Seafood Mornay

This is one of our family favs! Like, since we were little, we loved going to the So'olefai's house for koga'i coz she would make it lol, now that we're older, we've learned! Yay, such a yummy side dish to have with a main meat...and with rice of course...or faalifu kalo! I'm just making myself hunnnnngggrrryyyy!!! lol, so easy to make! Here it is before I forget,


Ingredients
1 kg surimi (imitation crab)
1 liter cream
1 1/2 - 2 sachets of Seafood soup mix
Grated cheese

Method
On medium heat, heat up the cream, then add the sachet(s) and stir til dissolved. (I usually salt, pepper, paprika it too)
Break up the suirmi (I half the pieces) and place into into a baking dish.  Then pour over cream and soup mixture. Sprinkle cheese on top (some people like to slice tomatoes on top too...but I never bother) and bake under the oven til cheese is melted and a golden brown :)

(I'm pretty sure it'd still be bomb with more seafood if you have any :) It's one of those nice recipes where you can just add whatever you want :)

Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars

Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars

These are so good. I made very minor changes and it still came out yummmmmmm.

Original recipe found here.

Ingredients

2 C flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 1/2 C old fashioned oats

1 1/2 C brown sugar

1 1/4 C butter, melted

2 eggs Substitute with 2 Tb Flaxseeds mixed with 6 Tbs water. Let it sit while you do the other stuff. 

1 Tb vanilla

2 1/2 C milk chocolate chips

Mix dry (yellow) ingredients in one bowl. Mix wet (blue) ingredients in another. Mix together and pour into a greased baking dish. I used a 8.5 X 12 glass dish and da buggah was cherreh!

Bake 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Enjoy with ice cream or a glass of milk. So. good.

Aunty Delsa's Fry Bread

Eeeevery time fry bread is mentioned...Chu goes on about THE BEST fry bread he's had was Aunty Delsa Moe's.  So since it came up again on Sunday and I finally realized that I'd be listening to this same ol' story for the rest of my life...I decided to ask her for her recipe...and here it is!! SO BOMB!! Not gonna lie, He was totally right!!

Ingredients:
2 C Luke warm water
2 T yeast
2 T sugar
2 T oil
2 t salt
4 C Flour (and extra for kneading)

note: just don't add too much flour when kneading. Let it stay a little sticky, otherwise it doesn't turn out as light and fluffy
note 2: works too with pastry flour...it becomes super light and airy...but I think using high grade flour is best

Method:
Combine water, yeast, sugar, oil and salt. Stir it gently about 3 times then let it sit 10 min for yeast to bubble. Add in 4 cups flour a little at a time and knead well. If dough is still sticky sprinkle in a little more flour and knead. Let it rise about 30-45 min till double in bulk.
Oil a flat surface and roll out half the dough with a rolling pin so it's about half inch thick or little less then cut into pieces with a pizza cutter or oiled knife. Separate pieces and let rise about 10 min while you heat up a pan of oil to deep fry them in. Fry both sides till golden brown and drizzle with butter, honey or golden syrup.

She said that it may take a few times to master...buuuut our first batch was OSUM!! So even if that was the junk batch...dang this is a good recipe :)

Enjoy!!

Moist Chocolate Cake

This chocolate cake is my 'go to' recipe now since Petra introduced it to me.  It's super easy and quick to make.  The original recipe (that you can find here) calls for coffee but it's easily substituted with boiling water :) It's a runny mixture so don't think you're doing it wrong if it seems waaay runny...

(A baker friend of mine said that the recipes that are the most moist...are quite runny and call for boiling water...so that made me feel like almost a legit baker with this recipe lol).

Here's my edited version of the recipe, enjoy!

• 35minCook Time
• 15minPrep Time
• 12Servings

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

• 2 cups granulated white sugar

• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 3/4 teaspoon salt

• 2 large eggs

• 1 cup buttermilk (or substitute by putting 1 tbsp white vinegar in a cup then filling the rest up with milk; let stand 5 minutes until thickened)

• 1/2 cup butter, melted

• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

• 1 cup boiling water

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees/180 degrees celsius. Grease and flour two 9-inch baking pans (or line with parchment paper circles) and set aside. Or just grease A pan, easier lol.
2. In the large bowl of a standing mixer, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla extract and beat until smooth (about 3 minutes). Remove bowl from mixer and stir in boiling water Batter will be very runny.
3. Pour batter evenly between the two pans and bake on middle rack of oven for about 35 minutes, until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean with just a few moist crumbs attached. If you're just making one cake, it'll take longer to bake, at least an extra 10mins...I just keep checking on it to see when it's ready.
4. Allow to cool 15 minutes in pans, then run a butter knife around the edges of each cake. Place a wire cooling rack over top of each pan. Wearing oven mitts, use both hands to hold the racks in place while flipping the cakes over onto the racks. Set the racks down and gently thump on the bottom of the pans until the cakes release. Just get the cakes out of the pans lol. Cool completely before handling or frosting.

Coleslaw dressing

Simple Coleslaw Dressing

1/2 Cup Mayo
2 T white sugar
1 1/2 T lemon juice
1 T white vinegar
1/2 t Black pepper
1 t salt

Mix it all up and add to your coleslaw! Easy as that!

Spinach Bread Bowl Dip

Spinach Bread Bowl Dip

1 cup cream cheese

1 cup grated cheese

1 cup mayonnaise

1/4 onion finely chopped

1 tsp Dill

4 Handfuls of baby spinach chopped up (or as much as you like)

Mix it all up.  Get your loaf of bread, cut the top off (like a lid), pull out the middle of the bread (to make a bowl like the picture below).  Fill the bowl with the dip, then bake in the oven for an hour at 150 degrees celsius :)

Serve with breads to dip :) Mmmmmm

Chicken Katsu

Simple but yums.  I've made this with pork, chicken breast, and chicken thighs- they all are equally tasty. 

Ingredients

Chicken (de-boned thigh or breast)

panko breadcrumbs

flour

egg

salt/pepper

oil

Take your chicken breast or thigh and pound it out. I use the back of my knife and pound it out until it is a quarter inch thick. I'm guessing a meat tenderizer type thing would work great but I don't have one. When using chicken breast, I like to slice the chicken into thinner slices to speed up the process. Set aside.

Put some oil in a skillet over medium high heat. While the oil is heating up, set up three separate dishes for coating the chicken. First dish- flour, salt, pepper. Second dish- beaten eggs. Third dish- panko bread crumbs.

Now work the assembly line. Coat the chicken in the flour, then dip into the eggs, then into the bread crumbs, and then pop it into the pan. Fry on one side until golden brown and then flip it over and brown the other side.

Serve with the "special sauce"...I don't know the name of it...it's just the sauce you get when you order chicken katsu at a local Hawaii restaurant lol. There are recipes out there but by the time all the katsu is ready I'm usually too lazy to make it from scratch and end up eating the katsu with ketchup, sweet chili sauce, or curry (mmmm yum). 

I've tried with just egg and bread crumbs but I like the flour-egg-panko trio a lot better.