Prep time: 5 mins

 

Cook time: 10 mins

 

Total time: 15 mins

     Author: Layla

 

Serves: 8-10 small pancakes

1. Ingredients

• 2 medium ripe banana
• 2 medium eggs
• Butter or oil, for the pan
  
  
• - Optional extras:
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder (for fluffy pancakes)
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla
• pinch of cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder or protein powder
• ½ cup chopped nuts, chocolate chips or fresh berries
• Syrup for topping

2. Instructions

1. Peel the banana and break it up into several big chunks in a bowl. gently mash the bananas into smaller chunks using a fork. Add the eggs to the mashed bananas and stir with the fork until you have a custard like consistency. The batter will be runny and should have a few clumps of bananas. (optional: add ¼ teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon vanilla, pinch of cinnamon, 1 tablespoon coco-powder)
   
   
2. Heat a griddle over medium heat and Melt a about ¼ teaspoon of butter into the pan. Drop the batter on hot griddle: Drop roughly 2 tablespoons of batter onto the hot griddle. This would be a good time to add the nuts, chocolate chips or berries if desired.
3. Cook for 1 minutes or until the bottoms look browned and golden when you lift a corner.
4. Gently flip the pancakes and cook for another minute on the other side.Transfer the cooked pancakes to a serving plate and continue cooking the rest of the batter.
5. Serve Pancakes warm; they are best when eaten fresh off the griddle and still warm. Serve with maple syrup, honey, or any extra toppings .

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Shrimp, tomato, and spinach pasta in garlic butter sauce

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

1. Ingredients

• 1 pound fresh shrimp, uncooked, shelled and deveined
• 5 medium tomatoes, fresh, chopped into large cubes
• 1 cup cooked spinach
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 or 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 small lemon
• salt
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (or more)
• paprika
• 10 oz fettuccine pasta
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated, for serving

2. Instructions

Shrimp, fresh tomato, and spinach with fettuccine pasta in garlic butter sauce – a delicious Italian pasta dish and a great way to use up a bunch of fresh tomatoes you might have sitting around in your kitchen.

In this recipe, the tomatoes are only slightly cooked, preserving their freshness and shape. Combined with garlic and butter sauce, spinach, and shrimp seasoned with paprika and crushed red pepper, this pasta dish became a favorite in my household and disappeared from the skillet pretty fast as everybody went for seconds. And, it’s so easy to make!

First, you saute fresh shrimp in garlic, butter, and olive oil, until just pink on both sides (the shrimp will still be undercooked but it will continue cooking later). Sprinkle the shrimp generously with salt and paprika, as you’re cooking it. The shrimp will smell and look so good, you will be tempted to eat half of it before even finishing up this recipe!   Don’t be like me and resist the temptation!

Then, you add chopped fresh tomatoes and cooked spinach, together with more garlic and crushed red pepper. Mix everything well and remove from heat (while you cook the pasta).  You don’t want to overcook the shrimp and tomatoes – they will continue cooking in the next step.

When pasta is cooked, rinsed with cold water and drained, add pasta to the skillet, along with some lemon juice and more butter. Season with salt and red pepper flakes and heat the dish, constantly stirring, until shrimp is cooked through and all ingredients are heated through:

Right before serving, top with grated Parmesan cheese:

Yield: 4 servings

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Roasted Garlic Recipe

Years ago a friend of mine showed me how to roast garlic whole and eat the warm, toasty cloves right out of the head. How wonderfully simple! And perfect for garlic lovers.

Roasting garlic changes the chemical makeup of the garlic so that it’s easier to digest. You can eat a lot more garlic if it is completely cooked, with fewer side effects than you would get from eating raw garlic. 

Eat the caramelized roasted cloves directly out of the heads, or add them to pasta dishes, mash them up and spread them over toast, or mix them with sour cream for a dip. If you are sensitive to raw garlic, you may find that you can much more easily eat roasted garlic.

Roasted Garlic Recipe

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•  " Prep time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: 30 minutes

>> Ingredients

One or more whole heads of garlic.

