SALMON PASTA CASSEROLE

We love salmon, any way I cook it, we both love it.. the other day I saw a recipe on cooking.com, salmon cooked in casserole style, it caught my eyes and I was interested, so I tried it out, it tastes really good, a bit  different than regular casserole.. I rummaged my pantry and freezer and came up with this recipe..

Ingredient:
- 11/2 lbs of salmon fillet, boneless and scaled ( I let the skin on)
- 1/2 of lemon, juice it
- 1/2 cup of cooking wine or your favorite wine
- salt and pepper

For the casserole:
- 1 lbs of  Bow Tie pasta / Farfalle (you can use any kind of small pasta), cook following the instruction of the package, drain
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 stalks of celery, diced
- green and red bell pepper, diced
- 2 cans cream of mushroom soup
- 1 big tomato, coarsely chopped
- scallion or other herbs, finely chopped
- salt and pepper to taste
- variety of your favorite cheeses, I used mozzarella, Mexican blend
- panko breadcrumb and parmesan cheese for topping

Method:
- season salmon with lemon juice, bit of salt and pepper, pour in the wine, bake uncovered in a greased pan for 15 minutes, let it cool and coarsely flaked the salmon, set aside with all the juice in it
- sautee onion, garlic with 2 tbsp oil until fragrant, add celery, red and green bell peppers, stir until soft, add in mushroom soup, cook until it reduced a bit, add tomato, stir quickly, turn down the heat
- pour in pasta and salmon including the juice, add scallion and half of the cheese, blend well
Meanwhile, heat oven to 350'F, grease a casserole pan, pour the mixture in it, add more cheese on top, sprinkle with Panko Breadcrumb and Parmesan cheese
- bake for 40 to 60 minutes, broil for a few minutes at the end of cooking time

For 8 servings

It's good with some splash of Tabasco

EGG DROPS SOUP

Egg drops soup is a very popular soup in Chinese restaurants, there are many ways to cook it, but if we order it in the restaurants, usually more broth than the veggies, today I cooked it my way, I have many ways for this soup, depends on what I have in my freezer, mostly I used boiled chicken, crab meat, ham, even sausages...

These few days my husband picked a lot of snow peas from his garden, seeing them sitting on my counter reminded me of this soup, so I decided to cook it today.. it's my husband's favorite soup,  in Jakarta we call it CORN SOUP, because mostly using corn and crab meat only, the first time he came to Jakarta, he wanted Egg drops soup, we could not find it anywhere, then I suggested him to try corn soup, when he saw it, he said: this is EGG DROPS SOUP... so EGG DROPS SOUP it is.. and he likes it very much, anyway I cooked it, he'd give me his thumbs up

Today I used ham, I usually used boiled chicken, then shredded it

So the ingredients:
- ham or chicken, slow boiled with 1 liter of water
- onion, slice
- garlic, coarsely chopped
- ginger, chunk diced
- various veggies, frozen mix veggies (green peas, corns, green beans), snow peas, asparagus
- salt, black pepper, 1 tbsp sesame oil and 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 egg white, lightly beated

How to cook:
- boil chicken/ham with water and ginger, turn down the heat after the water boiling, then simmering with low heat for 2 hours, dice the ham or shred the chicken
- heat skillet, add 1 tbsp butter + 1 tbsp oil, add onion and garlic, cook until fragrant
- add all the veggies, season with salt, fish sauce, sesame oil and black pepper
- add in chicken/ham broth, cook until the broth boiled,
- thicken with cornstarch
- turn off the heat.. don't over cook
- slowly pour the egg white in the hot soup, swirl with fork

serve hot, it's good if serves over brown rice (so my hubby says)

EASY BREAKFAST

Cloudy and gloomy sky this morning, we decided to skip our morning walk and I went back to sleep.. I woke up with much better mood, the sun is still in and out but much brighter sky.. funny to say.. gloomy sky always comes together with gloomy mood.. I hate it

With not much to do, I decided to fix a good breakfast for my hubby... on my walking days he usually has very simple breakfast, toasts and lots of butter (that's why I always bake breads, for his easy breakfast, easy for both of us).. I remembered we bought 3 red bell peppers at Sprout's last weekend, so with the usual ingredients of breakfast, I fixed this stuffed bell pepper and he is a very happy guy for the day :)

- 1 big red pepper, cut in half
- 1/2 cup of cooked sausage (leftover)
- 2 eggs, beat well
- cheese and some herb
- olive oil for brushing

- brush bell pepper with OO
- mix all the remaining ingredients
- stuff the mixture in the pepper
- bake for 15 minutes on 350'F

ready to serve.. for 1 serving.. as for my breakfast, I prefer 1 slice of toast with PBJ (peanut butter jam) and 1 cup of kopi susu

VERTICAL ROASTED CHICKEN

I've always wanted a rotisserie roaster, when we bought our new portable oven, I tried to get the one with the skewer for it, but we could not find the one that matched our need.. so we had to get the regular one, and we are happy with it :)

I saw one of the member on the cooking forum using the vertical roaster, it was the first time I knew about this 'tool' and it interested me, I looked around the stores, could not find any... time passed by, my interest faded until one day when I and Vickie went to a thrift store owned by a church, I saw it standing on a shelf, the box was dusty and yellowed, but the 'tool' was still shiny, and looked brand new, no scratch at all, without second thought I grabbed it, total damage on my wallet was $2 and I was happy, almost did my happy dance :)

Yesterday I took it out and tried it for the first time, after washing it repeatedly, it was ready to be used.. we bought a whole fresh chicken at Sprout's the day before, about 2 to 3lbs, I washed the chicken, sprinkled it with lemon juice, salt and blackpepper, then I rubbed it with red curry paste (store bought), I added some coconut powder and my homemade chili sauce in the paste.. I inserted some of the paste under the chicken skin and inside the chicken, I let it sit for 1 hour before baking them.. I preheated oven on 400'F, I inserted my chicken on the vertical roaster and put it in a drip pan.. I baked my chicken for 30 minutes, then I rotated the pan 45 degree, baked again for 20 minutes, rotated every 10 minutes until the chicken is done, about 90 minutes, before I rotated it, I took it out and brushed with the remaining curry paste + the chicken fat/juice that dripped in the pan.. chicken turned out so good, tender and juicy..oh don't forget to wrap the whole chicken after taking it out form the oven for 10 minutes.. then we are done, ready to enjoy the tasty roasted chicken.. I matched it with warm rice and steamed asparagus, my husband was happy his with dinner roll..

this will be my favorite way for roasting chickens or other birds, actually there is another way to do it, with soda can, we can fill the soda can with any liquid we like, such as orange juice, insert the can filled with juice in the chicken, let it stand on a pan and bake it.. I ate it at Vickie's house and it was delicious, tender and juicy

curry paste chicken on vertical roaster 

tastylicious roast chicken