Chicken Mulligatawny Steam Buns

Have you seen Anna the Reds Bento blog? She is absolutely amazing. I could stare at her creations all day long. One of the recipes of hers that I swear by is her steamed pork buns.
I've tried them before with beef and pork and both times were a slam dunk. This time I decided to take photo's to show you how they are made. You can get the recipe HERE.
I prefer the yeast version dough its more moist and fluffy and has a great texture.

For this set I decided to get creative and make a chicken filling based loosely on the flavors of chicken mulligatawny soup.
Filling ingredients are :
shredded chicken
garlic
mushrooms
cabbage
2 small organic apples very finelly chopped
I put all these into my processor and zapped them so it has a very fine texture

I also did 1 portion of sauce to doubled dough and filling on the recipe.
The last time I made these I felt the sauce was a little to strong and overpowered the flavors of the filling. This portion was perfect for us and had the best flavor.

I made my filling while the dough was rising and then left both with covered talls until the dough was ready.

You cut your dough into portions I roll up a piece in my hand into a ball then lay it on the cutting board or counter and poud it with the lower palm of my hand until you have a flat circle.

Put about a table spoon of filling, or as much as you want in the center of your flattened circle.
You can be somewhat liberal with it because you do stretch the dough over it.

Then gently tug up the outer edge of the circle up and around the filling making a little pocket.

Once all the outer edge is up grab it and pinch the sides together. I do it from two direction so that you is extra secure. This will hold your filling inside.

You then using your hands round it into nice little bun ball shapes. I like to place mine with the pinched edge down. Don't they look fabulous! (don't mind the ugly seventies style plate)

Set up your double boiler for steaming and put a circle of wax or parchment paper on the bottom to help keep the buns from sticking to the pan. Place the buns in the pan close together, cover and steam.

Once they are done steaming take them out and they are ready to be served and devoured. They should have raised in size and become fluffy with a almost chewy like texture to them.

TASTY! Try your own and have fun with the filling. You could pretty much do this with any meat vegi filling you like. I've even done them with just chunks of cheese in the middle (my husband loved) and it tastes great with cheddar!

Stuffed Jalapeno Poppers

Okay so we are blessed to live a block from a little nursery owned by a cute old man and his wife that live across the street. He is a farmer and often will sell their fresh produce at the nursery for very cheap. Everything is garden grown and organic and absolutely amazing to taste. A while back they had these jalapeno's there and I had to buy some. I myself am not a huge fan of jalapenos except in one way (jalapeno poppers!) but my husband loves them. So I made them into stuffed jalapeno poppers, and now you can too! It's rather easy just a bit of prep involved.

you will need
Jalapenoes- I did 10 to try it out
tomato
cream cheese
garlic
rose mary
good dipping glass of milk
bowl with flour
bowl with crumbs of your choice

Aren't these just lovely. The red one turned out to be super spicy and I don't think it was actually an jalapeno, ooops.
Step 1: rinse the jalapenos thoroughly slice up the side and trying not to split it in half scoop out all the innards. I also rinsed the inside to make sure to get out all the seeds.

Step 2: put cream chease in a bowl and microwave for 1 minute to soften it. Mix your chopped up tomato (mine was an orange tomato from the nursery that i put in my kitchen aid and blitzed, I lOVE YOU KITCHEN AID) with some chopped up garlic and herbs. Mix well.
Step 3: Assemble your station, jalapenos, bowl of filling, cup with milk for dipping, bowl with flour, and a seperate bowl with the crumbs.

all nice and lined up

Here is everything laid out and ready for assembly.

Step 4: Take a pepper and scoop the filling into the cavity inside. I was pretty liberal with it because i really liked the filling.

Step 5: Dip the pepper holding it by the step into the glass of milk and then roll it in bowl of flour until it is completely coated.
Step 6: Then again holding it by the stem dip in the milk again and roll in the crumbs until it is liberally coated. Then lay them out in the pan and let them dry. If you like a thicker crust you can do step 5 and 6 2 or 3 times to build up a thicker layer of the coating.
Step 7: Heat up some oil in a pot for frying these babies. Do not set the oil too high. Above you can see my first burnt version. The oil was way too hot. Take them out of the oil put on a plate and serve with your fav meal or eat as a snack. They can also be frozen and heated in the oven or microwave later.

We served ours up with some quesadilla's and man were they tasty!

Put a nice grin on the mans face! As he enjoys home made Jalapeno Poppers!

Biscuit follow up

The left over biscuits went fast as the next day we made these beauties for lunch.
They were absolutely to die for with turkey, fresh romaine, and organic tomatoes from a local farm. All with a spread of brie cheese !
Bon Appettite!

Happy Birthday to me! ....um belated lol

As you can see I've had many posts saved up over the summer and never got the time to post them. Now that Autumn is on its way things have slowed down a bit and I can catch up.

So my birthday was actually August 30th. For my birthday my awesome sister got me this Gothic birthday cake. Both me and my husband love Gothic things that are reminiscent of Victorian or "Interview with the Vampire"
So it was hilarious and gorgeous to see this come out of the box.

