Beef Muffins aka Beef in disguise

From the title, beef muffin might sound weird but it is a beef muffin. Just like blueberry, chocolate chip, banana muffins, etc.

The story behind this muffin is little G has been on meat and vegetable strike for the past few weeks. She has driven my entire family nuts with all her refusal to eat anything other than bread, noodles and cakes. Most of the time, she would just drink milk instead of eating her food. It's so frustrating trying to feed her when she is one super stubborn little oxen.

Last week my mom baked a batch of vanilla cake and she finished one slice of cake in no time. So there goes the idea of disguising food and veggies in cake from. With her fondness for cupcakes, it worked!

Next time, I will add some vegetable in this muffin.

Beef Cupcakes:

2 eggs

120 ml vegetable oil

1 tbsp honey

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

60 ml milk or chicken/vegetable broth

6 slice sukiyaki beef (do not use shabu2 cut because it's too thin)

1 tbsp flour

1/3 cup grated parmaggiano reggiano cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 175C/350F

2. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl and set aside.

3. Meanwhile, heat the pan and cook the beef slices half cooked. Let cool and cut in small dice. Put into a bowl and dust with 1 tbsp of flour.

4. Beat eggs and honey until thick, add vegetable oil in small steady stream, mix well.

5. Add the flour mixture a tablespoon at a time. Once you finished adding the flour, add milk or chicken broth, mix well.

6. Fold in the diced beef and 1/2 of the grated cheese, mix well. Fill in cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the toothpick inserted come out clean.

For healthier option, you can replace all purpose flour with wholemeal flour.

Salmon Mac & Cheese

It's been months since my last post. Well, things have been very hectic lately with gazillion things that has to be done in a very short period of time.

Anyway, lil G has been having eating tantrum again. She didn't want to eat what the maid cooked her (mommy too busy to cook lately... i'm so sorry baby). This time, she really drove me to insanity. The only food she would eat pretty much unhealthy junk food. Cakes, chips, cookies...

Well, after finding a cute moon and star shaped pasta, I decided to try giving her macaroni and cheese or in this case I should call it moon and star pasta and cheese? hehehe.... I'm glad she finished almost the entire mini pot of the mac n cheese (with daddy finishing the last scoop), which she didn't even realized she was eating salmon. The one fish that she always refused to eat. Enough rambling, here is the recipe.

Salmon Mac n Cheese

Serve 2 mini pots (about 9 cm in diameter)

3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
3 tsp djon mustard
1/8 cup cream
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup macaroni (or cute kids pasta)
40 gr salmon filet
50 gr grated gruyere cheese
25 gr kraft quick melt or velveeta cheese
2 tbsp seasoned breadcrumbs

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Butter two mini cast iron pots (9cm) or ramekins, whichever you have in your kitchen.
2. Boil pasta 3/4 cooked, set aside. Pan fry salmon, 3/4 cooked and flake.
3. Melt butter in a small saucepan, add the flour once all the butter as melt mix well. Add the cream little by little while stirring followed by milk and mustard. Make sure the sauce is smooth. Continue stirring until it thickens. Add both cheeses and continue stir until thick.
4. Combine the sauce with pasta and salmon, mix well.
5. Pour mac n cheese mixture into the dish and sprinkle seasoned bread crumbs on top. Bake in the oven for +/- 20-30 minutes until the bread crumbs turn golden brown and sauce is bubbly.

Note: If you don't have seasoned bread crumbs, I normally just mix panko flour with some italian seasoning.

For this particular recipe, I didn't really measure my ingredients so it's an estimate how much ingredients I use in the mac n cheese.