Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Peel - How To Remove Egg Shells in a Jiffy

Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Peel - How To Remove Egg Shells in a Jiffy: I used to spend hours removing the shells from the hard boil eggs and very often I took off most of the egg white with the shells...

Easy Peel - How To Remove Egg Shells in a Jiffy

I used to spend hours removing shells from the hard boil eggs and very often I took off most of the egg white with the shells or sometimes dropped a whole lot of broken shells into my egg salads. Finally I learned a way to do it easily from watching one of those 'kitchen hacks' and bravo, this has saved me so much frustration! 

Method:-

Make sure you are able to hold the hard boiled eggs without burning your fingers. Gently crack the bottom on the wide end of the egg, remove some shells to make a small opening and gently slide a dessert spoon under the skin lining. Push the spoon and rotate the spoon at the same time following the contour of the egg until the tip of the spoon reaches the pointy part of the egg. Then remove the shell as a piece and rinse the egg of any tiny shell residues. There you have a nice peeled hard boiled egg! Enjoy! Photo courtesy, my dearest hubby, Erik.

Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Sandwiches - Egg Salad Sandwich

Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Sandwiches - Egg Salad Sandwich: My friend, Ruth, came for a gathering and liked the egg salad sandwich that was served. This is fairly easy to make except for peelin...

Easy Sandwiches - Egg Salad Sandwich

My friend, Ruth, came for a gathering and liked the egg salad sandwich that was served. This is fairly easy to make except for peeling the egg shells. I will post how to peel off the egg shells in a jiffy in another post. The ingredients that add a kick to the egg salad are the fresh chives and mustard powder. If you don't have them on hand, you may do without and add finely diced spring onions instead. 

Egg salad

Ingredients:-

Fresh bread or toasts, your favorite (can be any kind)

Some butter at room temperature (for spreading on bread or toasts)

9 large hard boiled eggs

4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives

1/2 teaspoon sea salt 

4 tablespoons mayonnaise

1/4 teaspoon mustard powder

Dash of coarse ground black pepper

Method:-

Remove shells from eggs. Place in a large mixing bowl. Mash eggs with a fork and add chopped chives,sea salt, mayonnaise, mustard powder and black pepper. Mix well and spread on buttered toasts or fresh sandwich bread.

Cut and serve. Enjoy this with your friends or family over a cuppa mocha or green tea and have a nice chat and lots of laughters!

Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Chicken Rub

Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Chicken Rub: We used to enjoy buying roast chickens from our local supermarket, but after a little while, we found that they are too salt...

Easy Chicken Rub

We used to enjoy buying roast chickens from our local supermarket, but after a little while, we found that they are too salty. To satisfy our cravings for the roast chicken, I decided to experiment with this and from the first time on, this has become Erik's and my two boys' favorite. Normally I would buy fresh herbs, rinse and dry them and use them to make my own rubs. My neighbor has a tarragon plant that grows all over the place and even over to my garden. Instead of throwing them out when I cut them down, I would pick all the tender leaves, dry them and store them in a glass jar to be used for this rub.

This recipe is sufficient for one whole chicken, which I usually cut into half to speed up the baking time.

Rub Ingredients:-

All ingredients are dry ingredients

1 teaspoon crushed rosemary
1 teaspoon ground sage
1 teaspoon crushed tarragon
1 teaspoon sumac
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder (not garlic salt)
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons tumeric powder
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 tablespoon onion powder (not onion salt)

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F. 

Place all the ingredients (except the chicken) in a bowl and mix to combine. Transfer into a shaker and shake all over dressed chicken. Place chicken on a lined baking tray and bake in pre-heated oven until juices run clear. Remove from oven and tent chicken by covering it loosely with an aluminium foil and letting it sit for 15 minutes. Drain the chicken fat and reserve the remaining juices for dipping or use as gravy for the chicken.

Enjoy it with your friends and family and have a nice chat over dinner! Left overs can be used for chicken salad. Don't waste :)

Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Balsamic Vinaigrette

Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Balsamic Vinaigrette: Yvonne wanted this recipe after trying it on a simple salad I made. This vinaigrette recipe was adapted from Emeril Lagasse's. ...

Easy Balsamic Vinaigrette

Yvonne wanted this recipe after trying it in a simple salad I made. This vinaigrette recipe was adapted from Emeril Lagasse's.

Easy Balsamic Vinaigrette

Ingredients:-

1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh garlic

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

3/4 cup pure olive oil

Method:-

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and whisk with wire whisk to combine. Drizzle over your favorite vegetable salad. You may make a big batch by proportionately increasing all the ingredients and store covered in a glass jar in the fridge. Eat healthy and enjoy your salads!

Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Custard Tart

Joanne's Easy Bake: Easy Custard Tart: As usual, my friends are the most supportive of my inventions. Thanks to Grace, Daniel, Ruth, Raymond, Mei, Yvonne and Hok Man for being...

Easy Custard Tart (requires no baking)

As usual, my friends are the most supportive of my inventions. Thanks to Grace, Daniel, Ruth, Raymond, Mei, Yvonne and Hok Man for being the guinea pigs! They devoured almost the whole plate and left a little for me and Erik for our lunch the next day. I am glad they liked it! This tart requires no baking and that's the best part!

Easy Custard Tart

Ingredients:-

Tart Base (A)

2 cups rushed Oreo crumbs

1/8 cup melted unsalted butter

Custard Filling (B)

1-3/4 cups + 1/4 cup skim milk1/3 cup + 1/4 cup granulated sugar1/4 cup all purpose flour6 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla essence1/8 cup unsalted butter (cubed) at room temperature8 oz or 1 cup or 227gm mascarpone cheese at room temperature

Toppings (C)
2 cups fresh strawberries (washed, hulled and halved)2 pints fresh blue berries (rinsed and dried)

Method:-

To prepare tart base (A)

Place all ingredients (A) in a food processor and pulse it twice or in a large bowl and mix well with a wooden spoon. Pour crumbs on to a tart plate and pat crumbs with finger to cover the bottom and sides of plate. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in the fridge until custard is ready and chilled.

To make custard filling (B)

Place 1-3/4 cups milk and 1/3 cup sugar into a medium sized saucepan and heat over medium heat until milk comes to just about to boil, stirring occasionally.In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolks with 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup flour until there is no lump.Once milk is about to boil, remove saucepan from heat and whisk in egg mixture.Return saucepan to heat and cook over medium heat until mixture thickens and comes to boil, whisking continuously. Continue to stir for another one to two minutes until mixture thickens.Remove from heat. Add vanilla and butter. Whisk to combine and until custard is smooth. Cover with a plastic wrap immediately and let it cool. When it is cold enough, place custard in the fridge to cool until custard is thick. Meanwhile, whisk mascarpone cheese until it is smooth in a separate bowl by just using a wire whisk. Add mascarpone cheese to cold custard and whisk until smooth. Set aside to chill in the fridge again until ready to use.

To Assemble

Remove chilled custard and tart plate from fridge and pour custard over the prepared tart base (A). Spread and smooth out the custard and place toppings (C) on top of custard. Decorate as you wished. Serve chilled. Enjoyed by 10 of us with a little left over!