First off, I apologize for the recent lack of posts. Between the holidays creeping in and starting a new job, I feel like I barely have enough time to make tea! Luckily, this new job has a longstanding tradition of employees hosting a breakfast every Friday. This Friday is my turn!
I decided to make something simple yet jam packed with flavor. I would have liked to make one of my fritittas but it would be a little difficult transporting my cast iron to work! So I bring you, breakfast in one bite! Savory scones as a wholesome breakfast sandwich alternative. Well I can’t take credit for it, I got the idea from this little coffee shop I used to go to every morning in Sydney. I have been craving this for months but I finally have a good excuse to make a few batches.
You can really experiment with the ingredients but my all time favorite is tomato, basil and feta. Spinach and Swiss is a close second. I decided to make the tomato, basil, feta and a bacon, cheddar and green onion for the meat eaters. I’m much more of a savory person so this is my perfect breakfast all in one little scone. I hope the people at work like them as much as I do!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, breakfast, cheese, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snacks
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Packing up and selling all my belongings has got me in a bad mood. I haven’t been able to cook dinners lately or bake things or just eat normally. I looked at what’s left in my pantry and what’s left of my cooking toys… I have just enough to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. YAY! Finally something that won’t stress me out and something delicious to post! Can’t think of a better way to cheer myself up, peanut butter + chocolate.
I’ve been meaning to make peanut butter chocolate cookies for a while now, I think that’s why I have 2 extra tubs of peanut butter in the pantry. Luckily no one has bought my cookie sheets or mixing bowls yet. So a little whisking here, a little taste testing there… and we have peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Since I’m a sucker for ice cream sandwiches, I had to try these in ice cream sandwich form. I think they might better than my usual snickerdoodle option! It might be a while until my next cooking experiment post so I hope you enjoy it!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, baking, chocolate, cookies, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
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I was really excited about my 100th post, so much so that I made alfajores to celebrate. I have been meaning to makes these for quite some time. I’ve always wanted to try Matt of mattbites.com’s version because his photos look so scrumptious I want to eat the screen! But of course I can’t find store bought dulce de leche here so I had to make my own. I did it the cheater way 
simmering a can of sweetened condensed milk submerged in water for an hour and 45 minutes gives you delicious dulce de leche. I’ve always wanted to try that method! Sure the can could explode and I could possibly suffer burns but that’s the fun right? Okay to be honest I was scared the whole time. But the key is to keep the can completely submerged so it doesn’t explode. I used the biggest pot I could find and filled the entire thing with water… just in case!
So Alfajores… a delicious latin treat with two biscuits and dulce de leche in the middle. And then of course powdered sugar on top! I actually really liked the biscuit by itself with just a little sprinkle of powdered sugar. They’re a little cakey and not your usual cookie crunch. Almsot like a little pancake… in fact the house smelled like pancakes the whole time. Mmm I’m going to have another one now.
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: Other, baking, food, mmmm, random, recipes, travel
Tags: baking, cookies, cooking, food, latin, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
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I absolutely love hush puppies. Little cornbread poppers, deep fried. I could almost eat them more than fries. Almost! For those who don’t know, hush puppies are deep fried cornbread balls. Served with whipped honey butter or a remoulade. Great for appetizers at a dinner party or just as a snack. I made these with my po’ boys the other day and they were the perfect addition to the meal.
Now I add in a bit of corn, jalapeños and onion in my recipe because I think it gives it a better texture and adds to the taste. You can of course spice it up even more by adding more jalapeños or spice. The buttermilk gives it that smooth consistency once you bit through the crunchy exterior. Mmmmm my mouth is watering just writing about it!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, Cajun, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snacks
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I used to always buy those packets of seasoning that you just mix into a tub of sour cream. In fact, I love that stuff! French Onion was my favorite flavor. And since I can’t seem to find the same thing here, I thought I’d make my own!
It takes a little more effort than just cutting open a packet and mixing but it’s well worth the extra 15 minutes of work. Please note, time estimated does not include chopping of vegetables… cause that takes time! This dip is great with cut vegetables but my favorite is with Ruffles chips (or equivalent), YUM! Ooo this would go really well stuffed in baby peppers too.
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: cheese, cooking, dip, food, random, recipe, recipes, snacks
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I’ve been craving some blueberry muffins lately but I’ve been sick so I haven’t had the chance to cook or bake much the past week. Now that I’m about 99.9% better, I had to make some blueberry muffins right away! These muffins are very very very berry. I figured blueberries are jam packed with vitamins they’ve gotta be good for me. You could cut down the amount of blueberries if you want more cake.
Depending on how you like your muffins, you can add about another minute to the baking if you like it a bit more brown. I like to take it out a little before then so the insides is still incredibly moist. Test it out, see what you like! Enjoy!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
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Mmmmm, chocolate chips with chocolate?! OH YEAH! I was thinking about making it a triple chocolate cookie by adding white chocolate chunks as well but the store was out! Double chocolate it is!
Vini’s coworker’s birthday is this weekend so I insisted on making some cookies for him to bring to work. I was told he likes chocolate, so here’s double the chocolate for ya! I hope they like it!
I played around with my chocolate chip recipe and came up with this. You might want to do a test on your first batch to see how you like them to come out. I did 11 minutes for the slightly chewier one and then 12 minutes was perfect for the completely cooked through ones. Test it out, have fun!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, chocolate, cookies, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
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Okay so “amazing” may be a little biased but it sure is OOEY GOOEY delicious! I have to be completely honest, this dish isn’t exactly good for you. In fact, it might cause a mild heart attack. WARNING: all of you on diets, stay away from this post! I even added more spinach, used low fat cheeses, used low fat sour cream and mayo but at the end of the day, you really can’t call this healthy food. Even if you eat it with just vegetables !
Now for all of you who are willing to be a little dangerous, this dip will knock your socks off and have you coming back for more. I’ve altered the ratio of ingredients to attempt to make it a little healthier less bad for you. But feel free to play around with it and see if you come up with something better. I don’t have pepper jack cheese which is what I would normally use instead of mozzarella so mine was a little lacking in that pepper jack punch. I would definitely advise using pepper jack if you have some! Mozzarella is my favorite alternative because it’s stringy not so much cause it’s similar in taste at all. You can add more cheddar if you want to skip the pepper jack or mozzarella too.
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, cheese, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, seafood, snacks, spinach
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Does that sound right? Sandwich Lemon Cookies with Jam? Jam with Lemon Cookies? Well either way, it’s pretty darn good! The best part is that you can eat the cookies as is, or make them into jam sammiches with your favorite jam. I tried these with every type of jam I could find in the house. I think my favorite is the Beerenberg’s Satsuma Plum jam. The mixed berries one works well also, it balances out the lemon really well. I also used some very sticky and unique tasting Burnt Fig Jam… that one was interesting but good. Vote goes to the plum jam with a close second to the apricot! Try it out and see which ones you like!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, cookies, cooking, food, lemon, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
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I don’t even know where to start, there’s food everywhere. There’s little stalls for baked potatoes, fries with toppings, fishballs, stinky tofu, fruit smoothies, coconut drinks, crepes, I can really go on forever. But there’s one that I wanted to highlight. They’re called Little Chicken Eggs in Chinese but they’re more like funny looking waffles.
This is the famous one and it’s located here:
No idea how to find it! It’s around the corner from the Wan Chai station. You can try asking around there, or follow the waffle smell! You’ll know when you’re there when you see a huge line and pictures of Chinese celebrities eating these waffle things.
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: Other, Reviews, food, mmmm, random, travel
Tags: asia, asian, food, Hong Kong, life, random, snacks, sweets, travel, trip
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