Chili Jerk Chicken

So that week, my mom was making three types of chicken. Chili chicken was rather an experiment since we had this masala from the indian store and used it since we ran out of tandoori mix! So this is what we came up with, and it ended up being a hybrid of chili and jerk chicken lol. The spicier the better, imo.

• First prep the chicken, as in trimming off the fat, cutting the legs into two, washing, etc. My mom usually does that since I kinda hate touching the raw chicken. Meh, i'll get to it another day.
• Put the chicken into a big bowl along with the lemon zest, ginger, pinch of salt, black pepper, cilantro, garlic, and about 4 table spoons of the masala/chili powder. This is the masala we used.

• Then add the lemon juice and massage the chicken with the mix. Then let the chicken marinate for 20-40 minutes, or even over night. We had to cook it the same day since it was that nights dinner lol.

• Put it in the oven at 350-400 degrees for about an half hour or hour. Just aslong as the chicken is cooked completely and not burned o.o

• We added jerk sauce since we like it a bit more spicy. Add rice, cucumbers, and some plantains and fin! So yummy.

-aLeeNa

Got constant headaches and migraines? Drink a smoothie.

My mom used to have these killer migraines that would keep her in bed for a while with her head pounding. She has this smoothie she'd make to get rid of them. I'm not sure if it works for all, but it works for her! She has had those migraines for months so she stopped drinking it. But then stress came along again and she made the smoothie again and they're gone!

All you need is some cantaloupe and a piece of ginger. Not too much ginger, cause that stuff is strong. I'm not a fan of ginger lol. But the cool refreshing cantaloupe definitely makes this taste better. Oh, also some ice and water is needed.

Put a handful (or more) of cantaloupe into the blender. Add the ginger (chopped up finely) along with about a half cup of ice. Now my mom said to add water, but since i failed at cutting up a cantaloupe, I ended up with a lot of cantaloupe juice on the plate. So I just poured that juice in. Blend it up until its in smoothie texture like a slushie. Bottoms up! *cheers*

 

like my little cantaloupe garnish? heh. and since the glass was super tall, i put a baskin robbins pink spoon in it for her to stir it up. it looks delicious, and its pretty healthy too!

-aLeeNa

French Toast

I've been craving french toast for just about a month now, and I never had the time to make it or I forgot to wake up early enough to make it so everyone would enjoy it. So I made a promise that I'd get up and make breakfast this morning. Bright and early 5:30 this morning, I woke up and made this delicious french toast my brother had made once for mothers day. He got it off of "Barefoot Contessa" on the Food Network. She's one of my mom's favorite chefs on the Food Network, and I do agree her recipes are simple and amazing.  Recipe.

• Whisk together the eggs, half & half milk, orange zest, vanilla, honey, and salt.

• Slice up the loaf of challah bread into thick pieces, and soak them in the mix. I poured the mix into a large baking pan and soaked them there. Make sure to soak both sides!  

• Melt a tablespoon of unsalted butter and one tablespoon of oil in a large pan on medium heat. Cook the bread until each side is brown.

• While cooking the other pieces (I cooked 8 slices of the bread, 4 people, 2 for each), I put the already cooked ones into the oven toaster to keep warm instead of putting it in the oven. My oven is full of baking pans and stuff so thats just a hassle to use so early in the morning. Fry the remaining slices, adding more butter and oil as needed to brown them.

• While those were keeping warm in the oven, I made some eggs! (: Simple mix of eggs, salt, and black pepper. Nothing special lol.

• Sift the confectionary sugar on the toast with a mesh strainer. Add syrup. Cut up some juicy oranges, and thats it! (: enjoy.

I ate this for breakfast and lunch. Then my baby cousin came over and he ate it for dinner. lol. so good.

-aLeeNa

Trifecta Cookies!

Since one of the awesome sisters at Maniac Muslim posted these cookies in the cooking thread I just HAD to try it out. These cookies are called Trifecta Cookies. You can click the link to see the recipe and instructions to make them. I just kinda wanted to post the end product really. I sort of ran out of chocolate chips, so i used white chocolate in my second batch.

