If pizza is an edible plate, Yorkshire pudding is an edible bowl.


Crispy oven-baked Yorkshire pudding filled with stir-fried lean ground beef and chopped vegetables (carrot, red bell pepper, mushroom, spring onion) cooked in beef and ale sauce. *licks*

Hee. ^^ I got paid, can you tell? :P

Wanted to make shepherd's pie but then I realised that I have no potatoes. Cripes. Ended up with spiced mince stew and steamed vegetables with cheese melted on top.

No photos because I'm not in the mood to play around with the camera today. Heh. Maybe another time.

Just something simple (and probably not very original) I came up with while going through my available foodstuff. Despite what the title says, this is not vegetarian (I suppose you can change it, but I don't think you're that keen on following my half-witted recipe ideas). I would probably use this as a side-dish or some kind of entrée, though I think it's a bit large to be an entrée. I'm not sure.

Ingredients
1 cup couscous, uncooked
200g canned ham, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
5 closed-cup common mushrooms, chopped
5 bell peppers, whole (doesn't matter what colour they are)
Ground black pepper

Method

1. Cook couscous as directed on package. That usually involves cooking it in boiling water, kinda like rice, but a lot quicker! I cheated with a microwave though. :P
2. Meanwhile, in a saucepan or wok, stir-fry chopped ham, onion and mushroom. I didn't use any oil at all because the ham is already oily enough to grease the pan as I cook it. It is also salty enough for me to skip the salt. Add a little ground black pepper to taste. Add couscous when cooked and mix until distributed evenly. Remove from heat.
3. Slice off the top of the bell peppers but don't throw them away. Carefully cut around the insides of the peppers to remove the seeded parts without puncturing the pepper casing. Test if the pepper casings can stand on their own. If not, carefully slice a small area at the bottom - again without puncturing through the casing - to allow the pepper casing to stand on its own.
4. Fill the peppers with the couscous mixture and replace pepper tops. You might have leftover couscous mixture, but that's fine. They taste pretty good on their own, or you can just make another pepper casing to fill with.
5. Wrap the filled peppers in tinfoil, heat the oven up to 150°C, and arrange the wrapped peppers in the oven to roast until desired softness. Overcooked peppers will take on a yellowish tinge, which ruins presentation, but you probably won't want to serve green bell peppers raw (red and yellow are all right).
   
6. Unwrap and serve.

Serves 5

Estimated Nutritional Values (per serving)
Energy 216.68kcal
Protein 14.1g
Carbohydrate 35.84g
Fat 1.42g

I did debate whether to add cheese to the mixture, but then I decided to skip it since there was already a decent amount of salt content and I'm trying to eat healthier (sort of, even though canned ham is probably not the healthiest choice of all). In the end, I'm quite glad that I didn't add the cheese - it already taste pretty decent cheese-free.

My flatmate walked in while I was in the middle of making this, and she was so intrigued by it. Heh. I'm not sure why, but my flatmates are so perpetually fascinated with what I'm cooking, it's weird. I quite enjoyed making it, for what its worth. I've been quite stressed out and depressed lately, so I needed to do something that takes my mind off things. Been wondering if I should start baking again. Have a few things thought and lined up, like stuffed cheesy tomatoes (I thought I had pictures of these when I first made them two years ago, but I can't find them!), sausage bread rolls and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies or chewy brownie cookies or cinnamon rolls. :P I know, how disgustingly fattening.

Yummy, fattening, and completely veggie. Haha. XD Pffbbtttt to all of you who thinks I can't eat one completely veggie meal!

Hehe. I know, what a large meal! Made of favourite vegetables too... and I don't like a whole lot of vegetables. ;)

It smells awesome. Like, AWESOME. I haven't had Emperor's Chicken in such a long time, and now I know why I was so friggin' addicted to it because I want more, more, more!

You know, that's the problem with cooking yourself - you know exactly what kind of food you like, and you know exactly how to make it taste awesome to yourself, and therefore you eventually eat way too much.

It's Chinese New Year soon. Squeeee! To be more exact, it's on the 18th this year. I'm not excited about it or anything, oh no. Just the food it brings. I spent the day in the kitchen today whipping up some lamb chops (which I now include photos!) and some pineapple tarts.


Making pineapple jam.


Making the tarts. Couldn't really decide on the shape. :P


Ready to bake!


Voila! Pineapple tarts!
That was so fun! Hehe. I didn't get to take a photo of the making of the pastry because my hands were all icky and greasy and I wouldn't taint my darling camera with greasy fingers! I improvised though because I don't have a cookie-cutter - I used the top of a glass. :x

It turned out pretty decent considering what I didn't have at my disposal (like a knack for baking!). So happy now. ^^

Everyone knows pineapple tarts are a must during Chinese New Year (well, the Malaysian and the Singaporean versions anyway). Super sweet and super calorific, oy!

Yum. Just raided my cupboards for random ingredients and had the best lamb chops ever (though I don't eat a lot of lamb chops). It was pretty easy to make and I noticed the lamb taste isn't too strong in this. I didn't actually measure anything though, hehe, so we're going by approximation. If you want to try it out, do the following:

Ingredients (approximates)
4-5 lamb chops
Ground black pepper
Dried mixed herbs
Chili powder
2 tbs lemon juice
3 tbs soya sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
5 tbs red wine vinegar
200ml pineapple juice (I used a packet of juice from concentrate)
3 cloves garlic, peeled
Bisto gravy granules

Method

1. Line a 9"x5" deep baking dish with tinfoil (not essential, but it makes cleaning up easier). Lay out lamb chops flat in the dish.
2. Rub the lamb chops with a generous amount of ground black pepper, dried mixed herbs and some chili powder (to taste).
3. Drizzle lemon juice, soya sauce, sesame oil, and red wine vinegar over the lamb chops. Drown the lamb chops in pineapple juice and pop in the garlic cloves to soak in the juice.
4. Cover the dish with tinfoil and put it in an oven at 150°C for approximately an hour (this is just to make sure it's thoroughly cooked but moist, because I don't want undercooked, bleeding, bleating lamb on my plate).
5. Remove the tinfoil cover, turn the lamb chops and raise the temperature to 200°C for approximately 30 minutes, until the liquid is reduced to half its original volume.
6. Pour the liquid out into a jug and mix in Bisto original gravy granules (I know, I cheat) to make the yummylicious gravy. At this point, you can either return the lamb chops dry into the oven to crisp the fat if you like it that way, or you can just trim off the fat if you're on a diet. Whichever way, when the lamb chops are done, put them on a plate and pour gravy over. Tadaa!
   
7. Enjoy in the barbaric, uncivilised way of eating with your fingers. Or serve with steamed vegetables for the healthier option.
   

You can do all of that in a slow-cooker as well, but the times will vary, of course. :) But the timings probably need tweaking anyway since this is the first time I've made it and I probably overcooked it, to be honest... but I've suffered so much from undercooked lamb chops in the past that I'm not taking any chances. Hehe. I imagine the meat will be a lot more tender slow-cooked. :)