Sweet and Spicy Roast Chicken Drumsticks

There are always going to be nights when we are tired, or for some other reason we cannot be bothered cooking anything complex and we just want to put something simple in the oven for our dinner. We want comfort food, that simply lets us sit back and enjoy it, without putting a great deal of work in to the preparation. The temptation in these circumstances is to have a microwaveable dinner, or even a takeaway, but this is one incredibly simple recipe which shows that to be unnecessary. It shows that healthy, wholesome cooking is possible, even in such circumstances. Have a look at how incredibly simple this delicious roast chicken recipe actually is...

Ingredients for One Person

6 small chicken drumsticks
1 tbsp liquid honey
1 tsp hot chilli powder
Salt and black pepper
Fresh basil leaves or other herb for garnish (optional)

Method

Add the chilli powder and honey to a large bowl or basin and season with salt and pepper. Stir to form a smooth paste. Add the chicken drumsticks and carefully stir them around in the mix to ensure even coating. Cover and leave them to marinate while your oven preheats to 375F/190C/Gas Mark 5. Note that this can be done a couple of hours in advance, if time permits, and the legs refrigerated. This would allow the flavours of the marinade to infuse the meat to even greater effect.

When the oven is heated, spread the legs and marinade evenly on a deep baking tray. Place in to the oven for thirty minutes, turning the drumsticks with cooking tongs after fifteen minutes.

It should be remembered, as with any meat, that it is important to allow the chicken drumsticks to rest when they are removed from the oven. This is best achieved by simply sitting the tray on the hob and covering it carefully with foil, wearing oven gloves, for ten to fifteen minutes. The chicken drumsticks can then be plated and eaten immediately or left to cool and enjoyed cold.

The First Step To Recovery Is Admitting You Have A Problem

Dana Milbank and the Washington Post appear to have hit bottom.

Milbank wrote he was pledging to not write about or mention Palin for the entire month of February. He called on fellow media members to join him with the hope the boycott could be made permanent.

“But today is the first day of the rest of my life. And so, I hereby pledge that, beginning on Feb 1, 2011, I will not mention Sarah Palin – in print, online or on television – for one month. Furthermore, I call on others in the news media to join me in this pledge of a Palin-free February. With enough support, I believe we may even be able to extend the moratorium beyond one month, but we are up against a powerful compulsion, and we must take this struggle day by day.”

Of course, this could just be one of those monster hangovers that makes you swear off the stuff temporarily.

Hatred is pretty addictive stuff, it appears.

We don't hate Sarah. We're not big fans, but she's still OK with us.
For Sarah Palin news during this blackout, stay tuned to our Monk of Miscellaneous Musings' Sarah Sez posts.

Bakeware set shopping at CSN stores

First of all wishing my lovely readers a very Happy New Year! Hope you guys partied hard, coz I certainly did :-)...secondly I am soooo excited...finally I would be getting my first Springform pan, have been eying one for a really long time..., cheesecakes here I come!I think the benefits of such a pan are many, for sponge cakes, cheesecakes and angel cakes, they are so convenient, will be getting one from CSN stores, they have a great collection esp. their cute little tart and quiche pans.
And they also have a terrific range of Modern office furniture, which would be just lovely in my New office..so I am all set for some serious 2011 shopping!!
Till then take care

Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes

I'm an avid recipe reader and now have a huge collection of recipes I have been able to cut out plus the handwritten ones and put into scrapbooks. Every so often - not that often, if the truth be told - I have a purge and throw out the ones that turned out not to be as good as I had thought.  But you will understand why I cut this recipe out of the Saturday ‘Weekend’ magazine in The Guardian when I was in the UK last autumn and put it aside for a rainy day. In fact, I’ve had it on my desk ever since just biding its time because I knew that given the right moment I would make it.

 It was the ingredients that attracted me, the pumpkin, the ginger.  I skimmed through and saw walnuts too. What a delicious-sounding combination was my first thought, followed in quick succession by a further thought: what’s more, all easily available here in Istanbul right now. This is always the issue here: can we get the ingredients? There was an inviting picture as well. I always think pictures are essential for recipes, don’t you? They lure you in. These cupcakes looked just right for a January afternoon at home with friends.

one perfect uniced cupcake

In my haste to make them, I didn’t wait for Son to be here to eat them up so I am happy to report that they freeze very well.  I froze them uniced.  Defrosting them was quick and completing with the icing the morning my friends were coming round was easy. Half the amount given in the recipe for the icing was exactly right for the 8 I had defrosted. Son has yet to try them.

