2010 Christmas

Melanie (sister-in-law) was hosted Christmas in 2008, and it’s nice to host this year in our new flat in Leeds. It’s like our Chinese New Year and everyone was so busy to prepare food, gifts and the Christmas mood.

I was in charge of all the food except the Christmas Turkey and dessert. Paul (future Brother-in-law) brought a really nice organic turkey and it tasted so good. John was in charge of pudding, and he decided he made the rich chocolate truffle tote. After a big meal, we had a walk, then played a game. We had a fabulous Christmas in our house.

Christmas is always about family, food and laugh. Hope you had a good Christmas as well.

Killer Jerk Chicken with Rice & been

I always try to make some good quality food at the weekend. Followed Jamie Oliver’s 30 minutes meal’s book, I tried to make ‘Killer Jerk Chicken‘ with kidney bean rice, salad, lime coriander yogurt sauce, and BBQ sweet corn this time. I like Jamaica or Caribbean food – all about spice and different flavours.

It was not really difficult to make, and it was really delicious. I am sure if I can make it, anyone can as well. I think the kidney been or black been rice was so delicious. I always know about normal rice, but with little bit herb and spice, the rice was so full of flavour and alive – absolutely delicious.

Served with my favourite Hoegaarden cold beer, happy day ever!

Grill Beef Fillet with Small Aubergine

I brought a fantastic beautiful Scottish beef fillet from the market, and I really wanted to make it simple, but tasty. I cut it into small pieces, then cooked it each side for a minute in a hot grill pan with simple black pepper and salt. At the end, splashed a half lemon or lime juice on top, then add a little bit coriander and chilly (optional) Job done. Simple but true beauty! The beef was melt into your mouth and tasty incredible.

I chose Strawberry Ice Cream dessert for tonight, simple but fatty!!! Sometimes lady needed a special treat.

Home-made Italian Salami Pizza

Since we bought the panasonic SD-257 bread machine, and used to make all kind of bread. It’s a good purchase because we eat bread so often. It is incredible to use and you can enjoy fresh bread every day. We wanted to try to make some pizza bread, then we made our own pizza with delicious Italian Ham and salami, and home-made tomato chilly sauce. It turned out so pretty and delicious.

It’s 100% home-made with fresh ingredients and it encouraged us to do it more in the future. I do like cooking and spoil myself with a lot of good food.

Home-made gorgeous bread

John ordered a recipes book how to make bread from River Cottage because we always eat a lot of bread at home, so we thought, why don’t we make our own bread with nice organic flower and no any artificial ingredient.

As we are always focus on healthy and tasty food, so we try to home-baked and cook for every thing possible. At the weekend, we made our hands dirty and tried to kneed our own bread. First weekend, we tried to make the basic white bread – it turned out so great, and tasted even unbelievable as well. You can see it from the picture above.

Second weekend we made the brown bread with pumpkin seeds inside and outside. It looked very nice as well, but it was a heavy bread to eat. I am so happy the bread turned out so great and tasty. I think we will continually make our own bread and eat healthy.

We also will make our pasta sauce this weekend, because we cook Italian food so often, why not? Our next step for our life is to buy our own house and grow our own vegetable and herbs.

Our Home-made Pumpkin Pie

pecan_pumpkin_pie

John bought me a recipe book for a Christmas gift. It is one of my favorite chefs’ dessert book James Martin – from the TV series ‘Sweet Baby James’. Today we decided to make one of the recipes and picked the pumpkin pie with pecan. The hard part was making the pastry with pecan, but we did it well. It only cost us a few pounds for the ingredients, but it worths at least 10 pounds in the cafe. The pie looks so amazing and tastes great – it’s not too sweet, with a top layer that could easily melt into your mouth, and pastry is crunchy and tasty with the pecan. It is exactly perfect! We are so proud and pleased with our pie. Hope we will make it for you one day. Here are some pictures

自家做的果仁南瓜派

约翰圣诞节送给我最爱的厨师James Martin的甜品书叫“占慕士的甜宝贝“ (我自己翻译的)我们在广州明珠台看过他的这个甜点专辑。今天我们终于有时间做甜点,我们选择了容易做果仁南瓜派。最难做的是打底的馅饼皮,果仁和馅饼皮一起搓,然后加5种香料,南瓜,焦糖,双层奶然后放进炬炉45分钟,出来的效果超级专业,不甜不腻,外层柔软融入你口中,馅饼皮脆而有果仁味道。超级好吃!等大家来我们家做客我做给你们吃哦!照片吸引人吧?