Creamy pasta with brocoli and onion rings

It is winter and sometimes you feel like eating something warm and crispy. This is when the idea of making some deep-fried onion rings popped in my mind. This is easier to cook than I thought. I love the crunchy texture and the soft cooked onion in the middle. This is to definitely try.

ONION RINGS RECIPE

Ingredients:
1 large onion, sliced about 1cm thick

For the batter-
1/2  cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
1tsp dried parsley
1tsp garlic powder
1tsp paprika
1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (or panko)

Vegetable oil, for frying

Method:
1. Separate the onion rings from the sliced onions and dust with cornstarch. Make sure all the rings are well coated.
2. Prepare the batter by mixing all the batter ingredients. Whisk until there is no lumps.
3.As in a production line, place each onion rings in the wet batter, drain excess batter and then mix in with the breadcrumbs.
4. Heat oil, and make sure it is hot before frying the onions in batches for about 3 minutes or until golden and crispy.

 

These accompanied my bacon and mushroom pasta, and broccoli.

 

 

 

To finish off this indulgent dinner, we have, of course, some fruits - oranges, apples and kiwis.

Spiral pasta with corned beef

This is an old time favourite of the family. I personally like corned beef, it does make a tasty dish in my opinion. I am referring to the canned ones. I used to stir fry it with green peas before, when we were opting for quick and easy dish. Now since I am a lil more of an amateur cook, I am going for slightly more complicated meals. Complicating my life yes. So I cooked it with pasta. To make it balanced, I added a grated carrot and zucchini. This is absolutely delicious. If you would prefer a creamier version, I would advise eating it with avocado. A total winner.

 

Pasta carbonara

Omigosh. 100th post. Wow. Just realised this. *cheers*

Back to posting, I reckon that this week has been on really simple and quick dishes. I will continue on this trend with an easy carbonara plate. Mind me, I used thick cream instead of the readily made sauce in the jars. So basically cook onion, garlic and your bacon. Bacon flavour is just so nice. Then add the mushroom, and vegetables (I used grated zucchini to make this a more complete dish). After this add the cream. Season with pepper and salt and parsley. Pour onto your cooked pasta and mix to coat. Serve with parmesan cheese.

 

Tuna pasta bake

I love pasta. Last week I made tuna pasta bake which is a great dish I must admit. Easy to make. So simple and of course delicious.  For my recipe I used zucchini. So basically, I cook some garlic, onion together. Add the zucchini and button mushroom. Then mix in tuna, cream and finally the corn. Season with pepper and salt. Sprinkle with parsley, basil, any herb you like. That’s it. Then fold in a baking dish. Top with grated cheese and breadcrumbs. Spray with cooking oil and pop into the oven for 15 minutes at 180 degrees or until cheese is melted and golden.  Let rest and dig in. I like the sweetness that comes from the corn. Well all you have to do now is to try it.

Pasta bolognese

Alright I know we are having a lot of pasta lately but it's alright. Pasta bolognese is one of the simplest and yummiest dish ever. I always add carrots and mushroom (button/canned) with my sauce, way to turn it into a healthier option. Carrot is in fact. one of the sweetest vegetable. So adding it to this sauce gives it a sweet flavour which goes well altogether.

I kind of mixed everything, instead of putting the sauce on top, resulting in a melange-tout.

Pesto Pasta

Today I made basil pesto pasta. It was actually my first time making a pesto. I recently saw the dish on Masterchef class and it appeared to be such a simple and tasty dish, that I was driven me to recreate the recipe. Since I had all ingredients on hand, the only thing left was to cook it.
I think the pesto gives such a nice flavour with the pine nuts. I only discovered that nut recently and it tastes wonderful. Anyway, have a look at the pictures:

My pesto

On the plate

Unfortunately I believe I cooked too much pasta, so the colour get lost in the mixture. Nevertheless, it is a lovely dish.

Bacon Zucchina Pasta bake and Pumpkin Gratin

Last week, I was high and pumped on baking. I decided to make a pasta bake and pumpkin gratin. It seems like zucchini and pumpkin are in season. I can see them everywhere, in  markets and supermarket, which is great because you can create so many dishes with those nice vegetables. As a side note, I finally decided I like eating pumpkin and zucchini. Believe me or not I was not a great 'veggie-eater' before. I had the strangest thought that I would never taste pumpkin because it looks eww to me (seriously).  Anyway gone is this thought. Now I realise what I have been missing. I like that sweet taste and softness when cooked. I like zucchini, they have that great flavour and goes so well with anything.

So I decided to make that pasta bake using the recipe from healthyfoodguide.com.. I used spiral macaroni. I top it with cheddar cheese and bits of feta cheese. Surprisingly I ended up with two dish instead of one, which I am not to complain about because it was really yummy, cheesy and creamy. A definite like.

My pumpkin gratin was good. The only hiccup was that I did not let the pumpkin tender enough. So my gratin  ended having little chunks of pumpkin.

Pre-oven, not yet topped with cheese

Baked :)

Dinner at Tony Roma's

Alright since I feel like posting right now, I will continue on my spur. Yesterday I had dinner at Tony Roma's with my friends. It was my first time there.

What can I say. First, it was a Saturday night and yes it was busy. We had to wait like thirty minutes before getting a table. Wondering if it was worth the wait because it seems like a popular restaurant. It is meant to be well-known for its ribs.

As starter, we had the Roma sampler, which is a mix of potato skins, fire wings and fried onion rings.
Well, in my opinion it was not worth the price ($27.50). Taste-wise,  it was okay but to be honest it was nothing extraordinary.

For main course, my friends and I shared the chicken caprese linguine pasta and original baby back ribs

The ribs tasted beautiful and the pasta good. 

My verdict is that the dish are too overpriced for the size (at least for me). It is a place where I will go only once in a while.

Pasta Dish

One of the simplest thing to cook like ever should be pasta. Surely, it does not require great skills to put up a plate, edible and tasty one.
I like bolognese pasta or carbonara sauce. It's simple and filling.

The most recent one we cook is that one (see picture). This was quite a troublesome day in the kitchen. This makes me remind to say that we should always prepare before cooking; I'm obviously taking about having the right ingredients before hand! The original plan was to use the 'readily-made' bolognese sauce as they are mostly handy. However, we did not have any (and realised this only too late *sigh*). So we had to improvise and made use of what we had on hand. We therefore use a 'normal' tomato puree tin and mixed them with herbs. Added with it mushroom and avocado.
It turns out to be a hasty but edible dish hehe. A success :)

Easy pasta dish

The other day, I had no idea what I would have for lunch and I saw we had this instant pasta ready to cook. This seemed to be a perfect dish. We had the mushroom flavour and you know I like mushrooms so much. I just add a grated carrot to it and it was just ready to eat. Yum