No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

I've made pies with potatoes before but haven't tried with a mix of potatoes and sweet potatoes.  Spotted this recipe from a Coles magazine which spurred me to give it a try.  It wasn't bad really.  I think that the sweetness of the sweet potatoes did blend well with the savoury filling.  All in all, a comforting one-dish meal for my family. Recipe for Sweet Potato Chicken Pie ( adapted from a Coles magazine with modifications ) Ingredients 400 gm sweet potatoes 400 gm potatoes 650 gm chicken fillet, cubed 1 onion, cubed 4 cloves garlic, chopped 1 carrot, cubed 1 capsicum, cubed 3  tsp chicken granules 2.1/2  tsp mixed dried herbs 1.1/2 cups water 2 Tbsp cornflour + 2 Tbsp water to thicken Sugar, salt and pepper to season the chicken fillet Method Season the chicken fillet with some salt and pepper, set aside. Wash the potatoes, cook in a pot of boiling water.  Drain, cool, peel and mash till smooth.  Mix

On the way to Loch Ness we spent a night in Inverness and put up in this Whinpark Bed & Breakfast.  Inverness is regarded as the capital of the Highlands and is the centre for commerce and industry.  It is the most northerly city in the British Isles and said to be one of the fastest growing cities in Europe and tourism plays an important part in the economy. The breakfast area, clean and neat Our bedrooms, also neat and tidy. We had our lunch in the above restaurant. Chicken sandwich, Trout, Beef burger and Cumberland Sausage ring River Ness Inverness Castle sits on a cliff overlooking the River Ness.  The red sandstone castle was built in 1836 by architect William Burn and today it houses Inverness Sheriff Court.   The Drum Tower houses an exhibition of castle history and is open daily in the summer while the castle itself is not open to public. This is the breakfast we had before we moved on to Loch Ness hoping to cat

I was browsing through a cook book  and spotted this cookie recipe using white choc chips.  As I've hardly baked with white choc chips before, I was very eager to try out this recipe.  These cookies are crunchy, from the walnuts and I notice that they taste a bit milky too, a contribution from the white choc chips, I presume. Recipe for White Choc Chip Cookies   ( adapted from 'Baking-200 Moreish & Comforting Recipes with modifications re the method) Ingredients 250 gm plain flour 1.1/2  tsp baking powder 125 gm salted butter 100 gm light brown sugar  (reduced from 150 gm) 60 ml vegetable oil 1 egg 1/2 tsp vanilla 130 gm white choc chips  (reduced from 180 gm) 70 gm chopped walnuts, lightly toasted  (reduced from 120 gm) Method Sift flour with baking powder, set aside. Beat butter, oil and brown sugar till light and creamy. Add the egg and vanilla beating till just blended. Fold in flour mixture, cho

We started to explore west Scotland famous for its breath-taking scenery and on our way stopped by Dufftown to visit the Glenfiddich distillery, to see how Scottish malt whisky is being made.   The Glenfiddich Distillery is a Speyside single malt Scotch whisky distillery owned by William Grant & Sons. Glenfiddich means "Valley of the Deer' in Gaelic , hence the presence of a stag symbol on Glenfiddich bottles. We had a great tour of the working distillery and barrel warehouse and the tour guide was very informative and professional. It's a free tour and at the end of it, you get to sample Glenfiddich 10, 12 and 18 years, on the house and can even ask for seconds ......... Cheers! Glenfiddich 30 years & Glenfiddich 50 years and the price is a whopping 15,000 sterling pounds!!! We had lunch at The Malt Barn restaurant on the right.  Cream of Tomato and Basil & Bacon and Brie Bagel  Salm

Aberdeen, the third most populous city in Scotland boasts of its stately and serene architecture of many gray granite buildings, hence dubbed the 'Granite City'.  Most of the buildings were built from gray granite excavated from the Rubislaw Quarry which closed in 1971. Aberdeen is an expensive city, also known as the Oil Capital of Europe, fuelled by the North Sea petroleum industry.  This was where I spent my short vacation with my family recently. I'm sure many of you would have heard of  Mary Moh, author of   Keep Learning Keep Smiling ,  the Badminton enthusiast  and just recently her team emerged the champion  at the Corporate Decathlon Badminton Competition. Congrats, Mary!  At the mention of Badminton I could see the gleam in Mary's eyes!  I was very glad to meet up with her again.  I first met up with her around August  2010 in London.  This time as I was in her 'home city', she was so kind to invite me and my family to her house for din

I had a look at the Korean sauces that were sitting idle in the fridge and thought what would be the outcome if I mixed them up.  I had to experiment to find out.  So, I got hold of some chicken leg, debone them, mixed in some sauces and cooked up this dish.  Family members said that they tasted somewhat like satay chicken but nodded in agreement that they were delicious :) Recipe for Spicy Chicken with Korean sauce Ingredients                                                                   3 chicken leg, deboned        4 pips of garlic, minced 1  tsp sugar 1/2  tsp salt 1/2  tsp light soya sauce 1/2  Tbsp honey 1  Tbsp  Bulgogi sauce 1.1/2  Tbsp Sunchang Ssamjang (seasoned bean paste) 2.1/2  tsp lightly toasted sesame seeds Sesame oil                                     Method Cut each of the deboned chicken leg into 2 pieces. Mix in the minced garlic, sugar, salt, light soya sauce, honey, Bulgogi and Sunchang Ssamjang sauces.  Marinate for a