Ingredients for Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes

Makes 12-16

125g stem or glace ginger in syrup ( my ginger was not in syrup)

175g brown muscovado (or molasses) sugar

200g unsalted butter, softened

2 large eggs

250g pumpkin (or butternut squash flesh), grated

200g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp each ground ginger and allspice

¼ tsp each ground nutmeg and clove (I didn't have clove)

125g chopped walnuts (or pecans)

200g icing sugar

125g full-fat cream cheese

1 tsp extra ground ginger for icing.

before and after

Method

·         Pre-heat oven to 190C/170C fan-assisted/375F/gas mark 5.

·         Finely chop the ginger. Beat sugar and 125g butter until smooth, then beat in the eggs, one by one. Stir in the pumpkin and chopped ginger, sift in the flour, baking powder and spices, add the nuts, and stir until smooth.

·         Line the pockets of a deep muffin tray with muffin papers, then fill each one almost to the top.

·         Bake for 25 minutes, then set aside to cool.

For the icing:

·         Beat the icing sugar, cream cheese and remaining butter until smooth. Add 1 tsp ground ginger.

·         Swirl a dollop of icing on each cupcake and decorate with a single piece of chopped stem/glace ginger.

Tips

1.       It’s amazing how this amount of grated pumpkin is magically absorbed into the other ingredients. Also the grating itself is much easier than it sounds.

2.       I recommend filling each muffin paper, as the recipe calls them, full as the mixture doesn’t overflow and they look terrific when beautifully risen. So next time – and there will definitely be a next time -  I will go for  12 -14 cupcakes, I expect.

3.       The reason that syrup was mentioned in the list of ingredients is that the recipe states that a little may be necessary for the icing ‘to make it easily spreadable’. However I didn’t find this necessary: the icing spread beautifully and tasted exquisite.



just right for tea with friends

 Afiyet olsun! Hope you like them as much as we did!

lil bit storytell from semester break dec'10-jan'11

Hello fellas, welcoming 2011! Last year quite sad for me, since the exam result not good. =(

But its okay.

Cuma mau cerita2 sedikit tentang holiday di Makassar n Palopo. Ehehehe..

Holiday ini not much la, just stay in home since you all know my hometown is kampung where there are just a few place to have fun, not like sunway(of course). Hahaha.

I got hired by mom to overcome the cash flow in hotel and checking the system for like 3 days I think? The only thing that makes it hard is to emergency-open the door since the power off. So I become so canggih follow all the instructions from the phone. I cant believe I can do it actually. I work and get IDR 500,000 or around RM 150++ haha. Quite efficient. Since all double job. =P

this is my assignment, where I need to change the battery for the door, and it cant open by swipe the card because the power finished, so i need to use all those infrared and PDA to open it. Complicated, >.<

But YAY! I succeed ;)

btw its me, when get bored in the room after doing a lot of works. =P

and this is my favorite food when i'm home,

NASI CAMPUR! (mix rice in english actually? haha)

this is mixed of curried-egg, ribs stew, and a lot of thing that made from beef.

Nice, quite spicy and sour with the mixed of acar(cucumber)

by the way, i found my lovely babiess! when i clean the store room, finally I found my baby since i was 5 maybe?

tadaa! christmas edition of mickey-minnie! its dirty and ashful by the way, so i wash it with love,

since its really the thing i love when i was 5 till graduate highschool. Haha

my baby showeringgg..

by the way this is when i was 5, hold the minnie,

can u spot the toy i hold?! ♥

mom teach me how to cook perkedel tempe and cornflakes fried chicken =)

its yummy, but i love the chicken the most!

i can cook it  malaysia though for indry and ivy haha.. =)

and this is my cat, Nadine, he got scared of me whenever im trying to close with him, =_="

maybe because its long time since he never stay close of me, so unidentified object for him.

HAHAHAA

sorry bad quality, its my bb camera, teheeeee

sometimes there are karaoke in ssaturday night in the hotel, and guess what, mommy loves to sing =P

mommy trying to sing and she doesnt memorize the lyric, so she look the lyrics in her phone

okey! last, left over food!haha

whenever hotel get a banquet, and of course there are so many food leftover, i asked mommy to send the dessert part to home, hahaha..

strawberry pudding with vanilla sauce :9

this is really a leftover! i just ate the cheesed blackforest. haha.

FAT FAT FAT!