Coconut Birds - A 10 Minute Miracle

A no-bake treat that literally takes 10 minutes prep time.

1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 cups white sugar (I often use less)
4 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
3 cups oatmeal (not the one minute kind)
1 cup shredded coconut

Combine butter, sugar, cocoa, vanilla and milk in a large saucepan on medium heat. Keep stirring so it doesn't burn to the pot. Bring to a slow boil and remove from heat.

Add oatmeal and coconut and stir together til well blended

Drop by tablespoons on to parchment paper or wax paper and refrigerate to harden.

Voila!

Shortbread Cookies - Food Processor

These are a melt in your mouth variety - really simple to make and rarely make it to Christmas. The cornstarch is the trick to making shortbread soft and melt in your mouth.

1 cup butter (2 sticks) cut in chunks

1/2 cup icing sugar

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Steel Knife: Process butter with icing sugar until well creamed - about 1 minute. Add cornstarch, flour and vanilla. Process with on/off turns just until dough is well mixed and begins to gather together in a ball around the blade.

Shape rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into small balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and flatten in a criss-cross pattern with the floured tines of a fork. Bake at 350 F about 12 - 15 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.

Note: The longer shortbread sits, the more flavourful it becomes so three weeks before Christmas is a good time.

Thai Peanut Chicken

This is recipe I got from my labmate and is a regular part of our "repetoire". It's not actually written out as a coherent recipe, so I'll try my best to put one together.

Ingredients

1/2 cup - Chicken stock
3 tbsp - Cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar
3 tbsp - sodium reduced soy sauce
3 tbsp - peanut butter (see note below)
1 tbsp - granulated sugar
1 tbsp - sesame oil
chili paste (as desired)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
minced ginger (about the side of 1/4 of your thumb)
garlic (I like lots - 3-4 cloves)
broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, whatever other vegetables you want
1/4 fresh coriander (I never add this)
noodles (about 3/4 of a small box)

Directions
Cut up the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Mix together first 7 ingredients. Separate the mixture into two (1/2 to marinade the chicken with, 1/2 to save for the pasta). Marinade the chicken (I usually only do this for 1-2 hours)



You may notice that I've actually made a double recipe. In doing this, I end up with enough for about 6 portions. "Planned overs" (as opposed to left overs) are great for lunches. I'm also fairly liberal with the peanut butter and usually end up using about half a cup for a double recipe.

After mincing the ginger and garlic, I add it to a wok with hot oil.



Sautee for about a minute and then add the chicken mixture.



While the chicken is cooking, finish preping the vegetables. You'll see in the picture below that I used cauliflower...and I forgot the mushrooms. It was still good - so really, experiment with the vegetables you like.



Around the same time as you start the chicken (or 5 minutes beforehand), start boiling a pot of water for pasta. I usually use linguini or spaghetinni(adjust boiling start time accordingly).



A tip I learned from watching Jamie Oliver is...when you're going to put the pasta in the pot, hold it vertically in a bunch, put your hands in the middle and twist (softly) as though you are ringing water out of a towel. After you've twisted, drop the pasta into the water and it'll spread out evenly throughout the pot of water.

I decided to add peas to the recipe this time around and added them to the pasta a couple of minutes before the pasta was finished.



A couple of minutes after the pasta starts boiling, I add the vegetables to the chicken mixture. I wait until the chicken is cooked. But the timing of the pasta, chicken, and veggies will depend on how cooked you want your pasta and vegetables to be. I tend to like my pasta soft (about 3-4 minutes after al dente) and my veggies warm, but crunchy.

When the chicken and vegetables are ready, add the unused mixture (e.g., bowl on the right in the top picture) to the pasta.



Yeah, it looks kind of gross, but that's just because I used chunky peanut butter. Mix the pasta and mixture together and then add the chicken/vegetable mixture. Mix well. I like to keep an element on low while doing the mixing to keep everything warm (I like my food to be really hot).



I'm a bowl person, myself...but, the debate continues as to whether this recipe should be served in a bowl or plate.



The instructions may seem a bit complicated, but that's just my poor succinctness - the recipe is actually very easy. A fair bit of prep time...but easy to make.

Just note, if you don't like spicy stuff, use very little chilli sauce. R (my partner) and I have probably killed most of our taste buds with spicy food, so I tend to add more chilli sauce

I'm going to submit this post to presto past night round up. It's too good to not share!