Done in a wonderful whipped frosting since I tend to find butter cream a little to thick and heavy for my taste.

One last lovely picture of the beauty. I loved the art on it so much I almost wanted to cringe cutting into it. Glad we did though cause the cake was delicious!

Learning to make Biscuits

So during this summers fun me and my cousin bubbles decided to surprise my husband with a home made squash soup and biscuits. If you noticed a recurring theme on this blog it's squash. My husband absolutely adores squash and pumpkins in just about any form of food.

When I was a child I loved cooking and baking with my mother and also my grandmothers. It is what sowed the seeds of my love of being in the kitchen.
It was so cool to instead of be standing beside my mother learning from her to find myself teaching my sister and cousin this summer. In some ways surreal to see myself saying or doing the same things that were said to me when I was little.

It really was enjoyable. I highly suggest if you've been nervous about teaching baking or cooking to your children to try it. To see the joy they have at seeing what they can make with their own hands and the joy of seeing others enjoying the treats they made is priceless!

Plus doesn't she look just darling wearing my Apron!!!

The funnest part for her was getting to handle the dough and roll it out. We used just a basic biscuit recipe that is in my great grandmother's recipe book.

Tenn. Home Biscuits Recipe
by, Deborah Lund

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. baking powder
4 tbsp. butter or margarine or oil or shortening (lol basically whatever you have on hand. we used oil)
2/3 cups of milk or water (we used milk)

Mix dry ingredients first. Then add butter or which one you use, and use a fork to mash it and mix it in. Then add milk or water all at once and stir quickly by hand. Form into ball and knead only a couple of times. Then form into biscuits. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes.

It's a pretty simple recipe and yet dipped in the soup, or covered with honey butter or my personal favorite Nutella they are phenomenal.

Bubbles loved needing the dough and cut out all the biscuits herself.
Which turned out to be a good thing because hers turned out the perfect shape and size and mine always turn out lopsided.

See how nice and even hers looked.
While the biscuits were baking we worked on the soup.


Cream of Chicken and Squash Soup
by Angel Reid aka me

1/2 chicken or whatever meat you have on hand
1 squash (we used a butternut squash that was from an elderly gentleman's home garden)
2 potatoes
cornstarch or flour for thickening if you want i t
rosemary, parsley, and Bay leaves
1 cup of milk or cream
chicken or meat broth
half stick of butter


The day before on low I cooked the chicken in some water to make home made chicken stock. You could do this easily in a crock pot. Every so often I'd check to see how far down it boiled and add a little more water to it. After the chicken is well cooked i took it out and put it in the fridge to cool and use the next day.

The next day I halved the squash and scooped out the guts and seeds. Place it in a pan with a little water in the bottom and bake for about an hour at 350 degrees.

For the potatoes i just cooked them in the microwave for 4 or 5 minutes until soft because i was to lazy to bake or boil them.

When the squash is done you scoop the soft parts out of the rind, and put in the pot of stock, add the milk butter herbs, potatoes, and mash with a potato masher.

While that is simmering on medium on the stove, shred up the chicken you boiled earlier and chuck into the soup. I love how boiled chicken practically falls apart it shreds so easily. I also used fresh rosemary from a plant we have in our back yard. Let it simmer till everything is nice and hot stirring occasionally. If you like your soup thicker just add some cornstarch once its hot or flour to thicken it.


Oh look and the biscuits are done just as you finish with the soup! I love when things work out so perfectly! Don't they look delicious. We sprayed the tops with a little spray butter to get them nice and soft.

Tada shredded chicken squash soup with amazing biscuits.
Bubbles really did a fantastic job, and husband was super happy and surprised to come home to this hot and cozy meal.

DInner rolls and Roast Beast!

I have this cute cousin staying with me for the summer.

She was very excited to learn some things in the kitchen. She loved getting to wear my spare apron and even did much of the measuring, and mixing herself. She requested to learn to bake some kind of bread and make a nice dinner for my husband for when he gets home from work as.


So this materialized into our wonderful plan to make home made dinner rolls from scratch. She learned how to double a recipe, and knead dough properly.
Her favorite part was kneading the dough because she loved the feel of the flour on her hands.
(definitely related to me in that aspect!)

The rolls turned out fantastic and the family gobbled them all up within minutes.
There was definitely no leftovers.
Served with tasty rolls was roast beast (called that ever since we saw the grinch)
Steamed asparagus lightly oiled and salted, and some mashed potatoes with home made gravy. Don't forget the glass bottled mexican coke with cane sugar numnumnum.
A feast fit for our king aka The Hubby!

Muffins!

Home made muffins for a tasty fancy breakfast!

So okay maybe muffins aren't the fanciest, but for us cereal eating folks it counted.
I used a basic muffin recipe and then added some fresh raspberries that I had to the mix. We then served them with some frozen grapes which were refreshing!
I also used a large muffin pan so they'd be like the ones from Mimi's cafe. If you plan to do that you'll definitely want to double the recipe or even quadruple it so you have enough to make big fluffy muffins.

What don't you drink milk in wine glasses for fancy breakfast *lol*
We had lots of fun even if we are silly!