Dried Fruits Almond Oats Granola Clusters

I love eating breakfast cereals, be it granola, muesli or cornflakes, I just love eating them with cold milk. Simply fulfilling. I decided to try making some on my own. I can store them in glass jars and let the hubs bring some to work as his evening snacks. Recently I tried using this recipe. Turned out pretty well, but not very crunchy as I would have expect it to be.

I substituted the icing sugar with molasses sugar instead. Worked well too, in fact I prefer it this way. Will definitely try making bigger batch the next round.

Simple Greens with Citrus Dressing

This simple salad is good to go with heavier main course like pasta, bbq ribs, etc. It's easy and refreshing to eat.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil
Mix of greens like butterhead & romaine lettuce, etc

Lemon and Herbs Roast Chicken

This roast chicken never failed us. It is simple and delicious, most importantly, everyone likes it. I referred to Jamie Oliver's website and did some modification myself.

Ingredients: 

1 free range chicken
Fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary or anything you have in the fridge)
2 bay leaves
1 large bulb of garlic, bruised
1 lemon
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper


Method:

1. Clean the chicken thoroughly.
2. Marinate with all the ingredients mentioned above.
3. As for the lemon, cut into halves, microwave for 30sec and squeeze the juice out to marinate the chicken, then stuff the lemon into its cavity. 
4. Place the chicken breast side up, lift up the skin and stuff some herbs and garlic underneath the skin. 
5. Leave the marinated chicken in the fridge for a few hours
6. Preheat oven to 200c and roast the chicken for about 30-40 mins, or even longer if need be. 

Homemade Pasta Sauce

Being the forgetful person that I am, I need to record this recipe in my own blog for easy reference in the future. I've made this sauce years ago using my aunt's recipe. But since I can't really recall much of the ingredients used, I googled and found this recipe. Did some modification to it using whatever I can recall from my aunt's recipe which I think is easier. 

Ingredients: 

• 2 carrots, 3 stalks celery, 2 big onions, 3 tomatoes, 2 large cloves garlic - all roughly chopped
• 2 dried bay leaves
• 1 medium can tomato paste
• 1 handful fresh basil
• Freshly ground black pepper & salt
• No sugar added Apple juice
• Dash of olive oil
• 2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1. Heat the sauce pan with some olive oil and saute the garlic & onions.
2. Saute all the vegetables for a few minutes.
3. Add in tomato paste, basil and bay leaves. 
4. Add apple juice (adjust to desired consistency)
5. Simmer for 1 hour
6. Season to taste. I added some dried mixed herbs too.
7. Remove the bay leaves and blend it. 
8. Taste the sauce and add 2-3 tablespoons of unsalted butter.
   > This will help to mellow out the acid from the tomatoes, round out the flavor and give the sauce a nice silky finish
9. You can store this in sterilized bottle and freeze for future use.