-aLeeNa

p.s. awesome with ice cold milk! (:

Bake and Saltfish

Bake is sort of like a Guyanese version of pita bread. Usually when fried it expands like a pocket of air in the dough, but for some reason me and my mom's bake didn't turn out like that but it still tasted good! Oh, and of course we ate it with saltfish. I didn't know how to explain saltfish, other than saying its fish but thanks to the internet saltfish is "salted, dried codfish". Anyway lets talk about bake first since is so awesome. I can eat this bare because its so good.

• First we have to make the dough, so we put the flour, water, salt, black pepper, and this orange powder in the mixer. Now, I have no idea what that orange power was but my mom said its optional and its only to give the bake that orange yellow color. Another side note, my aunt puts a little sugar in the mix to make it sweet. All options. 
• After thats mixed good, add the onions, shallots, and pepper. I linked it to a picture of pepper we used called "wirri wirri pepper". After all the mixing you end up with a big pile of dough

• We let the dough sit for a while as my mom cooked other things. After letting it sit for a good 15 mins or so, you separate the dough into balls for each bake. This amount of dough makes about 10 bakes.

• Then you add some flour to the balls and roll it out with your belna (rolling pin lol). The flour is added so it won't stick to the rolling pin or the table. When it sticks, boy is that annoying!

• Then once the hot oil is heated up well, you slowly drop the dough into the oil. Don't just fling it in there like I did once upon a time. the hot oil will pitch on you and hurt ._. Once the dough floats up in the oil, then you turn it over and let the other side cook. When you see bubbles (give it like 2 mins or less) then its done. Im pretty sure the dough was supposed to inflate into a balloon shape but ours refused to do so lol.

• After taking the dough out of the oil, put the bake into a bowl with paper towels so the excess oil will soak up on the paper towels. Wait for it to cool off (or not) and then eat with saltfish or anything really.

I found this reciepe for saltfish online and it looks pretty accurate. Check it out here. This is how our saltfish comes out and it is way yummy.

 

-aLeeNa

Rasmalai

By far rasmalai is one of my favorite desi deserts. Its just sweet and amazing with the sea of milk its drowned in and the sprinkled pistachios make it even better. I'd rather eat this for desert than ice cream any day! *gasp*

My mom and I followed this recipe I found on google and it comes out great every time!

To make milk the little rasmalai are soaked in:

• Thicken the half and half by simmering over low heat for few minutes.

• Add 1 cup sugar, cardamom, rose water, saffron strands, to the half and half. Heat for a few minutes and allow them cool. We added cinnamon and nutmeg to the mix as well.

The rasmalai cups:

• Mix ¼ cup of sugar with the Ricotta cheese by using a spatula or hand mixer.

• Spread on the oven safe dish- we used a cupcake pan. I added 2 spoons of cheese mixture in each cups. To spread evenly in the cups—place the bottom of glass in the cheese mixture or level it with the spoon.

• Bake at 350 degrees for 35- 40 minutes or until it sets or until it turns light brown. You can also check with help of a tooth pick. Insert the tooth pick into the cheese- if the tooth pick doesn’t come out sticky with cheese it means you are all set to take the tray out from the oven 

• Remove from oven, cool at room temperature. Remove the shapes with help of your hand and place in the dessert bowl.

• Add the cooked balls to the half and half and decorate with Pistachios and Almonds.

Let it stay immersed for about an hour. You can either serve it cold or warm. I usually keep in the fridge for few hours and serve cold

so good. :3

-aLeeNa

Hello!

Welcome to my little blog about me learning how to cook! I recently had this burst of motivation toward learning how to cook due to my parents and grandparents always having this surprised reaction when they hear that I still don’t know how to cook! Its most definitely a brown thing, imo. I don’t feel like ranting again on my first post, but here I ranted about this before lol. I’m more into baking yummy things rather than cooking full dishes for dinner/lunch. Breakfast is easy stuff. I want to learn the real stuff like cooking a great dinner. It would be nice to cook a feast and see everyone enjoying what I made.

So here’s to learning how to cook new things and not burn down the kitchen! *cheers with a glass of milk*

-aLeeNa