgot about that feature. Nevertheless, my cheesy french toast was so rich and satisfying. It also occurred to me that the HCP can make a very wonderful bread pudding, my favourite! I have like thousands of ideas in my head to utilise the HCP and I just can't wait for it!

I might just become an HCP expert soon and join the home tutors on a Tutor Spree! If I do indeed, you would be the first to know!

In the meantime, please drool over the picture.

More lessons learnt on the HCP.

HCP Lesson no.3 - Cook at low heat if you don't want the toast to brown more than intended.

Happy Calling - Mini Pie Cuppies

Happy Call indeed, when I received my Happy Call double sided pan! I had contemplated buying this pan for months now seeing mothers raving about it everywhere. I asked myself did I really need it? It took a while to answer the question, and by then I had found out the best price in the market, all the way from Gmarket in Singapore, which even provided free shipping to Malaysia!

What made me decide for it? Since it is a double sided pan, with a lock, I can fry anything and flip it while it is closed. This means my phobia for frying fish pretty much answered, and I can also fry my other favourites like egg tofu without worrying about the oil spluttering over the kitchen and with my kids playing all over the kitchen floor, safety is the most important factor. With the lock system it also means that food cook faster than the normal pan. How cool is that?

I have been cooking pretty much every day on the weekdays. And my current frying pan was wearing out anyway, I don't blame it, it was a cheap one to begin with. My kitchen utensils needed a desperate upgrade, and non stick surface is the way to go since we are getting all so health conscious (I have some baby weight to lose still).

Right before they go in the oven

 

I have been crazy over this muffin tray that I recently got, and wanted to make this little pie cuppies that I got inspired from Rachel Ray's recipe. It is a simple chicken ham crusted pie with creamy spinach filling. For the spinach filling, I just sauteed garlic, spinach, asparagus and red pepper. Added some milk and cream cheese to cream it up. I also filled up the cuppies with a mixture of 1.5cups of milk and 3 eggs beaten together, with some salt, pepper and ground oregano. There is still some balance left however, I am hatching my next plan on how to utilise it next.

After baking for 15 mins at 150C

Here is what I learnt today:

HCP lesson no.1: Do not flip the HCP if you are cooking with some gravy
HCP lesson no.2: Do not toss and shake the HCP as how you see the Korean dude do it on the video.

Ah well, I am still a beginner!

Now as I go back to cooking and painting the kitchen red with my new toy, stay tuned for more inventions!

Afternoon Breakfast At Antipodeon Cafe

It was one of those rare days that we get to make a spontaneous plan of going out. We headed to Bangsar to eat something that we have been meaning to try for a long time now. I have been telling hubby so much about this big breakfast at Antipodeon Cafe that it is unfair to not try it.

At first I joked that for us to make it for breakfast at 8am in Bangsar we would have to leave the house like 7am. And to make it for that timing we would have to get up possibly 5am or so, you know to bath, feed and get the kids dressed up. It sounds tiring already! Thank God it was possible to leave the house at leisure, the kids showered, fed and dressed up all nice and handsome, and we would not miss the breakfast. All this is possible because at Antipodeon Cafe, breakfast is served all day long. Yes, you heard it right!

There was nothing much to decide on what to eat. Given their reputation on big breakfast, big breakfast it was. And all day breakfast. Not much difference there except for the mushrooms and baked beans. The scrambled egg portion is so huge that mine felt like a never-ending serving.The highlight of the meals is the sausage and hearty bacon, either beef or pork. No prizes for guessing which one we 'pigged on'.

The sausage was so soft and fresh, we are guessing it was made by the cafe itself. And the bacon was something like we never had before. Much more meaty than the ones we buy at the supermarkets locally. It was totally wrong to eat so little of such good stuff, so we ordered extra servings of both.

Antipodeon is very famous for their coffee, so we also gave a try at their latte. I am no coffee drinker, neither expert, but it was very very pleasant to drink. And yeah, since we were pigging out anyway, we tried this butter free chocolate cake, to cover for the calories consumed earlier. Pure yummylicious! 

There is this simplicity in their food that makes it taste almost home-made. Salt is at its minimal best, and no artificial or empowering flavouring of any sort. This is something that we really appreciated being able to taste the pure flavours of the food.

Enough about the food. Another major highlight of this cafe is the fact that they have a little playroom with cool toys to entertain the kids. A couple of the waitresses were so good with Sanju that he kept on calling out to them to play with him. Surely kept the kids occupied while we enjoyed our breakfast that afternoon.

Big Breakfast Meal -  RM19

Butter free chocolate cake - RM8

Latte - RM9

Enjoying the meal with the kids playing away peacefully - PRICELESS