>> Method

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (205° C). (A toaster oven works great for this.)

2. Peel and discard the papery outer layers of the whole garlic bulb, leaving intact the skins of the individual cloves of garlic. Using a sharp knife, cut 1/4 to a 1/2 inch from the top of cloves, exposing the individual cloves of garlic.

3. Place the garlic heads in a baking pan, cut side up. (A muffin pan works great for this, as it keeps the garlic bulbs from rolling around.) Drizzle a couple teaspoons of olive oil over each exposed head, using your fingers to rub the olive oil over all the cut, exposed garlic cloves. Cover the bulb with aluminum foil. Bake at 400°F (205°C) for 30-35 minutes, or until the cloves feel soft when pressed.

4. Allow the garlic to cool enough so you can touch it without burning yourself. Use a small small knife cut the skin slightly around each clove. Use a cocktail fork or your fingers to pull or squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins.

Eat as is (I love straight roasted garlic) or mash with a fork and use for cooking. Can be spread over warm French bread, mixed with sour cream for a topping for baked potatoes, or mixed in with Parmesan and pasta.

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Easy Stromboli

Y’all, I’m super excited to share this ridiculously easy and amazingly delicious recipe!  I’ll admit the flavors even surprised me with this one.

I just love stromboli – the crispy crust, the gooey cheese!  There’s a great local joint that makes my absolute favorite!  But I’m not always in the mood to go out (or to spend that kind of money).  Making this stromboli at home is so easy.  The best part is you can customize it with your favorite toppings.  In this version, I used pepperoni, Italian sausage, and cheese, but you could use nearly whatever you want – olives, ham, onions, peppers, mushrooms, etc, etc.  Just keep in mind that the more you add, the longer the cook time will be and you risk the crust getting a bit soggy by adding too many veggies.  Do what you wish, though… I’m just warning you. 

It all starts with a can of this THIN CRUST pizza dough.  It really needs to be the thin crust kind.  Did I mention thin crust? 

Line a large baking sheet with parchment.  Yes, this is important because it’ll help you roll it up once everything’s on there.  You can also use a silicone baking mat, if you have one.  Then open the dough, unroll it, and stretch it thin.

Next, top it with the sauce.  I recommend you leave about a 1/2 inch gap around the edges.

Top with pepperoni.  See my little photobomber there…    He just loves helping me in the kitchen.  He arranged all of that pepperoni on there all by himself.  He told me to tell y’all that.  

Next, add the sausage and whatever other toppings you might like.

Top with the cheese…

And roll it up.  Start with one side and use the parchment to help you roll it over…

And over…

Then arrange it back in the center of your parchment with the seam side down.  It doesn’t have to be pretty.  Cut about 5 or 6 small slits in the top to let the steam out and to help get the crust cooked through.  Then bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until deep golden brown.  Serve hot with some extra pizza sauce for dipping!   And there you have it!  Y’all enjoy!

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Creamy Garlic Chicken

Creamy Garlic Chicken – crazy delicious skillet chicken with creamy garlic sauce. Perfect with pasta and dinner is ready in 20 mins.

Happy June! I am counting down to our big trip back to Malaysia, 8 days from now precisely. I have a ton of things to do before then; one of the most important things is to use up all the ingredients I have accumulated in my fridge and pantry—a ton of garlic, lots of frozen chicken, leftover chicken broth, plain yogurt, half bottle of white wine, etc.

Sometimes, the most random ingredients pair so flawlessly together, and this is exactly how this amazing and absolutely scrumptious creamy garlic chicken was concocted. The recipe is inspired by this rustic chicken with garlic gravy recipe, but I used yogurt to make the creamy sauce.

For the chicken, I used skin-on chicken thighs, but I deboned the thighs. This will ensure that you get the best of the chicken thighs: moist, tender, crispy on the bottom but not dry, with skin and without bones. This is similar to how I made my chili lime chicken and chipotle lime chicken. That’s the way go to with chicken thighs, trust me on that – deboned and skin-on!

