Oatmeal and Buttermilk Muffins

Super yummy and health for breakfast. You can even prepare it a day or two in advance and pop it in the oven on a busy morning before going to work.

Makes 12 muffins:

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup buttermilk (if you can't find buttermilk, you can substitute this with 1 cup milk and 1 tbsp vinegar or lemon juice and let stand for 10 minutes)

1/2 cup butter at room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed firmly

1 egg

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1/4 cup walnuts or raisins (optional)

1. In a bowl, combine the oats and buttermilk and leave to soak for 1 hour (I leave mine for 45 minutes)

2. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan

3. Preheat the oven 400F

4. With an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

5. Beat in the egg

6. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt

7. Stir into the butter mixture, alternate with the oat mixture. Fold in the raisins/ walnuts. Do not overmix.

8. Flll the prepared cups 2/3 full.

9. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean, around 20 to 25 minutes.

10. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Whole Wheat Pasta with Mushroom

This recipe is care of Yummy Magazine August 2007 edition. I'm telling you, I love this magazine. I just used whole wheat spaghettini rather than penne pasta and modified it a bit. It tastes fantastic!!! Meatless meal!

You can also lessen the mushrooms depending on how you want your sauce. I love them with a lot of mushrooms. :-)

Whole Wheat Spaghettini with Mushrooms
(serves 4)

340 g. Whole wheat spaghettini
Reserved water from cooked pasta
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of margarine (or olive oil)
1/2 cup of fresh button mushrooms, sliced
1 cup oyster mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup shitake mushroomes, sliced
1 can Campbell's cream of mushroom soup
1 cup all-purpose cream (if you want to be extra-healthy, you can probably do away with using just a 1/2 cup of cream)
salt and pepper
Grated Parmesan Cheese

1. Cook the pasta based on package directions
2. Saute garlic in butter.
3. Add mushrooms. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes to bring out the flavor and soften the button mushrooms.
4. Add the all-purpose cream and cream of mushroom.
5. Let it simmer. Use the water used in cooking the pasta if you want a thinner sauce.
6. Toss in the pasta or serve with the sauce on top.
7. Put parmesan cheese on top! Enjoy!

Thai Garlic Pork

Using the Mc Cormick Thai Garlic Pork mix made it so much easier to prepare this dish. To make it tastier though, I made some adjustments to the recipe and added some vegetables for Ed and my Dad.

I cooked it for a Saturday lunch with Ed and a chicken version the next day for my family. They loved the spicy kick and the coconut milk flavor! Instant hit with my siblings and my mom. My dad needed to adjust to the hot/ spiciness of the flavor though. :-) Ed, could not stop raving about it.

Thai Garlic Pork

1 pack of Mc Cormick Thai Garlic Pork Mix
1 cup coconut milk (I used the Carnation coco evap. Pretty good taste.)
1/2 lb. pork (menudo cut)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 tbsp. crushed garlic
1 medium green bell pepper julienned
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup of string beans
spinach

1. Dissolve the Mc Cormick Thai Garlic Pork Mix in the coconut milk. Set aside.
2. Brown pork in vegetable oil.
3. Remove pork from pan and set aside the pork fat and oil.
4. Pour 3 tbsp of used oil (pork fat and oil used in browning pork) in a pan and brown the garlic and green bell pepper.
5. Add the pork and mix. Let the garlic flavor mix with the pork for 5 to 10 minutes.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Pour in the mix. Simmer until the sauce thickens.
8. Add the string beans and spinahc. Simmer for 5 to 8 minutes.
9. Best served with steaming white rice.

Enjoy! :-)

Spanish Sardines Pasta with Quezo de Bola

A quick and easy dish to put together. Not wanting to go out for lunch, I put this together after I rummaged through my fridge for left-overs from the holidays. Too bad I wasn't able to take a photo.

Ingredients:
1/4 pack of Angel Hair Pasta
1 tbsp. crushed garlic
1/2 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 bottle of Spanish Sardines in Olive oil (hot and spicy)
1/4 tsp basil leaves
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup of grated queso de bola
Olive oil to drizzle

a. Cook the pasta based on package directions.
b. Using olive oil, cook the garlic until brown. Add the Spansih Sardines, crushing the meat and the fish bone.
c. Put the basil leaves, salt and pepper.
d. Cook for 8 minutes.
e. Pour the Spanish sardines on the pasta. Drizzle with grated Quezo de Bola
Tip: I normally drizzle a bit of olive oil on the pasta before adding the sauce to give the pasta more flavor.