The Kop Comes to Asia (26th July 2009)

Thanks to Sam for giving me the ticket, and to Sam's kind friend who bought the tickets as his birthday present. :)

Spaghetti with Parmesan and tomatoes

As the recipe looks simple and fast enough, I decided to try it out one evening for a one-person dinner. There was no need to make any trip to the supermarket as I had everything on hand, including the cherry tomatoes I had left from the garlic toast previously. I was quite surprised that, despite it looking quite plain from the photo, the dish was tasty. As for the pecorino romano cheese mentioned in the original recipe, I did some research for a substitute and, what did you know, grated parmesan was the chosen one.

Spaghetti with Parmesan and tomatoes (Original recipe from here)

4 servings

- 1 (14.5 ounce) package multi-grain pasta
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
- 3 cups halved cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
- salt

Directions :

1) Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Cook according to package directions. Strain pasta but reserve 1/2 cup of the water.

2) Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, add pepper. Cook 1 minute. Add tomatoes cook 30 seconds.

3) Pour reserved pasta water into the skillet. Return pasta to the skillet, sprinkle with 1/2 cup parmesan cheese. Toss continually until cheese melts. Add salt if desired. Cook 3 minutes, the water should absorb. Sprinkle with a little more cheese and serve.

Note : I didn't add any salt to this dish as I know the cheese will be salty enough for me.

To the cinema : Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Is it just me, or what? It seems like the movie blockbusters of late were quite disappointing. First was Transformers 2, now is the Half Blood Prince. I got to admit that I felt Ice Age 3 was slightly better than these two, even though it was a little non-sensical (ice age together with the dinosaur age?!), it was still quite funny and enjoyable.

I got to admit that I missed the Order of Phoenix (which I didn't know if there's any continuation from that movie to this), and I didn't read any single book of Harry Potter. But I did enjoy the first 4 Harry Potter movies, and my favourites are The Chamber of Secrets and The Goblet of Fire. Compared to those two, Half Blood Prince seemed to have lost all the magic, suspense and thrill. Oh, and did someone forget to pay the electricity bill for the movie? Coz it was all so dark and gloomy most of the time, that I guessed that was why the boy sitting behind me found it more interesting to kick at the back of my seat rather than to watch the movie.

But there was a first for me when watching this movie. I kept turning to the husband and asked for the time. When I realised that there was about 30 mins left, I thought there might at least be a climatic ending to make up for the almost boring previous 2 hours. But there was nothing! It was not until Professor Snape came up to Harry Potter and said in his usual monotonous voice, "Yes, I'm the half blood prince.", that I realised that I already didn't care who was the half blood prince anymore.

The focus also seemed to be lost, or rather divided between the budding romance among the teenagers and the problem with the bad guy. I do appreciate a little romance in a movie, but somehow in this case, I felt that it was a little too much that it bordered on irritating. Or maybe it was written like that in the storybook? Only the Harry Potter faithful reader at home can tell me. I guess for the next few movies, I would have to depend on her reviews to see if they were worth the $10 ticket price.

Tomato Garlic Cheese Bread

For this quick breakfast, I didn't really follow any recipe. I took a bit from different recipes here and there to come up with this. Actually, the tomatoes should be the big ones, instead of cherry tomatoes. However, the tomatoes at the NTUC at my place were all green and unripe, so I had to make do with cherry tomatoes. And for the bread, I bought the Gardenia Multigrain Country loaf for a change instead of a baguette. The multigrain loaf might not turn out to be as hard as a baguette after toasting, but I really like the final taste of the whole thing.

Tomato Garlic Cheese Bread

serves about 6 slices

Ingredients :

- 1 tablespoon of garlic and herb spread
- 1 teaspoon of mayo
- a handful of cherry tomatoes, cut into cubes
- bread
- shredded mozzarella cheese (amount depends on how cheesy you like your bread to be)

Directions :

1) Preheat the oven. (I did it at 100 deg Celsius)

2) Mix the garlic and herb spread together with the mayo, and spread it onto the bread.

3) Scatter the tomatoes onto the spread, and then cover it with mozzarella.

4) Lay a sheet of aluminium foil on a baking tray and place the bread on it to toast. (There is no specific time for this, but I took the bread out once the cheese melts.)

Strawberry Sorbet

I've been wanting to try making strawberry sorbet ever since I stumbled upon it on My Kitchen Snippets, a blog I read regularly. But it's not easy to find cheap and good strawberries in Singapore. So, when I saw the US strawberries on offer in NTUC, I made a grab for 5 boxes immediately.

I must say the sorbet turned out good (at least for my own standard), and not too sweet. As I didn't have an ice-cream maker at home, I had to follow the instructions to stir every hour to get rid of the ice at the sides for 6 hours before freezing it completely. I found that this method, though abit tiring, worked quite well for the final texture of the sorbet, as compared to the Cantaloupe Sorbet.

Strawberry Sorbet (recipe from here)

Ingredients :

- 1 cup water

- 1 cup sugar

- 3 pounds of strawberry

- 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

- 1/3 cup fresh orange juice

Directions :

1) Put water and sugar in heavy saucepan over high heat until sugar dissolves. Boil 5 minutes. Leave it to cool.

2) Puree strawberries in food processor until smooth. Add strawberry puree , orange and lemon juices to cool sugar syrup; stir to blend. Cover and refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours.

3) If you are making the sorbet in ice-cream maker process strawberry mixture in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions or place mixture in shallow container and freeze, stirring every hour until set, about 6 hours.

Chicken Meatballs with Spaghetti

Since I had some unexpected off days this past week, I decided to try something new instead of the usual spaghetti with sausages and ham. And so, here are my chicken meatballs draining on a kitchen towel...


Chicken meatballs may not sound as tasty as beef or pork meatballs to some, but this is really quite good though abit dry as expected. I don't really know how to cook beef, and there is this really 'piggish' kind of taste in the packaged pork selling in supermarkets, so I always go for chicken.

However, I felt that meatballs are not that easy to be pan-fried. So the next time I try this again, they will be in patties, not balls.

Chicken Meatballs For Spaghetti (from : Recipezaar)

4 servings

Ingredients

- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons fresh oregano (or the equivalent dried)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1) Place ground chicken,egg,1/2 cup Parmesan,bread crumbs, garlic,oregano and 1/2 tsp salt in a medium bowl.

2) Knead mixture together with hand till evenly combined.

3) Form mixture into 1-inch balls.

4) In large non-stick skillet,warm olive oil over high heat.

5) Place meatballs in pan,up to 8 at a time,and cook until all sides are browned,approximately 8 minutes for each meatball.

6) Remove with slotted spoon,and add to your favorite spaghetti sauce.