This is a super easy skillet chicken recipe, but I finished it off with 1 minute broiling in the oven to give the chicken skin a little chars, which is an optional step. This creamy garlic chicken is delightful with some pasta, and they are done in about 20 minutes. Bon appetit!

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This Chicken Shawarma is off the charts for effort vs output. Just a handful of everyday spices, a splash of olive oil and squeeze of lemon transform into the most incredible flavour.  It’s a sure-fire crowd pleaser for even the fussiest of eaters!

This is the next instalment in my “Arabian Feast” series! This is my “go to” main dish when I’m entertaining for large groups because whether you’re making it for 4 or 40, it takes 5 minutes to prepare the marinade for the chicken then I leave the men to take charge of the grill while I sip wine with the girls.

“The chicken takes 5 minutes to prepare, whether you are making it for 4 or 40.”

I have a theory that a lot of people love the flavours of Middle Eastern food but are not sure how to combine spices to achieve the aromatic flavour that is so unique to the region. It always surprises me when I make a Middle Eastern dish that I usually have most of the ingredients in my pantry and all I need is to get the fresh produce. But thinking it through, it makes sense because the spices that are most commonly used in Middle Eastern dishes are spices like coriander, cumin, cinnamon and paprika which are pantry essentials in most households (I think).

So I think Chicken Shawarma is a great example of Middle Eastern dish that showcases how a handful of everyday ingredients can be combined together for an incredible flavour that smells and tastes so exotic!

I can no longer find the blog from which I sourced the original recipe about 7 years or so ago. The original recipe required “Grill Seasoning” which differs depending on where you live (and even brand to brand) so I made adjustments to exclude it. That way the spice rub will produce a consistent flavour.

Because the chicken has so much flavour and if you use thigh fillets as I do, then it will be nice and juicy as well so you won’t need a sauce on the side. But I have provided a Yoghurt Sauce in the recipe which is my standard sauce I use for most Middle Eastern dishes I make.

I like to serve this with flatbreads and a simple salad (like this Shredded Red Cabbage Carrot Salad which is pictured). Usually I use the flatbreads to make wraps (DIY style – I lay it all out on a platter).

This recipe is part of an Arabian Feast I recently made. 7 dishes that took 1 hour to prepare – 3 starters, 2 meat dishes (including this Chicken Sharwarma ) plus 2 salads (including the red cabbage salad pictured). I’ll be doing a post on the menu soon but here’s a little preview for you!

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Brownie in a Mug

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Oh my. We’re doomed. My young friends Reilly and Alden just showed me how they make single serving brownies, in a mug, in a microwave. Takes 5 minutes.

We did experiment a bit. Turns out that you really should not use extra virgin olive oil for this recipe, it’s too strongly flavored. Corn oil or canola oil work best. A pinch of salt helps make the chocolate more chocolate-y. I’ve added some vanilla and a tiny bit of cinnamon; you could also add a speck of instant coffee to take it up a notch.

The brownie lacks for structure (no egg) but that’s okay because it’s contained by the mug. When it’s done, it’s HOT. Perfect for topping with a little vanilla ice cream or whipping cream. The trick is getting the cooking time right for your microwave. Every microwave oven model is different.

Our 1000 watt microwave cooked these brownies in a mug perfectly at a minute 40 seconds. If you have a stronger microwave it will likely take less time. Enjoy!

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CINNAMON CREAM CHEESE COFFEE CAKE

How great is coffee cake? There aren’t that many cakes that can justifiably be eaten at any time of day. While we may not always need an excuse to eat cake for breakfast, it’s nice to do so with a tad less guilt sometimes.

This particular coffee cake is a slight twist on the traditional with the addition of a cream cheese swirl. All the things we love about coffee cake are still there — cinnamon, nuts, crumb topping. There just happens to be some cream cheese goodness swirled into it the delicate cake to take it to new levels of fabulousness.

Don’t be put off by the long-ish recipe. This is really far quicker and easier to put together than it appears. You will go through a lot of measuring spoons, bowls, and such, so make sure your dishwasher is ready for that. But, once you take a bite, you’ll know it was worth every dirty bowl

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